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More "Provoke" Quotes from Famous Books



... inexpressibly relieved, though, if he had really investigated the reports which may have come to his ear, the reality could have been nothing to what his suspicions might have conceived. But, though my spirits rose high at my unexpected escape, I had not courage myself to provoke the discussion, and remained silent to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... you mean, Dr Crofts? What is it you are saying? Why do you talk that nonsense, trying to see if you can provoke me?" ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... that he was, the Taiko[u] Hideyoshi must have realised the difficulties confronting his House. The formidable power he had created in the North was no small part of them. On several occasions he sought a quarrel with Iyeyasu; sought to humiliate him in small ways, to lower his prestige and provoke an outbreak. Such was the trifling incident of the lavish donation required of Iyeyasu to the Hachiman shrine at Kamakura. But Hideyoshi, as with Elizabeth of England, looked rather to the balance of cost against result, always with ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... our joys provoke, The fiend of nature join'd his yoke, 15 And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey; Thy form, from out thy sweet abode, O'ertook him on his blasted road, And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away. I see recoil his sable steeds, 20 That bore him swift to salvage deeds, Thy tender ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... head in his goblet. "When you wish to disarm a serpent, it is best to provoke him into striking at once, and so draw the poison ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... has never alluded to Byron at all. Shelley's lampoon—a singular instance of the random blows of a noble spirit, striking at what, if better understood, it would eagerly have revered— Wordsworth seems never to have read. Nor did the violent attacks of the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews provoke him to any rejoinder. To "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"—leagued against him as their common prey—he opposed a dignified silence; and the only moral injury which he derived from their assaults lay in that sense of the absence of trustworthy ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... to fate's approaching hour, Intrigues, or fights for wealth or power, And slumb'ring dangers dare provoke: And he who tott'ring scarce sustains A century's age, plans future gains, And feels ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... for further investigations on the psychic side. Charcot had affirmed the power, not only of physical traumatism, but even of psychic lesions—of moral shocks—to provoke its manifestations, but his sole contribution to the psychology of this psychic malady,—and this was borrowed from the Nancy school,—lay in the one word "suggestibility"; the nature and mechanism of this psychic process he ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... some success. He was profoundly conscious that any connection with the Joliffes would be derogatory to his dignity; he feared that the discrepancy between their relative positions was sufficiently marked to attract attention, if not to provoke hostile criticism. People would certainly say that an architect was marrying strangely below him, in choosing a landlady's niece. If he were to do such a thing, he would no doubt be throwing himself away socially. His father, who was dead, had been a Wesleyan pastor; and his mother, who ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... fraternal law Which shares the common bale and bliss, No sadder lot could Folly draw, Or Sin provoke from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... it,' she pleaded. In truth, the apology troubled her deeply where the offence had left no pain. She wished it had never been spoken The thought of it had power to provoke tears long after. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... mine or he would have died. Leaving him safe in his den, I pushed on toward my own claim, in the teeth of a terrific gale, the cold growing each moment more intense. "The sunset regions" at that moment did not provoke me ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... soft, white hands and fair complexion, and no match for him, whereupon the young Frenchman drew his sword to give him a taste of his quality. He flourished it around his opponent's head, occasionally stratching his face and hands, until he was covered with wounds and blood, but he could not provoke him to draw his weapon and defend himself. After complimenting him with the name of "coward," he told him to go about his business, advising him in future to be more careful of his conduct and less boastful ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... and take a party division. So far as the ordinary business of the session was concerned, the Ministry might get on well enough, for there must have been a considerable amount of routine work which would not provoke the Opposition to a trial of strength; but if chance or hostile strategy should bring about at any moment a controversy which called for a strictly party division, then the Government must go down. Nothing can ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... further astonishment his rich Irish voice could be heard upraised in picturesque malediction. What was Rigden doing to them inside the tank to provoke such profanity from them both? The rest of us scrambled to find ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... thoughts. He is aware of God's displeasure against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives, and this has caused him to look about warily and with good circumspection "into the grounds and principall agitations which should thus provoke me to be in love with one, whose education hath bin rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in all nurtriture from myselfe, that oftentimes with feare and trembling, I have ended my private ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... instructions. An ox knoweth its lord, an ass its master's duty, But Israel will not know me, nor my conditions. Oh, froward people, given all to superstitions, Unnatural children, expert in blasphemies, Provoke me into hate, by their idolatries. Take heed to my words, ye tyrants of Sodoma, In vain ye offer your sacrifice to me. Discontent I am with you beasts of Gomorrah And have no pleasure when I your offerings see. I abhor your fasts ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... humor, or rendered impressive by the striking way in which they express thought, e.g. "The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion." A pun, digression, or out-of-the-way allusion may occasionally provoke readers, but onlookers have frequently noticed that few wrinkle their brows while reading his critical essays, and that a pleased expression, such as photographers like, is almost certain to appear. He has the rare faculty of making his ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... into my hands it lacked but an hour of sunset. The beach was alive with angry rollers, while the Termagant was still under easy sail, hovering up and down the coast before my factory, evidently meditating the propriety of another pill to provoke my notice. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... it is anything but complimentary to the lady it mentions," I remarked. "He must have had, or imagined he had, some desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in regard to one he can still ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... gift, this trusting of the secret To him, were both—to state my frank opinion— Steps that you took too lightly; he can lead you To any length, with these for hostages; And since he holds you at such disadvantage, You'd be still more imprudent, to provoke him; So you must ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... the excitable temperament with which he was endowed. In the intervals of his study his nervous system, under the stimulus of games or controversial dispute, would become so tense with excitement as to provoke remark. Nor may we in the retrospect fail to discover in this quality of mind and temper the premonitions of that malady which finally prevailed over the lucid understanding, and rational activities ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... Clive, hanging his head down, "I know I shouldn't have done it. But Barnes Newcome would provoke the patience of Job; and I couldn't bear to have ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... be saved. I will give you a scripture or two, I mean to show you that Christ, by commanding that his mercy should in the first place be offered to the biggest of sinners, has a design thereby to encourage and provoke others to come ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... recent lamentable experiences—an item which I am constrained to believe the author thereof regarded as being of a humorous character, but in which no right-minded person could possibly see aught to provoke mirth—I have abandoned my original resolution and shall now lay ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... He earnestly wished to avoid a duel, but McCarty continued to provoke him, with the hope of compelling him to fight. This he finally decided to do. He left his home without revealing his intentions and on reaching Washington made his final preparations with great deliberation. "The Chief of Selma" fell February ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... his Uncle, "I would jes' as soon that yo' didn' have anythin' to do with it near hyeh. I don' want to see any little differences between families, such as census-takin' is likely to provoke." ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... it was useless to say this to de Loubersac, blinded by love as he was; but his aim—a rather Machiavellian one—was to sow seeds of suspicion in the heart of this lover, which would drive him to provoke an explanation, and force Wilhelmine to speak out, for she must surely know the facts relating to ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... condemnatory instance to the hardened consciences of His hearers. Probably the very purpose of the book was to show Israel that the despised and yet dreaded heathen were more susceptible to the voice of God than they were: 'I will provoke you to jealousy by them which are no people.' The story was a smiting blow to the proud exclusiveness and self-complacent contempt of prophetic warnings, which marked the entire history of God's people. As Ezekiel was told: 'Thou are not sent ... to many peoples of a strange speech ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... fete among the students, always being placed in the seat of honor at the head of the table, and joining in all the fun of those merry reunions. For a time she treated all alike as comrades, and accepted no compliments save those so extravagant as to provoke general laughter. Gradually, however, it came to be understood among the students that Minette made an exception in the case of Arnold Dampierre, and that on occasions when they happened to break up in pairs he was ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity which has sometimes seemed to invite and provoke the aggressions of foreign states; peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... that he had neglected the usual offering only increased the feeling of envy and annoyance which filled the unsuccessful hunter's heart. The Evil Spirit at that moment entering his body, his temper fairly flew away, and he sought some pretence to provoke a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... reply, and expressed himself as willing to abide by the consequences. It was "fighting language between fighting men"—a quarrel which Hamilton had been seeking for five years and which he had done everything in his power to provoke—and Burr promptly sent a challenge. Hamilton as promptly accepted it, named pistols at ten paces as the weapons, and at seven o'clock on the morning of July 11, 1804, the two men faced each other on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York bay. Both fired ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... prosing more and more, I might dive much deeper, and disclose other thoughts, propose questions the reader might be puzzled to answer, and deduce arguments that might startle his prejudices, or, perhaps, provoke his ridicule, because he could not comprehend them; but ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... cultivate their minds. To be able to discuss such things was a part of their education. They were expected to describe all they saw, fluently and pleasantly, but without criticism enough to require thought and provoke argument, which is apt to be tedious; and thus was formed the habit of chatting in the genial light frothy way which does duty for conversation in society. Geraldine had not exaggerated when she called Miss Blackburne's ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... words, oppressed our breast with dismay and dread. Ardently he would have us believe that at this juncture he was thinking of us only—of us wondering, alone, ignorant of danger, and hidden blindly under the earth. His purpose was to provoke the two Luga-renos to shoot, so that we should be warned by the reports. Besides, an opportunity for escape might yet present itself in some most unlikely way, perhaps at the very last moment. Had ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... bewildering and contradictory theories to be met with in books, pamphlets, and reviews concerning St. Patrick's native country are calculated to provoke a spirit of weary incredulity and impatience. However, when presenting this book to the public, we may quote the late Canon O'Hanlon's plea for adventurous writers who still endeavour to solve the problem: "The question of St. ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming

... provoke a fight, all that was necessary when the unappreciated portion of his name was flung at him and was not sufficient to awaken his ire, was to throw out our chests, hold back our shoulders, curve our arms and say in a throaty voice, "Who's going ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... neighbors, it was incumbent on them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large society, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... advocate, in a great hurry to get married, to the disgust of his rivals, the leading his bride to the altar to the clang of bells and the sound of music, so timed as to provoke the qualms of diarrhoea. In the evening, after the ball, comes he into the nuptial chamber, where should be reposing his lovely bride. No longer is she a lovely bride—but a fury—a wild she-devil, who, seated in an armchair, refuses ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... not only office, but I fear even one's life, it would be difficult to preserve. That's why these lists are called office-philacteries. This Hsueeh family, just a while back spoken of, how could your worship presume to provoke? This case in question affords no difficulties whatever in the way of a settlement; but the prefects, who have held office before you, have all, by doing violence to the feelings and good name of these people, come ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... father. I wish this horrid noise wouldn't go on in my head. Don't worry me, Nurse. I know it was my fault. I wouldn't listen to the warning, and I would provoke her, but don't scold me now until I ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... certainly very much in this to provoke Mrs Crawley. It was not only that she knew well that her cousin would give ample and immediate attention, and lend himself thoroughly to the matter without any idea of payment,—but that she could not quite believe that ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... Bessie?" asked Dolly suddenly, as they reached the house. She was plainly concerned and surprised, and Eleanor, rather startled, since she had seen nothing in Bessie to provoke such a question, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... commenced a short but extraordinary conflict. Bearing up his horse as he swam, with the bridle in his teeth, the bold rider threw his left hand upon the stern of the vessel, and brandishing his cudgel in the right, seemed to provoke both parties to the combat. Desborough, who had risen from the stern at his approach, stood upright in the centre, his companion still paddling at the bows; and between these two a singular contest now ensued. Armed with the formidable knife which he had about his person, the settler made the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... character-drawing in one of Mr. Henry James's novels, The Portrait of a Lady, where Gilbert Osmond, a selfish dilettante, finding that he cannot make a great success or attain a great position, devotes himself to trying to mystify and provoke the curiosity of the world by retiring into a refined seclusion, and professing that it affords him an exquisite kind of enjoyment. The hideous vulgarity of his attitude is not at first sight apparent; he deceives the heroine, who is a considerable heiress, into thinking that here, at last, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a situation that might provoke alarm. He was voluntarily placing himself in the power of men whom his class had driven from the upper air into these drear abodes. To them he could only be known as a persecutor. Yet such was the impression which he had formed of their gentleness and meekness that he had no fear of harm. ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... guide upon the ground to recover his breath, and point out what was next to be done. Nectabanus was both frightened and angry; but he had felt himself as completely in the power of the robust knight as an owl in the claws of an eagle, and therefore cared not to provoke him to any further display of ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... whom she naturally looked for protection, combined to divide her attention and bewilder her inexperienced mind. The partiality of her royal admirer had begun to excite observation, to awaken curiosity, and to provoke the malignant passions which, under an affected concern for decorum, assumed the guise of virtue. The daily prints teemed with hints of the favour of Mrs. Robinson with "one whose manners were resistless, and whose smile was victory." These circumstances, added to the constant ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... prepared with unclarified honey. Cow-heels and Calves' feet are sometimes mixed with unsugared leches and Jellies. Furmity with venison, mortrewes, jussell, &c., are good. Other out-of-the-way soups set aside. Such isa flesh feast in the English way. Sauces. Sauces provoke a fine appetite. Have ready Mustard for brawn, &c., Verjuice for veal, &c., Chawdon for cygnet and swan, Garlic, &c., for beef and goose, Ginger for fawn, &c., Mustard and sugar for pheasant, &c., Gamelyn for heronsew, &c., Sugar and Salt for brew, &c., Gamelyn for bustard, &c., Salt ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... audience teaches all Christian missionaries and controversialists a needed and neglected lesson. We should accentuate points of resemblance rather than of difference, to begin with. We should not run a tilt against even errors, and so provoke to their defence, but rather find in creeds and practices an ignorant groping after, and so a door of entrance for, the truth which we seek ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... the old men sat long, in brooding over what should be done. They feared the gods, but were afraid, also, to provoke their ruler to wrath. They finally decided that the maiden's life should be spared, but that for a whole day, from sunrise to sunset, she should stand in the market-place, with a crown of sharp thorns pressed down hard upon her head. The crowd should be allowed to ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... preceptors. How could he risk such a grave imprudence? And yet there was no time to lose in reproaches. Nero begged for advice: Seneca and Burrhus were silent, but they, also frightened, asked of themselves what Agrippina would do. Would she not provoke a colossal scandal, which would ruin everything? An expedient, the same one, occurred to both of them: but so sinister was the idea that they dared not speak it. This time, however, both the philosopher and the general were deceived as well as Nero: ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... which have happened or will happen in the world will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of the causes, whether REAL or PRETENDED, which PROVOKE or INVITE them. If this remark be just, it becomes useful to inquire whether so many JUST causes of war are likely to be given by UNITED AMERICA as by DISUNITED America; for if it should turn out that United America will probably give the fewest, then it will follow that in ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... moralist or an historian; he paints them with a zest for pruriency worthy of Bayle or Brantome. It was an occasion for a wise scepticism to register grave doubts as to the infamous stories of Procopius. A rehabilitation of Theodora is not a theme calculated to provoke enthusiasm, and is impossible besides from the entire want of adequate evidence. But a thoughtful writer would not have lost his time, if he referred to the subject at all, in pointing out the moral improbability ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... care, through him I've grown. And less my God to honour than I ought: Through him my every thought On a frail beauty blindly have I thrown; In this my counsellor he stood alone, Still prompt with cruel aid so to provoke My young desire, that I Hoped respite from his harsh and heavy yoke. But, ah! what boots—though changing time sweep by, If from this changeless passion nought can save— A genius proud and high? Or what Heaven's other envied gifts to have, If ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... Stamford, if he were to get up after me, would say: 'Well, if all this be true—if we have done all these injurious things, if we have created all this irritation in the United States—will it not be likely that this irritation will provoke a desire for vengeance, and that the chances of war are greatly increased by it?' I do not know whether the chances of war are increased, but I will say that not only is war not certain, but it is to the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... for God's sake have a little sense and stand by your word; this crowd has had all it can endure, and if you do any more to provoke it, the consequences will be on you. And while you're about it, see that the saloons are closed and kept closed until this trouble is settled. And keep your people out of the way—don't let them go about showing ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... Hannah, and it is said she "provoked her sore, to make her fret" (1 Sam. 1: 6). There are some people who delight in twitting others about some fault or physical defect, or because of lack of ability or something of that sort. If they see that this causes us to fret, it only increases their desire to provoke us. Then again, some people like to make sport of others, and tease them; and if they see that some one can not hear it well, if it frets him and worries him, this only increases their delight. I have heard such people say, "I just like to tease So-and-so; he can not stand it at ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... long ends of his huge mustache, and indulging in a variety of ridiculous gestures indicative of exaggerated rage and fury, which are irresistibly funny—all the more so because there is nothing whatever to provoke this display of ferocity. Finally he stops in front of the footlights, strikes an attitude, and delivers himself thus: "For to-day, Scapin, I am willing to let my man-killer here have a little rest, so that there may be an opportunity to get all its ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... authority, which still preserved some pretensions to independence, and the arbitrary will of the conqueror, resolved to govern the world, Rome included. We at last reach the moment when the excess of arrogance was about to provoke the effect of contrary wills. We shall now see the Pope captive, the Spanish people in insurrection, the climate and deserts of Russia leagued together against the tyrannical master of Europe. England had never accepted the yoke; and she had everywhere ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... necessary to live in the presence of the continually repeated threat: "If the law passes, if the measure is adopted, if the election takes place, if you do not do all I want, if you do not yield to all my caprices, I leave you, I constitute myself an independent State, I provoke the formation of a rival Confederacy." The worst causes are the readiest to threaten in this style; having nothing reasonable to say in their own favor, they willingly proceed to violence, and the saying ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... applied in any manner more useful to the country, and when this is done and our naval force sufficiently strengthened and our militia armed we need not fear that any nation will wantonly insult us or needlessly provoke hostilities. We shall more certainly preserve peace when it is well understood that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern! Moreover that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet's transformation; so I call it, Since nor the exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father's death, that thus hath put him So much from the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... of a politician, Miss Weems," said Arthur, "although I take our country's differences much at heart. I shall surely not provoke discussion with you, like our friend Harold, upon an unpleasant subject, while you give me carte blanche to enjoy your conversation upon themes more congenial to ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... the knights have degenerated. Two of them are quarreling over a captured Greek girl, and so forth. La Valette, the grandmaster, institutes stern measures of reform to restore the ancient morale of the order, and these provoke intrigue and opposition. The defenders of Fort St. Elmo ask to be relieved, on the ground that the place cannot be held. La Valette decides that St. Elmo must be defended to the last: it is a case where a few must be ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... arrived from foreign countries containing promises of men and money, the discontented in the provinces had leagued together in order to provoke a fresh rebellion. By means of these letters and other documents which were scattered abroad, hopes were raised that M. de Miremont, the last Protestant prince of the house of Bourbon, would bring them reinforcements ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... your personal dislikes, Rupert, to provoke you to speak of a fellow-scholar in that way—and a young lady, too," corrected the ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... quarters where resentment may have been cherished because of his activity in the Long Island Traction field. This is one of the Street's 'clover patches' and the success which the newcomer seemed to be meeting did not provoke great pleasure." ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... how the grace that gilds an honored name, Gives a strange zest to that loquacious dame Whose ready tongue and easy blundering wit Provoke fresh uproar at each happy hit! Note how her humour into strange grimace Tempts the smooth meekness ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... the Filipino, "when you know more, you'll feel like making a noise. Let me assure you that no friend will hear if you do call. But any great amount of noise on your part might provoke me, and that would not be wise ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... regarding his political views and position. He still believed in the Republic which would come to stay after the inevitable overthrow of the Napoleonic rule. He and his friends did not intend to provoke a revolution, but they held themselves in readiness for the moment when it should come, as it necessarily must, and fully resolved this time not to give it up again to the plunder of base conspirators. In principle he agreed with the logical conclusions of socialism; ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... able to avoid an occasional outbreak of splenetic patriotism. The greatness and the generosity of France are the hobby-horse on which they ride with such a fanfare of trumpets as to provoke the ridicule of the passer-by. Madame de Bourboulon, as a woman, may be excused her little bit of sarcasm, though she must have known and ought to have remembered what has been done and endured by English missionaries in the name and for the sake ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... with whom?" interrupted the statesman. "Russia we can watch and hold. We are rather nearer to its western frontier than Delhi is, and we could throttle its Baltic trade at five hours' notice. France and Holland are not inclined to provoke our hostility; they would have everything to lose by ...
— When William Came • Saki

... to raise a silly laugh, provoke others by gross affronts, and cause serious danger ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... into hot argument (their usual method of conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story which ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... to these supposed agents, with whom in the sunshine of his prosperity he was but little occupied, that in the bosom of his calamity he addressed his prayers; he thanked them, however, for their favours, fearing lest their ingratitude might farther provoke their fury: thus when assailed by disaster, when afflicted with disease, he invoked them with fervor: he required them to change in his favor the mode of acting which was the very essence of beings; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... regarded as close and sincere friends had trodden upon all the past and attacked him abominably, as though he were the veriest scum of the earth. Some in the earlier stages of the affair had hypocritically feigned sympathy, in order to provoke his confidence, and had then turned round to hold him up to execration and ridicule. One or two had behaved so badly that he had refused ever to receive them at his ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... one of the strongest was Falstaffe, who wrote in direct opposition to Steele's "Sir John Edgar", openly attempting to provoke that knight to a journalistic contest. But Edgar gave scant attention to his essays, though they were vigorously written and presented strong arguments in defense of the Lord Chamberlain's intervention in Drury Lane ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... recital of their beliefs provoke a smile, our amusement will soon be checked by the thought of the little progress which has been made in the last two hundred years, towards solving the same problem. The origin of evil, the ineradicable tendency of the human heart to sin and do evil, the mournful spectacle of ruin and desolation ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport

... the Royal Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great a lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments. In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke her to further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the time, for she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... measure of a Cast, which often happened between them; for this Perez, being a person of a hot and fiery brain, without any judgment or understanding, would take the least occasion in the world to contend with and provoke the Inca .... Being no longer able to endure his rudeness, the Inca punched him on the breast, and bid him to consider with whom he talked. Perez, not considering in his heat and passion either his own safety or the safety of his Companions, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... the power of it in myself? If so, and if thou sufferest for thy profession, thou sufferest, not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake. Dost thou thus practise, because thou wouldest be taught to do outward acts of righteousness, and because thou wouldest provoke others to do so too? Dost thou show to others how thou lovest righteousness, by taking opportunities to do righteousness? How is it, dost thou show most mercy to thy dog, 36 or to thine enemy, to thy swine, or to the poor? Whose naked ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... accursed antichrist. They pronounced him a tyrannical usurper of the popedom, a wolf that had stolen into the fold. They called upon him to descend at once from the throne which he occupied without canonical title; if repentant, he might find mercy; if he persisted he would provoke the indignation of God, of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and all of the saints, for his violation of the Spouse of Christ, the common Mother of the Faithful. It was signed by thirteen cardinals. The more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... deceived into thinking that his success was final. He accepted the protestations of obedience which were spontaneously offered him, but he undertook no further expedition of importance either to restrain or to provoke his enemies: the restricted rule which satisfied his exemplar Ramses II. ought, he thought, to be sufficient for ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... the recent article of Jeffrey ... I suppose the long and the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature is."—Letter ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... seriously embarrassed the home and colonial governments, by thus breaking the peaceful understanding between the nations; and further, that he used his high position to provoke a rebellion, and deliberately deceived the home Government that he might be able to carry out his own personal plans. The Government in England is declared to be entirely innocent of any knowledge of the affair, but two officers of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 39, August 5, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... bound, upon his table, and running rapidly through the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, point out to him a long series of supernatural events there recorded; and show him that in their nature they are precisely the same as those modern miracles which provoke his disgust or contempt. You remind him, first of all, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, and that all His people are made like Him, in His life and His sufferings, as well as in His glory; ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... heart to do it,—yet, though you were dead and gone, I'd show you I'd a spirit, and marry again directly. Not but what it's ridiculous my talking in such a way, as I shall go long before you; still, mark my words, and don't provoke me with any will of that sort, or I'd do it- -as I'm a living woman in this bed ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold

... fall upon himself alone, saying, "these sheep (the people) what have they done?" We may ask the same of the rank and file of our army. What have they done? It was not they who ordained the war, and so far as personal influence may have gone to provoke war, many of those who sit at home at ease are more to blame than the men who believe that they are obeying the call of duty when they offer themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds, sickness, and lingering as well ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... Americans do just as they like, and no one is ever surprised. The explanation is quite simple: "They are Americans." I have often noticed little faults of manners or breeding, which would shock one in a representative of an older civilisation, pass quite unnoticed, or merely provoke a ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... Isthmus were anxious to have the negotiations ended and the digging begun. In October the President wrote to an intimate friend hoping that there might be a revolt of the Isthmus against Colombia, though disclaiming any intent to provoke one. The friend made the wish public over his own name, but before it appeared in print the revolt had taken place. It was known in advance to the State Department, which telegraphed on November 3, 1903, asking when it was to be precipitated. It took place later on ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... may even be record of the fact somewhere, though I have found none in Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly, nor in Gillespie's, nor in Baillie's Letters. But the peal was coming, and this daring challenge to the Assembly in his Bucer tract may have helped to provoke it. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... lookers-on at this dance. It was all monkey capers, but all with a meaning to the Indians beyond the perception of the whites. The Indian spectators made their remarks from their couches as the solemn mockeries proceeded, and the object of the remarks seemed to be to provoke the dancers to laugh by making fun, and the object of the dancers to provoke the fun-makers to laugh by performing extravagant caricatures with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the brute with whom she has been quarrelling. A moment, there is silence in the hall; but only for a moment. The girl is picked up by one of her companions—a few rough jokes at her expense—and all goes on as before. Such scenes are of too frequent occurrence to provoke comment. Observe that couple descending the steps; a handsome, almost noble-looking man, but upon whose countenance is stamped the mark of a dissolute life—upon his arm, a female, her face hidden from view by a dark veil. They advance to the bar. The gentleman whispers ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... His occasions of sorrow amongst his spiritual joys. The faith is embraced, notwithstanding the prince's example; and by what means. Divers conversions. He declares against the Bonzas. The Bonzas oppose the Christian religion. He answers the arguments of the Bonzas. The Bonzas provoke the king against the Christians. The number of Christians is augmented together with the reputation of the saint. He sends a Japonian Christian to the kingdom of Bungo; and for what reason. He departs from Amanguchi, and goes for Bungo. He falls sick with overtravelling himself; and after a little ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... after many years, I find that it has not lost its power to provoke the most side-splitting laughter; and the same may be said of 'A Tramp Abroad' and 'Following the Equator', which, whilst not so boisterously comical, exhibit greater mastery and restraint. His own luck, as Mark Twain observed on one occasion, had ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... day I tried to provoke Lagrange into a quarrel, but the wily rascal, as if divining my intentions, only shrugged his shoulders and smiled in the cold and sarcastic manner peculiar to him. This enraged me greatly, and after applying the most abusive epithets to him, I finally struck him. But all availed nothing; ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... short time all these objections will provoke a smile, and I shall be asked to suppress them, together with my commentary on them, in future editions of this work. But at the present time they have a right to exist, and to be dealt with, although indeed it is not very easy to give a direct, clear and ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... city all police pickets had been withdrawn, since their presence would only provoke disturbance and bloodshed. And the bazaar people were parading the streets, headed by an impromptu army of young hotheads, carrying lathis, crying their eternal 'Hai!' and 'Jai!' with extra special 'Jai's' for the 'King of Germany' and ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... horrid events," continued Mr. Shellabarger, "not to revive frightful memories, or to bring back the impulses towards the perpetual severance of this people which they provoke. I allude to them to remind us how utter was the overthrow and the obliteration of all government, divine and human, how total was the wreck of all constitutions and laws, political, civil and international. I allude to them to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... at his execution in order to preserve his body from the hands of the surgeons, which of all things he dreaded. And in order to avoid being anatomised, he affronted the court at the Old Bailey, at the time he received sentence of death, intending as he said to provoke them to hang him in chains, by which means he should escape the mangling of the surgeon's knives, which to him seemed ten thousand times worse than death itself. Thus confused he passed the last moments of his life, and with much ado recollected himself ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... said, as they were talking about it one afternoon after Minnie had gone home, "How far her saintliness will carry her. You all say that she never gets provoked except with me. Well, I promise you, I'll provoke her; I know her, and exactly how long any impression lasts with her. I suppose she's been attending some revival meeting and got this wonderful sweetness there, but I'll scatter it, I ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden

... shoulders. "You are behaving like a child of six, and really, if you go on, you will provoke me into treating you as such. The attitude you have chosen to adopt is neither sensible nor dignified, let me tell you. You resent my presence here. Very well; but you cannot prevent it. Would it not be much wiser of you either to submit to ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... he said, 'and he knows very well what he is about. We have officially requested him to leave, and he sails from Newcastle on Monday. He will be shadowed wherever he goes, and we hope to provoke more outbreaks. He is a very ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for masses of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters, Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... with ruin smoke, And province after province feels the yoke. Already on our conquer'd castle's height The Danish watchfires redden all the night, Soon, soon, their inroads will our fate decide— Haste, let us spread th' eventful tidings wide, Arm every hand, provoke the lingering fight; And woe to him, that joys not at the sight! By this dread tree, which many an age has stood Unshaken, and survived the subject wood, Which never pruner's steel has dared invade, Nor venturous woodman lopp'd the hallow'd shade; By this dread tree I swear, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... not to admit that a favorable wind had arisen until the last possible moment. He did not wish to be taken by the strong British fleet waiting for him outside the harbor, and he desired, as he said, in order to provoke war between Holland and England, "to try the patience of the English party to the last bit of strain it would bear by keeping my anchorage in Dutch waters on plea of distress, and at the same time I wished to be ready for instant departure ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... conscious of a great agitation of mind, which I schooled myself to hide from the eyes of my guards, forcing myself to eat the breakfast for which I had no appetite. It would have eased me to pace up and down my room, but I forbore even from this, so that no restlessness might provoke their curiosity or suspicion. I sat for hours on my bed, awaiting the time for our attempt. The men brought me my midday meal: one of them made a brutal remark on my pallor; and then the door was shut, and they settled themselves to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... taught them to subdue their foes, Cou'd order teach, and their high sp'rits compose: To ev'ry duty you'd their minds engage, Provoke their courage, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... lawyers practicing at the M. bar to defend them. The offense charged was only assault and battery; but the evidence showed a conspiracy to inflict great violence on the person of the prosecutor, who had done nothing to provoke it, and that the attempt to effect it was followed by severe injury to him. The prosecutor was an original. He had been an old-field school-master, and was as conceited and pedantic a fellow as could be found in a summer's day, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... told without overstepping the bounds of propriety and moderation, with her and there a studied manifestation of enthusiasm intended to provoke emulation. ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... church, he is very much mistaken. He may go his way, and I shall go mine. Let him preach at me as much as he will; I shall go to church all the more for that, to show him that I am not afraid." And so the Lord's warnings harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face like a flint, and become all ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... his good counselor protested: "Don't do anything idiotic, Ferragut; don't hunt the enemy, don't provoke him. Simply defend ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and addressed thee, saying, 'Do thou with thy wife bear me.' Thou didst what I bade, without the least scruple, O king! I became filled with delight at this. The gifts of wealth I made could not provoke thy anger. Pleased with thee, O king, I created with the aid of my Yoga puissance that forest which thyself with thy wife didst behold here. Listen, O monarch, to the object I had. For gratifying thee and thy queen I caused thee to have a glimpse of heaven. All those things which thou hast ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... awoke, and the vapour had penetrated the mineral layer heaped up at the bottom of the crater. But would the subterranean fires provoke any violent eruption? This was an event which could not be foreseen. However, even while admitting the possibility of an eruption, it was not probable that the whole of Lincoln Island would suffer from it. The flow of volcanic matter is not ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... you at Florence, though I don't wonder that you have forgotten it after so many yeirs. I would not have it talked of, for I find some grave personages are offended -with the liberties I have taken with so imperial a head. What could provoke them to give a column Christian ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... producing his three hundred and fifty-four Bastards there, and not careful of Church matters at all,—had expressed his indignant surprise. And now, it would seem nevertheless, though the title remains where it was, the function has fallen to another, who actually does it: a thing to provoke ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... innocence. She had propitiated, ignored, eluded the more feminine amenities of fate. Of course, she had had her bad moments. She had been sorry, sometimes, and she had been sick; but on the whole her powers had been splendidly recuperative. She had shown none of those naked tender spots that provoke destiny to strike. And with it all she had preserved, perhaps too scrupulously, the rules laid down for such as she. She had kept her own place. She had never attempted to invade the sanctuaries set apart for ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... them. If they will to Angers, they must to Angers. But if I find trouble in Angers when I come, I will hang some one high. Don't scowl at me, man!"—in truth, the look of hate in Father Pezelay's eyes was enough to provoke the exclamation. "Some one, and it shall not be a bare patch on the crown will ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... we rested idly for another time of sleep. Occasionally we made a tentative tower attack which came to nothing. Tarrano waited; his barrage remained the same. We tried to provoke a move from ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... best of his opponents, by the very simple process of choosing for the purpose, boys who were not as strong as he was. As a result of all this he had acquired a great reputation among his fellows, and most of the boys in his neighborhood were very careful not to provoke him; but he was a great coward through it all, and when he first came in collision with Sam Hardwicke his cowardice showed itself too plainly to be mistaken. Now there is a curious thing about cowards of this sort. When they are once found out they lose ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... passage through the cement formation, working it into spires, pinnacles, towers and many other capricious objects. Many of these are of faultless symmetry, resembling the minaret of a mosque; others are so grotesque as to provoke merriment as well as wonder. One of this latter character we named "The Devil's Hoof," from its supposed similarity to the proverbial foot of his Satanic majesty. The height of this rock from its base is about ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... the core. He has a kind of grim merriment bestowed somewhere in the recesses of his being. It is quaint and severe, however, and abounding in dry conceits. It inclines more to the nature of sarcasm than of flashing wit or genial humor. There is apt to be the bitterness about it which would provoke a heavy blow, unless it had been itself so weighty in attack as to crush what might have sprung into resistance. It passes from badinage into personalities and recriminations. In these respects it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... Church Militant held sway even over these gatherings of New England warriors. The military reviews and exercises were made properly religious by an opening exercise of prayer and psalm-singing, the latter sometimes at such inordinate length as to provoke criticism and remarks from the rank and file, remonstrance which was at once pleasantly rebuked by pious Judge Sewall. Religious notices were also given before the company broke line. A noble dinner somewhat ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... hopeless, she sits down on the floor again and digs her small fists into her eyes, in silent indignation and despair. Then comes a howl impossible to smother, and at last such bitter bursts of woe as nothing short of dire necessity can force you to provoke. This is Sarala, one of the most affectionate, most wilful, most winsome of all the babies. She is truthful. She has just this moment pulled a drawing-pin out of its place, which happened to be within reach, and her solemn "Aiyo!" (Alas!) "Look, Amma!" shows she feels she has sinned, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... moods they would have avoided. Alternately scolding and beseeching, and throwing in a few jokes occasionally, she at last said both must go home, the master to restrain himself, and the slaves to work faithfully and not to provoke him, as he had troubles of which ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... disagreement, but their conversations frequently ended by tacit mutual consent, at a point which threatened divergence; and in Yule's case every such warning was a cause of intense irritation. He feared to provoke Marian, and this fear was again a ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... and treat her just as if she were Alice instead of mamma. It won't be as pleasant, but it will be good practice for you. Then when she is well cared for, act downcast at times and depressed. Wait a few days before working the melancholy act—that's enough to provoke her interest—and don't say much to other girls. Dance with Ede and me and say sweet things to mamma for a week. Then some day take her out for a drive and act as if you had lost your last friend. She will inevitably ask what ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... Lincoln kept a copy of the latest humorous work; and it was frequently his habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or depressed, to take this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,—anything to provoke mirth and make a man jollier,—this, too, is a gift ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden

... we never dare provoke That high Almighty Power, Which once awaked against our sins, Could blast ...
— The Flood • Anonymous

... again hereafter, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee naught. And her will I not set free; nay, ere that shall old age come on her in our house, in Argos, far from her native land, where she shall ply the loom and serve my couch. But depart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the rather ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... growing more passionately in love, and in each new mood she seemed the more divine. Not one trace of her waywardness of the day before remained. Her eyes, as they glanced at him from under her hat, were bashful and sweet, no look of the devil to provoke a saint. She ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... parlor offered nothing to provoke the hostility of her peculiar instincts. Spotless were the white curtains; the bright carpet guiltless of stain or dust. The chairs were placed arithmetically in twos, and added up evenly on the four sides with nothing to carry over. Two bunches of lavender and fennel ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Character, and yet guard themselves against speaking in direct Terms to the Point, that it is impossible to distinguish between Courtship and Conversation. I hope you will do me Justice both upon my Lover and my Friend, if they provoke me further: In the mean time I carry it with so equal a Behaviour, that the Nymph and the Swain too are mighty at a loss; each believes I, who know them both well, think my self revenged in their Love to one another, which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... ready by night and by day. He represented to the king that, should he take the unfrequented route, it would be necessary to send relays of horses beforehand to all these little villages; that so unusual an occurrence would attract attention and provoke inquiry. He urged also upon the king that detachments of troops sent along these solitary roads would excite curiosity, and would inevitably create suspicion. The king, however, self-willed, refused to heed these remonstrances, and persisted in his own plan. He, however, consented ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... defence. I was prepared for the attack, and am pretty confident I could have vindicated some parts and excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have confessed 'em. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer. That which looks most like an objection does not relate in particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been written, and that is soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... well filled with jam, and Dick's with fat meat, Tom's voice was heard above the rest; he was still crying, "I am going a-fishing; who will come with me?" his large eyes being fixed on his mother, as if to provoke her ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... the shock Of a dear father, thus in ling'ring pangs A prey to famine, like the veriest wretch Whom the hard hand of misery hath grip'd! In vain she'll rave, with impotence of sorrow; Perhaps, provoke her fate: Greece arms in vain, All's ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy

... novel excitement—the excitement of a strong will provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him—that her young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... United States troops on the edge of the disputed territory furthest from the Mexican settlements, was not sufficient to provoke hostilities. We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it. It was very doubtful whether Congress would declare war; but if Mexico should attack our troops, the Executive could announce, "Whereas, war ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... society, and theaters, and other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did not play. He was a middleaged man, affecting youth, with the vanities which are usual in such persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite person, who disturbed nobody—a person, you see, not likely to provoke an enmity." ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... of sight of the world's sharp eyes, Jay Gardiner and his wife used each other with the scantest possible courtesy. He never descended to the vulgarity of having words with her, though she did her utmost to provoke him to quarrel, saying to herself that anything was better than that dead calm, that haughty way he had of completely ignoring her ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... these things, dowdily dressed. As a matter of fact, the creases in an old dress from Paris still bear witness to good taste, you can tell what the gown was meant for; but an old dress made in the country is inexplicable, it is a thing to provoke laughter. There was neither charm nor freshness about the dress or its wearer; the velvet, like the complexion had seen wear. Lucien felt ashamed to have fallen in love with this cuttle-fish bone, and vowed that he would profit by Louise's next fit of virtue to leave her for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... question now. His first impulse was to hail them, and try to make friends of them by offering some small present; but he checked himself as the thought flashed upon him that a movement on his part might startle them and provoke a discharge of their tiny arrows, which were probably poisoned. He could not doubt they had seen him long before he had seen them, and had been for some time playing the part of silent spectators, being kept at a distance, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... her. I breakfasted with her on Sunday morning, and she abused A—— to me—not violently, of course, but very foolishly. She is wanting in perception, and is perpetually committing sins of bad taste, which provoke people—and me "much more than reason." I do not suppose I shall see enough of her to admit of her "drying me up" (as the Italians say for boring), but I always find it difficult to get on with her, even for a ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... being as harmless and innocent as he was polished and elegant might be allowed, by a husband who had too much confidence in his wife's virtue, and too good an opinion of his own merits to be easily jealous. Nor was Henri de Malfort a man to provoke jealousy by any superior gifts of mind or person. Nature had not been especially kind to him. His features were insignificant, his eyes pale, and he had not escaped that scourge of the seventeenth century, the small-pox. His pale and clear complexion was but slightly pitted, however, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... brought you to the ships of the Achaeans, for else, no man however strong and in his prime would dare to come to our host; he could neither pass our guard unseen, nor draw the bolt of my gates thus easily; therefore, provoke me no further, lest I sin against the word of Jove, and suffer you not, suppliant though you ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... her appetite demanded quantity as well as quality. Of peculiar significance was the fact that throughout the years she had never had a spell when physically and mentally comfortable, but, as the years passed, the amount of discomfort which could provoke a nervous disturbance became less and less. She was a well-informed woman, quite interesting on many subjects, outside of herself, and had done much excellent reading. Unafflicted, she would mentally have been more than ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... she said, shaking her finger at him, menacingly, "do not provoke me—don't go a step farther, or I will prove how far you are untrammeled. Another word and there will be no medium between ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... should make a personal confession. That he should tell us why he has been a politician, why he has been, and is, a Tory, and why he is now retiring in the prime of life. I propose, in a word, that he should give us his point of view. That will certainly provoke Remenham, on whom I shall call next. He will provoke someone else. And so we shall all find ourselves giving our points of view, and we ought to have a very interesting evening." This suggestion was greeted, if not with enthusiasm, at least with acquiescence. ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... wife, representing the people. So early as in Deut. xxxii. 21, we read: "They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation," After all that had, in the Song of Solomon, been predicted regarding the reception of the Gentile nations into the kingdom of God and Christ, and about the receiving again into it of Israel, to ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... lost less. But believing, as I do, (to use his own words,) that "if he were now living he would have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatness of mind" to wish to be shown as himself, I will suppress no trait in his disposition, or incident in his career, which might provoke blame or question. Such in all points as he was, the world, which has been so indulgent to him, has a right to know him; and those who best love him do not fear the consequences of freely submitting his character and his actions to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... he released her and again placed himself at her side—'why do you provoke me into enmity, when I would fain be your lover and friend? Mine you must be—mine you shall be, if I have to ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... as he never had any other human creature, and that you were gifted with such lofty virtue as to make his ill-omened star of Destiny grow pale, and that if you were to wear the handsomest ornament he ever made it would never provoke in him either an evil spectre or murderous thoughts. 'Listen now, Olivier,' he said, 'what I have made up my mind to do. A long time ago I received an order for a necklace and a pair of bracelets for Henrietta ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... far as I can see; This deed of gift, this trusting of the secret To him, were both—to state my frank opinion— Steps that you took too lightly; he can lead you To any length, with these for hostages; And since he holds you at such disadvantage, You'd be still more imprudent, to provoke him; So you must go ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... well as their notions of its origin, are very unphilosophical and vague, it is plain that they considered it as a species of mesmeric or biologic power, operating by nervous impression. The fascinator generally endeavored to provoke in his victims an excited and pleased attention, for in this condition they were peculiarly predisposed to his influence. And inasmuch as persons are thrown off their guard of reserve and attracted by praise, those who flattered excessively were looked upon with suspicion; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... desire to impeach the President was increasing in power, and very little was needed to provoke a trial of strength between the radicals and the President. The drift toward impeachment was due in part to the legislative reaction against the executive, and in part to Johnson's own opposition to reconstruction and to his use of the patronage against the radicals. Specific ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... when he came close, Teeka bared her fangs and growled at him, and Tarzan showed his canines in an ugly snarl; but Taug did not provoke a quarrel. He seemed to accept after the manner of his kind the decision of the she as an indication that he had been vanquished in his battle ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... other's mind. The effect was, however, not very beneficial to his own manner. Instead of having the effect of impressing upon Stevens the necessity of working cautiously, the show of defiance which he saw tended to provoke and annoy him. The youth had displayed so much propriety in his anger, had been so moderate as well as firm, and had uttered his answer with so much dignity and correctness, that he felt himself rebuked. To be encountered by an unsophisticated ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... seen fit to inquire further. Hesden Le Moyne was not a man with whom one wished to provoke a controversy. His unwillingness to submit to be catechised was generally accepted as a proof positive of his "Radical" views. He had been an adviser of Nimbus, his colored playmate, in the purchase of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... woeful close. "Have him write me a letter every day; I shall write one to him. I didn't promise not to write, you know, only not to see him. But you must not let Richard go to Storri, that above all. Poor Richard! he is very fierce; and if he were to arouse Storri's anger it would provoke him ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... barons have with a low-born peasant girl? They had used her; but when she could be useful no longer, they forgot her. Out of sight she was out of mind; and if remembered at all, she was regarded as one who could no longer provoke jealousy. Jealousy is a devouring passion, especially among nobles. The generals of Charles VII. could not bear to have it said that the rescue of France was effected, not by their abilities, but by the inspired enthusiasm of a peasant girl. She ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... the death they knew they merited; but Bonaparte merely detained them as hostages. The aga in the service of Bonaparte was astonished that sentence of death was not pronounced upon them; and he said, shrugging his shoulders, and with a gesture apparently intended to provoke severity, "You see they ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... shown him your baby, and let him romp with your four-year-old, and eat a genuine dinner with you,—would he have been false to that? Not so likely. He wanted something real and human,—you gave him a bad dress-rehearsal, and dress-rehearsals always provoke criticism. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... coming here to tempt, provoke, and insult the wretch whose soul you destroyed, by forcing me to assassinate the best man and the sweetest girl in England, when there were vipers and villains about whom it's a good action to sweep off God's earth. Villain! ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... know the desert, the motion-picture on the screen of the car-window is exciting in its mystery. These vast arid bottomlands of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, girded by mountain groups and ranges as arid as the sands from which they lift their tawny sides, provoke ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... nun. You can well understand that, the responsibility for the good conduct of that entire Community resting upon the Prioress, she is bound to regard with disfavour any innovation which might tend to provoke a scandal." ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... rested idly for another time of sleep. Occasionally we made a tentative tower attack which came to nothing. Tarrano waited; his barrage remained the same. We tried to provoke a move from ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... was as helpless as an infant, and, now that he had been given time to collect his senses, he stopped making any further effort to escape from his captor. Knowing the uncontrollable temper of the Indians, he resolved not to provoke an outburst by any action of his own. The wonder with him was, that the chief did not kill him the minute he found that he was in his power. They had not shown any desire to make prisoners, when it was so much more easy to rid themselves ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... view of the savages. The thicket was hard by, and, if I were eager to escape, the way was obvious and sure. But, though single, though enfeebled by toil, by abstinence, and by disease, and though so much exceeded in number and strength by my foes, I was determined to await and provoke the contest. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the mention may provoke a smile?—I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual objects with which we ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother's ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... destined for Florida, consisting of a portion of the Highlanders, rangers and regulars, appeared under arms at Frederica, and on March 9th, landed in Florida. He advanced upon St. Augustine, and used every device to decoy them into an ambush; but even failed to provoke the garrison. Having no cannon with him, he returned to Frederica, without the loss of a man. This expedition was attended with great toil, fatigue and privation, but borne cheerfully. A few slight eruptive efforts were made, but each party kept its own borders, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... hoped to provoke from the plaisant some further expression of self-content in his plans for the future, but the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... us by Caesar's version of his name, as Vercingetorix, a high-spirited youth, who keenly felt the servitude of his country, and who, on receiving these tidings, instantly called on his friends to endeavor to shake off the yoke. His uncle, who feared to provoke Roman vengeance, expelled him from the chief city, Gergovia, the remains of which may be traced on the mountain still called Gergoie, about six miles from Clermont; but he collected all the younger and ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... well-known traveller." The substance of the story is, that a Boston merchant proposed to gild the lamp over his street-door, but was dissuaded from so doing by the suggestion of a friend, that by savoring of aristocracy the ornamented gas-burner would offend the tyrannical people and provoke violence against it! This, the latest joke in the solemn Quarterly, has led many of its readers here to recall the days of Madame Trollope and the Reverend Mr. Fiddler, those veracious and "well-known travellers." There are, we are sorry to say, many gilded street-lamps, burnished and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... thyself, good fellow, and beware thou doest not provoke Dame Betty too far; she has a rare relish for ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... officers of the picket to enforce this order. One of their sentries would hail one of ours with some friendly remark, and it was difficult to suppress the desire to reply. If a reply was not forthcoming, a nagging ejaculation, calculated to provoke, would follow, such as, "What's the matter, Yank, are ye deaf?" "Maybe ye are afeared o' those d——d officers." "We 'uns don't give a d—— for our officers," and so volley after volley would follow, whilst poor Yank had to continue silently walking his beat. Sometimes ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... Town Hall of Calcutta, and who retain a recollection of the brilliance of its re-unions, with all their gay variety of concert, opera, and acted charade, cannot help seeing that Bombay lags very far behind; it is, therefore, unwise to provoke comparisons, and the society here should rather pride itself upon what it will do, than upon what it has done. It is, perhaps, little to be lamented that merely frivolous amusements should be wholly confined to the private circles of social life, but there are others which might ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," she said. "Miss Adair was tired of school, and took the opportunity of making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress and get sent away. It does not matter to her, of course: she hasn't got her living to earn. And if you lose your teaching, and Miss Polehampton's recommendations by it, it doesn't affect her. Oh, I understand these ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... right of Market Street to rule, Harvey fell upon these blithe pilgrims with a sad sincerity that was worthy of a better cause. And the more the young men laughed, the more they played tricks upon the police, reading the Sermon on the Mount to provoke arrest, reading the Constitution of the United States to invite repression, even reading the riot act by way of diversion for the police, the more did the wooden head of Market Street throb with rage and the more did the people ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... retorted the younger man, rather abruptly. "I can't afford to provoke the illwill of the Greys. If Holner comes to me, I dare say I ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz

... gravitation and all the other phenomena in nature are more apparent than real. Thus the evolution in the heart of the ether of a quantity of gravific energy would not be entirely isolated, and as in the case of all evolutions of all energy of whatever kind, it should provoke a partial transformation into energy of a different form. Thus again the liberated energy of gravitation would vary when passing from one material to another, as from gases into liquids, or from one liquid to a ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... the French Ambassador, complains of the king's frequent absences; but James did not wish too close an intercourse with one who was making a French party about Prince Henry, and whose sole object was to provoke a Spanish war: the king foiled the French intriguer; but has incurred his contempt for being "timid and irresolute." James's cautious neutrality was no ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... worthless receipts, he wrote, in a rage, whilst he was being pointed out as an individual who had known how to secure enormous advantages from the necessities of his country. And the young man in Europe grew more and more interested in that thing which could provoke such a tumult ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... strength to the domination of the Church. Since the submission of the king in that ill-fated struggle, the voice of Rome had double potency whenever it was heard, and the boldest peers of England held it more wise to submit to her imperious dictates, than to provoke a spiritual censure which had so many secular consequences. Hence the slight and scornful manner in which the Constable was treated by the prelate Baldwin struck a chill of astonishment into the assembly of friends whom he had collected to witness his espousals; and as he ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... 14th, in the Assembly, the principle of the inviolability of the sovereign, in the hope of having him arraigned; but at the end of the sitting, finding his opinion rejected, he began to tremble for his temerity, and required that they should not provoke the ruin of persons who had engaged ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... John), a coarse, surly, ill-mannered brute, whose delight was to "provoke" his young wife, who he tells us "is a young lady, a fine lady, a witty lady, and a virtuous lady, but yet I hate her." In a drunken frolic he intercepts a tailor taking home a new dress to lady Brute; he insists on arraying himself therein, is arrested for a street row, and taken before the justice ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... heir to the crown, were events which materially affected the fortunes of the Duke of York. In November the civic authorities prepared for emergencies; every citizen was to provide himself with armour, but he was strictly enjoined to be guarded in his conversation, and not to provoke tumult by showing favour to this or that lord. Even a proposal that the mayor and aldermen should pay a visit of respect to the Duke of York was rejected as ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... account in their day professed astonishment at the absence of grossness, partisanship, profanity, indelicacy, and malice from its pages. "It is the first comic we ever saw," said the "Somerset County Gazette," "which was not vulgar. It will provoke many a hearty laugh, but never call a blush to the most delicate cheek." They vied with each other in their vocabulary of praise; and as to Punch's quips and sallies, his puns, his propriety, his "pencillings," and his cuts—they simply defied description; you just cracked your ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... her with the closing of the day. She dreaded the night and the day, people and the absence of people. She knew no woman she could take her anguish to for sympathy; it would provoke only rebuke or laughter. The Church had rebuffed her. There remained only men, and what could she hope from them? Even Jim Dyckman had not been a friend merely. He had told her that she wasted herself ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... government wanted was to prevent the possibility that an excited populace, especially in Paris, might force its hand. If war came it meant that Germany should provoke it—if possible, begin it. It was willing to sacrifice some things for that. And this was because, in the years of peace, France had won a great diplomatic victory, the fruits of which the country must preserve. In 1870 France had had to face Germany ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... contented to point out the moral evils of slavery, both on the master and the slave; but this did not provoke much opposition, since the evils were open and confessed, even at the South; only, it was regarded as none of their business, since the evils could not be remedied, and had always been lamented. That slavery ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... had a little mollified. Everything here was so pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longer incited to provoke a collision with Fitzpiers or with anybody. The comparative stateliness of the apartments influenced him to an emotion, rather than to a belief, that where all was outwardly so good and proper there could not be quite ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... expresses himself as follows: "The afflicted people vehemently accused several persons, in several places, that the spectres which afflicted them, did exactly resemble them; until the importunity of the accusations did provoke the Magistrates to examine them. When many of the accused came upon their examination, it was found, that the demons, then a thousand ways abusing of the poor afflicted people, had with a marvellous exactness represented them; yea, it was found ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... we had received them as citizens, though most of them were subjects of that land of freedom where the chains fall to give place to flunkeyism; we had protected them in their wilderness home—should we not be generous, and forgive their errors rather than punish or provoke the delusion? Preferring more than one wife is not originally American: on that score Uncle John cannot shake clean the skirts of his garment, nor proclaim his virtue as white as snow. Ere this conversation ended we had arrived over California. Standing up I gave three long and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... falls into what he calls 'the cant transmitted from age to age in praise of the ancient Romans.' Ante, i. 311. To do so with Johnson was at once to provoke an attack, for he looked upon the Roman commonwealth as one 'which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind.' Ib. Moreover he disliked appeals to history. 'General history,' writes Murphy (Life, p. 138), 'had little ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... charge of fastidiousness, when we complain that it is rather too uniformly so. The narrative is indeed occasionally enlivened, and the language picturesque. But in general we search in vain for some roughness to relieve the eye, and some sharpness to provoke the palate. One full and sweeping period succeeds another, and though pleased and gratified at first, the attention gradually ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... lips I speak, ungainly is the manner of my speech as one leaping among furrows, as one advancing unevenly; for all this I fear to raise thine anger, and to provoke instead of appeasing thee; nevertheless, thou wilt do unto me as may please thee. O Lord, thou hast held it good to forsake us in these days, according to the counsel that thou hast as well in heaven as in hades,—alas for us, in ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... these cases provoke a smile; but, had these ancient damsels fancied that they were bewitched, or that they were haunted, or that they held communion with the spirits of the invisible world, instead of exciting laughter and ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... of making herself too familiar, till she provoked the young princess into giving her the nickname of Madame Etiquette; and, no doubt, in her childish playfulness, to utter many a speech and do many an act whose principle object was to excite the astonishment or provoke the frowns of the too prim lady ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... he said, "to ask you to forgive me. I struck you a mean, unjustifiable blow. You received it with noble contempt. To provoke you into fighting, I called you a coward, meaning to bring you down by some means to my own level. You bore that, too, with a greatness I was not great enough to understand; but I do ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... far the greater number at the mercy of an enraged and injured people. But should there be any amongst the Negroes weak enough to believe that Lord Dunmore intends to do them a kindness, and wicked enough to provoke the fury of the Americans against their defenceless fathers and mothers, their wives, their women and children, let them only consider the difficulty of effecting their escape, and what they must ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... that the big man was determined to provoke him to another fight. He knew that tempers were edgy and explosive in this enervating heat, and usually tried to bear Gorton's insults and petty meannesses in silence. He wouldn't demean himself by descending to the big guard's low level ... although ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... all young men had been to Mabel a source of wonder and of pride. Even when the young men were the friends of her husband and of herself, the preoccupied manner with which Vera received them did not provoke in Mabel any resentment. It rather increased her approbation. Although horrified at the recklessness of the girl, she had approved even when Vera rejected an offer of ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... Bruin was furious at such treatment, for had he not been spoiled and petted all his life? He soon saw, however, that this man was a new and terrible creature to be obeyed instantly, and one whose wrath it was not well to provoke by pulling back ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... and snatches of drunken song. The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren remained there. The little band who had been told off for duty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty, star-spangled sky. The men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced a high building. The words, "Vermissa Herald" were printed ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... Cherokee. The more ready since throughout my own checkered c'reer—an' I've done most everything 'cept sing in the choir,—luck has ever happened bunched like he asserts. Which I gets notice of these pecooliarities of fortune early. While I'm simply doin' nothin' to provoke it, a gust of bad luck prounces on me an' thwarts me in a noble ambition, rooins my social standin' an busts two of my nigh ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... political emancipation which England had long enjoyed. In fact, it was the corruption of religion in the person of its official representatives, its intellectual degradation in the eyes of the thinkers, which helped to provoke the catastrophe. What wonder, then, that a mind so penetrating and alert as Comte's early arrived at the conclusion that the ancien regime in religion, no less than in politics, must be abolished if progress was to be ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... the thin wedge of a column of negroes, in their up-town migration, tried to squeeze in, and provoked a race war; but that in fairness should not be laid up against it. In certain local aspects it might be accounted a sacred duty; as much so as to get drunk and provoke a fight on the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne. But on the whole the Kitchen has grown orderly. The gang rarely beats a policeman nowadays, and it has not killed one ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... Lincoln, "Abraham does middlin' well, considerin'. But he does provoke me sometimes. He would provoke old Job himself. Why, he will take a book with him into the corn-field, and he reads and reads, and his head gets loose and goes off into the air, and he puts the pumpkin-seeds in the wrong hills, like as not. He is ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views? Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... left them calm— Emotion they considered freakish;— He felt with many an inward qualm That he was thoroughly un-beakish; His mood perplexed them; he was half Provocative, half deferential, Too anxious to provoke a laugh, Too vague where logic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various

... to gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant habits and careless life, and one who, if rumour did not wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I had lately effected, it will be seen that those words, "Beware of Nicholas," were calculated to provoke me to the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... events, of physical prodigies that contradict the law of gravitation, or of inexplicable sounds, lights, and other occurrences in certain localities. These are just the things which Medicine Men, Mediums and classical Diviners have always pretended to provoke and produce by certain arts or rites. Secondly, whether they do or do not occasionally succeed, apart from fraud, in these performances, the 'spontaneous' phenomena are attested by a mass and quality of evidence, ancient, mediaeval and ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... territories of the Catti. This immense tract is not only possessed, but filled by the Chauci; a people the noblest of the Germans, who choose to maintain their greatness by justice rather than violence. Without ambition, without ungoverned desires, quiet and retired, they provoke no wars, they are guilty of no rapine or plunder; and it is a principal proof of their power and bravery, that the superiority they possess has not been acquired by unjust means. Yet all have arms in readiness; [187] and, if necessary, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... with the same direful results as chronicled before. But I could not help it, as heaven is my witness. I was entirely and hopelessly ignorant! But of course my mistress would not believe it, and declared over and over again, that I did it on purpose to provoke her and show my defiance of her wishes. In vain did I disclaim any such intentions. She was bound to carry out ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney

... friends afford me! Not I, Euan, unless——" She smiled at me with pretty malice. "——you enter the lists. Do you then enter?" I reddened and laughed, and she, always enchanted to plague and provoke me, began her art forthwith, first innocently slipping her arm through mine, as though to support her flagging steps, then, as if by accident, letting one light finger slip along my sleeve to touch my hand ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... why, not only office, but I fear even one's life, it would be difficult to preserve. That's why these lists are called office-philacteries. This Hseh family, just a while back spoken of, how could your worship presume to provoke? This case in question affords no difficulties whatever in the way of a settlement; but the prefects, who have held office before you, have all, by doing violence to the feelings and good name of these people, come ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... mercantile steamers of these various countries which at the outbreak of the war had sought refuge in Portuguese ports and had been interned there. Before we determine why Portugal took this step which was sure to provoke a declaration of war, it will be necessary to consider shortly the history of this country in modern times. It is many centuries since Portugal has lost its former importance as a European nation which was based primarily on its extensive colonial possessions. Its last really valuable ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... of our Time: it is not for us to slay our mother. Let us cover her dishonour if we see it, lest we should provoke the Erinyes. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... would attend the funeral Of Chremes, now's the time!—See! that's my way. Come on then! provoke Phormio now, who dares! Like Chremes, he shall fall a victim to me. —Let him get into favor when he will! I've had revenge sufficient. She has something To ring into his ears his ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... descended from Olympus towards the contending armies. Then she devised an airy phantom, wearing armor which exactly resembled that of AEneas, and imitating to the life his walk and mien. This shadow she caused to flutter in the forefront of the battle, full in the view of Turnus, and to provoke him with darts and insolent words. The enraged Rutulian eagerly pressed upon it, and from a distance hurled against it a spear. Immediately the spectre, wheeling about, took to flight. Turnus, imagining that in very truth it was the ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... set in order, the materials of their existence. He is "The Answerer"; he is to find some way of speaking about life that shall satisfy, if only for the moment, man's enduring astonishment at his own position. And besides having an answer ready, it is he who shall provoke the question. He must shake people out of their indifference, and force them to make some election in this world, instead of sliding dully forward in a dream. Life is a business we are all apt to mismanage; either living recklessly from day to day, or suffering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... received a telegram from Cousin John Goldsborough [a cousin of Mrs. Fitzhugh], urging your departure 'South.' I suppose he is impressed with the risk of your present position, and in addition to the possibility, or probability, of personal annoyance to yourself, I fear your presence may provoke annoyance in Cousin Anna. But unless Cousin Anna goes with you, I shall be distressed about her being there alone. If the girls went to 'Kinloch' or 'Eastern View,' you and Cousin Anna might take care of ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... banners. One detachment stopped before the black-veiled statue of Strasbourg and laid a garland at her feet. In ordinary times this demonstration would at once have attracted a crowd; but at the very moment when it might have been expected to provoke a patriotic outburst it excited no more attention than if one of the soldiers had turned aside to give a penny to a beggar. The people crossing the square did not even stop to look. The meaning ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... bed, careful not to touch her sleeping mother, lest her own chill body should awaken her and provoke a querulous scene. She was shuddering from head to foot. It seemed to take hours to shake off the frozen feeling, and if she raised her feet and touched them with her hands they were like pieces ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... conditions, by Zacchia and Vatsyayana. "In a state of sexual need and desire the woman's lips are firm and vibrant, the breasts are swollen, and the nipples erect. The intelligent husband cannot be deceived by these signs. If they do not exist, it is his part to provoke them by his kisses and caresses, and if, in spite of his tender and delicate excitations, the lips show no heat and the breasts no swelling, and especially if the nipples are disagreeably irritated by slight suction, he must arrest his ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... reply but a low and deferential bow, such as to provoke another smothered laugh from the other young clerks, to whom Felix suspected, as he looked round, the favoured kinsman was subject of jealousy, admiration, or imitation, according to character. However, Edgar shook hands with each, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... timidity. The violence and compulsion applied to the King, and all that the removal to Paris implied {94} under such circumstances, had led to the withdrawal of about 200 members of the assembly. Of these Mounier was the chief; he returned to his province of Dauphine and attempted to provoke constitutional action to free the King from the domination of Paris. His efforts were unsuccessful and he eventually had to leave the country. This group, however, of which Mounier was the boldest member, represented merely a negative force, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... melancholy circumstances what mirth does he not provoke? I have committed to memory some short phrases of one edict, which he appears to think particularly clever, but I have not as yet found any one who has understood what he intended by them. "That is no insult which a worthy man does." Now, in the first place, what is the meaning of "worthy?" ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... evidently hopeless, or only to provoke massacre; but I had already dispatched an express to the officer in command at the Tuileries, to come and save the arms and ammunition deposited at the Hotel de Ville; and we expected the reinforcement from minute ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... Currie and the steward rode forward side by side, attempting in the chivalrous style of the time to provoke an encounter. But none would take this challenge, so Sir Piers rode back. Then the steward, riding in front of the ranks of the enemy who were drawn up along the beach, was speedily surrounded. Spurring his charger, ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... treated her husband with some contempt, adopting the airs of an antiquated beauty, which he returned by elaborate deference. Garrick used his wonderful powers of mimicry to make fun of the uncouth caresses of the husband, and the courtly Beauclerc used to provoke the smiles of his audience by repeating Johnson's assertion that "it was a love-match on both sides." One incident of the wedding-day was ominous. As the newly-married couple rode back from church, Mrs. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... springs of Manitou that their differences began there. This "Saratoga of the West," nestling in a hollow of the foot-hills in the shadow of the noble peak of Pike, was in old days common meeting-ground for several families of red men. Councils were held in safety there, for no Indian dared provoke the wrath of the manitou whose breath sparkled in the "medicine waters." None? Yes, one. For, centuries ago a Shoshone and a Comanche stopped here on their return from a hunt to drink. The Shoshone had been successful; the Comanche was empty handed ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... comfort he might expect lay in the calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as he had suffered, there is no reparation. The pitiable mockery of it, which the world might have been ready enough to offer, coming so long after the agony had done its utmost work, would have been fit only to provoke bitterer laughter than poor Clifford was ever capable of. It is a truth (and it would be a very sad one but for the higher hopes which it suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... enemy of your person, Sir;—as you would be convinced, if you saw her last letter* to me. But were she not an enemy to your actions, she would not be my friend, nor the friend of virtue. Why will you provoke from me, Mr. Lovelace, the harshness of expression, which, however, which, however deserved by you, I am unwilling just now to use, having suffered enough in the two past days from my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... (welken) in the sense of to fade, 'to sty' for to mount, 'to hery' as to glorify or praise, 'to halse' as to embrace, 'teene' as vexation or grief: Shakespeare 'to tarre' as to provoke, 'to sperr' as to enclose or bar in; 'to sag' for to droop, or hang the head downward. Holland employs 'geir'{130} for vulture ("vultures or geirs"), 'specht' for woodpecker, 'reise' for journey, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... muttered his majesty, with a vexed air, "have the hardihood to affirm that we have no jurisdiction over them. What shall be done. Clarendon?" "I have ever thought well of them," the chancellor said, rubbing his brow; "they are a sturdy race, and it were not well to wantonly provoke them; yet it is amazing that they should show themselves so forward, without so much as charging the commissioners with the least matter of crimes or exorbitances." Clarendon, indeed, was too lenient to suit the royal party, and this was one of the causes leading up to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... the hall, as down he past, No breath, no whisper, not a sign, Through ranks of courtiers, all aghast Like beaten hounds that dare not whine. Outside the door, the Captain spoke, "Recant," he said beneath his breath; "The lion's anger to provoke Is death, O ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... approach the girl?" thought Mrs. Garrison. "If I should send word for Vesta Kirtland to come here and see me, Notely would be sure to hear of it; he would wonder; ask questions. If I go down and see her it will provoke endless comment and wonder among those people. I never visit them. There is no other way. Notely takes the Langhams for the day in his boat to-morrow. I will be driven to the Basin. I will ask Vesta indifferently, by the way, to go with ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... to provoke a quarrel between this young gentleman and myself, which might lead to evil ends; and the Intendant's share in the conspiracy was to revenge himself upon the Seigneur for his close friendship with the Governor. If Juste Duvarney were killed in the duel which they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Friedrich's operations on Daun in this post are patiently artful, and curious to look upon, but beyond description here: enough to say, that in the second week he makes his people hut themselves (weather wet and bad); and in the fourth week, finding that nothing contrivable would provoke Daun into fighting,—he loads at Dresden provisions for I think nine days; makes, from two or from three sides, a sudden spurt upon Loudon, who is Daun's northern outpost; brushes Loudon hastily away; and himself takes the road for Bautzen, by Daun's right ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... for you to draw the cape closer about your face at present. There are rough men in all armies who would consider your beauty a lawful prize. The life we lead is not conducive to gentleness; virtue is not born in camps, and it would be better not to provoke a danger which ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... Satan was permitted to take any part in it; in spite of heroic efforts to maintain the old belief, even the childlike faith of the Tyrolese had arrived at a point which made a representation of Satan simply a thing to provoke laughter. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... force, But only feel it as a thing of course. The man whose hardy spirit shall engage To lash, the vices of a guilty age, At his first setting forward ought to know That every rogue he meets must be his foe; 20 That the rude breath of satire will provoke Many who feel, and more who fear the stroke. But shall the partial rage of selfish men From stubborn Justice wrench the righteous pen? Or shall I not my settled course pursue, Because my foes are foes to Virtue too? L. What is this boasted ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... I?" exclaimed Nora, quickly. "Oh!" Then, recovering herself the next minute, she said coolly, "Well, I'm perfectly willing to go; for that matter" (with that superior air that does so provoke us), "some of us ought to have gone long ago, and called on the Ervengs,—Miss Marston says so, too,—to apologise for and explain the, to say the least very peculiar, conduct of some other members of our family." And here she ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... a corresponding nervousness—sensation to her, heretofore, almost unknown. The darkness yonder began to provoke a disagreeable impression, queerly challenging both her eyesight and her courage. Old convent teachings, regarding the Prince of Darkness and his emissaries, returned upon her. What if diabolic shapes lurked there, ready to become stealthily emergent? She had scoffed at such archaic fancies ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Russians sent 2000 men to encourage a rising of the Mainots in the Morea, but not enough to help them to make a real resistance; and the Greeks, when they had a little advantage, were always so horridly cruel in their revenge on their Turkish prisoners as to disgrace the Christian name, and provoke a return. In 1790, again, the Suliot Greeks of Albania sent to invite Constantine, the brother of the Czar of Russia, to be king of Greece, and arranged a rising, but only misery came of it. The Russians only sent a little money, encouraged ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Domitian finally provoke a conspiracy which accomplishes his death. Nerva succeeds him as emperor. Exiles recalled and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... said the girl resolutely. "Do not provoke me with more than I can bear. Eros has pierced me later than he does most girls and has done it but once, but how deeply you can never know. If you speak ill of him you only aggravate the wound and you would not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the means to enforce obedience to the orders of government, and I advise you not by opposition to provoke ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... It tends to provoke a smile to read on in this letter and find It suddenly turning from such ecstasies to a straightforward confession that the writer is embarrassed for lack of ready cash. He had met with disappointments. The Mannheim people ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... expression, listening to the speakers whose words convey no meaning to their stultified minds, and others with their eyes gleaming with savage hatred of their fellow men, watching eagerly for an opportunity to provoke a quarrel that they may gratify their brutal natures by striking someone—their eyes are hungry for the sight of blood! Can't you see that these people, whom you are trying to make understand your plan for the regeneration of the world, your doctrine of universal brotherhood ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... in the model itself maybe softened and modified, without interfering much with the true lines of face and features. The monotone enlargements of Messrs. Winter, again, exquisitely as most of them are finished, do not appear to provoke the opposition of the painter; they do not cross his path, and hence he is more willing to do them justice. Many a would-be purchaser has been frightened out of his intention to buy an enlargement by the scornful utterance of an artist friend about "painted photographs," ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... in the remote province of Bithynia, before they had acquired any notoriety in Rome.... The inconsistency of the supposition that so just and moral a people as the primitive Christians are assumed to have been, should have been the first to provoke the Roman Government to depart from its universal maxims of toleration, liberality, and indifference.... The use of the torture to extort confession.... The choice of women to be the subjects of this torture, when the ill-usage of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... Captain," answered Winterblossom, coolly, if not contemptuously—"keep all that for silly boys; I have lived in the world too long either to provoke quarrels, or to care about them. So, reserve your fire; it is all thrown away on such an old cock as I am. But I really wish we knew whether this fellow means to come—twenty minutes past the hour—I think it is odds that you ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... she read it. "But what shall I do if he takes offence; calls here, breaks the windows, and beats Bashville? Were I in his place, that is what such a letter would provoke me ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... hopelessly cornered and that then his only safe way of escape lay through the territory of the Basuto. He next proceeds to give his reason for not violating Basuto territory: it is that the Basutos showed no hostility towards the Boers, and that he had no wish to provoke them. No mention is made that armed Basutos barred his way, but if General De Wet's restraint were voluntary it would be the first instance in history that a Boer general had shown any regard concerning the rights or feelings ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... the door-keeper; so soon as she knew that the Bishop had forbidden this, she so piously and obediently embraced his wishes, that I myself wondered how readily she censured her own practice, rather than discuss his prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not lay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine provoke her to hatred of the truth, as it doth too many (both men and women), who revolt at a lesson of sobriety, as men well-drunk at a draught mingled with water. But she, when she had brought her basket with the accustomed festival-food, to be but ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... Remembering their last conversation together—remembering indeed how full of liking for this young nobleman he had been when they last met—Thorpe paused to wonder at the fact that he felt no atom of pity for him now. What was his grievance? What had Plowden done to provoke this savage hostility? Thorpe could not tell. He knew only that unnamed forces dragged him forward to hurt and humiliate his former friend. Obscurely, no doubt, there was something about a woman in it. Plowden had been an admirer of Lady Cressage. There was her father's word ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... struck him. While waiting for a light, I carelessly put my hand into a basket of hot-house vegetables. The small egg-plant I took up certainly did weigh twenty pounds, and when I attempted to lift the basket the handle bent double; but why this should frighten a man like Marcel, or provoke him to anger, is as inexplicable as ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... upon the career and private character of the eloquent and chivalrous Colonel Culpepper Starbottle of Siskiyou. That eloquent and chivalrous gentleman was known to be present; it was rumored that the attack was expected to provoke a challenge from Colonel Starbottle which would give Bungstarter the choice of weapons, and deprive Starbottle of his advantage as a dead shot. It was whispered also that the sagacious Starbottle, aware of this fact, would retaliate in kind so outrageously ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... reaching the stern. Then commenced a short but extraordinary conflict. Bearing up his horse as he swam, with the bridle in his teeth, the bold rider threw his left hand upon the stern of the vessel, and brandishing his cudgel in the right, seemed to provoke both parties to the combat. Desborough, who had risen from the stern at his approach, stood upright in the centre, his companion still paddling at the bows; and between these two a singular contest now ensued. Armed with the formidable knife which he had about his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... not induce the lieutenant to ring his bell to stop the engine. The boat was doubtless full of men, and as he could not give straight answers to all the questions that might be put to him, it might provoke a fight to attempt to do so, and he decided not to incur the risk. His prisoners might make trouble if he reduced the guard in charge of them, as he would be obliged to do to beat off ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... statement. It is related that "One day while showing goods to two or three women in Offutt's store, a bully came in and began to talk in an offensive manner, using much profanity and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln leaned over the counter and begged him, as ladies were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully retorted that the opportunity had come for which he had long sought, and ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... most suitable time; with other allusions to the meanness of his figure and smallness of stature. All this was addressed to the bride, who sat near him, but spoken out on purpose that he might hear it. My brother, perceiving this was purposely said to provoke an answer and occasion his giving offence to the King, removed from his seat full of resentment; and, consulting with M. de la Chastre, he came to the resolution of leaving the Court in a few days on a hunting party. He still thought his absence ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... a word in reply to any thing that was said to her during the whole dinner. Miss Woodley and Mrs. Horton were both too well acquainted with the good disposition of her heart, to take offence, or appear to notice this behaviour. They dined, and said nothing either to provoke or sooth her. Just as the dinner was going to be removed, a loud rap came at the door—"Who is that?" said Mrs. Horton. One of the servants went to the window, and answered, "My Lord and Mr. ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... cries. This only increased the rage of his master, who seemed to take delight in striking his face and ears. I eagerly watched the scene, and, as we passed, leaned over the back of the gig. My companion, fearing, I suppose, lest the sight might provoke in me some exclamation, and thus get us into notice, nudged me violently with his elbow, saying at the same time, hurriedly, "Don't heed, don't heed." My blood was getting hot, and but for my companion, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... opened for further investigations on the psychic side. Charcot had affirmed the power, not only of physical traumatism, but even of psychic lesions—of moral shocks—to provoke its manifestations, but his sole contribution to the psychology of this psychic malady,—and this was borrowed from the Nancy school,—lay in the one word "suggestibility"; the nature and mechanism of this psychic ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... which nations or individuals provoke or irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet in the French revolution is an extraordinary instance. There is scarcely an epithet of abuse in the English language with which he has not loaded the French nation and the National Assembly. Considered as an attempt at political ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... this time? and as for sundry diseases, have you avoided them? You have certainly not avoided them, at least, by staying away from the Sacrament, and breaking Christ's command to take it? If you are so afraid of God's anger, are you more likely to provoke Him by disobeying His strict commands, or by obeying them? It needs no philosopher, my friend, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... at the same time, are afraid of Mr. Lovelace; yet not afraid to provoke him!—How am I entangled!—to be obliged to go on corresponding with him for their sakes—Heaven forbid, that their persisted-in violence should so drive me, as to make it necessary for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... it, and his efforts were at first attended with some success. He was profoundly conscious that any connection with the Joliffes would be derogatory to his dignity; he feared that the discrepancy between their relative positions was sufficiently marked to attract attention, if not to provoke hostile criticism. People would certainly say that an architect was marrying strangely below him, in choosing a landlady's niece. If he were to do such a thing, he would no doubt be throwing himself ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... "you are enough to make one mad. Have I indulged her? Have I given her her will?——It was no longer ago than last night that I threatened, if she disobeyed me, to confine her to her chamber upon bread and water as long as she lived.——You would provoke the patience ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... cries Rise from the moat of dungeoned gloom And rasp the stationed walls of night Until sequestered skulls and bones Are made to hear the moaning sighs That some mad Titan, rayed in gold, Wrests from Damnation's siffling tomb. And labyrinths of Horror's Home, 'Mid vapours green and aisles unsunned, Provoke each cursing mattoid's fold Until the night is changed to noon By cowled magicians on a dome. Then wizardry, strange, unsummed, Reveals each varlet, Figgum's might: A hemless rabble from the South That some wild Trojan flayed and curs'd, Skirr ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... 6: Richardson mentions other letters but does not print them. Hill's reference to "The Gentleman's Advice" on page xxii is to a letter from Benjamin Slocock, who commended Pamela from his pulpit in St. Saviour's, and thus helped provoke Henry Fielding. ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... not provoke me, the world's a lying world, and thou shalt find it, have a good heart, and take a strong faith to thee, and mark what follows, my Nurse, yes, you shall rock me: Widow I'le ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... many of Pope's poems led to quarrels, and some were written with the desire to provoke them, one of his most famous poems was, on the other hand, written to bring peace between two angry families. This poem is called the Rape of the Lock—rape meaning theft, and the lock not the lock of a door, but ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... he was recording their conversations with the diligence of a biographer and the accuracy of a naturalist. Any attempt to question or minimize Lanfear's theories roused in his disciple the only flashes of wrath I have ever seen a scientific discussion provoke in him. In defending his master he became almost as intemperate as in the early period of his ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... ourselves to the charge of fastidiousness, when we complain that it is rather too uniformly so. The narrative is indeed occasionally enlivened, and the language picturesque. But in general we search in vain for some roughness to relieve the eye, and some sharpness to provoke the palate. One full and sweeping period succeeds another, and though pleased and gratified at first, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... fill the conscious soul. For many a jocund spring has passed away, And many a flower has blossomed to decay; And human life, still hastening to a close, Finds in the worthless dust its last repose. Still the vain world abounds in strife and hate, And sire and son provoke each other's fate; And kindred blood by kindred hands is shed, And vengeance sleeps not—dies not, with the dead. All nature fades—the garden's treasures fall, Young bud, and citron ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... in this post are patiently artful, and curious to look upon, but beyond description here: enough to say, that in the second week he makes his people hut themselves (weather wet and bad); and in the fourth week, finding that nothing contrivable would provoke Daun into fighting,—he loads at Dresden provisions for I think nine days; makes, from two or from three sides, a sudden spurt upon Loudon, who is Daun's northern outpost; brushes Loudon hastily away; and himself takes the road for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... of the Holy Warre, says that this Crusade was done by the instinct of the devil; and he adds a reason, which may provoke mirth now, but which was put forth by the worthy historian in all soberness and sincerity. He says, "the devil, being cloyed with the murdering of men, desired a cordial of children's blood to comfort his weak stomach;" as epicures, when tired ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... is, perhaps, no animal so much indebted to subordination for its good behavior as woman. I have soberly and uniformly maintained this doctrine ever since I have been capable of observation, and I used horridly to provoke some of my female friends—maitresses femmes—by it, especially such heroic ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... perfect preparation. The abundant means we now possess can not be applied in any manner more useful to the country, and when this is done and our naval force sufficiently strengthened and our militia armed we need not fear that any nation will wantonly insult us or needlessly provoke hostilities. We shall more certainly preserve peace when it is well understood that we are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... Roland, Carnot, and others; they opposed the court and the clerical party, and voted for the death of the king, but sought to rescue him by a proposal of appeal to the people; overpowered by the Jacobins in June 1793, with whom they came to open rupture, they sought in vain to provoke a rising in their favour; on October 24 they were arraigned before the Revolutionary tribunal, and on the 31st twenty-one of them were brought to the guillotine, singing the "Marseillaise" as they went and on the scaffold, while the rest, all ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... remain in perfect ignorance. By a word, the mistress, if she could not have prevented the follies of which Serge was guilty, could, at least, have spared herself and her daughter. It would have only been necessary to reveal his behavior and betrayal to Micheline, and to provoke a separation. If the house of Desvarennes were no longer security for Panine, his credit would fall. Disowned by his mother-in-law, and publicly given up by her, he would be of no use to Herzog, and would be promptly thrown over by him. The mistress ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... desire of poetical celebrity, their heated imagination views in the metropolis that fame and fortune denied them in their native town; there they become half-hermits and half-philosophers, darting epigrams which provoke hatred, or pouring elegies, descriptive of their feelings, which move derision: their neighbours find it much easier to ascertain their foibles than comprehend their genius; and both parties live in a state of mutual persecution. Such, among many, was the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... it won't do. I may lament your unhappy temper, for my daughter's sake—but I know what I am about, and you can't provoke me. Our reverend friend and I understand each other. He will make allowances for a sensitive woman, who has had sad experience of conversions in her own household. My eldest daughter, Father Benwell—a poor foolish creature—was converted into a nunnery. The last time I saw her (she used to be sweetly ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... self-conscious pride and exultation in the laugher. "What a ridiculous thing you are, to be sure!" he seems to say; "how clumsy and awkward, and what a poor show for a tail! Look at me, look at me!"—and he capers about in his best style. Again, he would seem to tease you and provoke your attention; then suddenly assumes a tone of good-natured, childlike defiance and derision. That pretty little imp, the chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den and defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him before he can get into his hole if you can. You hurl ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... upon a very small occasion had a difference again broke out, where without any the least cause she had the cunning to cry a great while, and talk and blubber, which made me mighty angry in mind, but said nothing to provoke her because Creed was there, but walked home, being troubled in my mind also about the knavery and neglect of Captain Fudge and Taylor, who were to have had their ship for Tangier ready by Thursday ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... nature's and art's wonders; history and philosophy; literature and science; and a knowledge of the world which he used as a little piquant spice to flavour all the rest of his knowledge. Thrown in justly, with a nice hand, so as not to offend, it did rather serve to provoke a delicate palate; while it unmistakably gratified his own. It was the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the school. How extremely unlikely that he, John, would be chosen! But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer than he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook, he could do a service to Caesar which must challenge interest and provoke, ultimately, friendship. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... indulgent and tolerant natures which seem to form the most favorable base for the play of other minds, rather than to be itself salient,—and something about her tender calmness always seemed to provoke the spirit of frolic in her friend. She would laugh at her, kiss her, gambol round her, dress her hair with fantastic coiffures, and call her all sorts of fanciful and poetic names in French or English,—while ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... strengthen them, but, at the same time, he thought it useless to deny that there was a plot to overturn the present dynasty. According to his impressions, the spontaneous movements of the disaffected were so blended with those that proceeded from the machinations of the government to provoke a premature explosion, that it was not easy to say which predominated, or where the line of separation was to be drawn. I presume this is the true state of the case, for it is too much to say that France is ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... or animated bust: Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... accordingly authorized M. de Soissons to exert whatever influence he possessed with the rash man who was so blindly working out his own ruin, and to represent to him the madness of persisting in a line of conduct which could not fail to provoke the wrath ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... they seem ter want ter do the very things thet'll show ther contempt o' righteousness, an' provoke the wrath o' the Lord. Thar, where ye see thet house, all lit up from the basement ter the look-out on the ruf, is whar one o' the most 'ristocratic families in all Tennessee lives. There datter is bein' married to-night, an' Major-Gineral Polk, the biggest gun in all these 'ere parts, next ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... to live on you, sir!" This was spoken with some vivacity by our young man; he felt the next moment that he had said something that might provoke a retort. But his companion showed ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... and sentiments to make them forget their existence, and even language, as a people, has been sufficiently tried and failed. It has only tended to excite a sentiment of discontent and self-degradation, and can never operate otherwise than to provoke commotion and to awaken them to a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Black Bruin was furious at such treatment, for had he not been spoiled and petted all his life? He soon saw, however, that this man was a new and terrible creature to be obeyed instantly, and one whose wrath it was not well to provoke by pulling ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... by their own praise they spoil the effect of the praise that others give them. For some tickle and puff themselves up by self-praise, while others, malignantly holding out the small bait of eulogy, provoke others to talk about themselves, while others again ask questions and put inquiries, as was done to the soldier in Menander, merely to poke ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... demonstrative—oh! how could he stir her once more into expression, even if the first show or speech she made was of anger? Then he tried being angry with her himself; he was sometimes unjust to her consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness. He only seemed to drive ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... than prudence to retrieve his reputation. About twelve miles[267] distant from Cremona, at a place called Twin Brethren,[268] he carefully concealed the bravest of his auxiliaries in a wood overlooking the road. The cavalry were ordered to ride forward down the road and provoke an engagement. They were then to feign flight and lure the pursuers on in hot haste until they fell into the ambush. This plan was betrayed to Otho's generals. Paulinus took charge of the infantry, Celsus of the horse. A detachment of the Thirteenth legion,[269] four auxiliary cohorts of foot, ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... with France, regardless of the interests of England's allies. By September (1711) these negotiations had so far progressed that preliminaries for a peace were actually signed, but for fear lest the favourable terms obtained for England should provoke the jealousy of the Dutch a garbled edition of the treaty was specially prepared for the edification of our allies. Such was the political morality ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... over by a chancellor who, though in a sense the representative of the distant diocesan at Lincoln, was even in the earliest times the head of the scholars, and no mere delegate of the bishop. Five years earlier the Oxford schools were sufficiently vigorous to provoke a secession, from which the first faint beginnings of a university at Cambridge arose. A generation later there were other secessions to Salisbury and Northampton, but neither of these schools succeeded ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... by their labour or skill. They understand their own business and the characters of those they have to deal with; for it is necessary that they should. They have eloquence to express their passions, and wit at will to express their contempt and provoke laughter. Their natural use of speech is not hung up in monumental mockery, in an obsolete language; nor is their sense of what is ludicrous, or readiness at finding out allusions to express it, buried in collections of Anas. You ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... and the British subjects on the island of San Juan." To prevent this the governor was instructed "that the officers of the Territory should abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds which are calculated to provoke any conflicts, so far as it can be done without implying the concession to the authorities of Great Britain of an exclusive right over the premises. The title ought to be settled before either party should attempt to exclude the other ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... folly leads them to view the Deity in the light of a capricious, irritable, and unappeasable despot, can be nothing but gloomy and trembling slaves, ever eager to anticipate the vengeance of God upon all whose conduct or opinions they may conceive likely to provoke the celestial wrath. As soon as the priests have succeeded in reducing men to a state of stupidity gross enough to make them believe that their ghostly fathers are the faithful organs of the divine will, they naturally ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... Gernot spoke. 'Not yet hath Siegfried done us any hurt, let us not provoke him to fierce deeds, rather let us seek to ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor

... crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke," Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke; "No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face: One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead,— And—Betty—give this cheek a little red." The courtier smooth, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... holds it captive for a time. In the narrative of the adventures of Grilgames, for instance, there is a certain nobility of character, and the sequence of events, in their natural and marvellous development, are handled with gravity and freedom: if we sometimes encounter episodes which provoke a smile or excite our repugnance, we must take into account the rudeness of the age with which they deal, and remember that the men and gods of the later Homeric epic are not a whit behind the heroes of Babylonian story in coarseness. The recognition of divine omnipotence, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... girls never knew of this act of violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters by comment ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... life for truth's sake. I see how he, a pure, strong, resolute man, is deliberately being goaded to lunacy and to destruction, that the Government may be rid of him! I know, and they know, that his heart is weak, and so they provoke him, and drag him to a ward for raving lunatics. It is too dreadful, too dreadful. And when I come home, I hear that the one member of our family who understood—not me but the truth—has thrown over both her betrothed to whom she had promised her love, and the truth, ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... the conflict. And I would have cast myself upon him and wrestled with him there, for defeat and not for victory. But I could not lay hold upon him. Thou art a powerless nothing, I cried; I will not even defy thee.—Thou wouldst provoke me, said the shadow; but it availeth not. I cannot be provoked. Truly, I am but a shadow, yet know I my own worth, for I am the Shadow of the Almighty, and where he is, there am I—Thou art nothing, I said.—Nay, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... detachment stopped before the black-veiled statue of Strasbourg and laid a garland at her feet. In ordinary times this demonstration would at once have attracted a crowd; but at the very moment when it might have been expected to provoke a patriotic outburst it excited no more attention than if one of the soldiers had turned aside to give a penny to a beggar. The people crossing the square did not even stop to look. The meaning of this apparent indifference was obvious. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... easily forget any one whom I have seen or conversed with. Do what you can, good people, to keep the peace; you stand in bad repute enough already. Provoke not the king still farther. The power, after all, is in his hands. An honest burgher, who maintains himself industriously, has everywhere as much freedom ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... shrines and holy niches were often observed, approached generally by a flight of stone steps, on a hill-side, looking very old and moss-grown. Upon these were placed consecrated idols, or religious emblems of peculiar character, calculated in our uninitiated eyes to provoke mirth rather than reverence. The principal object was usually a sitting figure in stone, wood, or metal, gilded, and more remarkable for contortion of features, multiplicity of arms, and obesity of body, than for any other characteristic, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... flatters," returned he, "it would tell a falsehood. A shrew can provoke a man who detests her. As to Miss Dundas, notwithstanding her parade of learning, she generally espouses the wrong side of the argument; and I may say with somebody, whose name I have forgotten, that any one who knows Diana Dundas never need be at a loss ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... careful," she said, shaking her finger at him, menacingly, "do not provoke me—don't go a step farther, or I will prove how far you are untrammeled. Another word and there will be no medium between my love and ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... the circumstances and necessities of the particular case. It has far less similarity with the doctrines so pompously announced, so vaguely applied, in the Vie de Jules Cesar. It does not lie open to the criticism which that clumsy and feeble apology seemed intended to provoke, and which it had received at the competent hands of M. Scherer. We have here no mysterious revelations of the designs of Providence, no intimations that the world was created as a theatre for the exaltation of certain godlike individuals. The question, as presented by M. Sainte-Beuve, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... night I insulted a perfectly nice gentleman just to provoke a quarrel. I'd never seen him before, and ordinarily I hesitate to accost strangers; but I felt as if I'd have hysterics if I couldn't lick somebody; so I walked up to this person and told him his necktie was in ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... glance of such keen disappointment as to provoke a doubt of the innocence of the missive. But he did not betray what was in his mind. Instead, he rose to his feet, and, ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... considerable terms of years, that easily subjected country. It is remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian dominion Ethiopia seems to have abstained from any invasion of the Egyptian territory. Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which had seated itself on the throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet enjoyment of her own wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a combat with the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... but lately desolate Doth now return unto the former state. The glorious majesty of God above Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love; God shall rejoice all his fair works to see, For, as they come from him, all perfect be. The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke; Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke. As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing, With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King; As long as I have being, I will praise The works of God, and all his wondrous ways. I know that he my words will not despise: Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... the enemies' side. Their inactivity was very marked, scarcely a shot was fired either by day or night, and except for the last day their artillery gave few signs of life. As was proved time after time, the last thing desired by the weary and disillusioned Austrian was to provoke the British. ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... famous Lections, are every one of them spurious:—that the fatal taint begins with the first verse, and only ends with the last:—this is a demand on our simplicity which, in a less solemn subject, would only provoke a smile. We are constrained to testify astonishment and even some measure of concern. Have the Critics then, (supposing them to be familiar with the evidence which has now been set forth so much in detail;)—Have the Critics then, (we ask) ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... group of young men who reminded me not a little of the bad giants. They came about me staring, and presently began to push and hustle me, then to throw things at me. I bore it as well as I could, wishing not to provoke enmity where wanted to remain for a while. Oftener than once or twice I appealed to passers-by whom I fancied more benevolent-looking, but none would halt a moment to listen to me. I looked poor, and that was enough: to the citizens of Bulika, as to house-dogs, poverty ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... Emperor whispered to Haugwitz, "Here is a message, of which circumstances have altered the address." Frederick-William, however, had 150,000 men under arms, and it by no means suited Napoleon's views to provoke him to extremities at this moment. He entered into a treaty with Haugwitz; and Prussia was bribed to remain quiescent, by a temptation which she wanted virtue to resist. The French Emperor offered her Hanover, provided she would oppose no obstacle ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... my weapons no longer care, In the corner there they lie rusting. No priggish fool to provoke me shall dare, To my ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... you and provoke to wyllyng to here thexposition of the de uous instiguer et prouocquer a uoulloir ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... his hounds at once she sent A sudden madness, and fierce rage awoke To chase the stag, as with the well-known scent She lured their nostrils.—Thus the feud outbroke; So small a cause of strife could rustic hearts provoke. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke." Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... and complete. Oubacha, with all his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, had, since the mysterious affair on the banks of the Torgau, felt his mind alienated from his cousin; he revolted from the man that would have murdered him; and he had displayed his caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a displeasure which all his dissimulation could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of Oubacha; for the friendship ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... that, That this question may be considered in two ways. First, we may speak of dominion or authority of unbelievers over the faithful as of a thing to be established for the first time. This ought by no means to be allowed, since it would provoke scandal and endanger the faith, for subjects are easily influenced by their superiors to comply with their commands, unless the subjects are of great virtue: moreover unbelievers hold the faith ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... fall of roofs, but almost countless are the numbers who have perished from other causes, for if the first have destroyed their hundreds, the fire-damp in coal mines has proved the destruction of thousands. It was at one time considered right every night to provoke an explosion by lighting the fire-damp in order that the working stalls should be accessible next morning. The man who performed this dangerous operation wore a thick covering of wool or leather, his face was protected, and his head was covered by a hood like a monk's cowl. He crept ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... now where are they? How lucky it seemed all to go, too. Ah! that is it—'May all your good luck turn to wormwood!' that was his word—his very word—and my good luck is wormwood; so much for lifting a hand against gray hairs, Jew or Gentile. Why did the old heathen provoke me, then? I'd as soon die as live this day. That's right, start at a handful of straw; lie down in it one minute and tremble at the sight of it the next, ye idiot. Oh, Susan! Susan! Why do I think of her? why do I think of her? She loves that man with every fiber of her body. How she clung ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... this portion of Labat's narrative,—"in the novelty of relations between men: no one has yet been offended, no envy has yet been excited;—it is scarcely possible even to guess whence that ill-will you must sooner or later provoke is going to come from;—there are no rivals;—there are no enemies. You are everybody's friend; and many are hoping you will continue to be only theirs." ... Labat knew how to take legitimate advantage of this ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... watchmen to the fenced city. 10. And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: 11. And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger: 12. For they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. 13. Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets and by all the seers, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... because they know your wishes that they misinterpret the means you use. They suppose that those mild means arise from a restriction that you cannot use others, or from a consciousness of some defect on my part of which you are unwilling to provoke the enquiry. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the mention may provoke a smile?—I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual objects with which we ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... is not feasible is to demolish at one swoop everything that has been created and preserved in the course of a whole century. A change of policy, if it is not to provoke tumults and disorganization, must be carried out gradually and with extreme circumspection. The assimilation of Finland can never be efficacious if achieved by violence and constraint instead of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... would not turn his head, and thereby grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, what disturbance. To-morrow steps ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... untold, and describe some of the peculiarities of behaviour and remark which the appearance of my companion and myself called forth in all parts of Cornwall. The mere sight of two strangers walking with such appendages as knapsacks strapped on their shoulders, seemed of itself to provoke the most unbounded wonder. We were stared at with almost incredible pertinacity and good humour. People hard at work, left off to look at us; while groups congregated at cottage doors, walked into the middle of the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... 1,500 x 20,000,000, or by thirty thousand millions. Thus the thirty thousand millionth part of the invisible radiation from the electric light, received by the retina at the distance of a foot, would, if slightly changed in character, be amply sufficient to provoke vision. Nothing could more forcibly illustrate that special relationship supposed by Melloni and others to subsist between the optic nerve and the oscillating periods of luminous bodies. The optic nerve ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... (This is of all the more importance at the present day, when the Nationalists state that their principles are the same as those of Wolfe Tone.) Secondly, during a war, Ireland might refuse supplies to England. This course was actually hinted at by Grattan. Thirdly, she might provoke a commercial war of rates with England. This course was proposed in the Irish House of Commons in 1784. Fourthly, she might put pressure on the Sovereign to declare war against a country with which England was at peace. This also was proposed in the Irish House, in the case of Portugal. Fifthly, ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... affairs were from quarters where resentment may have been cherished because of his activity in the Long Island Traction field. This is one of the Street's 'clover patches' and the success which the newcomer seemed to be meeting did not provoke great pleasure." ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... was no doubt as to young Van Degen's remembering her. She was even conscious that he was trying to provoke in her some reciprocal sign of recognition; and the attempt drove her to the haughty ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... affectation." Some modern instances we had chosen; the field of choice is large and richly fertile in those blossoms. But the reader may be left to twine a garland of them for himself; to select from contemporaries were invidious, and might provoke retaliation. When our author censures Timaeus for saying that Alexander took less time to annex Asia than Isocrates spent in writing an oration, to bid the Greeks attack Persia, we know what he would have thought of ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... the author has been, not only to interest and amuse, but also to stimulate a taste for scientific study. He has utilized natural science as a peg whereon to hang the web of a narrative of absorbing interest, interweaving therewith sundry very striking scientific facts in such a manner as to provoke a desire for ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... ordering all Chinese soldiers and civilians in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia to refrain from any act calculated to provoke a breach of the peace with Japanese soldiers ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... extravagantly gay, and to himself unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... Lydia, smiling as she read it. "But what shall I do if he takes offence; calls here, breaks the windows, and beats Bashville? Were I in his place, that is what such a letter would provoke me ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... the stoutest citadel ever constructed, and armored in gold and riven steel, will yield to no mere call for surrender. My own part I have cheerfully taken with no delusions as to the difficulties of the contest. He who interferes between the lamb and the wolf is likely to provoke the wrath of the wolf, and I have done worse, for have I not come between the lions of finance and ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... have slapped the porter's face! For an instant he hung out of the carriage window, intent upon ordering the coachman to drive back to the station, but the reflection—again a ludicrous one—that he would now be only bringing witnesses to a scene which might provoke a scandal more invidious to his acquaintance, checked him in time. But his spirits, momentarily diverted by the porter's effrontery, sunk to ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... welcome. Their sermons raise a laugh, the success of their fables encourages their rivals to imitate them; the Councils vainly interfere, and reiterate, until after the Renaissance, the prohibition "to provoke shouts of laughter, after the fashion of shameless buffoons, by ridiculous stories and old wives' tales."[215] Dante had also protested, and Wyclif likewise, without more success than the Councils. "Thus," said Dante, "the ignorant sheep come home from pasture, wind-fed.... ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... says in his Apology: "None are admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath of secrecy. We appeal to your Thracian and Eleusinian Mysteries; and we are especially bound to this caution, because if we prove faithless, we should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our heads the utmost rigor of human displeasure. And should strangers betray us? They know nothing but by report and hearsay. Far hence, ye Profane! is the prohibition ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... "You do provoke me beyond anythin', Copernicus Droop! Ef I'd a-knowed the kind o' way we'd had to live—why, there! It's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... should bring us some help for what Leo told you; for this scandal grows greater every day, not only through the thing that was done to the Sienese ambassador, but also through the other things which are seen day by day, which are enough to provoke to wrath the feeble hearts of men. You do not need this person now, but someone who shall be a means of peace, and not of war. Although he may act with a good zeal for justice, there are many who do so with such disorder ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... worship's helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith, sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed, they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master's good sense to see that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... men!" continued he, "provoke me not beyond my bearing. With a single blast of my bugle I could surround this building with a band of warriors, who at sight of their chief being thus assaulted, would lay this tumult in blood. Let me pass, or ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... only; but his wife was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat the story because it is literally true, and because some of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... agitation of mind, which I schooled myself to hide from the eyes of my guards, forcing myself to eat the breakfast for which I had no appetite. It would have eased me to pace up and down my room, but I forbore even from this, so that no restlessness might provoke their curiosity or suspicion. I sat for hours on my bed, awaiting the time for our attempt. The men brought me my midday meal: one of them made a brutal remark on my pallor; and then the door was shut, and they settled ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... his spent beast to a run would only have been to provoke a fall. Stonor made no attempt to follow. Pulling his horse round, he whipped up his gun and fired into the air. It was sufficient. Imbrie pulled up. Stonor possessed himself of the other's bridle-rein and turned him round again. They ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... note in his question seemed to provoke a certain defiance in her manner as she turned a little sideways towards him. She moved her fan slowly backwards and forwards, her head was thrown back, her manner was almost belligerent. He took up the challenge. He asked her in plain words the question ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... consider it necessary to go out upon the lake to meet him since they had been sent to look for the escaped prisoner and not to intercept the strange warrior, the stories of whose ferocity and prowess doubtless helped them to arrive at their decision to provoke no ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the closing of the day. She dreaded the night and the day, people and the absence of people. She knew no woman she could take her anguish to for sympathy; it would provoke only rebuke or laughter. The Church had rebuffed her. There remained only men, and what could she hope from them? Even Jim Dyckman had not been a friend merely. He had told her that she wasted herself as ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... time while he speaks,—but two or three hours without venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered judgment to go against him by default. We, on this side of the House, did our best to provoke him to the conflict. We called on him to maintain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility unworthy of his parts and eloquence. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a delightful orator. He rose sometimes to a very lofty eloquence, as witness especially his argument in defence of President Johnson. He had an unfailing wit. You could never challenge him or provoke him to an encounter without making an abundant and sparkling stream gush forth. He never came off second best in an encounter of wits with any man. He was a man of great generosity, full of sympathy, charity, and kindliness. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... not ready to imagine her dignity in danger, therefore did not provoke assault upon it ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... had shown himself as unjust and tyrannous as Governor Berkeley of Virginia had done in his contest with Bacon. It did not take him long to foment the rebellion which he seemed determined to provoke. When the Regulators heard that their representative had been thrown into prison, and that they were threatened with exile or death as outlaws, they prepared to march on Newbern for the rescue of Husbands, filling the governor with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... allowed an entrance. In this he was very cautious; and would to God he had been cautious about them!—for I see now the danger of conversing, at an age when virtue should begin to grow, with persons who, knowing nothing themselves of the vanity of the world, provoke others to throw themselves into the midst of it. These cousins were nearly of mine own age—a little older, perhaps. We were always together; and they had a great affection for me. In everything that gave them pleasure, I kept the conversation alive,—listened to the stories of their affections ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... savagely. To see one's air-castles crumbling at the very moment when they were to be transmuted into solid realities is apt to provoke a reversion to type; ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... nimbly run, And setting his bold foot upon His trunk, thus spoke: 'What desp'rate frenzy Made thee, thou whelp of sin, to fancy Thyself, and all that coward rabble, To encounter us in battle able? How durst th', I say, oppose thy curship 'Gainst, arms, authority, and worship, And Hudibras or me provoke, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... his object in writing the book which he has recently published (The Indian Offer of Imperial Preference) is to provoke discussion, but "not to lay down any dogma." It is related that a certain clergyman, after he had preached a sermon, said to Lord Melbourne, who had been one of his congregation, "I tried not to be tedious," to which Lord Melbourne replied, "You were." Sir Roper ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... neighbour's woes and our own egoism. Such an attitude of mind is only possible to an absolutely frank, even Arcadian, nature. She did what she wished to do: she said what she had to say, not because she wanted to provoke excitement or astonish the multitude, but because she had succeeded eminently in leading her own life according to her own lights. The terror of appearing inconsistent excited her scorn. Appearances never troubled that unashamed soul. This is the magic, the peculiar ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... on a prize by chance, but none the less for that his counsel was bad. (e) Thou seest how God strikes with thunderbolts the creatures which stand above the rest and suffers them not to make a proud show; while those which are small do not provoke him to jealousy: thou seest also how he hurls his darts ever at those buildings which are the highest and those trees likewise; for God is wont to cut short all those things which stand out above the rest. Thus also a numerous army is destroyed by one of few men in some such manner as this, namely ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... I wanted to print just here. But after what I have this moment said, I hesitated, thinking that I might provoke the obvious remark that I exemplified the unfitness of which I had been speaking. I remembered the advice I had given to a poetical aspirant not long since, which I think ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Opposition leaders have taken advantage of the circumstances to work upon the feelings of old Loyalists as opposed to Rebels, of British as opposed to French, and of Upper Canadians as opposed to Lower; and thus to provoke from various parts of the province the expression of not very temperate or measured discontent. I am occasionally rated in not very courteous language, and peremptorily required to dissolve the Parliament ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... virtually dispossessed of his rights as patentee. He estimated his loss at nine thousand eight hundred pounds, and concluded his statement of the case with the words: "But it is apparent the King is grossly and shamelessly injured ... I never did one act to provoke this attempt, nor does the Chamberlain pretend to assign any direct reason of forfeiture, but openly and wittingly declares that he will ruin Steele.... The Lord Chamberlain and many others may, perhaps, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... responsibility for which would rest on the Government. He expressed his readiness to respond to Mr. Asquith's invitation, but pointed out that there were only three alternatives open to the Government. They must either (1) go on as they were doing and provoke Ulster to resist—that was madness; (2) they could consult the electorate, whose decision would be accepted by the Unionist Party as a whole; or (3) they could try to arrange a settlement which would ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... was governed by fear, well and good. If not, Isaacson would stand a scene, provoke a scandal, even defy Nigel for his own ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of America claim ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... had hitherto replied to these, as he conceived them, fresh attempts to provoke him, by still further grinding; but when this last observation of the cook was communicated to him, he broke out scornfully, pointing at the same time with the bitten mouthpiece of his old meerschaum pipe at ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... society, and he purposely kept various small objects about his own room, which—to use his own expression—might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask half concealed behind a screen, which, if it did not provoke a start and a scream from some fair visitor, had attention drawn to it by the playful question, 'Who is that behind you?' There was a funny pair of spectacles on the mantelshelf, which Canon Wrottesley would playfully place upon his handsome nose, and to small visitors he would accompany the action ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... of Union numbers,—and with the steady refusal of foreign powers to recognize the Confederacy, or to afford it any countenance or open assistance,—the Rebels must be infatuated, and determined to provoke destruction, if they do not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... since childhood were forced out as by some glandular weakness. Restlessness, both of body and mind, had become extreme, and was accompanied with a hideous and almost maniacal irritability, often so plainly without cause as sometimes to provoke a smile from those who ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... Europe, even as far as Constantinople; wherein he made such advances in the school of Mars, that his superior skill in arms was generally applauded in every country he passed through." So distinguished and widely-extended a reputation for bravery could not fail to provoke the pride and envy of all Christendom, whereupon the young Admiral of Hainault, one of the bravest men of his time, together with divers gentlemen of the French court, defied the whole kingdom to a passage of arms, the result of which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... large number of members, among whom were the Archbishop, many bishops and abbots and nobles. These dramatic productions belonged to the religious and social sides of the guilds. The plays, however, did not always provoke pleasure, for sometimes members of some of the guilds complained of the financial burden they were forced to bear in order to produce ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson

... them at the apes in the trees. I did the same, and the apes, out of revenge, threw cocoa-nuts at us so fast, and with such gestures, as sufficiently testified their anger and resentment. We gathered up the cocoa-nuts, and from time to time threw stones to provoke the apes; so that by this stratagem we filled our bags with cocoa-nuts, which it had been impossible otherwise to have done. I thus gradually collected as many cocoa-nuts as produced me ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... Mr. Henry James's novels, The Portrait of a Lady, where Gilbert Osmond, a selfish dilettante, finding that he cannot make a great success or attain a great position, devotes himself to trying to mystify and provoke the curiosity of the world by retiring into a refined seclusion, and professing that it affords him an exquisite kind of enjoyment. The hideous vulgarity of his attitude is not at first sight apparent; he deceives the heroine, who is a considerable heiress, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... reactions. The classical school was followed by the romantics, the romantics by the realists; each was a protest and a reaction against its predecessor. These swerving movements must have a cause. Now there are no reactions in literature unless there is some excess to provoke them. The existence of a reaction is a symptom of disease, and not only would it never take place apart from disease, but there is always a chance that it may go too far; for as in the body, so in the world of letters, a balance once disturbed is difficult ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... he had previously been zealous for the purification of the civil service. A Boston paper said that he "was made to realize, by the influences brought to bear upon him, that he must advocate the gold standard or else provoke the active hostility of the prominent business men of this State." That perhaps is as infamous as anything ever written. That any influences, even those "of the prominent business men of Massachusetts," could cause Mr. Lodge ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... the part of the Central European Powers and their allies by seizing the mercantile steamers of these various countries which at the outbreak of the war had sought refuge in Portuguese ports and had been interned there. Before we determine why Portugal took this step which was sure to provoke a declaration of war, it will be necessary to consider shortly the history of this country in modern times. It is many centuries since Portugal has lost its former importance as a European nation which was based primarily on its extensive colonial possessions. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... was calculated to provoke—and did provoke—roars of laughter, though TIME only gazed the more sadly at him. He had coarse black hair falling about his ears, a white face, and a crimson nose; he wore a suit of dingy plaid, a battered hat, and long-fingered thread gloves. And he ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... tell. We shall be required to watch the premises of the citizens, and to convey all valuables to places of safety. The policy is not to provoke a battle, but to entrap them nearer and nearer the city by holding out baits till they can be apprehended in a body. To do this, we shall be divided into small squads, perhaps only two persons ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... troops on the edge of the disputed territory furthest from the Mexican settlements, was not sufficient to provoke hostilities. We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it. It was very doubtful whether Congress would declare war; but if Mexico should attack our troops, the Executive ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... harsh words thou art tying thyself with cords? Dost thou not understand that thou art hanging on the edge of a precipice? Dost thou not know that being a deer thou provokest so many tigers to rage? Snakes of deadly venom, provoked to ire, are on thy head! Wretch, do not further provoke them lest thou goest to the region of Yama. In my judgement, slavery does not attach to Krishna, in as much as she was staked by the King after he had lost himself and ceased to be his own master. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... "Fi zaman-hi," alluding to a peculiarity highly prized by Egyptians; the use of the constrictor vaginae muscles, the sphincter for which Abyssinian women are famous. The "Kabbazah" ( holder), as she is called, can sit astraddle upon a man and can provoke the venereal-orgasm, not by wriggling and moving but by tightening and loosing the male member with the muscles of her privities, milking it as it were. Consequently the cassenoisette costs treble the money of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... But what have you done to him within, that should provoke him thus? You have broke some jest upon him, afore ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... you provoke me to speak— I must tell you too, that Mrs. Coaxer charges you with defrauding her of her Information-Money, for the apprehending of curl-pated Hugh. Indeed, indeed, Brother, we must punctually pay our Spies, or we shall ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... whereof made to the Court, they say they know not what to do more—in case they that have money will not part with it, they are at a stand. Some speak of raising by rate immediately. Others think there is so much dissatisfaction that men are not sent, that it will provoke and raise a tumult; and in case that it be raised by loan, it will be hardly paid—if consent be not given in their sending men with it, and there be no good effect, which is contingent, and thus we are every way at a stand; some fearing these things will precipitate our ruin, and others apprehending ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson









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