"Provocative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deputies conferred with Verreyken. Barneveld, as spokesman, declared that, so far as the provinces were concerned, the path was plain and open to an honest, ingenuous, lasting peace, but that the manner of dealing on the other side was artificial and provocative of suspicion. A most important line, which had been placed by the States at the very beginning of the form suggested by them, was wanting in the ratification now received. This hardly seemed an accidental omission. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... solely to the enemy. England and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm solely for "peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent on loot and glory. "Peace" in military mouths to-day is a synonym for "war expected." The word has become a pure provocative, and no government wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that "peace" and "war" mean the same thing, now in posse, now in actu. It may even reasonably be said that ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... after minute, but the sea beyond the edge of the boat's gunwale, heaving up and sliding astern as it caught the shine of the lantern. The lantern shone also against the knees of Archelaus, and lit up the check-board pattern of the eleemosynary trousers. It was a provocative pattern, but the Commandant ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... recently been chronicling, as a fact provocative of especial wonder, the enterprise of some speculative merchant of New-York, who has just been dispatching a cargo of one hundred cats to the republic of New Granada, in which it would appear the race, owing, as we may believe, to the frequently ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... money, came to Attica, and there was a perfect race among the ordinary public men of the assembly who should be the first to take his pay, he distributed amongst these some trifling sums by way of a bait and provocative, but to Phocion he made an offer of no less than seven hundred talents and all manner of other advantages he pleased to demand; with the compliment that he would entirely commit himself and all his affairs to his disposal. Phocion answered sharply, Harpalus ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... style which is strongly individual and which is on the whole rather restful than provocative. The reader's mind reposes on the security of these strongly moulded sentences, these solid paragraphs and periods. It is a considered style in which word after word falls admirably into its appointed place. It is not quite of the eighteenth century, for it is stronger ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... that the prospect of parting with him and not Midget was provocative of her woe. This staggered Bryce and pleased him immensely. And at parting she kissed him good-bye, reiterating her opinion that he was the nicest, kindest boy she had ever met ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... transparently jealous of his attentions to Susie. Yet Gershom, I know, is nice to Susie and nothing more. He is still my loyal but carefully restrained knight. It's a shame, I suppose, to bobweasel him the way I occasionally do. But I can't quite help it. His goody-goodiness is as provocative to my baser nature as a red flag to an Andulasian bull. And a woman who was once reckoned as a heart-breaker has to keep her hand in with something. I've got to convince myself that the last shot hasn't gone from the locker which Duncan ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... constantly, and even large changes may take place within a short time. Experience has shown that wage differences which rest upon a fluctuating basis are apt to give rise to misunderstanding, and to be provocative of unrest. At best, only the relatively permanent and great differences in the cost of living between different points could be taken into consideration. Even then a great deal of arbitrary ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... taboo. He made more thorough love to Balatta— also saw to it that she scrubbed herself more frequently. Eternal female she was, capable of any treason for the sake of love. And, though the sight of her was provocative of nausea and the contact of her provocative of despair, although he could not escape her awfulness in his dream-haunted nightmares of her, he nevertheless was aware of the cosmic verity of sex that animated her and that made her own life of less value ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... to be heard, let me beg of you not to be provocative in your language." And then to the others: "Messieurs, if we are to proceed, I beg that you will restrain your feelings until the deputy-suppleant ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... fallen foe—a hoplite. The inscription relates that the unhappy foot-soldier fell at Corinth by reason of those five words of his!—a record intelligible enough, doubtless, to his contemporaries, but sufficiently obscure and provocative of curiosity to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... all who are so fortunate as to hear it, the better for the knowledge—that happiness isn't a thing in itself, but only a contrast with something that isn't pleasant! This view of heaven, seen through the temperament of a humorist and a philosopher, is provocative and thought-compelling more than it is amusing or ludicrous. I think it inspired Bernard Shaw's Aerial Foot-ball which won Collier's thousand dollar prize—a prize which Mr Shaw hurled back with ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... to Macready, 'I beg pardon, sir, but you have given the part to Mr. Phelps, and I am satisfied that he should act it;' and how Macready, on hearing this, crushed up the MS., and flung it on to the ground. He also admitted that his own manner had been provocative; but he was indignant at what he deemed the unjust treatment which Mr. Phelps had received. The occasion of the next letter speaks ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... She toys with the corner of her apron, twiddling it backwards and forwards between her fingers. She glances demurely down at her feet, then looks shyly up at him again; then once more studying her apron, she, as if unconsciously, proffers her cheek in a manner too provocative for any man to resist, and as the curtain descends Lionel Beauchamp is apparently about to make the most of ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... seriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observe him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... should as little think of taking these compositions as examples of the merits of their authors as we should think of measuring the valuable services of Mr. Walker, the postman, or Mr. Bell, the dust-collector, by the copy of verses they leave at our doors as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity—effusions with which they may fairly be classed for their intrinsic worth no ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... girl. She habitually wore white middies with blue collar and tie, which went well with her clear, pink skin and her hair that just escaped being red. She knew how to tilt her "beach" hat at the most provocative angle, and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance—of the kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the latest slang at her pink tongue's ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... been intended as a tribute rather than a challenge for Jerry was a peaceful soul, but unfortunately they had proved provocative of many a brawl, and had the truth been known a certain odd slant of Jerry's chin could have been traced back to this apparently harmless assertion. Possibly had this mate of the Mollie D. foreseen into what straits his ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... felt stirred by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Chlopy in Galicia—in which the monarch declared that he would "hold fast to the existing and well-tried organization of the army" and would never "relinquish the rights and privileges guaranteed to its highest war-lord"; and of a provocative utterance of the Austrian premier Koerber in the Reichsrath led to the overthrow of the Khuen-Hedervary cabinet (September 30) by an immense majority. The cabinet fell on a motion of censure brought forward by Kossuth, who had profited by the bribery incident to resume the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... on his knees, and begged for mercy, for he had not the luxurious drink in his store-cellar. This superfluous word "store-cellar" might sound ironical and provocative, though unintentionally. Still it was welcome as an ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... belief that there was no very imminent danger of war with the United States. The issues of peace and war, however, depended upon the attitude of that House and of the country. Weakness never promoted peace, and an uncertain and half- hearted attitude was provocative of war. This country had, he believed, the desire to preserve its power and influence on the American continent. It was for the good of mankind that the rule of the British Crown and the influence of the wisely-regulated ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... was after all not so terrible, for an exquisitely beautiful young lady sat gracefully on the four-footed intruder, and a pair of provocative eyes shone brightly under a riding hat ornamented ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... that the Austrian note was directed against Servia alone. On July 24 the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs told the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg that Austria's conduct was provocative and immoral; that some of her demands were impossible of acceptance; that Austria would never have taken such action unless Germany had first been consulted; that if Austria began military measures against Servia, Russia would probably mobilize. The Russian Minister hoped that England would proclaim ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... his mistress, who standing before the glass was curling her hair in a charmingly provocative attitude, Rodolphe approached Mimi and passed his arms around her. Then, like a musician, who before commencing a piece, strikes a series of notes to assure himself of the capacity of the instrument, Rodolphe drew Mimi ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... as soon as Daphne had seen Elsie Maddison, and he had begged an afternoon to go on an expedition with them, Daphne had become intolerable. She had shown her English friend and his acquaintances a manner so insulting and provocative, that the young man's blood ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and movement never less than evanescent, mysterious,—no reality. It is the language of mystic signs and portents—the inspiration of the gods—wholly spiritual—divine signalling. Remindful of superstition, provocative of imagination. Might not the inhabitants of some other world (Mars) controlling mighty forces thus surround our globe with fiery symbols, a golden writing which we have not ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... at the outer corner of one of the benches, by the open door, gradually ceased to listen, started on other lines of thought by this realisation, warm, stimulating, provocative, of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... clear wind, a solitary church spire rose above the huddled roofs of the town. When the wind lulled, as it did now and then, a warm breath seemed to stir in the sunshine, which grew suddenly brighter, while a promise of spring floated like a faint provocative scent on the air. And this scent, so vague, so roving, that it was like the ghostly perfume of flowers, stole at last into the memory, and made the old dream of youth and the young grow restless at the call of Life, which sang to the music of flutes ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... without the extraneous rigorism."[10] Kaye nevertheless insists that Mandeville's rigorism was sincere, and that it is necessary so to accept it to understand him. It seems to me, on the contrary, that if Mandeville's rigorism were sincere, the whole satirical structure of his argument, its provocative tone, its obvious fun-making gusto, would be incomprehensible, and there would be manifest inconsistency between his satirical purposes and his procedures ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... He was not greatly shocked at Jim's defection, for he was always fully conscious of his vanity and weakness; but he was by no means certain that Jim's extravagance and braggadocio, which he had found only amusing and, perhaps, even pathetic, might not be as provocative and prejudicial to others as Gilroy had said. But, like all sympathetic and unselfish natures, he sought to find some excuse for his old companion's weakness in his own mistaken judgment. He had no business to ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... think that murder was being done? What unimaginable agony had caused them? what speechless torture? And the 'wailing noise,' which had induced the prosaic, indurated London cabman to get twice off his box to see what was the matter, what anguish had been provocative of that? The helpless girl who had already endured so much, endured, perhaps, that to which death would have been preferred!—shut up in that rattling, jolting box on wheels, alone with that diabolical Asiatic, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... did the spirit of autumn seem to be outraged. The racket came to be an insult. Always the ear expected its discontinuance, until finally the persistence ground on the nerves like the barking of a dog at night. At last it was an indecency, an orgy of unholy revel, a profanation, a provocative to anger of the inscrutable woods god. Then stillness again with ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... moonlight bathed the court, except where the hall and chapel flung fantastic and mysterious shadows across the green smooth-mown lawns of the quadrangle. The soft light, the cool exhilarating night air were provocative of thought, and they walked up and down ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... guard ourselves against the tendencies to enthusiastic devotion for the living life preserver, because the very name is a provocative. Were two such words ever before combined to form a name?—the one expressing the natural quality of the bearer of it, and the other defining what her deeds have made her in the ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... fascinated Duane as much as the south beyond Mount Ord. Where were Knell and Poggin? Apparently they were not at present with the leader on the mountain. After the messenger left Fletcher grew silent and surly. He had presented a variety of moods to Duane's observation, and this latest one was provocative of thought. Fletcher was dangerous. It became clear now that the other outlaws of the camp feared him, kept out of his way. Duane let him alone, yet closely ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... of crying. To add much to his discomfort, he had made a rash promise to his pious mother, who seems, in contrast to her husband's race, to have adopted non-resistance principles—a promise to abstain from fighting, provocative of many cuffs till it was well broken by a hinterschlag, applied to some blustering bully. Nor had he refuge in the sympathy of his teachers, "hide-bound pedants, who knew Syntax enough, and of the human soul thus ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... of excitement flutter in her throat. It seemed to him that her eyes grew darker, as though some shadow of dread had fallen over them. The provocative smile vanished. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... militant lady follows to put over her program, so foreign to her nature as it may seem. The suffragette adapts to her needs a form of feminine coquetry as old as the world. To defy and denounce the male has always been one of woman's most successful provocative ways! ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged remarks on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in the price of corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that only two short days ago we had confronted each other on either side of a hedge,—I triumphant, provocative, derisive; he flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and volleying forth profanity? So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina the while, demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and apparently ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... that there is to be a great annual festival today; on which occasion the king, who has been secluded from the sight of his subjects for eight years, will shine forth again, "like a re-appearing star." There is something very provocative to the imagination in this circumstance. What can have been the motive of such a seclusion? was it in the personal character of the king, and did he shut himself up to meditate on high matters, or to revel in physical indulgence? or, possibly, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... drawn the white curtain at his head, so that he could be only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing, still going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse of the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... child she was. Her dark eyes were raised wistfully to his. Her oval face was a little flushed by her recent exertions. She wore a very short skirt, and her hair hung about her shoulders in a tangled mass. Her little foreign mannerisms, half inciting, half provocative, were forgotten. His heart was ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are un-English and provocative, and a waste of wax that is needed for higher and more practical ends," said the Wax-moth from an ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... comrade of an hour of trouble, would have served to fix his suspicions. For such, he told himself, would be the first thought of one bent on beguiling—to lead him on by some intimation, the more tenuous and elusive the more provocative, that she found his ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... yourself to be drawn into an argument in general society. Nothing can be more provocative of anger on one side or another, or more destructive to conversation, than a lengthy and, too often, bitter argument. Good breeding would suggest that the subject be changed at once before the controversy ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... mental aberration. On personal acquaintance he proves to be a remarkably earnest, thoroughly convinced, and winning man, although he does not deliberately do or say anything to attract one. His very earnestness is provocative ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... girl, as she met Danvers and O'Dwyer returning. "It's all my fault that you are wet—and hurt! Which one is hurt?" She turned provocative eyes to the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... to you, sweet Spring! And, prithee, whilst I stick to earth, Come hither every year and bring The boons provocative of mirth; And should your stock of bass run low, However much I might repine, I think I might survive the blow If plied with wine, ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... good," he said. "You better send cookee word to bring your meals to yuh, Tex. Because if you roost there till I tell yuh, you'll be roosting a good long while!" He got up and lounged out, his hands in his pockets, his well-shaped head carried at a provocative tilt. He heard Tex swear under his breath and mutter something about making the darned little runt come through ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... of Massachusetts was one of the first to rise in opposition. While confessing sympathy for the states' rights philosophy that recognized the different customs of various sections of the nation, he branded the Russell amendment unnecessary, provocative, and unworkable, and suggested Congress leave the services alone in this matter. To support his views he read into the record portions of the Fahy Committee Report, which represented, he emphasized, the judgment of impartial civilians appointed by the President, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... his Soul rejoiced not, The breath of whose being was strife, For life with nothing to vanquish Seemed but the shadow of life. No goal invited and promised And divinely provocative shone; And Fear having fled, her sister, Blest Hope, in her train was gone; And the coping and crown of achievement Was hell than defeat more dire— The torment of all-things-compassed, The plague of nought-to-desire; And Man the invincible queller, Man with his foot on his foes, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... than I did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard, rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing reasoning. That was his name for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several times, in the Bacon-Shakespeare ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... enemy, appears. She comes from the extreme East, this wild dancer, with odorous hair, provocative glance and effeminate voice; she stands in a magnificent chariot drawn by four horses; she scatters violet and rose leaves; they are her weapons; their insidious perfumes destroy courage and will, and the army, headed by the virtues, speaks of surrender. But suddenly Sobriety (Sobrietas) ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... welcomed the Prince was a fresh experience. It was a crowd that, in spite of writing continuously about crowds for four months, gave me a direct impulse to write yet again about a crowd, that gave me the feeling that here was something fresh, sparkling, human, warm, ardent and provocative. It was a crowd with a flutter of laughter in it, a crowd that had a personality, an insouciance, an independence in its friendliness. It was a crowd that I shall always put beside other mental pictures of big crowds, ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... should be governed. The same unhappy psychological condition which makes the dance an unclean thing in their jaundiced eyes renders it impossible for them to enjoy art or literature when the subject is natural, the treatment free and joyous. The ingenuity that can discover an indelicate provocative in the waltz will have no difficulty in snouting out all manner of uncleanliness in Shakspeare, Chaucer, Boccacio—nay, even in the New Testament. It would detect an unpleasant suggestiveness in the Medicean Venus, and two in the Dancing Faun. To all such the ordinary functions ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... there so great a master of what is called persiflage—of that boisterous, droll and pungent banter which, if not the most elevated species of wit, is certainly that which is most exhilarating and provocative of laughter. In this he was unrivalled, and it was heightened by the adjuncts of a voice, face, and manner irresistibly comical. As the most opposite characters owned the fascination of this exciting talent, he was enabled to gratify his inclination for every ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... salt-water crocodile of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo is the only real man-eater I ever met. Except under the most provocative circumstances, all the others I have met are practically harmless to man. This includes the Florida species, the Orinoco crocodile, the little one from Cuba, the alligator, the Indian gavial and the Indian ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... others to discuss, his ready responsive inspirations through all the shifts and windings of a sort of Platonic dialogue,—all these accomplishments were to those who knew him, even more impressive than what he composed for the press. Conversation with him was not merely instructive, but provocative to the observant intelligence. Of all persons whom we have known, Mr. James Mill was the one who stood least remote from the lofty Platonic ideal of Dialectic—[Greek: tou didonai kai dechesthai logon] ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... was no great difference between these ideas and Olivier's: but, by a secret instinct for balance and proportion, he was never so dilettante as when he heard provocative words thrown out. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... strange, speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him that for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... (and is) an Englishman, and it never occurred to him that there could be any harm in singing archaic lyrics out of remote centuries; that one had to be a Catholic to enjoy the "Dies Irae," or a Protestant to remember "Lillibullero." Yet he was stopped and gravely warned that things so politically provocative might get him at least into ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... have glided to the door. 'Twas provocative, however meant, and he put himself in her way. She tried the other side of the table. He blocked that also, and was before her again. Finally she ceased the attempt and stood with eyes ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Governor-General, issues an order forbidding, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, the wearing or exhibiting of Belgian insignia in a provocative manner, and forbidding absolutely the wearing or exhibiting of the insignia of the nations warring against ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... threw down their staves, took off their pilgrim's cloaks and remained in their under-clothing; they were all good-looking young fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut, scraps of cheese, and well-picked ham-bones ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... something provocative in his tone, and Robert looked closely at the speaker. He saw a tall man of at least forty-five, thin but obviously very powerful and agile. Robert noticed that his wrists were thick like his own and that his fingers were long and flexible. His face was freckled, his nose large and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... fly," said Kingdon, and then they all laughed again. Indeed, they were quite ready to laugh at anything. For a Hallowe'en party is provocative of much merriment, and the ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... science"—cause of rubbish! Then, it added, obsequiously, something about "the inestimable benefits from carrying the speculations of that learned man" &c. Mr. Pickwick, in his speech, was certainly self-laudatory and provocative. He talked of his pride in promoting the Tittlebatian theory, and "let his enemies make the most of it." This was marked enough, and no doubt caused looks at Blotton. Then he began to puff his new enterprise at "a ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... Indians, so thoroughly has the matter been examined and discussed by various authors, and yet so much still remains to be commented on, but in this work, which is simply preliminary, and is hoped will be provocative of future efforts, it is deemed sufficient to give only a few accounts. The first is by Dr. W. Mathews, U. S. A., [Footnote: Ethnol. and Philol. of the Hidatsa Indians. U.S. Geol. Surv. of Terr., 1877, p. 409] and relates ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... laughed. I did not remember having said anything provocative of laughter. Up to this very minute, I have been firm in my conviction that I'm right. When I come to consider the situation, it appears that a majority of people are encouraging others to become bad. They seem to believe that one must do wrong in order to succeed. If they happen to ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition became keen for ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Empire. Add to these the Hindoos and Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, whom I was taught in my childhood, by way of religious instruction, to regard as gross idolators consigned to eternal perdition, but whose faith I can now be punished for disparaging by a provocative word, and you have a total of over three hundred and forty-two and a quarter million heretics to swamp our forty-five million Britons, of whom, by the way, only six thousand call themselves distinctively ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... libel was true it is almost incredible that he should not have sought to avenge it, for an ugly truth is notoriously hurtful and provocative of resentment, far more so than is a lie. Cesare, however, was not of a temper quite as long-suffering as his father. Enough and more of libels and lampoons had he endured already. Early in December a masked man—a Neapolitan ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... finished her cake, then took some grapes, and began to play with them in the same conscious provocative way—till at last she turned upon her immediate neighbor, a young barrister with a ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of moral or religious training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative environment. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... chewed tobacco on Frederick's broad verandas until he felt like an intruder in his own house. There was no touch with them. They regarded him as a stranger to be tolerated. They came to see Tom. And their manner of seeing him was provocative of innocent envy pangs to Frederick. Day after day he watched them. He would see the Yukoners meet, perhaps one just leaving the sick room and one just going in. They would clasp hands, solemnly and silently, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... difference—Grace will know the exact value of what I shall have done. Not that she thinks me a Le Notre"—Alison laughed—"What I mean is, she sees behind, she sees why it is fashionable to have a garden, since she has worked out the values of that existence. But there!" Alison added, with a provocative touch that did not escape him, "I am picking your parishioners ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with human cries, and laughter, and murmured invitations, and barterings, and refusals, there had been music that seemed to wind on and on in ribands of sound—music that was hoarse and shrill and weary, that was piercing, yet at the same time furtive—music that was provocative, and yet that was often sad, with a strange sadness of the desert and of desire among the sands. Even now, in the maze around this cafe, there was another maze of sound, the tripping notes of Eastern dance tunes, the wail ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... is not my superior: I feel, Oliver, he is not; and it becomes me to assert my rights. Nay, his pride acts as a provocative—Oliver, I perceive how wrong this is; but I will not blot out the line. Let it remain as a memento. He that would correct his failings must be willing ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief to explain to the west wind what your name may be—" She ended with a disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to his—lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... said what was gied me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin' listenin' above me, an', man, he used language provocative of a breach o' the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employ, an' a corrupter o' young Bannister's morals, an' he'd prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps—I'd ha' thrown him into the dock if I'd caught him—an' there ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... difficulty of putting through the policy which is likely to be adopted within the next few days would be greatly increased. I feel that if the appended telegram should be sent at once to Tchitcherin, no large offensive movements by the soviet armies would be undertaken for another week, and no provocative political ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... contrary of which man desires naturally, wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that "pity is sorrow for a visible evil, whether corruptive or distressing." Secondly, such like evils are yet more provocative of pity if they are contrary to deliberate choice, wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that evil excites our pity "when it is the result of an accident, as when something turns out ill, whereas we hoped well of it." Thirdly, they cause yet greater ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... unless indirectly. My immediate concern is not with the strength of theism, but with the weakness of atheism, and the hollowness of the latter's dialectical pretensions. What in every form of piety is most provocative of philosophic scorn, is its forwardness of faith, its eagerness of acquiescence; but to this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... to repudiate or endorse them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain opinions of my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which should be least imprisoning to my own thought, and least provocative of the reader's antagonism. It has been my object, to borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de presenter des series d'idees se developpant selon un ordre logique, et non d'inculquer une opinion ou de precher un systeme determine.' And I may ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for the reason that, beneath a blase exterior, we were all secretly preoccupied by the beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering whether we should ever get to Yucatan.... And then, looking by accident away, I saw the dim, provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the Lusitania, a star seemed to be dancing ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... a pretty woman, not tall, rather below middle stature, perhaps, beautifully proportioned and perfectly gowned. Hair and eyes were dark as velvet; her skin was old ivory and rose; and always her lips seemed about to part a little in the faint and provocative smile which lay latent in the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... pass into local history as a great sensation. Jack Holton's re-appearance only a few weeks earlier had caused his fellow-townsmen to attack the old scandal with the avidity of a dog unearthing a neglected bone; and the return of the woman in the case could hardly fail to prove far more provocative of gossip. If Lois persisted in remaining in Montgomery, it was wholly unlikely that Nan would ever marry him; nor could he with any delicacy insist upon her doing so. They might marry and move to Indianapolis, thereby escaping the discomforts of the smaller town's criticism; and this was made ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... in her next remark? Had it any hinterland of discussion of the ethics of Love, provocative of practical application to the lives of old maids and old bachelors—if the one, then the other, in this case—strolling in a leisurely way through bracken and beechmast, fancy-free, no doubt? If she had, and her companion suspected it, he was not seriously alarmed, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... there must have been something very excellent and comprehensive in the domestic arrangements of the monks, since they adapt themselves so well to a state of society entirely different from that in which they originated. The library is a very comfortable room, and provocative of studious ideas, tho lounging and luxurious. It is long, and rather low, furnished with soft couches, and, on the whole, tho a man might dream of study, I think he would be most likely to read nothing but novels ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... dignity and the independence of Italian socialism, and offends it so much more because international socialism knows that on German Socialists depended the lesser or greater efficacy in the action of international socialism to arrest the provocative struggle of armaments promoted by Germany, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... dark... deadly... completely confused... Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors And broad shadows, which lead to blue corners... And somewhere a sound that clinks like a Champagne glass. On a fragile rug lies a wide picture book, Distorted and exaggerated by a green ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... old friends were formally answered. Sanchia had never been a free writer; nobody but Senhouse had found her letters eloquent—he only had been able to feel the throb beneath the stiff lines. Her handwriting, round and firm, had for him a provocative quality; it stung his imagination. He used to sing her "divine frugality of utterance," and protest that it was all of a piece with the rest of her life. No one, he had told her once, but a sculptor could embody her in Art—her chill perfection, her severity and definite outline. A poet might ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... inestimable privilege to claim the friendship of a man whose life and letters are a perpetual stimulus to action, an invariable provocative of thought. I have just had a letter from my friend, telling me that he is in despair of the stage. His play is a thing of the past, and he vows that he has done ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... and he greatly increased the royal state; never had there been king in France, it was said, who had kept state like King Philip, and he provided tourneys and jousts and diversions in great abundance." No national interest, no public ground, was provocative of war between the two peoples; it was a war of personal ambition, like that which in the eleventh century William the Conqueror had carried into England. The memory of that great event was still, in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... idea of Wilfrid being in ranks opposed to him was so little provocative of intense dissatisfaction, that it was out of his power to believe that Emilia craved to see him simply to dissuade the man from the obnoxious step. "Ah, well! See him; see him, if you must," he said. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Lord Of earth and sky, and prayed, saying: "O Thou That hauntest dark Dodona, hear me now, Since that the shadowing arm of Time is flung Far over me, but cloudeth me full young. Scatheless I vow them. Let one Trojan cast His spear and loose my spirit. Rage is past Though I go forth my most provocative Adventure: 'tis not I that seek. Receive My prayer Thou as I have earned it—lo, Dying I stand, and hail Thee as I go Lord of the AEgis, wonderful, most great!" Which done, he took his stand, and bid his mate Urge on the steeds; and all the Achaian host Followed him, not with outcry ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... into possession. When Baldwin and La Fontaine made way for Hincks and Morin in 1851, the change was recognized as a step towards the re-union of the moderates. For, in the face of George Brown, and his advocacy of a more provocative radical programme, Francis Hincks declared for some kind of coalition: "I regret to say there have been indications given by a section of the party to which I belong, that it will be difficult indeed, unless they change their policy, ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... much more substantial affair than a modern morning repast, and differed little from dinner or supper, except in respect to quantity. On the present occasion, there were carbonadoes of fish and fowl, a cold chine, a huge pasty, a capon, neat's tongues, sausages, botargos, and other matters as provocative of thirst as sufficing to the appetite. Nicholas set to work bravely. Broiled trout, steaks, and a huge slice of venison pasty, disappeared quickly before him, and he was not quite so sparing of the ale as seemed consistent with his previously-expressed resolutions ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mild, hesitating, grey eyes to his. He knew her only slightly and was conscious that she did not like him. That was not his affair; she had become something quite new to him since he had gained this knowledge of her—she was provocative, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... former is an extravagance of sexual mysticism. Man can never understand women. Women always hide deep and wonderful things away beyond masculine discovery. Men do not even suspect. Some day, perhaps—It is someone peeping from behind a curtain, and inviting men in provocative tones to come and play catch in a darkened harem. The latter is like some gallant soldier cursing his silly accoutrements. It is a hearty outbreak against that apparent necessity for elegance and sexual specialisation that undercuts so much feminine achievement, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... of impartiality. I suppose that if a bull gored his sister he would say that there were faults on both sides; his sister ought not to have strayed into the field, she was wearing a red hat of a highly provocative type; she ought to have been a cow and then everything would have been different. In the face of the history of the last forty years, the Genteel Whig struggles persistently to minimise the German outrage upon civilisation and to find excuses for Germany. He does this, ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... cheeks on fire, and blood astir, eyes large and lustrous as the eyes of Juno, with bold carriage and in free toilettes, step forward out of the past with the proud and insolent graces of the divinities of some Bacchanalia." With the provocative and sensual charm which is so powerful in its appeal, she had a rare skill in displaying her beauty to its fullest advantage. Her cult of the toilette, the Duc de Luynes tells us, went with her even by night. She never went to ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... with a flash of white teeth, his eyes shifting unobtrusively toward Annie-Many-Ponies, who wore a secret, half-smiling air of provocative interest in him. "Not spik much English, my brother. Always stay too much at home. Me, I travel all over—Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco. I ride in all contests—Pueblo, San Antonio—all over. Tomas, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... and the printer's devil press, and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public; whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak which ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... natural processes by which races are mixed. They are self-created, their minds are set on gathering the varied fruit of all the nations. Genealogically they may be as uninteresting as the snail in the cabbage-patch, spiritually they are provocative and arresting. Romain Rolland and George Brandes challenge and outrage the champions of nationalism by the very texture of their minds. Joseph Conrad, a Pole, stands side by side with Thomas Hardy in his mastership of contemporary English fiction. Conrad in his consummate interpretation of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... tradition of policy. The wrongfulness of any extension of slavery might be loudly asserted in 1854, but in 1858, when it no longer looked as if so great an extension of it was really imminent, there was no harm in shifting towards some less provocative principle on which more people at the moment might agree. Confronted with Northern politicians who would reason in this fashion stood a united South whose leaders were by now accustomed to make the Union Government go which way they chose and ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... ceased to be a Minister of the Crown, became a bitter critic of successive Administrations. His complaints of our blockade policy were frigidly acknowledged by Lord MILNER and hotly resented by Lord LANSDOWNE, upon whom Lord PORTSMOUTH'S ruddy beard always has a provocative effect. It is all very well to talk of being ruthless to neutrals, but if we had adopted the noble lord's policy early in the War would the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes be to-day floating side by side ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... that. The people only gave him power that he might rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his wish to express all that was in ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity—a mighty stone structure of great height and massivity, with tier upon tier of galleries where could be accommodated surely all the Rome ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... of the Russian frontier, he used the following provocative language: "I will not permit that any one should touch my eastern provinces and he who tries to do so, will find that my power and my might are as rocks ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... non-Parliamentarian. Mr. Balfour was arguing that it was impossible to properly discuss the amendment of Lord Wolmer until the House knew whether or not the Irish members were going to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. I do not know whether it was because there was something provocative in the manner in which Mr. Balfour referred to this subject, but it had the effect of rousing the once vulnerable, but now admirably controlled temper, which has played such a part in Mr. Gladstone's career. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... mistaken. She was still his adored Miss Nell, but with a difference that carried her leagues away from him. He knew how to cope with the hot-headed, rebellious Miss Nell; with the teasing, indifferent, provocative Miss Nell; and even with the disconsolate little Miss Nell who had wept against his shoulder coming home from Chicago. But in the presence of this beautiful, grown-up, self-contained young lady he felt thoroughly awkward and ill at ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... arranged with due regard to convenience. Above the mantelpiece hung a few small photographs, but the wall-space at disposal was chiefly occupied with objects which illustrated Mr. Warricombe's scientific tastes. On a stand in the light of the window gleamed two elaborate microscopes, provocative of enthusiasm in a mind such ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... than that. It was hysteria, or I had never seen hysteria, and the mal-de-mer had been merely provocative. I took her hand without ceremony, and, wheeling on me her lustrous eyes, she broke ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... but it is more than likely that he expressed himself in an excited manner and with a highly inflammatory effect upon his hearers. He was, at least, severely punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and to be carried almost ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stretches along opposite its flank. It has a flat roof with a crenelated parapet. Grass grows on the roof. No guns are mounted there, for Ghent is an open city. But in German tactics bombardment by aeroplane doesn't seem to count, and our situation is more provocative now than the ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... useless, as they could have gone into no ports and sold their prizes nowhere. Mr. Seward was in touch with the New England school. It clamored for war with any friend to the revolting States. But Lincoln corrected what was provocative in the original advice to our minister, Adams, at St. James'. The English were no longer held to have issued a proclamation without due grounds in usage or the law of nations. It became by the modification no more a proceeding ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... would have added that he was a votary of the kultur of his race. His ideal, I suppose, was more the Renaissance virtu than our milk-and-water virtue. He made me feel that I was a worm. In short, he was a very interesting, provocative and exasperating humbug, and his very existence seemed to me sufficient reason for turning Aliens into a book which would shed a flickering light upon the fascinating problem of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... on the Pincetto, where the wholly separated resting-places of the "Upper Ten" protest so successfully against the leveling notion that in death all are equal, I might have suggested many a mordant epigram to the cynically-minded visitor. I fear that there is often something provocative of cynicism in sundry of the aspects of fashionable devotion, but on such an occasion as the present it could hardly be otherwise. Rachels in Parisian bonnets and sweeping silk skirts, muttering over their rosaries for their children on splendid cushions borne in due state by attendant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... once far-famed ATTICUS: the once illustrious RICHARD HEBER, Esq., the self-ejected member of the University of Oxford. Even yet I scarcely know how to handle this subject, or to expatiate upon a theme so extraordinary, and so provocative of the most contradictory feelings. But it were better to be brief; as, in fact, a very long account of Mr. Heber's later life will be found in my Reminiscences, and there is little to add to what those pages contain. It may be here only necessary to make mention of the sale of his wonderful ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not provocative of insatiable appetite," returned his wife, with inimitable sang-froid, staying her paper knife that she ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... average) two or three hundred lines at most—there are fabliaux of a thousand lines, and fabliaux of thirty or forty, but the average is as just stated. The incidents had to be adjusted for best effect, neither too many nor too few. The treatment had to be mainly provocative—an appeal in some cases by very coarse means indeed to very coarse nerves, in others by finer devices addressed to senses more tickle o' the sere. And so grew up that unsurpassed and hardly matched product the French short story, where, if it is in perfection, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Water, an Excellent Perfume, good against Deafness, and to Make Hair grow...." The antecedents of this regal liquid are unknown. Boylston also announced for sale "The Best [Daffy's] Elixir Salutis in Bottles, or by the Ounce." This is a provocative listing. It may mean merely that the apothecary would break a bottle to sell a dose of the Elixir, which was often the custom. But it also may suggest that Boylston was making the Elixir himself, or was ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... him. He used to scoff at everything, he seemed not to believe in anything that was good. Almost the first time that we met he told me that the dress I wore was 'provocative'—'a lure of Satan's devising' he called it, and said that nothing tempted men more than for women to wear what he described as 'the uniform of virginity.' He declared that it was because of my dress that he got lost following ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... love and another. Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but "Beware of fear"? Was not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which seemed to dictate the mode by which ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... extinct. So, as the sun sets, we gladly behold the moon rise on the opposite horizon, and rejoice in the double splendour of the two heavenly lights." Be it said that the atmosphere of the household was provocative of relaxed feelings. Goethe was not the only guest. Besides Merck there was a youth named Leuchsenring whose special line of activity had endeared him to a wide circle. Leuchsenring made it his business to enter into correspondence with susceptible souls ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... of fact, Merryon wondered himself sometimes; for she flirted with him more than all in that charming, provocative way of hers, coaxed him, laughed at him, brilliantly eluded him. She would perch daintily on the arm of his chair when he was busy, but if he so much as laid a hand upon her she was gone in a flash ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... from this unexpected wealth of material. There were dozens of poems on the same subject. "The Golden Gate," "Mount Shasta," "The Yosemite," were especially provocative. A beautiful bird known as the "Californian Canary" appeared to have been shot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego. Lines to the "Mariposa" flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in the Merced valley, and the Madrone tree was as "berhymed" as ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was, and often as she frowned on Maria's outbreaks, she never could detect their provocative. Over-restraint and want of sympathy were direct instruction in unscrupulous slyness of amusement. A sentence of displeasure on Maria's ill-mannered folly was in the act of again filling her eyes with ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is provocative of fun and merriment as well as dexterity of hand and quickness of vision. It also presents a very pretty spectacle. It is greatly enjoyed by Indian men, women and children. It has also found favor with merrymakers of ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... find the Aborigines of Australia ordinarily acting under the influence of no worse motives or passions than usually actuate man in a civilised state, we ought in fairness to suppose that sufficient provocative for retaliation has been given in those few instances of revenge, which, our imperfect knowledge of the circumstances attending them does not enable us satisfactorily to account for. In considering this question honestly, we must take ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... But if the linear measurements afforded us little satisfaction, the square measurements revealed considerably less, while, since no one of us was a mathematician, the calculation of the cubic capacity proved, not only unprofitable, but provocative of such bitter arguments and insulting remarks that Daphne demanded that ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... end also!" cried the Queen gaily, and, turning to the companion of her own studies, she added: "Did you hear, Charmian? If we had only succeeded in perceiving the wisdom and calm, purposeful order of existence which the Stoics, amid so much that is perverse, unhealthy, and provocative of contradiction, nevertheless set above everything else! How can I, in order to live wisely, imitate Nature, when in her being and action I encounter so much that is contradictory to my human reason, which is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... conservatory of current gossip and colonial tradition partly because it was policy, socially, partly because, curiously enough, the somewhat transparent charms of Virginia Suydam, whom he usually met there, interested him—enough to make him remember a provocative glance from her slow eyes—very slow, deeply lidded eyes, washed with the tint of the sea when it is less blue than green. And the curious side of it was that Malcourt and Virginia had met before, and he had completely forgotten. It was difficult to tell ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... that circumstance proved almost resistlessly provocative to her innate lust for adventure. For upward of two hours she had been passive there in her chair, a prey to uneasy thoughts; now she was weary with much thinking, but as far as ever from the wish to sleep; never, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... somehow or other they managed to coincide on the average about once a week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such occasions, as often as not under the planton's very stupid nose, a kiss or an embrace would be stolen—provocative of much fierce laughter and some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a planton behind them, en route to Mecca, along the hall would come five or six ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... was ushered was a parlor. Absently he seated himself. The maid tittered. He looked at her—or rather the tipped-up nose, an attractive bit of anatomy. Saucy, provocative! Mr. Heatherbloom's head tilted a little; he surveyed the detail with the look of a connoisseur. She colored, went; but remained in the hall to peer. There were many articles of virtu lying around—on tables or in cabinets—and the caller's appearance was against him. He would bear ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... appeared who had never been heard of before—young men full of exciting ideas borrowed from foreign lands and even more exciting ideas of their own fashioning. The national literature, but lately so academic and remote from existence, was now furiously lively, challenging and provocative. The people found in it, not the old placid escape from life, but a new stimulation to arduous and ardent living. And out of the ruck of authors, eager, exigent, and the tremendous clash of nations, new and old, there finally emerged a prose ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... was gied me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin' listenin' above me, an', man, he used language provocative of a breach o' the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employ, an' a corrupter o' young Bannister's morals, an' he'd prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps—I'd ha' thrown him into the dock if I'd caught him—an' ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... aphrodisiacal, acting as they undoubtedly do, as powerful stimulants. Thus Tourtelle and Peyrible assure us that pepper is a provocative to venereal pleasures, while Gesner and Chappel cured an atony of the virile member of three or four years' duration, by repeated immersions of that organ in a strong infusion of ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... and provocative, parted her lips, and she beckoned him to a grassy slope beneath one of the oldest trees, where little tufts of wild thyme grew thickly, filling the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... laughed at it, had I been a mere looker on— herald or spectator; but, unfortunately, being a principal in this deadly duello—a real wrestler in the backwoods arena—the provocative to mirth was given in vain; and only served to heighten the solemnity of the situation. The circumstances might have elicited laughter; but the contingency, turn whatever way it might, was too serious to admit of levity on my part. Either horn of the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid |
