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Unprovoked   Listen
adjective
Unprovoked  adj.  See provoked.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unprovoked" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretended was built on ground belonging to the French, or their allies. So little regard was paid to this intimation, that the English fell upon this party, and, as the French affirm, without the least provocation, either slew or took the whole detachment. De Viller, incensed at these unprovoked hostilities, marched up to the attack, which Washington for some time sustained under manifold disadvantages. At length, however, he surrendered the fort upon capitulation, for the performance of which he left two officers as hostages in the hands of the French; and in his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... people against the defenceless boat's crew, a lesson was learned how little was to be trusted, even to the mildest of uncivilized people, when a conscious superiority was in their hands. A striking proof of this was experienced in the unprovoked attack made by those amiable people, the Otaheitans, on Captain Wallis's ship, of whose power they had formed no just conception; but having once experienced the full force of it, on no future occasion was any attempt made to repeat the attack. Lieutenant ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility—nay, likelihood—of this encounter ending in some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... the other, allies, watching her all the time, and of late years England has been chipping at her whenever she got a chance, and flirting with France. What can a nation do but make herself strong enough to defend herself against unprovoked attack? Germany, of course, is full of the military spirit, but it is my opinion, Norgate, that it is a great deal fuller of the great commercial spirit. It isn't war with Germany that we have to fear. It's the ruin ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and the natives, from whom the French had received abundance of refreshments, and with whom they had been uniformly on the best terms, did not on their landing show any signs of a change of disposition. Malice unprovoked, and treachery without a motive, seem inconsistent even with the manners of savages; the French officers therefore, confiding in this unbroken state of amity, had suffered their boats to lie aground. ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... over the soldier's face at this unprovoked demonstration of heartless cruelty was fearful, but he kept his head. "Lor' blime!" he commented to me when I came up and sympathised with him over his loss, "I could have knocked the god-damned head off the swine and ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... well pleased with this decision. It was an age when quarter was but seldom given, and wholesale slaughters followed battles, so that they had, naturally, the ideas common to the time. Still, they both felt that this attack was wholly unprovoked and altogether beyond the scope of the expedition, and were well pleased that their leader would have naught to do with it. It was, however, a different matter when they heard that an army twelve thousand strong was coming out against them, and they were quite ready to take ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... soil. Now, however, with the German army invading Belgium, the English statesmen had to decide their course. As heads of one of the nations to guarantee Belgium's freedom, they called on Germany to explain this unprovoked invasion. The Germans made no answer. They were busily attacking the city of Liege. Great Britain gave Germany twenty-four hours in which to withdraw her troops. At the end of this time, with Germany paying no attention still, England solemnly ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... heard it said about Matterplay, that if one sows an answer there, a rich crop of questions immediately springs up. But why do you make this unprovoked ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... Strand, with the charitable purpose, now he saw himself so well supported, of knocking the London knaves, who had insulted him, into twiggen bottles; but he was withheld by the prudence of Julian, who, though himself extremely irritated by the unprovoked ill-usage which they had received, saw himself in a situation in which it was necessary to exercise more caution than vengeance. He prayed and pressed his father to seek some temporary place of retreat from the fury ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness was prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the house into the river within three months; but were ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... friend, not to remind the Minister of his presence in France, as Bonaparte never pardoned a Septembrizer, and the English guineas he possessed might be claimed and seized as national property, to compensate some of the sufferers by the unprovoked war with England. In vain did he address himself to his fellow labourer in revolutionary plots, the Counsellor of State, Real, who had been the intermedium between him and Talleyrand, when he was first enlisted among the secret agents; instead of receiving money ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... can therefore only state that the steadfast opposition of the Finns to these illegal proceedings led to still harsher treatment, and that the few concessions granted since the outbreak of the Japanese War have apparently failed to soothe the resentment aroused by the former unprovoked attacks ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. Her Majesty having determined to afford active assistance to Her Ally, His Highness the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, for the protection of his dominions against the encroachments and unprovoked aggression of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias, Her Majesty, therefore, is pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to order, and it is hereby ordered, that general reprisals[211] be granted ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson

... part of the island, far removed from those portions which we have yet had occasion to describe, a band of fiendish-looking men were making arrangements for one of those unprovoked assaults which savages are so prone to make on those ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... vagabond was brought up before this clergyman charged with a violent and unprovoked assault on a man in a public-house. He was said to have gone into the room where the prosecutor was, and to have taken up his jug of ale and appropriated the contents to his own use without the owner's consent. The prosecutor, annoyed at the outrage, rose, and was immediately ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... first president of that union; now it was question after question regarding Dr. Franklin's reception in America on his return from France and release from his arduous duties and the vexatious persecutions to which he had been subjected by his former colleagues—the most outrageous and unprovoked that ever man suffered—and there were endless inquiries about personal, friends, about the currency in America, and about the feeling of security and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... Your son has caused a painful distress in my household. He made an unprovoked attack upon a little nephew of mine who is visiting in my household, insulted him by calling him vicious names and falsehoods, stating that ladies of his family were in jail. He then tried to make his pony kick him, and ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... I left them once in Idaho and went back to Mesa, riding all the way, mostly by night, but Bennett was gone. He'd run down mighty fast after Merridy died, so I heard, growing sullen and uglier day by day—and I reckon I was the only one who knew why—till he had a killing in his place. It was unprovoked, and instead of stopping to face it out the yellow in him rose to the surface and he left before sunup, as I had left, making a clean getaway, too, for there was no such hullabaloo raised about killing a man as there was about—the other. So my ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... saw her husband's cheek grow paler each day; she saw his firm step grow weaker and weaker. In the night-time his hollow cough would start her from the brief slumber into which she had fallen. Then would the form of this, his unprovoked and relentless enemy, rise before her mind, and her soul turned shuddering from ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... borne. A ring was formed. I had a second assigned me in true boxing style. My cousin, as he advanced to fight, said something about his generosity in showing me such fair play, when I had made such an unprovoked attack upon him ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... passed in a fit of servility or animosity, had, when fortune had changed, or when passion had cooled, been repealed and solemnly stigmatized as unjust. Thus, in old times, the Act which was passed against Roger Mortimer, in the paroxysm of a resentment not unprovoked, had been, at a calmer moment, rescinded on the ground that, however guilty he might have been, he had not had fair play for his life. Thus, within the memory of the existing generation, the law which attainted Strafford had been annulled, without one dissentient voice. Nor, it was added, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the differences in the Supreme Council were by these means composed, and the calamities consequent thereon were avoided, the said Warren Hastings and Richard Barwell, Esquires, did once more endanger the public peace and security by other illegal, unwarrantable, and unprovoked acts of violence: having omitted to summon either the said General Clavering or the said Philip Francis, Esquire, to Council; and having, in a Council held thus privately and clandestinely and contrary to law, on the 22d day of June, come to ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... me of similar experiences, and never have I heard of one instance of unprovoked attack upon a sleeping person by a bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this country. Only one authentic instance of a bear feeding on human flesh have I known, and that was ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... she ascend on her proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause. Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of unprovoked aggression? All faces in Europe are illuminated with smiles of prosperous malice. It is a painful preeminence which England occupies—hard to keep, dangerous to forfeit. Hit, and a million of hearts are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... detestation by all Gentiles of adjoining counties, irrespective of political affiliations. The announcement of the doctrine of polygamy by the Prophet Smith had been accompanied by acts of defiance and followed by depredations, which, while not altogether unprovoked, aroused the non-Mormons to a dangerous pitch of excitement. In the midst of general disorder in Hancock County, Joseph Smith was murdered. Every deed of violence was now attributed to the Danites, as the members of the militant order of the Mormon Church ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Secretary of State for India, was received by the Viceroy. It reiterated that the Government at home considered our trans-frontier relations unsatisfactory; that permanent British Agencies should be established in Afghanistan; and that we were willing to afford the Ameer material support against unprovoked aggression, our object being to maintain a strong and friendly Power in that country. The despatch went on to say that should the Ameer decline to meet our request, he should be informed that he was isolating himself from ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde

... shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively controversial style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him, politically speaking, to his opponents, had risen in his place to make an unprovoked apology for having alluded in a recent speech to certain protesting taxpayers as "skulkers." He had realized on reflection that they were in all probability perfectly honest in their inability to understand certain ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... poisoned her son and her husband, because she had discovered that they had murdered a son whom she had had by a former husband. Her case was adjourned—the council to whom it had been referred being in doubt how to draw a line between just revenge and unprovoked crime; and so she was remitted to the judgment of the Areopagus, those severe Athenian judges, who are said to have decided disputes even among the gods. They, when they had heard the case, ordered the woman and her accuser to appear before them again in a hundred years, to avoid either acquitting ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... altogether. It was aimed at my heart and it pierced the sleeve of my left arm, passing through the flesh—no more. Yet at the pain of that cut all thought of flight left me, and instead of it a cold anger filled me, causing me to wish to kill this man who had attacked me thus and unprovoked. In my hand was my stout oaken staff which I had cut myself on the banks of Hollow Hill, and if I would fight I must make such play with this as I might. It seems a poor weapon indeed to match against a Toledo ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the People of France, nor the National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners, nor justified ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... of Orders,—had they retreated without a very extraordinary miracle the Loyalists would have fallen a prey to their unmerciful yet unprovoked Enemies. ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones

... in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Crespal, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge; I have sought it; I have ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... editor says, the attack made upon the "Agnes" would seem to have been altogether unprovoked by the conduct either of the captain or any of the crew; but we must not, in matters of this kind, assume that we are in possession of the whole truth, when we have heard the statement of only one of the parties. What may have been the exact nature ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... had we refrained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, the war would have come nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would have encroached on ours. Undoubtedly we have wronged many tribes; but equally undoubtedly our first definite knowledge of many others has been derived from their unprovoked outrages upon our people. The Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatamies furnished hundreds of young warriors to the parties that devastated our frontiers generations before we in any way encroached ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... two most wanton and butcherly assaults which Champlain and his soldiers, in company with their Indian allies, made upon their unoffending neighbors. No milder epithets can justly describe these unprovoked invasions, in which the Iroquois bowmen, defending their homes, were shot down mercilessly with firearms, by strangers whom they had never before seen or perhaps even heard of. This stroke of evil policy, which tarnished an illustrious ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... of peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... hear his words. She had walked away from the fence with flaming cheeks and tears in her eyes. She was sorry for Mrs. Moore's misfortunes and had always tried to be kind to her; but this seemed such an unprovoked attack. ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... dropped dead, thus murdered in cold blood. The natives rushed in crowds from the spot, naturally supposing that a general massacre would follow so unprovoked an outrage. The body was dragged by the heels a few paces outside the camp, and the vultures were its sextons within a few minutes ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... YOUNG RUFFIAN.—We understand that a young boy in the service of Mr. Nathan Badger, one of our most respected citizens, has disappeared under very extraordinary circumstances. The evening previous to his departure he made an unprovoked attack upon Mr. and Mrs. Badger, actually throwing Mr. Badger downstairs and firing a pistol at Mrs. Badger. He was a small, slight boy, but the strength he exhibited was remarkable in thus coping successfully with a strong ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... us you are personally known. Of some, indeed, you were, in years long past, the trusted guide, to whom they owe more than can be expressed in words; and all are conscious that the ingenuous fulness of your answer to a false and unprovoked accusation, has intensified their interest in the labours and trials of your life. While, then, we resent the indignity to which you have been exposed, and lament the pain and annoyance which the manifestation of yourself must have cost you, we cannot but rejoice that, in the fulfilment ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... letter to which your last was an answer, was owing to my having made no allowance for east winds, which detained the mail near a week, and brought me two of your letters together. You must, therefore, excuse a very unprovoked ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... Ellandonnan Castle. Finlay was a very "pretty man," and the writer of the "Genealogy of the Macras" informs us that "the remains of a monument erected for him, in the place where he was killed, is still (1704) to be seen." Kintail was naturally much exasperated at this unprovoked raid upon his territory, as also for Macdonald's attack upon his friend and ally, Macleod of Dunvegan; and to punish Donald Gorm, he dispatched his son, Kenneth, with a force to Skye, who made ample ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... a very half-hearted fashion, going in reluctantly and coming out in the same undecided way; while, to make matters worse and further protract his loitering, just as he was beginning to dress again, a nasty spiteful bloodhound, which was prowling by the shore, made a most unprovoked attack on Rover, necessitating his going to his rescue with a big stone—Master Bob hopping up to the scene of action "with one shoe off and one shoe on," like the celebrated "John" the hero ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend himself against the enemies in his own house but external politics seemed based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house is successful aggression followed by collapse when weaker hands were unable to hold the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... Canada, unprovoked by Dissent, was altogether free from the stain of religious persecution: hopelessly fettered in the chains of metropolitan power, she was also undisturbed by political agitation. But this calm was more the stillness of stagnation than ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... needless to remark that the sailors witnessed this unprovoked assault with unutterable amazement. But the most remarkable part of it was, that the fellow, instead of knocking all his assailants down, as he might have done without much trouble, quietly submitted to the indignities heaped upon him; nay, he ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... and two of his satellites testified to a most colossal aggregation of perjuries. Watson could not have believed it possible without having experienced it. They denied the existence of the other four men. And of the two that testified, one claimed to have been in the kitchen, a witness to Watson's unprovoked assault on Patsy, while the other, remaining in the bar, had witnessed Watson's second and third rushes into the place as he attempted to annihilate the unoffending Patsy. The vile language ascribed to Watson was so voluminously and unspeakably vile, that he felt they were ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... entreat you to remember that you are addressing a gentleman, who is anxious in this interview, as well as upon all occasions when we may meet, to treat you with courtesy. And I beg to say now, that I regret the warmth of my language to you, though not unprovoked, on ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... brother-in-law, Lord Bothwell, and suspecting that this might be only a private marauding party, I refused to admit the soldiers; and saw them depart, swearing to return next day with a stronger force, and storm the castle. To be ascertained of their commission, and to appeal against such unprovoked tyranny, should it be true, I ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... manifesto to foreign nations, and the first document of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is bold, high-toned, and American, but it has dark shadows; shows an inexperienced hand in diplomacy and in dealing with events. The passages about the frequent changes in Europe are unnecessary, and unprovoked by anything whatever. It is especially offensive to France, to the French people, and to Louis Napoleon. It is bosh, but in Europe they will consider ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... us, Mr. Osbaldistone, and it is not natural that it should be otherwise. But remember, at least, we have not been unprovoked. We are a rude and an ignorant, and it may be a violent and passionate, but we are not a cruel people. The land might be at peace and in law for us, did they allow us to enjoy the blessings of peaceful law. But we ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... if, after this, public disgust make the author feel, in the midst of the little circle of flatterers that remains to him, what an insight he has given into the guilt of satire before maturity, before experience, before knowledge; if the original unprovoked intruder upon the peace of others be thus taught a love of privacy and a facility of retraction; if Turnus have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... century, the time of Oiseen and Fionn, the military rules of the Feine included provisions which the chivalry of later ages might have been proud of. It was a wild, but not wholly an ungentle time. An unprovoked affront was regarded as a grave moral offence; and severe punishments were ordained, not only for detraction, but for a word, though uttered in jest, which brought a blush on the cheek of a listener. Yet an injury a hundred ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... and Turk had walked for nearly a mile, and had just turned the corner of a street when, as they passed a butcher's shop upon the right hand, a large brindled mastiff rushed from the shop-door, and flew at Turk with unprovoked ferocity. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... listening children 'til tears of pity glisten in their eyes, and boiling passions shake their tender frames; and whilst the anniversary of that ill-fated night is kept a jubilee in the grim court of pandemonium, let all America join in one common prayer to Heaven, that the inhuman, unprovoked murders of the 5th of March, 1770, planned by Hillsborough and a knot of treacherous knaves in Boston, and executed by the cruel hand of Preston and his sanguinary coadjutors, may ever stand in history without a parallel. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... fully told elsewhere,—[Mark Twain: A Biography, by same author.] —and need only be sketched briefly here. Henry, a gentle, faithful boy, shared with his brother the enmity of the pilot Brown. Some two months following the date of the foregoing letter, on a down trip of the Pennsylvania, an unprovoked attack made by Brown upon the boy brought his brother Sam to the rescue. Brown received a good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... hands were too much incensed to let the bully off so easily, for they hated him as much as they liked Jan and were indignant at the unprovoked assault Mr Flinders had made upon him. As luck would have it, while they were debating how they should pay him out properly, and whether to give him another ducking in the muddy water or no, a happy means presented itself to them for punishing him in a much more ignominious manner, and one which ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... like a cockade, and then cut his throat, along with that of a pig, and tear out the two hearts and dance around them.[2443] After this, for fifty days around Carpentras, to which they lay siege in vain, the unprovoked, cruel instincts of the chauffeurs manifested at a later date, the ancient cannibalistic desires which sometimes reappear in convicts, and the perverted and over-strained sensuality found in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter. He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither. He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes. And the worst of it was that, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... thing for a grizzly to make an unprovoked attack. He has done it many times, in the history of the west, but usually he is glad enough to turn aside, only launching into his terrible death-charge when a mortal wound obliterates his fear of man, leaving only his fear of death. But this grizzly, native to these uninhabited wilds, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... unwittingly; gun fhios nach faic thu e, in case you may see him, {130} if perhaps you may see him; gun fhios am faic thu e, if perhaps you may not see him. Gun chomas aig air, without his being able to prevent it, or avoid it; involuntarily. Gniomh gun chomain, an unmerited, or unprovoked deed. Dh' ['a]ithn e dha gun sin a dheanamh, he ordered him not to do that. Fhuair iad rabhadh gun iad a philltinn, they ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... this unprovoked assault, the crew wished to attack the hostile natives, but Drake refused ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... he explains and justifies his hatred. He does not make him quote the centuries-old Hebrew scorn of and aversion to the Gentiles, nor the merchant's interference with his commercial speculations, nor the man's unprovoked spitting at, spurning, and abuse of him; but he will and can give no reason for his abhorrence of Antonio, whom he says he loathes with the inexplicable revulsion of nature that certain men feel toward certain animals; and the mastery of the poet shows itself in thus making Shylock's ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... Switzerland was, in effect, degraded into a province of France; and became bound to maintain an army of 16,000 men, who were to be at the disposal, whenever it should please him to require their aid, of the Grand Mediator. England sent an envoy to remonstrate against this signal and unprovoked rapacity: but the other powers suffered it to pass without any formal opposition. The sufferings, however, of Aloys Reding and his brave associates, and this audacious crushing-down of the old spirit of Swiss freedom and independence, were heard of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... kill their victims, and also to kill any possible foe which they think menaces them. Some of them are good-tempered, and only fight if injured or seriously alarmed. Others are excessively irritable, and on rare occasions will even attack of their own accord when entirely unprovoked and unthreatened. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... outright and a third badly crippled. So soon as surgeons plugged up the holes in his hide which members of the vengeful posse shot into him after they had him surrounded and before his ammunition gave out, he was brought to bar to answer for the unprovoked murder of a postal clerk on a transcontinental limited. No time was wasted in hurrying his trial through to its conclusion; it was felt that there was crying need to make an example of this red-handed desperado. Having been convicted with commendable celerity, the Lone-Hand ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... was absolutely fearless, but as loving and gentle as he was brave. He understood every word spoken within his hearing, and his master declared that for his wisdom he ought to be named "Solomon." He never made an unprovoked assault upon a living creature, and would stand any amount of abuse from children or those weaker than himself. Let an indignity be offered to his beloved master in his presence, though, and his fury was as terrible as that of a young lion. Then woe to the unfortunate in whose flesh those gleaming ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... I warmly, "although your age prevents my taking notice of the unprovoked insults you have seen fit ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... their prowess. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtered. My master and his whole family were destroyed. The bitterest revenge, not plunder, was the object of the assailants. Those who had lately been boasting of their own unprovoked attack on these very enemies, were now justly the sufferers. When the warriors had finished their work of blood, they hurried on to other villages, which bodies of ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... it too strong for him, so he thought I had not heard and repeated his question. I said again as before, and he shut up. I sent him a copy of Erewhon immediately after we had completed. It was rather tall talk on my part, I admit, but he should not have challenged me unprovoked. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... glaring down irresolutely at his chief mate, disclosed the gloomy and cynical conviction that more than half of them had been lost overboard, "if only the truth was known," and retired to the other end of the bridge. Jukes, exasperated by this unprovoked attack, broke the needle at the second stitch, and dropping his work got up and cursed the heat in a ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... said, "you had just taken advantage of the fog to commit a brutal and quite unprovoked assault upon a warder." He ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... the man who had made so unprovoked an assault upon him was characteristic of his nature. He never could cherish malice, and it was very hard work for him to remain angry with any one, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... word, shot the speaker through the heart. Men said at his trial that it was the most brutal and unprovoked murder they ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... you into this civil, unjust, and unnatural war, at a time when Great Britain was straining every nerve in defense of her own, and the liberties of the world. Europe is now happy and free, and now hastens justly to avenge an unprovoked insult. Accept of my offers; everything I have promised, I guarantee to you, on the sacred honor ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... Somersetshire and Dorsetshire were filled with thousands of captives. The chief friend and protector of these unhappy men in their extremity was one who abhorred their religious and political opinions, one whose order they hated, and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong, Bishop Ken. That good prelate used all his influence to soften the gaolers, and retrenched from his own episcopal state that he might be able to make some addition to the coarse and scanty fare of those who had defaced his beloved Cathedral. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... B—, had a duel with the son of the Bonapartist General L—. General S— was Lord B—'s second, and the principals exchanged several shots without injury to either party. This duel, like the preceding, originated with the Frenchman, who insulted the Englishman at the Theatre Francais in the most unprovoked manner. At the present day our fiery neighbours are much more amenable to reason, and if you are but civil, they will be civil to you; duels consequently are of rare occurrence. Let us hope that the frequency and ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... of which there are many, are doubted by the authorities, who have found it impossible to authenticate a single instance of unprovoked attack. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... facetious gentlemen on the left, after pressing sideways in a body, and squeezing Mr. Snodgrass into the very last extreme of human torture, would request to know 'vere he vos a shovin' to'; and when Mr. Winkle had done expressing his excessive indignation at witnessing this unprovoked assault, some person behind would knock his hat over his eyes, and beg the favour of his putting his head in his pocket. These, and other practical witticisms, coupled with the unaccountable absence of Mr. Tupman (who had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found), rendered their ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he knew, to let the boy have a fair trial against himself. Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's possession of his son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a measure to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe and provide for the movements ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Ennistymon, when Mr. Wynne, an inspecting officer of the Board of Works, gave my colleague, Mr. O'Brien, in the presence of several magistrates and gentlemen assembled at the Ennistymon Relief Committee, the most unprovoked insult, by stating that he treated what Mr. O'Brien said with utter contempt, although Mr. O'Brien merely observed that certain letters containing what we all believed to be unfounded charges against the Liscannor Committee, afforded evidence of a vile conspiracy." Captain Wynne being called ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... saw it coming and tried to stop him. That he was drunk was Rutter's own fault, with his damned notions of drowning everybody in drink every minute of the day and night. I saw the whole affair and heard the insult, and it was wholly unprovoked. Harry did just what was right, and if he hadn't I'd either have made Willits apologize or I would have shot him myself the moment the affair could have been arranged, no matter where we were. I know perfectly well"—here he swept his ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... was not known why the Sioux had made an attack, seemingly unprovoked, upon the French. Gradually, however, it leaked out that earlier in the year a party of Sioux on their way to Fort St Charles on a friendly visit had been fired upon by a party of Chippewas. The Sioux had shouted indignantly, ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee

... Mallard help comparing these manifestations of ardent temper with what he had witnessed in Cecily? The resemblance was at moments more than he could endure; once or twice he astonished Elgar with a reply of unprovoked savageness. The emotions of the day, even more than its bodily exercise, had so wearied him that he went early to bed. They had a double-bedded room, and Elgar continued talking for hours. Even without this, Mallard felt that he would have been unable to sleep. To add to his torments, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... perfectly peaceable parade of two hundred and fifty miners was attacked by guards armed with Winchester rifles, with the result that twenty-nine workers were killed and thirty others seriously injured. This was deliberate and unprovoked slaughter. Recently, in the Westmoreland mining district, no less than twenty striking miners have been murdered, while several hundred have been seriously injured. On one occasion deputies and strike-breakers became intoxicated and "shot up the town" of Latrobe. In the recent strike ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... peace." To this the consul replied, that "the business required neither judge nor arbitrator: for to whom was it not evident that every injurious consequence of the war was to be imputed to him who first took up arms. And in this case Philip, unprovoked by any, had first commenced hostilities against all." When they next began to treat of those nations which were to be set at liberty, the consul named, first, the Thessalians: on which the king, fired with indignation, exclaimed, "What harsher terms, Titus Quinctius, could ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to tempt, even while they frightened him. And his encounter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show his sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... me, base poisoner!" answered Douglas, "wouldst thou have committed so horrible, so unprovoked a murder, and mentioned my name ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... resentful of his avaricious and unprovoked invasion, refused to make peace, and until his death, nearly three years thereafter, having entered into a league with Barnabo of Milan and certain cities hostile to the church, conducted a successful ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... Bechuanas by the names of the borele or black rhinoceros, the keitloa or two-horned rhinoceros, the muchocho or common white rhinoceros, and the kobaoba or long-horned white rhinoceros. Both varieties of the black rhinoceros are extremely fierce and dangerous, and rush headlong and unprovoked at any object which attracts their attention. They never attain much fat, and their flesh is tough, and not much esteemed by the Bechuanas. Their food consists almost entirely of the thorny branches of ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... inflicted upon him. These depredations on Spanish possessions were continued through many years, with occasional attacks upon the coast of Spain itself. "By Spanish historians," says an English writer, "these hostilities are represented as unprovoked in their origin, and as barbarous in their execution, and candor must allow that there is but too much ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... many could be added to the number. These were, however, the acts of individuals, and without concert or much premeditation. It is conjectured that the first European who perished was Mange, the surgeon of the Geographe, in 1802. The attack was unprovoked, and ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... workings of destiny in life. We have all known men who met with a prosperity or disaster entirely out of relation to any of their actions; men upon whom good or bad luck seemed suddenly, at a turn of the road, to spring from the ground or descend from the stars, undeserved, unprovoked, but complete and inevitable. One, we will say, who scarcely has given a thought to some appointment for which he knows his rival to be better equipped, will see this rival vanish at the decisive moment, another, who has counted upon the protection ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... and became silent. He could not understand this unprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and certainly was very far from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resembling emotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollable burst of sincerity. It completed his bewilderment, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... thunder, he demanded of Michele an immediate explanation—wanted to know how he dared address the princess—we all felt that he was putting himself in the wrong and that a catastrophe was imminent. Giants, that is, unscrupulous people in power, are too fond of assuming this attitude of unprovoked hostility and overbearing insolence, but they assume it once too often. Had he remembered Adam and Eve and the apple it might have occurred to him to inquire whether in the present case also the lady had not begun it. Giants, however, are for the most part unintelligent, not to ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... warns the general public against an impostor soliciting alms under false pretences! This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the above judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is guilty of wanton and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... been asked why I "interfered in things beyond my sphere," and why I made "an unprovoked attack" upon religion. I am trying to explain. My ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... their oppressors. With such an ancestry as this behind him, it is not to be wondered at that Disraeli's wit is scornful, and that he excelled in personal satire and invective. It was never, however, unprovoked. Disraeli never indulged in personal satire or invective except in his own defence. For example, his mockingly ironical reply to the attack of a member of the House of Commons named Roebuck, which was one of the most effective rejoinders Disraeli ever made, was in answer ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... strangeness. Of course, being a woman, she might be in love; but the two ideas, Marion and love, refused to coalesce. And again, was it likely that such as she, her mind occupied with so many other absorbing interests, would fall in love unprovoked, unsolicited? That, indeed, was not likely. Then if, solicited, she but returned love for love, why was she sad? The new experience might, it is true, cause such commotion in a mind like hers as to trouble her greatly. She would not know what to do with it, nor where ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... Be persuaded: You know your son: have tasted of his temper; At his first onset threatening unprovoked The crime predicted for his last and worst. How whetted now with such a taste of blood, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... men then fell mainly into two classes. One class would be always thrusting themselves forward with unprovoked argumentation to cut to pieces all belief in God. Like the hunter whose hands itch, no sooner he spies a living creature on the top or at the foot of a tree, to kill it, whenever these came to learn of a harmless belief lurking anywhere in fancied security, they felt stirred ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... say the least, if inoffensive wayfarers should be expected to quietly submit to the unprovoked attack of ferocious animals large enough to tear down a man, merely in view of possibly checking their ferocity at some other time. When capering wildly about in an unequal contest with three or four of these animals, while ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... suspect? Be calm now; don't speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir,—a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical—but whom do you suspect, I say?" Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered, "I hear as how the two Papishers slept at your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the meaning of your question, whether we have done you or your allies any service during this war? If you ask as foes, how can you claim any service? And if you ask as friends, you have done us bitter wrong, by attacking us unprovoked. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... instincts of the British people. He dissolved Parliament; and Cobden, Bright, Milner Gibson, W.J. Fox, Layard, and many others were left without seats. Manchester rejected John Bright because he had spoken in the interests of peace and honor, and condemned one of the most cowardly, brutal, and unprovoked wars of the century. ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... several expeditions, some from choice, and some from necessity. That against the Catti [810] was unprovoked, but that against the Sarmatians was necessary; an entire legion, with its commander, having been cut off by them. He sent two expeditions against the Dacians; the first upon the defeat of Oppius Sabinus, a man of consular rank; and (484) the other, upon that of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... suffered the glance of his dark serious eyes to penetrate to her soul. Ah! Juliet, well mayest thou toss to and fro in thy troubled slumbers; thy lover is more miserable than thou, for he cannot sleep. Indignant at the insult he had received in so unprovoked a manner from his ungenerous cousin, and at war with himself, Anthony Hurdlestone paced his chamber during the greater part of the night—striking his breast against the fetters that bound him, and striving in vain to be free. The very idea, that he was the son of the miser—that ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... Roman under the unprovoked storm had the young Jew's sympathy; so that when he reached the corner of the house, the latter leaned yet farther over the parapet to see him go by, and in the act rested a hand upon a tile which had been a long time cracked and allowed to go unnoticed. The pressure ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... terror, not believing there existed on this mundane ball, causes sufficiently powerful to operate the gigantic phenomena that filled their minds with dismay, carried their streaming eyes towards heaven, where their tremulous fears led them to suppose these unknown agents, whose unprovoked enmity destroyed, their ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... of his brother came along side of his head, with a force that knocked him across the room. At this instant Mr. Howland entered. He made no inquiry as to the cause of the blow he saw struck, but took it for granted that it was an unprovoked assault of Andrew upon his brother. Yielding to the impulse of the moment, he caught the former by the arm, in a fierce grip, and struck him with his open hand, as he had struck his brother, repeating the blow three or ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you," John xiii. 4, &c., 13-15. Thus Christ's suffering with innocence and unprovoked patience, not reviling again, &c., is purposely propounded for all Christians to imitate, and they are bound in conscience as well as they can to follow it—"Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps," &c., 1 Pet. ii. 21-23. Hence, the apostle so urges the example ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... time the waking dreamer was on the borderland of sleep, and Mrs. Burr's image crossed it with her and became a real dream, and whistled the tune the boy had whistled to Farmer Jones's Bull. And into that dream came, suddenly and unprovoked, her sister Phoebe of old, beautiful and fresh as violets in April, and ended a tale of how she would have none of Ralph Daverill, come what might, by saying, "Why, you are all in the dark, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... fully expected murder, but in a few moments Troke and Gimblett appeared, borne along by a mass of men, dusty, but unharmed, and having the convict between them. He sulkily raised a hand as he passed me, either to rectify the position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... asked, "should there be more unprovoked assaults from the people of another planet? What was their object? What had they to gain? ... Perhaps we were safe after all." The answer that destroyed all hope came to them borne in upon a wall of water ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... damp on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced the league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who, as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon. This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their engagements with the league. The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting to Cleomenes, or of supplicating the aid ...
— The Federalist Papers

... could not help suspecting you had heard the facts from a person with whom you spent some hours lately; and I was much hurt by your alluding to them in such a severe and public manner. You will ask me, how I could conceive you to be capable of such unprovoked malevolence: and my answer is, 'I cannot tell;' I can only say, such is the effect of the unfortunate susceptibility of my heart, or, to speak more candidly, of my temper. I confess I cannot, in these particulars, alter my nature. Blame me as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... not, I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could hit out ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... was warned, And laid not to my breast the poisonous adder! Accuse not fate! your own deceitful heart It was, the wild ambition of your house As yet no enmities had passed between us, When your imperious uncle, the proud priest, Whose shameless hand grasps at all crowns, attacked me With unprovoked hostility, and taught You, but too docile, to assume my arms, To vest yourself with my imperial title, And meet me in the lists in mortal strife: What arms employed he not to storm my throne? The curses of the priests, the people's sword, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... he might have succeeded had not others of our party come to my assistance. He seemed demented, and he had acquired such strength during his exile that it was as much as four men could do to hold him down. But, notwithstanding his unprovoked attack upon me, I felt I could not abandon him again to his solitude. I therefore ordered him to be taken on board our vessel, where Hartog would be the judge of his ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... probably remembered him well to the last. That colleague, recently elected to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a member of long service, signalized his entrance into the House by an unprovoked attack upon Mr. Randolph. The latter, from his seat near by, listened with apparent unconcern to the fierce personal assault. To the surprise of all, no immediate reply was made to the speech, and the new member flattered ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... against my good offices. He remonstrated indignantly when I acquiesced in O'Corrigan's assertion that my humble friend must be demented, a plea which opened a way out of the predicament. Fortunately, the Professor's own wisdom in refusing an explanation of an apparently unprovoked assault gave color to this theory, and as Talcott's one clear thought was to escape without any unpleasant notoriety, O'Corrigan satisfied his ire by ordering his mad employee ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... public, or provoking panic. We hope to be able to announce something definite in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this entirely unprovoked invasion." ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... resigned himself to what he felt he could not help. But as he went on, he reflected on the strange scene through which he had just passed. All had gone on so rapidly that he could hardly recall the events to his memory. He was, however, quite sure that this unprovoked assault concealed some motive with which at ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... not set well upon your stomach, that being a "Minister of the Gospel, and having the care of souls," I should seem not to place implicit confidence in your denial of any participation in this unprovoked war upon me. I will be candid with you, and though it is possible for me to be mistaken in my views, still, if I am, I am honestly deceived. I have no confidence in the moral honesty and Christian integrity of ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... grew red and pale by turns. "Mother," she replied, with a ring of pain in her voice, "I have always respected your opinions and feelings, and shall continue to do so, and try my best to please you. But it is hard that I should have to suffer these unprovoked attacks; and it seems strange that the girl's coming should be made the occasion for one, for I had hoped that her presence in the house would have made ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... obedience. The "rogue" is an individual afflicted with either an incorrigible disposition, or else is afflicted with insanity, either temporary or permanent. I know of no instance on record wherein a normal elephant with a healthy mind has been guilty of unprovoked homicide, or even of attempting it. I have never heard of an elephant in India so much as kicking, striking or otherwise injuring either human beings or other domestic animals. There have been several instances, however, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... he is to be met with quite frequently, but is not given to unprovoked attack, and with modern firearms an encounter with him is not fraught with great danger. He, or more properly, she will charge man with intent to kill upon certain rare occasions—when wounded, surprised, or when feeling that her young are in danger. But ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... manners, shrewd and able in conversation on the business in hand. At the durbar on the 22nd of July 1880, Abbdur Rahman was officially recognized as amir, granted assistance in arms and money, and promised, in case of unprovoked foreign aggression, such further aid as might be necessary to repel it, provided that he followed British advice in regard to his external relations. The evacuation of Afghanistan was settled on the terms proposed, and in 1881 the British troops also made over Kandahar ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... costumes they pay to strangle time for them at San Carlo, or Teatro de' Fiorentini there breathes a genuine human thing; a creature with a true, pure, womanly heart beating under the velvet, gauze, and tinsel, and with blood that now and then boils under unprovoked and dastardly insult. If I were cross-eyed, or had been afflicted with small-pox, or were otherwise disfigured, I should not require Mr. and Mrs. Waul; but Madame Orme, the lonely widow deprived by death of a father's ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... And in the unprovoked hostility with which she falls upon him in his absence, in the pertinacity and bitterness of her satire, there is certainly great argument that he occupies much more of her thoughts than she would ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... To my mind, the distances seemed the greatest obstacle, as many of the men I wanted to reach lived twenty-five or even thirty miles away, with very rough country between. I had no fear of impertinence, for it is unknown to me, and seldom comes, I fancy, unprovoked; whilst with regard to the novelty wearing off and the men ceasing to attend, that must be left in God's hands. We could only endeavour to plant the good seed, and trust to Him to give the increase. It ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... there is in our beautiful but distracted country a single person who is the subject of so cold-blooded, unprovoked, systematic, malignant neglect and abuse on any one point as the writer of these short and simple annals on this. If there is one thing in the whole range of human possibilities on which I pride myself, it is my poetry. I cannot do much at prose. That requires a depth, an equilibrium, a ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... much maligned race. They are exceedingly independent, and although along the frontier of their own territory in S'suchuan they wage a war of robbery and destruction it is not wholly unprovoked. No one can enter their country safely unless he is under the protection of a chief who acts as a sponsor and passes him along to others. Mr. Brooke, an Englishman, was killed by the Lolos, but he was not properly "chaperoned," and Major D'Ollone of the French expedition lived among them safely ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... April the 3rd, a heavy battery on our side made an unprovoked assault on the Turkish lines, to which they were not slow to respond and several shells fell within the confines of our camp. Most of the men were away however on fatigue, and no one was hurt. On the 7th the Battalion ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... enough to tell me the name of this hulking young blackguard who assaults quiet elderly gentlemen, taking constitutionals, in this most unprovoked and wanton fashion," said the higher mathematician ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... and positively mad!" exclaimed Colonel Delmar; "I regret very much that he has ever come here. I know that some years ago, when he was younger, he fought two or three duels rather than make an apology; but in this instance it was so unprovoked, and I had hoped that he had got over all that nonsense and obstinacy. Are you a good shot, Keene? because he is a ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... morality I thought it best to eject him from the premises before he had time to frame a lie. About a week after this I received a petition, signed with his mark, recounting his faithful services, expressing his surprise and regret at the sudden and unprovoked manner in which I had dismissed him, and insinuating that some enemy or rival had poisoned my benevolent mind against him. He concluded by demanding satisfaction. I wonder what has ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... leading up to the War of the Rebellion, were all part of Plymouth Church life. It seemed sometimes as if Mr. Beecher was everywhere and nothing could be done without him. At the time when Senator Brooks in the United States Senate made his unprovoked attack on Charles Sumner, the whole country was wild with indignation. Meetings were held on every hand to protest against the outrage. Every item of news from Mr. Sumner's bedside was watched for with intense solicitude, and for a time it seemed as if the fate of war or peace ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold

... presented to us one day," reports the Committee, "in the presence of about 100 patrolmen in uniform, who during the period of three preceding years had been convicted by the police commissioners of unprovoked and unwarranted assault on citizens." Still more impressive than "this exhibit of convicted clubbers" was "a stream of victims of police brutality who testified before the Committee. The eye of one man, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... a conqueror and a hero seized him. At twenty-eight he burned to play the part of Alexander. Thenceforth the history of his reign chiefly pertains to his gigantic wars,—some defensive, but mostly offensive, aggressive, and unprovoked. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... wholly unprovoked changes give cause for reflection. When my geranium-flowers were devastated, how had the obtrusive Bee, untroubled by the profound dissimilarity between the petals, snow-white here, bright scarlet there, how had she ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... effect communications with Japan, all excepting the United States had given reasonable cause for offence, and some of them for deep enmity. The Dutch, though disliked, were tolerated; but the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Russians had forfeited the good opinion of the islanders by their unprovoked and unjustifiable aggressions. It is not improbable that the selection of the United States for their first foreign embassy may have been induced by the consideration that the relations between the Japanese and their American neighbors have always been pacific, and that they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... as having perpetrated the unprovoked crime of assassinating the temporary occupant of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... an auspicious beginning for a long night-drive. And though for a while all things seemed to be going about as well as I could wish, there remained a nervousness which, slight though it seemed while unprovoked, yet tinged every motion of the horses and even my own state of mind. Still, while we were going west, and later, north into the one-third-way town, the drive was one of the most marvellously beautiful ones that I had had during that winter of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... a vigorous movement, to shake off his assailant; but the fellow held on, and he found it impossible to detach his grasp. His blood was boiling with indignation at the unprovoked assault, and his two fists were clinched so tight that iron could hardly have been harder and tougher. He levelled a blow at the head of the ruffian, who still kept in his rear, and delivered it with all the power of his ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... he persists after that, he is either an ignoramus or drunk. If drunk ask two or three of your supporters in the audience to lead him off down the street. If he is a natural fool the problem is not so easy. But if you keep unbroken courtesy and he keeps up his unprovoked interruptions some indignant person standing near will abate the nuisance with a punch in the eye—which is the most effectual ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... him out before doing it. These homicides can, however, be atoned without further bloodshed, if the parties interested will agree to it. A more or less amusing instance in kind was recently furnished by the village of Basao, which had in the most unprovoked manner killed a citizen of a neighboring rancheria, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten. The injured village at once made a reclama (i.e., reclamation, claim for compensatory damages), and Basao agreed, the villages meeting to discuss the matter. When the claim was presented, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... bombardment, nothing more excites our astonishment and gratitude than this, that not a man was killed on our part. We understand from good authority, the enemy had a number killed and several badly wounded,[17] in this unprovoked attack upon us. ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull

... noble lord, is Adam Kerr of the Moat, but he is commonly called by his companions the Black Rider of Cheviot. I fear, I fear, he comes hither for no good; but if the Lord of Cessford be near, he will not dare offer any unprovoked outrage." ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... was purely a matter of local concern, though it could help itself to the national money, force the nation into an unjust war, and stain its reputation in Europe with the buccaneering principles proclaimed in the Ostend Manifesto. All these were plainly the results of the ever-increasing and unprovoked aggressions of Northern fanaticism. To be the victims of such injustice seemed not unpleasing to the South. Let us sum up the items of their little bill against us. They demanded Missouri,—we yielded; they could not get along without Texas,—we re-annexed it; they must have ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... the inevitable orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which I escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a maiden aunt ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... That unprovoked aggression had been made by the southern Indians, and that there was just cause for apprehension that the war would extend to them also, was mentioned as a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... every day since my arrival at Villanow, but always with the same issue: she smiles and refuses; and Thaddeus 'shakes his ambrosial curls' with a 'very god-like frown' of denial; I hope it is self-denial, in compliment to his mother's cruel and unprovoked negative. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... succeeded, in 1416 or 1417, by an unfortunate expedition into England, known as the "Foul Raid", and after the Foul Raid came the battle of Bauge. They are all part of one and the same story; although Harlaw might seem an internal complication and Bauge an act of unprovoked aggression, both are really as much part of the English war as is the Foul Raid or the battle of Bannockburn itself. The invasion of France by Henry V reminded the Scots that the English could be ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... be very severe or retributive in my behaviour just then. I therefore paid the full amount agreed upon, but directed Lobo to say that although I paid it I did not consider that Matadi was entitled to claim a single article in view of his unprovoked attack upon the schooner, and the miserable condition in which he had delivered up his captives. But I paid it in order that he might practically learn that an Englishman never breaks a promise that he has once made. And having duly impressed this upon them, I gave them further to understand ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... of the duel as a mode of finally settling disputes and serious questions of precedence shades off into the obligatory, unprovoked private fight, as a social obligation due to one's good repute. As a leisure-class usage of this kind we have, particularly, that bizarre survival of bellicose chivalry, the German student duel. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... time it is a solemn truth, worthy of your serious attention, that you did not commence the present war,—a war in which we have suffered infinitely more than by any former contest, a fierce, a bloody, I am sorry to add, an unprovoked and cruel war,—that you did not commence this, I say, because of any connection between us and our present ally; but, on the contrary, as soon as you perceived that the treaty was in agitation, proposed terms of peace to us in consequence of what you have been pleased to denominate an insidious ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... to attach any importance to her misrepresentations,' said Mr. Kendal, turning to Mrs. Meadows, 'but I know not what amends she can make for this most unprovoked slander. Speak, Lucy, have you no apology ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in the breast of natural parents, which peculiarly fit them to take care of their own children. No other persons can precisely take their place, and feel the same interest, the same unwearied concern—the same unprovoked temper and unchangeable love through good report and through evil report. In a word, no other persons, however good and worthy, can be natural parents. Guardians can be found, who will feel a warm interest in those children who are bright, interesting, ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble



Words linked to "Unprovoked" :   wanton



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