"Challenging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could be given to an ultimatum which directly challenged Belgium's rights. A modern nation might have been intimidated, but an old nation like Belgium, which had struggled towards independence through long and weary periods of warfare and foreign domination, was bound to resist. In challenging King Albert and his ministers, the German Government challenged at the same time all the leaders of the Belgian people, from De Coninck to Vonck and De Merode, and the reply of the Belgian Government ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... their guns that wins out," declared the bearded man, looking around as if challenging contradiction, and, when none came, frowning on in silence. Then suddenly his eyes fell on the figure of little Mary, who sat behind the table with her thin face resting in her hands and her eyes burning with thoughts of that great wonder-world ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... he fired his sixth unavailing shot at seven hundred yards. Langdon was reloading. For fifteen seconds Thor offered himself openly, roaring his defiance, challenging the enemy he could no longer see; and then at Langdon's seventh shot, a whiplash of fire raked his back, and in strange dread of this lightning which he could not fight, Thor continued up over the break. He heard other rifle shots, which were like a new kind ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... and large swaths of the countryside are under guerrilla influence, the movement lacks the military strength or popular support necessary to overthrow the government. An anti-insurgent army of paramilitaries has grown to be several thousand strong in recent years, challenging the insurgents for control of territory and illicit industries such as the drug trade and the government's ability to exert its dominion over rural areas. While Bogota continues to try to negotiate a settlement, neighboring countries ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... well-known native politician) asked the chairman to place a motion before the meeting, as he was ready to move an amendment. The temper of the meeting having already shown itself unfavourably to the chairman's suggestion, the latter, instead of challenging a positive defeat, suggested an adjournment. This was agreed to for the simple reason that nineteen persons were too few to express the wishes of the 100,000 Natives of King Williamstown. But, the next morning, the message "from Reuter's agent at King Williamstown" ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... me. "That, sir," he said with a challenging emphasis, "is the most wonderful island I've ever yet set eyes ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... disputing; and in her disregard of them he not only saw the means of bringing the northern powers into his system of exclusion, but of drawing on their resources for a yet more decisive blow. He was set upon challenging not only England's wealth but her world-empire; and his failure in Egypt had taught him that the first condition of success in such an enterprise was to wrest from her her command of the seas. The only means of doing this lay in a combination of naval powers; and the earlier efforts ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... challenging glance that made that young man's heart skip a beat or two as all the excitements ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... on the doorknob, his high color challenging the doctor's calm. "I'm disgusted with you, Archie, for training with such a pup. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... years ago, her champion. With the exception of a noble fragment of laudation from Wordsworth, no discriminating praise from any modern critic had stirred the ashes of her name. I made it my business to insist in many places on the talent of Ardelia. I gave her, for the first time, a chance of challenging public taste, by presenting to readers of Mr. Ward's English Poets many pages of extracts from her writings; and I hope it is not indiscreet to say that, when the third volume of that compilation appeared, Mr. Matthew Arnold told me that its greatest ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... indeed, that this Talus was hammered out for King Minos by Vulcan himself, the skilfullest of all workers in metal. But who ever saw a brazen image that had sense enough to walk round an island three times a day, as this giant walks round the island of Crete, challenging every vessel that comes nigh the shore? And, on the other hand, what living thing, unless his sinews were made of brass, would not be weary of marching eighteen hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, as Talus does, without ever sitting down to rest? He is a puzzler, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... arm of the bench in a shapeless mass. His red face, spotted by tufts of vermilion, week-old whiskers and topped by a sagging white straw hat, looked, in the gloom, like one of those structures that you may observe in a dark Third avenue window, challenging your imagination to say whether it be something recent in the way of ladies' hats or a strawberry shortcake. A tight-drawn belt—last relic of his official spruceness—made a deep furrow in his circumference. The Captain's shoes were buttonless. In a smothered ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... mixture of anger and determination, and I saw just sufficient of it to warn me to take no unnecessary risks. Save for that first spasmodic movement he lay perfectly still, those black eyes of his laughing up at me and challenging. Somehow they filled me with a curious sense of unrest, a feeling as if everything that made life safe and secure was slipping away from me. I did not speak a word, however, but gave him back look for look, striving with my eyes to beat down the challenge I read in his. They said as plainly as ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... challenging hope Nor a hope laid sick and low, But a longing dead as its kindred sped A ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... 1906, to be stronger than at any time in fifty years. The souls of Russia's noblest and best sons and daughters were steeped in bitter pessimism. And yet there was reason for hope and rejoicing; out of the ruin and despair two great and supremely vital facts stood in bold, challenging relief. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... and cautiously approached the tents of the cow punchers on foot. This tent was, practically, the "bunk house," the assembling place of the men after their hours of work. But before the boys reached this their approach was evidently heard. For a figure came to the flap and a challenging voice called: ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... to the interpretation and administration of the existing law was pending. I thought, as a party man, that I had hardly the right to interfere with the matter which was under the special charge of my honorable friend from Vermont, by challenging a debate upon the general subject from a different ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... of consciousness the thrashing of his companion's boots through the tangle and the curses with which his companion was vainly challenging his assailant to stand out and fight in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... seas of space by a swiftly rising wind, the clouds vanished, and all the starry hosts of heaven marched forth, challenging the earth with javelins ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... material wins attention because of its richness and appropriateness. Special thought should be given in the preparation of a lesson to the attack to be made during the first two minutes of a recitation. A pointed, vital question, a challenging statement, a striking incident, a fascinating, appropriate story, a significant quotation—these are a few of the legitimate challenges ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... occurred to him. Sentries began challenging at taps. He was close to the post of No. 5. He could even see the shadowy form of the sentry slowly pacing toward him, and here he stood in the garb of a private soldier instead of his official dress. It caused him quickly to veer again, to turn to ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... approached, he disappeared into the shadow of the barrack, and apparently went in by the door; to their amazement, when they came up they found the door closed and bolted, and it was only after loud knocking that they got a sleepy "All right" from some one inside, and after the usual challenging were admitted. There was no sign of the strange policeman when they got in, and on inquiry they learnt that no new constable had joined the station. The two men realised then that they had seen a ghost, but refrained from ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... attraction that he would drift again and again into the old intimacy, and again and again be startled back by some suggestive question or some inexplicable meaning in her eye. So they lived at cross purposes, a life full of broken dialogue, challenging glances, and suppressed passion; until, one day, he saw the woman slipping from the house in a veil, followed her to the station, followed her in the train to the seaside country, and out over the sandhills to the very place where the murder was done. There she ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was recognized, whispers circulated among the respectable women and the words: "hussy", "public scandal" were spoken so loud that she raised her head. Then she turned on her neighbors such a challenging and haughty look, that a great silence fell on the company and they all lowered their eyes except Loiseau, who kept on watching ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... diplomatic notes, but their efforts would be as futile as they had been on all previous occasions. They might incite the Japanese to active resistance, but Japan would not commit the insane folly of challenging her giant rival to mortal combat. The whole question could be settled in accordance with Russian interests, as so many similar questions had been settled in the past, by a little skilful diplomacy; and Manchuria could be absorbed, as the contiguous Chinese provinces had been forty years ago, without ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... capitalists of Germany, for whom the Kaiser has always been the "Publicity Agent"—has consistently worked toward the objective of challenging the right of Britain to a world-wide Empire. To the German capitalists this war is but the realization of their philosophy, "Might is Right," and, reckless of human life and suffering, a European war is to them the way to vaster fields of exploitation ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... it is probable that you, under any circumstances, would never go so far in coquetry as those to whom your memory readily recurs. Your innate delicacy, your feminine high-mindedness may, at any future time, as well as at present, preserve you from the bad taste of challenging those attentions which your very vanity would reject as worthless if ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... son had killed the giant Hati, and the giant's daughter comes at night where Helgi's ships are moored in the firth, and stands on a rock over them, challenging Helgi and his men. Atli, keeping watch on deck, answers the giantess, and there is an exchange of gibes in the old style between them. Helgi is awakened and joins in the argument. It is good comedy of its kind, and there is poetry in the giantess's description of the company of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... that her scoffing disbelief in Mac's avowals, and her gay indifference were the very things that kept him at fever heat. He was not used to being thwarted, and this high-handed little working-girl, with her challenging eyes and mocking laugh, who had never heard of the proprieties, and yet denied him favors, was the first person he had ever known who refused absolutely to let him have his own way. With a boy's impetuous desire he became obsessed by the idea of her. When he was ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... when the Cardinal fell, the secretary's position seemed exceedingly precarious. Whether from an admirable fidelity or through amazingly astute hypocrisy, he boldly and openly took up the cudgels in parliament on behalf of the stricken minister, apparently challenging imminent ruin for himself. Action so courageous won him applause and good-will instead of present hostility. More than that, it immediately marked him in the eyes of the King—an exceedingly shrewd judge of men—as ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... was an active and challenging one, for in this new position he began to develop a deep interest in the history of the healing arts. He made a number of important acquisitions, most of them pertaining to pharmaceutical products, synthetic chemicals and crude drugs. He found that many specimens from the older drug collections ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... was accused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was at last submitted and duly finished by the judge with an absurd decision ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... banks, that approach was impossible, and he followed it for miles only by the sound of its wild, sweet, woodland voice. And this, too, was of a wayward fancy; now, in turbulent glee among the rocks, riotously chanting aloud, challenging the echoes, and waking far and near the forest quiet; and again it was merely a low, restful murmur, intimating deep, serene pools and a dallying of the currents, lapsed in the fulness of content. Then Nehemiah Yerby would be beset with fears that he would lose this whisper, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... between the old and the new order and the reasons for the present system. Confronting the court with those securities in your hand, you would make a fine dramatic situation. It would be the nineteenth century challenging the twentieth, the old civilization, demanding an accounting of the new. The judges, you may be sure, would treat you with the greatest consideration. They would at once admit your rights under the peculiar circumstances to have the whole ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... looking at her a little dubiously, a little amusedly. What could she do? She had never addressed a meeting in her life; she had never stood on her feet before a group of men; she had nothing learned, nothing to say. But how could she excuse herself, how withdraw, especially in the face of Joe's challenging gaze? ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... each man acted as an increasing stimulus. The faces of the soldiers brightened more and more, as if challenging the storm ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Congress, attracted immense crowds to his meetings, and for a few days it seemed as if the mere contagion of popular enthusiasm would submerge all intelligent political discussion. To counteract this, Mr. Lincoln, at the advice of his leading friends, sent him a letter challenging him to joint public debate. Douglas accepted the challenge, but with evident hesitation; and it was arranged that they should jointly address the same meetings at seven towns in the State, on dates extending through August, September, and October. The terms ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... pacifist and unwilling to fight. The gentlemen who uttered these unkind criticisms were evidently unmindful of the moral courage he manifested in the various fights in which he had participated in his career, both at Princeton University, where he served as president, and as governor of New Jersey, in challenging the "old guard" of both parties to mortal combat for the measures of reform which he finally brought to enactment. They also forgot the moral courage which he displayed in fighting the tariff barons and ha procuring the enactment of the Underwood tariff, and of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... to thank us, too!" she said, with a challenging look at Ellesborough. "We've borne it for four years. Now ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the story runs, "there appeared a gallant person, some say a fencing-master, who, on a stage erected for the purpose, walked for several days challenging and defying any to play with him at swords. At length one of the judges disguised in a rustic dress, holding in one hand a cheese wrapped in a napkin for a shield, with a broomstick, whose mop he had besmeared with dirty puddle water as he passed along, mounted ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... first: my feet are freezing to the ground," she cried; and gathering up the cloak she fled away across the snow, the dog leaping about her with challenging barks. For a moment Archer stood watching, his gaze delighted by the flash of the red meteor against the snow; then he started after her, and they met, panting and laughing, at a wicket that led into ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... questioning, challenging glances flashing across the table, each woman hostilely striving to place the other. You see, we originally sat: Elodie on my right hand, then Bakkus facing straight down the terrace, then Lackaday, then myself. It occurred to me at once that, with ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... assure you," he exclaimed in a challenging tone, "that I, at any rate, am not at all in love ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... pushed toward heaven. Scattered among the rugged pines were thousands of slender aspen trees, swaying and quivering, their white trunks giving an artificial effect to the scene as if the gods had set a stage for some pagan drama. Ruffed grouse strutted about, challenging the world at large. Our horses' hoofs scattered a brood and sent them scuttling to cover under vines and blossoms. Roused from his noonday siesta, a startled deer bounded away. One doe had her fawn secreted near the ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... follower. To the right is a Savoyard exhibiting her farthing show; and behind, a player at back sword riding a blind horse round the fair triumphantly, in all the boast of self-important heroism, affecting terror in his countenance, glorying in his scars, and challenging the world to open combat: a folly for which the English were remarkable. To this man a fellow is directing the attention of a country gentleman, while he robs him of his handkerchief. Next him is an artful villain decoying a couple of unthinking country girls to their ruin. Further back is a man ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... stately figure of Georgette LeBlanc. Ranking highest among these personal narratives, however, is Mildred Cram's "Stranger Things—" Besides calling up, under the name of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistible figure of Oscar Wilde, the author has created a supernatural tale of challenging intricacy and imaginative genius. The only other stories of the supernatural to find place in the Committee's first list are Maxwell Struthers Burt's "Buchanan Hears the Wind" and Mary Heaton Vorse's "The Halfway House." In all of these, suggestion, delicately ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... way, and I asked myself why the girl's judgment of him didn't make me like her better. It was because it didn't save her after all from a mute agreement with him to go halves. There were moments when I couldn't help looking hard into his atrocious young eyes, challenging him to confess his fantastic fraud and give it up. Not a little tacit conversation passed between us in this way, but he had always the best of it. If I said: "Oh, come now, with ME you needn't keep it up; plead guilty, and I'll let you off," he wore the most ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... riding high above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his challenging ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... There were challenging stars of deviltry in Bonita's eyes when they met those of Rutherford over the shoulder of Alviro while she danced, but the color was beating warm through her dark skin. The lift of her round, brown throat ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... father's when he was at his best in some time of stress for the schooner. They were steady, and the pupils had dilated while the irises held the color of steel. There was something more than ordinary feminine softness to her, he decided. She sat down, challenging ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... understood, for in London society as elsewhere, the dull and the ignorant made a large majority, and dull men always laughed at Monckton Milnes. Every bore was used to talk familiarly about "Dicky Milnes," the "cool of the evening"; and of course he himself affected social eccentricity, challenging ridicule with the indifference of one who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a maker of men — of a great many men. A word from him went far. An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther. Behind his almost Falstaffian mask and laugh of Silenus, he carried ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... never left himself without a witness in his disciples, that all the creeds of men which limit the divine favour are false. With whatsoever panics worms of the dust may have struck their fellow worms by challenging them to a decision of their weak, insignificant notions at a tribunal of an omnipotent judge, such solemn appeals can have but little effect on the humble mind who leans not to his own wisdom, and who views every thing already decided in the ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... heavily, and when they were spoken, there was a silence in the library. Major Edward broke it. "You are determined, and I waste no breath in challenging the inevitable. So be it! The child will come ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... back to their proper place behind the memory of all living men, we only see a scattered people, poorly armed, but engaged in hopeful conflict with Great Britain, then mistress of the seas, proudly challenging the world to arms, and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... darkness, and then started slightly as a cough, a hostile, challenging cough, sounded from the kitchen. Before he could speak the cough ceased and a thin voice ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Challenging the spaces of the West, struck by the rapidity with which a new society was unfolding under their gaze, it is not strange that the pioneers dealt in the superlative and saw their destiny with optimistic eyes. The meadow lot of the small intervale had become the prairie, stretching farther ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... defiance," said the captain drawing it out and grimly examining it. "Well, 't is like our savage forefathers of Britain challenging Julius Caesar and the Roman power. But come, Cooke, 't is certain we cannot rive plank with our naked hands, and since our tools are gone, we had best go home and work at the housen. To-morrow we'll take some ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... existence; it had become essential to enlarge the territory of the State and corriger la figure de la Prusse, if Prussia wished to be independent and to bear with honour the great name of 'Kingdom.'" [D] The King made allowance for this political necessity, and took the bold determination of challenging Austria to fight. None of the wars which he fought had been forced upon him; none of them did he postpone as long as possible. He had always determined to be the aggressor, to anticipate his opponents, and to secure for himself favourable prospects of success. We all know ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... right; and what's your idea of making a stand? Challenging Speathley, or denouncing him ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... enough for anything. But he was too wise to imagine that any good could come from a few thousand untrained workingmen, armed with all sorts of implements, dangerous most to themselves, challenging the trained hosts of capitalist troops. That was the old idea of 'Revolution,' you know, and it took more courage to advocate the long road of patience than it would take to join in a silly riot. And Karl showed them that, too, ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... spoken on either side: for at that moment the voices of the sentinels, challenging from the walls of the hacienda, put an end ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... but the rest was drowned by another storm which swept through the room. Even above the tumult, Peter could hear Dennis challenging and beseeching Mr. Caggs to come "outside an' settle it like gentlemen." Caggs, from a secure retreat behind Blunkers's right arm, declined to let the siren's song tempt him forth. Finally Peter's pounding brought a degree of ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... is the kind of book that only youth can write—youth at its best. It has the qualities and defects of its parentage; but the qualities, a fine careless rapture, sensitive vision, a wayward and jolly fantasy, challenging provocativeness, faintly malicious humour, are dominant. Miss STELLA BENSON will grow out of her youthful cynicisms and intolerances, will focus her effects, without losing any of her substantial equipment. This is by no means the end. It is the second step of a very brilliant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... bringing the rugged issue boldly to the front, and challenging the President-elect to meet the issue or risk the loss of the support of an important section of his own party. Oberkleine spoke with great effect, but the remarks were hardly his own. Some abler man had put into his mouth ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... him might be cleared away. And after raising public expectation to its highest, and ridiculing the idea that a man of intelligence should murder another and leave a weapon heavily marked with his own name by the side of the dead; or that because a man had uttered some threats of again challenging one whom he had already met upon the field of honor, he should be accused of being a midnight assassin, there was called the ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... glance missed nothing of the other's challenging attitude, and his ear, nothing of Mr. Cassilis's authoritative tone, therefore his smile was most engaging as ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... positively shrieking in dismay. When the solid deck rose to them, and the sling had been loosened, however, they regained their poise instantaneously. Their noses went up in the air, and they looked about them with a challenging, unsmiling superiority, as though to dare any one of us to laugh. Their native attendants immediately squatted down in front of them, and began to feed them with convenient lengths of what looked like our common marsh cat-tails. The camels did not even then manifest ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Lord, I don't know!" I flared with a childish resentment at this catechizing of his. But his finger remained there, challenging. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... rather sorry to pull away from this comfortable camp at the mouth of the Yampa on July 3d, but the rapids of Whirlpool were challenging and we had to go and meet them. At the foot of Echo Park the Green doubles directly back on itself for a mile as it turns Echo Rock, the narrow peninsula of sandstone 600 feet high. The canyon became suddenly very close and assumed ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... pursuit of the happiness of one of the most uncertain, intricate, and entrancing of feminine personalities. This was not at all his idea of the proper relations between men and women, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a way of challenging his gallantry. She made him run about for her; she did not demand but she commanded presents and treats and surprises; she even developed a certain jealousy in him. His work began to suffer from interruptions. Yet ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... momentarily filling the garden quietnesses with a tumult of noise. A bugle had sounded from one of the fortified galleries high above him, had sounded clearly out across the huddled little town at the foot of the Rock, challenging, uncompromising, thrillingly penetrating, as the paper had fluttered and shaken in his fingers. He had accepted it, in that first moment of unreasoning emotionalism, as an auspicious omen, as the call of his own higher ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... they met R. Jones' now, were cold and challenging. She, too, had learned the trick of swift diagnosis of character, and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... barbarous followers. What but a spirit of insatiate cruelty could animate and control such fierce warriors in their battle rage? Thinking of this, my eyes on Madame, a movement occurred among our captors quickly challenging my attention. Fresh shouts and cries evidenced new arrivals. These came swarming down the ravine, and in another moment began crawling noisily about us, chattering with our surly captors, or scowling into our faces with savage ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... up a detaining hand and hold him there for the rest of the evening. Even were there no chance for conversation, she would have liked to be close beside him. She forgot, that he was an ideal on a pedestal and shot him a challenging glance. "I have hoped that you would come up to the gallery and call on me," ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... said Mr. Gresley, his eye challenging hers. "It is the name I am known by as the author ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... while ye ranged yourselves opposite to our slaves. These are not at all the deeds of good men in war, but we were deceived in you very greatly; for we expected by reason of your renown that ye would send a herald to us, challenging us and desiring to fight with the Persians alone; but though we on our part were ready to do this, we did not find that ye said anything of this kind, but rather that ye cowered with fear. Now therefore since ye were not the first to say this, we are the first. Why do we not ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... be a bad idea to stamp them out," here Seaton threw back his head with the challenging gesture which was characteristic of his temperament—"But what is called 'the liberty of the press'(it should be called 'the license of the press') is more of an octopus than a mosquito. Cut off one tentacle, it grows another. It's entirely octopus in character, ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... books he had read and one or two scientific reports of such cases. He climbed into bed and blew out his candle. His drowsiness thickened. In his dulled mind one recollection remained—the picture of Howells coldly challenging him with his level smile to make a secret entrance of the old bedroom in a murderous effort to escape the penalty of the earlier crime. And Howells had been right. His death would give Bobby a chance. The destruction of the evidence, the bringing into the case of a broader-minded ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... always done justice to the Turk. Many a passage similar to this have I got by heart; it is connected with a battle on the plain of Rigo, which Hunyadi lost:—"The next day, which was Friday, as the two armies were drawn up in battle array, a Magyar hero riding forth, galloped up and down, challenging the Turks to single combat. Then came out to meet him the son of a renowned bashaw of Asia; rushing upon each other, both broke their lances, but the Magyar hero and his horse rolled over upon the ground, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... into her face left it. Color rose softly under the exquisite skin and there came a haughty uplift of her chin. She stared back into the blazing, greenish-brown eyes of the other, her own eyes unafraid, challenging. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Hormisdas the wife to whom his escape was due, he cannot but have been uneasy at the possession, by the Roman emperor, of his brother's person. In weighing the reasons for and against war he cannot but have assigned considerable importance to this circumstance. It did not ultimately prevent him from challenging Rome to the combat; but it may help to account for the hesitation, the delay, and the fluctuations of purpose, which we remark in his conduct during the four or five years which immediately preceded ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my sex, I retire. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... can share"; therefore he offers "a melancholy tale of private woes". In his prologue, Lillo repeats this idea, but in his dedication he shows himself primarily concerned with the second tendency. Specifically challenging those "who deny the lawfulness of the stage", he argues that "the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind"; the generality of mankind is more liable to vice than are kings; therefore ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... weakness in the barbed barrier that imprisoned them. And one, who, had he not been by circumstance robbed of his birthright, would have been the strong leader of a wild band, stood often with wide nostrils and challenging eye, gazing toward the corrals and buildings as if questioning the right of those who had brought him there from the haunts ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... craved his permission to engage Barkayk. Then he mounted again and charged at Barkayk, who said to him, 'Who art thou and what art thou called, that thou makest mock of me by coming out against me and challenging me, alone?' 'My name is Ghazanfar[FN555] son of Kamkhl,' replied the Kabul champion; and the other, 'I have heard tell of thee in my own country; so up and do battle between the ranks of the braves!' Hearing these words Ghazanfar drew a mace of iron from under his thigh and Barkayk ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... There were the lads and flower of youth afield the city by Backing the steed, or mid the dust a-steering of the car, Or bending of the bitter bow, hurling tough darts afar By strength of arm; for foot or fist crying the challenging. Then fares a well-horsed messenger, who to the ancient king Bears tidings of tall new-comers in outland raiment clad: So straight Latinus biddeth them within his house be had, And he upon his father's ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... that all the privacy in the world couldn't have sufficed to mitigate the start with which she greeted this free application of my moustache: the blood had jumped to her face, she quickly recovered her hand and jerked at me, twisting herself round, a vacant, challenging stare. During the next few instants several extraordinary things happened, the first of which was that now I was close to them the eyes of loveliness I had come up to look into didn't show at all the conscious light I had just been pleased ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... floated toward him, leaving a masculine figure in silhouette against the lighted background of the dining room. He was confused as he made his greetings, touched and dropped Lorry's hand, tried to find an answer for Chrystie's challenging welcome. Then he switched off to Aunt Ellen in her rocker, groping at knitting that was sliding off her lap, and finally was introduced to the man who stood waiting, his hands on the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... withhold equal justice from the overwhelming majority of the voters who resided in the 49 most populous counties. Over the dissent of Justices Black and Douglas it affirmed the action of a federal district court in dismissing a complaint challenging the validity of Georgia's county unit election system, under which the votes of residents of the most populous county have on the average but one-tenth the weight of those in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... up from his chair, and began to pace the deck. Passing her chair, he gazed again upon the letters painted thereon, as if challenging them to disclose the secret. Inscrutable, they stared back ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... see himself eclipsed by a stranger, the General threw a challenging glance in her direction, and, striking out vigorously in a straight line, he sped swiftly toward the other end of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pride of carriage, nor in the ready laughter that came to those quiet eyes. In no one particular quality of attraction did she excel. Rather was her charm the charm of the perfect agglomeration of all those characteristics which men find alluring and challenging. ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... the man whom she professed to dislike and avoid? That this unpleasantly sharp, pushing product of the less dignified side of the law could have any personal attraction for one of Edith Morriston's taste and discrimination was impossible. And yet there the challenging fact remained that confidential relations had been established between the disparate pair. Was it possible that this man could have found out something connecting Edith Morriston with his brother's death? The feasibility of the idea came as a shock to Gifford. He stopped dead in his ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... or sixty yards apart, across the little valley of the bushy swamp. As he stared, his irritation speedily overcame his amazement. The curious-looking creature over there on the knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... had been restored to brighten their winter shelter during the fete. He had thought to find himself alone; but yonder, bending over richly-tinted clusters of azaleas and odorous heliotropes, a group of youthful heads unconcernedly thrust their lifeless chaplets in challenging contrast with nature's living loveliness, while flowing robes recklessly swept their floral imitations against her shrinking originals. In a different state of mind Maurice might not have been struck by the incongruous ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... province. The issue created by the Manitoba legislation projected itself at once into the federal field to the evident consternation of the Dominion government. It parried the demand for disallowance of the provincial statute by an engagement to defray the cost of litigation challenging the validity of the law. When the Privy Council, reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court, found that the law was valid because it did not prejudicially affect rights held prior to or at the time of union, the government was faced ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... Bristol's Bull and Ireland's Champion were vanquished by thee, and one mightier still, gold itself, thou didst overcome; for gold itself strove in vain to deaden the power of thy arm; and thus thou didst proceed till men left off challenging thee, the unvanquishable, the incorruptible. 'Tis a treat to see thee, Tom of Bedford, in thy 'public' in Holborn way, whither thou hast retired with thy well-earned bays. 'Tis Friday night, and nine by Holborn clock. There sits the yeoman at the end of his long room, surrounded ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... toward Tarzan, his nose to the ground, like a challenging bull, his tail extended now and quivering as ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... apparently owed a good deal of its rancor to the exertions of good-natured friends of both in communicating to each remarks made, or supposed to be made, by the other. An envenomed correspondence took place in 1818. It led to Elliott's challenging Perry, and Perry preferring charges against Elliott for his conduct at the battle of Lake Erie. In the letter accompanying the charges he gave as his reason for changing his opinion as to the behavior ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... silence, in which their very spirits met flame-like in the void, challenging, hoping, fearing. The man's face set. His burning look of power enveloped her like the reflection of the sun. "I swear you shall have it!" he said desperately, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... years and nine months old; but the best of his numerous productions, both in prose and verse, require no allowance to be made for the immature years of their author, when comparing him with the ablest of his contemporaries. He pictures Lydgate, the monk of Bury St Edmunds, challenging Rowley to a trial at versemaking, and under cover of this fiction, produces his "Songe of Aella," a piece of rare lyrical beauty, worthy of comparison with any antique or modern production of its class. Again, in his "Tragedy of Goddwyn," of which only a fragment ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... will seem to some revolutionary. A friend to whom I submitted the proposition that it did harm rather than good to encourage a child of this kind to attempt the impossible answered, "Nothing is impossible," and he said it as if he more than half believed it. Here we have the ambitious maxim challenging truth itself. It is certainly not impossible that Mozart wrote a difficult concerto at the age of five; nor is it impossible that, in precocious children of a different type, worry from failure to accomplish the desired may cause profound ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... frequently to officiate at) public executions. Once, we are told, at a banquet, he "amused himself by decapitating twenty Streltsy, emptying as many glasses of brandy between successive strokes, and challenging the Prussian envoy to ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... handle of the cage and let it drop with a clatter; he jerked off bits of paper and dropped them into the cage, and in every way showed a very mischievous spirit. Meanwhile, all through the confusion the goldfinch scolded furiously, flying around to get a peck at him, and in every way challenging him to fight. Occasionally, when he became too troublesome, the robin turned and snapped his beak at him, but did not choose to leave ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... Aias eagerly Rose, challenging to strife of hands and feet The mightiest hero there; but marvelling They marked his mighty thews, and no man dared Confront him. Chilling dread had palsied all Their courage: from their hearts they feared him, lest His hands invincible should all to-break His adversary's face, and naught ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... descended suddenly and together on Martha; proceeding, however, not by simple inquiry as to facts,—that would never have done,—but by informing her that the air was full of school and that we knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was a trusty soul, but a bad witness for the defence, and we soon had it all out of her. The word had gone forth, the school had been selected; the necessary sheets were hemming even now; and Edward was the designated ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... drifted from dog to man-fights of all kinds. Humans resemble red-deer in some respects. Any talk of fighting seems to wake up a sort of imp in their breasts, and they bell one to the other, exactly like challenging bucks. This is noticeable even in men who consider themselves superior to Privates of the Line: it shows the Refining Influence of Civilization and the March ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... {86b} Defy, digest. As in the Vision of Piers Plowman "wyn of Ossye Of Ruyn and of Rochel, the rost to defye." Latin, defio deficio, to make one's self to be removed from something, or something to be removed from one's self. To defy in the sense of challenging is a word of different origin, diffidere, to separate from fides, faith, trust, allegiance to another. {91d} Degest, orderly. To "digest" is to separate and arrange in an orderly manner. {150e} Dirl, vibrate, echo. {147b} Drouthy, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... we were nearing Gueret. From this point half a league across a rushy bottom and through a ford brought us to the gate, which opened before we summoned it. I had taken care to call to the van one of my men who knew the town; and he guided us quickly, no one challenging us, through a number of foul, narrow streets and under dark archways, among which a stranger must have gone astray. We reached at last a good-sized square, on one side of which—though the rest of the town lay ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... that joyous roar of fresh flame in the stove the cabin was already warming up, but outside the door, which Dave closed quickly behind him, the cold had a kind of still savagery, edged and instant like a knife. To a strong man, however, it was a tonic, an honest challenging to resistance. In spite of his sad preoccupation, Dave responded to the cold air instinctively, pausing outside the door to fill his deep lungs and to glance at the thrilling mystery ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... its challenging order—"Commence firing", and with a crash that made the very air vibrate, the great guns on board the two battleships opened fire, sending their ranging shots so truly that the announcement from the fire-control stations of "Range correct" ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the utmost confidence in General Buell, and they repelled with some asperity the reflections cast upon him by his critics. These admirers held him blameless throughout for the blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency at Perryville, where McCook's corps was so badly crippled while nearly 30,000 Union troops were idle on the field, or within striking distance. With ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Joseph and James Welds, Esqrs., of Southampton, the wealthy and spirited owners of the Arrow yawl, 85 tons, and the Julia, 43 tons. These gentlemen evince the greatest spirit in challenging and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... exceedingly exasperating to the hot blood which Henry had inherited, must be severely condemned in many details. We cannot avoid the feeling that much about it was insincere and theatrical, and even an intentional challenging of the fate he seemed to dread. But yet it does not appear what choice was left him between abjectly giving up all that he had been trained to believe of the place of the Church in the world and entering on open war ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... the effect of setting the other two chargers challenging in turn, and as they ceased, Denis spoke to and patted his steed, bending well forward the while. Then he turned its head again and rode a few yards up and ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... turning an instant to look, with a humorous, quizzical glance, at Portsmouth. Nell mistook the glance for a jealous one and, perking up quickly, caught the royal eye with a challenging eye, tapping her sword-hilt meaningly. Had the masks been off, the situation would have differed. As it was, the King smiled indifferently. The episode did not affect him further than to touch his sense of humour. Nell turned triumphantly ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr. |
