"Provokingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always travelling ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to aid a laggard memory, haunted by a feeling that he ought to know this man instantly, even in so poor a light. Something in his habit, something in that insouciance which so narrowly escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly elusive.... ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the easy chair, in its owner's most provokingly indifferent tone, which fortunately Mrs. Ried was too much preoccupied to take special note of, and continued ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... jokes, and stirring up contretemps, seemed to take possession of the field; for, just at the moment when he should have been at least five miles away, Doctor Heath, unannounced, appeared at the drawing-room door,—smiling, too, looking provokingly sure of a ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Sam, throwing down his scythe, and hobbling off after the boys, who kept provokingly in front, and popped into the green-house just before him. "There," he said, "I'm bet out with you; come out, and I'll tell ee wheer ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... as clearly as usual. They kept pocketing themselves provokingly in blind alleys that led nowhere, or scattering in mazes that led everywhere. There was such a wide field of speculation open, once he began to consider things from the political angle, that it was ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... was sewing swiftly, and seemed provokingly mistress of the situation. When a conversation has taken a wrong turn for us, we only get farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness. This was what Fred ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Mr. Elersley," said Honor, in a provokingly placid way, "don't exert yourself so violently in contradicting your own free, unextracted observations. You can amuse me in a dozen other ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... my handkerchief from my pocket, and hurriedly began to untie the knot. But my usually nimble fingers were provokingly slow to act now; and I pulled and pulled away, but to no purpose. The knot obstinately refused to yield. The man with the box had nearly reached our pew, and I began to fear I should ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... sugar was not sufficient to overcome the sharp acid of the fruit, showing that the demand was so urgent as to compel the picking of the berries before the sun had imparted to them the luscious sweetness of complete ripeness. As at all popular summer resorts, the price charged was provokingly disproportioned to the fare; but then we remembered that we had come in pursuit of knowledge, that knowledge always has in some way to be paid for, and that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... came into the Purdy road, near "Elams." Thence we followed the Purdy road to Corinth, my skirmishers reaching at all times the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. Of course our marches were governed by the main centre, which followed the direct road from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth; and this movement was provokingly slow. We fortified almost every camp at night, though we had encountered no serious opposition, except from cavalry, which gave ground easily as we advanced. The opposition increased as we neared Corinth, and at a place called Russell's we had a sharp affair of ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... voice, but she did not immediately turn around. When she did so, her demeanour was almost a shock to him. There was no sign of nervousness or apology in her manner. Her eyes flashed at him angrily. She wore a loose red wrap trimmed with white fur, a dishabille unusually and provokingly attractive. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the reader, "I don't think you ever will. Leave that sort of thing to Walter Scott, and go on and finish your charming fragment of 'The Eve of St. Mark,' which stops provokingly just where Bertha was reading the illuminated manuscript, as she sat in her room of an April ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... think maids of thirteen, as a rule, talk much of puppy-dogs. I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr. Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may devour somebody.'" She ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... day after the funeral that it all came out. Lena and Ethel were sitting up together over the papers and the letters, turning out his bureau. I suppose that, in the grand immunity his death conferred on her, poor Lena had become provokingly possessive. I can hear her saying to Ethel that there had never been anybody but her, all those years. Praising his faithfulness; holding out her dead happiness, and apologizing to Ethel for talking about it when Ethel didn't understand, never having ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... self-will are no traditions,' he said provokingly. 'The submission of the individual to the whole—that's what you ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who set down, often at inordinate and wearisome length, what was said and done in court or council or monastery did not wholly overlook the 'gospel of green fields' sung by the contemporary minstrels. But their notices are provokingly vague and unsatisfactory; no happy thought ever seems to have occurred to any monkish penman that he might earn more gratitude from posterity by collecting ballad verses than by copying the Legends ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... mug, Mrs. Callender!" exclaimed Mrs. Anderson, raising herself to her utmost height, and already beginning to exhibit symptoms of incipient indignation. "Yer jeely mug, Mrs. Callender!" she repeated, with a provokingly ironical emphasis. "Dear help me, woman, but ye do mak an awfu wark about that jeely mug o' yours. I'm sure it wasna sae muckle worth; and ye hae been often tell't that it was broken, but that we wad ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... misfortune. Every one had remarked that Jimmy from the first was very slack at his work; but we thought it simply the outcome of his philosophy of life. Donkin said:—"You put no more weight on a rope than a bloody sparrer." He disdained him. Belfast, ready for a fight, exclaimed provokingly:—"You don't kill yourself, old man!"—"Would you?" he retorted with extreme, scorn—and Belfast retired. One morning, as we were washing decks, Mr. Baker called to him:—"Bring your broom over here, Wait." He ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... and plenty of water, as fine as ever spouted from old Moses' rock, right at hand. If the Mesa's cut our trail we can live well here for a hundred years and not have to chew wolf mutton neither. I don't reckon I can go to York with you just yet," drawled my comrade in a most provokingly imperturbable manner, as he slowly freed himself from my grasp and made for the camp fire, which being to a great extent sheltered by an overhanging rock, was still smouldering in spite of the drenching rain. Raking the ashes until he found a red glowing coal, Pete deftly picked it up and ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... and Austin, Brian, and Basil, the Camanchee, Sioux, and Pawnee chieftains, brandished their long lances, preparing for the chase: but it seemed as though they were to be disappointed, for Jowler, instead of running away, according to the plan of the hunters, provokingly kept leaping up, first at one, and then at another of them; until having overturned the Pawnee on the lawn, and put the Sioux and Camanchee out of all patience, he lay down panting, with his long red tongue out of his mouth, looking at them just as though ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... an especially stiff piece of reading which was before him—it may be all three together—he met a friar. The priest came along with easy step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... race then?" asked Regina, provokingly, her fine eyes flashing, "there's a bit of road beyond here that's quite broad and one hardly ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... laughed provokingly, and he looked over his shoulder at her and at Jeff, who felt his injury increased by the disadvantage this young man put him at. Jeff was as correctly dressed; he wore a silk hat of the last shape, and a long frock-coat; he was properly gloved ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... she had made toward an autobiography. In the present Memoirs Madame Lenormant chiefly relies upon her own personal knowledge of Madame Recamier's life, and upon contemporary hearsay. It is a very interesting book, as we have it, though at times provokingly unsatisfactory, and at times inflated and silly in style. It is not only a history of Madame Recamier, but a sketch of French society, politics, and literature during very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... all your indifference, you'd be mad as a wet hen if I was to leave it to somebody else," went on the woman provokingly. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... exhausted his best stock of "gomblimends," and she never seemed disposed to receive them with anything but laughter. And, as a matter of course, he only grew more infatuated with the lovely creature who was so provokingly ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to be here," urged Phoebe, not liking to begin dinner without her brother, who might provokingly arrive as soon as they sat down; while on the other hand, her three years' experience of married life had taught her that it was undesirable to keep Lawrence waiting. When half-past eight struck, however, she could ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... government of Andros [1688], a daughter, thirteen years old, of John Goodwin,—a mason living at the South End of Boston,—had a quarrel with an Irish washerwoman about some missing clothes. The woman's mother took it up, and scolded provokingly. Thereupon the wicked child, profiting, as it seems, by what she had been hearing and reading on the mysterious subject, "cried out upon her," as the phrase was, as a witch, and proceeded to act the part understood ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... and so appeared shorter than He was. Judas was to all appearances fairly strong and well knit, though for some reason or other he pretended to be weak and somewhat sickly. He had an uncertain voice. Sometimes it was strong and manly, then again shrill as that of an old woman scolding her husband, provokingly thin, and disagreeable to the ear, so that ofttimes one felt inclined to tear out his words from the ear, like rough, decaying splinters. His short red locks failed to hide the curious form of his skull. It looked as if it had been split at the nape of the neck by a double ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... too, that he was, "on insufficient grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this connection ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly—and most provokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her impetuous little manner—that her observation of Mr Boffin involved a continual observation of Mr Rokesmith. 'Won't THAT extract a look from him?'—'Can it be possible THAT makes no impression on him?' Such questions Bella would propose ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... father he was! Only Beth wished he had looked more hopeful and enthusiastic over the change in her life. Aunt Prudence had been told before dinner, and she had taken it in a provokingly quiet fashion that perplexed Beth. What was the matter with them all? Did they think Clarence the pale-faced boy that he looked? They were quite mistaken. Clarence was ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... the power of voluntary action with the muscles of the nose, and can move it horizontally, or to the right and left,—draw it up or protrude it,—so as to make it take any position they please. Painters have been provokingly deceived by this stratagem, and have in vain attempted the portraits of such persons, who were able at every instant to produce a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... not attempt to injure him, the native stood his ground, though tremblingly, and kept incessantly vociferating, and waving me away; to all my signs and inquiries, he was provokingly insensible, and would not hear of anything but my immediate departure. Sometimes he pointed to the north, motioning me to go in that direction, but the poor wretch was in such a state of alarm and trepidation that I could make nothing of him and left ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... now that one really wants him, is sitting astride of a cannon, and smoking a pipe and, notebook and pencil in hand, is writing a picturesque description of the bungling decapitation by shrapnel of the general who has just been unfolding to him the whole plan of the campaign, and consequently is provokingly un-getatable ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... never had Hugh been so provokingly distant and cool, and she was really glad when at last a carriage appeared across the fields, and she knew the "city cousin," as Hugh ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... day, and there were various delightful prospects on both sides, on which the eye would willingly have dwelt longer, had not our coach rolled on past them, so provokingly quick. It appeared somewhat singular to me, when at a few miles from London, I saw at a distance a beautiful white house; and perceived on the high road, on which we were driving, a direction post, on which ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... wood, and it was an art to mount, for they depended immediately from the pommel. When you mounted ten to one that you fell in front of the pommel, and as you could not get back over a pommel ten inches high you slid over the horse's head to the ground and tried again. Yakute horses are docile, provokingly so, for they have not enough animation to be wicked. The favourite gait is a walk so slow and deliberate that you lose all patience, and, if possible, raise a trot which is like nothing known to the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... laughed provokingly. "That is just what's the trouble with you, Peter. Harriet is accustomed to your devotion to her. Now that you have turned your thoughts in another direction, she may look upon you as a faithless swain," Mrs. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... watchman or lover or defender but me." This in reply to the possible questions of his own conscience. To hot-blooded moralists with more objective ideas of duty, such a fidelity to the limits of his genius must often have made him seem provokingly remote and unavailable; but we, who can see things in more liberal perspective, must unqualifiably approve the results. The faultless tact with which he kept his safe limits while he so dauntlessly asserted himself within them, is an example fitted ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... at the railway station to buy the tickets; Allan went to the post office on the odd chance of any letters awaiting delivery, and the hired man turned the horses homeward. The station agent was threading his way through his car report, and remained provokingly unconscious of Harris's presence at the ticket window. The farmer took no pains to conceal his impatience, coughing and shuffling obviously, but it was not until the last box-car had been duly recorded that the agent deigned ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the consequences of it, had cost him all the anticipated pleasures of his expected victory. For scarcely had he commenced the pursuit in earnest, when the fugitive lawyers reached the bank of the river, and at the very place too, as it provokingly happened, where his own log-canoe chanced to be moored, and hastily leaping into it, they managed with such dexterity and quickness, in handling the oars and cutting the fastenings, as to push off, and get fairly out of the reach of their pursuer, before ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... to wait," said Philip, settling himself back provokingly in his seat, and eyeing Harry with a look ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... night, greatly to Mrs. Blake's annoyance and Winnie's satisfaction. The former could find no means of laying any more commands on him, for the boy mischievously eluded her every attempt to cross his path, and failed most provokingly to catch her eye when a convenient season presented itself for so doing. Nellie, with true appreciation of his kindness, thanked him warmly in her innocent heart, and thought she had never spent such a pleasant ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... her his arm—there was some comfort in that—and handed her into it. To see her seat herself inside, with her laughing eyes brighter than diamonds, and her hand—surely she had the prettiest hand in the world—on the ledge of the open window, and her little finger provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn't squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops would have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying neglected outside the parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with a face ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... be able to find that," sneered the boy. "Your imagination seems to be working well to-day. Were you there that night? If not, how does it come that you know so much about what didn't take place?" he added, provokingly. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... anything earthly. Good health is the fountain of human enjoyment and the greatest of earthly riches. It is the great beautifier; it is the great preservative of good looks. How strange, then, that so many girls are so careless, so provokingly careless, of this priceless blessing! How strange that they will wear clothing that they know tends to break down their health; tight corsets that compress the lungs and spoil the natural shape of the body; ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... the township of Ameliasburgh, is sadly gifted with the genuine elements of poetry, and, like Burns, composes verses at the plough-tail. I have read with great pleasure some sweet lines by this rural Canadian bard; and were he now beside me, instead of "Big bay" lying so provokingly between, I would beg from him a specimen of his rhyming powers, just to prove to my readers that the genuine children of song are distinguished by the same unmistakeable characteristics ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... over the whole picture a kind of magical colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... only slipped from the bed, and started to dance around the room provokingly, with many ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... provokingly, which communicated itself to the foreman. As a result the latter began to defend his position more persistently. But Peter Gerasimovich spoke so convincingly that he won over the majority, and it was finally ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... bourgeoisie alike, and would be satisfied with nothing short of a national chief as irresponsible as Tamerlane; and if he should be as truculent as Tamerlane, it was not difficult to see that M. Romieu would like him all the better for it. Your true fanatic loves blood, and is provokingly ingenious in showing how necessary it is that you should submit calmly to have your throat cut for the good of society. M. Marat was a logician of this sort, and M. Romieu is, after all, only a pale imitator of the cracked horse-leech; but as he wrote in the interest of "order," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... these hopes vanished the instant I beheld Mr. Mervyn's countenance at breakfast the next morning. He looked so provokingly intelligent and confidential, that, had I dared, I could have been more angry than ever I was in my life; but I must be on good behaviour, and my walks are now limited within his farm precincts, where the good gentleman ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... were defects in Socrates. He was most provokingly sarcastic; he turned everything to ridicule; he remorselessly punctured every gas-bag he met; he heaped contempt on every snob; he threw stones at every glass house,—and everybody lived in one. He was not quite just to the Sophists, for they did not pretend ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Despite her efforts to do so, the American girl (feeling very much abused, by the way), was unsuccessful in the attempt to keep the princess at her side. Yetive deliberately walked ahead with Halfont and Dangloss. It seemed to Beverly that they walked unnecessarily fast and that Marlanx was provokingly slow. Baldos was twenty paces behind, as ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Thousand by no means monopolize these personal advantages. At the hour of "dress parade" you cannot walk five steps without encountering a face well worthy of a second look. Occasionally, too, you catch a provokingly brief glimpse of a high, slender instep, and an ankle modeled to match it. The fashion of Balmorals and kilted kirtles prevails not here; and maids and matrons are absurdly reluctant to submit their pedal perfections to the passing critic. Even on a day when it is ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... took time to shift his quid and balance it; then replied in a manner which appeared provokingly ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... deuce was she so provokingly ambiguous? And she had no intention of explaining. She simply ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... For instance, a European has great difficulty in seeing a green pigeon in a green tree till the bird moves, while a native seems to have no such difficulty. My own sight is, or rather was, very good, but I found on one occasion, when I was stalked by a tiger, that it was most provokingly defective as compared with that of a native. The incident occurred in this way. In cloudy weather, during a break in the monsoon, I was beating a ravine for game, and had sent my second gun-carrier with the beaters. As ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... I'll tell you," replied Weasel, provokingly, taking a leisurely sip at his glass. "Jim come ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Dougherty or one of his deputies followed every movement of Billy Coleman. Day after day they tracked him through the city from one resort to another. In the evening they followed him home, and kept a watchful eye on the premises. Coleman's actions were provokingly innocent. At nightfall he frequently left home, accompanied by his wife, but only to take their little dog out for an airing. On a Sunday evening while Dougherty was shadowing Coleman and his wife, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Company." Tybalt cut the tobacco for his pipe savagely. "You'd have liked one of those papers?" asked Pierre provokingly. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... still, boy, be ye?" Tom Faggus stopped, and the mare stopped there; and they looked at me provokingly. ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... one thinks is the leading of the inward light is but the old Adam that is within us tempting to strife," remarked Truelove provokingly. "I greatly fear 'tis so in thy case, Margaret. 'Tis easily seen that thou art of a froward and perverse nature. Come! sit by me, Margaret, while I read thy duty to thee. Thou art ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... cloths, was moulded, and which reproduced, more or less enlarged, the figure of the deceased. Quite a lot of courtesans of the Greco-Roman epoch, moulded in paste in this wise after death and crowned with roses, smile at us provokingly from behind their windows. Masks of the colour of dead flesh alternate with others of gold which gleam as the light of our lantern plays upon them momentarily in our rapid passage. Their eyes are always too large, the eyelids too wide open and the dilated pupils seem to stare ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... strangers, just as provokingly as she had lived. She must even run away to die, to make it seem as if her home ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... seeing two dim lights upon the altar, and on hearing the ceaseless and eternal murmurs going on—going on—around me, without being immediately able to ascribe them to their proper cause, I set myself down as a lost man; for on that terror I was provokingly clear during the whole night. I more than once gave an involuntary groan or shriek, on finding myself in this singular state; so did many others, and these groans and shrieks were wildly and fearfully contrasted with the never-ending hum, which, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Blackmantle," said he, "better than a tragedy, because it makes one laugh; and next to good eating, a hearty laugh is most desirable. Then I love a farce still better than a comedy, because that is more provokingly merry, or broader as the critics have it; then, sir, a pantomime beats both comedy and 63farce hollow; there's such lots of fun and shouts of laughter to be enjoyed in that from the beginning to the end. But, sir, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... try to be silent, although most sadly vexed.—So I went and sat me down in the window, and she took her place at the upper end of the table; and her saucy Jackey, fleering at me most provokingly, sat down by her. Said he, Shall not the bride sit down by us, madam? Ay, well thought of! said my lady: Pray, Mrs. Bride, your pardon for sitting down in your place!—I ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... came to the great King Splosh A policeman, who said, while scratching his head, "There isn't a stone in Gosh To throw at a dog; for the crafty Og, Last Saturday week, at one, Took our last blue-metal, in order to settle A bill for a toy pop-gun." Said the King, jokingly, "Why, how provokingly Weird; ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... and in its indolence supple, feline movement, she rose from the chair, so provokingly ignoring me now, that for very rage I held my ground within less than a foot of her. Leisurely and tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a person alone in a room, she extended her beautiful arms, with her hands clenched, her ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... hearing some fragments of news which might prove interesting and enlightening. And of enlightenment on a particular subject, in which she was acutely and personally interested, she stood in some need. Comus of late had been provokingly reticent as to his movements and doings; partly, perhaps, because it was his nature to be provoking, partly because the daily bickerings over money matters were gradually choking other forms of conversation. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be represt sometimes—aliquando sufflaminandus erat—but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped after the gentlemen. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... until the service was over. As the stir of her crape passed into the little hall, I seated myself obediently on the single step which led straight from the street, and made faces, during the long wait, at the merry driver of the hearse—a decrepit negro of ancient days, who grinned provokingly at the figure I cut ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... and our drivers and horses provokingly slow, but we determined to push on to Haparanda the same night. I needed rest and medical aid, my jaw by this time being so swollen that I had great difficulty in eating—a state of things which threatened to diminish my supply of fuel, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... mind and controls the actions of a gentleman. As a casual illustration of what is amusingly, though somewhat provokingly, ignored here, you have, no doubt, observed that our gentlemen cricketers will acknowledge no fellowship with professionals, though they may belong to the same team, and be paid from the same funds. However, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... was astir again. The lightkeeper, it appeared, had an auxiliary engine in a catboat which he owned and could let me have a sufficient supply of gasolene to fill the Comfort's tank. When this was done—and it took a long time, for Joshua insisted upon helping and he was provokingly slow—I returned to the sitting room and asked Mrs. Atwood ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I told you," said Alexia provokingly; "you'd much better have taken my advice and ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... after a moment, provokingly, "perhaps after all they haven't any of his things. If they deny it flat how ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Fane's warmth, and could not persist in his refusal, although she did dilate most provokingly on the absence of her cousin. He ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... know you'd love to have Martin sick so you could take care of him," said Jane provokingly. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... this, but Nan kept so provokingly cool that he was conscious of wasting breath. He went off in a rage, but Nan did not feel particularly anxious now that the announcement was over. He would cool down, she knew. John Osborne worried her more. She didn't see clearly how she was to ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and in consequence would divert some of the storm of Jane Macalister's wrath from their devoted heads; but no, there she sat in her accustomed place, her hymn book open on her knee, marks of tears on her cheeks, it is true, but in all other respects she looked a provokingly model Elinor. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... exclaimed Bell provokingly. "Surely you can't expect me to keep any account of what you say in the course of a month. Stop, though—I do remember something. You said, I believe, that coming up Madison Avenue you found the bunch of violets carrying a small boy—or the other way; and that at the same time you ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... added insult to injury by expressing his thankfulness that we were all in good health, so that the change was not a matter of necessity. I was too indignant to speak, and rushed upstairs into the nursery, where my little sister had also taken refuge. She was always very gentle and obedient (provokingly so, I thought), and now she sat rocking her doll on her knee in silent sorrow, whilst I stood kicking her chair and grumbling in a tone which it was well the doll could not hear, or rocking would have been of little use. ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... asked, unlocking his suit-case in the most provokingly every-day style, as if this day was an every-day sort of day and not the beginning and end of all things. "Oh, I tell you, I'm almost dotty over that ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... now," rejoined the Liegeois, looking, as he spoke, most provokingly, yet most civilly, politic ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year's signs of them were provokingly abundant; and wood being extremely scarce, we found an admirable substitute in bois de vache, which burns exactly like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... provokingly, clasping the goggles before his eyes. "Well, I've spent the last two hours on the Coney Island beach, about three squares from here, watching the kiddies play in the sand. I didn't feel like driving just then. ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the longest of the suttas and evidently a compilation. The style is provokingly uneven. It often promises to give a simple and natural narrative but such passages are interrupted by more recent and less relevant matter. No general estimate of its historical value can be given but each incident must be apprized separately. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... I said provokingly. But she wasn't provoked, she only shook her head in negation (which was absurd) and pursued the trend of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... improvement in the condition of my feelings. I had endeavored to procure a child's battledore, as an easy means (when clothed with sponge) of reaching the interspace between the shoulders; which interspace, by the way, is a sort of Bokhara, so provokingly situated, that it will neither suffer itself to be reached from the north, in which direction even the Czar, with his long arms, has only singed his own fingers, and lost six thousand camels; nor at all better from the south, upon ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... my last letter, I have been confined to the most dreary of all regions: the sea is so melancholy, that we mutually, I believe, sadden each other. I ought to have landed by this time, but the winds have been most provokingly contrary; I shall not arrive at Charlestown for eight or ten days. It will be a great pleasure to me to land, as I am expecting to do, in that city. When I am once on shore, I shall hope each day to receive news from France; I shall learn so ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... cannot give you a more particular account of the place. Leaving the coast of Africa, we stood across the Atlantic towards that of America. We had left the land some four or five days when the wind fell, and we lay becalmed, one side and then the other dipping provokingly into the smooth, glassy, and shining water, and very nearly rolling our masts out. It was so hot, too, that the pitch bubbled up through the seams in the deck, and Dickey Snookes declared we could have roasted our dinners on the capstern-head. I believe, indeed, ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... can you study so hard, and be so provokingly good?" This question was asked by Jennie Lee, who was one of the largest and wildest girls in the school. Maggie hesitated a moment, whether to tell her secret or not. But, presently she lifted up her eyes, looked her companion bravely in the face, and ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... were of no avail. My aunt's quick temper had evidently led her into committing an imprudence of some sort. Having done that, she was now provokingly determined not to make bad worse. Nothing that I could say would induce her to open her lips on the subject of the mysterious letter. "Wait till Mr. Grosse comes to-morrow." That was the only reply I ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... am now able to state my position definitely." Lanyard got up and grinned provokingly down at the group. "You can—all four of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... a face of the most vivid and regular beauty I ever saw—a face of perfect oval, freshly and rarely coloured, a pair of dark and lustrous eyes, a straight, fine nose and a mouth exquisitely shaped, provokingly red. Its hair, which was dark brown, fell in a tide of wealth far over its shoulders. It wore a woman's bodice cut square in the neck, after the fashion of unmarried women in Venice, and short in the sleeves; but at the ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... this watery wilderness, we encountered a party of native pearl-divers; and the Admiral, who was at all times most provokingly sceptical as to reported wonderful exploits, pulled out his watch, and insisted on timing the best diver amongst them, to see how long he could remain under water. In no case did the poor fellow make out a minute complete; upon which, the Admiral held up his watch ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... her not to think of Scotland at that time of the year. One by one their little intended excursions were given up. A single day and night in Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon; a short visit to the Isle of Wight, where, in a country-place which seemed provokingly pretty as far as they could see it for the rain, lived that friend of Mrs. Ashe who had married an Englishman and in so doing had, as Katy privately thought, "renounced the sun;" a peep at Stonehenge from under the shelter of an umbrella, and an hour ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... still more—that Agne would certainly disapprove of. The stranger whom she had tried to draw into a flirtation was a really chivalrous man. Gorgo might be proud of such a lover; and if now, he were to go to her and tell her, probably with some annoyance, how provokingly he had been delayed by that pert little singing-girl, it would be all her own fault. She felt as though there were something in her which forced her to seem much worse than she really was, and wished ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... accordingly, the ship's head was put directly to the northward, and we stood on, with perfect confidence in the soundings, though we had not taken an observation for two days, nor seen land; and the difference of an eighth of a mile out of the way might put us ashore. Throughout the day a provokingly light wind prevailed, and at eight o'clock, a small fishing schooner, which we passed, told us we were nearly abreast of Chatham lights. Just before midnight, a light land-breeze sprang up, which carried us well along; and at ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... on the flank of the Greek army operating against the Turks. Venizelos thereupon approached Bulgaria and was told that Bulgaria would remain neutral if Greece would cede most of her Macedonian conquests, which would include Kavalla, Drama, and Serres, which stretch so provokingly eastward along the coast and hold Bulgaria ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... study the birds on the plain. Having few hiding-places in a locality almost destitute of trees and bushes, where even the grass was too short to afford a covert, they naturally felt little fear of man, and hence were easily approached. Their cousins residing in the mountains were, as a rule, provokingly wary. The number of birds that had pre-empted homesteads on the treeless wastes was indeed a gratifying surprise, and I went back to the mountains refreshed by the pleasant change my brief excursion upon the plains had ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... up to leave, she found so much to say that she continually put off going. At last, when they were standing near the door, Mavis put her face provokingly near his. He bent, meaning to kiss her hair, but instead his ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... them curiously. The man appeared as a tall figure, standing with legs wide apart, holding a pole, and half turned toward a shorter woman's figure, leaning on another pole, and standing a few paces away. She shook her forefinger at the man, and giggled provokingly. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... tune. He has, too, to deal with all sorts of people—many difficult enough to please. You know the fable of the painter who would please everybody, and pleased nobody. You sitters are a whimsical set, and most provokingly shift your features and position, and always expect miracles, at a moment, too; you are here to-day, and must be off to-morrow. It is nothing, to you that paint won't dry for you, so even that must be forced, and you are rather varnished in than painted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various |
