"Provocative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... examples of the merits of their authors as we should think of measuring the valuable services of Mr. Walker, the postman, or Mr. Bell, the dust-collector, by the copy of verses they leave at our doors as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity—effusions with which they may fairly be classed for their intrinsic worth no less than ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pulse of excitement flutter in her throat. It seemed to him that her eyes grew darker, as though some shadow of dread had fallen over them. The provocative smile vanished. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... presence, but he now and then remembered it afterwards with resentment. Then Sally's face was at least as comely in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. She was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as Agatha's quiet ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself obliged to ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Blondie's words, Demetrio raised his eyes to hers; they gazed at each other like two dogs sniffing one another with distrust. Demetrio could not resist her furiously provocative glances; he was forced to lower ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... army,—and afterwards at Calvi, Moore appeared to Hood, and to Nelson also, as the subordinate, the power behind the throne, who was prompting a line of action they both condemned. No position in military life is more provocative of trouble than to feel you are not dealing with the principal, but with an irresponsible inferior; and the situation is worse, because one in which it is almost impossible to come to an issue. Moore's ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the propertyless evil-doer from personal responsibility for his acts. The Los Angeles dynamiters were but victims: the crime in which they were implicated was institutional, not personal. Their punishment was rank injustice; inexpedient, moreover, as provocative of further crime, instead of a means of repression. On the other hand, when it appears that the congestion of the slum produces vice and disease, we are not urged by the spokesmen of this ethical creed, ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... February night he felt stirred by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... hostilities have not yet commenced. You and my other officers should understand that very clearly, because possibly the differences between ourselves and Great Britain may still be settled. We are only going to occupy our frontiers because England's attitude is extremely provocative, and if England see that we are fully prepared and that we do not fear her threats, she will perhaps be wise in time and reconsider the situation. We also want to place ourselves in a position to prevent and quell a repetition of the Jameson Raid ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... messes, holding out for our inspection greasy looking rolls of paper, purporting to set forth in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and even in Greek and Turkish, the bearers' exploits amidst the soap suds. To read the English certificates while at breakfast is highly amusing and provocative of much merriment. Here is one. The writer is one "Bill Pumpkin," H.M.S. "Ugly Mug," who states that the holder, Mary Brown (who does not know Mary the ubiquitous Mary), "has a strange knack of forgetting the gender ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... provocative a mystery waiting to be solved, Grom could not long rest idle. Had she not known well it would be a waste of breath, A-ya would have tried to dissuade him from the perilous, and to her mind profitless, adventure. It was ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... science"—cause of rubbish! Then, it added, obsequiously, something about "the inestimable benefits from carrying the speculations of that learned man" &c. Mr. Pickwick, in his speech, was certainly self-laudatory and provocative. He talked of his pride in promoting the Tittlebatian theory, and "let his enemies make the most of it." This was marked enough, and no doubt caused looks at Blotton. Then he began to puff his new enterprise at "a ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... May. Less than three months afterwards, on the 18th of August, he died, having been visited on the very day of his death in the Paradise of bric-a-brac which he had created for his Eve in the Rue Fortunee—a name too provocative of Nemesis—by Victor Hugo, the chief maker in verse as he himself was the chief maker in prose of France. He was buried at Pere la Chaise. The after-fortunes of his house and its occupants were not happy: but they ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... German Governor-General, issues an order forbidding, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, the wearing or exhibiting of Belgian insignia in a provocative manner, and forbidding absolutely the wearing or exhibiting of the insignia of the nations warring against ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... white man's daughter. If two nations are disputing a piece of territory, it matters greatly whether the people regard the negotiations as a real estate deal, an attempt to humiliate them, or, in the excited and provocative language which usually enclouds these arguments, as a rape. For the self which takes charge of the instincts when we are thinking about lemons or distant acres is very different from the self which appears when we are thinking even potentially as the outraged head of a family. In ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... are not satisfied with any benefit, if reputation be wanting; for, in truth, such an effect is not valued but by every one to himself; you are better contented, but not more esteemed, seeing you reformed yourself before you got into the whirl of the dance, or that the provocative matter was in sight. Yet not in this only, but in all other duties of life also, the way of those who aim at honour is very different from that they proceed by, who propose to themselves order and reason. I find some who rashly and furiously ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Dawson. He was at that time (the Spring of 1915) in his office in London—he had not yet been despatched on his spacious pilgrimage to the northern shipyards—and Madame Gilbert sat opposite to him in an attitude deliberately provocative. She sat back in a comfortable chair facing the light, her legs were crossed, and she displayed a great deal more of beautifully rounded calf and perfectly fitting silk stockings than is usual even in the ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... person. Monseigneur assumed, somehow, that I would have a lover or two. You perceive that he at least is not a stupid person." And Nelchen tossed her head, with a touch of the provocative. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... cold water will often stimulate the fetus to movements that may be seen by the eye, but an excess of iced water may prove injurious, even to the causing of abortion. Cold water dashed on the belly has a similar effect on the fetus and is equally provocative ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... this school of dolphin (I can't for the life of me call them CORIPHAENA HIPPURIS) came alongside, a rush was made for the "granes"—a sort of five-pronged trident, if I may be allowed a baby bull. It was universally agreed among the fishermen that trying a hook and line was only waste of time and provocative of profanity! since every sailor knows that all the deep-water big fish require a living or apparently living bait. The fish, however, sheered off, and would not be tempted within reach of that deadly fork by any lure. Then did I cover myself with glory. For he who can fish cleverly and luckily ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him that for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze she had lost her shyness. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... comedy by the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy," and of a comedy bearing the suggestive if not provocative title of "Laugh and Lie Down," must always have seemed to the students of Lowndes one of the most curious and amusing pieces of information to be gathered from the "Bibliographer's Manual"; and it is with ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... obtaining in Negro institutions another condition which perhaps does not suffice as a legitimate excuse for the daily reprimand but at least explains it or is provocative of it. I have in mind the indiscriminate assembling of students from the high school or preparatory department and too often from the grammar school along with the college students. Very often the official censor of morals aims his remarks at some grammar ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... and hardy temperament. He was good-looking on the whole, and would have deserved the more flattering epithet of handsome, but for his nose, which was what the French call "a nose in the air,"—not a nose supercilious, not a nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but a nose decidedly in earnest to make the best of itself and of things in general,—a nose that would push its way up in life, but so pleasantly that the most irritable ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be heard, let me beg of you not to be provocative in your language." And then to the others: "Messieurs, if we are to proceed, I beg that you will restrain your feelings until the deputy-suppleant has concluded ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... would not be passive he might be active: the woman on the other hand press'd me to go in with her. We follow'd therefore, and being led among those bills, we saw many of both sexes at work in the cells, so much every of them seem'd to have taken a provocative. ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... people burst with laughter when they took off his delivery of that line. And, indeed, the original, too, was almost provocative of laughter—rightly so, for such emotional indignation has its funny as well as its terrible aspect. The mad, and all are mad who have, as Socrates put it, "a divine release from the common ways of men," may speak ludicrously, even when they ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Fennimore was, and often as she frowned on Maria's outbreaks, she never could detect their provocative. Over-restraint and want of sympathy were direct instruction in unscrupulous slyness of amusement. A sentence of displeasure on Maria's ill-mannered folly was in the act of again filling her eyes with tears, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was gied me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin' listenin' above me, an', man, he used language provocative of a breach o' the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employ, an' a corrupter o' young Bannister's morals, an' he'd prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps—I'd ha' thrown him into the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... now fixed upon the open space beneath her window, where the Sacred and Triumphal Walls joined—a space always at that hour gay with a phantasmagoria of shifting life, and at this time more than ever provocative of curiosity and attention. Its bordering palaces, already being hung with lively tapestries for the morrow—its sparkling fountains—its corners decked with arches—its pavement thronged with carriages and horsemen—the crowds of slaves, beginning in advance to take their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hardly do to depend upon that," said Mr. Die, with another sneer. "Twelve thousand a-year is a great provocative to litigation." ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... move the shacks of the later contestants off their claims. Though they hated the sight of them and of the owners who bore themselves with such provocative assurance, they grudged the time the moving would take. Besides that the Honorable Blake had told them that moving the shacks would accomplish no real, permanent good. Within thirty days they must appear before the register and receiver and file answer to the contest, and he assured them that ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... scrutiny, which made him move quickly. Often she met his eyes. But then her own were, as it were, covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little, lenient smile. She was to him extraordinarily provocative, because of the knowledge she seemed to possess, and gathered fruit of experience he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... had behaved in a provocative manner. Apart from their correspondence with the Jacobins Club (which will be described later), they advocated aims which then seemed utterly subversive of order. Thus, early in May 1792, the Sheffield Society ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... head and opened the hymn-book; the rest of us, bareheaded too, ranged ourselves beside him; and so we stood facing the mob while the verses were sung in comparative quiet. The words might be provocative, but few heard them. The tune commanded an audience, as in Cornwall a tune usually will. The true secret of the spell, however, lay in my father's presence and bearing. A British crowd does not easily attack one whom it knows as a neighbour and born superior; and ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... now slowly, studying it critically as the light fell on its rich colouring. The painted lady had a wonderfully attractive face,—the face of a child, piquante, smiling and provocative,—her eyes were witching blue, with a moonlight halo of grey between the black pupil and the azure iris,—her mouth, a trifle large, but pouting in the centre and curved in the 'Cupid's bow' line, suggested sweetness and passion, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... stated above (AA. 2, 3) unmerited contempt more than anything else is a provocative of anger. Consequently deficiency or littleness in the person with whom we are angry, tends to increase our anger, in so far as it adds to the unmeritedness of being despised. For just as the higher a man's position is, the more undeservedly he is despised; ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... for the moment had lost its value; a "permit" was all-important—even Croesus himself would have starved without one. To procure these useful scrips all sorts of formalities had to be entered into, and the amount of time lost in waiting to prove one's right to live was provocative of many an oath, at the expense of the British army. Kafirs, coolies, Europeans of all nations, the wealthy the poor, and the lowly—all struggled to procure the precious "permit," as if they were at all hazards determined to gain one week's respite before finally succumbing to ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... great sums on such wretches as could gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to those who had not art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspired, he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek in variety, the provocative that was wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment, which he too often saw himself baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this always threw him into a fit of rage, which he wreaked, as far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... I understand your play, And how to quit you your own way: He that will win his dame, must do As Love does when he bends his bow; 450 With one hand thrust the lady from, And with the other pull her home. I grant, quoth he, wealth is a great Provocative to am'rous heat. It is all philters, and high diet, 455 That makes love rampant, and to fly out: 'Tis beauty always in the flower, That buds and blossoms at fourscore: 'Tis that by which the sun and moon At their own weapons are out-done: 460 That makes Knights-Errant ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... bright myriads, and the clear silvery moonlight bathed the court, except where the hall and chapel flung fantastic and mysterious shadows across the green smooth-mown lawns of the quadrangle. The soft light, the cool exhilarating night air were provocative of thought, and they walked up and down ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... up at him with a semi-nervous, semi-provocative glance, "now what? You'll just have to ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... said. "You better send cookee word to bring your meals to yuh, Tex. Because if you roost there till I tell yuh, you'll be roosting a good long while!" He got up and lounged out, his hands in his pockets, his well-shaped head carried at a provocative tilt. He heard Tex swear under his breath and mutter something about making the darned little runt come through ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... new steps—and we shall make new proposals at Geneva—toward the control and the eventual abolition of arms. Even in the absence of agreement, we must not stockpile arms beyond our needs or seek an excess of military power that could be provocative as well ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... something of America, he must express his belief that there was no very imminent danger of war with the United States. The issues of peace and war, however, depended upon the attitude of that House and of the country. Weakness never promoted peace, and an uncertain and half- hearted attitude was provocative of war. This country had, he believed, the desire to preserve its power and influence on the American continent. It was for the good of mankind that the rule of the British Crown and the influence of the wisely-regulated liberty of Britain ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... contrary to her wont, entered Bluebell's room, hair-brush in hand, as if disposed for a cozy confab. But that employment, so provocative of feminine disclosures, appeared futile this night, and the raven and chestnut coils were brushed to the sheen of a bird's wing ere Cecil had discovered ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... flashed at him was delightfully provocative. It served to point the figure she borrowed from Gwen. "So you think ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... provocation &c. (excitation of feeling) 824; inspiration; persuasion, suasion; encouragement, advocacy; exhortation; advice &c. 695; solicitation &c. (request) 765; lobbyism; pull*. incentive, stimulus, spur, fillip, whip, goad, ankus[obs3], rowel, provocative, whet, dram. bribe, lure; decoy, decoy duck; bait, trail of a red herring; bribery and corruption; sop, sop for Cerberus. prompter, tempter; seducer, seductor[obs3]; instigator, firebrand, incendiary; Siren, Circe; agent provocateur; lobbyist. V. induce, move; draw, draw on; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... been pretty clearly shown that what Darwin calls "sexual selection" plays no part. Woman wishes to excite the passion of love. She has an instinct for motherhood; the perpetuity of the species is at the bottom of it all. Woman knows how to make her dress alluring, how to make it provocative, how much to reveal, how much to conceal. A certain voluptuousness is the ambition of all women; anything but to be skinny and raw-boned. She does not want to be muscular and flat-chested, nor, on the other hand, to be over-stout, but she ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... think, an inestimable privilege to claim the friendship of a man whose life and letters are a perpetual stimulus to action, an invariable provocative of thought. I have just had a letter from my friend, telling me that he is in despair of the stage. His play is a thing of the past, and he vows that he has done with dramatic ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... And when Harpalus, who had fled from Alexander out of Asia, carrying off a large sum of money, came to Attica, and there was a perfect race among the ordinary public men of the assembly who should be the first to take his pay, he distributed amongst these some trifling sums by way of a bait and provocative, but to Phocion he made an offer of no less than seven hundred talents and all manner of other advantages he pleased to demand; with the compliment that he would entirely commit himself and all his affairs to his disposal. Phocion answered sharply, Harpalus should repent ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had not the smallest belief in the woman's power to destroy my cattle by any alleged occult virtue pertaining to her wonderful ring, the sight of it flashed before my eyes in so provocative a manner reminded me of my almost forgotten promise to Siluce to take the jewel from Bimbane, if I could; and, exasperated at last beyond endurance by her abuse and threats, I sprang to my feet, seized her right hand in mine, and, while I stifled her cries ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of psychology will acknowledge that our picketing had stimulated action in Congress, and that what was now needed was some still more provocative action ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... lady rippled into a delicious silver stream of laughter, a little thin, but charmingly provocative. Winsome did not join, but she looked up imploringly at her grandmother, leaning her head back till her ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... even the advertisements came in for their share of pleasure-giving. New inventions had an interest; tokens of the world's movements, or the world's wants, in other notices, were found suggestive of thought or provocative of wonder. Sitting with her feet put towards the fire, her knitting in her hands, the quick grey eyes studied Diana's face as she read, never needing to give their supervision to the fingers; and the coarse blue yarn stocking, which was doubtless ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... at the gate and to thoughts of Anne—to romantic thoughts of worship and service; of becoming worthy of her regard; of immense faithfulness to her image when confronted with the most provocative temptations; to thoughts of self-sacrifice and bravado, of humility and boasting; of some transcending glorification of myself that should make me worthy of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... daring to the verge of coarseness, and he did not admire her pessimism, which was probably a pose; but there was a vein of elfish mischief in her that appealed to him. Sitting among the heather, small, lithe, and felinely graceful, watching him with a provocative smile in her rather narrow eyes, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... It's the proof that I'm a perfect hostess," retorted Beatrice, her dainty, provocative face flashing ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... for she had seen the look in his eyes, and her question was recklessly provocative and challenging. She knew it was such as she had flung it at him; and Hubert Stane knew too. His face flushed, his heart pounded wildly; and for a moment there was a surging desire to tell her what he really had been thinking. The next moment he put ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... or organic, of any internal organ, may give rise to the eruption in those predisposed. Gastric derangement from indigestible or peculiar articles of food, intestinal toxins, and the ingestion of certain drugs are often provocative. The so-called "shell-fish" group of foods play an important etiological part in some cases. Idiosyncrasy to certain articles of food is also responsible in occasional instances. Various rheumatic and nervous disorders are not infrequently associated with it, and are doubtless ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... that little so badly, that General Duncan insisted upon their repeating the English call, which would be something like this: "Post Number One. Nine o'clock. All's well." The Pawnee effort to obey was so ludicrous, and provocative of such profanity (which they could express passing well), ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... sufficiently pointed—not too pointed, but pointed enough. It does not require a knowledge of the niceties of the law, the regulations of the British army, or a keen appreciation of the subtlest subtleties of logic to fully understand it. It is amusing, and provocative of innocent laughter, which, after all, seems to be a sufficient recommendation for words spoken within the walls of a play-house. The music is full of melody—"quite killing," as a young lady wittily observed, on noticing that the name of the Composer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... a bitter critic of successive Administrations. His complaints of our blockade policy were frigidly acknowledged by Lord MILNER and hotly resented by Lord LANSDOWNE, upon whom Lord PORTSMOUTH'S ruddy beard always has a provocative effect. It is all very well to talk of being ruthless to neutrals, but if we had adopted the noble lord's policy early in the War would the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes be to-day floating side by side all ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... a provocative air as she came nearer and took Pons' hand in hers. "Do you not know what it is to love a woman that will do anything for her lover? Is it possible? If I were in your place, I should not wish to leave this world for another until I had ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... such a fool." Elsewhere he expresses a wish to "fly to the woods," or retire into a desert, a disposition which Johnson checked by one of his habitual gibes at the quantity of easily accessible desert in Scotland. Boswell is equally frank in describing himself in situations more provocative of contempt than even drunkenness in a drawing-room. He tells us how dreadfully frightened he was by a storm at sea in the Hebrides, and how one of his companions, "with a happy readiness," made him ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... natives cannot be given political rights. The grant of such rights would have the effect of alienating the sympathy of English and Dutch alike, and would materially prejudice the good government of the new colonies, and be provocative of racial bitterness. In the meantime the natives should be taught habits ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... to look up at Scott out of the leaping flames—a face that was laughing and provocative one moment, wistful and ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... and pampering him, and humouring his every whim, however outrageous it may be. So you will give me your promise to be very patient with him, won't you? I know that he has been atrociously rude and provocative to you, but—" ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... led the way, chatting to Captain Twinely, saying things more charmingly provocative than any which poor Twinely had ever heard from a woman's lips. Her eyes flashed on him, drooped before his gaze, sought his again with shy suggestiveness. She even succeeded, when his glance grew very bold, in blushing. They reached ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... his hand, forcing a gay smile. And they went on together, upward, always upward, her pretty, provocative eyes meeting his at intervals, her heart beating faster, death ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... have been provocative,' said Farrell, after a while, checking himself by an afterthought in the act of clearing his throat. 'Considering our relative positions, I am rather surprised at your daring to take this line. . . . But you used a word just now. It was 'forgive.' I came not only to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief to explain to the west wind what your name may be—" She ended with a disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to his—lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... actress seated beside Yeager must have been in her very early twenties, but her pretty face, finely modeled, had the provocative effrontery that is the note of twentieth-century young womanhood. Its audacity, which was the quintessence of worldliness, held an ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... buttoned coat, slowly approaching up the road. Taking advantage of a rise in the ground, I lingered till he was almost upon me, when I cantered quickly on, fearing to arouse his apprehensions if I allowed him to pass me on a road so solitary as that which now stretched out before us: a move provocative of much embarassment to me, as I dared not turn my head for the same reason, anxious as I was to keep him ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... involves, then it is surely an unworthy ideal. If it is a feeble submission to an external conventional law which there is no courage to break, then it is not an ideal at all. If it is a rule of morality imposed by one sex on the opposite sex, then it is an injustice and provocative of revolt. If it is an abstinence from the usual forms of sexuality, replaced by more abnormal or more secret forms, then it is simply an unreality based on misconception. And if it is merely an external acceptance of conventions ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... revealing some perfect composition in line and colour, the intense blue of the water margined with splendid oaks, green fields, and swaths of orange poppies. But those side glances and backward glances were provocative of trouble. Charmian and I disagreed as to which way the connecting stream of water ran. We still disagree, for at the hotel, where we submitted the affair to arbitration, the hotel manager and the clerk ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... original, striking, and affecting situation; provocative, too, of the utmost curiosity? A fugitive from justice, in a strange, small, dark, ancient house, is seized, threatened, and presented with a young and lovely female stranger. In this opening we recognise the hand of a master ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... their staves, took off their pilgrim's cloaks and remained in their under-clothing; they were all good-looking young fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut, scraps of cheese, and well-picked ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... been hearing of the Pali ever since we landed. It is a cliff approached by a gorge, whence one of those unpronounceable and unspellable kings once drove his enemies headlong into the sea. We could not miss a scene so provocative of sensations as this, so several of us teachers and an army nurse or two packed ourselves into a wagonette for the journey. We started bright and early, or as near bright and early as is possible when one eats in the second section and the first section sits ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... thinks me a Le Notre"—Alison laughed—"What I mean is, she sees behind, she sees why it is fashionable to have a garden, since she has worked out the values of that existence. But there!" Alison added, with a provocative touch that did not escape him, "I am picking your parishioners to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his part, held his turban at arm's length between his finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over, he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... crowd that, in spite of writing continuously about crowds for four months, gave me a direct impulse to write yet again about a crowd, that gave me the feeling that here was something fresh, sparkling, human, warm, ardent and provocative. It was a crowd with a flutter of laughter in it, a crowd that had a personality, an insouciance, an independence in its friendliness. It was a crowd that I shall always put beside other mental pictures of big crowds, in that gallery of clear vignettes of things ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... she must do so with ill-concealed admiration, like a fond mother chiding with word and gesture while she approves with tone and look. It is a foolish charge, often made, that the French make vice attractive: they make it provocative of laughter; the spark of wit is always evolved, and what is a better antidote to this ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... their lusts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity—a mighty stone structure of great height and massivity, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Prince. In August of last year nine out of every ten of us would have said that not the father, but the son, of the Royal family of Germany had been the chief provocative cause of the war. Subsequent events have lessened the weight of that opinion. But the young man's known popularity among an active section of the officers of the army; their subterranean schemes to set him off against his father; a vague suspicion of the Kaiser's jealousy of his eldest son—all ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... all!—he's a Deare!" at which they both laughed, for Mr. Bright's assistant, like the Assistant Magistrate, had a name of infinite possibilities. A comic fate had thrown him and Jack Darling together in the same Station, and they were provocative of fun in more senses than the ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... life. A doctor writes, "I am aware that it is popularly supposed that self-abuse and sexual intercourse are antagonistic—by many, the one is regarded as a necessary alternative of the other. So far from being a protective, the former is a most powerful provocative of the latter. According to my own observation, it is not the strongly sexed, the most virile young men, who are most given to licentiousness, but those whose organs have been rendered weak and irritable from this unnatural exercise—in whom the habit of sensual indulgence ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... and droop in the sconces. But the three ladies refused to find the little room either cold or dark; their talk was not half done yet, and their muffs would keep them warm. The shadow of the deepening gloom they found delightfully provocative of confidences. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Beasley divined his perplexity, but she carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself. Ira's heart leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her. But here rustic simplicity seemed to be equal to the occasion. "Ef I propose to do Ira's work," said Mrs. Beasley, with provocative archness, "it's because I reckon he'll do more good helpin' you catch your man than you'll do helpin' ME! So clear out, both of ye!" A feminine audacity that recalled the deputy to himself, and left him no choice but to accept Ira's aid. I do not know ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... root, much prized at Japan, somewhat like a skerrit.—Purch. Probably that named Ginseng, in high repute in China and Japan for its fancied restorative and provocative powers, like the mandrake of holy writ, but deservedly despised in the Materia Medica of Europe. Its whole virtues lay in some supposed resemblance to the human figure, founded on the childish doctrine of signatures; whence, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... into active service and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation, rousing the ancient gallantry of the British people."* (* Alison, History of Europe, 1839 2 128.) French military operations in the Netherlands, running counter to traditional British policy, were provocative, and the feeling aroused by the execution of Louis immediately led Pitt's ministry to order the French Ambassador, Chauvelin, to leave London within eight days. He left at once. On February 1st, acting on Chauvelin's report of the disposition ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... jarred, sometimes seriously; Helena was often provocative and aggressive; and Buntingford could make a remark sting without intending it. But on the whole Lucy Friend felt that she was watching something which had in it possibilities of beauty; indeed of a rather touching and rare development. But not at all as the preliminary to a love-affair. ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and that is that you should be even indirectly mixed up in it. Lever can sue me till he bursts: I'm not afraid of him. But it does seem a shame when I've often attacked you (always in good faith and what was meant for good humour), and when you've heaped coals of fire by printing my most provocative words, that your chivalry should get you even bothered about it. I am truly sorry and ask pardon—of you, but not of old Sun and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... his conception of impartiality. I suppose that if a bull gored his sister he would say that there were faults on both sides; his sister ought not to have strayed into the field, she was wearing a red hat of a highly provocative type; she ought to have been a cow and then everything would have been different. In the face of the history of the last forty years, the Genteel Whig struggles persistently to minimise the German outrage upon civilisation ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Problems," edited by Mr Basil Williams. In general, my aim has been to aid in humanising the Irish Question. The interpretation of various aspects of it, here offered, is intended to be not exhaustive but provocative, a mere set of shorthand rubrics any one of which might have been expanded into a chapter. Addressing the English reader with complete candour, I have attempted to recommend to him that method of approach, that mental attitude which alone can divest him of his preconceptions, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... the early classic authors have commented upon the surprising swiftness with which common rumor travels. If its speed was provocative of comment in those bygone days, which lacked most of the accelerating features now found on every hand, it should certainly fare far faster at the present time. At any rate, no tidings ever spread through the subliminal Chinese empire, warning of Magyar ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... socialism, and offends it so much more because international socialism knows that on German Socialists depended the lesser or greater efficacy in the action of international socialism to arrest the provocative struggle of armaments promoted by Germany, and thus to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... natural processes by which races are mixed. They are self-created, their minds are set on gathering the varied fruit of all the nations. Genealogically they may be as uninteresting as the snail in the cabbage-patch, spiritually they are provocative and arresting. Romain Rolland and George Brandes challenge and outrage the champions of nationalism by the very texture of their minds. Joseph Conrad, a Pole, stands side by side with Thomas Hardy in his mastership of contemporary English fiction. Conrad in his ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby |
