"Provocative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finds in Oscar Wilde a great and provocative subject for his art needs no argument to justify his choice. If the picture is a great and living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the dark shadows must all be there, as well as the high lights, and the effect ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the green men of Mars are widely at variance with our conceptions of incitants to merriment. The death agonies of a fellow being are, to these strange creatures provocative of the wildest hilarity, while their chief form of commonest amusement is to inflict death on their prisoners of war in various ingenious and ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... man is not my superior: I feel, Oliver, he is not; and it becomes me to assert my rights. Nay, his pride acts as a provocative—Oliver, I perceive how wrong this is; but I will not blot out the line. Let it remain as a memento. He that would correct his failings must be willing ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... saw was after all not so terrible, for an exquisitely beautiful young lady sat gracefully on the four-footed intruder, and a pair of provocative eyes shone brightly under a riding hat ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... it made me 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 lay hold of a rope fastened to the masthead, and told ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... possibly hand over its fine barkentine to a stranger, that he had only reopened the controversy; that his unfortunate reference to "meager maritime experience" had flicked Matt Peasley on a raw spot and been provocative of this reply, received the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... average about once a week, or if not coincide, at any rate approach coincidence. On such occasions, as often as not under the planton's very stupid nose, a kiss or an embrace would be stolen—provocative of much fierce laughter and some scurrying. Or else, while the moneyed captives (including B. and Cummings) were waiting their turn to enter the bureau de M. le Gestionnaire, or even were ascending the stairs with a planton ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... abiding place, was taboo. He made more thorough love to Balatta— also saw to it that she scrubbed herself more frequently. Eternal female she was, capable of any treason for the sake of love. And, though the sight of her was provocative of nausea and the contact of her provocative of despair, although he could not escape her awfulness in his dream-haunted nightmares of her, he nevertheless was aware of the cosmic verity of sex that animated her and that made her own life ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... of a thousand lines, and fabliaux of thirty or forty, but the average is as just stated. The incidents had to be adjusted for best effect, neither too many nor too few. The treatment had to be mainly provocative—an appeal in some cases by very coarse means indeed to very coarse nerves, in others by finer devices addressed to senses more tickle o' the sere. And so grew up that unsurpassed and hardly matched product the French short story, where, if it is in perfection, hardly a word is thrown away, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... detractors remember that styles change with the times. Mankind is always discontented, and prefers the old to the modern. I can quite understand that our German philosophers adapted their style to their audiences and their lofty subjects. So foreign critics had better let this provocative ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... are also aphrodisiacal, acting as they undoubtedly do, as powerful stimulants. Thus Tourtelle and Peyrible assure us that pepper is a provocative to venereal pleasures, while Gesner and Chappel cured an atony of the virile member of three or four years' duration, by repeated immersions of that organ in a strong infusion of ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... daughter. There was nothing suggestive of Ancient History about Elsie. She was slim and young as the little new moon they had both nearly broken their necks to see over their right shoulders a few minutes before. Moreover she was exceedingly pretty and as provocative as the dickens. In the end Ted stole a saucy kiss and left her pretending to be as indignant as if a dozen other impudent youths had not done precisely the same thing since the opening of the college year. It was the lady's privilege to protest. Ted granted ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... across Dan'l?" he said, laughing, for at that time coldness from the outside world seemed but provocative of amusement. Then he sang out gayly to the Morgan horse, and they flew along the road, under the outreaching branches, red and gold and russet, past old landmarks and houses and more familiar faces which bore strange looks towards them, and yet surprised them not, for a strangeness ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to the door. 'Twas provocative, however meant, and he put himself in her way. She tried the other side of the table. He blocked that also, and was before her again. Finally she ceased the attempt and ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs, then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a roar of voices and a changing din of extraordinary ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... strain on my feminine curiosity," said Miss Graham, the provocative smile quirking at the comers of ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... expectancy of and longing for a fight, usually provokes it. We may not safely argue that lower animals prove the value of preparedness for war as a preventive measure! Among them, as among human groups, the only justification of militarism is protection and aggression. Preparedness for strife is provocative rather ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... she was crazy about cars. So she said. Marie had all the effect of being a pretty girl. She habitually wore white middies with blue collar and tie, which went well with her clear, pink skin and her hair that just escaped being red. She knew how to tilt her "beach" hat at the most provocative angle, and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance—of the kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the latest slang at her pink tongue's tip and was yet moderate ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... succeeded in isolating was an engaging organism with a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectoderm which put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality about your relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting. You were just like one ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... the slightest idea of mercy, pity, or compassion for suffering. A fellow-creature, or animal, writhing in pain or torture, is to him a sight highly provocative of merriment and enjoyment. I have seen a number of blacks at Loanda, men, women, and children, stand round, roaring with laughter, at seeing a poor mongrel dog that had been run over by a cart, twist and roll about in agony on the ground ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... chairs that usually lined the walls were pushed aside and left to stand crooked and awry, the very mockery of their former dignity. Here and there a roll of parchment, an ink-stained pen, a cast-off cloak littered the hall and looked curiously provocative and out of place—an insult to the majesty of the dead and mighty Caesar, who had caused the stately columns to be reared, and the massive walls to raise their pure ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... you wish to be heard, let me beg of you not to be provocative in your language." And then to the others: "Messieurs, if we are to proceed, I beg that you will restrain your feelings until the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... that she was taking it much too quietly; he would have 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
... of seals made his solemn round, poking into the forbidden chambers, into the lofts, into the cellars. He scrutinized every chest and closet with all the provocative slowness of a physiologist viewing under the microscope the corpuscles of some unhappy frog. The information he had received from Rome had evidently quieted his larger doubts; but these people, from the princess down to the impossible ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... interest to none, it is not that in which I propose to engage at present, unless indirectly. My immediate concern is not with the strength of theism, but with the weakness of atheism, and the hollowness of the latter's dialectical pretensions. What in every form of piety is most provocative of philosophic scorn, is its forwardness of faith, its eagerness of acquiescence; but to this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by whom it is most freely ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... was Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, which men think wonderfully fascinating in a belle, but utterly unforgivable in a plain, middle-aged woman. Moreover, "Susan's" utter abnegation to her cause, her passion for it, sometimes carries her on to "ways and means" ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... and the tortuosities of the sink-spout to Miss Grieve. While our landlady was on the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which established its ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... its headway unmolested must not be supposed. While at first the tendency of educated Romans and of the government was to ignore or tolerate it, its challenge was so direct and provocative that this attitude could not long continue. Under the Emperor Claudius (41-54 A.D.) "all the Jews who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus" were unsuccessfully ordered banished from Rome. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... Susie. Yet Gershom, I know, is nice to Susie and nothing more. He is still my loyal but carefully restrained knight. It's a shame, I suppose, to bobweasel him the way I occasionally do. But I can't quite help it. His goody-goodiness is as provocative to my baser nature as a red flag to an Andulasian bull. And a woman who was once reckoned as a heart-breaker has to keep her hand in with something. I've got to convince myself that the last shot hasn't gone from ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Gilbert, which I should like you to follow up," said 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 best society. Although she did not look at Dawson, she ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... up at him with a semi-nervous, semi-provocative glance, "now what? You'll just have ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... delighted. As usual, modesty was but another name for conformity. Mamise had to face the glares of the conventional wives and daughters in their bodices that followed every contour, their light skirts that blew above the knees, and their provocative hats and ribbons. They made it plain to her that they were outraged by this shapeless passer-by in the bifurcated potato-sack, with her hair tucked up under a vizored cap and her hands in ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... 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 Germany ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... movement never less than evanescent, mysterious,—no reality. It is the language of mystic signs and portents—the inspiration of the gods—wholly spiritual—divine signalling. Remindful of superstition, provocative of imagination. Might not the inhabitants of some other world (Mars) controlling mighty forces thus surround our globe with fiery symbols, a golden writing which we have not ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Richard Street, Glasgow; go, please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name by which she is to pass. When we next meet, you will tell me what you think of her," she added, with a touch of the provocative. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... incident should never be forgotten by those who are disposed to judge the Irish harshly for what they did, and did not do, in the succeeding years. Above all, it should be remembered that the news of it, terribly provocative in itself to any people, but tenfold provocative by reason of the contrast which it revealed as compared with the treatment of Ulster, was published to the world less than ten days before Redmond had to face the question, What should Ireland do in ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... for further confidences. Her situation was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... disturb my work of mediation, stating that I was in constant communication with H. M. the Czar. In the evening the King kindly answered that he had ordered his Government to use every possible influence with his Allies to refrain from taking any provocative military measures. At the same time H. M. asked me if I would transmit to Vienna the British proposal that Austria was to take Belgrade and a few other Serbian towns and a strip of country as a "main-mise" to make sure that the Serbian promises on paper should be fulfilled ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... daughter, and was Marguerite exquisitely defiant? Time hung. The situation was slightly awkward, he thought. And it was obscure, alluring.... He stood there, below the level of the street, shut in with those beings unknown, provocative, and full of half-divined implications. And all Chelsea was around him and all London ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged remarks on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in the price of corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that only two short days ago we had confronted each other on either side of a hedge,—I triumphant, provocative, derisive; he flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and volleying forth profanity? So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina the while, demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and apparently absorbed in a brightly coloured presentment of "Apollyon Straddling Right ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... stepped up to the alley gate and wiggled her fingers in a way peculiarly provocative to a ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... on the part of some nation. They saw, as we all saw, the vast armies preparing for the fray, the diplomatists betraying an increasing concern about the relations between their respective nations, the press embittering those relations, and a pernicious and provocative literature inflaming public opinion. We all saw these things, and knew that a war of appalling magnitude would follow the first infringement of peace. Yet I think it will hardly be controverted that the Churches made no serious effort to avert that calamity ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... thought of nothing but women, and in young, fresh, provincial women he displayed an intense, in fact, an absorbing interest. He pictured them as delightfully shy and timid, yet sturdy as a woodland mushroom, and their provocative perfume of youth and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... had been, he resented the idea of being commandeered at unexpected moments. Had Mary Standish read his thoughts, her bearing toward him during the dinner hour could not have been more satisfying. There was, in a way, something seductively provocative about it. She greeted him with the slightest inclination of her head and a cool little smile. Her attitude did not invite spoken words, either from him or from his neighbors, yet no one would have accused her ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... spoke 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
... will!" came the fervent assurance. There was something almost—quite provocative in the flash of gratitude that shone forth from the blue eyes of the girl in that moment of her superlative relief. It moved Burke to a desire for rehabilitation in ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... safely, sure of the friendship and protection of the red man, while an American would not have been safe for a night. The subject of the relations between the British and the Indian tribes in Revolutionary times has, of course, been provocative of much bitterness in the hearts of Americans; but happily their own historians of a later day have shown that this bitterness has only been partially justified. There was not much to choose between Patriots and Loyalists. Those who know the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... infantine stomachers at the spectator with an innocence, a dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice before pinching their cheeks—provocative as they are of this tribute of admiration—and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal gallantry with ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... With so 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 one she shrank from in spite of her tried courage and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... solely to the enemy. England and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm solely for "peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent on loot and glory. "Peace" in military mouths to-day is a synonym for "war expected." The word has become a pure provocative, and no government wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that "peace" and "war" mean the same thing, now in posse, now ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... of love and another. Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but "Beware of fear"? Was not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be gratified? As rapidly these ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... absorbed in contemplation of a tiny lace-edged pocket-handkerchief. He spread it out upon his knee, and laughed. He crumpled it up in his palm, and pressed it to his face, and drank deep of its faint perfume,—faint, but powerfully provocative of visions and emotions. He had found it during the night on the floor of the sick-room, and had captured and borne it away like a treasure. He spread it out on his knee again, and was again about to laugh at its small size and ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... pamphlet contains sixty-seven pages, with numerous exhibits and photographs. The practices set forth are listed under six heads: Cruel and unusual punishments; arrests without warrant; unreasonable searches and seizures; provocative agents; compelling persons to be witnesses against themselves; propaganda by the Department of Justice. The reader may also ask for the pamphlet entitled "Memorandum Regarding the Persecution of the Radical Labor Movement in the United States;" also for the pamphlet entitled "War ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... had come to consider almost their own, and there were many cases of seizure and of angry charge and countercharge. President Grant, in his message to Congress in 1870, denounced the policy of the Canadian authorities as arbitrary and provocative. Other issues between the two countries were outstanding as well. Canada had a claim against the United States for not preventing the Fenian Raids of 1866; and the United States had a much bigger bill against Great Britain for neglect in permitting the escape of the Alabama. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... implacable Myrtale resembles the angry Adriatic, in which also he finds a likeness to an ill-tempered lover. All through, from first to last, the gentle Horace pelts with most ungentle phrases one of the noblest objects in nature, provocative alike of our admiration and our awe, our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... which is strongly individual and which is on the whole rather restful than provocative. The reader's mind reposes on the security of these strongly moulded sentences, these solid paragraphs and periods. It is a considered style in which word after word falls admirably into its appointed place. It is not quite of the eighteenth ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... a cheap substitute for wit; regardful of criticism, which is often provocative or promotive of improvement, inspired with the dignity of their high calling, and with a fine vision that projects itself into the future, the librarians engaged in the work with children willingly give thereto the finest and the best of personality that they possess. Descriptive of ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... wisely, but with a trace of cynicism. "The little American must not be reminded—h'm? We will go.... For you have done so much for me, you big, strange, platonic Mr. Billy!" Dazzlingly she smiled on him, her dark eyes quizzically provocative. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... one of their enemies occasionally dropped, either dead or wounded, by a shot from the intricacies and covers of the woods, which, upon being searched and examined, afforded no trace whatsoever of those who did the mischief. This was harassing and provocative of vengeance to the military and such wretched police as existed in that day. No search could discover a single trace of a tory, and many of those in the pursuit were obliged to withdraw from it—not unreluctantly, indeed, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... been said of the effect of the comparative isolation of such a community, which is apt to be provocative of internal dissension. But this cause has not operated in the case of Holden's successors. Keeler became the second director in 1897, and administered his office with, so far as I know, universal satisfaction till his lamented death in 1900. It would not be ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle prophecies ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... at this moment as at any other. Hers was a nameless charm; it was present in each gesture of the slim hands, in each turn of the head, in every movement of, the broad, slender body. Strangers felt it instantly; her very walk seemed provocative of notice; there was something in the way her skirts clung, and moved with her, that was different from the motion of other women's. And those whose type she embodied went crazy about her. Madeleine remembered as though it were yesterday, the afternoon on which Heinz had burst in to rave to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... appeared, clad in their spotless white garments of service. Rose, likewise, was in her play uniform, which was now considerably too small for her, and her appearance in it would have caused a smile if it had not been more provocative ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the 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 professional talent and force of character naturally made itself felt, even with a man ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... possible—the eye that looks being purged and cleansed, so as to see more clearly-that the facts remaining identical, their whole aspect and bearing may be altered, and that which was felt, and rightly felt, to be painful and provocative of sadness and gloom, may change its character and beget a solemn joy. It would be but a small thing to transform the conditions; it is far better and higher to transform us. We all need, and some ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the love of the full-grown human creature clamouring for its mate,—its mate in Soul even more than in Body. There is no gainsaying it—no checking it—no pacifying it; it is a most disastrous business, provocative of all manner of evils,—and to a king who has always been accustomed to have his own way, it means ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... had all the world to choose: why select so specially for insult the single spot on which reposed the wornout and unoffending? O dainty Beau! O dainty world! Own the truth, both of ye. There is something irresistibly provocative of insult in the back of a shabby-looking dog! The poor terrier, used to affronts, raised its heavy eyelids, and shot the gleam of just indignation from its dark eyes. But it neither stirred nor growled, and Beau, extremely pleased with his ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Letgood also rose, she stopped and smiled—waiting perhaps for him to take his leave. As he did not speak she shook out her frock and then pulled down her bodice at the waist and drew herself up, thus throwing into relief the willowy outlines of her girlish form. The provocative grace, unconscious or intentional, of the attitude was not lost on her admirer. For an instant he stood irresolute, but when she stepped forward to pass him, he seemed to lose his self-control, and, putting ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... fire-eaters, are not produced by the simple and 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. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... sprains and sprains," she answered, with the quiver of her lip he remembered so disturbingly. "Didn't you learn that in the trenches?" Was she really pretty, or was it only the provocative appeal to his imagination, the dangerous sense that you never knew what she would ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... of this provocative book. The triangle we have had tiresomely with us, but it is woman's love that is, perversely, always the hero. Hergesheimer studies the man, studies him not as will, or energy, or desire a-struggle with ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... composed young lady who had removed her impulse with her apron, he knew that he must have been mistaken. She was still his adored Miss Nell, but with a difference that carried her leagues away from him. He knew how to cope with the hot-headed, rebellious Miss Nell; with the teasing, indifferent, provocative Miss Nell; and even with the disconsolate little Miss Nell who had wept against his shoulder coming home from Chicago. But in the presence of this beautiful, grown-up, self-contained young lady he felt thoroughly awkward and ill at ease. Had ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... perception of the radical divergence, for all Valence's greatness of mind and spirit, between the fair young Duchess and her chosen lover: a circumstance which must surely stand in the way of its popularity. Though "A Soul's Tragedy" has the saving quality of humour, it is of too grim a kind to be provocative of laughter. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... 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, when there was a knock at the door, and all the faces ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 prays for the flowing lines and the plumpness ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... by the non-Parliamentarian. Mr. Balfour was arguing that it was impossible to properly discuss the amendment of Lord Wolmer until the House knew whether or not the Irish members were going to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. I do not know whether it was because there was something provocative in the manner in which Mr. Balfour referred to this subject, but it had the effect of rousing the once vulnerable, but now admirably controlled temper, which has played such a part in Mr. Gladstone's career. Rising with ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... answered truthfully enough. His manner was so entirely non-provocative that her resentment for a ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unsophistication, her provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of trouble, as the intrigues ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... of an Imperial Mexico, especially by means of foreign intervention, was regarded as a semi-hostile act. There were two entirely different ways in which this warning could be given: one completely effective without being provocative, the other provocative without being in the very least degree effective. The only effective way was to win the war; and the best way to win the war was to strike straight at the heart of the South with all ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... (Luxuria), the new enemy, appears. She comes from the extreme East, this wild dancer, with odorous hair, provocative glance and effeminate voice; she stands in a magnificent chariot drawn by four horses; she scatters violet and rose leaves; they are her weapons; their insidious perfumes destroy courage and will, and the army, headed by the virtues, speaks of surrender. But suddenly Sobriety (Sobrietas) lifts the ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... for 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 had not come to the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... however well they agreed with the spirit of the age, were galling to such keen traders. And the mere difference between colonies and motherland had produced misunderstandings on both sides. But the main provocative cause was Imperial taxation for local defence. The Thirteen Colonies could not have held their own by land or sea, much less could they have conquered their French rivals, without the Imperial forces, which, indeed, had done by far the ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... desirable end of his late father-in-law's estate, thereby proving to himself that the early bird is a much smarter creation than the one which is satisfied to possess a mere nest-egg. Of course, the selling of that "parcel" of land was provocative of most acrimonious disputes between Mr. and Mrs. Force. Mrs. Force, while not averse to the sale of the land, was frightfully cut up by the fact that she was to have the impossible Bingles as neighbours, and Mr. Force, who was the prince ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... compassion of her gesture with Mr Shushions!) This quality of daring and naughty enterprise had never before shown itself in Edwin, and he was surprised to discover in himself such impulses. But then the girl was so provocative. And somehow the sight of the girl delivered him from an excessive fear of consequences. He said to himself, "I'll do something or I'll say something, before I leave her to-night, just to show her!" He screwed up his resolution ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... to depend upon that," said Mr. Die, with another sneer. "Twelve thousand a-year is a great provocative ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... once far-famed ATTICUS: the once illustrious RICHARD HEBER, Esq., the self-ejected member of the University of Oxford. Even yet I scarcely know how to handle this subject, or to expatiate upon a theme so extraordinary, and so provocative of the most contradictory feelings. But it were better to be brief; as, in fact, a very long account of Mr. Heber's later life will be found in my Reminiscences, and there is little to add to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... earlier than I did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard, rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing REASONING. That was his name for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several times, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ingeniously flavored and spiced, that I cannot be sure) is miraculous. There was a sort of chowder, too, of what fish I could not conjecture, which was so appetizing that I could have gorged on it. Just as provocative and alluring was one of the concoctions of the second course, apparently of lamb or kid, but indubitably a masterpiece. I ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... name of J. Marjoram conceals, but it is certainly a pseudonym. Some time ago J. Marjoram published a volume of verse entitled "Repose" (Alston Rivers), and now Duckworth has published his "New Poems." The volume is agreeable and provocative. It contains a poem called "Afternoon Tea," which readers of the English Review will remember. I do not particularly care for "Afternoon Tea." I find the contrast between the outcry of a deep passion and the chatter of the tea merely melodramatic, instead of impressive. And I object to the idiom ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... Mexican free zone has been often discussed with regard to its inconvenience as a provocative of smuggling into the United States along an extensive and thinly guarded land border. The effort made by the joint resolution of March 1, 1895, to remedy the abuse charged by suspending the privilege ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... could be only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing, still going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... not tall, rather below middle stature, perhaps, beautifully proportioned and perfectly gowned. Hair and eyes were dark as velvet; her skin was old ivory and rose; and always her lips seemed about to part a little in the faint and provocative smile which lay latent in the depths ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... view, the idea of Wilfrid being in ranks opposed to him was so little provocative of intense dissatisfaction, that it was out of his power to believe that Emilia craved to see him simply to dissuade the man from the obnoxious step. "Ah, well! See him; see him, if you must," he said. "Arrange ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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
... toys with the corner of her apron, twiddling it backwards and forwards between her fingers. She glances demurely down at her feet, then looks shyly up at him again; then once more studying her apron, she, as if unconsciously, proffers her cheek in a manner too provocative for any man to resist, and as the curtain descends Lionel Beauchamp is apparently about to make the most of ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... of confidence in the country would tamely submit to treatment such as this? While the Lords proceeded light-heartedly with their wrecking tactics, the Liberal Government slowly and cautiously, but with great deliberation, took action step by step. A provocative move on the part of the Lords was met each time by a counter-move, and thus gradually the final and decisive phase of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... In this playfully provocative manner, Miss Minerva (the governess) trifled with the curiosity of Mr. Le Frank (the music-master), as the proverbial cat trifles with the terror of the captive mouse. The man of the bald head and the servile smile showed a polite interest in the coming disclosure; he opened his deeply-sunk ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by the subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun to appear to them with a more serious air. The stripling girl would sometimes laugh at me in a provocative and not unadmiring manner, if I judge aright; and one of the grandmothers, who was my great friend of the party, gave me many a sharp word of judgment on my sketches, my heresy, or even my arguments, and gave them with ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the point of uttering other angry and provocative words when Seton took his arm in a firm grip. "Gray!" he said sharply. "You leave with me ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... he saw no Cecelia Brooke, though his aloof attitude coupled with an intent but impersonal inspection of every feminine face within his radius of vision earned him more than one smile at once furtively provocative and unwelcome. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... square with my preconception of her. Slave that I am to traditional imagery, I had figured her as "flaunting," as golden-haired, as haughty to most men, but with a provocative smile across the shoulder for some. Nor, indeed, did her husband's words save me the suspicion that my eyes deceived me when anon I was presented to a very pale, small lady whose hair was rather white than gray. And the "little daughter!" This prodigy's hair was as yet "down," ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... 99.] The law can never, of course, cover the whole field of human conduct; it represents, in Stevenson's phrase," that modicum of morality which can be squeezed out of the rock of mankind." Unnecessary extension of the law is cumbersome, expensive, and provocative of impatience and rebellion. Moreover, there is always some minimum of danger of injustice in attempting legal constraint; the law itself, as approved by the majority, may be unfair, or its application to the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the outer corner of one of the benches, by the open door, gradually ceased to listen, started on other lines of thought by this realisation, warm, stimulating, provocative, of another ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... merriest, the most artless of his fraternity. It was my good friend Mr. Hess (of whom I shall presently speak somewhat more at large) who gave me information of his residence. "You will find there (added he) all sorts of old books, old drawings, pictures, and curiosities." What a provocative for an immediate and incessant attack! I took my valet with me—for I was told that Mr. Von Fischheim could not speak a word of French—and within twenty minutes of receiving the information, found myself in the dark and dreary premises of this same bibliopolist. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... young girl were equally effusive and enthusiastic in their devotion. As usual in such cases, the real contest was between the partisans themselves; each successive demonstration on either side was provocative or retaliatory, and when they were apparently rendering homage to their idols they were really distracted by and listening to each other. At last, Hathaway's party being reinforced by fresh visitors, a tall brunette of the opposition remarked in a professedly ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... ourselves against the tendencies to enthusiastic devotion for the living life preserver, because the very name is a provocative. Were two such words ever before combined to form a name?—the one expressing the natural quality of the bearer of it, and the other defining what her deeds have made her in the regard ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... strange, speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him that for the brief instant when Nell had met his gaze she had lost her ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the day, the mistress a chronic invalid, and the daughter a beautiful young thing whose mind was intent upon "colour" and "atmosphere," and altogether hazy concerning the practical necessities of housekeeping, the advent of any one possessing even half Sara's intelligent efficiency would have been provocative of many reforms. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... finished her cake, then took some grapes, and began to play with them in the same conscious provocative way—till at last she turned upon her immediate neighbor, a young barrister with ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fact, Merryon wondered himself sometimes; for she flirted with him more than all in that charming, provocative way of hers, coaxed him, laughed at him, brilliantly eluded him. She would perch daintily on the arm of his chair when he was busy, but if he so much as laid a hand upon her she was gone in a flash like a whirling insect, not to return till he was too absorbed to pay any attention to her. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... on his heel, and led the way into the cabin, where we found the table well provided with a variety of good things highly provocative of appetite in a midshipman, even though he might have partaken of one ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... to lead him back to the acceptance of proved truth, the truth of love, of human as opposed to animal happiness, of faith and hope. Mark gave way in some things, though only gradually; his manners became less eccentric, he was less provocative in his behaviour to the police than before, he lived in a more orderly fashion, and ceased to stud his conversation ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... used by the poets as an emblem of attenuation without offending good taste. Nizami (Layla u Majnn) describes a lover as "thin as a toothpick." The "elegant" Hariri (Ass. of Barkaid) describes a toothpick with feminine attributes, "shapely of shape, attractive, provocative of appetite, delicate as the leanest of lovers, polished as a poinard and bending as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... according to the opinion of Admiral von Tirpitz, who was at that time still in office, although he was not consulted until the decision was taken, a military farce. He declared the order to be technically nonsense, and the pompous way in which it was issued as unnecessarily provocative and a challenge. The whole thing was neither "fish ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in France and Flanders, there were faults on both sides. The wording of some of the telegraphic messages passing between Lord K. and Sir J. French did not strike one as altogether felicitous, and, if messages from G.H.Q. were provocative, the replies were not always calculated to pour oil on troubled waters. The truth is, that when a pair of people both of whom require "handling" become associated under conditions of anxiety and stress that are bound to be trying to the temper and jarring on the nerves, it's a horse to a hen ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Minister] assumes that Germany will desire to support her ally and I am afraid that this impression is correct. Nothing but the assurance of the solidarity of the Triple Entente can prevent the German powers from emphasizing their provocative attitude." ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... others. This is, why no one dares take the initiative, or express himself openly; but each awaits other opinions, to adopt or oppose them. They exchange fewer affirmations than suggestions. They proceed by insinuation; then they utter commonplaces, ridiculous suppositions, asides, provocative, as it ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... I 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 art ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... is then possible to investigate the Wassermann report more thoroughly by repeating the test, sending it to another expert for confirmation. In some cases it may even be necessary to insist that the patient submit to a special test, called the provocative test, in which a small injection of salvarsan is used to bring out a positive blood test if there is a concealed syphilis. These are, of course, measures which are seldom necessary except in patients who have had the disease. Much depends on the attitude of the patient toward ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... flannel, which is the ordinary wear of all sensible people in tropical countries—just as it is becoming the fashion over here in summer, especially for fellows who go in for cricket and other athletic games provocative of perspiration. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the seat unfilled, was to think rapturously to one's self: This is a woman. Her fluffy head was such a dot against the back of the chair, the curve of her chubby ringed hand above the head was so adorable, her black eyes were so provocative, her slippered feet so wee—yes, and there was something so mysteriously thrilling about the fall of her skirt that you knew instantly her name was Clara, her temper both fiery and obstinate, and her personality distracting. You knew ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... command may be denied peremptorily; but it is more than likely that he expressed himself in an excited manner and with a highly inflammatory effect upon his hearers. He was, at least, severely punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and to be carried almost by stealth out of the island; and what with the agitations ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... extraneous rigorism."[10] Kaye nevertheless insists that Mandeville's rigorism was sincere, and that it is necessary so to accept it to understand him. It seems to me, on the contrary, that if Mandeville's rigorism were sincere, the whole satirical structure of his argument, its provocative tone, its obvious fun-making gusto, would be incomprehensible, and there would be manifest inconsistency between his satirical purposes and his procedures ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... provocative sweetness flashed back into her face. She went within the circle of his arms with a quick nestling movement as of a small animal that takes refuge after strenuous flight. She was still panting a little ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Cibot, with 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 ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... away, regretting her provocative glances now that she saw the kind of men she had to ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... surgical matters might possibly lead to wrong treatment that, in its turn, might result in complications ending, who could say where? Of course the man had only himself to thank for it; his conduct had been provocative to the last degree; yet Leslie had been animated by no vindictive feeling when he had attacked the man, still less had he intended to inflict any serious injury upon him; he had, indeed, acted solely in self-defence in taking the fellow's revolver away from him; and as ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... blows with each other, but always with the same slow seriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observe him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen Elizabeth and high-ruffed ladies of her court were mingled with characters of comedy, such as a parti-colored Merry Andrew jingling his cap and bells, a Falstaff almost as provocative of laughter as his prototype, and a Don Quixote with a bean-pole for a lance and a pot-lid ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... studying the duties of the sovereign, that he closely attended the Danish courts of justice; and Daines Barrington, in his curious "Observations on the Statutes," mentions, that the king borrowed from the Danish code three statutes for the punishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm is the ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could not but shrewdly observe, that James "spent more time in those courts than in attending upon his destined consort." Yet this is not true: the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... treatment also there are three schools. There is what is called the CHURCHILL school, which hits out right and left with an infuriated spoon. Then there is the MONTAGU school, which takes no provocative action, but sits still and says, "They won't sting you if you don't irritate them;" it says this especially when they are flying round somebody else's head. And lastly there is the Medium school, which, choosing the moment when the wasp is busily engaged, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... Hindoos and Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, whom I was taught in my childhood, by way of religious instruction, to regard as gross idolators consigned to eternal perdition, but whose faith I can now be punished for disparaging by a provocative word, and you have a total of over three hundred and forty-two and a quarter million heretics to swamp our forty-five million Britons, of whom, by the way, only six thousand call themselves distinctively ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... feet and came across to me. She was wearing a charming morning gown of some light blue material, with large buttons, tight- fitting, alluring; and there was a little quiver of her lips, a provocative gleam in her eyes, which ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... meanwhile, minnow or worm was quite good enough for him. The way in which a fifth member of the party, a youth who had brought us a bucket of minnows (so-called), hurled out half-pounders high in the air, and sent them spinning behind him, was provocative of screams of laughter. In the morning I was anxious to try this lower lake with the fly rod, though warned by the farmer that it was of little use. For the good of A.'s piscatorial soul I, nevertheless, insisted, and the capture of two quarter-pounders with a red palmer, and several short ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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
... were raised wistfully to his. Her oval face was a little flushed by her recent exertions. She wore a very short skirt, and her hair hung about her shoulders in a tangled mass. Her little foreign mannerisms, half inciting, half provocative, were forgotten. His heart was ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 was SLAUGHTER. So Marjorie ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... under her brows with an almost furtive, sullen 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 ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... was the same thirst for knowledge with which he had once studied history. And all manner of actions, from which, until now, he would have recoiled in shame, such as spying, to-night, outside a window, to-morrow, for all he knew, putting adroitly provocative questions to casual witnesses, bribing servants, listening at doors, seemed to him, now, to be precisely on a level with the deciphering of manuscripts, the weighing of evidence, the interpretation of old monuments, that was to say, so many different ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Ellen and Phil Perry were in the midst of some form of lover's quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying considerable attention to Patty at Sabbath School and prayer-meeting, occasions, it must be confessed, only provocative of very indirect and long-distance advances. Cephas Cole, to the amazement of every one but his (constitutionally) exasperated mother, was "toning down" the ell of the family mansion, mitigating the lively yellow, and putting another fresh coat of paint on it, for no conceivable reason ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... their vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like authority untempered by the spirit of obedience. Like proud wealth and arrogant power, supercilious virtue also is detestable. It fosters in man traits and an attitude provocative of I know not what. The sight of it repels instead of attracting, and those whom it deigns to distinguish with its benefits feel as though they had ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... the attitude of the two great peoples toward each other was an interesting study. Both were wary, ironical, provocative, and perfect tempered. They were as brothers, rivals in the arena, who having known each other from nursery days, cherish no romantic and sentimental regard for each other, are aware of each other's tricks, and watchful for them while still maintaining a certain measure of mutual respect ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... This time the conversations assumed the character of recriminations; the Greek Government complaining of Bulgarian encroachments on the neutral zone fixed along the frontier, Falkenhayn retorting that the provocative movements of the Entente Forces obliged the Central Powers to fortify their positions and threatening a rupture {97} if the Greek soldiers continued to hinder the Bulgars.[3] Then, after another interval, he announced (7 May) ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... difference whether you conceive the demand as a desire to grow fruit or to marry the 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 ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... unanimous in answering the question, "What is a short-story?"; but they differed, rather violently, over the fulfilment of requirements by the various illustrations. Without doubt, the most provocative of these was Mr. Steele's "Contact." Three of the Committee think it a short-story; two declare it an article; all agree that no finer instance of literature in brief form was ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Danglars was again hungry; certainly the air of that dungeon was very provocative of appetite. The prisoner expected that he would be at no expense that day, for like an economical man he had concealed half of his fowl and a piece of the bread in the corner of his cell. But he had no sooner eaten than he felt thirsty; he had forgotten that. He struggled against his thirst ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... whatsoever also thou mayst deem to be opportune, and beneficial for the Bharata race, all that, O Sanjaya, thou must say in the midst of those kings,—everything, in sooth, that may not be unpalatable or provocative of war.'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... forbidding cliff-walls thousands of feet in height, their summits wreathed in cloud and rain squall, their knees hammered by the trade-wind billows into spouting, spuming white, the air, from sea to rain-cloud, spanned by a myriad leaping waterfalls, provocative, in day or night, of countless sun and lunar rainbows. Valleys, so called, but fissures rather, slit the cyclopean walls here and there, and led away into a lofty and madly vertical back country, most of it inaccessible to the foot of man and trod ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Dashall, "it is not only admirable as a whole, its constituent and individual beauties are as provocative of respect as the mass is of our veneration. From among its innumerable excellencies—I will mention one which deserves to be held in recollection and kept in our contemplation-what is more delightful than a fine ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative environment. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... subtly to her natural beauty. From her soft, thick brown hair done up cleverly in the latest mode and her narrow eyebrows arched, oh, so carefully, and penciled with such skill, to that same trim provocative pump and disconcerting flash of silk-clad ankle, Rose had dash. Hers was that gift of style which is as unmistakable as the gift of song and which, like it, is sometimes to be found unexpectedly in any ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius |
