"Tamper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tamper with his affections," she said, "but I cannot possibly encourage him, and I think that when he comes on board again it will be better for ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... to address to the post-office, Dorking, as your aunt is inquisitive, and might tamper with your correspondence. I daresay his letters ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... weightier reason of incompetency, I have avoided the topics of chief present interest in America, including that proposal to tamper with the true monetary creed which (as we should say) the Tempter lately presented to the Nation in the Silver Bill. But I will not close this paper without recording my conviction that the great acts, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... however, he found the limb in exactly the same state as when he had left it, with the makeshift splints still there, but shifted out of position by the restless movements of the patient, and he afterwards learned that this was because they had not dared to tamper or in any way interfere with the work of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... sheep and toiled for her, and with her, found the best of all that a larger life brings to many. The Priest, of course, could have easily annihilated the two, but he hesitated. There was something in the hearts of his people with which he dare not tamper. So the two had been able to live their idyl in peace, though Flores slept always with one eye ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... "Not allowed to tamper with other companies' robots," Wynn said. "Nineteen gave us a signed confession so we don't need the girl as a witness. You'll ...
— The Love of Frank Nineteen • David Carpenter Knight
... to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... do, my dear Lady Kitty. No one can satisfy his intelligence. But religion speaks to the will—and it is the only thing between us and the void. Don't tamper with it! It ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have trekked with all their belongings into the Transvaal, in the first case attempting to take as hostages the children of the natives on the farm. Reliable reports have been received of attempts to tamper with loyal natives, and to set tribe against tribe in order to create confusion and detail the defensive forces of the colony. Both food and warlike stores in large quantities have been accumulated at Volksrust, Vryheid and Standerton. Persons who are believed to be spies have been seen ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... white,) foremost on the great chess-board of fate. Lizzie was the wearied, puzzled player. She would idly finger the other pieces, and shift them carelessly hither and thither; but it was of no avail: the game lay between the two knights. She would shut her eyes and long for some kind hand to come and tamper with the board; she would open them and see the two knights standing immovable, face to face. It was nothing new. A fancy had come in and offered defiance to a fact; they must fight it out. Lizzie generously inclined to the fancy, the unknown champion, with a reputation to make. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... head. "No, Rick. We're afraid to tamper, for fear of making things worse. But I neglected to tell you one very important item. The first scientist stricken is becoming rational again, or at least we hope so. Yesterday he asked for food. A short time later he picked ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... service to spread culture, if this be its result, among the comparatively innocent and cheerful ranks of men. When our little poets have to be sent to look at the ploughman and learn wisdom, we must be careful how we tamper with our ploughmen. Where a man in not the best of circumstances preserves composure of mind, and relishes ale and tobacco, and his wife and children, in the intervals of dull and unremunerative labour; where a man in this predicament can afford a lesson by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... themselves to the chapel round the corner. The little green door, innocent of lock and key, stood as a symbol of the close ties that bound the rector and his flock together, and woe betide the iconoclast who should venture to tamper with it. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... health. The most vigorous constitutions will quail and sink under the weight of a desponding mind. Health! what is all the world without it? Who would sacrifice it for every earthly good? Then let young women beware how they tamper with it by giving way to or cherishing gloomy moods of mind. Seek to be peaceful, cheerful, happy, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... with beaming eyes, 'we met her at our excellent and hospitable friend's, Winkle. It would be an ill return to tamper lightly, and without due consideration, with this young lady's affections. I'll not allow that, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... something unwilling, upon slight occasion, to dispossess the sequestrators by my own proper warrant, although having, perhaps, sufficient authority in the state both to do so, and to despise the murmurs of those who blame me. In brief, I would be both to tamper with my privileges, and make experiments between their strength, and the powers of the commission granted by others, without pressing need, or at least great prospect of advantage. So, if thy Colonel will undertake, for his love of the Republic, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... than three trees carelessly put in. Get the tree so that it will be one to three inches deeper in the soil than when growing in the nursery. Work the soil in firmly about the roots with the fingers or a blunt wooden "tamper"; do not be afraid to use your feet. When the roots are well covered, firm the tree in by putting all your weight upon the soil around it. See that it is planted straight, and if the "whip," or small trunk, is not straight stake it, and tie it with rye straw, raffia or strips of old cloth-never ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... Congress would be any thing but the messenger of peace to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky looks. Why, sir, it has been found indispensable in slaveholding States, as a part of their police regulations, to punish all persons who were either of the State or otherwise, who tamper with the slaves, who have intercourse with them that is forbidden by law, far more those who preach to them sedition, or insurrection, or revolt; and yet, if we were to be controlled within the body of the State by Federal relations in our interior police, we should be completely ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... of the larger members might be expected sometimes to proceed from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers, with a view to getting rid of all external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement; the better to effect which it is presumable they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent States. If associates could not be found at home, recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union of which they ...
— The Federalist Papers
... whether reason should be made to agree with Scripture: the latter position is assumed by the sceptics who deny the certitude of reason, the former by the dogmatists. (2) Both parties are, as I have shown, utterly in the wrong, for either doctrine would require us to tamper ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... literati, should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It appears ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... mere party excitement; there is nothing spurious and nothing hollow in them; but they well up from the deep heart of nations, showing that a chord of sympathy has been touched, with which it is fatal to tamper or to sport. Call it fanaticism, if you will; call it delusion; call it anything; but recollect also that it is out of such feelings that revolutions are born, and by them that awful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... tell of what only came to my knowledge many years later, and not through himself, of attempts made to tamper with his integrity, and gain private information from him which ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reserved for the last. If you read the concluding sentence, Sir, you will observe that it begins: 'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity!' (That, I need hardly say, is entirely my own. There is a sort of inspired swing in it, the true lyrical lilt with which even red-tape has not dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): 'when the train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must be lowered again before the train starts.' And this insufferable bathos, forsooth, was substituted for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... programme by the aristocracy, the gentry, the Chamber of Magnates, and all the adherents of Andrassy, Apponyi, and Kossuth, with the deliberately conceived purpose of frightening the Government, and especially the Emperor-King, into an abandonment of all plans to tamper with existing electoral arrangements. During the earlier months of the ministry efforts of the premier to effect a working agreement with the forces of opposition were but ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... John, "you have sufficient respect for the dignity of the law not to tamper with it in any such way ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... art, their outlook upon life. That the works of Mr. Charles Dickens, so excruciatingly funny, should have been produced and appreciated in the midst of this intense epoch of exhortation seems a paradox, till we recollect how careful Dickens is, when his laughter is loudest, never to tamper with "the deep sense of moral evil." This apprehension of the rising immorality of the world, against which the only rampart was the education of "a thorough English gentleman, Christian, manly and enlightened" was dominant in no spirit ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... under a walnut tree near Benevento,[7] and at Bologna the peasantry tell how these evil workers hold a midnight meeting beneath the walnut trees on St. John's Eve. The elder tree is another haunt under whose branches witches are fond of lurking, and on this account caution must be taken not to tamper with it after dark.[8] Again, in the Netherlands, experienced shepherds are careful not to let their flocks feed after sunset, for there are wicked elves that prepare poison in certain plants—nightwort being one of these. Nor does any man dare to sleep in a meadow ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... outside those of legitimate elevation and storage charges, although these authorized charges paid ample return on capital investment. The farmers wanted this temptation of handling and mixing grain at the terminals removed so that terminal operators could not tamper with the grain while it was in their custody. The claims of the Grain Growers that mixing was going on at Fort William and Port Arthur were based upon the report of the Royal Grain Commission which had investigated ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... irreparable mistake. Nothing can justify such a risk. There may be people incapable of understanding that the right to know all there is to know about oneself is a natural human right that sweeps away all the pretences of others to tamper with one's consciousness in order to produce what they choose to consider a good character. But they must here bow to the plain mischievousness of entrapping people into contracts on which the happiness of their whole lives depends without ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... of it, child? They would tamper with the letter, pledging me to what I never would undertake. I know how they can cut and garble, add and take away! Never have they let me see or speak to her as woman to woman. All I have said or done ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... necessarily renders abortive every endeavour to construct a doctrine of intuitive perception. The attempt must end in representationism. The only basis for a doctrine of intuitive perception which will never give way, is a resolute forbearance from all analysis of the fact. Do not tamper with it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... inhabited it. All change, he saw, had to come from within, and that to alter external conditions suddenly and artificially might do incredible harm. We were constructed to develop against resistance, and to remove such resistances before they had been overcome naturally was to tamper with the inner laws of life. And so, after long ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... such a movement would be now. That it was a good stand for him to take, and one suited to tell upon his future character, we need scarcely say. It is an important event when a youth of this day resolves that he will never tamper with intoxicating drinks—and that he will pledge his word and honor to this end. It was a far more important event then. And when we look upon that group of youth, conferring together upon the claims of the total abstinence principle, and their resolve to adopt it in ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... feel that there is something in him that bribery can not touch, that influence can not buy; something that is not for sale; something he would not sacrifice or tamper with for any price; something he would give his life for ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... to tamper with the stars; towers to impale the moon. There is one fifty-six-story rococo castle, built from the five-and-ten-cent-store earnings of a merchant prince, that shoots upward with the beautiful rush of ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... little attention and force of will. The average person finds himself unable to grapple successfully with what has at last become a second nature, thus proving beyond peradventure that it is never safe to tamper with anything that ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... few who have any just conception of the deceptive power of Spiritualism and the danger of coming under its influence. Many tamper with it, merely to gratify their curiosity. They have no real faith in it, and would be filled with horror at the thought of yielding themselves to the spirits' control. But they venture upon the forbidden ground, and the mighty destroyer ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... desired and smoothing it. If hand finishing methods are employed, a plank template is cut to the prescribed cross section and the concrete is shaped by drawing the template along the side forms. Sometimes the template is used as a tamper, being moved along very slowly accompanied by an up and down motion that tends to tamp the concrete. The template is then drawn along a second time to smooth ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... government to see that the water was not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, since otherwise there would be famine. To this end its use was strictly regulated and systematized, and individuals of their mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it, or in any way to tamper with it. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... commenced to hurl imprecations upon the heads of the unknown sons of dogs who dared to tamper with his master's safe, and while we were engaged in putting the scattered papers in order the door-bell rang, and the clerk went to attend ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the monastery. For it was not safe for Lord Claud to explain this to the guide beforehand. Although to all appearances an honest and simple fellow, there was never any knowing how the enemy might seek to tamper with him; and a bribe might be sufficient to open the fellow's lips if he had anything ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... tell you, Princess. The name I give him is Yea-and-Nay: beware of it. He is ever of two minds: hot head and cold heart, flaming heart and chilled head. He will be for God and the enemy of God; will expect heaven and tamper with hell. With rage he will go up, laughing come down. Ho! He will be for you and against you; eager, slow; a wooer, a scorner; a singer of madrigals, ah, and a croaker afterwards. There is no stability in him, neither length of love nor of hate, no bottom, little ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... many and great. A wise doubtfulness prompts conservative minds to throw every mover for change upon the defensive, when liturgical interests are at stake. So many men are born into the world with a native disposition to tamper with and tinker all settled things, and so many more become persuaded, as time goes on, of a personal "mission" to pull down and remake whatever has been once built up, esteeming life a failure unless they have contrived to build each his own monument upon a clearing, that ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... an' looks ez if you couldn't tamper with it—this here river stands no foolin'—but do you know, Paul, water's pow'ful friendly. It's always travelin' about, always on the move. Land stands still, it's always thar, an' never sees nothin' new, but water jest keeps a' movin', seein' new countries, ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... your light behind you so that you light those who follow, but walk yourselves in darkness. You will not claim them; no, and above all, you will not talk about them. Do not be afraid, my young friend; I shall not tamper with your soul." So she spoke, sweetly, deliberately, yet tersely, too, as though to make him feel that she had done all she could for him and that he had proved himself not worth her trouble. Mr. Claude Drew was still on her other hand, carrying on an obviously desultory conversation with ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... deliberating on the means of arriving at our object; and at length, after our plans had been repeatedly changed out of fear, it was determined to use great industry in seeking out prudent agents, binding them to secrecy by solemn oaths, in order to tamper with the Gallic soldiers whom we knew to be men of doubtful fidelity, and at any time open to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... which was both upright and safe, saying that they found no law which permitted a brother to marry his sister, but apart from that they had found a law to the effect that the king of the Persians might do whatsoever he desired. Thus on the one hand they did not tamper with the law for fear of Cambyses, and at the same time, that they might not perish themselves in maintaining the law, they found another law beside that which was asked for, which was in favour of him who ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... your logs through?" cried the old man excitedly. "Hev ye? First off ye begin to tear down my dam; and then, when the river begins a-roarin' and a-ragin' through, then you tamper with my improvements furthermore, a-lowerin' the gate and otherwise ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... "record heads," of any species of deer command a price among those who desire to pose as sportsmen, and have not the strength or skill to hunt themselves, it has become a regular business for dealers to buy up unusual heads. The temptation to tamper with such a head and increase its size is very great, and heads passing through the hands of such dealers must be discarded as of little scientific value. A favorite device is to take a green head, force the antlers ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... that no fear of danger crossed our minds! Living on the sea-shore, the ocean became as a plaything: as a child may sport with a lighted stick, till a spark inflames a forest, and spreads destruction over all, so did we fearlessly and blindly tamper with danger, and make a game of the terrors of the ocean. Our Italian neighbours, even, trusted themselves as far as Massa in the skiff; and the running down the line of coast to Leghorn gave no more ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... for ever. Perhaps that will be wisest. The unknown is generally taken to be terrible, not as the proverb would infer, from the inherent superstition of man, but because it so often is terrible. He who would tamper with the vast and secret forces that animate the world may well fall a victim to them. And if the end were attained, if at last you emerged from the trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time and evil, and lifted above the natural ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... precious good care that no sneak, like Larson, gets a chance to tamper with it!" ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... If it had been Maria Muller who had thus set herself to tamper with a man's life, she would have done it trembling, with fear and self-distrust. She had brains which could feel and react against the passions she evoked, and were competent to warn her of the peril of her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... them yield a double crop of inferences, she was yet conscious of large exaggerations of what she knew, and of huge additions to what she believed to be probabilities, and had delivered as facts. There was in that handwriting a prophecy of detection: and, like other cowards, she began to tamper with her reason ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... beings as he did men. But then how living are his men, whether coarse or noble! What a picture, for instance, is that in A Legend of Montrose of the conceited, pragmatic, but prompt and dauntless soldier of fortune, rejecting Argyle's attempts to tamper with him, in the dungeon at Inverary, suddenly throwing himself on the disguised Duke so soon as he detects him by his voice, and wresting from him the means of his own liberation! Who could read that scene and say for a moment that ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... we would put it to all concerned for the honour and perpetuity of British dominion in South Africa, can the Empire afford to tamper with ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... lawfully effected, the court is indifferent to the treatment of its stationery; but such behaviour, though lawful, is childish. To obstruct a witness on his way to give evidence, or to threaten him if he does give evidence, or to tamper with the jury, are all serious contempts. In short, there is a divinity which hedges a court of justice, and anybody who, by action or inaction, renders the course of justice more difficult or dilatory than it otherwise would be, incurs the penalty of contempt. Consider, for example, the case ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... it from outside we should feel the difference. Styrian peasants thrive and fatten upon arsenic, and men may flourish upon all iniquity and evil, and conscience will say never a word. Take care of that delicate balance within you; and see that you do not tamper with it nor ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... them would bring our maritime strength to the ground. Having thus won the favour of the English manufacturers, he turned round to the Irish Opposition, and conciliated them by declaring with equal vehemence that the propositions were an insult to Ireland, and a nefarious attempt to tamper with her new-born liberties. Burke followed his leader. We may almost say that for once he allowed his political integrity to be bewildered. In 1778 and 1779 he had firmly resisted the pressure which his mercantile constituents in Bristol ...
— Burke • John Morley
... is a popular excitement against any man, he had better leave this part at once and altogether. It is dangerous to tamper with popular prejudices; no man who has any value for his life ought to do so. It is a sheer ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... individual attain the highest office, he should, as long as he is not asked or commanded, consider himself as born-blind, having regard to the king's dignity, for O repressers of foes, the rulers of men do not forgive even their sons and grandsons and brothers when they happen to tamper with their dignity. Kings should be served with regardful care, even as Agni and other gods; and he that is disloyal to his sovereign, is certainly destroyed by him. Renouncing anger, and pride, and negligence, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of a providential landing could save disaster. But the providential landing came, the party falling into the embrace of a fruit tree in an orchard. It transpired afterwards that the labourer had been seen to tamper with the valve, the connecting lines of which he had ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... and remain both proud and content" without it. He concluded with an amusing account of the history of the ballot box. "This joint resolution," he said, "goes beyond the seas and above the clouds. It attempts to tamper with the ballot box, over which mother nature always has had and always will have supreme control; and such attempts always have ended and always will end in ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... and, moreover, she had so written her letter that if her magnificent aunt should condescend to tamper with it all that was in it should seem to corroborate her own story. The Duchess would have considered herself disgraced if ever she had done such a thing;—but the niece of the Duchess did not quite understand that this would be so. The ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... came through an empty keyhole; and my lamp, held close, not only showed that the door was locked, but that the lock was one with which an unskilled hand might tamper for hours without result. I dealt it a hearty kick by way of a test. The heavy timber did not budge; there was no play at all at either lock or hinges; nor did I see how I could spend one of my four remaining bullets upon the former, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... abolitionists would tamper with a poor old woman like that, whose liberty would neither be a credit to them nor a comfort to her? I cannot think so meanly of them," Vesta reflected. "Besides, could she have killed ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... was soon equipped. Mrs. Gaunt put a parcel and a letter into her hands. Ryder no sooner got out of her sight than she proceeded to tamper with the letter. But to her just indignation she found it so ingeniously folded and sealed that she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... he cares for the spots on the sun which he can find through a telescope? The sun still shines, and gives light to the whole earth, and the Bible still shines, and gives light to every soul of man who will read it in reverence and faith. But that the prophets ever invented, or ever dared to tamper with truth, is a thing not to be believed of men whose writings are plainly, by their own meaning and end, inspired by ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... replied. "I have been reading up the records of the savants of New York. From what I can make out about them, it doesn't seem to me that there's one amongst the whole bunch likely to have pluck enough to tamper ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conductor and a threatening crew—Shiner, presently backed by a sergeant of regulars and two of his men, who had come running over the foot-bridge at the stop of the train, and now silently ranged themselves in tacit support. What Cullin had demanded was how Shiner dared tamper with the signals—how, in fact, he had managed to, since they had been carefully locked—and who was he, anyhow. And Shiner had simply answered: "I've a boy shot and dying at Silver Shield. I only heard it ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... was too much tenseness to allow of even a show of levity. Zephyr had no doubts. No one could have got at the safe while in the river; he could swear to that. From its delivery to the driver by Firmstone there had been no time nor opportunity to tamper with its contents. As for Firmstone, he had too much at stake to be entirely free from anxiety, though neither voice nor manner betrayed it. He had had experience enough to teach him that it was not sufficient to be honest—one ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... King Ferdinand, their personal enemy; and in violation of his most solemn pledges. [23] True, it was in obedience to his master's commands, and not to serve his own purposes; and true also, this want of faith was the besetting sin of the age. But history has no warrant to tamper with right and wrong, or to brighten the character of its favorites by diminishing one shade of the abhorrence which attaches to their vices. They should rather be held up in their true deformity, as the more conspicuous from the very greatness with which they are ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... will you tamper and trifle with strong drink? Do you say you can drink or let it alone? I admit you can drink but are you sure you can let it alone? If you can now, are you sure you can two years hence? I saw a giant oak tree lying ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... wrong! He'll die. He'll find nothing and the shock will kill him. My God, Webber, you can't tamper with a man's mind like this and hope to save his life! You're obsessed; you've always been obsessed by this impossible search for something in our society, some undiscovered factor to account for the mental illness, ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... expecting, in your innocence, to hear, "Mr. Speaker, I move," etc. Pause a moment, my impatient friend, too long accustomed to the reckless haste of our Republican assemblies. Do not, even in thought, tamper with the Constitution. "The wisdom of our ancestors" has bequeathed another and undoubtedly a better mode of arriving at the same result. Some member quietly intimates to the Speaker that forty members are not present. That dignified official ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... there is one matter well worth considering. How can the Spirit of Truth lead us into larger visions of Truth if we willingly, tamper with our most sacred convictions? Let us remember that there are growing revelations. May we be of an open mind, and so in an attitude to ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... and Barbius, the one an optio, the other a tesserarius (these are men who have the duties of messengers and scouts), with whom Onomastus, one of Otho's freedmen, went to the camp, to tamper with the army, and brought over some with money, others with fair promises, which was no hard matter, they being already corrupted, and only wanting a fair pretense. It had been otherwise more than the work of four days (which elapsed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... first, Madame Roland had distrusted Danton. It was not long before her intuitions proved correct, for Danton soon showed his jealousy and dislike of the minister, whom he found too honest to tamper with. He feared, too, the penetration, frankness, and genius of Roland's wife. Men who saw the insidious, selfish qualities of Danton, began to cultivate and conciliate him out of fear of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... advised him to put the son to work, and be supported for a while in idleness. Chamu lamented noisily. Finally Dick compromised by letting both servants remain for one more day, reflecting that they could not very well tamper with boiled eggs; lunch and dinner he would get at the English club across the river; for breakfast on Monday he would content himself again with boiled eggs, and biscuits out of an imported tin, after which he would cash a check and send ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... was supposed to have done this was sitting outside, and beckoning to him, got a word with him before I realised what was taking place, and the man denied that he had been beaten. I was glad to see that the inspectors showed real indignation at this attempt to tamper with a witness. They were both very polite, and in examining the village boys tried to copy our paternal way of speaking to them, with rather comical results. When it transpired that one of the boys was an orphan, the Mohammedan ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... paltry, it seemed less substantial in his own eyes; but, paltry or worthy, he believed that it was in the power of his younger brother to reverse that prosperity, and he felt neither brave enough to face this misfortune nor bad enough to tamper with that brother's crude ideals for the sake of his own gain. From the length of his own experience, from the present weariness of his soul, he looked upon Alec more than ever as a boy to be shielded from the shock ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... failing of her duty, and Martha's patience giving out at last, the honest woman began to tamper with the spring-lock of the iron gate. For any one else, it would never have yielded, but it opened to Martha's hand, as with the dull submission ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... replied, "that I am prepared to assent off-hand to either of those propositions; but I would rather not tamper with another person's letter, even if that person should happen to be a murderer. Perhaps we can get the information we want from the outside of ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... right now, dear; but things might have been that are not. As to Dora, I think she may be trusted with Basil Stanhope. He is one of the best and handsomest men I ever saw, and he has now rights in Dora's love no one can tamper with. Mostyn ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... damage could be speedily repaired the ship would soon be a prey to current and wind. The Pinta was the vessel whose owners repented having sold her. No wonder then that Columbus suspected the rascals of having bribed the crew to tamper with the rudder, in the hope of forcing their ship to put back into Palos. But he would not put back, he declared. Martin Pinzon was commanding the Pinta, and Martin knew what to do with perverse rudders and perverse men. He immediately set to work to have the damage repaired. The ship's ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... and Tenderness for his Lass; but he is almost out of Humour with himself for being so soft. He is suppos'd to be brought up in the lonely Cave with Paplet; and his natural Tamper is wild and excessive brisk; hating the House, and delighting in Hunting. But you show, I see, only a Glimpse of his Natural Temper, which breaks out at times; but he is drawn as tender, being all the Time in Love ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Rivers. I have learned that one cannot tamper with Aunt Polly's raised biscuits. It's late, but may I call to-morrow?" Northrup ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... easiest method of securing his property, but the Scots had given him up to the English Government. He was said to be one of the handsomest and bravest men of his times, and his execution excited universal pity. The apostate, Miler Magrath, attempted to tamper with his faith in his last moments, but the chieftain bade him rather to repent himself and to return to the faith ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... bones That lie before each pillared mount, Speak tidings of a leprous flood. And where giants' carcants flare and sit, The battle-crests and surging foams That toss each swoll'n Cauldron's Count As pyramidal realms unsunned Glare at the stricken, tamper'd souls, Stark wenches seek blind seers of lust And curse each monster's hairless head. Where fungus-fagots gleam unstunned As witches dig unfathomed holes And bury Helms in powdered dust, Sleep mourners of the newly dead Until rayed Aureoles bright, flare, And sparkle ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... fight had died away—the ills of the place gripped every fibre of his body. Had the natives ambushed him along the path, I do not think he could possibly have avoided them. But those natives had had their lesson, and they did not care to tamper with Kettle's ju-ju again. And so he was allowed to go on undisturbed, and somehow or other he got down to the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... some reckless Mainprice or harebrained Boole had opened it in a fit of mad excitement induced by the news of the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, and had been instantly expelled from the firm. Since then, no one had dared to tamper with it. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... their destiny,—this is worth while. They may not be able to state it, but all their instincts and experiences convince them of the supreme and eternal value of their place in the world. They dare not tamper with it. Their opposition to the militant program badly and even cruelly expressed at times has at bottom, as an opposition always has, the principle of preservation. It is not bigotry or vanity or a petty notion of ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... to tamper with the farmer and his wife. But, alas! they had had a letter delivered them at the same time I had; so securely had Lucifer put it into his head to do his work; and they only shook their heads, and seemed to pity me; and so I was forced to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... was all there." Gerda shook his head unbelievingly. "My count agreed with that of my clerk, and I dropped tallies in and closed the bags again." He looked uneasily at the two guards who flanked him. "Surely, you don't think I'd be so foolish as to tamper with the Baron's taxes? Think, man! I ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... only one, then we may accept it, we may reject it, we may be obliged to say, "We do not understand it," or "It is imperfect, and we can make no use of it," but we must not alter it. A moment's reflection will show that a man who would permit himself to tamper with the sole evidence upon which he purports to work, no matter how profoundly convinced he may be that his proposed corrections are sound, is one who does not understand the spirit of science, and is not going the way ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... After reading the description of the millennial reign, as it shall be, as described by the Prophet Isaiah, can anyone be so stupid as to believe that we are now living in that holy day? Shame on him who would deceive and tamper with the souls of men! The gentleman who told you this, ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... Fourteenth street in ten years. Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time had gone by when a true sport will do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boy who is soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly to win the prize air rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper with the man behind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub—I'd bet the man hadn't been out of sight of a skyscraper ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... of a fool. Were you and she the first man and woman in the world that ever loved? That's always the way; each man imagines the matter is still for his deciding, and he can no more decide it than he can tamper with the fact that fire burns or water drowns. All these centuries the human animal has fought with the human soul. And step by step the soul has registered her victories. She has won them only by feeling for the law and finding it—uncovering, bringing into light, the firm rocks beneath her feet. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all if I can persuade you to leave Paris I shall have done no great harm. As for the cards—well, I must plead guilty to weakness there. I have not the slightest objection to taking the life of a man who is making a nuisance of himself, but his honor I think one should not tamper with. May I offer you a ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to spring to his feet, with a yell that would give the dreadful stranger to understand that he was a fellow it would not be well to tamper with. But his woodcraft stayed him. He was not by any means sure that he could spring to his feet. Still less was he sure that such an action would properly impress the great wolf, who, for the moment at least, seemed not actively ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... pickpockets, burglars, roughs, and pugilists are plentifully scattered through the audience. These men are constantly on the watch for victims. It is easy for them to drug the liquor of a man they are endeavoring to secure, without the knowledge of the proprietor of the house; or, if they do not tamper with his liquor, they can persuade him to drink to excess. In either case, they lead him from the hall, under pretence of taking him home. He never sees home until they have stripped him of all his valuables. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... he, 'do you wish to tamper with my honour? Do you believe an officer of France will take a bribe? I have a mind to consign thee to my black-hole, and to have ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... can extenuate what is great, and lend greatness to what is little, give freshness to what is antiquated, and describe what is recent so that it seems to be of the past."[2] Come, Isocrates (it might be asked), is it thus that you are going to tamper with the facts about Sparta and Athens? This flourish about the power of language is like a signal hung out to warn his audience ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... remained silent, as men confounded. Among them was a veteran noble named Pelistes. He had distinguished himself in the African wars, fighting side by side with Count Julian, but the latter had never dared to tamper with his faith, for he knew his stern integrity. Pelistes had brought with him to the camp his only son, who had never drawn a sword except in tourney. When the young man saw that the veterans held their peace, the blood mantled in his cheek, and, overcoming his modesty, he broke forth with ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... master-stroke. A true union man regards with veneration the constitution and hesitates to tamper with it except in a perfectly constitutional manner. The opposition to the administration's original resolution had gained what they sought, a temporary stay. The committee was appointed and the danger to both the resolution and the ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... Abbey, as in duty bound; he should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only no tampering with his witnesses. He was a man for Law. Rank was much: money was much: but Law was more. In this country Law was above the sovereign. To tamper with the Law was treason to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that they might be punished. He also ordered that the bribe should be confiscated and despatched to Babylon under seal, a wise provision which must have tended to discourage those who were inclined to tamper with the course of justice, while at the same time it enriched the state. It is probable that the king tried all cases of appeal in person when it was possible to do so. But if the litigants lived at a considerable distance from Babylon, he gave directions to his local officials ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... that's vexing her poor brute!" continued he, with an air of us feigned sympathy; "she knows the dinner hour as well as any of us. Indeed, the instinct of dogs in that respect is wonderful. Providence has really—ahem!—indeed it's no joke to tamper with dogs, when they've got the notion of dinner in their heads. A friend of mine had a very fine animal—just such another as poor Beauty there—she had always been accustomed, like Beauty, to attend the family to dinner at a particular hour; but one day, by some ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier |
