"Provokingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hearing some fragments of news which might prove interesting and enlightening. And of enlightenment on a particular subject, in which she was acutely and personally interested, she stood in some need. Comus of late had been provokingly reticent as to his movements and doings; partly, perhaps, because it was his nature to be provoking, partly because the daily bickerings over money matters were gradually choking other forms of conversation. Francesca had seen him once or twice in the Park in the desirable company of Elaine ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... have listened to descriptions of it all day long. But Mat was the last man in the world to err, at any time, on the side of diffuseness in relating the results of his own experience. And he now provokingly stopped, on a sudden, in the middle of an adventure among the wild horses on the Pampas; declaring that he was tired of feeling his own tongue wag, and had got so sick of talking of himself, that he was determined not to open his mouth again—except to put a rump-steak and a pipe in it—for the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... warmth, and could not persist in his refusal, although she did dilate most provokingly on the absence of her cousin. He ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Washington full sway was given. It was not only the Republican majority who showed feelings which in them were at least fair if they were strong, but the Federal minority were maliciously pleased to find in the son of the ill-starred John Adams a victim on whom to vent that spleen and abuse which were so provokingly ineffective against the solid working majority of their opponents in Congress. The Republicans trampled upon the Federalists, and the Federalists trampled on John Quincy Adams. He spoke seldom, and certainly did not weary the Senators, yet ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... case, he doesn't drive me out here every two or three weeks, though"—she glanced at her companion provokingly—"he once or twice suggested that ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... Linkinwater came back—provokingly cool, and with papers in his hand, and a pen in his mouth, as ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and internally, as he kept his eyes on the fire: 'I might have known it sooner; she gave me the opening; but I am such an exceedingly Angular man, that it never occurred to me; I took ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... its stiller moments, up the valley, and the trout-fishing is reputed rather remarkable. In fact, one ardent angler who came here is said to have complained of two drawbacks: first, that the fish were so provokingly numerous as to ensure a nibble at every cast; and second, that they were so simple-minded and untactical that every nibble proved ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... a rain puddle glowed crimson on the track. Not that indeed! A glare brighter and redder than that from any furnace suddenly lightened the whole sky, and from that moment brightened our path. There sat Miss K. under her dripping umbrella as provokingly erect as when she left Hilo. There Upa jogged along, huddled up in his poncho, and his canteen shone red. There the ohia trees were relieved blackly against the sky. The scene started out from the darkness ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... intent only on overtaking the yacht, for it now made frequent rushes forward until it was within a few fathoms of the little vessel's counter, and then sank out of sight and dropped astern again, as though it knew not what to make of the moving object ahead of it. But, provokingly enough, from the sportsmen's point of view, it never dropped far enough astern to bring it level with the bait, while, on the other hand, when it approached the yacht it was careful to keep far enough below the surface to render anything ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... pier, and stepped on board the Greyhound, which he had hauled up to the shore to enable him to make some repairs on the mainsail. Noddy followed him; but he grew more desperate at every step he advanced, for the old man still most provokingly refused to say a single word about ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... Thousand by no means monopolize these personal advantages. At the hour of "dress parade" you cannot walk five steps without encountering a face well worthy of a second look. Occasionally, too, you catch a provokingly brief glimpse of a high, slender instep, and an ankle modeled to match it. The fashion of Balmorals and kilted kirtles prevails not here; and maids and matrons are absurdly reluctant to submit their pedal perfections ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the way), was unsuccessful in the attempt to keep the princess at her side. Yetive deliberately walked ahead with Halfont and Dangloss. It seemed to Beverly that they walked unnecessarily fast and that Marlanx was provokingly slow. Baldos was twenty paces behind, as was ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? Permanence is a word of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... not think of me,' he continued provokingly,—for of course I was thinking of him: 'I am no critic in the musical line. Just try how it answers, will you?' And he walked away and turned his back to us, and seemed absorbed in ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the older girls who found Nelson provokingly adamant. He did not flirt. Of late it had become quite apparent that the schoolmaster had eyes only for Janice Day. Of course, that fact did not gain Nelson friends among girls like Icivilly and Mabel in this ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... provokingly, and she was about to say something tart, when a footman opened the door wide, and two others entered carrying the tea-things, and at the same time the rest of the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... forgive him for the 'ambushes' and cherish him with much tea?" I stipulated, winking away a tress of hair that tickled most provokingly. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... to be geese in the end," remarked Phillis, provokingly; but she registered at the same time a mental resolve that she would cross-examine Mr. Drummond on the earliest opportunity about this wonderful sister of his. Oh, it was no marvel if he did look down on them when ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... that in company you were frequently most PROVOKINGLY inattentive, absent; and distrait; that you came into a room, and presented yourself, very awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw down knives, forks, napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected your person and dress, to a degree unpardonable at any age, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... indolent, and in its indolence supple, feline movement, she rose from the chair, so provokingly ignoring me now, that for very rage I held my ground within less than a foot of her. Leisurely and tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a person alone in a room, she extended her beautiful ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... him amusing," said Phil provokingly. "And he always gives me a box at matinees. Which is just that much more than I ever get out of my other imitation uncles. If I led him on a trifle, don't you suppose he might come to the point of proposing to fly with me? That would be a consummation devoutly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Douglas, turning away, and addressing some remark to the General, who was provokingly attentive ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... demanded an explanation, and had been met with provokingly indifferent inuendoes. The book was the gift of a young lady with whom Ford had the pleasure to be acquainted; the little effusions were trifles of his own, inscribed by her own fair hands. Oh, yes! he knew Miss Arnold very well—very pretty, very ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... India, and gave your husband sore trouble by resisting discipline, refusing to put out my light at nine o'clock, and in short by being an unreasonable woman, or rather a spoiled child. Well, all my little attempts at a feud failed; Captain Dodd did his duty, and kept his temper provokingly; the only revenge he took was a noble one; he jumped into the sea after my darling Freddy, and saved him from a watery grave, and his mother from madness or death; yet he was himself hardly recovered from ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the consequences of it, had cost him all the anticipated pleasures of his expected victory. For scarcely had he commenced the pursuit in earnest, when the fugitive lawyers reached the bank of the river, and at the very place too, as it provokingly happened, where his own log-canoe chanced to be moored, and hastily leaping into it, they managed with such dexterity and quickness, in handling the oars and cutting the fastenings, as to push off, and get fairly out of the reach of their ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... not running as clearly as usual. They kept pocketing themselves provokingly in blind alleys that led nowhere, or scattering in mazes that led everywhere. There was such a wide field of speculation open, once he began to consider things from the political angle, that it was difficult to reach any very definite conclusion. He was not now so concerned as to the why ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... walls of the room hung a large map of the United States (as they were, twenty years ago, but seem little likely to be, twenty years hence), and a similar one of Great Britain, with its territory so provokingly compact, that we may expect it to sink sooner than sunder. Farther adornments were some rude engravings of our naval victories in the War of 1812, together with the Tennessee State House, and a Hudson River steamer, and a colored, life-size lithograph ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... oh dear!" said Sam, throwing down his scythe, and hobbling off after the boys, who kept provokingly in front, and popped into the green-house just before him. "There," he said, "I'm bet out with you; come out, and I'll tell ee wheer ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... impressed with any sense of danger. They had been so long accustomed to calms, and to moving about in the india-rubber boats by means of paddles with perfect ease and security, that they had half forgotten the force of wind. Besides, the walrus was still playing with them provokingly—keeping just out of rifle-shot as if he had studied fire-arms and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... chief, who had a provokingly deliberate way of opening the packet and examining its contents, while my feverish agitation and expectancy increased. There was a humorous twinkle in his eye, I thought, which told of mischievous purpose, while he kept ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... it, which had come to him by long inheritance in his family) and he had determined to try it. And again, as the night before, he took out the receipt—a roll of antique parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold had been lost—and put on his spectacles to puzzle out ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it is nothing wrong, Nothing to think of—and yet I know I lured him with glance and song, Into my shining net; Provokingly cold at first he seemed, Like crystal to smiles and sighs, But at last he felt the magic that gleamed In my dreamy ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... provokingly, "you'll have to be humored, I suppose." She cogitated unnecessarily long, then left the room to get a folio of newspapers and magazines. One of these she selected with great deliberation, and opened it at the leading article. Even then she would not hand it over right away. "You remember ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... curls with wanton glee The breezes play caressingly, Catch up stray locks with cunning grace, And as she turns aside her face, Blow them about provokingly. ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... "State's-evidence," as he called it; that character involving more of sin. In vulgar eyes, than the commission of a thousand legal crimes. This gave Winchester no concern. After dismissing his man he gossiped a minute or two with Yelverton, who had the watch, gaped once or twice somewhat provokingly, and, going below, was in a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... thinks is the leading of the inward light is but the old Adam that is within us tempting to strife," remarked Truelove provokingly. "I greatly fear 'tis so in thy case, Margaret. 'Tis easily seen that thou art of a froward and perverse nature. Come! sit by me, Margaret, while I read thy duty to thee. Thou art in ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... day after the funeral that it all came out. Lena and Ethel were sitting up together over the papers and the letters, turning out his bureau. I suppose that, in the grand immunity his death conferred on her, poor Lena had become provokingly possessive. I can hear her saying to Ethel that there had never been anybody but her, all those years. Praising his faithfulness; holding out her dead happiness, and apologizing to Ethel for talking about it when Ethel didn't understand, never ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... to have occupied eight presses, or sets of shelves, set against the east and west walls, but our information on the subject of the fittings is provokingly meagre. It is chiefly contained in the following passage of a description written by Bernardino Baldi, and dated 10 June, 1587. Baldi, as a native of Urbino, and in later life attached to the service of the Duke, must have ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... pastimes the Twilight beguile, I watch your plump cheek till it dimples with joy: And observe, that whatever occasions the smile, You give me a glance; but provokingly coy. ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... collection without even a poor compliment for the inventor! Polydore was a vain, superficial writer, who prided himself in leading the way on more topics than the present. Erasmus, with his usual pleasantry, provokingly excuses himself, by acknowledging that he had forgotten his friend's book! Few sympathise with the quarrels of authors; and since Erasmus has written a far better book than Polydore Vergil's, the original "Adagia" is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stood on, with perfect confidence in the soundings, though we had not taken an observation for two days, nor seen land; and the difference of an eighth of a mile out of the way might put us ashore. Throughout the day a provokingly light wind prevailed, and at eight o'clock, a small fishing schooner, which we passed, told us we were nearly abreast of Chatham lights. Just before midnight, a light land-breeze sprang up, which carried us well along; and at four o'clock, thinking ourselves to the northward of Race ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... concluded that this was one point of interest about her. She had not learned how to hide herself, and the manner of her revelations was a continual refreshing variety, inasmuch as what she had to reveal was only fair and delicate and true. But what made the girl so provokingly happy? so secure in her contentment? Mr. Dillwyn thought himself a happy man; content with himself and with life; yet life had reached something too like a dead level, and himself, he was conscious, led ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... too, that he was, "on insufficient grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage Semitic Scholarship and Modern ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... also provokingly elusive. Mordaunt had never seen her so effervescent, so sublimely inconsequent, or so naively bewitching as she was throughout the meal. Rupert, reckless and debonnaire, encouraged her wild mood. As his ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... provokingly, clasping the goggles before his eyes. "Well, I've spent the last two hours on the Coney Island beach, about three squares from here, watching the kiddies play in the sand. I didn't feel like driving just then. It ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... dilettante iron-masters. The little unfinished portrait I heard of, from those whose opinion is sought, as a superlatively lovely thing. It was mentioned with a certain awe; to have seen it was a distinction. For years I hoped my time would come, but the opportunity was provokingly delayed. How should you feel if Mrs. Warrener should show you all her things but the great Botticelli?" I nodded understandingly. Mrs. Warrener, for a two minutes' delay in an appointment, had debarred me ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Mrs. Blake's annoyance and Winnie's satisfaction. The former could find no means of laying any more commands on him, for the boy mischievously eluded her every attempt to cross his path, and failed most provokingly to catch her eye when a convenient season presented itself for so doing. Nellie, with true appreciation of his kindness, thanked him warmly in her innocent heart, and thought she had never spent such a pleasant evening. There was never ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... of Books," from A. D. 1835 to 1897, in 5 vols., with its valuable Index of Subjects, in 4 vols., from 1857 up to 1889, is so constantly useful as to be almost indispensable in a public library. It records, in provokingly brief one-line titles, with publisher's name, year of issue, and price, all books published in Great Britain whose titles could be secured. It thus subserves the same purpose for English publications, which the American Catalogue fulfills for those of the United States. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... I told you," said Alexia provokingly; "you'd much better have taken my advice and kept out ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... the morning ought not to improve the wind," said Tom to himself, as his left hand countered provokingly, while his right rattled again and again upon Trebooze's watch-chain. "Justice will overtake you in the offending part, which I take to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... beaming out like a star from a cloud of amber tresses—one face of rose-tinted, childlike loveliness—a loveliness absolutely perfect, lighted up by two luminous eyes, large and black as night—one face in which the small, curved mouth smiled half provokingly, half sweetly! I gazed and gazed again, dazzled and excited, beauty makes such fools of us all! This was a woman—one of the sex I mistrusted and avoided—a woman in the earliest spring of her youth, a girl of fifteen or sixteen at the utmost. Her veil ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... which the historian should be more glad to see it lifted than from Rome in the centuries which saw the formation of the city, and which preceded the expulsion of the kings. Even the legends, which were uncritically accepted from the days of Livy to those of our grandfathers, are provokingly silent upon the very points as to which we would fain get at least a hint. This much is plain, however, that in the embryonic stage of the Roman commonwealth some obscure processes of fusion or commingling went on. The tribal population of Rome ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... and there were various delightful prospects on both sides, on which the eye would willingly have dwelt longer, had not our coach rolled on past them, so provokingly quick. It appeared somewhat singular to me, when at a few miles from London, I saw at a distance a beautiful white house; and perceived on the high road, on which we were driving, a direction post, on ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... streets. The house in which Mary Leonard's cousins had lived had been long in other hands, and the occupants had cut down the finest of the old trees to make room for an addition, and a woman whose face seemed provokingly foreign to the scene came out with the air of a proprietor and entered ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... the spring are provokingly silent. Every April I see the hermit thrush hopping about the woods, and in case of a sudden snow-storm seeking shelter about the outbuildings; but I never hear even a fragment of his wild, silvery strain. The white-crowned sparrow also passes in silence. I see the bird for a few days about ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... "Prove it!" taunted Burroughs provokingly. "'F the Police ever suspect me an' make a search, they'll not fin' me holdin' a prayer-meetin', same's they did you not so very long ago. Le'me see—how much was yer ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... pony-chaise with a basket and drove off Preston was at the pains to find out to spend a couple of hours with Molly Skelton. Preston sighed with impatience. And then, in the very act of dressing and practising for the pictures, Daisy was provokingly cool and disengaged. She did her part very well, but seemed just as much interested in other people's parts, and as much pleased with other people's adornment. Queen Esther in particular was Daisy's care, since she had ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... shall but increase her terrors and my own difficulties. Shall I enter the cottage and wait her return? the door stands most invitingly open, and to a wet and weary wanderer, that fire sparkles so provokingly—'faith, I can't resist the temptation—Adventure seems the goddess of the night, and I'll e'en worship the divinity at a blazing shrine! [Exit into ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Why the deuce was she so provokingly ambiguous? And she had no intention of explaining. She simply ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Sir Vernon to have resembled her favourite hero in fiction (the man she always put in confession books), and to have fallen desperately in love with Ida at first sight. And here he was, a most matter-of-fact looking young man, riding behind the wagonette in a provokingly matter-of-fact way. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... invitingly. There was an allurement about this all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and she was anxious for the older woman to amplify. Miss Smith, however, remained provokingly silent, so Miss ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... which I gave her was a tolerably handsome writing-desk, which I could not help buying for her, as she had taken a great fancy to it; indeed, she told me it had annoyed her for some months, because it stood so provokingly tempting in the shop-window just over the way; and besides, "She should be so—so happy to write me such pretty letters from it." The last argument was convincing, and the desk was bought; in return for which she ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... recollect that many of the persons whose possessions were dispersed only in our time were buyers a century or more ago, and had from Osborne, at what still appear to our weak minds provokingly low prices, his Harleian bargains. By the way, he kept them a tolerably long time. Did some one help him to find the money, or did he pay it by instalments? Seriously speaking, it was rather a white elephant. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... to him. He came out of this state slowly, with an effect, that is to say, of extreme slowness, though the actual number of days was not very great. And when he had got back into the middle of things they were all changed, subtly and provokingly in their nature: inanimate objects, human faces, the landlady, the rustic servant-girl, the staircase, the streets, the very air. He tackled these changed conditions in a spirit of severity. He walked to and ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... thirteen, as a rule, talk much of puppy-dogs. I'm sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr. Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may devour somebody.'" She smiles in a ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... him somewhere else—and he wouldn't prevent me. I wasn't going to desert my friends for a lot of silly tales. So then he said I didn't know what I was talking about, and turned his back on me. He kept his temper provokingly—and I lost mine—which was idiotic of me. But I mean to be even with him—somehow. And as for Donald, I shall go up to town and lunch with him at the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be by the thought of an especially stiff piece of reading which was before him—it may be all three together—he met a friar. The priest came along with easy step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Don't shudder so provokingly, Polly; that 's a mere bagatelle for a college man, but I know it's a good deal for me,—a good deal more than I know how ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... part of the community, that live in the tallest houses, drive real carriages, (not "kerridges,") kidglove their hands, and French-bonnet their ladies' heads, give parties where the persons who call them by the above title are not invited, and have a provokingly easy way of dressing, walking, talking, and nodding to people, as if they felt entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in the least, if they met the Governor, or even the President of the United ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... surrounded by a high white picket fence and entered through a heavily boarded gate, its balconies festooned with jasmine and roses, and its spotlessly draped windows as often graced with fresh, flower-like faces, were still plainly and provokingly visible above the ostentatious spikes of the pickets. Nevertheless, Mr. Jack Hamlin, who had six months before placed his niece, Miss Sophonisba Brown, under its protecting care, felt a degree of uneasiness, even bordering on timidity, which was new to that usually ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Often two meet in mid-air and furiously fight, their crests, and the feathers upon their throats, all erected and blazing, and altogether pictures of the most violent rage. Several times we saw them battling with large black bees who frequent the same flowers, and may be seen often to interfere provokingly. Like lightning our little heroes would come down, but the coat of shining mail would ward off their furious strokes. Again and again would they renew the attack, until their anger had expended itself by its own fury, or until the apathetic bee, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... their baskets: and all about the Ducal palace is made so very offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most unworthy of so charming a place, that all enjoyment of its beauties is rendered difficult to a person of any delicacy; and poisoned so provokingly, that I do never cease to wonder that so little police and proper regulation are established in a city so particularly lovely, to render her sweet and wholesome. It was at the Rialto that the first stone of this fair town was laid, upon the twenty-fifth of March, as ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... each was provided with a white basin, which was filled by Ned and his assistants, with soup from a washing jug. A paper bag containing half a quartern loaf was also given to each, and the contents rapidly disappeared. As the fragrant steam mounted provokingly from the soup-basins up to the gallery, Mr. Wright took occasion to mention that at the last supper Mr. Clark, of the New Cut, furnished the soup gratuitously—a fact which he thought deserved to ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... not meet his, and she turned her head to hide that provokingly rising colour as she sat ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... you can have them or anything else you wish, to oblige you. But I should rather like to know how long your hair is when you let it down. You look as if you had a great quantity there, but probably it is not all your own." And he smiled provokingly. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... to say the least," grinned the man in gray, in his provokingly careless manner. "But I'd like to know what I have done to lead you to speak thus disparagingly of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... tempting lusciousness; the red cherries seemed, in the distance, like the burning brilliancy of a summer sunset struggling through the branches and tangled leaves that intervened; and the downy peach peered provokingly from amongst the sheltering green, where, all the summer long, it had stolen the first blush of saffron-vested Aurora, when seraph hands unbar the gates of morning, and the last ray of golden light that paused at the flame-wrought portals of expiring day to look reluctant ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Venizelos thereupon approached Bulgaria and was told that Bulgaria would remain neutral if Greece would cede most of her Macedonian conquests, which would include Kavalla, Drama, and Serres, which stretch so provokingly eastward along the coast and hold Bulgaria ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... beginning to consider Oak a "near" man, for though his condition had thus far improved, he lived in no better style than before, occupying the same cottage, paring his own potatoes, mending his stockings, and sometimes even making his bed with his own hands. But as Oak was not only provokingly indifferent to public opinion, but a man who clung persistently to old habits and usages, simply because they were old, there was room for doubt as to ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... bird student more pleasure than settling the identity of species, albeit sometimes it is hard and patience-trying work. And of all the birds, none are so provokingly and charmingly elusive as some of the wood warblers. What a time I had for several years in making sure of some of these little nymph-like creatures which were flitting about in the foliage of the trees, concealing themselves by a leafy barrier! Many ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Ali. The balance of power in Europe, the machinations of the Jesuits, the gentle and humanising influence of Austria, the position and prospects of that hero of the noble soul who is worshipped by happy France, are all easy reading to our bore's brother. And our bore is so provokingly self-denying about him! 'I don't pretend to more than a very general knowledge of these subjects myself,' says he, after enervating the intellects of several strong men, 'but these are my brother's opinions, and I believe he is ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... letter, I have been confined to the most dreary of all regions: the sea is so melancholy, that we mutually, I believe, sadden each other. I ought to have landed by this time, but the winds have been most provokingly contrary; I shall not arrive at Charlestown for eight or ten days. It will be a great pleasure to me to land, as I am expecting to do, in that city. When I am once on shore, I shall hope each day to receive news from France; I shall learn so many interesting, things, both concerning the ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... 8vo. Rapport generale sur les travaux de l'Academie des Sciences, Arts, et Belles Lettres de la ville de Caen, jusqu'au premier Janvier, 1811. Par P.F.T. Delariviere, Secretaire. A Caen, chez Chalopin. An. 1811-15. 2 vols. on different paper, with different types, and provokingly of a larger ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... crushes in two weeks, seven small affairs, excellent play at the theater all of next week, and I already have three nights engaged, and a chance of two more. That stupid fellow said something about would I like to go with him some time during the week. How provokingly vague! But he never made it more definite and final; just never said another word about it. I hate men who ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... the brain of man, and which have no watchman or lover or defender but me." This in reply to the possible questions of his own conscience. To hot-blooded moralists with more objective ideas of duty, such a fidelity to the limits of his genius must often have made him seem provokingly remote and unavailable; but we, who can see things in more liberal perspective, must unqualifiably approve the results. The faultless tact with which he kept his safe limits while he so dauntlessly asserted himself within them, is an example fitted to give heart to other theorists and artists ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... watched them curiously. The man appeared as a tall figure, standing with legs wide apart, holding a pole, and half turned toward a shorter woman's figure, leaning on another pole, and standing a few paces away. She shook her forefinger at the man, and giggled provokingly. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... song might have given the Lieutenant a little credit at any other time, but the matter in hand was too provokingly serious. Coffee and crackers were announced, the field officers commenced their meal in silence, and the company officers ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... merchandise. He may look in upon a party of carousing friends, with banter that is not without reproof. We find him lionized in the homes of the first men of the city in peace and war, where he mystifies the not too intellectual fair guests with graceful and provokingly passionless gallantry. He sits at ease with greater enjoyment under the opaque vine and trellis of his own garden. He appears in the midst of his household as it bustles with preparation for the birthday feast of a friend, or he welcomes at a less formal ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... to aid a laggard memory, haunted by a feeling that he ought to know this man instantly, even in so poor a light. Something in his habit, something in that insouciance which so narrowly escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly elusive.... ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... indifference, you'd be mad as a wet hen if I was to leave it to somebody else," went on the woman provokingly. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... turned to my husband for refuge against this assault of admiration, and discovered that his host had left the room. He therefore rose from his seat and approached the window leading to the lawn, Mr. Jenkins officiously following, and insisting upon opening it for him; and while he was urging a provokingly obstinate lock, the object of his devoted attention waited behind him for release. The casement at length flew open, and Mr. Godwin passing the gentleman with a courteous look of thanks, found to his astonishment that Mr. Jenkins had disappeared, and that ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... sadly gifted with the genuine elements of poetry, and, like Burns, composes verses at the plough-tail. I have read with great pleasure some sweet lines by this rural Canadian bard; and were he now beside me, instead of "Big bay" lying so provokingly between, I would beg from him a specimen of his rhyming powers, just to prove to my readers that the genuine children of song are distinguished by the same unmistakeable characteristics ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Peter Gerasimovich spoke provokingly, which communicated itself to the foreman. As a result the latter began to defend his position more persistently. But Peter Gerasimovich spoke so convincingly that he won over the majority, and it was finally decided that she was not guilty of the theft. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... fresh, and sometimes had quite a pretty little pink colour—perfectly genuine—in her cheeks; command sat in her eye and energy on her lip—but though it was imperious and restless, there was something provokingly likeable and even pleasant in her face. Her niece, Gertrude, the general's daughter, was also tall, graceful—and, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... him, is sitting astride of a cannon, and smoking a pipe and, notebook and pencil in hand, is writing a picturesque description of the bungling decapitation by shrapnel of the general who has just been unfolding to him the whole plan of the campaign, and consequently is provokingly un-getatable by serious ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... don't think you ever will. Leave that sort of thing to Walter Scott, and go on and finish your charming fragment of 'The Eve of St. Mark,' which stops provokingly just where Bertha was reading the illuminated manuscript, as she sat in her room ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... when I wanted to come with you." She gave a little pout of annoyance and let her eyes rest on his with the old fondness. "Don't you want to know why I broke my engagement with you?" And she danced on, smiling back at him provokingly. He did not show that he heard; and although they did not meet again, he was made aware that a change had at last come over her. She was angry now. He could hear her laughter oftener—laughter that was meant for his ear and ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... a minute!" Kitty said in a provokingly commanding tone; and Tip went at it sullenly, saying, with every spiteful drive of his axe through the pine board which he had picked up, "It's no use; I cant do that sum, and I ain't going to try. I don't know anything, and never will. I've done it over ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... she had not made. Kathleen remained modestly in the background. Finn, with lively recollections of the peculiarly savoury meat which the stranger dealt in, placed his fore-paws, on the top of the gate, and lolled his tongue at the man in friendly greeting. The man gave Finn a provokingly tiny fragment of the savoury meat, and rubbed the young hound's ears in the coaxing way he had. Then he stepped back a pace or two, and produced a large piece of ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... power. For instance, a European has great difficulty in seeing a green pigeon in a green tree till the bird moves, while a native seems to have no such difficulty. My own sight is, or rather was, very good, but I found on one occasion, when I was stalked by a tiger, that it was most provokingly defective as compared with that of a native. The incident occurred in this way. In cloudy weather, during a break in the monsoon, I was beating a ravine for game, and had sent my second gun-carrier with the beaters. As the ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... into bed she lay staring into the dark, planning the details of a campaign warranted either to cure or kill the enemy. Outside, a mocking bird, perched provokingly near her window, kept the night ringing with music. Resolutely she closed her ears to his song. But presently, through the faint fragrance of oleanders, other sounds began to penetrate,—the strains of the ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... and on hearing the ceaseless and eternal murmurs going on—going on—around me, without being immediately able to ascribe them to their proper cause, I set myself down as a lost man; for on that terror I was provokingly clear during the whole night. I more than once gave an involuntary groan or shriek, on finding myself in this singular state; so did many others, and these groans and shrieks were wildly and fearfully contrasted with the never-ending hum, which, like the ceaseless noise of a distant waterfall, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... sheds, instead of piling it, but the great quantity of snow we usually have, has always seemed to be an insuperable obstacle. It is an advantage to pile it, and to give it one turning, but, on the other hand, the piles made in cold weather freeze through, and they take a provokingly long time to thaw out in the spring. I never found manure piled out of doors to get ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... answered provokingly. "Adieu, my child!" he went on mockingly, using Valmond's words, and catching both her hands as he had done; then, springing upon a bench by the oven, he kissed her on both cheeks. "Adieu, my child!" he said ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... water, which led to a considerable and a sudden improvement in the condition of my feelings. I had endeavored to procure a child's battledore, as an easy means (when clothed with sponge) of reaching the interspace between the shoulders; which interspace, by the way, is a sort of Bokhara, so provokingly situated, that it will neither suffer itself to be reached from the north, in which direction even the Czar, with his long arms, has only singed his own fingers, and lost six thousand camels; nor at all better from the south, upon ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... longer proposes to seize the Treasury at Washington,—perhaps because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. The old Mumbo-Jumbo is occasionally paraded at the North, but, however many old women may be frightened, the pulse of the stock-market remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a Military Despot—though in that case the force of cavalry would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... depths of the easy chair, in its owner's most provokingly indifferent tone, which fortunately Mrs. Ried was too much preoccupied to take special note of, and continued ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... so in extent, covered with rows of haycocks, lay right before the huntsmen; and here the really interesting part of the hunt began. The fox was a fine specimen, about as big as a young wolf, but much longer in the body, and carrying behind him a provokingly big brush. He trotted leisurely in front, not because he could not go quicker, but because he wanted to economize his strength, and all the time he kept dodging to and fro, backwards and forwards, in the endeavour to tire his enemies out, and ceaselessly threw glances ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish the proof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, but at last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In the dead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who invented the tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... see, Duncan M'Nab," continued the cooler Lowlander, in a tone provokingly unmoved; "that, I'm thinking, must be a matter o' doubt, rather than well-authenticated history; and before I either anger ye by contradicting it, or wrang my ain sense by allowing you the benefit o 't, I'll just seek counsel o' this gentleman, who evidently has a feelin' in our argument, although ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... each other's silence for the statement that Elfrida had sent no word, they ceased to talk of her—as a topic her departure had become painful to both of them. Janet's anxiety finally conquered her scruples, and she betook herself to Essex Court to inquire of Mrs. Jordan. That lady was provokingly mysterious, and made the difficulty of ascertaining that she knew nothing whatever about Miss Bell's movements as great as possible. Janet saw an acquaintance with some collateral circumstance in her eyes, however, and was just ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year's signs of them were provokingly abundant; and wood being extremely scarce, we found an admirable substitute in the bois de vache, which burns exactly like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... more," she answered provokingly—"save that which we all know; the signal-fire, and the galley floating below by the coast, half hidden by the great rock—for that also I saw from my turret—thanks be to the Madonna for lifting the mortal dulness! And I left sleep for better ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... know," she protested, "honestly I don't. I have only seen him once before and then I wasn't really introduced, his first name, or rather his nickname, is Chuck, and that's all I know, except,"—she added provokingly, "that he doesn't believe in brownies." And that was all she would say on the subject, though the girls did their best to make ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... calculated to smooth the ruffled feelings of the gentlemen, but Chavernay was never one to bridle his speech in deference to the susceptibility of his cousin's satellites. He now eyed them mockingly, even provokingly, full of amusement, while they fumed and fretted, and hands crept to hilts. Cheerfully courageous, Chavernay was prepared at any moment to back his words with his sword. Gonzague, studying the lowering ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... so excited he could scarcely eat. And Dr. Morton seemed almost as interested as Ernest. They were both provokingly mysterious during the entire meal, talking over Jane's head in a way ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... her head, and her blue eyes laughed at him provokingly. "Curiosity is fatal only to cats. It is ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... But as they passed he received the shock of his life. Whatever it was he expected from her, an angry scowl maybe, or an appealing look, or a scornfully averted head, he did not get it. She raised calm, smiling eyes to his and said provokingly: ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... while to relate how provokingly we missed our way, or to describe the resolution which urged us at last to pass directly through the wood. The latter movement proved to be, in one respect, a judicious one; for it carried us to the plane in a much shorter space of time than must have been consumed had we persisted ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... either way; but as his wife is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell—there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall be partially restored. Now for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the sound of his voice, but she did not immediately turn around. When she did so, her demeanour was almost a shock to him. There was no sign of nervousness or apology in her manner. Her eyes flashed at him angrily. She wore a loose red wrap trimmed with white fur, a dishabille unusually and provokingly attractive. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mother declared her daughter was forty-five; the daughter said: "Not a day over thirty-five," and intimated that she surely might be supposed to know her own age! The mother, however, murmured provokingly: "Moi, je sais mieux que ca"; and so the wrangle went on, until I made a diversion by taking leave of my hostess and promising to be present at the lecture the "following afternoon," which, by the way, had ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... ebony cane but for Peter Kenny's parlour-magic trick. For as Brian Shaynon started forward to seize Beelzebub by the collar, a stream of incandescent sparks shot point-blank into his face; and when he fell back in puffing dismay, Beelzebub laughed provokingly, ducked behind the backs of a brace of highly diverted bystanders, and quickly and deftly wormed his way through the press to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... health, so that the change was not a matter of necessity. I was too indignant to speak, and rushed upstairs into the nursery, where my little sister had also taken refuge. She was always very gentle and obedient (provokingly so, I thought), and now she sat rocking her doll on her knee in silent sorrow, whilst I stood kicking her chair and grumbling in a tone which it was well the doll could not hear, or rocking would have been of little use. I took pleasure in trying to make her as angry as myself. ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a piece—the protasis—should do. The cue of the spectators was to be mute. The characters were but in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... have discovered the fact; that, indeed, they must be exceptions to the general rule of half-invalids if they do not frequently and critically examine every lineament of their face, and secretly grieve over their increasing imperfections; consequently, ye provokingly observant ones, when you meet them and find them not looking well, even find yourselves in doubt as to whether they are looking quite as well as when you last saw them, and are sure you shall perish unless you introduce what Emerson declares "a forbidden topic" in some form—at least give ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Blackmantle," said he, "better than a tragedy, because it makes one laugh; and next to good eating, a hearty laugh is most desirable. Then I love a farce still better than a comedy, because that is more provokingly merry, or broader as the critics have it; then, sir, a pantomime beats both comedy and 63farce hollow; there's such lots of fun and shouts of laughter to be enjoyed in that from the beginning to the end. But, sir, there's one ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... as clear as the carbuncles on his own face—the boat to be sure. "And the truism was perpetrated with the same provokingly ludicrous, yet evidently forced, gravity of tone ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... appearance; and happy were those who could get a painting from his hand. The price was enormous, and the marvellous facility with which they were despatched was not the least extraordinary part of the business. There was a mystery, too, about him, provokingly delightful, especially to the female portion of the community. In place of living in a gay and fashionable part of the city, his lodging was in a miserable garret, overlooking one of the gloomiest streets ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... she died among strangers, just as provokingly as she had lived. She must even run away to die, to make it seem as if her home was not ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the coolest, most provokingly nonchalant of men in times of peril, should begin to show a nervous strain was all the more indicative of ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... fascinated by the romance of the notion, Argemone had proposed to her mother to allow her to enter this beguinage, and called in the vicar as advocate; which produced a correspondence between him and Mrs. Lavington, stormy on her side, provokingly calm on his: and when the poor lady, tired of raging, had descended to an affecting appeal to his human sympathies, entreating him to spare a mother's feelings, he had answered with the same impassive fanaticism, that 'he was surprised ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of voluntary action with the muscles of the nose, and can move it horizontally, or to the right and left,—draw it up or protrude it,—so as to make it take any position they please. Painters have been provokingly deceived by this stratagem, and have in vain attempted the portraits of such persons, who were able at every instant to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid altogether the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a most provokingly good sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were carried in limp bundles to the deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, was always ready ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... drinking deep of a more intoxicating nectar," cried Lady Mabel, with that provokingly distinct utterance of hers. She had been taught to speak as carefully as girls of inferior rank are taught to play Beethoven—every syllable studied, every tone trained and ripened to the right quality. "You were with ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... asked, unlocking his suit-case in the most provokingly every-day style, as if this day was an every-day sort of day and not the beginning and end of all things. "Oh, I tell you, I'm almost dotty over that ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... frankness, and refused to treat him as anything but a boy. So they gradually grew friendly, and when they met at parties or church socials he spent most of the time in her company, or, rather, he would have so spent it had she permitted. But she was provokingly impartial and was quite as likely to refuse a dance with him to sit out one with Sam Thatcher or Ben Hammond or any other village youth of her acquaintance. However, although she piqued and irritated him, he was obliged to admit to his inner consciousness that she was the ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the afternoon, at a height of about a thousand feet, and slid swiftly down its northern slope into a narrow valley, which opened upon the great steppes which bordered the river Aklan. The weather was clear and not very cold, but the snow in the valley was deep and soft, and our progress was provokingly slow. We had hoped to reach the Aklan by night, but the day was so short and the road so bad that we travelled five hours after dark, and then had to stop ten versts south of the river. We were rewarded, however, by seeing two very fine mock moons, and by finding a magnificent patch of trailing-pine, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... person whom it might be pleasant and titillating to know. The general arrangement of feelings towards her was evident at the third lesson. By the fourth it had taken a quite definite form. She had exchanged conversation with the three men: she had smiled provokingly at the girls. The girls mentioned her at home, and to their friends; the young men did ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Fan's general inquiries produced only provokingly unsatisfactory replies from Tom, who sang the praises of "the beautiful Miss Bailey," and professed to be consumed by a hopeless passion for somebody, in such half-comic, half-tragic terms, that the girls could not decide whether ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... to be destroyed the greater part of the few notes she had made toward an autobiography. In the present Memoirs Madame Lenormant chiefly relies upon her own personal knowledge of Madame Recamier's life, and upon contemporary hearsay. It is a very interesting book, as we have it, though at times provokingly unsatisfactory, and at times inflated and silly in style. It is not only a history of Madame Recamier, but a sketch of French society, politics, and literature during very long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... smell much worse than a pack of niggers," remarked Wade provokingly; at which the darky went back to ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... stormed furiously at this, but Nan kept so provokingly cool that he was conscious of wasting breath. He went off in a rage, but Nan did not feel particularly anxious now that the announcement was over. He would cool down, she knew. John Osborne worried her more. She didn't see clearly how she was to marry him unless he asked ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... state; for, on my suggesting that his bills might have been ill distributed or his notice insufficient,—being rather desirous thus to find a loophole for my vanity to creep out of,—he convinced me that all points of 'vantage had been most provokingly well cared for. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Old George chuckled rather provokingly, and seemed to be taken up with some abstruse calculation. "Well, I won't be against it, Master Aleck," he said, "unless—no—I'm not sure—" (the old man seemed to grow quite composed in his uncertainty), "I think—I may show you." And so saying he led the ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... a great many things that we can't get," returned Roland, in a provokingly light tone. "I'll pay you as soon as I can, man; ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... with little apparent result; and I know not which was the more reprehensible of the two: Matilda was more rude and boisterous; but from Rosalie's womanly age and lady-like exterior better things were expected: yet she was as provokingly careless and inconsiderate as a giddy ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... distance from the town, and nearer to the lake, then connected with the town by straggling cottages. With her back to this casement, then, and her face to the table, on which the keys lay for an instant while she tasted the various dishes which were placed there, stood the Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual—so at least it seemed to her prisoners—upon the huge and heavy bunch of iron, the implements of their restraint. Just when, having finished her ceremony as taster of the Queen's table, she was about to take up the keys, the page, who stood beside her, and had handed her ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... set about Malachi Malagrowther's Letter on the late disposition to change everything in Scotland to an English model, but without resolving about the publication. They do treat us very provokingly. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... rave about him; men would think him finical and dandified. He looks as if he were the happiest fellow in the world—in fact, he looked to me so provokingly happy that I disliked him; but now that Dodo is my little sister again, I can be happy ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... (A to D). Sometimes, where we should have expected him to apply his system, he refrains, whether from caution or oversight it is not easy to discover. The word cow, which is commonly referred to an imitative radical, he is provokingly reserved about; and under chew he hints at no relation between the name of the action and that of the capital ruminant animal.[a] Even where he has derived a word from an imitative radical, he sometimes fails to carry the process on to some other where it would seem equally applicable, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... church and send me back to my business again, I consented to go. Leaving my temporal interests in the hands of my father, I hastened to make the necessary preparations for my new responsibilities. The outfit was provokingly limited. The horse and saddlebags, the inevitable Alpha, if not the Omega, of an Itinerant's outfit, were wanting, as such conveniences had hardly, as yet, found their way to the northern portions of the Territory. But in their place were put good walking ability and a small ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... toiled over it all the afternoon, the stage resembled pandemonium rather than the schoolroom of Miss Minchen's Select Seminary, which was to be the scene of the first act. The committee were tired and, to speak frankly, cross, with the exception of Madeline, who was provokingly cool and nonchalant, though she had worked harder than any one else. The cast were infected with that irresponsible hilarity that always attacks an amateur company at their last rehearsal. They danced about the stage, getting in the way of the committee, ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... affairs of public business. He knew how to be content with small savings of hours and of material resources. He was not downcast if progress were slow. In watching public opinion, in feeling the pulse of a cabinet, in softening the heart of a colleague, even when skies were gloomiest, he was almost provokingly anxious to detect signs of encouragement that to others were imperceptible. He was of the mind of the Roman emperor, 'Hope not for the republic of Plato; but be content with ever so small an advance, and look on even that as a gain worth having.'[127] ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... not attempt to injure him, the native stood his ground, though tremblingly, and kept incessantly vociferating, and waving me away; to all my signs and inquiries, he was provokingly insensible, and would not hear of anything but my immediate departure. Sometimes he pointed to the north, motioning me to go in that direction, but the poor wretch was in such a state of alarm and trepidation that I could make nothing of him and left him. He ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... She provokingly stopped there. I entreated her to go on. She invited me to sit on her knee. "I want to whisper," she said. It was too ridiculous—but I did it. Miss Jillgall's ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... speaking abruptly, for the pain in Mr. Bentley's remarkable grey eyes had not escaped her. What was it about him? Why could she not recall? Long-forgotten, shadowy episodes of the past tormented her, flitted provokingly through her mind—ungrasped: words dropped in her presence which had made their impression, but the gist of which was gone. Why had Mr. Bentley ceased coming to the house? So strongly did she feel his presence now that the thought occurred to her,—perhaps ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... disease? Our female government asks it vixenly of our impotent male; which pretends, beneath an air of sympathy, that we should abstain from any compulsory action upon the law to interfere, though the situation is confessedly grave; and the aspect men assume is correspondingly, to the last degree provokingly, grave-half alive that they are, or void of patriotism, or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and eye are not always in tune. He has, too, to deal with all sorts of people—many difficult enough to please. You know the fable of the painter who would please everybody, and pleased nobody. You sitters are a whimsical set, and most provokingly shift your features and position, and always expect miracles, at a moment, too; you are here to-day, and must be off to-morrow. It is nothing, to you that paint won't dry for you, so even that must be forced, and you are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... entreaties were of no avail. My aunt's quick temper had evidently led her into committing an imprudence of some sort. Having done that, she was now provokingly determined not to make bad worse. Nothing that I could say would induce her to open her lips on the subject of the mysterious letter. "Wait till Mr. Grosse comes to-morrow." That was the only ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins |
