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More "Provocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instincts were truer than her mother's experience; not only that the wounded man's eyes became brighter under the provocation of her presence, but it was evident that his naturally exuberant spirits were a part of his vital strength, and were absolutely essential to his quick recovery. Encouraged by Falkner's grave and practical assistance, which she could not ignore, Kate ventured to make ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... to say that the natives will never attack without provocation. Even Cook, who certainly was both careful and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... brother, who never used a drop of strong drink in all his life; who never uttered an oath, or raised a hand in unkindness to man or woman, had been murdered—killed without provocation—no chance to defend his life, no warning to prepare for another world—shot down in mere wantonness. There lies the body of him who did it. Do you wonder that, over my dead mother's body, girl though ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... now comes in this very ardent champion who publicly insults me. My vanity is cured; you will judge it right, I am persuaded, all of you, that I should accept my proper punishment in silence; you, my Lord Duke, to pardon this young gentleman; and you, Mr. Musgrave, to spare me further provocation, which I ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... gentleman, whose address he obtained from our office. What took place between them no one knows, and, probably, no one ever will know. But the interview was ended by Mr. Kennedy firing a pistol at Mr. Finn's head. That he should have done so without the grossest provocation no one will believe. That Mr. Finn had gone to the husband to interfere with him respecting his wife is an undoubted fact,—a fact which, if necessary, we are in a position to prove. That such interference ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... that he discovered a shade of coquetry under this treatment; and this provocation, vague as it was, coming from this beautiful, cold, and inscrutable creature, seemed to him a game fearfully mysterious, that at once attracted and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... recourse to tent or hut life and in annual predatory excursions. The custom of the razzia or summer raid, which is still obligatory in Arabia on all men of vigour and spirit, was held in equal honour by the ancient Semitic world. Undertaken as a matter of course, whether on provocation or not, it was the origin and constant spring of those annual marches to the frontiers, of which royal Assyrian monuments vaingloriously tell us, to the exclusion of almost all other information. Chederlaomer, Amraphel and the other three ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... returned Dooble Sanny, dropping on his stool, and taking his stone upon his lap and stroking it, as if it had been some quadrupedal pet. Full of rough but real politeness to women when in good humour, he lost all his manners along with his temper upon the slightest provocation, and her tone ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... reaching the ground four inches sooner than you expected, and made conscious that your skeleton had been driven an equal distance upwards through your system. Then you could see Sapps Court, but under provocation, from its entry. When you recovered your temper you admitted that it was a better Court ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... place there was a mound of weeds burning, and they watched the fire until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," Miss Slowboy choked—she could do anything of that sort on the smallest provocation—and woke the baby, who ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... teenty bit of a while," she generally added, hastily; for she really loved her little sister dearly. Joan tried hard to be patient, but she had a quick temper, and occasionally forgot her good resolutions. This happened one day when her mother had gone to dispose of the dairy products. The provocation was certainly great. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... inveterate tongue-gall was like an irresistible impulse, and he certainly bestowed it occasionally, without the least provocation, upon persons whom he professed to like. He was habitually kind to me, and declared he was fond of me. One evening (just after the publication of my stupid drama, "The Star of Seville"), he met me ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... that there is some provocation," continued the romancer. "Mrs. Teep is quite the most irritating bridge-player that I have ever sat down with; her leads and declarations would condone a certain amount of brutality in her partner, ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... her equal. She had the penetration to recognize from the start that she could not patronize him in the slightest degree, that he was as high-spirited as he was frank and easy in manner, and she could well imagine that his mirthful eyes would flash with anger on slight provocation. She had never met just such a type before, and every moment found her more ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... so kind as to go down and make me a cup of tea, Lucy?" he said, in a wonderfully calm tone, considering the provocation he was receiving. Then he closed the door on Lucy, and turned to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... good one!' cried the magistrate, laughing heartily.—'d'ye think I'd believe you on oath? Why, man, you just now perjured yourself in swearing that Parson Sinclair assaulted you—whereas you beat him horribly with your club, with little provocation, and stole his watch and money. I know you, Squiggs; you can't gammon me. Once for all, will you share the booty ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... arrival of the ships that were bringing provisions to Anderson's starving garrison, the hostile Charleston batteries had opened their fire on the fort by the formal order of the Confederate government, and peaceable secession was, without provocation, changed to active war. The rebels gained possession of Charleston harbor; but their mode of obtaining it awakened the patriotism of the American people to a stern determination that the insult to the national ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... miss good fortune—in the matter of domestic service. The boy Palmerston, to be sure, suffered from a trick—acquired (Fancy assured them) under workhouse treatment and eradicable by time and gentle handling—of bursting into tears upon small provocation or none. But Mrs Bowldler was a treasure. Of this there could be no manner of doubt; and in nothing so patently as in relation with the boy Palmerston did the gold in Mrs Bowldler's ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... are covertly introduced to the majority of all the boys that ever were born and came to anything. The advertised story is a kind of mother-hen who gathers under her wings a numerous brood of biographical chicks. Quantities of recondite erudition are poured out on the slightest provocation. Nat's unquestioned superiority to his schoolmates evokes a disquisition for the encouragement of dull boys, in which we are told that "the great philosopher, Newton, was one of the dullest scholars in school when he was twelve years old. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... came to accept it as the captain's way, and to trust him as a really kind and liberal employer. And, unluckily, he did not always heed the rating so loudly given, or rather he did not set his mind to comprehend what lay a little out of his usual beat, and thus gave additional provocation, though still Captain Carbonel bore with him, and would not have rejected him in favour of the far smarter carpenter at Downhill, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and massacre—pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and massacre of the officers of the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any provocation whatever, at the head ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... physical meaning. It is now easy to find the mental one. You must all have felt the expression of ignoble anger in those fitful gusts of storm. There is a sense of provocation in their thin and senseless fury, wholly different from the nobler anger of the greater tempests. Also, they seem useless and unnatural, and the Greek thinks of them always as vile in malice, and ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... where she delivered it to the police, and claimed the reward attached to his head, which was paid accordingly. This female still lives, a stately, dangerous-looking woman, yet scarce ill thought of, considering the provocation. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... being one of the founders and a trustee of the Union Schoolhouse of Germantown, now Germantown Academy, he was a justice of the peace and a provincial commissioner in 1765. Being a Friend, he took no part in the struggle for independence, although his provocation was great. ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... why?" he protested. "The young fellow behaved like a cub, but no one offered him any provocation. I should think by this time he is probably heartily ashamed of himself. May I come and ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... again came that detestation of making a scene, which every well-bred girl feels, no matter how strong the provocation. She would make a purchase to gain time, and then turn back to the ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... a woman with her prettiness lets her husband stray away she deserves no small part of her fate. I don't wish you to agree with me—on the contrary; but I call such a woman a pure noodle. She must have bored him to death. What has passed between them for many months needn't concern us; what provocation my sister has had—monstrous, if you wish—what ennui my brother has suffered. It's enough that a week ago, just after you had ostensibly gone to Brussels, something happened to produce an explosion. She ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... Reptiles, too, were abundant, but all ready enough to make for their holes in the rifts of the rock, the lizards glancing out of sight in a moment, the snakes slowly and resentfully, as if ready to strike at the intruders at the slightest provocation, but no ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... fast man with the big Colt that swung at his hip, a deadly marksman, and he needed but little provocation to exhibit his skill. For that reason his men kept the distance Deveny had established between them—never attempting ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him, and he showed himself anything but the man for a crisis. Face and demeanour were against him. He had exceedingly plain features, and a persistently sour expression; even his smile suggested sarcasm. He could not tune his voice to the tradesman note, and on the slightest provocation he became, quite unintentionally, offensive. Such a man had no chance whatever in this ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... nevertheless, Isaac could not forbear playing tricks upon her whenever he had opportunity.—When he was five or six years old, he went out one night to see her milk the cow. He had observed that the animal kicked upon slight provocation; and when the pail was nearly full, he broke a switch from a tree near by, slipped round to the other side of the cow, and tickled her bag. She instantly raised her heels, and over went Polly, milk-pail, stool, and all. Isaac ran into the house, laughing with all ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... the greatness of the provocation, Centralia, Wash., yesterday showed a calmness worthy of an American community. There were no farther attempts at lynching after the hanging of the secretary of the I.W.W. organisation on Tuesday night." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... straight in front of him, grave, working his mouth. Those who knew him would have gone by the set of his chin. He may have been thinking of Brother Bonaccord's prediction, or of the not very veiled provocation of the lady's remarkable candour. There grew to be a rather bleak look in his face, something blenched his blue eyes. He turned sharply upon the woman, and his voice ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... officers, which was intercepted, we find, for example, what follows: 'I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for the head of every deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland; and five guineas only if they bring him in alive.' No amount of provocation or of precedent in his enemies, no degree of youthful ardour in himself, are at all adequate to excuse these most blamable words. When, however, he was called upon to vindicate them, Lord Rawdon declared that many of his threats were meant only 'to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... that the Indians meditated the murder of her family on the next day; and that before the firing [113] at Baker's, two canoes, containing Indians painted and armed for war, were seen to leave the opposite shore. Under these circumstances, an apparently slight provocation, and one, which would not perhaps have been, otherwise heeded, produced the fatal result. As the canoes approached the shore, the party from Baker's commenced firing on them, and notwithstanding the opposition made by the Indians, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... to drive the Danes from the bridge, adopted a daring expedient to accomplish this object, and, fastening his ships to the piles of the bridge, from which the Danes were raining down stones and beams, dragged it to pieces, upon which, on very fair provocation, Ottar, a Norse bard, broke forth into the following eulogy of King Olaf, the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... home soon after our arrival," she said. "I was at my window. You came with—Monsieur——" She cast a glance at Jock as she spoke, with a smile in her eyes that was not without its effect. There was a little provocation in it, which an older man would have known how to answer. But Jock, in the awkwardness of his youth, blushed fiery red, and turned away his gaze, which, indeed, had been dwelling upon her with an absorbed but shy attention. The boy had never seen ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... mother, she had been compelled to fly from the ancient capital of her race; she had seen her fair inheritance dismembered by robbers, and of those robbers he had been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit. There was no peril ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... doors on the ground-floor of my house, which my architect, in a riotous moment, smuggled into the plans in the guise of "French windows." I shouldn't have minded then if the earth had opened up and swallowed my whole party, so long as I did not have to go with them, but under such provocation as I had I do not feel that my residence is justified in being haunted after its present fashion because such a notion entered my mind. We cannot help our thoughts, much less our notions, and punishment for that ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Narragansetts[54] with the result that the latter were ordered not to come within six miles of the English plantations, and the former not to begin any new quarrels, but to behave themselves quietly, without provocation. The fact that Cockenoe was then living at Montauk is proof that he must have been one of ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... But contest would only have added to its glory; unless, indeed, the people, over-zealous in their expression of sympathy for their representative, had been provoked thereby to violent exhibition of their temper. Even without such provocation the turmoil of the re-election day, the 16th of July, was great; angry crowds assembled in the streets, and menacing words against the Government and its myrmidons were loudly uttered. The wisdom of Sir Francis Burdett ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... feature was the nose, which was fairly large and straight and vigorous. The mouth shut firmly, as it usually does where decision is the dominant trait. The lips were flat. His color was pale but healthy, and rarely flushed, even under great provocation. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... overseer down, and was then seized by two of his fellow-convicts. He was ironed and taken into town, and on the following morning was brought before Mr Sampson and another magistrate. It was no use of his pleading provocation, he received his flogging within a few hours. Towards daylight he crept out of his hut, broke into his master's storeroom, and took a musket, powder and ball, and as much food as he could carry, telling a fellow-prisoner that he would perish in the bush rather ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... of pure life and sanguine temperament was hard to kill. Give him the excuse of good nursing and he would live through injuries which must be fatal to a bilious, suspicious man, or one who had been guilty of any excess. A tobacco chewer or smoker died on small provocation. A drunkard or debauchee ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... day. He will let you know he is going to a whore, or that he has got a clap, with as much indifferency, as he would a piece of public news. He will swear, curse, or blaspheme, without the least passion or provocation. And, though all regard for reputation is not quite laid aside in the other sex, 'tis, however, at so low an ebb, that very few among them seem to think virtue and conduct of absolute necessity for preserving it. If this be not so, how comes it to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... infinitives in enai? We find in Homer, not only imenai, to go, but also ienai; not only emmenai, to be, but also einai, i.e., es-enai. Bopp simply says that the m is lost, but he brings no evidence that in Greek an m can thus be lost without any provocation. The real explanation, here, as elsewhere, is supplied by the Beieinander (the collateral growth), not by the Nacheinander (the successive growth) of language. Besides the suffix man, the Aryan languages possessed two other ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... came off second best; for he was fond of fighting with bigger boys than himself. Victor or vanquished, he never bore malice—nor woke it in others, which is worse. But he would slap a face almost as soon as look at it, on rather slight provocation, I'm afraid—especially if it were an inch or two higher up than his own. And he was fond of showing off, and always wanted to throw farther and jump higher and run faster than any one else. Not, indeed, that ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... time-serving, shuffling advocate (no man could write as he does who did not believe himself sincere); but his understanding is the dupe and slave of his momentary, violent, and irritable humours. He does not adopt an opinion 'deliberately or for money,' yet his conscience is at the mercy of the first provocation he receives, of the first whim he takes in his head: he sees things through the medium of heat and passion, not with reference to any general principles, and his whole system of thinking is deranged by the first ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... same time, that an obstacle, which I was bound to respect, would prevent me from following your advice. While my father lived, I could not suffer a manuscript in which he was represented (no matter under what excess of provocation) as separating himself in the bitterest hostility from his own son, to be made public property. I could not suffer events of which we never afterwards spoke ourselves, to be given to others in the form of a printed narrative which might perhaps fall under his own eye. You acknowledged, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... reality and his sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course I declined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor Brierly couldn't help it), that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to look at the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for some other reason, I became positive in my mind that the inquiry was a severe punishment to that Jim, and that his facing it—practically of his own free will—was a redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... now and then of "my husband," very prettily, and with intense provocation; and yet she worshipped brains. Evidently she thirsted for that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never surrender till she had discovered it. Perhaps she fancied it did not exist. It might be that she took Edward ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was done and could no more be helped, prey too much upon his mind, lest it should render him unable to give his evidence with proper clearness, and he should be judged insane and sent to Broadmoor, which would be frightful. He ended by saying that he had had great provocation, and that he was certain the judge would consider it in passing sentence, only he must satisfy the jury ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... ever perceived betwixt you and them. For the rest of the Portuguese, use all sort of means to make them your friends: Have never any quarrel with any of them, though they should bring you into law, or quarrel with you without the least provocation on your part. If they use the new Christians hardly, oppose them, but with much mildness; and, if you find your opposition may be likely to succeed, make your complaint to the Portuguese commandant, with whom I once again beseech you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... it should!" exclaimed Percy, flying into one of the rare passions to which his amiable, easy-going nature would occasionally lapse under great provocation, "nobody asked that it should; and you are"—and here he launched into some most uncomplimentary remarks, and then dashed from the room, leaving Harley to feel that he had made a great mistake, and missed, by the insinuation that Percy fancied he ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Scottish Highlanders, rather resemble the Scandinavian Duergar, than the English Fairies. Notwithstanding their name, they are, if not absolutely malevolent, at least peevish, discontented, and apt to do mischief on slight provocation. The belief of their existence is deeply impressed on the Highlanders, who think they are particularly offended at mortals, who talk of them, who wear their favourite colour green, or in any respect interfere with their affairs. This is especially to be avoided on Friday, when, whether ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... for a moment, to either side, would have brought upon me his blows. That he did not instantly resort to violence inspired me with courage, since it depended on myself whether food should be supplied to his passion. Rage must either progress or decline; and, since it was in total want of provocation, it could not fail of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... was led out for execution, he had taken human life, but under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve, a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and, though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... wretched state of things!" said Dr. May, who never wanted much provocation to begin storming about parish affairs. "When I am churchwarden again, I'll see what can be done about the seats; but it's no sort of use, while Ramsden goes ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... said, "your worships, the affair has arisen out of a long course of tyranny and provocation on the part of one of the parties, and you will observe that this is the party who first commits the assault, while my client was acting solely ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... characteristics alike, may fairly claim a place, not among middling ones merely, but among almost the higher names inscribed on the world's national scale. A concentrated, never-absent self-respect, an habitual self-restraint in word and deed, very rarely broken except when extreme provocation induces the transitory but fatal frenzy known as 'amok,' and an inbred courtesy, equally diffused through all classes, high or low, unfailing decorum, prudence, caution, quiet cheerfulness, ready hospitality and a correct, though not inventive taste. His family is a pleasing ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... me, and for no other reason.... Over the killing of many freedmen nothing is done." General Sheridan cites cases in which our National soldiers wearing the uniform of the Republic have been deliberately shot "without provocation" by citizens, and the grand jury refused to find a bill against the murderers. Even in Virginia, General Schofield was compelled to resort to a military tribunal because "a gentleman" who shot a negro dead ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... highwayman, "Galloping Hermit," the notorious wearer of the brown mask, the man upon whose head a price was set, and who would surely perish miserably at Tyburn if he fell into the hands of his enemies. Great provocation might have made him a knight of the road, romance had succeeded in setting him apart from his brethren, but was she justified in loving such a man, could she give herself into his keeping? And she dared not tell him ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... use this information to lay stress on the fact that the German Government is committing itself to acts of war against France without provocation on our part, or any previous declaration of war, whilst we have scrupulously respected the zone of ten kilometers which we have maintained, even since the mobilization, between our ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... the eyes of men of sense. Now the example is before you and you may see what sort of an outcome such actions have. But as for you, it is your duty to avoid laying violent hands upon anyone without provocation, or carrying off the possessions of others; for I shall not overlook it, be assured, and I shall not consider anyone of you a fellow-soldier of mine, no matter how terrible he is reputed to be to the foe, who is not able to use clean hands against the enemy. For bravery cannot be ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... glasses and plates, and laid a special private wire from the skirting-board near the hearth to a spot on the table beneath Edward Henry's left hand, so that he could summon courtiers on the slightest provocation with the minimum of exertion. Then immediately brown bread-and-butter and lemons and red-pepper came, followed by oysters, followed by bottles of pale wine, both still and sparkling. Thus, before the principal dishes ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... little; I feel like talking, and I promise not to be disagreeable. Always wear white; it becomes you. Never forget that beauty needs appropriate surroundings. Another thing, ma belle cousine, this little trick you have of blushing on the slightest provocation spoils your whole appearance. Your complexion should always retain its ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... evening. We just had dinner, and I presume I should make an after-dinner speech. I have always wanted to attend a Northern Nut Growers Association convention. I am more or less of what you might call a convention addict and speak on any occasion on slight provocation. I attended a convention at Quebec earlier this year, and after that I went on to Rio de Janiero in South America and attended another convention, but this privilege of being able to attend the Northern Nut Growers Association tops ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... to show himself, and went forward. Lord Mergwain had understood not the half of what Grizzie said; but had found sufficient provocation in the tone, and was much too angry for any articulate attempt at speech ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... argument. She really had given him little chance; impulse and instinct had worked upon her, causing her to jump at conclusions which, however well founded in fact, were without excuse in act. If he had kissed her, it wasn't without provocation, nor against her will; she had got no more than she asked for. The trouble was, she no longer wanted it. She had been the dupe of her own folly, by her own romantic bent and the magnetism of the man blinded ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of red hair, while his bulk of bone and muscle actually trembled in the presence of the small but awesome figure confronting him. He might have crushed the judge with a blow of his huge fist, but no possible provocation could have induced him to lay ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... this last addition to the number. He knew Jake's affection for his young master, and the great strength of the negro would have rendered him useful in a hand-to-hand fight, but he was altogether unaccustomed to forest work, and his habit of bursting into fits of laughter on the smallest provocation, as is the manner of his race, enraged the scout to the last degree. Indeed, he had not left the fort above an hour when he turned ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... and continued to earn it until the ship had neared the Yangtse-Kiang. Marked for the officers' attentions by his initial profane and irreverent comment on his transferral by the tug-captain, he was assaulted on the slightest provocation by the mates—no bigger than he or more skillful of fist, but justified by the law—and, though easily the best sailorman of the mixed crew, was put at distasteful tasks while inferior men worked at sailorly work on ropes ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... of their fellow-residents. No less than three people are "smashed,"—the Old Man of Whitehaven "who danced a quadrille with a Raven;" the Old Person of Buda; and the Old Man with a gong "who bumped at it all the day long," though in the last-named case we admit that there was considerable provocation. Before quitting the first "Nonsense-Book," we would point out that it contains one or two forms that are interesting; for instance, "scroobious," which we take to be a Portmanteau word, and "spickle-speckled," a favorite form of reduplication ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... and child to-day is practically never parental. It is personal—which means, it is critical and deliberate, and adult in provocation. The mother, in her new role of idealist and life-manager never, practically for one single moment, gives her child the unthinking response from the deep dynamic centers. No, she gives it what is good for it. She shoves milk in its mouth as the clock strikes, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... realm, a golden bracelet, very heavy, should be set up on the highways (as he had done before in the district of Wik), wishing by this magnificent price to test the honesty which he had enacted. Now, though the minds of the dishonest were vexed with the provocation it furnished, and the souls of the evil tempted, yet the unquestioned dread of danger prevailed. For so potent was the majesty of Frode, that it guarded even gold that was thus exposed to pillage, as though it were fast with bolts and bars. The strange ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... This talk with Fritz had vastly entertained him; nor was he altogether discontented with his bearing at the farm; men, he was able to tell himself, had behaved worse under smaller provocation. And, to harmonise all, the road and the April air were both delightful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... corruptible. But the Areopagus in very ancient times seems to have superseded the early systems of "blood-feud" or "blood-debt" by a humane and rational system of law, taking account of intention, provocation, and the varying degrees of guilt. The Erinyes, being the old Pelasgian avengers of blood, now superseded, have their dwelling in a cavern underneath ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... six quarts of strong liquor, with which they all, host and visitors, got prodigiously drunk and correspondingly noisy. The Court Record says: "The miscarriage continued till betwixt tenn and eleven of the clock, to the great provocation of God, disturbance of the peace, and to such a height of disorder that strangers wondered at it." In the midst of the carousal the master of the pinnace called the boatswain "Brother Loggerheads." This must have been a particularly ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... them;" that is, although I had chosen them for my spouse, and married myself unto them with an everlasting covenant of mercy, and entailed heaven unto them, yet they have broken my covenant. This was a great provocation. Thus, "When thou wast in thy blood, and no eye pitied thee, to have compassion upon thee, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live: Yea, I said unto thee, Live." It is twice repeated. As if God should say, "Mark it, O Israel, when no eye regarded thee, then I said unto ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... themselves, neither would they let the others eat. The differences, nevertheless, were at first but trivial, and such as are not worth relating, but at last it broke out into open war: and it began with all the rudeness and insolence that can be imagined—without reason, without provocation, contrary to nature, and indeed to common sense; and though, it is true, the first relation of it came from the Spaniards themselves, whom I may call the accusers, yet when I came to examine the fellows they could not deny ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... her hands apart in an attitude of protestation. "Well, if I did, Rash, surely you must admit that I had provocation." ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... of him with a sudden recollection of his own passionate threat. There had been nothing in Mordaunt's words which would in our times have justified a challenge; but in that day duels were fought upon the slightest provocation. Lord Ulswater therefore rode up at once to a gentleman with whom he had some intimate acquaintance, and briefly saying that he had been insulted both as an officer and gentleman by Mr. Mordaunt, requested his friend to call upon that ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that he always has been. Teddy can stir up more trouble, and with less provocation, than anyone I ever knew. But, you had something you wished to say ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Lady Hunterleys assured him. "She has wonderful lungs and she loves to use them. She would shriek at the least provocation." ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... returned the deacon. 'I was indeed grieved, but I know your provocation. We may speak on this subject again; but not here. For the present, I take my leave of you, all being ready for my departure. As you are quitting this house at once, you need no counsel as to immediate difficulties; I will only say, in all things be prudent, be self-controlled; before ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... leave her a small annuity, enough to support her; and the rest of his money would go to several institutions which she had heard him mention in this connection. If she could have married Captain Asher she would have felt a good deal safer; it would have taken much provocation to make her father leave his money out of the family if his old friend had ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... the principal, annoyed beyond measure at this recital of grievance. "There must have been some strong provocation." ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... crowded; the darkey waiters rushing; Mr. D—— swelling with importance. Billy entered the room unnoticed in the general hurry. A negro waiter passed him, holding two loaded trays. Perhaps he brushed against Billy; perhaps Billy didn't even need a provocation; at any rate, as the waiter started down the room, Billy smote him from behind, ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... constant reiterations of the completeness and excellence of the supplies, and the entire contentment and jubilation of the men! But I awoke to my responsibilities in time to checkmate this move. I forbade the provocation intended;—I stopped the war. In this matter at least—much loss of life, much heavy expenditure, and much ill-will among other nations has been happily spared to us. For the rest,—everything you have been working for shall ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... as represented by the offended parties, was that, after seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the stage. Surely if Shakespeare had had any leaning that way, we should have found again and again ambiguous or suggestive expressions given to some of these boys when aping girls; but not one. The temptation was there; the provocation was there, incessant and prolonged for twenty-five years, and yet, to my knowledge, Shakespeare has never used one word that malice could misconstrue. Yet he ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but I received no other hurt, and the dwarf was pardoned at my desire, because I had given the provocation.—SWIFT ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... at the last third of the century, which was the direct provocation of the Revolution, was very slight compared with that which had been the constant lot and ancient heritage of other nations. It represented merely the first turn or two of the screw by which capitalism in due time ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... but truth they neither prize nor practice. When they wish to deceive they scruple not to utter the grossest and most hardened lies.* Their attachment and gratitude to those among us whom they have professed to love have always remained inviolable, unless effaced by resentment, from sudden provocation: then, like all other Indians, the impulse of the moment is alone regarded ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... did pretty much as they pleased, waiting in inactivity to be dismissed to their homes. He, however, continued to hang around the camp in a semi-dazed condition, moody, nervous, irritable, prompt to take offense on the most trivial provocation. He read with avidity all the revolutionary newspapers he could lay hands on; that three weeks' armistice, concluded solely for the purpose of allowing France to elect an assembly that should ratify the conditions of peace, appeared to him a delusion and a snare, another and a final instance of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... me in civilization, you won't meet any of my friends, and I don't believe you ever want to please me," I said as I turned away from his provocation and began again with ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... soon established. But Nero, who could not bear the idea of a rival, forbade him to recite his poems, then the common mode of publication. Neither would he allow him to plead as an advocate. Smarting under this provocation, he joined in a conspiracy against the emperor's life. The plot failed, but Lucan was pardoned on condition of pointing out his confederates, and in the vain hope of saving himself from the monster's vengeance, he actually ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the Senator calmly, "that a man should be hanged for killing a fox?" John Runce, who was not very ready, turned round and stared at him. "I haven't heard of any other harm that he has done, and perhaps he had some provocation for that." Words were wanting to Mr. Runce, but not indignation. He collected together his plate and knife and fork and his two glasses and his lump of bread, and, looking the Senator full in the face, slowly ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Iago still plied him with drink and encouraging songs), and Cassio's tongue ran over in praise of the lady Desdemona, whom he again and again toasted, affirming that she was a most exquisite lady: until at last the enemy which he put into his mouth stole away his brains; and upon some provocation given him by a fellow whom Iago had set on, swords were drawn, and Montano, a worthy officer, who interfered to appease the dispute, was wounded in the scuffle. The riot now began to be general, and Iago, who had set on foot the mischief, was foremost in spreading the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... procreative function seems to be, in a sense, one of the main cares of nature in its relation to the animal as well as the vegetable kingdom; but here is a useless bit of skin, adipose tissue, mucous membrane, and some connective tissue, that on the least provocation is liable to go off into a gangrene and drag one of the main generative, or even all the procreative, apparatus into the general wreck. Nature certainly never intended anything of the kind. To be generous, and not libel ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... by an arrangement of our letters something that is really written in quite different letters, and probably pronounced with quite a different accent. In speaking of the great prophet I am therefore resolved to call him Mahomet; and am prepared, on further provocation, to call him Mahound. ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... the Athenian fleets, the inland towns would be prevented from exporting their products, and importing what they wanted from abroad. War, then, was in the interest of the whole body of allies. And on the moral side their position was equally sound, for they were only acting on desperate provocation, and the common god of Greece had promised success to their arms. But to deserve that success, all must co-operate heartily, contributing freely from their private purses to raise a fleet which would make them a match for Athens on her own element. And they must ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... noticing "the insult which has been offered to the British flag by the Sultan of Aden," requests permission "to take possession of Cape Aden." [42] The Governor-general, however, in his reply, (Oct. 16,) appears scarcely of opinion that so strong a measure is warranted by the provocation, and suggests "that satisfaction should, in the first instance, be demanded of the Sultan. If it be granted, some amicable arrangement may be made with him for the occupation of this port as a depot for coals, and harbour for shelter. If it be refused, then further ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... crowbar once more, standing where he could aim at the fellow's head. Tom was both too generous and too tender hearted to have struck a human being over the head with such an implement, even had Fits given provocation. ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... looked gravely at Robert Boulger, waiting for him to say what she knew was in his mind, so that she might express at once her utter disbelief in the charges that were brought against Alec. But he did not speak, and she was obliged to utter her defiant words without provocation. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... box was opened and passed. Roberta gathered the reins in one hand, clucked to the horse, and put her gingersnap into her mouth for the first bite. But she never got it, for without the slightest provocation the "beastie" gave a sudden spring forward, flopped his long tail over the reins, and started at a gallop down the road. Betty clung to the dashboard with one hand and tried to pluck off the obstructing tail with the other. Roberta, with the gingersnap still in her mouth, tugged desperately at the ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... climb of the mountains whereon a herd is known to be grazing should do his utmost to see the reindeer. He will find them not, like the deer in Richmond Park, waiting to be looked at, but timid and restless, and ready to take flight at the slightest provocation. Only the Lapp herdsmen and their dogs are able to control these wild children ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... the evil that they were doing. And among the evils was the unparalleled insolence which they displayed in entering coverts in County Galway. Now Frank Jones, who had not hitherto been very intimate with Tom, had taken up his part, and was fighting for him at this moment. Nevertheless the provocation to him to go to London was very great, and he had only put it off till the last coverts should be drawn on Saturday the 2nd of April. The hunt had determined to stop their proceedings earlier than usual; but still there was to be one day in April, for ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... persuade the Irish public that the performance would be an outrage to their religion, and to provoke a repetition of the rioting that attended the first performances of Synge's Playboy of the Western World before the most sensitive and, on provocation, the most turbulent audience in the kingdom. The directors of the Irish National Theatre, Lady Gregory and Mr. William Butler Yeats, rose to the occasion with inspiriting courage. I am a conciliatory person, and was willing, as I ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... Until constrained for their own safety to do so, they took no step toward interfering with the almost unlimited privileges they had granted. It is, indeed, difficult to condemn their course, when we consider the enormity of their provocation, and the dangers to which they believed themselves exposed. If Christianity has suffered, the errors of those who misrepresented it were the cause. How soon it may be possible to again attempt its introduction is doubtful; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... say is, Miss Wade,' he remarked, 'that you can have received no provocation to a feeling in which I believe ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... interrupts Miss Nan, with flashing eyes. "Will had provocation enough to say much worse things; Jimmy Frazer wrote me so, and said the whole class ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... had found no use for it. So Elisabeth in her heart of hearts was at war with Christopher—that slumbering, smouldering sort of warfare which is ready to break out into fire and battle at the slightest provocation; and this state of affairs did not tend to make life any the easier for him. He felt he could have cheerfully borne it all if only Elisabeth had been kind and had understood; but Elisabeth did not understand him in the least, and was consequently unkind—far ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... few paces back, resting his shoulders against the wall, immediately the other side of which was Jantje, and began to chuckle aloud and rub his hands as he admired the results of his labours. This proved too much for the Hottentot behind him. The provocation was overmastering, and so was the opportunity. Jantje carried with him the thick stick on which he was so fond of cutting notches. Raising it in both hands be brought the heavy knob down with all his strength upon ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... impelled by passion, but guided by reason; is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission. Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their resentment. It is not easy to define the exact mean; each case ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... gradually grew into one general insurrection. The spirit of resistance was undoubtedly fanned by a party which from the first contemplated a total separation from England as its ultimate result,[46] if, indeed, they had not conceived the design even before Grenville had given the first provocation to discontent. But the Colonists were not without advocates in England, even among the members of the government. The Duke of Grafton, while he remained Prime-minister, was eager to withdraw all the duties of which they complained; but he was overruled by the majority of his colleagues. He prevailed, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... any one be caught stealing, which is commonly done in the night, the proprietor of the goods may put the thief instantly to death; and if any one should enquire of him after the deceased, it is sufficient to acquit him, if he only informs them of the provocation he had to kill him. But so severe a punishment is seldom inflicted, unless the articles that are stolen be reckoned very valuable; such as breast-plates and plaited hair. If only cloth, or even hogs, be stolen, and the thief escape, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... wrist and followed up the arm, coming out near the shoulder, a second went into the back of the shoulder, and a third is probably lodged in the lungs. The assault occurred May 18th, in the church in which Mr. Lawrence was holding the school, in the presence of his wife and scholars. The only provocation {pg 197} alleged, was that he had gone the night before to ask for the tuition of one of his scholars. He was met in an angry way by the woman, and the next day the husband, who does not live with his wife, came to the school and ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... lawsuit. But no court could settle the differences between the United States and Germany. The nation squarely faced the fact that the two countries were officially not on speaking terms; they were on the dangerous ground of open enmity, when the least provocation would be as a spark to a powder magazine. Sparks there were in plenty; but the explosion waited. President Wilson guarded the magazine. He waited an "overt act" before giving up his vigil and letting events take ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... bore the reputation of being cattle rustlers on provocation, and who had been suspected of ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... may be admitted, was provocation on Christian's part, but, as she told herself afterwards, desperate measures were necessary, or they would ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... The man who marries beneath himself for only a pair of bright eyes is the prime fool of the universe—the whole world loves to sneer at him and watch his prize fade on his hands. Real love is above doubt and suspicion, but you would doubt that girl's honesty at the slightest provocation. Let another man be alone with her for ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... of his nation, followed by the officers of the Swiss troops in the service of France, sawed in two parts. He was placed alive in a kind of coffin, to the middle of which two sergeants applied a whip saw. It was not thought prudent to make any allowance for the provocation these men ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... times, that he discovered a shade of coquetry under this treatment; and this provocation, vague as it was, coming from this beautiful, cold, and inscrutable creature, seemed to him a game fearfully mysterious, that at ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... person. Thus, if any one be caught stealing, which is commonly done in the night, the proprietor of the goods may put the thief instantly to death; and if any one should enquire of him after the deceased, it is sufficient to acquit him, if he only informs them of the provocation he had to kill him. But so severe a punishment is seldom inflicted, unless the articles that are stolen be reckoned very valuable; such as breast-plates and plaited hair. If only cloth, or even hogs, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... back to Joanna, and stood with her, looking through the gray mist down the road, and feeling even the croaking of the frogs and the hum of the insects to be an unusual provocation. Just as Dinorah said, "The tea is served, madam," the large figure of Batavius loomed through the gathering grayness; and the women waited for him. He came up the steps without his usual greeting; and his face was so injured and portentous that ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... of earlier days. Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. Evidently, to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... or a considerable part of the people, in this case the people have a right to resist and defend themselves from injury: but it must be with this caution, that they only defend themselves, but do not attack their prince: they may repair the damages received, but must not for any provocation exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect. They may repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge past violences: for it is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... all of his mercies, as one may easily see, was their humor. Even he was not unaware, in retrospect, of the figure he made at times, and would smilingly tell, under provocation, of his peculiar attitude on one occasion or another. Partially from himself, from those who saw it, and the judge presiding in the case, was the ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... ours which were driven over the trail during its brief existence, none ever made the trip without encountering more or less trouble from runs. Frequently a herd became so spoiled in this manner that it grew into a mania with them, so that they would stampede on the slightest provocation,—or no ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... German statesmen never had any intention of acquiring world dominion. They wished to retain Germany's place in the sun, her rank among the first Powers of the world; it was undoubtedly her right, but the real and alleged continuous German provocation and the ever-growing fears of the Entente in consequence created just that fatal competition in armaments and that coalition policy which burst like a terrible ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... became incapable of acting in concert without his immediate influence. In the outburst of popular emotion, the impulse which produces an insurrection, is for a brief while its sufficient pilot: the attraction constitutes the cohesion, and the common provocation, supplying an immediate object, not only unites, but directs the multitude. But this first impulse had passed away, and Sir Alexander Ball was the one individual who possessed the general confidence. On him they relied with implicit faith; and even after ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... course could not guess: that something was lurking in his mind, inimical to herself and to her husband, she did not for a moment doubt, and at this moment she felt that she would have given her very life to induce Candeille and Juliette to cease this passage of arms, without further provocation ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... over glasses, tall, broad, or short, in places of general democratic assemblage; and he told her so. I believe it was about here that she began to find him something of a prig and a doctrinaire; and she was not incapable, under provocation, of mentioning her impressions. It was about here, I suspect, that he told her something of Johnny McComas and his origins—at least he once or twice spoke of Johnny with a certain sharp scorn to me. He assuredly spoke of other country clubs on the other side of town which were ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... wanted by our modern aphides, which only require them to walk away in a stately sleepy manner when rudely disturbed by man, lady-birds, or other enemies; and indeed the legs are now very weak and feeble, and incapable of walking for more than a short distance at a time under exceptional provocation. The eyes remain, it is true; but only the big ones: the little ocelli at the top of the head, found amongst so many of their allies, are quite wanting in all the aphides. In short, the plant-lice have degenerated into mere mouths and sacks for ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... over-seas, the humiliation of which had now culminated in the disasters of the Black Week. Flame only shows the brighter for a sombre background. And Poppy, during this ill-starred period, had been as a flame to her admirers and associates—a fitful, prankish flame, full of provocation and bedevilment, the light of it inciting to all manner of wild doings and, in the end, not infrequently scorching those pretty shrewdly who were over-bold in warming themselves at the heat of it. For fires of the sort lighted by Poppy are not precisely ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... in his day, the most thoroughly disliked man in the House of Commons, distaste for Mr. Parnell and for Mr. Biggar in his early prime being softened by contrast with his subtler provocation. An exceedingly clever debater, he was a phrase maker, some of whose epigrams Mr. Disraeli would not have disowned. He was a parliamentary type of ancient standing, and apparently ineradicable growth. In the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of this country! But since it must subsist for our shame, let it subsist for our instruction. In the year 1780 there were found in this nation men deluded enough, (for I give the whole to their delusion,) on pretences of zeal and piety, without any sort of provocation whatsoever, real or pretended, to make a desperate attempt, which would have consumed all the glory and power of this country in the flames of London, and buried all law, order, and religion under the ruins of the metropolis of the Protestant world. Whether all this mischief done, or in the direct ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... are very polite, and take their hats off on the slightest provocation, and keep them off a long time, specially whilst talking to a lady. When talking to two ladies, of course they keep 'em ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... 'Ngami they found the station deserted. The Bakwains had removed to Limauee. Sechele came down the day after, and presented them with an ox—a valuable gift in his circumstances. Sechele had much yet to bear from the Boers; and after being, without provocation, attacked, pillaged, and wasted, and robbed of his children, he was bent on going to the Queen of England to state his wrongs. This, however, he could not accomplish, though he went as far as the Cape. Coming back afterward to his own people, he gathered large ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... next to certain that Richard did not stab Henry VI., nor the murdered son of Margaret, though he had every provocation in the insults showered upon his father; was devotedly attached to King Edward, and hazarded for him person and life with a constancy then unparalleled and a zeal rewarded by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... The spirit of resistance was undoubtedly fanned by a party which from the first contemplated a total separation from England as its ultimate result,[46] if, indeed, they had not conceived the design even before Grenville had given the first provocation to discontent. But the Colonists were not without advocates in England, even among the members of the government. The Duke of Grafton, while he remained Prime-minister, was eager to withdraw all the duties of which they complained; but he was overruled ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... of us, superintending, indeed often joining in, our amusements and discussions, our quarrels and makings up; of Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, who knew all about everything and everybody better than anybody, and was always ready to ventilate his superior knowledge on the slightest provocation, and who, as Smallweed, now Lieutenant Smallweed, used to say, 'would have made a d——d elegant quartermaster-sergeant, if he hadn't had a moral objection to issuing anything;' of Chaplain Bender, a sanctified-looking individual of promiscuous theology and doubtful ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Angel blotted out with his tears the fines which he was compelled on this occasion to record against Gottlieb Brekel in Heaven's high chancery is highly improbable. In the only known case of such lachrymic erasure the provocation to profanity was a commendable moral motive that was eminently unselfish. But when Gottlieb Brekel swore roundly in his native German all the way from the south-west corner of Tompkins Square to the corner of Third Street and the Bowery; and from ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... hole; but that was by no means the worst that had happened to him. While held more than belly-deep in the sticky mud he had been attacked by the only kind of bear in all the Rockies that, unless under great provocation, attacks anything ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... calculated to awaken in his finer nature a feeling as near akin to indignation as the Martian mind of that era was capable of experiencing. So we had here the opportunity of observing how a member of this highly civilized race, one endowed with such lofty attributes, would act under severe provocation. The exhibition was instructive. Thorwald certainly resented with all the force of his pure and upright nature all that was evil in the doctor's attitude. Such doubt was entirely new to his experience. He had no place for it; and ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... is a precept of the Gospel and not of the Koran. Yet it is a sad fact that the nominal Christians of this dark land are not much better in this respect than their Moslem neighbors. The Greeks, Maronites and Papal Greeks beat their wives on the slightest provocation. In the more enlightened towns and cities this custom is "going out of fashion," though still often resorted to in fits of passion. Sometimes the male relatives of the wife retaliate in case a husband beats her. In the village of Schwire, in Lebanon, a man beat ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the bag of dried beans from the cupboard and searched out certain nine small buttons. From time to time, in the past, he had, on what he felt was just provocation, subtracted these nine buttons from Big Tom's shirts. Now with painstaking effort, pricking his fingers many times, he sewed the buttons back where they belonged. The task finished, he was in nothing ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... her and her late "protector." Quietly leaving her side, he approached Stanford White from behind and shot him dead with a pistol before the whole of the assembled company. The defense was that his rival had given him outrageous provocation, and that he himself was temporarily, if not chronically, insane. Every attempt was made by the partisans of his wife to enlist public feeling in her favor; to prove that Stanford White was the aggressor, and that her husband's deed was unpremeditated. The trial was protracted, and the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... of another eminent writer, it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A serious translation of the same lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's "History of Music." Here are the ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... distanced by the record in shyness still maintained by Constantin Guys. This artist was once a living protest against Goethe's assertion that only fools are modest, and the monument recently erected to his memory in Paris is provocation enough to bring him ferrying across the Styx to enter a disclaimer in the very teeth of his admirers. So set in his anonymity was he that Charles Baudelaire, his critical discoverer, was forced to write a long essay about his work and only refer to the artist as C.G. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... what I am," said the cabman. "You know I've been in trouble, and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year now, and nobody ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... train meanwhile jogged and jolted on its way, carrying with it, fast asleep, the little "limb o' Satan" known as Elsmere Swinburne. Elsmere could sleep anywhere on the slightest provocation. Deeming it unwise to make his presence known to his brother until the train was started beyond recall, he had curled up on a seat behind a large family, and while waiting his opportunity had fallen asleep. The ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... condemned man was led, out for execution. He had taken human life, but under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve; a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and becoming the most popular General in the German Army, among the men, for he has the rare gift of inspiring his followers with a sense of personal loyalty. His troops idolize him. They break out into hearty hurrahs at the slightest provocation when they see him. It is lese-majeste, but none the less true, to say that they think as much of their General as of their Kaiser. They tell you proudly that he rode at their head when the City of Liege was taken by storm, and after seeing him you could never picture von Emmich bringing up the rear ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... beeswax; the object had been compounded, only too plainly, of the fat of dead animals; it was the Abomination, the Unclean Thing. Devout, and gifted with the hot impulse of youth, he acted precisely as he would have acted in Russia under a similar provocation. With a third gesture, one of abhorrence and ungovernable fury, he threw the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... justice admit that there is some provocation," continued the romancer. "Mrs. Teep is quite the most irritating bridge-player that I have ever sat down with; her leads and declarations would condone a certain amount of brutality in her partner, but to souse her with the contents of the only soda-water syphon in ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... an epithet in very common misuse. It is often brought into play, especially in its plaintive sense, in situations, where, poor thing, it scarcely knows itself, and where there is not the slightest provocation to account for the use of it. It is degraded to the condition of a mere expletive; and, where there is a real good call for it, how often is it thrust upon the wrong person, the one who, were he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... his head, doggedly whimsical. "One never can tell just how long one's defensive armor may hold out. I'm sure my brows are beetling much less than usual. In fact, this morning in spite of severe provocation they don't seem to be beetling at all. And as for my air of indifference—I challenge you to discover it. If these are forbidding symptoms, Hermia, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... would every moment be getting irritated. As he grew older, his passions increased, and he became so ill-natured that every one avoided him. One day, as he was talking with another man, he became so enraged at some little provocation, that he seized a club, and with one blow laid the man lifeless at his feet. He was seized and imprisoned. But, while in prison, the fury of a malignant and ungoverned spirit increased to such a degree that he became a maniac. The very fires of the world ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... exactly the most creditable chapter of modern history; for they simply come to this, that an army assembling for a crusade against the infidel, allows itself to be bribed or wheedled into two successive attacks on two Christian princes who have given it not the slightest provocation, never attacks the infidel at all, and ends by a filibustering seizure of already Christian territory. Nor does Villehardouin make any elaborate disguise of this; but he tells the tale with such ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... slaughters at Cholula] are, among others, those abominable monstrosities which the Bishop of Chiapas, Las Casas, can find no end in enumerating. But he is wrong when he asserts that we gave the Cholulans the above-mentioned chastisement without any provocation, and merely for pastime."[25] The history of Diaz is among the standard literary productions of that age, and is a very picture of candor and simplicity. On every page there are such evident efforts at truthfulness as to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... over against the desert. From thence he proceeded by long descents into a land tossed into numberless hills and torn up into such deep valleys that it seemed to him to be a symbol of God's anger in a moment of great provocation. Or maybe, he said to himself, these valleys are the ruts of the celestial chariot that passed this way to take Elijah up to heaven? Or maybe ... His mind was wandering, and—forgetful of the subject of his meditation—he looked round and could see little else but strange shapes of cliffs and boulders, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... could scarcely have faced that band of musicians, flanked by the covered elephant and giraffe, and the cages of the beasts,—much less those fiery grays, who seem snuffing danger even when there is no provocation." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was still uncertain as to how she would lead up to the subject-matter without betraying her own jealousy or, more important still, without losing her temper. This she rarely displayed, no matter how goading the provocation. Nobody had any use for an ill-tempered woman, not in her atmosphere; and no fly that she had ever known had been caught by vinegar when seeking honey. There might be vinegar-pots to be found in her larder, but they were kept behind closed doors and sampled only when ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you to say to this, James Walsham?" the squire asked. "This is a serious charge, that you without any provocation assaulted ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... added to its glory; unless, indeed, the people, over-zealous in their expression of sympathy for their representative, had been provoked thereby to violent exhibition of their temper. Even without such provocation the turmoil of the re-election day, the 16th of July, was great; angry crowds assembled in the streets, and menacing words against the Government and its myrmidons were loudly uttered. The wisdom of Sir Francis Burdett and other leaders of the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... nice observance of etiquette, surveyed the revellers from a distance. Lacking decent provocation, they might not approach a group so plainly engaged upon affairs of its own—unless they went aggressively, and this it did not yet seem wise to do. The revellers became self-conscious under this scrutiny. They were moved ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Oh, what melting, languid delight was that! The sounds kissed each other, then fled away pouting, and then, laughing, clasped each other and became one, and died away in intoxicating harmony. Yes, the sounds carried on their merry game like butterflies, when one, in playful provocation, will escape from another, hide behind a flower, be overtaken at last, and then, wantonly joying with the other, fly away into the golden sunlight. But a spider, a spider can prepare a sudden tragical fate ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... wherein the agent is free from perturbation [Greek: atarachos], is not impelled by passion, but guided by reason; is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission. Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their resentment. It is not easy to define the exact mean; each case must be ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... they were made of india-rubber. Everything the Miss Ablewhites said began with a large O; everything they did was done with a bang; and they giggled and screamed, in season and out of season, on the smallest provocation. Bouncers—that's ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... great provocation. He had always had difficulties to contend with. His father was an invalid, and he himself was puny in childhood; infantile paralysis withered his left arm when he was an infant; but in spite of these handicaps he had ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... do the poor Girl the Justice to let you know, that this Match was none of her own chusing, (or indeed of mine either;) in Consideration of which I avoid giving her the least Provocation; and indeed we live better together than usually Folks do who hated one another when they were first joined: To evade the Sin against Parents, or at least to extenuate it, my Dear rails at my Father and Mother, and I curse hers for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... rioters were slightly wounded or rather grazed by snipe shot, but not so seriously as to stop their daily avocations. The Catholic party allege that the Orangemen assaulted the village in general, firing without provocation. The Protestant party say that this is absurd, and that it is not yet known who fired the shots. A second case, less serious, is also on the carpet. A solitary Orangeman returning from the same celebration is said to have been waylaid, beaten, and robbed by a number of men ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... tranquil existence received a shock within a month, when a cowboy from a neighboring ranch, and without provocation, was shot down by Indian police in a trader's store at the agency. The young fellow was a popular Texan, and as nearly all the men employed on the reservation came from the South, it was with difficulty that our boys ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... second best; for he was fond of fighting with bigger boys than himself. Victor or vanquished, he never bore malice—nor woke it in others, which is worse. But he would slap a face almost as soon as look at it, on rather slight provocation, I'm afraid—especially if it were an inch or two higher up than his own. And he was fond of showing off, and always wanted to throw farther and jump higher and run faster than any one else. Not, indeed, that he ever wished to mentally excel, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... to the time when Gustavus had been a vicious youth, and Ankarstrom himself a boy. They were much of an age. Gustavus had put upon his young companion an infamous insult, which had been answered by a blow. His youth and the admitted provocation alone had saved Ankarstrom from the dread consequence of striking a Prince of the Royal Blood. But they had not saved him from the vindictiveness of Gustavus. He had kept his lust of vengeance warm, and very patiently had he watched and waited ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... attention of the neighboring tables, and made Ashe uncomfortable. He rose, paid the bill, and succeeded in carrying the whole party off to the Piazza, in search of coffee. But here again Kitty's extravagances, the provocation of her light loveliness, as she sat toying with a fresh cigarette and "chaffing" Lord Magellan, drew a disagreeable amount of notice from the Italians ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all this, men say that if the opportunity were once more given, the blade would be drawn in earnest, and the scabbard thrown away. It may well be so; there has been oppression and provocation enough of late to make the scale ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... don't know that he has given me any provocation. But I don't see why a woman shouldn't be in love with him if she likes. He is a deal nicer than those fair-haired men who haven't got a word to say to you, and yet look as though you ought to jump down their mouths;—like that fellow you were trying ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... English provocation.... Like a traitor of melodrama, the British government had been preparing the war for a long time, not wishing to show its hand until the last moment; and Germany, lover of peace, had had to defend herself from this enemy, the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... am hot," answered Anne, smothering her anger at this second provocation in being called impudent. "The priest told us to be obedient to those even who are not amiable nor kind; to serve them for God's sake, as a punishment ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... course he would take should circumstances prove Radford to be the thief. Would the fact that he was Mary Radford's brother affect his decision? He preferred to answer that question when the time came—if it ever came. One thing was certain; he was not shooting anyone unless the provocation was great. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... warfare. It is noteworthy that these Champion retorts are honourably free from the personalities of an age incredibly gross in the use of personal invective. Fielding's journal, even under the stinging provocation of the insults of the Apology, was still true to the standard set in the Prologue ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... vessel of large tonnage, which appeared to him to be richly laden. It was the Merii bringing back from Mecca a great number of pilgrims belonging to all the countries of Asia. Gama attacked the ship without provocation, captured her and put to death more than three hundred men who were on board. Twenty children alone were saved and taken to Lisbon, where they were baptized, and entered the army of Portugal. This frightful massacre, besides being quite in accordance with the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... ever a people were afflicted with since the world began—I say, if God gives you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us and our children, who have never given you the least provocation,—Would he be to us a God of justice? If you will allow that we are MEN, who feel for each other, does not the blood of our fathers and of us their children, cry aloud to the Lord of Sabaoth against you, for the cruelties and murders with which you have, and do continue to afflict us. ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... be reckoned with. His restlessness and his fever subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly, how close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl, whose attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a charming provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual challenge. He admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a woman he cared as much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration he had known an utterly new emotion, which inevitably must ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... doubt what to do about coming over to you, as, on account of the Prince's death, there is no levee to-day, nor, I fear, on Friday. If there is, I will set out that evening. It is the more unfortunate, as I wished to know the King's ideas as to your coming away. Your provocation is certainly very great; yet I cannot help fearing that such a step will hurt you here. I still wish to see the King, and will try it, if ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... reactions imply abuses, and are not to be quoted to maintain a principle. He who was drunk yesterday, may need an unnatural stimulus to-day; while he who is uniformly temperate preserves his proper tone of body without recourse to a remedy so dangerous. Such an experiment, under a strong provocation, might possibly be made; but it could scarcely be made twice among any people, and not even once among a people that submits in season to a just division of its authority, since it is obviously destructive of a leading principle of civilization. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would like me to ask Verena to spend a month with me—it might be a way of attracting you to the house," Adeline went on, in the tone of exuberant provocation. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... moral susceptibility are all estimated. His powers of self-control are determined. His disposition is carefully studied. His opportunities in life, his educational advantages, his early career, the nature of the crime, the immediate influencing circumstances, as provocation, hunger, cold, ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... that they had been familiar with the works of Ghurab in Afghanistan, and Aden, and other suitable localities a quarter of a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into existence, the members of which alluded to each other as Brother Ghurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, criticisms, and requests for information, which naturally poured in on the discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, the Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations forbade any disclosures which might ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... he said, "your worships, the affair has arisen out of a long course of tyranny and provocation on the part of one of the parties, and you will observe that this is the party who first commits the assault, while my client was ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... to these Men) who would find it altogether condemnable for a Man to hazard his own, and anothers Life in a Duel, or Rencounter (tho' caus'd by the Transport of ever so just a provocation) who would see no Evil in his mispending of his Time, consuming Day after Day, and Year after Year, uselesly to himself, or others, in a course of continual Idleness and Sauntring; as if he was made only to Eat and to Drink, or to gratifie his Senses. And how few Parents ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... of his opponents who might not have learnt from him a lesson of Christian courtesy. Living in an age when controversy of every kind was, almost as a rule, deformed by virulent personalities, he yet, in the face of much provocation, kept always faithful to his resolve that, 'by the grace of God, he would never have any personal contention ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... which has been offered to the British flag by the Sultan of Aden," requests permission "to take possession of Cape Aden." [42] The Governor-general, however, in his reply, (Oct. 16,) appears scarcely of opinion that so strong a measure is warranted by the provocation, and suggests "that satisfaction should, in the first instance, be demanded of the Sultan. If it be granted, some amicable arrangement may be made with him for the occupation of this port as a depot for coals, and harbour for shelter. If ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... weak and the intelligent on the dull. There is no sentiment in nature. In her domain might, physical or mental, makes right. Sentiments of right and justice are not highly developed except among human beings, and even there they are so weakly implanted that it takes but little provocation for civilized man to bare his ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... parts of Australia. The python grows to twenty feet or more, but is, of course, not poisonous, and never assails man unless first molested. The black momba, which is nearly as large as a rattlesnake, is, however, a dangerous creature, being ready to attack man without provocation, and the bite may prove fatal in less than an hour. One sees many skins of this snake in the tropical parts of South Africa, and hears many thrilling tales of combats with them. They are no longer common in the more ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... her to make some remark when she had read Evadne's letter. Almost anything she could have said must have given him some further food for provocation, and there is nothing more gratifying to an angry man than fresh fuel for his wrath. However, silence sometimes fans the flame as effectually as words, and it did so on this occasion, for, having waited till he could contain himself no longer, he burst out so suddenly that Mrs. Frayling ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and mental characteristics alike, may fairly claim a place, not among middling ones merely, but among almost the higher names inscribed on the world's national scale. A concentrated, never-absent self-respect, an habitual self-restraint in word and deed, very rarely broken except when extreme provocation induces the transitory but fatal frenzy known as 'amok,' and an inbred courtesy, equally diffused through all classes, high or low, unfailing decorum, prudence, caution, quiet cheerfulness, ready hospitality and ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... courteously blunt the edge of their words, and fence with buttoned foils. But in those almost forgotten days the same theatre could scarcely hold certain Royalist and Liberal journalists; the most malignant provocation was offered, glances were like pistol-shots, the least spark produced an explosion of quarrel. Who has not heard his neighbor's half-smothered oath on the entrance of some man in the forefront of the battle on the opposing side? There were but two parties—Royalists ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... upon a career of force, let us exhaust every effort at peace. Let us seek to excite love in others by the signs of love in ourselves. Let there be no needless provocation and strife. Let every reasonable attempt at compromise be considered. Otherwise we have a terrible alternative. War, in this age and in this country, sir, should be the ultima ratio. Indeed, it may ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... procedure was to shoot people in the back—never in front—or else when you were asleep. Nearly all carried a razor on their person—not to shave with, but in order to cut people's throats as a vengeance, or even under less provocation. This was usually done in a quick way by severing the artery at the neck while the person to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... falls such an easy victim to gangrene? The procreative function seems to be, in a sense, one of the main cares of nature in its relation to the animal as well as the vegetable kingdom; but here is a useless bit of skin, adipose tissue, mucous membrane, and some connective tissue, that on the least provocation is liable to go off into a gangrene and drag one of the main generative, or even all the procreative, apparatus into the general wreck. Nature certainly never intended anything of the kind. To be generous, and not libel nature, we must conclude ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... still carried Winchesters on their saddles and revolvers strung to their belts, and each of them strove to keep up cowboy traditions by unloading his weapon on the slightest provocation. The gamblers also sustained the conventions of their profession by killing one another now and again, and the average citizen regarded these activities with a certain approval, for they ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... counter-reprisals. Barns were mysteriously fired, hen-roosts robbed, horses unaccountably lamed, sheep feloniously sheared by unknown parties; the feeling widened and deepened, and had been handed down to the present generation with now and then a fresh provocation, on the part of one or the other, to renew and continue the ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... ignorance, malice," and so forth. Mr. Gilchrist has, indeed, shown some anger; but it is an honest indignation, which rises up in defence of the illustrious dead. It is a generous rage which interposes between our ashes and their disturbers. There appears also to have been some slight personal provocation. Mr. Gilchrist, with a chivalrous disdain of the fury of an incensed poet, put his name to a letter avowing the production of a former essay in defence of Pope, and consequently of an attack upon Mr. Bowles. Mr. Bowles appears to be angry with Mr. Gilchrist for four reasons:—firstly, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... often part of some forms of mania, the Burman squatted in the dust, and under no provocation could he be induced to speak. After midday he indicated by lifting his fingers to his mouth that he intended to go in search of food; having worked Leh Shin's assistant into a state of perspiring wrath by the simple process ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... have used harsh words," resumed Mordacks; "but I always have to do so. They seem to put things clearer; and without that, where would business be? Now I will not tire you if I can help it, nor ask a needless question. What provocation had this man? What fanciful ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... with their near-sighted "bear leader," had been attacked apparently without reason, on coming out of a native cafe. Having forgotten the sunset prayer, they honestly believed that they had been set upon by men to whom they had given no provocation. They had uttered statements and complaints; and disgusted with the "beastly natives" had pursued their journey up Nile, visiting their grievances on the innocent, and making more mischief at each stopping place. Murmured threats, with dark looks, insulting words and jostlings ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Carthage was reduced to such straits that resistance became impossible, and in the end the city and all its possessions were placed at the absolute disposal of the senate of Rome, which, absolutely without provocation, had ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... reached a crisis when Philip laid claim to the county of Melgueil, which the Bishop of Maguelonne held in fief from the holy see. Boniface provoked Philip by a chiding bull, and added to the provocation by sending to the King, as negotiator in their differences, Bernard de Saisset, whom the Pope, in spite of the King, had created ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... conference met at Algeciras on January 10, 1906, to settle these and other disputed questions, but the French authorities viewed the situation with the utmost anxiety. They were convinced that the "mailed fist" would be brandished in their faces on the smallest provocation, and that the French Navy might ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... is!" he cried. "But you had provocation, boy. This Bouquet is a sneak, and your teacher is a tyrant. But we will change it all; see, now! I will seek out the principal. I will explain it all. He shall see it rightly, and you shall not be thus disgraced. No, ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... manoeuvres, he contrived to preserve the republic from invasion, and to paralyze and almost destroy an army three times superior in numbers to his own. The horrors committed by the Spaniards, in the midst of peace, and without the slightest provocation, could not fail to excite the utmost indignation in a nation so fond of liberty and so proud as Germany. The duchy of Cleves felt particularly aggrieved; and Sybilla, the sister of the duke, a real heroine in a glorious cause, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... ye will hear his voice, (8)Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, In the day of the temptation in the wilderness; (9)Where your fathers tempted me, Proved me, and saw my works, forty years. (10)Wherefore, I was offended with that generation; And I said: They always go astray in their heart, And they knew not ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... spirit of the man in the schoolboy. When he first went to school at Harrow, the boys, knowing that sisters had been responsible for his education, were prepared to take it out of him. But as French was ready to fight at the slightest provocation, and equally ready to swear eternal friendship when the fight was done, he quickly won his way ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... in the "School of the Company;" and that the satisfaction derived from the faithfulness and honesty of perhaps thirty is hardly sufficient to atone for the anxiety and distrust with which one regards the remaining ninety, who lie by habit and steal on the least provocation, who take infinite pains to be lazy and shirk, who tell tales of others, of which themselves are the true subjects, and from whom all the artifices of the lawyer cannot draw a fair statement of fact, even when it is obviously for their own interest to tell the whole truth. "Wherefore ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... more—to tell her the whole story of the encounter, and that the provocation he had received had lain entirely in hearing her despised. But it would have greatly distressed her, and he forbore. "You had better lie down. You are ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... interruption of a grosser character occurs, a member leaping from his seat on some slight provocation, and striking off the hat of the man who has offended. Fine Harrison, fine Harrison again, fine, FINE him again,—FINE Harrison,' cries the Vice-President, repeating the word without cessation until the broker's wrath has been appeased, and he ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that nobody was about, Harry lifted up the hood of the touring car and without the slightest provocation attacked it with a wrench. He removed the carburetor, took it to pieces, lifted out the hollow metal float and deliberately made two punctures in it. Then he tossed the dismembered parts upon a work bench and was about to operate on the runabout ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... something like just proportions; she does not make it a pedestal from which she flatters herself that she commands a complete view of men and things, but makes it a point of observation from which to form a right estimate of herself. She neither spouts poetry nor quotes Cicero on slight provocation; not because she thinks that a sacrifice must be made to the prejudices of men, but because that mode of exhibiting her memory and Latinity does not present itself to her as edifying or graceful. She does not write books to confound philosophers, perhaps because she is able ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the majority of the crowds, holding life cheap, as all bad men strangely do—equally prepared to take or lose it upon the slightest provocation. Few tales of horror in Panama could be questioned on the ground of improbability. Not less partial were many of the natives of Cruces to the use of the knife; preferring, by the way, to administer sly stabs in the back, when no one was by to see the dastard blow dealt. Terribly bullied ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
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