"Provocative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... provocative, and a waste of wax that is needed for higher and more practical ends," said the Wax-moth from an ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... winding alleys, mingled with human cries, and laughter, and murmured invitations, and barterings, and refusals, there had been music that seemed to wind on and on in ribands of sound—music that was hoarse and shrill and weary, that was piercing, yet at the same time furtive—music that was provocative, and yet that was often sad, with a strange sadness of the desert and of desire among the sands. Even now, in the maze around this cafe, there was another maze of sound, the tripping notes of Eastern ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... of the Mountain" and "The Glittering Gate," which the so-called "commercial" theatre has quite ignored, but which have been played extensively by amateurs and experimental theatres throughout America; and the latter piece, especially, has probably been provocative of more experimental stagecraft and a greater stimulation of poetic fancy among amateur producers than any drama, short or long, written ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... again, as he shook his head noncommittally—yet he reached for the rifle. That silent smile of his was beginning to become provocative to his companion, as though in it ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... is not that in which I propose to engage at present, unless indirectly. My immediate concern is not with the strength of theism, but with the weakness of atheism, and the hollowness of the latter's dialectical pretensions. What in every form of piety is most provocative of philosophic scorn, is its forwardness of faith, its eagerness of acquiescence; but to this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by whom it is ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... rainbow and insect, was meant to be so provocative of thought that any man who never saw a human book might be largely educated. And every one of these thoughts is related to man's best prosperity and joy. He is a most regal king if he achieve the designed dominion over a thousand ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... window open all day. I have got a bushel of roses too, and a new scarlet nightingale, which does not sing Nancy Dawson from morning to night. Perhaps you think all these poor pleasures; but you are ignorant what a provocative the gout is, and what charms it can bestow on a moment's amusement! Oh! it beats all the refinements of a Roman sensualist. It has made even my watch a darling plaything; I strike it as often as a child does. Then the disorder of my sleep diverts me when I am awake. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... is like all others. I have noticed that to introduce the subject of my personal woes in the matter is to make the conversation general, in fact I might say composite, no matter how formal the gathering of women. Like the subject of servants, it is as provocative of conversation as ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... daughter, and was Marguerite exquisitely defiant? Time hung. The situation was slightly awkward, he thought. And it was obscure, alluring.... He stood there, below the level of the street, shut in with those beings unknown, provocative, and full of half-divined implications. And all Chelsea was around him and all ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... than as the chance-found comrade of an hour of trouble, would have served to fix his suspicions. For such, he told himself, would be the first thought of one bent on beguiling—to lead him on by some intimation, the more tenuous and elusive the more provocative, that she found his ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... night?" said the little Viennese smiling wisely, but with a trace of cynicism. "The little American must not be reminded—h'm? We will go.... For you have done so much for me, you big, strange, platonic Mr. Billy!" Dazzlingly she smiled on him, her dark eyes quizzically provocative. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of Pregnancy.—Associated with pregnancy there are often present morning-nausea and vomiting as prominent and reliable symptoms. Vomiting is often so excessive as to be provocative of most serious issue and even warranting the induction of abortion. This fact is well known and has been thoroughly discussed, but with it is associated an interesting point, the occasional association of the same symptoms sympathetically in the husband. The belief has long been a superstition ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to her feet and came across to me. She was wearing a charming morning gown of some light blue material, with large buttons, tight- fitting, alluring; and there was a little quiver of her lips, a provocative gleam in her eyes, which I found ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and the independence of Italian socialism, and offends it so much more because international socialism knows that on German Socialists depended the lesser or greater efficacy in the action of international socialism to arrest the provocative struggle of armaments promoted by Germany, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... the ardent spirits into active service and, in lieu of the modern desire for innovation, rousing the ancient gallantry of the British people."* (* Alison, History of Europe, 1839 2 128.) French military operations in the Netherlands, running counter to traditional British policy, were provocative, and the feeling aroused by the execution of Louis immediately led Pitt's ministry to order the French Ambassador, Chauvelin, to leave London within eight days. He left at once. On February 1st, acting on Chauvelin's report of the disposition and preparations of Great Britain, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... rapturously to one's self: This is a woman. Her fluffy head was such a dot against the back of the chair, the curve of her chubby ringed hand above the head was so adorable, her black eyes were so provocative, her slippered feet so wee—yes, and there was something so mysteriously thrilling about the fall of her skirt that you knew instantly her name was Clara, her temper both fiery and obstinate, and her personality distracting. You knew that she was one of those women of frail ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... means, but every good cause is so much the purer for abstaining from the use of questionable agencies. Au reste, there is really a fatality of feature and expression common to the public men of this country that is a strong provocative to caricature. The revolution and empire appear to have given rise to a state of feeling that has broken out with marked sympathy, in the countenance. The French, as a nation, are far from handsome, though ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... woman's daily occupation, was the same thirst for knowledge with which he had once studied history. And all manner of actions, from which, until now, he would have recoiled in shame, such as spying, to-night, outside a window, to-morrow, for all he knew, putting adroitly provocative questions to casual witnesses, bribing servants, listening at doors, seemed to him, now, to be precisely on a level with the deciphering of manuscripts, the weighing of evidence, the interpretation of old monuments, that was to say, so ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... emolument of this office, without inflicting a serious loss upon letters. The masques of Jonson would be regretted; a few lines of Tennyson would be missed. For the rest, we might readily console ourselves. It may certainly be urged, that the laurel was designed rather as a reward than as a provocative of merit; but the allegation has become true only within the last half-century. Antecedently to Southey, it was the consideration for which return in poetry was demanded,—in the first instance, a return in dramatic poetry, and then in the formal lyric. It was put forth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... hundred and fifty years ago. Ribbons fluttered from the throat and shoulder of this demure, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed creature, who was so palpably playing at masquerade. A silken parody of a shepherdess—a laughing, dainty, snowy-fingered aristocrat, sweet-lipped, provocative, half reclining under a purposely conventional oak, between the branches of which big white clouds rolled in a dark-blue sky—this was Rosalie as Duane had painted her with all the perversely infernal ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the prospect of parting with him and not Midget was provocative of her woe. This staggered Bryce and pleased him immensely. And at parting she kissed him good-bye, reiterating her opinion that he was the nicest, kindest boy she had ever met ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... was enchanted. This was not Miss Fleckring, the companion and household help of Mrs. Maldon, but a nymph, a fay, the universal symbol of his highest desire.... He would have been happy to kiss the glinting steel buckle, so feminine, so provocative, so coy. The tight rounded line of the waist, every bend of the fingers, the fall of the eye-lashes—all were exquisite and precious to him after the harsh, unsatisfying, desolating masculinity of Horrocleave's. This was the divine reward of Horrocleave's, the sole reason of Horrocleave's. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... and her dancing. She rarely danced now, yet all the seductive arts of perfect dancing seemed hers by right of birth. Each movement, each gesture had a peculiar charm, and her dark blue eyes, the more provocative for their lack of passion, were full of a half-mocking, half-tender vivacity. Sara, a beautiful young woman herself, surveyed this unconscious rival and recognised, with good sense, a fatal attractiveness which was stronger than time and far above beauty. It was ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... came the fervent assurance. There was something almost—quite provocative in the flash of gratitude that shone forth from the blue eyes of the girl in that moment of her superlative relief. It moved Burke to a desire for rehabilitation in ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... smoked pipes and black cigars and chewed tobacco on Frederick's broad verandas until he felt like an intruder in his own house. There was no touch with them. They regarded him as a stranger to be tolerated. They came to see Tom. And their manner of seeing him was provocative of innocent envy pangs to Frederick. Day after day he watched them. He would see the Yukoners meet, perhaps one just leaving the sick room and one just going in. They would clasp hands, solemnly and silently, outside the door. The newcomer would ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... the clear cream of the marble, the new green of the trees and lawns, and the brilliant hues of the flowers, she might well have turned an older head than that of the boy beside her. Brunette, with smooth cheeks deeply touched with rose, black eyes, and a warmly crimson mouth that could be at once provocative and relentless, she glowed like a flower herself in the sweet and enervating heat of the summer's first warm day. She wore a filmy gown of a dull cream colour, with daring great poppies in pink and black and gold ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical, and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which established ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... closer odors of jessamine, honeysuckle, and orange flowers hung heavily in the hollows. It seemed to Courtland like the mourning of beautiful and youthful widowhood, seductive even in its dissembling trappings, provocative in the contrast of its own still strong virility. Everywhere the grass grew thick and luxuriant; the quick earth was teeming with the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... affects us often more by the pulse and pressure of his speech than by his matter. Such an action is indeed the secret of all great literary reputations; and in no author of any age are the cadence of phrases and the beat of words more provocative of attention than in Montaigne. They must have affected Shakspere as they have done so many others; and in point of fact his work, from HAMLET forth, shows a gain in nervous tension and pith, fairly attributable to the ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... The wrongfulness of any extension of slavery might be loudly asserted in 1854, but in 1858, when it no longer looked as if so great an extension of it was really imminent, there was no harm in shifting towards some less provocative principle on which more people at the moment might agree. Confronted with Northern politicians who would reason in this fashion stood a united South whose leaders were by now accustomed to make the Union Government ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... something more selfish, that Brignoli never read these severely critical words. His vanity was that of a child, and they would have grieved him inordinately. There was truly something of the bleat in his voice, and his walk on the stage, whether in concert or opera, was provocative of the risibles, but even his mannerisms were fascinating. Shall we, because a critic did not like him, be ashamed for having thrilled a little when we heard his "Coot boy, sweetheart, c-o-o-o-t boy!" thirty years ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... saw now, minute after minute, but the sea beyond the edge of the boat's gunwale, heaving up and sliding astern as it caught the shine of the lantern. The lantern shone also against the knees of Archelaus, and lit up the check-board pattern of the eleemosynary trousers. It was a provocative pattern, but the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and of books, mentioned in some of the statutes we have quoted, is frequently forbidden. At Orleans the statutes prohibit leading the bajan "ut ovis ad occisionem" to a tavern to be forced to spend his money, and denounce the custom as provocative of "ebrietates, turpiloquia, lascivias, pernoctationes" and other evils. They also forbid the practice of compelling him to celebrate the jocund advent by seizing books, one or more, or by exacting anything ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... shifted sideways on his feet again, and settled into dogged silence. Few things are more provocative; and Colonel Bishop's temper was never one that required much provocation. Brute fury now awoke in him. Fiercely now he lashed those defenceless shoulders, accompanying each blow by blasphemy and foul abuse, until, stung beyond endurance, the lingering embers of his manhood fanned into momentary ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... utmost dissimulation, and the talk of the next few minutes—on his part, deliberately provocative; on hers, recklessly vehement—instructed him in much that he had desired to learn. It was made clear to him that a long combat of wills and desires had been in progress between the crafty courtesan and the half wily and the half brutal soldier, with a baffling of Heliodora's ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... while from the inherent wealth and power of their foundations, the heads of the great monasteries ranked sometimes with Archbishops, sometimes even with Cardinals. The Pope had the right to elevate an Abbey or a Priory into a Bishopric, and those who could offer the "gratification" or the "provocative," might reasonably hope for the desired elevation which at once increased their local importance, belittled a neighbouring diocese, and freed them to some extent from the direct intermeddling of the Pope. The applications for such an ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... him was delightfully provocative. It served to point the figure she borrowed from Gwen. "So you think I'm ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... admittance into this breathing world; steps forth from the shell in which it had been so long 'cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in;' and straitway walks abroad, 'regenerated, disenthralled,' and ready for its 'grub.' By all means, reader, go and see this interesting and instructive exhibition. It is provocative of much reflection, aside from the mere contemplation of it as a matter of curiosity. . . . THE correspondent who sends us the following, writes upon the envelope containing it: 'I have endeavored to preserve the measure of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... burial among the Indians, so thoroughly has the matter been examined and discussed by various authors, and yet so much still remains to be commented on, but in this work, which is mainly tentative, and is hoped will be provocative of future efforts, it is deemed sufficient to give only a few accounts. The first is by Dr. W. Mathews, United States Army,[104] and relates to ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting at him ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of trouble, as the intrigues ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... in answering the question, "What is a short-story?"; but they differed, rather violently, over the fulfilment of requirements by the various illustrations. Without doubt, the most provocative of these was Mr. Steele's "Contact." Three of the Committee think it a short-story; two declare it an article; all agree that no finer instance of literature in brief form was ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... and often as she frowned on Maria's outbreaks, she never could detect their provocative. Over-restraint and want of sympathy were direct instruction in unscrupulous slyness of amusement. A sentence of displeasure on Maria's ill-mannered folly was in the act of again filling her eyes with tears, when there was a knock at the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you wish to be heard, let me beg of you not to be provocative in your language." And then to the others: "Messieurs, if we are to proceed, I beg that you will restrain your feelings until the deputy-suppleant ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... ostentatious in their attentions, the supporters of the young girl were equally effusive and enthusiastic in their devotion. As usual in such cases, the real contest was between the partisans themselves; each successive demonstration on either side was provocative or retaliatory, and when they were apparently rendering homage to their idols they were really distracted by and listening to each other. At last, Hathaway's party being reinforced by fresh visitors, a tall brunette of the opposition remarked ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... outer corner of one of the benches, by the open door, gradually ceased to listen, started on other lines of thought by this realisation, warm, stimulating, provocative, of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in his room, absorbed in contemplation of a tiny lace-edged pocket-handkerchief. He spread it out upon his knee, and laughed. He crumpled it up in his palm, and pressed it to his face, and drank deep of its faint perfume,—faint, but powerfully provocative of visions and emotions. He had found it during the night on the floor of the sick-room, and had captured and borne it away like a treasure. He spread it out on his knee again, and was again about to laugh at its small size and gauzy texture, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... was deciding for further confidences. Her situation was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... remained in the parlor for a few moments to say good- night to Mrs. Madison and the Carters, and Betty, although the Montgomerys did not linger, waited for him to come out. There was nothing to reflect the light in the dark walls of the large square hall, and it always was shadowy, and provocative to lovers ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... their attitude was wiser than his. If he was to be a success as a breadwinner he must wage a sterner war against these happy, lovable people. It was easy, he had been long enough in the force to know how easy, to get cases. An intolerant manner, a little provocative harshness, and the thing was done. Yet with all his heart he admired the poor for their resentful independence of spirit. To him this had always been the supreme quality of the English character; how could he make use of it to ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... you say No?" There was a lazy challenge in the question, a provocative gleam in Sir ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Taverns where for my crowne I can have food provocative, besides the gaining of many precious phrase[s] for (from?) divers gallants new frenchefied. Theirs nothing to excite desire but creame and eggs, and they are so common every clowne devoures them. Were each egge ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... the house, basked in groups in the sunshine, or lay in the shade under the hedges, where hints of future marriages were given to many a pretty girl, and to nudges and pinches were returned small screams suggestive of additional assault—and inviting denials of "Indeed I won't," and that crowning provocative to riotous ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... everlasting blaze. This thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs, then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... realized what a child she was. Her dark eyes were raised wistfully to his. Her oval face was a little flushed by her recent exertions. She wore a very short skirt, and her hair hung about her shoulders in a tangled mass. Her little foreign mannerisms, half inciting, half provocative, were forgotten. His heart was full of ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, which men think wonderfully fascinating in a belle, but utterly unforgivable in a plain, middle-aged woman. Moreover, "Susan's" utter abnegation to her cause, her passion ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard, rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing reasoning. That was his name for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... The people only gave him power that he might rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his wish to express all ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hear all there was in it; public doings, foreign doings, city news, editor's gossip; and even the advertisements came in for their share of pleasure-giving. New inventions had an interest; tokens of the world's movements, or the world's wants, in other notices, were found suggestive of thought or provocative of wonder. Sitting with her feet put towards the fire, her knitting in her hands, the quick grey eyes studied Diana's face as she read, never needing to give their supervision to the fingers; and the coarse blue yarn stocking, which was doubtless destined for Joe, grew visibly in length ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... part, held his turban at arm's length between his finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over, he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... is due to the peculiar licentiousness of the period. In his plays, although kissing is sometimes provocative of jealousy, it is generally regarded, even by persons of rank, as of less importance than it is now by boys and girls, who play "Kiss in the ring." In "Rule a wife and have a wife" Margarita says ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... have been provocative,' said Farrell, after a while, checking himself by an afterthought in the act of clearing his throat. 'Considering our relative positions, I am rather surprised at your daring to take this line. . . . But you used ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there, taking that pleasure, even so late as the hour was; and they were respectable men, at least if their dress could be taken in testimony. They sat with mugs and glasses before them; one had a plate of olives also, another had some other tit-bit or provocative; one seemed to be in converse with Mr. Copley, who was not beyond converse yet, though Rupert saw he had been some time drinking. His face was flushed a little, his eyes dull, his features overspread with that inane stupidity which comes from long-continued ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... why the Blue Star Navigation Company couldn't possibly hand over its fine barkentine to a stranger, that he had only reopened the controversy; that his unfortunate reference to "meager maritime experience" had flicked Matt Peasley on a raw spot and been provocative of this reply, received the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the simple and natural processes by which races are mixed. They are self-created, their minds are set on gathering the varied fruit of all the nations. Genealogically they may be as uninteresting as the snail in the cabbage-patch, spiritually they are provocative and arresting. Romain Rolland and George Brandes challenge and outrage the champions of nationalism by the very texture of their minds. Joseph Conrad, a Pole, stands side by side with Thomas Hardy in his mastership of contemporary English fiction. Conrad in his consummate interpretation ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... into a delicious silver stream of laughter, a little thin, but charmingly provocative. Winsome did not join, but she looked up imploringly at her grandmother, leaning her head back till ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... intimate a doubt in passing, whether Shakespeare would ever have put by the mouth of any but a farcical mask a query so provocative of response from an Irish echo—"Because ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... how completely provocative her meaning was, until, to her incredulous bewilderment, he said ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Childers, and "Home Rule Problems," edited by Mr Basil Williams. In general, my aim has been to aid in humanising the Irish Question. The interpretation of various aspects of it, here offered, is intended to be not exhaustive but provocative, a mere set of shorthand rubrics any one of which might have been expanded into a chapter. Addressing the English reader with complete candour, I have attempted to recommend to him that method of approach, that mental attitude which alone can divest him of his preconceptions, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... costumes. Patty and Mr. Phelps had to wait their turn, but finally succeeded in getting a number of pictures. Patty had some taken alone, and some in which she was one of a gay group. Some were successful portraits, and others were not, but all were provocative of much laughter and fun. By a rapid process of development, the photographers were enabled to furnish the completed pictures in less than a half hour after the cameras did their work, and as a consequence, this booth was exceedingly popular ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... is strongly individual and which is on the whole rather restful than provocative. The reader's mind reposes on the security of these strongly moulded sentences, these solid paragraphs and periods. It is a considered style in which word after word falls admirably into its appointed place. It is not quite of the eighteenth ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... hand or plunging his glance into the depths of her eyes, consciousness would touch him on the shoulder with a bony hand and say, "That is the boss's daughter you are hugging"—a reminder which was provocative sometimes of an almost unholy delight, when to sing and dance and go mad was but natural; but at other times it brought with it moods ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... not for sale; indeed, I doubt if the affair pays expenses, for it has travelled far; from Turin and Milan and Rome, to Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam. It will be in New York soon, and then look out for a repetition of the Playboy of the Western World scandal. Some of the pictures are very provocative. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIEN set out with the honest intention of blessing the Government plan, of which indeed he claims to be the "onlie begetter." But the sound of his own voice—in its higher tones painfully provocative—stimulated him to proceed to a dramatic indictment of his former colleagues. I felt sorry for the prospective Chairman, charged with the task of attempting to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... provocative in his tone, and Robert looked closely at the speaker. He saw a tall man of at least forty-five, thin but obviously very powerful and agile. Robert noticed that his wrists were thick like his own and that his fingers were ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... had written and printed for private circulation, were published by The Champion on Sunday, April 14. The other London papers one by one followed suit. The poems, more especially "A Sketch," were provocative of criticism. There was a balance of opinion, but politics turned the scale. Byron had recently published some pro-Gallican stanzas, "On the 'Star of the Legion of Honour,'" in the Examiner (April ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... It was hysteria, or I had never seen hysteria, and the mal-de-mer had been merely provocative. I took her hand without ceremony, and, wheeling on me her lustrous eyes, she broke ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... him among them. He appears, like Swift, to have chiefly regarded the Christian religion as an institution of service to the stability of the State. Of the Miscellaneous Works which were published after his death in five volumes, the most elaborate and the most provocative of disputation is A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church through several successive centuries (1749). Middleton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1734 was ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... attain her end, the permanent disabling of the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, by another and less provocative measure. It is here and in just these circumstances that the third contingency, and one no Englishman I venture to think, has ever dreamed of, would be born on the field of battle and baptized a Germanic godchild with European ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... borrowed from foreign lands and even more exciting ideas of their own fashioning. The national literature, but lately so academic and remote from existence, was now furiously lively, challenging and provocative. The people found in it, not the old placid escape from life, but a new stimulation to arduous and ardent living. And out of the ruck of authors, eager, exigent, and the tremendous clash of nations, new and old, there finally emerged a prose based not upon ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... to tell you, Frank!' She gave the prettiest, most provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. 'I wanted to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you. But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... in the Arctic Sun were grave and some were gay, but all of them were profitable, for Fred took care that they should be charged either with matter of interest or matter provocative of mirth. And, assuredly, no newspaper of similar calibre was ever looked forward to with such expectation, or read and re-read with such avidity. It was one of the expedients that lasted longest in keeping up the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is sufficiently pointed—not too pointed, but pointed enough. It does not require a knowledge of the niceties of the law, the regulations of the British army, or a keen appreciation of the subtlest subtleties of logic to fully understand it. It is amusing, and provocative of innocent laughter, which, after all, seems to be a sufficient recommendation for words spoken within the walls of a play-house. The music is full of melody—"quite killing," as a young lady wittily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... with one slim forefinger, as if compelled, and touched the blond hairs on Nick's wrist. Just touched them. Nick remained motionless. The girl shivered a little, deliciously. She glanced at him shyly. Her lips were provocative. Thoughtlessly, blindly, Nick suddenly flung an arm about her, kissed her. He kissed her as he had never kissed Miss Bauers—as he had never kissed Miss Ahearn, Miss Olson, or just Gertie. The girl did not scream, or push him away, or slap him, or protest, or giggle as ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... desire. Cf. Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U.S. 728 (1970) (upholding a federal statute permitting individuals to instruct the Postmaster General not to deliver advertisements that are "erotically arousing or sexually provocative"). ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... he closely attended the Danish courts of justice; and Daines Barrington, in his curious "Observations on the Statutes," mentions, that the king borrowed from the Danish code three statutes for the punishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm is the ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could not but shrewdly observe, that James "spent more time in those courts than in attending upon his destined consort." Yet this is not true: the king was jovial there, and was as indulgent a husband ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... dreamed of that. Biddy, I've got plans in my mind for that—' He caught her two hands in a fierce grasp, and as he looked at her, his eyes full of love, he would—greatly daring—have held her close to his breast and kissed the provocative lips, as yet almost virgin to his. But she made a shrinking movement, and he, acutely sensitive, dropped her hands, and the love that had flamed in his eyes gave place to the dour look she did not know ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... stupid person. Monseigneur assumed, somehow, that I would have a lover or two. You perceive that he at least is not a stupid person." And Nelchen tossed her head, with a touch of the provocative. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... whole, I fear that a comparison between the condition of this province and that of the states of the neighbouring republic, as affected by this year's immigration, would be by no means satisfactory or provocative of dutiful and affectionate feelings towards the mother-country on the part of the colonists. It is a case in which, on every account, I think the Imperial Government is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... compel him almost to pass them wholly by, seeing that he cannot adequately discuss them, and that any brief and positive utterance upon them would seem to be lacking in judicial fairness. The exigencies and temptations of a lecture-room are also sadly provocative of that rhetorical bombast and exaggeration which, having been so lavishly and offensively indulged on our Fourth of July and other commemorative occasions in the supposed interests of popular patriotism, have brought our whole national ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... stretches along opposite its flank. It has a flat roof with a crenelated parapet. Grass grows on the roof. No guns are mounted there, for Ghent is an open city. But in German tactics bombardment by aeroplane doesn't seem to count, and our situation is more provocative now than the Terminus ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... had come to consider almost their own, and there were many cases of seizure and of angry charge and countercharge. President Grant, in his message to Congress in 1870, denounced the policy of the Canadian authorities as arbitrary and provocative. Other issues between the two countries were outstanding as well. Canada had a claim against the United States for not preventing the Fenian Raids of 1866; and the United States had a much bigger bill ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... with mud. The sedate chairs that usually lined the walls were pushed aside and left to stand crooked and awry, the very mockery of their former dignity. Here and there a roll of parchment, an ink-stained pen, a cast-off cloak littered the hall and looked curiously provocative and out of place—an insult to the majesty of the dead and mighty Caesar, who had caused the stately columns to be reared, and the massive walls to raise their pure ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... bitter ashes at her lips, yet who preserved in this modern maelstrom some sense of its falseness, its baseness. He wept for Helen, playmate of the years never to return, sweetheart of his youth, betrayer of his manhood, the young woman of the present, blase, unsexed, seeking, provocative, all perhaps, as she had said, that men had made her—a travesty on splendid girlhood. He wept for her friends, embodying in them all of their class—for little Bessy Bell, with her exquisite golden beauty, her wonderful smile that was a light of joy—a child of fifteen with character and mind, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... Murphy, had darted out of the gutter into the back stage-door at the age of fifteen, snapped her huge violet eyes with their fringes of black, trilled a vulgar, Irish street song in accompaniment to sundry provocative swayings of her lissome, maturing young body, and thus had made enough impression on her world to hang on by the tips of her fingers until she dropped into the outstretched arms of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, who was prowling ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... glimpse at the twinkling magnificence of this February night he felt stirred by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle prophecies ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... can't for the life of me call them CORIPHAENA HIPPURIS) came alongside, a rush was made for the "granes"—a sort of five-pronged trident, if I may be allowed a baby bull. It was universally agreed among the fishermen that trying a hook and line was only waste of time and provocative of profanity! since every sailor knows that all the deep-water big fish require a living or apparently living bait. The fish, however, sheered off, and would not be tempted within reach of that deadly fork by any lure. Then did I cover ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... hall and how intensely silent was every soul when Lloyd George, wearing a gray summer suit with a black necktie, stepped to the front of the platform. There was none of the old, fierce, gay, fighting glitter about him. His mobile face was touched with gravity, his eyes were thoughtful, not provocative. He stood very erect, but his chin was drawn in a little, and his head canted forward. Responsibility lay on him, and every ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... who admired Louise would find her as desirable at this moment as at any other. Hers was a nameless charm; it was present in each gesture of the slim hands, in each turn of the head, in every movement of, the broad, slender body. Strangers felt it instantly; her very walk seemed provocative of notice; there was something in the way her skirts clung, and moved with her, that was different from the motion of other women's. And those whose type she embodied went crazy about her. Madeleine remembered as though ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the earth!" returned a voice that was provocative in the extreme—a reply that instantly brought every man at the faro table to his feet. For a time, at least, it seemed as if the boys from The Ridge would get the ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco |
