"Seduce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trying to seduce away the hearts of our loyal subjects in that city, and to blow up a party against our crown ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... you haue neuer seene in mee any acte, mocion, signe, or woorde, to incite you to moue sutch dishonest talk. And although the king many times, with infinite number of prayers, presentes, messages and other such allurementes of persuasion hath displayed and vttered all the art of his mynde to seduce and corrupt me, yet he was neuer able to receiue other aunswere of me, but that honor was a thousand times derer vnto me then life, which still I meant to kepe secret from your knowledge euen as I haue ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... whom not the languid songs Of Luxury, the siren! nor the bribes Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets which, from the store Of Nature, fair Imagination culls To charm th' enlivened soul! What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights Of envied life, though only few possess Patrician treasures or imperial state; ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Isabella, in 'Measure for Measure,' are at one in attributing their conflict to the former's 'will.' The self-indulgent Bertram, in 'All's Well,' 'fleshes his "will" in the spoil of a gentlewoman's honour.' In 'Lear' (IV. vi. 279) Regan's heartless plot to seduce her brother-in-law is assigned to 'the undistinguished space'—the boundless range—'of woman's will.' Similarly, Sir Philip Sidney apostrophised lust as 'thou web of will.' Thomas Lodge, in 'Phillis' (Sonnet xi.), warns lovers of the ruin that menaces ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... possession of the property of their victims. The bugbear of the Court is Carbonarism, and Matteis pretended that there was a Carbonari plot on foot, in which several persons were implicated. He employed the spies to seduce the victims into some imprudence of language or conduct, and then to inform against them; in this way he apprehended various individuals, some of whom were tortured, some imprisoned or sent to the galleys, and some put to death. These ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... utterance—Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe—was genuine and enthusiastic, and incomparably better informed than that of some more conventional critics. Yet this cordial submission to recognized authority, this honest loyalty to established reputation, did not blind him to defects, did not seduce him into indiscriminate praise, did not deter him from exposing the tendency to verbiage in Burke and Jeremy Taylor, the excessive blankness of much of Wordsworth's blank verse, the undercurrent of mediocrity ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... if, in hopes of having people attached to us, who will neither betray our confidence, nor corrupt our children, we are at pains to rear them from childhood, and give them a religious and moral education; after all our labour, others of their own class seduce them away to those who can afford to pay higher for their services. This is not the case in a few remote districts. Where surrounding mountains seem to exclude the contagion of the world, some traces of fidelity and affection among domestics still remain. But it must be remarked, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... those pupils,[FN242] which * Seduce my soul, and cheeks flushed rosier hue; O heart, if slanderers dare to deem there be * His like in chasms, Say 'Bring him hither, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to accompany him into the country, and to seduce, and quiet her conscience, shewed her a celebrated piece written in defence of Polygamy, and Concubinage: When he was gone, he soon relapsed into his former extravagances, forgot his promise of providing for ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... and those precepts, may be easily undermined and destroyed by the flattery or the ridicule, the reproach or the banter of some subtle or even of some thoughtless companion. To those who may read these pages, and who may at any time be tempted to seduce others from paths of virtue, or to break over solemn resolutions which they may have formed as to an upright and commendable course of life, let the injunction of old Zachary, the Mohegan sachem, not come in vain. "Never tempt any one ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... desire to hear from Rita, ventured to write to her. The letter was intercepted by the count, and returned unopened, with a few haughty lines expressive of his indignation at the ingratitude of Luis, who was requiting the kindness he had received at his hands by endeavouring to thwart his plans and seduce the affections of his daughter. The terms in which this letter was couched roused the ire of Don Manuel, who in his turn forbade his son to expose himself to a repetition of similar insults by any communication with the count or his daughter. Shortly afterwards Luis returned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... d'Entragues, her father, overlooking the fact that he had himself become the husband of a woman whose reputation was lost before their marriage, talked loudly of the dishonour which the King had brought upon his family, and moreover resented, with great reason, an attempt made by Henry to seduce his younger ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... headlong into the centre of revolutions, or the stoical energy which produces and controls them. He saw in the people only a sovereign, more exacting and more capricious than any others, towards whom it was necessary to display more skill to seduce, more policy to manage them. He believed himself sufficiently plastic for the task, and resolved to attempt it. Without a lofty imagination, he yet had ambition and courage, and he viewed the position of affairs as a drama, similar to the Fronde[8], in which skilful actors could enlarge ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... pleasant airy and umbrageous garden." "Wit spirits faculties but make it worse." "Men wives and children stare cry out and run." "Industry, honesty, and temperance are essential to happiness."—Wilson's Punctuation, p. 29. "Honor, affluence, and pleasure seduce the heart."—Ib., p. 31. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... were not all ravening wolves let loose upon society, and it was an undeniable fact that no man, however unprincipled, would dare to make love to a married woman without her encouragement, or attempt to seduce her from her lawful allegiance without her co-operation. And Joyce was incorruptible because of her love for ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... was a mere dead letter. It was to be executed by men very different from those who, in the interior of France, were the instruments of the Committee of Public Safety, who prated at Jacobin Clubs, and ran to Fouquier Tinville with charges of incivism against women whom they could not seduce, and bankers from whom they could not extort money. The warriors who, under Hoche, had guarded the walls of Dunkirk, and who, under Kleber, had made good the defence of the wood of Monceaux, shrank ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in vice like vinegar, can have any scruple left. But about that I've noticed a curious thing. Patriotism is not the first virtue. Patriotism rots into Prussianism when you pretend it is the first virtue. But patriotism is sometimes the last virtue. A man will swindle or seduce who will not sell his country. But ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... hinder every Scotsman to join in it. This tho' a verrie material point, you take for granted without assigning a single reason; but as I know it is one of their delusive arguments, now much in use where you are, and the chief engine of the party to seduce well-meaning men to concur in the ruin of the constitution and their country, I shall give you what I apprehend you must mean by it in the most favourable light it will bear; and then from an impartial stating of the fact as it truely stands, leave yourself to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... I, "if, like the butterfly, whose short and erratic presence imparts another beauty to green fields and blue skies, and blossoms, and songs of birds, my little book shall be able to seduce a smile to the lips, or cheat away a pain from the bosom of one of those whom you are so fond of calling 'pilgrims through a dreary wilderness,' I shall feel amply compensated for ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... by a false and counterfeit show of deference to your judgment, to seduce it in my favor. I ask it seriously and unaffectedly. If you wish that I should retire, I shall not consider that advice as a censure upon my conduct, or an alteration in your sentiments, but as a rational submission ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... retire with my friend, and ask seriously for some explanation of all this. It was in the highest degree unsatisfactory. He confirmed all that had been stated to me; assuring me that I had not only been assiduous in my endeavours to seduce a young lady of great beauty, which it seemed I had effected, but that I had taken counsel, and got this supposed, old, false, and forged grant raked up and now signed, to ruin the young lady's family quite, so as to ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... drive Austria into hostility?' he replied (probably in November, 1853), 'Certainly not; but I claim that you shall not try to hinder our fighting our just and necessary battle against Austria.' This is the turning point. We did try to hinder it, hoping thereby to seduce Austria to our side. To whisper to Austria the words 'H. P. I.' would not have been to stir up those countries to insurrection, but to compel Austria not to threaten Turkey with her armies. Our Government encouraged her in it, and aided her to occupy the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax, pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings—some of them gaily coloured—which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful temptation wholly unavailing: her ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... reluctance I give your royal highness this trouble, or find myself obliged to accuse the count de Bellfleur of an action so dishonourable to our nation; but as I am here under confinement for preventing him from committing a rape on a young English lady, who failing to seduce at Venice, he followed hither; and under the pretence of being her husband, gained the people of the house on his side, and had infallibly compassed his intent, had it not been for my seasonable interposition: I am too well ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... can be used in a sense that is both high and sacred. If a gifted writer take literature as a great vocation and determine to use his talents faithfully and well, without reference to fee or reward; if prosperity cannot seduce him to the misuse of his genius, then we give him our high praise. Let it still not be forgotten that the labourer is worthy of his hire. But if the hire is not forthcoming, and he knowing it, yet says in his heart, "The work must still be done"; ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... adopted son of Africa'nus, who was now appointed to command it, used as much skill to save his forces after a defeat, as to inspire them with fresh hopes of a victory. 27. But all his arts would have failed, had he not found means to seduce Phar'nes, the master of the Carthaginian horse, who came over to his side. The unhappy townsmen soon saw the enemy make nearer approaches; the wall which led to the haven was quickly demolished; soon after the forum itself was taken, which offered ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... me, Mr Schlemihl—you hate me—I am aware of it— but why?—is it, perhaps, because you attacked me on the open plain, in order to rob me of my invisible bird's nest? or is it because you thievishly endeavoured to seduce away the shadow with which I had entrusted you—my own property—confiding implicitly in your honour! I, for my part, have no dislike to you. It is perfectly natural that you should avail yourself of every means, presented either by cunning or force, to promote your own ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... that he, the Papa, had more to say in heaven than the Armenian patriarch, and that the hillocks of Rome were higher than the ridges of Ararat. "The Papa of Rome," said the Armenian to Lavengro, "has at present many emissaries in this country, in order to seduce the people from their own quiet religion to the savage heresy of Rome; this fellow" (describing the man in black) "came to me partly in the hope of converting me, but principally to extort money for the purpose of furthering the designs ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... seduce the wretched servant girl if by so doing you could pluck out the mystery of her being and set it down ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... that which is agreeable; who has enough knowledge of practical household matters to make unskilled and rude hands minister to her cultivated and refined tastes, and constitute her skilled brain the guide of unskilled hands. From such a home, with such a mistress, no sirens will seduce a man, even though the hair grow gray, and the merely physical charms of early days gradually pass away. The enchantment that was about her person alone in the days of courtship seems in the course of years to have interfused and penetrated ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and command of the whole British fleet," wrote Barry in reply, "can seduce me from ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the applause of the crowd which he ought to have despised." And Mendelssohn wrote to his father in words of still more angry disgust: "When in 'Robert le Diable' nuns appear one after the other and endeavor to seduce the hero, till at length the lady abbess succeeds; when the hero, aided by a magic branch, gains access to the sleeping apartment of his lady, and throws her down, forming a tableau which is applauded here, and will perhaps be applauded in Germany; and when, after that, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... making their principles odious, provided they can make themselves notorious. To win over the public opinion by fair means is to them an insipid, common-place mode of popularity: they would either force it by harsh methods, or seduce it by intoxicating potions. Egotism, petulance, licentiousness, levity of principle (whatever be the source) is a bad thing in any one, and most of all in a philosophical reformer. Their humanity, their wisdom, is always 'at the horizon.' Anything new, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... armies, and the subduers of nations, let me in a very few words (many are not needed,) ask, What, at that period, must be the reflection of those, (if capable of reflection,) who have lived a life of sense and offence; whose study and whose pride most ingloriously have been to seduce the innocent, and to ruin the weak, the unguarded, and the friendless; made still more friendless by their base seductions?—O Mr. Belford, weigh, ponder, and reflect upon it, now that, in health, and in vigour of mind and body, the reflections will most avail you—what ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that and the other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some dean or bishop was sitting beside ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... he had held his equivocal position in Belvedere. A constant sense of this had remained with him up to the last year of his school life. He had never once disobeyed or allowed turbulent companions to seduce him from his habit of quiet obedience; and, even when he doubted some statement of a master, he had never presumed to doubt openly. Lately some of their judgements had sounded a little childish in his ears and had made him feel a regret and pity as though he ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... of men; they are acquainted with several deities (buwun), who live in the otherwise uninhabited island of Djan. They are beings of an amorous disposition, and though their real shape is that of a fish's body with a human head, they can take on the form of men in order to seduce women. They also cause epidemics and earthquakes; yet the people shew them no respect, for they believe them to be dull-witted as well as lecherous. At most, if a fearful epidemic is raging, they will offer the gods a lean little pig or a mangy cur; and should an earthquake ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... beggar, nor a man of sufficient fortune to permit his ceasing his efforts to increase it; thus every bee in the hive is actively employed in search of that honey of Hybla, vulgarly called money; neither art, science, learning, nor pleasure can seduce them from its pursuit. This unity of purpose, backed by the spirit of enterprise, and joined with an acuteness and total absence of probity, where interest is concerned, which might set canny Yorkshire at defiance, may well go far ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... said to Francine, "I understood yesterday what it was to live for love; to-day I know what it means to die for vengeance. Yes, I will give my life to seek him wherever he may be, to meet him, seduce him, make him mine! If I do not have that man, who dared to despise me, at my feet humble and submissive, if I do not make him my lackey and my slave, I shall indeed be base; I shall not be a woman; I ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason; and when the wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after no brief eloquence, succeeded as a lover, on the plea that her husband's ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... him little heed. Sometimes his father visited him at school. "How are you . . . be good . . . study hard . . . "—and he was gone. The lad passed the summer vacations at the Chateau de Lourps, but his presence could not seduce his mother from her reveries. She scarcely noticed him; when she did, her gaze would rest on him for a moment with a sad smile—and that was all. The moment after she would again become absorbed in the artificial ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... ages past, it might be a sizeable volume. Back in the days when chivalry ran parallel with human bondage, midgets were rated as personal property. Kings and emperors called them to court for amusement purposes; offered them as gifts to appease the powerful or seduce the weak. And at courtly banquets, when the liquor was potent enough to inspire adventuresome bravery, midgets were tossed like medicine balls, from guest to guest, to provide entertainment for the ladies and gallants there present. However, the ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... a loose Tribe of Men whom I have not yet taken Notice of, that ramble into all the Corners of this great City, in order to seduce such unfortunate Females as fall into their Walks. These abandoned Profligates raise up Issue in every Quarter of the Town, and very often, for a valuable Consideration, father it upon the Church-warden. By this means there are several Married Men who have a little Family ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... saw she wade In the heavy streams, Men—foul murderers And perjurers, And them who others' wives Seduce to sin. Brothers slay brothers Sisters' children Shed each other's blood. {p. 142} Hard is the world! Sensual sin grows huge. There are sword-ages, axe-ages; Shields are cleft in twain; Storm-ages, murder ages; Till the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... to have another interview with her;—to throw myself at her feet, and sue for pardon! Though fate should oppose our union, I may still preserve her from the arms of a villain, who is capable of deceiving the innocent he could not seduce: and of planting a dagger in the female heart, where nature has bestowed her softest attributes, and has only left it weak, that man might cherish, shelter, and protect ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... give him wholly to Conde. Moreover, Madame de Chatillon, like La Rochefoucauld, was for peace, she had won over the Duke de Nemours to it, and both together urged Conde thereto. To carry off the Duke de Nemours from such conspiracy and to seduce him to the war party, was to serve the interests of Conde like as his sister intended. Thus the principal and the dominant motive of Madame de Longueville's conduct was just the opposite of that which La Rochefoucauld imputed to her. Let us add further that she had always ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... through trials, in a small way, somewhat akin to those endured by the Lord. We all know our own individual experiences best. For one, I can say right here that I am no stranger to temptation. The adversary of God's people has never yet counted me out of the number he seeks to seduce. I confess he does not try me at all times alike; but he does seem to come every time when I am the least prepared effectually and instantly to repel his assaults. If in preaching I happen to get off a fine thought or good sentiment dressed ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... what!" cried she. "Of seductive arts? But, my dear sir, you are a man to be respected, and, moreover, as a lawyer you ought to have some good sense. Look at me! Tell me if I am likely to seduce any one. I cannot tie my own shoes, nor even stoop. For these twenty years past, the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of stays under pain of sudden death. I was as thin as an asparagus ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... of exploitation. It enables people to work for a common end, but just because the few who are strategically placed must choose the concrete objectives, the symbol is also an instrument by which a few can fatten on many, deflect criticism, and seduce men into facing agony for objects ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... opening scene bears such apparent witness as requires no evidence to support and would require very conclusive evidence to confute it. The sweet spontaneous luxury of the lines in which the queen strives to seduce her paramour out of sullenness has the very ring of Dekker's melody: the rough and reckless rattle of the abrupt rhymes intended to express a sudden vehemence of change and energy; the constant repetition or reiteration of interjections and ejaculations which are evidently ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the enthusiasm of the philosopher. There was never any one more vigorously determined to be pleased; and if he was not a great logician, and so had no right to convince the intellect, he was certainly something of a poet, and had a fascination to seduce the heart. What he could not achieve in his customary humour of a radiant admiration of himself and his circumstances, he sometimes effected ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about trained nurses, young dramatists, baseball players, heroic locomotive engineers, settlement workers, clergymen, yeggmen, cowboys, Italians, employes of the Hudson Bay Company and great detectives; and from stories in which the dissolute son of a department store owner tries to seduce a working girl in his father's employ and then goes on the water wagon and marries her as a tribute to her virtue; and from stories in which the members of a yachting party are wrecked on a desert island in the South Pacific, and the niece ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... separated. After the death of Buckingham, the King attempted to seduce some of the chiefs of the Opposition from their party; and Wentworth was among those who yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his associates, and hated them ever after with the deadly hatred of a renegade. High titles and great employments ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... then I walked the hall with a bag filled with newspapers to look like briefs, and was regularly called by two or three criers from one court to the other. It never took. Even when I used to seduce a country friend to visit the courts, and get him into an animated conversation in a corner between two pillars, devil a one would believe him to be a client, and I was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... read these boyish forerunners of "Over the sea our galleys went," and "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," and was amused by their derivative if delicate melodies. Mrs. Browning was very proud of these early blooms of song, and when her twelve-year-old son, tired of vain efforts to seduce a publisher from the wary ways of business, surrendered in disgust his neatly copied out and carefully stitched MSS., she lost no opportunity—when Mr. Browning was absent—to expatiate upon their merits. Among the people to whom she showed them was a Miss Flower. This lady took ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... and passions: and this is common to every moral virtue. Yet there is a logical difference between temperance and fortitude, even if we take them both as general virtues: since temperance withdraws man from things which seduce the appetite from obeying reason, while fortitude incites him to endure or withstand those things on account of which he forsakes the good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... requisite for those who practise Art. All the stale arguments were brought forth, and had to be joined in with unmoved faces. And for all their talk of freedom, Lennan could see the volte-face his friends would be making, if they only knew. It was not 'the thing' to seduce young girls—as if, forsooth, there were freedom in doing only what people thought 'the thing'! Their cant about the free artist spirit experiencing everything, would wither the moment it came up against a canon of 'good form,' so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... them, it is true, were wayward sheep, who wounded the heart of their pastor by breaking from the fold, and displaying very un-lamb-like behaviour. He had sometimes to realize painfully that no pale is so close but that the enemy will creep in somewhere and seduce the flock; and that no rules of communion, however strict, can effectually exclude unworthy members. Brother John Stanton had to be admonished "for abusing his wife and beating her often for very light matters" (if the matters had been less light, would the beating in these days have been ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired in holy hermits' weed, And skilled in blandishment, That they the hermit may beguile With every art and amorous wile Whose use they know so well, And by their witcheries seduce The unsuspecting young recluse To leave his father's cell. Then when the boy with willing feet Shall wander from his calm retreat And in that city stand, The troubles of the king shall end, And streams of blessed ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... himself: half he reforms his times; but half, too, the times will corrupt the reformer. His own craft undermines his safety;—the people, whom he himself accustoms to a false excitement, perpetually crave it; and when their ruler ceases to seduce their fancy, he falls their victim. The reform he makes by these means is hollow and momentary—it is swept away with himself: it was but the trick—the show—the wasted genius of a conjuror: the curtain falls—the magic is over—the cup and balls are kicked aside. Better one slow step in ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are wise, and prize your peace of mind, Yet take the friendly counsel of my love; Believe me true, nor listen to your jealousy. Let not that devil, which undoes your sex, That cursed curiosity, seduce you To hunt for needless secrets, which, neglected, Shall never hurt your quiet; but, once known, Shall sit upon your heart, pinch it with pain, And banish the sweet sleep for ever from you. ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... St. Jean d'Acre, (so renowned in the history of the crusades,) and determined to defend that place to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate independent government, under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... and co-laborers and I," he says, "do not ask for letters and seals from others commending us to you, or from you commending us to others, in order to seduce people after gaining their good will in your church and in others as well. Such is the practice of the false apostles, and many even now present letters and certificates from honest preachers and Churches, and make them the means whereby their unrighteous plotting ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... not only to the religion of the Mother of the Gods but also to Christianity. The similarity struck the Christian doctors themselves and was explained by them as a work of the devil, who sought to seduce the souls of men from the true faith by a false and insidious imitation of it. So to the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru many of the native heathen rites appeared to be diabolical counterfeits of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... thy wife and I will cast about to rid me of my husband. Then shalt thou marry me and, when we are conjoined, we will join the two halves of the treasure one to other, and all will be in our hands." Quoth he, "I fear lest Satan seduce thee and thou take some other man other than myself; for gold in the house is like the sun in the world. I reck, therefore, it were right that the money be all in my hands, so thou give thy whole mind to getting free of thy husband and coming to me." Quoth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Church) were subjected to dreadful onslaughts by Satan. Not only had they to contend with invisible spirits of darkness, but they were compelled to carry on a continual warfare with the devil, in corporeal shape, seeking to seduce them from their faith. None were more frequently or fiercely assailed than the canonised saints of the old Catholic Church. To their praise, however, be it remembered, that almost invariably the Churchmen, sooner or later, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the beginning? of retaining an army of counsel before any suit had been commenced? of the many sinister attempts to prevent the trial at bar? of the various arts made use of to terrify any one from appearing as witness for the claimant, and to seduce those who had appeared? of the shameless, unprecedented, low tricks now practised, to keep him out of the possession of that estate for which he had obtained the verdict, thereby to disable him from bringing his cause to a further hearing; and of the attempts made to buy up Mr. M—'s ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and, after fully explaining his wants and wishes to his keenly appreciating auditory, made proclamation among them, that the Demon who should invent a new vice, which, under the name and guise of Pastime, should be best calculated to seduce men from the paths of virtue, pervert their hearts, ruin them for earth and educate them for hell, should be awarded a crown of honor, with rank and prerogative second only to his own. He then, with many a gracious and encouraging word to ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... both of whom I had affronted, were indefatigable in their attempts to undermine my power. The whole universe, I may say, was ransacked for a new introduction into the seraglio, whose novelty and beauty might seduce the sultan from my arms. Instead of counterplotting, as I might have done, I was pleased at their frustrated efforts. Had I demanded the woolly head of the one, and poisoned the other, I had done wisely. I only wish I had them now— but I was a fool—it ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... immorality is not to be explained nor excused on the ground of his genius. It was not genius that led him so astray in England that his wife had to divorce him, and that public opinion drove him out of the land. It was not his genius that sent him to visit Shelley and his mistress at Lake Geneva and seduce their guest, so that she bore him a daughter, though she was never his wife. It was not genius that made him pick up still another companion out of several in Italy and live with her in immoral relation. In the name of common decency let no one stand up for Shelley and ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... some days past, we have been in quest of lodgings for next winter; a weary search, up interminable staircases, which seduce us upward to no successful result. It is very disheartening not to be able to place the slightest reliance on the integrity of the people we are to deal with; not to believe in any connection between their words and their purposes; to know that they are certainly ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the will or the conscience; but Satan's constant resort—to gain control of those whom he cannot otherwise seduce—is compulsion by cruelty. Through fear or force he endeavors to rule the conscience, and to secure homage to himself. To accomplish this, he works through both religious and secular authorities, moving them ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... charms and languorous air I see.[FN436] He shot me down with shaft of glance from bow of eyebrow sped: * What Chamberlain[FN437] betwixt his eyes garred all my pleasure flee? Haply shall heart of me seduce his heart by weakness' force * E'en as his own seductive grace garred me love-ailment dree. For an by him forgotten be our pact and covenant * I have a King who never will forget my memory. His sides bemock the bending charms of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... of proof that one copy was ever sold, except those bought by the creatures employed by the honorary secretary (who is also the feed attorney in this prosecution) for the sole object of entangling the defendant in this indictment? None, whatever. None. They conspired you see to procure and seduce (the word is neither too broad nor too long for their conduct) the publication for the very purpose of this prosecution. How then having thus suborned the offence of which they complain, can they dare to stand forward as prosecutors, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the Spirit, and she prayed the Lord to reveal to her the enemy whom she had to withstand. Thereupon a huge dragon, appearing before her, rushed forward to devour her, but she made the sign of the cross and he disappeared. Then, in order to seduce her, the devil assumed the form of a man. He came to her gently, took her hands in his and said: "Margaret, what you have done sufficeth." But she seized him by the hair, threw him to the ground, placed her right foot upon his head and ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... are too difficult to deal with; I have gathered some details orally on this subject which are almost from first hands and perfectly authentic. It is sufficient to cite one text already published: "According to Josephine, he had no moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the other? "—"I am not a man like other men, he said of himself, "and moral laws and those of propriety do not apply to me." (Madame de Remusat, I., 204, 206.)—Note again (II., 350) his proposals to Corvisart.—Such are everywhere ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... deliver him over to a long imprisonment. The trembling culprit wished to free himself at any cost from this sword of Damocles suspended over his head, and he proposed to me two ways to effect the desired end. One was for me to seduce the young artist and then, as the price of my smiles, cajole him into surrendering ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... of his career, one of the most philosophic and accomplished lawyers of his time. In earlier life, he was remarked for a florid imagination, and a power of vivid declamation,—faculties which are but too apt to seduce their possessor to waste his strength in that flimsier eloquence, which more captivates the crowd without the bar, than the Judge upon the bench, and whose fatal facility often ensnares ambitious youth capable of better things, by ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... than that, isn't it?" said Magda. "How did you seduce Michael Quarrington? I thought"—for an instant her voice wavered, then steadied again—"I thought he ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... the natural Consequence of her Actions is very apparent: Nor do I think from her Behaviour, that Henry had the least Reason to be convinced that she would not leave him for the first Man who would try to seduce her, provided the Colour of his ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... Barry" and "Beauty and the Beast" are notable successes is but to record that the public, as ever, is attracted by display of rich vestments and spectacular effect. Such straws indicate nothing more than that a Circus or a Wild West Show will seduce to Madison Square Garden an audience that would fill ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... as "a solitary, thinking youth, entirely devoted to wisdom,—living, breathing, only for wisdom and knowledge,—renouncing every passion but the one for truth,—highly dangerous to thee [Satan] and to us all, if he were ever to be a teacher of the people." Satan resolves at once to seduce and destroy him. But Faustus's good angel has mercy on him. He buries him in a deep sleep, and creates in his place a phantom, with which the cheated devils try successfully the whole process of temptation and seduction. All ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... as he did not seduce the body, it seemed to him that it could never matter how he slew the soul,—the little, honest, happy, pure, frank soul, that amidst its poverty and hardships was like a robin's song to the ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... to the government, he had fortunately uttered no treason, though he had heard much. "Sir," said he, "since Your Majesty has been so correctly informed, you must be aware that I gave no encouragement to that man's attempts to seduce me from my allegiance." William did not deny this, but intimated that such secret dealings with noted Jacobites raised suspicions which Shrewsbury could remove only by accepting the seals. "That," he said, "will put me quite at ease. I know that you are a man of honour, and that, if you ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... result of Burr's hateful quarrel with Alexander Hamilton, and his mortally wounding that eminent statesman in a duel, which doomed him to political and social ostracism. It was still further intensified by Burr's treasonable attempt to seduce the West out of the Union and to found with it and Mexico a rival Republic, with the looked-for aid of Britain. These unscrupulous acts occurred in Jefferson's second term; and, failing in his conspiracy, ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... low wages of self-supporting girls is the sole contributing cause of their delinquency, realizing that there are thousands of girls who would endure the utmost hardships before yielding themselves to those who are ready to seduce them. The evidence as to the effect of wage conditions is taken from the girls themselves, who, perhaps lacking adequate moral training, have, in the extremities of their position, allowed themselves to be ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... southern people, which never had occasion to wish it could become oblivious of the weather, as too many of us would like to be in England. Such shivering and indolent folks may be inclined to say that skating and curling and wildfowl-shooting, and the other diversions which seduce the able-bodied from the warm precincts of the cheerful fire, were only contrived to enable us to forget the state of the thermometer. Whether or not that was the purpose of the first northerner who fixed sheep-bones ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprize vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... woman, had discovered an intrigue between her brother's ward and a workman, a Breton named Brigaut. The scoundrel knew very well that the girl would have her grandmother's money, and he wished to seduce her (Vinet to talk of that!). Mademoiselle Rogron, who had discovered letters proving the depravity of the girl, was not as much to blame as the Tiphaines were trying to make out. If she did use some violence to get possession of those letters ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... was the work of one night. Alaeddin was wonder-struck and astounded by that magnificent display of wealth which not even the mightiest monarch on earth could produce; and more so to see his pavilion fully provided with eunuchs and handmaids whose beauty would seduce a saint. Yet the prime marvel of the pavilion was an upper kiosque or belvedere of four-and-twenty windows all made of emeralds and rubies and other gems; [FN171] and one window remained unfinished at the requirement of Alaeddin that the Sultan might prove him impotent to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... close to its mother's heart! The young children laughed as they hid themselves behind the forest trees, and then emerged suddenly to frighten the others. The Chippeway maidens rejoiced when they remembered that their rivals, the Dahcotah girls, would no longer seduce their lovers ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... is abroad. Name you my successor! The treach'rous snare! That in my life you might seduce my people; And, like a sly Armida, in your net Entangle all our noble English youth; That all might turn to the new ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... traveller who always set out with the spleen and jaundice,—"without one generous connection, or pleasurable anecdote to tell of,—travelling straight on, looking neither to his right hand or his left, lest love or pity should seduce him out of the road." Mr. Loudon seems to be a very different kind of a traveller: for his horticultural spirit and benevolent views, pervade almost every page of his late tour through Bavaria. One envies his feelings, too, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... The evil that they do rises from absolute selfishness, rather than from deliberate sensuality. Not one of them could have been saved by any environment, or by any husband. Varvara is frivolous, Irina is cold-hearted, and Maria is a super-woman; she makes a bet with her husband that she can seduce any man he brings to the house. To each of her lovers she gives an iron ring, symbol of their slavery; and like Circe, she transforms men into swine. After she has hypnotised Sanin, and taken away his allegiance to the pure girl whom he loves, "her eyes, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... diseased condition. To take care that he should not be deservedly smitten by this inward reproach is not indeed my duty but his business; nevertheless, it is my duty to do nothing which by the nature of man might seduce him to that for which his conscience may hereafter torment him, that is, it is my duty not to give him occasion of stumbling. But there are no definite limits within which this care for the moral satisfaction of others must be kept; therefore it ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... crossed over to the banks of the ninth gulf, where the Sowers of Scandal, the Schismatics, Heretics, and Founders of False Religions, underwent the penalties of such as load themselves with the sins of those whom they seduce. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... us know?" persisted Diana, who had been evidently much put out by the failure of her artful letters to seduce Archibald into giving away the secret ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... this was Orion as she had known him after his return till the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten water-party. He was, indeed, a poet; nature herself had made it so easy to him to seduce unguarded souls into a belief in him! And yet no! This letter was honestly meant. Philippus knew men well; Orion really had a heart, a warm heart. Not the most reckless of criminals could mock at the curse hurled at him by a beloved father in his last moments. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... soon as April bringeth (Bateson) The peaceful western wind (Campion) There is a garden in her face (Campion) There is a lady sweet and kind (Ford) There were three Ravens sat on a tree (Melismata) Think'st thou, Kate, to put me down (Jones) Think'st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning (Campion) Thou art but young, thou say'st (Wilbye) Thou art not fair, for all thy red and white (Campion and Rosseter) Thou pretty bird, how do I see (Danyel) Though Amaryllis dance in green (Byrd) Though my carriage be but careless (Weelkes) ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... enough to make sure they will not return, the Messiah re-enters heaven in triumph, greeted by saints and angels with hymns of praise. This account of the war in heaven concluded, Raphael informs Adam that Satan, leader of these fallen angels, envying his happy state, is now plotting to seduce him from his allegiance to God, and thus compel him to ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... lie!" I cried. "Thou wanton girl, who wouldst seduce me from my duty and put me to an open shame!—who, led by passion or ambition, or the love of evil, hast not shamed to break the barriers of thy sex and speak as thou hast spoken—beware lest thou go too far! And ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... there at the latter part of the year 1864, towards the close of the American War; and shortly after his arrival, meeting with his old comrade, as we have informed the reader, the latter, strange to say, had power enough over him to seduce him to his fall. And now, when Ashton was leaving Rochester in order to get away from his old associates, and was making resolutions of reform, here he was again as his ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... comprehensible that it should strive to enlist to the fullest possible extent the Press of other countries. At least one paper in practically every neutral country is directly subsidised by the German Foreign Office, which does not, however, stop at this. The attempt to seduce the newspapers of other nations into interpreting the Fatherland as the Wilhelmstrasse wishes it to be interpreted leads the investigators to a subterranean labyrinth of schemes ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... gave up and withdrew to his own country. Having realized at great cost that he could not subdue the Phoenicians without a navy, he set about finding one. By means of bribes and threats he managed to seduce three Phoenician cities to his side. These furnished him sixty ships officered by Phoenicians, but ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would learn to be fit for more than a day-laborer; he would learn gardening, in ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... principal object in his warfare with God was to seduce human souls from their divine allegiance, he was ever ready with whatever temptation seemed most likely to effect his purpose. Some were to be won by physical indulgence; others by conferring on them powers enabling them apparently ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... precluded. "You would have freedom," says he, "without any inclination to sin; but it may justly be doubted if this is possible in the present state of things," (chap. v. s. 5, sub. 2); and again, in answering the question why God did not remove us into another state where no temptation could seduce us, he says: "It is plain that in the present state of things it is impossible for men to live without natural evils or the danger of sinning." (Ib.) Now the whole question arises upon the constitution of the present state of things. ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... being one of her citizens, met with a kind reception. But in a few days he became suspected, and having attempted unsuccessfully to tamper with the legate and people of Perugia, he took eight thousand ducats from them, and returned to his army. He then set on foot secret measures, to seduce Cortona from the Florentines, but the affair being discovered, his attempts were fruitless. Among the principal citizens was Bartolomeo di Senso, who being appointed to the evening watch of one of the gates, a countryman, his friend, told him, that if he went he would be slain. Bartolomeo, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... bank, while that under Washington remained unbroken in his rear, was an experiment of equal danger. It suited the cautious temper of Howe to devise some other plan of operation to which he might resort should he be unable to seduce Washington from his ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Guernsey, which has always been distinguished for its loyalty and patriotism: indeed, it has not only produced several of our bravest and greatest warriors, but its inhabitants have ever manifested themselves to be proof against every attempt to seduce them from their allegiance. The opinions which have been entertained unfavourable to this fact,—arising no doubt from the proximity of the island to the coast of France, and the general use of the French language, but, most of all, from its having ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... that passes, and flying at the heels of the horse, renders him often a very dangerous nuisance. He is, however, valuable to the cottager; he is a faithful defender of his humble dwelling; no bribe can seduce him from his duty; and he is a useful and an effectual guard over the clothes and scanty provisions of the labourer, who may be working in some distant part of the field. All day long he will lie upon his master's clothes seemingly asleep, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... you like until we find it convenient to land you; you will be allowed to occupy your former quarters, and your rations will be regularly served out to you. But if on the other hand you make the slightest attempt to communicate with the prisoners, or endeavour in any way to seduce any of the men from their loyalty to the rest, I will hang you both that same hour, one from each yard-arm. That is understood and agreed to, is it not, men?" he continued, raising his voice and appealing to the crowd of mutineers who ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... a good-looking man, women didn't try to capture and seduce? Manly beauty is the red rag that enthralls and excites women and renders them dishonest, though their honor doesn't lodge at the point ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... the Gold of France did not seduce, Although I did admit it as a motiue, The sooner to effect what I intended: But God be thanked for preuention, Which in sufferance heartily will reioyce, Beseeching God, and you, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... luxury and dissipation, to divert your charity from its noblest and its truest ends, into the means of supporting them in their fawning dependence. Naples is not destitute of a set of young noblemen, the disgrace of the titles they wear, who would be too happy to seduce the representative of the marquisses of Pescara into an imitation of their vices, and to screen their follies under so brilliant and conspicuous ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... you concerning those who seduce you. (27)And the anointing which ye received from him abides in you, and ye have no need that any one teach you; but, as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is truth, and is not a lie, and even as it taught you, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... of mankind, believe me, your total blindness to the whole truth, which alone constitutes the truth, incapacitates you from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common sense of the world. You may seduce thousands—you can convince no one. Whenever and wherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the weak-minded and the ignorant, and bringing to bear with them the interests of the vicious and unprincipled, overwhelm common ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the public service, were incorrect. But the most extraordinary and ridiculous tale of all was that during his residence in Russia he had prostituted a beautiful American girl, whom he then had in his service, in order "to seduce the passions of the Emperor Alexander (p. 210) and sway ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... through the military. In the middle of May 1797, when the malcontents were excited by news of the second mutiny at Portsmouth, they rose in the North, but in three or four engagements the loyal Militia and Yeomanry broke up their bands. The South remained quiet, and the efforts to seduce the army and Militia were fruitless; but Lord Clifden, writing to Abbot on 15th May, predicted a general rising when the French attempted a second invasion, as they certainly would.[485] On 19th June Beresford wrote from Dublin to Auckland, stating that, but for the repressive measures and wholesale ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of sin. If we yield to some temptation, part of the avenging retribution is that the temptation abides by us, and has power over us. The 'Canaanites' whom we have allowed to lead us astray will stay beside us when their power to seduce us is done, and will pull off their masks and show themselves for what they ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the doom of the ancient system was sounded. Then, when Anatomy sprang to the front as the potent ally of Medicine, the science of healing entered upon a fresh stage, but this new force did not make itself felt soon enough to seduce Cardan from the altars of the ancients to the worship of new gods. As long as he lived he was a follower of the great masters, though at the same time his admiration of the teaching of Vesalius was enthusiastic and profound. His ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... This practice, invented by Commodus, proved very useful to Severus. He found at Rome the children of many of the principal adherents of his rivals; and he employed them more than once to intimidate, or seduce, the parents.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... not be jealous?" she cried, vehemently, weeping bitterly. "Do I not see that the women are trying to seduce him and make him desert me? Do I not see him at the theatre gazing at the finely-dressed ladies and admiring their bare arms ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... your partial opinion, when I tell you, 'tis not a flash of wit fires me, nor is it a gay out-side can seduce me to matrimony. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... you seduce a wife? Falkland shall teach you to do it with gravity and dignity. Would you murder? Eugene Aram shall show you its necessity for the public advantage. Would you rob? Paul Clifford shall convince you of the injustice of security, and of the abominableness of the safety ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... said to Sharrkan, "Cause a tent of perfumed leather to be pitched for this Religious, and appoint a body servant to wait upon him." On the fourth day she called for food; so they brought her all kinds of meats that could seduce the sense or delight the sight; but of all this she would eat only a scone with salt. Then she again turned to her fast and, as the night came, she rose anew to pray; when Sharrkan said to Zau al-Makan, "Verily, this man carrieth renunciation ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... easily see, how Preachers, by a small Deviation from the Doctrine of Peace, may insensibly seduce their Hearers, and, perverting the End of their Function, set them on to Enmity, Hatred, and all Manner of Mischief: But I can't understand how Fasting and Humiliation should further, or be made any ways instrumental to ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Government would wax weaker, and he would put off his final decision till the next day. Anne saw these fluctuations of his mind between love and patriotism, and being terrified by what she had heard of sea-fights, used the utmost art of which she was capable to seduce him from his forming purpose. She came to him in the mill, wearing the very prettiest of her morning jackets—the one that only just passed the waist, and was laced so tastefully round the collar and bosom. Then she would appear in her new hat, with a bouquet of primroses on ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... unto the Lord, the joining ordinance. Oh! do it with full purpose of heart, and be often putting on fresh and frequent resolutions, not to suffer every base temptation of Satan, every deceitful, or malignant solicitation of the world, every foolish and carnal suggestion of the flesh, to bribe and seduce you from that fidelity which you swear this day to Jesus Christ and the kingdoms. A well grounded resolution is half the work, and the better half too; for he that hath well resolved, hath conquered his will; and he that hath ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens did I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... guiltily. Day by day the legislators were being debauched to serve the interest of the factions which were fighting for control of the State. Night after night secret meetings were being held in out-of-the-way places to seduce those who clung desperately to their honesty or held out for a bigger price. Bribery was in the air, rampant, unashamed. Thousand-dollar bills were as common as ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... observations, and mathematicians of no small repute. Unfortunately, they mixed with their really scientific studies those occult pursuits which, in ages and countries where the limits of true science are not known, are always apt to seduce students from the right path, having attractions against which few men are proof, so long as it is believed that they can really accomplish the end that they propose to themselves. The Babylonians were astrologers no less ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... man cannot act Unjustly without his act falling under some particular crime; now a man cannot seduce his own wife, commit a burglary on his own premises, or steal his own property. After all, the general answer to the question is to allege what was settled respecting being Unjustly dealt with with one's ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... most notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should all perish, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... father or husband; and to these they should go for advice on all matters. III. All license, such as the Roman woman's right of taking the initiative in a divorce, must never be tolerated. IV. They should never transgress the bounds of strictest decorum in conduct and dress, lest they seduce men; and they must never be conspicuous in public or attempt to perform public functions. V. They are to be given due honour and are to ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... moment of its actual demise. Indeed, I have more than once finished a chapter, when within half a page of it, by matchlight. But that, of course, was gross extravagance. Our candles seemed to me abominably short, and I once tried to seduce Mrs. Gabbitas into allowing me two at a time; but she, good soul, wisely said that one was more than I had any right to burn in an evening, and I was too miserly ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... I should have died thirty times over! When people live in the Rue Grenetat they should give up society, for you'll grant it is a regular trap to seduce people into such an abominable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... wherewith to pay A servile sycophant, if well they weigh How much it costs the wretch to be so base; Nor can the greatest powers enough disgrace, Enough chastise, such prostitute applause, If well they weigh how much it stains their cause. But are our writers ever in the wrong? Does virtue ne'er seduce the venal tongue? Yes; if well brib'd, for virtue's self they fight; Still in the wrong, tho' champions for the right: Whoe'er their crimes for interest only quit, Sin on in virtue, and good deeds commit. Nought but inconstancy Britannia meets, And broken ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... means what is expressed by the apostle in another form: "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." Col. 3:5. To mortify is to deprive of life, make dead. We mortify our members which would seduce us into sin, not by destroying them, but by keeping them in subjection to "the law of the spirit of life ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... set yourselves up to be dictators. Ye have used wild words. Ye have tried to seduce the rest. Ye have my leave ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... long before she was admitted to the court, it had been the dream of this woman to seduce the King. Her father was butcher to the Invalides, and she spent nearly all the money she could command in a costly present to a great duchess, the Princess Conti, in order to be presented. She played high, and won—not a royal heart, but the royal fancy. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... Chinese examinations: his political, though probably unconscious disciple has only a few negative tests. The warrior or sage who is to rule is not to be chosen by the majority, especially in our era, when they would choose the Orators who seduce and "traduce the State"; nor are we ever told that the election is to rest with either Under or Upper House: the practical conclusion is that when we find a man of great force of character, whether representing our own opinions or the reverse, we should take him on trust. ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... killing all who resisted, and then proceeded to plunder the local merchants and arm all the sturdiest of the slaves. Finding a centurion named Sisenna carrying home a pair of silver hands[222] as a token of alliance from the army in Syria to the Household Guards, he tried by various devices to seduce him, until Sisenna took fright and escaped secretly from the island in fear of violence. Thus the panic spread. The great name of Nero attracted many who pined for revolution and hated the existing state of things. The rumours waxed daily, until ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... comprehend that the release of the miserable from false relations, would necessarily seduce the contented from happy ones, or that the dearest word in the Saxon tongue (home) should have no significance, after drunkards and villains were denied the right to enter it. It is a pleasant reflection, in view of the dolorous results ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of in the fourth Epistle, under the name of the woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a Prophetess, to teach and to seduce the servants of Christ to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to Idols. The woman therefore began now to ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... intentions, nor confidence, nor pity, nor even of interest. Others have spoken and will speak again, better than I could, of Poland's terrible distress and of the danger, which is far more formidable and far more imminent than is generally believed, of those German intrigues which are seeking to seduce from us and, despite themselves, to turn against us twenty millions of desperate people and nearly a million soldiers, who will die, perhaps, rather than join our enemies, but who, in any case, cannot fight in our ranks as they would have done had the word for which they are waiting ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... reproach her husband for the legal right, in virtue of which she belongs to him. She ought not to find in this compulsory submission any excuse for yielding to a lover, because some time after her marriage she has discovered in her own heart a traitor whose sophisms seduce her by asking twenty times an hour, "Wherefore, since she has been given against her will to a man whom she does not love, should she not give herself, of her own free-will, to a man whom she does love." A woman is not to be tolerated ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... creature of the most alluring beauty; young, graceful and most delicately seductive, whose skill in the arts and sciences put many of their doctors to shame. This creature, his most prized possession, San-Lan with the utmost moral callousness ordered to seduce me, urging her to apply without stint and to its fullest extent, her knowledge of evil arts. Had I not seen the naked horror of her soul, that she let creep into her eyes for just one unguarded instant, and had it not been ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... the story of the drama; for in the original "History of Amleth the Dane," from which Shakspeare drew his materials, there is a woman introduced who is employed as an instrument to seduce Amleth, but not even the germ ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... priests; it was in the schools of these dreamers, interested by profession in dethroning human reason, that philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. Obscure or false in its principles, mingled with fictions and fables, solely made to seduce imagination, this philosophy progressed but waveringly, and instead of enlightening the mind, it blinded it, and turned it away from useful objects. The theological speculations and mystical reveries of the ancients have, even in our days, the making of the law in a great ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Business first. Your bewitching smile cannot seduce me. Patience, my friends; an hour hence we will become acquainted. To fill up a grave and roll some empty casks into the cellar is a small matter. But it is getting so dark that I can no longer distinguish the image ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... witch! how easily have you managed to seduce me! I followed your words like a child, and I really believed in the happiness you promised. But let us be serious. The shoemaker spoke to me again about the rent, and asked me to pay it. We still owe him ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... sharp and nasal. "I say, Betty: What sort of beings are we rearing here?—why, they cannot live. Why, we simply cannot intrust to them the thing that we call life. A housemaid who steals out to the stable-boy and lets him seduce her knows what she is after; but what we are bringing up is little intoxicated ghosts that tremble with longing to haunt the outside world and cannot breathe when they get out there. That is what we ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... second act of the hideous comedy. Mrs. Brian appeared one day, all of a sudden, to notice something, and promptly requested Malgat never to put foot again within that house. She accused him of an attempt to seduce Sarah Brandon. I dare say, you can imagine, the fool! how he protested, affirming the purity of his intentions, and swearing that he would be the happiest of mortals if they would condescend to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... became supreme in the state was an army very different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to a power that, in this particular, as well as in others, is anti-christian? All have reason to beware of the attractions of such civil powers. What is it that gives evil governments their influence, but their power to terrify, and their wealth and honours to seduce? In one case, the ministers of the Community to whom we now direct our thoughts, have nobly cast the latter aside. It becomes her to act in other matters consistently with this. There are those who would overthrow the institutions of ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below, We see a man whose thoughts and words have no connection with each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but from deep and cool meditation. His passions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their most headstrong fury never forget the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a vulgar upstart, who tries to seduce her footman, Joseph Andrews. Parson Adams reproves her for laughing in church. Lady Booby is a caricature of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... God, so that we will not release our neighbor's cattle, take his employees from him or seduce his wife, but urge them to stay and do what ...
— The Small Catechism of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... root, and as stiff and hard as iron. I assure you, the wild excess of passion he drives me into is indescribable. You shall experience the delight of his fucking, for, with you and me, there must be no difficulty, diversion, nor jealousy. Nay, I shall try to seduce your husband, with a view to cover our delinquencies. I would offer you mine, but, truly, he is not worth having to a woman who can find better, as my dear Lizzie so charmingly does. We have managed matters so prudently that my husband ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... intervention because of the harm done to Les Aigues by all the members of the Tonsard family. His passion, or to speak more correctly, his caprice and obstinate pursuit of La Pechina, were so aggravated by the prospect of his immediate departure, which left him no time to seduce her, that he resolved on attempting violence. The child's contempt for her prosecutor, plainly shown, excited the Lovelace of the Grand-I-Vert to a hatred whose fury was equalled only by his desires. For ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac |
