"Tempt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more misguided set of priorities than one which would tempt others by weakening America, and thereby endanger the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon • Richard Nixon
... of his dinner" many times to friends and neighbors. This pleasant custom lingered till the present day in New England; I saw last summer, several times, covered treasures of housewifery being carried in petty amounts, literally "a taste," to tempt tired appetites or lonely diners. The gift of a portion of the over-bountiful supply for the supper of a wedding, a reception, etc., went by the expressive name of ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... account for acting in opposition to his instructions, he is pushing us deeper and deeper into the War policy which we wish to escape. Wherefore should three poor Turkish steamers go to the Crimea, but to beard the Russian Fleet and tempt it to come out of Sebastopol, which would thus constitute the much desired contingency for our combined Fleets to attack it, and so engage ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Master-Word, and so made reply; though it had not been they who had made the previous talk, which we had sought to test by the Word. And then they would make contradiction of all that had been spoken so cunningly; so that we knew the Monsters and Forces had sought to tempt some from the safety of the Redoubt. Yet, was this no new thing, as I have made to hint; saving that it grew now to a greater persistence, and there was a loathsome cunning in the using of this new knowledge to the making of wicked and false ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... fared better than did the Clifford household that day. The dishes heaped with strawberries, raspberries, cherries, and white grape-currants that had been gathered with the dew upon them might well tempt the most blase resident of a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... us, poor weak women, for being fashionable and dressy, when snares are set at every corner to tempt us? What would become of your dry-goods merchants and your commerce if we did not wear handsome dresses—if the women of this country were to become thus sensible to-day? Your great stores on Broadway would be closed, and your stalwart six-feet men would have to find something else ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... only deceive yourselves with the idea that you can build up a new edifice when you have overthrown the old one. Great God, what sacrilege! Who had intrusted you with the fate of our country, to tempt the Almighty? Who authorized you to lose all there is for the hope of what may be? For centuries past have so many honorable men fought in vain to uphold the old tottering constitution, as you call it? Or were they not true patriots and heroes? Your companions ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... from heaven and wile it out of earthly pockets, anticipate all possible emergencies and wants by land and sea, finish for the time the much epistolary correspondence to which this same fragment of humanity has given rise, tempt the deep with your restless charge, bear the discomforts of the stormiest of seas, and inwardly groan at the signs of other and worse tempests ready ever to burst forth in the Atlantic of that young sinner's future course; and when after many weeks of anxious thought, fatiguing travel, and laborious ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... intelligence of the late events to the English cantonments. It is the fashion of the natives of India to wear large earrings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid aside, lest the precious metal should tempt some gang of robbers; and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll of paper is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from closing. Hastings placed in the cars of his messengers letters rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of these ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an example placed before us; it has been the will of God that we should know her, that we might be charmed with her excellence, and that the happiness both of her life and death, might tempt ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... kill her with his cruelty and coldness. She had no hope or ambition other than to share his lot, however humble. To be her noble soldier, her hero Percy's bride, would be her heaven, and neither gold nor grandeur nor princely mansion could tempt her from his side, and she would welcome the grave if he proved false to her. It was all the high-flown, emotional, melodramatic trash to be expected of an ill-balanced girl whose pretty head was stuffed with the romance ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... short and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to accompany me as ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... apparently bent on rendering the Vote impossible by a campaign of violence and malicious mischief very completely masked the fact that a very great number of girls and young women no longer considered it seemly to hang about at home trying by a few crude inducements to tempt men to marry them, but were setting out very seriously and capably to master the young man's way of finding a place for oneself in the world. Beneath the dust and noise realities were coming about that ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... could not be coaxed to play with the people to whom his Minneapolis representative introduced him. He was overworking again, and perfectly happy. He was hoping to find something wrong with the branch house. Claire tried to tempt him out to the lakes. She failed. His nerve-fuse burnt out the second ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... waist. It was like a curved bar of steel. Looking down, she saw the water racing below—she saw a wave leap up—she felt it touch her foot with its feathery head, gently, beneficently, and yet traitorously; for how quickly would it quench the lives that it seemed to tempt from the flames! ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... Briggs," said Denham, laughing. "They want to tempt us into making another raid because the distance will be shorter for ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... asks who will help him to tempt mankind to do wrong. "If to any followers I princely treasure gave of old while we in that good realm happy sate," let him my gift repay, let him ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... you To the wrong, and tempt you sore To defy the voice within you Till it, grieved, will speak no more,— {322} Do not hesitate to tell them You cannot their ways approve. Do not yield to their enticements; Tell ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... know," said he, "how, after having been shipwrecked five times, and escaped so many dangers, I could resolve again to tempt fortune, and expose myself to new hardships. I am, myself, astonished at my conduct when I reflect upon it, and must certainly have been actuated by my destiny. But be that as it may, after a year's rest I prepared for a sixth voyage, notwithstanding ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... resources of such new countries tempt to the widespread superficial exploitation, which finds its geographical expression in a broad, dilating frontier. Here the man-dust which is to form the future political planet is thinly disseminated, swept outward by a centrifugal force. Furthermore, the absence of natural barriers which ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... had avoided compromising himself, and was waiting till the Mannai had decided to make common cause with him before showing his hand openly. Ever since the skirmish of the year 719, Mitatti had actively striven to tempt the Mannai from their allegiance, but his intrigues had hitherto proved of no avail against the staunch fidelity first of Iranzu and then of Aza, who had succeeded the latter about 718. At the beginning of the year 716 Mitatti was more successful; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... was through the Peacock that Satan met the vile Serpent, whose shape he assumed in order to enter the garden and tempt Eve with the apple. And for the Peacock's share in the doings of that dreadful day the Lord took away his beautiful voice and sent him forth from the pleasant garden to chatter harshly in this workaday world, where his gorgeousness and his vanity are but a reminder ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... where few opportunities existed for gaining wide knowledge. His parents permitted him to spend some years at Amsterdam, where a branch of their business was established. Recalled to Smyrna at the age of thirty, Koraes almost abandoned human society. The hand of a beautiful heiress could not tempt him from the austere and solitary life of the scholar; and quitting his home, he passed through the medical school of Montpellier, and settled at Paris. He was here when the French Revolution began. The inspiration of that time gave to his vast learning and inborn energy a ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Holt, filling his horn cup with tea from the kettle, 'they equally relish fried porcupines and skunks; but some of their viands might tempt an alderman—such as elk's nose, beaver's tail, and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... nor tempt me further! Thou speakest of a quarrel between thee and me, and of that there may be more hereafter. Now, thou art to answer to mine impeachment of thee as an offender against ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... returned to her drawing, her eyes wandered timidly once or twice to the place where Zack was standing, when she thought he was not looking at her; and, assuredly, so far as personal appearance was concerned, young Thorpe was handsome enough to tempt any woman into glancing at him with approving eyes. He was over six feet in height; and, though then little more than nineteen years old, was well developed in proportion to his stature. His boxing, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... girl, I see! Ah, well, don't tempt me, Beta. It's hard enough to work on such a day, anyhow, without your trying ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... to get it I should have to consent to make my wife a concubine, my son a bastard. Your Majesty knows me ill if he has been able to believe that the offer of a crown could tempt me to ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... impression been realised to a sufficiently definite focus, the sense of touch and solidity would probably have been satisfied. But the particular field of this new point of view, the beauty of tone and colour relations considered as an impression apart from objectivity, did not tempt them to carry their work so far as this, or the insistence on these particular qualities would have ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... led the van, moving down through a defile, into which, after a time, his whole army found themselves crowded. Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and carried bows seven feet long and so thick that few men of modern days could bend them. A cloth-yard shaft from one of these would fly with tremendous force. Edward had placed these ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... not to deep research or happy guess, Is show'd the life of hope, the death of peace; Unbless'd the man whom philosophic rage Shall tempt to lose the Christian in the Sage: 20 Not Art, but Goodness, pour'd the sacred ray That cheer'd the parting ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... type she might, some facet of the note could not fail to lure her hither. If a loyal Webster, family obligation would be the bait; if conscientious, plain duty stared her in the face; if mercenary, dreams of an inherited fortune would tempt her. The ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... can resolve vigorously upon a course of action, and turns neither to the right nor the left, though a paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts him, is sure of success. We could almost classify successes and failures by their various degrees of will-power. Men like Sir James Mackintosh, Coleridge, La Harpe, and many others who have dazzled the world with ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... tempt the poor gaunt cat into her arms, meaning to carry it home and befriend it; but it was scared by her endeavour and ran back to its home in the outhouse, making a green path across the white dew of the meadow. Then Sylvia began to hasten home, thinking, and remembering—at the stile that led ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dishonest. In their eyes it is a move in the right direction; they exaggerate, as their English allies underrate, the freedom of action which the Constitution offers to Ireland. It cannot, as already pointed out, by any possibility remove the admitted causes of Irish discontent. It cannot tempt capital towards Ireland, but it may easily drive capital away from her shores; it cannot diminish poverty; it cannot in its direct effect assuage religious bigotry; it cannot of itself remove agrarian discontent. The Land Purchase Bill, even when discarded, ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... voice broke in, "you see your borrowed ship, the Scorpion. But please don't let it tempt you to cut short your visit with me, my friend. It would avail you nothing even if you reached her, for it requires a secret combination to open the port-locks, and my servants' brains have been so altered ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as if she was stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for a moment Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out to tempt him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong man's necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to his father, and his sister's wedding-guest, kept on her way without noticing him, and ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... courts are likely to employ in such a work. I have likewise of myself as partial and as vain an opinion as men commonly have of themselves. But if I could command the whole military arm of Europe, I am sure that a bribe of the best province in that kingdom would not tempt me to intermeddle in their affairs, except in perfect concurrence and concert with the natural, legal interests of the country, composed of the ecclesiastical, the military, the several corporate bodies of justice and of burghership, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull; Or, at some banker's desk, like many more, Content to tell that two and two make four; His name had stood in City annals fair, And prudent Dulness mark'd him for a mayor. What, then, could tempt thee, in a critic age, Such blooming hopes to forfeit on a stage? Could it be worth thy wondrous waste of pains To publish to the world thy lack of brains? 600 Or might not Reason e'en to thee have shown, Thy greatest praise had been to live unknown? Yet let not vanity like thine ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... never do without Brian again. All that's needed is for him to propose to Dierdre. I know—you think he won't, no matter how he feels. But he'll have missed her while he's away. She's a missable little thing to any one who likes her, and she can tempt him to speak out in spite of himself when he gets back. I'll see to it that she does. The Becketts will be enchanted. The old lady's a born match-maker. We can announce our engagement at the same time. While they think Jim's dead, they won't grudge your being happy with another man, especially with ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Deacon Homms, claim the reward!" the old man screamed. "She is the princess; I know her. She came out of the canal to tempt me! She is the Princess Sira. Now shall I at last enter the Palace of Joys! I ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... you for that," she said, turning away, while indignation spread through her like subterranean heat. "You may come again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you may call, but I shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won't give myself to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... to note in how much of his verse Mr. Yeats repeats his protest against the political passion of Ireland which once meant so much to him. All Things can Tempt Me expresses this artistic mood of revolt ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... stood on the counter in front of the window in order to see down perpendicularly into the Square; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt Mr. Povey. She might have gone down into the shop—there was no slightest reason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of Mr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten the trifling incident of New Year's Day—but she was incapable of descending the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... alighted at our window-sill some days ago, and sang very sweetly to us—and we spread crumbs and made it a little feast; and it seemed to trust us, but presently it spread its wings and flew away, and it comes not again. Tell us, what shall we do to tempt the wild bird back?" And Paul, smiling in her face, said, "Oh, madam, the bird will return; but he leads, maybe, a toilsome life, gathering berries, and doing small businesses. The birds, which seem so free, live a life of labour; and they may not always follow their hearts. But be ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... some of my co-workers, I was ready for a hearty luncheon, and then I found myself my own master for the remainder of the day, or until four o'clock, when Dave and I were to meet by appointment at the Ferris Wheel and tempt its dangers together. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... strange, Herr Cancellarius, that you should so persistently avoid my questions," said the Prince. "You tempt me to suppose a purpose in your dulness. I have asked you whether all was quiet; do me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mary even more intensely than the squabbles. There came a time when desperation got the upper hand of that prudence so earnestly recommended by Lord Dauntrey. She could not endure the long evenings in the villa, and felt that she must again tempt fortune at the Casino. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "'Don't tempt me!' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman, not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three. Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... the Morning-glory vine was going to sleep for the winter, the runaway Glory was heard to say to the other blossoms: "Children, be careful of the breeze and what he may tell you next summer. I may not be here to care for you, but he will surely come and tempt you to go along with him. He is fickle and will carry you far, far away and then drop you in a place perhaps worse than this, for we do not belong here, but in a garden with other flowers. I ran away from my ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... over the nipple. This will cause, as the bottle cools, a sufficient amount of suction to elevate the sunken nipple. The bottle should then be removed and the child substituted,—a little sugar and water or sweetened milk being applied, if necessary, to tempt the child to take ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... pecuniary losses in case peace should be made. His disinterested patriotism was the frequent subject of comment in the most secret letters of the French ambassadors to the king. He had repeatedly refused enormous offers if he would forsake the cause of the republic. The King of France was ever ready to tempt him with bribes, such as had proved most efficacious with men as highly born and as highly placed as a cadet of the house of Orange-Nassau. But there is no record that Jeannin assailed him at this crisis with such temptations, although it has not been pretended that the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Louis to escape the political storm I saw brewing. The President repeatedly said to me that he wanted me in Washington, and I as often answered that nothing could tempt me to live in that center of intrigue and excitement; but soon came ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... best for us to get away. If we tempt our fate too much it may overtake us, but before we go let's take a last view of our late home, San Juan de Ulua. See it over there, cut out in black against the blue sky. It's a great fortress, but I'm ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... springs out when she sleepeth, by the stirs and the starts of her pain. As music half-shapen of sorrow, with its wants and its infinite wail, Is the voice of Campaspe, the beauty at bay with her passion dead-pale. Go out from the courts of her loving, nor tempt the fierce dance of desire Where thy life would be shrivelled like stubble in the stress and the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... is named generalissimo, with Count Koningseg, Lord Dunmore,(1019) and Ligonier,(1020) under him. Poor boy! he is most Brunswickly happy with his drums and trumpets. Do but think that this sugar-plum was to tempt him to swallow that bolus the Princess of Denmark!(1021) What will they do if they have children? The late Queen never forgave the Duke of Richmond, for telling her that his children would take place before the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... useless for you to tempt me! I told you I promised my good Fairy to behave myself, and I am going ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... his head doubtfully. "I saw you give way!" he said,—"I doubt whether there was even a show of resistance. Now Catherine Douglass—But I must go. No, don't tempt me with apple pie—you have no idea of the pies in that wagon. Perhaps if I get successfully through them, I'll come back and dispose of yours. What are you ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... capital of Mahoba. Within a certain distance around that ruined city no one now dares to beat the 'nakkara', or great drum used in festivals or processions, lest the spirits of the old Chandel chiefs who there repose should be roused to vengeance;[35] and a kingdom could not tempt one of the Bundelas, Pawars, or Chandels to accept the government of the parish ['mauza'] in which it is situated. They will take subordinate offices there under others with fear and trembling, but nothing could ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement. It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... could not brook the restraint under which they were placed; and rather than chafe and pine in unwilling confinement, would put themselves at hazard, that they might revel at large and wanton in the wilderness. Deriving their sustenance chiefly from the woods, the strong arm of necessity led many to tempt the perils which environed them; while to the more chivalric and adventurous "the danger's self were lure alone." The quiet and stillness which reigned around, even when the enemy were lurking nearest and in greater numbers, inspired many too, with the delusive hope ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... hill—the very heart of Belleville, and the last stronghold of the Insurgents. It was crowded with soldiery: an hour in Belleville under existing circumstances is enough to satisfy the morbid appetite for excitement which may tempt people to go there. Notwithstanding the crowds on the Boulevards, many of the shops are still shut, in consequence of the absence of their owners from Paris. The difficulties of entering and leaving the city are still so great that ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... feet Arthur stood with folded arms, gazing pityingly upon her, himself now the stronger of the two. "Edith, you, of all others, must not tempt me to fall. You surely will counsel me to do right! Help me! oh, help me! I am so weak, and I feel my good resolutions all giving way at sight of your distress! If it will take one iota from your pain to know that Nina shall ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... a respected lord, the proud glad mother of children, that should not have blushed to be sprung from the wanton Lucia! Thou! it is thou, thou only that hast done all this!—And why, I say, why should I not revenge? Beware! tempt me no farther! Do my bidding! Thou slave, that thought'st but now to be the master, obey my bidding to the letter!" And she stamped her foot on the ground, with the imperious air of a despotic queen. And in truth, crest-fallen and heavy in spirit, were the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... together; and the rows so devious that you would think that they not only had grown while the owner was sleeping, but had been set out by him in a somnambulic state. The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak rather from memory than from any recent experience, such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... fire, and vowed to bestow not another thought on the heartless woman who had perjured her own faith and sold his true and fervent love for riches and title. Oh how he scorned her! how he felt in his own true heart that all the wealth and grandeur of the earth would have been powerless to tempt one thought ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... that I know of. But all the same it must tempt him for I see his eyes fixed on it often enough when he thinks ...
— The Turn of the Road - A Play in Two Scenes and an Epilogue • Rutherford Mayne
... don't tempt me. I will run away from here. At night, when I am already fast asleep, you swoop down on me like a demon, grab me by the neck, and drag me over here—I can't understand anything. Tell me, my boy, is it necessary to ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... the soft hand that wounded him: but the mark is there, and the wound is cicatrized only—no time, tears, caresses, or repentance, can obliterate the scar. We are indocile to put up with grief, however. Reficimus rates quassas: we tempt the ocean again and again, and try upon new ventures. Esmond thought of his early time as a novitiate, and of this past trial as an initiation before entering into life—as our young Indians undergo tortures silently before they pass to the rank ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... now admitted a visitor who was in appearance the very typical Yankee of the story books. Long in the limbs, loose in the joints, angular, ungainly, he came up the walk with a movement that would tempt one to think he had not got accustomed to his inches and did not yet know quite what to do with them all. He had a long face, red in colour; in expression a mixture of honest frankness, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... apples! Eat them no matter what the price. You remember how good Adam found the apple—or at least we presume it was an apple that he found so good—and I can think of no other single thing that would tempt a man to make all the trouble he did. If he had to sin, then I'm for Adam every time, for I think had I been in his place and Eve had offered me a big juicy red apple, I should have taken it and eaten it. I don't know but that I might even have eaten it without the ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... strength and patience to bear your hard usage." Then said the keeper, "Are you resolved to stand to your religion?" "Yes," quoth the doctor, "by God's grace!" "Truly," said the keeper, "I love you the better for it; I did but tempt you: what favour I can show you, you shall be assured of; and I shall think myself happy if I might die at the stake with you." He was as good as his word, for he trusted the doctor to walk in the fields ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... up from the noisy Broadway below. Underwood liked the quiet so that he could think, and he was thinking hard. On the flat desk at his elbow stood a dainty demi-tasse of black coffee—untasted. There were glasses and decanters of whiskey and cordial, but the stimulants did not tempt him. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... strides before your mount takes off. Oh, how exhilarating is a gallop in this fine Cotswold air in the cool autumnal morning! and what a splendid view you get of hounds! Here are no tall fences to hide them from your sight and to tempt a fox to run the hedgerows, no boggy woodlands where your horse flounders up to his girths in yellow clay, no ridge and furrow, and no ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... don't want to tempt ye exac'ly, an' certain I don't want to urge ye. The' ain't no sure things but death an' taxes, as the sayin' is, but buyin' pork at these prices is buyin' somethin' that's got value, an' you can't wipe it out. In other words, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... him to take the medicines prescribed by the doctor. Nothing was too much trouble for him. Though his means were adequate to the needs of himself and his wife, he certainly had no money to waste; but now he was wantonly extravagant in the purchase of delicacies, out of season and dear, which might tempt Strickland's capricious appetite. I shall never forget the tactful patience with which he persuaded him to take nourishment. He was never put out by Strickland's rudeness; if it was merely sullen, he appeared not to notice it; if it was aggressive, he only chuckled. When Strickland, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... knows what a horse or a dog understands and feels, for God hath not given them our speech. If any footstep was heard in the courtyard, she began to neigh, and was always looking round as the door opened. But nothing would tempt her to eat, and in the night-time Drumsheugh heard her crying as if she expected to be taken out for some sudden journey. The Kildrummie veterinary came to see her, and said that nothing could be done when it happened after this fashion with an ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... have my answer. Nothing he can offer Shall tempt me to leave Rome. My work is here, And only here, the building of St. Peter's. What other things I hitherto have done Have fallen from me, are no longer mine; I have passed on beyond them, and have left them As milestones on the way. What lies before me, That is still mine, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a few months after its commencement: "We are now in full operation as a family of workers, teachers and students. We feel the deepest convictions that, for us, our mode of life is the true one, and no attraction would tempt any one of us to exchange it for that we have quitted lately." And it would be an impertinence now to penetrate into its private circles and bring its members and doings to the gaze of an investigating ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... mighty Kill. There would be much flesh feeding and blood drinking till they were gorged. And the Lone Dog would keep. When the Buffalo were eaten, then—He look grimly at A'tim's attenuated form. "Not much to tempt one after the sweet meat of a Grass Feeder," he muttered disconsolately. "How shall we make the ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... a craving for stimulants, and endangering the formation of fatal habits. What furies and harpies are those that follow the army, and that seek out the soldier in his tent, far from home, mother, wife, and sister, tired, disheartened, and tempt him to forget his troubles in a momentary exhilaration, that burns only to chill and to destroy! Evil angels are always active and indefatigable, and there must be good angels enlisted to face them; and here is employment for the slack hand of grief. Ah, we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... to sum up the essential characteristics of the ideal supervisor, I could not neglect this point. After all, the two great dangers that beset him are, first, the danger of sloth—the old Adam of laziness—which will tempt him to avoid the details, to shirk the drudgery, to escape the close and wearisome scrutiny of little things; and, secondly, the sin of triviality—the inertia which holds him to details and never permits him to take the broader view and see the true ends toward which details are ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... fatal asc['e]ndancy Do not tempt thee to mope and repine; With a humble and hopeful dep['e]ndency Still await the good pleasure divine. Success in a higher be['a]titude, Is the end of what's under the Pole; A philosopher takes it with gr['a]titude, And believes it the best ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... admiring gaze]. Madam, you would be a prize so well worth winning, that you almost tempt me. The first of our secrets is that we are all things to all men, until we are quite sure of the sympathy of the listener; then we venture ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... food resources of a nation, the more restricted the choice of material, the better the cooks; a small latitude when providing for the table forcing them to a hundred clever combinations and mysterious devices to vary the monotony of their cuisine and tempt ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... pen, As did the other. Witness all good men; For none in all the world, without a lie, Can say that this is mine, excepting I I write not this of my ostentation, Nor 'cause I seek of men their commendation; I do it to keep them from such surmise, As tempt them will my name to scandalize. Witness my name, if anagram'd to thee, The letters make—'Nu hony in ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... gaily coloured beads, amulets and charms, and others stirred a queer-looking brew in a gypsy kettle over a real fire, and sold cupfuls of it to those who wished in this way to tempt fate still further. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... cultivation of the PADI crop. After ten or more years the villagers will return, and the house or houses will be reconstructed on the old site or one adjacent to it, if no circumstances arise to tempt them to migrate to a more distant country, and if the course of their life on the old site has run smoothly, without misfortunes such as much sickness, conflagrations, or serious attacks by other villages. After this interval ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... with his children and neighbors if he would embrace the Catholic faith and remain in Canada; to which he answered that he would do so without reward if he thought their religion was true, but as he believed the contrary, "the offer of the whole world would tempt him no ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... of them, a man of considerable means, offered a reward of one hundred guineas to any person who would bring him the head of Robert Sallette. The Tory had never seen Sallette, but his alarm was such that he offered a reward large enough to tempt some one to assassinate the daring partisan. When Sallette heard of the reward, he disguised himself as a farmer, and provided himself with a pumpkin, which he placed in a bag. With the bag swinging across his shoulder, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... Hut Point he says, 'We gather around the fire seated on packing-cases, with a hunk of bread and butter and a steaming pannikin of tea, and life is well worth living. After lunch we are out and about again; there is little to tempt a long stay indoors, and exercise ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Devil, he said to me, With his swart face all a-grin, "This day, ere ever the clock strikes three, Shall you sin your darling sin. For I've wagered a crown with Beelzebub, Down there at the Gentlemen's Brimstone Club, I shall tempt you once, I shall tempt you twice, Yet thrice shall you fall ere I ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... naively, too, but it is well to remember how frequently in the past this very kind of naivete has associated with great genius. And whatever there be of such shortcomings is more than balanced by the wonderful feeling for and understanding of nature that most frequently tempt Hamsun into straying from the straight and narrow path of conventional story telling. What cannot be forgiven to the man who writes of "faint whisperings that come from forest and river as if millions of nothingnesses kept streaming and streaming," ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... the outside, be it understood, of a high railed palisade, or stazzionata, as this description of enclosure is called in the language of the Roman Campagna. The appearance of the animals inside, of the buffaloes especially, does not tempt one to make any nearer acquaintance with them. The wild cattle of the Western prairies can hardly look wilder or more savage. Whether the buffaloes are in reality more savage in their temper than the other horned cattle, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... no district in the Southern States without its coon-hunter. In most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it is usually delivered over ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... had not made that visit to Hawkeye, the Hawkins family and Col. Sellers would not now be dancing attendance upon Congress, and endeavoring to tempt that immaculate body into one of those appropriations, for the benefit of its members, which the members find it so difficult to explain to their constituents; and Laura would not be lying in the Tombs, awaiting her trial for murder, and doing her best, by the help of able counsel, to corrupt ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... men steadily pushing the Indians back. But when they gave ground quickly, as if in a panic, it was to tempt the foolhardy into rushing forward. The riflemen had learned their lesson, however, and maintained their alignment. The advance was through nettles and briers, up steep muddy ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... creaking old sleigh, leaving Ruth to make herself pretty, with a fluttering heart, and Aunt Plumy to dish up a late dinner fit to tempt the ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... strong plea in favor of the abolition of the tavern. The three stout gentlemen who listened to their petition were all good men who had families of their own and wanted as little evil as possible abroad to tempt their boys from the better path. They gave a long night's deliberation to the question, and then brought in a verdict that they would extend Nancy's rights for another year. Sophia was completely overcome by the decision, and straightway sought out one of the Commissioners, a friend of Cousin ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... as the palm of the hand, as thick as a man's arm, and red as fire, which excited the envy of the grand khan, who vainly tried to induce its possessor to part with it, offering a whole city in exchange, but that could not tempt the King to let him ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... daring a deed to come to tempt the mind of a timid, delicate child who had never ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have written so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not yourself thought that it was true. Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret. For that reason I turned away from you this evening when you upset my books, for I was in danger at the time, and any show of surprise and emotion upon your part might have drawn attention to my identity and led to the most deplorable and irreparable ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... could do it, and yet I cannot expect it, cannot avail myself of this great opportunity. Look! I am doing it all on my own initiative, sir, for the sake of Zelie and that dear, lovable old chap, her father. I have saved fifty-eight pounds, Mr. Cleek. I had hoped that that might tempt a clever detective to take up the case; but what is such a sum to such a man ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... holidays, even in these times of hardship, the native dress of the northern people is seen in much of its former interesting beauty. The women and girls in full skirts, white, red or yellow waists with laced bodices of darker color, fancy head-cloths and startling shawls, tempt the stares of the foreigner as they pass him on their way to church or to a dance. The men usually content themselves with their cleanest breeches, a pair of high boots of beautiful leather, an embroidered blouse buttoning over the heart, a broad belt, and a woolly ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... could find a way in and out through broken window panes, or holes in the siding. And Bristles, to tell the truth, although he would never have admitted the fact to one of his chums, did secretly feel just a little belief in supernatural things. A graveyard was a place nothing could tempt him to visit after dark, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... bread for the young herr, Melchior Staffeln," said the old man. "When it comes," he continued, "you may tempt Gros to come to you; but he is very particular, and may not like you, because ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn |
