"Tempting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kings; combined them in an attempt to overthrow a government which threatened them all; the attempt was found to result only in consolidating its power; and, in the first year of war, France presented to the disaffected of all nations, the tempting spectacle of a land in which the foremost prizes of power had fallen into the hands of men of the humblest condition; and in which those men humbled to the dust the proudest diadems of Europe. Obscure pamphleteers, country advocates, monks, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... life, and the German press cannot be understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods of earth. This does not mean that the German is a believer, in the orthodox sense of the word, for that he is not. He loves ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the truth of the proposition. As soon as he sees a woman likes him, he instantly returns the compliment with interest. In point of fact, he usually falls in love with her. Of course I admit the large number of concomitant circumstances which disturb the problem; I admit on the one hand the tempting shekels of the Californian heiress, and on the other hand the glamour and halo that still surround the British coronet. Nevertheless, after making all deductions for these disturbing factors, I submit there remains a residual phenomenon thus best interpreted. If anybody ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... speeches. Dr. Small did not even belong to a temperance society. But he could never be persuaded to drink even so much as a cup of tea. There was something sublime in the quiet voice with which he would say, "Cold water, if you please," to a lady tempting him with smoking coffee on a cold morning. There was no exultation, no sense of merit in the act. Everything was done in a modest and matter-of-course way beautiful to behold. And his face was a neutral tint. Neither face nor ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... steam. It was soon perceived, however, that the stranger was keeping quietly on her course, without paying the slightest attention to these manoeuvres; and as it was pretty certain that no enemy's ship, so greatly superior in size, would lose so tempting an opportunity, it was at once clear that she must needs be a neutral, probably some French war-steamer bound for Martinique. So the propeller was left where it was, and the Alabama slipt ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... garden bloom as fair, the peach glows as deep, as in yours: does a flower blush more lovely, or smell more sweet; a peach look more tempting than its fellows, I select it for my Emily, who receives it with delight, as ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... mortals bend their will, 125 How soon they find fit instruments of ill! Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case: So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 130 He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends The little engine on his fingers' ends; This ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... treading so lightly on my way to the village; and, in the quiet of my ramble, they had seemed to me like whispers from Him who made them, and with whom I had never felt so utterly alone. I could not bear to see them displaced by Ann's garden-belles, tempting as the latter would have been at any other moment. She saw my indifference to her offer. I knew she saw it working in my face. I attempted to apologize for my preference, but she did not understand me; so I blurted out my thought, awkwardly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... plant pest ravages: First, aim to have soil, food and plants that will produce a rapid, robust growth without check. Such plants are seldom attacked by any plant disease, and the foliage does not seem to be so tempting to eating- insects; besides which, of course, the plants are much better able to withstand their attack if they do come. Second, give clean, frequent culture and keep the soil busy. Do not have old weeds and refuse lying around for insects and ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... fine and crowded, he was weakened by illness, he was forced now and then to stop and rest with swimming head. Then at once would return, like the demon in fair disguise tempting some hermit of the desert, the thought, "What is Aurora doing? If Aurora knew I was ill, she would come." And the imagination of her coming would shed a feverish gladness all along those petulant, ill-treated, starved nerves. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... of the upper hallway offered no obstacle to this familiar housebreaker. He passed the tempting luxury of Mrs. Prim's boudoir, the chaste elegance of Jonas Prim's bed-room with all the possibilities of forgotten wallets and negotiable papers, setting his course straight for the apartments of Abigail Prim, the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Traffic flows, divides, and flows on, a sparkling river. Here is that mystery, a human being, buying a cigar. Here is another mystery asking for a glass of frosted chocolate. Why is it that we cannot accost that tempting riddle and ask him to give us an accurate precis of his life to date? And that red-haired burly sage, he who used to bake the bran muffins in the little lunchroom near by, and who lent us his Robby Burns one ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... body, soured in spirit, and rapidly learning to detest the very sight of his books, as the instruments of his wretchedness. The severity of the husband and father had in this instance produced its usual unhappy effect, by tempting Mrs. Wilson to injudicious indulgence of her son in private, and the perpetual oscillations between the extremes of harshness and fondness thus experienced, rendered the poor boy a weak and unprincipled character, anxious only to escape the consequences of wrongdoing, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... course the New York parties who helped Robert, policemen, doctors, and nurses, thought very little of it, it wuz so common, all over the land, they said, such things was happening all the time from the same cause. And we knew it well, we knew of the wide open pit, veiled with tempting covering, wove by Selfishness and Greed, scattered over with flimsy flowers of excuse, palliation, expediency that tempts and engulfs our brightest youth, the noblest manhood, old and young, rich ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that? Yet must one trust the process fearlessly, and without misgiving. "The Lord the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. The Changed Life, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... I do not see why I should make any efforts or sacrifices for a Review which lies under an intolerable dictation. Whatever my writings may be worth, it is not for want of strong solicitations, and tempting offers, from other quarters that I have continued to send them to the Edinburgh Review. I adhered to the connection solely because I took pride and pleasure in it. It has now become a source of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... most remarkable man who ever sat on the English throne. His reign, like his character, seems to be divided into two inconsistent halves. In 1519 his rule is pronounced more suave and gentle than the greatest liberty anywhere else; twenty years later terror is said to reign supreme. It is tempting to sum up his life in one sweeping generalisation, and to say that it exhibits a continuous development of Henry's intellect and deterioration of his character. Yet it is difficult to read the King's speech in Parliament at the close of 1545, without crediting ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... this part of the world that enchants me. It is a certain "Why not?" that leads me into all sorts of delightful experiences. Conventionality does not hold us as tightly as it does in the East, and a certain tempting feeling of unlimited possibilities in life makes waking up in the morning a small adventure in itself. It isn't necessary to point out the dangers of an unlimited "Why not?" cult—they are too obvious. "Why not?" is a question that one's imagination asks, and imagination is one of ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... creeping cit; encouraging herself with the few instances (comcommon ones, of girls much inferior to herself in station, talents, education, and even fortune, who had succeeded—as she doubted not to succeed. Handsome settlements, and a chariot, that tempting gewgaw to the vanity of the middling class of females, were the least that she proposed to herself. But all this while, neither her parents nor herself considered that she had appetites indulged to struggle ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... a sort of bonbon that is very tempting to old fellows like me; but, pardon me, I should think it was more in Mr. Falkirk's ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... I don't believe any minister ought to receive such a salary. I have no notion of tempting, by inducements like that, money-lovers ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... the poem, the learned editor of the Review in question allowed himself to be decoyed into the ineffable absurdity of taking the charge as serious, and, in his succeeding number, came forth with an indignant contradiction of it. To this tempting subject the letter, written so hastily off at Bologna, related; but, though printed for Mr. Murray, in a pamphlet consisting of twenty-three pages, it was never published by him.[43] Being valuable, however, as one of the best specimens ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... dedicated to the most popular of the great divinities; it is the most popular of religious resorts; and whether he be Buddhist, Shintoist, or Christian, no stranger comes to the capital without making a visit to its crowded courts or a purchase at its tempting booths. Not to be an exception, I invested in bouquets of firework flowers, fifty flowers for 2 sen, or 1d., each of which, as it slowly consumes, throws off fiery coruscations, shaped like the most beautiful of snow crystals. I was also tempted by small boxes at 2 sen each, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... with wax-lights; the rarest flowers from his conservatory were carefully arranged about the room; the table sparkled with silver, gold, crystal, and porcelain; a royal banquet was spread—the odors of the tempting dishes tickled the nervous fibres of the palate. There sat his friends; he saw them among beautiful women in full evening dress, with bare necks and shoulders, with flowers in their hair; fair women of every type, with sparkling ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... returned to find the breakfasters feasting on hot, old-fashioned cinnamon buns. These buns were a specialty at Wayland Hall, and, with coffee, were a tempting meal in themselves. Another ten minutes, and they left the dining-room en masse, bound for the little manager's office, there to learn what they might or might not expect from the Sans ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... came home to his very meagre dinner, he brought a can of peaches, which, being opened, looked so deliciously cool and tempting that Alice could not refrain from volubly exulting over them. "But how did you get them, Jack?" she asked; "not by going ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... think, without tempting Nemesis too much, I might say those fortunate persons) to whom the world of books is almost as real as the other two worlds of life and of dream, may or must have observed that the conditions and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy, And say 'What is't your honour will command, Wherein your lady and your humble wife May show her duty and make known her love?' And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses, And with declining head into his bosom, Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd To see her noble lord restor'd to health, Who for this seven years hath esteemed him No better than a poor and loathsome ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... late. He had seen his great fortune disappear under his hands. Men who had not half his ability were succeeding where he had failed. Men who once followed him now held aloof, and refused to be drawn into his most tempting schemes. His enemies were working against him. He would overthrow them yet. Norman Wentworth and Gordon ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... made those dear little flies, and that he loves them?" (Just imagine an infinite God in love with a blue-bottle fly!) Well, the little girl thought that was queer taste, but she was sorry, and said that she would not do it any more. By and by, however, a great lazy fly was too tempting, and her plump little finger began to follow him around slowly on the glass, and she said, "Oh you nice big fly, did dod made you? And does dod love you? And does you love dod?" (Down came the finger.) "Well, you shall ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... as marble and her faultless lips seemed chiseled from stone. She looked so beautiful and tempting as she stood there, her surpassing loveliness enhanced by the picturesque half-oriental, half-Parisian dress she wore, that the Viscount felt his passion for her redoubled. He flung himself at her feet and seizing the hem of her ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... predictions of his uncle nor the laughing skepticism of his aunt dimmed his enterprising ardor. The signs which he printed with his uncle's crate stencil, procured from the barn, bespoke the variety of tempting offerings which existed so far only in ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... room looking towards the sea; there was a good strong table with a black oil-cloth cover and four hair-seated chairs, such as were much used at that time. But there were two or three pretty pictures on the walls, and a cottage piano, and in the bookcase were a few bright-coloured tempting volumes as well as the graver-looking school-books. Everything was very neat, and there was a bright fire burning, and in a pot on the window-sill a geranium was growing and evidently flourishing. To Celestina it was a perfect picture of a schoolroom, and she looked round with the ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... days with Miss S., the only English lady in the town. She is now living in her brother's town-house, where the office and warehouses are, because the country-house is within reach of the patriots. I do long to walk or ride out to the tempting green hills beyond the town; but as that cannot be, I must content myself with what is within the lines. To-day, as we were coming in from Boa Vista, we met a family of Certanejos, who had brought provisions ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... punishment of the serpent for tempting Eve was this: (1) Michael was commanded to cut off its legs; and (2) the serpent was doomed to feed ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Cuba, was represented by a choice specimen, imported in its youth. There was also the star-apple tree, remarkable for its uniform and graceful shape, full of the green fruit, with here and there a ripening specimen; so, also, was the favorite zapota, its rusty-coated fruit hanging in tempting abundance. From low, broad-spreading trees depended the grape-fruit, as large as an infant's head and yellow as gold, while the orange, lime, and lemon trees, bearing blossoms, green and ripe fruit all together, met the eye at every turn, and filled the garden with fragrance. The ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... thus answer'd amain the beneficent messenger Hermes:— "Cease, old man, from the tempting of youth—for thou shalt not persuade me. Gift will I none at thy hand without knowledge of noble Achilles. Great is my terror of him; and in aught to defraud him of treasure, Far from my breast be the thought, lest hereafter he visit with vengeance. But for conducting ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise,—in which, from the description, I see nothing very tempting. My restlessness tells me I have something ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... dressed and he had eaten the tempting meal Barbara brought, Abe fell asleep. But the young woman would not leave him for long, so that Holmes saw very little of her all the rest of the day. Occasionally she would run into the room where the engineer lay to ask if he needed anything, but only for a moment. Sometimes, seeing ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... curiosity had more than once led him to visit certain gambling-houses on a mere tour of observation; and, during these visits, he had each time been tempted to try a game or two, in which cases little had been lost or won. The motive for winning did not then exist in tempting strength; and, besides, Ellis was naturally a cautious man. Now, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... of erroneous judgement was, viewing things partially and only on one side: as for instance, fortune-hunters, when they contemplated the fortunes singly and separately, it was a dazzling and tempting object; but when they came to possess the wives and their fortunes together, they began to suspect that they had not made quite so ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Billy came in to supper tired and hungry. Billy ate heartily, but his eyes often rested on a plate of tempting cookies, and when Wesley offered them to the boy he reached for one. Margaret was compelled to explain that cookies ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... foorth white children. But the enuie of our great and continuall enemie the wicked Spirite is such, that as hee coulde not suffer our olde father Adam to liue in the felicite and Angelike state wherein hee was first created, but tempting him sought and procured his ruine and fall: so againe, finding at this flood none but a father and three sonnes liuing, hee so caused one of them to transgresse and disobey his fathers commaundement, that after ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... it run in, instead of out?" Peter Falstar suggested. "It's just tempting Providence to let out more surface ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... of our oral genealogist, Furayj: "Now, when the wife of the Shaykh of the Musalimah had heard and understood what Satan was tempting her husband to do against her tribe, she rose up, and sent a secret message to her brother of the Beni 'Amr, warning him that a certain person (Fulan) was about to lay violent hands on the beautiful valley of El-Madyan. Hearing this, the Beni 'Amr mustered ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... terror. No reflecting American ought to object to severe foreign criticism on our recent military history; for through such criticism, perhaps, our faults may be amended, and so our cause finally be vindicated. The spectacle of soldiers running from a field of battle is a tempting one to the enemies of the country to whom such soldiers may belong, and few critics are able to speak of it in any other than a contemptuous tone. Would Americans have spoken with more justice of Englishmen than Englishmen have spoken of Americans, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... tenants of these gloomy abodes, after satiating themselves with every studied insult they could devise, were to pronounce the word "libre!" It was naturally presumed that the predestined victims, on hearing this tempting sound, and seeing the doors at the same moment set open by the clerks of the infamous court, would dart off in exultation, and, fancying themselves liberated, rush upon the knives of the barbarians, who were outside, in waiting for their blood! ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... when tempting offers came from others to cross them; but all our party said, "No, we must travel." The rule had been adopted to travel some distance every day that it was possible. "Travel, travel, travel," was the watchword, ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... these reasons, tempting as it would be in the present state of the war, to avail ourselves of the service of that which constitutes the greatest part of our regular force for the purpose of those operations, with the necessity of which we are thoroughly impressed, yet I really do not think, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... and still dangled before him, like an unattainable sweet-meat before a child, the comforts and advantages of Skelmersdale, where poor old Mr Shirley had rallied for the fiftieth time. The situation altogether was very tempting to Miss Leonora; she could not make up her mind to go away and leave such a very pretty quarrel in progress; and there can be no doubt that it would have been highly gratifying to her vanity as an Evangelical woman to have had her nephew brought to task for missionary ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... companion had re-entered the house, so that this arrangement suited me admirably. I would take the small man's clothing, and hurry on to some village where I could buy provisions. The chickens were certainly tempting, but still there were at least two men in the house, so perhaps it would be wiser for me, since I had no arms, to keep away ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... early in December. Here you do Canton, Macao, and other interesting points, and reach Singapore, almost at the equator, and eat your Christmas dinner directly below your friends at home. If the reports from Java are favorable, a tempting excursion to that interesting island can be made from Singapore; but when we were at Singapore Europeans were being brought there from Java, and hurried north to cool places as the only cure for maladies contracted ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... plans as he deemed it prudent to reveal at the time. He learned to his satisfaction that Blennerhassett had no repugnance to the idea of separating the Western States from the Eastern and of invading Mexico. Burr's angling had gone on for an hour, with lures so tempting that the gudgeon seemed about to swallow bait, hook and all, when the conversation was disturbed by an unusual clamor of excited voices coming from the negro quarters. Blennerhassett, in a flurry, excused himself, and hastened to inquire what was the matter. He ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... appear the size of an ox. Several of the men came near dying for want of water during this search. The desert mirage disclosed against the horizon, clear, distinct, and perfectly outlined rocks, mountain peaks, and tempting lakelets. Each jagged cliff, or pointed rock, or sharply-curved hill-top, hung suspended in air as perfect and complete as if photographed on the sky. Deceived, deluded by these mirages, in spite of their better judgment, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... understand what it is to be disappointed in such feelings, I wouldn't wish to cause even a Mingo sorrow on this head. But happiness is not always to be found in a marquee, any more than in a tent; and though the officers' quarters may look more tempting than the rest of the barracks, there is often great misery between husband and wife ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... corner of the garden grew the most splendid tree of all. It was tall and beautiful and the rosy-cheeked fruit upon its wide spreading branches looked wonderfully tempting. No beast had ever tasted of that fruit, for no beast could ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... window was full of plants, while on the Pleasant Street side there was a tempting display of color. Miss Virginia hunted up her distance glasses, which she seldom used, in order the better to view it; but she failed to make out anything in particular. Her ardor might have suggested an archaeologist over a cuneiform inscription, as she tried to decide whether ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... corruption, and the capitalist society in whose clutches the wage-earners groaned. Only, here again the blow would fall upon a restricted circle. Then an idea of destroying the Palace of Justice, particularly the assize court, had occurred to him. It was a very tempting thought—to wreak justice upon human justice, to sweep away the witnesses, the culprit, the public prosecutor who charges the latter, the counsel who defends him, the judges who sentence him, and the lounging public which comes to the spot as to the unfolding of some sensational ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, some tracts, and a few odd volumes picked up cheap at fairs; an old musket (occasionally Ben's companion, sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted over the mantel-piece: which, among other ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... yet over. There was the bargaining for the golden fleece, and the tempting offer of the dragons' teeth which he was to sow. They were the lusts of the body, that, once planted, spring up an armed force of bloody and persistent accusers. But that precious rose! How it blossomed over and over for his especial benefit, a perpetual ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... were tempting, Rajah; yet they entailed a war against the English and the Nizam, when they had finished with Tippoo. Instead of gaining territory, you would find that much of yours ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... year was over. There was no safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made himself disagreeable—or it pleased God to make him so—and then he dared her to contradict him. It's the way to make any trumpery tempting, to ticket it at a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... It is tempting on this summer day to linger where grass is green and trees throw grateful shade; and indeed it would seem that few of all the many pens that have set down Oxford's charms have given their due to these her natural delights. But there is ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... States salvation for the world! If people would only accept the fact that this is a material world they would not be surprised at the situation. Myself, I consider that our diplomacy has failed, probably because it did not offer tempting enough bribes to Bulgaria and Greece. No matter; what is the fate of a few tuppenny-ha'penny Balkan States, who have never done a thing worth doing, beside that of the British Empire! Why should we always play the philanthropic idiot towards all these wretched little ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... authors can fully understand and sympathize with the burden of a long story in the head, long bills on the table, tempting offers to write for this and that in order to bring in two hundred dollars from a variety of pleasant editors who desire the name on their list, house and grounds to be looked after, cooks to be pacified, visits to be made;—it is no wonder that Mrs. Stowe wrote: "The thing has been an awful tax ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... years away had stolen? 'Twas not to him all weary time, Who every day was pleased to roll in The tempting Mammon's golden shrine. But when he laid him on his pillow, His fancy sought the farthest east, And conjured up some lonely willow That waved o'er ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... long out of the world, and was not in touch with the swift-minded action and adventuring intellects of such men as his brother, Marcel Loisel. Was it not tempting Providence, a surgical operation? He was so used to people getting ill and getting well without a doctor—the nearest was twenty miles distant—or getting ill and dying in what seemed a natural and preordained way, that to cut open a man's head and look into his brain, and do this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Here in tempting array was every variety of vegetable reared on Greek or Egyptian soil; here speckless fruits of every size and hue were set out, and there ready baked, shining, golden-brown pasties were displayed. Those containing meat, fish or the mussels of Canopus were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a spirit of enterprise. We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other. "Good!" we cried to each other; "good!" and Cavor made three steps and went off to a tempting slope of snow a good twenty yards and more beyond. I stood for a moment struck by the grotesque effect of his soaring figure—his dirty cricket cap, and spiky hair, his little round body, his arms and his knicker-bockered legs ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... wonder my news came to you as a relief," he said softly, "instead of as the shock I feared. Why, Faith, how you are trembling. You look ready to faint too. Look here, I believe you are tired and famished. Come and have some supper. What have we got? Something tempting?" ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... one, but tempting to the wee baronet; he might perhaps be able to squeeze himself through. He tried and succeeded, though with some little difficulty. The moon was there before him, shining through a pane or two of glass over the door, and by her light on the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... vermin—" Mrs. Hauksbee waved her hand from the veranda to two men in the crowd below who had raised their hats to her—"these vermin shall not rejoice in a new Scandal Point or an extra Peliti's. I will abandon the notion of a salon. It did seem so tempting, though. But what shall I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was mine. What angel had been sent to stay mine arm Until the fateful moment passed away That would have ushered an eternity Of withering remorse? I found the germs In mine own heart of every human sin, That waited but occasion's tempting breath To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. What God thus far had saved me from myself? Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each Must feel himself in all, must know where'er The great soul acts or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... was only a man, wavering and changeable, to use Montaigne's expression, for his eyes, contradicting the brusqueness of his speech, rested long, and not without envy, on this beautiful and tempting fruit which his fate forbade him to gather. The more he admired her freshness, and the more he inhaled her sweetness, the more the image of Eugenie Gontier was gradually effaced from his memory, like one of those tableaux on the stage, which gauze ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... by representing the atrocious sin of these offenders as "lying unto God," and "tempting the Spirit of the Lord," intended to intimate that as the ambassadors of heaven, and endowed with miraculous powers and discernment, they who attempted to deceive them, virtually offered an insult to that Holy Spirit that resided in them. They were his representatives and agents, acting by his authority ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... put down to broil. Aunt Corinne laid the cloth on a box which Zene took out of the wagon for her, and set the cups and saucers, the sugar and preserves, and little seed cakes which grew tenderer the longer you kept them, all in tempting order. They had baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... approached the two Uhlans Ned slackened the speed of the motors. Dave dangled the extra loop in a tempting manner. ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... out of bed and dressed, without arousing Dan, who was still slumbering soundly, his mouth wide open, and his bed-clothes kicked off on the floor. I had hard work to keep Felix from trying to see if he could "shy" a marble into that tempting open mouth. I told him it would waken Dan, who would then likely insist on getting up and accompanying us, and it would be so much nicer to go by ourselves for ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and it was soon time to go home, but before packing up I would eat the provisions I had brought in a small basket. Somehow the slices of bread and jam, prepared by my sisters, looked different; they had seemed so tempting, and now they looked stale and uninviting. Even such a trifle as this made the earth seem sadder, and I realised that only in Heaven will ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... of the day of Ludmillo's departure. Ivan had been summoned to his mother's room, where he found her sitting, rather wearily, he thought, before a table on which steamed a brightly polished samovar, surrounded by the dishes of a tempting meal, devised by Masha to suit the respective tastes of her lady and the young Prince. Darkness had fallen an hour before, and the room, with its quaint old furniture, tapestry-hung walls, and old oaken floor strewn with Bokhara rugs, was lighted by three swinging-lamps ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... is decidedly hot. It is now very warm and pleasant. If I find Thebes too hot as summer advances I must drop down and return to Cairo, or try Suez, which I hear is excellent in summer—bracing desert air. But it is very tempting to stay here—a splendid cool house, food extremely cheap; about 1 pounds a week for three of us for fish, bread, butter, meat, milk, eggs and vegetables; all grocery, of course, I brought with me; no trouble, rest and civil neighbours. I feel very disinclined to move unless ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... usually sharp and foreboding. She received the signorino's gay effusions in ominous silence, and would frown darkly while Madame Petrucci petted her "little bird," as she called Goneril. Once indeed Miss Prunty was heard to remark it was tempting Providence to have dealings with a creature whose very name was a synonym for ingratitude. But the elder lady only smiled, and declared that her Gonerilla was charming, delicious, a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... talkativeness of Herzog, she felt herself treading on dangerous ground. It seemed to her that her foot was sinking, as in those dangerous peat-mosses of which the surface is covered with green grass, tempting one to run on it. Cayrol was under the charm. He drank in the German's words. This clever man, who had never till then been duped, had found his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Sea on the Coast of Sussex, in a serene day. The house is large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of Strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most tempting and pleasant Seats in the Nation, and most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse to render it conspicuous. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance. The distance from London (is) little ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... could not have been more striking. The soft, delicate, well-groomed figure of Blanch, the accomplished woman of the world, with eyes intoxicating as wine and a glowing wealth of golden hair, tempting and alluring as the luxuriance of old Rome at the height of her triumphs before her decadence set in—the last fair breath of her ancient glory—the best and fairest that modern civilization had produced. She had no need of the artificial head-gear and upholstery with ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... of the ascent was good, but the descent was even better on account of the views of the Dalpe glacier on the other side the Ticino, towards which ones back is turned as one ascends. All day long the villages of Dalpe and Cornone had been tempting me, so I resolved to take them next day. This I did, crossing the Ticino and following a broad well-beaten path which ascends the mountains in a southerly direction. I found the rare English fern Woodsia hyperborea growing in great luxuriance on the rocks between ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... don't say she was not the worst of the two, but that's over. No, she's not very sick—don't interrupt me! She caught cold yesterday, as I thought she would, in that foolish, wicked business you were all engaged in, tempting of Providence I call it, but I hope it will do you good, and learn you a lesson. What, Georgy! you expected a wild, shy young girl to show you her heart without asking? you expected a spoiled, flattered child, whom you have done the most to spoil and flatter, not to tease and torment you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Of this tempting, this delusive kind, is the expectation of great performances by confederated strength. The speculatist, when he has carefully observed how much may be performed by a single hand, calculates by a very easy operation the force of thousands, and goes on accumulating power till resistance vanishes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... nonsense), the feeling exists within us, and refuses to yield before all the batteries of logic. It is not that of the two courses we know that one is in the long run the best, and the other more immediately tempting. We have a sense of obligation irrespective of consequence, the violation of which is followed again by a sense of self-disapprobation, of censure, of blame. In vain will Spinoza tell us that such feelings, incompatible as they are with the theory of powerlessness, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... set" as typical of American society. Illustrious foreign visitors fall not unnaturally into this mistake; even so keen a critic as M. Bourget leans this way, though Mr. Bryce gives another proof of his eminent sanity and good sense by his avoidance of the tempting error. But, as Walt Whitman says, "The pulse-beats of the nation are never to be found in the sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-occasions citizens." European fashionable society, however unworthy many of its members may be, and however relaxed its rules of admission ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... distinguish my rocky position of yesterday, where I had noted that the general direction of the river channel we had now again left, bore N. W. We were still much to the southward of the line so observed, apprehending, as I did think then, that some tempting plains might take us too far along some western tributary. Riding in search of water, I perceived a column of smoke to the northward; and, taking the party in that direction, we found, in the first valley we fell in with, a chain of ponds, and in one of these water enough for our use, whereupon ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... as dull as ditch-water, Middlebrook," he retorted with a grin. "You're tempting me! But those Quicks—I'll tell you in what fashion there is a connection between their murder and ourselves, and one that would need some explanation. Bear in mind that I've kept myself posted in those ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... listen in on this confab?" Frank asked, plaintively. "Or must I continue to mount guard here? Besides, I want to go down and look at our airplane, and pat it even if I can't get in and fly. I can see it from here, and it looks tempting." ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... obstinacy in curling might be seen by the eyes of men; and Linda strove to obey her aunt, but the curls would sometimes be too strong for Linda, and would be seen over her shoulders and across her back, tempting the eyes of men sorely. Peter Steinmarc had so seen them many a time, and thought much of them when the offer of Linda's hand was first made to him. Her face, like that of her aunt, was oval in its form, and her complexion was dark and clear. But perhaps her greatest beauty consisted in the half-soft, ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... doubly dangerous. Mankind they always have to fear, but now they are tempting to their own race. A wicked old crab goes out for a stroll. The walk gives him an appetite; he looks around for something to eat and spies a younger brother just moving. Treacherously be plants himself behind a stone or shell, and watches the process, chuckling ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... Tartarin? Do they thrill at the sight of an ill-lighted street leading into a no-man's-land of menacing dark shadows; at the promise of a glowing window puncturing the blackness here or there; at the invitation of some open doorway behind which unilluminated blackness hangs, threatening and tempting? Do they rejoice in streets the names of which they have not heard before? Do they—as I do—delight in irregularity: in the curious forms of roofs and spires against the sky; in streets which run up hill or down; or which, instead of being straight, have jogs in them, or curves, or interesting intersections, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... without reservation—but we are not in favour of all speech. Coarse speech, for instance, we decidedly object to. So, we are in favour of slang, but not of all slang. There are some slang words which are used instead of oaths, and these, besides being wicked, are exceedingly contemptible. Tempting, however, they are—too apt to slip from the tongue and from the pen, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... perhaps something occurs to force us to take a part for God or against Him. The world requires of us some sacrifice which we see we ought not to grant to it. Some tempting offer is made us; or some reproach or discredit threatened us; or we have to determine and avow what is truth and what is error. We are enabled to act as God would have us act; and we do so in much fear and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... than some more impressive and startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as President, but triumphant to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... dear Mary, you had Billy fast, But I tried very hard, and escaped you at last; The chance was so tempting, I thought I would nab it,— It was not very naughty, I'm sure, in a rabbit. O, let not your kind heart be angry with me; But think what a joy it is to be free, To see the green woods, to feel the fresh air, To skip, and to play, and to run everywhere. The food that you gave me was pleasant ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... evils of a want of education. He could never forget how with longing eyes he had used to look at books, and what a joy it had been to him to go to school; and he resolved that his children should be well instructed. The garden of knowledge, that was so tempting to him, and that he was not allowed to enter, he resolved should be open to them. He gave them the best instructors he could find, and took care that they should be taught every thing that would be useful to them—the modern ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... Lucien resolved upon a plan to decoy the creature within shot. Taking up one of the grouse, he flung it out upon the snow some thirty yards from the fire. No sooner had he done so, than the owl, at sight of the tempting morsel, left aside both its shyness and prudence, and sailed gently forward; then, hovering for a moment over the ground, hooked the grouse upon its claws, and was about to carry it off, when a bullet from Lucien's rifle, just in the "nick ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... submit the question of the right to the apple to his award. The contending goddesses appeared accordingly before Paris, and each attempted to bribe him to decide in her favor, by offering him some peculiar and tempting reward. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, and she was so pleased with the result, that she took Paris under her special protection, and made the solitudes of Mount Ida ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... tempting ripe they hang: Softly, softly pull them down, Lest the bright brown nuts should fall, And ...
— The Keepsake - or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth • Anonymous
... especially to the latter of the two. Dewdrops on the 'Hagi flower' of beauty so delicate that they disappear as soon as we touch them—hailstones on the bamboo grass that melt in our hand as soon as we prick them—appear at a distance extremely tempting and attractive. Take my humble advice, however, and go not near them. If you do not appreciate this advice now, the lapse of another seven years will render you well able to understand that such adventures will only bring a ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... and I a bridesmaid, aged five years—the church, the altar, and great awe, and afterwards a long white table, white flowers, and a white Bride. Grown men on either side of me—smilingly delightful, tempting me with sweets and cakes and wine, and a new strange interest rising in me like a little flood of exultation—the joy of the world, and the first faint breath of ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... from Campania. Although Rome was in alliance with Hiero, and had but recently executed 300 mercenaries for doing in Rhegium what the Mamertines had done in Sicily,—she determined to aid them, for Sicily was a rich and tempting prey. ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... those duties, there would seem to be no good reason why such persons should not be selected from the eligible registers of this Commission, which are at all times abundantly supplied with the names of persons who are both competent and worthy. And besides, so long as these tempting places are in the noncompetitive list, the Department will be subjected to solicitation and pressure concerning them ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Plato! He looked down at the tempting curve of her red lips. They were round and full and soft as the petals of a half-blown rosebud, warm and tender and sweet, with just the least trace of puckering to indicate how they could meet the pressure of other lips. He felt his heart come pounding up into the region of his Adam's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... ship who is,—but I always dreaded a brutal skipper on account of his absolute authority at sea, where there is no redress. I had once been mixed up in an affair concerning the disappearance of one, on a China trader—but no matter. The affair in hand was tempting and ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... of resolutions to-day, tempting the Northern States to make peace with us separately, excluding the New England States, and promising commercial advantages, etc. But we must treat as independent States, pledging a league with those that abandon the United States Government—offensive and defensive—and guaranteeing ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the beach and threw ourselves down under the shadow of the high white cliffs to rest, I saw there was no one about and suggested a swim. It was against old Trigger's orders, nevertheless the calm, cool water as it lazily lapped the sand proved too tempting, and very shortly we had plunged in and were enjoying ourselves. Omar left the water first, and presently I saw while he was dressing the figure of a tallish, muscular man attired in black and wearing a ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... those who even went so far as to suppose that the views of Madame des Ursins went much further—"the age and health of Madame de Maintenon tempting her." The question must have occurred to the Princess, it was hinted, whether the prospect of replacing her in France was not more alluring than any she was likely to meet with in Spain. Such conjectures, however, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... High Schools. She did not see Miss Elmore at first, thinking the Arthurets not likely to wish to be intruded upon, and having besides a good deal to think over. For she and her father had talked over the proposal, which pecuniarily was so tempting, and he, without prejudice, but on principle, had concurred with her in deciding that it was her duty not to add one touch of attractiveness to aught which supported a cause contrary to their strongest convictions. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opposite door opens, and two quaint laughing figures appear. Violet is wrapped in her shepherd's plaid, the corner twisted into a bewitching hood and surmounted by a cluster of black ribbon bows. She holds Cecil by the hand, who looks a veritable Red Ridinghood, tempting enough to ensnare any wolf. Both are bright and vivid, and have a fresh, blown-about look that walking in the wind invariably imparts. Cecil springs into his arms, and still holding her he bends ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... somewhat irrational and irregular plan to thwart Southern ship-building operations, had been taken up by the United States Navy Department. This was to buy the Rams outright by the offer of such a price as, it was thought, would be so tempting to the Lairds as to make refusal unlikely. Two men, Forbes and Aspinwall, were sent to England with funds and much embarrassed Adams to whom they discreetly refrained from stating details, but yet permitted him to guess ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... General Worth issued a circular at Peublo of the following purport: "Intelligence has come to the headquarters of this division, in a form and from sources entitled to consideration, that food exhibited, and, in tempting form, for sale to the soldiers, is purposely prepared to cause sickness and ultimately death"; and he appealed to every soldier to forbear the procurement or use of such food, as ample rations were issued, and added: "Doubtless there are among those with ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... Street, where all the best shops, and indeed some of the best houses, were. From the corner window of the hotel you could see down into the bowery seclusion of Grange Lane, and Mr Wodehouse's famous apple-trees holding tempting clusters over the high wall. The prospect was very different from that which extended before Dr Rider's window. Instinctively he marvelled within himself whether, if Dr Marjoribanks were to die—people cannot live for ever even in Carlingford—whether it might ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... succeeded in finding any trace in even the Tertiary deposits, and which appears to have been specially created for the gratification of human sense. Unlike the Rosaceae, it exhibits no rich blow of color, or tempting show of luscious fruit;—- it does not appeal very directly to either the sense of taste or of sight: but it is richly odoriferous; and, though deemed somewhat out of place in the garden for the last century and more, it ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... with his usual sneering laugh, "it avails not to deny it. The Woman and the Devil, who, as thine oracle Holdforth will confirm to thee, cheated man at the beginning, have this day proved more powerful than my discretion. Yon termagant looked so tempting, and had the art to preserve her countenance so naturally, while I communicated my lord's message, that, by my faith, I thought I might say some little thing for myself. She thinks she hath my head under her girdle now, but she is deceived. Where ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... a few words of entreaty for his child: he dares not tell her what her fate must be, he hopes that time and new adventures will efface Arlette from the mind of her dangerous lover; but, again, he is urged, heaps of gold shine before him, how shall he turn from their tempting lustre? Is there not in yonder tower an oubliette that yawns for the disobedient vassal? He appeals to Arlette, she has no reply but tears; men at arms appear in the night, they knock at the skinner's door and demand his daughter, they ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... has, besides, the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves, with all their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed by their own maxims; and while they purpose to cheat with moderation and secrecy, a tempting incident occurs, nature is frail, and they give into the snare; whence they can never extricate themselves, without a total loss of reputation, and the forfeiture of all future trust and ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... fairly, "that a certain amount of romancing is for you the wine of existence. Your wit's insistent and if a thing presents itself, tempting and warmly colored, you can't refuse it expression simply because it isn't true. You must make a good story. I've sometimes thought you'd have a qualm or two of conscience if you didn't, as if it's an artistic obligation you've ignored—to delight somebody's ears, even for a moment. Perhaps you ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... the hot meats, while waiting to receive such portions as your attendant chooses to bestow on you, is so opposed to the social, hospitable, and active habits of an English gentleman that it must soon pass away, and the tempting spread on the generous board, pleasant to the eye as well as to ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... securities will doubtless lead to many bankruptcies, if not to a genuine crisis. It will also give tempting opportunities to investors. The likelihood of a genuine panic is lessened by the fact that every one recognizes the real cause of the disturbance and that insolvency is not suspected. According to the best commercial observers, the previous liquidation had been fairly well completed. Unless ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... husband or guardian, presupposes or foreshows a subversion more or less of the most essential relations of family life. The necessity of resorting to this means of gaining or maintaining power must degrade the clergy who depend on it, by tempting them to arts of flattery and excitement, and by corrupting their style of instruction to suit the tastes merely of the more sensitive section of our species, at the sacrifice of that due proportion of more solid and intellectual grounds of thought and principle, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an opportunity, while the others ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... two little boys to travel with me; their assistance was extremely valuable in organizing schools. They were often invited to accompany me at dinner; the guests generally gave them presents. I have watched them under many tempting circumstances, and never found them steal. It is my firm conviction that dishonesty is chiefly the effect of neglect. No child can be born a thief, in the strict sense of the term. In many schools, too, there are ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... but a few hours before flourished in the full possession of every faculty of our being; and, still more, with all those faculties in the full ardour of public life—with brilliant ambition to stimulate, with prospects of boundless power to reward, and with that most exhilarating and tempting spell of human existence, popular acclamation, resounding in their ears. I had known some of them, I had seen then all; and now I saw those highly gifted, vigorously practised, and fiery-souled men, shaken down in an instant like a shock of corn; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... the Italian to pose, had Fenton been actuated by any intention of tempting her to evil. He needed a model for the Fatima as he needed his canvas and brushes; and his satisfaction at having induced Ninitta to serve his purpose was in kind much the same as his pleasure that his brushes and canvas were exactly what ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... staring at all this amazing procedure. Slowly the fact had begun to filter through the rather sluggish brain of the fat boy that after all fate had not decided to offer him as a tempting bait to whet the appetite of a bear. He even began to pluck up a little bit of hope that Smithy might succeed in chaining the ugly old terror to a tree, and thus ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... and they followed the winding paths, stopping here and there to cut down some of the most tempting of Mrs. Carmichael's tenderly loved blossoms and always turning aside when they came in sight of the Colonel's verandah. No word of tenderness had ever passed between them, and yet they were happy to be together. It was as though ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... market was being filled with men and women offering the most tempting products of the land. Groups were selling and buying fruits, flowers and perfumes, bread, fish and wine. Ribbon-sellers, chaplet-weavers, money-changers—all were there; and the people purchased for their daily needs, whilst others bought ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short |
