Sentence Examples:
I should have been more tantalized with the expectations that these remarks were calculated to raise, had I not suspected them to be a good-natured artifice, to save me from despondency, as they were never made except when he saw me looking serious and thoughtful.
When he promised to send the papers, he intended to satisfy her with a sham certificate, as he had done with a counterfeit marriage; but he deferred doing it, because he had a vague sense of satisfaction in being able to tantalize the superior woman over whom he felt that he no longer had any other power.
This extraordinary man was in the habit of tantalizing his guests on a Sunday afternoon with sundry abstruse speculations, and putting them off to the following week for a satisfaction of their doubts; but why should he treat posterity in the same scurvy manner, or leave the world without quitting scores with it?
Besides, he was getting too big for his pen, and so "cute" an animal could not be debarred from all out-door pleasures, and tantalized by the sight of a green and growing garden before his eyes continually, without making an effort to partake of its delights.
This discovery seemed to me exactly like those tantalizing dreams in which you are sitting down at a table covered with everything nice, but before you have time to taste anything your visions are rudely dispelled, and you wake and look in vain for the tempting paraphernalia.
We pray that one thing may be made clear, and the result of the clearing is the deepened sense of the mystery of the things beyond, just as any increase in the power of the telescope clears up certain questions which had been puzzling the astronomers only to carry their vision into vaster depths of space, opening new questions to tantalize the imagination.
Through the rosy mists of the Burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which had hovered before him all the afternoon like a tantalizing phantom; at the Chartreuse stage he began to wonder what hallucination, what aberration of sense had overcome him, that he should have been stirred to his depths and distressed so hugely.
Cadet Jordan, as will have been noted, professed to be satisfied if the class voted a week's "silence" to Dick Prescott, for Jordan believed that by this time the tantalized young cadet captain could be provoked into actions that would bring the imposition of the "long silence" of permanent Coventry.
In reverence of his rank his townsmen indulged this defect, and would not distress him by remarking on it, till another preacher of those parts, actuated by a private pique, came on one occasion to tantalize him, and said, "I have seen you in a dream; may it prove fortunate!"
We had explored tropical coasts for several months, without reaping any one of the advantages usually attending it, and been frequently tantalized with the sight of turtle in the water, and of bones and shells round the fire places on shore; but we now hoped to have found a place where the Indians had not forestalled us, and to indemnify ourselves for so many disappointments.
They tantalized him for some time by holding up the several articles to his view, and when the old monkey shook the bag of gold, the poor man was in an agony; they then threw the whole into the lake, the coins, one by one, were cast into the deep water, where not a shadow of hope could be entertained of their restoration, as the lake was deep and known to be infested with alligators.
Gazing at her, Lionel was swiftly conscious of several things: the piquancy of her snub nose, the brightness of her smile, at once defiant and wistful, the lingering softness of her gloved hand, and the extraordinary charm of her sunshade, which matched her dress and formed a sort of canopy and frame for that intelligent, tantalizing face.
The naturalists had to add to them, the appropriate mortification of seeing numerous trees and shrubs, of which, as the time of flowering was past, it was impossible to make any scientific examination, and which, accordingly, only tantalized them with the idea of the profusion of new vegetables in this interesting country.
What a task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by hope, only to feel despair more keenly, at finding a much loved face or voice, suddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence!
If they have acquitted themselves well while living, they will be permitted to descend and enjoy this happy country; if otherwise they will but be tantalized with this prospect of it, and then hurled back from the mountain to wander about the sandy plains, and endure the eternal pangs of unsatisfied thirst and hunger.
All this being adjusted, they were conducted to the main building or council house of the village, where an ample repast, or rather banquet, was spread, which seemed to realize all the gastronomical dreams that had tantalized them during their long starvation; for here they beheld not merely fish and roots in abundance, but the flesh of deer and elk, and the choicest pieces of buffalo meat.
As though to tantalize him, numerous seals lay sunning themselves upon the ice pans, for it was now past sunrise, but his only weapon was his snow knife, and he was well aware that the seals would slip into the water and beyond his reach before he could approach and despatch them.
Adams were enlisted, and she was more deft even than her mistress; and the butler, who was by this time a regular hospital dresser, greatly admired her pretty arms when they were bared to the elbow, and her flushed cheeks when she took a humble part in some tantalizing adjustment.
It is in vain to tempt, to tantalize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than our own, if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them.
Hostile guns fired occasional shells, while our warships returned the compliment at any hostile column that seemed to offer a good target, and our airplanes dropped bombs when they had the chance; but in general the enemy kept a long distance off and was tantalizing.
Nelson thus found himself again in tantalizing contact with the stirring circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he himself had little hope to share; for the "Albemarle" belonged to the North American station, where all active naval operations had ceased with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before.
The distance we could see in either direction was of tantalizing shortness, and the boat was provided with no means of guidance or control, save an abundance of slender twine which secured it to a log of drift from the outside; so I decided to leave my companions in charge of the main coil of twine while I went on an excursion alone, there being not much evident cause for apprehension as no living cow could ever have made the trip to this favored spot.
He was, therefore, certain that he would not find himself clashing against any inordinate sense of self-importance; and this thought, this desire, which every day returned to him afresh, of setting out for the South, tantalized him like a kind of itching sensation.
This need of secrecy made frequent meetings and exchange of vows impossible, but it gave to such as occurred the flavor of stolen sweets and kept the young sinners in a tantalized state which was excruciating and at the same time delightful, and which still further fed the flames and convinced them of the realness and intensity of their passion.
It was an adventure little short of desperate for a singer to emerge from a retirement of a score of years and measure her musical and dramatic accomplishments against those of a predecessor whose tantalizing disappearance from the stage had rendered her on so many grounds more than ever the object of fanatical worship.
She refused to be read, wearing her various masks with a cool defiance which apparently bespoke utter indifference to his good opinion, while constantly affording him brief, tantalizing glimpses into half-revealed depths that caused his heart to throb with anticipation never entirely realized.
In this instance, it was the more tantalizing and exciting, because she felt that the world would be in opposition to her; while her lover adroitly added fuel to the flame, by protesting that he would no longer consent to be so unjust, so selfish, so criminal, as to attempt to absorb her attention, or even intrude on her notice.
Hugh had gone to great pains to give him many pointers, and the fruit of this was seen by the clever way in which Owen could lay down a pretty bunt, the ball rolling along just inside the line in a tantalizing fashion, and headed for first or third, as the occasion might require.
Perhaps some day the debt will be fully repaid by the discovery of a bilingual text in Egyptian and Minoan, giving us in hieroglyphics a version of some passage of that Minoan script which now exists only to tantalize us with records of an ancient history which we cannot read.
The Mason would much rather pass his life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding his mind even with the visions and imaginations of good deeds and noble actions, than to be placed on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than the greatest curse.
Petersburg witnessed first the alarm and then the exultation of the court and the people as the rumors now of defeat, anon of victory, were brought by the couriers at tantalizing intervals; and he saw the rejoicings and illuminations which rendered the Russian capital so brilliant and glorious during the last portion of his residence.
Raffles regarded me with that tantalizing smile of his which might mean nothing, yet which often meant so much; and in a flash I was convinced that our most jealous enemy and dangerous rival, the doyen of an older school, had paid him yet another visit.
Her blue veil was negligently thrown over her head, and as she stooped, the two long tresses which flowed from her forehead hung down in so tantalizing a manner as nearly to screen all her face, but still left so much of it visible, that it created an intense desire in me to see the remainder.
He had heard the faint message and was coming to see if it were not his tantalizing mate, ready to whack her soundly, according to his wont, for causing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of him to the open where he could watch her closely and prevent any more of her hiding tricks.
There is a rich, tantalizing disclosure of a phase of the inner life in the Sonnets; what they seem to convey is a passion delicate and profound, striving to sublimate and satisfy itself, but baffled by unworthiness in the object, and perhaps by some unworthiness in the lover.
He struck at it with the heel of his shoe, and it darted to the ceiling, whence it looked down upon him with a peculiarly tantalizing smile.
She could make a meal of sun-dried fish or a bed in the snow; yet she teased them with tantalizing details of many-course dinners, and caused strange internal dissensions to arise at the mention of various quondam dishes which they had well-nigh forgotten.
The mood was not there certainly, but then, now the finishing of the book had become a pressing necessity, the mood never was there; it was like a tantalizing butterfly that flitted a second in his face and then led him a desperate chase through a tangle of undergrowth that never ended.
Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl; as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it.
She had all her brilliant beauty, all her tantalizing, bewitching ways, but he no longer feared to touch her; no longer feared to smooth back the tangled curls and kiss the dear, piquant face, for the drawbridge was down, the gates were flung open, and Castle Delight was his at last.
Tortured with the keen apprehension of a form and grace into which he could never mold his crudeness, tantalized with a sense that there must be a way for him to get a hold on his fellows and make a figure in the history of his times, he had watched the power of Douglas grow and the fame of Douglas spread until it seemed that Douglas's voice was always speaking and Douglas's hand was everywhere.
A paper from that faction lost no time in "reminding the Irish Catholics of the tantalizing and bitter repetition of expectations raised only to be blasted, and prospects of success opened to close on them in utter darkness;" finishing by a significant warning, "not to rely too much on the liberal intentions of the Marquess Wellesley."
For instance, there was stout roly-poly Nick, who could never tear his mind away from his favorite subject of eating, and whom thin and cadaverous Josh liked to tantalize whenever the occasion offered, because he himself, while a great cook, seldom found much appetite for his own messes, being troubled from time to time with indigestion.
I did somewhat chide the tantalizing mist, that, like a capricious showman, now raised one corner of its curtain, and anon another, and showed me the place at once very indistinctly, and only by bits at a time; and yet I know not that I could in reality have seen it to greater advantage, or after a mode more in harmony with my previous conceptions.
They could get tantalizing whiffs of the food that was being prepared for their consumption as the odors crept in from the kitchen; and Josh several times privately declared he did not see how he was going to stand that sort of thing much longer, for it was making him fairly frantic, he was so ravenous.
He had no welcome for this stranger, and somehow he felt that he did not altogether understand Narcissa at times; that she had flights of fancy which were beyond him, and took a mischievous pleasure in tantalizing him, and was freakish and hard to control.
The reader can imagine the feelings of a man, whose wife and children were in far off "Dixie," while he lay in prison tortured with anxiety to hear from them, and who, when the letter which told of them at last came, should be deprived of it because it contained some womanly outburst of feeling, and should be tantalized with the evidence of his loss.
A party of horsemen would be seen upon the top of some hill or bluff, apparently contemplating the little cavalcade, or they would circle around at a distance upon the prairie, whooping and indulging in all sorts of tantalizing gestures, in the hope of drawing out a portion of the party in pursuit.
It is really hard upon girls to be tantalized with religious lectures, while they are at the same time tempted to every thing against which they are warned; while the whole bent and bias of the family practice are diametrically opposite to the principles inculcated.
Ichabod believed that Shrimp had seen his opportunity to cross to the mainland with the strangers and had seized on it in the hope of being able at last to fight it out with his rooster rival, whose challenging salute had been tantalizing him for many a day.
Each of these shows is well advertised by the beating of drums, by the shouting of doorkeepers, by wonderful pictures on the outside to entice the passer-by, or even by an occasional brief lifting of the curtains which veil the scene from the crowd without, just long enough to afford a tantalizing glimpse of the wonders within.
In the first act Evelyn finds that Clara loves him, and all real obstacle to their marriage is removed by his sudden accession to fortune; yet all the rest of the play sees them kept apart by the most flimsy obstacles, just to tantalize the audience, and make them wonder if those two fools will ever come together.
Even the custom of firing a cannon, one great noise, heard at the furthest boundaries of the parish, and then done with, would be better than the continual repetition of the strokes of a bell, now violent and quick, as though calling out all the hose and hook and ladder companies of the fire department, now slowly dying away, tantalizing the listener with the expectation that now at last they are really going to cease, only to bitterly disappoint him by breaking out again with renewed clamor.
The sight was one well calculated to cause us greater desire for food and drink than before, if indeed that could be possible, and for a time I believed General Howe had done this for no other purpose than to tantalize us, thus showing how different was the care taken of those hired men who served the king only for the money to be gotten thereby, and us who were struggling to free our land.
I deceive myself indeed most grossly if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions and imaginations of such things, than to be placed on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than the greatest curse.
For a long time we had been tantalized with fragments of painting, giving us the strong impression that in this more perishable art these aboriginal builders had made higher attainments than in that of sculpture, and we now had proofs that our impression did them justice.
Across the hall a group of girls had gathered around Katherine Leonard's chafing dish, from which the tantalizing smell of thick, hot fudge was beginning to pervade the corridors, and distract the thoughts of the more studious from their unsocial but conscientious labors.
Oh, this clutching at the soul by truth, how damnably instantaneous it was, how for one moment it could provoke the illusion of victory over all the muddled facts of existence: how a moment after it could leave the tantalized soul with a despairing sense of having missed by the breadth of a hair the entry into knowledge.
There was something so fiendishly terrifying in the glimpses that Kalman caught of his face now and then that the boy was seized with an overpowering dread, and ceasing to tantalize his pursuing enemy, he left the bluffs and fled toward the house, with Mackenzie hard upon his track.
The road was tantalizing in its tortuousness; after walking a furlong we found ourselves a couple of yards directly above the point we had quitted a quarter of an hour before.
Then there was the new attitude in which he was placed towards Virginia, by the death of her father, together with the tantalizing, partial revelations of the anonymous letters and gold locket, which that event had thrown into his possession, with the thousand surmises, half formed hopes, and resolutions resulting from them.
Thus did little Jack tantalize the big giant, as a cat does a mouse when she knows it cannot escape, and when he had tired of that amusement, he gave him a heavy blow with his pickaxe on the very crown of his head, which "tumbled him down," and killed him on the spot.
Two or three of their fellows stopped for a moment to snarl over and worry the flesh of their expiring comrades, but the squealing pig was too tantalizing to be allowed to die away in the distance and be lost, with all its luscious possibilities, and they left the cannibal feast and continued the chase.
Her acquaintance with women is necessarily limited, but she can meet what men she wishes, men of every station, men drawn to her by the lure of her laughter and tantalizing arts, men who simply wish to amuse themselves, or somber hunters who have passed beyond the common stuff of adventuresses and seek with a renewal of excitement this corruption of innocence.
Instead of taking that position and that influence and wielding them for greater ends, and improving them very markedly, must there not be a keen pang to their owner when, tantalized with what seems surely within his grasp, that grasp itself weakens, and the machine goes all to pieces?
It roasts or broils your meat to a turn, then battles with you for it and sears your fingers when you strive to snatch the morsel from its jaws, and perhaps burns it to a crisp before your very eyes, vouchsafing but the tantalizing fragrance of the feast.
Just now we are hearing much about sexual repression as the cause of nervous disorders, but sexual repression is as almost nothing in its tendency to produce neurotic or psycho-neurotic affections compared to the partial tantalizing, sexual indulgence which comes from sensual reading or lascivious shows.
Judith laughed at their musical protests, and fell to picking the ripe berries, staining her own lips with the largest and juiciest now and then, as if to tantalize the little creatures, who watched her longingly from the boughs of a neighboring apple tree.
They both blushed, and her smile was wickedly tantalizing, though she kept her eyes fixed on the Deacon's face as he began to read the words of the service in his sweet old voice, with its note of tender affection for the pair of friends for whom he read them.
It is very painful and fatiguing to be for several hours continually dodging your head from side to side, and stretching your neck this way and that, and peeping wherever you can obtain a tantalizing glimpse between the bonnets of ladies seated immediately before you.
In the ecclesiastical maze, it is always the patience, not the ingenuity, which is tested; there is but one road to follow, and though that one wanders in and out with tantalizing curves and coils, yet it leads him who follows it unerringly to the center.
I know it is tantalizing, when you are pulling a fast train and are, perhaps a little late, to be compelled to stop and wait until the other train has pulled out, and its last car passed the end of the platform nearest you, when you could sneak through the station and save a little time, and perhaps no harm be done and no one be the wiser; but don't do it, because the rule says you must not.
There was no doubt in Sylvia's mind that a reasonable explanation existed, and it was tantalizing never to be able to catch it, because it was quite certain that such an explanation would have been very interesting; at any rate, it was a relief to know that there was an explanation and that these devils were not figments of the imagination.
The suggestion would seem a mere bungling expedient to inject the tantalizing fillip of mystery and unbelievable Quixotic motive, and, lacking evidence to support it, would touch the whole fabric with the taint of the meretricious.
There were giant trees, festooned with wild vines, and beautiful spikes of purple and yellow flowers, tantalizing my itching fingers as we shot past; the cars always stopping, of course, where nothing but "Groceries" was to be seen, except in one instance, where "Groceries and Boarding" made a pleasing variety.
Fluttering and whirling before him like the disordered gleams in a moving prism, they would not be caught, and yet kept tantalizing him by settling upon his pen, till he tried to write them, when they would dissipate again in a new and perturbed whirl of tempestuous feeling.
Nothing had been left wherewith to gild a story and tantalize the envious ears of rivalry.
He tried to bring her features back, but he must pay the price for having neglected her so long, and hard as he strove to imagine her as she was, her face eluded him, tantalized him, and came near only to fade away as soon as he turned his eyes upon it.
Their voluminous light garments scarcely concealed the ample curves of their bodies, and the marvelous creatures seemed to be breathing to slow music, while their slumberous eyes regarded us with a gentle indifference that was more tantalizing than any other species of coquetry that I have knowledge of.
Thus while Columbus was nurturing his deferred hopes, neglected and poor, and awaiting what after all was but a tantalizing revival of royal interest, the rival Portuguese, acting most probably under the influences of Columbus's own countryman, this Florentine, were stretching farther towards the true western route to the Moluccas than the Admiral had any conception of.
Between the hearthrug and the table I catch sight of the bright flaunting head of a scarlet poppy, or of the tossing petals of a huge chrysanthemum, and my imagination instantly flashes to my mind the horrible impression of tantalizing rows of exactly similar blossoms running off with mathematical precision in every conceivable direction.
Action, bold and fearless action, was wanted, and until men were found with minds entirely free from morbid theories, but full of the courage of their new convictions, the world had to wait in tantalizing suspense for improvement, always hoping that each new scientific discovery would enlighten mankind in the desired direction, but always doomed to be disappointed and to see humanity growing either more savage or physically weaker, simultaneously with each phase of enlightenment.
Had he, it would have been "curtain" there and then, but as he did not the play went on, and its sequence proves that, however honorable her intentions, she had by no means relinquished her sex's unalienable right to bring things about in its own illogical, tantalizing, perversely charming way.
It seemed but a matter of a few minutes before the cook and his assistants had the game ready for the steaming sauce which awaited it in the iron pot; and while the company regaled themselves with jokes and talk of the day's sport, the sauce bubbled and boiled, but tantalizing the group about the fire.
That gentleman, daintily picking a fleck of dust from his cuff, looked unconcernedly off into the sky, whistling softly, and Courtney, pushing his hand into the discard, lighted a cigar, while the colonel met Washer's raise and added a tantalizing white chip.
As so often lately, this was not the moment for a man to advance his suit, but Jack could not decide whether Barbara, like all the girls in these restless, neurotic months, was too much excited to be serious or whether she was deliberately tantalizing him and deferring surrender to set a higher value on herself.
When I think of your imprisonment and your present deprivations of such a day as this, whose healing influences you so well would feel, I rejoice in your power of sympathy with the enjoyments as well as the sufferings of others, which makes me feel that I am refreshing rather than tantalizing you by placing my present position before you.
What, for instance, can be more tantalizing to the student of Greek manners and sentiments than to know that Sophocles wrote a drama with the title Lovers of Achilles, and yet to have no means of judging of its fable better than is given in this pretty simile?
He seems shy of giving his poetic impulse free rein, and prefers to tantalize us with imperfect specimens of what he might achieve; so that his splendor is like that of northern streamers in its lambency, though swift and piercing as forked lightnings in its intensity.
He was installed in a great armchair before the blazing logs in the fireplace in the light and warmth of familiar friendly regions, and, as he put out his hands gratefully against the heat, feeling himself surrounded by friends, it seemed to him that he was a prey to some tantalizing hallucinations of happiness that must vanish at a waking start.
With every mile that we travelled an unpleasant suspicion grew stronger as I thought over the bargain with that guileful man; gradually the suspicion changed to a certainty, and then it was that I became aware that Marion, who had also been strangely silent, was studying me with a tantalizing air of knowing my thoughts.
The resounding kisses mingled with bursts of laughter, the shuddering, impatient caresses, all the piquant, tantalizing sensations, the pleasure imperfectly enjoyed because of the costume and the situation, but a hundred times keener than if there had been no obstacles, produced such an effect on my nerves that I was seized with paroxysms which I had some difficulty in overcoming.
It must have been somewhat tantalizing to travel on day after day, week after week, within sight of his wife, and yet not be allowed to open his lips; more maddening still to see the advances made by the untutored boor who a very short time before would have deemed it an honor to be allowed even to address her.
It was impossible to get rid of the absurd notion, that the whole country would be appropriated before we had set foot in it, and that we should thus be in the awkward predicament of a dilatory guest, who arrives only in time to be tantalized by sight of the fragments of the feast.
Our belts had been tightened until there was no relief in that, and, as if to enhance my own personal suffering, the tantalizing fact occurred to me that I was treading my native heath, so to speak, for I am a native of Madison County, and Huntsville had been my home for years, where to enjoy three squares a day had been an unbroken habit of years.
It is impossible to retain in one's mind any part of that prodigious work: you might return a hundred times to look at it, but in reality it would only remain before your eyes as a tantalizing blur of blue, red, green, golden, and luminous shades of colors, or a very intricate piece of embroidery continually and rapidly changing in color and design.
A moment later the door of his office opened and a young lady in a very stunning street dress, with a pretty little rakish hat and a tantalizing veil, stood a moment, hesitated, and then was about to turn back with an apology for intruding on what looked like a conference.
The quacking of the ducks was so tantalizing to the famished creature that she actually left the nest and, with just the arch of her back showing above the snow, stole towards the spot whence the noise proceeded.
The young nature, swelling to the new influences with a sense of unmeasurable strength, sometimes turbulent with passions, but always throbbing with excited feelings led on and fed by tantalizing fancies, seems transformed from its previous self and becomes a new nature.
Though protected from the fierce rays by the stonework of the arch, both lads began to feel the torture of an agonizing thirst, which was intensified by the tantalizing sight of a small brook meandering through the fields at a short distance from the castle.