"Delusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any one it was the Earl of Leicester, the man who sent his lovely wife, Amy Robsart, to a cruel death in the delusive hope of marrying a Queen. We are unwilling to harbor the suspicion that she was accessory to this deed; and yet we cannot forget that she was the daughter of Henry VIII.!—and sometimes wonder if the memory of a crime as black as Mary's haunted her sad old ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Turandot." Her will Decrees my death—from her 'tis, welcome still. Adieu, fond hopes. Delusive joys, farewell! ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... him from Evanthe? haste, to tell me, And feed my gready ear with the fond tale— Yet, hold—for I shall weary you with questions, And ne'er be satisfied—Beware, Cleone, And guard your heart from Love's delusive sweets. ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... all this clamour from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of that reform were destined to be very different from ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... front and the back view of any temptation to which we yield—all radiant and beautiful on the hither side, and when we get past it and look back at it, all hideous. Like some of those painted canvases upon the theatre-stage: seen from this side, with the delusive brilliancy of the footlights thrown upon them, they look beautiful works of art; seen at the back, dirty and cobwebbed canvas, all splashes and spots and uglinesses. Let us be thankful if memory can show us the reverse side of the temptations that on the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... notices. They had rightly dated the beginning of his career from his first appearance as an authority on foreign politics, but they had not realised that Grosse had begun to work only in the midstream of life. Many brilliant springs are delusive in their promise, but rarely is there such ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... such delusive flattery lead to, but vanity and folly? The lover, it is true, has a poetic licence to exalt his mistress; his reason is the bubble of his passion, and he does not utter a falsehood when he borrows the language of adoration. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... ancestral park, half a mile away from the great house, where, for all its corridors and galleries, she could never feel, at all events, spiritually alone. All that was most sugared and musical and generally delusive in the old library of her fathers had been brought out to this little woodland library, and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poets and romancers, long since dead, yet as alive and singing on their shelves as any bird on the sunny boughs outside, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... safety seemed a delusive one; the skiff swooped away from the rock, spun more giddily about, and threw both men upon their knees. Another instant that seemed endless,—an instant which decided the fate of both, as far as this world was concerned,—these men trembled ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... on a few; and had there been missionaries there at the time, their efforts might have proved successful. But the influence of the "men of medicine," who strenuously withstand a religion which exposes their delusive tricks, and consequently deprives them of their gains,—together with the dreadful depravity everywhere prevalent,—renders the conversion of the Tekallies an ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... disclosures? It made her bring down her foot sharply on the pavement with vexation as she suspected that he thought her so foolish, and then again her heart warmed with the perception of self-denying care for her. She trusted to that same prudence for no delusive hopes having been given to Mark ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that brow so fair, so young, Affliction trace an early furrow, If Hope's too dear, delusive tongue Has broke its promise of to-morrow, Seek not the world again, to borrow The deathful print its votaries reap. Man gives his loved ones pain and sorrow, God "giveth ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... them send to their king for aid; and if that be done, I know quickly what time of day it will be with us. Therefore let us assault them in all pretended fairness, covering our intentions with all manner of lies, flatteries, delusive words; feigning things that never will be, and promising that to them that they shall never find. This is the way to win Mansoul, and to make them of themselves open their gates to us; yea, and to desire us too to come in to them. And the reason why I think that this project will do is, because ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... project seemed to him delusive, and his sense of dignity rose against it—Harvey had begun with unwonted decision, but he was soon uncomfortably self-conscious and self-critical; he spoke with effort, vainly struggling against that peculiar force of Alma's personality which had long ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... that family attachment is delusive if it prevents the devotee from seeking the Giver of all boons, including the one of loving relatives, not to mention life itself. Jesus similarly taught: "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?" ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... partisans of Montmorency should at once be repressed by his guards. It was not until the soldiers returned with the assurance that everything was quiet throughout the city, that he consented to retire to his rest again. For an entire week the delusive cries seemed to return at the self-same hour.[1228] These fancies—the creations of his fevered brain—may soon have left him, not to return until the general closing in at the death-bed. But there were marks of the violence of the passions ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... will. He asserted and obtained it. For his will was that the divine will should be fulfilled, and fulfilled it was. He set aside one form of his will, his private and isolated will, knowing it to be delusive. But his true or conjunct will—and he knew it to be his true one—he abundantly obtained. It is no wonder, then, that in explaining these things to his disciples he says, "My meat it is to do the will of my Father." ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... ourselves passed through much the same phases. Vandal and others have told us of the Utopia which was created in the minds of the French when the old regime crashed to the ground. Sydney Smith caricatured the delusive hopes excited by the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, when he said that all the unmarried young women thought that they would at once get husbands, and that all the schoolboys expected a heavy fall in the price of jam tarts. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... wish success to the undertaking, and that nothing but the improbability of success should hinder every Scotsman to join in it. This tho' a verrie material point, you take for granted without assigning a single reason; but as I know it is one of their delusive arguments, now much in use where you are, and the chief engine of the party to seduce well-meaning men to concur in the ruin of the constitution and their country, I shall give you what I apprehend you must mean by it in the most favourable light it will bear; and then from an ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Use. The Character of Shamela, will make young Gentlemen wary how they take the most fatal Step both to themselves and Families, by youthful, hasty and improper Matches; indeed, they may assure themselves, that all Such Prospects of Happiness are vain and delusive, and that they sacrifice all the solid Comforts of their Lives, to a very transient Satisfaction of a Passion, which how hot so ever it be, will be soon cooled; and when cooled, will afford them ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... a "heaven" a neglected soul may have, can be shown to be an ignorant and delusive dream. How is the soul to escape to heaven if it has neglected for a lifetime the means of escape from the world and self? And where is the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not developed on earth? Where, indeed, is even the smallest spiritual appreciation of God and heaven to come ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... that for several weeks of the last year I have not opened a volume, and through the whole time I have not had the use of it, on an average, for more than an hour a day. Nor can I cheer myself with the delusive expectation, that, impaired as the organ has become, from having been tasked, probably, beyond its strength, it can ever renew its youth, or be of much service to me hereafter in my literary researches. Whether I shall have the heart to enter, as ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... try to hold out hopes of one or two legislative reforms beneficial to Ireland; but these hopes, I am afraid, will prove delusive. You hint that you have prepared a Registration bill, of which the effect will be to extend the elective franchise. What the provisions of that bill may be we do not know. But this we know, that the matter is one about which it is utterly impossible for you to do anything ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after the wedding, the bridegroom held high festival, and gave a grand dinner to all the masters. Our big boys were equal to the occasion, and as the hired waiters from the Falcon brought out the viands (all was a delusive peace as they went in) our harpies flew upon the spoil, and each meat, fish and fowl was cleared off the great dishes held between the helpless hands of the astonished servitors! It was really too ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... next year? 15 Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom, hope, 20 until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature hath placed ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... fictions, "The Agreeable Caledonian," had previously been used as the basis of a revision entitled "Clementina" (1768). The reviewer of "Leonora" in the "Critical," though aware of the novel's shortcomings, still laments the passing of "the author of Betsy Thoughtless, our first guide in these delusive walks ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... should possess, besides their own share in the representative hall of the nation, the exclusive privilege of appointing two-fifths of the whole number of the representatives of the people. This is now your condition, under that delusive ambiguity of language and of principle, which begins by declaring the representation in the popular branch of the legislature a representation of persons, and then provides that one class of persons shall have ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... perceived its beauty, and saw how his language and his imagery often recalled those of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals, such as Crashaw, too readily perhaps asserted a bond between his thought and theirs. Like them, it is true, he turned his back on the delusive splendours of the world; he accepted and expressed in song the divine ordinance of the universe. But he was afflicted with the pain of modern doubt; fear and speculative curiosity struggled with his faith; sometimes the sheer beauty of the external world, so far ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... Church. She had clung day by day to their plastic associate, plying him with her deep, narrow passion, doing her simple utmost to convert him, and so working on him that he had at last really embraced his fine chance. That the chance was not delusive was sufficiently guaranteed by the completeness with which he could finally figure it out that, in case of his taking action, neither Ida nor Beale, whose book, on each side, it would only too well suit, would make any ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... baseless, idle, trifling, unserviceable, bootless, inconstant, trivial, unsubstantial, deceitful, ineffectual, unavailing, useless, delusive, nugatory, unimportant, vapid, empty, null, unprofitable, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... nay, always strengthens to the performance of duty, gives courage, and clears the judgment. St. Paul says we are saved by hope. Hope is the most rational thing in the universe. Even the ancient poets, who believed it was delusive, yet regarded it as an antidote given by the mercy of the gods against some, at least, of the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... options for the consideration of LINCOLN, to bid the wayward States "depart in peace." The great republic appeared to have its emblem in the vast unfinished Capitol, at that moment surrounded by masses of stone and prostrate columns never yet lifted into their places, seemingly the moment of high but delusive aspirations, the confused wreck of inchoate magnificence, sadder than any ruin of Egyptian ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Where, presumptuous thoughts, ah! where, Would you lead me, whither go? If for certain now you know That the high attempts you dare Are delusive dreams of bliss, Since you strive to scale heaven's wall, But from that proud height to fall Headlong down a dark abyss? I Justina saw..... So near Would to God I had not seen her, Nor in her divine demeanour All the light ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... 25 seconds south. The country still retained the same woody, hilly, and irregular, though not unpleasing, appearance; but in running along the shore it manifestly grew worse, having more tendency to sand. The small projections of land which appeared as they sailed along often presented the delusive appearance of openings behind them; and they were the more inclined to entertain these hopes, as Captain Cook passed along this part of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the slightest hint to the American minister of their intended sacrifice of their "identical interest with the United States," they allowed this treachery to be sprung upon us. The sixty-mile limit was established by the tribunal, and it has proved utterly delusive. The result of this decision of the tribunal was that this great industry of ours was undermined, if not utterly destroyed; and that the United States were also mulcted to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars, besides the very great expense attending ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... conclusions so paradoxical was advanced by eminent and experienced politicians, and accepted by many persons, both in the North and in the South—not so much, perhaps, from intelligent conviction as under the delusive hope that it would afford a satisfactory settlement of the "irrepressible conflict" which had been declared. The terms "popular sovereignty" and "non-intervention" were plausible, specious, and captivating to the public ear. Too many lost sight of the elementary truth that political sovereignty ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... characters of that age. Equally full of fraud and of ardor, these pious patriots talked perpetually of seeking the Lord, yet still pursued their own purposes; and have left a memorable lesson to posterity, how delusive, how destructive that principle is by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... all that apparent byplay of the six paper bags, and of the Weissnichtwo allusions which drop as puzzling fragments into Book I. The second book is wholly biographical. It is in human life and experience that we must fight our way through delusive appearances to reality; and Carlyle constructs a ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... innocence, under the colour of clemency to guilt. He ordered her to call on his chamberlain, Darinsson, in an hour, and she should obtain an answer. There, either seduced by paternal affection, intimidated by threats, or imposed upon by delusive and engaging promises, she exchanged her virtue for an order of release for her parent; and so satisfied was Louis with his bargain that he added her to the number ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... climbed Olympus' crest; Each slumbering mariner his limbs unbends, Stretched by his oar, along the bench at rest, When lo! false Sleep his feathery wings extends. To guiltless Palinurus he descends, Parting the scattered shadows. Down he bears Delusive dreams, and cunning words pretends, As now, in Phorbas' likeness he appears, Perched on the lofty stern, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... under the Spanish flag were only taxed to the amount of one per cent.; but, as scarcely any export trade existed with Spain, and as Spanish vessels, from their high rates of freight, were excluded from the carrying trade of the world, the boon to commerce was a delusive one. [16] ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... pronounce upon lofty political and moral questions. I would merely say that New York, for a deserted city, is singularly animated; that Broadway yesterday was thronged with pretty women, who, famished as they are, present, nevertheless, the delusive appearance of health, and brave with heroic indifference the bloody tumults of which our streets are daily the theatre; that Art is not so utterly dead among us but that Maretzek gives "Un Ballo in Maschera" to crowded houses, and Church sees his studio filled with amateurs desirous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... people, that they can obtain, and that white men will give them, more for the productions of their soil than for the hands which can produce these—and the work is done. All other steps are futile, can only be mischievous and delusive, and terminate in disappointment and defeat. To eradicate the slave trade will not eradicate the passions which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be allayed. Stupefaction ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... earlier, a proposition to establish such a court for the purpose of strengthening the cause of international peace would have been looked upon as "a splendid but delusive dream." To-day many of the ablest men on both sides of the Atlantic believe that the time is not far off when England and America will agree to settle by arbitration all questions which diplomacy cannot ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... and describing the dreadful situation of her mind, the conflict she suffered in endeavouring to conquer this unfortunate attachment, and concluded with saying, her only hope of future comfort consisted in the (perhaps delusive) idea she indulged, of being once more folded in their protecting arms, and hearing the words of peace and pardon ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... fickle maid, My love is turned to grief and pain; In vain delusive hopes I stray'd, Through days that ne'er will dawn again; And she, in beauty like the dawn, From me has now her heart withdrawn! A constant suitor—on her ear My sweetest melodies I pour'd; Where'er she wander'd I was near; For her whose face ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... bound. A serving-maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea and died. Her fancy followed him through foaming waves To distant shores, and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, And dream of transports she was not to know. She heard the doleful tidings of his death, And never smiled again. And now she roams The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... back with shame to the time—and it was no matter of days or weeks, but a period of about four years together—when the loudest and most accepted voices in England exulted over the now ludicrously delusive proposition that the United States were a burst bubble, and slavery the irremovable corner-stone of an empire. It may be a lesson to nations against the indulgence in rancor, the abnegation of the national conscience, and the dear delight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... frost that held us in its grip, Would raise the prisoning paw, And Nature, like a mouse set free, Enjoyed delusive liberty, While every water-pipe must drip To greet the passing thaw. Then rudely dashed from eager lip The cup of joy would be, And fingers numbed, and chattering jaw, Owned unexpelled the winter's flaw, And on the steps the goodmen slip, And shout ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... slumber'd on their thrones above, All but the ever-watchful eye of Jove. To honour Thetis' son he bends his care, And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war. Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight, And thus commands the vision of the night: directs Fly hence, delusive dream, and, light as air, To Agamemnon's royal tent repair; Bid him in arms draw forth th' embattled train, March all his legions to the dusty plain. Now tell the king 'tis given him to destroy Declare ev'n now The lofty walls of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... made great havoc in their time among the hearts of the young, the gay, and the generous. Like 14most of her society, Clara has no idea of prudence, and hence to escape some pressing importunities, she levanted for a short time to Scotland, but has since, by the liberal advances of her present delusive, been enabled to quit the interested apprehensions of the Dun family. The swaggering belle in the green pelisse yonder, on the pave, is the celebrated courtezan, Mrs. St*pf**d, of Curzon-street, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... that are seen are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." But this pregnant utterance conveyed nothing more to him than a belief of a material heaven to follow his exit from a world of matter. It had never occurred to him that the world of matter might be the product of those same delusive physical senses, through which he believed he gained his knowledge of it. It is true that while in the seminary, and before, he had insisted upon a more spiritual interpretation of the mission of Jesus—had insisted that Christian priests should obey the Master's injunction, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... servants, who would doubtless come before long to extinguish the lights, was far from pleasant. Moreover, though Keyork had declared the patient out of danger, there seemed no absolute certainty that a relapse would not take place before morning, and Kafka might actually lay in the certainty—delusive enough—that Unorna could not ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... five personal senses. This delusive evidence, [1] Science has dethroned by repeated proofs of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... those men so well as his being thoroughly knowing in business, having a judgment to weigh all the delusive schemes and the fine promises of the wheedling projector, and to see which are likely to answer, or which not; to examine all his specious pretences, his calculations and figures, and see whether they are as ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... again, that females should have the ballot as a protection against the tyranny of bad husbands. This is also delusive. If the husband is brutal, arbitrary, or tyrannical, and tyrannizes over her at home, the ballot in her hands would be no protection against such injustice, but the husband who compelled her to conform to his ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... desert—among vestals, who rendered themselves habitants of wilds and of caverns, that they might perform in secret those Christian rites which they dared not assist in openly; that this should be so, in truth and in reality, seemed too incredible—it must be a dream—a delusive trance of the imagination. While these thoughts passed through the mind of Kenneth, the same passage, by which the procession had entered the chapel, received them on their return. The young sacristans, the sable nuns, vanished successively through the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... is nothing invisible, and that that which is manifest to his senses and intellect contains everything which can possibly exist. But such an illusion is only possible on the surface of consciousness and not in its depths. Feeling and desire do not yield to this delusive belief. They will be perpetually craving, in one way or another, for that which is invisible. And if this is withheld, they drive man to doubt, to uncertainty about life, or even to despair. Occult science, by making manifest what is unseen, is calculated ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... outgathering of the church from the world, and not the ingathering of the world into the church. To set such an end before themselves as the world's conversion would therefore not only be unwarranted by Scripture, but delusive and disappointing, disheartening God's servants by the failure to realize the result, and dishonoring to God Himself by making Him to ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... legislation as I have done, when I think they must come to the same conclusions as those which have forced themselves on my own mind—namely, that the Home Rule desired by the Parnellites is not only a delusive impossibility, but is also high treason against the integrity of the Empire, and would be a base surrender of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whatever the landlords were, they are now more sinned against than sinning; and that in the orderly ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... of the wild untutored hordes among whom the proud pageantry of pretended faith, false honour, and affected punctilio, had its rise. He traced it through its gilded course of blood and carnage, stripped of the fantastic and delusive mantle which romance delights to fling over its native deformity, to the present time, when the general civilization and protection enjoyed in this enlightened age, has left nought but the grim shadow of the destructive ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was at that time the western terminal of the few railroads then in existence, and there was very little probability that they would make farther progress toward the setting sun. The individual who had determined to start for the new, but delusive, western mountainous El Dorado, must perforce make his wearisome journey by slowly plodding ox-teams, pack-mules, or the lumbering stage-coach. Such means of travel had just been inaugurated by Mr. W. H. Russell (then the senior partner of the firm of Russell, Majors, & Waddell) and a Mr. John ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... is," said Tracy savagely, "that music's a fashion, and as delusive a growth as Cobbett's potatoes, which will go back to the deadly nightshade, just as music will go back to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for lots of drunkards every year. The only time I am tempted to soak my sorrows in rum is after I have read a delusive bill of fare and eaten a broiled barn-hinge with gravy on it that tasted like the broth of perdition. It is then that the demon of intemperance and colic comes to me and, in siren tones, says: "Try our bourbon, with 'Polly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust among her golden hair and her bright garments all faded and defaced, stealing from your glance with drooping head, as fearful of reproach; she was your fondest Hope, but a delusive one; so call her Disappointment now. A sterner form succeeds, with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority; there is no name for him unless it be Fatality, an emblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes; a demon to whom you subjected yourself by some ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... encounter no collegiate hindrance, excepting this, that the average liberal education, as it is called, gives so little knowledge of physical science, that the educated classes often fail to distinguish between the real inventor and the deluded, or delusive, impostor. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... chiefly by functional disturbance and organic lesions, causing its very defenders as a food to stultify themselves when in fealty to facts they are compelled to disclose its destructions, and to find the only defense in that line of demarcation, more imaginary than the equator, more delusive than the ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... they would sacrifice whatever they possess to enable me to play once more the game so often lost; but I will not abuse their affection, nor suffer them again to be slaves to my caprices, nor dupes to their own delusive expectations. I have sent them word I am happy; I have not yet told them how or where. I fear much the affliction of their disappointment, and, for a while, shall conceal from them my situation, which they would fancy was disgraceful, and grieve at ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... glittering bubble had burst. The shares, each one of which had seemed a fortune, found no more purchasers, and in its fall the Company dragged down with it its ally and chief creditor, the bank. All was dismay and despair, except in those who had sold out in time, and turned delusive paper into solid values. John Law, lately the idol and reputed savior of France, fled for his life, amid ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the agitators proved as delusive as those of the propagandists. The muzhik turned a deaf ear to their instigations, and the police soon prevented their further activity. Thus the would-be root-and-branch reforms found themselves in a dilemma. Either they must abandon their schemes for ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... The rough prairie boy looked resolute, and seemed to have conquered his fears. She wondered whether he had discovered any possible avenue of escape, for nothing but the promptings of a strong hope, whether real or delusive, could have produced such a change ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... awaiting the moment for avenging their wrongs; the dangers which he was about to confront, those which he left behind him, even in his own family: it showed him, that like the returns of his army, the census of the population of his empire was delusive, not so much in respect to its numerical as to its real strength; scarcely any men were included in it but those who were old in years, or worn out in the service, and children—few men in the prime of life. Where were they? The tears ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... one of those delusive sounds which the anxious mind sometimes conjures up, or did an answer really come to the lad's cry ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with sentiments of piety and justice, or only a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... bright regions of eternal day, Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, Array'd in purer light, look down on me! In pleasing visions and delusive dreams, O! sooth my soul, and teach me ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... From this delusive scene of domestic condescension and kindliness he passed to his Hall of Audience to consider official matters. Twice a week at sunset he appeared at one of the gates of the palace to hear the complaints ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... caelum, alii dixerunt esse mundum." Dr. Frazer, citing this passage (Kingship, p. 286) in support of his view that Janus was a duplicate of Jupiter, has omitted to notice that some theorisers fancied he was the universe, which by itself is enough to betray the delusive nature of this kind of theological speculation. Varro elsewhere gives us a clue to the liability of Janus to be exalted in this unnatural fashion, L.L. vii. 27, "divum deo" (in the Salian hymn), if this be taken as referring to Janus, as it may ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... and what of their daring wearers? As the crowd thickened, they began to shine out upon the general blackness in obvious distinction. At first, the howling multitude, eager for filthy lucre, took no particular notice of them beyond an occasional hurried poke or pat, but this delusive mildness did not long continue. After the first fifteen or twenty minutes, during which the favorite stocks had been danced up and down a few times, like so many crying babies, the appetite of the hundred-headed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... only be undertaken when the enemy's fleet has been either rendered helpless by a crushing defeat or blockaded in its ports. Before sending the transports to Lissa Persano should have steamed across to Pola and blockaded Tegethoff, fighting him if he came out. But Persano had a delusive hope that he could perhaps score a victory without encountering the Austrian fleet by swooping down on Lissa, crushing the batteries with a heavy bombardment, landing the troops, hoisting the Italian flag, and getting back to his safe anchorage at Ancona before Tegethoff ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... he onward, like a phantom he disappears there on the border of the forest. Was it only a delusive appearance, a ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence. If it were to be otherwise—if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for—I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will happen in my ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... precisely the same as before"—rejoined the other complacently—"Only we should have learned to accept them merely as the means whereby to sustain the IMPRESSION that we live,—an impression which would always be agreeable, however delusive!" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... majesty of the human mind, as "an arbiter enthroned in its own dominion, endowed with an initiating power, and forming its determinations for good or for evil by an inherent and indefeasible prerogative." It tells us that we have neither power to act nor freedom to fall—that our sense of liberty is delusive, that we are predestined to sin or to holiness by a decree of the infinite mind, and that our fate has been sealed from eternity! If we really believe it and act upon it, our moral energies are for ever suppressed, and the consciousness ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... suspected nothing of John's plots against him, wrote to the governors of the city, that they would provide a lodging and necessaries for John; which favors, when he had made use of, in two days' time he did what he came about; some he corrupted with delusive frauds, and others with money, and so persuaded them to revolt from Josephus. This Silas, who was appointed guardian of the city by Josephus, wrote to him immediately, and informed him of the plot against him; which epistle when Josephus ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... their own rights; and are made to respect the just pretensions of mankind; in proportion as they are willing to sustain, in their own persons, the burden of government, and of national defence; and are willing to prefer the engagements of a liberal mind to the enjoyment of sloth, or the delusive hopes of a safety ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... they say, some evil spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive light, Misleads th' amaz'd night wand'rer from his way To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool; There swallowed up and lost ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... constitutional obligations; you will not regard your oaths. What am I to do? Am I a freeman? Is my State, a free State, to lie down and submit because political fossils raise the cry of 'The Glorious Union'? Too long already have we listened to this delusive song. We are freemen. We have rights: I have stated them. We have wrongs: I have recounted them. I have demonstrated that the party now coming into power has declared us outlaws, and is determined to exclude four thousand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... imprisonment, there would be an amazing change in the behavior of schoolmasters, the quality of school books, and the amenities of school life. That Consciousness of Consent which, even in its present delusive form, has enabled Democracy to oust tyrannical systems in spite of all its vulgarities and stupidities and rancors and ineptitudes and ignorances, would operate as powerfully among children as it does now among grown-ups. No doubt ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Othello meanwhile, thanks to the trimming of her sails, flew over the water like a swallow; but she was making, to all appearance, so little headway, that the unlucky Frenchmen began to entertain sweet delusive hopes. At last, after unheard-of efforts, the Saint-Ferdinand sprang forward, Gomez himself directing the shifting of the sheets with voice and gesture, when all at once the man at the tiller, steering at random (purposely, no doubt), swung the vessel round. The wind ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... of 'Land!' on the morrow caused passengers unseen before to appear like worms after a shower; all heroically did up their back hair, put on their best suits, and walked forth with the delusive hope that no one would know how ill ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... reconcentrados, despite the reiterated professions made in that regard and the amount appropriated by Spain to that end. The proffered expedient of zones of cultivation proved illusory. Indeed no less practical nor more delusive promises of succor could well have been tendered to the exhausted and destitute people, stripped of all that made life and home dear and herded in a strange region among unsympathetic strangers hardly less necessitous ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... before the war more than one third of the tonnage afloat under the British flag was launched from American dock-yards. The war had violently deprived England of this enormous advantage, and now she sought to make the privation perpetual, in the delusive hope of confining British trade to British keels, and in the belief that it was the height of wisdom to impoverish the nation which she regarded as her best customer. In July, 1783, an order in council ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... doing well enough here already? Are not the United States this day busily using, working, more printer's type, more presses, than any other country? uttering and absorbing more publications than any other? Do not our publishers fatten quicker and deeper? (helping themselves, under shelter of a delusive and sneaking law, or rather absence of law, to most of their forage, poetical, pictorial, historical, romantic, even comic, without money and without price—and fiercely resisting the timidest proposal to pay for it.) Many will come under this delusion—but ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... post-offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's calibre could at that period conceive a plan of policy in which the slavery question had no place; a policy which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption that the secessionists, who had already formed their Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolution preparing to fight for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the Union by some sentimental demonstration against ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... impressive and yet so attractive, that the senator, as he bent over the couch, though the warm, soft breath of the young girl played on his cheeks and waved the tips of his perfumed locks, could hardly imagine that the scene before him was more than a bright, delusive dream. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... "advise generally" preparatory to its "being laid before counsel," was Mr. Traverse, a young pleader, whom Messrs. Quirk and Gammon were disposed to take by the hand. He wrote a very showy, but superficial and delusive opinion; and put the intended protege of his clients, as it were by a kind of hop, step, and jump, into possession of the Yatton estates. Quirk was quite delighted on reading it; but Gammon shook his head with a somewhat sarcastic smile, and said he would at once prepare a case for the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... United States." The trouble and expense of obtaining justice in the United States courts, but one, or at most two existing in any of the Southern States, would debar the African from applying to them for redress. "Your remedy," said the Senator, "is delusive; your remedy is no remedy at all; and to hold it up to the world as a remedy is a gross fraud, however pious it may be. It is no remedy to the poor debtor that you prosecute his judge, and threaten him with ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... so changed as enormously to diminish the strength of the competitive instinct. If an economic reorganization can effect this it may pro- vide a real safeguard against war, but if not, it is to be feared that the hopes of universal peace will prove delusive. ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... 212: Mr. Morley has the doubtful merit of consistency. As recently as April 27th, 1906, he alluded to the South African War as "that delusive and guilty war," in an address to the Eighty Club. According to The Times report this expression ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... corrupted by the hope of money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased. {46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned for their great and ill-timed indifference ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... past forever! Now I am doubting and misjudging the woman I have asked to be my wife. I must be misjudging her—the alternative is horrible. I can't escape one conviction, however. It is turning out just as I expected and told her it would. Arnault's aid to her father has been delusive, and Wildmere is deeper in the mire than ever. This is a fine ending of my social career! The girl of my choice puts me off until she can end this Wall Street business more satisfactorily. She must wait and hear her ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe |
