"Dissemble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all our grievances: and that he proposed getting the prigany of Surat transferred to himself, which the prince would have to resign, as he had been made governor of Ahmedabad, Cambay, and that territory. To satisfy me that he did not dissemble, he desired me to come at night to court, bringing the king my master's letter and the translation, as the time was favourable for its delivery; desiring me at the same time to persist in my complaint, and to offer taking leave, when I should see what he would say for us. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... rather an awkward question for the missionary, but he was much too honest to dissemble. With a reverence for truth that proceeded from his reverence for the Father of all that is true, he replied honestly, though not altogether without betraying how much he regretted the necessity of answering ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... almost purple; but she had neither her sex's quick instinct of self-protection nor its proneness to dissemble, secretive as she was. She lifted her head haughtily and turned away. For a moment she looked very Spanish, not the unfortunate result of coupled races that she was. Helena, who was in her naughtiest humour, threw back her head and laughed scornfully. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... prudence and consummate cleverness of General Moreau had assured to our arms advantages which at length promised peace. Bonaparte perceived this, not without secret heartburning; but for a time he felt himself compelled to dissemble. "I cannot tell you all the interest I have taken in your admirable and wise manoeuvres," he wrote to Moreau; "in this campaign you have ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... narrow confines of the ship with the man who had, as he believed, wronged him, had but intensified Hornigold's hatred. The One-Eyed found it difficult to dissemble, and took refuge in a reticence which was foreign to his original frank and open character. Morgan half suspected the state of affairs in his old boatswain's moiled and evil soul, and he watched him on account of it more closely than the others, but with ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... was like oil upon the troubled waters; every one settled instantly into his place, and Griesengesang, to give himself a countenance, became absorbed in the arrangement of his papers; but in their eagerness to dissemble, one and all neglected ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gave consent, and calling the bear before him, he said, "Sir Bruin, it is our pleasure that you deliver this message; yet in the delivery thereof have great regard to yourself; for Reynard is full of policy, and knoweth how to dissemble, flatter, and betray; he hath a world of snares to entangle you withal, and without great exercise of judgment, will make a scorn and mock of the best ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... a fallen archangel, The lips of a beautiful fiend, And locks that are snake-like to strangle, And eyes from whose depths may be glean'd The presence of passions, that tremble Unbidden, yet shine as they may Through features too proud to dissemble, Too cold and too calm to betray Their secrets ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Him; for if we do this well and as we ought, we shall not lose our labour or be without effect. Wherefore fly vices, embrace virtues, possess your minds with worthy hopes, offer up humble prayers to your highest Prince. There is, if you will not dissemble, a great necessity of doing well imposed upon you, since you live in the sight of your Judge, ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... and excitement of this scene, and had time to reflect upon the circumstances of it, she was convinced that what had occurred was no accident, but the result of a deep-laid design to destroy her life. She, however, thought it most prudent to dissemble her opinion for a time. As soon therefore as she had safely reached her villa, and her wound had been dressed, she dispatched a messenger to Baiae to inform Nero of what had occurred. The vessel in which she had embarked had been wrecked at sea, she said, and she had narrowly escaped destruction. ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... speculation of the world, because all men shew to him in their plainest and worst, as a man they have no plot on, by appearing good to; whereas rich men are entertained with a more holy-day behaviour, and see only the best we can dissemble. He is the only he that tries the true strength of wisdom, what it can do of itself without the help of fortune; that with a great deal of virtue conquers extremities, and with a great deal more his own impatience, and obtains of ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... abruptly and so emphatically that both of his hearers jumped in their seats. He made haste to dissemble. "Of course, I'd much rather have you do that than to break your neck rolling over a precipice or something of the sort ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... between us, to dissemble, and I'm not going to try it. I want to know whether Geoffrey Croyden is coming back to Northumberland? You are with him, and should know. You can tell his inclination. You can ask him, if necessary. If he is not ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof;—no, not so much as their eyes are able to shed tears (threaten and torture them as you please), while first they repent (God not permitting them to dissemble their obstinacy in so horrible a crime); albeit, the womenkind especially, be able otherwise to shed tears at every light occasion when they will, yea, although it were dissembling ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... distinguished by the same complexion, and almost the same features. In her frame she is as well formed, and as flexible as the Gitano. Condemned to suffer the same privations and wants, her countenance, when her interest does not oblige her to dissemble her feelings, presents the same aspect of melancholy, and shows besides, with more energy, the rancorous passions of which the female heart is susceptible. Free in her actions, her carriage, and her pursuits, she speaks, vociferates, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... wisdom: 'Secret are wise Lovecraft's keys unto love's sanctities, O Phoibos, and among gods and men alike all deem this shame, to have pleasure of marriage at the first openly. Now even thee, who mayest have no part in lies, thy soft desire hath led to dissemble in this ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... burst out into a loud laugh. "Well, Sir, I must say that your frankness enchants me. I can no longer dissemble with you; indeed, I perceive, it would be useless; besides, I always adored candour—it is my favourite virtue. Tell me how I can help you, and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away—"grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that 'they be ill folks that dogs and children ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... about Kaskaskia retained much of their national character, and the pioneers from the South who visited them or settled among them never ceased to wonder at their gayety, their peaceable industry and enterprise, and their domestic affection, which they did not care to dissemble and conceal like their shy and reticent neighbors. It was a daily spectacle, which never lost its strangeness for the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, to see the Frenchman returning from his work greeted by his wife and children with embraces of welcome "at the gate of ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Captain Jack's parting word to him to dissemble all outward signs of astonishment at what he might see when he entered the city; to walk on without stopping to stare or gape, to look as though such sights were of everyday occurrence in his life, and to bear himself with a bold and self-sufficient air, ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... subjects were discussed; but between whiles Melissa had to dissemble and give evasive answers to Diodoros's questions as to whether she had already arranged with her brother and friends who should be the youths and maidens to form the wedding procession, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... or practices, been abetting to such grand errors, I cannot see how it can consist with sincerity, to be so convinced, in matters so nearly relating to the glory of God and lives of innocents, and, at the same time, so much to fear disparagement among men, as to trifle with conscience and dissemble an approving of former sentiments. You know that word, 'He that honoreth me I will honor, and he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.' But, if you think that, in these matters, you have done your duty, and taught the people theirs; and that the doctrines cited from the above mentioned ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... each of these two men had the same end in view; each desired to dissemble his own character. And each of them succeeded with the many, but failed as between themselves. Selpdorf posed as the suave, sympathetic, good-natured friend of those with whom he came in contact; Counsellor, as a man of no account, a rugged soldier, honest, strong, outspoken, a good agent ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... ease and plenty, which the Christians had enjoyed. The latter gives us a melancholy account of their change. They had begun to live in fine houses, and to indulge in luxuries. But, above all, they had begun to be envious, and quarrelsome, and to dissemble, and to cheat, and to falsify their word, so that they lost the character, which Pliny, an adversary to their religion, had been obliged to give of them, and which they had retained for more than a century, as appears ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... at his chin, and thanked Heaven again that he had let his beard grow. Almost mechanically he decided to wear the mask—in short, to dissemble. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... Eastern courtier, he knew how to dissemble, but not to forgive, and bided his time. The Magi, to their credit, told Astyages that his dream had been fulfilled, that Cyrus—as we must now call the foundling prince—had fulfilled it by becoming a king in play, and the boy is let to go back to his father ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... word another time againe, That can dissemble so against your heart, Wishing that I should earnestly refraine, From that which thou thy selfe embracer art: This is braue doing, I commend you Grace, But ile nere trust you more in such ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... the caressing hand, and when rebuked by his mistress retired beneath a davenport, growling ominously. Even when ignominiously expelled from the room he growled and cast longing backward glances at the Speranza ankles. No, Googoo did not dissemble; Albert was perfectly sure of his standing ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... those things which they boast they have: they have not that antiquity, they have not that universality, they have not that consent of all places, nor of all times. And though they have a desire rather to dissemble, yet they themselves are not ignorant hereof: yea, and sometime also they let not to confess it openly. And for this cause they say that the ordinances of the old councils and fathers be such as may now and then be ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... but sweet smiling she said, "Dear sir, to dissemble I hate, If we twa thegither are doom'd to be wed, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... out so suddenly and shortly after according to their desires, they thought neuerthelesse it came to passe by our meanes, and that we in vsing such speeches vnto them, did not dissemble the matter, and therefore came vnto vs to giue vs thankes in their maner, that although we satisfied them not in promise, yet in deedes and effect we had ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... I cannot dissemble the joy I felt on the first view of this striking and venerable edifice. It is situated on a considerable eminence—and seems to be built upon a foundation of rock. Its mosque-fashioned towers, the long range of its windows, and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... shaving my head; by which time the hour of prayer was come and it was wellnigh time for the exhortation.[FN98] When he had done, I said to him, 'Take the meat and drink and carry them to thy friends. I will await thy return.' For I thought it best to dissemble with the accursed fellow and feign compliance with his wishes, so haply he might go away and leave me. Quoth he, 'Thou art deceiving me and wilt go alone and cast thyself into some peril, from which there will be no escape for ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... like a watering-pot and then made it froth with the curved stream of hot milk that dropped from the height of his raised arm; but the two looked across at each other through the whole play of French pleasantness with a gravity that had now ceased to dissemble. Sir Claude sent the waiter off again for something and then took up her answer. "Hasn't she ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... drink a SCHNITT. Furst, who was in capital spirits at the prospect of the evening, laughed heartily, told witty anecdotes, and slapped his fat thigh, the type of rubicund good-humour; and as he was not of an observant turn of mind, he did not notice his companion's abstraction. Hardly troubling to dissemble, Maurice paid scant attention to Furst's talk; he ate avidly, and as soon as he had finished, pushed back his chair and called to the waiter ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... let him keep his loathsome cabin still; 637 Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends: Come not within his danger by thy will; They that thrive well take counsel of their friends. When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble, I fear'd thy fortune, and ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... him, he allowed their more pious brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... past midnight when he reached it, but, to his surprise, the old woman was paring potatoes at the door. Fairies are fond of doing odd things. Indeed, however they may dissemble, the night is always their day. And so it is with all who ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... such as becomes those of the first education, and the sentiments worthy those of the highest figure. It was a most exquisite pleasure to me, to observe real tears drop from the eyes of those who had long made it their profession to dissemble affliction; and the player, who read, frequently threw down the book, until he had given vent to the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... preparations for war." Though Louis XVI. was in cordial sympathy with the emigrants, and, by his secret agents, was urging the Emperor of Austria to lend him troops to aid in crushing the revolution in France, still he was compelled not only to dissemble, but on the 20th of April, 1792, publicly to declare war against the Emperor of Austria, who was brother of ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... adherents fondly declared that his natural air of distinction, his princely bearing, were too marked to be concealed in any travesty. Yet no man has, in disguises of his person, been more successful. We may grant 'the grand air' to Charles, but we must admit that he could successfully dissemble it. ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... he said, 'and I assure you I'm covered with confusion. But I won't dissemble. I haven't the remotest notion what needs to be done. I'm afraid this is the first time in my life I have ever touched anything belonging to ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... generation, and beset by infidel friends, had early lost his anchorage of traditional belief; and yet, upon an honorable scruple of fidelity to the suffering church of his fathers, he sought often to dissemble the fact of his own scepticism, which yet often he thirsted ostentatiously to parade. Through a motive of truthfulness he became false. And in this particular instance he would, at any rate, have become false, whatever had been the native constitution of his mind. It was a mere impossibility ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... grim sire only will the old State-secret come. Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did now long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... unceremonious intrusion? Accident? She would not believe it; the time and the place were against such a supposition. With an intellect like hers, it would be idle to adopt so shallow an artifice. No; I would not dissemble; I would boldly avow the truth. Jealousy had rendered me reckless of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... ago an admission like that would have been inconceivable. It was odd, he thought, how one thing led to another and produced an end that could not be foreseen. Now he could lie and dissemble with the best. He had no compunction about falsifying a requisition, or stealing what he could not obtain with apparent honesty. His character had sunk to an all-time low, he reflected with grim humor as he ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... great was the dread among them now of electing another such Pope, that they unanimously chose Giovanni de' Medici. Up to that time he had always shown himself liberal and easy, or, rather, prodigal in squandering the little that he owned; he had moreover managed so to dissemble as to acquire a reputation for most excellent habits of life.' Vettori adds that his power in Florence helped him, and that he owed much to the ability displayed by Bernardo da Bibbiena in winning votes. The ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... chooses as his haunt, in the bright sunlight, some chink in the naked rocks where not so much as a tuft of moss grows? If, to capture his tiny prey, his brother in the copses and the hedges thought it necessary to dissemble and consequently to dye his pearl-embroidered coat, how comes it that the denizen of the sun-blistered rocks persists in his blue-and-green colouring, which at once betrays him against the whity-grey stone? Indifferent to mimicry, is he the less skilful Beetle-hunter ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... It was useless to dissemble longer, and, after all, there seemed little doubt but that the short, squat individual before them was certainly no German. Taking his courage, therefore, in both hands, Henri at once admitted that he and Jules were Frenchmen, and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Maurice and the countess entered the room. Maurice glanced from Madame to Fitzgerald and back to Madame; he frowned. The Englishman, who had never before had cause to dissemble, caught up his pipe and fumbled it. This act merely discovered his embarrassment to the keen eyes of his friend. He had forgotten all about Maurice. What would he say? Maurice was something like a conscience to him, and his heart ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... some time after Caesar's death, and when the civil war was growing to a head: "Brutus, seeing the state of Rome would be utterly overthrown, went ... unto the city of Elea standing by the sea. There Portia, being ready to depart from her husband Brutus and to return to Rome, did what she could to dissemble the grief and sorrow she felt at her heart. But a certain painted table (picture) bewrayed her in the end.... The device was taken out of the Greek stories, how Andromache accompanied her husband Hector ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... the end of August or beginning of September,' said Wilson briefly. He was slightly annoyed with himself for having talked so much about his plants, since he saw that Darnell cared nothing for flowers; and, indeed, the visitor could hardly dissemble vague recollections that came to him; thoughts of an old, wild garden, full of odours, beneath grey walls, of the fragrance of the meadowsweet ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... useless to dissemble; Mary Anne knew now as well as I did that the ladder had no business to be there. I did the best I could, however. I put her ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sister, imagined that her affection would make her remain with him at least a year. . . . He spoke to her on the subject, but in such a manner as to convey the impression that she would not so far contradict him for fear of redoubling his grief. This led her to dissemble her intention till our arrival. Then she told me that her resolution was fixed to adopt a religious life as soon as our respective shares [of the father’s property] were arranged. She would, however, spare my brother by leading him to suppose she only meditated a retreat! ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... see no evil in anything, so long as it concerns a man whom they intend to marry. The penetration of Gertrude is very acute, but we manage to elude it through Pauline's terror lest my name should be divulged; the sense of this danger gives her strength to dissemble! But now Pauline has just refused Godard, and I do not know what may be ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... do their office,—"thus, then, this bookworm—this remnant of old heathen philosophy, who hardly believes, so God save me, the truth of the Christian creed, has topp'd his part so well that he forces his Emperor to dissemble in his presence. Beginning by being the buffoon of the court, he has wormed himself into all its secrets, made himself master of all its intrigues, conspired with my own son-in-law against me, debauched my guards,—indeed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... hopes went echoing to the farthest reaches of her consciousness. But pride stiffened her to dissemble, and she tried to smile as she mechanically accepted the Captain's invitation to be seated at the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... guilt existed, it called for condign punishment and as God's instrument he must mete it out. But he was a righteous man and must first be certain. Therefore, he would not let her suspect his own doubts. If she were dissembling he would dissemble, too, but to a better end. In her this deceit was a sinful hypocrisy, but in him it would be as virtuous as the care with which the prosecutor cajoles the criminal into self-conviction. So he inquired with a reserved and indulgent suavity, "Are you particularly ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... imagination, to sensibility; above all, if we sat down with some propensities toward evil, and walk away with much stronger toward good, in the midst of a world which we never had entered and of which we never had dreamed before—shall we perversely put on again the old man of criticism, and dissemble that we have been conducted by a most beneficent and most potent genius? Nothing proves to me so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are its lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath been objected against those who have substituted words for ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... been in an age of less transatlantic travel, but still, as we say, it was evident, and it lent him a superiority which he could not wholly conceal. His superiority, so involuntary, would, if he had wished to dissemble, have affirmed itself in the English cut of his clothes and in the habit of his top-hat, which was so newly from a London shop as not yet to have lost the whiteness of its sweat-band. But his difference from ourselves ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... pardon'd her offence: Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win, It supples rigour, and it lessens sin. Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy, Trooping together, made her wonder why She should not leave her bed, and to the temple; Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble. She view'd Leander's place, and wish'd he were Turn'd to his place, so his place were Leander. "Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence, Had he been like his place: O blessed place, Image of constancy! Thus ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... conflict, lost his temper, and asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he should change his religion on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered how much he was risking, began again to dissemble, complimented the disputants on their skill and learning, and asked time to consider what had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... acquired an extraordinary dominion over the fears of the women, sufficient to induce them to dissemble in the presence of strangers. Backhouse relates, that two girls, Jumbo and Jackey, pretended, while in the company of their masters, either by silence, or feigned anger, to resent the proposal to take them away; but when they were ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... ill temper on the part of the monarch was, however, succeeded by a different humor. It was still thought advisable to dissemble, and to return rather an expostulatory than a peremptory answer to the remonstrance of the States General. Accordingly a paper of a singular tone was, after the delay of a few days, sent into the assembly. In this message it was stated that the King was not ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "you are always jesting with me. How could I or my people think of conspiring against men so valiant as the Spaniards? Do not jest with me thus, I beseech you."19 "This," continues Pizarro's secretary, "he said in the most composed and natural manner, smiling all the while to dissemble his falsehood, so that we were all amazed to find such cunning ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... regained his self-possession and his brow became serene, Clarissa saw in his eye that which told he had a reckoning in store for her when once the guests were out of the house, but that in the meantime he would dissemble the various unpleasant emotions with which his mind was filled. The rest of the dinner passed without untoward event. The huge armchair by imperceptible degrees retired to its former position, and as Clarissa set down the dessert, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... could not dissemble his indignation during this discourse, retorted with great acrimony, when it was concluded, on the conduct of Ferdinand, which he stigmatized as perfidious, accusing him, at the same time, of a deliberate design to ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... face value. Grace had taken him, not for what he was, but for what he seemed to be. With Christine the veil was rent. She knew him now—all his small indolences, his affectations, his weaknesses. Later on, like other women since the world began, she would learn to dissemble, to affect to believe him what he ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you that I have your respected mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble: my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... quietly, he faced her, stern and unyielding. "Why dissemble any longer? Your father promised to sell it to us; then went back on his given word. In handing me the invention you will but redeem ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... pride Sat long by Hamnett Pinhey's side, Our Local Parliament's since then Have seldom witnessed two such men Paymaster Rudyerd, too, I scan, A most important gentleman, Who carried in the days of old The Governmental bags of gold; Yet never did one less resemble He, of the twelve who did dissemble, And for the thirty pieces paid, His master cruelly betrayed. And John McCarthy, who can say That he's a man of yesterday? Through the dim maze of vanished year His name to memory appears, A dealer in strong leather ware That stood the worst of wear and tear ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... pleasure, and boy-like he tried to dissemble his emotion, and did her bidding under a faint show of protest. He gave his vote in favour of Venetian glass and a small marble Diana, against majolica and a French dancing-girl in terra-cotta; he made an intelligent choice ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... time in her long and healthy life, she suffered an alarming nervous attack. Partly this arose from the conflict between herself in the character of hostess, and herself as a loyal daughter of Christian faith; she shuddered, in a degree almost incontrollable and beyond her power to dissemble, at the unfeminine intrepidity with which "the leopardess" conducted her assaults upon the sheepfolds of orthodoxy; and partly, also, this internal conflict arose from concern on behalf of her own servants, who waited at ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... favor—the indifference, as every heart perceived, of despairing grief. Then came the manners on the hostile side—the haggard consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses, assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that the storm of popular opinion made ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... had married a street car conductor and wired for congratulations. He had pulled himself together and staggered to the meeting where, though still with the sinking sensation of a man who has inadvertently stepped through the plastering of the ceiling, he was able to dissemble successfully. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... them on the youth that they may learn to trust in God, to mistrust the flesh, to despise the threats of the world, to endure the darkness of this age. And this is right, however others may not even dissemble their neglect of ecclesiastical history; for how little any knowledge of it is now required even from ecclesiastics, or how, where it is found, it is sold cheap in comparison with a syllogism or two—it does not belong to this place to ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... of telling their faults; they are the strangest men in the world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost abundance of advantage by it; but if you would give them the world, they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... an eye Able to tempt a great man—to serve God; A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble. Methinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble, A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em. Here's a cheek keeps her color let the wind go whistle; Spout, rain, we fear thee not: be hot or cold, All's one with us; and ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... For shame, my lord! with courage of a man Bridle this over-grieving passion, Or else dissemble it to comfort her. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... them to contribute to the honor of that daemon who had assumed the character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... at length put an end to this crisis was commonplace enough. The thought of troubling the peace of a household has always been repugnant to me; and not only so, I could not dissemble my feelings, the instinct of sincerity was too strong in me; I should have found it a physical impossibility to lead a life of glaring falsity. There is for me but little attraction in pleasures that must ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the first time, he seemed to become aware of their presence, and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and assume a smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of salutation. Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind. He became cognizant of a flushed, ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... heavy laden with fruit breaks her own boughs, with their own greatness they ruin themselves: which Joachimus Camerarius hath elegantly expressed in his 13 Emblem cent. 1. Inopem se copia fecit. Their means is their misery, though they do apply themselves to the times, to lie, dissemble, collogue and flatter their lieges, obey, second his will and commands as much as may be, yet too frequently they miscarry, they fat themselves like so many hogs, as [3696]Aeneas Sylvius observes, that when they are full fed, they may be devoured by their princes, as Seneca by Nero was ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... yours. You can produce on your side but the parliament of a single kingdom; I, on mine, have the whole Christian world except that kingdom. Nor have you all even of your own people. The lesser part is with you. The majority, who seem to be with you, do but dissemble, to gain favour with the king, or for fear they should lose ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... conclusion founde out that the yonge man was sicke of loue, and of none other cause. Moreouer he thought that many times, wise and graue men, through ire, hatred, disdaine, melancholie, and other affections, could easily faine and dissemble their passions, but loue if it be kept secrete, doth by the close keping therof, greater hurt then if it be made manifest. And albeit that of Antiochus he coulde not learne the cause of his loue, yet after that imagination was entred into his head, he purposed to finde it out by continual aboade ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... their language and their signs, so that, at an age when they cannot dissemble, we may judge which of their desires spring from nature itself, and which of them from opinion. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... time! Now she saw clearly its many flaws, and wondered at her own blindness. Charlotte had always been considered an open creature—one so frank, so ingenuous, that her secrets, had she ever tried to have any, might be read like an open book; but last night she had learned to dissemble. She was glad when she entered the cheerful breakfast-room to find that she was able to put her hardly learned lesson in practice. Knowing what she did, she could yet go up and kiss her father, and allow her uncle to put his lips to her cheek. She certainly looked badly, ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... with more caution, replied that he acquiesced; and then for a few seconds there was silence in the room, his lordship continuing to sit in the same attitude of profound melancholy, and the others to look at him with compassion, which they vainly strove to dissemble. At last, in a voice little above a whisper, the Earl asked if the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... repeated two or three times. I quitted her closet, and left them together in conversation; but, as soon as he was gone, I returned and entreated her to let me know if I had been so unhappy as to have done anything, through ignorance, which had given her offence. She was at first inclined to dissemble with me; but at length she said to me thus: "Daughter, your brother is prudent and cautious; you ought not to be displeased with him for what he does, and you must believe what I shall tell you is right and proper." She then related the conversation she had with my brother, as I have just ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... had been before. The shadow of an unknown horror, naked if unguessed, that had flashed for an instant in the face and gestures of the guide, had also communicated itself, vaguely and therefore more potently, to his companion. The guide's visible efforts to dissemble the truth only made things worse. Moreover, to add to the younger man's uneasiness, was the difficulty, nay, the impossibility he felt of asking questions, and also his complete ignorance as to the cause ...Indians, wild animals, forest fires—all these, he knew, were wholly out of the question. ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... dreams. And what is strange Your boy of eight is subtly guised In fleeting looks that half resemble Something in me. Two souls may range Mid this earth's billion souls for life, And hide their hunger or dissemble. For there are two at least created, Endowed with alien powers that draw, And kindred powers that by some law Bind souls as like as sister, brother. There are two at least who are for each other. If we are such, it is not ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... absence (so much longer than usual) she would perhaps question me. She seems to miss me more, you know, of late. She would want to know what delayed me—and, you see, it would be painful for me to dissemble before her." ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Aye, but, I fear me, with a hollow heart.— See here, my friends and loving countrymen; This token serveth for a flag of truce Betwixt ourselves and all our followers: So help me God, as I dissemble not! ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... I am, my dear much, much better than I am, John. The curse of my poverty has been that I have had to flatter and to dissemble, and hide the faults of those I wanted to help, and to smile when I was hurt, and laugh when I was sad, and to coax, and to tack, and to bide my time,—not with Mr. Milliken: he is all honor, and kindness, and simplicity. ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... centre of intrigues which were to shake thrones, and perhaps to form them. He became habituated to the idea that everything could be achieved by dexterity, and that there was no test of conduct except success. To dissemble and to simulate; to conduct confidential negotiations with contending powers and parties at the same time; to be ready to adopt any opinion and to possess none; to fall into the public humour of the moment, and to evade the impending catastrophe; to look upon every man as ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... dios, -a god, goddess. diputado deputy, representative. dirigir to direct, address; vr. to address oneself, betake oneself. discipulo disciple, pupil. disco disk. discurso discourse, talk. disfrutar to enjoy. disgustar to disgust, offend. disimular to dissemble, hide. disipar to dissipate. disparate m. absurdity, incoherence. disponer to dispose, prepare, fit. disputa dispute. disputar to dispute. distancia distance. distante distant. distar to be distant. distincion f. distinction. distinguir ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... as he did after a moment's rapid thinking. To Adler's questions as to the manner of the chief engineer's death Bennett had at first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the face. True, he had made a mistake—a fearful, unspeakable mistake—but at least let him be man enough to face and to accept its consequences. It might not be necessary or even expedient to make acknowledgment of ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... convince himself by my face the true index of my mind? I am no counterfeit, nor do I carry one thing in my looks and another in my breast. No, I am in every respect so like myself that neither can they dissemble me who arrogate to themselves the appearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet hoods, though after all their hypocrisy Midas' ears will discover their master. A most ungrateful generation of men that, when ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... said that the members always thought it an honour to see the Prince de Conde in his place, but that they could not dissemble their real concern to see his hands stained with the blood of the King's soldiers who were killed at Bleneau. Upon this a storm arose from the benches, which fell with such fury upon the poor President that he had scarcely room to put in a word for himself, for fifty or sixty voices disowned ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Madam, it is too much to espouse his quarrel You ought to dissemble a little better when you pretend that you were ignorant he was coming here. You defend him so warmly and so quickly, that it is no very convincing proof of his ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... expression to the disgust with which my new associates had inspired me, and I acted only with the ordinary instinct of prudence when I held my tongue and pretended not to notice those matters that were queer. Withal, I could not altogether dissemble. My face might have told tales upon me; for more than once I was taken to task by my ruffian companions, who jeered me for my scruples, calling me "green-horn", "land-lubber", "son of a gun", "son of a sea-cook," and other like contemptuous appellations, of which, among sailors, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Italian's; this man came from Florence with the Queen, and had acquired such immense riches by his trade, that his house seemed rather fit for a Prince than a merchant; while she was there, the Prince of Cleves came in, and was so touched with her beauty, that he could not dissemble his surprise, nor could Mademoiselle de Chartres forbear blushing upon observing the astonishment he was in; nevertheless, she recollected herself, without taking any further notice of him than she was obliged to do in civility to a person of his seeming rank; the ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and sordid minds: yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as a maxim that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians. They take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of these opinions, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... a great, good, noble nature like thine that could be so stirred; believe me, your Grace, thou didst dissemble these ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... 'I don't dissemble; I don't care to speak; but if you will have me say so, I do suspect—I think it must have originated in jealousy ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... killed by a Man. You Men are Writers, and can represent us Women as Unbecoming as you please in your Works, while we are unable to return the Injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your Discourse, that Hypocrisy is the very Foundation of our Education; and that an Ability to dissemble our affections, is a professed Part of our Breeding. These, and such other Reflections, are sprinkled up and down the Writings of all Ages, by Authors, who leave behind them Memorials of their Resentment against ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "Why dissemble?" demanded Yi Chin Ho. "You know it is your father's nose. Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone. Hurry, lest I make bad ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... it was still night when they reached Manu'a—the swiftest passage on record—and as they entered the reef the bale-fires burned in the village. Again she asked him to carry the child; but now he need no more dissemble. "I cannot carry your child," said he, "for I am dead, and the fires you see are burning for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when a footstep was heard on the path outside, and next moment Fred Jenkins presented himself at the opening of the summer-house. The face of the mariner betrayed him, for he was too honest by nature to dissemble effectively. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... expected to stand such continued sieges? Money, and trouble, and infinite contrivance, wasted upon one old woman, who absolutely would not, upon any terms, be murdered! Provoking it certainly was; and of a man like Nero it could not be expected that he should any longer dissemble his disgust, or put up with such repeated affronts. He rushed upon his simple congratulating friend, swore that he had come to murder him, and as nobody could have suborned him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution. And, unquestionably, if people will not ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... so essentially sparing in Expression, I see no other reason but this: It loves Simplicity so much that it must be averse to that Pomp and Ostentation which Epick Poetry must show, for that must be copious and flowing, in every part smooth, and equal to it self: But Pastoral must dissemble, and hide even that which it would {42} show, like Damon's Galatea, who flies then when she ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... dressed like a muleteer. He replied that he had not; but just then one of the men exclaimed that the youth must be there, since the Judge's coach—which he had suddenly observed—was there. They then decided to dissemble, each one going to a different entrance of the inn, so there would be no chance ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... if I don't speak my Mind. Let me perish if I don't speak as I think. Let me not live if I dissemble. I speak what I think. I speak the Truth. I speak seriously. I speak from my Heart. I speak nothing ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... some subsequent opportunity: but as I have no fair prospect of being able then to convey a different statement, this plan would be attended with no advantage whatever, as far as I can see. Secondly, to dissemble my feelings: an alternative on which if I said another word I should be behaving undutifully and wickedly towards you. Thirdly, to follow the course I have now chosen, I trust with no feelings but those of the most profound affection, and of unfeigned grief that as far as my own view is concerned, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... because we were then our own masters: but now we go groping, afraid of meeting thorns, we walk like slaves, which we shall soon be, since the French already treat us as if we were such. When they are sufficiently strong, they will no longer dissemble. For the least fault of our young people, they will tie them to a post, and whip them as they do their black slaves. Have they not {77} already done so to one of our young men; and is not death ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... fresh and revived phrenzy, to me most terrible, and to every other Spectator astonishing. She then declares that she plainly sees I hate her, that I am leagued with her bitter enemies, viz. Yourself, L'd C[arlisle] and Mr. H[anson], and, as I never Dissemble or contradict her, we are all honoured with a multiplicity of epithets, too numerous, and some of them too gross, to be repeated. In this society, and in this amusing and instructive manner, have I dragged out a weary fortnight, and am condemned to pass another or three weeks ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... mad," he flung back. "Mad with love—so mad that I have forgot that you are a queen and I an ambassador. Under the ambassador there is a man, under the queen a woman—our real selves, not the titles with which Fate seeks to dissemble our true natures. And with the whole strength of my true nature do I love you, so potently, so overwhelmingly that I will not believe ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... that moment, they plainly saw, in spite of his efforts to dissemble, that what they had heard was the truth. One by one they rose, and each with a different excuse left the room, till presently he found himself alone, though little suspecting the resolution his friends had taken. Then, seeing the beautiful Persian, he confided to her the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... first step taken was to offer considerable rewards for farther discoveries, and then to prepare for the defence of the state. 18. Cat'iline, to show how well he could dissemble, or justify any crime, went boldly to the senate, declaring his innocence;[2] but, when confronted by the eloquence of Ci'cero, he hastily withdrew, declaring aloud, that since he was denied a vindication of himself, and driven headlong ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... thought she, "that Eve can dissemble so much?" Then turning to her sister she exclaimed: "Eve, I cannot go; I am miserable enough ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... to be Fante Floury, the wife of the second mate of the Leopoldine. She understood immediately what Gaud was doing there; it was useless to dissemble with her. At first each woman stood speechless before the other. They were angry and almost hated each other for having met with a like sentiment ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... adding that many injuries had been inflicted upon him and the Church of God, since the re-establishment of peace, and there was no one to correct what was wrong; that he neither could nor would dissemble thereafter, so as not to exercise the duties of his function. The men, foolish in heart, were disturbed by this, and having loudly given utterance to their iniquity they forthwith went out. On their ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... But on this occasion Madame CALVE being indisposed, Mlle. SIGRID ARNOLDSON appears as heroine. A most captivating Carmen, but so deftly does she dissemble her wickedness that the audience do not realise how heartless is this artful little cigarette-maker. Mons. ALVAREZ a fine Don Jose. The premieres danseuses lively and picturesque in Act II., with dresses long and dance short; but in Last Act, when reverse of this is the case, a pretty ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... the uncovered figure of women. It seems that only highly-cultivated and imaginative women enjoy the spectacle of a finely-shaped nude man (especially after attending art classes, and drawing from the nude, as I am told by a lady artist). Or else the majority of women dissemble their curiosity or admiration. A woman of seventy, mother of several children, said to a young wife with whom I am acquainted: 'I have never seen a naked man in my life.' This old lady's sister confessed that she had never looked at her own nakedness in the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it can be seen what correspondence is. In a face that has not been taught to dissemble, all the affections of the mind present themselves to view in a natural form, as in their type. This is why the face is called the index of the mind; that is, it is man's spiritual world presented in his natural world. So, too, what pertains ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... grandson." The husband, with a sorrowful and dejected countenance, replied: "You deliver, indeed, an oracle supported by too much truth, which I have so much more reason to lament, as the ignominy you have published redounds to my own injury." The woman, thus detected, and unable to dissemble her confusion, betrayed the inward feelings of her mind by external signs; shame and sorrow urging her by turns, and manifesting themselves, now by blushes, now by paleness, and lastly (according to the custom of women), by ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... Jasp. Now you dissemble, Aunt, for han't you often Rais'd Storms, have rent up Trees, and shook strong Towers? Seeming to threaten Nature with it's end; And at such times have sent strange shaped Spirits, who have restored to owners stolen Goods. These things ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... Popery, and say, "Reason and Scripture tell us that it is absurd and wrong to worship images and pray to saints,—tell us that your doctrines are not true. And we will say so in spite of the Pope and all his power,—in spite of torture and a fiery death. We cannot palter; we cannot dissemble; we cannot shelter ourselves under half-truths, and make a covenant with lies. 'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, judge ye. We cannot but speak the things which ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sunshine of summer I ne'er lament, Because the winter it cannot prevent; And when the white snow-flakes fall around, I don my skates, and am off with a bound. Though I dissemble as I will, The sun for me will ne'er stand still; The old and wonted course is run, Until the whole of life is done; Each day the servant like the lord, In turns comes home, and goes abroad; If proud or humble the line they take, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... child was acting? Impossible! Why, she was as sound asleep as she ever was in all her life, and there was not the least sign that she was conscious of my touch when I took hold of her arm to lead her from the pantry. Do you suppose it would have been possible for her to dissemble to ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of your heart; but I do of your incapacity, of your want of judgment in not choosing better methods. A man who [like me; mark the phrase, from such a quarter!] has but a few days to live need not dissemble. I wish you better fortune than mine has been: and that all the miseries and bad adventures you have had may teach you to treat important things with more of care, more of sense, and more of resolution. The greater part of the misfortunes which I now see to be near comes only from you. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... to dissemble the love in thy heart for fear, Give on the day of parting, free course to sob and tear. 'Twixt me and my beloved were vows of love and troth; So cease I for her never to long and wish her near. My heart is full of longing; the zephyr, when it blows, To ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... deceive &c. 545. Adj. truthful, true; veracious, veridical; scrupulous &c (honorable) 939; sincere, candid, frank, open, straightforward, unreserved; open hearted, true hearted, simple-hearted; honest, trustworthy; undissembling &c (dissemble &c 544)[obs3]; guileless, pure; truth-loving; unperjured[obs3]; true blue, as good as one's word; unaffected, unfeigned, bona fide; outspoken, ingenuous &c (artless) 703; undisguised &c (real) 494. uncontrived. Adv. truly &c (really) 494; in plain words &c 703; in truth, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... it is about to undergo. It is the most solemn of all the duties of governments, when once they have become aware of such a momentous condition, to prepare the nations for its fearful consequences. For this it may, perhaps, be lawful for them to dissemble in a temporary manner, as it is sometimes proper for a physician to dissemble with his patient; it may be lawful for them even to resort to the use of force, but never should such measures of doubtful correctness be adopted without others directed ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the king [i.e., Henry VIII.] began to hate her [i.e., Anne Boleyn], laws hostile to the purer doctrine of the Gospel appeared. When I could not bear these with a good conscience, nor could my profession allow me to dissemble them (for I was filling the office of the ordinary reader in the celebrated University of Cambridge by the king's orders), I came to the Court, and asked for my dismissal by means of Crumwell. But he retained me for about three ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... Dudgeon could not dissemble. He stammered, stopped, wiped his forehead, and stretched out his hands as though in appeal to ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... man, well acquainted with the difficulties of a journey in those regions, and possessing a knowledge of the Oriental languages, or at the very least, of Arabic. This agent must be of a versatile disposition, and able to dissemble; capable, in a word, of concealing the real meaning of projects which aimed at nothing less than withdrawing all the commerce of Asia from the hands of the Mussulmans and Arabs, and through them from the Venetians, in order to enrich ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... something more than her bare assertion was necessary to prove her statement true, she opened a drawer of the large oaken table, and taking out another glove, threw it towards me.—When a temper naturally ingenuous stoops to equivocate, or to dissemble, the anxious pain with which the unwonted task is laboured, often induces the hearer to doubt the authenticity of the tale. I cast a hasty glance on both gloves, and then replied gravely—"The gloves resemble ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... troubled their minds. The lady's tone, the way in which she flung her proverb in the faces of the eight conspirators against the house of d'Esgrignon, caused them inward perturbation, which they dissembled as provincials can dissemble, by dint of lifelong practice in the shifts of a monastic existence. Little Mme. Camusot saw their change of countenance and subsequent composure when they scented opposition on the part of the examining magistrate. When her husband ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... proclaimed you happy: but I am apprehensive, lest you should give more credit concerning yourself to any one than yourself; and lest you should imagine a man happy, who differs from the wise and good; or, because the people pronounce you sound and perfectly well, lest you dissemble the lurking fever at meal-times, until a trembling seize your greased hands. The false modesty of fools conceals ulcers [rather than have them cured]. If any one should mention battles which you had fought ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... these another evil: There is great store of fish in the river, especially of sturgeon, but our men provided no more of them than present necessity, not barreling up any store against the season [when] the sturgeon returned to the sea. And not to dissemble their folly, they suffered fourteen nets, which was all they had, to rot and spoil, which by orderly drying and mending might have been preserved but being lost, all ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... Dorotheus: "Sometimes the necessity of some matter urges (incumbit), which, unless you somewhat conceal and dissemble it, will turn into a greater trouble." And he goes on to mention the case of saving a man who has committed homicide from his pursuers: and he adds that it is not a thing that can be done often, but once ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... tribute; but people expected from me some modest expression, humbly setting forth the total unworthiness of my person and my work. However, my nature opposed this; and I should have been a miserable hypocrite, if I had so tried to lie and dissemble. Since I was strong enough to show myself in my whole truth, just as I felt, I was deemed proud, and am considered so to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... all. You are not expected down indeed: but I protest I had a good mind to surprise your father and mother!—If I thought nothing would arise that would be disagreeable—My dear! my love! [O the dear artful gentleman! how could my uncle Harlowe so dissemble?] What say you? Will you give me your hands? Will you see your father? Can you stand his displeasure, on first seeing the dear creature who has given him and all of us so much ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... was like oil upon the troubled waters; every one settled instantly into his place, and Greisengesang, to give himself a countenance, became absorbed in the arrangement of his papers; but in their eagerness to dissemble one and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we have become strangers, one to the other. Ah, yes; but it is so, and we do not wish to hide our strangerhood, or to dissemble as if we were ashamed of it. We are two ships each with a goal and a way; and our ways may draw together again and we may make holiday as before. And how peacefully the good ships used to lie in ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... only can judge of the character of a people who comes among them without claim to their attention, and from whom they have nothing to expect. To such a person only do they appear in their true colours, because they do not find it worth while to dissemble and wear a mask in his presence. In these cases the traveller is certainly apt to make painful discoveries; but when, on the other hand, he meets with good people, he may be certain of their sincerity; and so I must beg my honoured ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... as created, had a rigid tail, but after some centuries of a cheerless existence, unappreciated by Man, who made him work for his living, he implored the Creator to endow him with a wag. This being done he was able to dissemble his resentment with a sign of affection, and the earth was his and the fulness thereof. Observing this, the Politician (an animal created later) petitioned that a wag might be given him too. As he was incaudate it was conferred ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... deliver you. And do not bite me, as the women do, if I abstract your first-born; for I am acting out of good-will towards you; the God who is within me is the friend of man, though he will not allow me to dissemble the truth. Once more then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question—"What is knowledge?" Take courage, and by the help of God you will discover an answer.' 'My answer is, that knowledge is perception.' 'That is the theory of Protagoras, who has ...
— Theaetetus • Plato |
