"Hoax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grins I saw they agreed with me that somebody, signing himself James Skaw, was still trying to hoax the Great ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... confronted with this dusky old-world expedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to his children juggled away in this tragic travesty—it was a thing to rub one's eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passed away without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-sense of the vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintre. He remembered her words and her looks; he turned them over and tried to shake the mystery out of them and to infuse them with an endurable ...
— The American • Henry James
... the doctor—"I didn't find her at all. If this is a hoax," he continued, "all I can say, Macrorie, is this, that it's a devilish ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... mad?" demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or is this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should believe this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and jealous. Oh dear!" she said, turning ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... knowledge, dismissed the thing as some harmless meteorological manifestation that, while interesting, was not necessarily dangerous. And there were many, inclined to incredulity and skepticism, who believed that they were witnessing a hoax or an advertising scheme of some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Star, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the Pall Mall Magazine as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... his Phi Beta Kappa Poem delivered at Harvard in 1911; in 1917 by "The Little King", a poetic drama; in 1917 also by "Grenstone Poems", a collection of his lyric work to date. In 1916, in connection with his friend, Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Bynner perpetrated the clever literary hoax of "Spectra", a volume of verse in the ultra-modern manner, designed to establish a new "school" of poetry that should outdo "Imagism" and other cults then in the public eye. These poems, published under the joint authorship of Emanuel Morgan ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... "but nobody will know of it if we hold our tongues. We'll have to hold them anyhow, for Sylvia's sake, since she's been goose enough to go and fall in love with the Old Fellow. She'd go wild if she ever found out the letter was a hoax. We have made that match, Ruggles. He'd never have got up enough spunk to tell her he wanted her, and she'd probably have married Micky ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... wounded and reclining in the bottom of a boat, and pretended it was one of the duelists, badly stricken, whom they were escorting to town for surgical assistance. The explosion of laughter receiving the two principals when the hoax was revealed caused the incident to be a sore point to both ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... as we were going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God, turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven in the evening, when the truth was ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... to float on these new waters. But there was a sudden fall to their hopes when a letter was received from him stating that the cliffs, the bay, and the head-lands were all built up on the airy foundation of a mirage. The elves and sprites of this desolate region had been playing a hoax upon Goyder's party. But it is no wonder that Goyder had been so open to deception after unexpectedly finding fresh water in the lake that had been so long known as salter than ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... say," raved Miss Carlyle. "What are you standing there for, like a gander on one leg?" she reiterated, venting her anger upon the unoffending man. "Is it a hoax ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... known in the course of my life only three intentionally falsified statements, and one of these may have been a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American Agricultural Journal. It related to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen to know are sterile together), ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... ambitious woman, borrows and loses a diamond necklace valued at $7200. That, at least, is what Madame Loisel thought for ten terrible years, and that is what the reader thinks till he comes to the last words of the story. The plot belongs, therefore, to that large group known as hoax plots. In most of these stories one person plays a joke on another. In this story a grim fate is made to play the joke. In fact, the current phrase, "the irony of fate," finds here perfect illustration. ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... that this paper was a practical joke." Then it burst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh, ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Pyotr Stepanovitch rapped out dryly. "What does he mean by a telegram from the Secret Police and; a pension? It's obviously a hoax." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by so much history should at least be genuine—the history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the faith have never heard the truth—and wouldn't believe it if they did. No more amazing display of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... must be such a place. It surely is not a hoax," said Amy, although at first she had thought it was a joke. "And there is another thing to ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... which was to put an end to his impatience, and bring the time of his interview; and his disappointment and rage may be imagined when he discovered the deception which had been practiced on him. Monsieur d'A—— wished at first to challenge the authors and actors in this hoax, and could with great difficulty ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... bad omen—next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat—syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks—and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... not going to hoax me in that way," said the host. "The soldier has been here, but went out of the door like an honest fellow. I took care of that. You are the thieves, and you shall pay ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... exhausted," he amplified, "as if I had been all day digging ditches or shovelling coal. I could scarcely realize that my mission had succeeded; I feared the entire proceeding was only a stupendous, ghastly hoax, which my uncle had in mind, but to what end, or who the intended victim, I could ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... compelled to concoct this other scheme to obtain their assistance against Simms and Ward; then they could throw the three into irons and all would be lovely; but now that fool Ward had upset the whole thing by hitting upon this asinine fire hoax as an excuse for boarding the Lotus in force, and had further dampened Theriere's pet scheme by suggesting to Skipper Simms the danger of Theriere being recognized as they were boarding the Lotus and bringing suspicion upon ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... which we kept under our pillow for thirteen days and nights, was beginning to worry us. After all, might it not be a literary hoax, we thought, and might not this Khalid be a myth. And yet, he does not seem to have sought any material or worldly good from the writing of his Book. Why, then, should he resort to deception? Still, we doubted. And one evening ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the house without being recognized. His motive and his personality still remain matters of conjecture. Whether the whole affair was a figment of Shelley's brain, rendered more than usually susceptible by laudanum taken to assuage intense physical pain; whether it was a perilous hoax played upon him by the Irish servant, Daniel Hill; or whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of this kind, blending fact and fancy in a now inextricable tangle, are of no unfrequent occurrence in Shelley's ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... this discovery Maurice was inclined to declaim in that vigorous vocabulary which is taboo. He had been tricked. He was no longer needed at the Red Chateau. Four millions in a gun barrel; hoax was written all over the face of it, and yet he had been as unsuspicious as a Highland gillie. Madame had tricked him; the countess had tricked him, the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... great Authority, not Reason, guides. "'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say Faults can be mended at this time of day, For Coke himself declared—no matter what— Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not? And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan, Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man: I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just, My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must; That very learned Lord could not be wrong. Besides, in fact, it has been settled long, For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy Decided—(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy), ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed "Moriarty." ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... assembled. He saw in the count a manufacturer of the second-class, whom he took, for some unknown reason, to be a chandler; in the shabby young man accompanied by Mistigris, a fellow of no account; in Oscar a ninny, and in Pere Leger, the fat farmer, an excellent subject to hoax. Having thus looked over the ground, he resolved to amuse himself at the ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c. 791; ballot-box stuffing barney*[obs3][U.S.], brace* game, bunko game, drop* game, gum* game, panel game[U.S.]; shell game, thimblerig; skin* game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, decoy, gin; springe[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... incidental references to actual persons and occurrences that many believed it true, and some were found who remembered Philip Nolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author of this clever hoax—if hoax it may be called—was Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in 1868, under the fantastic title, If, Yes, and Perhaps, indicating thereby that some ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... hoax, and it's not to be wondered at that the Chinaman was scared. We all are—at the unusual and unexplainable. But this is simple. It is a freak of nature and the hen will probably die ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply ashamed, facing them all; "it is ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No; they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the use of certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He had before noticed the apparent incongruity ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Roger meant what he said," remarked the Story Girl. "I couldn't get a look into his eyes. If he was trying to hoax us there would have been a twinkle in them. He can never help that. You know he would think it a great joke to frighten us like this. It's really dreadful to have no grown-ups you ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c 791; ballot-box stuffing [U.S.], barney [Slang]; brace game [Slang], bunko game, drop game [Slang], gum game [U.S.], panel game [U.S.], shell game, thimblerig, skin game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... looking at my feet, which I have never succeeded in growing up to, observed, "Well, if I were you, I think I should emigrate to Colorado and help to crush the beetle." Later on in life I was the victim of a cruel hoax, carried out with triumphant ingenuity by a confirmed practical joker, who with the aid of a thread caused what appeared to be a gigantic blackbeetle to perform strange and unholy evolutions in my sitting-room. Worst of all, I was victimised by the presence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... circumstances he might have been more struck with the little embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment he was not quite himself either. That impudent Doady Donne had played a shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she had seen his wife—Nina, Mrs. Dacres—in Teddy Vere's hansom! He hadn't taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him furious, and—though telling himself all the while that ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... powder, nails, etc., so arranged that, if opened in the ordinary way, the whole would have been fired, and two barrels discharged different ways. No doubt a box so packed was received, but whether anything serious was intended, or whether it was a hoax, cannot be said with any certainty. The Earl of Oxford is said to have met allusions to the subject with a smile, and Swift seems to have been annoyed at the reports which were put ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... volunteered the information that the Boches had thrown a grenade at him as he turned the corner "down there"—"It didn't go off." So calm an atmosphere pervaded the cold, sunny, autumnal afternoon that the idea "the trenches" took on the proportions of a gigantic hoax; we might have been masqueraders in the trenches after the war was over. And the Germans were only seventy-five feet away, across those bare poles, stumps, and ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... money; and they were in operation at so late a period, that the present generation paid heavy taxes for the purpose of carrying them out—taxes paid for nothing better than the success of a practical hoax. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... pull into the creek and call upon his Majesty, King Olomba; but, upon interviewing that potentate, through the medium of Cupid, who acted as interpreter, it at once became evident that our worthy skipper had been made the victim of an elaborate hoax—even more elaborate, indeed, than we at the moment expected; for the king not only vigorously disclaimed any propensity toward slave-hunting or slave-dealing, but went the length of strenuously denying that the river was ever used at all by slavers; also he several ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... presents itself for consideration under other colors.... What defence can be made against this new crime of giving color to ideas?" As for trifling with the House by presenting a petition which in the course of debate had become pretty well known and acknowledged to be a hoax designed to lead Mr. Adams into a position of embarrassment and danger, he disclaimed any such motive, reminding members that he had given warning, when beginning to present his petitions, that he was suspicious that some among ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior demurred, believing it to be a hoax, but the senior peremptorily ordered him to accompany him on board. They were caught in a drenching shower on their way to the Lee; and they made their appearance in the cabin in a sorry plight, reporting themselves "in obedience to orders," handing me the written document. As I pronounced ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... was my master and I can admit no imputation on his memory. Besides, your guess is as good as mine. Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture. As for Brooks, the case is simple; he couldn't resist a Giorgione at a bargain. But since you will, you may as well hear the rest of the story—at least ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... a book published in Germany in 1614, inviting all scholars to join the ranks of a secret society said to have been founded two centuries before by a certain Christian Rosenkreuz who had mastered the hidden wisdom of the East. It seems probable that this book was an elaborate hoax, but it was taken seriously at the time, and the seventeenth century saw the formation of numerous groups of "Brothers of the Rosy Cross." They dabbled in alchemy, spiritualism, and magic, and mingled modern science with superstitions handed ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... disturbed, save by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous HOAX, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... his companion; "it can't be her name. The idea's too preposterous to be true. That insolent clown has dared to try to hoax us; for which I promise him, if I were his master, I'd break every bone in his good-for-nothing body. Molly Potts! It never can be so. The thing's quite out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... exquisite fifteen- inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, you have those details fresh in your memory. As John Farrar taught us when all this began,—and as I have said already,—if there were a State House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying power was 6450; ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... message to the convention, it was openly declared to be a hoax, not one member in twenty believing that a message could possibly have been received. The convention adjourned till the next day, first instructing its president to communicate with Senator Wright by letter. A special messenger, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... enemy on the Peninsula; and the militia and the Department Battalions were kept yesterday and to-day under arms standing in the cold, the officers blowing their nails, and "waiting orders," which came not. Perhaps they were looking for the "conspirators;" a new hoax to get "martial law." ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... said the Duke. "Either it's a hoax, and we needn't bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to stop ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... could shortly render himself qualified to speak. I admired the very presumption of the theory, and finally told him to call the next day on my agent, Mr. Schenck, at such a number (Martin Baum's) in Maine Street, to whom, in the mean time, I transferred the hoax, and duly informing Schenck of the affair; and I do not recollect, at this time, how he shuffled ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a hoax," said Johnston, "and a cursed uncomfortable one for us. But here comes these fellows, just as they went, it seems. Well, boys, no trail of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... (Dr. Bastian before mentioned), Director of the Museum of Berlin," were pronounced to be of very fine water. It is possible that the sandstone may afford precious stones like the itacolumite of the Brazil ("Highlands of the Brazil," i. 380), but the whole affair proved a hoax. In mid-stream rose No. 2, "One-Tree Island," Zunga chya Nlemba or Shika chya Nzondo; in Tuckey it is called Boola Beca or Blemba (the husband) Rock; the old ficus dying at the head, was based upon a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... you please, but your gallant conduct of to-night won't count. You'll not be permitted to enter this place again. I want no adorers; I have come here looking for rest, friendship, peace ... Love! A beautiful, cruel hoax!..." ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Oliphant, laughing. "I got an extraordinary type-written production. I regarded it as a hoax and consigned ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... field tests again. A rise behind the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had devised to determine the nature of the radiation ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers who have taken ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Laing's champagne and was pouring it out. He stopped now, and looked at Dora. A sudden gleam of intelligence glanced from her eyes. Rushing up to him, she whispered, "You did it all? It was all a hoax?" ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "A hoax," thought the man who had worked so hard all his life without the least expectation of ever seeing a penny that he did not earn himself. "Can it be that any of those heedless relatives of my wife's in Memphis have attempted a practical joke ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... lore," it may not be incurious to add, that Woodstock is distinguished in Dr. Plot's History of Oxfordshire (the title of which is well known to all readers of the marvellous) as the scene of a series of hoax and disturbance played off upon the commissioners of the Long Parliament, who were sent down to dispark and destroy Woodstock, after the death of Charles I.; and Sir Walter Scott thinks it "highly probable" that this "piece of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... colonel talked big, and explained the whole affair to the ladies, quite unconscious that everyone in the company knew that the hoax had been played upon him. Before noon, everyone had re-embarked on board of their respective ships, and their lofty sails were expanded to a ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... indeed. Lights were carried round into all the dark corners of the boat, but neither dead nor wounded, nor trace of blood, could be discovered; and at length men broke out in laughter, and stated their belief that the "hul thing was a hoax." So declared the dealer in hog-meat, who seemed rather gratified that he no longer stood alone as ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... 'the King'?" asked Flavia, leaning over my shoulder, so that the ripple of her hair played on my cheek. "Is it a hoax?" ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... understand that it was one of Uncle Steve's elaborate jokes, and she didn't know whether further search would reveal a valuable, though tiny gift, or some absurd hoax. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... observed, in a loud, confidential aside to Stephanie; "this studio ought to be full of young men in velvet coats and bunchy ties, singing, 'Oh la—la!' and dextrously balancing on their baggy knees a series of assorted soubrettes. It's a bluff, a hoax, a con game! Are you going to stand for it? I don't see any absinthe either—or even any Vin ordinaire! Only a tea-pot—a tea-pot!" he repeated in unutterable scorn. "Why, there's more of Bohemia in a Broad Street Trust Company than there is ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... small tin box, containing a letter addressed to him, in which a commercial house was mentioned at Nancy, where he might receive the sum buried, with interest, since the year 1812. The soldier supposed this was all a hoax; he went, however, to the house pointed out, where he received his capital, with twelve years' interest. With this sum he established a small business at Nancy, which enables him to live comfortably; but he has never been able, though he has taken some pains, to ascertain how ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... the sale of a copy in London and New York in 1917, and was increased by the discovery of two distinct issues in the Dowse Library, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. As my material grew in bulk and the history of this hoax perpetrated in the seventeenth century developed, I thought it of sufficient interest to communicate an outline of the story to the Club of Odd Volumes, of Boston, October 23, 1918. The results of my investigations are more fully given in the present volume. ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... from trees and running away from wild beasts. Your body was merely a convenient case for a machine that kept your life ticking along. How does one get the idea that all this is good-looking? Ages ago men decided to think so for reasons that have nothing to do with esthetics; they passed the hoax on, and in time these physical features got themselves surrounded with a perfect fog of sentimental and romantic balderdash. Take your face. Your nose is bridged in that so-called ravishing way in order to let a stream of air into your lungs. Your eyebrows—how many sonnets ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... conditions at Greenwood's Rancho. The American Valley. Prospective summer resort. Prodigious vegetables. New England scenery compared with that of California. Greenwood's Rancho. Place of origin of quartz hoax. Beautiful stones. Recruiting-place of overland immigrants. Haggard immigrant women. Death and speedy burial on the plains. Handsome young widow immigrant. Aspirants to matrimony candidates for ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... confessions to listen, And bells to christen, And altars and dolls to dress; And fools to coax, And sinners to hoax, And beads and bones to bless; And great pardons to sell For those who pay well, And small ones ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... all young people. It may be said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... a letter to a Scotch newspaper, stating that the story of his walking 16,000 miles in fifteen months, is a hoax—the whole journey being performed in land conveyances and steam-vessels! Not a line is written of the "Book" of these exploits, said to be "in the press;" the latter is by no means so great a blunder as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... minutes later, to Commander Jephson, commandant of midshipmen. "I had a fight party right under my hands when that call of fire sounded. It was so natural that I bolted away and lost my party before I discovered that it was a hoax." ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... does strict state-honour ask of me?— No less than that I bare this poppling plot To the French ruler and our fiercest foe!— Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay; And yet it can mean more... The man's indifference to his own vague doom Beamed out as one exalted trait in him, And showed the altitude of his rash dream!— Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street, There to draw up a note to Talleyrand Retailing him the facts.—What signature Subscribed ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a chastened mood she rapped ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Feng Tzu-ying smiling. "You're all far too credulous! It's a mere hoax that I made use of the other day. For so much did I fear that you would be sure to refuse if I openly asked you to a drinking bout, that I thought it fit to say what I did. But your attendance to-day, so soon after my invitation, makes it clear, little though one would have thought it, that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... A cowardly hoax was recently perpetrated in Paris, where a number of politicians consented to assist in raising a statue to Hegesippe Simon, the educator of the Democracy and author of the famous epigram, "The darkness vanishes when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... his ear. He caught hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. "But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. "Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... heard, had raided round the army, and captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys, and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled" the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry scratching ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... unauthorized harum-scarums (that touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters' Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high time the universal wish should be realized ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... name of Fanny Burney's husband, is a variant. From au(l)ne, alder, we have aunai, whence our Dawnay. So also frenai has given Freeney, chenai, Chaney, and the Norm. quenai is one origin of Kenney, while the older chesnai appears in Chesney. Houssaie, from hoax, holly, gives Hussey; chastenai, chestnut grove, exists in Nottingham as Chastener; coudrai, hazel copse, gives Cowdrey and Cowdery; Verney and Varney are from vernai, grove of alders, of Celtic origin, and Viney corresponds to the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake. Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place, hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We should know ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... never have nightmares. And yet, but for her letters and the fact that Giovanni heard her sing under my window, I might almost believe I've been dreaming. It is no dream; but it begins to look as if I were the victim of some fine hoax." ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... The cook had eaten the last bit of bread. This could not go on. It did, however, until two, when my sensations were terrible. After all, I began to think the document very absurd. Perhaps it might only be a gigantic hoax. Besides, some means would surely be found to keep my uncle back from attempting any such absurd expedition. On the other hand, if he did attempt anything so quixotic, I should not be compelled to accompany him. Another line of reasoning partially decided me. Very ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... "A hoax, a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... still held the door so nearly closed that he could not force an entrance, even though he kept his foot firmly in the aperture. The woman still regarded him with a pitying amusement; yet gradually curiosity got the better of her common sense, which told her that he was the victim of some hoax, and she inquired: ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... Gryce to himself, as the perfect calm reigning over the whole establishment struck him anew. But before he had decided that he had been made the victim of a hoax, a movement took place in the area under the stoop, and an officer stepped out, with a countenance expressive of sufficient perplexity for Mr. Gryce to motion him back with the hurried inquiry: "Anything wrong? Any blood ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... needs Scanderbeg's arm. Mahomet II. "the Great" requested to see the scimitar which George Castriota used so successfully against the Ottomans in 1461. Being shown it, and wholly unable to draw it, he pronounced the weapon to be a hoax, but received for answer, "Scanderbeg's sword needs Scanderbeg's arm ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... stock in it," said John. "I'm inclined to think it's a hoax. Some one trying to fool the old fellow. If there'd been any treasure, I guess one could have trusted old 'Wrecker' Wicks to get after it.... But, boys, it's bed-time, anyhow. Come down to the office in the morning ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... last he was making progress when evil fortune knocked at his door and, conspiring with circumstances and a friend or two, induced the young poet to devise what afterward seemed to him the gravest of mistakes,—the Poe-poem hoax. He was then writing for an audience of county papers and never dreamed that this whimsical bit of fooling would be carried beyond such boundaries. It ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... to civilization. The former obtained their information from the frightened inhabitants; the latter manufactured theirs with the aid of vivid imaginations. I half suspect the fellows were like the showman in the story, and, at length, religiously believed what they first designed as a hoax. Between the two classes of scouts a large ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... church is a monument that pretends to be the tomb of Alphonso II., Count of Provence, in 1209, and to be adorned not only with his statue, but also with those of his son Raymond Berengarius IV., and of Beatrix, Queen of Naples, the wife of the latter. The monument is, however, a hoax. The statues are there, but are modern, of the namby-pamby school, and of the original tomb possibly a crocket and a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... you are a little severe towards Brittany, not towards the Bretons who seem to me repulsive animals. A propos of Celtic archaeology, I published in L'Artiste in 1858, a rather good hoax on the shaking stones, but I have not the number here and I don't remember ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it—so you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Jolly Robin who had started the story. And since he was not in the habit of playing jokes on people, everybody believed what he said—at least, everybody except Jasper Jay. He declared from the first that Jolly Robin's tale was a hoax. ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a very well-behaved, handsome man. He looks like a nobleman in disguise. What an odd thing it would be, aunt, if this should be all a hoax!' ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... followers of Catholicism absolutely worship this mechanism of man, and it has proven a great drawing card, and you can rest assured that Catholicism is pushing the scheme along good and hard, and "The St. Anthony Bread Box" hoax is another scheme that is not very old, but which the Catholic Church has found to be another great paying investment, and they are working "St. Anthony" for ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... fact, and found it a fallacy. Some of the biggest pecan trees I have ever seen were growing at 900 feet elevation down in Georgia. This was on clay hills. I have seen the same thing in Raleigh. That alluvial soil business is a hoax. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the plaza after their day's perambulations, and dance, sing, or bewitch each other with their disguises. There is a party of masqued and dominoed ladies: genuine whites all—you can tell it by the shape of their gloveless hands and the transparent pink of their finger-nails—endeavouring to hoax a couple of swains in false noses and green spectacles, both of whom have been already recognised. The perplexed youths try their hardest to discover their fair interlocutors by peeping at their profiles through their wire masks, but in vain. At the next quiet tertulia these same ladies ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... rack the wit of all society? What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... house as any in the row, and having inspected it from a little distance he walked up briskly to the door, and rang the bell. He walked up briskly in order that his advance might not be seen; unless, indeed, as he began to think not impossible, Aby's statement was altogether a hoax. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... words. What did he mean? But when the witty dog reached the declaration that he could only thrive in a high spiritual altitude, then the guests broke into peals of merriment and understood that it was a capital hoax. The merry blade—hadn't he almost fooled them all! "Poor remnants of the intellectual life of the seventies!" Didn't we have Paulsberg and Irgens, and Ojen and Milde, and the two close-cropped poets, and an entire army of ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... imagine, because M. Reybaud has happened to say heedlessly yes and no to a question of which he does not seem to have yet formed a clear idea, that I class him among those speculators of socialism, who, after having launched a hoax into the world, begin immediately to make their retreat, under the pretext that, the idea now belonging to the public domain, there is nothing more for them to do but to leave it to make its way. M. Reybaud, in my opinion, belongs rather to the category ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... somewhat hurriedly put together these observations. You may rely upon the truth of the facts stated, and they are at your service if coming within the scope and meaning of your intended history. At the same time, if the thing be a newspaper hoax, I must beg you to excuse the liberty I have taken in addressing you, and please burn this and the copy of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... in the time of Yakub Al-mansor, the actual date of whose reign was from A.D. 1184 to 1199; insomuch that Senor de Gayangos suggests, as a possible explanation of its glaring inaccuracies, that it was the writer's intention to hoax his employers. Casiri had, however, opened the door for further researches; and he was followed in the same path by Don Faustino de Borbon, whose works, valuable rather from the erudition which they display than from their judgment or critical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... heard about it? My letter says Rhoda's invited both of you girls, too, and that Walter is going. Is—it a hoax?" ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving him ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Karl held out papers and envelope to the other man, who took them. Then he turned to Nikky, and now he raised his voice. "Where did you get this—hoax?" he demanded. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... chapter. One day he stuck up the following notice in the theatre: "To-morrow the box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... continually banished, nay, ejected forcibly by policemen, from the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's ingratitude, I shall be driven ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... mistaken. I did not care about it one way or other; but on his mind the effect was different. The miserable voice, the spirit in pain, he could think of as the result of ventriloquism, or reverberation, or—anything you please: an elaborate prolonged hoax, executed somehow by the tramp that had found a lodging in the old tower; but the juniper-bush staggered him. Things have effects so different on the minds of ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument, and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... right down to Boston. Everywhere the people were crying 'to arms! to arms!' and we thought the war had commenced, sure enough; but it didn't just then. However, there was about thirty thousand men on the march to Boston, and they wouldn't turn back until they found the report was a hoax. Soon after, the Provincial Congress met, and they ordered that a large body of minute-men should be enrolled, so as to be prepared for any attack. The people of our province took the matter into their own hands, and organized ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... remembered, further, that contemporary conditions were exceptionally favorable to the success of the Tedworth hoax. In all likelihood the children had nothing to do with the first alarm, the alarm that occurred during Mompesson's absence in London; and possibly the second was only a rude practical joke by some village lads who had heard of the first ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... not rich enough at that moment to bid higher. Our poor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax, or to go mad with joy; we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name of our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... out edition after edition on the strength of it, until the St. James's Gazette put an end to the excitement by publishing a telegram from the Mayor of Liverpool denouncing the report as an insane and criminal hoax. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... that certain individuals have found them very different from what they are represented in these volumes, he would frankly say that he yields no credit to the presumed fact, and at the same time he would refer to the vocabulary contained in the second volume, whence it will appear that the words HOAX and HOCUS have been immediately derived from the language of the Gypsies, who, there is good reason to believe, first introduced the system into Europe, to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... prudential views rendered this unnecessary. The songs which I so much admired, and which so confirmed my impression of the youth of my mistress, were executed by Madame Stephanie Lalande. The eyeglass was presented by way of adding a reproof to the hoax—a sting to the epigram of the deception. Its presentation afforded an opportunity for the lecture upon affectation with which I was so especially edified. It is almost superfluous to add that the glasses of the instrument, as worn by the old lady, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... A hoax, or as our merry ancestors would have called it, a flam, is usually the most ephemeral and evanescent of human devices. Like a boy's soap bubble, it glitters for a brief moment in iridescent rotundity, then ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... and anger. A hoax on the part of some of the Corn Cob Club, he thought to himself. He flushed painfully to recall the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... humour of the throng was changing, and some began to reflect. In a few minutes doubt swept over them like a shower of rain, and the expression of their faces altered. Almost immediately it was announced that the news of the victory had been a hoax. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman |
