"Humbug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Winchelsea and Rye. And in between I was taken by Canon and Mrs. Thesiger to lunch or dinner or tea in the other Canons' houses, and was introduced to the Dean and the Archbishop. I attended the Cathedral services to an extent that provoked Viola to denounce me as a humbug. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... humbug that the commandant reeled off to his silent audience—hypocrisy garbed in paternal phrases, and interlarded with buncombe about Germany's mission to bring happiness ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... men. He could look into their eyes without trouble; and he was not withheld, by any bashful sentimentalism, from recognising what he saw there and unsparingly putting it down upon the canvas. But where people cannot meet without some confusion and a good deal of involuntary humbug, and are occupied, for as long as they are together, with a very different vein of thought, there cannot be much room for intelligent study nor much result in the shape of genuine comprehension. Even women, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The rector came back among us with his head high in the air, strutting magnificently on his wizen little legs. He embraced his daughter in pathetic silence, and gave me his hand with a serene smile of condescension worthy of the greatest humbug (say Louis the Fourteenth) that ever sat on a throne. When he got the better of his paternal emotion, and began to speak, his voice was so big that I really thought it must have burst him. The vapor of words in which he enveloped himself (condensed ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... hour two great cruisers rounded the far point, and the boys welcomed them warmly as a sort of guarantee that there would be no humbug about this embarkation. Again came the animated scene as they shipped their horses, again a last night to roam streets, which echoed with mirth far into the night, and again the crowded piers aflutter with handkerchiefs, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... "one," and [Greek: ereo], "I speak." There is in the Hindostanee an analogous form of expression, Ek bat bolo, "one word speak." This is constantly used to denote, speaking plainly; to speak decidedly; one word only; no display of unnecessary verbiage to conceal thought; no humbug; I tell thee plainly; I speak solemnly—once for all; which is precisely the meaning of [Greek: exereo] in all the passages where it occurs in Homer: e.g. Il. i. 212. (where it is employed by Minerva in her solemn address to Achilles); Il. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... what they intended, I told them I didn't think it so very remarkable, for the tiny diatoms made cities, and were far more astonishing animals than they. I thought that would silence them; but they just turned round, and informed me that my diatoms were plants, not animals,—so my story was all humbug. Then I was mad; and couldn't get over the fact that these little rascals had done what we, the kings of the sea, couldn't do. I wasn't content with being the biggest creature there: I wanted to be the most skilful also. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... sure. The physician here knows nothing of your constitution, while I can soon set you on your feet again. I am sick of the Institute and of Moron-val, and never wish to see either more." Thereupon the doctor launched forth in a philippic against the school which supported him. Moronval was a thorough humbug, he never paid anybody, and every one was giving him up; the affair of Madou had done him great injury; and finally Dr. Hirsch went so far as to compliment Jack ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... this thought came to Mr. Ford it seemed to him more repugnant. First, that he should have blamed Tavia without investigating the matter himself; next that he should have allowed a man like Squire Sanders to "humbug" him. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... "You little humbug! See what you'll say when you get quite clear of the old lady. But I don't want you to shoot, Nell. If you don't get tired sitting at home, with all of us out on the hill, I like to come in for my part and find a little duck all tidy, not blowzy and blown ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Colonial history—the policy by which "Home Rule" was "given" to the Transvaal after Majuba. It was the same policy of avoiding expense and trouble, political or military—the policy, in fact, of "cutting the loss"—tricked out with the same humbug about "magnanimity" and "conciliation," about trust in Boer (or Nationalist) moderation when in power, the same contemptuous passing over of the loyalists as persons of "too pronounced" views, or as "interested contractors and stock-jobbers."[59] It was embodied in a Convention by which ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... we know who was selling us to the Tuxedo people, we can protect ourselves hereafter," declared Mr. Wheatcroft. "And in spite of your trying to humbug me into believing you guilty, Major, I'm willing to let your ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... home to me cryin', and it's 'O Uncle Cy, he AIN'T my truly father, is he?' and 'You won't let him take me away from you, will you?' till it seems as if I should fly out of the window. The poor little thing! And that puffed-up humbug Atkins blowin' about his Christianity and all! D—n such Christianity as that, I say! I've seen heathen Injuns, who never heard of Christ, with more of His spirit inside 'em. There! I've shocked you, I guess. Sometimes I think this place is too narrer and cramped ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... make up your mind, and let us be off to America; and leave priests, humbug, learning, and languages ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... virtue in possessing an 'ideal' is that, lodging in you as it does, it insists upon the interior being furnished by your personal satisfaction, and not by the blindness or stupidity of the outer world. Thus, in one direction, an ideal precludes humbug. The ladies might desire to cloak facts, but they had no pleasure in deception. They had the feminine power of extinguishing things disagreeable, so long as nature or the fates did them no violence. When these forces ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... assured that the work is nothing but a travesty on life in Canada. Any author, any illustrator, any playwright, any scenario writer, any actor or any director who depicts Canadian wilderness life in that way is either an ignoramus or a shameless humbug. And to add strength to my statement I shall quote the experience of a gentleman who was the first City Clerk, Treasurer, Assessor, and Tax Collector of ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Palmer had a full share of both these manly excellences, and practiced them in thoroughly feminine fashion. She was essentially true, hating humbug in all its disguises.... Her love of plainness and distaste for affectation were forms of veracity. But in narrative of hers one got much besides plain realities. These had their significance heightened by her eager emotion, and ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... humbug about him, at least,' said Felix. 'He is really cut up exceedingly. Indeed all I have been doing was to get him to moderate his dolefulness. I believe he thinks ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ways of getting his money back. There would be in the "sensation," at a later stage, the making of a book in large type—the book of the hour; and the profits of this scandalous volume or, if one preferred the name, this reconstruction, before an impartial posterity, of a great historical humbug, the sum "down," in other words, that any lively publisher would give for it, figured vividly in Mr. Locket's calculations. It was therefore altogether an opportunity of dealing at first hand with the lively publisher that Peter was ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... deserter "skyugled," and sometimes he "skyugled" a coat or watch. Slanganderin' - Foolishly slandering. Slasher gaffs - Spurs for cocks, with cutting edges. Slibovitz - A Bohemian schnapps. Slumgoozlin' - Slum or sham guzzling, humbug. Slumgullion - A Mississippi term for a legislator. So mit,(Ger.) - Thus with. Solidaten,(Ger. Soldaten) - Soldiers. Sonntag,(Ger.) - Sunday. Soplin - A sapling, young tree. Sottelet,(Ger. Gesattelt) - Saddled. Sound upon ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... little parson's daughter? Or is it her tight-laced hypocrite of a father, that comes whining here with his good advice to me who know the world so well? Never mind, my boy. Keep a smooth face, and play the humbug till you've got her, and her money, and then break her impudent little heart if you will. Go to sleep, my boy, and dream you ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... whenever a difficult passage did not go smoothly, and, in particular, played with the delicacy and exquisite purity of touch which in those days caused the execution of Field's music to be known characteristically as "jeu perle" and to lie beyond comparison with the humbug of ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... tested by an expert at Nome City, were found to be absolutely worthless. I had heard of this mountain of gold in London, where I believe it once figured in an alluring prospectus! Jim, I fancy, was a bit of a humbug, who had served on a whaler and was therefore not wholly unacquainted with iron pyrites. Indeed this was the most intelligent Tchuktchi I ever met, although his language would have startled an English bargee. The white man he regarded with extreme contempt, alluding to us indiscriminately ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... men and of places would be all that would appear or exist. Every noble and every mean and every mixed exhibition of character,—every act of munificence and of baseness,—every narrative of thrilling or romantic interest,—every instance and example of popular delusion, humbug, man-worship, breach of trust, domestic infelicity, and of cunning or astounding depravity and hypocrisy,—every religious, social, and political excitement,—every panic,—and every accident even, from carelessness or want of skill,—each and all these have their exact parallels, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... A. Haese; but stay, I came very near forgetting the great pillar, Dodel of Zuerich. But where is there mention of the professional colleagues of Haeckel whose testimonies could be taken seriously? Under the heading "Literary Humbug," which evidently has reference to the contents of his own work, Schmidt then meets numerous objections. Here vigorous epithets are bandied about, as, for instance, "absolute nonsense," "muddler," "foolish and senseless prattle," "idle talk," ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... the gardener sharply; "and you can tell the Captain if you like. I say it aren't fair to try and humbug a lot o' men as is ready to fight for you. It's like saying 'rats' to a dog when there ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... you tremendous old humbug, you don't mean to say you'll make fifty pounds before we are out of our beds in the morning?" ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... of yours along the side of the house in Ashley Place. I wrote to the Medium to say that I was present as a witness. Now I don't think that any one who knows me would for one moment say that I was a victim to hallucination or any other humbug of the kind. The fact of your having gone out of the window and in at the other I ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... Bohemian. He always carries people off their feet. People are used to the mask of conventional good conduct. He goes in for eccentric good-nature. You expect a Don Juan to dress up as a solemn and solid Spanish merchant; but you're not prepared when he dresses up as Don Quixote. You expect a humbug to behave like Sir Charles Grandison; because (with all respect, Miss Hunt, for the deep, tear-moving tenderness of Samuel Richardson) Sir Charles Grandison so often behaved like a humbug. But no real red-blooded citizen is quite ready for a humbug that models himself ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... more than once been pained by hearing the words 'humbug,' 'great advertizing establishment,' etc., applied to the New York Fair, as well as to fairs in general. Now, nothing could be more unjust than the first term; and as to the latter, we have only to say that, if human nature were perfect, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Humbug! every one of you chimed in as soon as it was mentioned, and so you're entitled to as much praise as I am. But about those uniforms, boys—hadn't the scout tailor better get to work, going over his measurements again? We want the suits to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... think of taking, can very soon pick up the trick from you, and bewilder plain people really far wiser than himself by his clever argumentation; all going to prove that there is nothing certain, nothing real, nothing binding; nothing but opinions and conventions and conscious or unconscious humbug ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... then he'd as much as say, 'Oh! you kin pull all that, kin ye? Well, stick to it, my boy, an' I'll manage to trifle along with the rest o' the load.' Wo-hoish, Star! haw, Bright! git up, ye old humbug! You're six year old now, an' you ain't changed a mite in four years, though I've drove you stiddy, and tried to spare ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... your point!" I said, with some severity. For, really, for this old humbug to hint that he had been the baboon who frightened the club at Medenham, that he had been in the Inquisition at Valladolid—that under the name of D. Riz, as he called it, he had known the lovely Queen of Scots—was a LITTLE too much. "Sir," then I said, "you ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... there are dogs. Some follow up the chase {asaphos}, indistinctly; some {polu upolambanousai}, with a good deal of guess-work; others again {doxazousai}, without conviction, insincerely; others, {peplasmenos}, out of mere pretence, pure humbug, make-believe, or {phthoneros}, in a fit of jealousy, {ekkunousi}, are skirters; al. {ekkinousi}, ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... yit I love th' unhighschooled way 25 Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downright lick 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it. 30 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory doos ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... "Wait for my wing-feathers? Humbug!" Tip-Top would say, as he sat balancing with his little short tail on the edge of the nest, and looking down through the grass and clover-heads below, and up into the blue clouds above. "Father and mother are slow old birds; they keep a fellow ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... though I would not tell Hester so for worlds, that the fact that she goes on living comfortably in the country after bringing out that book makes thoughtful people, not me, of course, but other earnest-minded people, think she is a humbug." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... astute among the people had certainly thought for a while that the cannon was a humbug, that it was useless either to royalist or to republican, in fact, that it would never go off at all. But these sceptics were cured of their infidelity at Thouars, when they saw the soldiers as well as the republicans ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... pamphlet and brandished them as an act of treason. A personal letter would not have satisfied his virtuous indignation; he chose a loud "yellow journal," a laboratory of blackmail despised by a million Frenchmen, who nevertheless swallowed all its humbug with open mouths. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... of that professional humbug, Pepps," rejoined her ladyship. "You doctors know a common disorder as soon as you see it, only you think it looks wise not ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... public into buying what neither he nor the public really cares for. If he does his best he may feel that he is as fairly earning his livelihood as his fellow workmen, the blacksmith and the stonecutter, and is as little dependent as they upon either charity or humbug. The best that government has done for art in France is the commissioning of the great decorative paintings of Baudry and Puvis. In this country, also, governments, national, State, or municipal, are patronizing art in the best possible way, and in making buildings splendid for the people are affording ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... do; so do we all!" she replied easily. "It's humbug to pretend anything else, only I'm not going to die, in any case, but live and make myself agreeable to the Chosen. If it's you, I shall sponge on you for life, so don't imagine you will have all the fun to yourself. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... it is entertaining, and I will prophesy that Gaul will move in our time, and that the movement will be directed against the pestilent humbug of ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... quit the saloon and drink quietly in their shacks. The moderate drinker may have his place in other countries, though I can't see it. I haven't thought that out, but here the only safe man is the man who quits it dead and fights it straight; anything else is sheerest humbug and nonsense.' ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... doubts whether a venture thus started by direct help and patronage of the fiend would succeed; and Amyas himself, disliking the humbug, told Ayacanora that it would be better to have told the tribe that it was a good deed, and pleasing ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... caste obtained him everything, while money alone availed me. I took him roundly to task for his treachery, which caused him secretly to throw away a leg of mutton he had concealed; I also threatened to expose the humbug of his pretension to caste, but it was then too late to procure more food. Having hitherto much liked this man, and fully trusted him, I was greatly pained ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... hardly rises above the conceptions of a boarding-school Miss in her teens. She appears to us a kind of strong-minded old maid, but with her strong-mindedness greatly modified by the presumption as well as the sentimentality of romantic humbug. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... I loved her, I was entirely hers; I never thought of the future, and everything, my whole life, I shared with her ... now this passion has died out in me.... Well, you would tell me to be a humbug, to play at being in love, wouldn't you? But what for? from pity for her? If she's a decent girl, she won't care for such charity herself, but if she is glad to be consoled by my ... my sympathy, well, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... same purpose. Upon inquiry it was discovered that polygamy did not at first form any part of the faith of Mormonism. The originator of the creed, Joseph Smith, never promulgated such doctrine, and possessed but one wife. The "celestial marriage" humbug was first preached by Brigham Young, in 1852, when he produced a document bearing the above title, pretending that it was revealed to Joseph Smith a year before his death. Smith's widow and son, both surviving, pronounced this to ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... gay when they were gay, sympathetic when sympathy was expected. With them he was even more popular than with the men, for the latter, although they admired and somewhat envied his varied acquirements, were apt in the intimacy of private conversation to speak of him as a humbug. ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... mulled it very well; nor of how we sat talking, Fenn like an old, faithful, affectionate dependant, and I—well! I myself fallen into a mere admiration of so much impudence, that transcended words, and had very soon conquered animosity. I took a fancy to the man, he was so vast a humbug. I began to see a kind of beauty in him, his aplomb was so majestic. I never knew a rogue to cut so fat; his villainy was ample, like his belly, and I could scarce find it in my heart to hold him responsible for either. He was good enough to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pocket-book, all with the gravity of Solomon. He then thanked me profusely, remarking that such little services were due between countrymen; shook hands with me, "for add lang syne," as he said; and took himself solemnly away, radiating dirt and humbug as ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that's represented, you see. Think of a railway train: fifteen carriages for men who want to smoke. Doesn't it make your blood boil? If I were a woman I'd blow some one's brains out. Don't you laugh at us a great deal? Don't you think it all a great humbug? You, I mean—how does ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... himself had been the chief managing editor, tenor, Jack-of-all-trades, canard-seller, camarillist, politician, premier-Paris, fait-Paris, detache-attache, pamphleteer, translator, critic, euphuist, bravo, incense-bearer, guerillero, angler, humbug, and even, what was more serious, the banker of a paper of which he was the only, unique, and perpetual gendelettre, and which, so admirably written, cleverly conducted, and signed with so great a name, did not ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... illustrating Gay's fable of the foolish young cock, who ne'er had been in that condition, but for his mother's prohibition: moreover, how is it, that so captivating a form of intoxication is so little rife among our drunken journeymen? queries, however, as to this; and whether or not the humbug of teetotalism (a modern speculation, got up by and for the benefit of grocers and sugar-planters on the one side, schismatics and conspiring demagogues on the other,) has already substituted opium-eating, drinking, or smoking, for the wholesomer toddies, among factory folk and the finest ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... a humbug, and refusing to have anything to do with it, equipped himself with club and cutlass, and started off on a solitary excursion towards the south-easterly part of the island, which we had not yet explored. He returned in the afternoon with a glowing account of the discoveries ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "You little humbug," he said, with half a laugh—for he is not an ill-natured fellow when you come to know him—"you managed it very cleverly, and I'm not one to bear malice; but, I say, ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... in a stage-coach in which were two delegates of the Georgia Convention. When I said that I hoped the day would soon come in which school-houses would be as numerous in Georgia as in Massachusetts, one of them answered: "Well, I hope it'll never come,—popular education is all a d—n humbug in my judgment"; whereunto the other responded, "That's my opinion, too." These are exceptional cases, I am aware, but they truly index the situation of thousands of persons. It is this general ignorance, and this general indifference ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... is the sound way to begin. I say to myself, 'Here is a truly dreadful person! I would abolish and obliterate him if I could; but as I cannot, I must try to get him out of this mess, that we may live more at ease,' It is simple humbug to pretend to like everyone. You may not think it is entirely people's fault that they are so unpleasant; but if you really love fine and beautiful things, you must hate mean and ugly things. Don't let there be any misunderstanding," he ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for yae thing that there's fower places staunin' in Millar's Level," said Jamie Lauder, "an' I'm telt there's five or six staunin' in the Black Horse Dook. It's a' a bit of humbug, an' I think we should try an' put ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... for no terms and we got none. We did not object to go under the War Office. We did not make speeches calculated to humbug or deceive while we ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... expectant crowd. The clock struck the hour of noon, but the little Delaware skiff was nowhere to be seen; and, as the sun declined from the zenith, the people gradually dispersed, muttering, "Another humbug!" ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... God's own hand and revelation. But I don't have any faith in modern spiritual seansys. They seem to me,—and I would say it in a polite, courtous way, for I wouldn't hurt your feelin's for the world,—all mixed up with modern greed and humbug." ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... else, nothing beyond. All sense of mysticism had been left out of his nature. What he called "priestcraft" was abhorrent to him. The various religions seemed to him merely different forms of superstition, the assertions of their leaders only varying forms of humbug. He was greedy in searching for food to content the passions of the body, and was restless in pursuit of nutriment for the mind. But not believing in the soul he took no ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... stood on Triton's pins are now as little able to stand up for themselves, or to startle the silent fields in darkness, with the sudden flash of their glory—gone before it had fall come—as Triton is to play the Freyschutz chorus on his humbug of a horn. But the logic of Wordsworth is this—not that the Greek mythology is potent; on the contrary, that it is weaker than cowslip tea, and would not agitate the nerves of a hen sparrow; but that, weak as it is—nay, by means of that ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... thing is a farce! Not a man of them ever goes to church. 'Whereas, the Presbyterians are quite unable to assume any financial obligation in support of a minister.' Why, the whole outfit doesn't contribute a dollar a month. Isn't it preposterous, a beastly humbug! Who is this young whipper-snapper, Lloyd, pray?" Father Mike's ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... to make out, by the general Barnum association and revelation. It was not, I hasten to add, that I too didn't, to the extent of my minor chance, drink at the spring; for how else should I have come by the whole undimmed sense of the connection?—the weary waiting, in the dusty halls of humbug, amid bottled mermaids, "bearded ladies" and chill dioramas, for the lecture-room, the true centre of the seat of joy, to open: vivid in especial to me is my almost sick wondering of whether I mightn't be rapt away before it did open. The impression appears to have been mixed; the drinking deep ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... two trees with great veneration, and believe it to be a holy marriage instituted by Providence. For himself, Ossaroo—not being a very strict sectarian, nor much given to religion in any form, laughed at the superstition, and called it "humbug." ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... well-tempered, faithful girl, honest and conscientious, but not without a considerable relish for humor, and with more than ordinary talents for carrying on either a practical joke or any other piece of harmless humbug, a faculty in which she was ably supported by a fellow-servant of a very different description from Mogue, named Jerry Joyce. Joyce, in fact, was not merely a strong contrast to Mogue, but his very ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... be religious! Oh, stop all this humbug of religion! As if I did not know that you believe neither in God ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... admires a master, and will humbly yield to almost any kind of tyranny, especially from one of his own race. The poorer classes rather like to be imposed upon in the same way as the Americans appreciate a humbug. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... Horace that in the very next satire he makes his own servant Davus tell him that his rhapsodies about the country and its charms are mere humbug, and that, for all his ridicule of the shortcomings of his neighbours, he is just as inconstant as they are in his likings and dislikings. The poet in this way lets us see into his own little vanities, and secures the right ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... the conference would most need would be "common sense," and because, in his opinion, Count Munster had "lots of it," some of the count's utterances astonished me. He now came out, as he did the day before in his talk with me, utterly against arbitration, declaring it a "humbug," and that we had no right to consider it, since it was not mentioned in the first proposals ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... little white volcano almost laughed in her face, and the black diamond eyes twinkled furiously as they turned away to hide their scornful amusement—so strong was the nun's conviction that the new benefactress was a humbug. The Princess looked at the names quite calmly after she had written them—Sister Saint Paul, Sister Giovanna, and Sister Marius—and asked whether she had seen any of them during her visit. But the Mother Superior answered that they were ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No, not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!" ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... could wish that all Christians might have Dutch ears. When we consider their morals, no nation is more inclined to humanity and benevolence, less savage or cruel. Their mind is upright and void of cunning and all humbug. If they are somewhat sensual and excessive at meals, it results partly from their plentiful supply: nowhere is import so easy and fertility so great. What an extent of lush meadows, how many navigable rivers! Nowhere are so many towns crowded together within so small an area; ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... "Supposing I were to turn on him and say, 'You old humbug, you know I don't believe a word of it. You know you didn't march them a hundred yards.' Or 'I saw you this afternoon.' What would he look like?" It was inconceivable that she should say these things. If she was to go on with her study of him ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... terrible passion. "Cheated for once in my life! sold, if ever a fellow was! it's a regular trick that was played! They wanted to get rid of their beggar's brat, and palmed her off upon me, with that humbug story of the nabob of an uncle. I'll nabob her! And there's her ticket, which I was fool enough to pay for, and the carriage hire, and my trouble with this saucy thing, who holds her head up so high; if ever I am swindled again, my name's not ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... response, the loafer proceeded to make a short speech. He touched upon the rights of trade, the liberty of the press, the importance of fair dealing, and the benefits of printing; and concluded by advising his hearers to go the death for their rights, and 'not to stand no humbug.' Such was the effect of his eloquence, that the firm against which he wielded his oratorical thunder found it necessary to compromise matters by treating the entire concourse to a hogshead of wine. 'The company separated at an early hour,' consoled for the loss of their bargains and the emptiness ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... science seriously, or that he had any preference for one kind or form of government over another. I repeat,—his radicalism was that of a humorist. He despised big-wigs, and pomp of all sorts, and, above all, humbug and formalism. But his radicalism was important as a sign that our institutions are ceasing to be picturesque; of which, if you consider his nature, you will see that his radicalism was a sign. And he did service to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... gasped the yellow hen, in amazement; "if the copper man can do half of these things he is a very wonderful machine. But I suppose it is all humbug, like so ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... be a man; fur I'm gwine to celerbrate. I'm gwine up loike a rocket, ef I does come down loike a stick." And Sergeant Blower said to John Copperhead of Chicago, "Down in 'old Virginny' I used to think the fourth of July a humbug, but this prison has made me a patriot. Now I'd like to burn an all-fired sight of powder, and if you help, and God is willing, I shall do it." In a similar strain wrote half a score ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... you're going to say—it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Just a word i' thi ear,— Aw hooap we shall net disagree; But aw'm foorced to admit as aw watch thi each year, At tha seems a big humbug to me. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... in court for years past under every sort of circumstance, and if it had been required of him to select a character with which superstition and morbid humbug could have had nothing in common, he would have laid his hand upon the senior partner of Cathcart and Cathcart. Yet here was this sane man, taking this fantastic nonsense as if there were really something ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... name, spare us this alliteration and humbug," Cappy fairly shrieked. "You're driving me crazy. If it isn't platitude, it's your dog-gone habit of initialing things!" He placed his old elbows on his knees and bowed his head in his hands. "If I'm not the original Mr. Tight Wad!" he lamented. "But you must forgive me, Matt. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... time for this practice of around-the-world humbug and cheatery to stop right now. If it takes our fastest modern globe-trotters a whole year to go around the world by a route equal to or approximating the equatorial girth, then let it take them a year; for the sake of our ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... that's right enough," said the professor. "There's no imposition there. The Arabs would have nothing to find out, and their suspicions would be allayed at once. Then, too, you could humbug them grandly with a few of your modern doctors' tools—one of those double-barrelled stethoscopes, for instance; or ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... of being quietly and humbly thankful, are perhaps a little too apt to celebrate their joy in the face of the afflicted ones who have it not; the afflicted ones, who have it not, only follow a general law in protesting that the sense of humour is a very worthless thing, if not a complete humbug. But there are others of whom it would be absurd to say that they have no sense of humour, and yet who cannot place themselves at the Peacockian point of view, or at the point of view of those who like Peacock. His humour is not their humour; his wit not ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... happened on the yesterday, wished naturally enough for our assistance in the coming battle. As for the marvellous chief Rezu, or rather for his supernatural attributes and all the cock-and-bull story about an axe—well, it was humbug like the rest, and if she believed in it she must be more foolish than I took her to be—even if she were unhinged on certain points. For the rest, her information about myself and Umslopogaas doubtless had reached her from Zikali in some obscure ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the mulatto Ned. His birthday-celebration dinner, at which the New Year's piscatory phenomenon figures in the bill of fare. A total disregard of dry laws at the dinner. Excitement over reported discovery of quartz-mines. A complete humbug. Charges of salting. Excitement renewed upon report of other new quartz-mines. Even if rich, lack of proper machinery would render the working thereof impossible. Prediction that quartz-mining eventually will be the most ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... not to go on like other people; if we are to be continually bothering our heads about honesty, and that rubbish, we shall be always down in the world. How do other people make money and get on? By humbug, my dear. By humbug. As for you, a ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... have forever addressed you on their knees? Peace and joy to his innocent fatuity! He believes himself the most rational of men; in fact, he's the most superstitious. He fancies himself a philosopher, an inquirer, a discoverer. He has not yet discovered that he is a humbug, that Theodore is a prig, and that I am an adventurer. He prides himself on his good manners, his urbanity, his knowing a rule of conduct for every occasion in life. My private impression is that his skinny old bosom contains unsuspected treasures of impertinence. He takes his stand ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... when she first come to town she commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... fluent repetition of second-hand dogmas. But, in fact, this dislike of 'Lycidas,' and a good many instances of critical incapacity might be added, is merely a misapplication of a very sound principle. The hatred of cant and humbug and affectation of all vanity is a most salutary ingredient even in poetical criticism. Johnson, with his natural ignorance of that historical method, the exaltation of which threatens to become a part of our contemporary cant, made the pardonable blunder of supposing that ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... man, what humbug!" exclaimed Valero in utter indignation, "and may I ask if you have a tooth left ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... very easy to humbug those who are so eager to be humbugged as people are in this world of humbug—We show ourselves ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... the children of the Old World: they don't romp, or prattle, or get into mischief, or believe in Bogie. They seem to take brevet rank, from the first, as men and women, and are quite inaccessible to nursery humbug of any kind. They are never whipped, and eat as much pastry as they think proper; whereby they grow up dyspeptic and rational beyond their years. Parents don't appear to exercise any particular functions, masters (we again beg Demus's pardon for the poverty of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... untheoretic persons are aware of this relation between true emotion and particular facts, as opposed to general terms, and implicitly recognize it in the repulsion they feel toward any one who professes strong feeling about abstractions—in the interjectional "Humbug!" which immediately rises to their lips. Wherever abstractions appear to excite strong emotion, this occurs in men of active intellect and imagination, in whom the abstract term rapidly and vividly ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... you, Chang, my boy, is it?' said Joe. 'What! are you glad to have me, old chappie? No humbug about yer, are ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... truth was, the good widow was perfectly well aware that her snug little free-hold and thriving little trade were quite as great objects of attraction as her delectable self, and acting on the same principle as that old humbug 'Elizabeth,' insanely called 'the good Queen Bess,' viz: the balancing opposite interests, she drew custom to her house and grist to her mill, without troubling herself as to selection from her numerous admirers, which, besides displeasing the others, would place ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... fiction—the name of which was still unknown-was still proceeding. Ballantyne said that the author "promised to put the first volume in his hands by the end of August, and that the whole would be ready for publication by Christmas." Blackwood thought this reply was "humbug, as formerly." Nevertheless, he was obliged to wait. At last he got the first sight ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... blame of the understanding few. Whatever the popular judgment, he knew there was a work to be done and that he had power to do it; and this was his personal ambition—to do that work in the world, and to do it without cant and humbug and self-seeking. Such were the aims that, newly returned to England, he confides to the sister who had ever prophesied great things of "her boy"; and in the end he made good the works spoken so boldly, yet surely in no mere ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... the flame did he run to burn the old woman that Mr. Egremont shouted to her that in spite of all that humbug, she was perfectly careless of the child, although if she had withheld him she would probably have been blamed for ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... story had taken a hold of my imagination. Also, for reasons of my own, I greatly wished to see this Zikali, of whom I had heard a great deal in past years. I wished further to find out if he was a common humbug, like so many witch-doctors, this dwarf who announced that my fortunes were mixed up with those of his foster-son, and who at least could tell me something true or false about the history and position of Bangu, a person for whom I had conceived a ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... sometimes, doctor, and though a great deal of it seems to be humbug, it is as you say—I know some are sincere, and I know there is a right way. I have been more than half tempted many times during the last few weeks to discover for myself the secret of power, but I am deterred by certain considerations, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Francisco News Letter had determined to be at the centre of the present excitement in the El Dorado, and to judge for himself, or, rather to solve the problem of how much gold, how many Indians, and how much humbug, went on board the Pacific mail steam-ship Cortes, Captain Horner, and made the passage to Victoria, 840 miles, in five days. Although nine hundred persons were on board, yet no actual inconvenience was felt by the high-pressure packing; the greatest good humour and accommodating spirit prevailing, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... Russell, O. Scott, N. Colver, and a large number of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time to take a firm stand against the no-government doctrine. They are far from regarding it merely as a humbug." John A. Collins, the Anti-slavery agent referred to, founded a community at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the following dictums: A disbelief in any special revelation of God to Man, in any form of worship, in any special regard ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... doubt have thought the tools we had there were sufficient to make a clock. We carried on this kind of business for two or three years and did very well at it, though it was unpleasant. Every one knew it was all a humbug trying to stop the pedlars from coming to their State. We removed from Richmond to Hamburg, S.C., and manufactured in the same way. This was in ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... hunt a thing is to not know it at all. Further, the men in such expeditions are not hunters even. They are destroyers who destroy while keeping themselves in safety. They have their beaters. Their paid natives. Humbug! That's the only word to describe that kind of thing. Staged effects they have. Then they come back here to pose as heroes before a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "No if that infernal humbug will get hot-headed and answer the O.C. rashly, there may be something good coming in the punishment line! It would be a source of wild joy if I could get Dick Prescott on the wrong flank ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... fighting to give us all Liberty, the birthright of every American, and who, nevertheless, has ground us down to a state where we would not reduce our negroes, who tortures and sneers at us, and rules us with an iron hand! Ah! Liberty! what a humbug! I would rather belong to England or France, than to the North! Bondage, woman that I am, I can never stand! Even now, the Northern papers, distributed among us, taunt us with our subjection and tell us "how coolly Butler will grind them down, paying ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... unnaturally, excited, and she unfolded half-a-dozen of them. What could they mean? There was writing on each strip, and it was in her husband's hand. She read as follows: "Sneaking scoundrel. John Thompson"—"Jim Taylor set his dog at me"—"Hypocritical humbug; you take your glass on the sly. ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... envies, appetites, prejudices, vanities, and other human ills of which the face before you gave no indication. And so, feeling the preternatural excellence of that face a lie, you have tried to live up to it; that is, to avoid being a humbug. In short, your life has been a strenuous endeavor to be unnecessarily wise ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... Carlton, would you really have the Negroes enjoy the same rights with ourselves?" "I would, most certainly. Look at our great Declaration of Independence; look even at the constitution of our own Connecticut, and see what is said in these about liberty." "I regard all this talk about rights as mere humbug. The Bible is older than the Declaration of Independence, and there I take my stand. The Bible furnishes to us the armour of proof, weapons of heavenly temper and mould, whereby we can maintain our ground against ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... remembered that she had no one now to tell anything amusing to. "And there's nothing amusing, nothing mirthful, really. It's all hateful. They're singing for vespers, and how carefully that merchant crosses himself! as if he were afraid of missing something. Why these churches and this singing and this humbug? Simply to conceal that we all hate each other like these cab drivers who are abusing each other so angrily. Yashvin says, 'He wants to strip me of my shirt, and I him of his.' Yes, that's ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... understood. When the period of his departure arrived, he would be seized with sudden illness, and, in all likelihood, the brethren would lodge him in their infirmary. As his malady increased, he would call a confessor, and, pouring into the father's credulous ear a tale of woes, sorrows, superstition and humbug, he would make the convent a donation of all his estates in South America, and pray for a remission ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... beautiful! Don't you try to humbug me. I am ugly, and I know it! For, last winter, when I went down to the grocery to fetch Forty-nine—he'd gone down there to get medicine for his ager, Mr. John Logan—I heard a man say, 'She is ugly as a mud fence.' Oh, I went for him! I made the fur fly! But that didn't make me pretty. I was ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... was saying," resumed the visiter—"as I was observing a little while ago, there are some very outre notions in that book of yours Monsieur Bon-Bon. What, for instance, do you mean by all that humbug about the soul? Pray, sir, what is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince Bolkonski, frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her, but only bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so that she winced ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... quotation marks: He was awed by "the grandeur of the mountains". "A humbug". "Fetch". "Stonewall" Jackson. He was a true ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... 'Humbug—what trouble after all did I take? When I found Cytherea would not stay with me after the wedding I was much put out at being left alone ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and kept saying, "Humbug! humbug!" at the top of their voices. They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... only when he and I were alone. Why he should have chosen me as the pail into which to pour his troubles I cannot say. I let him talk on, and when he had ended I showed him plainly that I had been thinking most of the time about something else. Whether Marriot was entirely a humbug or the most conscientious person on our stair, readers may decide. He was fond of argument if you did not answer him, and often wanted me to tell him if I thought he was in love; if so, why did I think so; if not, why not. What makes me on reflection fancy that he was sincere is that in ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... Merton, you are a trifle my senior, and you know the world much better. I have lived in a writing and painting set, where we talked nonsense till it went to our heads, and we half believed it. And, to tell you the truth, the presence of women always sets me off. I am a humbug; I do not know Gaelic, but I mean to work away at my drama for all that. This kind of shock against the realities ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Henry Sweet, of the University of Oxford, whose Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Engliach, translated into his native language for the use of British islanders as a Primer of Spoken English, is the most accessible standard work on the subject. In such words as plum, come, humbug, up, gum, etc., Mr. Sweet's evidence is conclusive. Ladies and gentlemen in Southern England pronounce them as plam, kam, hambag, ap, gan, etc., exactly as Felix Drinkwater does. I could not claim Mr. Sweet's authority ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... hadn't a right to do what he chooses with his money! If men are poor, why don't they get rich? They have the same chance I had; and there isn't one of 'em but would be glad to change places with me, and flaunt his wealth in my face. There's a precious lot of humbug about the poor which won't wash with me. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... changes effected in the government of the colonies by the Whigs, during their long and perilous rule. If of the former kind, it is to be lamented that he concealed his deliberate convictions under an allegorical piece of humour. His disposition to "humbug" was so great, it was difficult to obtain a plain straightforward reply from him; but had the Secretary of State put the question to him in direct terms, what he thought of Lord Durham's "Responsible government," and the practical working of it under Lord Sydenham's and Sir Charles ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... you be a humbug. This is a perfectly plain case, and you are going in for a very risky affair with your eyes open. You shall not pretend ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by the watchers from extracting what little of life was left in the object of their devotions, their indignation took various forms of expression. As a rule they denounced the whole thing as a humbug, and every one participating as frauds. Now and then it became positively necessary, in common decency and self-respect, to show these charlatans the way to the door, notwithstanding their protests that they ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... 30a: "There are no French universities, though we find every now and then some humbug advertising himself in the Times as possessing a degree of the Paris University. The old Universities belong to the time before the Deluge—that means before the Revolution of 1789. The University of France is the organized whole of the higher and middle ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... But, having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point, proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the subject abroad is also now fairly developing. The discovery was at first looked upon as a humbug, but this view is giving way before the facts presented in the local papers. The leading journals of the country have sent special correspondents to write up the subject. The New York Tribune and Herald, Harper's Weekly, the Springfield Republican and ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... over here again yesterday. He enquired after you, and asked to be very kindly remembered to you. I should like Doctor Hilary to attend me in any illness. He gives one such a feeling of strength and reliance. There's absolutely no humbug about him. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... cunning and sincerity. But there is no book which can instruct one to read the human countenance correctly; and some special circumstance must have roused the suspicions of these four persons so much as to cause them to make these observations, and they were not as usual deceived by the humbug of this skilled actor, a past master in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a wild, wonderful, remote, fairy-land region, where all sorts of poetical things may take place without the slightest difficulty. Of course Shakespeare would not have done thus, but that he saw quite through the grand critical humbug which makes the proper effect of a work of art depend upon our belief in the actual occurrence of the thing represented. But your "critic grave and cool," I suppose, is one who, like Wordsworth's "model of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... ortolans imprisoned within, imploring dissection. Well, must I tell you? We threw it away. It was martyrdom. Saint Anthony's position was enviable compared with ours. Beside us that good man would have seemed but a humbug. Yet we lived through it all. I repeat it. We lived, and we were happy. It is amazing, how a man may ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... clock. After a while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman appeared, whose interview with Doctor Lagarde had terminated. His opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic word—"Humbug!" No contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the money-box on ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put up this job, that he'll put them all in jail for contempt of court if they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be justice. This—this decision—is humbug and every one knows it. What's more—it may be murder. For men can't work on that slag dump ten hours a ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... produced some famous wine, that had been eleven years in bottle. We were unusually merry, and fell into toasts and speeches. I felt as if I had been his intimate friend for years, for he had not one atom of Levantine "humbug" in his composition. Poor fellow, little did he think, that in a few short weeks from this period his blood would flow as freely as the wine which he poured into ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... only that the man in any way weak is quite unable to stand the steady test of R.N.W.M.P. life. Apart from that, no blatherskite can endure it; no vain boaster, no aggressive bully, no slacker, and no humbug of any kind can possibly keep his end up in the force." So wrote a widely experienced and keen-witted "old-timer," in 1908, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... custom among the people of Southern Khorassan is to offer one's food in turn to everybody present and say, "Bis-millah," before commencing to eat it yourself. Although a ridiculous piece of humbug, it is generally my custom to fall in with the peculiar ways of the country, and for days past have invariably offered my food to scores of people whom I knew beforehand would not take it. The lack of courtesy at this hamlet in exacting payment in advance would seem naturally ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... suppose you have it. It is in the funds, mind. And now let me tell you what the funds are; which is necessary if you have not read my little book called Paper against Gold. The funds is no place at all, Jack. It is nothing, Jack. It is moonshine. It is a lie, a bubble, a fraud, a cheat, a humbug. And it is all these in the most perfect degree. People think that the funds is a place where money is kept. They think that it is a place which contains that which they have deposited. But the fact is, that the funds is a word which means nothing that the most of the people think it means. It ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... by a joint resolution of Congress, the use of "that first-class humbug and fraud, the whiskey meter," has been abolished. Now there are dozens of members of Congress who are not only "first-class humbugs and frauds," but whiskey meters, to whom whiskey is both meat and drink, and yet who ever heard of their proposing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... old basket-maker lifted his head from his work, and said: "Pshaw! that talk about kyindness" (he was a Kentuckian and said kyindness) "is all humbug. I wonder so smart a woman as you don't know better. You come nearder to bein kyind than anybody I know; but, laws a me! we're all selfish akordin' ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... hundred and sixty-five miles, which have cost nine hundred thousand dollars. The daily sale of water is six thousand inches, with a weekly income of six thousand dollars. The principal mining towns are Nevada, Grass Valley, North San Juan, Rough and Ready, Orleans Flat, Moore's Flat and Humbug City. ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell |
