"Impostor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not an impostor: she spoke and uttered her oracles under a wild sense of possession by some superior being, and of mystic compulsion to say what she would have willingly left unsaid; and never yet, before or since, have I seen the light of sadness settle with so solemn an ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... in Spain, and would be blamed in either case. He has written a book in connection with England such as no other body could have written, and he now rests from his labours. He has found England an ungrateful country. It owes much to him, and he owes nothing to it. If he had been a low ignorant impostor, like a person he could name, he would have been employed and honoured.—I remain, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... measure of excuses for not having profited more substantially by the help already given her. The eye and the ear of experience would readily enough have perceived in Mrs. Wilson a very coarse type of impostor, and even Lilian, though showing a face of distress at what she heard, seemed to hesitate in her replies and to entertain troublesome doubts. But the objection she ventured to make to a flagrant inconsistency in the tale called forth such loud indignation, such a noisy mixture ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... infrequently, after a long contested cause has triumphed, and all have yielded allegiance thereto, you will find, when few generations have passed, that men have clean forgotten what and who it was that made that cause triumphant, and ignorantly will set up for honour the name of a traitor or an impostor, or attribute to a great man as a merit deeds and thoughts which he spent ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... emphatically. "Sir Edward—dear Lady Moseley, I throw myself on your mercy. I am an impostor: when your hospitality received me into your house, it is true you admitted George Denbigh, but he is better known as ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... over her collegiate sister, Custom, that they have altered the hour of dinner from twelve to one. Does not it put one in mind of reformations in religion? One don't abolish Mahommedism; one only brings it back to where the impostor himself left it. I think it is at the South-Sea-house, where they have been forced to alter the hour of payment, instead of from ten to twelve, to from twelve to two; so much do even moneyed citizens sail with ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... required eyes, which Heaven knows the PREMIER woefully lacked. (Cheers.) What right had an incorrigible hoodwinker such as Mr. ASQUITH to advise anyone to see? It was monstrous. Let the people get rid of this impostor without a twinge of compunction, and the sooner the better. As to swapping horses in mid-stream being unwise, perhaps it was, but it was not unwise in the way that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... Indignant at the bold impostor, the wrathful eyes of the chieftain snapped fire like red cinders in the night time. His lips were closed. At length to the woman he said: "How, you have done me a good deed." Then with quick decision he gave ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... that you will say that you know Richard is living, and that he has not killed him, and in that way he thinks to escape punishment, by proving that Peter also is living, and is himself. Do you see how it is? He has chosen to live here an impostor rather than to live in hiding as an outcast, and is trading on his likeness to his cousin to bear him out. I had hoped that it was all a detective's lie, got up for the purpose of getting hold of the reward money, but now I see it is true—the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... am keeping everyone in the house awake. Well, stay awake then, you, too, feel every minute that I have toothache. I am not a hero to you now, as I tried to seem before, but simply a nasty person, an impostor. Well, so be it, then! I am very glad that you see through me. It is nasty for you to hear my despicable moans: well, let it be nasty; here I will let you have a nastier flourish in a minute...." You do not understand ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... depends upon it. A miracle is a work that can be performed only by God, or by someone to whom He has given the power. If anyone performs a real miracle to prove what he says, his words must be true; for God, who is infinite truth, could not sanction a lie—could not help an impostor to deceive us. Now Our Lord said He was the Son of God; that He could forgive sins, etc.; and He performed miracles to prove what He said. Therefore He must have told the truth. So all those whom ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... somebody's name, I should have acted in the same manner. I have sent three times and obtained no answer. If I do not hear from him by to-night's post, informing me why he does not come and give me a prescription for curing this plague of mice, I shall publish his name and address as an impostor, and the sooner he drops the 'Mus. Doc.' the better." [We publish the grievance. Our Correspondent is too learned. Let him call at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... Ronald, that we are playing with edged tools,' said I. 'An offer of marriage is a delicate subject to handle. You have refused, and you have justified your refusal by several statements: first, that I was an impostor; second, that our countries were at war; and third— No, I will speak,' said I; 'you can answer when I have done,—and third, that I had dishonourably killed—or was said to have done so—the man Goguelat. Now, my dear fellow, these are very ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from famine, and his fleet from fire I rescued: now the Lycian lots conspire With Phoebus; now Jove's envoy through the air Brings dismal tidings; as if such low care Could reach their thoughts, or their repose disturb! Thou art a false impostor, and a fourbe; Go, go, pursue thy kingdom through the main; 98 I hope, if Heaven her justice still retain, Thou shalt be wreck'd, or cast upon some rock, Where thou the name of Dido shalt invoke; I'll follow thee in fun'ral flames; when dead My ghost shall thee attend at board ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... heralded by an introduction which very few men could have written, and which represents the Doctor's method of letting us know that, if we fancy him an impostor, we are much mistaken. "The following Recipes," says he, "are not a mere marrowless collection of shreds and patches, of cuttings and pastings—but a bona-fide register of practical facts—accumulated ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... a power of good, if rightly directed, or of incalculable mischief, if fanaticism or intolerance guided their efforts. In the present instance, a worse feeling than either of these actuated the leader. He was an impostor in the most determined sense of the term. A man who had in early life lost, through the indulgence of vicious propensities, all sense of rectitude or self-esteem; and who, when ambition was awakened in him, gave himself up to its influence unbridled by any scruple. His father had been a methodist ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... sure, to have satisfied you that Grace is not an impostor," said Lady Janet, with satirical humility. She took Julian's arm and drew him out of hearing of Horace and Mercy. "About that letter of yours?" she proceeded. "There is one line in it that rouses my curiosity. ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... on the trail of a lion!" harshly replied the young man. "He who aroused so many hopes is, after all, nothing more than an impostor—Leon Maria Hervagault, the son of a tailor at St. Leu. The true dauphin, the son of Louis XVI., really died a natural death, after he had served a three years' apprenticeship as shoemaker under Master ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... mentioned by historians as occurring about this time. A report prevailed that King Olaf, the Queen's son, was not dead; it was propagated by the nobility, and very likely set on foot by them, in order to punish Margaret for her liberality to the clergy. An impostor claimed the crown of Denmark and Norway, and gained credit every day by making discoveries which could only be known to Olaf and his mother. Margaret, however, proved him to be a son of Olaf's nurse. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... nobleman" is welcomed everywhere, feted, petted, and allowed almost any privilege he chooses to claim—and he is far from being very modest in this respect; and by and by he is found out to be an impostor, probably the valet of some gentleman of rank in Europe. Then society holds up its hands in holy horror, and vows it always did suspect him. The men in society are weak enough in this respect; but the women ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... investigation, that a great fraud has been committed in this folio; that its marginal readings, instead of being as old as they seem, and as Mr. Collier has asserted them to be, are modern fabrications, and that, consequently, Mr. Collier is either an impostor or a dupe. The charge is not a new one. The weight that it carries, and the impression that it has produced, are owing to the position of the men who make it, and the evidence which they have published in its support. It was made, however, six years ago,—but vaguely. For, although there was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Impolitic nesagxema. Import enporti. Importance graveco. Important grava. Importunate trudema. Importune trudi, trudigxi. Impose (put on) trudi. Impose on trompi. Impossible neebla. Impost imposto. Impostor trompanto. Impotence neebleco. Impoverish malricxigi. Impracticable nefarebla. Impregnable fortika. Impress impresi. Impress (print) presi. Impression (printing) presajxo. Impression impreso. Impressionable impresebla. Impressive ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... agent, and who kept a small trading outpost, had been killed and his goods despoiled by a reckless Redwood packer. The murderer had coolly said that he was only "serving out" the tool of a fraudulent imposture on the Government, and that he dared the arch-impostor himself, the so-called Minyo chief, to help himself. A wave of ungovernable fury surged up to the very tent-poles of Elijah's lodge and demanded vengeance. Elijah trembled and hesitated. In the thraldom of his selfish passion for Mrs. Dall he dared not contemplate a collision with ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... prophetess of Pele, and threatened her with the displeasure of the goddess, should she come into her domains on this hostile errand. She was told that she would certainly perish if she went to the crater. Kapiolani disregarded the impostor, and went on. Those ohelo berries which I spoke of in my last story were sacred to Pele, and no one dared to eat them unless they had first offered some to the goddess. But Kapiolani gathered and ate them. "She and her company of about eighty," ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... cannot endure to deny to the new-comer the assumed right of him who cruelly turns it, out of reach and out of sight. We know some men, of extraordinary strength of countenance themselves, who have been able to defend their door-stone against an impostor's brazen face. A good householder, when a stage-full of country-cousins came to his door, bade the driver take them to the hotel, and he would willingly pay the bills. But few have the courage thus to board out those who have a staff in their hands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... This pious impostor Such fury did foster, It left us no penny nor no PATER-NOSTER; It threw to the ground The commandments down, And set up twice twenty times ten of its own; It routed the King and villains elected, To plunder all those whom they thought disaffected. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... dignity. He had seen with still deeper displeasure the countenance given by a large section of that party to the pretensions of Monmouth. The opposition, it seemed, wished first to make the crown of England not worth the wearing, and then to place it on the head of a bastard and impostor. At the same time the Prince's religious system differed widely from that which was the badge of the Tories. They were Arminians and Prelatists. They looked down on the Protestant Churches of the Continent, and regarded every line of their own liturgy and rubric as scarcely less sacred than the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Superior," and when they could not see her, they fought for the opportunity of praying in her chapel. Some stayed for weeks and weeks to see her. Applications for intercessions of all kinds of misery were sent to her, as these simple "dupes" of Catholicism actually believed that this impostor had the power to heal any ailment that might ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... and heard all this, and thought the woman was a great hypocrite. I could not believe it possible that any god or goddess would compel a woman to act in such a foolish way. I said to myself, "What a shameful impostor this woman is!" After thinking a little as to what I could do in order to expose her, and shew the people that she was deceiving them, I watched for a favourable opportunity, and then cried out, "Snakes! snakes!" as loud as I could. This produced immediate confusion. The priest and his wife, through ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... (1) expose, compose, purpose, posture, position, composure, impostor, postpone, post office, positive, deposit, disposition, imposition, deponent, opponent, exponent, component; (2) depose, impost, composite, apposite, repository, preposition, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... honour, wealth, and power such as hardly any other career could offer. The acuter minds perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker brother and to play on his superstition for their own advantage. Not that the sorcerer is always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely convinced that he really possesses those wonderful powers which the credulity of his fellows ascribes to him. But the more sagacious he is, the more likely he is to see through ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... "So you scoundrel, you impostor, you damned young villain, pretending to be a gentleman, you get admission into a man's house and dine at his table, when your proper place had been behind his chair.—How far he might have gone, heaven can tell, if that excellent young gentleman, his master, had not traced him here ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... home in the Farm? Rumors, whose faces I cannot fairly see, pass by me sometimes, breathing your name and others. But I have long ago turned rumor out-of-doors as an impostor and impertinent person, who apes the manners and appearance of its betters. I shall receive none as from you, however loudly they may shout your name, except they show your hand ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... me, thou arch impostor! There are punishments reserved for those, who undermine the peace of virtue, and steal away the tranquility of innocence. This is thy day. Now thou laughest at all my calamity, thou mockest all my anguish. But do not think that thy triumph shall be for ever. That thought would be fond and false ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... am not dead, though my appearance and conversation might induce you to think so. My name is JACK GOSLING. The chap in the velvet coat is an impostor." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... to fall. The Septimus Building is typical of at least one half of a large city. It was "run up" by a speculative builder for a "quick turn-over." It is semi-fire-proof, but more semi than fire-proof. It stands on Nassau Street, between two portly stone buildings that try to squeeze this lanky impostor to death, but there is more cheerful whistling in its hallways than in the halls of its disapproving neighbors. Near it is City Hall Park and Newspaper Row, Wall Street and the lordly Stock Exchange, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... various sizes. Here our savages left the sacks containing their provisions and their less necessary articles, in order to be lighter for going overland and avoiding several falls which it was necessary to pass. There was a great dispute between our savages and our impostor, who affirmed that there was no danger by way of the falls, and that we ought to go that way. Our savages said to him, You are tired of living, and to me, that I ought not to believe him, and that he did not tell the truth. Accordingly, having several times observed that he had no knowledge of the ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... that is not all!' he replied, interrupting me sternly, while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his eyes flashed as they looked into mine. 'You have not heard all. They have gone with one who called you an impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your mother's face—and killed her! Killed her as surely as if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac! Will you, after ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... that one might become bewitched and know it not. At this stage it was the bounden duty of the unfortunate being's church brethren to help him by inducing him to confess the indwelling of an evil spirit and thus free himself from the great impostor. And if he did not confess then it were better that he be killed, lest the devil through him contaminate all. Why, says Mather, in his Wonders of the Invisible World: "If the devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons of so fine a composition and operation, that ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... not blame poor Frank. He would not come down to the dinner because he hated warlike speeches. But he has seen the error of his ways. No more treasonable stuff for him. He thought it was large, and poetic, and all that, like giving one's shirt to an impostor. All of us make mistakes sometimes. I have made a great many myself, and have always been the foremost to perceive them. But your own brave lover—have you forgotten him? He fought like a hero, I am told; and nothing could ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Judging spectators; and desire, in place, To the author justice, to ourselves but grace. Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, No country's mirth is better than our own: No clime breeds better matter for your whore, Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage; And which have still been subject for the rage Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen Did never aim to grieve, but better men; Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure The vices that she breeds, above their cure. But ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... been racking his brain for some inspiration that would enable him to save the feelings of his hostess, and yet indicate his position clearly. He would not commit himself in any way. He would jump up and pronounce her an impostor first. ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... found that it would not do to stare at him. The instant she began to do so, he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well as ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... off as we were from the rest of civilized nature, their absence carried the effect of desolation. About this time a convict, of the name of Daly, was hanged, for a burglary: this culprit, who was a notorious thief and impostor, was the author of a discovery of a gold mine, a few months before: a composition resembling ore mingled with earth, which he pretended to have brought from it, he produced. After a number of attendant circumstances, too ludicrous and contemptible to relate, which befell ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... father, and he and Tom went down to look for the sailor, but he had disappeared, and notwithstanding all their inquiries they could gain no trace of him. The captain, indeed, suspected that the man was some begging impostor, who had heard of the loss of his son, and had concocted the tale for the sake of getting money out of the young lady. This was especially Mr Ludlow's opinion ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... answered, laughing, "is George, and I wish it were some other, for it is the first name of that arch-impostor Higgs. I hate it as I hate ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... is so plausible—Tom- linson, as you describe him, is so good a man, and so much of a gentleman; the end to be answered >>> by his being an impostor, so much more than neces- sary if Lovelace has villany in his head; and as >>> you are in such a house—your wretch's behaviour to him was so petulant and lordly; and Tomlin- son's answer so full of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... stare I know With which they'd say, "The man is mad!" "What an impostor's face he had!" "How insolent these beggars grow!" Go to, ye happy people! Go! My yearning is as fierce as hate. Must my heart break, that yours be glad? Will your turn come at last, though late? I will not knock, I will pass by; My comrades wait,—the ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... PAPHLAGONIAN, a celebrated impostor and worker of false oracles, was born at Abonouteichos (see INEBOLI) in Paphlagonia in the early part of the 2nd century A.D. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... gentleman "Bung" having made an affidavit before the Lord Mayor, that his beer is brewed only with malt and hops, I look regularly for his name in the Gazette, and if I do not soon find it, there, or hear that he has cut and run, I set him down for a successful impostor. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... follow, for there could be no limit to the price of the stakes in this game. The notorious Marechal de Reys, failing to find the coveted stone by ordinary methods of laboratory research, was persuaded by an impostor that if he would propitiate the friendship of the devil the secret would be revealed. To this end De Reys began secretly capturing young children as they passed his castle and murdering them. When he was at last ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... his common-sense attitude towards supernatural manifestations. His cold, calm judgement caused him to seek, by all available and practical means, to discriminate between the true and the spurious in an age in which men, by their credulity, were but too ready to become the prey of any impostor. It argues a breadth of mind altogether beyond the times in which he had his being. Witches and warlocks, who elsewhere—and even in much later ages, and in Protestant as well as Catholic States—were ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name! A society may call itself an Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as that to himself, in the present state of science, is a pretender, sir, a dilettante, an impostor! No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his art he could not be induced to reveal even for the sum of 340,000 livres, which was offered him in compensation. People began to doubt whether he had a real secret, or whether he was a rank impostor. A royal commission was appointed to examine into the matter. Our Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, was one of the commissioners. Their report was unfavorable. They found no proof of the existence of a fluid such as ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... may be, and do not let a disgraceful impostor take you in. My name is Omar, and let no one attempt to rob me ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... all very patiently, and went away with the air of a detected impostor, and soon got back safely to the ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... guineas for them. He lies—never wrote such stuff, never saw the poems, nor the publisher of them, in my life, nor had any communication, directly or indirectly, with the fellow. Pray say as much for me, if need be. I have written to Murray, to make him contradict the impostor." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... affair had been satisfactorily arranged, and every precaution had been taken to prevent the detection of Paul as an impostor, and engaged as he had been, Mascarin had no time to turn his attention to the marriage of Sabine and De Croisenois. The famous Limited Company, with the Marquis as chairman, had, too, to be started, the shares of which were to be taken up by the unhappy victims of the blackmailers; but first ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... many miracles as the credulous are willing to impute to him. It is possible that here the narrative is unjust to his memory. So far from being the picture of perfection, it sometimes seems to me the picture of a conscious and wilful impostor. His general character is too high for this; and I therefore make deductions from the account. Still, I do not see how the present narrative could have grown up, if he had been really simple and straight-forward, and not perverted by his essentially false position. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... obligation, might, by obtaining them, call on us in their extremity, when the urgency of the occasion should allow us no time for inquiry, and the peremptory mandate of our obligation compel us to do a brother's duty to a base impostor. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... at him narrowly, and decided that he was really ill; that there was nothing in his face to suggest the impostor. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be allowed the ordering of all. "This is an outrage," he babbled. "You are a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers." So, fiercely addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone, at whose feet the stout Mattie ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... and screaming was heard at the entrance of the tent. It was Holkar himself, accompanied by that cursed Loll Mahommed, who, after his punishment, found his master restored to good humor, and had communicated to him his firm conviction that I was an impostor. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Innocence, "companion of the milk-white lamb," Mr. Miller calls it. I am sorry for the milk-white lamb. It was one of the earliest discoveries of systematic botany that the daisy is a fraud, a complicated impostor. The daisy is not a flower at all. It is a favourite trap in botanical examinations, a snare for artless young men entering the medical profession. Each of the little yellow things in the centre of the daisy is a ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... a London Police Court with being drunk stated that he had been drinking "Government ale." It appears now that the fellow was an impostor. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... gently. "Or else an impostor. And, you know, if you should happen to be the latter I should have to hand you over to ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... effort of the will, old fellow—for I really could not stand that. It was glorious, delightful—that war-making in town; but there was a thorn in it. I was ashamed of myself. 'Tom Herbert you are not a soldier, you are an impostor,' I said; 'you are young, healthy, as good food for powder as anybody else, and yet here you are, safely laid away in a bomb-proof, while your friends are fighting. Wake, rouse yourself, my friend! The only way to regain ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... by what wild chance at such unwonted hour I find you on this spot, admits not of inquiry now—but for this fair impostor, resign her to my care—with me her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... provide for the expenses of the nuptials and the dowry of his wife, placing a coffer upon each side of the image, to receive the contributions of either sex. Which is the most wonderful manifestation in the history of this personage—the audacity of the impostor, or the bestiality of his victims? His career was so successful in the Netherlands that he had the effrontery to proceed to Rome, promulgating what he called his doctrines as he went. He ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... no trace of recognition in Tom's look of gratitude as his eyes rested on my face. But I sighed to reflect that he was still looking out for the tracks of that miserable impostor ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... mind otherwise powerful, and not without some virtues, and made him at length a suspicious and cruel tyrant, who, having alienated the good-will of the nation, was unable to oppose the pretensions of an impostor, and swallowed poison to escape the tortures of an upbraiding conscience—the successful imposture of the monk who personated the Prince Dimitri, one of the victims of Boris' ambition, and who was slaughtered on the day of his nuptials at the foot of the throne he had so strangely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... obtain a situation as clerk in Philadelphia. He did not succeed in procuring employment. His clothes became thread-bare, and he had no money to purchase a new suit. In this situation, some people to whom he applied for employment treated him as if he were an impostor. In a state of despair he went one day to drown himself. But when he had put some heavy stones in his pocket to make him sink rapidly, he seemed to hear a voice calling to him to forbear; and looking up, he saw a man watching him. He hurried away to avoid questions, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... arms of her mother. "And do not allow that man to come near her. He has behaved badly in not giving her up, on my demand, until we can inquire into this matter. It may be that this strange woman is a lunatic, or an impostor. ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... said that he had been thus protected from deception by the spirits of Washington and Franklin, and that they had brought Jesus Christ to him, with whom he had also communicated. He had first repelled him as an impostor; but became convinced afterward that it was really him. He related that he had learned from that high and holy spirit, that he was not the character that Christendom had represented him to be, and not responsible for the errors ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... number one hundred forty-three a sad case?" she repeated, always, when possible, building her next step out of the material furnished by her companion. "But suppose she is an impostor. He says she's not his daughter, this number one hundred forty-three. Maybe she isn't. Would you call her ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... way. Knowing perfectly well that I had only to get familiar with some of his old friends to obtain proof that he was an impostor, I followed up my acquaintance with Miss Moxey—got hold of her brother—called upon them. Whilst I was there, a man named Malkin came in, and somehow or other he began talking of Peak. I learned at once precisely what I expected, that Peak was known to all these people ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... rich merchandise, which enable him to return to the city in the capacity of a merchant, which he had professed himself when he married the princess. The vazir, who had from the first believed him to be an arrant impostor, lays a plot with the King to worm out of him the secret of his wealth, and succeeds so well at a private supper, when Maruf is elevated with wine, that he obtains possession of the ring, summons the genie, and causes him to carry both the King ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... like, but I wish him well,' said a fair Arab, as she arranged her veil. 'He may be an impostor, but he was ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... violently, "you are a fool, an impostor, a true Jesuit. Do you understand me? You have sought to enjoy a triumph over me by witnessing the state of embarrassment in which you imagined I was placed; you would gladly, you and yours, see me far from the king: but, poor short-sighted mortals that you are! Know that I am here ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... gathered, sternly replied, as if it could not be disputed, that he had merely gone to the same common sources as Prior, and had found what he had found! But this was seasoned with extraordinary abuse of poor Prior, who was held up as an impostor for being so industrious. Nothing better illustrated Forster's way: "The fellow was preposterous—intolerable. I had just as good a right to go to the old magazines as he had." It was, indeed, a most ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... an impostor! He tried to get in his vote when he aint over eighteen years old!" shouted several tory ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... and to work out his ideal of the high destiny reserved for him; or why does he, when tied under a cart to which a larger quadruped is harnessed, invariably try to persuade himself and others that he is pulling the load up the hill, and that the horse or donkey is an impostor? ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... violin.' That, dear, was how I came to write you the letter that brought you to Perros. How could I have been so beguiled? How was it, when I saw the personal, the selfish point of view of the voice, that I did not suspect some impostor? Alas, I was no longer mistress of myself: I had ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... a villain of no parentage; a vile impostor whom I mean to punish;—that if there's manhood in him he will appoint a time and place ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... Turk, as was allegit, and brocht ane ymage of our Lady with him, and foundit the Cheppil of Laureit besyid Musselburgh."—(Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 17, Edinb. 1833, 4to.) In like manner Buchanan says, this impostor Douchtye, having returned from Italy, built a church to the Virgin Mary, and made great gain by his fictitious miracles.—(Hist. lib. xiv. p. 41.) The Chapel dedicated to our Lady of Loretto, (sometimes called ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... she must have from that city. When a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son, beware of that traveller! He is, ten to one, an impostor. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... servant whose name he had omitted in his will. Milton lived for some time in a house in Holborn that opened at the back on Lincoln's Inn Fields. Fox Court leads us to the curious inquiry whether Savage, the poet, was a conscious or an unconscious impostor; and at the Blue Boar Inn Cromwell and Ireton discovered by stratagem the treacherous letter of King Charles to his queen, that rendered Cromwell for ever the King's enemy. These are only a few of the countless associations ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... be made about his debts at the time Savage died. So much Dr. Johnson admits; but he forgets to mention the name of this long suffering friend. It was Pope. Meantime, let us not be supposed to believe the lying legend of Savage; he was doubtless no son of Lady Macclesfield's, but an impostor, who would not ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... to visit the sick. The mate seemed anxious to set evidence against me, and he asked the admiral's surgeon to come down and see me. The moment this gentleman laid eyes on me, he raised both arms, and exclaimed that they were killing me. He saw, at once, that I was no impostor, and stated as much in pretty plain language, so far as I could understand what he said. The mate appeared to be struck with shame and contrition; and I do believe that every one on board was sorry for the treatment I had received. I ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... but "was still from time to time cut off by the Lord Bishop of London."[31] No doubt the bishop may have been somewhat arbitrary. It was his privilege under the procedure of the high commission court, and he was dealing with one whom he deemed a very evident impostor. In fine, a verdict was rendered against the two clergymen. They were deposed from the ministry and put in close prison.[32] So great was the stir they had caused that in 1599 Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to the Bishop of London, published A ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... To hang like Mahomet, &c.] It is reported of Mahomet the great impostor, that having built a mosque, the roof whereof was of loadstone, and ordering his corpse, when he was dead, to be put into an iron coffin, and brought into that place, the loadstone soon attracted it near the top, where it still hangs in the air. No less fabulous is what the legend ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... establish him in Syria or Egypt. The captains either from sympathy or guile alleged that they must talk to their men, and would come back when they had prepared all their minds. However, they faithfully made a full report to Asprenas, on whose instructions they boarded the ship and killed the impostor, whoever he was. The man's eyes and hair and ferocious look were so remarkable that the body was carried into Asia and ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... with hat and wig 'sprinkled with learned dust,' and deals out his censures with as little ceremony as correctness. It is of no consequence to him by whom positions are advanced, or truth is established; and he hesitates very little about calling Baron Heinecken a Tom fool, or —— a shameless impostor. If your library were as choice and elegant as Dr. H——'s he would tell you that his own disordered shelves and badly coated books presented an infinitely more precious collection; nor must you be at all surprised at this—for, like ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... but that is all nonsense, for I've never heard of the Land of Oz, nor of you. You say you are a fairy, and that fairies gave you command over me. I don't believe it! What I do believe is that you are an impostor and have come here to stir up trouble among my people, who are already becoming difficult to manage. You two girls may even be spies of the vile Flatheads, for all I know, and may be trying to trick me. But understand this," she added, proudly rising from ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... characters, as a present to these afflicted persons. A rich old gentleman had noticed a blind beggar seated with the Bible open on his knees, droning out the passages in the usual fashion. Some of the impostor sort learn the lines by heart and "make believe" to read, as they pass their fingers over the characters. The rich old gentleman's blind reader read in the genuine way, and got through about fifty chapters ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... correctly informed, that Mr. Cleishbotham died some months since at Gandercleuch, and that the person assuming his name is an impostor. The real Jedediah made a most Christian and edifying end; and, as I am credibly informed, having sent for a Cameronian clergyman when he was in extremis, was so fortunate as to convince the good man, that, after all, he had no wish to bring down on the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... "Was an impostor? My dear, had you any occasion to seek my opinion of him, or had I any occasion to give it? None, I think: and but for Master Revel's incomprehensible guess you had not discovered it now. I have been betrayed ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... platform and landed mud-cats that outweighed me—and so on, all the customary marvels. But not in the customary way. I was cautious at first, and watchful, being afraid the professor would discover that I was an impostor and drive me from the platform in disgrace; but as soon as I realized that I was not in danger, I set myself the task of terminating Hicks's usefulness as a subject, and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... of phraseology, nay, an identity of occasional phrases, from the antique—but that these so-called Ossianic poems were ever discovered and translated as they stand in their present form, I believe in no wise. As Dr. Johnson wrote to Macpherson, so I would say, 'Mr. Macpherson, I thought you an impostor, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... to write to you concerning the accusations which you have so long brought against me, wherein you call me impious, buffoon, rogue, impostor, calumniator, swindler, heretic, disguised Calvinist, one possessed of a legion of devils. I wish the world to know why you speak thus, for I should be sorry that anyone should think thus of me; and I had already made up my ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... gentleman, I also learned the history of Joseph Smith; and I will lay before the reader what, from various documents, I have succeeded in collecting concerning this remarkable impostor, together with a succinct account of the rise and progress of this new sect, as it is a remarkable feature in the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Malvina, or the Cave of Fingal!' But this must have been produced years after Runciman. The poems had merit, and that floated them for a long time; but the leak of falsehood made its way—they sunk at last. And Macpherson? Well, if a poet will be an impostor, he must prepare to be remembered by posterity rather for his fraud ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Tilh, an Impostor, who deceived a Man's Wife and Relations, and puzzled, for a long Time, the Parliament of France. Memoirs of the famous Madam de Brinvilliers, who poisoned her Father, and two Brothers, and attempted the Life of her Sister, &c. ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall
... 'What! you are here at it again, old chap? Well, I'm blowed if I think anything 'll cure you. You'd better put up your pus, marm: if he takes your money, I shall take him to the station-us, that's all. Now, old chap—trot, trot, trot!' And away walks the old impostor, with a show of activity perfectly marvellous for his years, the policeman following close at his heels till he vanishes in the arched ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... features, your studied orations, your premeditated axioms—all those productions of art that nature disavows, seemed suspicious to the more clear-sighted patriots. The boldest of them followed you, tore the mask from your visage, and cried—Citizens, this hero is but a courtier, this sage but an impostor. Now, thanks to you, the Revolution can no longer bite, you have cut the lion's claws; the people is more formidable to its conductors; they have reassumed the whip and spur, and you fly. Let civic crowns strew ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Jones; he is an impostor, and he was working for the reward offered for Black Harry's capture. If he is in Elreno when we get back there, I shall have a little ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... in Gregory's Chronicle, which is characteristic of the times, and proves that a monastery and church of St. Julien le Pauvre were already in existence. An impostor, claiming to have the relics of St. Vincent and St. Felix, came to Paris, but refused to deposit them with the bishop for verification. He was arrested and searched, and the so-called relics were found to ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... hearts of men, in which they—the witnesses—could have no personal interest, they leave in the Egyptian darkness characteristic of their system. How can he account for American history and American institutions who denies the existence of Washington, or claims that he was a disreputable impostor? How, then, shall he account for the history and institutions of civilization who denies to Jesus of Nazareth existence as a man of that age and country, or makes Him a base deceiver ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... him with an eye which gleamed with a hint of latent possibilities of belligerency. "Mr. Cleggett," she continued, pursing her lips, "I have sought an interview to warn you that you are harboring an impostor on ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to your own advantage?" suggested Mr. Carless, with a keen glance which passed from one partner to the other. "You, as reputable practitioners of our profession, don't want to be mixed up with an impostor?" ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... a base—impostor!" cried Olivetta indignantly, lifting her face for a moment from her woe-soaked handkerchief. "Don't you believe ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... surprise nor dismay. As far as regards the Government, the state of affairs in Ireland bears at this moment unquestionable testimony to the stability and strength of the Government; and no one know this better than the gigantic impostor, to whom so much of the misery of that afflicted portion of the empire is owing. He perceives, with inexpressible mortification, that neither he nor his present position awake any sympathy or excitement whatever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Brother. I do not belong to your order. I have no claim upon the hospitality of this roof. I am an impostor!" ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... to us as we look upon Him. In the heart of this the purest of men was the clear, constant consciousness that He was divine. He always spoke and acted consistently with this consciousness. Unique in character, He made claims that would have stamped any other man as an impostor. Humility and majesty dwell together in Him. He could say, "I am meek and lowly in heart," and also "I and my Father are one." He would call men His "brethren" and yet accept from them the words, "My Lord and my God." This wonderful character ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... Apostle, and its miraculous virtues soon obtained great fame. It was eventually set up over an altar in the Church of the Madonna, which was afterwards erected on the Great Mount, and there it still exists. A Brahman impostor professed to give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death of St. Thomas, etc., and this was long accepted. The cross seemed to have been long forgotten, when lately Mr. Burnell turned his attention ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... substantial material rewards in the shape of high political offices throughout the rest of his long life. About the genuineness of the compositions, however, a violent controversy at once arose, and Dr. Johnson was one of the skeptics who vigorously denounced Macpherson as a shameless impostor. The general conviction of scholars of the present day is that while Macpherson may have found some fragments of very ancient Gaelic verse in circulation among the Highlanders, he fabricated most of what he published. These works, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... result of an ordinary examination confined to Sixth Form boys. But on this occasion, as we have seen, the general curiosity was aroused. No one expected much of Loman. The school had discovered pretty well by this time that he was an impostor, and their chief surprise had been that he should venture into the list against two such good men ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most deceived, the worst-used, of women. Then she says that if she had the courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vile impostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his base speculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, under the present favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. Then she is enraged again, and makes some mention ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... PSALMANAZAR, GEORGE (1679?-1763).—Literary impostor. His real name is unknown. He is believed to have been a native of France or Switzerland, but represented himself as a native of the island of Formosa, and palmed off a Formosan language of his own construction, to which he afterwards added a description of the island. For a time he ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... testimony of these his pretensions, and that he carries them much farther than is here stated. We have too much confidence in the justice and wisdom of the British government, to believe they can approve of the proceedings of this incendiary and impostor, or countenance for a moment a person who takes the liberty of using their name for such a purpose; and I make the communication, merely that you may take that notice of the case which in your opinion shall ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... for you," said Starr sweetly, though her heart was heating violently in spite of her efforts to be calm and to tell herself that she must get rid of this wretched impostor without making a scene for the servants to witness: "I am very sorry, but you have made some great mistake. There isn't anything I can do for you now, but later when I come back to New York if you care to look me up I will try ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... scheme in Germany, was murdered, and the young king found a bride in Austria. Yet the project counteracted the negotiations set on foot by Louis to secure Frederick II. for his own side, and induced the Emperor to take up a position of neutrality. An impostor appeared in Flanders who gave out that he was the old Count Baldwin, sometime Latin Emperor of the East, who had died in prison in Bulgaria twenty years before. Baldwin's daughter, Joan, appealed to Louis for support against ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... that curious puzzled look of the stranger's, and felt bitterly ashamed of her error. Had he thought her some barefaced impostor, she wondered? She was disturbed in these reflections by the trim rosy-cheeked house-maid, who came to tell her that breakfast had been on the table nearly a quarter of an hour. But in the comfortable parlour downstairs, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... he is great; he is wonderful; he stirs up love and animosity;—but behind him are the Depths, the Hierarchies, the Pantheons. Socrates' warning Voice, the Daimon that counseled him in every crisis, has always been a hard nut for critics to crack. He was an impostor, was he? Away with you for a double fool! His life meets you so squarely at every point; there was no atom in his being that knew how to fear or lie.... Well, no; but he was deluded; he mistook—. Man, there is more value in the light word ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the same key as the inquiry. Disappointment is not uncommon. I have taken part in seances of every kind, with cautious investigators devoid of all spiritualistic bias, with unsophisticated believers in a supernatural source of all psychic phenomena, with scoffers convinced that every medium is an impostor, and that nothing but a little common sense is needed for the exposure. The results have been largely dependent on the mentality of the investigators. Failure to understand this is responsible for much of the disappointment and contempt ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... scene, which will seem to you as wild and purple as a Persian fairy-tale, has been (except for my technical assault) strictly legal and constitutional from its first beginnings. This man with the odd scar and the ordinary ears is not an impostor. Though (in one sense) he wears another man's wig and claims another man's ear, he has not stolen another man's coronet. He really is the one and only Duke of Exmoor. What happened was this. The old Duke really had a slight malformation of the ear, which really ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... included in the diplomatic cortege. He accordingly, with the utmost gravity, followed immediately behind the Ambassadors. He subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere impostor. But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... hopes rose high. Surely the impostor had been found out at last, and the envelope would contain an urgent invitation to him to come back and resume his rights—an invitation which he might show to the Doctor ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink—and that more than was good for him—would have been dismissed without further evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no time positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so much at least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously. Smoking, experience ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... minutes I have been listening to a man preaching on the sands down there. He represents himself as one of the leaders of the Young Men's Mission Movement, and I am confident he is an impostor. If he is, it is your duty to ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... in fact, we go, We two, against a one-man foe (Of course you would not wish to hurt a Hair of our folk in vulgar broil; Your scheme is just to take and boil Inside a vat of native oil This vile impostor, HUERTA). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... merchant service. Shrewsbury in 1780 received a visit from one of these individuals—"a Person named Hopkins, who appeared in a Lieutenant's Uniform and committed many fraudulant Actions and Scandalous Abuses in raising Men," as he said, "for the Navy." Two months later another impostor of the same type appeared at Birmingham, where he scattered broadcast a leaflet, headed with the royal arms and couched in the following seductive terms: "Eleven Pounds for every Able Seaman, Five Pounds for every ordinary Seaman, and Three Pounds for every Able-bodied Landsman, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by him was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As soon as I had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had been arrested at Antwerp, and that my fortune had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... superstitious credulity of the Indians, that this crafty impostor not only succeeded for a time, in correcting many of the vices of his followers, but likewise influenced them to the perpetration of outrages upon each other, shocking to humanity. If an individual, and especially a chief, was supposed to be hostile to his ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... left, the authorities were making arrangements to prosecute all the doctors, because they won't let sick men die in the course of nature, but use their arts to keep them alive. They were going to charge you along with the rest, till I assured them that you were no doctor, but a mere impostor." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... from the cabin, and conjured him to declare if in truth he had seen this sea of the north. Vignan, with oaths, affirmed that all he had said was true. Returning to the council, Champlain repeated the impostor's story—how he had seen the sea, the wreck of an English ship, the heads of eighty Englishmen, and an English boy, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of avowal appeared before him, once himself a do[u]shin and familiar with legal procedure. The family had suffered kaieki (deprivation of rights). It had been degraded from the caste. Properly speaking Iemon was an intruder into the samurai class. He was an impostor. His offence was against the suzerain lord, the Sho[u]gun. All the terrible penalties of treason hung over him. Tatewaki had been quick to note the opportunity to take this case out of the category of offence by a samurai. Iemon was a plebeian ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the same sense as a sack of flour or a ton of coal. Into this labor enter elements which cannot be valued in money. In short, there are things which can in no wise be bought: sleep, for instance, knowledge of the future, talent. He who offers them for sale must be considered a fool or an impostor. And yet there are gentlemen who coin money by such traffic. They sell what does not belong to them, and their dupes pay fictitious values in veritable coin. So, too, there are dealers in pleasure, dealers in love, dealers in miracles, dealers in patriotism, and the title of merchant, so ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... miss!" The man will drive me crazy with his saccharine imbecility. (Aloud.) I believe you would assent to anything, even if I said you were—an impostor! ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... sufficiently indolent and unenterprising to have damped the energies of any commander, was, in addition, surrounded by advisers who had always been impatient and jealous of the interference of Jeanne, and would have cast her off as a witch, or passed her by as an impostor, had that been possible, without permitting her to strike a blow. They had now grudgingly made use of her, or rather, for this is too much to say, had permitted her action where they had no power to restrain it: but they were as ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... short, when you have penetrated through all the circles of power and splendor, you were not dealing with a gentleman, at last, but with an impostor and rogue; and he fully deserves the epithet of Jupiter Scapin, or ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... possible of what we know to be error, even while introducing wholesome modification of it. This is the honest, though mischievous, conservatism of the human mind. We have no right to condemn our foregoers; far less to lavish on them the evil names of impostor, charlatan, and brigand, which the zealous unhistoric school of the last century used so profusely. But we have a right to say of them, as we say of those who imitate their policy now, that their conservatism is no additional proof of the ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... you know, in Charades one gets carried away at times. I assure you, I hadn't the remotest (&c., &c.—until Miss BUCKRAM is partly mollified.) Now then—last syllable. Look here, I'll be a regular impostor, don't you know, and all of you come on and say what a liar I am. We ought to make ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... shot through the body, and in the arm and foot, he had sold every package of starch in his basket. I am ashamed to say this now, for I suspect that a man with one arm, who indulged himself in going about under that broiling sun of July, peddling starch, was very probably an impostor. He computed a good day's profits of seventy-five cents, and when asked if that was not very little for the support of a sick wife and three children, he answered with a quaint effort at impressiveness, and with a trick, as I imagined, from the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells |
