"Make believe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figures. The sky was gray. Drifts of fog hung plume-like over Alcatraz, veiled the Exposition domes and turrets in a mystic glory. Sometimes it was like a great white nothingness; then, as if by magic, Color, Forms and Beauty leaped forth like some startling vision from a Land of Make Believe. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason it away,—a great deal more than I should think they would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... there. Then guests came; but instead of the children receiving, as they had been accustomed to do, all the spare cake and all the roasted apples, they only had some sand given them in a tea-cup, and were told that they might make believe that was something good. The next week the Queen took the little sister Eliza into the country, to a peasant and his wife; and but a short time had elapsed before she told the King so many falsehoods about the poor Princes that he did not trouble ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... pleasantly, so gaily, so kindly even, that I had the satisfaction of remaining and of gathering courage to utter my good wishes and warm fervent prayers for this day. He deigned to hear me very benignly; or make believe he did, for I did not make my harangue very audibly; but he must be sure of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... and I will pin you where you sit, like the miserable little beetle you are! Now then.—Here, steady, Rajah!—Hold tight, Mister Archie! I am coming to you; but just you make a show of that other spear. You needn't get up, but make believe to be about to chuck it at him if ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... world, bereft, should bleakly bloom, And wanly make believe Against the general doom, For me the earth you leave Shall be for ever but a haunted room; Yea! though my heart beat on a little space, When thou art strangely gone To thy far hiding-place, Soon shall I follow on, Out-footing ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... never took to colours was because of his inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree, he could not make believe—could not deceive—could not masquerade in ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... quarter of an hour we both of us were possessed by an involuntary nervous trembling as great as that which seizes a speaker on the platform, and we spoke to each other sacred phrases, like those of persons taken by surprise who "make believe" a conversation. ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... something to confer this great boon upon his wife and children whom he left behind him in Kentucky. He soon found a way to solve this problem. He said to himself, "I'll go to old Massa's plantation, and I'll make believe I am tired of freedom. I'll tell old Massa a story that will please him; then I will go to work hard and watch for a chance to slip ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... for an invariably agreeable person you must adjust yourself to the peculiarities of others. You must talk of books to bookworms: you must be musical with musicians, scientific with savants. Furthermore, you have to make believe all the time that you are enjoying yourself. The belle is a lady who has an air of enjoying herself with whomsoever she talks. We like those who seem to delight in our company. You must not overdo it, and thus make yourself suspected of acting; but do not imagine that you will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... kill you, remember that. He'll rush you at the go-off, but don't get rattled. You just and stall, and clinch. He can't hurt cover up, much. Just make believe to yourself that he's choppin' out on you at the ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... "Say, make believe that beach doesn't look good!" exclaimed Teddy to Billie, for they had fallen a little behind the rest. "And the good old ocean—say, what a day for ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... now lost, and ought to be made use of for the rest. Artifices were employed to accelerate their death; the last remnant of their foul portion was stolen from them; they were trodden on as though by inadvertence; those in the last throes wishing to make believe that they were strong, strove to stretch out their arms, to rise, to laugh. Men who had swooned came to themselves at the touch of a notched blade sawing off a limb;—and they still slew, ferociously and needlessly, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... "Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up by relentless creditors; you are out of work—which is horse-shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and your wife is sick, your children are crying because ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she said, and her clear hazel eyes brimmed over with tears as she spoke. "I am very, very miserable. Nobody loves me, and I have nobody to love except you, of course, Eleanor Humphreys, and sometimes I cannot make believe that ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... to sleep, Dolly, In own mother's lap, I've put on your nightgown And neat little cap. So sleep, pretty baby, And shut up your eye, Bye-bye, little Dolly, Lie still, and bye-bye. I'll lay my clean handkerchief Over your head, And then make believe That my lap is your bed; So hush, little dear, And be sure you don't cry. Bye-bye, little Dolly, Lie still, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... me. He was my right arm, my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs - deceased, sir - deceased,' said the tender-hearted ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... be as well to row around boldly, and make believe we've jest come for a visit? Then when he wasn't looking you could clap your ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... is all, forget that it seems no more in our power to believe than it is to love. We apparently "fall into" the one as we do into the other; we do not choose to believe, we cannot help believing. And unless a man's mind is satisfied with the reasonableness of faith, he cannot "make believe." Romanes, who certainly wished for fellowship with the Christian God as ardently as any man, confessed: "Even the simplest act of will in regard to religion—that of prayer—has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a century, simply ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... play, and he and his wife would sing songs and hymns, accompanied by the harp. The children, too, would add their voices to the concert. The little boy Josef, sat near his father and watched his playing with rapt attention. Sometimes he would take two sticks and make believe play the violin, just as he had seen the village schoolmaster do. And when he sang hymns with the others, his voice was sweet and true. The father watched the child with interest, and a new hope rose within him. His ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... get it in what may seem to you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions. In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this). "I should like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... Amy," he said in a low tone. "I must have a word with you. Make believe that you are showing me the—the pictures. We can talk safely ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... "You can't make believe like that, Andy Rover!" returned the old man of all work, shaking his head vigorously. "You knowed I was goin' to trim up this hedge a bit and that Aleck was ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... adventure with which, each morning, she went to work. First, she patted the manuscript pile, which grew so amazingly fast. Then she filled her fountain pen and looked off over the treetops, beyond her window, until, like Peter Pan, she slipped off into another world, the Land of Make Believe, a country she had discovered for herself and peopled with human beings to suit her own taste. To be sure, heir story concerned itself mainly with herself, Jarvis, and the Professor, but only the traits that made them individual, that made them "they," were selected, ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... him all manner of tricks. How to walk on his hind feet with a paper cap on his head, a plate in his mouth, begging. How to make believe he was dead, lying still a minute at a time, his odd ear furling nervously and his eyes snapping fun; how to carry a basket to the grocery on the corner, when she would limp out in the morning for a penny's worth of milk or a loaf of bread, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... taught them all the oaths of a free company. So much wine, and no more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... will be better to only pretend it's night in the woods," agreed Bully. "We can go in a dark place under the trees, and make believe it's night, and that will do just ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... your employer, Dick. Just make believe that he knows what he is about. I am not paying you for what you know now, but for what you will know in a few months. I am expecting great things of you. The science of forestry and economic methods of lumbering are fairly well understood ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... embroider; varnish right and puzzle wrong; exaggerate &c 549; blague[obs3]. invent, fabricate; trump up, get up; force, fake, hatch, concoct; romance &c (imagine) 515; cry "wolf!' dissemble, dissimulate; feign, assume, put on, pretend, make believe; play possum; play false, play a double game; coquet; act a part, play a part; affect &c. 855; simulate, pass off for; counterfeit, sham, make a show of; malinger; say the grapes are sour. cant, play the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the pretty colored paper dolls I cut out of Godey's Lady's Book; any thing, just so you make believe it's a real ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... Are you sure it isn't the devil's?" said Fothergill. "It seems more like it. If you think it is God's will, you may persuade yourself it's yours, for aught I know. But I'm not such a damned hypocrite as to make believe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... disliked by her as by any one of the family. Mr. Harding, however, was by no means sufficiently a man of the world to conceal the blunder he had made. He could not pretend that he had entertained no suspicion; he could not make believe that he had never joined the archdeacon in his surmises. He was greatly surprised, and gratified beyond measure, and he could not help showing that such was ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Rocky Mountains, and he had danced through two summers at Fort Adams at Newport; he had been stationed for a while in New Mexico, where there was an abundance of the pleasant sport of Indian-fighting—even now he had only to make believe a little to see the tufted head of a Navajo peer around the columns supporting the Lion of Saint Mark, or to mistake the fringe of facchini on the edge of the Grand Canal for a group of the shiftless half-breeds of New Mexico. In time the ——first Cavalry had been ordered North, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... and tried to "make believe" that they would open on far-off, familiar scenes. Nothing could have been more weird and incongruous than the American air with this alien soil and people. It was "Hiawatha," and to the inspiring strains of "Let the women do the work, let the men take it ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... I never did know. Somewhere out West, we thought. I used to make believe the letters came from Helena, or Butte, because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. "And sometimes she'd be able to go out in the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... holes in paper with the stiletto, and I supposed it was because she could examine the result of her work; but we watched her one day, and I was much surprised to find that she imagined she was writing a letter. She would spell "Eva" (a cousin of whom she is very fond) with one hand, then make believe to write it; then spell, "sick in bed," and write that. She kept this up for nearly an hour. She was (or imagined she was) putting on paper the things which had interested her. When she had finished the letter she ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... 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 a day. No one, however, is much improved by the lecture. They ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... wrong," asked Zora, "to make believe you likes people when you don't, when you'se afeared of them and thinks they may rub ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... language unbecoming To a lady, what you plan to tell me next. If I complain, If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention — Or imply, to be precise — you may believe, or you may not, That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are. But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot. Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, — but in the meantime Don't go back to rocking-horses. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... 'bout 'em. The lords have guitars and go out in the moonlight and stand under the ladies' windys and play, and the ladies make believe they haven't heard; then they look up all round at the moon and sigh awful,—" she sighed in sympathy,—"and then the lords begin to sing and tell 'em they love 'em and can't live without a—a token. I'll bet yer don't know ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... coming down about our ears; the drawing-room carpet is full of holes; the old silver is shockingly dented and the Royal Worcester all chipped. There are other household secrets I need not go into. People are kind enough to make believe not to notice—even when they get a chunk of plaster on ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... haycock, just at the back of Copthorne Farm. I can almost hear the lazy hum of the bees, and smell the fresh mown grass. I am not in a silk tea jacket, but my old blue cotton frock with the tear in the elbow, you remember I caught it on a nail by the gate. Isn't it fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... let us take his monkey," said Bunny, who didn't want Charlie to count too much on seeing that trick. "But if he won't, we can tie one of Sue's dolls on Toby's back, and make believe ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... up again. He studied the postmark over and over. He got up and walked to the window and back again, and then began fumbling in his pockets for his knife. No, he did not want it; yes, he did. He would just cut the envelope and make believe he had read it to pique his wife; but he would not read it. Yes, that was it. He found the knife and slit the paper. His fingers trembled as he touched the sheets that protruded. Why would not Leslie come? Did she not know that he was waiting for her? She ought to have known that there was ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... were a decent, healthy boy, or if you can make believe that you once were such a boy, you must remember that you were once in love with a girl a great deal older than yourself. I am not speaking of the big school-girl with whom you thought you were in love, for one little while—just because she wouldn't look at you, and treated ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... soon grew so tall that it stood above the heads of the children. They used to go in among it, and make believe that they were lost ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... grass-green in them that it greened all the water in the tub last wash, she told mother; that was when we played the Coramantic Captive, you know, and I had to keep fainting all the time. We'll just make believe we sank, ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... find too much fault. Human nature could not stand the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and make believe it was delicious. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... would be a little wang," said Lucy. "I will make believe he is a little wang while ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... thought Boo. "I'll just hide behind this piece of rock, and then I'll jump out and make believe to scare her. It will be ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... enough to make believe that he had not come in for the sake of this speech, Alec said, "I'm going to the West—at least, when Bates is gone, I'll go; and, look here, I don't know that I'd say anything to these ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... heavy-bore rifle like a Henry—which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers—that you can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Anglers are notoriously truthful, especially as to what they catch, or even more frequently have not caught. Though I may have written fiction, among many other sins,—as a nice old lady told me once,—now I have to deal with facts; and foul scorn would I count it ever to make believe that I caught that fish. My length at that time was not more than the butt of a four-jointed rod, and all I could catch was a minnow with a pin, which our cook Lydia would not cook, but used to say, "Oh, what a shame, ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... lady pause under such circumstances and pick a wild-flower; she knew how to do it. A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque only when they are called lanes and make believe that they ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... like it! To be sure, you can moon about here as much as you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like that; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether; unless, of course, you're ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... without exact western equivalents. The stupendous transformations which now and then take place (see pp. 5, 148, 244) can reconcile themselves only to an oriental imagination. However much the occidental mind may attempt to "make believe," it cannot credit such a statement as that when the Bel-Princess died, her eyes turned into two birds, her heart into "a great tank," and her body into "a splendid palace and garden," her arms and legs becoming "the pillars that supported the verandah roof," and her head "the dome on the top ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... hat,—she made that oak-leaf wreath about the crown one bright summer day, as we sat on the soft moss in the cool fragrant wood. Nelly liked the woods. She liked to lie with her ear to the ground and make believe hear the fairies talk; she liked to look up in the tall trees, and see the bright-winged oriole dart through the branches; she liked to watch the clouds, and fancy that in their queer shapes she saw cities, and temples, and chariots, and people; she liked to see the lightning ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... which those feed who will not eat of the heavenly food, the husks of the swine-trough, the ashes for bread, that self and the world, in all their forms set before men. A pathetic character in modern fiction says, 'If you make believe very much it is nice.' It takes a tremendous amount of make-believe to keep up an appetite for the world's dainties or to find its meats palatable, after a little while. No sin ever yields the fruit it was expected to produce, or if it does it brings something ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... knows how you live; you are a vagrant on the water—you have the reputation of a bad man—you live with us. Who will you make believe that you are ignorant of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... garden; no sophistry can overcome the inherent ugliness of the thing—an honest man's name dishonoured; two culprits planning a future life, to be spent in hiding from the more respectable portion of their species; two outcasts, trying to make believe that the wildernesses beyond Eden are ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... dear, if you are." Just as if Sally had been talking all this for her own private satisfaction and amusement! And she knew perfectly well, Laetitia did, that she had been eliciting, and that she meant to wait a day or two, and begin again ever so far on, and make believe Sally had said heaps of things. And Sally had really ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... first-class beef twice a week, good bread and all the fish they can catch. They don't have to begin work until broad daylight, and they lay off at dark. There is hardly one of them that hasn't got a psaltery, or a harp, or some other musical instrument. If they want to dress up and make believe they are Egyptians, I give them clothes. If one of them is killed on the work, or by a stray lion, or in a fight, I have him embalmed by my own embalmers and plant him like a man. If one of them ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... to make believe that Priscilla was alive," said Miss Parrott, her eyes glowing with remembrance of her childhood, brought so singularly near on this morning; "I ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... when he has his mind made up! If I fall upon you I shall tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, then, Don Vanquished, Don Cudgeled, that I died for your sake? All that you have seen to-night has been make believe; I am not the woman to let the black of my nail suffer for such ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... thought of piano music. But it's born in her, the mother said; the girl's grandfather was a musician in the old home in Germany, and so she can't help it. Why, she's just so crazy about it, she'll drum all up and down the kitchen table to make believe that——" ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... off!" cried Gosse. "They'll sit down and have a nap under the first hedge, and make believe they ran ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... snatched it up, tore it open, and flopped down on the sofa. Miss Jane snatched up an imaginary letter, tore it open (in imagination), and flopping down beside her sister, looked over her shoulder, apparently to make believe to herself that she read it along with her. Thus they read and commented on the captain's letter ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... upstairs to the parlour, I stopped, saw her legs, and told her she had jolly fat legs. She wished I would go upstairs, for I was in the way with my chemicals, and after that ceased talking to me. But it was difficult to avoid me, I got rude, would tuck my coat between my legs, laugh and make believe to stoop down to see her ankles, but she took no notice. Begging her to kiss me one day; she gave me two or three at once saying, "There now, go on with your chemicals," in such a motherly way, that it mortified me excessively; making me feel the difference in ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... see or hear us nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump, tree, bush and fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so far, that he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going to St. Michael's; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his horse tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the ditch, with his head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... first glance, than at Sing Sing, which I had visited on a newspaper assignment about fifteen years before. I had resolved beforehand to make the best of everything, and it seemed already possible that I might not have to make believe very much to ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... commands in his audience. It may be—indeed, usually is—accompanied by very poor oratory. The occasion may be trivial as you please; that it be unselfish will suffice to unlock the goodness within men, who, if often worse than they believe, and usually than they make believe, are ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said Michael, "it's not the O'Donoghue at all. It's the great lord we've been waiting for so long, trying to make believe he is the Phantom Prince. Maybe, for reasons of state, he don't like to reveal himself; and maybe," he added, with a sly laugh, "he don't care to make the ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... Captain tried to make believe that the cause of these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The pipe soon getting into better condition, he ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... fort; and we will call that ship away out there, an enemy's vessel, and make believe we are firing great cannon ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... to be no trouble to him to keep his balance, and when up like that he would twist his legs about, open them wide, put them forwards and backwards, and end by insulting me with his feet, so it seemed to me, for he would spar at me with them and make believe to hit out. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... to fix a picnic your way some time, Pat-ricia! It would be a heap more fun. It must be fine to be a large family and make believe together. It's a problem for an only child to make mischief all by itself. ... Did you have real good times in that old ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... easy," said Naason, "to make believe before the foolish mob; it is another thing to stand before a wise and ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the chief, through the interpreter, that this was only a 'make believe' wedding; but the old savage shrugged his shoulders, and gave such a terrific 'Ugh!' that I was glad to make my peace by ordering another blanket. As we gave two performances per day, I was out of pocket $120 for ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Magnus," sound the voices of my fellow-boarders, "be a good fellow and sing us one of the old chap's songs; or at least something or other of that day, and we'll make believe it was the air with which he ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... if you are anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can't fool myself. Are you glad to ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... mercy. All of you, however, don't have to be afraid of me. I choose the man myself. The stupidest, the handsomest, the richest and the most important, but not to one of you will I let them go afterward. Oh! I make believe I'm so passionate before them, that you'd burst out laughing if you saw. I bite them, I scratch, I cry and shiver like an insane woman. They believe it, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... easel with its canvas hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the oriental couch, and even the stool—where she had seen the artist sitting, sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and last—in a pretty make believe—she tried the seat on the model throne, as though posing herself, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the giver of the parcel is to remain unknown as long as possible, and even if the present is sent from one member of the family to another living in the same house the door-bell is always rung by the servant before she brings the parcel in, to make believe that it has come from some outsider; and if a parcel has to be taken to a friend's house it is very often entrusted to a passer-by, with the request to leave it at the door and ring the bell. In houses where there are many children, some of the elders ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... if you would marry me—or rather, if you would promise to—or rather, if you would make believe to marry me. I thought that, under the circumstances, it was a justifiable thing to do, for I fancied your future, as well as mine, was at stake. Seeing our friend's condition, it appeared to me ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... round, make for the castle. Their absence will not be noticed, for in this thick wood it is difficult to tell whether twenty men or two hundred are opposing you among the bushes; and the twenty who remain must shoot thick and fast to make believe that their numbers are great, retiring sometimes, and leading the enemy on into ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... matter. She was marvellously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and the rest of the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time—only a very little time—to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania was his ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... door, for his own or our protection, I am not sure which; but sometimes, when the terrible howls of fighters reach me, as I doze in a chair, I turn on the light and sit by my fire to shake off a few shivers, trying to make believe I 'm home in Kentucky, while Jack sleeps the sleep of the convalescent. Then a soft tap comes at my door and a very gentle voice says, "Missy, I make you tea." Shades of Pekoe! I 'll drown if this keeps up much ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... me and I chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and the wild romp would go ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... to try that, now. I wish we had another image to shoot at, but I'll take a big dry-goods box, and make believe it's an elephant. Now, this is going to be a hard test, such as we'd meet with, if we were hunting in Africa. I want you ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... queerly shaped, high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make believe threw them back into those tempestuous early ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... love with death-dust, Lest the draught should make me mad; I must make believe at sorrow, Lest ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... but you won't play in it any way you figure it. If you don't quit willingly you'll quit the other way. I'm giving you a fair chance, that's all. You've only got to make believe you're sick or play sort of rottenly a couple of times. That will do the trick for you and there ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "Now let us make believe that we've hoisted our sails on 'Mononday morn' and been in Noroway 'weeks but only twae,'" said our leading man; "and your time has come now," ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... quiet of course. As I sat there, he held my hand in his until he sank in a doze; and even then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr. Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe to give him my hand back. Oh dear, oh dear," said Milly, sobbing. "How thankful and how happy I should feel, and do feel, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... should only have spoilt it if I had been with you. It's wretched going about with a headache, and I can't make believe ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... to make believe, Aaron, as you say," Tommy replied sadly. "If you knew how I feel the folly of it now, perhaps even you would wish that I ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... is not the germ of political York, or hardly religious York; the brave city was a Romano-British capital and a Romano-British episcopal see centuries before the first wooden temple was built on the site of the present edifice in 627. I should like to make believe that we found traces of that simple church in the crypt of the Minster when we went the next morning and were herded through it by the tenderest of vergers. Most of our flock were Americans, and we put our guide to such ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... Dolly, pouting, when the laughter had subsided; "you make believe to care something about me, and yet will not listen to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Bysshe Shelley Love's Philosophy Percy Bysshe Shelley Song, "The moth's kiss, first" Robert Browning Summum Bonum Robert Browning The First Kiss Theodore Watts-Dunton To My Love John Godfrey Saxe To Lesbia John Godfrey Saxe Make Believe Alice Cary Kissing's No Sin Unknown To Anne William Maxwell Song, "There is many a love in the land, my love" Joaquin Miller ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... to put a garland on my head and make believe I'm drunk, yes, and I'll climb out on the roof yonder (pointing to Amphitryon's house) and repel our returning hero in glorious style from up above there. I'll see that he's both soaked and sober. Then that servant Sosia of his shall promptly smart ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:— And thou wert aye a masker bold! 30 What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe, that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips. 35 And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... any other kind. In fact, there is not any other kind, Pitt. What passes for it is just fancy, and struggling to make believe. The really independent man is the man who need not ask anybody else's leave ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... rather something very different? You're just trying to dodge it. You're trying to make believe—not perhaps to yourselves but ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... call my friends, and make believe Their spirits grieve, Brood, and rejoice with mine; I talk to them in phrases quaint and ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... but has to succumb at last, for he is fairly rolled on his back, and in a few minutes is, figuratively speaking, turned inside out. Then they espy the good-natured admiring face of their mother, peering at them over the corner of the straw, and at her they all rush. They make believe that she is a fox, and her life is accordingly not ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... villainous kind of bannock of unleavened mealie-meal and crushed oats, calculated to try the strongest teeth and trouble the toughest digestion, "Gold Pen" might have added. But the game was to make believe you rather enjoyed it than otherwise. If you had no teeth and no digestion, you were allowed a pint and a half of sowens porridge instead; and thus helped your portion of exhausted cavalry mount or your bit of tough mule-meat ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a time as we had! One man got bitten; but after a while foxy was caught. Then what did the cunning little thing do but make believe he was dead! Foxes are very cunning: they can ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... gaiety of Paris, but is soon hurried into noisy streets until his brain feels in a whirl; and on his arrival at the Diligence-yard, when he hopes to obtain a little repose, he is annoyed by being asked for the keys of his trunks, for the Custom House officers, to make believe to look into them to ascertain that you have not smuggled any liquors or other material within the walls of Paris. Those who are fortunate enough to travel in their own carriages, are exempted from such tiresome ceremony. Some of the other entries to Paris are ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Mappo to help him get out of the cage, Sharp-Tooth pretended to go to sleep. He wanted to fool the natives, you see, and make believe he was going to ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... a year of sorrow Gridley!" he quivered indignantly. "I'll hang on, and make believe I'm meek as a lamb, but I'll spoil Gridley's record for this year! There was in olden times a chap who had a famous knack for getting square with people who used him the wrong way. I wish I could remember his name at ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down on the place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe that they only come to amuse the children, or because they've country cousins visiting them, but never fail to refer to the vulgar set one finds there, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but Jockey Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutes they're as ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Nature as men make believe it ought to be, for once to see a woman have a opinion of her own, and not the man just telling that his opinion wuz hers too, without knowing anythink about it, an' women having to hold their tongue for peace' sake because they wasn't in a position to help theirselves. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky girls are all pretty, I suppose—everybody says so, and you have to make believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one—you know her? Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... could take some carpenter shavings and tie them on Ned's dog's neck," said Bunny. "We could make believe ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... surprise," he whispered to Sue. "We'll make believe it's Valentine's Day or Hallowe'en, and we'll leave the things on her doorstep, and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... true, that is the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must "make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of which many authors appear to ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... attempts only resulted in a series of violent and altogether idiotical contortions of the face, that were very far from expressing what he intended. However, I knew what the poor fellow meant by it; so I smiled to him in return, and endeavoured to make believe that he was winking. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... me, shortly before, the chapters in which the Marchioness nurses Dick in his fever, and puts his favorite philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made believe it was wine. "If you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much flavor:" so it stood originally, and to the latter word in the little creature's mouth I seem to have objected. Replying (on the 16th of December) he writes, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... here to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. They dine here, Law bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names in the Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. Why, I bet ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and you ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... as the real Florence or the real Rome, Venice welcoming her king gives one a truer impression of the Venice of our dreams, the Queen of the seas in the brave days of old. Let us forget the steamboats and the iron bridges, let us make believe that the Hohenzollern is the great Bucentaur, in which the Doge went out to wed the Adriatic and which that arch-Philistine Napoleon broke up. For the Venice of every day is a dead city, with nothing left ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... vis-a-vis with the hospitable courtesy due to so great a lady, "we are goin' to have some breakfas'." She paused, in a shade of doubt, then smiled a faint apology: "It isn't very much of a breakfas', darlin', but we'll make believe it's waffles an' chicken an'—an' hot rolls an' batter-bread an'—an' everything." She rose to her little bare feet, holding her wisp of a skirt aside, and made a sweeping bow. "Allow me, Miss Jemima, to make you a ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... Green Street was registered as occupied by the tenant of Rannoch; and, further, when I came to examine the list of guests at the castle, I found that they were really persons unknown in society. They were merely of that class of witty, well-dressed parasites who always cling on to the wealthy and make believe that they are smart and of the grande monde. Rannoch was an expensive place to keep up, with all that big retinue of servants and gamekeepers, and with those nightly dinners cooked by a French chef; yet Leithcourt ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... George Sand, George Eliot, Charles Egbert Craddock, made pretty good men in print. The authoress of "Jane Eyre" was taken for a man by many persons. Can Number Five be masquerading in verse? Or is one of the two Annexes the make believe lover? Or did these girls lay their heads together, and send the poem we had at our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is so severe in his talk about rhymesters, would not, if he could, make ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the rest of you shall stay where you have pitched your tents; you shall guard your treasures and live as you choose: but three of you shall go to the enemy and make believe that you have come to him about an alliance with your king, and thus you shall learn how matters stand, and all they say and all they do, and so bring me word again with speed. And if you serve me well in this, I shall owe you even more than ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... lingered thus, neither wishing to move away, neither caring to look beyond the presence of the other; both alike so full of hope, and comfort, and true happiness; if only the world would let us be. And then a little sob disturbed us, and mother tried to make believe that she was only coughing. But Lorna, guessing who she was, jumped up so very rashly that she almost set her frock on fire from the great ash log; and away she ran to the old oak chair, where mother ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... down stairs and putting her arm around her mother, "I only object to sailing under false colors. All of our life has been sham—sham—and make believe, and I can not see Papa growing older and more bent every day, when he should be young looking and happy. And I know that it's worry over getting the money for me that I may make a show for people to think me wealthy. And when Aunt Susan came ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stab will tell the tale. But who's this yer, lurkin' aroun' the kitchen do'; if it ain't Jack Wonnell, I hope I ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... had the idea of going to see Goujet at his forge. He had no end of times told her to look in any day she was curious to see how iron was wrought. Besides in the presence of other workmen she would ask for Etienne, and make believe that she had merely ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... this, for in censuring others I condemn myself. Tricked out, bedecked, bedizened thus, we are either silent and impassive as statues, or, if we answer aught that is said to us, much better were it we had held our peace. And we make believe, forsooth, that our failure to acquit ourselves in converse with our equals of either sex does but proceed from guilelessness; dignifying stupidity by the name of modesty, as if no lady could be modest and converse with other folk than her ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... represented Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... I would lead you through all the rooms made ready for your coming, and then to your own. I would see you sitting in your own chair and all my dreams would find rich fulfilment in that royal moment. Oh, Alice, we would have a beautiful life together! It's sweet to make believe about it. You will sing to me in the twilight, and we will gather early flowers together in the spring days. When I come home from work, tired, you will put your arms about me and lay your head on my shoulder. I will stroke it—so—that bonny, glossy head of yours. Alice, ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a time his bearers laid him gently upon the ground and commenced to examine him. Pinocchio decided to make believe he was dead. ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... Low Bull, get a move on," advised the foreman. "Make believe you're hunting palefaces," he added, and then, speaking in a lower tone he said: "this is the last time I'll ever hire a ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... man into the snow house?" Freddie wanted to know. "That'll be more fun than dolls. And we can make believe the snow house gets on fire, and I'll be a fireman and put it out. Oh, let's play that!" he cried, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life—not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half-hours of strength and exaltation ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... to conceive anything funnier, and at the same time more provokingly stupid, dirty, and inefficient, than the tribe of black-faced heathen divinities and classicalities who make believe to wait upon us here,—the Dianas, Phillises, Floras, Caesars, et cetera, who stand grinning in wonderment and delight round our table, and whom I find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room, so great is their amusement and curiosity ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble |
