"Pretence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best: for the painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the art to claim kindred with poetry, but by its powers over the imagination? To this power the painter of genius directs his aim; in this sense he studies nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural in the confined ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to the knowledg of God. But, as we have a proverbe, One scabed sheep may marr a whole flock, so these malecontented persons, & turbulente spirits, doe what in them lyeth to withdraw mens harts from you and your freinds, yea, even from the generall bussines; and yet under show and pretence of godlynes and furtherance of the plantation. Wheras the quite contrary doth plainly appeare; as some of the honester harted men (though of late of their faction) did make manifest at our late meeting. But what should I trouble you or my selfe with these restles opposers of all goodnes, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... It would seem that the angels exercise functions of life in assumed bodies. For pretence is unbecoming in angels of truth. But it would be pretence if the body assumed by them, which seems to live and to exercise vital functions, did not possess these functions. Therefore the angels exercise functions of life ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... you call it, if there's any need of me. Remember that you can't do everything yourself—and you may only get into trouble yourself without really helping if you try to do it all. So call on me if there's any need. And, whatever you do, don't let Zara go out of the house alone on any pretence. Remember that, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... here he settled and, forgetting his wife Arsinoe, married Callirrhoe, the daughter of the river-god. His new wife longed for the necklace and peplus, and Alcmaeon, returning to Psophis, obtained possession of them, on the pretence that he desired to dedicate them at Delphi. When the truth became known he was pursued and slain by Phegeus and his sons. After his death Alcmaeon was worshipped at Thebes; his tomb was at Psophis in a grove of cypresses. His story was the subject of an old epic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... prodigies as filled the capital from one end to the other with astonishment, and induced society to believe that this beata, Clara, was a being highly favoured by Providence. She lived in a private house, under the pretence that the malady under which she laboured prevented her residence in the beaterio. She was always prostrated on her bed, and never took any kind of food except the consecrated host. The nobility and persons in the upper ranks ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... light flotilla. The matter was postponed in the expectation that the vessels would go over to the Allies spontaneously as a result of the Venizelist movement, and on this expectation being disappointed they were, as we have seen, sequestered under the pretence of security for the Allied armada. Another excuse was needed for their appropriation; and it came in the nick of time: two Greek steamers at that moment struck mines, presumably sown by an enemy submarine, in the Gulf of Athens. With the promptitude ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... She made no pretence now of enjoying the first snowdrops or the view from the terrace. No—there was only one thing for her now—the ducks, and she was off to them before he could stop her. Luckily they were all swimming when ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... qualified person in Ireland to be entrusted with the delicate office of getting their money from them. Having received his instructions, he invited the leaders to his parsonage amongst the mountains, under pretence of deliberating with them about what was to be done. They arrived there just before nightfall, dressed in red, yellow, and green, the colours so dear to enthusiastic Irishmen; Murtagh received ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... closed upon Lucy and all her trouble. She forgot it clean, as if it never had existed. Everything in the world in one moment became utterly unimportant to her, except the fever in those heavy eyes. She reflected dimly, with an awful sense of having forestalled fate, that she had made a pretence that he was ill to shield herself that night, the first night after their arrival. She had said he was ill when all was well. And lo! sudden punishment scathing and terrible had come to her out ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... likewise all the people of that empire who would not immediately forsake the Big-endian heresy. He, the said Flestrin, like a false traitor against his most auspicious, serene, imperial majesty, did petition to be excused from the said service, upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences or destroy the liberties and lives ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... the neighbors. Early in the morning, Bergenheim and Marillac started for the rendezvous, which was at the foot of the large oak-tree where the artist's tete-a-tete had been so cruelly interrupted. Gerfaut refused to join them, under the pretence of finishing an article for the 'Revue de Paris', and remained at home with the three ladies. As soon as dinner was ended, he went to his room in order to give a semblance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... belong to the same social circle or the same family apprehend an expression of feeling precisely to the same point, namely, the point beyond which such expression becomes mere phrasing. Thus they apprehend precisely where commendation ends and irony begins, where attraction ends and pretence begins, in a manner which would be impossible for persons possessed of a different order of apprehension. Persons possessed of identical apprehension view objects in an identically ludicrous, beautiful, or repellent light; and in order to facilitate such identical ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... consent and indeed applause of the Roman people, from that (place) bicycles are to be ejected by one guardian of books. O singular impudence of the man! For be unwilling, Conscript Fathers, be unwilling to believe that in this pretence of consulting for (the interests of) a public building something more is not also being aimed at and sought to be obtained: in such a way (lit. so) he attacks bicycles that in reality he endeavours to oppress the liberty of each one of you: that by this example and as it were by the thin end of ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree outgrows ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... youth, are announced for publication in the Paris Siecle. Though the Siecle is a very respectable journal, and it engages that these compositions are perfectly authentic, and shall be accompanied by proofs of their genuineness, we do not believe a word of the pretence of their authorship. It is a fact, however, not unworthy of note, in a psychological point of view, that the earliest development of Napoleon's ambition and powers, before a fit field of action had been opened to them, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Transvaal Government. In the speech[25] in which he sketched the main lines of this policy he declared emphatically that the paramount power of England was to be maintained at all costs, that foreign intervention would not be permitted under any pretence, and that the admitted grievances of the Uitlanders were ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... to enliven the tragedy of the tale by the introduction of a personage proper to the time and country. In this he has been held by excellent judges to have been in some degree successful. The contempt of commerce entertained by young men having some pretence to gentility, the poverty of the country of Scotland, the national disposition to wandering and to adventure, all conduced to lead the Scots abroad into the military service of countries which were at war with each other. They were distinguished on the Continent by their bravery; but ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... advantage over him in the eyes of the ladies, and made up his opinion that in every word he said about the horse of the Rajah of Rumtool he was romancing—and that although there had been no slightest pretence to personal prowess in the narrative. Our judgment is always too much at the mercy of our likes and dislikes. He did indeed mention himself, but only to say that once in the street of a village he saw the horse at some distance with ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... been, as early as 1660, a New England settlement for the purpose of raising cattle, on the Cape Fear; but this colony incurred the resentment of the Indians, it is said, by kidnapping their children under the pretence of sending them to Boston to be educated; and the colonists were all gone when the men from Barbadoes visited the Cape Fear. Whether the New Englanders were driven from the settlement by the Indians, or left because their enterprise ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... patience to write of it. For ten miserable years she suffered her martyrdom; she lived through it, dear angel, sweet suffering soul, for my sake. At her death, my father was able to gratify his hatred of the son whom he had never believed to be his own child. Under pretence of preferring the foreign system of teaching, he sent me to a school in France. My education having been so far completed, I was next transferred to a German University. Never again did I see the place of my birth, never did I get a letter from home, until the family lawyer wrote from Trimley ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... are, as Plowden remarks, important; for though James's flight, on the 23rd of December, was the legal pretence for insurrection in the summer of 1689, yet negotiations had been going on with Holland through 1687 and 1688,[15] and the Northern Irish formed themselves into military corps, and attacked the soldiers of the crown ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... thought her daughter's coming abroad would be as hurtful as her being visited at home, and therefore very seldom sent for her to her house; and when she did, took care to have her carried home before the hour that she expected company, on pretence of preserving the regularity of hours, which she knew would ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... was sent Carthalo, a noble Carthaginian, who might propose terms, if perchance their minds were inclined towards peace. When they had gone out of the camp, one of their body, a man who had very little of the Roman character, under pretence of having forgotten something, returned to the camp, for the purpose of freeing himself from the obligation of his oath, and overtook his companions before night. When it was announced that they had arrived at Rome, a lictor was despatched to meet Carthalo, to tell him, in the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... 14th the King, under pretence of inquiry after them, repeated this prohibition to M. le Duc de Berry and Madame his wife, and also to M. d'Orleans and Madame d'Orleans, who had been included in it. He carried his caution so far as ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... wittely admonisheth all menne to be- ware and take heede, of cloked and fained frendship, of the wicked and vngodlie, whiche vnder a pretence and offer of frendship or of benefite, seeke the ruin, dammage, miserie or destruccion of man, toune, ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... has seen me. He turns to me, or rather he rounds upon me, with the words "Well, sir?" That, and nothing else, sharp and hard. There is none of the ancient kindly pretence of knowing my name, no reaching out a welcome hand and calling me Mr. Er—Er—till he has read my name upside down while I am writing it and can address me as a familiar friend. No friendly questioning about the crops ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... point of tying a stone about its neck, carrying it out, and throwing it into the river Lea. Then, with the laugh of a hyena, he set about arranging in his mind the proofs of her guilt. First came eight childless years with himself; next the concealment of her condition, and the absurd pretence that she had known nothing of it; then the trouble of mind into which she had fallen; then her strange unnatural aversion to her own child; and now, last of all, conclusive of a guilty conscience, her flight from his house. He would give ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... admit, what I think no one can deny, that they are placed in an elevated situation principally for the purpose of doing good to their fellow creatures. Then by what argument can they repel, by what pretence can they evade the duty?' And so forth and so forth. Already we seem to hear the born speaker in the amplitude of rhetorical form in which, juvenile though it may be, a commonplace is cast. 'Is human grandeur so stable that they may deny to others ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... land than everybody would do anything for her. "She must at once be interviewed" is the dictum at each and every newspaper office, and interviewed she is, by one or more of that artist class, on some pretence or other, whether she likes it or not. I say "artist class" for, considering their wonderful ingenuity in pursuit of their object, they richly deserve the name. If the lady, and thank God many are, is modest and retiring, and cares not to see her name and antecedents blazoned ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... light of the sun is a gratuitous gift, and that to repulse gratuitous gifts is to repulse riches under pretence of encouraging ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... inexorably cruel and malignant: it is hard to say which class excels, but it is certain that both classes exceed all ordinary mortals. One is the utterly blackguard: the parents about whom there is no good nor pretence of good. The other is the wrong-headedly conscientious and religious: probably, after all, there is greater rancor and malice about these last than about any other. These act upon a system of unnatural repression, and systematized weeding out of all enjoyment from life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... debate continued so late, that I told his lordship, it was high time to retire, for I could not accommodate him with a bed. He then gave me to understand, that he would stay where he was; upon which my father took his leave, on pretence of looking out for a lodging for himself. The little gentleman being now left with me, began to discover some signs of apprehension in his looks; but, mustering up all his resolution, he went to the door, called up ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... "Tristram Shandy" are books a man is the better for reading, if he read them wisely. They teach him that literature, to be a living force, must deal with all sides of life, and that little help comes to us from that silly pretence of ours that we are perfect in all things, leading perfect lives, that only the villain of the story ever deviates from the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... also all the people of the empire who would not immediately consent to break their eggs at the smaller end. And that, like a false traitor to his Most Serene Majesty, you excused yourself from the service on pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences and destroy the liberties and ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... and her eyes glittered with passion—"do you take both guilt and merit! You are a man," she continued, her words coming quickly in her excitement, "he is but a man! Why do you not call him aside, trick him apart on some pretence or other, and when there are but you two, man to man, wrench the warrant from him? Staking your life against his, with all those lives for prize? And save them or perish? Why I, even I, a woman, could find it in my heart to do that, were ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but Calvin ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... of what we pondered Or made pretty pretence to talk, As, her hand within mine, we wandered. Toward the pool by the lime-tree walk, While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers And the blush-rose ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... balcony, to which he clambered, shows. Ariodantes weened, this while, the knight Would him to seek that hidden place dispose, As one well suited to his fell despite, And, bent to take his life, this ambush chose, Under the false pretence to make him see What ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Evangelists, might not be proved a mere mytholographer ... 'It is plain', he says, 'that if absolute among historians'—and still more absolute apparent agreement—is necessary to assure us that we possess in their writings credible history, we must renounce all pretence to any such possession.' The translations from Quinet, Coquerel, and Tholuck are all, in different ways, well worth reading. The last truly says, 'Strauss came to the study of the Evangelical history with the forgone ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... artist's hand had so dealt with the few electric lights that the men, with their pale faces and white shirt-fronts, and the three or four women, most of them, as it happened, wearing black, were like some ghostly figures in some sombre procession. Only the music kept up the pretence that this was in any way an ordinary excursion. Amongst the human element there was an air of tenseness which seemed rather to increase as they passed into the shadowy ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, and then fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... is run by partisan politics, outside of law, there is no other alternative but this way or defeat. The pretence, under this method, of civil service reform or fair tenure is sheer hypocrisy. The Tammany method is the only condition of success, and every practical politician knows it and adopts it. Nationalism proposes the only remedy. It would remove every department ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... both myself and Mrs Brandon were continually watched, and a very superior sort of surgeon in the neighbourhood of Lambeth, from the second day of my arrival there, found some pretence or another to get introduced to my nurse, and took a violent liking to the little, puny, wailing piece of mortality, myself. I was about this time so exceedingly small, that though at the risk of being puerile, I cannot help recording that Joseph Brandon immersed me, all excepting ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... heard what I said. Possibly I should have flung myself after him and offered him further insult, had it not been that just at that moment the waiter who had witnessed my encounter with Kolpikoff handed me my greatcoat, and I at once quietened down—merely making such a pretence of having had a difference with Dimitri as was necessary to make my sudden appeasement appear nothing extraordinary. Next day, when I met Dubkoff at Woloda's, the quarrel was not raked up, yet he and I still addressed each other as "you," and found it harder than ever ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... boy, Jefferson, had been given the use of a crippled team-horse, and traded in newspapers, but having confused ideas of the relative value of coins, his profits were only moderate. The nag died before the troops removed, and a sutler, under pretence of securing their passage to the North, disappeared with the little they had saved. They were quite destitute now, but looked to the future with no foreboding, and huddled together in the straw, made a picture of domestic felicity that impressed me greatly with the docility, contentment, and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... years before, and was past master in the art; he had nothing to learn from William in theology, for neither William nor he was yet a theologist by profession. If Abelard went back to school, it was certainly not to learn; but indeed, he himself made little or no pretence of it, and told with childlike candour not only why he went, but also how brilliantly he succeeded ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this business, that when he came to it, he did really find himself tired with the trouble of his imagination, and accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me the sign. Whereupon I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise under pretence of putting us out of the room, and after a jesting manner, pull my night-gown from my shoulders, throw it over his own, and keep it there till he had performed what I appointed him to do, which was that when we were all gone out of the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... thinks wretched Art Too mean with Genius to sustain a part, To Helicon allowing no pretence, 'Till the mad bard has lost all common sense; Many there are, their nails who will not pare, Or trim their beards, or bathe, or take the air: For he, no doubt, must be a bard renown'd, That head with deathless laurel must be crown'd, Tho' past the pow'r of Hellebore insane, Which no vile ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... libretto) purlieus of modern Montmartre, with its spurious extravaganzas of rouge and roister, with its spider webs of joy. For him, there is romance in the pleasure girls who sit at the tables touching St. Michel before the Cafe d'Harcourt, making patient pretence of sipping their Byrrh until a passing "Eh, bebe" assails their tympani with its suggested tintinnabulation of needed francs: for him—"models." And the Bullier, ghost now of the old Bullier where once little Luzanne, the inspiration of a hundred ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... is the payment of the remainder of the money, the restitution of certain ships taken and kept without any colour or pretence, and the taking of arrests and seizures which were made in that kingdom against our subjects contrary to treaty, being of right and due. And that which is demanded of us concerning the places in Canada and those ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... sure, in those days for a pretty, vivacious girl with pleasant manners to go where she would. Society was democratic, in a flux, without pretence. Like went with like as they always will, but the social game was very simple, not a definite career, even for a woman. Many of these good people said "folks" and "ain't" and "doos," and nobody thought ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... so insolent that, whereas before they lay encamped behind a river, and never showed themselves, in a sort of modest deference to their king, which was the pretence of not being aggressors or invaders, only arming in their own defence, now, having been invaded by the English troops entering Scotland, they had what they wanted. And to show it was not fear that retained them before, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... noble Genius of your potent and generous Nation for it. However, I should not have presum'd to dedicate them to a Hero adorn'd with such glorious Actions, if Singing was not a Delight of the Soul, or if any one had a Soul more sensible of its Charms. On which account, I think, I have a just Pretence to declare ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... the domination of Angus, and laid his complaint before them, says Pitscottie, 'with great lamentations: showing to them how he was holding in subjection, thir years bygone, by the Earl of Angus, and his kin and friends, who oppressed the whole country, and spoiled it, under the pretence of justice and his authority; and had slain many of his lieges, kinsmen, and friends, because they would have had it mended at their hands, and put him at liberty, as he ought to have been, at the counsel of his whole lords, and not have been subjected and corrected ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the modern world, that we ought to begin with that. There is plenty of gay music, easy to understand, which is in harmony with the laws of art, and the people ought to hear it instead of the horrors which they cram into our ears under the pretence of satisfying our tastes. What pleases people most is sentimental music, but it need not be a silly sentimentality. Instead, they ought to give the people the charming airs which grow, as naturally as daisies on a lawn, in the vast field of opera-comique. That is not high art, ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... another, to resist the Queen's marriage, and to remove certain councillors from her, which (as I take it) is another way of spelling Stephen Gardiner's name: and my Lord of Suffolk, and his two brothers [John and Thomas Grey], are fled from Shene (on pretence of going to the Court), no man knows whither: and Rochester Bridge is taken of one set of rebels, and Exeter of them ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... crouch that precedes the spring. The next instant she is upon the floor of the chamber, and, still bending slightly forward to express the eager concentration of her mind, she glances at the bed and the figure upon it with a scornful sneer, that indicates how clearly she sees the pretence of sleep, and how evidently somebody has been there, or something has happened which justifies all her suspicion, and then, with panther-like celerity, she darts about the chamber to find some trace of the false lover—a hat, a glove, a plume, a cloak—to make assurance doubly sure. But there ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... not call her; in this also feigning pretence. He tells her that the reason for their not taking her direct to the estancia is, because of a party of Guaycurus, their enemies, being out on the war path, and it was to discover the whereabouts of these he and his followers were out scouting, when the sad mischance, as he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... watched the plough. And he took Ulysses's baby son and threw him in front of the team to see if the father was indeed mad. Ulysses turned the plough aside to avoid the child; and then the princes knew it was all a pretence, and he had to go with them. But he never forgave Palamedes, and long after brought ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... days, it became evident to all the household at Lipscombe Park that a new claimant for the hand of Miss Sherwood had appeared in the person of Captain Garland. The captain did not reside in the house, but, on the pretence of a very strong passion for trout-fishing, he had taken up his quarters in apartments within a most convenient distance of the scene of operations. It was not forgotten that, at the very time he made his appearance, Miss Danvers also arrived at the Park, and between these parties there was suspected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... of principal Esperanto organs will give some idea of the diffusion of the language. The list makes no pretence of ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... brought only vexation and trouble. Besides, he had told everybody that he did not think it worth his while to waste his time on such things and perhaps catch his death to boot. The Lord knew that was mere pretence. Eighty crowns for a beautiful, dark brown fox skin was a tidy sum! But a man had to think up something to say for himself, the way they all harped on fox-hunting: Bjarni of Fell caught a white vixen night before last, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... the garden," said Bell, with that hypocritical pretence so common with young ladies when young gentlemen call; as though they were aware that mamma ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Gautier," I said to Prudence, "should turn me out of her own house is quite reasonable, but that she should insult the woman whom I love, under the pretence that this woman is my mistress, is a ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... believe? What are we to do, amid this shaking of the earth and heaven? Are we to degenerate into a lazy and heartless scepticism, which, under pretence of liberality and charity, believes that everything is a little true, everything is a little false—in one word, believes nothing at all? Or are we to degenerate into unmanly and faithless wailings, crying out that the flood of infidelity is irresistible, that the last days are ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Hale House, joining a club for little girls which has since become famous in the Hale House district. The leader of this club, under pretence of teaching the little girls the proper way to sweep and make beds, artfully teaches them how to beautify a tenement home by ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... There is a pretence of supplying that new kind of history, which the new method of discovery and invention requires as the first step towards its conclusions, which is put down as the THIRD PART of the Instauration, though the natural history which is produced for that ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... was great or fashionable in Athens. Lord Lucius and Lucullus came, Ventidius, Sempronius, and the rest. Who more sorry now than these fawning wretches, when they found (as they thought) that Lord Timon's poverty was all pretence, and had been only to make trial of their loves, to think that they should not have seen through the artifice at the time, and have had the cheap credit of obliging his lordship? yet who more glad to find the fountain of that ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Theodore, under pretence of expressing his joy at being freed from his apprehensions of the combat being fatal to Frederic, could not resist the impulse of following Matilda. Her eyes were so often cast down on meeting his, that Isabella, who regarded Theodore as attentively as he gazed ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... five pounds to have seen old Sam's phiz, when he was trying to make out what ailed young stupid here, whether he was really ill, or only shamming," said Lawless; "depend upon it, he thinks it was all pretence, and he can't bear anything of that sort; that was why he began spinning him that long yarn about 'meriting his approbation by upright and straightforward conduct,' this morning. I saw what the old boy was aiming at in a minute; ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... arousing from his spiritual stupor and bursting into a shrill laugh. 'Do we care to listen to your miserable dactyls? Is it not a standing jest through Rome that, for the past month, you have daily read your verses to one person after another, with the same wretched pretence of exclusive favoritism? And do we not know that no warrant has ever been given to you to recite a single line before the emperor, either in or out of the arena? We are here to revel, not to listen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Myrtle for Quintus H. Flaccus! Wreaths of the linden tree, hence! Nix on the Persian pretence! Waiter, here's seventy cents— Come, let me celebrate Bacchus! Nix on the Persian pretence! ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... feeble. In this struggle the two men changed places. The plan for Halleck's flight was no longer his own, but Atherton's; and when he did not rebel against it, he only passively acquiesced. The decent pretence of ignorance on Atherton's part necessarily disappeared: in all but words the trouble stood openly confessed between them, and it came to Atherton's saying, in one of Halleck's lapses of purpose, from which it had required all the other's strength ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... a string of beauties such as it rarely falls to the lot of the critic to commemorate. Had age and personal hardihood been added, it would have defied the cavils of the most churlish criticism, and deprived even enmity of all pretence ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... men in position or authority. The gist of it was that King Charles the Second was the only supreme governor in the realm over all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, and that it was unlawful for any subject upon pretence of reformation, or any pretence whatever, to enter into covenants or leagues, or to assemble in any councils, conventicles, assemblies, etcetera, ecclesiastical or civil, without ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... quality of the new comer, and came forth to meet him in all his uniform, not even forgetting his three cornered hat, which he passed with his left hand while making an unexceptionable bow. Unembroidered greatness-yes, naked greatness, stripped of all falsehood and pretence, and such only as is worthy of governing an honest world, which it would generously do, but for the trifling inconvenience to itself, was here represented in these two great men-the Scylla and Charybdis of these wonderful times. The only perceptible difference in their prowess ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... with scorn. "Don't dare to touch me!" For an instant I knew not what to do or say, and then it suddenly occurred to me that it would be well to hide from her the fact that I knew who she was and so I made a great pretence of anger. I seized her by the arm. "If you give me another word of your impertinence I'll carry out my threat of ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... (like Vanini) of death and universal execration. To-day, M. Leroux is fulfilling a mission of salvation, for which, whatever he may say, he will be rewarded. Like those gloomy invalids who are always talking of their approaching death, and who faint when the doctor's opinion confirms their pretence, our materialistic society is agitated and loses countenance while listening to this startling decree of the philosopher, "Thou shalt die!" Honor then to M. Leroux, who has revealed to us the cowardice of the Epicureans; to M. Leroux, who renders ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... need only look at my face to know what he said," answered M. Mauperin, smiling at her. He felt as though it would kill him, though, that smile; and turning away under the pretence of looking for his hat, he continued, "I must go to Paris to get the prescription ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... force nor false pretence, He sought to make his kingdom great, And made (O princes, learn from hence),— "Live and let live," his rule of state. 'Twas only when he came to die, That his people who stood by, Were known to cry. Sing ho, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Parachacholas, with thirty of their warriors, and fifty-two attendants. As they walked up the hill, they were saluted by a battery of cannon, and then conducted to the town-hall by a corps of militia, where the General received them. They told him that the Spaniards had decoyed them to St. Augustine, on pretence that he was there; but they found that they were imposed upon, and therefore turned back with displeasure, though they were offered great presents to induce them to fall out with the English. These single-hearted foresters had now come to remove from the mind ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... wouldst be prating here the night long on pretence of a broken skin, and the savage at our gates? A fine character will the Madam render of thy deeds, when the other youths have beaten back the Indian, and thou loitering ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... childish vulgarity, the French to a vulgarity which is more frankly vicious. Really I hardly know which is to be preferred. In England we pretend that fancy dress is all in the interests of morality; in France they make no such pretence, and, in dispensing with shoulder-straps, do but make their intentions a little clearer. Go to the Moulin-Rouge and you will see a still clearer object-lesson. The goods in the music-halls are displayed so to speak, behind glass, in a shop window; at the Moulin-Rouge they are on ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... the wood-ceiled roof. But all this was part of Scott's life. Thus did people live who had such an income; and in a land where each man's pay, age, and position are printed in a book, that all may read, it is hardly worth while to play at pretence in word or deed. Scott counted eight years' service in the Irrigation Department, and drew eight hundred rupees a month, on the understanding that if he served the State faithfully for another twenty-two years he could retire on a pension of some four hundred rupees a month. His ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... was the custom of their country, he could not possibly do otherwise. Yet Donnacona continued to converse with our captain in the most friendly manner, and we concluded that Taignoagny and Domagaia had invented this pretence of their own accord; more especially as Donnacona and our captain entered into the strictest bonds of friendship, on which all the natives set up three horrible yells, after which the companies separated, and we went on board. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... fellow looked away from Janice, fixing his eyes on Mrs. Meredith. Then he bowed easily and gracefully, saying, "Thank you." Apparently unconscious that for a moment he had left the Somerset burr off his tongue and the rustic pretence from his manner, he followed Peg ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... torn out, treated as a myth or an allegory, and in short explained away,—I am utterly at a loss to discover. There is no difference in the style. Long since has the theory that Genesis is composed of distinguishable fragments, been exploded[294]. There is no pretence for calling this first chapter poetry, and treating it by a distinct set of canons. It is a pure Revelation, I admit: but I have yet to learn why the revelation of things intelligible, where the method of speech is not such as to challenge a figurative interpretation, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... expresses fairly definite and coherent ideas, but unless it also conveys these ideas to some other living intelligent being, either man or brute, that can understand them. We may speak to a dog or horse, but not to a stone. If we make pretence of doing so we are in reality only talking to ourselves. The person or animal spoken to is half the battle—a half, moreover, which is essential to there being any battle at all. It takes two people to say a thing—a sayee as well as a sayer. The one is as essential to any true ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... in his tourist knicker-bockers and close fitting steamer cap, Kenneth held both Helen's hands in his. Ray and Mr. Parker, under the pretence of visiting the anchor weighed, had discreetly withdrawn. Francois, the valet, could be seen in the distance, making signals to some one on shore. Husband and wife were standing alone behind one of the big ventilators, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... conception.[120] It is not a matter of the intellect merely, but of the heart as affecting one's practical conduct. The adequacy of the conception is destroyed not merely by thinking of God as multiple, or by worshiping images, sun, moon and stars; it is made null and void likewise by hypocrisy and pretence, as when one affects piety before others to gain their favor or acquire a reputation. The same disastrous result is brought about by indulging the low physical appetites. Here the worship of the appetites is brought into competition and ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... anxious to call upon you, Serjeant Snubbin,' said Perker, 'to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting the plaintiff's demand, he would not be there at all. I believe ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the Brazilians may imitate the example of those fellows at Bahia, and attempt to attack you," said Jack to Bevan; "you will therefore keep a good lookout, and allow no boat to approach under any pretence whatever. Order them to keep off, and fire a musket-shot or two ahead of them, as a sign that you are in earnest. If they still come on, fire the carronades into them, and drive them back ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Madge, with a pretence of bravery she was far from feeling. "We are going into this restaurant to get something to eat. Don't look as if you thought you were going to be eaten. It is rather horrid, but perhaps they will let us ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... early cross-examination by our Irish local magistrate. I do not say, of course, that you actually destroyed my nephew for fear he should try to prejudice me against you; but I cannot withhold my earnest approval of your judicious pretence of a sentiment palpably incompatible with the shedding of the blood of its departed object. If you will move your dress a little, so that I can sit beside you and allow your head to rest upon my shoulder, that fan will do for both of us, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... the room, another air took the place of the one just concluded. As for Manners, all his efforts were concentrated on watching Dorothy's every movement. He ceased to play, for he had not the heart to continue, and, without making any pretence to be playing his instrument, he laid his lute down and watched with ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... hewn out of a boulder rock or fashioned of the threshold of a Jewish synagogue, nor was he ashamed of any shameful work he wrought amongst the folk. It was his wont, when any brought him cloth for staining, first to require of him payment under pretence of buying dyestuffs therewith. So the customer would give him the wage in advance and wend his ways, and the dyer would spend all he received on meat and drink; after which he would sell the cloth itself as soon as ever its owner turned his back and waste its worth in eating and drinking and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... day the husband declared that he was very ill, and could not eat anything; but this was only a pretence so that he might get what he wanted. The family were all much distressed, and begged him to tell them what ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... did not know which way to look; physically, he regarded the ground. Happily at that very moment Hornie caused a diversion, and Gibbie understood what Donal was feeling too well to make even a pretence of going after her. I must, to his praise, record the fact that, instead of wreaking his mortification upon the cow, Donal spared her several blows out of gratitude for the deliverance her misbehaviour had wrought him. He was in no ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Grammar. I felt keenly for the poor body-starved theory-burdened soul, and though I was under no delusion as to the assistance I got in my Latin, I could not make up my mind to get rid of him. This pretence of learning Latin lasted as long as I was at these lodgings. When on the eve of leaving them I offered to settle his dues he said piteously: "I have done nothing, and only wasted your time, I cannot accept any payment from you." It was with ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the agitation of the woollen manufacturers which had started the year before, and for this bill Mr. Webster spoke and voted. He changed his ground on this important question absolutely and entirely, and made no pretence of doing anything else. The speech which he made on this occasion is a celebrated one, but it is so solely on account of the startling change of position which it announced. Mr. Webster has been attacked and defended for his action at this time ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... the touch to go forward with more reluctance, had I not perceived the fair Lilian gliding out of the cabin, and proceeding in the same direction! Two or, three of the bars had been replaced by the clerical visitor; and she had gone, apparently, to remove them. Was it simple courtesy, or a pretence to speak with me? My heart heaved with a tumultuous joy, as I fancied that the latter might be her motive. When I reached the entrance, the bars were down; and the young girl stood leaning against one of the uprights—her round white ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... considerably in advance of his years, and who had calculated upon being her guide, philosopher, and friend all through the day, found himself ousted by the West End physician, who took complete possession of Miss Palliser, under the pretence of explaining the history—altogether speculative—of the spot. He discoursed eloquently about the Druids, expatiated upon the City of Winchester, dozing in the sunshine yonder, among its fat water meadows. He talked of the Saxons and the Normans, of William of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... once before, don't you remember? And I don't think you are at all polite,—do you, Fanny? Come up-stairs, Graeme, and I will do your hair. It would not be proper to let Harry go alone. He is in a dreadful temper, is he not?" And Rose made a pretence of being afraid to go past him. "Mr Millar, cannot you do or say something to soothe ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... us against the Prussians, had sought to preach among the populace a very Prussian fatalism, pivoted upon the importance of the charlatan Haeckel. The wrestle of the two great parties had long slackened into an embrace. The fact was faintly denied, and a pretence was still made that no pact: existed beyond a common patriotism. But the pretence failed altogether; for it was evident that the leaders on either side, so far from leading in divergent directions, were much closer to each other than to their own followers. The power of ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... treats chiefly of three Things, 1. Of the superstitious Pilgrimages of some Persons to Jerusalem, and other holy Places, under Pretence of Devotion. 2. That Vows are not to be made rashly over a Pot of Ale: but that Time, Expence and Pains ought to be employ d otherwise, in such Matters as have a real Tendency to promote trite Piety. 3. Of the Insignificancy and ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... placed herself at the table at which they were eating. Soft and fond glances were interchanged; and, before they had finished their meal, each had as good as said "I love." When they had done eating, the old man and woman arose, and under some pretence or other left the room, carrying with them the whole brood of odd and beast-like creatures. So the Nanticoke was left alone with the beautiful little maiden, to press her soft little hand, and to say in her ears ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... reticent. Perhaps she knew that oracles are valued partly for their silences. At any rate her prestige suffered nothing, for the less she said, the more certain Coombe became that she could, if she would, say a great deal. Of course her pretence of seeing nothing unusual in the doctor's engagement was simply absurd. Coombe felt sure that like the pig-baby in "Alice," she only did it "to annoy because she knows ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... a letter from Don Justo, sent express, to intimate that the muleteers had proceeded immediately after we had started for about a mile beyond the suburbs, where they were stopped by the officer of a kind of military post or barrier, under pretence of the passport being irregular; and this difficulty was no sooner cleared up, than the accounts of a bullfight, that was unexpectedly to take place that forenoon, reached them, when the whole bunch, half drunk as they ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... his hospitality without form or pretence, never referring to his intended functions except in a casual way, the news of so unusual a dinner to so notorious a man as Edgar Allan Poe could ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... possibly meet, Jack," Tamara said. "And don't imagine because they skylark like this, and sit up all night, that they aren't most dignified when they have to be. That is their charm, this sense of the fitness of things. They have not got to have any pretence like some of us have. Not one of them has a scrap of pose. They are nice to you because they like you, or they leave you entirely alone if they do not. And some days when they are all together they ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... not want to make a mystery about nothing. I should have resented it thoroughly myself when I was young. I make no pretence to have had any glimpses of fairyland. I could not see Shriny when I was eight years old, and I never shall now. Besides, no one sees fairies now-a-days. The "path to bonnie Elfland" has long been ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... was not a dash wholly without system—such an inference would be a great mistake. There was no pretence of alignment or order—there never is in such attacks—forlorn hopes, receiving the signal, rush on, each individual to his own endeavor; here, nevertheless, the Pachas and Beys directed the assault, permitting no blind waste of effort. They ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... lovers of shirts, found a method of clothing themselves with their own cloth. It was their custom to go on shore every morning, and to return on board in the evening, generally clad in rags. This furnished a pretence to importune the lover for better clothes; and when he had no more of his own, he was to dress them in new cloth of the country, which they always left ashore; and appearing again in rags, they must again be clothed. So that the same suit might pass through ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the assistance which that poet had afforded in composing "OEdipus." The history of the Duke of Guise had formerly occupied his attention, as an acceptable subject to the court after the Restoration. A League, formed under pretence of religion, and in defence of the king's authority, against his person, presented facilities of application to the late civil wars, to which, we may be sure, our poet was by no means insensible. But however ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... National Guards entered the Grand Hotel last night. After having searched every room, under the pretence of looking for arms, they retired with a good deal ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... pretence which, though it may deceive yourselves, certainly does not deceive Him from whom no secrets are hid. If you cannot forsake the service of Mammon, if you really are so tightly bound by his golden chains to the things of this world that you cannot or will not break loose ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... resolved, since it might be so, to go on board the ship and meet him; not to discover herself to him, (for she questioned whether he would know her again), but to observe him, and take proper measures for their making themselves mutually known. Her pretence was, to see what merchandise was aboard, to have the first sight of the goods, and to choose the most valuable for herself. She commanded a horse to be brought, which she mounted, and rode to the port, accompanied by several officers, who were in waiting at that time, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... in a more secret and retired vale, where she dwells remote from modern mariners, and the present inhabitants of her environs; universally changed to swine for these many ages? Their metamorphoses being so thoroughly established as to leave no further pretence for her operations, I can imagine her given up to solitude, and the consciousness of her potent influence. Notwithstanding the risks of the adventure, I wished to have attempted it, and seen whether ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... well as allowed extenuation with the unconcerned of both sexes; and they all offer their helping hands. Why not? they say: Has she not passed for my wife before them all?—And is she not in a fine way of being reconciled to her friends?—And was not the want of that reconciliation the pretence for postponing the consummation? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... once to the question of what he has done or failed to do. It is a specific claim that he sets up. When we speak of Mr. Malthus, we mean the Essay on Population; and when we mention the Essay on Population, we mean a distinct leading proposition, that stands out intelligibly from all trashy pretence, and is a ground on which to fix the levers that may move the world, backwards or forwards. He has not left opinion where he found it; he has advanced or given it a wrong bias, or thrown a stumbling-block in its way. In a word, his name is not stuck, like so many others, in the firmament ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... close at hand and so overhear the conversations of the younger swains and shepherdesses. The fact is that Arcadia has recently been invaded by a gang of rascally adventurers from Corinth and elsewhere: Techne, 'a subtle wench,' who under pretence of introducing the latest fashions of the towns corrupts the nymphs; Colax, whose courtier-airs find an easy prey in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... could not help smiling a little. He was supposed to be a "Red" already, to have been one of their leading conspirators. But Guffey had abandoned that pretence—or perhaps had ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... a pretence of cleaning a palette. "You'd hardly care to venture out in the street after that. You'd be hooted; stoned, perhaps. It's bad enough already. The reason you hired me was to prevent unpleasant experiences. But if every paper in town got after you—well, you couldn't go out except ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... the ill-advised and feeble King committed to Albany, who had been standing by waiting for some such piece of good fortune, the reformation of his son. The catastrophe was not slow to follow. Rothesay was seized near St. Andrews on the pretence of stopping a mad enterprise in which he was engaged, and conveyed to Falkland, where he died in strict confinement, "of dysentery or others say of hunger" is the brief and terrible record—blaming no one—of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... protest against the outrageous pretensions of the 'commissioners,' who came there with Roland's commissions in one hand, and the secret instructions of Roland's colleague and master, Danton, in the other, to pillage the property of the inhabitants under the pretence of gathering supplies for the national defence, and to establish an irresponsible local despotism under the pretence of suppressing 'treason.' To them, in the first instance, belongs the credit of compelling Roland to get up before ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... once, but looked at his visitor over the spectacles which he wore. Phineas thought that he was even more haggard in appearance and aged than when they two had met hardly three months since at Loughlinter. There was no shaking of hands, and hardly any pretence at greeting. Mr. Kennedy simply bowed his head, and allowed his visitor to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... those contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips; they will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my innumerable cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they have followed to invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the vain pretence, that Mount Caucasus is the impregnable barrier of the Romans. I know the course of the Niester, the Danube, and the Hebrus; the most warlike nations have yielded to the arms of the Turks; and from the rising ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... more industriously did he labor to hurry forward the preparations for keeping her rapidly-approaching birthday with all splendor. While he was bringing up the new road from below behind the village, he made the men, under pretence that he wanted stones, begin working at the top as well, and work down, to meet the others; and he had calculated his arrangements so that the two should exactly meet on the eve of the day. The excavations for the new house were already ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... presented itself, one which she hesitated to speak of but which was a very serious one. How should she tell Edna what was in her mind? But she remembered that Edna had seen the poverty of the family stores and that there was no need to make any pretence to her. "There's another thing," she began, "I haven't any money, and I couldn't ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... every effort had been made to bail him, but was greatly deceived. His fate was sealed. A conspiracy was formed against him. He suspected foul play, because his former associates did not come forward and bail him. His removal to the hospital was only a pretence set up by them, that might give more time to carry out their treacherous designs. He was a prisoner, and they were determined to make him such the remainder of his life. He had his friends, however, warmhearted, and true. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... were not of wood It would not be good To laugh at the harm he has done; But 'twas only pretence, And there was not much sense In his crimes, or his grief, ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... sip at her coffee. Gervaise, realizing that she was expected to say something, asked, with a pretence of indifference: ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... tired." It was no pretence—such an afternoon, without the stimulant and sustenance ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... draw from the unsuspicious Nora the admission that they were very dull little birds, of no shape at all, who always sat hunched up in a corner without any fun, and people said their love was all stupidity and pretence; in fact, if she had one she should call it ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thought, tumble it must. But he knew that Apollo was learned and wise, And he hoped that his godship would give him a prize; Or, at least, to make up for his mortification, Would invite him to dinner without hesitation." Now Apollo, it seems, had some little pretence To a trifling proportion of wisdom and sense: So without ever asking the spark to be seated, He thus cut short his hopes, and his projects defeated. "After all, Mr. Buller, you've deign'd to repeat, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the cartridges of the 3rd Regiment Light Cavalry, and that they may be freely received and used as heretofore without in the slightest degree affecting any religious scruple of either a Hindu or Mussulman, and if any pretence contrary to that is urged, that it must be false.' This opinion, it must be remembered, was the opinion of Natives, not Europeans, and was given only sixteen days before the outbreak ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the most important business coming before our Highland Representative Institutions—such as the local Parliament of the Highland Capital, Gaelic and other Celtic Societies, and passing incidents likely to prove interesting to our Celtic readers. We make no pretence to give news; simply comments on incidents, information regarding which will be obtained through the ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... and art are now going on always together; that where there is no manufacture there is no art. I know how much there is of pretended art where there is no manufacture: there is much in Italy, for instance; no country makes so bold pretence to the production of new art as Italy at this moment; yet no country produces so little. If you glance over the map of Europe, you will find that where the manufactures are strongest, there art also is strongest. ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... night during which Isie Constable lay dreaming of racks, pincers, screws, and Alec Forbes, the snow was busy falling outside, shrouding the world once more; so that next day the child could not get out upon any pretence. Had she succeeded in escaping from the house, she might have been lost in the snow, or drowned in the Glamour, over which there was as yet only a rude temporary bridge to supply the place of that which had been swept away. But ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... blemishes in the poet's style are of such quality and magnitude as to deny him even a hearing from those who love a continuous literary decorum and are grown to be intolerant of its absence. And it is well to be clear that there is no pretence to reverse the condemnation of those faults, for which the poet has duly suffered. The extravagances are and will remain what they were. Nor can credit be gained from pointing them out: yet, to put readers at their ease, I will here ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins |
