"Sham" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in George's well-known bold handwriting. It was that one which he had written before daybreak on the 16th of June, and just before he took leave of Amelia. The great red seal was emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from the Peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal house with which the vain old man tried to fancy himself connected. The hand that signed it would never hold pen or sword more. The very seal that ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... here will make a poor book of it. Yet if machine-made paper must be used, it should not profess fineness or luxury, but should show itself for what it is: for my part I decidedly prefer the cheaper papers that are used for the journals, so far as appearance is concerned, to the thick, smooth, sham-fine papers on which respectable books are printed, and the worst of these are those which imitate ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... and reached the camp just as the fort was being stormed. That evening we had an audience of the Pasha, in which Englefield laid the whole matter before him; he spoke us fair, and promised help, but it was all a sham, a regular sham; you will not wonder this when I tell you that Orlando Jones, unseen by us was at the Pasha's elbow, bribing, cringing, and sticking at nothing to gain his ends! It seems the wretched ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... that God is magic, is the heresy that calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the order of events for our ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... he said to the lawyer, "and you can't blame her much. She cal'lates New York's nothin' but a sham from stern to stern, manned by liars and swindlers and hypocrites and officered by thieves. 'Tain't no use to tell her 'tain't, though she might pretend to believe it, if I told her, for just now the poor girl thinks I'm Solomon and Saint Peter rolled into one. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Mr. Orgreave, who had wandered, smiling enigmatically, to the sofa. His legs, like the whole of his person, had a distinguished air; and he held up first one slippered foot and then the other to the silent, sham-ecstatic inspection of the girls. "He may look in again, later on. It's evidently Hilda he wants to see." This said, Mr. Orgreave lazily sank into an easy chair, opposite the sofa, and lighted a cigarette. He was one of the most industrious men ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... false Sodemytes. Quesmers of chyldren wyth fornycatours. wetewoldes that suffre syn in their syghtis. Auoutrers and abhomynable auauntours. Of syn grete clappers & makers of clamours Vnthryftes & vnlustes came al to that game {with} lusk{i}s & loselis {that} might not thryue for sham{e} ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... his words. A place where the sand was very much tracked by the huge feet of the megapodes soon presented itself, exactly resembling the spot where they had procured the first supply of eggs. But on probing it with the boat-hook, Saloo at once pronounced it one of the sham nests. ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... old regime which, in a Bismarckian phrase, was like paper pasted over ever-widening cracks, was abandoned. The Separatist programme triumphed. And the outcome? The sham unity of government has been replaced by a real unity of interest, affection and cultural affinity. We find administrators like Mr Lyttleton, former Tory Secretary for the Colonies, engaged to-day not in suppressing but in celebrating the "varied individuality" ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... place to place selling sham relics. Augustine wrote against "those hypocrites who, in the dress of monks, wander about the provinces carrying pretended relics, amulets, preservatives, and expecting alms to feed their lucrative ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... had a perfect craze for being despised. I doated on being despised; and considered contempt the sincerest a sort of luxury, that I was in continual fear of losing. I lived in a panic, lest I should be suspected of shamming contemptibility. But I did not sham it. I trusted that I was really entitled to contempt; and, for this, I had some metaphysical-looking reasons, which there may be occasion to explain further on. At present, it is sufficient to give a colorable rationality to my craze, if I say, that the slightest approach to any favorable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and sprang off to run, but checked himself in five steps. "I don't seem able to stop your foolish talking," he said, "but you shall not chase around like that. You'll stay with me. I tell you that's a sham. Look at it." Obedient, he looked hard at it, and the cactus and rocks thrust through the watery image of the lake like two photographs on the same plate. He shouted with strangling triumph, and continued shouting ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... came in for an estate of two hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he took up a swaggering tone among us. He was vulgar in the extreme, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even in his swaggering. In spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled before Zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. And it was not from any interested motive that they grovelled, but simply because he had been favoured by the gifts of nature. Moreover, it was, as it were, an ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... return the letter. It is, as you say, very genuine, truthful, affectionate, maternal—without a taint of sham or exaggeration. Mary will love her child without spoiling it, I think. She does not make an uproar about her happiness either. The longer I live the more I suspect exaggerations. I fancy it is sometimes a sort of fashion for each to vie with the other in protestations about ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... all. Servants one never saw, nor any waiter proper; one's every need was carried out by a very small and very enthusiastic boy. "Is the hroom good, sare?" he asked, as he flung open the door of the bedroom with a superb flourish. "Is the sham good, sare?" he asked as he laid a pot of preserve on the table. He was the landlady's son or grandson, and a better boy never lived, but his part, for all his spirit and good humour, was a tragic one. For the greatest misfortune that can come upon an hotel-keeper had crushed ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... blood was up, could hardly be restrained from falling tooth and nail on the prostrate foe. "Han's uff! You's chawed up one uf de varmints; jes' let Burlman Rennuls wind up dis one. Han's uff, I say; or I'll——." And with this the Fighting Nigger made a sham thrust with the knife at his comrade's nose, which forced him to fall back a few paces, where he sat doggedly down on his tail, with the injured air of a faithful follower who had been defrauded of ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the hills by Sham Castle and across the Golf Links, being heartily sworn at—in the distance—by sundry retired officers for not getting out of the way. But I was trying to have a good think over Mr. Saumarez, his duplicate glass eyes, and the reason why he wanted ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... she is advancing. Here's no heed of full powers and commissions; My cloudy duke! we understand each other— And without words. What could I not unriddle, Wherefore the daughter should be sent for hither, Why first he, and no other should be chosen To fetch her hither? This sham of betrothing her To a bridegroom [9], whom no one knows—No! no! This may blind others! I see through thee, brother! But it beseems thee not to draw a card At such a game. Not yet! It all remains Mutely delivered up ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... against the skill and craftiness of another; but to come out of a town filled with food to shoot down a soft-eyed, pretty gazelle—ah, that was crueller than the deliberate and cold-blooded murder of a fellow man. Tarzan would have none of it, and so he hunted alone that none might discover the sham that he was practicing. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... James the Just, in a passage of terrible truth and power, tells us that we are already as good as perfect men if we can bridle our tongue; and that, on the other hand, if we do not bridle our tongue, all our seeming to be religious is a sham and a self-deception,—that man's religion ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... part I take in party fray, With tropes from Billingsgate's slang-whanging Tartars, I fear no Pope—and let great Ernest play At Fox and Goose with Fox's Martyrs! I own I laugh at over-righteous men, I own I shake my sides at ranters, And treat sham Abr'am saints with wicked banters, I even own, that there are times—but then It's when I 've got my wine—I say ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... shape of tobacco and other American commodities failed to arrive; his royal copartners declined to make further advances; the ready money was gone, credit had been strained to the breaking point, and a real bankruptcy impended over the sham firm. Thus in the autumn and early winter of 1776 prospects in France wore no cheerful aspect for the colonies. It was at this juncture that Franklin arrived, and he came like a reviving breeze ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... under the shock and shame of her mother's guilt and her own solitude, Domini was unable to share her father's intensely egoistic view of the religion of the culprit. She could not be persuaded that the faith in which she had been brought up was proved to be a sham because one of its professors, whom she had above all others loved and trusted, had broken away from its teachings and defied her own belief. She would not secede with her father; but remained in the Church ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... with Mir Jafar were drawn up; one on red paper, known as lal kagaz, containing a clause embodying Omichand's demand; the other on white, containing no such clause. Admiral Watson, with bluff honesty, refused to have anything to do with the sham treaty; it was dishonorable, he said, and to ask his signature was an affront. But his signature was necessary to satisfy Omichand. At Clive's request, it was forged by Mr. Lushington, a young writer of the Company's. The red treaty was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... me. After that, as I saw that he had not maligned my class, and that the harsh and bitter things he said about it were justified, I had drawn closer to him again. He became my oracle. For me he tore the sham from the face of society and gave me glimpses of reality that were as unpleasant ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... unusual interest of late. In addition to the maneuvers of the school for mounted service, in which the soldiers have been regularly drilled, engaging in sham battles, throwing up mimic fortifications, fording the rivers, etc., the War Signal Service has been conducting some interesting experiments. The Signal Service has had its huge balloon, which was exhibited at the World's Fair, at the post, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... another's assertion or tale. To assist a man in cheating. The file kidded the joskin with sham books, and his pall capped; the deep one cheated the countryman with false cards, and his confederate ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... friend, Mrs. RAM, says she will not be "sham pooh'd;" she will be either really pooh'd, or not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... but the treacherous savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not more than a dozen died of injuries. He had a hand, besides, in the amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had stood at his right hand and boomed amens. This, when he was sure he was among good fellows, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Cardan's achievements in Medicine and Mathematics. But in appraising the qualifications of Naude to act as a judge in this case, it will be necessary to bear in mind the fact that he was in his day a leading exponent of liberal opinions, the author of a treatise exposing the mummeries and sham mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and of an "Apologie pour les Grands Hommes soupconnez de Magie," and a disbeliever in supernatural manifestations of every kind. With a mind thus attuned it is no matter of surprise that Naude ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... not based on reality; sham, in a large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... only a plain country squire. Of course I should call such dealing with an Act of Parliament a lie and a sham-But about these things, I fancy, the women know best. Jane is ten thousand times as good as I am-you don't know half her worth-And I haven't the heart to contradict her-nor the right either; for I have no reasons to give her; no ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... for women are said to have existed in France, and towards the end of the century several excellent women, such as the Duchesse de Bourbon and the Princesse de Lamballe, played a leading part in the Order. But this Maconnerie d'Adoption, as it was called, retained a purely convivial character; a sham ceremonial, with symbols, pass words, and a ritual, was devised as a consolation to the members for their exclusion from the real lodges. These mummeries were, as Ragon observes, "only the pretexts for assemblies; the real objects were the banquet ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... watching every feature, every inflection of my voice. I was ordered to rest in Italy, and when I learned I should there meet General Laurance, I consented to go. Before leaving Paris, I saw the only child of that hideous iniquitous sham marriage; and, darling, when I contrasted you, my own pure pearl, with the deformed, dwarfish, repulsive daughter, whom the Nemesis of my wrongs gave to Cuthbert, in little Maud Laurance, I almost shouted aloud ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... once you call'd Your Saviour in Distress, You in his first Request deny'd, And then his Royal Patience try'd With a canting sham Address. ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... suddenly and leaning back in his chair, as if about to administer a poser.] By the way, Mr. Dunning, you tell us you have a strong conviction that Messrs. Hopwood & Co. are a myth, and their offices a sham—[caustically] may I ask whether you've tried to ascertain who is the actual tenant of the room and ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... you to remember my last words. Addressing myself to you, as teachers, I would say, mere book learning in physical science is a sham and a delusion—what you teach, unless you wish to be impostors, that you must first know; and real knowledge in science means personal acquaintance with the facts, be they ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... There was therefore an air of unreality about this debate, spirited as it was, nor is it easy to understand what practical object enlightened men like Peel could have sought in prolonging it. He well knew, and admitted in private correspondence, that reform was inevitable; he must have known that a sham reform would be a stimulus to revolutionary agitation; yet he strove to mutilate the bill so that it might pass its second reading in the house of lords, and there undergo such further mutilation as would destroy ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the world's greatest sham of a nation, the 'English cousin,' the Judas among the nations, who betrays Germanism for thirty pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual France, the harlot amongst the peoples. Against us stands Russia, inwardly ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... have me sham insanity during the trial, and he became irritably insolent in his manner toward me because I positively refused to do so. He told me that if I stuck to the truth I would surely be convicted, but if I followed his advice by openly assuming idiotic ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... dedicated to me—flat out—and you even crossed out the dedication and tidied me out of the introduction. Listen to me, Pembroke. You've done people all your life—I think without knowing it, but that won't comfort us. A wretched devil at your school once wrote to me, and he'd been done. Sham food, sham religion, sham straight talks—and when he broke down, you said it was the world in miniature." He snatched at him roughly. "But I'll show you the world." He twisted him round like a baby, and through the open door they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a rivulet ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... that the attitude of the Socialists toward "tainted wealth" was all a sham. What had happened was simply that the German members of the local were getting German money, and making it "Socialist money" by the simple device of passing it through their consecrated hands. As this had been hinted by Norwood ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... never you mind about that. You wait till Tommy Smith comes up, and us two'll give yer a real 'poo, sir—none of yer sham 'uns—and make yer jyntes as lissom as injy rubber. Why, sir, we begun to think you was a goner. How did yer ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... womanhood. But while we recommend this as of very great importance, we say it is not enough. Good behavior must spring from a good heart. If it is studied as an outside fitness, a cloak, or a fashionable attire, it will not answer the purpose for which it is intended. A purely outside life is a sham, and sooner or later defeats itself. There is no concealing a bad heart. It may be done for a little while, but it can not be kept concealed. Like murder, it will out. So a heart that is not particularly bad, but only lacks true principle, will soon expose its hollowness. Its want of moral ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... back to the house and into the cellar. By merely sounding along the wall we discovered the door; it was cleverly constructed and for a time defied our efforts; but Jerome got it open by means of a jemmy and a pick. The outside was a clever piece of sham work shaped like stone and smeared over with cement. In the dim light ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... bear-kill, right then t' go home 'n' lie about, tellin' how they fit with it, would 'a suited our sham hunters better 'n' a whole passle o' antlers; so I busted through th' bush fast as I could, fallin' 'n' rippin' my clothes nigh off—only t' find our hounds snappin' 'n' bayin' round a mighty big buck, that when I first sighted him, seemed to be jest standin' ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... kind intention for the reformation of criminals that were not utterly bad, while the English Government would keep all the worst prisoners at home under lock and key. But the colonies had no desire to receive even the better half of the prisoners. They were afraid that cunning criminals would sham a great deal of reformation in order to be set free, and would then revert to their former ways whenever they were let loose in the colonies. But Earl Grey was resolved to give the criminal a fair chance. ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... content.' Seek for your life's delight and treasure in thought, in truth, in pure affections, in moderate desires, in a spirit set on God. These are the realities of our possessions. As for all the rest, it is sham and show. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... avoid the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those who experience it mild and soft, and the very reverse of vigorous, and like those cushions for women's heads, which seem able to stand their ground, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... by the little sham mahogany table, upon which the big brass samovar steamed and whispered, listening to her and watching her. She gave him his glass of the pale-yellow Russian tea that neither cheers nor inebriates, but merely distends and irrigates, and sat over against him, sipping at her glass and returning ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of genius. I submit that it was an inversion of the true critical method to wreck Sterne's Sentimental Journey at the outset by picking Sterne's life to pieces, holding up the shreds and warning the reader that any nobility apparent in his book will be nothing better than a sham. Sterne is scarcely arrived at Calais and in conversation with the Monk before you are cautioned how you listen to the impostor. "Watch now," says the critic; "he'll be at his tricks in a moment. Hey, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... erect that they leaned backward. They were the people who thanked God that they were not like unto other men. They were the "uncommonly good" members of church and society. The very name stands even unto this day as a synonym for "pious sham." ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as an impersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perversely refused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effort she was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantoms there were only two real persons; a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... was suddenly aware of the girl's round blue eyes wandering, as it were, mechanically to her hand. This little hoop of gold, then, had an awful power! A rush of disgust came over her. All life seemed suddenly a thing of forms and sham. Everybody then would look at that little ring; and she was a coward, saving herself from them! When she was alone again, she slipped it off, and laid it on the washstand, where the sunlight fell. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... opposed to 'forms' of religion save where they overwhelm religion itself and allow the Spirit to be utterly lost in the Letter. For 'the letter killeth,—the spirit giveth life.' So far as a 'form' may make a way for truth to become manifest, I am with it,—but when it is a mere Sham or Show, and when human souls are lost rather than saved by it, I am opposed to it. And with all my deficiencies I am conscious that I may risk the chance of a lower world's disdain, seeing that the 'higher world without end' is open to me in its imperishable brightness and beauty, to live in ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... spunk, all the energy, had been sapped out of me long before, and even her promise couldn't revive it. My search for a berth wasn't much more than a sham. At the back of my head I knew very well what I'd come to. The only work I was capable of was dancing attendance on her, and filling in what remained of the day and night at a rotten restaurant, a Bohemian ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... eyes and answer or evade her questions, the whole horror of the previous night's adventure rushed back upon Charity. What had been a feverish nightmare became a cold and unescapable fact. Poor Ally, at that moment, represented North Dormer, with all its mean curiosities, its furtive malice, its sham unconsciousness of evil. Charity knew that, although all relations with Julia were supposed to be severed, the tender-hearted Ally still secretly communicated with her; and no doubt Julia would exult in the chance of retailing the scandal ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... much or too little violence to the principles of the ancient constitution—all these topics, we say, would, if we were so inclined, supply us, as they have supplied Mr. Macaulay, with abundant opportunities of grave tautology and commonplace; but we decline to raise sham debates on points where there is no contest. We can have little historic difference, properly so called, with one who has no historical difference on the main facts with anybody else: instead, then, of pretending to treat any great questions, either of constitutional ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... said he, "are you aware that Italy is in secret accord with France, and that the Triple Alliance is a sham, and that the cry A Berlin! may ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... me," I interrupted, "but you are overlooking facts. The fall over the cliff was premeditated, the sprained foot was a sham, the whole affair was clearly planned in order that he might be left alone in my room. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rural Utopia by any means, but the chief ideals of the life there are practically identical with those that have made country life in the English counties world-famous. As a type, this is, in fact, the real thing. No sham, no artificiality, no suspicion of mushroom growth, no evidence of exotic forcing are to be found in Loudoun, but the culmination of a ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Waller hotly, "but I have. There, it's no use to try and keep up that sham. What have you been doing? You may just as well confess. There, you have got your boots on, too. You have not ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... and puzzleder," said Samson, grimly, "more than ever I was. I never knowd why we all began fighting, and you don't make it a bit clearer, Master Fred. I believe you're a reg'lar sham, sir, pretendin' that Master Scar's your enemy, and all the time you seem as if you'd go through fire and water to help him. Why, we shall be having your father and Sir Godfrey shaking hands and dining together just as they did in ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... sentimentality plus orthodoxy of similar work in the nineteenth. Benassis no doubt plays Providence in a manner and with a success which it is rarely given to mortal man to achieve; but we do not feel either the approach to sham, or the more than approach to gush, with which similar handling on the part of Dickens too often affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... decolletee, and ornamented with a large cheap lace collar. I have dined with people whose silver, glass, and food were all luxurious; while the girl who waited on us wore a red and white checked blouse, a plaid neck-tie with floating ends, and an enormous brooch of sham diamonds. In South Germany the servants wear a great deal of indigo blue: stuff skirts of plain blue woollen, with blouses and aprons of blue cotton that has a small white pattern on it. Some ladies keep smart white aprons to lend their servants on state occasions, but the laciest apron will ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... of the matter was, that the sickness of the Lion was only a sham to draw the beasts into his den, the ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... heaven would have opened to her— a little way at least—probably to close again for a time. Now she felt crushed. The idea of undertaking that for which she knew herself so ill fitted was not merely odious but frightful to her. She was ready enough to work, but it must be real, not sham work. She must see and consult Mary! This was quite another affair from Tom! She would take the first opportunity. In the mean time there was nothing to be done or said; and with a heavy heart she held her peace—only longed ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... stories," continued Uncle Frederick, "the one, about a sham fight in Sweden, is a good half-hour long. But the other, the battle of Waterloo, generally lasts from an hour and a half to two hours. I have heard it three times." ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... try to be as patient as I can. I have been a good deal better for some days, and if you could see our house you would not believe a word about my not being well, and would know my saying so was all a sham. To tell the truth, it does look like a garden, and when I am sick I like to lie and look at what I did when I wasn't; my wreaths, and my crosses, and my vines, and my toadstools, and other fixins. Yesterday I made a bonnet of which I am justly proud; ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the sham of it all; the silly social distinctions; the fits and starts of hospitality; the dinners given for show. Nothing else going on between times; even the music is hired. I want to hear music that bubbles out—old Hannah singing in the kitchen, ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I'd—by Jove, I will, too! See here, you fellow: I'll fight you for it—pistols, or any thing. Come, now. I'll drop all considerations of rank. I'll treat you as if you were a real count, and not a sham one. Come, now. What do you say? Shall we have it out? Pistols—in the woods there. You've got all your infernal crew around you, you know. Well? What? You won't? ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... detachable from any definite social ambitions; these things are not a part of getting into society but merely of keeping out of savagery. Those millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle class especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to any aristocracy even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real snobs. But their standards are secure; and though I do not really travel in a bath-tub, or believe in the bath-tub philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter recoil misanthropically from them: ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... modesty on great men in modern times: as if Shakespeare alone should be unaware that he was Shakespeare or that Napoleon or Darwin or Lincoln or Cavour should each be ignorant of his worth. Better vanity, if you will, than sham modesty. There was no harm done that Roosevelt at twenty-three felt proud of being recognized as a power in the Assembly. We must never forget also that he was a fighter, and that his first contests in Albany had so roused his blood that he longed to fight those battles to a finish, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... our conversation Mr. Gerard suggested that the realisation of far-reaching aspirations in Belgium would give King Albert merely a sham authority and asked whether it would not be better for Germany to forego such plans and instead of them endeavour to acquire Liege which Mr. Gerard thought possible ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... she raised her eyes again as she asked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I do not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... MOBUTU seized power and declared himself president in a November 1965 coup. He subsequently changed his name - to MOBUTU Sese Seko - as well as that of the country - to Zaire. MOBUTU retained his position for 32 years through several subsequent sham elections as well as through the use of brutal force. Ethnic strife and civil war, touched off by a massive inflow of refugees in 1994 from fighting in Rwanda and Burundi, led in May 1997 to the toppling of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... into what has now become their own country. They winter in Lincolnshire, gathering fresh strength during 873 from the never-failing sources of supply across the narrow seas. Again, however, in this year of ominous rest they renew their sham peace with poor Buhred and his Mercians, who thus manage to tide it over another winter. In 874, however, their time has come. In the spring, the pagan army under the three kings, Guthrum, Oskytal, and Amund, burst into Mercia. In this one only of the English Teutonic ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... concentrated thought of the English people under Puritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... humor of Goldsmith and Irving, and differs, in degree at least, from the comic almanac exaggeration and coarseness which preceded it, puts its foot on every bud of sentiment, holds few things sacred, and refuses to regard anything in life seriously. But it has no mercy for any sham. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... coarse ones, of the originals." And it does not at all improve the false copy that it is to be bought for less than the true one costs. It would be bad enough merely to deprive Mr. Crane of the profits of selling an exact imitation of his book, but it is far worse to put a bad sham before the people as the work of a true artist. This not only lessens his gains, but also takes away from his good name, besides spoiling the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... "to to discuss the question of granting the Jews equal rights with those of the other (Russian) subjects." On one occasion the editor of the Razswyet, , in appealing to the authorities of St. Petersburg against the prohibition of a certain article by the Odessa censor, had to resort to the sham argument that the incriminated article referred merely to the necessity of granting the Jews equality in the right of residence but not in other rights. But even this stratagem failed of its object. After a year of bitter struggle against the interference of the censor and against ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... practice going on around you, is at such a low ebb, they do undoubtedly want instruction in the history of the arts: these two things schools of design can give: but the royal road of a set of rules deduced from a sham science of design, that is itself not a science but another set of rules, will lead nowhere;—or, let us rather ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... possession of highly military qualities, in a quarter where it was least expected. In reply, the troops fired grape and small arms, but without any intention of doing mischief. The rioters again fired at the troops, but not the slightest harm resulted to the troops. It was a kind of sham battle. The military authorities began, however, to tire of it, and the mob was fired into, when one man having been killed, and another having been dangerously wounded, the mutineers dispersed, leaving some of the most daring among them, to keep up a straggling fire from the bushes! The military ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... one remove from them. A garbled quotation from the Scriptures or an appeal to their domestic affections is the very thing required. Moreover, the man understands an audience. He can bully it, you know; put on airs of sham independence to cover his real obeisance; while you are polite and deferent to hide your very ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... conservation of what is imperfect and the attempt to erect an airy fabric which has no basis upon the solid earth; and Browning on the whole preferred a veritable civitas hominum, however remote from the ideal, to a sham civitas Dei or a real Cloudcuckootown. "It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things, which have long gone together, are as it were confederate within themselves; whereas ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... in one part; in the other, infernal. For it is withal the breaking out of universal mankind into Anarchy, into the faith and practice of NO-Government,—that is to say (if you will be candid), into unappeasable Revolt against Sham-Governors and Sham-Teachers,—which I do charitably define to be a Search, most unconscious, yet in deadly earnest, for true Governors and Teachers. That is the one fact of World-History worth dwelling on at this day; and Friedrich cannot be said to have ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... men with our blood and our names have stood on this hill to hear the voice of the people, and to do justice between man and man. That's what the place was meant for. If it has lost that meaning, root it up—it is a show and a sham." ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... invaders of his rights withstood," was surprised in his own house by major Weymies, who tore him away from his shrieking wife and children, marched him up to Cheraw court-house, and after exposing him to the insults of a sham trial, had him condemned and hung! The only charge ever exhibited against him was, that he had shot across Black river at one of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... narrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to deplore in England at this day;—sensation which spends itself in bouquets and speeches: in revellings and junketings; in sham fights and gay puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble nations murdered, man by man, without an effort ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... given by Gruenstein of boys engaged in a sham fight. At first the contending parties are timorous, appearing ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... and clothes carefully washed, and the rich deck themselves out in their gold and silver brocaded vests and pantaloons. During these seven days there is general rejoicing, and the Arabs spend most of this time in the village street, racing, firing guns, or engaging in sham battles between the different camps, during which one carries the green, or sacred banner, which is supposed to render the bearer invulnerable. The battle ends by the standard-bearer being fired at by ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... life and spirits, Caper,' continued Phlamm, 'full of 'em; but Rocjean is more serious, more imbued with his nobil calling. My illustration, as he understands, would convey the idea that such a thing as foreground in a painting is false; it's a sham, it's a delusion, and all that. It may do for pre-Raffleites, but for a man who looks Naychure in the face, he sees her operating diversely, and he works according. I repeat it again, when I was on the Grand Canal in Venice, I didn't see ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the South where the Negro was treated with anything like decency. During the Civil War one of my young masters was killed, and two were severely wounded. I recall the feeling of sorrow which existed among the slaves when they heard of the death of "Mars' Billy." It was no sham sorrow, but real. Some of the slaves had nursed "Mars' Billy"; others had played with him when he was a child. "Mars' Billy" had begged for mercy in the case of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them. The sorrow in the slave quarter ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... the seer called to lead out of this chaos," the woman whispered. "I know this from my own life. But for you I would be listening to idiotic platitudes, cultivating sham, my very soul 'crucified between a whimper and a smile.' I owe it to you that I am a woman—not a cross between ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... on account of the threats of the insurgent battalions, who burst open the doors after General Gourgaud had in vain tried to stop them. Armand Marrast, one of the editors of the National, after looking at the invaders, said: "These are the sham public; I shall call the real!" A few minutes afterward shots were heard in the court of the palace; the posts in the hands of the National Guard opened before the triumphant mob, who, after sacking the Tuileries, hurried ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... complied with the taste of the age, that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and the notion of pre-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of the prophets." The sincere believer is usually the first to detect and be disgusted with the sham one; and Addison was always a sincere believer, but he had also that happy nature in which disgust is carried quickly and easily off through the safety-valve of ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... he said, "could not live long in the atmosphere of England—an atmosphere of sham, prudery, conventionality, and hollowness"! See article on "Treitschke," by W.H. Dawson, in the Nineteenth Century ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... had truly loved him, for she had been a wise observer of men and affairs, and Lester had always appealed to her as a real man. He was so sane, she thought, so calm. He was always intolerant of sham, and she liked him for it. He was inclined to wave aside the petty little frivolities of common society conversation, and to talk of simple and homely things. Many and many a time, in years past, they had deserted a dance to sit out on a balcony somewhere, and talk while Lester smoked. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... my life; but I'd rather die twenty times than owe anything to him. He knew before I was born that he was going to wreck my life, and he did it, and he wrecked yours, and his marriage with any other woman but you is a lie and a sham, and Estelle knows it very well. Now I hate her as much as him, and I hate those who let her marry him, and I hate the clergyman that will do it; and if I could ruin them by killing myself on their doorstep, I would. But he wouldn't care for that. If I was to do that, it would just ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... and, as I was not at home, your mother called her a beggar woman, and turned her out; but I gave it to the old woman. She pretended not to hear, like she always does when one tells her unpleasant truths, but she is no more deaf than I am, as you know. It is all a sham, and the proof of it is, that she went up to her own room immediately, without ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... they were thus sufficiently prepared, we proceeded to conclude our alliance of peace and friendship. First of all, however, Johnston announced to the abashed and silently retreating victims of yesterday's sham fight that we whites had forgiven them, that in the solemn act now beginning we wished to look upon none but contented faces, and that therefore they were to have presents given them. When this had been ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument of intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... stood idly at the window of his bedroom, watching the gas lamps of Trafalgar Road wax brighter in the last glooms of twilight, he was still occupied with the sham and the unreason and the lack of scruple suddenly revealed in the life of the elder generation. Unconsciously imitating a trick of his father's when annoyed but calm, he nodded his head several ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... certain men who had banded together to revenge their defeat on that occasion, and ruin his client, boldly demanded that the prisoner should be discharged, or his conspiring enemies be compelled to proceed at once with "their sham prosecution," as he put on ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... there is a Turkish saying known to all Turks educated or ignorant, dweller in city or in obscure village, which reads, Evelli Sham, Akhuri Sham. Now Sham is the Turk's name for Damascus, Evelli means first, and Akhuri means last: and the meaning of the saying in English would be something like this, "Damascus is everything to the Turk, and when it falls all is lost." Probably ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... her invalid airs. She will talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and of the soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she has had, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you with disgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferings are not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, a successful attack may be made on that singular ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... father at home. Indeed there were various things about him suggested "home." Did one want one's own jeered at? One might see crudities one's self, but was one going to have supercilious outsiders coughing those sham coughs ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... reality; seeming innocence comes very near in meaning to probable guilt. Apparent indicates less assurance than probable, and more than seeming. A man's probable intent we believe will prove to be his real intent; his seeming intent we believe to be a sham; his apparent intent may be the true one, tho we have not yet evidence on which to pronounce with certainty or even with confidence. Likely is a word with a wide range of usage, but always implying the belief that the thing ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... person made it his diversion to alarm the inhabitants, in January 1804, by assuming the figure of a spectre. This sham ghost has certainly much to answer for. One poor woman, who was far advanced in her pregnancy of a second child, was so much shocked, that she took to her bed, and survived only two days. She had been crossing near the church-yard ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... the mightiness of His mercy, Joe. 'Twas the God us worships, you mind, not Him of the Luke Gosp'lers nor any other 'tall. Theer's awnly wan real, livin' God; an' you left Him for a sham." ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... an assurance that had come to her in the early days from her friends, that there was a mine of wealth in Hook Court, from whence would always come for her use, house and furniture, a carriage and horses, dresses and jewels, which latter, if not quite real, should be manufactured of the best sham substitute known. Soon after her brilliant marriage with Mr Dobbs Broughton, she had discovered that the carriage and horses, and the sham jewels, did not lift her so completely into a terrestrial paradise as she had taught herself to expect that they ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of all is the excuse that their books reach the Nursery and the Young Ladies' School. Do they suppose by any chance that their books grapple with the real life of Nurseries and Young Ladies' Schools? If they grappled with that they might grapple with anything. It is a subterfuge, a sham, and with fatty degeneration eating away the muscular fibre of their hearts, they ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... into her hand, but although I waited in suspense nearly all day she sent no reply. While Woodroffe was in the hotel I dared not show myself lest he should recognize me, therefore I was compelled to sham indisposition and to eat my ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... cost them most wounds was probably that which they fought in defense of their own right to social veracity and sincerity in their thee-ing and thou-ing, in not doffing the hat or giving titles of respect. It was laid on George Fox that these conventional customs were a lie and a sham, and the whole body of his followers thereupon renounced them, as a sacrifice to truth, and so that their acts and the spirit they professed might ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... playing a bluff game, and I knew it, for as yet I had not secured my credentials; but when I saw the swart face of the sham agent change to a sickly yellow, and Smug begin to draw back and look anxiously from left to right, I was inwardly triumphant; but, alack! it is only in fiction that the clever detective always has the best of it, and at this moment there ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch |
