"Deceptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... illusion is a misleading or deceptive appearance. The happiness that he had looked forward to was turning out ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... the gardens of Versailles—fearing to express delight, lest she should be reproved for levity—or desire for any thing, lest it should be the very thing she would not be permitted to possess—the proud, warm, frank-hearted Jewess became gradually metamorphosed into the cunning, passionate, deceptive intriguante, only waiting for an opportunity to deceive her guardians, and obtain that which, from being so strictly forbidden, she concluded must be the greatest possible enjoyment—freedom of word and action. Alas! if we may use a homely phrase, many are the victims to strait-lacing, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... decreases in width as it goes north, without losing much of its coarseness, and ends in Leesburg in a hooked curve. The outline of the diabase is suggestive of the flexed trap sheets of more northern regions, but this appearance is deceptive, since the diabase breaks directly across both red sandstone and limestone conglomerate, which have a constant north and south strike. An eastern branch of this mass crosses the Potomac as a small dike and passes north into Pennsylvania. The diabase dikes ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... lady," said the latter, with great alacrity, as Eleanor crossed the threshold. She returned the salutation; but her features were lighted up with a wild and deceptive brightness, and her glowing eye betrayed the fierce ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... was as straight as a die, and one could not possibly lose it; but it was difficult to know where we were, and occasional twinkling lights in houses and cottages on the road only made our whereabouts still more deceptive. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... orderlies were busy filling tulip glasses with that fragrant mixture, a May bowl, so grateful in its delicious iced condition, and yet so deceptive. Around a plain table in the small side room, away from the throng and undisturbed, several of the captains, the colonel, and two of the younger officers were playing "skat" at a penny the point. One of the lieutenants, to judge from his heated face and the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... in the text itself, and have omitted all except such as I thought would be desired by the reader. Every scholar knows how easy it is to increase the number of references almost indefinitely, and also how deceptive such an ostensible evidence of wide ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... went to Harlingen. I had intended to reach the town by steam-tram, but the time table was deceptive and the engine stopped permanently at a station two or three miles away. Fortunately, however, a curtained brake was passing, and into this I sprang, joining two women and a dominie, and together we ambled very deliberately into the quiet seaport. ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the black belt of gloom that lay below him. It would be hard to see a horse there, unless he got high enough to be silhouetted against that line of fire now flaring to the sky. But he heard the beat of hoofs, swift, sharp, louder—louder. The night shadows were deceptive. That wonderful light confused him, made the place unreal. Was he dreaming? Or had the long chase and his privations unhinged his mind? He reached for Nagger. No! The big black was real, alive, quivering, pounding the sand. He scented ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... (that which produces the deceptive appearance of a progressive motion in the waves of the sea) which makes a revolving cork-screw, held in a fixed position, seem to be advancing in that direction in which it would actually advance if the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... a pair of Scotch thread stockings, little prunella buskins, and her most deceptive corsets. She had her hair dressed in the fashion that most became her, and embellished it with a cap of the most elegant form. It is unnecessary to speak of her morning gown. A pious lady who lives at Paris ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... small vote for Hale a matter of serious discouragement. It was much smaller than that cast for Van Buren in 1848; but that was a deceptive epoch. Multitudes, and especially in the State of New York, then voted the Free Soil ticket who had never before shown any interest in the slavery question, and did not manifest it afterward. They were not Free Soil men, but Van Buren men, who hated ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... difference in the perfect God and perfect man does not remove the objection: for an epithet, which conceals half of a truth, the power and special concerningness of which, relatively to our redemption by Christ, depends on our knowledge of the whole, is a deceptive and ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the foot I raised Rekindled in my withered heart The fires of passion and its smart— Away! and cease to ring their praise For ever with thy tattling lyre, The proud ones are not worth the fire Of passion they so often raise. The words and looks of charmers sweet Are oft deceptive—like their feet. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... indeed presented a somewhat cheerless aspect, with its wire blinds and tall, straight windows. A gaunt, town-like house—such was the impression made upon the casual passer—by; but appearances are apt to be deceptive, and that same stranger would have speedily altered his impression, if he had been taken round the garden to view the other side of the house. It was almost impossible to believe in such a different aspect! From one side a busy high road, strings of cyclists, char a bancs driving ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... perceive that he was casting a reflection on his son, "I wish my personal means were larger, so that I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow; but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... taken in the discussion is far more simple. Since every sensation is a fragment of matter perceived by a mind, the aggregate of sensations constitutes the aggregate of matter. There is in this no deceptive appearance, and consequently no need to prove a reality distinct from appearances. As to the argument drawn from dreams and hallucinations which might be brought against this, I have shown how it is set ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... of the peasantry," quoth Mr. Wright, "are the shadows of a very remote antiquity." This proposition, thus broadly stated, we deny. Nothing is more deceptive than popular legends; and the "legends" we speak of, if they are to bear that name, have no claim to antiquity at all. They do not go beyond the ballads. They are palpably of subsequent and comparatively ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... long-sought angel, taught her the manoeuvre of the foot,—letting it peep beneath the petticoat, to show its tiny size, at the moment when the nose became aggressively red; in short, Madame d'Aubrion had cleverly made the very best of her offspring. By means of full sleeves, deceptive pads, puffed dresses amply trimmed, and high-pressure corsets, she had obtained such curious feminine developments that she ought, for the instruction of mothers, to have ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... rapid growth of our cities in every direction bespeaks most strongly the favorable circumstances by which we are surrounded. My happiness in the retirement which shortly awaits me is the ardent hope which I experience that this state of prosperity is neither deceptive nor destined to be short lived, and that measures which have not yet received its sanction, but which I can not but regard as closely connected with the honor, the glory, and still more enlarged prosperity of the country, are destined at an early day to receive the approval of Congress. Under these ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and posterior diameter. The curious effect of this unusual conformation was rendered more striking by the absence of all hair. There was nothing on the Baron's head but a tightly fitting skull cap of black silk. A very deceptive wig hung upon one of the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... their horses faster. Finally they reached the summit of the slope. From that height they saw down into a round, shallow valley, which led on, like all the deceptive reaches, to the ranges. There was water down there. It glinted like red ribbon in the sunlight. Not a living thing was in sight. Joan grew more discouraged. It seemed there was scarcely any hope of overtaking Jim that day. His trail led off round to the left and grew difficult to follow. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... alone hope to erect any satisfactory individual exaltation. The King of Naples, though a man of excellent dispositions, and neither defective in valour nor in wisdom, might possibly have fallen a prey to some of the numerous deceptive artifices which originated in these causes, if the admirable political sagacity of his vigilant and august consort, the worthy daughter of Maria Theresa, aided by the keen council of our immortal Nelson, and the penetrative wisdom and address of the British minister and his accomplished lady, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... warm it might be, a breeze had a way of blowing into them, and that they were, withal, quite countryfied; but I am bound to say, Mrs. Gloverson, that there was nothing about them that ever reminded me, in the remotest degree, of daisies or new-mown hay. Thus, with sarcasm, do I smash the deceptive Gloverson. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the plain duty of this expert and uncorruptible person to furnish the unnecessary, but, nevertheless, very severe and self-opinionated Chang-ch'un with a written account of how the traitorous and deceptive Ling has endeavoured to break through the thirty-fourth vessel of the liquids to be consumed and not to be consumed," continued Wang with increased deliberation and an entire absence of attention to Ling's action and speech, "and how by this ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... theodolite." Thus to say that by injecting more democracy you can cure the defects of our present democracy is to express one of those epigrams that, like many of its kind, is either not true at all or is only partly true and is even more deceptive than ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... often deceptive. They were in this case. The elderly man was very much annoyed. When he had explained matters forcibly to me I went on down the hill ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... again, was but the manner in which a ruthless Nature set her lures; it was the deceptive vestment of romance. He held the ketch relentlessly on her course, with—now—all his thoughts, his inclinations, returning to Millie Stope. In a final, desperate rally of his scattering resolution he told himself that he was unfaithful to the tragic ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... immortal turned his face away, She, the compassionate, alone Took up her dwelling in that house of clay, With the deserted, banished one. With drooping wing she hovers here Around her darling, near the senses' land, And on his prison-walls so drear Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... much indeed, that, in point of population, the city of San Antonio de Bejar, with its bishopric and wealthy missions, has fallen to the rank of a small English village. It still carries on a considerable trade, but its appearance of prosperity is deceptive; and I would caution emigrants not to be deceived by the Texian accounts of the place. Immense profits have been made, to be sure; but now even the Mexican smugglers and banditti are beginning to be disgusted with the universal ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... two essential characteristics; where these are wanting, study does not exist; the appearance of it is a sham; and though results disconnected and partial are attained, real acquisition is meager, and apparent progress deceptive. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... last, but, womanlike, she evaded the issue her heart had sought. "Yes, I know. You think it would not be fair to throw away your life in this foolish manner after I have saved it for you—how many times was it you said?" The blue eyes lifted with deceptive frankness ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... until they were convinced of it by actual experience. As the canoe rounded a bend in the river, three large white objects appeared in the "reach" before them. A single glance satisfied all that they were swans, though in the deceptive glare of the torch, they appeared even larger than swans. Their long upright necks, however, convinced the party they could be nothing else, and the canoe ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... any patent is inoperative or invalid, by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming as his own invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, if the error has arisen by inadvertance, accident or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention, the Minister of the Interior shall, on the surrender of such patent and the payment of the same fees required by law upon the issue of an original or first patent, cause a new patent for the same invention, and in accordance with the corrected specification, to be issued to the patentee, ...
— Patent Laws of the Republic of Hawaii - and Rules of Practice in the Patent Office • Hawaii
... beautiful day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... is made, either at home or bought from other stables. The questions of manure and spawn are the most important that we have to deal with. Very few make their own spawn, as it is bought and accepted upon its good looks,—often rather deceptive,—but the manure business is entirely in our own hands, and success with it depends absolutely upon ourselves. We can not reasonably expect good results from poor manure nor from ill-prepared manure. It is only from the very best of horse manure prepared in the very best ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... these forms!" cried Niam. Compare with this from another source: "Flee from the Hall of Learning, it is dangerous in its perfidious beauty. .... Beware, lest dazzled by illusive radiance thy Soul should linger and be caught in its deceptive light. .... It shines from the jewel of the Great Ensnarer." There are centres in man corresponding to these appearances. They give vision and entrance into a red and dreadful world, where unappeasable desire smites the soul—a dangerous clairvoyence. But in the sphere beyond their power ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... something infantile and artless in its dark creases. The blue of innocence was in his eyes, and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair, falling naturally like that of the Christ in art, added to his ecstatic air a certain solemnity which was absolutely deceptive as to his real nature; for he was capable of committing any silliness with the most exemplary gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes looked too high among ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... logic; at any rate they have failed to satisfy, and matter is no nearer being got rid of now than it was when the discussion first began. Others, again, have tried materialism, have declared the causative action of both thought and feeling to be deceptive, and posit matter obeying fixed laws of which thought and feeling must be admitted as concomitants, but with which they have no causal connection. The same thing has happened to these men as to their opponents; they made out an excellent case on paper, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... good or bad, may intentionally cause the revival of impressions, and so, for their own purposes, produce the hallucinations from within. The coincidence of the hallucination with future events may arise from the fore-knowledge of the said angels, who, if evil, are deceptive, like Ahab's false prophets. The angel then, who, through one channel or another, fore-knows, or anticipates an event, 'has no more to do than to reverse the species of these things from a man's brain to the organ of the eye'. Substitute ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... bolder enmity of the blasphemer—we cannot contemplate the story of Christianity throughout our epoch, even in these islands and this empire, without seeing that the advance of the Faith is real and constant, the advance of the rising tide, and that her seeming defeats are but the deceptive reflux of ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... reasons for wishing that Clara should first see Colonel Le Noir with other company, to have an opportunity of observing him well and possibly forming an estimate of his character (as a young girl of her fine instincts might well do) before she should be exposed in a tete-a-tete to those deceptive blandishments he knew so well how to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Meanwhile the Persian Mirranes who commanded the garrison in Petra, fearing for the city, directed all the Persians to keep guard with the greatest diligence, and he himself went to Dagisthaeus, and addressed him with fawning speeches and deceptive words, agreeing readily to surrender the city not long afterwards. In this way he succeeded in deceiving him so that the Roman army did not ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... near him now. That also will fade in the desert of old barbed wire and weeds. When will he see that a doom is over all his ambitions? For his dreams of victory are like those last dreams that come in deceptive deserts ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... awful form towering into the sky, when he didn't suspect he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked a great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without trouble, or tramp, or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Caesars in his hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous vault, the skull of the universe, carries the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of the most savage Tartar chieftains, was an educated soldier. Possessing on his mother's side some Mongolian blood, he delighted in deceptive strategy and ambuscades, stopping short of nothing when he desired to fathom some secret or to set some trap. Deceitful by nature, he willingly had recourse to the vilest trickery; lying when occasion demanded, excelling in the adoption of all disguises and in every species of deception. Further, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... cigarette, ever looked more innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper, pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed that the smoking of a first cigarette, for all its seeming harmlessness, is liable to be followed by something in the nature of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... to you! I care not how high in station he who seeks me may be. Ambitious!—I was misled. His money lured me away, but he betrayed me in the face of his promises. Henceforth I have nothing for this deceptive world; I receive ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... at the deceptive bag in the most lugubrious astonishment. Surely the bag contained gold-dust when he concealed it. There could be no doubt on that point, for he had opened it and seen the contents for himself. But in that case, ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Creationist believes these three Rhinoceroses were created{176} with their deceptive appearance of true, not relationship; as well can I believe the planets revolve in their present courses not from one law of gravity but from distinct ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... petite blonde little woman of the deceptive age which the beauty parlors convey to thousands of their ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... be lengthened, the queen lay her eggs, provisions be stored, with no shelter other than that which the workers' own bodies provide. Our Northern bees have at times been known to revert to this instinct, under the deceptive influence of a too gentle sky; and swarms have been found living in the heart of a bush. But even in the Indies, the result of this habit, which would seem innate, is by no means favourable. So considerable a number of the workers are compelled ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... this paper a detailed account of the method used by the doctor. I will state that since that time I have very successfully operated this same test, minus the bowl of water and flame of fire; and that I can assure all that it is very practicable and that it is very deceptive. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Boiscoran family, No. 216 University Street, is a house of modest appearance. The yard in front is small; and the few square yards of damp soil in the rear hardly deserve the name of a garden. But appearances are deceptive. The inside is marvellously comfortable; careful and painstaking hands have made every provision for ease; and the rooms display that solid splendor for which our age has lost the taste. The vestibule ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... after his seizure. Bianca could not leave her couch to soothe his last moments. She was nearly as far gone as he, and her attendants waited upon her with the gloomiest forebodings. To her impassioned cries for her husband, they returned deceptive answers. None of her kith and kin were near to comfort her. Her only brother, Vettor, had been dismissed the Tuscan Court in the year of her coronation for unseemly and presumptuous behaviour, and his wife went back with ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... flatt, and continues so up to the skirts of the hills, which are at least 4 or 5 Miles inland. The whole face of the Country appears barren, nor did we see any signs of inhabitants.* (* This is a little south of Timaru, a rising town in a fertile district; so deceptive is appearance from the sea.) Latitude at Noon 44 degrees 44 minutes South; Longitude made from Banks' Island to this land 2 degrees 22 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... altered in character, during all the after years. For the suddenness of revulsion from horror to happiness, there has never been a minute in my existence comparable to the minute when I realized the idea that she had come. At first it seemed only a deceptive dream. Such happiness was incredible, and I did not even know she had been sent for; but the sweet reality entered into my heart like sunshine, and throwing my arms about her neck I burst into a passion of tears. She, in her quiet way, for she hardly ever yielded to a strong emotion, though ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... was twenty-two miles away, so deceptive is distance in these latitudes; and in one and a half days, over very heavy sastrugi, we were in its vicinity. The sledges could not be brought very near the rock as it was surrounded ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... differently occupied in the country. There is, however, a tendency in youth to rise with events that does not readily admit of depression, and the disorder of George Morton was one of all others the most flattering when near its close. Even the more mature experience of his parents was misled by the deceptive symptoms that his complaint assumed in the commencement of summer. They who so fondly hoped the result, began to believe that youth and the bland airs of June were overcoming the inexorable enemy. That the strength of the young man lessened with every succeeding day, was an event to be ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... asserted Jack confidently, turning to look back as he spoke. "Why, even now I can't discover a sign of the wings, or anything else in the misty moonlight, it's so deceptive. Only that lone tree standing close to where we dropped tells me the location of ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... object to your correspondent A. E. B.'s conjectural emendation, "recuse" for "secure," but that, unless my memory and Ayscough are both deceptive, the word "recuse" is nowhere to be found in Shakspeare; nor, as far as I know, in any dramatist of the age. If it be used by any of the latter, it is probably only in the strict legal meaning, which is quite different from that which A. E. B. would attach to it. This is conclusive with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... blues, greens, yellows, each by themselves, carefully arranged as to shades—cut the upper end so you need not be tempted to use too long needlefuls, and there your wools are neatly put away, and soon you can distinguish any shade by its position in the case, no matter how deceptive the lamp-light may be. Still, you will not need your case till you have a dozen different colors. If you buy your wools at first by the dozen, which is the cheaper way, be sure that your pinks, blues, greens, etc., ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lay now the white plain, scintillating under the high moon's rays. That light is deceptive; I could be sure of nothing upon the wide expanse but of the dark, leaping figures of the hounds already spread out in a straggling line, some right ahead, others just in front of us. In a short time also the icy wind, cutting my face ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... that you sent the paper to me, and that (if it turns out so) I thought it worth communicating to the Linnean Society. I shall feel great interest in studying all your facts on Primula, when they are worked out and the seed counted. Size of capsules is often very deceptive. I am astonished how you can find time to make so many experiments. If you like to send me your paper tolerably well written, I would look it over and suggest any criticisms; but then this would cause you extra copying. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... where he had expected to find either a mate or a rival, the big moose began to grumble deep in his throat and to shake his antlers threateningly. Then he advanced a few steps. Perspiration stood out upon the face of the Hermit, but he made no movement. The moonlight was deceptive and the beast did not see the man until he was uncomfortably close. Then a great bellow of rage burst from him. At the same moment the Hermit took the one chance that presented itself and dropped on the opposite side of the fence. The charge of the big ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... landing can be made with ease. Sometimes the water descends with a smooth, unruffled surface from the broad, quiet spread above into the narrow, angry channel below by a semicircular sag. Great care must be taken not to pass over the brink into this deceptive pit, but above it we can row with safety. I walk along the bank to examine the ground, leaving one of my men with a flag to guide the other boats to the landing-place. I soon see one of the boats make shore all right, and ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... of the dead; the dead, at least, were full of respect and submission; they resigned themselves to an order of exile; they carried their despair away with them in their hearts, like a priceless possession, because the despair was caused by the woman they loved, and because death, thus deceptive, was like a gift or ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a temporary embarrassment. The assets were vastly greater than the liabilities. There was talk in financial circles of an adjustment. With time the house could go on. The next day it was made a reproach to the house that such deceptive hopes were put upon the public. Journalistic enterprise had discovered that the extent of the liabilities had been concealed. This attempt to deceive the public, these defenders of the public interest would expose. The ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... herbage at our feet," says Ruskin, "take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped. heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, in whorls, in tufts, in wreaths, in spires, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from footstalks to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our wonder." Doubtless light is the factor with the greatest effect in determining the position ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... it in their power, they would rob even their nearest friends, thus overleaping that common law of "honour among thieves." They would do this with the utmost impunity, whenever they saw proper. There was no redress. The very officers were, many of them, under fictitious names and would assume deceptive titles, for the more ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... that no truth can be harmful to society. If he found any system of opinions, any given attitude of the mind, injurious to tranquillity and the public order, he instantly concluded that, however plausible they might seem when tested by logic and demonstration, they were fundamentally untrue and deceptive. What is logic compared with eternal salvation in the next world, and the practice of virtue in this? The recommendation of such a mind as De Maistre's is the intensity of its appreciation of order and social happiness. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... seemed at a distance. But this splendid external was deceptive. The government of the aristocracy was hastening to its ruin. There was a profound meaning, says Mommsen, in the question of Cato: "What was to become of Rome when she should no longer have any State to fear?" ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... consider as very distinct the two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as this pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over everybody else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men, literature, and the fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and Coburg of each year; interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... call on you to say anything about the matter, at all events at present," whispered the evil spirit in the young man's heart. "You may be mistaken. Why ruin your whole future prospects for a fancy? Likenesses are so deceptive; and as to the necklace, pooh! that is nonsense—there are hundreds of mosaic necklaces. Let the matter alone, and go your way. ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... Irish destitution, Irish misery, the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the face of this, that a beatific, beneficent creative, overruling power never wills that which is either tricky or deceptive? Or would you say that this material seeming in which we dwell is itself an illusion? If not, whence then the Ten Commandments and the illusion of justice? Why were the Beatitudes dreamed of and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... experimental, and passionate in its experiments. It was admirably disinterested. Partly from the pressure of opposition, partly because the family characteristics of the Cezannides are conspicuous, it acquired a rather deceptive air of homogeneity. It was inclined to accept recruits without scrutinizing over closely their credentials, though it is to be remembered that it kept its critical faculty sufficiently sharp to reject the Futurists while welcoming ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... possess these spiritual advantages. But it also appears to me that your notions of the 'spiritual' are not the same theirs, for you reject the New Testament dogmas as well as its history; if so, it is another reason for not misleading us by using language in deceptive senses. But, at all events, I cannot help pitying your poverty of thought, or poverty of expression,—one or both; and I beg you, for my sake, if not for your own, to express your thoughts as much as possible in your own terms, and avail yourself less liberally of those of David ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... to speak, and checked herself. She had been chiefly intent upon her own accomplishment, and Gerard's playing was of a deceptive ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... that our urban and other perplexing problems can be solved in the traditional American method. In doing so we must realize that nothing is really solved and ruinous tendencies are set in motion by yielding to the deceptive bait of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... the thought of Winifred Anstice, and their curious, mutually deceptive correspondence. In the swiftly thronging events of the last twenty-four hours, he had scarcely had time to let his mind dwell upon that strange clearing up between them last night. He smiled, unconsciously, as he remembered ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... wrath of lovers always ends in curses. I had no hopes to give her, nor treasures to offer her, for mine are given to Dulcinea, and the treasures of knights-errant are like those of the fairies,' illusory and deceptive; all I can give her is the place in my memory I keep for her, without prejudice, however, to that which I hold devoted to Dulcinea, whom thou art wronging by thy remissness in whipping thyself and scourging that flesh—would that I saw it eaten by wolves—which would rather keep itself ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... clinging closely to its walls, permitting it to display none of its exterior beauties, beyond what could be seen from the narrow streets that closed it in on every side. Gabriel, who was acquainted with its interior magnificence, thought of the deceptive oriental houses, outwardly squalid and miserable, but inwardly rich in alabasters and traceries. Jews and Moors had not lived in Toledo for centuries in vain, their aversion to outward show seemed to have influenced the building of the Cathedral, now suffocated by the miserable ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the two cotyledons are confluent (as are sometimes their blades at the base), and they break through the ground as an arch. They thus resemble in a most deceptive manner a hypocotyl. At first they are solid, but after a time become tubular; and the basal part beneath the ground is enlarged into a hollow chamber, within which the young leaves are developed without any prominent plumule. ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... eyes drew down, and they were blue, a sickly, pallid blue. With their descent his face became a death-mask. But Peter knew from many an observation that such signs were deceptive; knew that opium was a powerful and sustaining drug; knew that Harrison, while weak and stupid and raving, was ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... you the following pages, with my continued prayers to God, through our Great High Priest and coming King, that they may, in connection with God's Holy Word and guidance of the Divine Spirit, enable you more clearly to discover the deceptive arts of the Devil, and the agents he is employing in these last days, to betray and ensnare you in his (almost) innumerable and complicated variety of sins and snares; and see your true position just here under the HIGH LANDS of IMMORTALITY! Do not forget, while ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... dishes hypothecated from the culinary department. The issue of the stream from under a crown of indigenous growths was the site of this financial speculation. Pepe Garcia was placed at the head of the enterprise. A long ditch was dug, revealing milky quartz, ochres and clay. The deceptive hue of the yellow earth made the search a long and tantalizing one. At the moment when the colonel, attracted by something glistening in the large frying-pan which he was agitating at the edge of the stream, uttered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... like that of the figure 8[Symbol: 8 turned 90 deg.], although in old stems this may give place to an elliptical outline, but even then traces of two medullary canals may be found. This argument is very deceptive, for the appearance of the transverse section must depend, not only on the intimacy of their union, but also on the internal structure of the stems themselves. When two flowers cohere without much pressure they exhibit uniting circles somewhat resembling the figure of 8[Symbol: ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... repeal of the Missouri Compromise, approved the course of the New York senators and representatives who resisted it, declared that it discharged the party from further obligation to support any compromise with slavery, and denounced "popular sovereignty" as a false and deceptive cry, "too flimsy to mislead any but those anxious to be deluded and eager to be led astray." This declaration of principles was summarised as "Justice, Temperance, and Freedom." One delegate, amidst ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to show how deceptive appearances can be," went on Veath easily. "Don't you want to walk, Miss Ridge? I'm ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... himself as "a poor student striving to discern the truth of things"—and his work was a serious, incisive, patiently exhaustive inquiry into the workings of nature, the capabilities of human intelligence, and the deceptive results of human reason. Reading it, Alwyn was astonished to find that nearly all the ethical propositions offered for the world's consideration to-day by the most learned and cultured minds, had been already advanced and thoroughly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... that human knowledge often fails, especially in contingent singulars, such as are human acts. For this reason human glory is frequently deceptive. But since God cannot be deceived, His glory is always true; hence it is written (2 Cor. 10:18): "He . . . is approved . . . whom ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the Republican party in that section was under the domination of northern "carpet baggers," a few worthless southern whites and a number of dishonest and incompetent colored men. This, no doubt, is the false, deceptive and misleading picture which had been painted from the vividness of his partial, mistaken, prejudiced and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy we were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... girls have told you all about it. We knew for the last month that it must come before long, though there was a deceptive ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... wan, and of a leaden hue (Whoso it useth, sore shall he it rue); And of my swink* yet bleared is mine eye; *labour Lo what advantage is to multiply! That sliding* science hath me made so bare, *slippery, deceptive That I have no good,* where that ever I fare; *property And yet I am indebted so thereby Of gold, that I have borrow'd truely, That, while I live, I shall it quite* never; *repay Let every man beware by me ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... down at the bases of the mountains the cold must be most intense and the darkness truly awful. It all looks very nice when the sun is shining, but appearances are often deceptive, and do not improve on a ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... bears a deceptive resemblance to the natural article, and has nearly the same luster. It lacks the tensile strength and elasticity, and is of higher specific gravity than ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... the system. No one who has either reflected on the matter or observed the actual working of the system can honestly suppose that it is. It is a notorious fact that, as a general rule, wherever this system exists, the slave is indolent, deceptive, dishonest, improvident, not to be trusted away from the eyes of ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... gave me some most practical homilies on contentment. Having found and duly salvaged that log, it was necessary to cut it up; and then I began to be thankful that pit-sawing was not forced upon me as a profession in the days of inexperienced youth. Pit-sawing is deceptive. It has the appearance of being easy, though not genteel, when others are the toilers, and in the red dust, torn by the polished steel teeth from out the heart of the dull log, do you not "inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia which ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... that the King's physicians were in any alarm for the result. The royal physicians still kept issuing bulletins, but they were so vague in their terms that it is impossible to believe they were not made purposely deceptive. It would appear that King George, like many braver and better men, had a nervous objection to any admission by himself or on his behalf that there was the slightest reason for alarm as to the state of his health. Greville, who ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... names in -ward and -herd are rather deceptive. Hayward means hedge[138] guard. Howard is phonetically the Old French name Huard, but also often represents Hayward, Hereward, and the local Haworth, Howarth. For the social elevation of the sty-ward, see p. 90. Durward is door-ward. The simple Ward, replaced in its general sense ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... each an ounce of mould with a shovel, while 5000 lads are pretending to break stones," and exclaims, "Can it be a charity to keep men alive on these terms? In face of all the twaddle of the earth, shoot a man rather than train him (with heavy expense to his neighbours) to be a deceptive human swine." Superficial travellers generally praise the Irish. Carlyle had not been long in their country when he formulated his idea of the Home Rule that seemed to him most for ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... distinct—royalists, radicals, imperialists, socialists, &c.—have an ideal absolutely identical, and that this ideal is solely dependent on the mental structure of the French race, since a quite contrary ideal is found under analogous names among other races. Neither the name given to opinions nor deceptive adaptations alter the essence of things. The men of the Great Revolution, saturated with Latin literature, who (their eyes fixed on the Roman Republic), adopted its laws, its fasces, and its togas, did not become Romans because they were under the empire of a powerful historical suggestion. ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... direction, but particularly to the northward, in the hope of discovering a sail of some sort heading toward me; but the horizon was bare, save to the southward, where the high land of Hayti loomed up with startling and quite deceptive distinctness. Although I had hoped that I might perchance be so fortunate as to sight a sail, the hope was a very feeble one, and my disappointment by no means acute, for I was perfectly well aware that I was many miles too far to the eastward to render the appearance ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Trenck. "I had confidence in myself—I had faith in my good star—but the curse of my evil genius has overtaken me. Oh, my God! I am lost, lost! All my hopes were deceptive—the king is my irreconcilable enemy, and he will revenge my past life on my future! I have this knowledge too late. Oh, Halber! go slowly, slowly; I must give you my last testament. Mark well what I say—these are the last words of a man who is more to be pitied ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... cartridges, looked down on them with a serene smile on his not ill-looking face. His voice, except when raised in accents of command, had in it the musical, drawling, plaintive tone so peculiar to the native Texan—and so deceptive. The other two, younger and rougher men, looked, as they glanced at their victims through the sights of the pistols, as though they longed for the word of permission to riddle the ship's ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formulae, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is apt to be mistaken for sound logic. He supports glaring paradoxes with an array of ingenious arguments, and with fatal facility and apparent precision he deduces from his unfounded premises a series of ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... as if cut out of the Desert of Africa, where Fata Morgana displays her wondrous airy castles and hanging gardens. In the Champ de Mars, however, these were to be seen more splendid, more wonderful than in the East, for human art had converted the airy deceptive scenes into reality. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... that puzzled our voyagers very much was the deceptive appearance of land, so that they found it extremely difficult to judge correctly of distance. On one occasion, when sailing towards one of the large islands, Fred went up to Bob Bowie, who was leaning over the side watching ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... true that conjurors have a code of honour—this may not be believed of such deceptive people—in that they do not divulge each others tricks which are performed exclusively. For instance, suppose that Mr. A invented a new trick and showed it to Mr. B, who is also a finished artist. Though Mr. B could see the modus operandi of the trick he would be quite ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... if she'd do a deceptive thing. But all the same, Patty, she's no friend for you. You don't care for ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... there in the doorway. A second glance would have shown, to an acute observer, faint lines on brow and cheek, an indefinable hardness and sharpness of outline which destroyed the semblance of youth; and in its place gave an air of cynical maturity, which, reckoning by actual length of years, was as deceptive as the former illusion. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... command. We have only had three killed in the battalion so far, two men and one officer, and about half a dozen slightly wounded, almost all on working parties, on which trench mortar batteries do not go. If you are with the battalions you come out for four days rest, but it is a very deceptive rest; you usually have to send large working parties up at night-time to work on the trenches. Our rest, fortunately, is really rest. The only things we have to do is to take rations up to the dump for the rest of the battery, draw our own rations, ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... themselves either way, they melted from Brent, running homeward by every road. Bacon, with an enlarged, not lessened army, drew back into Gloucester. Revolutionary fortunes shone fair in prospect. Yet it was but the moment of brief, deceptive bloom before decay ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... with three men under each." The improbabilities of the Flat Island Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the "Saga of Eric the Red," the only doubtful part of which is the "uniped" episode, a touch of mediaeval superstition so palpable as not to be deceptive. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... long. For tens of days they can run without showing fatigue. In camping, they divide into many companies, and thus they can make a siege effective. Against our positions they begin by sending a few men who by swift and deceptive movements cause our troops to exhaust all their projectiles fruitlessly, and then the assault is delivered. They are clever in using ambushes, and often when they seem to be worsted, their hidden forces spring up in our rear and throw ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... exact angle of her chin; and there gradually fell upon her that stillness which falls upon the figure of a woman when she has definitively adopted an attitude in the public eye. She was gazing at the gold angel, a mile off, which flashed in the sun. But what a deceptive stillness was that stillness! A hammer was hammering away under her breast with what seemed to her a reverberating sound. Strange that that hammering did not excite attention throughout the park! Then she ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... "Looks are deceptive, child,—and this isn't just any old girl! It's a rare bird, it's tougher than whalebone and possessed of a wise little devil. She froze to Kit as a compadre at first chance. He headed back to Mesa Blanca. I ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... figure, to be just distinguished, exactly as it appears upon the figure in real oak. The grain is also wiped off in parts on the plain spaces between the figure, in order to break it up and take away any formality. If this method be well and probably done, a thoroughly deceptive imitation may be produced; and except this end be kept in view, no really ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... thought that the land probably rose to a height of 5000 ft. forty or fifty miles inland. The accurate estimation of heights and distances in the Antarctic is always difficult, owing to the clear air, the confusing monotony of colouring, and the deceptive effect of mirage and refraction. The land appeared to increase in height to the southward, where we saw a line of land or barrier that must have been seventy miles, and possibly was ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... steps with our khudstick, we found ourselves, after an hour and a half's stiff climbing, on the sky-line of the ridge that had seemed but an easy stroll from below. The heights and distances are most deceptive, partly on account of the crystal clearness of the air, and partly because of the magnitude of everything in proportion. The mountains are not only high themselves, but their spurs and foothills would rank as able-bodied mountains were they not dwarfed by peaks which average 15,000 feet ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was morally. Her large black eyes—which, by turns languished and beamed with beauty beneath their ebon lashes—could feign to admiration all the kindling fires of voluptuousness. And yet, the burning impulses of love beat not in ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... is invariably the case, distance viewed over water is deceptive, and by the time that they had done three-quarters of the course both were feeling pretty well fagged out with their unusual exertions, though neither would admit it; and the fact remained that they ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... was going to say, Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, with a most unaffected obeisance, "but a I am afraid, Sir, it is a deceptive influence!" ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... her as she sat reading in the front pew, big and rather fine with her black hair and her bold eyes. I think that perhaps the thing which made me remember her was the fleeting thought that her type stood usually for the material in woman, and I wondered if in her case outward appearances were as deceptive as they were in my wife—with her saint's eyes, and her distorted moral vision. Perhaps I was intuitively right, and that beneath Delilah Jeliffe's exterior there is a certain fineness, and that these funny fads of dress and decorations are merely in some way her striving toward the ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... studied those distant sky-scrapers, which looked, at the distance, like dream buildings, deceptive structures of the clouds. The waters intervening were palpitant with life. As an hour passed, and then another, the young watchers gave more and more attention to the landscape and less to the house near by. The air was vibrant with the tooting of whistles. The wind was sweeping the water ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... to say to you," said Mrs. Maldon, in that deceptive matter-of-fact voice. "I wanted to tell you yesterday afternoon, but I couldn't. And then again last night, but I ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... were fierce as snakes of virulent poison, did the same. And many terrible Yavanas and Paradas and Sakas and Valhikas, and Mlecchas born of the cow (belonging to Vasishtha), of fierce eyes, accomplished in smiting looking like messengers of Death, and all conversant with the deceptive powers of the Asuras and many Darvabhisaras and Daradas and Pundras numbering by thousands, of bands, and together forming a force that was countless, began to shower their sharp shafts upon the son of Pandu. Accomplished in various modes of warfare, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli |
