"Fictitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was wondering whether the company of the fictitious Chrysantheme was more demoralizing than that of the actual Mme. Laroche Meyerbeer, with whom his wife had been that day for a ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... an individual, and still more so for a nation, to lose the illusions of youth, if not of innocence, and to awake to the knowledge of an unbeautiful reality, bereft of all fictitious adornment. When, however, the naked truth can be discovered—and that is seldom the case—it must be faced; if the national or individual mind cannot receive it, the fault lies with the immaturity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... fact, that a child was made to take a false character, without possessing any other clue to the circumstances than is given in the names of the parties, all of whom are evidently obscure, and one of the most material of whom, we are plainly told, must have borne a fictitious name. Even poor Monday, in possession of so much collateral testimony that we want, could not have known what was the precise injustice done, if any, or, certainly, with the intentions he manifests, he would not have left that important ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... edited by a North-Carolinian: and that the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, one thousand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an original book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Doctor Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... imputes success in life to human prudence;" and as to the necessity of a right education for the young, "It is only the wise who are fit to govern men." We must conclude that the accusations were only ostensible or fictitious, and that beneath them lay some reality which could reconcile the Athenians to the perpetration of so great ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... She was tired of this fictitious power; she was almost ready to pretend no longer; and with that thought she found herself being observed by Helen with a tenderness she was not willing to endure. She spoke abruptly, resigning the pious task of sweetening ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... a fictitious foundation of altogether hollow and vicious arguments, incapable of being stated in definite logical alternatives, and devised by men who are destitute of those particular qualities which cause individuals ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the Dalles October 30, under conditions that were not conducive to success. The season was late for operations; and worse still, the command was not in accord with the commanding officer, because of general belief in his incompetency, and on account of the fictitious rank he assumed. On the second day out I struck a small body of Indians with my detachment of dragoons, but was unable to do them any particular injury beyond getting possession of a large quantity of their winter food, which their hurried departure ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the service of the Tribunal of Inquisitors as an "occasional Confidant," under the fictitious name of Antonio Pratiloni, giving his address as "at the Casino ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... outbreak occurred, he came forward as one of the chief leaders of it; there were however, several other leaders. The names by which the principal of them were known were Jack Straw, William Wraw, Jack Shepherd, John Milner, Hob Carter, and John Ball. It is supposed that many of these names were fictitious, and that the men adopted them partly to conceal their real names, and partly because they supposed that they should ingratiate themselves more fully with the lower classes of the people by assuming these ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... we understand esile to be a river, "the Danish river Oesil, which empties itself into the Baltic," the Yssel, Wessel, or any other river, real or fictitious, the sense is clear. Rather let Shakspeare have committed a geographical blunder on the information of his day, than break {68} Priscian's head by modern interpretation of his words. If we read "drink up esile" as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... first published) I have the sanction of one of the most celebrated female writers of the age, in her "Thoughts on the Education of a Young Princess," for supposing that the mind of a child is less likely to be misled by what is avowedly fictitious, than by those high wrought characters of perfection, which they would have little better chance of meeting with in the world, than with the fantastic ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm of Rome. Still, it was an awful and imposing spectacle, with which modern times have, happily, nothing to compare; a vast theater, rising row upon row, and swarming with human beings, from fifteen to eighteen thousand in number, intent upon no fictitious representation—no tragedy of the stage—but the actual victory or defeat, the exultant life or the bloody death, of each and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... that is 'supposititious,' to borrow a term which this writer found particularly to his purpose—supposititious in the same sense in which the speeches of Thucydides and those of his imitators are suppositious—is also introduced. There is a great deal of fictitious correspondence here, designed to eke out that view of this author's life and times which the authentic letters left unfinished, and which he was anxious, for certain reasons, to transmit to posterity,—which he was forbidden to transmit in a more direct manner. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... submissively, quivering with pleasure. His touch was very gentle and reverent, for he was a man who knew the value of essentials; his brain was keen enough to go down to them and judge of them, undeterred and unhindered and undeceived by externals, by fictitious emblems. He saw here that he was in the presence of a tender, youthful, unformed mind of complete innocence, and the abhorrent surroundings affected ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... circumstances, with these identical surroundings and enveloped in the same mystery, but of which another—some fiction of his own brain—was the hero. And now, by some strange trick of the imagination, the fictitious was confounded with the real, causing him an indescribable sense of confusion and bewilderment. On each of the pieces of tapestry was a large symbolical figure—Silence and Slumber—two Genii, tall and slender, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... of land were located under fictitious boundaries, and not only the Continental soldiers, but also the States and the United States were thus swindled by these officers, who had been long honored and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... Miss Rawlins's love-name, Jack. Most of the fair romancers have in their early womanhood chosen love-names. No parson ever gave more real names, than I have given fictitious ones. And to very good purpose: many a sweet dear has answered me a letter for the sake of owning a name which her godmother never ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... start, And rule the fancy if you'd rule the heart: By active goodness, by laborious schemes, Subdue wild visions and delusive dreams. No earthly good a Christian's views should bound, For ever rising should his aims be found. Leave that fictitious good your fancy feigns, For scenes where real bliss eternal reigns: Look to that region of immortal joys, Where fear disturbs not, nor possession cloys; Beyond what Fancy forms of rosy bowers, Or blooming chaplets ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real. It is because it must be that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... an enormously excessive paper circulation, which gave a fictitious value to everything and stimulated adventure and speculation to an extravagant extent, has been happily succeeded by the substitution of the precious metals and paper promptly redeemable in specie; and thus false values have disappeared and a sounder condition of things has been introduced. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to other people have occasioned me great uneasiness. In the course of the last three chapters of M'liss I have received some twenty or thirty communications from different parts of the State corroborating incidents of my story, which I solemnly assure the reader is purely fictitious. Some one has lately sent me a copy of an interior paper containing an old obituary of Smith of Smith's Pocket. Another correspondent writes to me that he was acquainted with the schoolmaster in the fall of '49, and that they "grubbed together." The editors ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... spoke a word, only interrupting the gloomy silence by heart-rending cries. All at once, Madame de Boulle, who affected to be bustling about, pointed out that the presence of so many persons was what hindered the countess's accouchement, and, assuming an air of authority justified by fictitious tenderness, said that everyone must retire, leaving the patient in the hands of the persons who were absolutely necessary to her, and that, to remove any possible objections, the countess dowager her mother must set the example. The ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... act, or be delivered over to the terrible hands of justice; and at that thought Tom redoubled his speed to outstrip his pursuer. It was a desperate race, for his strength was nearly spent. His long fast had told upon him, and the fictitious power of the spirit he had swallowed had passed away. His breath was coming in quick, short gasps. His foot caught in a tussock of grass, and he fell face foremost to the ground, and, before he could regain his feet, a hand was on ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... shoulders, and bore to her chamber. The husbandman's wife fed her with sops of bread, and then undressed her, and put her to bed. They also provided the means to carry her and the maid to Florence; and so 'twas done. There the lady, who was very fertile in artifices, invented an entirely fictitious story of what had happened as well in regard of her maid as of herself, whereby she persuaded both her brothers and her sisters and every one else, that 'twas all due to the enchantments of evil spirits. The physicians lost no time, and, albeit ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... artist must present in a single glance all that his art has power to tell us. The artist can neither recapitulate the past nor intimate the future. The single now is all which he can present; and hence, unquestionably, many subjects which delight us in poetry, or in narrative, whether real or fictitious, cannot with advantage ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... on one tune, Serious endeavours to assure What everybody long has known; Ever to hear the same replies And overcome antipathies Which never have existed, e'en In little maidens of thirteen? And what like menaces fatigues, Entreaties, oaths, fictitious fear, Epistles of six sheets or near, Rings, tears, deceptions and intrigues, Aunts, mothers and their scrutiny, And ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... extermination against the whole race of German musicians. This was the unanimous explanation of my intentions which he had heard in Germany. Nothing could be more astounding, he said, than the surprising incongruity between the fictitious form in which I appeared to these people, and my real nature, which he had recognised at once on seeing me again. We joked about this, and came to a closer understanding. I was glad to see that he valued as much as I did the works of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Professor Hudson says, "from the standpoint of philosophical exactness" quite inadmissible "to speak of the Divine Will, or a Personal Creator, or an intelligent Governor of the universe"; but as we have seen that this absoluteness is purely fictitious, it follows that we may legitimately inquire whether consciousness, intelligence, will—and hence personality—are predicable of God, without heeding a veto which rests ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... a short fictitious narrative placed (thrown) beside something which it is intended ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... in the affirmative. He was terribly embarrassed under his fictitious name, and shrank before the honest, open gaze of the young artist, and his mental disturbance was completed by seeing in one corner of the room the picture covered with a green cloth, which Tantaine ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... one and all forgive me,' I returned, 'if for the greater convenience of the story, and for its better introduction, that adventure was fictitious. I had my share, indeed, - no light or trivial one, - in the pages we have read, but it was not the share I feigned to have at first. The younger brother, the single gentleman, the nameless actor in this little drama, stands ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... fashion of the scenery suggested to the imagination by some of its details or those of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Sindbad the Sailor carrying the Old Man of the Sea; Giant Despair scowling from a make-believe window in a fictitious castle of eroded sandstone; a roc with wings eighty feet long, poising on a giddy pinnacle to pounce upon an elephant; pilgrim Christian advancing with sword and buckler against a demon guarding some rocky portal, would have excited no ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... as shown in his conduct at different times, was something rare in life, and perhaps happily so. That mechanical admixture of black and white qualities without coalescence, on which the theory of men's characters was based by moral analysis before the rise of modern ethical schools, fictitious as it was in general application, would have almost hit off the truth as regards Captain De Stancy. Removed to some half-known century, his deeds would have won a picturesqueness of light and shade that might have made him a fascinating subject for some ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... present chapter, you may turn to the title-page, and reading thereon, "Olive, a Novel" may exclaim, "Most incongruous—most strange!" Nay, some may even accuse us of irreverence in thus bringing into a fictitious story those subjects which are acknowledged as most vital to every human soul, but yet which most people are content, save at set times and places, tacitly to ignore. There are those who sincerely believe that in such works as this it is profanity even to name the Holy Name. Yet what is a novel, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to be put down without resisting, and he made supreme efforts to float his undertaking. He caused a number of unissued shares to be sold on 'Change, and had them bought up by his own men, thus creating a fictitious interest in the company. In a few days the shares rose and were at a premium, simply through the jobbery to which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... through his devices, and had suspected his intentions? Would they not, in that case, have realised that our suspicions were aroused? and might they not have merely feigned to have fallen into Joe's trap, and have confided to him a purely fictitious statement of their plans, concocted for the express purpose of throwing us off our guard and leading us astray? Taking into account the deep guile that had prompted them to adopt and consistently maintain a course of the most orderly and irreproachable behaviour as the most likely ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... her former desire to be a missionary. Yet her writings are marked by purity, and generally inculcated nothing unfriendly either to virtue or religion. But it was the religion of sentiment, and the virtue of the natural heart; of which it must be confessed we find far more in fictitious tales, than in real life. When we consider the nobleness of the motive that led her to seek a popular path to favor and emolument—to increase the comforts of her excellent and honored mother—our censure, were we disposed ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... its course. Have you got an old friend whom you can trust?' She hadn't such a thing as an old friend in the world. 'Very well, then,' says the lawyer, you must trust me. Sign this paper; and you will have executed a fictitious sale of all your property to myself. When the right time comes, I shall first carefully settle with your husband's executors; and I shall then reconvey the money to you, securing it properly (in case you ever marry again) in your own possession. The Crown, in other transactions ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... kill yourself?" and grabbing the singed and frightened passenger, he pinned him against the coal and held him there. In doing this he brushed one whisker from the side of his captive's face, and the latter lay panting and groaning with nearly all his fictitious make-up gone and quite all ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... farmers have actually gone so far as to bribe legislators with eggs, to prevent their passing any law fixing a rate for the sale of eggs. This is a serious charge, and we do not vouch for it. It is probable that farmers who are sharp enough to get a corner on eggs, by which they can be run up to a fictitious value, are sharp enough not to lay themselves liable for bribery by giving eggs directly to the members, but there are ways to avoid that. They can send them to the residences of the members, where they are worth their weight ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... inanimate object (here a window) is highly idiomatic and must be cultivated by the practical Arabist. In the H. V. the unfinished part is the four-and-twentieth door of the fictitious (ja'ali) palace. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... was their duty to have got her married before that period (317. 56). Father Sangermano, writing of Burma a hundred years ago, notices the "habit of the Burmese to engage their daughters while young, in real or fictitious marriages, in order to save them from the hands of the king's ministers, custom having established a rule, which is rarely if ever violated, that no married woman can be seized, even for the king himself" (234. xlii.). The child-marriages ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... I have always been a man of few friends. Ronnie has had many successors; but seldom more than one at a time. I have never cared much for society. My father and mother neither of them attached much importance to conventions, or to the fictitious values which society puts on clothes or money or position. I have always looked rather for some one to admire, some one whose ideals and personality were congenial, whatever their position or occupation. I have also, on the whole, ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... short of marvellous. Four editions were published the first year, two at Madrid, one at Valencia, and one at Lisbon. Byron says: "Cervantes laugh'd Spain's chivalry away!" So popular was it, that a spurious second part, under the fictitious authorship of Avellanada was published. Cervantes was furious, and called him a blockhead; but Germond de Lavigue, the distinguished Spanish scholar, rashly asserts that but for this Avellanada, he would never have finished "Don Quixote." Even before it was printed, jealousy evidently existed in ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... comely, pleasing, and simple type of girlhood. She was at some disadvantage, under some kind of domestic oppression; so she served at once as an object for his disengaged affection, and a subject for his liberating theories, and as a substratum for the idealizing process upon which he constructed a fictitious creation of Harriet Westbrooke. His dreams bearing but a faint and controversial resemblance to the Harriet Westbrooke of daily life, the fictitious image prevented him from knowing her, until the reality broke through the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... meaning. Adj. untrue, false, phony, trumped up; void of foundation, without- foundation; fictive, far from the truth, false as dicer's oaths; unfounded, ben trovato [It], invented, fabulous, fabricated, forged; fictitious, factitious, supposititious, surreptitious; elusory^, illusory; ironical; soi-disant &c (misnamed) 565 [Fr.]. Phr. se non e vero e ben trovato [It]; where none is meant ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wicked thing. But there is nothing in which the Scotch are more piercing and poetical, I might say more perfect, than in their Scotch wickedness. It is what makes the Master of Ballantrae the most thrilling of all fictitious villains. It is what makes the Master of Lovat the most thrilling of all historical villains. It is poetry. It is an intensity which is on the edge of madness or (what is worse) magic. Well, the Scotch have managed to apply ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Senator, clearing his voice for action and knocking the ashes from his cigar against the arm of his chair. "Gentlemen, I am not in the habit of spinning yarns of marvellous or fictitious matters; and therefore it is scarcely necessary to affirm upon the responsibility of my reputation, gentlemen, that what I am about to tell you, I most solemnly proclaim ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... deprived even of the latter consolation, his friend being shifted to another end of the factory. In despair he turned to Ada, the eldest of the little Buttons, who now had reached years of comparative discretion, and strove to interest her in his dreams, veiling his identity under a fictitious name; but Ada, an unimaginative and practical child with a growing family to look after, either listened stupidly or consigned him, in the local ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and sometimes we spent entire weeks in visiting the churches, one after another, and studying their artistic treasures, down to the smallest scrap of an old master in their darkest chapel; their history, their storied tombs, their fictitious associations. Very few churches escaped, I believe, except such as had been turned into barracks, and were guarded by an incorruptible Austrian sentinel. For such churches as did escape, we have a kind ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... forgetfulness is not very uncommon in poets, especially those of the quickest and liveliest spirit. It is the old mistake of Bentley and other commentators, to think that whatever is wrong must be spurious. These, too, we must recollect, are fictitious characters. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... the sage and wonder-worker was very desirous to penetrate into the cave, but that the priest raised objections and made difficulties, till at last his patience failed and he entered by main force and remained within seven days. So much in this semi-fictitious biography is true perhaps—that this hero did force his way in. It is also true that he had sufficient discretion not to tell what he had discovered ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... drew their swords and screamed, making bare the right arm, as if prepared for awful deeds. The others took up position behind low rocks, unslung their fire-arms, and screamed not. Presently a real or fictitious recognition took place, the guns on both sides were fired up in the air, and swords were brandished for very joy. Both parties rushed into each other's embraces, smiling and kissing with ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Another, beholding others betake themselves with pleasure to such objects, is filled with sorrow. As regards this matter, however, they that are conversant with both objects, behold, viz., that which is fictitious and that which is not so, never indulge in sorrow and are truly happy.[1062] That which a man does without expectation of fruits destroys his acts of a former life. The acts, however, of such a person both of this and his previous life cannot lead to Emancipation. On the other hand, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... 'ours,' here made use of, can denote only the Aupanishadas or Vedantins, and it thus appears that /S/a@nkara himself was willing to class under the same category himself and philosophers who—as in later times the Ramanujas and others—looked upon the individual soul as not due to the fictitious limitations of Maya, but as real in itself; whatever may be the relation in which they considered it to stand ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... that it was necessary to learn to count in this world, she urged them out of her shop. She liked them well enough, but she did not like to do business with them. If she didn't take their money, the next one would. All the same, fictitious values were distasteful to her, and made everything ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... infused into the meeting a fevered and fictitious friendliness, chattering over the pauses that threatened to fall upon it, leaving them a reunited company only in name. She presently swept Bella to the camp, continuing her nervous prattle as she showed her the tent and the spring behind it, and told of the log ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... happy or vain; and when he informs him of the good opinions of others, with a mock-modesty he interrupts himself in the relation, saying he must not say any more lest he be considered to flatter, making his concealment more insinuating than his speech. He approaches with fictitious humility to the creature of his praise, and hangs with rivetted attention upon his lips, as though he spake with the voice of an oracle. He repeats what phrase or sentence may particularly gratify him, and both hands are little enough to bless him in ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... censure. But we find them still adhering to the same great object, the exposure of vice; and they painted the vicious character frequently so well, that the person was soon discovered by the audience, though disguised by a fictitious name. When new restrictions, were afterwards imposed upon the writers of such pieces, they produced a new species of comedy. This is that which obtains at the present day. It consisted of an imitation of the manners of common ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... as a stimulus to my energies and my watchfulness along the line of checkmating the work of the white slavers. It is very brief and terse—but what a story it tells! Here is a copy of it—with the substitution of a fictitious name: ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... chapel, contemned all holy ordinances, and in short gave myself up to all kinds of immorality." The depositions of the witnesses before the coroner were published "by some of the Friends and Relations of the Family, in order to prevent the Publick from being any longer imposed on with fictitious Stories," but both Miss Blandy and Mr. Ford, her counsel, took great exception to this at the trial. Pamphlets, as we shall presently see, poured from the press, and even before she appeared at the bar ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the utter obscurity of his life while in existence, had been dead for many years, when it occurred to the author that such a character might be made a powerful agent in fictitious narrative. He, accordingly, sketched that of Elshie of the Mucklestane-Moor. The story was intended to be longer, and the catastrophe more artificially brought out; but a friendly critic, to whose opinion I subjected the work in its progress, was of opinion, that ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... happened or happened otherwise; if he had not "quivered" during the wedding service at Seaham; if a vision of Annesley and Mary Chaworth had not flashed into his soul,—he would have taken no pleasure in devising these incidents and details, and weaving them into a fictitious narrative. He took himself too seriously to invent and dwell lovingly on the acts and sufferings of an imaginary Byron. The Dream is "picturesque" because the accidents of the scenes are dealt with not historically, but artistically, are omitted or supplied according ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... brother had taken it from me, as he had given it. He had given it without reason; he had taken it away without cause. He had praised me for discretion and prudence when I did not merit it, and he suspected my fidelity on grounds wholly imaginary and fictitious. I concluded with assuring her that I should never forget my brother's behaviour on ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sources, even at a higher cost than the farmers ask. This is done upon the ground that an occasional sacrifice of this kind pays well in the end, if thereby they are able to keep down the price of the great bulk of domestic wool. Sometimes fictitious sales are reported, and various other means are employed to this end, with the view that a few holders, at least,—either from necessity or timidity,—may be induced to sell, and thus aid their ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... at a distance, surrounded by ladies and horsemen. All the troop advanced in beautiful order, at a foot's pace, the horns of various sorts animating the dogs and horses. There was an animation in the scene, a mirage of light, of which nothing now can give an idea, unless it be the fictitious splendor of a theatric spectacle. D'Artagnan, with an eye a little, just a little, dimmed by age, distinguished behind the group three carriages. The first was intended for the queen; it was empty. D'Artagnan, who did not see Mademoiselle de la Valliere by the king's side, on looking ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in his death, a sharer in the fortunes of the Northern houses; he keeps his history. The fight with the dragon is shot through with reminiscences of the Gautish wars: Wiglaf speaks his sorrow for the champion of the Gauts; the virtues of Beowulf are not those of a fictitious paragon king, but of a man who would be missed in the day when the enemies of the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... is known in Japan about the history of the Japanese waltzing mice, but I am sorry to say that the results are wholly negative. I cannot find any account of the origin of this freak, either authentic or fictitious, and, strange as it may seem to you, no study of the mice in a modern sense has been made, so you may consider the literature on the mouse in the Japanese language as absolutely nil." In explanation of this somewhat surprising ignorance of the origin of the race in what is commonly ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... German translation seen by me, but so full as to extend over ten pages of the volume. It ends with a reiteration of the wholly false manner in which this story had been obtained. So bold an appropriation of the narrative, with a provenience entirely new and as fictitious as the story itself, and its bodily inclusion by an editor in a work of recognized merit, where it is between two true recitals, ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... distinction. Sir David Lyndesay of the Mount, in his official character as Lyon-King at Arms, visited Denmark in 1550; and his acquaintance with Macchabeus might have led to the first publication of his Dialog, or Four Books of the Monarchie, under a fictitious designation, although actually printed by John Scot, either at St. Andrews or Edinburgh in 1554: it bears on the title, "Imprintit at the command and expensis of DOCTOR MACHABEVS in Capmanhovin." There is a later edition, apparently in ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... bear a vivid reflection of those scenes which are passing daily before our eyes, and are interesting from their novelty. Thus the coat-of-mail of our ancestors, and the triple-furred pelisse of our modern beaux, may, though for very different reasons, be equally fit for the array of a fictitious character; but who, meaning the costume of his hero to be impressive, would willingly attire him in the court dress of George the Second's reign, with its no collar, large sleeves, and low pocket-holes? The same may be urged, with equal truth, of the Gothic hall, which, with its darkened ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... The CHLOES, &c. mentioned in the following pages were merely more or less intimate acquaintances of Lovelace, like the ELECTRA, PERILLA, CORINNA, &c. of Herrick. But at the same time an obscurity has hitherto hung over some of the persons mentioned under fictitious names in the poems of Lovelace, which a little research and trouble would have easily removed. For instance, no one who reads "Amarantha, a Pastoral," doubts that LUCASTA and AMARANTHA are one and the same person. ALEXIS is Lovelace himself. ELLINDA is a female friend ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... recently discovered, that Suzor had apparently travelled with me from York to London on that well-remembered afternoon with some set and distinct purpose. He had been most affable, and he had told me all about himself—a story which I now knew to be fictitious. In return, I suppose I had told him something about myself, but the exact conversation had long ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... readers of the MIRROR, perhaps, have hitherto been only acquainted with the fictitious part of Fair Rosamond's history. The few subjoined facts, relative to the eventful life of that lady, may be implicitly relied on, as they are very carefully gleaned from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... in aliments fictitious And teaze the poor with soups nutritious. Of bones and flesh I make dilution And belong ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... relations of sentiment and passion between the sexes has paramount claims on our attention. It actually occupies a foremost place in the thoughts of most persons. It is constantly handled in the most unrestrained banter on the stage and in all the provinces of fictitious literature. Almost every sensational tale reeks with vulgar portrayals of it. In the mean time, the reign of vice is thought daily to grow more common and more shameless; the demoralization of our great cities, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... (Marques de Toral,) Mantua, Osuna, Sanlucar la Mayor y Uceda. Eleven marquises—De Almenara, Carpia, Chaves, Laguardia, Leganes, Priego, Santacruz, Toral, Velez, Villa-real y Zenete. Eight condes—De Azumar, Galiano, Lemos, Montanos, Niebla, Olivares, Pedrosa y Polan. Of these four only are fictitious. It is remarkable also, that one title cited in Gil Blas, that of Admirante de Castilia, did not exist when Le Sage published his romance—Felipe V. having abolished it, to punish the holder of that dignity for having embraced the cause of the house of Austria. Nor are there wanting the names ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Bishop of Coutances, deceived the lad's enemies by a fictitious death and burial, but forbade the rescued youth to return home, or make his existence known, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... of paper in surprise. Had she, by some lucky chance, discovered the very person for whom Richard was seeking? Of course the name was probably a fictitious one, and the address "General Delivery," meant nothing, and yet, it provided a clew by means of which this woman might ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... the matter of names, dates, and localities, Dr. Rollinson holds that they had better be given at full length; and here I am not disposed to differ from him. The system of blanks and initial letters was always distasteful to me; and to use fictitious names in a true story seems like taking away with one hand what you give with another. Besides, every one of the actors in the drama is now dead: Dr. Rollinson [1] himself being the only living person who is cognizant, directly, of all the ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... reports passed abroad about the Jews, and introduces incredible narrations, as if he would have the Egyptian multitude, that had the leprosy and other distempers, to have been mixed with us, as he says they were, and that they were condemned to fly out of Egypt together; for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious king's name, though on that account he durst not set down the number of years of his reign, which yet he had accurately done as to the other kings he mentions; he then ascribes certain fabulous stories to this king, as having ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... moving closer to her chair, he began a fictitious history, a history of persecuted and heroic innocence, of reckless adventure, of daring self-sacrifice. The girl listened with parted lips. Her cheeks glowed. And behind the door, Bella too ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... about the fictitious course I gave him. Right there he had me cold. But he was too worried to want to ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... what the world calls 'educated,' but the world, the world of men, knows better. It laughs at me. It has cheated me because I am a woman. The world of men has fenced me in and hobbled me with convention, with precedent, with fictitious sentiment. If I pursue the business of men as they themselves would pursue it I am called an ungrateful daughter. If I should adopt the morals of men I would be called a fallen woman. If I adopted the religion ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... the masses, must be adapted to the popular taste. It was an acknowledgment of this truth that led Macaulay, the most brilliant of historians, to remark, "We are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy, but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected, but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever." If the result to which Macaulay refers be once attained by an introductory work ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... of deeding the corporation's sections to these fictitious purchasers was solemnly gone through with at Ruggles's office, the Railroad guaranteeing them possession. The League refused to allow the supposed buyers to come upon the land, and the Railroad, faithful to its pledge in the matter of guaranteeing its dummies possession, at once began ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... it fall over, but of dragging down with it for years to come either the wealth or the security of the national life."[47] "If the proletarians take possession of the mine and the factory, it will be a perfectly fictitious ownership. They will be embracing a corpse, for the mines and factories will be no better than dead bodies while economic circulation is suspended and production is stopped. So long as a class does not own and govern the whole ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... listened to my new friend, as he proceeded to give some useful hints on our route and conduct, whenever we should succeed in getting over the river. I only remember one suggestion: "if I was stopped anywhere this side of Winchester, I might give a fictitious name, and say that I was going to visit my son, an officer in the Federal army." Now, as I have barely entered on my eighth lustre, I can only suppose that the great bitterness of my heart imparted to my face, for the moment, a helpless—perhaps ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... at infinity.* A final word is necessary in order to explain a phrase which is in constant use in the study of projective geometry. We have spoken of the "point at infinity" on a straight line—a fictitious point only used to bridge over the exceptional case when we are setting up a one-to-one correspondence between the points of a line and the lines through a point. We speak of it as "a point" and not as ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... officers, began to have doubts whether he had done wisely. Bernard had, in his time, vexed Felix's soul by idleness and amusement, but he had been one betted upon, not himself given to betting. He loved football and cricket for their bodily excitement, not the fictitious one of a looker on, or reader of papers, and it struck him that Wilfred knew a good deal too much about this more dangerous ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... moved to excitement, despite his great faith in the versatile youth. "Full-backs like that do not grow on trees; the only one I ever read of was Ole Skjarsen, in George Fitch's 'Siwash College Stories,' and he was purely fictitious. We know you have accomplished some great things by your 'inspirations,' ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Jane Austen's heroines and George Eliot's men and women; the narrators in the famous Canterbury Inn, the soldiers of Kipling, the Shylocks, Macbeths, Rosalinds and Falstaffs of the greatest dramatist; the thousand and one fictitious and yet real figures ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... not been identified. The letter is to be dated in Nov. 1499; Sixtin, to whom it is addressed, was a Dutchman resident in Oxford. The manuscript in which Erasmus pretended to have found this story of Cain is, of course, fictitious.] ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... me of an interest apart from that which had brought me to King's Cobb. A real nutshell drama had usurped the place of that fictitious one that had as yet failed to mark an epoch by so much as a scratch. I accepted the former as some solace for the intolerable wrong inflicted upon me by the sea and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... themselves to learning, instead of driving oxen. I longed much to get into this world, but no possibility of doing so presented itself. I had no idea that it would be imbued with sympathy for a boy outside of it who wanted to learn. True, I had once read in some story, perhaps fictitious, how a nobleman had found a boy reading Newton's "Principia," and not only expressed his pleased surprise at the performance, but actually got the boy educated. But there was no nobleman in sight of the backwoods of Nova Scotia. I read in the autobiography of Franklin ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, 'Childe Harold,' I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave once for all to disclaim—Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... From Stiles's Pocket into Nokes's, &c.] John a Nokes, and John a Stiles, are two fictitious names made use of in stating cases of ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... attributes appear so plain from the Koran itself, and all the Mahometan divines, that it would be loss of time to refute those who suppose the God of Mahomet to be different from the true God, and only a fictitious deity, or ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... ever more hospitable and munificent than the Romans, and none more touched with the sufferings of others. Their public theatres often rung with loud weeping, thousands sobbing convulsively at once over fictitious woes and imaginary sufferers: and yet these same multitudes would shout amidst the groans of a thousand dying gladiators, forced by their conquerors to kill each other in the amphitheatre for the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the last moment by some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that there may have been said to be always a certain amount of quite fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May, money which existed only in the shape of symbol, and which, indeed, belonged to nobody—which was borrowed here to-day, and paid there to-morrow, to be re-borrowed and repaid ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... "Oh, my lord, what am I to think? The most hidden passages of our lives are revealed by an obscene fellow at the gate, and repeated to me by the porter, on the strength of which he declares himself the emperor, and my espoused lord!" When the fictitious monarch was apprised of this, he commanded him to be brought in. He had no sooner entered, than a large dog, which couched upon the hearth, and had been much cherished by him, flew at his throat, and, but for timely prevention, would have killed him. A falcon also, seated upon her perch, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... dei Lanzi, their exit exactly opposite. The loggia was itself divided into two by a partition, so that each champion had a kind of room to make his preparations in, just as in the theatre every actor has his dressing-room; but in this instance the tragedy that was about to be played was not a fictitious one. ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his imagination was fanciful, even fantastic at times, he had a basic love of reality that compelled him to write about the things he knew. He knew whaling, and out of the real materials of his knowledge he proceeded to manufacture the fictitious adventures of the two boys he intended to use as joint heroes. It was easy work, he decided on Saturday evening. He had completed on that day the first instalment of three thousand words—much to the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the first he develops the thought of Aristotle, that music is inherent in human nature. He there renders the text of a decree which the Ephori of Sparta rendered against Timotheus of Miletus, but which better critics have regarded as fictitious. The second chapter establishes that there are three sorts of music: the worldly, which is universal harmony; the human, which has its source in the intelligence, which reunites and co-ordinates the elements; finally, the third kind is artificial, made by instruments of different ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... worded declarations, well adapted to deceive the credulous who were opposed to hostile aggressions upon the rights of the States. In order to accomplish this purpose, they were compelled to create a fictitious issue, in denouncing what they described as "the new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States"—a "dogma" which had never been held or declared by anybody, and which ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... praise that very wise Editor who, appreciating the artist's character, confined him to the art most natural to him. What has become of Editors of this kind to-day? Is not this the very genius of the art of editing—this and not the wholly fictitious "what the public wants?" Who knows what the public want but the public themselves? It is the artist who is allowed by his Editor to go his own way, who takes the public with him. If he has not the same sympathies as the public no Editorial direction will save the situation, while ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Great quantity of Money, as appears by his Journal; there he purchases a Loading, Chiefly Provisions, Clears out for the Maderas, and accordingly had one Sett of Bills of Lading for that Port, to be delivered to William Callanach or to his assigns, who to Me appears to be a fictitious Person, and one other Sett of Bills of Lading for said Cargo to be Deliverd at the Port of C——[2] unto Divernett Freres, who plainly appeard to me then to be two Merch'ts Settled Inhabit'ts at Teneriffe, one of them since dead, the other there still Inhabiting; ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... your lordship, is that Mr. Baxter was deceived by the light-and-shade effects on the toe of the shoe. The morning sun, streaming in through the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Baxter recollects, he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye consequently had not time to fade. I myself remember thinking at the moment that the shoe appeared to have a certain ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend; that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. But King Alfred ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... doctor for the possibility of my going out at night by a long-winded, babbling, and entirely fictitious account of Bolton's morning call, from which it appeared that Mr. Bolton was so interested in Mr. Hobhouse's account of how he saw the ship blow up that he would probably call in the evening to verify certain particulars and might even want Mr. Hobhouse to come ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... some two or three slight advantages which real merit has, that fictitious merit has not; among the rest, an especial advantage, which, we think, should recommend it to at least the quieter members of society—the advantage of being unobtrusive and modest. It presses ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... fictitious malady in reserve I had a mind, he said, to commit one sin, but not two I wished the husband not to be informed of it Old Maintenon Provided they are talked of, they are satisfied That what he ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... biographies of actors in the Revolution show that very much of what was written or reported during the Revolution against the English Loyalists and Indians was fictitious or exaggerated 78 ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... all created wealth up to the limits, the easy limits, of our creative capacity, then it would simply be a case of there being enough for everybody, and everybody getting enough. Any real scarcity of the necessaries of life in the world—not a fictitious scarcity caused by the lack of clinking metallic disks in one's purse—is due only to lack of production. And lack of production is due only too often to lack of knowledge of how and ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... only a beautiful dream, originating in a generous mind. Notwithstanding the adherence of some brilliant personages, the order never attained to more than a theoretical organization, and had only a fictitious foundation. The idea of the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel was hardly the object of the fifteenth-century chivalry; for the struggle between France and England then was engaging the most courageous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... question into two parties. One would have asserted without scruple that if Mr Pecksniff's conscience were his bank, and he kept a running account there, he must have overdrawn it beyond all mortal means of computation. The other would have contended that it was a mere fictitious form; a perfectly blank book; or one in which entries were only made with a peculiar kind of invisible ink to become legible at some indefinite time; and that he never troubled ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... which was being wrought was the trouble laid upon trouble, making comparison by the thought that iron has been discovered for the evil of mankind. Having thus conjectured he came back to Sparta and declared the whole matter to the Lacedemonians; and they brought a charge against him on a fictitious pretext and drove him out into exile. 83 So having come to Tegea, he told the smith of his evil fortune and endeavoured to hire from him the enclosure, but at first he would not allow him to have it: at length however Lichas persuaded him and he took up his abode there; and he dug ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... for more than four years. On the 24th of January, 1852, the Resident requested the King to have the prisoner immediately released. This was the first time that the case came to the notice of Colonel Sleeman, though Hufeez-ollah had been four years in prison, under a fictitious charge from ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... the "catafalques" erected to the memory of the heroes of July, where the students and others, not connected personally with the victims, and not having in the least profited by their deaths, come and weep; but the grief shown on the first day is quite as absurd and fictitious as the joy exhibited on the last. The subject is one which admits of much wholesome reflection and food for mirth; and, besides, is so richly treated by the French themselves, that it would be a sin and a shame to pass it over. Allow me to have the honor of translating, for your edification, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... matchless book. Monsieur Claretie has been accused of having gathered together and exposed to the public gaze two or three more or less scandalous episodes of private life, and using them as the foundation of his romance. The fictitious name of Vaudrey has been held to cloak that of such and such a Minister of State. Those, however, who search for vulgar gossip in this book, or who look for private scandal are far astray. They are quite mistaken as regards the tendency and moral of Monsieur ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... persons, (15) upon Some persons avowedly reject all pretence[33] of the sufficiency of revelation as[34]essentially the light of Nature, avowedly incredible and necessarily reject all revelation as, in its fictitious, on the ground that the (47 a) very notion, light of Nature is in itself incredible, and what (47 a) sufficient. And assuredly, had the must be fictitious. And indeed light of Nature been sufficient in (32) it is certain that no such a sense as to render revelation would have been ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... called him names behind his back, figuratively speaking, for being such an early riser on such a day. Not one of them asked him any questions about his reasons for leaving the Acme; reasons, in the motion-picture business, are generally invented upon demand and have but a fictitious value at best. And since it is never a matter of surprise when any director or any member of any company decides to try a new field, it would seem that change is one of the most unchanging ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... "Lilly Dale," and the men, who, we need scarcely say, were fictitious negroes, sang it so well that the audience listened with breathless attention and evident delight, and encored it vociferously. The next song was "Oh! Massa, how he wopped me," a ditty of quite a different ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... peale to trye if the Tower shooke L0 1s 0d." As we read this entry, we cannot help wondering if the large amount of beer which a shilling would purchase in those days was given to the ringers so as to give them a fictitious courage and blind their eyes to the possible danger of bringing the tower down upon their heads. In 1739 the Perpendicular window in the western face of the tower was taken out and a smaller oval one put in its place, with a view to the strengthening of the wall by additional ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... of little consequence whether every trait is an exact copy from his own features, but it is so obvious that many of the lines are direct transcripts from nature that we may believe the same thing of many others. Let us compare his fictitious hero's story with what we have read of his ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 1733, the Author, composing his Olimpiade, felt himself suddenly moved, even to tears, in expressing the separation of two tender lovers. Surprised that a fictitious grief, invented too by himself, could raise so true a passion, he reflected how little reasonable and solid a foundation the others had, which, so frequently agitated us in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the year 1685. Such is the melancholy story as it may be gathered from Scott's preface. In writing his novel that great master of the art of fiction,—never yet displaced from his throne or deprived of his sceptre,—adopted fictitious names, invented fresh circumstances, amplified and elevated the characters, judiciously veiled the localities, and advanced the period of those tragical incidents to about the beginning of the eighteenth century. The delicate taste with ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... hoarded, and for months none was in circulation except in the towns. The people had no faith in paper money of any description and thought that greenbacks would become worthless in the same way as had Confederate currency. All sense of values had been lost, which fact may account for the fabulous and fictitious prices obtaining in the South for several years after the war, and the liberality of appropriations of the first ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... in an undertone to his subordinate to the effect, half-caught by Vereker, that "Alison's hat was black felt." Did he say by any chance Harrisson, not Alison? If so, might not that account for a rather forbidding or opposive attitude on the Yard's part? He remembered something of fictitious claimants coming forward, representing themselves as Harrisson—desperate bidders for a chance of the Klondyke gold. They might easily have supposed this man and his quenched memory another of the same sort. Evidently if investigation was ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the Italian and the Polish composer. Most readers will have heard of Chopin's touching request to be buried by the side of Bellini. Loath though I am to discredit so charming a story, duty compels me to state that it is wholly fictitious. Chopin's liking for Bellini and his music, how ever, was true and real enough. Hiller relates that he rarely saw him so deeply moved as at a performance of Norma, which they attended together, and that in the finale of the second act, in which Rubini seemed to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... of love-ditties must be regretted. The few genuine love-songs, straight from the heart, which he composed, such as Of a' the Airts, To Mary in Heaven, Ye Banks and Braes, can hardly be too highly prized. But there are many others, which arose from a lower and fictitious source of inspiration. He himself tells Thomson that when he wished to compose a love-song, his recipe was to put himself on a "regimen of admiring a beautiful woman." This was a dangerous regimen, and when it came to be often repeated, as it was, it cannot have tended to his peace of heart, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... surroundings. He taught himself to read from a black-letter Bible. He drew charcoal sketches of churches, castles, knightly tombs, and heraldic blazonry. When only eleven years old, he began the fabrication of documents in prose and verse, which he ascribed to a fictitious Thomas Rowley, a secular priest at Bristol in the 15th century. Chatterton pretended to have found these among the contents of an old chest in the muniment room of St. Mary Redcliff's. The Rowley poems included two tragedies, Aella and Goddwyn, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the hill are worn and common-place; try a new and dangerous course, the rather as I forewarn thee that thy time is short.' When, accordingly, the new bridge at Bristol was finished in October 1768, Chatterton sent to a newspaper a fictitious account of the opening of the old bridge, alleging in a note that he had found the principal part of the description in an ancient MS. And having thus fairly begun to work the mint of forgery, it was amazing what a number of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a considerable wager (though by no means a positive man) that some such mitigated description would lead the beagles of the law into a much surer track for finding this ungracious varlet, than to set them upon a false scent after fictitious ugliness and fictitious shabbiness; though, to do those gentlemen justice, I have no doubt their experience has taught them in all such cases to abate a great deal of the deformity which they are instructed to expect, and has discovered to them that the Devil's ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... downstairs in pursuit of the doctor, but it was too late; he had disappeared. In the afternoon, he called on Madame Frogere, to ask her whether she could tell him anything about the matter. She, however, did not know the negro doctor in the least, and was even able to assure him that he was a fictitious personage, for, as she was well acquainted with the upper classes in Haiti, she knew that the Academy of Medicine at Port-au-Prince had no doctor of that name among its members. As Monsieur de Vargnes persisted, and gave descriptions ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant |
