"Impostor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his shortcomings, Shirley preserves in the main the great tradition of the Elizabethans. A further step downwards, a more deadly stage in the history of decadence, is marked by Sir William Davenant. That arch-impostor, as is well known, had the effrontery to call himself the "son of Shakespeare": a phrase which the unwary have taken in the physical sense, but which was undoubtedly intended to mark his literary kinship with the Elizabethans ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... of Art, it must be of and from the man, a spontaneity, a reflection, light for light, shade for shade, color for color, of his entire being; and with this effect his will has little to do. Therefore, unless he be an impostor, he need give himself no trouble regarding his future. His works shall serve as a clue, produced century after century, along which posterity shall feel its way back to his studio and heart. No need of thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... I told you from the first, that I would not believe in your vampyre; and I tell you now, that if one was to come and lay hold of me by the throat, as long as I could at all gasp for breath I would tell him he was a d——d impostor." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... man turned out to be an impostor after all? Then Dunbar had better treat with him. The chain of evidence was pretty strong, but there might ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Which many times amongst his waggish tricks, These wanton Wenches in the bosome prickes; That they before which had some franticke fits, Were by his Witchcraft quite out of their wits. Watching this Wisard, my minde gaue me still She some Impostor was, and that this skill Was counterfeit, and had some other end. For which discouery, as I did attend, Her wrinckled vizard being very thin, My piercing eye perceiu'd her cleerer skin 80 Through the thicke Riuels perfectly to shine; When I perceiu'd a beauty so diuine, As that so clouded, I began ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... after careful investigation, that a great fraud has been committed in this folio; that its marginal readings, instead of being as old as they seem, and as Mr. Collier has asserted them to be, are modern fabrications, and that, consequently, Mr. Collier is either an impostor or a dupe. The charge is not a new one. The weight that it carries, and the impression that it has produced, are owing to the position of the men who make it, and the evidence which they have published in its support. It was made, however, six years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Academy sends you its compliments. The girl is the daughter of a booth-keeper in the bazaar—a Jew, who has no princely blood to spare a descendant—a dog of a Jew, who makes profit by lending his child to an impostor." ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... impostor, the wrathful eyes of the chieftain snapped fire like red cinders in the night time. His lips were closed. At length to the woman he said: "How, you have done me a good deed." Then with quick decision he gave command ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... prediction believed sometimes effects its own fulfillment; and Josephine, whose ambition seems to have been most ardent, may have been inspired with romantic hopes by the foolish promise of an ignorant impostor, that she would rise to great eminence, and have been stimulated to greater exertions to realize those hopes. This may have urged her to intimacy with the corrupt and immoral Directory, with whom a beautiful and accomplished woman could not fail to be a favorite; may have secured her marriage ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... lays bare the craft and subtlety of the devil, and mentions that 'he gives not the nip to witches of quality; and sometimes when they are apprehended he delets it....' 'The most part of the creatures that are thus deluded by this grand impostor and ennemy of mankind are of the meanest rank, and are ather seduced by malice, poverty, ignorance, or covetousness.' But he finds comfort in the pecuniary circumstances of the Tempter. 'It's the unspeakable mercy and goodness of our good God that that poor ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... dwell in it until Thoth should call me before his terrible tribunal. But to my undoing, on passing through Babylonia, I discovered an awful secret—the secret of the false Smerdis who usurped the throne, the bold Magian Gaumata who governed as an impostor. Fearing that I would betray him to Cambyses, he determined upon my ruin through the instrumentality of the Egyptian priests, who at that time ruled my native country. They were the owners of two-thirds of the land, the monopolizers ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... superior persons to- day. But let us have one thing or the other—a Christ who was what He claimed to be, the Incarnate Word of God, who died for our sins and rose again for our justification; or a Galilean peasant who was either a visionary or an impostor, like ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the nuptials and the dowry of his wife, placing a coffer upon each side of the image, to receive the contributions of either sex. Which is the most wonderful manifestation in the history of this personage—the audacity of the impostor, or the bestiality of his victims? His career was so successful in the Netherlands that he had the effrontery to proceed to Rome, promulgating what he called his doctrines as he went. He seems to have been assassinated by a priest in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... declaration, she made her own peace with Jery; but the hot-headed boy is more than ever incensed against Wilson, whom he now considers as an impostor, that harbours some infamous design upon the honour of his family — As for Barton he was not a little mortified to find his present returned, and his addresses so unfavourably received; but he is not a man to be ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... his compliments to Mrs. Chapman, and, seeing the intimacy there was between her family and a person calling himself Philo Gusher, begged to inform her that the name of that individual was Louis Pinto, a notorious and well-known impostor, who had fled from Havana, where he had been several times imprisoned, to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... alive and had actually seized the throne; but the assurances of the suspected person, and a suggestion which he made, convinced him of the contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution of the mystery. Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the so-called Smerdis must be an impostor, and suggested his identity with a certain Magus, whose brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the general direction of his household and the care of the palace. He was probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance borne by this person to the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... gentleman was succeeded by another, who seemed very much pleased while his petition was reading, in which he had represented, That he was extremely afflicted with the gout, and set his foot upon the ground with the caution and dignity which accompany that distemper. I suspected him for an impostor, and, having ordered him to be searched, I committed him into the hands of Doctor Thomas Smith in King Street, my own corn-cutter, who attended in an outward room: and wrought so speedy a cure upon him, that I thought fit to ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... impossible, and he was in a nervous trepidation which, it was clear to see, was awful funk, I wrote the note desired; and, before the day was out, he had gone to my English colleague, the amiable Severn, and confessed that he was an impostor, a Canadian, and asked for English protection. Severn replied that without my consent he could do nothing for him; he had come with an American passport and must abide by it, unless I gave him up. He was wilted, in such a fright as I never saw a man in before or since, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... persistently thinking of the strange name, "Tantibba." "It is odd how that name haunts me," he thought. "I wish I could see it written: I haven't the least idea how it is spelled. I wonder if she is an impostor. Her garden didn't look like it." Presently he sauntered out: the morning stir was just beginning in the village. The child to whom he had spoken at "Tantibba's" gate, the night before, came up, driving the same ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... luster, and that angels in the last resort would man her walls and repel the invaders. There is something pathetic in this delusion of a great city, trusting with infantine pertinacity to the promises of the man whom they had seen burned as an impostor, when all the while their statesmen and their generals were striking bargains with the foe. Nardi is more sincerely Piagnone than either Segni or Varchi. Yet, writing after the events of the siege, his faith is shaken; and while he records his conviction that ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... his art he could not be induced to reveal even for the sum of 340,000 livres, which was offered him in compensation. People began to doubt whether he had a real secret, or whether he was a rank impostor. A royal commission was appointed to examine into the matter. Our Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, was one of the commissioners. Their report was unfavorable. They found no proof of the existence of a fluid such as animal magnetism, and ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... previous incredulity; in consequence of the verse, of her silence and backwardness at the visit to Hoxton with Manston, and of her appearance and distress at the present moment, Graye had a conviction that the woman was an impostor. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... he came to London, where for many years he practised as a fortune-teller, pretending to answer all questions, whether relating to the past or the future, by means of the second sight. There can be no doubt that this man was to a certain extent an impostor; no person exists having a thorough knowledge either of the past or future by means of the second sight, which only visits particular people by fits and starts, and which is quite independent of individual will; but ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... proof, are apt to look on a man who vows that if a thing has been declared true by some authority whom he respects, then that constitutes proof to him, as either the victim of a preposterous and barely credible infatuation, or else as a flat impostor. Yet De Maistre was no ignorant monk. He had no selfish or official interest in taking away the keys of knowledge, entering not in himself, and them that would enter in hindering. The true reasons for his detestation of the eighteenth-century philosophers, science, and literature, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... was "Old Silver" and not the "Ten Thousand Dollar Beauty" that was doing the catching. Flint's batting was not up to the Kelly standard, however, and they soon tumbled to the fact that Flint was an impostor. At the end of the sixth inning, and with the score standing at 9 to 3 in favor of the Chicagos, the game was called in order that the Chicago Club might play a game with the St. Pauls, then under the management of John S. Barnes. This game ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... possible that she knew more? Was she aware of his real identity? Was her present amiability of manner merely simulated? Was she waiting her time before calling in the police and exposing him as an impostor? ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... what they like, but I wish him well,' said a fair Arab, as she arranged her veil. 'He may be an impostor, but he was a very ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... and sometimes jealousy on this subject. In one tale the "Comte de Gabalis" is solemnly "had up," tried, and condemned as an impostor. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... impostor! There are punishments reserved for those, who undermine the peace of virtue, and steal away the tranquility of innocence. This is thy day. Now thou laughest at all my calamity, thou mockest all my ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... oracle! 'Tis an evil impostor who has—An omen! A true omen, my children! The evil ones hath been branded for the knife! ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... life, and had fallen into the way of treating her accordingly, telling her of things in the parish as he might have done to the Squire's wife, presuming the Squire's wife to have been on the best possible terms with him. He now regarded Mary as being almost an impostor. She had taken him in and obtained his confidence under false pretences. It was true that she might still come and fill the place that he had appointed for her. He rather thought that at last she would do so. But he was angry with her because she hesitated. She was creating an unnecessary disturbance ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... yet there were features in the young lady's personality which assured him in a moment that she was not an impostor. He yielded to her request, and put his hand in his pocket. Here it remained for a moment. How much did she mean by the words 'some money'? The Junonian quality of her form and manner made him throw himself by an impulse into harmony with her, and he responded regally. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another, on the part of one of those young men? You never ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... West Indian, replied he, who has been shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland, and was taken up by a Bristol ship. Ay, ay, you are one of Carew's gang, I suppose, said the justice, but he is transported. Bless your honour, returned he, I am no impostor; I have heard that he was a very great one, and I think deserved more than transportation. Well, well, there's a shilling for you, replied the justice, and go about ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... first, that Balaam is no impostor or magician. He is a wise man, and a prophet of God. God really speaks to him, ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... Hast thou committed it? Nay, I know thou hast not, if thou wouldst be saved by Christ. Yea, it is impossible that thou shouldst have done it, if indeed thou wouldst be saved by him. No man can desire to be saved by him, who he yet judgeth to be an impostor, a magician, a witch. No man can hope for redemption by that blood which he yet counteth an unholy thing. Nor will God ever suffer such an one to repent, who has, after light and profession of him, thus horribly, and devil-like, contemned and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... led him from the cabin, and conjured him to declare if in truth he had seen this sea of the north. Vignan, with oaths, affirmed that all he had said was true. Returning to the council, Champlain repeated the impostor's story—how he had seen the sea, the wreck of an English ship, the heads of eighty Englishmen, and an English boy, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... them. He lies—never wrote such stuff, never saw the poems, nor the publisher of them, in my life, nor had any communication, directly or indirectly, with the fellow. Pray say as much for me, if need be. I have written to Murray, to make him contradict the impostor." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... know, the author issued at his own expense one of his works in raised characters, as a present to these afflicted persons. A rich old gentleman had noticed a blind beggar seated with the Bible open on his knees, droning out the passages in the usual fashion. Some of the impostor sort learn the lines by heart and "make believe" to read, as they pass their fingers over the characters. The rich old gentleman's blind reader read in the genuine way, and got through about fifty chapters a day. No one, however, ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... whose name he had omitted in his will. Milton lived for some time in a house in Holborn that opened at the back on Lincoln's Inn Fields. Fox Court leads us to the curious inquiry whether Savage, the poet, was a conscious or an unconscious impostor; and at the Blue Boar Inn Cromwell and Ireton discovered by stratagem the treacherous letter of King Charles to his queen, that rendered Cromwell for ever the King's enemy. These are only a few of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the cornets sounded as if made of anything other than silver. The commodious court room was, despite the outer inclemency of road and weather, packed with men and women who stood up and yelled a welcome that for the moment dazed the impostor; but he recovered his nerve and mischievousness instantly, and no actor ever fell into his part more completely than did he. The Judge was ponderous, but Jimmy went him one better. The Judge "threw ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... my staying at Barchester, I must tell you the truth now, though I was a gross impostor the day that I went away. I wanted to avoid a parting on that last morning, and therefore I started much sooner than I need have done. I know you will be very angry with me; but open confession is good for the soul. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... to do so, but it was plain that his words carried no conviction, for his mocking inquisitor gave a loud snort and gestured eloquently to his commander. "There you have it!" he declared, proudly. "This impostor betrays himself." ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... in a fury] What! That impostor! that humbug! that toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods! my discoveries! You take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. [He lays hands on her]. ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... the actual possession of three hundred a-year as a bounty, for which I could make no return, was I own humiliating to my pride. It made the question continually recur—'Whether it did not give me the air of an impostor? A kind of swindler of sentiment? A pretender to superior virtue, for the purpose of gratifying vice?' It seemed at a blow to rob me of all independence; and leave me a manacled slave to the opinions, not only of Mr. Evelyn, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... solemn impostor,' rejoined Mr. Tadpole; 'but he is a baronet and a county member, and very much looked up to by the Wesleyans. The other men, I know, have refused him ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... and dignity. He had seen with still deeper displeasure the countenance given by a large section of that party to the pretensions of Monmouth. The opposition, it seemed, wished first to make the crown of England not worth the wearing, and then to place it on the head of a bastard and impostor. At the same time the Prince's religious system differed widely from that which was the badge of the Tories. They were Arminians and Prelatists. They looked down on the Protestant Churches of the Continent, and regarded every line of their ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... being an impostor. They did not pass her on to the hateful charity that paid parasites dole out for the rich. They did not think that she made a fortune out of her pitifulness and hunt her with canting harshness as a nuisance and a cheat. Her harsh voice did not jar on them. ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... by Himself—theoretically a perfect arrangement, but in practice open to the gravest perils. It not merely paved the way to imposture, but invited it; and the most dangerous imposture is that which imposes on the impostor himself. It created an oligarchy of the most insidious and unassailable type: a communion of earthly "saints," who might be, and occasionally were, satans at heart. It is essentially at variance with democracy, which it regards as a surrender to the selfish license of the lowest range ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... and voted a temple to be built to the goddess in commemoration of the anticipated victory; but when Batakes presented himself to the popular assembly with the intention of making the same report there, Aulus Pompeius, one of the tribunes, stopped him, calling him an impostor, and contumeliously driving him from the Rostra; which however contributed to gain most credit for the man's assertions. For on the separation of the assembly, Aulus had no sooner returned to his house than he was seized with so violent a fever ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and I were English sailors—not any of your Maltese riffraff; and so, picking up the scattered gold, we gave it back to the old impostor, the suspicious scoundrel counting each piece as we dropped it into his hands to make sure that we did ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... escaped?" she asked eagerly. "No, there he is!" she pointed to Captain Rudstone. "Liar, thief, impostor!" she said, half-hysterically. "You are unmasked at last—and by a woman! Denzil, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... literature of that age; and at the same time was not more celebrated for his abilities than admired for his piety. At length he took priest's orders, and performed the duties of his office with great assiduity and punctuality. Publicly declaring Mahomet an impostor, he was sentenced to be beheaded, and was accordingly executed, A. D. 850; after which his body was ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the very end, he keeps his mask, not only in public but also to himself and in his inmost conscience. The mask, indeed, has adhered to his skin; he can no longer distinguish one from the other; never did an impostor more carefully conceal intentions and acts under sophisms, and persuade himself that the mask was his face, and that in telling a lie, he ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... believed by the many, the questioning few also finding it well to still their doubts in presence of death or torture. Piety and politics quickly worked hand in hand to found the impostor's authority. A mosque began to rise over the tomb of the Mahdi in his chosen capital, Omdurman; and his successor gained the support and the offerings of the thousands of pilgrims who came to visit that wonder-working shrine. Such was the basis of the new rule, which spread over the valley of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... open scorn. That some of the effects were palpably fraudulent, and that, fraud apart, there remained a residuum of phenomena not easy to explain, were all irritating facts. Yet no one can mistake Sludge for an outflow of personal irritation, still less for an act of literary vengeance upon the impostor who had beguiled the lofty and ardent intelligence of his wife. The resentful husband is possibly there, but so elementary an emotion could not possibly have taken exclusive possession of Browning's complex literary faculty, or baulked the eager speculative curiosity ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... themselves to wait on them. Dost thou not see—shortsighted being that thou art, and unlucky mortal that I am!—that if they perceive thee to be a coarse clown or a dull blockhead, they will suspect me to be some impostor or swindler? Nay, nay, Sancho friend, keep clear, oh, keep clear of these stumbling-blocks; for he who falls into the way of being a chatterbox and droll, drops into a wretched buffoon the first time he trips; bridle thy tongue, consider and weigh thy words before they escape ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... friend, she's my daughter's friend. The question is whether my daughter marries Lord Tristram of Blent or an impostor (whether voluntary or involuntary) without a name, an acre, or, so far as I know, a shilling. She can help me. She stands aside. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... but only to be disappointed, finding as I did that the block was fast. Oh, Poole, how I did tug and strain at it, feeling all the while that I had been boasting and bragging to your father, and that after all I was only a poor miserable impostor who had been professing to know a great deal, when I was as ignorant as could be, and that I was being deservedly punished in that terrible failure ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Ronald, that we are playing with edged tools,' said I. 'An offer of marriage is a delicate subject to handle. You have refused, and you have justified your refusal by several statements: first, that I was an impostor; second, that our countries were at war; and third— No, I will speak,' said I; 'you can answer when I have done,—and third, that I had dishonourably killed—or was said to have done so—the man Goguelat. Now, my dear fellow, these ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evidence as of "vital importance," and in itself final and conclusive. The absence of the tattoo-marks in this case justified the jury in their finding that the defendant was not and could not be Roger Tichbourne, whereupon the alleged claimant was proved to be an impostor, found guilty of perjury, and sentenced ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... believe that, at a prearranged signal from her, he would confront Chiquita personally and compel her to acknowledge the truth before himself and the Captain. Her nature revolted at that which Don Felipe told her, cried out for justice, for the exposure of the impostor; nevertheless, she disliked a scene, and for the Captain's sake, made Don Felipe promise to do nothing unless ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... girl and laying her in the arms of her mother. "And do not allow that man to come near her. He has behaved badly in not giving her up, on my demand, until we can inquire into this matter. It may be that this strange woman is a lunatic, or an impostor. We ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... States. Its great and sudden growth solely by immigration had made it distinctively a church of foreigners, and chiefly of Irishmen. The conditions were favorable for the development of a race prejudice aggravated by a religious antipathy. It was a good time for the impostor, the fanatic, and the demagogue to get in their work. In Boston, in 1834, the report that a woman was detained against her will in the Ursuline convent at Charlestown, near Boston, led to the burning of the building by a drunken mob. The Titus Oates ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... lieutenants there. A Sidonian trader came to him and offered to shorten the distance: if a man cut straight across the mountains, which could be done in three days, he would be in Egypt without more ado. This was a fact; but Alexander took the man for an impostor, and would have nothing to say to him. That is the reception any surprisingly good offer may ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... and that no sham lady could have such a handsome ring, and, besides all that, he keeps the clothes that you and your mother wore, that in case you should ever meet with your relations all these things may prove you are the same child that was lost, and not an impostor.' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... Brunswick called, a nice-looking, lively man, and we go to them on Thursday—Mr. James Neilson. Yesterday afternoon we spent two hours at Mrs. A. B—-'s, and met Mr. Keally. He is a curious person, and looks full of fire, and I should say not an impostor, but I should not be surprised if he was mad! He talked away tremendously quickly, and used all kinds of new words invented to suit his discovery, and I got quite exhausted trying to understand him; all I could really make out was that he ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... fact, we go, We two, against a one-man foe (Of course you would not wish to hurt a Hair of our folk in vulgar broil; Your scheme is just to take and boil Inside a vat of native oil This vile impostor, HUERTA). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... I could not recognize a vagabond as the emperor; to call him an impostor to his face was to doom myself to death; and the sacrifice which I was ready to make under the gibbet that morning, before all the people, in the first flush of indignation, seemed now a useless bravado. Pougatcheff awaited my answer in fierce silence. At last (I ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... method; because fancy and will are universally regarded as judges, in the place of arguments and facts,—it has been impossible to this day to distinguish the charlatan from the philosopher, the savant from the impostor. Since the days of Solomon and Pythagoras, imagination has been exhausted in guessing out social and psychological laws; all systems have been proposed. Looked at in this light, it is probably true that EVERY THING HAS BEEN SAID; but it is no less true that EVERY THING ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... what's-her-name in the Bible, by whose wiles the old blind man was induced to give to his second son the blessing which was the birthright of the other. I wish I had been in his place! I should not have been so easily deceived! no disguise would ever have caused me to mistake an impostor for my first-born. Though I must say for this boy that he is nothing like Jacob; he is neither smooth nor sleek, and, though my second-born, is already taller and larger ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... This scoundrel who has promised to marry you, and who belongs to a rank immeasurably above your own, is already notorious for what are termed, by such as himself, affairs of gallantry; while the wretched impostor whom he has brought with him to act the part of clergyman is the marker at a low billiard-table, and no more ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... him a prince. He had a distaste to Voltaire, and found considerable fault with his dramas, perhaps justly, as conveying opinions rather than sentiments. He criticised his Mahomet, and said he had made him merely an impostor and a tyrant, without representing him as a great man. This was owing to Voltaire's religious and political antipathies; for those who are free from common prejudices acquire others of their own in their stead, to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... started back in amazement. This woman, whom he had taken for a newspaper reporter, was an interloper, an impostor, the very last woman in the world whom he would have permitted to be admitted to his house. He considered that she, as much as anybody else, had contributed to his son's ruin. Yet what could he do? She was there, and he was too ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... of our Savior about the preservation of His Church from error be false, then Jesus Christ is not God, since God cannot lie. He is not even a prophet, since He predicted falsehood. Nay, He is an impostor, and all Christianity is a miserable failure and a huge deception, since it rests ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... impostor!" cried the wounded officer wrathfully. "He is a villain to his very finger tips. It is to him that I owe my long term in the insane asylum. ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... collection of Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera from among the visitors to a single field of golden-rod alone. Usually to be discovered among the throng are the velvety black Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor wasp-beetle, the black and yellow wavy-banded, red-legged locust-tree borer, and the painted Clytus, banded with yellow and sable, squeaking contentedly as he gnaws the florets ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... of Burgess to observe one thing about him. Had I observed that his nose was rectilinear, incurved, and with a lifted base, and that his auricular temporal angle was between 96 and 97 degrees, I should have known at once that he was an impostor. Vide Ottolenghui on 'Ears and Noses I Have Met,' ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... ignorance and fraud is not always sufficient to open the eyes, and enlighten the understandings, of mankind. Some perverse dupes are not to be reasoned out of their infatuation; they had rather hug the impostor, than confess the cheat; and quacks, speculating upon this infirmity of human nature, will sometimes court ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... story told of him by Sir Thomas More, how he convicted an impostor who claimed to have been born blind, but to have received sight at St. Alban's shrine, by asking him the colour of the garments that the duke himself and others were wearing; all these questions were correctly answered ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... I must perforce repeat as slowly, though every one was a bitter pill. I was made to say that I was entirely mistaken in supposing myself a Christian (in the 'evangelical' sense); that I had been a fool, a braggart, a sort of impostor; that my life had been one series of shams and follies; that I had disgraced my religious profession, etc., etc., ad nauseam, winding up with the abject declaration that I deserved to go straight to 'the city of Dis, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... his forlorn appearance, could not fail To make the proud and vain his tributaries, And stir the pulse of lazy charity. The seignories of Herbert are in Devon; We, neighbours of the Esk and Tweed; 'tis much The Arch-Impostor— ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Swan, he prepared himself for practice, adopted the title of doctor, the name of Alexander Bendo, and issued bills headed by the royal arms, containing the most remarkable and impudent manifesto perhaps ever set forth by any impostor. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... a poet, fancy my state of mind! I am horribly cast down; don't like to go out to dinner; am sure my butler, having read these reviews, despises me as an impostor; but while I sit sulking, in comes a dear friend and brother-poet. 'How do you know,' says he, 'that Snooks didn't write number one himself? Or perhaps one of his clique did, for whom he is to do the same ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Christianity had originally come in their way! Of a surety they would reflect much more lustre on the religion of Christ than millions whose deeds and behaviour are more worthy of the followers of the impostor than of Him 'in whose mouth was found no ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... chiefly the consideration of the great danger we are in, which engaged me to discourse to you on this subject, to exhort you to a love of your country, and a public spirit, when all you have is at stake; to prefer the interest of your prince and your fellow subjects before that of one destructive impostor, and a ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to attempt to describe my early years, you would laugh at me as an impostor; but the following letter from mamma to a friend, after her marriage, will pretty well show you what a poor foolish creature she was; and what a reckless extravagant fellow was my other ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... how the Aldermen and the Mayor considered her an impostor, and did not think she was wise at all, and they wished her to take her Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city. She sang it beautifully; it sounded like the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Cambyses—his total subjugation of Egypt—election of Darius Hystaspes to the Persian throne, then vacant by the assassination of Smerdis, the impostor. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... waiting for?" asked Thacker angrily. "Don't you forget that I can upset your apple cart any day I want to. If old Urique knew you were an impostor, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh, you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here have got mustard spread between 'em. These people here'd stretch you out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they'd ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... to state seriously, that the German student is an impostor; and that he has no right to wrest the parentage of the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... She was away the whole day, and for the first time since her visit she kept us waiting more than half an hour for dinner. The moment we all sat down to table, she informed us, to Morgan's great delight, that the bard was a rank impostor. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the real details. Agias reasoned. He was met with obstinate incredulity. He entreated, prayed, implored. The prejudiced rustics mocked at him, and hinted that they cared too much for their patron to believe any tale that such a manifest impostor might tell them. Pausanias, the Mamerci, and Cappadox, the only persons, besides Drusus, who could readily identify him, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... that urged on the St. Bartholomew Massacre led also in the scenes of the Revolution. Jesus Christ was declared to be an impostor, and the rallying cry of the French infidels was, "Crush the Wretch," meaning Christ. Heaven-daring blasphemy and abominable wickedness went hand in hand, and the basest of men, the most abandoned monsters of cruelty ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... am sure, to have satisfied you that Grace is not an impostor," said Lady Janet, with satirical humility. She took Julian's arm and drew him out of hearing of Horace and Mercy. "About that letter of yours?" she proceeded. "There is one line in it that rouses my curiosity. Who is the mysterious ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... with that exceedingly frank manner he had, the sort of manner particularly taking with reserved people, because it saves them so much trouble—"for otherwise how should you know that I am not an impostor—a swindler—instead of your cousin, which I hope you believe I really ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... this happy meeting," he replied. "Three days ago, a friend of mine returned from the baths, and mentioned that he had heard that a Marquis of Clameran was near there, in the Pyrenees. You can imagine my surprise. I instantly supposed that some impostor had assumed our name. I took the next train, and finally found my ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... not to see Halsey," she said. "Miss Innes, there are a great many things you will never understand, I am afraid. I am an impostor on your sympathy, because I—I stay here and let you lavish care on me, and all the time I know you ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... force of your reasoning, Dr. Thorne. I have enough to answer for, without the additional contumely of being called an impostor." ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... with an eye which gleamed with a hint of latent possibilities of belligerency. "Mr. Cleggett," she continued, pursing her lips, "I have sought an interview to warn you that you are harboring an impostor on ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... productions of art that nature disavows, seemed suspicious to the more clear-sighted patriots. The boldest of them followed you, tore the mask from your visage, and cried—Citizens, this hero is but a courtier, this sage but an impostor. Now, thanks to you, the Revolution can no longer bite, you have cut the lion's claws; the people is more formidable to its conductors; they have reassumed the whip and spur, and you fly. Let civic crowns strew your paths, though ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... some amazing way she contrived to look not out of place in this gathering. He himself, he felt, had impostor stamped in large characters all ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the bank and invest it in a common fund which he was raising to be drawn upon by all needy and faithful free Negroes.[21] Her savings, therefore, served to increase this fund, which instead of relieving the economic condition of many needy free Negroes enriched this white impostor. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... read. Cyrus lived to be very old, and was succeeded by his son Cambyses, who, far from following the virtuous example of his father, committed numberless crimes, among which was the murder of his own brother. After him reigned Smerdis the impostor, who pretended to be the true Smerdis that had been killed by Cambyses: next to him Darius, who was chosen because his horse neighed before any of those belonging to the other competitors for the crown: then ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... the immediate presence of the nether powers, Le Jeune watched the sorcerer with an eye prepared to discover in his conjurations the signs of a genuine diabolic agency. His observations, however, led him to a different result; and he could detect in his rival nothing but a vile compound of impostor and dupe. The sorcerer believed in the efficacy of his own magic, and was continually singing and beating his drum to cure the disease from which he was suffering. Towards the close of the winter, Le Jeune fell sick, and, in his pain and weakness, nearly succumbed under the nocturnal ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... fashionable New-Yorker, male or female, is powerless against the charms of aristocracy. The "foreign nobleman" is welcomed everywhere, feted, petted, and allowed almost any privilege he chooses to claim—and he is far from being very modest in this respect; and by and by he is found out to be an impostor, probably the valet of some gentleman of rank in Europe. Then society holds up its hands in holy horror, and vows it always did suspect him. The men in society are weak enough in this respect; but the women are ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... is full of such shrines. Another one, for example, has been built into the very heart of the rustling palm forest; the water glides under its walls wherein sits the aged impostor who, unlike his amiable colleague at Tozeur, is too holy even to speak to unbelievers (you are permitted to gaze upon him through a grated window). Yet another one is the humble Sidi Murzouk, the negroes' sanctuary, among the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... has been enjoying me for an hour.... I'm as pleasant as a puzzle to him ... he preferred to read me rather than Dickens, and I gather from his expression that he has solved me. By this time I am rated in his mind as an impostor. Oh, the children of the Mayflower, how hard for them to see anything in life except through ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... right to be leader of the band. He has taken my brother's name, and he calls himself Pacheco. Senors, I swear to you I speak the truth—I swear by all the saints! My brother is dead, and there is an impostor in his place." ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... say, "It never pays to respect a man who does not respect himself." If the world sees that you do not honor yourself, it has a right to reject you as an impostor; because you claim to be worthy of the good opinion of others when you have not your own. Self-respect is based upon the same principles as respect for others. The scales of justice hang in every heart, and even the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... his Ossianic imitation, Byron said that Mr. Laing had proved Ossian an impostor, but that the merit of MacPherson's work remained, although in parts his diction was turgid and bombastic.[27] A poem in the "Hours of Idleness," upon the Scotch mountain "Lachin Y Gair," has two Ossianic lines in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... most godly might fall a victim, with the terrible consequence that one might become bewitched and know it not. At this stage it was the bounden duty of the unfortunate being's church brethren to help him by inducing him to confess the indwelling of an evil spirit and thus free himself from the great impostor. And if he did not confess then it were better that he be killed, lest the devil through him contaminate all. Why, says Mather, in his Wonders of the Invisible World: "If the devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons of so fine a composition and operation, that scores ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... on the allegory farther, he says of the false humourists, "But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world: to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... myself with having sufficient knowledge of Inghilterra, Signor Capitano, though it be by means of books, to discover an impostor, could I believe you capable of appearing in so unworthy a character; and that, too, in a very brief conversation. We bookworms," added Andrea Barrofaldi, with a glance of triumph at his neighbor, for he now expected to give the podesta an illustration of the practical benefits of general learning, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... futtock- shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty fully made up;—she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. In short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen, was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... majestic witness to Himself received with a shriek of condemnation. What a supreme moment that was when the head of the hierarchy put this question and received the unambiguous answer! The veriest impostor asserting Messiahship had a right to have his claims examined; but a howl of hypocritical horror is all which Christ's evoke. The high priest knew well enough what Christ's answer would be. Why, then, did he not begin by questioning Jesus, and do without the witnesses? Probably because the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... to me yesterday that you were not from Vermont, that you are an impostor. What have you to ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... it! He is an impostor! He tried to get in his vote when he aint over eighteen years old!" shouted several ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... approval, for many of his auditors were visibly stirred by his words. But some bolder spirits were tired of the show or fearful of its issue. Hermeias and Zeuxis, two of his bitterest enemies, shouted out that he was an Impostor[275] and rushed upon him. One of the two thrust a sword through his side, the other smote his head off with an axe. It was then the women's turn. Megallis's female slaves were given the power to treat her as they would. They first tortured her, then led her up to a high place and ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... new life is entered upon, brightness and hope taking the place of darkness and despair. This is not the only call the friendly visitor makes; but he or she becomes a true friend, and makes regular visits as such. If by this method the one seeking charity is found to be an impostor, as is frequently the case, proper means of exposure are resorted to, that his or her progress in this course may be stopped. The organizations are thus doing a most valuable work, and one that will become more and more valuable as they are enabled to become better organized, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Fashion has so far prevailed over her collegiate sister, Custom, that they have altered the hour of dinner from twelve to one. Does not it put one in mind of reformations in religion? One don't abolish Mahommedism; one only brings it back to where the impostor himself left it. I think it is at the South-Sea-house, where they have been forced to alter the hour of payment, instead of from ten to twelve, to from twelve to two; so much do even moneyed citizens sail with the current ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Hathorne and myself have been grossly deceived by an unprincipled adventurer—but that proves nothing. Because Jannes and Jambres imitated with their sorceries the miracles of Moses, did it prove that Moses was an impostor? There was one Judas among the twelve apostles, but does that invalidate the credibility of the eleven others, who were not liars and cheats? It is the great and overwhelming burden of the testimony which decides in this as in all other disputed matters—not mere isolated cases. Good afternoon, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... by delicate rapier thrusts, he punctured them. He named the points of their illogic. This was a false syllogism, that conclusion had no connection with the premise, while that next premise was an impostor because it had cunningly hidden in it the conclusion that was being attempted to be proved. This was an error, that was an assumption, and the next was an assertion contrary to ascertained truth as printed in ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London |
