"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a hundred-per-cent. mark on all them words which you read in them medical journals you pick up from the doctor's desk in his private office when he excuses himself for a minute to answer the 'phone and which you put down so quick and pretend you 'ain't been reading when he comes back again, if you know what I mean. And furthermore, if these same big manufacturers was elected to the United States Senate to-morrow they could make a speech against doing away with ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... contriving the impression that it was by his sole favor the concession was obtained. Two of them came promptly and waited at the foot of the steps, smirking and changing attitudes to draw attention to their rags. Chamu tossed the bread to them with expressions of disgust. If they had cared to pretend they were holy men he would have been respectful, in degree at least, but these were professionals so hardened that they dared ignore the religious apology, which implies throughout the length and breadth of India the right ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... "perhaps you are right. I don't pretend to know anything about this side of the business. To put the case to you plainly, we must clear forty thousand dollars on our beef this fall, for the mortgage alone—putting it in round numbers. We should ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... But on this occasion I more particularly observed two circular plates of brass and steel, which appeared the remains of very antique shields. They were borne with great reverence by two chiefs. The natives do not pretend to explain whence they came. They keep them apart, as something sacred. They are only produced on great occasions. I was told, too, that ears of green corn were brought in at a part of the ceremony to-day, which I missed, and that they were presented to a chief. He took them, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I cannot pretend to write on geology; Taylor, Debenham, and Priestley are still drawing up reports on Antarctic physiography and glacial geology on our fossils collected, on the Barrier Movement, and the retreating ice of that Frozen Wonderland. Some day another ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... said Burton to his wife, "I cannot do, and that is, face congratulations, so, if you are agreeable, we will pretend that we have been married some months." Such matters, however, are not easy to conceal, and the news leaked out. "I am surprised," said his cousin, Dr. Edward J. Burton, to him a few days later, "to find that you are married." ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... pretend to know anything which relates to themselves," said I; "but I advise you, if you ever ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... by request of Mr. Kinnaird for the theatre. I did as well as I could; but where I have not my choice I pretend to answer for nothing. Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen Alp; and seen torrents of nine hundred feet in fall, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... pretend to speak grammar or book-English, Jack," retorted the young sailor, "no more than yourself; but all who have ever sailed in the Fire-fly, as both you and I have done, know her quality, and that anything can be made of her: I tell you, every beam of her timbers has life in ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... you do if you can't keep awake?" I asked. "You slip out quietly, go to your room ask a maid to call you after you have had forty winks, then you go back and pretend you are having a good time," ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... candour, to keep me, in spite of all these confidences, steadily aware of her aversion. Her parting words were ingeniously honest. "I am sure," said she, "we all OUGHT to be very much obliged to you." I cannot pretend that she put me at my ease; but I had a certain respect for such a genuine dislike. A poor nature would have slipped, in the course of these familiarities, into a sort of worthless ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the other hand, has the orifice at the point of his square snout, the internal channel running in a slightly diagonal direction downwards, and back through the skull to the lungs. So when he spouts, the breath is projected forward diagonally, and, from some peculiarity which I do not pretend to explain, expends itself in a short, bushy tuft of vapour, very distinct from the tall vertical spout of the bowhead or ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... ill excites? What but thy malice mov'd thee to misdeem Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him With all inflictions, but his patience won? The other service was thy chosen task, To be a lyer in four hundred mouths; For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. Yet thou pretend'st to truth; all Oracles 430 By thee are giv'n, and what confest more true Among the Nations? that hath been thy craft, By mixing somewhat true to vent more lyes. But what have been thy answers, what but dark Ambiguous and with double sense deluding, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... despair, The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war, And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared. The sides were planked with pine: they feigned it made For their return, and this the vow they paid. Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side Selected numbers of their soldiers hide; With inward arms the dire machine they load, And iron bowels stuff the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... pretend you don't know her," she went on banteringly. "She says you were great friends down South, so I 've invited her to supper. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... below again, closed the hatch, and submerged. Tom took his time in bringing the jet pumps up to speed. "Wonder if we should pretend to proceed on course, or turn around and head for ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... pretend to teach reading in the sense in which it is understood in the kindergarten and the early primary grades. Rather it begins to be of service as a reader only after the child has been taught how to read for himself. Children in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... the property and liberty of our fellow citizens. In the course of the present year one of our vessels, engaged in the pursuit of a trade which we have always enjoyed without molestation, has been captured by a band acting, as they pretend, under the authority of the Government of Buenos Ayres. I have therefore given orders for the dispatch of an armed vessel to join our squadron in those seas and aid in affording all lawful protection to our trade which shall be necessary, and shall without delay send ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... Egerton, "I am the last man to pretend to the right of standing between you and a single chance of fortune, or of aid to it. And whom did ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... in your pistols, which (if you remember) I was kind enough to load for both of us this morning. Secondly, as there is some one else who knows a passage, you must think it highly improbable I should saddle myself with a lunatic like you. Thirdly, these gentlemen (who need no longer pretend to be asleep) are those of my party, and will now proceed to gag and bind you to the mast; and when your men awaken (if they ever do awake after the drugs we have mingled in their liquor), I am sure they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smack of Drury Lane, hasn't it?" said Howard. "Strange that whenever we see anything beautiful in the way of a landscape we at once compare it with a stage 'set.' The fact of it is, my dear Stafford, we have become absolutely artificial; we pretend to admire Nature, but we are thinking of a theatre all the time; we throw up our eyes ecstatically when we hear a nightingale, but we much prefer a comic singer at the Tivoli. We talk sentiment, at feast, some of us, but we have ceased to feel it; we don't really ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... down into a mere apology for idleness. An "idle stockinger" was there no very uncommon phrase, and the Degs were always classed under that head. Nothing could be more admirably adapted than this trade for building a plan of parish relief upon. The Degs did not pretend to be absolutely without work, or the parish authorities would soon have set them to some real labor,—a thing that they particularly recoiled from, having a very old adage in the family, that "hard work was enough to kill a man." The Degs were seldom, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Priestley (Directions for impregnating water with fixed air . . . to communicate the peculiar Spirit and Virtues of Pyrmont water, 1772), of imitating them artificially. Many of the ordinary aerated waters of commerce, however, do not pretend to reproduce any known natural water; they are merely beverages owing their popularity to their effervescing properties and the flavour imparted by a small quantity of some salt such as sodium bicarbonate ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... succeeded in the superlative degree, and was so clean that my friends thought I should not need to retouch it. It is true that certain Germans and Frenchmen, who vaunt the possession of marvellous secrets, pretend that they can cast bronzes without retouching them; but this is really nonsense, because the bronze, when it has first been cast, ought to be worked over and beaten in with hammers and chisels, according to the manner of the ancients and also to that of the moderns—I mean such moderns ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... in order to make this appear with a better Face to the Town, it was agreed to complain of the Actors Salaries being too great, and accordingly a false Account was published of them in the daily Papers, by whom I will not say: Whether, or no, some particular Salaries were so, I will not pretend to determine; yet, in the whole, they did not amount to more than had been allowed for many Years, when the Theatre was under a frugal and exact Regulation; when the Managers punctually fulfilled, not only all Engagements to their Actors, but to every other Person ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... they say to me. Well, so much the better! we shall not have to pay the costs of his political apprenticeship; he knows the affairs of the country; he knows parliamentary necessities; he is much nearer being a statesman than my friend Simon, who will not pretend to have made himself a Pitt or a Talleyrand in a little ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... accounts pretend that the immediate cause of rupture was a claim instituted by Huascar for the territory of Tumebamba, held by his brother as part of his patrimonial inheritance. It matters little what was the ostensible ground of collision ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... good stales[306]: now Guildford is mine own! [Aside.] Hubert, I charge you take an hundred horse, And follow unto Guildford castle-gates. The queen pretend you come to tend upon, Sent carefully from us: when you are in, Boldly demand the lady for her sons, For pledges of her husband's faith and hers: Whom when ye have, upon the castle seize, And keep it to our use, until we come. Meanwhile let me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... finds itself compelled, precisely like Lenine, to pretend to be a peace-loving organization, loyally accepting constitutional democracy and opposed to violence. Are we to take it at its own word? Is it possible that a few pious phrases offered on occasion can deceive the American people as to the nature of a propaganda organization that is shouting ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... I seem cruel, Jim," she replied, "but my mind is quite made up. It's a week to-night since you asked me to be your wife. I love yer, I don't pretend to deny it; I've loved yer for many a month, and my heart leaped with joy when you said you loved me, and of course I meant to say 'yes.' But now everything is changed; I'm young, only seventeen, and whatever we do now means ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Athenian philosopher.—In those 2000 years many facts have been dragged out of "the circle of the unknown and unused." Astronomy, geology, physiology, psychology—all except theology are belter understood. Men pretend they are searching after happiness, and where do they try to find it? Not here amongst the known, but in the possible hereafter amongst the unknowable. How do they try to find it? Not by the aid of the known, not by the light of facts, gathered in ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... his people to land for the purpose of washing their clothes, which they had before refused to do, and in short, were in a mood to grant any thing, provided we were willing to remain at this part of the island. They did not pretend that this was out of regard for us, and it was easy to see that they apprehended more trouble in managing us any where else than at this place. Amongst the arguments used by them to dissuade us from going to the other end of the island, they said it was inhabited by savages. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... the several constables within your ward, and strictly to charge them to put in execution the said laws, or to expect the penalty of forty shillings to be levyed upon their estates, for every vagrant that shal be found begging in their several precincts. And to the end the said constables may not pretend ignorance, what to do with the several persons which they shal find offending the said laws, these are further to require them, that al aged or impotent persons who are not fit to work, be passed from constable to constable to the parish where they dwel; and that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... that myself. I don't pretend to be an infallible judge of human nature, but mark my words, Austin has cared for my Sylvia since the first moment he ever set eyes on her. No man likes to feel that the woman he's in love with is doing everything for him and his family, and that he can't—as ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... among the Gallic and Spanish churches, who looked upon Rome as conspicuous and illustrious, though as no more than equal to themselves. At the Council of Carthage St. Cyprian said, "None of us ought to set himself up as a bishop of bishops, or pretend tyrannically to restrain his colleagues, because each bishop has a liberty and power to act as he thinks fit, and can no more be judged by another bishop than he can judge another. But we must all wait for the judgment of Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs the power to set ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Spencer! And yet you dare pretend now to retain an interest in me? Lieutenant Brant, you must be a most talented deceiver, or else the strangest person I ever met. Such a miracle ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... blame the first," said Afra; "but I do not pretend to have any patience with the last. I pity our poor faithless generals here, and dear Aimee, with her mind so perplexed, and her struggling heart; but I have no toleration for Leclerc and Rochambeau, and the whole train ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... not talk politics. What I say is very practical. How can Colonel Cochrane pretend to this priest that he is really interested in his religion when, in effect, there is no religion in the world to him outside some little church in which he has been born and bred? I will say this for the Colonel, that I do not believe he is at all a hypocrite, and I am sure that he could not ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... "Oh! I don't pretend to know much about starting a blaze in half a dozen styles, the way Giraffe's got it down pat," observed the other, smiling a little; "but if you pin me down to going at it the easiest way, with matches, and dead pine cones, why I'm there every time. And say, it does ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... great. He would blush a little and steal a glance at her bare arms, which were rather thin, as she drew them languidly around her flowing hair, and with her hands, clasped behind her head, lost herself in a dream, until they were numbed, and then she would let them fall. Christophe would pretend that he only saw these pleasant sights inadvertently as he happened to pass the window, and that they did not disturb him in his musical thoughts; but he liked it, and in the end he wasted as much time in watching Frau Sabine, as she did over her toilet. Not that she was ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... then goes off to hunt in some fashionable centre, like Melton Mowbray. In Leicestershire he would be regarded as a hunting man, while in his own district he is known as a vulpicide, for Reynard is seldom, if ever, found in his coverts. One has only to live in the country, and pretend indifference about fox-hunting, to see the tricks which some farmers perform in order to prevent people from riding over their land. I remember in the North Cheshire country a big covert, which was always considered a certain find, being drawn blank, much to the huntsman's surprise. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... this? Because I loved you, senora—and you knew it! Ah! you can turn your face away now; you can pretend to misunderstand me, as you did a moment ago; you can part from me now like a mere acquaintance—but it was not always so! No, it was YOU who brought me here; your eyes that smiled into mine—and drove home ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... know how this is going to get itself said. But I can't stop it. That frightens me, rather; I've been used to ordering myself about or, at least, to feeling that I could. But that seems to be over. I don't pretend that I didn't foresee it, or rather that I didn't recognize it right at the beginning. What I did was to put ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... Madame Garvloit would insist that a young girl ought to have tact enough not to make this evident. Elizabeth, however, was not deficient in tact, but disliked putting a restraint upon her feelings; and it seemed to her on the whole unreasonable that a person should pretend that a thing was pleasant when in ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... floors tan or gray, if you want them to confess frankly that they're painted floors, or the shade of some wood if you want to pretend ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... that you have a comely form, you despise your old comrades, the insects; and, whenever you happen to meet any of them, you pretend not to know them [literally, 'You make an I-don't-know face']. Now you want to have none but wealthy and exalted people for friends... Ah! You have forgotten the old times, ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... with genius, as if a naphtha-lamp burnt within it: that Figure is Camille Desmoulins. A fellow of infinite shrewdness, wit, nay humour; one of the sprightliest clearest souls in all these millions. Thou poor Camille, say of thee what they may, it were but falsehood to pretend one did not almost love thee, thou headlong lightly-sparkling man! But the brawny, not yet furibund Figure, we say, is Jacques Danton; a name that shall be 'tolerably known in the Revolution.' He is President of the electoral Cordeliers District at Paris, or about to be it; and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... sometimes very exciting. But I could see that though the actress was very handsome and mostly so unhappy as to draw tears from the spectators, there were people, especially some gentlemen, who were more interested in looking at the box where I sat with Mrs. Hambledon. Indeed, I could not pretend, when I found myself before my glass that night, that I was not amazingly prettier than that Mrs. Colebrook, about whose beauty ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... almost scot-free; she cannot be put in prison, or sentenced to hard labor—not she! A pity it is that Christ did not leave us some injunction as to what was to be done with such women—not the penitent Magdalenes, but the creatures whose mouths are full of lies even when they pretend to pray—they who would be capable of trying to tempt the priest who comes to receive their last confessions—they who would even act out a sham repentance on their deathbeds in order to look well. What can be done with devils such as these? Much has been said latterly of the wrongs ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Tessie, "unless you count Mrs. Fizzenmeyer, the delicatessen lady; or Madame Tebeau, the little hairdresser; or the Schmitt girls, from the corner bakery. They pretend to take Auntie almost as serious as she takes herself. Lately, though, even that bunch has stopped. You can't blame 'em. It may be funny for once or twice. After that—well, it begins to get ghastly. Specially with the old girl askin' me continual to watch out the window and see if the Van ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... guesses—for I have no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon our return home, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as among children. But when I compare the number of the children and young persons making up these three groups with the number of those to whom religious instruction has been quite useless, I feel justified in a certain scepticism. I do not pretend to assert that those who have received religious instruction have become more immoral than the others; but I am certainly entitled to contest the assertion that religious instruction induces a loftier sexual morality. Indeed, a further limitation is needed here, and ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... they had to be faced, were to Scott something of the nature of a grim farce in which, while he could not escape it himself, he was determined that she should take no part. He was not mourning for Isabel. He would not pretend to mourn. Her death was to him but as the opening wide of a prison-door to one who had long lain captive, pining for liberty. He would follow the poor worn body to its grave rather with thanksgiving than with grief. And realizing so well that this was his inevitable feeling, even as in a ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the smaller smoking-room, where they were alone, Cornish explained the situation at greater length to Major White, who did not even pretend to understand it. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... "I don't pretend to understand these questions. I wish men wouldn't talk business at dinner. It is ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... we can know about God," said Mrs. Maturin, "but it is enough." She had been thinking rapidly. "And now," she went on, "we shall have to consider what is to be done. I don't pretend that the future will be easy, but it will not be nearly as hard for you as it might have been, since I am your friend, and I do not intend to desert you. I'm sure you will not let it crush you. In the first place, you will have ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and all the cavalry, by riding up almost to the very gates, drew out the enemy—which was just what he wanted—by a mode of battle of a disorderly and threatening nature. The same tactics on the part of the cavalry caused the flight, which it was necessary to pretend, to appear less surprising: and when, as the cavalry appeared undecided whether to make up its mind to fight or flee, the infantry also retreated—the enemy, pouring forth suddenly through the crowded gates, were drawn toward the place of ambuscade, in their ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... content in their own incredulity. The most authentic reports of these immense mineral resources have been used as authorities against their existence. The authors of these denials either have never read what they pretend to quote, or think no one else has. The Hon. T. Butler King, who was the first to reveal to an incredulous public the wonders of the California gold mines, has had the singular good fortune to be also among the first to publish correct and authentic information ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... through the International Sunday-school lessons, and seemed to me to be submerged in the geography of Palestine and other tiresome details. For me, reading as I did, the whole of the New Testament was radiant with interest, a frankly human interest. There were many passages that I did not pretend to understand, sometimes because the English was obscure or archaic, and sometimes because my mind was not equal to it or my knowledge too small. Whatever may be the opinion of other people, mine is that the reading of the New ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... pause; but just then, I heard a shout at the top of the passage—on the other hand I felt that the tide was rushing in, and to stay where I was would be impossible. The perplexity of that quarter of an hour would satisfy me for my whole life. I pretend to no philosophy, and have never desired to die before my time. But it was absolutely not so much the dread of finishing my career, as of the manner in which it must be finished there, which made the desperate anxiety of a struggle which I would not undergo again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... she said, turning to him, "you pretend sometimes to be jealous of Francisco Hammond; and there, you see, just when I have said I have lots of questions to ask him, and five minutes after my arrival here to greet him, he races away without a word, directly he hears that his man ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... penguin has a hard life: the Emperor penguin a horrible one. Why not kill off the unfit right away, before they have had time to breed, almost before they have had time to eat? Life is a stern business in any case: why pretend that it is anything else? Or that any but the best can survive at all? And in consequence, I challenge you to find a more jolly, happy, healthy lot of old gentlemen in the world. We must admire them: if only because they are so ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... when I think that I shall be separated from her, and yet crowns me with glory when I feel that she has loved me. If she must leave me, I have to bear it. What I shall do, where I shall go, whether I shall stand or fall, I do not pretend to say. A man does not know, himself, of what stuff he is made, till he has been tried. But whatever may be my lot, it cannot be altered by any care or custody now. She is my own, and I will not be separated from her. If she were dead, I should know that she was gone. She would have ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Nell; she'll be down here pretty quick. Get some fish poles and strings and bend up some pins for hooks and we'll pretend to be fishing ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... caves, that they could hardly stand. So we hanged them, without judge or jury, and made them safe. But three are still at large, and I can hardly sleep in my bed for fear of them. I will read you a description of their persons, and the names they pretend to go by. Humphrey Higgins, aged seventy, lean, and would be a tall man, only bent double, has but one eye, and lost the use of his right arm: Memorandum, thought to be the man who shot Colonel Rainsborough at Doncaster.—William ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... English pantomime, and not much more interesting. Both appeal to the same undeveloped instincts, the English to a merely childish vulgarity, the French to a vulgarity which is more frankly vicious. Really I hardly know which is to be preferred. In England we pretend that fancy dress is all in the interests of morality; in France they make no such pretence, and, in dispensing with shoulder-straps, do but make their intentions a little clearer. Go to the Moulin-Rouge and you will see a still clearer object-lesson. The goods in the music-halls are ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... there is no position in society to which hope can point, to cheer him in his laborious path. If, indeed, he belong to one of our universities, there are some few chairs in his OWN Alma Mater to which he may at some distant day pretend; but these are not numerous; and whilst the salaries attached are seldom sufficient for the sole support of the individual, they are very rarely enough for that of a family. What then can he reply to the entreaties of his ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... Bell," repeated Mr. Stokes. "Don't you see? Pretend to be Alfred Bell and go with me to your missis. I'll lend you a suit o' clothes and a fresh neck-tie, and there ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... side, what this really comes to is, that if you wish to prevent depressions occurring you must prevent booms taking the form they do. You must prevent prices rising so much, and so many constructional goods being made during the period of active trade; and I am not going to pretend that that is an easy thing to do. It's all very well to say that the bankers, through their control of the credit system, might endeavour to guide industry and keep it from straying out of the proper channels. But the bankers would have to know much more than they do about these matters, and, furthermore, ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... wine-glass with your tongue. This in notre monde is regarded as bad form. 'Notre Monde' is French, a language which you will have to learn. Its great use is in talking to English people when you don't want them to understand what you say. They pretend they do, for they are too vain to admit their ignorance. The wise man profits by the vanity of his fellow-creatures. If I were not wise after this manner, should I be here eating herrings in Tavistock Street, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... is declared to be a government "of the people." All power, it is said, centers in the people. Our State constitutions also open with the words, "We, the people." Does any one pretend to say that men alone constitute races and peoples? When we say parents, do we not mean mothers as well as fathers? When we say children, do we not mean girls as well as boys? When we say people, do we not mean women as well as men? When the race shall spring, Minerva-like, from the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... some sugar with them,—as much sugar as you can get; tie them up in paper, or in a good thick grape-leaf; lay them on a bench, and sit down on them hard several times: then they are done. Some epicures pretend that they must be buried in the ground, and left there for a week; but this takes time, and reasonable children will find them quite good enough without. These particular rose-cakes were the best Lota ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... their clamour, forget that until their leases were obtained, they had no right in their lands at all, and that what they have got is through those very leases of which they complain; take away the leases, and they would have no rights remaining. Now, on what principle can honest men pretend that they have rights beyond the leases? On the supposition, even, that the bargains are hard, what have governors and legislators to do with thrusting themselves in between parties so situated, as special umpires? I should ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... of men, and turn the cold markets of the world into festival scenes of charity. If you know any mean person you may be sure that he has not read "A Christmas Carol," or that he read it long ago and has forgotten it. I know there are persons who pretend that the sentimentality of Dickens destroys their interest in him. I once took a course with an over-refined, imperfectly educated professor of literature, who advised me that in time I should outgrow my liking for Dickens. It was only his way of recommending ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... gentleman smiled, and our Hibernian acknowledged that the Scotchman had fairly gained the victory. "My friends," added he, "as I cannot pretend to be 'convinced against my will,' I certainly am not 'of the same opinion still.' But stay—there are such things as practical bulls: did you never hear of the Irishman who ordered a painter to draw his picture, and to represent him ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... that morning had, for a wonder, come down to breakfast, good naturedly took off the bear. Whether or not his ascetic nature was somewhat mollified by the soft smiles and softer voice of the beautiful countess, I cannot pretend to say; but he certainly entered into a conversation with her, not much rougher than that of a less gifted individual might have been. They talked of literature, Lord Byron, converzaziones, and Lydia White. [Note: Written before the death ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at morn the family was called Around the old man's dying bed; And oh! but I laughed to myself when I heard That the old man's spirit had fled. Mr. Carlton cried, and so did I pretend; Young mistress very nearly went mad; And the old parson's groans did the heavens fairly rend; But I tell ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... your accusation," she said; "but I want to know what man it was whom you pretend to have seen in the room with me, because there is always some proper man near me; there is nothing to be ashamed of in that. But this I will swear, that to no man have I given money and that by no man has my ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... in three years. Their function was to express an opinion upon local matters when consulted by the Government: their enemies said that they were aristocratic and did harm, their partizans could not pretend that they did much good. In the bitterness of spirit with which, at a later time, the friends of liberty denounced the betrayal of the cause of freedom by the Prussian Court, a darker colour has perhaps ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... would in the first place have to shave off your moustachios, Gerald, and I fear that even after you had done so there would be nothing venerable in your appearance; and whatever the mission with which you might pretend to charge yourself, your chances of obtaining a private interview with the lady would ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... never misses. It seems in her blood to think that all priests are hypocrites. What a little boat to be in on a stormy sea, Bella! She appears to have no concern about it. Whether she adores Wilfrid or not I do not pretend to guess. She snubs him—a thing he would bear from nobody but her. I do believe he feels flattered by it. He is chiefly attentive to Miss Ford, whom I like and do not like, and like and do not like—but do like. She is utterly cold, and has ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "You pretend that the man who called himself Grooten was not your friend. Yet you have been in communication with ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... making himself. Hoped we'd forgive him. He couldn't say that if he were as young as us he'd enlist like a shot, any more than he could say that if a woman jumped off Waterloo Bridge on a dark night he'd jump in after her. On the whole he thought it would be much easier to pretend he hadn't noticed. In fact that's very likely what he would do. But if someone, say the mother of the girl, pointed out the body to him, then he'd have to come to a decision. Well, he was in the position of that mother, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... to bring a tailor to measure him, and send home his clothes, as for a school-boy, would probably give offence. At length Mac-Morlan resolved to consult Miss Bertram, and request her interference. She assured him that, though she could not pretend to superintend a gentleman's wardrobe, nothing was more easy than to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "I can't pretend to manage the women, miss," said he; "you must speak to Mary;" and then, with a low ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... belonged to a Dutch soldier, who was killed in the revolution, at the spot where the dog then lay, and that ever since (a period of four years) the animal had taken up his quarters there, and invariably lain upon that spot. Whether my informant lied, and the dog did not, I cannot pretend to say; but if the story be true, it was a most remarkable specimen of fidelity and ugliness. And he was a sensible dog, moreover; instead of dying of grief and hunger, as some foolish dogs have done, he has always dedicated an hour every evening to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... would like to pretend you think so," said Aunt Cynthia, aggravatingly. "But no woman ever does really think so, you know. I imagine that pretty Anne Shirley, who is visiting Ella Kimball, doesn't. I saw her and Dr. Irving out walking this afternoon, looking very well satisfied with ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and that thou mayest not be deceived by that which is counterfeit, know it is as it comes from the hand of our Lord, without mixture, pure and clear as crystal. I know there are many mountebanks in the world, and every of them pretend they have this water to sell; but my advice is, that thou go directly to the throne thyself (Heb 4:16); or as thou art bidden come to the waters (Isa 55:1), and there thou shalt be sure to have that which is right and good, and that which will certainly make thee well, let thy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... They were probably dead, and, socially, they had never been alive, since Society had never heard of them. It was quite possible, Mrs. Rushmore said, that his name was not his own, for she had met two or three celebrities who had deliberately taken names to which they did not pretend any legal claim, but which ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... is the reputed birthplace of the Conqueror. They even pretend to show you the room in which he was born. The existing castle, however, is of considerably later date. It is even doubtful, according to the best antiquaries, whether there were any stone castles at the date ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... to her liking. She expresses discontent only that she had not been left free to kill or spare the officers at her discretion. Personally Ralegh cannot be accounted amenable for the atrocity. He is not named in Grey's despatch to the Council. But it would be folly to pretend that he disapproved it. Hooker, his eulogist, claims it for him as an eminent distinction. He cordially sympathized with Grey's ideal of a Mahometan conquest ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... beak to the oil-gland. So again, when this same tumbler and the rock-pigeon were compared by the length of their wings, or by the extreme length of their bodies, the feet of the tumbler were likewise found to be too short in very nearly the same proportion. I am well aware that the measurements pretend to greater accuracy than is possible, but it was less trouble to write down the actual measurements given by the compasses in each case ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... did—though of course she pretended not to. Girls always pretend. But I did my duty as a parent. And I told her that if she got herself into any mess she mustn't ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... passengers whom I know, and who are friends of mine, the annoyance of needless questioning. There is one thing more I might do; there are also on board a few men who have crossed with me before, but who, I am convinced, are not the gentlemen of wealth and leisure they pretend to be. They may be only sharpers—or they may be something else. In front of the name of each of them ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... his appeals for a strong government his enemies would see, or pretend to see, personal ambitions, and Santander, of course, immediately exploited this feeling against him. But Bolivar, who had proved his disinterestedness when he might have had anything he desired, made no effort, at this time, when he was trying to rescue his country from grave ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... missing a great opportunity. He might have been the apostle of toleration in England, as Roger Williams had been in America. The moment was most favourable. Presbyterianism had got itself established, but could not pretend to represent the majority of the nation. It had been branded by Milton himself in the memorable line: "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." The Independents were for toleration, the Episcopalians had been for the time humbled by adversity, the best minds in the nation, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... fallen back to this capital, where he was joined by the troops under general Werner, lately returned from Pomerania; but as their forces, after this junction, did not exceed sixteen thousand men, and the allies advancing against them amounted to forty thousand, they would not pretend to oppose the enemy in the open field, nor to defend a city of such extent, and so imperfectly fortified. Such an attempt would have only exposed their troops to ruin, without being able to save the capital, which, on the contrary, would have been the more severely handled, in consequence of their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Bruyere is defective as to Propriety of Style and Justness of Expression, I chuse to set down in the Words of one of his [V]Countrymen, a very judicious Writer, and a better Judge in this Matter than I pretend to be. ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... for my Philippa to any other actress, and shall do so still, even if you will not, or cannot, throw more vigor into the lines that need it. I do not pretend to be as good a writer of plays as you are an actress [how naughty of him!], but I do pretend to be a great judge of acting in general. [He wasn't, although in particular details he was a brilliant critic and adviser.] And I know how my own lines and business ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... "It's very funny. He's mostly so quick. If I had the horns, Sister Elisabet would tie them there at the foot of the bed. And I could pretend I ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... enemy, encourage our friends, and promote the general and unanimous efforts of the whole community, than any other circumstance which could possibly happen. It is a truth, that the enemy does not even pretend to hope anything except from sowing discord among us, and it is but too true, that while the whigs of America are daily more firm and united in the cause of independence, there has been too little attention paid ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... sleighing-party, under the buffalo robes in the bob-sled, he whispered, "You pretend to be a grown-up schoolteacher, but you're nothing but a kiddie." His arm ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... should pretend not to understand you," she answered, "but that is not my way. If I were not in the saddle, I would make you a courtesy. But seriously, I deserve your exception, for besides Rashleigh and the old priest, I am the only conversable being about ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... be doing an act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend to entreat from you an act ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens |
