"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foolish as to pretend that the people who come and play in the Casino of Lacville are all confirmed gamblers," he said, slowly. "We French take our pleasures lightly, Madame, and no doubt there is many an excellent Parisian bourgeois who comes ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... present conflict will be as nothing compared with a struggle between two highly-organised State socialisms, each of which knows that it must either colonise the territory of the other or starve. It is idle to pretend that such a necessity will never arise. Another century of increase in Europe like that of the nineteenth century would bring it very near. If this policy is adopted, we shall see all the principal States organising themselves with a perfection far greater than that of ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... sin against Obedience, which you owe your father. For The contract you pretend with that base wretch, One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes, With scraps o' the court, it is no contract, none; And though it be allowed in meaner parties— Yet who than he more mean?—to knit their souls— On whom there is no more dependency But brats and ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... circulation.". They feel certain there is no outlet, because at one time or another they virtually completed the survey of the coast line and listened to native testimony besides. How the phenomenon of sweet water is to be accounted for we do not pretend to say. The reader will see further on that Livingstone grapples with the difficulty which this Lake affords, and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... and Pirithous, Nisus and Euryalus, or Damon and Pythias. But never mind about me now, and tell my sister how you were thinking of her, and longing for her, in that lonely chateau of yours; where, by the way, I made one of the best meals I ever had in my life, though you do pretend that starvation is the rule ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... old friend, Are we "lucky dogs," indeed? Are we all that we pretend In the jolly life we lead?— Bachelors, we must confess, Boast of "single blessedness" To the world, but not alone— Man's best ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... solid with the chill off. (R. 47.) The result is telling on all, but mainly on Oates, whose feet are in a wretched condition. One swelled up tremendously last night and he is very lame this morning. We started march on tea and pemmican as last night—we pretend to prefer the pemmican this way. Marched for 5 hours this morning over a slightly better surface covered with high moundy sastrugi. Sledge capsized twice; we pulled on foot, covering about 5 1/2 miles. We are two pony marches ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... "I do not pretend to understand the cause of her presence. But if you listen to my story you may know what to do." I paused an instant to get a grip on my thoughts. I need not tell all, confess my identity, or mention my personal relations with the daughter. "I am a soldier, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Even she, therefore, was not at all averse to letting him go on these State outings in which she need not always accompany him. They gave him something fresh to think about, and to her a time of leisure when she need not pretend to think about anything ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... pretend to see in these outbursts of devotion nothing but artifice, cannot have informed themselves of the true character of this extraordinary man. In truth, his was a sacrifice of affection forced upon him for the benefit ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... circumstances of suspicion, and they amounted in his mind to certainty. It made him very sad, and he stopped to look at the boy from whom he had parted on such friendly terms so short a time before. Eric did not pretend to be asleep, but opened his eyes, and looked at the head-master. Very sorrowfully Dr. Rowlands shook his head, and went away. Eric ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... called Letters explains itself, though I do not pretend to say that it justifies its own existence. It claims nothing in its defence except the right of speech which I believe belongs to everybody outside a Trappist monastery. The part I have ventured, for shortness' sake, to call Life, may perhaps justify itself by the ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... don't pretend to be as good as some people are, but I really can't see any awful wickedness in anything that I've ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this cottage is yours, and your precious oil can, and your rotten old bedstead. But, besides that, I can teach you many things. You may be assured I can pay you for more oil than I shall ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... said, in justification of the poet, that he presents a very interesting state of mind, sometimes found actually existing, and does not pretend to present a model of virtue?—that there are miseries which shut some hearts against religion, sensibilities which, being too severely tried, are disinclined, at least at certain stages of their suffering, to look to that source ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... is most significant, in view of the subsequent clumsily framed defense by German apologists, to note that the German Secretary of State, Herr von Jagow, and his superior, the German Chancellor, did not pretend to suggest that the invasion of Belgium was due to any overt ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... book does not pretend to give a connected account of our administration or politics, yet the subjects have been carefully arranged in such an order as would most naturally be followed in a course to which the work is intended to ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... bank, aye, some of them have several hundred pounds. And yet they took the seed potatoes sent by England. Well, they wanted a change of seed, and they must do the same as their neighbours. It would not do to pretend to be any better off than the rest. They are compelled to do as the majority do in everything, or they would be boycotted at once. They cease work when a death occurs in the parish. If an infant three days old should give up the ghost, every man shoulders his spade ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... They do not pretend to merit. Neither are they written for the purpose of criticising the Military Academy or those in any ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... swear, lest Love shou'd take it ill That Honour shou'd pretend to give him Laws, And make an Oath more powerful than his Godhead. —Say that you will half a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... he hath followed Urban, and neglected me his souereigne lord and maister. [Sidenote: The king renounceth the archbishop for his subiect.] And that he may doo it the more safelie, first of all I depriue him of the suertie and allegiance which he may pretend to haue of me within all my dominions, and from hencefoorth I will haue no affiance in him, nor take ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed
... take an exquisite, but quite rational, delight in the mere act of eating. I know that I ought to speak as though dinner were an ignoble institution; I know that the young lady who said, "Thanks—I rarely eat," represented a class who pretend to devote themselves to higher joys; but I decline to talk cant on any terms, and I say that the healthy, hearty hunger bestowed by the open sea is ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... student of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the wide-spread agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of Christianity ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... applies only to those Spirits who materialized especially for me. I do not pretend to answer for Spirits who came to other people. All that I am quite sure of is that all the Spirits who singled me out from the circle, and emerged from the Cabinet for my benefit, were not only abundantly ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... at the good fortune which his brother had met with, Cassim grew so jealous of Ali Baba that he passed almost the whole night without closing his eyes. The next morning before sunrise he went to him. "Ali Baba," said he, harshly, "you pretend to be poor and miserable and a beggar, and yet you measure your money"—here Cassim showed him the piece Of gold his wife had given him. "How many pieces," added he, "have you like this, that my wife found sticking to the bottom of ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... far better authority than I can pretend to be about it," Lady Harriet owned smilingly; "and really you've given me so much interesting information that I had nearly forgotten what I came to see you about. It's—well, I wanted ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Ne flattez & n'amadoueez personne par belles paroles, car celui qui pretend d'en gagner un autre par les discours emmiellez, fait voir qu'il n'en a pas grande estime, & qu'il le tient pour peu sense & adroit, des qu'il le prend pour vn home que l'on peut ioueer en cette maniere: n'usez ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... as themselves. Smart clothing would be unnecessary also, and a hundred and one luxuries of a leisured life. I mentally drew up a list of things taboo, and regarded it with—let me be honest—lingering regret. I was quite, quite willing to deny myself, but it is folly to pretend that it didn't cost a pang. I like good clothes and dainty meals, and motor-cars, and space, and luxury, and people to wait upon me when I'm tired, and unlimited supplies of flowers, and fruit, and hot water, to say nothing of my own little ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I do not pretend to have come up in my English, to that Life and Beauty of Erasmus in Latin, which as it is often inimitable in the English Language, so it is also a Task fit to be undertaken by none but an English Erasmus himself, i.e. one that had the same Felicity of Expression ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... but inimitable Jack, whose pranks had often made me laugh against my will, as I watched him from a distance, but with whom I had never made the least acquaintance. Whether from fear or presence of mind I do not pretend to say, but I remained perfectly still, and in a minute or two Jack put his head forward and stared me in the face, uttering a sort of croak; he then descended on to my knees, examined my hands as if he were counting my fingers, tried to take ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... Mr. Newton could not doubt George Liddell's story. He could not go back from his own involuntary recognition, nor could I pretend to doubt what I believe ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... of the Negro. If we are to understand the conditions on which his progress depends, we must pay some attention to economic geography. That this will result in a recognition of the need for shaping plans and methods according to local needs is obvious. The present thesis does not pretend to be a completed study, much less an attempt to solve the Negro problem. It is written in the hope of calling attention to some of the results of this geographic location as illustrated in the situation of the Negro farmer in various parts ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... rather be plundered by an enemy than by fellows who pretend to come hither as friends. If Frederick would march in here, I would open my house free to all comers, and would not grudge the last drop of wine in ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... before it comes ill as a State. [Cheers.] Mr. Lincoln knew that I had given that answer over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State, in 1854, and '55, and '56, and he has now no excuse to pretend to have any doubt upon that subject. Whatever the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as on the abstract question of whether slavery may go in under the Constitution or not, the people of a territory have ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... spoke. I did not pretend to unfold the scheme. I did not attempt any rhetoric. But I did not make any apologies. I told them simply of the dangers of lee-shores. I told them when they were most dangerous,— when seamen came upon them unawares. I explained to them that, though the costly chronometer, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't pretend to be I should never get it out ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Trench tells us. You have gradually shuffled them off upon us; and worse yet, when you wish to describe in two words a pompous, prosing, dull-witted man, you call him an old woman. This is not just. Old women always have some imagination; and their gossip does not pretend to be the highest wisdom, which makes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... travellers," said the old aunt; "they always pretend to know everything. One of them, doubtless, when reading the well-known name of Monsieur de Bergenheim upon the wrapper, sketched the animal in question. These gentlemen of industry usually have a rather good education! But this is giving the affair more importance ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... that they would have to get a new tent to hold him; and that was the reason why they didn't take him. Archy Hawkins said: "How long did you have to wait on the front steps, Pony, dear?" But after that he was pretty good to him, and said he reckoned they had better not any of them pretend that Pony had not tried to run off if they had not been up ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... enabled him to endure these hardships so long. And, though the negro is the loser, the white man is not often the gainer, from this false plantation and mercantile system. The incidental risk may not be so large as the planter and merchant pretend, but the condition of the people is an evidence that the extortion they practice yields no better profit in the long run than would be gained by competition in fair prices on a cash system; and in leading ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... at all, I do not pretend to divine. The Divine Maker of all knows best, and what He does is its own justification—satisfying the wellnigh insatiable cry of the universe for universal justice. They are the saurians of humanity; and it is remarkable that the idea of 'progressive development'—if I may be pardoned for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of fossil fishes, which I have learned to know, tell me that species do not pass insensibly one into another, but that they appear and disappear unexpectedly, without direct relations with their precursors; for I think no one will seriously pretend that the numerous types of Cycloids and Ctenoids, almost all of which are contemporaneous with one an other, have descended from the Placoids and Ganoids. As well might one affirm that the Mammalia, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... salvation of his party and its leader comes before Ireland. He means well by her: but he doesn't mean it so much as all that. Still he's the only one of them who doesn't pretend to look on me as a black sheep. He too has to work with his material. That's politics. The Nonconformist conscience means votes—so it decides him: just as the priests decide me.... They would decide him in any case, I mean. And ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... abuse them is hard to see. Were society put upon its oath, we should be surprised to find how many people in high places have not read 'All's Well that Ends Well,' or 'Timon of Athens;' but they don't go about saying these plays are unintelligible. Like wise folk, they pretend to have read them, and say nothing. In Browning's case they are spared the hypocrisy. No one need pretend to have read 'A Soul's Tragedy;' and it seems, therefore, inexcusable for anyone to assert that one of the plainest, most pointed, and piquant bits of writing in the language is unintelligible. ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... well to pretend to love me as you do. Ah! If you loved as I love, Mary! But, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part in "The Rivals," and I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... house, where they were both so very well known, by having Juba's dress and his guards: as if one of the marshals of France could pass for the duke of Bavaria, at noonday, at Versailles, by having his dress and liveries. But how does Syphax pretend to help Sempronius to young Juba's dress? Does he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared with yet. Well! though this is a mighty politick invention, yet, methinks, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... 'was as fond of London as Dr. Johnson; always maintaining that it was the only place in England where a pleasant society might be found.' Prior's Malone p. 433. Gibbon wrote to Holroyd Misc. Works, ii 126:—'Never pretend to allure me by painting in odious colours the dust of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Weald it is to visit you and my Lady, and not your trees.' Burke, on the other hand, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of course," explained Betty. "Now don't pretend you've forgotten and made another engagement. I just heard Georgia Ames telling you that she couldn't go walking because of ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... household of Paulina Durski's father. Paulina was ten years of age, and I was appointed as her governess and companion. From that day to this, I have never left her. As much as I am capable of loving any one, I love her. But my mind has been embittered by the miseries of my girlhood, and I do not pretend to be capable of much ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... white people I must have dropped; and then Roxy and Virgie, sold to some temporary rich man, would have been above me, slaves as they would continue! How false, how fatal, both slavery and proud riches to the republicans we pretend to be! Compelled 'to see' at last, I shall not close my ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... your exit from the moral world, and by numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved an "here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere affectation in you to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of mankind respecting you. What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite of himself, like a man listening to his ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... pretend to say as to that, except that it is so. I had each tree numbered and kept an individual record of all the trees, and I found—I have forgotten the exact figures—but there was about three-fifths as much blight among the grafted trees as among the ungrafted trees. Of course, they are an imported ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... wrapping all this in a piece of canvass, I began to think of making another raft; but while I was preparing this, I found the sky over-cast, and the wind began to rise, and in a quarter of an hour it blew a fresh gale from the shore. It presently occurred to me, that it was in vain to pretend to make a raft with the wind off shore; and that it was my business to be gone before the tide of flood began, or otherwise I might not be able to reach the shore at all. Accordingly I let myself down into the water, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... doors open by wooden latches, raised by means of small bits of packthread—I imagine, the same primitive order of fastening celebrated in the touching chronicle of Red Riding Hood; how they shut I will not pretend to describe, as the shutting of a door is a process of extremely rare occurrence throughout the whole Southern country. The third room, a chamber with sloping ceiling, immediately over our sitting-room and under the roof, is appropriated to the nurse and my two babies. Of the closets, one is Mr. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... now has forty-one committees, with a small army of messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are literally without employment. I shall not pretend to specify the committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had for months. But, Mr. President, out of all committees without business, and habitually without business, in ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... press it any farther. They must settle these things for themselves, but what was the matter with them all this morning was more than he could pretend ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... Strait was one of the most important articles of my instructions which had been executed only in part; and although I could not pretend to make any regular survey in the Porpoise, it was yet desirable to pass again through the strait, and lay down as many more of its dangers as circumstances would admit; and this being represented to governor King, the following paragraph was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... hope to acquire such knowledge. In 1872 Nathusius wrote:[72] "Das Gesetz der Vererbung ist noch nicht erkannt; der Apfel ist noch nicht vom Baum der Erkenntniss gefallen, welcher, der Sage nach, Newton auf den rechten Weg zur Ergruendung der Gravitationsgesetze fuehrte." We cannot pretend that the words are not still true, but in Mendelian analysis the seeds of that apple-tree at last ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... one of our good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and his wife. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Quick, children!" he exclaimed. "Here's mother. Let's hide under the table and when she comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts—only to find something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to discover that it hung upon ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... to appear distant, not so real, mixed, turbid, even frivolous. And was Henderson a vanishing part of this pageant? Was his figure less distinct as the days went by? It could not be affirmed. Love is such a little juggler, and likes, now and again, to pretend to be so reasonable and judicious. There were no more letters. If there had been a letter now and then, on any excuse, the nexus would have been more distinct: nothing feeds the flame exactly like a letter; it has ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... movement of the aristocracy, and, for the most part, it was aristocratic opposition that it encountered. What it did was to make for ever impossible the thought of reunion with Rome and the theory that the throne could be established on any other basis than the consent of Parliament. For no one could pretend that William of Orange ruled by Divine Right. The scrupulous shrank from proclaiming the deposition of James; and the fiction that he had abdicated was not calculated to deceive even the warmest of William's adherents. An unconstitutional ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... the evening of our arrival at Headquarters, and, of course, the monk was full of one of those fantastic tales which succeeded so well with many, either the ignorant or credulous, or those to whose personal advantage it was to pretend to believe him. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... have passed since houses were haunted in Egypt, and have left some sane, educated, and methodical men to meet the same annoyances as the ancient Egyptians did, by the same measures. We do not pretend to discover, without examination, the causes of the sounds and sights which baffle trained and not superstitious investigators. But we do say that similar occurrences, in a kraal or an Eskimo hut, in a wigwam, in a cave, or under a gunyeh, would ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... think it adds to your intellect to pretend independence of all emotion. But, do you know, I think feeling, instead of being a weakness, is often more clever than wisdom? At any rate, what you are doing now is proof sufficient that you feel, and perhaps ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... to say, "There is nothing, prima facie, in the miraculous accounts in question, to repel a properly taught or religiously disposed mind." What is the matter with this statement? My assailant does not pretend to say what the matter is, and he cannot; but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonishment. Next, I stated what evidence there is for the miracles of which I was speaking; what is the harm of that? He ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Luis. "You cannot pretend that the man with the ebony walking-stick, the man who followed Inspector Verot to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf and ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the least explain the system any more than the discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the watch itself. So far from dispensing with "the activities of a guiding power," Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation, since it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the "law" came into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how they happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind never seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... away out of the goblet, solacing themselves with Sherry, but tasting it warily before bestowing their final confidence. Their taste in wines, however, did not seem so exquisite, and certainly was not so various, as that to which many Americans pretend. This foppery of an intimate acquaintance with rare vintage: does not suit a sensible Englishman, as he is very much in earnest about his wines, and adopts one or two as his life-long friends, seldom exchanging them for any Delilahs of a moment, and reaping the reward of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... major," replied Barbicane, "before discussing its weight permit me to enumerate some of the marvels which our ancestors have achieved in this respect. I don't mean to pretend that the science of gunnery has not advanced, but it is as well to bear in mind that during the middle ages they obtained results more surprising, I will venture to say, than ours. For instance, during the siege of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... a good Pagan is an admirable person. But he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, his preferences and dislikes, his standards of success and failure, are different from those of Christians. The Church will not pretend that he is, or endeavour to make its own Faith acceptable to him by diluting the distinctive ethical attributes of Christianity till they become inoffensive, at the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... start; pretend to give me alms and take this ring which your husband sends. He is alive and well but a prisoner. I am his friend and will take a written message to him. Should his friends seek to find his place of confinement he will be murdered. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... leaving his customer half shaved, {108} to take an observation with his astrolabe, to ascertain if he were operating in a lucky hour. By his astrolabe, therefore, the barber could find the time of day; this, however, I confess I could not pretend to find with the astrolabe in question. Ring dials, as I am informed, are in demand to go out to India, where they are in use among surveyors and military men; and, no doubt, such instruments as the astrolabe above-mentioned, which, though pretty ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... dictates of a good conscience, or prospect of serving the public, will not go very far under the present dispositions of mankind. This was amply verified last sessions of Parliament, upon occasion of the money bill, the merits of which I shall not pretend to examine. 'Tis enough that, upon the first news of its transmission hither, in the form it afterwards appeared, the members, upon discourse with their friends, seemed unanimous against it, I mean those of both parties, except a few, who were looked ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Well, pretend that I am a policeman, and I'll take you home. Where do ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... disagreeable? One would suppose that people set down on this little globe would seek places on it most agreeable to themselves. It must be that they are much more content with the climate and country upon which they happen, by the accident of their birth, than they pretend to be. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... tropics heat often causes sheep to lose their fleeces, and on the other hand wet and cold act as a direct stimulus to the growth of hair; it is, however, possible that these changes may merely be an exaggeration of the regular yearly change of coat; and who will pretend to decide how far this yearly change, or the thick fur of arctic animals, or as I may add their white colour, is due to the direct action of a severe climate, and how far to the preservation of the best protected individuals during a long ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... best advice we can give is to say that the whole of the cartilage must be manipulated both with the foot on and off the ground. What the reason may be we do not pretend to say, but it is a well-known fact that in many instances the cartilage, with the foot bearing weight, is so rigid as to at once convey the impression that ossification has commenced or is even far advanced. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... had wandered into forbidden territory again—Big Brother Sven's ham shack. The glowing bottles here were an irresistible lure, and he liked to pretend that he knew all there was to know about the mysteries ...
— Poppa Needs Shorts • Leigh Richmond
... all your heart was in your voice and your eyes. That moment has come back to me a thousand times since; has been with me in the thick of battle, singing through my ears as the bullets whistled past. 'I love you now, and from the first moment you ever looked at me.' It is no use to pretend you did not mean those words then. I know in my heart you did. You were bound in some way, no doubt, and fancied you had no right to say them. The announcement of your engagement suggested that. But you are free now, or you would not be here, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down. T' other fellow's at work now, but he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which may get hurt. Hope not,—hope not. But this is the great Macadamizing place,—always cracking ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... talent, and to moral sense. The leveling only affects the rights of the citizen; and not the man as a whole. You do not create the living being; you do not fashion the living clay, as God did in the Bible; you make regulations. Individual worth, on which some pretend to rely, is relative and unstable, and no one is a judge of it. In a well-organized entirety, it cultivates and improves itself automatically. But that magnificent anarchy cannot, at the inception of the human Charter, take the place of the ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the answer. "Yegg-men are supposed to be the toughest members of the tramp tribe. They're really burglars or safe-blowers, who pretend to be hoboes so they can prowl around country towns, looking up easy snaps about the banks and stores that ought to be good picking. And so you think these four men might belong to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the duke, "you pretend to have been thinking all night of my interests, and the result of so much meditation is to propose to ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... sigh spoke impatience. He swept behind him a stern and withering look towards the proud figure of Hilda, still seen through the glades, and said in a sinister voice: "Of kingly blood; but this witch of Woden hath no sons or kinsmen, I trust, who pretend to the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... suppose is the matter with Gladys, Clara?' said Mina, the morning of the day they were to leave town. 'You who pretend to be a philosopher and a reader of character ought to be able to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... "You needn't pretend you don't hear me, Ed Flynn," called out the girl. Her cheap finery was in full force that morning, not a lock of her brown hair was unstudied in its arrangement, and she was as conscious of her pose ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of colour had receded from her face. There was a frightened, hunted expression in her blue eyes, and the Senator felt a sudden thrill of concern, of pity. What did it all mean? Why should this poor girl—she looked even younger than his daughter—pretend that she had come here accompanied, if, after all, she had ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... menagerie and all, that could come any way near to this. After all, this town might have looked well enough when it was all bran-new and painted up. It might have looked so then; but, by thunder! it looks any thing but that now. What makes me mad is to see every traveller pretend to get into raptures about it now. Raptures be hanged! I ask you, as a sensible man, is there any thing here equal to any town of ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... brother the credit of making peace. This is not at all probable when it is considered the prejudice my brother's affairs in Flanders sustained by the war. But envy and malice are self-deceivers, and pretend to discover what no one else can perceive. On this frail foundation the King raised an altar of hatred, on which he swore never to cease till he had accomplished my brother's ruin and mine. He had never forgiven me for the attachment I had discovered for my brother's interest during the time ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... is probable that not nearly all of these are of a pure breed. Their manner of life is the same with that of the other poor inhabitants, and they are all Christians; but it is said that they yet retain some strange superstitious ceremonies, and that they pretend to hold communication with the devil in certain caves. Formerly, every one convicted of this offence was sent to the Inquisition at Lima. Many of the inhabitants who are not included in the eleven thousand with Indian surnames, cannot be distinguished by their appearance ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... for one who has suffered in the same way, and without the possibility of release?" She paused, laying her hand on his arm with a smile of deprecating irony. "It is not because you are not rich. At such times the crudest way is the shortest, and I don't pretend to deny that I know I am asking you a trifle. You Americans, when you want a thing, always pay ten times what it is worth, and I am giving you the wonderful chance to get what you most want ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... with civilized and friendly men and women like ourselves, courage shows itself chiefly by refusing to surrender our convictions of what is true and right just because other people will like us better if we pretend to think as they do; and by enduring without flinching the rubs and bumps and bruises which this close contact with our fellows ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... 'mainspring of life' (that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought to be as she does,—it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not know, or pretend any better. I ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... generally bad things. In the abstract they are always so; but about the abstract there is no dispute. Every one dislikes or professes to dislike shams, hypocrisies, phantoms,—by whatever tiresomely reiterated epithet he may be pleased to address things that are not what they pretend to be. Diogenes's toil with the lantern alone distinguished the cynic Greek, in admiration of an honest man. Similarly the genuine zeal of his successor appears in painstaking search; his discrimination in the detection, his eloquence in his handling of humbugs. Occasional ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... why she did not complain to the officers. She answered! "Helas, Monsieur, c'est inutile; on donne toujours la meme reponse: 'Nichts verstehn,'" for it appears when these complaints are made the Prussian officers pretend ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... During the day you must hide under the couch, and I shall pretend to be ill, and keep in bed, or in the cabin. When we reach Ch'i-Chow, I will give you a little money, and you must escape in the confusion of the disembarkation. You shall rejoin your parents, and we will arrange for our marriage. If, by any chance, my parents were to refuse, ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... Now pretend that you are a jeweller selling gold and diamonds. Imagine now that you go to your shop and find thieves there. What would you ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... sight ruther be girl-struck than always ravin' and rippin' against females. And all because some woman way back in Methusalem's time had sense enough to heave you over. At least, that's what everybody cal'lates must be the reason. You pretend to be a woman-hater. All round this part of the Cape you've took pains to get up that kind of ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that the apparent absence of motive is the most inexplicable feature in the case for the prosecution. You will, of course, have fresh in your minds the evidence of the servant on this point.' (The jury found it quite hopeless to even pretend that they had anything of the sort.) 'I refer to her statement, which I will read to you presently'—(visible depression in the jury-box and throughout the court)—'that deceased promised the prisoner ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... did refuse it, and I am sure, my lord, although you pretend surprise, that you would have acted as I did. I was not already so rich in good works as not to keep the memory of Devil's Cliff pure and without stain. It was a costly luxury, perhaps, but I had been James of Monmouth ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... into two classes, seems to indicate a mixture of divine inspiration with human invention, and finally escapes under a cloud. In the second edition, published in 1780, some progress has been made. The author states the sacred theory, and declares: "There are some divines who pretend that Hebrew was the language in which God talked with Adam in paradise, and that the saints will make use of it in heaven in those praises which they will eternally offer to the Almighty. These doctors seem to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Dismiss'd it; but illustrious Hector warn'd, Crouched low, and, overflying him, it pierced The soil beyond, whence Pallas plucking it 320 Unseen, restored it to Achilles' hand, And Hector to his godlike foe replied. Godlike Achilles! thou hast err'd, nor know'st At all my doom from Jove, as thou pretend'st, But seek'st, by subtlety and wind of words, 325 All empty sounds, to rob me of my might. Yet stand I firm. Think not to pierce my back. Behold my bosom! if the Gods permit, Meet me advancing, and transpierce me there. Meantime avoid my glittering spear, but oh 330 May'st thou receive it ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Mr. Pertell. "He wouldn't even pretend to take some false papers to carry out a film idea. Said he'd been in enough trouble over being ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... act was ill advised, and that the cavalry should not have been despatched without the support of infantry. Critics are not always or necessarily right. Indeed, we may venture to say that they are often wrong! We do not pretend to judge, but, be this as it may, the cavalry was ordered to destroy the village of Handoub about fifteen miles inland on the caravan route to Berber, and to blow up ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first masters, the property of private persons. Every one of them, no doubt, was worth studying for a long, long time; and I suppose I may have given, on an average, a minute to each. What an absurdity it would seem, to pretend to read two or three hundred poems, of all degrees between an epic and a ballad, in an hour or two! And a picture is a poem, only requiring the greater study to be felt and comprehended; because the spectator must necessarily do much for himself towards that end. I saw many beautiful things,—among ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... they pretend to be," he said. "There's grub, an' grub. An' what kind of grub is it that a man ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I did feel, even then, that there was a fallacy somewhere. And that, however much human beings with youthful hearts and answering eyes may pretend they are brother and sister, there is something deep within them that moves the Previous Question—as we are used to say in the Eden Valley Debating Parliament, which Mr. Oglethorpe and my father have organized on the model of that ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... "You pretend that the man who called himself Grooten was not your friend. Yet you have been in communication ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... derived from the Father, and not to be the Unoriginated—No doubt! yet, after all, could I seriously think that morally and spiritually I was either better or worse for this discovery? I could not pretend that I was. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... magnifying glass! Between ourselves, Arkins, could you venture to pretend that your bays are not still ice-locked in this month of August, which is the February of ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... to the highest as well as the lowest, should I omit on this Occasion to remind those who are entrusted by their Country, with the Government of these populous Cities, how much the Welfare of the People depends upon the faithful Execution of the Law. I pretend not to accuse them particularly of Neglect, a general Neglect of this Kind is one of the worst Symptoms of the Time; every Man is left to do what is right in his own Eyes, one would think there was no King in Israel. Could ...
— A Letter from the Lord Bishop of London, to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster; On Occasion of the Late Earthquakes • Thomas Sherlock
... not." Once or twice she had tried to impose her own ideas of what was right and fitting upon the young man, and had failed. Why should she pretend to ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... "Then we must pretend we can. Oh, you don't understand! So much depends upon a proper appearance. Everything depends upon ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... though, that even that was how Mr. Constantine used the word," replied Flora, with more of discernment than she commonly showed, "though I will not pretend to you, Ellen, that I do not recognise the sense in which you refer to it. To be candid, I don't think I know what he did mean, but he seemed to me to be paying a vast deal of attention to the matter, which surprised me in ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... rocks of grey sandstone (like that which overlies coal) and the Rovuma in the distance. Didi is the name of a village whose headsman, Chombokea, is said to be a doctor; all the headmen pretend or are really doctors; however one, Fundindomba, came after me for medicine ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... profound knowledge of the laws, they speak of Trebatius,[185] and Cascellius, and Alfenus, and of the laws of the Aurunci and Sicani, which have long become obsolete, and have been buried ages ago with the mother of Evander. And if you should pretend to have deliberately murdered your mother, they will promise you that there are many cases recorded in abstruse works which will secure your acquittal, if you are rich enough to pay ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... contributions from a few warm-hearted and staunch abolitionists abroad, to aid the great work of abolishing Slavery. In reference to the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, we are safe in saying, that, except from a few sources, no direct aid came. How true this was of other stations, we do not pretend to know or speak, but in the directions above alluded to, we feel that the cause was placed under lasting obligations. The Webbs of Dublin, and the Misses Wighams, of Scotland, representatives of the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society, were constantly in correspondence with ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a little boy in his young mother's arms. Oh, sweet dream! The old man with his furrowed forehead and beautiful white head and all the heavy years rolled back! More than once he has asked me if he may play till bedtime, and I have stroked his wrinkled hands and told him 'Yes,' for I pretend to be his mother, who ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... for a good cigar," he replied. "Neither Airlie nor you need pretend to be polite, Bee, and say you hope I will not leave you." He quitted the drawing room, and went to his own room, where a box of cigars awaited him. He selected one, and went out into the garden to enjoy it. Was it chance that led him to the path by the shrubbery? ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... all other occasions, that these unsophisticated people preferred their native viands to our European delicacies. They appeared much interested with the three European females we had on board; but, whether they had sufficient taste to prefer them to their native beauties, I shall not pretend to determine. After remaining two hours on board, they took their leave, and returned ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... temptation to spend money. One will have fine furniture and live in a high-rented house; another will have wines and a box at the opera; a third must give dinners and music-parties:—all good things in their way, but not to be indulged in if they cannot be paid for. Is it not a shabby thing to pretend to give dinners, if the real parties who provide them are the butcher, the poulterer, and the wine-merchant, whom you are in debt ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... man has his impressions! I have given you mine—they pretend to be nothing more. I hope they have n't ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... highly irregular; we must pretend ignorance and be patient. They're laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord Virzal; you don't want your supporters to ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won't believe me—no one would believe me! It will be terrible"—and she kept repeating to herself:—"I must pretend I don't know. I must pretend I don't know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally—and then I must scream." ... She had an idea that the scream would be ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... tradition's mighty charm. Scarce grew thy lurking dread the less, Till she, the ancient Minstreless, With fervid voice and kindling eye, And withered arms waving on high, Sung forth these words in eldritch shriek, While tears stood on thy nut-brown cheek: "Na, we are nane o' the lads o' France, Nor e'er pretend to be; We be three lads of fair Scotland, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... "People did not pretend to own many of them. In the first place they cost too much; and in the next place one could not have them lying about because the nails in their sides scratched the tables. Nor could they be arranged side by side on a shelf, as we arrange books ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... that a woman oght to serue her husband as vnto God: affirming that in no thing hath woman equall power with man, sauing that nether of both haue power ouer their owne bodies. By whiche he wold plainlie conclude, that a woman oght neuer to pretend nor thirst for that power and authoritie which is due to man. For so he doth explane him selfe in an other place[44], affirming that woman oght to be repressed and brideled be times, if she aspire to any dominion: alledging that dangerous and perillous it is to suffre her ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... of the Bosniacs, by setting himself up as a little Christian potentate. As a necessary consequence, he was obliged to fly for his life, and his house was burned to the ground. The Vassoevitch clan have from time immemorial occupied certain mountains near Novibazar, and pretend, or pretended, to complete independence of the Porte, like ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... has to be thought of!" Eliza nodded sagely. "But is she not looking sweeter than ever to-day? Do not pretend you have not noticed it, Mr. Lovegrove. There's no deceiving ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... 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 ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "It's plain enough what you have to do. Go to your room, go to bed and go' to sleep, stay asleep, keep your mouth shut, say nothing, pretend you woke me at midnight, pretend you had nothing to do with the fire going out, pretend you know nothing about it, keep your face straight, keep mum, leave ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Upon catching sight of her, Alresca's face broke into an exquisite, sad smile. Then he gave his valet a glance, and the valet crept from the room. I, as in professional duty bound, remained. The most I could do was to retire as far from the couch, and pretend to busy myself with the rolling up ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... idea brought in its train a thousand reflections, which had no other effect than to torment me, and throw me again into the state of despair in which I had passed the morning. It occurred to me, more than once, to write to my father; and to pretend a new reformation, in order to obtain some pecuniary assistance from him; but I could not forget that, notwithstanding all his natural love and affection for me, he had shut me up for six months in a confined room for my first transgression; ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... course, that in bringing out the fact that there was national chauvinism in Russia and that this found its excuse in the unstable equilibrium of Europe, I am making no attack on Russian policy. I do not pretend to know whether these elements of opinion actually influenced the policy of the Government. But they certainly influenced German fears, and without a knowledge of them it is impossible to understand German policy. The reader must bear in mind this source of friction along with ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... wry faces and pretend not to be listening; the people are interested and drop pennies into the old woman's bank. The women are moved to tears and wipe their ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... river, and we having immediately returned to it, both armies at present occupy their former positions. Whether, after the severe losses he has sustained, he is preparing to return to his shipping, or to make still mightier efforts to attain his first object, I do not pretend to determine. It becomes me to act as though the latter were his intention. One thing, however, seems certain, that if he still calculates on effecting what he has hitherto been unable to accomplish, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... which she had taken from out of the very mouth of a goat. "The hoary winter and hoary I have lived out our time, and we are departing together. I shall make way for you young people, and give you your turn, as he is giving way to spring; and let nobody pretend to be sorry for it. Who pretends to be sorry when winter ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... the French coast; and that the country is bringing in picke-axes, and shovells, and wheel-barrows into Callice; that there are 6000 men armed with head, back, and breast, (Frenchmen) ready to go on board the Dutch fleet, and will be followed by 1200 more. That they pretend they are to come to Dover; and that thereupon the Governor of Dover Castle is getting the victuallers' provision out of the town into the Castle to secure it. But I do think this is a ridiculous conceit; but a little time ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... that, madam," answered Bucklaw, "I only pretend to be a plain, good-humoured young fellow, as I said before, who will willingly make you happy if you will permit him, and show him how to do so." Having said this, he saluted her with more emotion than was consistent with his usual train ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... their actions. Because they use grand compliments, Europeans think they are never sincere, but the compliments are not meant to deceive, they only profess to be forms. Why do the English talk of the beautiful sentiment of the Bible and pretend to feel it so much, and when they come and see the same life ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... exemplar indicated, in the Prefatory Note. in the case of a few pieces extant in two or more versions of debatable authority the alternative text or texts will be found at the [end] of the [relevant work]; but it may be said once for all that this does not pretend to be a variorum edition, in the proper sense of the term—the textual apparatus does not claim to be exhaustive. Thus I have not thought it necessary to cumber the footnotes with every minute grammatical correction introduced ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Abby," whose business it was to sit behind the parlor door whenever the young ladies had gentlemen callers, and how reassuring was the sound of her deep snores. Another story goes that the young bloods of Georgetown used to gather on the opposite corner where there was a pump and pretend to be getting a drink of water, while they were really serenading the hidden charmers, and that sometimes billet-doux and sweetmeats were drawn up in baskets unbeknownst to the "powers ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... as she sat at her own hearth, quite alone, engaged as we have represented her. What she may have been meditating on we cannot pretend to ascertain; but after some time, she looked sharply into the "backstone," or hob, with an air of anxiety and alarm. By and by she suspended her knitting, and listened with much earnestness, leaning her right ear over to the hob, from whence the sounds to which she ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... your running thus from your lawful guardian, and committing yourself to a brace of raw-boned gallow-glasses that ye scarce know the names of, and for all we know, are bringing us into worse plight than ever they pretend to save us from? Ochone? glad I shall be to see ye safe under O'Neill's roof; for since the day I had charge of ye, I never knew a moment's peace. Are ye not ashamed, hussy? Had ye not lesson enough among the low 'prentices, that ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... value, but people that rise by money— especially if their gains are sudden—never have. And that's the kind of people that form our nobility; there's no use pretending that we haven't a nobility; we might as well pretend we haven't first-class cars in the presence of a vestibuled Pullman. Those girls had no more doubt of their right to be there than if they had been duchesses: we thought it was very nice of Miss Vance to come and ask us, but they didn't; they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which it labours is the secret of its extraordinary potency. Nothing intervenes between the musical work of art and the fibres of the sentient being it immediately thrills. We do not seek to say what music means. We feel the music. And if a man should pretend that the music has not passed beyond his ears, has communicated nothing but a musical delight, he simply tells us that he has not felt music. The ancients on this point were wiser than some moderns when, without pretending to assign an intellectual significance to music, they held it for ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... clearly perceives the very great blessing which every one of these raptures always brings. No one will believe this who has not had experience of it, and so they do not believe the poor soul: they saw it lately so wicked, and now they see it pretend to things of so high an order; for it is not satisfied with serving our Lord in the common way,—it must do so forthwith in the highest way it can. They consider this a temptation and a folly; yet they would ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... me back all that they really owe me, all that the money would now be worth, it would come to nearly a hundred thousand pounds. After that, what is a man to say when he is asked to compromise? As far as I can see, there is not a shadow of doubt about it. Mr Slow does not pretend that there is a doubt. How they can fail to see the justice of it ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... not necessary for a man to be ignorant, or to pretend that he is ignorant, of what he can do. We hear a great deal about the unconsciousness of genius. There is a partial truth in it; and possibly the highest examples of power and success, in any department of mental or intellectual ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... "The giant twins will pretend to go off on a hunting trip to-morrow morning," said the circus man one night, "but they won't come back. They'll wait for us at ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... conditions of life have changed, the cosmopolitan public, so far from being confined to a handful of scholars and merchants, extends down to and is largely made up of that terrible modern production, "the man in the street." It is quite ridiculous to pretend that because an Erasmus or a Casaubon could carry on literary controversies, with amazing fluency and hard-hitting, in Ciceronian Latin, therefore "the bald-headed man at the back of the omnibus" can give up ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... brothers and sisters, husbands and wives; the readiness to cast coarse insinuations on them, is more discreditable to our hearts than it is creditable to our morals. It implies the belief that they cannot be attached as spirits without becoming entangled as animals. It is absurd to pretend that the multiplication of virtuous friendships between the sexes would foster licentiousness. Their flourishes best in their absence. Their lifeelement, esteem, is death to licentiousness. A holy thought, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Her eyes opened wide in childish wonder—and suddenly closed again in childish terror, when her good friend the servant passed Mrs. Westerfield's door on the way downstairs. "If mamma bounces out on us," she whispered, "pretend we don't see her." The nice warm room received them in safety. Under no stress of circumstances had Mrs. Westerfield ever been known to dress herself in a hurry. A good half-hour more had passed before the house door was heard to bang—and ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... they do not satisfy the law, altho outwardly they live according to its precepts. They pretend to obey it in works, altho in mind they hate it; they pretend themselves righteous, but they remain sinners. These are like unto those of Cain's progeny, and hypocrites; whose hands are compelled to do good, but their ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... such as prevail among individuals, are not entirely suspended among political societies. All princes pretend a regard to the rights of other princes; and some, no doubt, without hypocrisy. Alliances and treaties are every day made between independent states, which would only be so much waste of parchment, if they were not found by experience to have SOME influence and authority. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... appear, do their work in our brains and leave their permanent impress with us. Occultists further assure us that they are recorded in the eternal archives. It is said that there are the Akashic Records, in some subtle way which we cannot pretend to understand, imprinted in the ether. "This primary substance is of exquisite fineness and is so sensitive that the slightest vibration... registers an indelible impression upon it."[7] If this be so, then here is the story of all that has ever been, ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... I passed on. Anna had ceased even to pretend to look friendly upon me, and I did not feel much alarm as to her power for or against my ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... "I don't pretend to know about business, Albert, but I do know that in dismissing Bert you deprive us of more than half our income, and Heaven ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... of what I can do for them," he laughed. It was his pose to pretend he was without authority. "They believe I've only to wave a wand, and get them anything they want. I thought I'd be safe from them on ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... vibrating break of contempt. Hilary had always hated the Robinsons, who now had it practically all. Hilary looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for the last week. The Margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; Hilary could not pretend that he had loved him. Peter had, as far as he had been permitted to do so; Peter found it possible to be attached to most of the people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and gregarious instincts. Even when he ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay |
