"Sham" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... health. But after all we ought not to forget that similar dangers surround our inner culture and our spiritual life, and that an intellectual underworld threatens our time, which demands a no less rigorous fight until its vice is wiped out. The vice of the social underworld gives a sham satisfaction to the human desire for sensual life; the vice of the intellectual underworld gives the same sham fulfilment to the human longing for knowledge and for truth. The infectious germs which it spreads ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... a fool, or a bore, a silly little idiot or a fisher of men, a social sham who prattled of duchesses or a strenuous feminine politician who babbled of votes; a Christian Scientist bent on converting, an adventuress without adventures (the worst kind), a mind-healer or a body-snatcher, ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... them like sheep; but this future time was always receding; and it is probable that, if his life had been prolonged thirty years, his superb army would never have seen any harder service than a sham fight in the fields near Berlin. But the great military means which he had collected were destined to be employed by a spirit far more daring and inventive ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he had said nothing because he wished to reserve for himself the satisfaction of pursuing the assassins and sham ghosts of the Chartreuse when the time came. He now arrived with full power to put that design into execution, firmly resolved not to return to the First Consul until it was accomplished. Besides, it was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Cardan's achievements in Medicine and Mathematics. But in appraising the qualifications of Naude to act as a judge in this case, it will be necessary to bear in mind the fact that he was in his day a leading exponent of liberal opinions, the author of a treatise exposing the mummeries and sham mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and of an "Apologie pour les Grands Hommes soupconnez de Magie," and a disbeliever in supernatural manifestations of every kind. With a mind thus attuned it is no matter of surprise that Naude should have been led to speak somewhat severely when called ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their daily drill—typical tin soldiery and a military sham. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... sham titles are Dux Roani and 'de Roano,' clearly referring, as Mr. Steuart notices, to de la Cloche's travelling name of Henri de Rohan. The Neapolitan pretender, therefore, knew the secret of that incognito, and so of de la Cloche's mission to England ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... thinking, if girls fall in love with this sallow, hook-nosed, glass-eyed, wooden-legged, dirty, hideous old man, with the sham teeth, they have a queer taste. THAT ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... rolling smoke, it was an easy matter to creep upon the fireman unawares and to bring him to the ground stunned and helpless. That accomplished, Max immediately proceeded to remove the man's tunic and helmet. Dale then understood—it was to be the ruse of the sham sentry ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... however, not on the steps of the old castle of which Prince LLEWELLYN was once lord that you are thus received. By the side of the old ruin has grown up another Hawarden Castle, a roomy mansion, statelily stuccoed, with sham turrets run up, buttresses, embrasures, portholes, and portcullises, putting to shame the rugged, looped and windowless ruin that still stands on the projecting ridge. This dates only from the beginning of the century, and, looking upon it, your face glows with honest pride, as you think how much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... willing to hear me? I will explain further. Three years ago, my old friend Mr. Abernuckle failed. He owned this house, and, wishing to save it from his creditors, he had previously made a sham sale of it to me. I have occupied it free of rent. On the strength of this house, I got credit for furniture, for clothes, for our bread and meat. On the strength of this house, I have borrowed money enough to keep my principal creditors at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... disparaging to their characters) the reasons for her sudden appearance, and such news of her Boston experiences as she might choose to give them. They had learned from Lem Hallowell that Cynthia had returned a lady: a real lady, not a sham one who relied on airs and graces, such as had come to Coniston the summer before to look for a summer place on the painter's recommendation. Lem was not a gossip, in the disagreeable sense of the term, and he had not said a word to his neighbors of his feelings on that terrible drive ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... genuine exists, since the wine one drinks and the liberty one boldly proclaims are laughable and a sham, since it really needs a healthy dose of good will to believe that the governing classes are respectable and that the lower classes are worthy of being assisted or pitied, it seems to me," concluded Des Esseintes, "to be neither ridiculous ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... when he wrote it that he was inspired by Shakespeare; if he was inspired by anyone it was by Voltaire. His drama is the old drama of the eighteenth century, repainted in picturesque colours; it resembles those grotesque country-houses that our forefathers were so fond of, where the sham-Gothic turrets and castellations ill conceal the stucco and the pilasters of a former age. Of true character and true passion it has no trace. The action, the incidents, the persons—all alike are dominated by considerations ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... great truth in what you say. I could name you a magistrate who, I believe, as a magistrate, could not very aisily be bate, and yet who, without being a downright coward, is for all that no hairo to his valley de sham, as they say." ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... sham. I was bound to have you in one way, if I could not get you in another. All's fair in love and war. You ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... hand, while he crumpled it up with the other. "They've made him lieutinant-gineral! The demndest booby in the regiment, sir! A fellow who's seen no service and never heard a shot fired in anger. They promoted him on the stringth of a sham fight, bedad! He commanded a definding force operating along the Thames and opposing an invading army that was advancing from Guildford. Did iver ye hear such infernal nonsense in your life? And there's ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... though he has to sham delite At weary speeches nite by nite, And to administer the Law Without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... Sodemytes. Quesmers of chyldren wyth fornycatours. wetewoldes that suffre syn in their syghtis. Auoutrers and abhomynable auauntours. Of syn grete clappers & makers of clamours Vnthryftes & vnlustes came al to that game {with} lusk{i}s & loselis {that} might not thryue for sham{e} ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... my Vertue be his Vices bawd, And he shall spend mine Honour, with his Shame; As thriftlesse Sonnes, their scraping Fathers Gold. Mine honor liues, when his dishonor dies, Or my sham'd life, in his dishonor lies: Thou kill'st me in his life, giuing him breath, The Traitor liues, the true man's put ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... will talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and of the soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she has had, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you with disgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferings are not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, a successful attack may be made on that singular abstraction known ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... Bingley," young Mr. Foker had previously remarked. He had the stage jewellery on too, selecting "the largest and most shining rings for himself," and allowing his little finger to quiver out of his cloak, with a sham diamond ring covering the first joint of the finger, and twiddling it in the faces of the pit. It is told of him that he made it a favour to the young men of his company to go on in light-comedy parts with that ring. They flattered him by asking its history. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... was evoking half-exultant chords from the piano. These soon grew low and dreamy, and the girl said softly to herself: "I have lived more in two days than in months of the past. Truly real life is better than a sham, shallow existence." ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... paint here. No words can describe either the picturesque beauty of Cairo or the splendid forms of the people in Upper Egypt, and above all in Nubia. I was in raptures at seeing how superb an animal man (and woman) really is. My donkey-girl at Thebes, dressed like a Greek statue—Ward es-Sham (the Rose of Syria)—was a feast to the eyes; and here, too, what grace and sweetness, and how good is a drink of Nile water out of an amphora held to your lips by a woman as graceful as she is kindly. 'May it benefit thee,' she says, smiling with ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... the caliph's throne, and Mesrour went before him, to shew him the way into an inner apartment, where there was a table spread; several eunuchs ran to tell the musicians that the sham caliph was coming, when they immediately began a concert of vocal and instrumental music, with which Abou Hassan was so charmed and transported, that he could not tell what to think of all he saw and heard. "If this is a dream," ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... a sham railroad station has been built outside of Cologne to deceive French aviators; the Second Secretary of the British ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... He bought at thousands, what with better wit You purchase as you want, and bit by bit; Now, or long since, what difference will be found? You pay a penny, and he paid a pound. Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln fen, Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat, Buy every pullet they afford to eat. Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own Half that the Devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town. The laws of God, as well as of the land, Abhor, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... should I? If I seemed to be having a good time, I should be compelled to go through it again. No, society is organized for people under twenty-five. They really enjoy it. For the rest of the world it is a sham." ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... fruitless quibbling, and malicious suits, entirely foreign to the merits of the cause. Not to mention numberless other acts of oppression, the most extraordinary and unprecedented proceeding, by means whereof this sham writ of error hath been kept on foot ever since November, 1743, is to me," said the doctor, "a most flagrant instance not only of the prevalency of power and money, when employed, as in the present case, against an unfortunate helpless ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... is afraid of his division generals. The brigade generals intrigue against the division leaders, and even colonels are doing all they can to further their personal power. The Peking government is a stuffed sham, taking orders from the military governors of the provinces, living only on account of jealousies among these generals, and by the grace of foreign diplomatic support. It is actually bankrupt, and this actual state will soon be formally recognized. The thing for us to do is to go ahead, maintain ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... Sir Harry, 'it was all sham—that he just (hiccup) and excuse for getting into that cover. The old (hiccup) beggar is always at some trick, (hiccup)-ing my foxes or disturbing my covers or something,' Sir Harry being just enough of a master of hounds to be jealous of the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Mr. Holway and everything else—the whole of it. Haven't you guessed it yet? It was all a sham; don't you see? When I came back from college and found out exactly how things were going, I realized at once that something must be done. You were miserable and neglected, and Mother was under the influence of Mrs. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... old eyes all this is a sham—a scene out of 'Tancred' and 'Lothair.' Depend upon it, the article on the 'Constitution and the ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... which the rustic is beguiled by the honest stranger into trusting him. This trick was practised three hundred years ago. Or there is the ring-dropping trick, it is as old as the hills. Or there is the sham sailor—now very rarely met with. When we have another war he will come to the front again. We have still the cheating gambler, but he has always been with us. In King Charles the Second's time he was called a Ruffler, a Huff, or a Shabbaroon. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... him? Or for some secret reason, did he pretend not to perceive it? His manner towards her was gentle and kindly, but reserved, as if he sought to prevent or repel some importunate confession which it would have given him pain to reply to. And yet the sham Hora was very beautiful. Her charms, betrayed by the poverty of her dress, were all the more beautiful; and just as in the hottest hours of the day a luminous vapour is seen quivering upon the gleaming earth, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... as she asked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I do not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... that they have ever known what they wanted, it is no longer possible for them to speak above their breath. Obey. Perinde ac cadaver.... Ten millions of corpses.... The living are hardly better off, depressed as they are by four years of sham patriotism, circus-parades, tom-toms, threats, braggings, hatreds, informers, trials for treason, and summary executions. The demagogues have called in all the reserves of obscurantism to extinguish the last gleams of ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... fellows off for a while, but presently John's protector went away, and then the others became playful. They took their rifles and amused themselves with levelling them at him, and making sham bets as to where they would hit him. John, seeing the emergency, backed his chair well into the corner of the wall and drew his revolver, which fortunately ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... puzzle it out, sir, unless there's some other Amphitryon to manage your business, no matter if you are away, and to do your job for you when you have gone. I tell you what, that sham Sosia was monstrous surprising, but this second Amphitryon ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... spread— The board that groans with shame and plate, Still fawning to the sham-crowned head That hopes front brazen turneth fate! Drink till the comer last is full, And never hear in revels' lull, Grim Vengeance forging arrows fleet, Whilst I gnaw at the crust Of Exile in the dust— But Honor makes ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... into my sight and possess me for a moment and pass, and give place to others; there comes a dusky little Jewess, red-lipped and amber-clad, with a deep crimson flower—I know not whether real or sham—in the dull black of her hair. She passes me with an unconscious disdain; and then I am looking at a brightly-smiling, blue-eyed girl, tall, ruddy, and freckled warmly, clad like a stage Rosalind, and talking gaily to a fair young man, a novice under the Rule. A red-haired ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... lash.... I seldom recall the touch of it more shrewd than in Queen Lucia (HUTCHINSON), an altogether delightful castigation of those persons whom a false rusticity causes to change a good village into the sham-bucolic home of crazes, fads and affectation. All this super-cultured life of the Riseholme community has its centre in Mrs. Lucas, the acknowledged queen of the place (Lucia wife of Lucas, which shows you the character of her empire in a single touch); the matter of the tale is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... satire that Mr. Robinson employs in his "Patriots" (1912), a satire that cuts into the sham agitation of some political leagues, an agitation that is talk only, and at the same time cuts with almost equal sharpness into the physical force party. It is true that it is not the motives but the wisdom of these latter ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... in the midst of the magnificence and luxury of the courts of Alexandria and Syracuse. It reechoed through the pages of Virgil's bucolic poetry. It made itself heard, howsoever faintly, in the artificiality and sham of the pastoral plays from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. And it was but logical that this sentiment should seek its most adequate and definitive expression in a portrayal of all phases of the life and fate of those ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... the trouble with Thackeray is not that he makes first-personal interventions, but that he does so with a curious touch of dishonesty. I agree with the late Mrs. Craigie that there was something profoundly vulgar about Thackeray. It was a sham thoughtful, sham man-of-the-world pose he assumed; it is an aggressive, conscious, challenging person astride before a fire, and a little distended by dinner and a sense of social and literary precedences, who uses the first person in Thackeray's novels. It isn't the real Thackeray; ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... a horse in a bark-mill, to make every body believe they are most excellent Christians, very nearly as pious as the angel Gabriel, when the truth is, their religion is all sham, and they will lie and cheat as bad as any body, if they think they will not be found out. Whenever I see one of this class, trying with all his might to pass for a saint, with his face as long as a yard-stick, or, perhaps, all lighted up with kindly smiles, ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... important and most interesting of all knowledge,—the science of being able to talk about the titled people. So my furrier (whose name was Ramsack), having to make robes for peers, and cloaks for their wives and otherwise, knew the great folk, sham or real, as well as he knew a fox or ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... told the pleasantest Story, which you'd swear was a Sham, if I did not know the Place, the Persons, and whole Matter, as well as you ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... closed upon her than Tilda stretched out a hand. The sick woman watched, panting feebly, making no sign. The purse—a cheap thing, stamped with forget-me-nots, and much worn at the edges where the papier-mache showed through its sham leather—contained a penny and a halfpenny; these, and in an inner stamp-pocket a scrap of paper, folded small, and greasy ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rangoon river and constitutes the harbour of Rangoon. East of the Rangoon river and still within the deltaic area, though cut off from the main delta by the southern end of the Pegu Yomas, lies the mouth of the Sittang. This river, rising in the Sham-Karen hills, flows first due north and then southward through the Kyaukse, Yamethin and Toungoo districts, its line being followed by the Mandalay-Rangoon railway as far south as Nyaunglebin in the Pegu district. At Toungoo it is narrow, but below Shwegyin it widens, and at Sittang it is half ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... d'Orleans; he having ventured the criticism that her friend had indulged, not in the Louis XVI style, for, he went on, although that was not, of course, done, still it might be made charming, but in the 'Sham-Antique.' ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... I am ready to grant you.) From the moment he came he felt at once he would love to possess a castle of his own among these romantic mountains. "Seldon!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "They call Seldon a castle! But you and I know very well, Sey, it was built in 1860, with sham antique stones, for Macpherson of Seldon, at market rates, by Cubitt and Co., worshipful contractors of London. Macpherson charged me for that sham antiquity a preposterous price, at which one ought to procure a real ancestral mansion. Now, these castles are real. They are hoary with ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... that delightful amiability which made him so popular among his fellows and such a cypher in his home. At an early date in his married life his position had been clearly defined beyond possibility of mistake. It was his business to make money, and, when called upon, to jump through hoops and sham dead at the bidding of his wife and daughter Mae. These duties he had been performing conscientiously for a matter of ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... respected him—respected the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of respecting any unearned supremacy; but as MEN I looked down upon him and his nobles—privately. And he and they liked me, and respected my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham title, they looked down upon me—and were not particularly private about it, either. I didn't charge for my opinion about them, and they didn't charge for their opinion about me: the account was square, the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... though proven through observation, has made itself acceptable only with great difficulty. It has had to struggle on the one hand against the prejudices of common-sense for which imagination is synonymous with sham and vain appearance and opposed to the real as non-being to being; on the other hand, against a doctrine of the logicians who maintain that the idea is at first merely conceived with no affirmation of existence or non-existence (apprehensio ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... or perhaps the badge of some powerful association? But to wear it so persistently he must surely have some powerful and hidden protection. It would be well to be on one's guard, especially as he received all pleasantries with unruffled calmness. After that he was treated with respect, and his sham courage saved him; he was appointed head clerk on the first of January, 1880. His whole life had been spent indoors. He hated noise and bustle, and because of this love of rest and quiet he had remained a bachelor. He spent his Sundays reading tales of adventure ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... wife looks unusually well, it would not hurt you in the least to tell her so, and the way you leave her in the morning is going to settle her happiness for the day, though she may be too proud to let you know that it makes any difference. Women are quick to detect a sham, and they don't want you to say anything that you don't feel, but you are pretty sure to feel tenderly toward her sometimes, careless though you may be, and then is the time to tell her so. You don't want to wait until she is ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... Col. Joseph MOBUTU seized power and declared himself president in a November 1965 coup. He subsequently changed his name - to MOBUTU Sese Seko - as well as that of the country - to Zaire. MOBUTU retained his position for 32 years through several sham elections, as well as through the use of brutal force. Ethnic strife and civil war, touched off by a massive inflow of refugees in 1994 from fighting in Rwanda and Burundi, led in May 1997 to the toppling of the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a bad fence, and equally, too, the pleasure of watching the hounds cleverly at work with their mysterious gift of scent. All the same, I suspect there are few sportsmen who would not vote it a tame substitute. Without something being killed, the zest, the 'snap,' is gone. It is as depressing as a sham fight." ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the Burra Lard Sahib, (as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance, and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its stirring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... admitted that it is a fine thing to have a trade, your children would soon have one without learning it. They would become postmasters like the councillors of Zurich. Let us have no such ceremonies for Emile; let it be the real thing not the sham. Do not say what he knows, let him learn in silence. Let him make his masterpiece, but not be hailed as master; let him be a workman not in ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Times or the Telegraph." Not a man present had an opinion of his own; or, if he had an opinion, ventured to express it; or, if he knew nothing of the subject, was honest enough to say so. One enormous Sham, and everybody in a conspiracy to take it for the real thing: that is an accurate description of the state of political feeling among the representative men at Mr. Farnaby's dinner. I am not judging rashly by one example only; I have ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... the European Powers lay dormant under the spell of the new doctrine of non-intervention, the King of Piedmont vigorously pursued his career of spoliation. Having accepted a sham plebiscitum, he annexed, by a formal decree of 18th March, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Parma and Modena, and that portion of the Papal States known as the Legations, to his ancient kingdom ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... and night—a night of self-revelations. Never that he could remember had he so deeply felt the sting of conscience. He, the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch, in love with this little rustic? Impossible! It was the real Peter, tired of the sham and make-believe of self-restraint and virtue, who had merely kissed a country girl. He was no anchorite, no saint. Why had he tied himself to such a duty from a motive of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Socialism," thus denounces the present form of family life: "We defy any human being to point to a single reality, good or bad, in the composition of the bourgeois family. It has the merit of being the most perfect specimen of complete sham that history has presented to the world." ["Religion of Socialism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 141 of ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her entreaties I had resisted. The confession of her motives overpowered me. It is right," cried Mr. Sarrazin, suddenly warming into enthusiasm, "that these two women should meet. Remember how that poor girl has proved that her repentance is no sham. I say, she has a right to tell, and the lady whom she has injured has a right to hear, what she has done to atone for the past, what confession she is willing to make to the one woman in the world (though she is a divorced woman) who is most interested in hearing what Miss Westerfield's ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... was mine; for Arnaldo having by chance lost one of my Billets, discover'd the Amour, and was sent to travel, and my self forc'd into this Monastery, where at last, Time convinc'd me, I had lov'd below my Quality, and that sham'd me into Holy Orders.' 'And is it a Disease, (reply'd Isabella) that People often recover?' 'Most frequently, (said Katteriena) and yet some dye of the Disease, but very rarely.' 'Nay then, (said Isabella) I fear, you will find me one of these Martyrs; for I have already ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... A sham battle between two troops of mounted knights. 2: That is, Duke Ernst; see above, No. xvii. 3: That is: We pay no attention to the ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... such a fashnabble man should live in the Temple; but it must be recklected, that it's not only lawyers who live in what's called the Ins of Cort. Many batchylers, who have nothink to do with lor, have here their loginx; and many sham barrysters, who never put on a wig and gownd twise in their lives, kip apartments in the Temple, instead of Bon Street, Pickledilly, ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... subtle, not-to-be-fathomed influence of the desert which fights all sham; perhaps it was that Rhoda merely had reached the limit of her heroic self-containment and that, had DeWitt or Newman been with her, she would have given way in the same manner; perhaps it was that the young Indian's presence had in it a quality that ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... rather than a certainty, but strong enough to induce him to alter his tactics. Leaving the girl, he set off on the track of the sham beggar. ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... together making up the ball as the pappus of the dandelion seeds makes up the seed-globe of this plant. It is one of the most singular vegetable products, or vegetable perversions, that I know of. A sham fruit filled with sham seeds; each seed-like growth contains a grub, which later in the season pupates and eats its way out, a winged insect. How foreign to anything we know as mechanical or chemical it all is!—the surprising and incalculable ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... represented, when they see them in the stereoscope. They will be surprised to be told that they see most objects as large as they appear in Nature. A few simple experiments will show how what we see in ordinary vision is modified in our perceptions by what we think we see. We made a sham stereoscope, the other day, with no glasses, and an opening in the place where the pictures belong, about the size of one of the common stereoscopic pictures. Through this we got a very ample view of the town of Cambridge, including Mount Auburn and the Colleges, in a single field ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... of his wings for the living radiance. They had begun to realise the desolate truth. They read it in each other's eyes. She had been too loyal to speak. She would have married him, hoping as a woman hopes, against hope. Paragot, whose soul revolted from pretence, preferring real mire to sham down, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... am just after having been killed in a sham battle, and so consequently I feel rather ghastly to-day. I don't exactly know whether I was a Red or a Blue, because I did a deal of fighting on both sides, but always with the same result. I was killed instantly and completely. People got sick of putting me out of my misery after a ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... here: some styles are lean, adust, wiry, the muscle itself seems osseous; some are even quite pallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking; while others again glow in the flush of health and vigorous self-growth, sometimes (as in my own case) not without an apoplectic tendency. Moreover, there are sham Metaphors, which overhanging that same Thought's-Body (best naked), and deceptively bedizening, or bolstering it out, may be called its false stuffings, superfluous show-cloaks (Putz-Mantel), and tawdry woollen rags: whereof he that ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... first impression of existence? how portray my agony when I became aware what I was—when I understood my mission upon earth? The reader, who has possibly never felt himself to be what Mr. Carlyle calls a "sham," or a "solemnly constituted imposter," can have no notion of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... which has not escaped the malice of Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented as a sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles and the correction of the Jews, (Middleton's Works, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... truth, that the two who had not so far drenched their senses with liquor as to be incapable of judging, whispered to themselves that he was not so much of a fool after all; in fact, that there was so much truth in what he said, that no man could doubt his being a real and not a sham hero of the Mexican War. "It does not become me to speak of myself, gentlemen," said the major, in conclusion, "but if there was a war in Mexico I was not in, it was not worth calling a war; and as for politics, why I have made twenty-eight speeches ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... in silence for some time. Both hearts were too full for commonplace talk, and he did not dare venture out of safe lines. He could not pretend to fatherly love, even that cloaked by brotherliness would be but a sham, he knew. He had his own honor to satisfy, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... 'Tyrant,' from his affectionate persecution of young Huettenbrenner, who in return lavished upon him the affection of a slave for his idol. They were all boisterous, merry, life-loving spirits, venting their feelings in howls, repartees, sham-fights, and mock-concerts—there is even a story of their 'performing' the 'Erl King,' with Schubert himself accompanying them on a tooth-comb! The change from this unconventional life to the aristocratic surroundings of Zelesz was therefore immense; yet Schubert was not unhappy. The family were ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... applying them, he enters into details as to the physiological circumstances connected with the procreation of the species. The Solicitor-General says—and that was the first proposition with which he started—that the whole of this is a delusion and a sham. When Knowlton says that he wishes that marriage should take place as early as possible—marriage being the most sacred and holy of all human relations—he means nothing of the kind, but means and suggests, in the sacred name of marriage, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... you see on the grounds of wealthy people with cheap and inferior material. The result will be a sham that will deceive no one, and you will soon tire of it, and the sooner the better. Be honest. If you have only cheap material to work with, be satisfied with unambitious undertakings. Let them be in keeping with what you have to work with—simple, ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... 'Mrs.' before a nurse's name doesn't soothe a fretful child, nor make her more patient or loving. It might make her less patient, if she took to wishing the 'Mrs.' was real instead of sham; some women are like that, all for marrying. I dare say," said Nannie, when going over her experiences, "my face did look blank when I missed all my treasures, but f said nothing, although it was a blow when I thought of all the lovely ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... pious marabouts. His preaching is quite contrary to his practice. A more money-getting ambitious fellow I have not found in The Desert. The report which I heard of the Governor of Ghat being changed whilst at Ghadames, was a sham abdication on his part. From domestic matters he proceeded to talk of politics. His Excellency is always anxious to give an immense idea of the fighting qualities and numbers of the Touaricks. He wishes me to make a favourable report of them, and his position at Ghat, and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and, in order to get rid of a piece of evidence contrary to the traditions he holds to, seriously maintaining that this skeleton never belonged to a living creature, but was created with just these appearances; a make-believe, a sham, a Barnum's-mermaid contrivance to amuse its Creator and impose upon his intelligent children! And now people talk about geological epochs and hundreds of millions of years in the planet's history as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ill," the Baroness answered. "Her indisposition was a sham; forced on her by me, in her own interests. Her reputation is in peril; and you—you hateful ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... youths that have arrived at puberty. Suddenly, and at night, a cry is heard in the woods. Upon hearing this, the men of the neighbourhood take the youths to a secluded spot previously fixed upon. The ceremony then takes place. Sham fights, dances, partial mutilations of the body, e.g., the knocking out of a front tooth, are elements of it. And this is as much as is known of it; except that from the time of initiation to the time of marriage, the young men are ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... the Pleiades) and "Sham'adin" a would-be Arabic plur. of the Persian "Sham'adan"candlestick, chandelier, for which more correctly Sham'adanat ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... sending out ships with sham bolt-heads on their timbers, and only half their bolts, may meditate on that "buildeth ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... rest, which he must ask for in the coming October, and trusts that, "after four years and nine months' service, without one moment's repose for body or mind, credit will be given me that I do not sham." ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... treasure that we possess, by some accident, a taint in the food or the water, can utterly pass from existence. If it were possible to believe that, then the most miserable creature on the earth would be man, for he would know of his greatness, and know also that his greatness is a mockery and a sham. In hours of doubt, let us lean hard upon the question, "Is it possible that those with whom we have walked and worked, conversed and communed, and by whom we have been helped and blessed, should forever cease to be, while the houses in which they live, ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... had fought our way from Albuera to Waterloo, under some of the severest generals of division, were pronounced a most disorderly and ill-disciplined regiment, by a Colonel, who had never seen a shot fired but at a review in Hounslow, or a sham-battle in the Fifteen Acres. The winter was now drawing to a close—already some little touch of spring was appearing; as our last play for the season was announced, every effort to close with some little additional effort was made; ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... in the beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet, windy afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work at the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways—though it was no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and I saw less and less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to spring, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... "All sham. Downright sneakin'!" said Molloy. "The short an' the long of it is, that I see'd from the first the on'y way to humbug them yellow-faced baboons was to circumwent 'em. So I set to work at ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... the South were two. In the first place Territorial Governments were set up in New Mexico and Utah (since then the home of the Mormons) without any restriction on slavery. This concession was defended in the North on the ground that it was a sham, because the physical character of those regions made successful slave plantations impossible there. But it was, of course, a surrender of the principle which had been struggled for in the Wilmot Proviso during ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... in with the troop, was not in the service for the first time; that he had enlisted twice before and then succeeded in getting discharged for disability. The informant intimated that the fellow had no intention of doing duty, would shirk and sham illness and probably get into the hospital, where the chances were he would succeed in imposing on the surgeons and in getting discharged again; that it was pay he was after which he did not propose to earn; least of all would he expose his precious life, if by any possibility ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game with spirit, and the riders, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... all been ruined by the Budget, I think it very kind of you to receive me so well. When I remember all the injuries you have suffered—how South Africa has been lost; how the gold mines have been thrown away; how all the splendid army which Mr. Brodrick got together has been reduced to a sham; and how, of course, we have got no navy of any kind whatever, not even a fishing smack, for the thirty-five millions a year we give the Admiralty; and when I remember that in spite of all these evils the taxes are so oppressive ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... vagabonds who wandered over the country dressed in grotesque fashion, pretending to be mad and working upon the fears or the charity of people for alms. They were common in the time of Shakespeare, and were found even as late as the Restoration. The slang phrase "to sham Abraham," is a survival of the practice. There was a ward in Bethlehem (or Bedlam) Hospital, called the Abraham Ward, and hence probably arose the name of these beggars. Harmless lunatics who had ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... cried Sir James, in a disappointed tone. "There, go on, sir; go on. The boys are very anxious to hear you— there, I won't be a sham—so am I too." ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... her. She wanted to touch his chest. She knew exactly how his breast was shapen under the waistcoat, and she wanted to touch it. It maddened her to hear his mechanical voice giving orders about the work. She wanted to break through the sham of it, smash the trivial coating of business which covered him with hardness, get at the man again; but she was afraid, and before she could feel one touch of his warmth he was gone, and she ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... males, and thus unconsciously prefer them. In the case of Tetrao umbellus, a good observer (23. 'Land and Water,' July 25, 1868, p. 14.) goes so far as to believe that the battles of the male "are all a sham, performed to show themselves to the greatest advantage before the admiring females who assemble around; for I have never been able to find a maimed hero, and seldom more than a broken feather." I shall have to recur to this subject, but I may here add that ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... well acquainted with your father. As soon as you informed me of his failure, I wrote to my correspondent in England, and found, as I expected, that he had been overreached by swindlers and sharpers.——The pretended failure of the merchants with whom he was in company, was all a sham, as, also the reported loss of the ships in their employ. The merchants fled to England: I have had them arrested, and they have given up their effects to much more than the amount of their debts. ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... did not care in the least what anybody thought of her. She was in no sense of the word a sham. She was well-born, well-educated, respectably married, and fairly well-off. The people in Northbury considered her rich. She always spoke of herself as poor. In reality she was neither rich nor poor. She had ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... mines of Midian until this den of thieves is cleared out. It is an asylum for every murderer and bandit who can make his way there—a centre of turbulence which spreads trouble all around it. Under the sham rule of miserable Sham (Syria), with its Turkish Walis, men like the late Rashid Pasha, matters can only wax worse. Subject to Egypt, the people will learn discipline and cease to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... Illinois Indians to keep the peace. Later, Benjamin Lincoln, Timothy Pickering, and Beverly Randolph were ordered by the president to go to the Maumee to conclude a general treaty which Indians had declared their willingness to enter into. But the commissioners were detained at Niagara by sham conferences with Gov. John Graves Simcoe, of Canada, until the middle of July, when the Indians sent them word that unless they would in advance "agree that the Ohio shall remain the boundary between us," the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... which their author, unlike the best breed of young poets and men of letters, attempts to satirise his literary betters; while they are to some extent at any rate tarred with the other two brushes of corrupt imitation of the ancients, and of sham moral indignation. Indeed the want of sincerity—the evidence of the literary exercise—injures Hall's satirical work in different ways throughout. We do not, as we read him, in the least believe in ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... wanderlust of its darkened heavens, is not the ample-bosomed, begarneted, crimson-lipped Minna angling in its gaudy dance decoy in the Behrenstrasse; nor the satin-clad, pencilled-eyed Amelie ogling from her "reserved" table in the silly sham called Moulin Rouge; nor yet the more baby-glanced, shirtwaisted Ertrude laughing in the duntoned Cafe Lang. Berlin is not she who beckons by night in the Friedrichstrasse; nor the frowsy she who sings in the bier-cabarets that hover about the Lichtprunksaal. ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... at this time. He had toilsomely erected a sort of sham paradise of stage scenery, in which he continued to play the character of the youthful lover, which he was scarcely entitled to continue in life, and now this luckless doctor, with a careless movement, had thrown down all the painted ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the order of ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... Chancery would not grant an injunction against him) be so far carried away by jealousy as to attempt the crime of murder upon his carcass; and no great matter as regards HIM. But it would be a sad thing for me to find myself hanged; and for what, I beseech you? for murdering a sham, that was either nobody at all, or oneself repeated once too often. But if you show to Wordsworth a man as great as himself, still that great man will not be much like Wordsworth—the great man will not be Wordsworth's ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... sergeant, who answered snappily, "The usual things for a hike." Knudsen came back grumbling: "How were we to know that we are going on a hike?" The word was passed along: "Packs," "No packs." "Sweaters," "No sweaters." Then it was said that we were to wear handkerchiefs in our hats, sure sign of a sham battle pending. So at last at the whistle we turned out with sweaters, packs, ponchos ready (for though it had stopped raining we did not feel safe) and some of us with handkerchiefs twined in our hat-bands. Once in line we were sent back—"No packs, no ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... purple mantle, while from his bare throat hung a precious medallion, shield-shaped, and set in gold and gems, the center formed by a large head of Medusa, with beautiful though terrible features. The lion-heads of gold attached to each corner of the short cloak he wore over the sham coat of mail, were exquisite works of art, and sandals embroidered with gold and gems covered his feet and ankles. He was dressed to-day like the heir of a lordly house, anxious to charm; nay, indeed, like an emperor, as he was; and with what care had his body-slave arranged ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... surpassing loveliness of person, though doubtless that had had its effect upon me, as in that angelic purity and fascinating simplicity and truthfulness of character which I now discovered to be a mere worthless sham. It was evident enough that Merlani had been her lover—most probably her accepted lover—when I appeared upon the scene; and that, dazzled by my appearance of superior wealth, she had in the most heartless and cruel manner thrown him overboard; and, with a cunning and artfulness ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... saw the reconstruction of the Manchester Territorial units completed. The sense of vitality, without which no army can take the offensive, was fully restored. We had spirited sham fights with another battalion of the Manchesters for the possession of "Tower 16," a solitary landmark on the caravan track to Cairo, after the manner of the pre-War era. The Sentry blossomed as the first English paper of the country. Two thousand copies used to be sold at Suez alone. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... the stranger, "I think I can promise that. But if you've been having a sham fight or anything and shoved the other side into that hole, don't you think you'd better let them out? They'll be most awfully frightened, you know. After all, I suppose they are only ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... sometimes in all of them, and the boys amused themselves by reading novels or making a row. They would play various games about the bedrooms, vaulting or jumping over the beds, running races in sheets, getting through the windows upon the roofs, to frighten the study-boys with sham ghosts, or playing the thousand other pranks which suggested themselves to the fertile imagination of fifteen. But the favorite amusement was a bolstering match. One room would challenge another, and, stripping the covers off their bolsters, would meet in mortal fray. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... ones to be liked by people, and render such important services to others that they can only shake off the obligation by speaking ill of us. People think that things are only words with us; refinement is thus mere silliness, honor a sham, and acts of treachery mere diplomacy. We are the confidants of many who yet leave us much to guess at. Our programme consists in thinking and acting, finding out the past from the present, ordering ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... the titles mentioned above must at once be evident to every reverent, considerate mind. They are such as in the Bible are ascribed only to God and to Christ. Indeed, Masons give more exalted titles to their sham priest than the Scriptures employ to describe the character and office of the great High Priest who is "made higher than the heavens." If this is not profane, we are at a loss to know ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, fasting, obedience, patience, chastity, and innocence of all the saints combined. For the chief work is not present, without which all the others are nothing but mere sham, show and pretence, with nothing back of them; against which Christ warns us, Matthew vii: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing." Such are all who wish with their many good works, ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... ships to transport him and his retinue, commanded by Gaspar Paez, who had formerly been known to Malek Saca at Diu. On this occasion Malek Saca granted every condition required, not meaning to perform any, and made use of this sham alliance to get himself restored to the favour of the king of Cambaya, putting off Paez with various artifices, under pretence that the safe conduct was not securely expressed, and that there were too few ships. In revenge of this deceit, Paez was only able to burn nine small barks belonging ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... and social instability. Col. Joseph MOBUTU seized power and declared himself president in a November 1965 coup. He subsequently changed his name - to MOBUTU Sese Seko - as well as that of the country - to Zaire. MOBUTU retained his position for 32 years through several subsequent sham elections, as well as through the use of brutal force. Ethnic strife and civil war, touched off by a massive inflow of refugees in 1994 from fighting in Rwanda and Burundi, led in May 1997 to the toppling ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of legislation. They may be summed ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... you don't understand and I am afraid to tell you, but I am such a wicked girl—such a hypocrite, and so unworthy of your relationship and love. I am a cheater and a waster. My life is all lies and sham. It always has been lies and sham. I wish to tell you everything so that you may see me ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux |
