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More "Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleases the public best by being quite sure, and offering a definite and certain solution. Unluckily Science forbids, and conscience is on the same side. We verily do not know how the false Pucelle arrived at her success with the family of the true Maid; we do not know, or pretend to know, who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey; or how Amy Robsart came by her death; or why the Valet was so important a prisoner. It is only possible to restate the cases, and remove, if we may, the errors and confusions which beset the problems. Such a tiny point as the year of Amy ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, however, I determined to do,—to ascertain, if possible, whether the influences which governed me in the trance state came from the persons around, from the exercise of some independent faculty of my own mind, or really and truly from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... was shown as he lunged forward to grip Jenny's hand. When he spoke he shouted, and he addressed Pa as a boy might have done who was not quite completely at his ease, but who thought it necessary to pretend that ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... not pretend to say how far what is known of the life of this French inventor is reconcilable with this story of the madhouse. It is certain that Solomon de Caus, a French engineer, architect, and author, died about 1635, that he was born probably at Dieppe, and devoted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... expectancy than of surprise. Also when the wrapper artist clothes a volume with a picture of an elderly gentleman obviously giving up an attractive young woman of perhaps one-third his years it is idle to pretend that the contents retain all the thrill of the unforeseen. Having said so much, I can let myself go in praise (as how often before) of those qualities of insight and gently sub-acid humour that make a BENSON novel an interlude of pure enjoyment to the "jaded reviewer." In case the indiscreet cover ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... lord, after leaving Bath, had had a fresh attack of the gout; and when he would be able to proceed on his journey only Dr. Addington, his physician, whose gold-headed cane, great wig, and starched aspect did not foster curiosity, could pretend to say. Perhaps Mr. Smith, the landlord, was as much concerned as any; when he learned the state of the case, he fell to mental arithmetic with the assistance of his fingers, and at times looked blank. Counting up the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... heart Lady Sellingworth hated humbug, and she knew, of course, that any pretence of real friendship between Beryl and her would be humbug in an acute form. She might in the future sometimes have to pretend, but she was resolved not to rush upon insincerity. If Beryl sought her out again she would play her part of friend gallantly to conceal her wounds. But she would certainly ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... but of rather an inquiring mind, and sympathetic if you take her the right way: she can talk with you about philosophy and science and your dried-up old doxies. Not that she knows anything about Schopenhauer, and Darwin, and Diogenes, of course; but she's heard their names, and she'll pretend to be posted—you know how women are. And when you need a mental tonic—the companionship of a robust intellect, the stimulus of wide acquaintance with the great world of men and things, a manly comprehension ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... number of the insurgents by persuasion and threat. But the Indian would not suffer the mild rebuke for that sin, which in other circumstances would have made him experience the severities of punishment, and deeming the occasion very suitable for the revolt of the village, he began to pretend implacable annoyance because the father admonished him. Following this, he became excessively angry, and hurled many insults at the evangelical minister, and concluded by crying out: "Long live Malong! Death to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... inflammable passions of the populace, and, instead of amending errors, snarl at restraints. A true patriot points out defects with a view to have them removed, and brings himself into as little notice as possible. We may as well pretend that Wickliffe and Jack Cade were moved by the same spirit, as say, that we cannot discern between those who seek to do good, and those who would breed distractions. Yet, as the mass of mankind are either too ignorant or too much ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... a good girl," he said, aloud. "At any rate, you wouldn't pretend. You'd gamble with your immortal soul, but you wouldn't sell it—not for three millions, not for a hundred times three millions. Or is it that you are all alike, you women? Isn't there one of you that can be absolutely true? Isn't there one that won't smirch her soul and kill the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wrought himself a passage by his calumnies with the greatest shrewdness; while he put on a face as if he were a kind brother to Alexander and Aristobulus, but suborned other men to inform of what they did to Herod. And when any thing was told against Alexander, he would come in, and pretend [to be of his side], and would begin to contradict what was said; but would afterward contrive matters so privately, that the king should have an indignation at him. His general aim was this,—to lay a plot, and to make it believed that ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... wife in a new light. It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the intellect, Mrs. Lethbury was the first to declare her deficiencies—to proclaim them, even, with a certain virtuous superiority. She said she did not pretend to be clever, and there was no denying the truth of the assertion. Now, however, she seemed less ready, not to own her limitations, but to glory in them. Confronted with the problem of Jane's instruction, she stood ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... each side blundered on in a blind, desperate way, sacrificing masses of human life without a clear vision of the consequences, until at last one side blundered more than another and was lost. It will be impossible to pretend in history that our High Command, or any other, foresaw the thread of plot as it was unraveled to the end, and so arranged its plan that events happened according to design. The events of March, 1918, were not foreseen nor prevented by ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear husband's death—you ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... seen no more, but was changed into a slender green snake; and the king said she deserved her fate; "for, mark you," cried he, "there is no crime worse than to play false to those whom we pretend to love." ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... apart. There was not even to be any one generally predominating organization from which minor ones should be reckoned as dissenting. One after another the organizations which should be tempted by some period of exceptional growth and prosperity to pretend to a hegemony among the churches—Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist—would meet with some set-back as inexorable as "the law of nature that prevents the trees from growing up ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... said Barker, knitting his brows, "I cannot pretend to say anything, but speaking in the interests ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... deeply hurt, and had lain awake weeping during the small hours of the morning). The mother, seeing nothing for it but either to get rid of Alice before Janet's return or to be detected in a spiteful untruth, had to pretend that Janet was spending the evening with some friends, and to urge the unkindness of leaving Miss Carew lonely. At last Alice washed away the traces of her tears and returned to the castle, feeling very miserable, and trying to comfort herself with the reflection that her sister had been ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... "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 now, because of the projecting nails or ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... he appears to be. There are few conditions or countries of which he has not worn the mask. No person knows who he is, whence he comes, or whither he goes. That he has been for a long time in Egypt, as many pretend, and that he has brought from thence, out of a catacomb, his, occult sciences, I will neither affirm nor deny. Here we only know him by the name of the Incomprehensible. How old, for instance, do ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of Pandu. A peaceful disposition of an exceedingly rare character hath been displayed by Pandu's son in this matter. When Dhritarashtra and his sons, however, are so covetous, I do not see why hostility should not run high. Thou canst not pretend, O Sanjaya, to be more versed than I am or Yudhishthira is, in the niceties of right and wrong. Then why dost thou speak words of reproach with reference to the conduct of Yudhishthira who is enterprising, mindful of his own duty, and thoughtful, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Party,' finds itself compelled, precisely like Lenine, to pretend to be a peace-loving organization, loyally accepting constitutional democracy and opposed to violence. Are we to take it at its own word? Is it possible that a few pious phrases offered on occasion can deceive the American people as to the nature of a propaganda ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... frightened her in his lifetime ... and the thought that she might have to live again in contention and opposition roused all her strength to resist that fate. She had lived down much of the dislike that her husband had aroused. It was not necessary now to pretend that she did not see people, that she might escape from the mortification of being stared at, without a sign of recognition; and she would not lightly yield up her comfortable situation. If only she could only persuade John to become a minister! There was nothing in that ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... the Tories, on the other hand, are thirsting for office: they are, or pretend to be, greatly alarmed at the Radical tendencies of the Government, but they are well aware that in the actual state of the House of Commons they have the power of keeping the Government in check and of defeating every Radical scheme while in opposition, but that it would be ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... have been more to be reckoned with if the instinct of each—she could certainly at least answer for her own—had not so successfully acted to trump up other apparent connexions for it, connexions as to which they could pretend ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... foundling asylum. No questions will be asked. The baby will have the best of care and grow so strong that some rich couple will insist on adopting it, or you could come back when you are married to a rich man and pretend you took a fancy to ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Paris at day's notice. In a few hours, however, the purchase was effected, and a courier started for London. [236] As soon as Barillon received the remittance, he flew to Whitehall, and communicated the welcome news. James was not ashamed to shed, or pretend to shed, tears of delight and gratitude. "Nobody but your King," he said, "does such kind, such noble things. I never can be grateful enough. Assure him that my attachment will last to the end of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bettin' on it, and bettin' on it high," said Young. "I don't pretend t' know as much about this sort o' thing as Rayburn does; but I do think I know a live devil when I see one—an' these miners are about as lively an' about as devilly as anything that ever broke loose from hell. They're just as full o' th' wickedest ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... these services he had to pretend that he believed in something which he did not believe in, and being truthful he could not do this. The alternative was, having made up his mind that all these outward signs were deceitful, to alter his life in such a way that he would not have to be present at such ceremonials. But to do ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... already purchased are sufficient for the country for which you bought them; or that the artists who used to make fine things, are all dead, without having taught anybody to make more? But for a parcel of men, with long heads, to sit down in England, and frame laws for us, and pretend to dictate how we are to live, of whom they know nothing, never having been in a black man's country during the whole course of their lives, is to me somewhat extraordinary! No doubt they must have been biased by the report of some one, who had had to do with ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... accounts pretend that the immediate cause of rupture was a claim instituted by Huascar for the territory of Tumebamba, held by his brother as part of his patrimonial inheritance. It matters little what was the ostensible ground of collision between persons placed by circumstances in so false a position in regard ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... town is about a 100 miles from here and what would she be doing a 100 miles from home and besides even if I seen her on the st. I doubt if I would know her though I generally almost always remember faces though I can't always remember their names. But if she seen me and spoke to me I would pretend like I didn't hear her and duck because it would only make it tougher for her to talk to me because I would have to tell her the truth. But I guess its all over between us now and any way I ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... even, sharp and wonderful. He understood. All this might have been his—this delicate beauty, this quick will, this rare intelligence—and yet the surrender in her aspect was not the simple surrender of love; he knew before she spoke that she did not pretend to ignore the obstacles between them; that she was not going to throw herself upon his renunciation, trying vehemently to break it down, in a mere blind girlish impulsiveness. He realised at once her heart, and her common sense; and was ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... strangest idea 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 board ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain unto me; and even of the mysteries of the Gospel I must needs say, with Mr. Richard Hooker, that whatever some may pretend, the subjective certainty cannot go beyond the objective evidence. * * * Therefore I do more of late than ever discern the necessity of a methodical procedure in maintaining the doctrine of Christianity. * * * My certainty that I am a man is before my certainty that there is a God. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... what Peter speaks of, their secretly bringing in of pestilent sects, for these are they that have separated themselves; they divide the unity that is in faith, will not let the ordinary estate of a Christian answer,—namely, that wherein one serves another,—but they set up other estates, and pretend to serve God by these. Besides they are sensual or brutish men, who have no more understanding and spirit than an ox or an ass; they walk according to their natural reason and fleshly mind. They have no God's-word by which they judge ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... my speculation, Miss Wade. I don't pretend to know positively how a prisoner might feel. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... a somewhat sullen and desponding spirit, as a means of averting further impending calamity and restoring a measure of order and peace. Whether this justified or not the act of annexation I do not pretend to judge. The results, however, for the Republic were for the time, financial relief and prosperity, and better treatment of the natives. The financial condition of the country, as I have said, at the time of the annexation, was one of utter bankruptcy. "After three years of British rule, ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... is a kind of writer pleased with sound, Whose fustian head with clouds is compassed round— No reason can disperse them with its light; Learn then to think, ere you pretend to write As your idea's clear, or else obscure, The expression follows, perfect or impure; What we conceive with ease we can express; Words to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... only assure you I shall be most awfully grateful if you do help me," he said quietly. "I don't pretend to deserve it—but that doesn't lessen gratitude—rather the other way, don't you know. I shall never ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... You have not persuaded me in the least; you have merely forced me to a certain course, in which I still cannot pretend that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... and lawful for your line To drive their fields, and force with fraud to join; Realms, not your own, among your clans divide, And from the bridegroom tear the promis'd bride; Petition, while you public arms prepare; Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war! 'T was giv'n to you, your darling son to shroud, To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd, And, for a man, obtend an empty cloud. From flaming fleets you turn'd the fire away, And chang'd the ships to daughters of the sea. But is my crime- ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... it! You hadn't looked at me. But I knew you when you first came in—only I wasn't sure till the lights were turned on. Of course it would be great fun to tease you—pretend to be shocked and dreadfully angry, and all that—but I haven't got time. And oh, John Wesley, I'm so delighted to see you again! Let's go over to the park. Not but what I was dreadfully angry, sure enough, until I had a second to think. Why ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Of all that know what's good or fair! Is heaven become our rival too? Had the rich gifts conferr'd on you So amply thence, the common end Of giving lovers—to pretend? Hence, to this pining sickness (meant To weary thee to a consent Of leaving us) no power is given 9 Thy beauties to impair; for heaven Solicits thee with such a care, As roses from their stalks we tear, When we would still preserve them new ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... course be continued. But she might be pardoned without being made Mrs. Arthur Fletcher. While Emily was still at Longbarns the old lady almost talked over her daughter-in-law to this way of thinking,—till John Fletcher put his foot upon it altogether. "I don't pretend to say what she ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... and away superior to those nominally above you. I am not without the power to make you an offer. The Spanish cause is lost; in a few months your armies will be crushed; Peru will be independent. Until that time you will languish miserably in prison. Afterwards I cannot pretend to prophesy your fate; but I offer you an opportunity to escape from the wreck. Join the Patriot army, and I pledge my word that San Martin shall give you the rank of colonel at once. In a year it will be your own fault if you are not ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... perceive the position plainly enough. The distinction between it and the position of your candidate is broad and obvious, and I admit you have a clear right to show it is wrong if you can; but you have no right to pretend you cannot see it at all. We see it, and to us it appears like principle, and the best sort of principle at that—the principle of allowing the people to do as they please with their own business. My friend from Indiana (C. B. Smith) has aptly asked, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... represented a grotto on Mount Etna, hollowed out in a silver mine and with sides glittering like new money. In the background Vulcan's forge glowed like a setting star. Diana, since the second act, had come to a good understanding with the god, who was to pretend that he was on a journey, so as to leave the way clear for Venus and Mars. Then scarcely was Diana alone than Venus made her appearance. A shiver of delight ran round the house. Nana was nude. With quiet audacity she appeared in her nakedness, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... like yourself—and I can manage an estate in my own way, and I can keep my tenants' spirits up. I have got a perfectly definite use in the world, and I'm going to play my part for all that I'm worth. I'm not going to pretend that I am a worm or an outcast—I don't feel one; and I am as sure as I can be of anything, that God does not wish me to feel one. He needs me; He can't get on without me just here; and when He can, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... culprit, and pitching him off the end of Cape Cornwall; but Tregarthen advised that they should wait until Clearemout seized his victim, otherwise they could not convict him, because he would deny any intention of evil against Rose, and pretend that some other girl, who had been scared away by their impetuosity, was concerned, for they might depend on it he'd get up a plausible story ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... that, in order to save his life, he must submit to hardship and suffering, for a single imprudent step would bring destruction, not only on himself, but on his benefactors. It was, therefore, agreed that he should pretend to be deaf and dumb. On awaking he remembered the injunctions of his friends, resolved that no indiscretion on his part should endanger their safety, and waited with patience and in silence in his dreary abode, being supplied at intervals with food, which was brought to ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... when seen in a tavern retired into the kitchen: "The more," said he, "you retire, the more are you in the tavern."[281] Even so the more a vicious man denies his vice, the more does it insinuate itself and master him: as those people really poor who pretend to be rich get still more poor from their false display. But he who is really making progress in virtue imitates Hippocrates, who confessed publicly and put into black and white that he had made a mistake about the sutures of the skull,[282] for he will think it monstrous, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... formerly spoken by himself immediately. How God speaketh to a man immediately, may be understood by those well enough, to whom he hath so spoken; but how the same should be understood by another, is hard, if not impossible to know. For if a man pretend to me, that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce, to oblige me to beleeve it. It is true, that if he be my Soveraign, he may oblige me to obedience, so, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... you to look out for that, and give me something to eat and drink. You can pretend that the box contains the body of your captain, who, you said, ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... does not pretend to vie with, much less to supersede, the masterly treatises on the subject which have from time to time appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive histories, such as that of Professor Leonello Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should but serve to pave ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... 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 as the different kinds of ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... he came from Chester. This he pronounced with a very rich brogue, which caught the ears of Sir John. "Why, were you ever in Chester?" says he. "To be sure I was," said Pat, "wasn't I born there?" "How dare you," said Sir John Fielding, "with that brogue, which shows that you are an Irishman, pretend to have been born in Chester?" "I didn't say I was born there, sure; I only asked your honour ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... vessels too, well executed; never surely was any thing so sadly, yet so finely done. I defy the nicest eye, however near, to distinguish it (suppose the head laid upon a pillow in a bed) from nature; nor must Mrs. Wright, or any of the workers in wax I have ever yet seen, pretend to a tythe of the perfection in that art, with the man who made this head.—Sad as the subject is, I could not withstand the temptation of asking permission to take a copy of it; and fortunately, I found the man who made it was then at Paris,—nor ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... may be that you may understand such matters and such people better than I can pretend to do. It is not improbable. But my conceptions of the power of persuasion have never risen yet to a belief in the possibility of persuading a dog who has got a lump of butter in his mouth ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the boys did not pretend to do any of the camp cooking or any of the menial camp labor, this being accomplished by hired helpers. And again, the officers were only officers while on parade or during special hours of duty—otherwise they were just like the other cadets and ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... the men addressed him, but he waved his arm, shook his head angrily, and strode on; and as fakirs frequently pretend to be absorbed in thought, and unwilling to converse, the soldiers fell back. Beyond this, the streets were deserted. The most populous native quarter lay far away, and few of the inhabitants, save of the lowest classes, cared to be about ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... to lend Thy helping hand to my untuned song, And grace these lines which I to write pretend, Compelled by love which doth poor Corin wrong. And those thy sacred sisters I beseech, Which on Parnassus' mount do ever dwell, To shield my country muse and rural speech By their divine authority and spell. Lastly to thee, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... to be speaking to Dunham, but he was really thinking aloud, and Dunham waited for some sort of question before he spoke. "But it's a great satisfaction to have had it out with myself. I haven't got to pretend any more that I hang about her, and look at her, and go mooning round after her, for this no-reason and that; I've got the best reason in the world for playing the fool,—I'm in love!" He drew a long, deep breath. "It simplifies matters immensely to have ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... of amusement is, I am told, quite unknown in Europe. There are, to be sure, occasional formal banquets, which do not pretend to be anything but formal. A formal banquet would be an intense relief, after the heat, noise, confusion and pseudo-informality of a New York dinner. The European is puzzled and baffled by one of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... your face! It is with this gibberish about continuous flashes of atoms of reason that men pretend to build up science to-day! Very well, my masters; the magnificent argument with which I am supplying you lacks but one little detail, the merest trifle: truth! Not that I have not seen and plainly seen all that I am relating; ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... mother in your face And the look of that other in your eyes! So the dear old loves shall live anew As I hold my darling on my knee, And I'll say "I love you" to you, And you say "I love you" to me! Oh, many a strange, true thing we say And do when we pretend ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... commentators as I have, read, dream, invent, and as a last resort, play fast and loose with the language. (52) For instance, when it is said in 2 Chronicles, that Ahab was forty-two years old when he began to reign, they pretend that these years are computed from the reign of Omri, not from the birth of Ahab. (53) If this can be shown to be the real meaning of the writer of the book of Chronicles, all I can say is, that he did not know how to state ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... happened to you so that you wouldn't be back here this summer. You know me well enough, Jenny Wren, to know that you can't hurt me with your tongue, sharp as it is, so you may as well save your breath to tell me a few things I want to know. Now if you are as fond of the Old Orchard as you pretend to be, why did you ever ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... attached to your strange prophecies,' observed the Alderman, 'which I do not pretend at present to understand, but which nevertheless I know will all come true, I am truly concerned about one thing. Are you really serious, Lal, in your intention of never speaking to me again? I feel the loss will be irreparable, for you have always been my wisest councillor ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... punctilious etiquette of Samoa is perhaps a little painful. For instance, I found that in partaking of ava, the social bowl, I was supposed to toss a little of the beverage over my shoulder, or pretend to do so, and say, "Let the gods drink," and then drink it all myself; and the dish, invariably a cocoanut-shell, being empty, I might not pass it politely as we would do, but politely throw it twirling across the mats at ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the narrow-minded parsimony which left the grounds of the White House in a condition that was discreditable to the republic. How far our philippic may have hastened the improvements which have been made, is more than we shall pretend to say, but having made the former strictures, we are happy to have an occasion to say (though nearly twenty years have intervened between the expressions of the two opinions) that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... be their representative? If it were known that she was his mistress, he could no longer maintain his position in public life—was he not therefore in honour bound; of his own accord, to resign it? Night and day he was haunted by the thought: How can I, living in defiance of authority, pretend to authority over my fellows? How can I remain in public life? But if he did not remain in public life, what was he to do? That way of life was in his blood; he had been bred and born into it; had thought of nothing else since he was a boy. There was no other occupation or ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... numerous on board, the powder-magazine overflowed. The one cannon could not pretend to use the contents. That gave people more to think about. There were also gigantic saws and powerful instruments, such as levers, leaden maces, handsaws, enormous axes, etc., without counting a considerable quantity of blasting cylinders, enough to blow ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... defensive barriers his mind had thrown up against the grievous flaw in his character, which made him feel uncertain of himself when he should have felt strong and capable, crumbled away completely. He could no longer pretend, no longer deceive himself. He hated his father because the elder Burnett had never known a moment of profound self-distrust in ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... was never shaken; for though he did not pretend that in the distant future trade-unionism would be sufficient to redress all social ills, holding it, as Lady Dilke did, to be, not "the gospel of the future, but salvation for the present," he believed that during his lifetime it was far from having perfected ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... followed about the general condition of sunken ships. Brocket had no fear of rivals in business, and as his interlocutor did not pretend to be one he was exceedingly communicative. He described to him the exact depth to which a diver in armor might safely go, the longest time that he could safely remain under water, the rate of travel in walking along ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... have been a trick?" said I, recalling the victim's own make-believe at the Albany. And not only did Camilla appear to embrace that theory with open arms; she had the nerve to pretend that it really was ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... "Do you pretend that Bryant is not a poet in the grain, and that the wondrous boy, Willis, was not also 'to the manner born?' Read 'Thanatopsis,' or are you acquainted with it already? I hardly think you can ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... lousy lie!" Hanlon rasped. "I was framed. The Corps. Paugh!" he spat in pretend disgust. "I'm getting out of here just as damned quick as I can, and as far as I can. I'll go clear to Andromeda Seven if ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... still adhere to it. It is good of you to come so far; I cannot blame you for that. I know your motives. But do not try to find me out. I warn you, beforehand, it will be quite useless. I have made up my mind. I have an object in life, and, dear as you are to me—THAT I will not pretend to deny—I can never allow even YOU to interfere with it. So be warned in time. Go back quietly ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... appear in his true character; but he was satisfied, from what his mother had said in her letters, that he would find few friends among the neighbors. They were nearly all secessionists, Mrs. Gray wrote, and those who were not were compelled to pretend that they were, in order to avoid being driven from the country. It was a bad state of affairs altogether, but Marcy knew he would have to get used to it. He slept but little that night, and it was a great relief to him when the train stopped at Boydtown, which ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... really comes to is, that if you wish to prevent depressions occurring you must prevent booms taking the form they do. You must prevent prices rising so much, and so many constructional goods being made during the period of active trade; and I am not going to pretend that that is an easy thing to do. It's all very well to say that the bankers, through their control of the credit system, might endeavour to guide industry and keep it from straying out of the proper channels. But the bankers would have to know much more than they do about these matters, and, ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... ho! You do not know; For thus, you see, My trowsers go Up to my knee; I make believe to wade and splash In puddles nice, with Puss and Dash, And we pretend the shower pours As hard ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... indeed, lovely Jaqueline, worthy of being a heroine of romance, and already you inspire me with some of the enthusiasm which you feel, though I cannot pretend to believe that the efforts which the citizens of Leyden may make will be crowned with success; yet believe me that I was prompted entirely by my earnest desire to preserve one I prize so highly and ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... those present, and when one, more inquisitive than his fellows, took him by the button hole, and, in a whisper, asked him who we were, I heard him say, in reply,—"Hush! don't pretend to look at them, or they will shoot you without mercy. They are Americans, and carry revolvers and bowie ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the party, had an eye on him and his broad lands, she deemed it wise to change the conversation from the "Milkman's Heiress" to a topic less displeasing to their handsome host. In the course of the afternoon the cousins were alone for a few moments, when the elder demanded of the other: "Do you pretend to love Maude Remington, and still make light both of her ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... I didn't! she was a perfect plague. All the day on board the steamboat she scarcely came near us; we couldn't pretend to keep sight of her; Mamma had to send her maid out to look after her, I don't know how many times. She scraped acquaintance with some strange man on board, and liked his company better than ours, for she stayed with him the whole blessed day, waking and sleeping; of course ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... saving disposition, when there was anything to save. And whether he became engaged because there was nothing but love to harvest, or whether, woman-like, Abbie Faxon loved him better than she did her other suitors because of his poverty and misery, and was willing to tell him so, I cannot pretend to decide. At any rate, Isaac brought Abbie one afternoon from the village, three miles below, and the two women kissed and wept, and Isaac went out and stood alone facing the view; the apple in his throat rose and fell, and great ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... said the surgeon, with heat, "it is presumptuous in you to pretend to tell your medical attendant when you are free from pain. If it be not to enable us to decide in such matters, of what avail the lights of science? For shame, George, for shame! Even that perverse fellow, John Lawton, could not ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... it. In later years I became, I believe, something of a mystic, apt to find the face of God under veils whose quality did not always commend itself to persons of less curious research. On the other hand, I do not pretend to have kept the Decalogue of Moses in its integrity, but admit that I have varied it as my occasions seemed to demand. I have slain my fellow-man more than once, but never without deliberate intention so to do. If I have trespassed with King David of Israel, I feel sure ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him and be perfectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes sparkled. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... said, as she took up her napkin, and her voice grew very low, and yet he heard, "I don't think that we can pretend to be joking any longer. You are my brother's friend, and I am a married woman. Please treat me as ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... Leibnitz has given his decision that both Wallis and Lallouère, in the treatises which they published,—which did not, however, appear till after Pascal’s,—had succeeded in solving the problems. Upon such a point we cannot pretend to judge; but it may be safely said that the design of the Duc de Roannez was hardly realised in the issue. It was sufficiently proved, indeed, that Pascal, in the midst of all his austerities and devotional exercises, was the same Pascal who had held his own both with Descartes ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... had been to spend it scouting in the woods. In this pleasure he was selfish. He did not want companions who talked, and trampled upon the dead leaves so that they frightened the wild animals and gave the Indians warning. Jimmie liked to pretend. He liked to fill the woods with wary and hostile adversaries. It was a game of his own inventing. If he crept to the top of a hill and, on peering over it, surprised a fat woodchuck, he pretended the woodchuck was a bear, ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... were to make all speed to Lost Island, landing at the lower end. The Boy Scouts, and Dave and Frank, were to gather as conspicuously as possible—a flaring camp fire would show their intentions—and pretend that they were about to embark for ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... Some of our politicians pretend that the present Minister of the foreign department in Prussia, Baron von Hardenberg, is not such a friend of the system of neutrality as his predecessor. All the transactions of his administration seem, nevertheless, to proclaim that, if he wished his country to take an active ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... that I told you, did I not, that you were not likely to be a soldier because you could pretend it too well ever to be ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... "You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy," she said, trying to smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice. "I am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a friend—say you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Aliens?" He would also inform me that there were several books called by that title. He would regard me with a glassy-eyed grin as I hurried on. He had no more faith in me than he had in himself. Sometimes he would pretend not to see me, but go stalking down the avenue, his fists twisted in his pockets, his head bent, his brows portentous with thought ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... jibe at my poverty,' Tarrant said, 'that is a sufficient answer. As we can't even pretend to be friendly with each other, I am very glad there need be no talk of our future relations. You are provided for, and no doubt will take care not to lose the provision. If ever you prefer to forget that we are legally bound, I ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... is pounded up and applied locally in orchitis and in severe contusions with supposed fracture of the bones; native charlatans pretend to cure the latter ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... sixty million dollars worth of property, was brought to the young attorneys. The Star, of San Francisco, described the issue at stake by saying, "One Jose Noe and four alleged grand-children of Jose Noe appear, who pretend that they can show a clear title to an undivided one-half interest in nearly forty-five hundred acres within the city, on which land reside some five thousand or more owners, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... "You pretend to have some affection for your old playmate, but you do not trouble yourself to come ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "I don't pretend to understand much about those things," he said, in his stately far-off way, as if he lived in some world quite remote from Lady Laura's, and of a superior rank in the catalogue of worlds. "They are pretty and curious, no doubt. My daughter interests herself considerably in that ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "Edward! Well, I always will say that you're perfectly inspired! To think of my forgetting the most important thing, after all! Oh, I do believe there is an overruling Providence, I don't care what the agnostics pretend. Why, it's to be evening dress for the men, of course! Mrs. Miller would do it to be different from Mrs. Curwen, who let you come in your cutaways, even if it wasn't the regular thing; and she's gone around ever since saying it was the most rowdy, Bohemian ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... word that I do not for a moment pretend to solve the Ossianic mystery. Any theory which has yet been proposed presents serious difficulties, but I maintain that Mr Campbell's presents the greatest of all, and in the present state of our ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... baking. But then, Sally was no ordinary farmer-maiden. She was all this, it is true, but she was, besides, grace and color and charm itself. And if she chose to bake in such attire—or, even, if she chose to pretend to do so, where was the churl to say her nay, even though the flour was part of a deliberate "make up"? Certainly he was not at the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... I served in England," continued the cavalier, "Cromwell's Ironsides did not take notice of children with fishing-rods. You can have no warrant, no order, or whatever you pretend to act ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have to put together a general position, and I pretend to no training in such things. I propose to do it, therefore, by writing down one after another the three or four fundamental ideas which I have found for myself, pretty much in the way that I found them. Then I shall roughly synthesise them, summing ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... of families will be reduced to beggary. The consternation is inexpressible—the rage beyond description, and the case altogether so desperate that I do not see any plan or scheme so much as thought of for averting the blow; so that I cannot pretend to guess what is next to be done." Ten days afterward, the stock still falling, he writes: "The company have yet come to no determination, for they are in such a wood that they know not which way to turn. By several gentlemen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU—of all ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that day the theft of a sheep was punishable by death. She finally concludes that the best plan will be to wrap the animal in swaddling clothes and put it in the cradle. If the shepherds come to search the house, she will pretend that she has a child; and, if they approach the cradle, she will caution them against touching it for fear of waking the child and causing him to fill the house with his cries. She speedily hurries Mak away to resume his slumbers among the shepherds. When they wake, they miss the sheep, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... angrily. "There can be no source other than a future time! You can't send short waves through three-dimensional space to a given spot and not have them interceptible between. Anyhow, the Compubs wouldn't work it this way! They wouldn't put us on guard! And an extra-terrestrial wouldn't pretend to be a human if he honestly wanted to warn us of danger! He'd tell us the truth! Physically and logically it's impossible for it to be anything but what ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the rocks. Tired with long rambling and jarred by the shock she sank down, looking white and ready to cry. Pain generally crushed and demoralized her. She was capable, indeed, of setting the body at defiance on occasion; but, as a rule, she had no physical fortitude, and did not pretend to it. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brown eyes have a way of finding out trouble, and when it is found her great heart cannot help easing it. She loves her husband and her daughter, understanding them in different degrees. She loves her son also, but she does not pretend to understand him; he is the outcome of a new state of things; but he has no vices, and is thought exceedingly clever. As for her sister, she is very good to her, but she does not profess to understand ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... technical education that left him helpless at such a moment, but it was useless to pretend. "Frankly, I don't!" ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... said low. "We are being watched. If I must go back with you, pretend to arrest me. Slip the ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... barbarism to the light of a visionary golden age. Every epoch was to be painted in its dominant characteristic, every aspect of human thought was to find its fitting expression. The first series could pretend to no such completeness, but the poet promised that the gaps should be filled up in succeeding volumes. It cannot be said that this stupendous design was ever carried out. The first volumes, which were published ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... very night they said she died, he saw her come out at the garden gate into the fields; that she often stopped, like a person in pain, and then went forward again until he lost sight of her. Now it is certain that her time was out, and she expected to lie down every day; and they did not pretend that she died in child-bed. I thought upon what I heard, but nothing I said. Roger told the same story to another servant; so he was called to an account, the story was hushed up, and the foolish fellow said, he ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... anything about the war, she persuaded him to visit the King of Scyros. There, under pretext of a joke, he was induced to put on girl's clothes, and to pretend that ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... NEWMAN, Professor of Latin in the University of London, probably without much hope of satisfying himself, and certain to dissatisfy every one who could read, or pretend to read, the original, did nevertheless complete and publish a translation of the "Iliad." And now, unmindful of Bentley's dictum, that no man was ever written down but by himself, he has published an answer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Dhritarashtra. I also deem it proper for the sons of Pandu. A peaceful disposition of an exceedingly rare character hath been displayed by Pandu's son in this matter. When Dhritarashtra and his sons, however, are so covetous, I do not see why hostility should not run high. Thou canst not pretend, O Sanjaya, to be more versed than I am or Yudhishthira is, in the niceties of right and wrong. Then why dost thou speak words of reproach with reference to the conduct of Yudhishthira who is enterprising, mindful of his own duty, and thoughtful, from the very beginning, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... we are commanded to try the spirits. The spirit that does not cause us to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, is not the Spirit of Christ. I am more and more convinced that Satan has much to do in these wild movements.... Many among us, who pretend to be wholly sanctified, are following the traditions of men, and apparently are as ignorant of truth as others who make no such pretensions."(646) "The spirit of error will lead us from the truth; and the Spirit of God will lead us into truth. But, say you, a man may be in an error, and ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine that an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she allows a man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy, even if she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very idyllic ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... man should pretend that the material environment of mankind determines the destiny of mankind. Those who say such things have abandoned the domain of intelligence. But it is true that the soul eagerly seeks for and receives the impressions of the world about it, and will be moved to a different ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... edifices once renowned for beauty and magnificence. It is our wish, as it has been our aim, to rescue these ruins from degradation and decay. Gathered from many an uninviting heap of chaotic matter, they are now presented in a different form, and under a more popular aspect. We cannot pretend to say that we have invariably assigned to them their true origin, or that their real character and position have been ascertained. Still, we would hope, that, as relics of the past rescued from the oblivion to which they were inevitably ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... would pretend for a moment on the strength of the Piyadasi inscriptions that Alexander of Macedonia, or either of the other sovereigns mentioned, was claimed as an actual "vassal" of Chandragupta. They did not even pay tribute, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... weather, to whip himself now and then, as monks do, but above all to fast." Not with sweet wine, mutton and pottage, as many of those tender-bellies do, howsoever they put on Lenten faces, and whatsoever they pretend, but from all manner of meat. Fasting is an all-sufficient remedy of itself; for, as Jason Pratensis holds, the bodies of such persons that feed liberally, and live at ease, [5611]"are full of bad spirits and devils, devilish thoughts; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... people will wish me well." Then, opening a jar of nard, he had us all anointed. "I hope I'll enjoy this as well when I'm dead," he remarked, "as I do while I'm alive." He then ordered wine to be poured into the punch-bowl. "Pretend," said he, "that you're invited to my funeral feast." The thing had grown positively nauseating, when Trimalchio, beastly drunk by now, bethought himself of a new and singular diversion and ordered some horn-blowers brought into the dining-room. Then, propped up by many cushions, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... plane-table observations, I was within an ace of being detected from an unexpected quarter. Four men armed with matchlocks showed themselves. Much quicker than it takes me to record it, the rule or sight vane was run up my long and open sleeve, and I began to pretend to be looking about for stray roots; the intruders were thrown off the scent, and after a while assisted the Saiad in looking for odd roots for the ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... t' very things you thought t' last on earth to happen come about just as easy as falling off a log. When I went over next morning to pretend to say good-bye, Marie whispered in my ear, 'He really wants to go. He only wants asking'—and before night we had it all arranged. We was to fix up t' hold for him and Marie, and they'd come along and make a new home ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... concealed them from their persecutors. The first province which was seized with the fanatical spirit of rebellion was, as had been expected, Walloon Flanders. A French Calvinist, by name Lannoi, set himself up in Tournay as a worker of miracles, where he hired a few women to simulate diseases, and to pretend to be cured by him. He preached in the woods near the town, drew the people in great numbers after him, and scattered in their minds the seeds of rebellion. Similar teachers appeared in Lille and Valenciennes, but in the latter place the municipal ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... delivered. So he began to talk like a philosopher to them in the distress he was then in, when he said thus to them: "O my friends, why are we so earnest to kill ourselves? and why do we set our soul and body, which are such dear companions, at such variance? Can any one pretend that I am not the man I was formerly? Nay, the Romans are sensible how that matter stands well enough. It is a brave thin to die in war; but so that it be according to the law of war, by the hand of conquerors. If, therefore, I avoid death from the sword of the Romans, I am truly ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... lad's character the injustice of backing it at even money. I'll lay you five to one Frank turns up trumps in this business! You ought to be ashamed of yourself for talking of him as you do. What sort of hocus-pocus you bring it about by, I don't pretend to know; but you always end in making me take his part, as if I was his father instead of you. Ah yes! give you time, and you'll defend yourself. I won't give you time; I won't have any of your special pleading. Black's white according ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... faithfully and properly administered. But we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary, assassin, ballot-box stuffer or other disturber of the peace, shall escape punishment, either by quibbles of the law, the carelessness of the police or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice." ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... appears, that the life I lead is chearful, and not gloomy, as some persons pretend, who know no better; to whom, in order that it may appear what value I set on every other kind of life, I must declare, that I would not exchange my manner of living or my grey hairs with any of those young men, even of the best constitution, who give way to their appetites; knowing, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... which I am conducting here. I am bound to add, however, that my own opinion points the other way. Some unbearable anxiety in connexion with the missing Diamond, has, I believe, driven the poor creature to her own destruction. I don't pretend to know what that unbearable anxiety may have been. But I think (with your ladyship's permission) I can lay my hand on a person who is capable of deciding whether I am ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the tale to be a lie, but, at the moment she resolved to pretend to believe the story and fool the man, when she could lure him on to justice ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... sniff, tiff and whiff. And what can you do with those? Students, I hope, will see what they can do. My own tentative solution is printed, by arrangement with the Editor, on another page (458). I do not pretend that it is perfect; in fact it seems to me to strike rather a vulgar note. At the same time it is copyright, and must not be set to music ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... the duke, "you pretend to have been thinking all night of my interests, and the result of so much meditation is to propose to me ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... well, de men dey go free, and when de Governor at Quebec he hear de truth, he say it is all right. Also de English soldier die in peace and happy, becos' he tink his sins are forgive. But den—dere is Mathurin and his sin to pretend he is a priest! The Cure he come back, and dere is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that a gentleman keeps to clean his 'osses, and be blown up, when things go wrong. They are generally wery conceited consequential beggars, and as they never knows nothing, why the best way is to take them so young, that they can't pretend to any knowledge. I always get mine from the charity schools, and you'll find it wery good economy, to apply to those that give the boys leather breeches, as it will save you the trouble of finding him a pair. The first thing to do, is to teach him to get up early, and to hiss at everything ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... strength enough between them to get home. They made a forced landing in the silver loneliness of Kensington Gardens. It was a fortunate place, for there is much magic there. Wherever there are children who pretend, there grows a little magic in the air, and therefore the wind of Kensington Gardens thrills with enchantment, and the Round Pond, full of much pretence of great Armadas, crossed and re-crossed with the abiding wakes of ships ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... it had never been stated at all. It is not too much to say that "Life and Habit," when it first came out, was considered so startling a paradox that people would not believe in my desire to be taken seriously, or at any rate were able to pretend that they thought I was not ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... don't pretend to know much about the matter," said Mary, modestly. "There are more important things in life than books; but I do think she's splendid. I can't help feeling I'm wasting my time when I read most novels, but I never feel that ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... thou, Cousin Duke? Is there a man in the county who knows more of horse-flesh than myself? Who broke in the filly, that no one else dare mount, though your coachman did pretend that he had tamed her before I took her in hand; but anybody could see that he liedhe was a great liar, that Johnwhats that, a buck? Richard abandoned the horses, and ran to the spot where Marmaduke had ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... bringing about the signature of the Treaty of Nimeguen, and more than once it fell to her lot to obtain a success of the same kind, to which neither her arrogant Grace of Cleveland nor the piquant Nelly could ever pretend. In political affairs the Querouaille held her own triumphantly over all her rivals, and obtained a dominion that ended only with the life of Charles. Too sensible to exact a strict fidelity from the King, the Duchess of Portsmouth was content to sigh in silence so long ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... unhappy. Not a bit of it. He is a very happy little fellow. There is a great deal of wisdom in that pretty little head of his. There is more real sense in it than in some very big heads. When some of his neighbors make fun of him for being so very, very timid he doesn't try to pretend that he isn't afraid. He doesn't get angry. He ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... he said awkwardly when Helen appeared, "I—er—wanted to do something for you, and it gave me a good deal of happiness to pretend that you were my own daughter, if you don't object. I happen to have a sister in Paris, and I telegraphed her a week ago. I think I have heard you say you were size thirty-six. Well, my dear, this package has just come. She sent it in care of ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... 12 M., I saw a common leatherwing bat flying over the War Department. What this portends I do not pretend to say, perhaps nothing. It may have been dislodged by the workmen building chimneys to the offices ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... his legs; but it was really mainly owing to the fur boots and the jolting. On the street the old boy took out a letter and read it. Then he went up to Jasch, who had run to the cart, and who had to pretend that he did not understand a word of German, and began to make all manner of alarming gesticulations. He held his hand two feet above the pavement, and when the servant shook his head, the governor stooped down to the ground. This was meant to signify, 'My manikin!' ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... her fingers reproachfully from the insistent reminder of virtuous intention, and resolutely she turned her back on it and tried to pretend herself to sleep. But every broken section of her treaty had a voice, and above them all clamored the call of Number 9 that it was not ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... indistinctness common to the dwellers in the counties bordering upon England, and to the "would-be genteel" of too many other parts of Wales, who, perfectly unconscious of the beauty of their own language, and ignorant of its literature, affect English manners and customs, and often pretend that English is more familiar to them than Welsh, a fatuous course of conduct which brings upon them only the sarcasm of the lower classes, and the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... fire was put out. Well, there's but one thing to be done, and that's to put a bold face on it. I can't sleep any more to-night; besides, the bed's wet, and it's beginning to get daylight. I'll go to work and get myself ready for breakfast, and I'll pretend to something—I don't know just what—to get myself out of this scrape, if ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the use of sneering?' began the dull voice again. 'I am horribly tired, Sheila. And try how you will, you can't convince me that you believe for a moment that I am not myself, that you are as hard as you pretend. An acquaintance, even a friend might be deceived; but husband and wife—oh no! It isn't only a man's face that's himself—or even his hands.' He looked at them, straightened them slowly out, and buried them in his pockets. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... disaffection among his nobility; or, lastly, by the vigorous measures pursued against the encroaching Jesuits in Paraguay, and their correspondents in Portugal, had incurred the resentment of that society, we shall not pretend to determine: perhaps all these motives concurred in giving birth to a conspiracy against his life, which was actually executed at this juncture with the most desperate resolution. On the third day of September, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was ashamed, and only said something rude and mean, to pretend I did not care, and he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look in his face as he turned away toward his home which rose before me many times in after years, in the night, and reproached me and made me ashamed again. It had grown dim in my mind, by and by, then it ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the weather-factory 'long in the afternoon and pretend to be terrible interested in the ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... seize the throne. Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian empire, first the subject and afterward the dethroner of the Median Astyages, corresponds to their general description, as far, at least, as we can pretend to know his history. For in truth even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler of Media, are very imperfectly known, while the facts which preceded his rise up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump—eh? A blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of it—years after—and go hot and cold all over. I don't pretend to say that steamboat floated all the time. More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellows—cannibals—in ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... Rameures. "Yes, that is quite true. The excessive centralization of which I complain has had its hour of utility, nay, even of necessity, I will admit; but, Monsieur, in what human institution do you pretend to implant the absolute, the eternal? Feudalism, also, my dear sir, was a benefit and a progress in its day, but that which was a benefit yesterday may it not become an evil to-morrow—a danger? That which is progress to-day, may it not one hundred years hence have become ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... not a man—to go and tell everything, all at once," sobbed Mrs. Gaunt. "Besides, I wanted to shield his good name, whose dear life they pretend I have taken." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... through regular lessons in foot-ball, bandy, playing at tic, hares and hounds, and such like excellent and really useful and health-giving lessons. Begin his lessons! Begin brain work, and make an idiot of him! Oh! for shame, ye mothers! You who pretend to love your children so much, and to tax, otherwise to injure, irreparably to injure their brains, and thus their intellects and their health, and to shorten their very days. And all for what? To make prodigies of them! Forsooth! to make fools ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... "I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth, during his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy with plantations, parterres, and a terrace—much as I have since ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distinct from the question whether the archipelago of the Canaries and the adjacent islands are the vestiges of a chain of mountains, rent and sunk in the sea during one of the great convulsions of our globe. I do not pretend to form any opinion in favour of the existence of the Atlantis; but I endeavour to prove, that the Canaries have no more been created by volcanoes, than the whole body of the smaller Antilles has been formed by madrepores.) is by no means contradictory ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... what I observe of your mind, you are rushing on destruction in marrying the great-niece of an old corpse of a courtier and dilettante like Samuel Rogers." It is only opinion for opinion. Nobody can pretend that either Mary Godwin or Samuel Rogers was mad; and the general view a man may hold about the healthiness of inheriting their blood or type is simply the same sort of general view by which men do marry for love or liking. There is no reason to suppose ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... with one of my guard," he urged, "and he could then pretend to be the Caesar escaping through the crypta to ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... nearly swore, Peter," she said, "but I remembered in time. If one can't get what one wants, one has to go without singing. But I'll have a cigarette, not to say two, before we've finished. And I'm in no hurry; I want to sit on here and pretend it's not Saturday night. And I want to go very slowly to bed, and I don't ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... a subject which seems to me more and more important; and one which is just now somewhat forgotten. I therefore desire to say a few words on it. I do not pretend to teach: but only to suggest; to point out certain problems of natural Theology, the further solution of which ought, I think, to be ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... They are Indians in hides of bears and wolves, who run on their hands and feet, uttering terrible cries, and are followed by women, who, to make the scene more fearful, pretend to hold them back, and restrain them from violence. The Spirit-dance is held to be a sacred frenzy, and before it begins the biters are charged to hunt the woods for any who have not joined the army of dancers, ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... hold the skylight in place until it can be fastened. And while he is doing that I wish those who are sitting under it would move quietly out into the aisles. Don't crowd or rush. You children can pretend it is like the fire ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... on Emergencies. By John F. South, one of the Surgeons to St. Thomas's Hospital. The first American, from the second London edition. A highly valuable book for the family, which does not pretend, however, to supersede the advice and experience of a physician, but merely to have in preparation, and to recommend such remedies as may be necessary until such advice can be obtained. There are many illustrations ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... that he could understand a younger person feeling differently, and that he did not wish to set himself up as a censor. But he could not pretend that he was glad to have been called out of nonentity into being, and that he could imagine nothing better than ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... had been no possibility of escape. It was obvious to us that Tako was the leader of these invaders; and, whatever they were planning, our best chance to frustrate it was to appear docile. Safety for us—the possibility of later escaping—all of that seemed to lie in a course of docility. We would pretend friendliness; willingness to help. ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... at his old work again," Mr. Santiago told his customer. "He and Moss Abrams were in my parlour. Moss sent out my boy for a stamp. It must have been a bill for fifty pound. I heard the Baronet tell Moss to date it two months back. He will pretend that it is an old bill, and that he forgot it when he came to a settlement with his wife the other day. I dare say they will give him some more money now he is clear." A man who has the habit of putting his unlucky name to "promises to pay" at six ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... over the stock exposed on the shelf and stands outside, and he looked stonily at the great man; it was evident that he was as far from suspecting his greatness as his relationship. It pleased Thorpe for a little to take up one book after another, and pretend to read from it, and force the boy to watch him hard. He had almost the temptation to covertly slip a volume into his pocket, and see what the lad would do. It was remarkable, he reflected with satisfaction—this new capacity within him to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... child, there are various explanations. On the Earth, they pretend to say it was meant to signify that the English women are the finest in the universe—the most sensible, the most charming, the most virtuous. No wonder, if this is so, we find their sign up there! What said MAGNUS APOLLO to young IULUS,—"Proceed, youngster, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... it myself. I shouldn't complain of not being asked to people's houses, and the working-men don't; you can't do that; but I should feel it an incalculable loss. We may laugh at the emptiness of society, or pretend to be sick of it, but there is no doubt that society is the flower of civilization, and to be shut out from it is to be denied the best privilege of a civilized man. There are society women—we have all met them—whose graciousness and ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... insured. Impure drugs may do as much harm as patent medicines containing harmful drugs. In New York a vigorous campaign was recently inaugurated by the department of health to drive out impure drugs. Drugs are dangerous enough at their best. When they are not what they pretend to be, whether patented or not, they may take life. One extreme case where a patient's heart was weakened when it ought to have been strengthened, led to the discovery that practically all of one particular drug offered for sale in New York City was unfit to use and ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... him of unfairness; and Leibnitz has given his decision that both Wallis and Lallouère, in the treatises which they published,—which did not, however, appear till after Pascal’s,—had succeeded in solving the problems. Upon such a point we cannot pretend to judge; but it may be safely said that the design of the Duc de Roannez was hardly realised in the issue. It was sufficiently proved, indeed, that Pascal, in the midst of all his austerities and devotional exercises, was the same Pascal who had held ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... "Oh, I know—I know! But on condition that they don't hear anything unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those very words when I tried.... Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face, and he saw her thin shoulders shaken ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... cried the young laird. "Do ye pretend to bear the name o' Scott, and yet tremble like an ash leaf at ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... here cry shame, And say our authors are to blame, 380 That (spite of all philosophers, Who hold no females stout, but bears; And heretofore did so abhor That women should pretend to war, 'They wou'd not suffer the stoutest dame 385 To swear by HERCULES'S name) Make feeble ladies, in their works, To fight like termagants and Turks; To lay their native arms aside, Their modesty, and ride astride; 390 To ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... before another steps in. But I see more and more that happiness is not dependent on health or any other outside prosperity. We are at peace with each other and at peace with God; His dealings with us do not perplex or puzzle us, though we do not pretend to understand them. On the other hand, Martha with absolutely perfect health, with a husband entirely devoted to her, and with every wish gratified, yet seems always careworn and dissatisfied. Her servants worry her very life out; she misses the ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... to your counsel, I will again carefully study the Bible, and especially the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which you believe the clearest revelation which God has allowed of Himself to earth. Finding any contradictions or obscurities, I will remember, as you say, that Scripture was not, and does not pretend to be, written visibly and actually by the finger of God, but by His inspiration conveyed through many human minds, and of course always bearing to a certain extent the impress of the mind through which it passes. Therefore, while the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... her with his air of easy assurance. He saw the bewitching smile come over that fair, flowery face; he saw Carryl, with unabashed familiarity, take her fan out of her hand, look at it as if it were a mere common, earthly fan, toss it about, and pretend to fan ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... studies the literary situation in the concluding pages of his history; they are almost the most brilliant pages, and they embody a conception of it so luminous that it would be idle to pretend to offer the reader anything better than a resume of his work. The revolution had passed away under the horror of its excesses; more temperate ideas prevailed; the need of a religious and moral restoration was felt. "Foscolo died in 1827, and Pellico, Manzoni, Grossi, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... you off in pursuit of them, while the king himself keeps out of the way." But this was all a lie, for Hyrodes had divided his army in two parts, with one he in person wasted Armenia, revenging himself upon Artavasdes, and sent Surena against the Romans, not out of contempt, as some pretend, for there is no likelihood that he should despise Crassus, one of the chiefest men of Rome, to go and fight with Artavasdes, and invade Armenia; but much more probably he really apprehended the danger, and therefore waited to see the event, intending that Surena should first run the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the looking-glass, with her head bent well forward, her hands behind her back, lacing herself into determination). Get up, Mr. Regniati. (No sign of life in the bed.) Don't pretend to have gone to sleep again. (Not a movement.) I know you haven't. I shan't wait for you when I'm once dressed. It's twenty-five minutes. (Sharply.) Do you hear, ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... believe me now.—Loved her!" he continued, after another short pause—"oh, what a feeble word is love to express the concentration of mighty feelings that flowed like burning lava through my veins! Who shall pretend to give a name to the emotion that ran thrillingly—madly through my excited frame, when first I gazed on her, who, in every attribute of womanly beauty, realised all my fondest fancy ever painted?—Listen to me, Clara," he pursued, in a fiercer tone, and with a ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... be resigned, left alone, and in sorrowful circumstance; but feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was too wise and loving to err in anything that He does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work. I do not pretend to see through the mystery of such visitations,—wherein God calls away the young, the promising, and those sorely needed for His service here; but this I do know and feel, that, in the light of such dispensations, it becomes us all to love and serve our ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... is as if one should say to a man whose leg has had to be amputated that it does not help him at all to think about it. And we all lack something; only some of us feel the lack and others do not. Or they pretend not to feel the lack, and ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... the reader's indulgence if he or she find in the ensuing pages any serious lapses from true literary style. I write merely as I feel, and do not pretend to be either an expert hieroglyphist or a rhetorician of commanding quality. Perhaps I should do more wisely if I were to accept the advice of my great-grandson Ham, who, overhearing my remark to a caller last ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... if foreign policy had that continuity which the political pundits pretend, we should now be fighting on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States? That we have entered into solemn treaty obligations, as part of our national policy, to guarantee for ever the "integrity and independence of the Turkish dominions in Europe," that we fought a great and popular war ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... good style: one is the gift of nature, and cannot be taught; the other may be acquired by frequent exercise, perpetual labour and an emulation of the ancients. To make men sensible and sagacious, who were not born so, is more than I pretend to; to create and new-model things in this manner would be a glorious thing indeed; but one might as easily make gold out of lead, silver out of tin, a Titornus out of a Conon, or a Milo out of a ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... your wantonness your ignorance] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... who is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the productions of haru-spices, who pretend to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this superstition is observed among those very skeptics who impiously deny or doubt the existence of a celestial power." [Footnote: Found in the sixth chapter of the fourteenth, and the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... you. It seems I am shut up here by your orders. What does this mean? What right have you to make a prisoner of me? What do I owe you? Your mother left me a hundred pounds: have you ever offered to make any addition to my fortune? But, if you had, I do not want it. I do not pretend to be better than the children of other poor parents; I can maintain myself as they do. I prefer liberty to wealth. I see you are surprised at the resolution I exert. But ought I not to turn again, when I am trampled upon? I should have left you before now, if Mrs. Jakeman ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... people too, as well," he said lightly. "But never mind that. What I want to ask is: Why shouldn't I do, sir? I don't say but you could take a steamer about the world as well as any of us sailors. I don't pretend to tell you that it is a very great trick . . ." He emitted a short, hollow guffaw, familiarly . . . "I didn't make the law—but there it is; and I am an active young fellow! I quite hold with your ideas; I know your ways by this time, Mr. Massy. I wouldn't try to give myself airs like ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... and was given to us to put us to sleep. If we pretend to be overcome it may throw them off their guard, and that will give us another chance to gain possession of the vessel. What do you say if we lie down and pretend to be asleep when they ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... both was founded in nature; the Italians contented themselves with considering the pieces of Gozzi as the wild offspring of an extravagant imagination, and with banishing them from the stage. The comedy with masks is held in contempt by all who pretend to any degree of refinement, as if they were too wise for it, and is abandoned to the vulgar, in the Sunday representations at the theatres and in the puppet-shows. Although this contempt must have had an injurious influence on the masks, preventing, as ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... brother's marriage had further complicated an already difficult position; but both brothers had honestly tried to protect Gladys, as long as she lived, from Julia's merciless tongue, and to do their duty, as they understood it, by Arthur. They did not even pretend to like the lad, and their generosity towards him showed itself chiefly in providing him with lavish supplies of pocket money and allowing him to go ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... care to put such ideas into a girl's head? Never having noticed a child with a doll, we have somehow failed to realize that Nature, her Ancient Mother and ours, is not above putting into her head, when she can scarcely toddle, the ideas at which we pretend to blush. Prudery on this topic, and with such consequences, is not much less than blasphemy against life and the most splendid purposes towards which the individual, "but a wave of the wild ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... a comedy by Ben Jonson (1609). Morose, a miserly old fellow, who hates to hear any voice but his own, has a young nephew, Sir Dauphine, who wants to wring from him a third of his property; and the way he gains his point is this: He induces a lad to pretend to be a "silent woman." Morose is so delighted with the phenomenon that he consents to marry the prodigy; but the moment the ceremony is over, the boy-wife assumes the character of a virago, whose tongue is a ceaseless clack. Morose is in despair, and signs away a third of his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... all was when mother used to play with us. Then she put her back to the rock, and we both attacked her at once from opposite sides, each trying to get hold of a hind-leg just above the foot. If she put her head down to pretend to bite either of us, the other jumped for her ear. Sometimes we would each get hold of an ear, and hang on as hard as we could, while she pretended we were hurting her dreadfully, growling and shaking her head, and making as ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... different colonies were divided in their opinions, and Mr. Abercrombie postponed the execution of any important scheme till the arrival of lord Loudon, who was daily expected. The reasons that delayed the reinforcement, and detained his lordship so long, we do not pretend to explain; though we may be allowed to observe, that many fair opportunities have been lost, by the neglect and procrastination of an English ministry. Certain it is, the unaccountable delay of this armament rendered it useless for a whole year, afforded time and leisure to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... get a divorce!" he cried ironically. "You still pretend to be the injured one. You and Whitmore have it all framed up—eh! But I tell you you've miscalculated this time! No man can wreck my home with impunity! No man can enter my house to steal my wife—and get away with it. I've been blind a long time, but my eyes are ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... main path led around the foot of the bluff into the little glen from below. I had followed a branch of it in coming to the top of the bluff. I ran quickly down to the lower entrance of the glen, but there I stopped a moment to assume an air as of one leisurely strolling. I did not pretend to see the group until I was well into the glen where I could also be seen. Then I struck an attitude of intense surprise for mademoiselle's benefit (who by this time had caught sight of me), and when I had sufficiently recovered from the surprise ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... consumed in your own habitation, in your neighborhood, in your own city? Let all this poison, which is thus exported to spread woes and death somewhere, be concentrated and consumed where you might see it, and is there any man who will pretend that the paltry sum which he receives is a compensation for what he knows would be the effect of the consumption? You keep your own atmosphere pure, it may be, but you export the pestilence, and curses, and ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... incomplete explanation. It is one, moreover, which Mr. Wallace does not accept.[30] It is very incomplete, because it has no bearing on some of the most striking cases, and of course Mr. Darwin does not pretend that it has. We should have to go back far indeed to reach the common ancestor of the mimicking {36} walking-leaf insect and the real leaf it mimics, or the original progenitor of both the bamboo ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... gathered from letters, dialogues, and imaginative works; he contended for the dogma of "immediate cognition as the special organ of the supersensuous," and failed to see, as SCHWEGLER notes, that said cognition "has already described a series of subjective intermediating movements, and can pretend to immediacy only in entire oblivion of its own nature and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of it, and part of it is you're old-fashioned." Stella paused at the door and looked back. "What made you rush me, anyway, Percy?" she asked indulgently. "What did you go and pretend to be a spender and get ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... use to pretend that in little over a year I can have become accustomed to the eventlessness of life in Altruria. I go on for a good many days together and do not miss the exciting incidents you have in America, and ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... they're not," the girl returned hotly. "They shouldn't come to church with me; they only pretend. Besides, they don't follow the other girls about nearly as carefully. The worst of it is that I have to stay here ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... Glossary, of putting a / between the numbers of the page and line, so that 5 / 115 stands for page 5, line 115. Where no line is named, then p. for page is prefixed. The French references are to Cotgrave, except where otherwise specified. The Index, though long, does not pretend to completeness. The explanations of words given in the notes to the text ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... shall tame down all this bullying haughtiness. You never thought my day would come when I was forced to put up with the insults and jeers of a miserable cub of a boy. But every man has his day. Your party has gone down at last, and mine is in power. Ah, you may pretend not to hear me, and that you treat everything I say with contempt! Judas, am I, because I saved bloodshed by a diplomatic stroke? Well, we shall see. You'll come ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... have a better right to hate him, to revenge herself upon him. She was surprised sometimes at the atrocious conjectures that came into her thoughts, and she had to go on smiling, to hear repeated to her at all hours that she was happy, to pretend to be happy, to let it ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... as conspicuously indicated, by an exterior sign over the door, as our shops in England are by the three golden balls; but, whether they indicate the same doctrine of chance as to the return of property, we will not pretend to say. Three years are allowed to redeem, with a grace of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... hit upon was to pretend to turn bagman; and so Mercy would believe he was travelling all over England, when all the time he was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... delusions do so easily take place in the hearts of the ignorant, is, because those that pretend to be their teachers, do behave themselves so basely among them. And indeed I may say of these, as our Lord said of the Pharisees in another case, the blood of the ignorant shall be laid to their charge. They that pretend they are sent of the Lord, and come, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that's hid from me," answered Mrs. Peckaby. "The gentleman that was sent back to me by Brother Jarrum, hadn't had particulars revealed to him. There's difficulties in the way of a animal on four legs which can't swim, doing it all, that I don't pretend to explain away. I'm content, when the hour comes, sir, to start, and trust. Peckaby, he's awful sinful, sir. Only last evening, when I was saying the quadruple might have mirac'lous parts give to it, like Balum's had in the Bible, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... said I. "I'm by with it. O, let me get into the bield of a house—I'll can die there easier." I had no need to pretend; whether I chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Son, and whatever English Roman Catholics may be made to believe by their priests or impose upon us, it is certain that the devotion to the Madonnas in Itally is something more than a bare representation of the Virgin Mary when they desire her intercession. Miracles they pretend not only to be wrought by the Madonnas themselves, but there is far greater respect paid to a Madonna in one place than another, whereas if this statue were only a bare representation of the Virgin to keep them in mind of her, the respect would be equal. I ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... to the making of a poet except the one which alone can make a poet, in the proper sense of the word, great. Neither pathos nor humor nor fancy nor invention will suffice for that: no poet is great as a poet whom no one could ever pretend to recognize as sublime. Sublimity is the test of imagination as distinguished from invention or from fancy: and the first English poet whose powers can be ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... principle. "Positively the principle may be expressed; in matters of the intellect follow your reason so far as it will take you without regard to any other consideration. And negatively; in matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable." So far as this goes we have here perfectly sound advice. But why call it Agnosticism? It is no more than the perfectly sound advice that we must be honest in our investigations, and ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... he no doubt would, to keep firing until the whole 12 shots were fired, and then if the animal was not killed, to use his own judgment as to what to do, whether to run for the house, or lay down and pretend to be dead. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... thin. Thin. She couldn't take herself in quite in that way. It was the way she had tried with Gibson Herbert. When he did anything she loathed she used to pretend he hadn't done it. But with John, if she didn't give him up, her eyes must always be open. Perhaps they would get beyond yesterday. Perhaps she would see other things, go on with him to something new, forgetting. Her unique, beautiful happiness was ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... another. The very senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in relation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly effective air of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their consequentiality, because we are all more apt to pretend to understand great works of art than to confess that the meaning (if any) has escaped us. Valtrauta, however, betrays her irrelevance by explaining that the gods can be saved by the restoration of the ring to the Rhine ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... of Titian could pretend that he is always thus imaginative, that coming in contact with a commanding human individuality he always thus unfolds the outer wrappings to reveal the soul within. Indeed, especially in the middle time just past, he not infrequently contents himself ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... hide his loyalty to the teachings of Plato.[1] As Ariston said of him,[2] "Plato before, Pyrrho behind, Diodorus in the middle." Sextus also characterises the method of Arcesilaus as dialectic,[3] and we know from Cicero that it was his pride to pretend to return ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... a ruse to see Olive and then make another appeal for pity. Well, in that case there would be a very delicious pleasure in giving an absolute refusal—a pleasure one could taste in anticipation and linger over in execution. One could play with the girl a little—pretend to be influenced, hesitate, ask for time to consider, raise hopes, fan them, and then administer the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... be welcomed by the good, O Book! thou make thy steady aim, No empty chatterer will dare To question or dispute thy claim. But if perchance thou hast a mind To win of idiots approbation, Lost labour will be thy reward, Though they'll pretend appreciation. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "The Guardian has turned Tory," is the hue and cry, and many appear to be under greater concern about it, than they ever were about the salvation of their souls. Many again, have got wonderfully wise, and pretend to reveal (as a friend, but in reality as an enemy) the secrets of your policy. Under these unpleasant circumstances, the Ranters have availed themselves of the opportunity of planting themselves at nearly all our posts, and sowing tares ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... to pretend that she was asleep, but if she had been her cigarette would not have been held in her fingers but would have ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... some are sealed to others; and some stir the soul at some given point of a man's life and yet convey no message at other times. The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be. He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like. Yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treating mere individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the whole technique of the man game has changed. My method, alas, had become as out of style as a pompadour Gibson hat. Where once girls pretended to know less and to have experienced less than they actually had, now they pretend to more. Therein lie all the law and the social profits. Therefore Rule One of these dauntless rebels reads: It is not an insult but a compliment for an admirer to explain that his ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... the public stage, these poor nervous little modern people with their dried instincts and their withered thoughts, clever and helpless, rotting in inaction.... No. It has been all wrong. I've been a fool, but I couldn't pretend.... I think I knew it in my head, but it needed you to bring it home to me.... I'm not fit to live in the same world as you. I ought not to ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... certain self-development of the Absolute. We are indebted to Mr. Morell for a specimen,[142] alike amusing and instructive, of Schelling's speculations on this subject. We shall not attempt to interpret its meaning, for, in sooth, we do not pretend to understand it: but one thing is clear, the laws of Matter, of Dynamics, of Organic structure and life, the laws of Knowledge, of Action, and of Art, are all exhibited as mere deductions or corollaries from the "idea of the Absolute;" and in the name of Natural Science, not ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... honorable for a lawyer to try to clear a man that he knows deserves conviction? That is not the entire question by much. Is it honorable to pretend to believe what you do not believe? Is it honorable to lie? I submit that these questions are not answered affirmatively by showing the disadvantage to the public and to civilization of a lawyer refusing to serve a known offender. The popular interest, like any other good cause, can ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... said doggedly, "they get us. My gang will gripe about being edged out of the trip. They won't like it. But they'd like backing out still less. We'll play it the way it's dealt—but we won't pretend to like it." ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... of the living and of the dead. "Who, then, was Lorenzo?" exclaim the readers I have mentioned. If we cannot be sure that he was his son, which would have been finely terrible, was he not his nephew, his cousin? These are questions which I do not pretend to answer. For the sake of human nature, I could wish Lorenzo to have been only the creation of the poet's fancy: like the Quintus of Anti Lucretius, "quo nomine," says Polignac, "quemvis Atheum intellige." That ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... 'Madoc' and 'Kehama,' it will be universally imputed to personal ill-will. On the other hand, he cannot commend this poem without the most flagrant inconsistency. This would be confessing that he has wronged me in the former instances; for no man will pretend to say that 'Madoc' does not bear marks of the same hand as 'Roderick;' it has the same character of language, thought, and feeling; it is of the same ore and mint; and if the one poem be bad, the other ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Home Government tries to abolish our slavery system, we will abolish the Home Government, and go to the United States for protection." That was treason, of course; but there was so much of it that the governor, the Duke of Manchester, had to close his ears and pretend not to hear. The planters had another grievance—the pirates in the Gulf of Mexico. There was one in particular, a certain El Demonio or Diableto, who practically sealed the Florida passage; it was hardly ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... your sufferings are," I replied. "I can not make a step without exciting your alarm. Soon I shall not be permitted to address a word to any one but you. You pretend that you have been abused in order that you may be justified in offering insult; you accuse me of tyranny in order that I may become your slave. Since I trouble your repose, I leave you in peace; you will ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... not mad, and I have not lost my reason. Only you are fools, yes. Do I mean that we are to be really ill? I mean that we are to pretend to be ill, so that we shall not have to go to 'Cheder.' Do ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... the Prince; "how could I deceive you? You see it is so much more flattering to my vanity to be loved by a fairy than by a simple princess. But, even if I am dying of love for her, I shall pretend to hate her until I am ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... tiller sacrifice; "Smite with the axe that neck with labor worn, "With which so oft he had the soil renew'd; "Which had so many crops on him bestow'd. "Nor is this all, the savage deed perform'd, "They implicate the heavenly gods themselves, "Pretend th' almighty deities delight "To see the slaughter of laborious steers. "Spotless must be the victim; in his form "Perfection: (fatal thus too much to please!) "With gold and fillets gay, the beast is led "Before the altar, hears the unknown prayers, "And sees the meal, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... shall do all that, and more, but we cannot do so here. I tell you what we will do—we will pretend to go for a long walk in the country, but instead of that, we will pass through the shrubbery into the orchard and hazelwood, and so gain the little remote summer house, of which I have secured the key; there we shall ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... public, and by which you can make your own condition happier." "Happier?" answered Raphael, "is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which I believe, few courtiers can pretend; and there are so many that court the favour of great men, that there will be no great loss if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper." Upon this, said I, "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire wealth nor greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... how much more becoming the demi-toilette is to you than the evening dress," replied Caroline, "so don't pretend to deny it." ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Sunday forenoon when Captain Zelotes and Olive had gone to church. Ordinarily he would have accompanied them, to sit in the straight-backed old pew on a cushion which felt lumpy and smelt ancient and musty, and pretend to listen while old Mr. Kendall preached a sermon which was ancient ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... proceeding, sufficiently alarming to determine her not to take the potion; but dislike of contention, and a wish to discover whether there was any just foundation for her conjectures, made her, she said, almost instinctively, and in contradiction to her usual frankness, pretend to swallow the medicine. Then, agitated as she had been by her mother's violence, and now by unaccustomed fears, she lay unable to sleep, starting at every sound. Soon her door opened softly, and on her springing ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... let us enquire what a proper covering for the head should be: first of all in point of usefulness, and next in point of comely appearance. But let no man vainly imagine that we expect to suit the fancies of all the creatures privileged to wear hats, or even to cover their heads; we do not pretend to invent, or decide upon, any one given type or form of head-dress. So many are the wants of a man in covering his head, so widely differing from each other are the exigencies of different people, that uniformity in hats is to be given up as a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... ever been a Democrat in principle myself, but not so much of a modern one in practice as to pretend that the Democratic party are free from blame as to the College. If they had been content with Mr. Girard's plain plan, would they have called in architects ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... on biography, always to be a congeniality between the pursuits of agriculture and all great and good minds. We do not pretend to analyze the rationale of this, or why it is that patriotism exists with more elevation and fervency in the retirement of a farm than in the busy mart of crowded cities. The history of man proves this fact, that the noblest instances of self-sacrificing patriotism which have ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... their Sunday experiences. Puritanism was familiar to her by more than speculation; in the compassion with which she regarded Miriam there was no mixture of contempt, as in her husband's case. On the other hand, she did not pretend to read completely her con sin's heart and mind; she knew that there was no simple key to Miriam's character, and the quiet study of its phases from day to day ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... They are not an attempt at a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine, but an effort to restate a few essential Christian convictions in terms that are intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years. They do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship; they aim at the less difficult, but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who (to borrow a phrase of Augustine's) ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... so affected!" cried Mrs Peagrim. "Don't pretend that you don't know every word of ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... upon it; and so they sent for the princess. In she came, sliding and flitting and gliding from one piece of furniture to another, and put herself at last in an armchair, in a sitting posture. Whether she could be said to sit, seeing she received no support from the seat of the chair, I do not pretend to determine. ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... before him some of this very fine wine, which, as he finished speaking, Churchill swallowed without knowing it from some other sherry which he had been drinking. He would have questioned that it was genuine, but the Spaniard, as far as he could pretend to judge, thought ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... office, during the term of St. Michael and St. Hilary, after the expiration of the year, if not sooner discharged. The practice in England appears to have been conformable to these statutes, [2] though the king did pretend to dispense with them by force of the royal prerogative; and this claim and exercise of a power in the crown to dispense with and control the operation of statutes, has been long and universally condemned as odious and unconstitutional; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... have lifted a hand to save a Yankee spy; all her sympathy was with the Confederacy. Yet she was risking all—her reputation, her life—to save me! The knowledge seemed to send fire through my veins, my heart throbbed fiercely. Oh, she could dissemble, could pretend all this was merely duty, could rage against herself and me, but nevertheless I understood—she was doing it for me! I knew, and she should know—yes, this very night, out yonder in the shadows, when we were alone together I would ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... of his many inventions was a new reporter who, according to Mehronay's legend, had just quit work for a circus where he had been employed writing the posters. Mehronay's joy was to write up a local occurrence and pretend that the circus poster-writer had written it and that we had been greatly bothered to restrain his adjectives. A few days after the Sinclair-Handy wedding—a particularly gorgeous affair in one of the stone churches, which had been written up by the bride's mother, as the whole town ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... in a vain endeavour to extricate himself from a bunker, do not stand near him and audibly count his strokes. It would be justifiable homicide if he wound up his pitiable exhibition by applying his niblick to your head. It is better to pretend that you do not notice these things. On the other hand, do not go out of your way to say that you are sorry when these misfortunes happen. Such expressions imply a kind of patronage for which your opponent will not thank you, and he knows all the time that you do ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... of toys has been brought to such a point of complication and perfection that children have at their disposal entire dolls' houses, complete wardrobes for the dressing and undressing of dolls, kitchens where they can pretend to cook, toy animals as nearly lifelike as possible, this method seeks to give all this to the child in reality—making him an actor ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... Delegate of France. Mr. Chairman, I cannot pretend to make any suggestion of any technical value on the question now before us. I only rise to add a few words to the views which have been so authoritatively expounded to you by Prof. JANSSEN, in order to explain clearly the situation of the French ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... me one moment," she said. "Ask yourself whether you have ever tried to make my life a happy one. Did I ever pretend to care for books and solitude? Before I married you I told you that I was fond of change and gaiety and life, and you promised me that I should have it. Ask yourself how you have kept that promise. You deny me every pleasure, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must," said Nycteris, "or I shall have to pretend to leave you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you speak of, and I will take care of you ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... him the scroll, and all waited in silence whilst Robin deciphered it. Carfax snapped his teeth together in vexation at this unexpected turn. "He cannot read the parchment. Is it likely?" he cried. "He will but pretend to read it, and make lies with which to confound me. 'Tis writ in most scholarly Latin, that ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... a camp," said Jake, talking as rapidly as he could, lest the officer should interrupt him again; "Down there in a camp by the bay, an' they've got a boat an' guns, an' they're boys, an' they pretend to ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... where there is a cave in which there is a figure of our Saviour, which they pretend has ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for granted—I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt—" He paused a moment, and for the first time ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... most of the time; but this was no place to practice bein' absent minded. It didn't seem to make any diff'rence whether I put my hat on or left it off, they were wise to the ruddy hair. All I could do was to squeeze myself into one corner of the seat and pretend not to notice 'em. What I wanted most was to stand up and holler for Mr. Robert. Why in blazes didn't he ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... exactly that; but they have things that belonged to their grandmothers,' declared Sarah. 'I know you have much grander things at home, Horatia, though you pretend to admire these so ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... cried Nancy. "Judith's idea of the cabin was an inspiration. Let's pretend we are a ship. Cathy'll be the captain and we'll be the crew and we'll have to be disciplined if ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... and fro, noting every bird on the hedges and every flower in the path, kept bringing them back to his mother's face with a dreamy upward gaze. 'I will try, mother, I really will. I will keep my hands tight in my pockets, and my feet close together; I will pretend I'm going to be shot by a file of soldiers, and then I really think that will help me not to fidget. I promise ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to make them the depositories of all power. It would require a long discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in the generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate representation." I shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned Constitution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion that puts them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can pretend to stand on equal ground with them. I was confused,—affected even with a species of terror,—and wished myself away. The intenseness of their feelings gave them the exclusive property of the soil and atmosphere, and left me no right to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for those gloves! Why did he not say something? She was positive that he had them. To smile and laugh and talk; to face the altar, knowing that he possessed those hateful gloves! To pretend to deceive when she knew that he was not deceived! It was maddening. It was not possible that Warrington had the gloves; he would never have kept them all this while. What meant this man at her side? ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... by being quite sure, and offering a definite and certain solution. Unluckily Science forbids, and conscience is on the same side. We verily do not know how the false Pucelle arrived at her success with the family of the true Maid; we do not know, or pretend to know, who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey; or how Amy Robsart came by her death; or why the Valet was so important a prisoner. It is only possible to restate the cases, and remove, if we may, the errors and confusions which beset the problems. Such a tiny ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... seasons, therefore, spares the colonists two immense sources of expence, and will without doubt in the end, enable them to undersell and ruin the Saxon wool growers; since the only point of superiority these latter can pretend to is their greater contiguity to the market, and this, in consequence of the extreme value of the commodity, is of too trifling import to demand consideration. The freight of wool from the colony, has already been reduced ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... ordinary village. It lies pleasantly nestled among the vines, sheltered by bold ridges on the north-west, with the monotonous plains of La Champagne pouilleuse, unsuited to the cultivation of the vine, stretching away eastward in the direction of Chlons. Avize cannot pretend to the same antiquity as its neighbour Vertus, and lacks the many picturesque vestiges of which the latter can boast. Its church dates back only to the 15th century, although the principal doorway in the Romanesque style evidently belongs to a ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... hidden under any of the ordinary veils of society. Crosbie's salutation had been made before the eyes of them all, and in the midst of absolute silence, and Lily had risen with so queen-like a demeanour, and had moved with so stately a step, that it was impossible that any one concerned should pretend to ignore the facts of the scene that had occurred. Crosbie was still standing close to Mrs Harold Smith, Mrs Thorne had risen from her seat, and the words which Bernard Dale had uttered were still sounding ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... is that of a bank which keeps the bonds of a depositor in its safe for his accommodation. The bank does not pretend to be a safe-deposit company or anything of the kind, but it has a large vault and wishes to accommodate its customers by keeping their stocks and bonds and other articles for them while they are off ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... could not pretend to misunderstand. He enjoyed the distinction of holding open the door for the transatlantic representative of the line of Offa as he went out, and then made his way through the muddy streets back to his office. There was only one ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Satire, you may say, Makes me pretend to be a Critic—Nay! Rather be roasted than to roast, say I; And I have been ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess
... place, American town and city histories are few. In the second place, the books that pretend to be such are many, and as a rule historically worthless. In the third place, both the real and the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... brilliancy hopped forth, and jumping up to the Queen, held out its beak, having a label therein, apparently beseeching her to accept the offering. She stooped down to receive the billet, which she hastily unfolded. What effect was visible on her countenance we cannot pretend to say, inasmuch as the mask precluded observation; but there was an evident tremor in her frame. She seemed to be overpowered with surprise, and held out the note as though for the moment incapable of deciding whether to accept it or no. Then with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... any person to say that it was one; and that he has in innumerable instances declared in public and in private, both before and after the work was published, that it was not what is generally termed an autobiography: but a set of people who pretend to write criticisms on books, hating the author for various reasons, amongst others, because, having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not in the year 1843, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in London, ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... hardly think he'll take the alarm at sight of any strangers, so long as he doesn't get a glimpse of me. Now, if you three just saunter easily into camp, and pretend to treat him in a friendly way, you'll find he can be a fine gentleman. Humor his failing as much ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... was ended, the two sisters began to pretend such grief at the thought of her leaving them, that she agreed to stay a week more: but all that time Beauty could not help fretting for the sorrow that she knew her absence would give her poor beast; for she tenderly loved him, and much wished ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... you will kindly drop 'I guess,' I shall like my little Yankee all the better. Now, see here, Rosy, I don't pretend to set myself up for a model in anything, and you may come down on my grammar, manners or morals as often as you think I'm wrong, and I'll thank you. I've been knocking about the world for years, and have got careless, but I want my girl to be what I call well-educated, even if she ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... considered, and man being admittedly a creature of his environment, can we still pretend to horror at this Roderigo and at the fact that being the man he was—prelate though he might be—handsome, brilliant, courted, in the full vigour of youth, and a voluptuary by nature, he should have succumbed to the temptations ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... zealots, who exhorted him to enact severe laws against popish recusants. Such a measure, he observed, would alienate all the papists of Europe from the interests of England, and might produce a new Catholic league which would render the war a religious quarrel; besides, he would not pretend to screen the protestants of Germany and Hungary, while he himself should persecute the Catholics of England. He therefore resolved to treat them with lenity; and though they were not comprehended in the act, they enjoyed the benefit ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... its use would be limited to a single object, that is, to itself, its own perfectness; it would not aid the Artist in the intermediate ascent to it,—unless it contained within itself all the gradations of human character; which no one will pretend. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla, and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... spiritual instruction, came to be beloved, studied and mourned for, by no small or careless school of disciples?—To answer this question would, of course, require more thought and knowledge than I can pretend to bring to it. But there are some points on which I will venture to say a ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... little good-natured banter, and often annoyed Chief Justice Campbell when I woke him up with laughter. And yet he liked me, for although often annoyed, he was never really angry. He used to crouch his head down over his two forearms and go to sleep, or pretend to, by way of showing it did not matter what I said to the jury. I dare say it was disrespectful, but I could not help on these occasions quietly pointing across my shoulder at him with my thumb, and that was enough. The jury roared, and Campbell ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... that to begin with we both pretend to be in an awful funk. If they think that we are only two frightened boys, they won't keep as sharp a watch over us as if they thought we were determined fellows, likely to attempt our escape. There is the sea down there ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... cases there is fusion of the teeth. Pliny, Bartholinus, and Melanthon pretend to have seen the union of all the teeth, making a continuous mass. In the "Musee de l'ecole dentaire de Paris" there are several milk-teeth, both of the superior and inferior maxilla, which are fused together. Bloch ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... window, showing her breasts, and if you gave such a one a shilling, she would stoop so that you could see right down past her belly to her knees, and have a glimpse of her cunt-fringe. Sometimes one would pull up her garter, or another sit down and piddle, or pretend to do so, or have recourse to other exciting devices when men ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... beaten. Sir Francis Varney was by far too long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... they won't be all asleep; but we dare not put it off later, for El Zeres may come back earlier than he said he should, and if he does it's all up with us. Let's arrange our plans for good,' I said, 'and then we can each sit up against a corner and pretend to go to sleep. When I am going to cut my cord I will give a very little cough, and then you do the same when you are free. We had better do that before very long, for you will be a long time before you will get any feeling in your feet. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... huddled below. I began to recognize the increasing foulness of air, and to distinguish words of conversation from the groups about me. There was but little profanity but some rough horse-play, and a marked effort to pretend indifference. I could make out gray-beards and mere boys mingling together, and occasionally a man in some semblance of uniform. A few bore wounds, and the clothes of several were in rags; all alike exhibited marks of suffering and hardship. The butcher from Harwich, and the white-faced ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... 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 ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... sofa and restored her from her faint, Mrs. Burton would not let her try to rise. She sent out to Burton, who was reading a novel in the mild forenoon air under the crimson maples, and made him get the carryall and take Cornelia home in it. They thought they would pretend that they were out for a drive, and were merely dropping her at her mother's door; but no ruse was necessary. Mrs. Saunders tranquilly faced the fact; she said she thought the child hadn't been herself since she got ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... butt for wit and sarcasm. A tale of the Mississagas of Skugog represents a bachelor as "having gone off to a certain spot and built a lot of little 'camps.' He built fires, etc., and passed his time trying to make people believe he was not alone. He used to laugh and talk, and pretend that he had people living there." Even the culture-heroes Gluskap and Naniboju are derided in some of the tales for not ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... has now conducted me to that poetical wonder, the translation of the "Iliad," a performance which no age or nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was almost unknown; it was totally unknown to the inhabitants of Greece. They had no recourse to the barbarians for poetical beauties, but sought for everything in Homer, where, indeed, there is but little which they might not find. The Italians have been ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... 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 beggary,—in ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... worse than expose their entire person; however, I cannot conceive of a demand that would be more degrading than this of forcing those benighted souls to prostitute their persons for the gratification of those who pretend to be the followers ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... what they will undertake; they themselves, of their own authority, set their own limits. They may therefore enlarge their own domain to any extent they please, and reduce indefinitely the domain of the State. On the contrary, the State cannot pretend to more than what they leave; as they advance on their common territory separated by vague frontiers, it is bound to recede and leave the ground to them; whatever the task is, it should not perform it except in case of their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... they would not unwillingly part with their children, in consideration of some valuable present, but in this we afterward found that we were much mistaken. Happening one day to call myself Toolooak's attata (father), and pretend that he was to remain with me on board the ship, I received from the old man, his father, no other answer than what seemed to be very strongly and even satirically implied, by his taking one of our gentlemen by ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... inexplicable to uninitiated spectators, to those who cherish even a corruscation of mental light, speak volumes of information; and such it was that Eleanor cast upon John Ferguson. What was conveyed in that look we will not pretend to fathom; but simply affirm that its effect was an entire derangement of the love-sick swain's determination to forget the cause of his wretchedness, and a dispersion of every idea save the one ruling sentiment of love for her. Thus, in a moment, discretion was forgotten, and resolution ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... amused at the enemy's accounts of the storming of Plymouth. Their papers pretend to have not heard the result, and would lead their readers to believe that Gen. Hoke was repulsed, and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... collection. We went to the Sistine Chapel, and saw Michael Angelo's frescoes, which Sir Joshua Reynolds says are the finest paintings in the world, and which the unlearned call great rude daubs. I do not pretend to the capacity of appreciating their merits, but was very much struck with the ease, and grace, and majesty of some of the figures; it was, however, too dark to see the 'Last Judgment.' I ended by St. Peter's again, where there were many devout Catholics praying round the illuminated tomb ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... beyond the strength of commerce, or armies, or navies, or intellect of man to produce. But it is necessary that we define power in terms of spiritual value; and then, surely, it appears that Power and Force can never be the same. A Frederick I., or a Napoleon, may pretend to confound power with force, and believe that their might must be right. They possessed a giant's strength and used it like giants. But true Power is ever the attribute of Right and they who strive for it must ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... it so, because my time's Spent pleasantly. My lord's not haughty nor imperious, Nor I gravely whimsical; he has good nature. His sons too are civil to me, because I do not pretend to be wiser than they are; I meddle with no man's business but my own, So meet with respect, and am not the jest ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... very long and very straight marking the landscape with lines no more convincing than those which science was once decided, and then undecided, to call canals on the planet Mars, I had no sight of it. I do not say this was not my fault; and I will not pretend that the canal, like the mills of Manchester, was not running. I dare say I was not in the right hands, but this was not for want of trying to get into them. In the local delusion that it was then summer, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... is you, doctor," said the voice, with a great heave of relief. "But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to be?" ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... good an appetite. I hope you will make as hearty a dinner at my table as I did the other day at yours." The Fox hung down his head, and looked very much displeased. "Nay, nay!" said the Stork; "don't pretend to be out of humour about the matter; they that cannot take a ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Belgium, France and England in connection with illegal dealings in rifles (? for Germany); apparently liable to more prison in U.S.A. for crime unknown, if returns there; won't say where he gets his money from, but doesn't seriously pretend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... vain. Your friends hope it is not yet too late to give you this caution, if it reaches your hands. The 'squire is absolutely determined to ruin you; and, because he despairs of any other way, he will pretend great love and kindness to you, and that he will marry you. You may expect a parson, for this purpose, in a few days; but it is a sly artful fellow, of a broken attorney, that he has hired to personate a minister. The man has a broad face, pitted much with the small-pox, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... which hats, caps, keys, &c. &c., are suspended in graceful irregularity. The 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 ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... to determine the limit in the gradation of size at which this animal merges from the leopard into the wild cat. The varieties of cats are so numerous that I do not pretend to describe them; some are of sufficient importance to be classed among the smaller leopards, while others are no larger than the ordinary domestic cat. These vary through every shade of feline colouring, from spots to stripes, or to a fulvous brown ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... no man's motives, least of all the motives of the dead; but those who had set this train of events in motion had been always the enemies of the constitutional movement. The constitutional movement must go on, he said; but it would be folly to pretend that it could go on as if nothing had happened. Ireland must face its share in the responsibility. But the real responsibility rested ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Queen or the child should be saved, for it was judged impossible to preserve both? "The child's," he replied, "for I shall be able to find wives enough." Whether, however, her death originated from that terrible cause, we cannot, at this distant period, pretend to affirm, but from the report to the Privy Council of the birth of Edward the Sixth, still extant, it would appear not, as it informs us she was "happily" delivered, and died afterwards of a distemper incidental to women ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... old lady Chia remarked with a laugh, "your ladyship had better give her fifty taels, and I'll share it with her; each one of us taking twenty-five taels; and on any day it might snow, I'll pretend I don't feel in proper trim and let it slip by. You'll have thus still less occasion to trouble yourself, and I and lady Feng will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... There is a light that lightens sage and savage, but the glory of God in the face of Jesus may not have shined on this sage or that savage. The condemnation is of those who, having seen Jesus, refuse to come to him, or pretend to come to him but do not the things he says. They have all sorts of excuses at hand; but as soon as a man begins to make excuse, the time has come when he might be doing that from which he excuses himself. How many are there not who, believing there is something ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... better deserves that of mystical. Pantheism occupies a middle place between a scientific theory of the universe and a form of religious enthusiasm. It supplies an element in which the poetic faculty can move with freedom: for its conclusions, in so far as they pretend to philosophy, are large and general, and the emotions which it excites are co-extensive with the world. Therefore, Pantheistic mysticism, from the Bhagavadgita of the far East, through the Persian ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the censures of the public, annoyed by the hints which he had received from Barillon, afraid of losing character, afraid of losing office, repaired to the royal closet. He was determined to keep his place, if it could be kept by any villany but one. He would pretend to be shaken in his religious opinions, and to be half a convert: he would promise to give strenuous support to that policy which he had hitherto opposed: but, if he were driven to extremity, he would ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to get a divorce!" he cried ironically. "You still pretend to be the injured one. You and Whitmore have it all framed up—eh! But I tell you you've miscalculated this time! No man can wreck my home with impunity! No man can enter my house to steal my wife—and get away with it. I've been blind a long time, but my eyes are wide ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... actuated at their Revolution. But though they have kept our laws, and still respect our reading of those laws, they have greatly altered and simplified our practice. Whether a double set of courts of law and equity are or are not expedient, either in the one country or in the other, I do not pretend to know. It is, however, the fact that there is no ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... seems to show that it is neither a Basque word, nor a Saxon. Whether it is a mere expansion of ydwr, the water, in Welch, I cannot pretend to say, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... got them, called the tender mercies of a savage and licentious soldiery,—and came by slow and difficult stages to England; or such as when their mother began catching cold and didn't seem at last ever able to leave off catching cold, and though she tried to pretend she didn't mind colds and that they didn't matter, it was plain that these colds did at last matter very much, for ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... real mother—she died when I were a little kid, and Juno here, she had pups at the time—not that one, she's Flora, three years old she be—and they used to pretend she suckled me. It bain't likely, be it?" he asked, as if after all he was not quite sure about it himself. "Schoolmaster says as how it's writ that there was once two little rum'uns, suckled by a wolf, but he can't say for sure that ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... more than my escort, perhaps because my skin being more tender they could better succeed in their sanguinary intent, but although my flesh smarted and my strength failed it was necessary to keep cheerful and pretend, every now and then, to recognize our whereabouts just as if I had passed the same way other times. I even assured my five companions that when we reached the Sakais there would be no more difficulties, and so urged ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the devil; that it was not the cup she was anxious about, but the life of her master. What if she should acquaint the earl's lawyer with all she knew! He would be dragged into public daylight! He could not pretend ignorance concerning the identity of the chalice! that would be to be no antiquarian, while Dawtie would bear witness that he had in his possession a book telling all about it! But the girl would never of herself have turned against him! It was all that fellow Ingram, with ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... sensible man whom Lincoln at once converted by drafting the precise message that would have to be sent to the Confederate President. On two earlier occasions such labourers for peace were allowed to go across the lines and talk with Davis; it could be trusted to their honour to pretend to no authority; they had interesting talks with the great enemy, and made religious appeals to him or entertained him with wild proposals for a joint war on France over Mexico. They returned, converted also. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... attended the first meeting of the new class and heard the introductory lecture. Mr. D. began by speaking of the object of the formation of the class. I shall adopt the first person in writing what he said, though I do not pretend to give his words. I have not invited you here to amuse an idle hour, or to afford you a topic of conversation when you meet. One great design has been to cherish in you a love of home and of solitude. Yet ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... could prove that you betrayed that poor, foolish child,—then I would see to it that you paid the price. But I cannot prove it. I only know that she would have been helpless in your hands. Oh, I know your power! I have felt it. And I did not even pretend to myself that I loved you. What chance would she have had if she loved and trusted you? I shudder at the thought of—If Amos Vick should even suspect you of wronging his child, he would not wait for proof. He would tear you to pieces. You may be ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... occupied a modestly opulent office on Madison Avenue, where he did his modest best to pretend to the world at large that he was only a small cog—indeed, an almost invisible cog—in a large advertising machine. His best was, for all ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he could understand a younger person feeling differently, and that he did not wish to set himself up as a censor. But he could not pretend that he was glad to have been called out of nonentity into being, and that he could imagine nothing better than ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... has his notions, and it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still, there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them. I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the duty of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... timed for Eugene, whose one idea had been to throw himself down on the bed and pretend to ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... basis of a certain self-development of the Absolute. We are indebted to Mr. Morell for a specimen,[142] alike amusing and instructive, of Schelling's speculations on this subject. We shall not attempt to interpret its meaning, for, in sooth, we do not pretend to understand it: but one thing is clear, the laws of Matter, of Dynamics, of Organic structure and life, the laws of Knowledge, of Action, and of Art, are all exhibited as mere deductions or corollaries from the "idea of the Absolute;" ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... not like to make any remark till you actually let out the secret, Fritz, but we need no longer pretend not to see through the disguise of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... forget all about salmon and sport, and are thinking, maybe, of kith and kin across the North Sea, or of sins of omission and commission. All at once you are startled by that inspiring cry of the winch which some faddy people pretend to think a nuisance. It is to the angler what the trumpet is to the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... reassure them, though I at any rate would have preferred to stay where we were. We sat down to supper, each next to his sweetheart, and to my surprise the lieutenant's mistress was the first to begin the fun. Thinking that she could not pretend to be a man without being impudent, she began to toy with the lady-lieutenant, who defended himself like a prudish miss. The two cousins, not to be outdone, began to caress us in a manner that was rather free. Zenobia, who was waiting on us at table could not help laughing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "I do not pretend to compare myself with Mr. Winthrop in any way. It would be like the minnow claiming ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... "We'll pretend you're sitting on the stone rim of a great fountain in the King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of the beautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castle under the sea, that had 'a ceiling of amber, ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you all I know about it for nothing," laughed the skipper. "I don't pretend to know much, but somehow I always get along. Won't you take the helm, sir, and try ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... this is going to get itself said. But I can't stop it. That frightens me, rather; I've been used to ordering myself about or, at least, to feeling that I could. But that seems to be over. I don't pretend that I didn't foresee it, or rather that I didn't recognize it right at the beginning. What I did was to put off reckoning ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... talk," he said. "Even if a man has been acquitted by a jury, they'll talk, and nod and wink—and as far as the world goes, a man might often as well be guilty as not. It's a breakdown blow, and it damages Lydgate as much as Bulstrode. I don't pretend to say what is the truth. I only wish we had never heard the name of either Bulstrode or Lydgate. You'd better have been a Vincy all your life, and so had Rosamond." Mrs. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to choose for herself. It pleases her to choose the grandfather instead of the grandson. Is that perfectly plain to you? If it is, my boy, then I submit that there is nothing further to be said. The situation is surely clear enough for even you to see. We do not pretend to be doing anything noble. Mr. Thorpe is seventy-seven. That is the long ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... had calculated upon this want of nerve in his antagonist, I know not, but on the communication of the intelligence I remarked a slight curl upon his lip, that seemed to express the triumph of one whose ruse had taken. This might or might not be, however, for as you are all aware, I pretend to very little observation except (and he turned his eye upon the daughter of their host,) where there is a pretty girl in the case. All I know is, that, attended by Stanley, he has accompanied the flag into the town, and that, having ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... fable has furnished information to a great many people about the economy of their insides, and possibly to you; and I should like you to know the exact truth of all the particulars alluded to. Whether Aesop understood them all, I cannot pretend to say; but the application by the old Roman to the quarrel between the big-wig senators and the people was on one point decidedly unjust; for there was, as far as facts are concerned, something to be said on behalf of the stomach, which ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... not wrong to pretend to fear what we do not?" he objected. "Do the spirits of the water actually rise up and tell you that we must keep to the shore? I do not believe it, although my grandmother says so until my ears ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... Leroy, you surely don't mean to insinuate that you doubt my word, do you?" I remonstrated. "I hope you don't pretend—" ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... exceedingly augmented when the numbers of people are considered. I pretend not to make any exact calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in the city, but I shall make a probable conjecture at that part by-and-by. What I have said now is to explain the misery of those poor creatures above; so that it might well be said, as in the Scripture, Woe ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... he would run. "All very well, sir," he observed, "when you get to the eastward of the islands, but you'll find out that you'll have to run the gauntlet of the enemy's cruisers, for they're pretty thick in these seas; and, in addition, there are not a few picarooning, piratical rascals who don't pretend even to be privateers, and boldly hoist the black flag, and rob and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... place on the seventh day.' There stands the command with all its terrible sanctions of thunder and lightnings. If this command is now in force sister S. and all the rest must stand condemned at the dread tribunal of God, for they all break that commandment as much as we who do not pretend to keep it." The speciousness of B.'s reasoning is a great deal more likely to lead saints into bondage, than what he has said of sister Stowe. He begins in the very onset to mislead the mind. He quotes "Let no man go out of ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... revenge, or what you will," said Harley, with sullen firmness; "but I have been stung too deeply not to sting. Frank with all, till the last few days, I have ever been. Frank to you, at least, even now, this much I tell you: I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be justice; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove that justice is sinful will move my resolves. As man I have been outraged, and as man I will retaliate. The way and the mode, the true criminal and his ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having stood empty from the death of his grandfather. The governor bid for me, and nobody would bid against him. Thus I am become a citizen of Lovere, to the great joy of the inhabitants, not (as they would pretend) from their respect for my person, but I perceive they fancy I shall attract all the travelling English; and, to say the truth, the singularity of the place is well worth their curiosity; but, as I have no correspondents, I may be buried here fifty years, and nobody ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... was easier to scintillate successfully for the sole benefit of a couple of other women than under the eyes of a man who had just ordered you out of his life. But when at last she was alone in her own room, the sparkle was suddenly quenched. There was no longer any need to pretend. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... which there is great difference of opinion, viz. whether the fish which are bred in the river generally resort to it again, and whether each river has its own variety of fish, I am not a competent judge, as I am acquainted with too few rivers to pretend to decide. I may, however, just remark that the Hodder, though it is a much smaller river than the Ribble, is always much better stocked with Salmon, Morts, Sprods, Smolts, and Par than is the latter river, which I attribute to the fact that more fish spawn in the river ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... a lot of things; he said just for one evening I might make him happy and pretend I loved him, and let him call me "cherie." So I said "all right;" I did not think it could matter, as I am coming home to-morrow, Mamma, and shall probably never see him again, and you said one ought ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... establishment would very ill accord with our moderate means," replied she; "we do not pretend to one regular gardener; and had our little embellishments been productive of much expense, or tending solely to my gratification, I should never have suggested them. When we first took possession of this spot it was a perfect wilderness, with a ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone Boldly asserts that country for his own, Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And live-long nights of revelry and ease; The naked Negro, panting at ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... "Whatever it may pretend to mean, what it is is a silly absurd toy-lamb with a Christmas-tree flag ledged on its paw—and if it wants to mean anything else, it ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... "I suppose I should pretend not to understand you," she answered, "but that is not my way. If I were not in the saddle, I would make you a courtesy. But seriously, I deserve your exception, for besides Rashleigh and the old priest, I am the only conversable being about ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... occurrence. Theories prevailed among the doctors concerning it, which were bitterly antagonistical to each other; and Doctor Woolston headed one party in Bucks, while Doctor Yardley headed another. Which was right, or whether either was right, is more than we shall pretend to say, though we think it probable that both were wrong. Anne Woolston had been married to a young physician but a short time, when this new outbreak concerning yellow fever occurred. Her husband, whose name was Heaton, unfortunately took the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the arrangement of the present work is superior to that of many of its predecessors, as a vehicle for the facilitation of the student's progress. While it does not pretend to any other rank than as an introduction to the larger works, it is hoped that the arrangement of its matter is such that the beginner may more readily comprehend the entire subject of Blowpipe Analysis than if he were to begin his studies by the ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... Temple Bar.—The Rev. James Miller wrote a comedy, in the year 1737, entitled "The Coffee House." "This piece met with no kind of success, from a supposition, how just (says Baker,) I cannot pretend to determine, that Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, who kept Dick's coffee-house, near Temple Bar, and were at that time celebrated toasts, together with several persons who frequented that house, were intended to be ridiculed by the author. This he absolutely denied as being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... you to do is to go to Albano's at the appointed time. Sit down in the back room. Get into conversation with them, and, above all, Signor, as soon as you get the copy of the Bolletino turn to the third page, pretend not to be able to read the address. Ask the man to read it. Then repeat it after him. Pretend to be overjoyed. Offer to set up wine for the whole crowd. Just a few minutes, that is all I ask, and I will guarantee that you will be the happiest man ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... you say that in French," said Lucile, her eyes merry. "If they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn't understand." ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... no source other than a future time! You can't send short waves through three-dimensional space to a given spot and not have them interceptible between. Anyhow, the Compubs wouldn't work it this way! They wouldn't put us on guard! And an extra-terrestrial wouldn't pretend to be a human if he honestly wanted to warn us of danger! He'd tell us the truth! Physically and logically it's impossible for it to be anything but what it claims ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... attribute to taste the merit of contributing to moral progress, it is not in the least my intention to pretend that the interest that good taste takes in an action suffices to make an action moral; morality could never have any other foundation than her own. Taste can be favorable to morality in the conduct, as I hope to point out in the present essay; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... thoughtful men fear must one day find a sudden and violent solution. Thus it comes to pass that there hangs low on the horizon of South Africa the dark cloud of the Native Question. How and when it will burst no man can pretend to say, but some time and in some way burst it must, unless means of dispersing it can ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... adequately here with the vast international and diplomatic problems which arise with the name of the new power in the Far East. It is possible that Japan, having imitated European militarism, may imitate European pacifism. I cannot honestly pretend to know what the Japanese mean by the one any more than by the other. But when Englishmen, especially English Liberals like myself, take a superior and censorious attitude towards Americans and especially Californians, I am moved to make a final ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... likewise," he says, "that the only military service of my life was as a private soldier in a college company, of which Pierce was one of the officers. He entered into this latter business, or pastime, with an earnestness with which I could not pretend to compete, and at which, perhaps, he would now be inclined to smile." But much more intimate and delightful is the reminiscence which, in the dedicatory preface of "The Snow Image," addressed to his friend Bridge, he thus calls up. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... which distinguished their illustrious mother; great decorum and dignity of manners, combined with ardent sensibilities, and unaffected piety, which, at least in the eldest and favorite daughter, Isabella, was, unhappily, strongly tinctured with bigotry. They could not, indeed, pretend to their mother's comprehensive mind, and talent for business, although there seems to have been no deficiency in these respects; or, if any, it was most effectually supplied by their ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... proclaimed that the visit to Scotland was a perfect success, and if the loyal chroniclers at the time were not in a position to know, how can we of a later date, who had not the advantage of being present at the scene, or even of being alive at the time, pretend to dispute the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that the latter was quite disgusted with her fondness; that she was generous to none but these favorites, &c. That her conceit of her beauty was such, that no flattery could be too gross for her to swallow; and that this folly was the theme of ridicule to all her courtiers, who would often pretend that their eyes were unable to sustain the radiance of her countenance,—a trait, by the way, which stands on other and better authority than this infamous letter. That her temper was so furious that it was dreadful to attend upon her;—that she had broken the finger of one lady, and afterwards ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... course, dearie, it's only good manners to be ashamed of it: it's expected from a woman. Women have to pretend to feel a great deal that they don't feel. Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the truth about it. She used to say that when every woman could learn enough from what was going on in the world before her eyes, there ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... are shortly to have another Chinese war, is a problem I do not pretend to be able to solve: there are various opinions on the subject; but my own is, that every thing depends on the foreigners themselves. If the Consuls and others sent by Government to the five trading ports are firm and resolute ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... inundations, or the downfall of princes and the destruction of empires. The northern lights have been frequently gazed at with similar apprehensions, whole provinces having been thrown into consternation by the fantastic coruscations of these lambent meteors. Some pretend to see in these harmless lights armies mixing in fierce encounter and fields streaming with blood, while others behold states overthrown, earthquakes, inundations, pestilences, and the most dreadful calamities. Because some one or other of these calamities formerly happened soon after ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... the Theban general was fortunate I will not pretend to assert, but in the particular combination of prudence and daring which stamps these exploits, I look upon him as consummate. In the first place, I cannot but admire the sagacity which led him to form his camp within the walls of Tegea, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... and festoons from it of the same all round; the only fault was the pure white of the Calico made all the ladies look dirty. There were 160 or 170 people, many I did not know, many Men, but where the majority came from I cannot pretend to say; Darlingtons, Ramsdens, Cookes, Taylors, etc, and our large party the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... envy you your champion. You point, Mrs. Temperley, to lofty altitudes. I, as a mere man, cannot pretend to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... glad to hear that you are going (222/1. In his Presidential Address at Norwich.) to touch on the statement that the belief in Natural Selection is passing away. I do not suppose that even the "Athenaeum" would pretend that the belief in the common descent of species is passing away, and this is the more important point. This now almost universal belief in the evolution (somehow) of species, I think may be fairly attributed in large ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Mexico, to present his patents to the viceroy and to take possession of his offices. Considerable difficulty occurred in regard to the interpretation of the royal grant of towns and lands to the marquis, which I do not pretend to understand. The grant, in mentioning the districts which were granted to him, enumerated the vicinos or neighbours who were considered as belonging to it and as constituting his vassals. Cortes insisted that the head person only of each family was to be considered as the vicino ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the subject of his return, "I want to sneak in, and up-stairs to bed, without the old man seeing me. I don't just like to meet him till to-morrow. But I can't sneak in, for the door's locked, and Noah would be sure to tell dad. You knock, and when they let you in, pretend you came to play with the kids; and whisper Fanny to slip out and open the door ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... another occasion, at dinner, we had an interesting conversation, in which the whole company of missionaries participated. The Rev. M. Banks, of St. Bartholomews, remarked, that one of the grossest of all absurdities was that of preparing men for freedom. Some, said he, pretend that immediate emancipation is unsafe, but it was evident to him that if men are peaceable while they are slaves, they might be trusted in any other condition, for they could not possibly be placed in one more aggravating. If slavery is a safe system, freedom ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he was in the Confederate service was undoubtedly pure fiction; and he did not even pretend to have a commission of any kind, not even as a Partisan Ranger. The Riverlawn Cavalry had rendered important service to the State in the suppression of guerilla bands, acting under no authority whatever, plundering and killing Union ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... animatedly, the Count smiling and profuse of gesture, while Cynthia listened with interest to what was seemingly a convincing statement of the fortunate hazard that led to his appearance at Cheddar. The Frenchman was too skilled a stalker of shy game to pretend a second time that the meeting ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... to her rescue. She was of the opposing camp. She could not, and would not, pretend. It was clear that war lay ahead, and her position must be that of an ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... catch a glimpse of which way his feet were pointing. I covered this by speaking to him, begging him to will me aright —to will me more earnestly—or some such bunk. I could invent many reasons for turning round; pretend I had lost my feeling of 'guidance,' or pretend I heard a sudden noise, as of danger, or even pretend I felt I was going wrong. Well, I got a peek at those feet as often as was necessary, and the rest was just play-acting ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... one, you know, but I went on board to see Aunt Margaret sail. So I know how they are. This house isn't built just right; we'll have to pretend a lot. But never ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... you ever see anything more intellectual and cynical, and contemptuous and sweet, all in one! Lookin' at you as much as to say, 'Who are you, anyhow, from way back in the State of Illinois—commercial traveller? And what do you pretend to know?'" ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... life I lead is chearful, and not gloomy, as some persons pretend, who know no better; to whom, in order that it may appear what value I set on every other kind of life, I must declare, that I would not exchange my manner of living or my grey hairs with any of those young men, even of the best constitution, who give way to their appetites; knowing, as ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend to when awake,—tell you what money you had in your pocket, nay, describe your very thoughts,—it is not necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself, under ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... him).—in this falsehood. That just points my moral. As long as even upright men's thoughts run in that mould, Christianity cannot pretend to have any real hold on the nation. As for your decoration, you are quite sure to get one from my successor.—In a word, Christianity must tackle monarchy! And if it cannot tear the falsehood from it without destroying it, then ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... very seriously (for he was a good, religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might not be without its uses. "Nay," says the good man, "if you will venture upon that score, 'name of God,[111] ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... who, like all uneducated men, went to extremes in everything, had published under his name a proclamation extravagantly violent and even insulting to the Emperor. Whether Napoleon was aware of this proclamation I cannot pretend to say, but he affected ignorance of the matter if he was informed of it, for on the 24th, having met Augereau at a little distance from Valence, he stopped his carriage and immediately alighted. Augereau did the same, and they cordially embraced ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and a languid manner, struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... want to deceive these simple natives," he said, "and for our own safety we can't pretend to make rain, and fail. As soon as we have a chance ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... this one, but it's my opinion all professional mediums are fakes," Shelby replied, seriously; "it may not be so, but I believe I can tell after one investigation. I shall pretend to be greatly impressed and all that, but I'll keep my eyes open. And I'm not going to upset Mr. Crane unnecessarily. But if I think she's just fooling him along for the money that's in it, I'm ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... satisfaction; and oftentimes have I sent lovingly unto him to understand wherein, by whom, and how he found himself to be wronged. But of him could I obtain no other answer but a mere defiance, and that in my lands he did pretend only to the right of a civil correspondency and good behaviour, whereby I knew that the eternal God hath left him to the disposure of his own free will and sensual appetite—which cannot choose but be wicked, if by divine grace it be not continually guided—and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... cannot in common sense do so a second time, unless they have some concurrent reason for it. The prejudice in favor of your wisdom is shook by your change. You confess that you have been wrong, and yet you would pretend to dictate by your sole authority; whereas you disengage the mind by embarrassing it. For why should I prefer your opinion of to-day to your persuasion of yesterday? If we must resort to prepossessions for the ground of opinion, it is in the nature of man rather to defer ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for the most diplomatic to pretend that he had not heard, and all looked from the intruder to the host. Never at a loss, Mr. Lincoln rose from the sofa, and blandly said as to ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... I am going to pretend friendship, and having put him off his guard, to get rid of his claim as well as I can. The property I will never surrender, as long as there is a possibility of ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... Robert didn't pretend to know much about the pictures, though he was patriotically proud of them, as among the best to be found, if you searched the world. But the fiancee was in her element. "Tired to death" of these splendid things she might be, in her small soul, but she was determined to impress ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... being; he sought their company. More by instinct than by conscious choice, he took the direction which led to Rodney's rooms. He knocked loudly upon his door; but no one answered. He rang the bell. It took him some time to accept the fact that Rodney was out. When he could no longer pretend that the sound of the wind in the old building was the sound of some one rising from his chair, he ran downstairs again, as if his goal had been altered and only just revealed to him. He walked in the direction ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... who doubtless studied from life, painted at Ecouen the picture of an old peasant-woman hauling her husband home in a hand-cart dead drunk; but, for all that, the French are emphatically a sober people, either constitutionally or from climatic or other reasons: I do not pretend ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing order setting forth that whereas "several Companies of Strolling Actors pretend to have Licenses from Noblemen,[A] and presume under that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes: which being against Her Majesty's Intentions and Directions to the said Master: These are to signifie ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Absolute. We are indebted to Mr. Morell for a specimen,[142] alike amusing and instructive, of Schelling's speculations on this subject. We shall not attempt to interpret its meaning, for, in sooth, we do not pretend to understand it: but one thing is clear, the laws of Matter, of Dynamics, of Organic structure and life, the laws of Knowledge, of Action, and of Art, are all exhibited as mere deductions or corollaries from the "idea of the Absolute;" and in the name of Natural Science, not less than on behalf ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... were not numerous on board, the powder-magazine overflowed. The one cannon could not pretend to use the contents. That gave people more to think about. There were also gigantic saws and powerful instruments, such as levers, leaden maces, handsaws, enormous axes, etc., without counting a considerable quantity of blasting cylinders, enough to ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... some one may pretend I have till such a time of strife delayed My vengeance, when such famous knights contend, For three days shall the wretch's doom be stayed; In the mean time let him who would defend That caitiff, come himself, or send him aid. For ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... sea shores, had been bitterly disappointed by the Treaty of Berlin, which delivered them back into the hands of the Turks. It soon became obvious that even the reforms promised by the XXIII Article of that document were to remain meaningless; the Turkish Government did not even pretend to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... do not wish, nor do I pretend, that the encomenderos should die of hunger, or that your Lordship should lack the means to fulfil your obligations; but I do maintain that we should have such care for what is right for the Spaniards as not to sicken more souls, or cause the gospel to be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... our house, implying, indeed openly asserting, that there had been a wholesale attempt at poisoning. Names were not given, not even the initials under which the reporters of such gossip often pretend to disguise publicity, and in a measure avoid responsibility; but, to the initiated, there could be no doubt that the paragraph referred to my unlucky cookery. Further particulars, it was said, would be given at a later date, although it was difficult to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... assumed, in flat contradiction to all known facts, that the amount of possible variation is soon acquired. Are not all the most varied species, the oldest domesticated: who think that horses or corn could be produced? Take dahlia and potato, who will pretend in 5000 years{103} <that great changes might not be effected>: perfectly adapted to conditions and then again brought into varying conditions. Think what has been done in few last years, look at pigeons, and cattle. With the amount of ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... only leaping from a ditch into a quicksand. It is quite as hard to account for her dissimulation as for her sincerity. Why should she pretend to suspect you of so black a deed, or me of such ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... "but if you pretend to go, and then come back, this would be the last home in the world that Blizzard would suspect you of hiding in. Marion will tell him her story. And he certainly won't look for ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... saw that the young man did not pretend. He asked him to wait a few minutes, and vanished into ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... realities and has lied against his own interests continually. For instance, we are told that if he lost a place, instead of obtaining the help his family would have been willing to give him in gaining another, he would steadily pretend to be holding the former position. He is still considered utterly unreliable and a thoroughly weak character with a tendency to meet a situation as readily by a lie as another person would tend to react by speaking the truth. People who have known him of ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... say, and certainly not betokening a proper spirit in one so recently in great danger. Jeffreys, as he walked moodily along, was neither in a grateful nor reasonable mood, nor did he feel chastened in spirit; and that being so, he was too honest to pretend to be what ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... they were laughing at this glorious, wonderful thing that was called a "circus?" Were they ridiculing it, trying to pretend that they had seen anything more marvelous ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... excellently put upon the stage. Miss Kemble, or somebody else, electrified the choruses; for, wonderful to relate, they condescended to act—to perform—to pretend to be what they are meant for! Never was so efficient, so well-disciplined, so unanimous a chorus heard or seen before on the English stage. The chorus-master deserves everybody's, and has our own, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... they give a profile of this ridge, do not pretend to have examined it except at Mars Hill, near the Aroostook, and at the Grand Falls of the St. John. It must be remarked that these profiles (the original one of Colonel Bouchette and that exhibited by themselves) are contrasted—one British authority with another—for the purpose of invalidating ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... external characteristic feature of true species,—they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... seem to have suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all appeals to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as so many women do about these things; and don't actually believe what you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... four in the window, if you remember, all very much alike, and each one labelled in plain figures twenty marks. I don't pretend to speak German fluently, but I can generally make myself understood with a little effort, and gather the sense of what is said to me, provided they don't gabble. I went into the shop. A young girl came up to me; she was a pretty, quiet little soul, one might almost say, demure; not at all the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... contracted into comical wrinkles; but his eyes were bright and always on the move, while, if Bruff were away from his side for five minutes, he would begin to chatter uneasily, and then howl till the dog returned, to take hold of his arm, and pretend to bite him, ending by lying down and watching ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... you need not pretend," she retorted. "I meant once for you to die. You know it. And since you pretend not to understand me, I ask you—these are strange words from my lips—will you ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... them known for his own, he imprints on their bodies a certain mark with the nail of the little finger of one of his hands; this mark, or character, thus impressed, renders the part insensible to pain. They even pretend that he impresses this character in three different parts of the body, and at three different times. The demon does not impress these characters, say they, before the person has attained the age ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... discovered that I was as much a prisoner as a pet. They would never let me out of their sight. If I tried to get away by myself, one of the children, or a young woman would follow me, or rather, come in the same direction, and pretend not to be following me; but all the time noting where I went, and heading me off carefully if I went too far from the caravan. Before the end of the first day I was wondering how it would all finish, and whether ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... but whether regularly or not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when it was at ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... craving to be a gypsy again is so strong that I never think of resisting it; I would risk my life to gratify it. Yes, whatever my life in the future is to be, I know that must be a part of it. I used to pretend at the Spittal that I had gone to bed, and then escape by the window. I was mad with glee at those times, but I always returned before morning, except once, the last time I saw you, when I was away for nearly twenty-four hours. Lord Rintoul was so glad to see me come back then ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... persuade yourself that it is a good one; if you have carved a bad statue you can think yourself better than Michael Angelo. But if you have lost a battle you cannot believe you have won it; if your client is hanged you cannot pretend that ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... at all was at the time much questioned. This being the case, the difficulty any Governor must have to contend with, who should attempt to solve the intricate problem involved in the land-question, was apparent, and it will be evident also that those who pretend to form a judgment on the conduct of Captain R. Fitzroy, must take into consideration the character of the people, both white and coloured, with whom he had to deal, and various other circumstances that are ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... permitting sin in others, or of bringing it to pass, on account of the good that we may educe from it; because such an affair is too high for us. But, surely, we need have no weak fears on this ground; for although it may be too high for us, they do not pretend that it is too high for God. He will allow no more sin to make its appearance in the world, say they, than he will cause to redound to the good of the universe. He prefers it for that reason, and why should we not respond, amen! to his preference? Why should we give ourselves any ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... played that old trick of his better than he was playing it now. Farmer Brown's boy knew that Unc' Billy was only pretending to be dead, yet so well did Unc' Billy pretend that it was hard work for Farmer Brown's boy to believe what he knew was the truth—that Unc' Billy was very much alive and only waiting for a chance to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... smuggle a box to her and pretend—-Here she comes! I'll think it over and come for advice if I may," said ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... the short bound, and to do this safely requires a great deal of skill. It is a pretty play, and often of invaluable service, and it should therefore be practiced carefully until it can be made with approximate safety. The short-stop must not betray beforehand his intention, but pretend that he is going to catch the ball ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... who are not habituated to it." (p. xxv. We again underscore the un-Saxon words.) Now if there be any short cut to the Anglo-Saxon, it is through the German; and how far the Bostonians deserve the reproach of a neglect of old English masterpieces we do not pretend to say, but the first modern reprint of the best works of Latimer, More, Sidney, Fuller, Selden, Browne, and Feltham was made in Boston, under the care of the late Dr. Alexander Young. We have no wish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... extremely likely, Mrs. Cunningham. I certainly had not thought of that before, and I hope that for Millicent's sake and my own it may turn out to be so. I can get on extremely well without it, but at the same time I don't pretend that 50,000 pounds are to ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... "And we've got to pretend to go along to Flora City," he added. "I don't like to sneak. It goes against my grain; but business is business. Come on, Higgins. Next trip in a week, Mr. Granger? Good enough. We're going to our stateroom and catch up some ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... panting efforts, through the sluggish waters; others again, imprisoned in lofty pillars, from which the smoke of their breath ascendeth even unto Heaven? Doth not the air throb and quiver with their restless struggles as they writhe below in darkness and torment? And thou hast the shamelessness to pretend that these things are done in the Lord Mayor's own realms without his knowledge! Verily thou must take me ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... friendly light did not yet wane in his eyes. "I didn't think it was anything very good—the way you knocked it out of my hand. We'll just pretend it was very bad tea—and let it go ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... herself as an artist) "must?" And she would proceed to maintain—what is perhaps true sometimes—that people rather liked being put into books, just as they like being photographed, for all that they grumble and pretend to be afflicted when either process is levied against them. In discussing this matter with Miss Liston I felt myself on delicate ground, for it was notorious that I figured in her first book in the guise of ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... at an Easter shrift. Since that fellow Davie fell into credit and familiarity with Your Majesty, you no longer treated me nor entertained me after your wonted fashion, nor would you ever bear me company save this Davie were the third. Can I pretend, then, to regret that one who deprived me of what I prized most highly upon earth should have been removed? I cannot. Yet I can and do proclaim my innocence of any part or share in the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... altar upon the holy gospel, kissing the cross. And all those who shall ever oppose this, our will, and shall dare to consider our son, Alexis, as successor, we declare traitors to us and to their country. We have ordered these presents to be everywhere promulgated, that no person may pretend ignorance. Given at Moscow, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... what we'll do," said Migwan. "You remember the story of the Calydonian Hunt in the mythology book? Well, we'll pretend this ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... followed him up the narrow stairway, talking, trying to pretend she did not see his dragging steps, his ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... and restored her from her faint, Mrs. Burton would not let her try to rise. She sent out to Burton, who was reading a novel in the mild forenoon air under the crimson maples, and made him get the carryall and take Cornelia home in it. They thought they would pretend that they were out for a drive, and were merely dropping her at her mother's door; but no ruse was necessary. Mrs. Saunders tranquilly faced the fact; she said she thought the child hadn't been herself since she got ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... dans les charmilles, Et pretend qu'hier Atala Avec un Russe s'en alla. Ou vont les belles ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that the aristocracy of New Orleans are the parvenu of society; rather, we must admit, a doubtful compliment, and quite in accordance with the following words, which go on to speak of "the vulgar but wealthy class of citizens with which this country is infested." Now we do not pretend for a moment to believe that our readers would imagine that we meant the sentence quoted in the sense it appears, and they may, perhaps, pass it over without noticing the errors complained of; but when such errors should not exist they become a source ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... of those grants would have reduced some of the chiefs of the Tory party to poverty. Yet it was impossible to draw a distinction between the grants of William and those of his two predecessors. Nobody could pretend that the law had been altered since his accession. If, therefore, the grants of the Stuarts were legal, so were his; if his grants were illegal, so were the grants of his uncles. And, if both his grants and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the bad habits of singers, with all the complete ignorance of cause and effect, that prevail, it is not surprising that some pretend to tell us that there are two, three, four, or five registers, although as a matter of fact there can be at most three in any voice. It will be much more correct to call every tone of every voice by the name of a new additional register, for in the end, every tone will and ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... asks my serious opinion, perhaps I may be forgiven if I say your dialect was somewhat too coarse for a Scottish youth of high birth, and your behaviour perhaps a little too churlish. I thought too—though I pretend not to be skilful—that some of your Scottish sounded as if it were ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... had better remain here," said the girl sadly, though it was plain that Curtis's offer of protection during the alarm created by the hall-porter's errand had advanced him a long way in her esteem. "There are only two persons living who dare pretend to exercise control over my actions, and if they have arrived in New York this evening I have good reason to believe that I ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... again, and got safely through the hall, and after a few more inroads, in one of which Miriam accompanied me, and on which occasion I am sure we were seen in our nightgowns, we finally went to bed. I won't say went to sleep, for I did not pretend to doze. All our side of the house had bars, except me; and the mosquitoes were unendurable; so I watched mother and Miriam in their downy slumbers and lay on my hard bed for hours, fighting the torments with ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... attacks by the disappointed candidates, who accused him of unfairness; and Leibnitz has given his decision that both Wallis and Lallouère, in the treatises which they published,—which did not, however, appear till after Pascal’s,—had succeeded in solving the problems. Upon such a point we cannot pretend to judge; but it may be safely said that the design of the Duc de Roannez was hardly realised in the issue. It was sufficiently proved, indeed, that Pascal, in the midst of all his austerities and devotional exercises, was the same Pascal ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... certainly have got off themselves, and in all probability would have carried me off, as a friend of theirs who had the misfortune to be mad or drunk. The last thought, however, was an inspiration; though a very terrible one. Had it come to this, that the Vicar of Chuntsey must pretend to be mad or drunk? ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... returned, as she did only too soon, to find her daughter and Horace seated on the same sofa, she did not pretend to be gratified. "This is taking a most unfair advantage of what I was weak enough to say last night, Mr. Ventimore," she began. "I thought ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... sheriffs to do every act pertaining to the office, during the term of St. Michael and St. Hilary, after the expiration of the year, if not sooner discharged. The practice in England appears to have been conformable to these statutes, [2] though the king did pretend to dispense with them by force of the royal prerogative; and this claim and exercise of a power in the crown to dispense with and control the operation of statutes, has been long and universally condemned as odious and unconstitutional; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... charming traits of the American woman, yet the general outcome of M. Bourget's analysis is truly damnatory. If this sprightly, fascinating, somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true picture of the transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed for her lack of the Ewig Weibliche. I do not pretend to say where M. Bourget's appreciation is at fault, but that it is false—unaccountably false—in the general impression it leaves, I have no manner of doubt. Perhaps his attention has been fixed too exclusively on the Newport girl, who, it must again be insisted on, is too much impregnated ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... The man will hold the skylight in place until it can be fastened. And while he is doing that I wish those who are sitting under it would move quietly out into the aisles. Don't crowd or rush. You children can pretend it is like the fire drill you have ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... bewildering. Which of my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very soon made up my mind they were both idiots. But there is one thing in which no one will ever have the impudence to pretend I am wrong, that is, ...
— The American • Henry James
... life, but also, with surprising vehemence, his hatred of generals who give blundering orders from comfortable billets in the rear, or of munitioners in England who keep optimistic in spite of bad news from the Front. He does not pretend to be quite fair in his criticisms, for obviously the higher command had to keep out of the firing-line and somebody had to work—and hard too—to supply the torrent of munitions demanded. Sir PHILIP admits all that, but in a kind of agony calls on God and man to realise the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... perplexity, and did not sleep till morning; and so she overslept her usual time. However, when she was up, she determined to find her own breakfast; she felt it would not do to be too dependent, and on a person of uncertain humor; such for the moment she chose to pretend to herself was Hazel. Accordingly she went down to the sea to look for crayfish. She found abundance. There they lay in the water; you had but to stoop and pick ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... was a real woman yet who failed to be intrigued by the suggestion of a romance lying dormant in the past life of a man of her acquaintance, and Ann was far too essentially feminine to pretend that her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... It is a matter of great consequence that men should not acquire the habit of opposing. No earthly advantage would arise to Ireland from ceding what is retained, where so much has been already yielded up. Indeed the Catholic gentry do not pretend that the granting the immunities they require would tranquillise the country, but only that it would remove from men of honour all pretext for countenancing them. This is on the principle of the solicitor of the unhappy Rajah Nuncomar, who after extorting as much money as he could, under ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to her, gravely, with a working of my fingers that was as plain as French. It said, 'The lady says you may feel.' The boy steps forward, and I pretend to go ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... true that the sons of labourers and rusticks are more dull and indocile than those of gentlemen and tradesmen; for though I doe not pretend to have become of the first magnitude for wit or docility, yet I think I may without arrogance say that in our paltry country school here at Braintry - "Ego meis me minoribus condiscipulis ingenio ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... what you were going to say now I'm here," said the amiable Tipping, nettled by Dulcie's little air of haughty disdain. "You're a coward; you know you are. You pretend to think such a lot of Dulcie here, ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Ghost inspires that man; and shall we be more dainty than God? If, in spite of the man's little weaknesses and oddities, God shall condescend to come down and dwell in that man, making him more or less a good man, doing good work; shall we pretend that we cannot endure what God endures? Shall we be more dainty, I ask again, than the holy and perfect God? Oh my friends, let us pray to him to take out of our hearts all selfishness, fancifulness, fastidiousness, and hasty respect of persons, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... individual person. of whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious. Here at last the view always rests, when we are actuated by either of these passions; nor can we, in that situation of mind, ever lose sight of this object. For this I pretend not to give any reason; but consider such a peculiar direction of the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... yet you dare pretend now to retain an interest in me? Lieutenant Brant, you must be a most talented deceiver, or else the strangest person I ever met. Such a miracle has never ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... deceived, her love tricked and misplaced. Rather, it was hard to believe that the scene of wrath had ever occurred, that this woman had ever been so stirred by such cause, that she had ever loved him, that he had ever dared pretend love to her. The deception and the confession, with all they had elicited from her, seemed parts of a dream, of some fancy he had had, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... attempt at a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine, but an effort to restate a few essential Christian convictions in terms that are intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years. They do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship; they aim at the less difficult, but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who (to borrow a phrase of Augustine's) ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... increasing exponential function of time, a time-binder, a power able to transform and direct basic powers. Sometimes we hypocritically like to delude ourselves, if our delusions are agreeable—and profitable. We call human work "manual labor" and we pretend that we need the laborer for his muscular service, but when we thus speak, we are thoughtless, stupid, or insincere. What we look for in the worker is his control of his muscles; mechanical work is or ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... know that there is no fish in our pond for spend-thrifts or for lazy-bones; none for people who wear gold chains or Attleborough jewelry; none for people who are ashamed of cheap carpets or wooden mantelpieces. Not for those who run in debt will the fish bite; nor for those who pretend to be richer or better or wiser than they are. No! But we have found, in our lives, that in a great democracy there reigns a great and gracious sovereign. We have found that this sovereign, in a reckless and unconscious way, is, all the time, making the most profuse provision ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... fingers reproachfully from the insistent reminder of virtuous intention, and resolutely she turned her back on it and tried to pretend herself to sleep. But every broken section of her treaty had a voice, and above them all clamored the call of Number 9 that it was ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... lad who served him both in the field and at home, who could saddle the horse or handle the pruning-hook. The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years: he was of a strong constitution, spare-bodied, of a meagre visage, a very early riser, and a lover of the chase. Some pretend to say that his surname was Quixada or Quesada, for on this point his historians differ; though, from very probable conjectures, we may conclude that his name was Quixana. This is, however, of little importance to our ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... vista, or pantry, jutting out from the kitchen, and left ostentatiously open, presented him with a view which made his very nose curl with kindness. What it contained we do not pretend to say, not having seen it ourselves; we judge, therefore, only by its effects upon ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... as every student of astronomy will reject, the idea of wilful deception. Occasionally an observer may pretend to see what he has not seen, though I believe this very seldom happens. But even if Cassini and the rest had been notoriously untrustworthy persons instead of being some of them distinguished for the care ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... occurs the trial of Sir David Lindsay, one of the most quaint narratives of a cause celebre ever written. The chronicler, whom we may quote at some length—and whose living and graphic narrative none even of those orthodox historians who pretend to hold lightly the ever-delightful Pitscottie, upon whom at the same time they rely as their chief authority, attempt to question in this case—was himself a Lindsay, and specially concerned for the honour of his name. The defendant ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... something for the poor devils back home who're so pitifully frustrated. There are tens of millions of men who can't hope for anything better than to keep the food and shelter supply intact for themselves and their families. They can't even pretend to hope for more than that. There isn't more than so much to go around. But Bill wants to give them hope. He figures that without hope the world will turn madhouse in another generation. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... 'Why have not I from you the same respect, To which, for friendship past, you would pretend From me; and I should bear you in effect, If your hope stood more fair to gain its end? No less than you, to wed her I expect; And if your fortunes here my wealth transcend, As favoured of the king, as you, above You, am I happy ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... yielding to the inflexible and impetuous frankness which he derived from his character, from his military education, and, perhaps, from the province which gave him birth, exclaimed, "That it was useless to deceive himself, or pretend to deceive others; that after possessing himself of the Continent, and even of the states belonging to the family of his ally, that ally could not be accused of abandoning the continental system. While the French armies covered all Europe, how could the Russians be ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Andrew is a thief, a liar, a coward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, a hypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind is capable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not in the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his master, or anyone else; he honestly scorns the "carnal morality[58] as dowd and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule" of the sermon in the upper cathedral; and when wrapt in critical attention to the "real savor o' doctrine" ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... never be anything but dream and confusion. I do not know moreover whether in striving at a better connection of certain parts, one would not run the risk of detracting from the only merit to which so singular a production can pretend: that of giving a tolerably precise idea of the manner (genre) which it can merely indicate. This unpretending opening, this stir of passion, which first increases, and then gradually subsides, these transports of the soul, this sudden return upon himself, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a 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 ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... bought a locket with his portrait, which she is wearing on her neck. I have come to see whether the portraits so much in vogue are like him, and whether he is not only the bravest soldier, but, as the girls pretend, the finest-looking man. I will cheer so vigorously as to shake the statues on the arsenal. I suppose you have also come to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... a very different tone. He was surprised, he said, that any man could pretend to decide before he had even left the city, and while he was, of course, entirely ignorant, both of the condition of their own army, and of the position, and designs, and strength of the enemy, how soon and under ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... men, who were dressed as we have already seen them at the reception of the Persian embassy, behaved towards the women with a politeness that might almost be termed submissive. Among the latter few could pretend to remarkable beauty, though there were many bewitching almond-shaped eyes, whose loveliness was heightened by having their lids dyed with the eye-paint called "mestem." The majority wore their hair arranged in the same manner; the wealth of waving brown locks floated back over the shoulders and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hypocrites who pretend to hate life and love death Christianity had ceased to be the creed of the poor Great happiness, and mingled therefor with bitter sorrow He may talk about the soul—what he is after is the girl He ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bluntly. "Rifle shot is near enough. They might pretend to be friendly till they got to us. But ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... pursued Kelly. "He read out a list of the men told off to pretend to set fire to the car barns and start the riot—those ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... the things of familiar life, but also, with surprising vehemence, his hatred of generals who give blundering orders from comfortable billets in the rear, or of munitioners in England who keep optimistic in spite of bad news from the Front. He does not pretend to be quite fair in his criticisms, for obviously the higher command had to keep out of the firing-line and somebody had to work—and hard too—to supply the torrent of munitions demanded. Sir PHILIP admits all that, but in a kind of agony calls on God and man to realise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... been holding Mrs. Buxton's hand? Where were your manners? You are a little forward creature, and ever were. But don't pretend to know better than your elders. It is no use telling me Mrs. Buxton is ill, and she able to bear the ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... their boats, and it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs were not bull's-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fishermen. The police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly copied them in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed, we may have had some haunting thought of; and we had certainly an eye to past ages when lanterns were more common, and to certain story-books in which we had found them to figure very largely. But take it for all in all, the pleasure ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... smile arrested her. "My dear child, I don't pretend to apply the principles of logic to my poor ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... me," Andy said indifferently, though he secretly felt much relief. The roan would go off like a pet dog, and he could pretend to be somewhat surprised, and declare that he had reformed. Bad horses do reform, sometimes, as Andy and every other man in the crowd knew. Then there would be no more foolish speculation about the cayuse, and Andy could keep him in peace and have a mighty ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... outlaw? from a villain, love? If I have that power on thee, thou pretend'st, Go and pursue thy mischiefs, but presume not To follow me:—Come, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which led to his being entangled by you; and because he was too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth stopped. For the truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally at variance with one another: and hence, if a ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... is excellently put upon the stage. Miss Kemble, or somebody else, electrified the choruses; for, wonderful to relate, they condescended to act—to perform—to pretend to be what they are meant for! Never was so efficient, so well-disciplined, so unanimous a chorus heard or seen before on the English stage. The chorus-master deserves everybody's, and has our own, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the discomfiture of Baldassare, Vanna's gay looks found her out, and "Buon' giorno, La Testolina," came more cheerfully from her than it had come from her husband on the bridge. All the little woman could do was to squat upon the threshold at her friend's feet and pretend that she was ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... and thanksgiving—he was ever at hand, to cross-question, to insinuate, to surmise, to bluster, to interpret, to terrify, to perplex, to vociferate: surely, this paragon of learning and virtue must know more about the devil than any mere layman could pretend to know; and they must accept his assurance and guidance. "I stake my reputation," he shouted, "upon the truth of these accusations." And he pointedly prayed that the trial might "have a good issue." When Deliverance Hobbs was under examination, she did but cast a glance toward the meeting house, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... me to pretend to say how things were managed for us, for of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have piloted us to a tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let him go, and caught fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck there also, for what could my weak ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the country, and their influence abroad. When I saw that the constitution of the cabinet really hung on the disposition of that portfolio, I did not hesitate to say to Crispi that, while I could not pretend to any judgment as to the formation of the ministry at large, I could assure him that if there was to be a rehabilitation of the financial position of Italy abroad by his ministry, it could only be by the appointment of Sonnino ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Why should we pretend any more that the world is on the road to Perfection? Or that we want it to be? The world is in perpetual oscillation. Let us be thankful for every inspiring revelation of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... creator; that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch, therefore he must have had a creator. Then we come to God; He is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker, therefore He had no creator. There is a link out somewhere; I don't pretend to understand it. And so I say, that had the world been any other way, you would have seen the same evidence of design, precisely. We grow up with our conditions, and you cannot imagine of a first cause. Why? ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "She was always so strangely unreal to me, like an all too beautiful dream. Do you know she danced herself to death! But you must pretend to the child ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... meetings at the time of the Druids were held in the "cromlechs." M. de Cambry saw in the "swaying rocks" the emblems of the suspended world. The "barrows" and "gals-gals" have undoubtedly been tombs; and as for the "men-hirs," people went so far as to pretend that they had a form which led to the deduction that a certain cult reigned throughout lower Brittany. O chaste immodesty of science, you respect ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... these clubs are of short duration, but some of them have been in existence for years. Sometimes they are literary, sometimes purely social—but more often dramatic. In the dramatic club the children, starved for the brighter things of life—can pretend to their hearts' content, and their keen imagination can make it all vividly realistic for them. They choose their own plays, draw the parts, make their costumes and carry out their own conception of the different roles. Astonishingly ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... Oriental. Perhaps I'm prejudiced because I used to live in California, but I never trust a Japanese fully. His sense of right and wrong is so different from mine. Horikawa is a quiet little fellow whose thought processes I don't pretend to understand." ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... shall inquire what concessions have been from time to time made to Ireland, to take off what even the most rigorous asserters of a conqueror's title do pretend to. And herein we shall show by what degrees the English form of government, and the English statute laws, came to be received among us; and this shall appear to be wholly by the consent of the people and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... In this myth Spenser represents mind, Burghley matter. But there is no justification in facts for this tradition. It may be that the Lord Treasurer was not endowed with a high intellectual nature; but he was far too wise in his generation not to pretend a virtue if he had it not, when circumstances called for anything of the sort. When the Queen patronized literature, we may be sure Lord Burghley was too discreet to disparage and oppress it. Another ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... drive, sayest thou, Cousin Duke? Is there a man in the county who knows more of horse-flesh than myself? Who broke in the filly, that no one else dare mount, though your coachman did pretend that he had tamed her before I took her in hand; but anybody could see that he liedhe was a great liar, that Johnwhats that, a buck? Richard abandoned the horses, and ran to the spot where Marmaduke had thrown the deer, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... argument, Bob. You hate going to church and there's no use trying to pretend it is your dress ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... bright glance on the King; "You have seen me before! You have spoken to me. Then why do you pretend not to know me now? Is that Court manners? If so, they are ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... it. The Hindus do not repose confidence in a physician, unless he knows, or assumes to know, the proper mantra for the cure of any ailment. And this is the reason why European practitioners, who are not addicted to the use of spells, do not find favor among them. The medical men who pretend to be versed in occult lore, whether charlatans or magicians, are ready to furnish suitable mantras at short notice, whether for healing, for the recovery of stolen property, or for any other conceivable purpose.[60:1] The ethics of quackery are probably on the same plane everywhere; and ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... Father, and in all abasement beseech you to put to your hand, if it is possible, and impose a curb to those flatterers who are enemies of peace, while they pretend peace. But there is no reason, most blessed Father, why any one should assume that I am to utter a recantation, unless he prefers to involve the case in still greater confusion. Moreover, I cannot bear with laws for the interpretation of the word of God, since the word ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... very sorry for it," cries the doctor; "but I will talk to them then of honour and honesty; this is a language which I hope they will at least pretend to understand. Now to deny a man the preferment which he merits, and to give it to another man who doth not merit it, is a manifest act of injustice, and is consequently inconsistent with both honour and honesty. Nor is it only an act of injustice to the man himself, but to the public, ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... a very good King Richard," said Louise, when the matter was under discussion, "and we can pretend that he is just back from ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... quoth Robin Hood, "and such an one as is a credit to English yeomanrie. Now let us have a merry jest with him. We will forth as though we were common thieves and pretend to rob him of his honest gains. Then will we take him into the forest and give him a feast such as his stomach never held in all his life before. We will flood his throat with good canary and send him home with crowns in his purse ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... deeply by the events of the week. Gradually the truth was growing upon him that the pledge to do as Jesus would was working out a revolution in his parish and throughout the city. Every day added to the serious results of obedience to that pledge. Maxwell did not pretend to see the end. He was, in fact, only now at the very beginning of events that were destined to change the history of hundreds of families not only in Raymond but throughout the entire country. As he thought of Edward Norman and Rachel and Mr. Powers, and of the results that had already ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... doing here? He can't ride. I saw you, when you came out of the canon, so he isn't a new hand. And why did somebody answer your telephone for you, and pretend he had a cold so dad wouldn't know he was a stranger? Dad didn't, for that matter, but I knew, the very first words he spoke. And what are you up to, Johnny Jewel? You better tell me, because ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... fortunate for the world that one of M. Bergson's quality is forthcoming. He is too wise a man, he knows the history of human thought too well, he realizes too clearly the extent of the problem to pretend that his is the last word or that he has in his pocket the final solution of the puzzle of the universe and the one and only panacea for human distresses. But he has one of the most subtle and penetrating intellects acting in and upon ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Mr W—-, "either inform me directly who it was who stowed away the bottle aloft, or I pledge you my word you shall be discharged from his Majesty's service tomorrow morning. Don't pretend to say that you don't know—for ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... about these things. I don't know that anyone is. We can't help ourselves, and the best thing is to take our pleasures when we can find them. I suppose you'll be shocked at me, but I'm not going to pretend. I wasn't built that way. If this were a closed car I'd give ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... deserve to be called the "Father of His Country." From this consideration it is that he chose for the groundwork of his poem one empire destroyed, and another raised from the ruins of it. This was just the parallel. AEneas could not pretend to be Priam's heir in a lineal succession, for Anchises, the hero's father, was only of the second branch of the royal family, and Helenus, a son of Priam, was yet surviving, and might lawfully claim before him. It may be, Virgil mentions him on that account. Neither has he forgotten Priamus, in ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... to make our description as exact as possible, without presenting a vague statistical view of the whole kingdom, for the accuracy of which we would not pretend to answer, we confine our observations to the province of Attica, concerning which we have been able to obtain official information from all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Harry deliberately, "it really is time for a show-down. I wouldn't go away from Chicago at present, even for the wedding journey which we will pretend you were honestly offering us. I am going to stay and fight it out. You will have to stay ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... invented, and wonderful Inventions they are! Instruments for measuring the Heat, the Cold, the Weight, the Dryness, and the Humidity of the Air, with great Exactness, and upon these they reason as to the changes of Weather with great Accuracy and Certainty. It would undoubtedly be a great Folly to pretend to question either the Truth of their Observations, or the Usefulness of them: but then we may have leave to consider how far, and to how great a Degree they are useful. The Thermometer measures exactly the Degrees of Heat, ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... beating much faster than he could have imagined and I was grateful for the chance to pretend the road was taking ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... feelings: how could she unbosom herself to such as she! And now the thought of eyes like Jean's exploring Grizell's forsaken treasures, made her so indignant and restless that she could hardly even pretend to enjoy her ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... recipe? Any little girl can make them. Take a good many rose-leaves; put some sugar with them,—as much sugar as you can get; tie them up in paper, or in a good thick grape-leaf; lay them on a bench, and sit down on them hard several times: then they are done. Some epicures pretend that they must be buried in the ground, and left there for a week; but this takes time, and reasonable children will find them quite good enough without. These particular rose-cakes were the best Lota had ever made. The whole party, Greens and all, agreed ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... understood by the help of God's Spirit. And even with the help of God's Spirit we cannot any of us expect to understand all which they mean: we cannot expect to be as wise as St. Paul; for we must be as good as St. Paul before we can be as wise about goodness as he was. I do not pretend to understand all the text myself: no, not half, nor a tenth part of what it very likely means. But I do seem to myself to understand a little about it, by the help and blessing of God; and what little of it I do understand, I will try to make you ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... information of a plot against him, to be put to death. The other was that followed by Dion the Syracusan, who, to sound the intentions of one whom he suspected, arranged with Calippus, whom he trusted, to pretend to get up a conspiracy against him. Neither of these tyrants reaped any advantage from the course he followed. For the one discouraged informers and gave heart to those who were disposed to conspire, the other prepared an easy road to his own death, or rather was prime mover in a conspiracy against ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... staff of any of the Carlist columns to which I might attach myself. We had a long conversation, and Thieblin frankly informed me that in his opinion the Carlists had not the ghost of a chance outside their own territory. There they were cocks of the walk. What the end might be he could not pretend to vaticinate, but "El Pretendiente" would never reign in Madrid. The conflict might last for months—might last for years; but the Carlists owed the vitality they had as much to the divisions and inefficiency of their adversaries as to their own ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... where may this person come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... can conceive a supernatural Being, and what none can conceive, none ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. Who worships a something of which he knows nothing, is an idolater. To talk of, or bow down to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than nonsensical. Such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest hypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for labouring to destroy which, Atheists are called 'murderers of the human soul,' ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... were going to England. And if an extraordinary number of gens d'armes were stationed at the steamer, and they hesitated about letting my Uncle go on board, then about one hundred yards off I had two persons who were to pretend a quarrel and a fight, to which I knew the gens d'armes would all go as well as the crowd. In the meantime I hoped that as Captain Paul made no noise with his steam that the crowd would not assemble, and that we might find no gens d'armes. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do."(985) No mere impostures are here foretold. Men are deceived by the miracles which Satan's agents have power to do, not which they pretend to do. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... deal to say; and as I am not often taken that way, you must bear with me, for once. You know now something, at least, of what it means for a man and woman to live together, as we do. I warned you that I should prove a sorry bargain; and—take me or leave me—I cannot pretend that any amount of compromise will make me other than I am. You think me hard, narrow, conventional, in some respects, no doubt. But in a matter so vital conventional moralities go for nothing. I want the truth. If you believe, as I said, that art must stand first with ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... patterns, and both broke in my hands. In the end I managed to stop it with a handkerchief and a stick. I would suggest the elimination of all tourniquets, and the substitution of the humble pocket-handkerchief. It, at least, does not pretend to be what it is not. Between shock and loss of blood our soldier was pretty bad, and we did not lose much time in transferring him to our car on a stretcher. The Croix Rouge dressing-station was more than a mile farther on, established in ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... you not understand that you are only to pretend to go south? When you are well out of sight, then turn north, and make for the berg. You will ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... would have to be told. Mary was resolved that no matter what happened to her, her mother must be spared all anxiety. She would try to bear it. Marjorie should never know how deeply she was wounded. She would pretend that all was as it ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... expensive clothes." We cannot help sympathizing a little with Harriet. At the same time, she was making a breach with Shelley inevitable. She wished him to remain her husband and to pay for her bonnets, but she did not wish even to pretend to "live up to him" any longer. As Mr. Ingpen says, "it was love, not matrimony," for which Shelley yearned. "Marriage," Shelley had once written, echoing Godwin, "is hateful, detestable. A kind of ineffable, sickening disgust seizes my mind when I ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... to save himself; he had shown himself humble and timorous upon being approached, believing that it would still be possible to lie out of it. But the paper that he had tried to hide in his mouth was now in the hands of the enemy.... It was useless to pretend longer!... ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Harnack, The Gospel and Epistles all probably by By the 1897. the Presbyter John, who did not pretend Presbyter that they were by St. John, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... only time to get back to the fire and pretend to be busy with the dinner when the captain and Chris appeared ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the six legitimate plants are merely fully fertile. The standard for the long-styled form was deduced by counting the seeds in twenty-three capsules, and for the short-styled form from twenty-five capsules. I do not pretend that this is a sufficient number of capsules for absolute accuracy; but my experience has led me to believe that a very fair result may thus be gained. As, however, the maximum number observed in the twenty-five capsules of the short-styled form was low, the standard in this case may possibly ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... errors, nor the people of their prepossessions; not even on correcting the abuses which arise from this unenlightened belief, nor of doing away all the doubts which may be formed on apparitions; still less do I pretend to erect myself as a judge and censor of the works and sentiments of others, nor to distinguish myself, make myself a name, or divert myself, by spreading abroad dangerous doubts upon a subject which ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... scientific, biographical, business, healthfulness of localities, genuineness of antiquities, age and standing of individuals, purity of liquors or teas from sample, Bible items localized, china verified; in fact, anything you want to know we can tell you. Of course we don't pretend that we know all these things, but we know the people who do know, or who can find them out. By coming to us, and paying a small sum, the most valuable information, which it would take you years to find out, can be secured with certainty, and generally ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... on, Mr. Bunn!" said Mr. Pertell, quickly. "I am not asking you to do much. You need not get in the bog deeper than up to your knees. That will answer very well. You can pretend it is a sort of quicksand bog and that you are sinking deeper and deeper. You call for help, and Mr. Switzer ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... hopelessly at mass of papers on Clerk's table. Might probably be there. Perhaps not. Vote passed some days ago; desk cleared every morning. OLD MORALITY moved restlessly on bench; looked picture of despair. Best thing to do, not to take notice of question; pretend not to hear it; but House laughing and cheering; all eyes bent on him; no escape. So, rising, holding on to table, putting on most diplomatic manner, and speaking in solemn tones, OLD MORALITY said, "Mr. SPEAKER, Sir, it is no part of my duty to the QUEEN and country to convey to anybody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... comes a hush on nature; the sun arises with that innocent expression of countenance which causes some persons to fancy that it resembles Mr. GREELEY after shaving; and there is an evident desire on the part of the wind to pretend that it has not been up all night. Fallen chimnies, however, expose the airy fraud, and the clock blown completely out of Saint Cow's steeple reveals what a ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... rendered. I can assure my readers from my own experience, that to discover this very delicate line is difficult, and to proceed by it when found, through the whole length of a poet voluminous as HOMER, nearly impossible. I can only pretend to have endeavored it. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Billy Patten had helped Judge Breckenridge bring over the supplies, and now confronted Kit. "Don't pretend you're soft-hearted, ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... to do as he is Counselled, because the hurt of not following it, is his own; or if he should covenant to follow it, then is the Counsell turned into the nature of a Command. A third difference between them is, that no man can pretend a right to be of another mans Counsell; because he is not to pretend benefit by it to himselfe; but to demand right to Counsell another, argues a will to know his designes, or to gain some other Good to himselfe; which (as I said before) is of every ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... aims at. He escapes from every difficulty and danger, not only safely but with profit: Jehovah helps him, but above all he helps himself, without showing, as we should judge, any great scruple in his choice of means. The stories about him do not pretend to be moral, the feeling they betray is in fact that of undissembled joy in all the successful artifices and tricks of the patriarchal rogue. Of the subordinate figures Esau is drawn with some liking for him, then Laban, and the weak-kneed ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... had no turn for melodrama, history, or tragic matter of any kind. He wrote nearly a hundred novels, and I neither pretend to have read the whole of them, nor, if I had done so, should I feel justified in inflicting abstracts on my readers. As always happens in such cases, the feast he offers us is "pot-luck," but, as too seldom happens, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... correspondence was carried on. The old members of the band had art enough to persuade the doubtful rogues that they were the persons alluded to, and they believed it. Whether conscience had any thing to do with their belief or not, I do not pretend to say; but the community generally seemed quite ready to grant them that honour. It was very amusing to notice the difference between the conduct of the guilty and that of the innocent, in relation to the exposure. The ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... have induced the leaders to pause. That Fairfax laboured to postpone the execution, was always asserted by his friends; and we have evidence to prove that, though he was at Whitehall, he knew not, or at least pretend not to ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... Mr Cumbermede,' she returned in a similar tone, but with a sparkle in her eyes. 'I am greatly obliged to you. I cannot pretend to prefer old crossbones to the beautiful creature which gave me so much ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... PHIL. I do not pretend that warmth is as great a pleasure as heat is a pain. But, if you grant it to be even a small pleasure, it serves to ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... recommending peace.' They had formerly no notion of a devil, or evil being, in the Christian or Eastern sense of the term, but readily adopted, according to Loskiel, such a belief from the white people. They have among them preachers, who pretend to have received revelations, and who dispute and teach different opinions. Some pretend to have travelled near to the dwelling of God, or near enough to hear the cocks crow, and see the smoke of the chimneys in heaven; others declare that no one ever knew the dwelling-place ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... But I have seen you scratch yourself ever so deep and not so much as wink; and I mind that time when you twisted your ankle and you didn't even pretend ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... am afraid that he tried to form her mind. Kitty had a mind of her own, which did not want forming. Perhaps Percival Heron, was right when he said that Vivian was a prig. He certainly liked to lecture Kitty; and she used to look up at him with great, grave eyes when he was lecturing, and pretend to understand what he was saying. She very often did not understand a word; but Rupert never suspected that. He thought that Kitty was a very simple-minded ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... possession of the Ohio, and by G— they would do it; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking. They pretend to have an undoubted right to the river from a discovery made by one La Salle sixty years ago, and the rise of this expedition is to prevent our settling on the river or the waters of it, as they heard of some families moving out ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... drove him to this false mode of producing the false impression. If one only wants to feel virtuous, there are several royal roads to that end. But, fortunately, the end itself would be unsatisfactory if gained; while not one of these roads does more than pretend to lead even to ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Sir Frederick Donaldson of Woolwich Arsenal and Sir Percy Girouard are here to answer any question you may put to them on the business of the meeting. They can inform you on the technical side in a way that I can't pretend to. I can only ask you to help us. I know that appeal to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... it, my child. I'm not going to pretend to you that I don't understand the seriousness of the situation. The Army of the Potomac is behind McClellan to a man. It amounts to infatuation. I sounded his officers. I sounded his men. To-day they are against me and with him. ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... offering ridiculous exhortations for favors and forgiveness. You proffer insults to the Creator when you claim you can change His immutable plans by prayer; when you think he would take from one and give to another; when you pretend to communicate with Him; when you imagine He takes part in the silly squabbles of human beings; when you say that man was made in His image; when you take His ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... still seeking ducks. Arrived, the Canadians land, in order, in Bradford's behalf, to have the first chance; while the Judge and I, who pretend to no skill with the gun, remain awhile behind. The island had the shape described in our first paper: a gentle slope and rock-beach on one side,—a steep, broken, half-precipitous descent on the other. Landing presently, I went slowly along the slope,—slowly, for one's feet sank deep at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... talking to the pretend child who was his playmate and who had come there holding to the other handle of his cart and helping him ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... do not wish to appear over-bloodthirsty, or to pretend for one moment that war is a gigantic and continuous shambles. It is not. But the essence of war is man power, and the points are scored by putting men out of action, without being put out of action yourself. The idea may not be nice—but war is not nice: one may not approve of the sea being salt, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... old-fashioned irrational habits of my generation. But what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since it exists in my desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist. Perhaps you are laughing again? Laugh away; I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry. I know, anyway, that I will not be put off with a compromise, with a recurring zero, simply because it is consistent with the laws of nature and actually exists. I will not accept as the crown of my desires ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... school have brought the central ideas and the underlying spirit of this seventeenth century religious movement sufficiently into view. Their intimate connection with the currents of thought which preceded them has also been made adequately clear. This volume does not pretend to be exhaustive, and it cannot follow out all the interesting ramifications of the complicated historical development which I have been tracing. I have been compelled to limit myself to the presentation of typical specimens and examples of this continuously advancing spiritual movement which found ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... Now I will not pretend to say that Don Pepe occupied himself with me after the first kind greeting, nor that, my presence occasioned him either pleasure or surprise. My companion was a man after his own heart, and, at first sight, the two mounted their humanitarian hobbies, and rode them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... you be? You can do what you like! I can't pretend. I must say my say the best way I can. I may not get ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... minds inspired by the number of editions which evening papers pretend to publish and do not, incline to believe that daily papers may presently give place to hourly papers, each with the last news of the last sixty minutes photographically displayed. As a matter of fact no human being wants that, and very few are so foolish as to think ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... William the Testy for increasing the wealth of New Amsterdam. Solomon of whose character for wisdom the little governor was somewhat emulous, had made gold and silver as plenty as the stones in the streets of Jerusalem. William Kieft could not pretend to vie with him as to the precious metals, but he determined, as an equivalent, to flood the streets of New Amsterdam with Indian money. This was nothing more nor less than strings of beads wrought out of clams, periwinkles, and other shell-fish, and called seawant ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... up the cudgels on Elisabeth's behalf. "She mayn't be exactly handsome—I don't pretend as she is; but she has a wonderful way of dressing herself, and looking for all the world like a fashion-plate; and some men have ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... "The Professor at the Breakfast Table,"—a book in every way equal to the first one, though, to be sure, there are critics who pretend to see diminished power in the author's pen. It is, however, full of the same gentle humor and keen analyses of the follies and foibles of human kind. It is a trifle graver, though some of the characters belonging to "The Autocrat" come to the front again. It is in this book that we find that ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... clerks and drummers and ranchers, were hopelessly, stupidly dull, and Milly knew it. Their idea of entertainment was the theatre or lopping about the long steps, listening to her chatter. When they took her "buggy-riding," they might try clumsily to put their arms around her. She would pretend not to notice and lean forward slightly ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... girls are not supposed to talk about it like men do. Girls have to pretend they don't feel all wobbly and anyhow, because it's more fun for a man when a girl doesn't hurl ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... out of ten they will disagree in their diagnosis. Look at the quantities of tumours, swellings, and sores, which cannot be properly classified. These cures are based on the ignorance of the medical profession. The sick pretend, believe, that they suffer from such and such a desperate malady, whereas it is from some other malady that they are suffering. And so the legend forms itself. And, of course, there must be cures out of so large a number of cases. Nature often cures without ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a short time, and then galloped out of town. All this I saw; and the old woman in the potato-locker told me the general had been in the house a short time before we landed. Her account agreed with the appearance of the officer I saw; though I will not pretend to be certain it was ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... makes him but a prudish lover, who desires to woo less than to be wooed; and at all times and through all moods he remains the primeval sentimentalist. He will detach his life entirely from the catchwords which pretend to govern his actions; he will sit and croon the most heartrending ditties in celebration of home-life and a mother's love, and then set forth incontinently upon a well-planned errand of plunder. For all his artistry, he lacks balance as flagrantly as a popular politician or an advanced journalist. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... even pretend," cried the little poilu. "well, I too am a soldier. I am a soldier of France. It is nothing to me that I day to-day or to-morrow, or that my country knows when or how. Take me out and shoot me," he shouted, facing the commander. "I am but one poor soldier. I am one of millions. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the camp, put out the fire, every spark, and took the burro and horse trail, to the rescue again. We must pretend that this was only a little ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... "This is very foolish and dear of him, and I shall be compelled, in mere decency, to pretend to corresponding lunacies for the first month or so of our marriage. After that, I hope, we will settle down to some more reasonable way ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... to be incredible. But she saw it so plainly that she could not even pretend to herself that she was deceived by some unusual play of light or combination of ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... wild Canada goose I never before saw a bird who seemed to have the slightest trace of brain. I know, of course, it's not affection that causes him to trail me, answer his whistle, and obey when he doesn't wish to obey. It's training and habit. But I like to pretend that the old chap is a ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... can you think I mean that?—how can you pretend to think so?" cried the other, impatiently. "But after you have been treated so heartlessly, so unkindly,—and left, poor thing! they tell me, without a penny, without ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... ce qu'on dit d'etre une nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a Lecture on il avait existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient toutes les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir, dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir, et ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... her scornful eyes drift slowly over him. "I might pretend to misunderstand you. But I won't. You may have your answer now. I am not afraid of you, for since you are a bully you must be a coward. I saw a rattlesnake last week in the hills. It reminded me of some one I have seen. I'll leave you ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... hear that? Why, he ran into a bear, and made a drive at him with his axe, but the bear, with one paw knocked the axe clear out of his hand, and with one sweep of the other tore his insides right out. They're mighty cute, too," went on Don. "They'll pretend to be almost dead just to coax you near enough, and then they'll spin round on their hind legs like a rooster. If they ever do catch you, the only thing to do is to lie still and make believe you're dead, and then, unless they're very hungry, they ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... as you pretend?" Her voice was very soft and gentle, but she kept her head averted, also her foot was tapping nervously ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... who were dressed as we have already seen them at the reception of the Persian embassy, behaved towards the women with a politeness that might almost be termed submissive. Among the latter few could pretend to remarkable beauty, though there were many bewitching almond-shaped eyes, whose loveliness was heightened by having their lids dyed with the eye-paint called "mestem." The majority wore their hair arranged in the same ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "judge," it may be said that, in the matter of manners, Miss Mary North, palpitatingly anxious to be polite, told the truth. She said things that other people only thought. When Mrs. Willy King remarked that, though she did not pretend to be a good housekeeper, she had the backs of her pictures dusted every other day, Miss North, her chin trembling with shyness, said, with a ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... small Girl, which I thought was the honestest that ever I met with, but she has prov'd the veriest Jilt that e'er I had to do with, and Trick'd me out of a Gold Watch and Twenty Guineas. And then, said he, related all that I have told you; and bid me besure to have a care of them that wou'd pretend they were not mercenary, for they'll be trebly paid for what they do. But you, Madam, said he to me, look like a Gentlewoman above such shifts as those. If you respect me, Sir, said I, you have the Remedy in your own hands; ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... to the burial, in my memory, of our little dream of love! It was only my little fancy, Paul! I wanted to play at being constant that long to our dream. I wanted to wear my six-months' mourning for our still-born love. I thought it was only a little game of 'pretend' to you, Paul—why should it be anything else? But it was very real ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... they have undergone and the forgotten moral that lurks in them. But the interest of Dr. Trench and others like him sticks fast in words, it is almost wholly an aesthetic interest, and does not pretend to concern itself with the deeper problems of language, its origin, its comparative anatomy, its bearing upon the prehistoric condition of mankind and the relations of races, and its claim to a place among the natural sciences as an essential element in any attempt to reconstruct ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... to get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we are looking for them and can't find them!" ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... had understood what it meant. To Clarissa the thing was as certain as though she already heard the words spoken. With Patience even there was no doubt. Sir Thomas, though he had told nothing, did not pretend that the truth was to be hidden. He looked at his younger daughter sorrowfully, and laid his hand upon her head caressingly. With her there was no longer the possibility of retaining any secret, hardly the remembrance that there was a secret to retain. "Oh, papa," ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... in science and Planeteer techniques and he didn't pretend to know the ins and outs of interplanetary politics. Just the same, he couldn't help wondering about the strange relationship between the Consolidation of People's Governments and ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... personal views of one who knew, loved, and esteemed his junior that is already a classic; but who never was of the inner circle of his intimates. We shared, however, a common appreciation of his genius, for he was not so dull as to suppose, or so absurd as to pretend to suppose, that much of his work was not excellent. His tale "Thrawn Janet" "is good," he says in a letter, with less vigour than but with as much truth as Thackeray exclaiming "that's genius," when he describes Becky's admiration of Rawdon's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Do not imagine that this is not needed, this effort, and this power, by every human being who desires to be human in his love, and not something less than human. And to those to whom the need comes in its sternest form, I will not pretend for a moment that it is not hard. Nay, I will prophesy to you that if you do so choose to serve the world, it will to all of you sometimes seem too hard. With Christ, with St. Francis, your human nature will sometimes assert itself. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... he could have wished to the learning he tried patiently to impart; he wondered, indeed, if she were not unduly frivolous even for a child of six; for she would refuse to study unless she could have the doll she called Bishop Wright with her and pretend that she taught the lesson to him, finding him always stupid and loth to learn. He hoped for better things from her mind as she aged, watching anxiously for the buddings of reason and religion, praying daily that she should ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... There aren't many children up our way to play with and sometimes it gets lonesome. There's Lottie now! Cook must have found out that I knew what I was talking about. Here's your apron, Lottie; and say, I'm awful sorry I shook you. Will you pretend I didn't do it, and be friends ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... be read just as it is, not as it may pretend to be. It is not what we pretend to be, but what we really are, that will go down in the memory of others. Those who read our lives have a way of reading between the lines. We should strive not so much to make life holy as to be holy. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... defeat,—before he had had time to recover his (bad) temper, to arm himself for more fiery assaults to be followed by fresh overthrows,—declared that, in spite of the susceptibility of his friends, he himself was well satisfied with a criticism which "assigned to him nearly all the merit to which he could pretend," and in which, "for the first time in his literary life, he had seen himself discussed, appreciated, and valued without either the indulgences of friendship or the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the ball; but I soon got very weary of it, for every body was speaking to Madame C—— and to P—— C——, who never uttered a word with any meaning, but whenever I opened my lips people would pretend not to hear me. I invited a lady to dance a minuet; she accepted, but she looked constantly to the right or to the left, and seemed to consider me as a mere dancing machine. A quadrille was formed, but the thing was contrived ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... I were again a rich man, I should have sufficient voluntary exertion to take a due portion of mental and bodily exercise, I dare not pretend to determine, nor do I wish to be put to the trial. Desiring nothing in life but the continuance of the blessings I possess, I may here conclude my memoirs, by assuring my readers, that after a full experience of most of what are called the pleasures of life, I would not accept of all the Glenthorn ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... would also have a better chance. Yearly more are bred than can survive; the smallest grain in the balance, in the long run, must tell on which death shall fall, and which shall survive. Let this work of selection on the one hand, and death on the other, go on for a thousand generations, who will pretend to affirm that it would produce no effect, when we remember what, in a few years, Bakewell effected in cattle, and Western in sheep, by this identical ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... not trim details, nor soften the facts to humour my own amazement, nor try to explain the marvel that I do not pretend to understand. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the midst of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to fall fast asleep, to our ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to be considered more than as a capriccio, or sport of the fancy, on which he has expended much labour to little purpose. It does not pretend to anything like correctness of design, or continuity of action. It is like a picture of Breughel's, where every thing is highly coloured, and every thing out of order. In the first part, called the Economy of Vegetation, the Goddess of Botany appears with her attendants, the Powers ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... merit for the talents he possesses, and is it immodest of him to let others perceive by his conversation that he is quite aware he possesses them? Or, on the contrary, is not the fact that he is talented purely a piece of good fortune, and would it not be the merest humbug on his part to pretend to be blind to it? Again, if a man performs what is called a good deed, ought he to claim merit for that? Does not the performance of such a deed give one pleasure, and is not that pleasure the real end in view? ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... Journeys does not pretend to teach reading in the sense in which it is understood in the kindergarten and the early primary grades. Rather it begins to be of service as a reader only after the child has been taught how to read for himself. Children ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... round the streets, on the Surrey side of the water, wearing belts, like those worn by the fire brigade, on which passages from the Scriptures are painted, carrying with them an inkhorn and long sheets of paper, soliciting signatures to what they pretend to be a petition to Heaven, for the binding of Satan, the Prince of darkness. So eager are those persons to get the paper signed, that men, women, and children are stopped indiscriminately, and requested to sign. ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... person or thing that persuades God to be good to His children. There is nothing that influences Him. He is infinite—infinite mind, Katie, and infinite good. Oh, Katie, what awful things are taught in this world as truth! How little we know of the great God! And yet how much people pretend they know about Him! But if they only knew—really knew, as Jesus did—why, Katie, there wouldn't be an old person, or a sick or unhappy one in the whole world! Katie," after a little pause, "I know. And I'm ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... "You shall wash out your insolence in blood. But they will watch us; we must pretend to be friends ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... 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
... lessened my sympathy for you. Your fault has been very great, but so is your sense of compunction; and as far as suffering can expiate, surely you have done much to atone. My own knowledge of the character of the late Lord Hurdly was such that I cannot pretend to be greatly surprised at what you have told me concerning him. I regret to say it, but justice must be done to the living as well as to the dead. The present Lord Hurdly will prove, I trust and believe, an honor to the name. My intercourse with him has been comparatively limited, but no young ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... has seen you, it is often advisable to pretend that you have not seen him, or that you have other men with you by signaling ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... impulse to lie down again and pretend not to know, but he remembered that he was in the full confidence of them all, a trusted lieutenant, welcomed at any time, anywhere, and so remembering, he arose and walked on light foot to the place where Daganoweda stood talking with the others. The Mohawk chief gave ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... suppose, as your excellent father has done, that we were too much like brother and sister, to become lovers—too much accustomed to be dear to each other as children, to submit to passion? For that which I feel for you, Lucy, I do not pretend to dignify with the name of esteem, and respect, and affection—it is a passion, that will form the misery, or ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... too tenderly; and too much like yourself To mean a cruelty; which would make monstrous Your Sex: yet for the loves sake, which you once Pleas'd to pretend, give my griev'd Father leave To urge his own revenge; you have no cause For yours: keep peace ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... nature by pure reason. So we shall find also in the sequel that these categories refer only to beings as intelligences, and in them only to the relation of reason to the will; consequently, always only to the practical, and beyond this cannot pretend to any knowledge of these beings; and whatever other properties belonging to the theoretical representation of supersensible things may be brought into connexion with these categories, this is not to be reckoned as knowledge, but only as a right (in a practical point of view, however, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... never hope equality—wealth and station—the conventional distinctions to which, after all, a man of ordinary sense must sooner or later reconcile himself—but in that one respect wherein all, high and low, pretend to the same rights—rights which a man of moderate warmth of feeling can never willingly renounce—viz., a partner in a lot however obscure; a kind face by a hearth, no matter how mean it be! And his happier friend, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the word, papa, I found that I could not pretend to love him when I did not love him. I did not care for him,—and I liked somebody else so much better! I just told him the plain truth,—and so ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... have particular care that nothing falls from his mouth but what is full of the five qualities aforesaid, and that to see and to hear him, he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily because more men do judge by the eye than by the touch; for everybody sees, but few understand; everybody sees how you appear, but few know what in reality you are, and those few dare not oppose the opinion of the multitude ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... get papers somehow—something that would pass at any rate in the villages, where as often as not there is not a man who can read. I will see what I can do. A cousin of mine is clerk to the mayor. He is a good fellow, though he has to pretend to be a ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... by the hand through life. Now literature is sentimental, now hopefully humorous, now psychological, now new-womanly. Yesterday's pictures are the laughing-stock of the up-to- date artist of to-day, and to-day's art will be sneered at to-morrow. Now it is fashionable to be democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom can exist outside corduroy, and to abuse the middle classes. One season we go slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we are thinking; we are simply dressing ourselves ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
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