"Deceptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the truth, looked at him with a sort of horror. But the young man had again concentrated his attention on his plate. "How deceptive are appearances," thought Mr. Lavender; "one would say an intellectual, not to say a spiritual type, and yet he eats like a savage, and lies like a trooper!" And the pinchings of his hunger again attacking him, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not be on a bright, cloudless day that we enter Rome. To our northern eyes the rich Italian sun-light gives to everything, even to ruins and rags and squalor, a deceptive grandeur, and a beauty which is not due. No, the day shall be such a day as that on which I write; such a day in fact as the days are oftener than not at this dead season of the year, sunless and damp and dull. The sky above is covered with colourless, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... so—ewig—usque ad finem. . . ." The whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn—or was it, perchance, at the coming of the night? One had not the courage to decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls—over graves. His life had begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generous ideas; he had travelled very far, on various ways, on strange paths, and whatever he followed it ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... mind. But this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far as to make him master of matter; his ignorance leaves him a prey to all the illusions of gross matter, so soon as he comes into contact with it, and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe, being subject to the deceptive visions caused by gross matter—as a child, looking through a piece of blue glass, imagines all the outside world to be blue. The object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions, so that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... ground—tripping men with rifles in their hands make what appears to be a fearful clatter. By hypothesis it would seem impossible to surprise even a sleeping picket. But you have only to be on picket duty once to realise how full the night is of deceptive noises. In reality the advance was made with praiseworthy silence. Just as the top was reached, the Kaffir plucked Harvey's arm. His veldt-bred eyes could see that which was still obscured from the white man. "Near, near!" he whispered in the captain's ear. Harvey raised both ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... and accuracy of a machine which is set in motion by the turning of a crank, and goes on until it is stopped. This was the case on the present occasion, and Verty seemed as earnestly engaged in his own particular task. But appearances are deceptive—Indian nature will not take the curb like Anglo-Saxon—and a glance over Verty's shoulders will reveal the species of occupation which he became engaged in after finishing ten lines ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... facing it, the translation in very old French. The author, born A.D. 1058, described himself as "a poor student striving to discern the truth of things"—and his work was a serious, incisive, patiently exhaustive inquiry into the workings of nature, the capabilities of human intelligence, and the deceptive results of human reason. Reading it, Alwyn was astonished to find that nearly all the ethical propositions offered for the world's consideration to-day by the most learned and cultured minds, had been already advanced and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... is deceptive then," she answered; "no, Arthur, unjust as it may appear to you, as it most certainly does to me, my aunt is vexed and disappointed at what she chooses to consider my perverse inclinations; and though ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... written, one would naturally assume that the opposite of this was true, that the Republican party in that section was under the domination of northern "carpet baggers," a few worthless southern whites and a number of dishonest and incompetent colored men. This, no doubt, is the false, deceptive and misleading picture which had been painted from the vividness of his partial, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... is said to have been introduced into England as early as 1596. For a long period, it was very little used; and the peculiar, specific term, lycopersicum, derived from lykos, "wolf," and persicon, "a peach" (referring to the beautiful but deceptive appearance of the fruit), more than intimates the kind of estimation in ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... wander darkling, in good and bad company, among diviners, philosophers, saints, witches, charlatans, hypnotists. Many a heart has been broken, like that of Mr. Dale Owen, by the late discovery of life-long delusion, for we meet in Cock Lane, as Porphyry says, [Greek]. Yet this 'deceptive race' has had its stroke in the making of creeds, and has played its part in human history, while it contributes not a little to human amusement. Meanwhile, of all wanderers in Cock Lane, none is more beguiled than sturdy Common-sense, if an explanation ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... that the deceptive bidder at times succeeds in duping some confiding or inexperienced adversary and thereby achieves a temporary triumph of which he loves to boast. For every such coup, however, he loses many conventional opportunities, frequently gets into trouble, and keeps his partner in a continual ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... The same deceptive appearance of concord between King and Pope (p. 298) was employed to lull both Parliament and Convocation. The delays in the divorce suit disheartened Catherine's adherents. The Pope, wrote Chapuys, would lose his authority little ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Bronte electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a 'bal masque.' She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... and in parliament. 'Meantime I am here scribbling on in my hermitage, never seeing anybody but for some special reason, always bearing relation to the service of mankind.'[299] Making all due allowance for the deceptive views of the outer world which haunt every 'hermitage,' it remains true that Bentham's fame ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... July, my colleagues and I at Berlin did not live in a fool's paradise. As the deceptive calm caused by Vienna's silence was prolonged, a latent, ill-defined uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from anticipating that in the space of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... are mighty deceptive in the darkness," explained Ned. "It is very easy to be mistaken on a little ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... names in -ward and -herd are rather deceptive. Hayward means hedge[138] guard. Howard is phonetically the Old French name Huard, but also often represents Hayward, Hereward, and the local Haworth, Howarth. For the social elevation of the sty-ward, see p. 90. Durward ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... it is present, it is almost impossible to doubt its truth. But if it should appear, on examination, to be at least as fallible as intellect, its greater subjective certainty becomes a demerit, making it only the more irresistibly deceptive. Apart from self-knowledge, one of the most notable examples of intuition is the knowledge people believe themselves to possess of those with whom they are in love: the wall between different personalities seems to become transparent, and people think they see ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... darling, and lie down on the couch while I finish Lucy's packing," said Virginia, when she had sent the servant downstairs to pay the cabman. Her soul was in her eyes while she watched Jenny remove her plain felt hat, with its bit of blue scarf around the crown—a piece of millinery which presented a deceptive appearance of inexpensiveness—and pass the comb through the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... no call on you to say anything about the matter, at all events at present," whispered the evil spirit in the young man's heart. "You may be mistaken. Why ruin your whole future prospects for a fancy? Likenesses are so deceptive; and as to the necklace, pooh! that is nonsense—there are hundreds of mosaic necklaces. Let the matter alone, and go your way. 'Eat, drink, ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... there, commented on the many crowded open public meetings in favour of the North as compared with the two pro-Southern ones in London, slimly and privately attended[1123]. Jefferson Davis, in addressing the Confederate Congress, December 7, was bitter upon the "unfair and deceptive conduct" of England[1124]. Adams, by mid-December, 1863, was sure that previous British confidence in the ultimate success of the South was ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... greatest human exponent of human nature at its best and worst,—the profound Thinker and Artist who dealt boldly with the facts of good and evil as they truly are,—and did not hesitate to contrast them forcibly, without any of the deceptive 'half-tones' of vice and virtue which are the chief stock-in-trade of such modern authors as we may ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... the Saint Bartholomew Massacre, his bigoted mother, infuriated with sectarian hate, whispered in his ear, "Clemency is sometimes cruelty, and cruelty clemency,"—and the fatal decree was sealed. But such instances are exceptional, and partly deceptive, too. Man is usually governed by his own passions, his own circumstances, or his own reason, not by any verbal propositions. And when an apt and timely adage seems to determine him, it is, for the most part, because it acts upon responsive feelings preexistent in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... boys, do you flatter yourself that it is a trifling thing to do wrong, "only this once?" If so, stop and consider, how often not only the young but those of mature years yield to this deceptive and alluring thought and take the first steps in a career of sin, when, could they but see the end of the path which they are so thoughtlessly entering, they would shudder with horror. They do not realize ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... red-fire and crackers have become absolutely essential to harmony. Acting upon this principle, Signor Venafra gave (we admire the term) a fancy dress ball at Drury-lane Theatre on Monday evening last, upon a plan hitherto unknown in England, but possibly, like the majority of deceptive delusions now so popular, of continental origin. The whole of the evening's entertainment took place in cabs and hackney-coaches, and those vehicles performed several perfectly new and intricate figures in Brydges-street, and the other thoroughfares ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... what he intends, to enable you to supply the rest of the idea yourself, providing always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like. But in this drawing of the falls of Terni,[125] the painter has strained his skill to the utmost to give an actually deceptive resemblance of the iris, dawning and fading among the foam. So far as he has not actually deceived you, it is not because he would not have done so if he could; but only because his colours and science have fallen short of his desire. They have fallen so little short that, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... close of the session of 1847 to the opening of that of 1848 they kept France in a state of constant fever—an artificial and deceptive fever in this sense, that it was not the natural and spontaneous result of the actual wishes and wants of the country; but true and serious in this sense, that the political parties who took the initiative in it found among some ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... mothers seek other remedies for their delicate children; only perhaps a few of the elder folk fondly nurse a memory and a belief in the powers of St. Cubert's Well. Yet the spring flows on, heedless of its neglect as it was heedless of its worship; it is only the false, the fantastic, the deceptive that have passed—the truth, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... appeals to the aesthetic sense about this hypothesis of an "over-soul" from whose universal being the ideas of beauty and truth and goodness may be supposed to proceed. It is a clumsy and crude speculation, easy to be grasped by the superficial mind, and with an air of profundity which is entirely deceptive. ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... horses faster. Finally they reached the summit of the slope. From that height they saw down into a round, shallow valley, which led on, like all the deceptive reaches, to the ranges. There was water down there. It glinted like red ribbon in the sunlight. Not a living thing was in sight. Joan grew more discouraged. It seemed there was scarcely any hope of overtaking Jim that ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... a worse stumbling-block in aesthetics, delusive and deceptive, casting a veil of borrowed splendour and sham beauty over everything? They sang of "The Knights' Vigil of Light." What knights' vigil? With patents of nobility and students' certificates; false testimonials, as they might have told themselves. Of light? ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... nothing but what chance sends me, I have comforts, and in my way I enjoy them, that is all I want. Let me give you now one word of advice; live, act, and die, independently of every other person and circumstance but yourself and your own immediate concerns, for the mask of life is very deceptive, and we are not always strong enough to bear the stroke when ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... sharks rose towards it, another coming up soon after in its train; and then Jake kept continually shifting the rope round that portion of the taffrail of the poop which was above the sea, the sharks following in chase of the deceptive bait until he had lured them round to the inside part of the ship to join the one who was ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Plymouth lies. Over Mount Washington and across the Androscoggin Valley it flew at the rate of fifty miles an hour. At six o'clock Lake Umbagog was floating beneath our adventurers, and before they realized their danger—so deceptive are time and space when reckoned from balloons—night surprised them in the great Maine wilderness. The alternative was between a descent in a trackless forest a hundred miles from human habitation, with scant provisions and no firearms or fishing-tackle, and an all-night ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... words. Even worse, abstract terms, which from century to century have become more abstract and therefore further removed from experience, more difficult to understand, less adaptable and more deceptive, especially in all that relates to human life and society. Here, due to the growth of government, to the multiplication of services, to the entanglement of interests, the object, indefinitely enlarged and complex, now eludes our grasp. Our vague, incomplete, incorrect ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the "Saga of Eric the Red," the only doubtful part of which is the "uniped" episode, a touch of mediaeval superstition so palpable as not to be deceptive. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... white hair grow long, and it hung down over his brows in unparted locks as the ancient Greeks wore their hair. He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the deep-set eyes under them gleamed from the shadow with a fierceness which was rather deceptive but none the less intimidating. He had a great beak of a nose, but the mouth below could not be seen. It was hidden by the mustache and the enormous square beard. His face was colorless, almost as white as hair and beard; there seemed to be no shadow or tint anywhere except the cavernous ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... unwarranted, not following; inconsequent, inconsequential; inconsistent; absonous|, absonant[obs3]; unscientific; untenable, inconclusive, incorrect; fallacious, fallible; groundless, unproved; non sequitur[Latin: it does not follow]. deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum[Lat], evasive; irrelevant &c. 10. weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague. irrational; nonsensical &c. (absurd) 497. foolish &c. (imbecile) 499; frivolous, pettifogging, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... said Lethal, with a deceptive innocence of manner, "whether aristocracy itself be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... "take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, in whorls, in tufts, in wreaths, in spires, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from footstalks to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our wonder." Doubtless light is the factor with the greatest effect in determining the position of the leaves on the stem, if not their shape. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... forced to make. There was but a single hope—a single chance—and I took it. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took careful aim. It was a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed to it, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work. There is, though, something about marksmanship which is quite beyond ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the crippled girl so much, she even drew away from caresses. Every thing was to go on as it had been before she had known Edward; and so it did, outwardly; but they trod carefully, as if the ground on which they moved was hollow—deceptive. There was no more careless ease; every word was guarded, and every action planned. It was a dreary life to both. Once, Eleanor brought in a little baby, a neighbor's child, to try and tempt Nest out of herself, by her old love of children. Nest's pale face ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the glowing embers of a fire with a man stretched before it, seemed very small and as if lost in the pale green iridescence reflected from the ground. On three sides of the clearing, appearing very far away in the deceptive light, the big trees of the forest, lashed together with manifold bonds by a mass of tangled creepers, looked down at the growing young life at their feet with the sombre resignation of giants that had lost faith in their strength. And in the ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... of England fell and involved a number of others in its fall. All exchanges and markets—of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, as far as St. Petersburg, New York and Calcutta—shook and trembled. It had again been shown that the profoundest calculations prove deceptive, and that capitalist society cannot ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... him. It would be hard to see a horse there, unless he got high enough to be silhouetted against that line of fire now flaring to the sky. But he heard the beat of hoofs, swift, sharp, louder—louder. The night shadows were deceptive. That wonderful light confused him, made the place unreal. Was he dreaming? Or had the long chase and his privations unhinged his mind? He reached for Nagger. No! The big black was real, alive, quivering, pounding the sand. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... pin's point," said Bonpre smiling, as he walked slowly across the room still leaning on the Abbe's arm. "We can reduce our very selves to the bodiless condition of a dream if we take sufficient pains first to advance a theory, and then to wear it threadbare. Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning,—nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call 'logic.' The truest compass of life ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, indeed, to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... grace and ease. The wonderful symmetry of his form took away apparently from his size; but on looking at and examining him closely, you felt surprised at the astonishing fulness of his proportions and the prodigious muscular power which lay under such deceptive elegance. As for his features, they were replete with that manly expression which changes with, and becomes a candid exponent of, every feeling that influences the heart. His mouth was fine, and his full red lips exquisitely chiselled; his chin was full of firmness; and his large ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... might have arranged to get him into the hospital because it was his only chance, but the rest of the story, such as it was, might be a pure invention; and when Marcello was discharged cured, they would disappear together. There was the coincidence of the baptismal name, but men of science know how deceptive coincidences can be. Besides, the girl was very intelligent. She might easily have heard about the real Marcello's disappearance, and she was clever enough to have given her lover the name in the hope that he might be taken for the lost boy at least long enough to ensure him a great ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... hide, for one thing, is too thick to pierce with an average slash or nip: And the pig is too close to earth and too well-balanced by build and weight, to be overturned: And the tushes and forefeet can move with deceptive quickness. Also, back of the red-rimmed little eyes flickers the redder spirit ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... more dan I can tell. It look to my eye like a whale; but I cannot see its head or its tail,—and whales got both, unless dey are cut off." Nub, in fact, was greatly puzzled at the appearance of the seeming island. He did not take into consideration the deceptive effect produced by the light mist which pervaded the air, making objects seen through it magnified and distorted, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... inquire the reason; when they found me, apparently, castigating myself in this cruel manner. When they opened the door, I threw myself on the bed, and cried still more vociferously. This certainly was the only part of my conduct which was not deceptive, for I was in the most acute agony. To their inquiries, I told them that I had been guilty of great enormities; that the superior had reproved me, and ordered me penance; and that I had scourged myself with nettles; requesting them to continue ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for leaving the Luxembourg having arrived, Bonaparte still used many deceptive precautions. The day filed for the translation of the seat of government was the 30th Pluviose, the previous day having been selected for publishing the account of the votes taken for the acceptance of the new Constitution. He had, besides, caused the insertion in the 'Moniteur' of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... well the secret of your heart, and submit Felipe to those ingenious devices of ours for testing a lover's metal. Above all, make trial of your own love, for this is even more important. It is so easy to be misled by the deceptive glamour of novelty and passion, and ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... but to go down to the water and get into the boat, after Billy Waters had taken bearings, as he called it, of the place where the young officer had left them, setting up stones for marks,—which, however, through the deceptive nature and similarity of the coast in one part to another, were above half a mile from the true spot,—and suffer ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... apparently suffered extremely, being sometimes semi-conscious, and scarcely breathing for hours. We suspected the cause of these peculiar manifestations at the outset, but every suggestion of the possibility of the suspected cause was met with a stout denial and a very deceptive appearance of innocent ignorance on the subject. All treatment was unavailing to check the disease. Though sometimes the symptoms seemed to be controlled, a speedy relapse occurred, so that no progress toward ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Generally speaking, his days and years were passed in a moody inactivity, now at Oulton, then at Yarmouth, next in London, finally at Oulton again, where he "died, as he had lived, alone" on July 26, 1881. It seemed for the time as if he had outlived his reputation. Appearances are proverbially deceptive. ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... heart. Where did you get the pluck to hold for over a year a job that few men would have taken at all? You got it from a plucky mother, you bravest of boys. You attacked single-handed a man almost twice your size, and fought as a demon, merely at the suggestion that you be deceptive and dishonest. Could your mother or your father have been untruthful? Here you are, so hungry and starved that you are dying for love. Where did you get all that capacity for loving? You didn't inherit it from hardened, ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... without dismay. Spadevil's image-like clearness of form had departed for him; his frowning face he knew to be the deceptive portico of a ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... United States, including the editors of some of our leading dailies, seem to think that the remnant of the Socialist Party is not at all a Bolshevist organization and not at all revolutionary in character. They are very much deceived, having let the crafty, deceptive, hypocritical leaders of the Right Wing fool them badly. The Left Wingers have indeed been much more open in admitting their intentions to overthrow our government by force of arms. They are dangerous, but perhaps not nearly so much so as the slippery "Yellows," cunning ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... The deceptive green of occasional palo-verde bushes now gave place to the columns of the giant sahuaro. The fluted, leafless stems of these high-towering cactus candelabras bristled with fierce thorns, yet each was crowned with the glory ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... contributed to diminish its number; so much indeed, that, in point of population, the city of San Antonio de Bejar, with its bishopric and wealthy missions, has fallen to the rank of a small English village. It still carries on a considerable trade, but its appearance of prosperity is deceptive; and I would caution emigrants not to be deceived by the Texian accounts of the place. Immense profits have been made, to be sure; but now even the Mexican smugglers and banditti are beginning to be disgusted with the universal want of ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... gave me some most practical homilies on contentment. Having found and duly salvaged that log, it was necessary to cut it up; and then I began to be thankful that pit-sawing was not forced upon me as a profession in the days of inexperienced youth. Pit-sawing is deceptive. It has the appearance of being easy, though not genteel, when others are the toilers, and in the red dust, torn by the polished steel teeth from out the heart of the dull log, do you not "inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter through ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Dawson family sufficient time to reach their home, and to recover the power of speech, and then walked gravely to the door as if I had just arrived. One becomes contagiously deceptive in the vicinity ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... pardon, Mr. Bramshaw," and the girl made him a slight graceful bow, "I really forgot that you are an artist. Appearances are so deceptive, you know. I shall leave you now to carry on your imbibing process. Perhaps Miss Sinclair will come with me, so that you can have the imbibing time all to yourself. It would be a pity to spoil your ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... hill which guarded the deceptive hollow, Robert Grant Burns grinned over his shoulder at his character-woman. "Wait till we start back; I'll know the road then, and we'll do some traveling!" he promised darkly, and laid his toe ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... tale of his painting a bunch of grapes so like reality that the birds came to peck at them proves either that the painter's motive was deception, or that the narrator of the tale picked out the deceptive part of his picture for admiration. He painted many subjects, like Helen, Penelope, and many genre pieces on panel. Quintilian says he originated light-and-shade, an achievement credited by Plutarch to Apollodorus. It is probable that ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... set up a mere sham, and pretend to rebuild a State on the basis of inconsiderable numbers, against even the disloyal sentiments of the great body of the people, would be unwise and unavailing. Such a reconstruction would be hollow and deceptive, a danger and a snare, forever threatening ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... us, but it was only a deceptive gleam of sunshine before the coming storm of adversity. I built an addition to my dwelling; and when it was completed I employed a paperhanger from London named Taylor, to beautify the old rooms. He was of a talkative disposition; when he had nobody ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... afternoon, Abbott stared moodily at the weather-tarnished group by Dalou in the Luxembourg gardens—the Triumph of Silenus. His gaze was deceptive, for the rollicking old bibulous scoundrel had not stirred his critical sense nor impressed the delicate films of thought. He was looking through the bronze, into the far-away things. He sat on his own folding stool, which ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy we were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... who are the "theorists," if by "theorists" is meant the constructors of elaborate and deceptive theorems in this matter. It is our opponents, the military mystics, who persistently shut their eyes to the great outstanding facts of history and of our time. And these fantastic theories are generally justified ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... in business or in pleading, /2/ means one individual thing, and no other, as every one knows, and therefore one to whom such a name is used must find out at his peril what the object designated is. If there are no circumstances which make the use deceptive on either side, each is entitled to insist on the [310] meaning favorable to him for the word as used by him, and neither is entitled to insist on that meaning for the word as used by the other. So far from mistake having been the ground ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... the nations exhorted to a serious examination of the question—and there the matter rested. We have reached now an insufferable stage where effective action must be taken. Let us hear no more that deceptive catch phrase, "If you want peace prepare for war." When bad blood is likely to arise between individuals the very worst policy to pursue is to furnish them with weapons. And so it is with nations. Consider, if you will, the neck-and-neck race between Great Britain and the German Empire in the ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... always praised, and always treated with respect and attention. The consideration which many purchase by living beyond their income, and of course living upon others, is not worth the trouble it costs. The glare there is about this false and wicked parade is deceptive; it does not in fact procure a man valuable friends, or extensive influence. More than that, it is wrong—morally wrong, so far as the individual is concerned; and injurious beyond calculation to the interests of our country. To what are the increasing beggary and discouraged exertions ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... free people is the preservation of their liberty, and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just division of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretense of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... churchyard for the infant's grave which Lily's pious care had bordered with votive flowers. Yes, in that direction there was still a gleam of colour; could it be of flowers in that biting winter time?—the moon is so deceptive, it silvers into the hue of the jessamines the green ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... How are we to do away with the danger of illusion? The proof will in this case result from a criticism of adverse theories, along with direct observation of psychological reality freed from the deceptive forms which warp the common perception of it. And it will here be an easy task to resume Mr Bergson's ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... about me, I found that many of these charges against the negro were true. The black man was deceptive, and he was often dishonest. There can be no effect without a cause, and the reasons for this deception and dishonesty were apparent, without difficult research. The system of slavery necessitated a constant struggle between the slave and his overseer. ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... the contents consisted of three family parties—exclusive of the honeymoon couple—and that the appearance of universal fraternity was deceptive, that the parties were exclusive, the conversation of each being ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... married when he was comatose from the effects of a stand-up fight with Mohawks; his name might be assumed by some sportive Benedick of his acquaintance given to practical joking, and he might find himself saddled with a wife he never saw; or if, on the other hand, of an artful and deceptive turn, he might procure a certificate of a marriage that had never taken place,—for there were very few friendly offices which the Fleet parsons refused to perform ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... pale and wholly untanned, were rather wonderful for a countryman, and that the eyes were those of a foreigner; his great swiftness, too, gave me a distinct sensation—something almost of a start—though I knew my vision was at fault at the best of times, and of course especially so in the deceptive twilight of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... the prophecies, the more enlightened elements of society began to scoff at the priests, who were temporarily demoralized, but true to their deceptive instincts, soon rallying with the plea of a mistake having been made in the calculations based upon the prophecies, they undoubtedly concocted scripture to meet that very emergency, for, to the taunts of the scoffers who, in reference to ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... a thousand years," asserted Jack confidently, turning to look back as he spoke. "Why, even now I can't discover a sign of the wings, or anything else in the misty moonlight, it's so deceptive. Only that lone tree standing close to where we dropped tells me ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... dark. You will in doing this find that you cannot get the projection of things sufficiently shown; but never mind that; there is no need that they should appear to project, but great need that their relations of shade to each other should be preserved. All deceptive projection is obtained by partial exaggeration of shadow; and whenever you see it, you may be sure the drawing is more or less bad: a thoroughly fine drawing or painting will always show a slight tendency ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... mark off the last century and a half from all former industrial epochs. The position of central importance thus assigned to machinery as a factor in industrial evolution may be—to some extent must be—deceptive, but in bringing scientific analysis to bear upon phenomena so complex and so imperfectly explored, it is essential to select some single clearly appreciable standpoint, even at the risk of failing to present the full complexity of forces in their ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... betray the existence of man. The stream was fringed with tall bushes, or glided along sloping banks, so that nothing obstructed the view of the low range of hills which closed the eastern end of the valley. With their grotesque shapes, and their outlines lost in a deceptive haze, they brought to mind giant animals, worthy of antediluvian times. They might have been a herd of enormous whales, suddenly turned to stone. These disrupted masses proclaimed their essentially volcanic character. New Zealand is, in ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... the innumerable other ways she accomplished her sad journey? For an instant, whilst Sidney was still speaking, she caught a gleam of hope in renunciation itself, the kind of strength which idealism is fond of attributing to noble natures. A gleam only, and deceptive; she knew it too well after the day spent by her grandfather's side, encouraging, at the expense of her heart's blood, all his revived faith in her. But she would not again give way. The old man should reap fruit of her ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... through the rice-field. All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there, always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes, looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible. But now, his liberated eyes stayed on ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... as rapidly as possible toward the ancestral home of their enemies. It was a night perfectly suited to what they had to do, for the moon was full, the fleeting clouds hiding it from time to time and casting deceptive shadows. ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a rich, and undefended planet in a warring, hating galaxy. Things can be deceptive though; children playing can be quite ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... see the deceptive character of those alluring words. Cain had been admonished by his father with divine authority to guard against sin in the future, and to expect pardon for that of the past. But Cain despises the twofold admonition, and indulges his sin, as all the wicked do. For true is the saying ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool, balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all, like sea groves and mosses ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... glaringly apparent. Not a rag to cover them from the discerning eye. And what a veil has fallen between us and the years of our offending. There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities. How loud and shrill the voice of the girl at our elbow. How soft the voice which from the far past breathes its gentle echo in our ears. How bouncing the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... you're going to judge everybody by their outward appearance," she said, "you certainly might feel inclined to say that he wasn't a gentleman. But outward appearances always seem to me so terribly deceptive. I should never let myself be led away ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... not be the artist he is if he were less deceptive. He has his problems no less than Ibsen had, and he is much preoccupied with them even when he appears lost in ribald laughter. They are different from Ibsen's, however, and in that difference lies one of the chief ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... Distance also is deceptive and cannot be estimated as under other skies. The far-off mountains are brought near and made to glow in a halo of mellow light. Manifold ocular illusions appear in the mirage and deceive the uninitiated. An indefinable dreamy something steals over the ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... way to eat a melon is unquestionably with a little salt, but melons are very deceptive, they may look delicious, but from growing in the same field with squashes and other vegetables they often taste insipid. Such may be made quite palatable in salads. Cut the melon into strips; then remove the skin; cut the eatable part into ...
— Fifty Salads • Thomas Jefferson Murrey
... whose forgiveness I still pray,) will I again forget my obligation to you! I care not how high in station he who seeks me may be. Ambitious!—I was misled. His money lured me away, but he betrayed me in the face of his promises. Henceforth I have nothing for this deceptive world; I receive of it ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Ghyrkins. I dropped over the edge of the howdah and made for the spot, running. I think I reflected as I ran that it was rather low for men to bet on the poor fellow's life in that way. Tigers are often very deceptive and always die hard, and I am a cautious person, so when I was near I pulled out my long army six-shooter, and, going witihin arm's length, quietly put a bullet through the beast's eye as a matter of safety. When he was cut up, however, the ball from the rifle of Mr. Ghyrkins was ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Insubstantial and deceptive as was this inner world of his, to him it must have been much more real than the world of flitting physical shapes about him. He would fix you keenly with his attention, but you realized, at last, that he was placing you and seeing you not as a part of the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... does not readily admit of depression, and the disorder of George Morton was one of all others the most flattering when near its close. Even the more mature experience of his parents was misled by the deceptive symptoms that his complaint assumed in the commencement of summer. They who so fondly hoped the result, began to believe that youth and the bland airs of June were overcoming the inexorable enemy. That the strength ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... calculated to shew that the zeal of his friends had, by perverting the conversation of Ketchum &c. aided in procuring his nomination. And when he expresses a desire to consult his friends; an answer is ready, emanating from the same false and deceptive source. Thus are the most shameful arts employed to destroy his confidence in those friends, and induce in him a reluctance under all the circumstances (as the first judge expresses it) against being a candidate—You thus see their rotten certificate made ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... artless in its dark creases. The blue of innocence was in his eyes, and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair, falling naturally like that of the Christ in art, added to his ecstatic air a certain solemnity which was absolutely deceptive as to his real nature; for he was capable of committing any silliness with the most exemplary gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... transverse section be made, the form of the cut surface would be more or less like that of the figure 8[Symbol: 8 turned 90 deg.], although in old stems this may give place to an elliptical outline, but even then traces of two medullary canals may be found. This argument is very deceptive, for the appearance of the transverse section must depend, not only on the intimacy of their union, but also on the internal structure of the stems themselves. When two flowers cohere without much pressure they exhibit uniting circles somewhat resembling the ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... sculptor, from the beginning of art to the end of it, has ever carved, or ever will, a deceptive drapery. He has neither time nor will to do it. His mason's lad may do that if he likes. A man who can carve a limb or a face never finishes inferior parts, but either with a hasty and scornful chisel, or with such grave and strict selection of their lines as you know at ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... deceptive subject. He had the air of curiosity and gaiety of other terriers. He saw no sense at all in keeping still, with his muzzle tipped up or down, and his tail held just so. He brushed all that unreasonable man's suggestions aside as quite unworthy of consideration. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... itself the will to live as a definitely determined individual. In this case the instinct of sex very cleverly wears the mask of objective admiration, although in itself it is a subjective necessity, and is, thereby, deceptive. Nature needs these stratagems in order to accomplish her ends. The purpose of every man in love, however objective and sublime his admiration may appear to be, is to beget a being of a definite nature, and that this is so, is verified by the fact that it is not mutual love but possession ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Bertrand explained to the Elder all that had transpired. "It seemed best to Mary and me that you should look the ground over yourself, before any action be taken. We hoped appearances might be deceptive, and that you would have information that would set our fears at rest before news of a mystery should reach ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... baptism be more plainly recorded? This occurred some eight years after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. To teach the abolition of this ordinance at the cross, in the face of these plainly stated instances of baptism, only proves to us the blinding and deceptive power of ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... moaning of the wind; he explained the absolute necessity (for salvation) of certain beliefs and written sentences, and ceremonials in the Church. Love was not the way. Love was emotion, emotion was deceptive: the mind, and severe firm attention to the dictates of The Church was what was required; in fact, he unfolded before me the Ecclesiastical Mind. I shrank back from it, dismayed, frightened. Were all the deep needs ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... much to look at, gentlemen," said Obed, "but looks is deceptive, as my old grandmother used to tell me. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' and this 'ere hole's done the handsome thing for me and my partners, and I venture to say it hasn't got through doin' handsome things. It's made three of us rich, and it's ready to make somebody else ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... and continues so up to the skirts of the hills, which are at least 4 or 5 Miles inland. The whole face of the Country appears barren, nor did we see any signs of inhabitants.* (* This is a little south of Timaru, a rising town in a fertile district; so deceptive is appearance from the sea.) Latitude at Noon 44 degrees 44 minutes South; Longitude made from Banks' Island to this land 2 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... a manifesto of their free and moderate opinions, which was very excellent. The document was very deceptive, and designed to gain support in England and France. One of the false promises of the manifesto was the entire freedom of religion; one of the first acts of the Sicilians in their short-lived power was a rigorous establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, and this was enacted in terms which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a very deceptive disease, the nerves alone being affected; the humours and coverings of the eye remaining perfectly transparent and natural, imposes upon the inexperienced observer, but is easily detected by those who have witnessed the disease in others. There ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... natives who have had little communication with Europeans would be of course the most valuable, though those made on any natives would be of much interest to me. General remarks on expression are of comparatively little value; and memory is so deceptive that I earnestly beg it may not be trusted. A definite description of the countenance under any emotion or frame of mind, with a statement of the circumstances under which it occurred, would possess ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... salt sea snakes is distinguished by its odd, deceptive shape—a broad, flattened tail whence the body consistently diminishes to the head, which is the thinnest part. Other ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... and passes through it during the twelve hours of the night, bringing light and happiness to those who are in the underworld. In the effort to secure the tomb against plundering, the royal graves had been cut in the solid rock,—long and complicated passages with false leads and deceptive turns and the burial chamber in an unexpected place. The long walls of these rooms presented a great surface suitable to decoration, and they were utilized to depict scenes from the underworld and the passage ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... locked in the bosun's head—so hard a jolt for so smoothly delivered a blow! He gazed amazed. Again a deceptive swing or two, a fiddling with one hand and the other, a moment of rapid foot-work, a quick side-step, and biff! Kieran's left went into the ribs—crack! and Kieran's right caught him on the cheek-bone and laid it open as if ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... fights; as at the fatal show No ancient grudge the gladiator's arm Nerves for the combat, yet as he shall strike He hates his rival." Thinking thus he leads His troops in battle order to the plain. Then victory on his arms deceptive shone Hiding the ills to come: for from the field Driving the hostile host with sword and spear, He smote them till their camp opposed his way. But after Varus' rout, unseen till then, All eager for the glory to be his, By stealth came Juba: silent was ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Lawler and Red King had traveled half the distance to the line camp. A dull, gray haze was sweeping southward. It mingled with the southern light and threw a ghostly glare into the valley, making distance deceptive, giving a strange appearance to the landmarks with which Lawler and the horse ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the power of prayer to bring down actual blessing, or who confound faith in God with credulity and superstition, may well wonder and perhaps stumble at such an array of facts. But, if any reader is still doubtful as to the facts, or thinks they are here arrayed in a deceptive garb or invested with an imaginative halo, he is hereby invited to examine for himself the singularly minute records which George Muller has been led of God to put before the world in a printed form which ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... respectable body should not think your committee were going beyond the bounds of their duty, they would recommend the clerical order throughout the United States, who have had or who are having any thing to do with the deceptive scheme above alluded to, to read the 13th chapter of Ezekiel. Read it—read it—and understand it. Your committee would recommend those clergymen, who have not defiled their garment with the blood of the innocent, to read the 1st, 2nd, 11th and 12th verses of the 24th chapter ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... atoned for, redeem the earth from fear forever. He shall partake of the life of the gods. He shall reign over a world in peace with his father's virtues. The earth, sweet boy, as her first-fruits, shall pour thee forth spontaneous flowers. The serpent shall die: the poisonous and deceptive tree shall die. All things, heavens and earth and the regions of the sea, rejoice at the advent of this age. The time is now at hand."[181] Forty years later the Christ appeared. Whether Virgil had been influenced by Hebrew prophecy it is impossible to say. It may be that ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... then she bestowed her attention once more upon the Albula. "To be sure," resumed M. Moriaz, stroking his whiskers with the head of his cane, "Camille is just the man to make his way through difficulties. He has a youthful air that is very deceptive, but he always has been astonishingly precocious. At twenty years of age he became head of his class at the Central School; but the best thing about him is that, although in possession of a fortune, yet he has a passion ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... in the safe waters of the bay. We turned the point with no difficulty, and proceeded a distance across the bay where we landed on a beach to watch for the other boats, the steersmen having been informed as to the precariousness of the locality. Nevertheless it was so deceptive that when the Nell came in sight she was not close enough to the left shore for safety. The Major signalled vigorously with his hat, and Prof. took the warning instantly and turned in, but when the Canonita appeared we saw at once that she was altogether too far out and for some seconds ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... parts, which stood over against each other in proud independence. But is a healthy existence conceivable without religion, or an active religion without life? The state would become a philosophical abstraction; the church a deceptive mist-image. The universal church (without form) stands over the state; the established church (with form) in the state. The universal church is only visible in its fruits; the established church in its external arrangement, which it must receive from the state, or subject ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... herself to us, emphasise herself for us. She lets us overlook her, with a supreme unconsciousness, a supreme affectation of unconsciousness, which is of course very conscious art, an art so perfect as to be almost literally deceptive. I do not know if she plays with exactly the same gestures night after night, but I can quite imagine it. She has certain little caresses, the half awkward caresses of real people, not the elegant curves and convolutions of the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... not doubt that our urban and other perplexing problems can be solved in the traditional American method. In doing so we must realize that nothing is really solved and ruinous tendencies are set in motion by yielding to the deceptive bait of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... he saw nothing to justify his anxiety; everything seemed still in the swamp. But he knew that this silence was deceptive, and the canopy of marsh loving trees completely hid the bushes and undergrowth from his sight. It was just noon when a Roman trumpet sounded, and at once at six different points a line of Roman soldiers ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty |
