"Delusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 212: Mr. Morley has the doubtful merit of consistency. As recently as April 27th, 1906, he alluded to the South African War as "that delusive and guilty war," in an address to the Eighty Club. According to The Times report this expression was received ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... three first commissioners to Europe—Messrs. Yancey, Rost and Mann—sailed from New Orleans, on March 31, '61, their mission was hailed as harbinger to speedy fruition of these delusive thoughts, to which the wish alone was father. Then—though very gradually—began belief that they had reckoned too fast; and doubt began to chill glowing hopes of immediate recognition from Europe. But there was none, as yet, relative to her ultimate action. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... overthrow his power, were, by his own confession, "beyond his control"; but he hoped the influence of Governor Tyron, who still governed New York, might assist him in restoring peace and authority in North Carolina. Vain, delusive hope, as ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... attempt which Englishmen had made to claim North America for their own, had soon proved a failure. The introduction of tobacco and the potato into Europe dates from his voyage of discovery, but the energy of his colonists was distracted by the delusive dream of gold, the hostility of the native tribes drove them from the coast, and it is through the gratitude of later times for what he strove to do, rather than for what he did, that Raleigh, the capital ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... tempting, this delusive kind, is the expectation of great performances by confederated strength. The speculatist, when he has carefully observed how much may be performed by a single hand, calculates by a very easy operation the force of thousands, and goes on accumulating ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... horses to a gallop. Again thin smoke lines arose from the prairie and simultaneously the wigwam began to vanish. I had almost concluded the tepee was one of those delusive mirages which lead prairie riders on fools' errands, when I descried figures mounting ponies where the peaked camp had stood. At this we lashed our horses to faster pace. The Sioux galloped off and more ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... this, that we, thus unsuspecting, should be led away by delusive joy; that now in hope, {all} fear being removed, we might during our supineness be surprised, so that there might be no time for planning a rupture of the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the untrammelled mind of man capable of these bolder conceptions, but even the wretched fool who sees in the material world the whole of what man can know, could never get so far as to think even of the delusive objects on which he pins his foolish faith, unless the very mind which he insults and misunderstands, had by its nature that infinite capacity of comprehension which, he says, exists not. For otherwise, if the mind be limited, there must be a definite ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... miles from the town, and were connected by a system of patrolling, which rendered communication from within or without almost impossible. A few messengers (natives) occasionally came into the town, but these were mostly charged with the delivery of delusive messages invented for special purposes by the Boers. There was an ever-present difficulty—that of keeping the natives in check. Many examples of Boer cruelty to these poor blacks are recorded, and they naturally shuddered at the prospect of once more being delivered ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... known, digested, tested; nothing new is left to learn When the soul, serene, reliant, Hope's delusive dreams can spurn.' ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... have fondly dreamed of Utopia and the Millennium, when we have begun almost to believe that man is not, after all, a tiger half tamed, and that the smell of blood will not wake the savage within him, we are of a sudden startled from the delusive dream, to find the thin mask of civilization rent in twain and thrown contemptuously away. We lie down to sleep, like the peasant on the lava-slopes of Vesuvius. The mountain has been so long inert, that we believe its fires extinguished. Round us hang the clustering ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... thought the letter written about little Miss Thompson (Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently delusive, he sends an equally absurd production to his niece, Charlotte Nelson, who lived a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is "truly sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of my life from a later and relatively assured, though never prosperous condition, I can see that most of my straits in life have been owing to my having accepted the miserable and delusive advantage of an official position under my government. I was not indolent, and asked for an appointment not to escape work, but to be put in the way of work which I wanted to do; and when I was disappointed ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... otherwise of the manager, and he is therein justified. The manager's vocation is not to write plays, nor (let us hope) to act in them, nor to direct the rehearsals of them, and even his knowledge of the vagaries of his own box-office has often proved to be pitiably delusive. The manager's true and only vocation is to refrain from producing plays. Despite all this, however, the manager has already collaborated in the play. The dramatist sees it differently now. All sorts of new ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... a totally different process, not merely in degree, but in kind, from anything that takes place as a result of the invasion of the body by an infectious germ or parasite of any sort. There is a certain delusive similarity between the cancer process and an infection. But the more closely and carefully this similarity is examined the more superficial and unreal does it become. The invading germ may multiply ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... will conquer the world, for this idea is nothing but the real, well understood interest of mankind."[21] "Its principles will carry the whole human race to a higher state of perfection."[22] "It is the great modern protest against unreality, against the delusive shams which now masquerade as verities."[23] "Socialism is of the character of a historical discovery."[24] "Socialism, the inspiring principle of all Labour Parties, whether they know it or not, is the next world movement—the movement ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... name to portals twain; One all of horn, they say, Through which authentic spectres gain Quick exit into day, And one which bright with ivory gleams, Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams. Conversing still, the sire attends The travellers on their road, And through the ivory portal sends From forth the unseen abode. The chief betakes him to the fleet, Well pleased again his crew to meet. CONINGTON, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... would have me look upon you and live!" Lord Etherington remained standing, as if uncertain whether to advance or retreat, while with incredible rapidity she poured out her hurried entreaties that he would begone, sometimes addressing him as a real personage, sometimes, and more frequently, as a delusive phantom, the offspring of her own excited imagination. "I knew it," she muttered, "I knew what would happen, if my thoughts were forced into that fearful channel.—Speak to me, brother! speak to me while I have reason left, and tell me that what ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... on her separate idea. Mrs Forrester's start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh—whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was thankful to see her double upon Peter; but, in a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowland's Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Before the youthful bard's impassion'd eye, Like him, led on, to triumph and to die; Like him, by mighty magic compass'd round, And seeking sceptres on enchanted ground. Such spells invest, such blear illusion waits The trav'ller bound for Fame's receding gates, Delusive splendours gild the proud abode, But lurking demons haunt th' alluring road; There gaunt-eyed Want asserts her iron reign, There, as in vengeance of the world's disdain, This half-flesh'd hag midst Wit's bright blossoms stalks, And, breathing winter, withers where she walks; Though there, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... Sink from twilight's walls of gray,— From the window of my dreaming, I can see his sickle gleaming, Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming Down the locust-shaded way; But away, swift away, Fades the fond, delusive seeming, And I kneel ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... It has fluttered, a delusive vision, before our men since the start. "Is it true that the cavalry are through?" I suppose that was another delusion, that riding down of a flying foe by horsemen. But it was not only the stretcher-bearers ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... concealment of the grave. Ay—the grave! Delightful haven to pigeon-hearted malefactors—inconsistent criminals, who fear the puny look of mortal man, and, unabashed, stalk beneath the eternal and the killing frown of God. Michael fixed upon his remedy, and the delusive opiate gave him temporary ease; but, in an another instant, he derived even hope and consolation from another and altogether opposite view of things. A thought suddenly occurred to him, as thoughts will occur to the tossed and working mind—how, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Rut. Delusive dream of fancied happiness! And has my fatal fondness then destroy'd thee? Oh, have I lured thee to the deadly snare Thy cruel foes have laid? I dreaded Cecil's malice, and my heart, Longing to see thee, with impatience ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... been a conspiracy of delusive kindness from the day Wesley entered Rosedale. The frankness and kindliness of the Atterburys had been assumed to lure him to his fatal adventure. Boone himself believed that Jack's ignoble ambition and envy had been the main ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the Reformers of French origin, on the part of Sir Allan MacNab and the Upper Canada Conservatives. The Ministerial strength lay in the support which it received from the British party of Lower Canada, and from the majority of the Upper Canada Reformers."[41] Well might Sydenham speak of the delusive nature of the party nicknames borrowed by his ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... human kind; How just that scorn, ere yet thy voice declare, Search ev'ry state, and canvass ev'ry pray'r. [i]Unnumber'd suppliants crowd preferment's gate, Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great; Delusive fortune hears th' incessant call, They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. On ev'ry stage the foes of peace attend, Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end. Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's door Pours in the morning worshipper no more; For ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... respect the just pretensions of mankind; in proportion as they are willing to sustain, in their own persons, the burden of government, and of national defence; and are willing to prefer the engagements of a liberal mind to the enjoyment of sloth, or the delusive hopes of a safety purchased ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... put in circulation almost at will, and again be withdrawn at will. We do not mean that the issue and withdrawal of it are wholly unchecked, but that the checks, as the entire history of banking would seem to prove, are comparatively inefficient and delusive. If the rise and fall of prices, caused by the fluctuations of metallic money, are to be compared to the rise and fall of the tides, the rise and fall of paper prices are more like the increase and decrease of steam in a boiler, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... in its words. You are happy because you have sold a poem, probably for more than it is worth. But why do you praise spring? What do you fellows do it for? You know perfectly well that it is the most capricious, the most treacherous, the most delusive, deadly, slatternly, down-at-heels, milkmaid-handed season of the year, without decision of character or fixed principles, and with only the vaguest raw-girlish ideals, a red nose between crazy smiles ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Hereupon Josephus, who hitherto suspected nothing of John's plots against him, wrote to the governors of the city, that they would provide a lodging and necessaries for John; which favors, when he had made use of, in two days' time he did what he came about; some he corrupted with delusive frauds, and others with money, and so persuaded them to revolt from Josephus. This Silas, who was appointed guardian of the city by Josephus, wrote to him immediately, and informed him of the plot against him; which ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... part in the world of thought, seem to me to be invalidated by this same defect, to have no content or an undefined content or an unjustifiable content. For example, that word Omniscient, as implying infinite knowledge, impresses me as being a word with a delusive air of being solid and full, when it is really hollow with no content whatever. I am persuaded that knowing is the relation of a conscious being to something not itself, that the thing known is defined as a system of parts and aspects and relationships, that knowledge is comprehension, and so ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... films overspread the west; and just above Maloja the apparition of a mock sun—a well-defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular intervals by four globes—seemed to portend a change of weather. This forecast fortunately proved delusive. We drove back to Samaden across the silent snow, enjoying those delicate tints of rose and violet and saffron which shed enchantment for one hour over the white ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... shop out of London?' said my father; and for some time he succeeded in making us sit for the delusive picture of a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... surprise We see Britannia's monarch rise, A godlike form, by thee displayed In all the force of light and shade; And, awed by thy delusive hand, As in the presence-chamber stand. The magic of thy art calls forth His secret soul and hidden worth, His probity and mildness shows, His care of friends and scorn of foes: 10 In every stroke, in every line, Does some exalted virtue ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... my fault," she said to herself; "I was placed here to help them, and I have neglected that very clear duty by giving way to delusive fancies." ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second editions another ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... the chemist's workshop, taken for granted in Paracelsus, are now painted with a realism reminiscent of Romeo's Apothecary and The Alchemist. And the outward drama of intrigue, completely effaced in Paracelsus by the inward drama of soul, sounds delusive scorn and laughter in the background, the more sinister because it is not seen. These lyrics and romances are "dramatic" not only in the sense that the speakers express, as Browning insisted, other minds and sentiments than his own, but in the more legitimate sense that they are ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... time of inhalation of a foreign body may be unknown or forgotten. 2. Cough and purulent expectoration ultimately result, although there may be a delusive protracted symptomless interval. [130] 3. Periodic attacks of fever, with chills and sweats, and followed by increased coughing and the expulsion of a large amount of purulent, usually more or less foul material, are so nearly diagnostic of foreign body as to call for exclusion of this ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... rush towards the child,—to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began,—to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses,—not so much from overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the young the joys of personal exuberance; it is all honeycombed, or rather, filled (like champagne) with the generous gaseousness of self-analysis, self-accusation, self-pity, self-righteousness, and autobiography. The poor mortal, in that delusive sense of sympathy and perfect understanding which comes of perfect indifference to one's neighbour's presence, has quicker pulses, higher temperature, more vigorous movements than are compatible with the sober sense of human unimportance. In conversation, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... Liberalism had done for them. The Socialists of practical politics, the Labour Party, found that they could by no means dispense with the discipline of Cobden. Free Trade finance was to be the basis of social reform. Liberalism and Labour learned to co-operate in resisting delusive promises of remedies for unemployment and in maintaining the right of free international exchange. Meanwhile, Labour itself had experienced the full brunt of the attack. It had come not from the politicians ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... in the open forest near St. Germain-en-Laye on a particular day. All the members of this party were in the secret, except a certain lady, here designated by the title of the Countess de B. who was pitched upon as a proper person for Monsieur St. Gille's delusive powers, as she knew nothing either of him or of ventriloquism; and possibly for another reason, which the Abbe, through politeness, suppresses. She had been told in general, that this party had been formed in consequence ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... as you call it, are delusive," the Tenor answered. "I just happened to have money enough to furnish my house when I came here; but I am a very poor man now. I have little or nothing, in fact, but my salary for singing in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... passed. But the deeper reason for all this clamour from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of that reform were destined to be very different from the expectations ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... has no other guide than the vague terms employed to designate the time to be taken, and his own instinct, his feeling—more or less distinguishing, more or less just—of the author's style. We are compelled to admit that these guides are too often insufficient and delusive. Of this we have proof in seeing how old operas are given in towns where the traditional mode of performance no longer exists. In ten different kinds of time, there will always be at least four taken wrongly. I once heard a chorus of Iphigenia in Tauride ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... is to say, upon human actions? The former of these propositions you would be as unwilling to admit as your friend Wesley, or the old Welshman Pelagius himself. The latter leaves you little other foundation for your opinion than a desire, which, from its very benevolence, is the more likely to be delusive. You are in ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... another. He stretched himself on the sofa; his good friend considerately took up a newspaper. For the first time that day, he had now the prospect of a quiet interval for rest and thought. In less than a minute the delusive prospect vanished. He started to his feet again, disturbed by a new anxiety. Having leisure to think, he had thought of Regina. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "she's waiting to see me—and I never remembered it till this moment!" He looked at his watch: ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... they were furious. Even the moderate Baldwin was betrayed into unwonted vehemence. What would have happened, if Metcalfe had remained in office, none can tell. Perhaps a second civil war. But 'death cut the inextricable knot.' His deadly disease returned after a delusive interval, as is its hideous custom. His health failed; the cancer ate into his eye and destroyed the sight. It was apparent that he could no longer perform the duties of his office. He asked to be recalled; ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... pondering over the meaning of this dream, and was struck at the amount of truth in it. I thought—How fair are the promises of the world to begin with, and how delusive and disappointing they are at the end! Of course, Satan, the god of this world, will make the way to hell as bright and pleasing as he possibly can; and if people take outward circumstances and pleasing prospects for indications of safety, they wilfully lay themselves ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... saddened face and battered hat And eye that told of blank despair, On wooden bench the traveller sat, Cursing the fate that brought him there. "Nine hours," he cried, "we've lingered here With thoughts intent on distant homes, Waiting for that delusive train That, always coming, never comes: Till weary, worn, Distressed, forlorn, And paralyzed in every function! I hope in hell His soul may dwell Who first invented ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... love passages with Dora, and his social unbendings with Mr. Micawber. Regaling the latter inimitable personage, and his equally inimitable wife, together with David's old schoolfellow, Tradelles, on a banquet of boiled leg of mutton, very red inside and very pale outside, as well as upon a delusive pigeon-pie, the crust of which was like a disappointing phrenological head, "full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath," David afforded us the opportunity of realising, within a very ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... in the sphere of liberty and social enjoyment and among those who did not believe that wine was a mocker, but something to make glad the heart and give joy to the countenance; and when it began to flow he was among the first to taste its delusive sweets. Blanche, for whom he poured a glass of champagne, took it from his hand, but with only half a smile on her lips, which was veiled by something so like pain or fear that Ellis felt as if the lights about him had suddenly lost a portion of their brilliancy. He stood holding his own glass, ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... question in Congress, leading to hopes of cheap money, and the higher prices due to this temporary and delusive stimulus; the large gross railroad earnings, demand for structural iron; the Buenos Ayres crisis, leading London to ship us large amounts of our securities; our small wheat, oats, and corn crops, and large cotton crop; the tariff discussion, ending with the McKinley Bill on October ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... it seems," he muttered, "who forever appears in my path to snatch from me every prize I set my heart on, is secretly an officer in the British service, commissioned, probably, to head a regiment of tories, whom he is now by his false statements and delusive promises, attempting to gather from the weak and wavering of our overawed people. This must be instantly made known. Heavens! what effrontery!—to be playing the spy under the garb of pretended neutrality, and seducing away the deluded men under our ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... to Louis Bonaparte's temporary success, Kossuth argued, that it would secure, when France makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty: First, that in future, the French republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous Centralization. We have shown (said he) in Hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. Henceforward, in European aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony. I thank Louis Napoleon for it. Your principles ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... all that, it will be seen that there were plenty of the same set to attest upon oath that I saw my brother every day during this period; that I persecuted him, with my presence day and night, while all the time I never saw his face save in a delusive dream. I cannot comprehend what manoeuvres my illustrious friend was playing off with them about this time; for he, having the art of personating whom he chose, had peradventure deceived them, else many of them had never all attested the same thing. I never saw any man so steady in his ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... thing to do. "Let me only get there," he had said with the fatuousness of Crusoe over his big boat, "and the rest is but a matter of time and energy." It would have been far better for him in every way if he had never come within sight and sound of the delusive precincts, had gone to some busy commercial town with the sole object of making money by his wits, and thence surveyed his plan in true perspective. Well, all that was clear to him amounted to this, that the whole scheme had burst up, like an iridescent soap-bubble, under the touch ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... mention people whom he himself knows, people in various grades of life, widows and orphans amongst them, whose little all has been dissipated, and whom he has reduced to beggary by inducing them to become sharers in his delusive schemes. But the mechanic says, "Well, the more fools they to let themselves be robbed. But I don't call that kind of thing robbery, I merely call it out-witting; and everybody in this free country ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... poison too drained; Ah! 'twas all delusive, for sorrows would come, Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... reviving what had always been an imperium in imperio, but now uncontrolled by the previous conditions of political subjection, seemed ominous; and besides, there was cherished the hope, ill-founded and delusive though it was, that the integrity of the empire as a self-sufficing whole, broken by recent revolt, might be restored by strong measures, coercive towards the commerce of the United States, and protective towards Canada ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... attractive, that the senator, as he bent over the couch, though the warm, soft breath of the young girl played on his cheeks and waved the tips of his perfumed locks, could hardly imagine that the scene before him was more than a bright, delusive dream. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... innocence, under the colour of clemency to guilt. He ordered her to call on his chamberlain, Darinsson, in an hour, and she should obtain an answer. There, either seduced by paternal affection, intimidated by threats, or imposed upon by delusive and engaging promises, she exchanged her virtue for an order of release for her parent; and so satisfied was Louis with his bargain that he added her to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... difficulty in replying to a theorist so wholly delusive. Not only is he to be met by all the arguments against parasitism of class or race; but, at the present day, when probably much more than half the world's most laborious and ill-paid labour is still performed by women, from tea pickers and cocoa tenders in India and the islands, to the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... draws; And Fancy's flights are subject to thy laws. From Thee that bosom-spring of rapture flows, Which only Virtue, tranquil Virtue, knows. When Joy's bright sun has shed his evening ray, And Hope's delusive meteors cease to play; When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close, Still thro' the gloom thy star serenely glows; Like yon fair orb, she gilds the brow of night With the mild magic of reflected light. The beauteous maid, that bids the world adieu, Oft of that world will snatch a ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... glowing shrine My early vows were paid; My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine, But these are now decay'd; For thine are pinions like the wind, No trace of thee remains behind, Except, alas! thy jealous stings. Away, away! delusive power, Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour; Unless, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... idleness, the lavish professions of sentimental sympathy, and the dogged refusals of substantial help since the present Government took office. Above all, our Commissioner has provided conclusive evidence that Irish Nationalism is a mere delusive sham—a paltry euphemism for the predatory passion which a succession of professional agitators have aroused in the hearts of the people. If the Land Question could be settled, there would be an end of the clamour for independence ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... is much advanced it goes without saying that no honest physician would recommend a change of climate, and especially so great a change as to an elevation of several thousand feet; but cases do often come of their own will, cheered by the delusive hope that is characteristic of the disease, and though the result is usually a hastening of the end, yet death is generally less tedious and harassing, the sick one frequently being out enjoying the sunshine up to the last day, dying ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... and flowery cretonnes, had become altogether hateful in his eyes now. Instead of feeling grateful (as he surely ought to have been) for the one night of perfect security and comfort he had passed there, he only loathed it for the delusive peace ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... thought's bewild'ring maze, Touching the ling'ring chords of childlike feeling, With sweet harmonies of happier days: So curse I all, around the soul that windeth Its magic and alluring spell, And with delusive flattery bindeth Its victim to this dreary cell! Curs'd before all things be the high opinion, Wherewith the spirit girds itself around! Of shows delusive curs'd be the dominion, Within whose mocking sphere our sense is bound! Accurs'd of dreams the treacherous wiles, The cheat of ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... those last three days Pierson woke with the feeling a ship must have when it makes landfall. Such reliefs are natural, and as a rule delusive; for events are as much the parents of the future as they were the children of the past. To be at home with both his girls, and resting—for his holiday would not be over for ten days—was like old times. Now George was going on so well Gratian would be herself again; now Cyril ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... before the bills fell due, I lay down with the false calm of those who sleep before their approaching execution, or with a duel in prospect, rocked as they are by delusive hopes. But when I woke, when I was cool and collected, when I found myself imprisoned in a banker's portfolio, and floundering in statements covered with red ink—then my debts sprang up everywhere, like grasshoppers, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and Faust's Titanic heaven-storming aspirations after absolute truth. When he is once more left alone, longing to face the mystery of life but crushed by the contempt of the Earth-spirit, Faust is seized by despair. He shrinks from encountering life, with its delusive joys, its pitiless injustice and its arbitrary fate. He resolves to seek certainty—to solve the riddle of life by death. As he moves the cup of poison to his lips there comes floating through the air the chime of bells and, perhaps from some near chapel, the hymn ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... quite half the time bailing. No occupation, notwithstanding the danger, could prevent me from looking about the cauldron of angry waters, in quest of the ship. Fifty times did I fancy I saw her, and as often did the delusive idea end in disappointment. The waste of dark waters, relieved by the gleaming of the combing seas, alone met the senses. The wind blew directly down the estuary, and, in crossing its mouth, we found too much swell to receive it on our beam, and were soon ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... above the ordinary intellectual level of their sex, the many women who write ill are very far below it. So that, after all, the severer critics are fulfilling a chivalrous duty in depriving the mere fact of feminine authorship of any false prestige which may give it a delusive attraction, and in recommending women of mediocre faculties—as at least a negative service they can render ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... organism. It would scarcely be fair not to add that the kind of "facts" investigated by the Psychical Society—such "facts" as the appearance of men at the moment of death in places remote from the scene of their decease, with such real or delusive experiences as the noises and visions in haunted houses—are familiar to savages. Without discussing these obscure matters, it may be said that they influence the thoughts even of some scientifically trained and civilised men. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... hating it. They hated it also and would have preferred some other out-door employment. So Harry's return was far more interesting than the supply of cotton, and then England might do this and that and perhaps France might interfere. That wide, slippery word "perhaps" led them into many delusive suppositions. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... put together, at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance, and complexity, composed of far other wheels and springs and balances and counteracting and cooeperating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. The British Constitution may have its advantages pointed out to wise and reflecting minds, but it is of too ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... incessantly, but his tears did not bring him comfort, for they were tears of anguish and despair. Ten times a day he would proceed to her chamber, or follow her to the garden where she loved to walk, always in the delusive hope that he might catch some spark of returning reason from those calm-looking but meaningless eyes, after which he would weep like a child. With respect to his daughter, every thing was done for her that wealth and human means could accomplish, but to no purpose; the malady was too deeply ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... but the Dissenters protested against his being given to an Anglican refuge. The scene at the mass-meeting to celebrate young Ginx's rescue from the incubus of a delusive superstition is described with rare appreciation of the foibles of character. The bombast, the cant, the flapdoodle and flubdub, the silly unction of different kinds of preachers are "done to a hair." Five hours the meeting raged, and at last a resolution that the Metropolitan ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... crumbling margin, and thy silver breast, On which the self-same tints still seem to rest, Why feels my heart a shivering sense of pain! Is it, that many a summer's day has past Since, in life's morn, I carolled on thy side! Is it, that oft since then my heart has sighed, As Youth, and Hope's delusive gleams, flew fast! Is it, that those who gathered on thy shore, Companions of my youth, now meet no more! Whate'er the cause, upon thy banks I bend, Sorrowing; yet feel such solace at my heart, As at the meeting of some long-lost ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... or even six hundred years after the birth of Christ, you find people still consulting the local Oracles of Egypt, in places sheltered from the point-blank range of the state artillery,—there is an end, once and forever, to the delusive superstition that, merely by its silent presence in the world, Christianity must instantaneously come into fierce activity as a regency of destruction to all forms of idolatrous error. That argument is multiplied beyond all power of calculation; and to have ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... diametrically opposite view. So far from Soul and Sin being co-eternal with God they are not really existent at all. Both are illusory. There is only one existent entity. It is the Divine Spirit, and it has neither personality nor any personal qualities. All apparent separate existences are delusive. Meditation, of the same absorbing type held necessary by the other, is the only way to reach the stage of enlightenment which leads to reabsorption into the Divine essence, in which we finally merge, and lose what appeared to be our separate ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... scene, falls asleep. He dreams and finds himself among the fairies, whom he approaches and requests permission to join. They snatch him up forthwith and fly off with him over cities and realms, lands and seas, until he begins to fear for his life. They come to a huge castle—Castle Delusive, where an Angel of light appears and rescues him from their hands. The Angel, after questioning him as to himself, who he was and where he came from, bids him go with him, and resting in the empyrean, he beholds the earth ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... God's promises. This gave him much comfort, but it took him years to clarify his ideas and to reach the conclusion that the existing Church was opposed to the idea of justification by faith, because it fostered what seemed to him a delusive confidence in "good works." He was thirty-seven years old before he finally became convinced that it was his duty to become the leader in the destruction of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... delusive day-dreams, and rejoice when, now and then, Some old heartstring stirs within us and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... is adopted, and we see the meaning of all that apparent byplay of the six paper bags, and of the Weissnichtwo allusions which drop as puzzling fragments into Book I. The second book is wholly biographical. It is in human life and experience that we must fight our way through delusive appearances to reality; and Carlyle constructs a ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over the face, creeping down to the street with what steadiness can be summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... Jewish question my bigotry makes me liberal. To symbolise the Christianity of the House of Commons in its present form is to substitute a new Church and creed for the old Catholic one; and as this is delusive, I would do nothing to countenance it. Better have the Legislature declared what it really is—not professedly Christian, and then let the Church claim those rights and that independence which nothing but the pretence of Christianity can entitle the Legislature to withhold ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... could ever understand!— No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now cling with ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... an effective means of procuring supplies for that policy of national consolidation which had triumphed in Wales and which seemed to be triumphing in Scotland. But the triumph in Scotland soon proved a delusive one, and the strife brought wider strifes in its train. When Edward wrung from Balliol an acknowledgement of his suzerainty he foresaw little of the war with France, the war with Spain, the quarrel with the Papacy, the upgrowth of social, of political, of religious ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... place of reunion than the Conversation-house at Baden-Baden. It was a small, low structure of brightly painted wood, containing but three or four rooms, and furnished all along its front with a narrow covered gallery, which offered a delusive shelter from the rougher moods of the fine, fresh weather. It was somewhat rude and shabby—the subscription for the season was low—but it had a simple picturesqueness. Its little terrace was a very convenient place ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... native German princes came spontaneously into his camp, subscribed such conditions as he thought fit to dictate, and complied with his requisitions of tribute in horses and provisions. This, however, is a delusive gleam of Roman energy, little corresponding with the true condition of the Roman power, and entirely due to the personal qualities of Probus. Probus himself showed his sense of the true state of affairs, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... of the book throughout is excellent. The delusive character of sin is plainly pointed out. The devices of Satan are laid bare with unsparing hand. The abominations of vice are not concealed. All this is done in language well chosen and unexceptionable. The Christian ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... more deceptive than the pretended curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, and that it is a matter of duty to be mindful, in this very particular, of the warning words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... south. The country still retained the same woody, hilly, and irregular, though not unpleasing, appearance; but in running along the shore it manifestly grew worse, having more tendency to sand. The small projections of land which appeared as they sailed along often presented the delusive appearance of openings behind them; and they were the more inclined to entertain these hopes, as Captain Cook passed along this part of the coast ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... this disturbance. He always thought the relation between the lord and the pauper peasant was the happiest possible; he cannot conceive what people mean by proposing a change. But then Lord Malmesbury was placed at rather a delusive point of view. If he knew the real state of Hodge's heart he would rejoice in the prospect of a change, not only for Hodge's sake, but, as he is no doubt a good man, for his own. England will be more religious, too, as well as happier and more harmonious, let the clergy be well assured ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... great majority of our people, if not absolutely on a level with circumstances, being purely practical, are much nearer to this level, than the class termed the endoctrinated. The last are troublesome and delusive, rather than overwhelming." ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... soldiers were drawn up on the moor, about a mile distant. He sent some of his men to a point where they should be partly visible to the enemy over a hedge; these he caused to pass and repass, so as to give a delusive idea of numbers. When the night fell the Highland soldiers were drawn up along the wall on the road, and in the enclosures behind the hedges; Lord George and Cluny stood with drawn swords on the highway. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... a "heaven" a neglected soul may have, can be shown to be an ignorant and delusive dream. How is the soul to escape to heaven if it has neglected for a lifetime the means of escape from the world and self? And where is the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not developed on earth? Where, indeed, is even the smallest spiritual ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... so accurately detected by the subtle penetration of this extraordinary Queen. And presently she said, as if to console me for my confusion, with unutterable sweetness in her voice: Come, do not allow delusive imagination to run away with thee, but curb him, and rein him up, and stop him, and be wise. For I belong, body and soul, to Narasinha. And yet, for all that, I am my own mistress, and act exactly as I choose. And I see anyone I please, and at my own time, and go, like a wild ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... out Hopeless and delusive, Still I'd rave and shout, Using terms abusive. Truth and sense might perish, Still thy cause I'd cherish, Hallow'd by thy gold,—then give that ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... best of a commercial contract of property and slavery by subjecting it to some religious restraint and elevating it by some touch of poetry. But the actual result is that when two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. And though of course nobody expects them to do anything so impossible and so ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... empire, during which the Christians of Philadelphia would be spared. This may have been the fact; but whether it was or not, we have no means of information. When we come to consider the symbols of chapter 9, in which the delusive error of Mohammedanism is set forth, we will see what a period of sore trial this delusion was to the Eastern churches. It is also a fact that, in the midst of this abounding heresy, the church of Philadelphia was ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... in vain they perceived that a reputation so lightly established, was still more weakly sustained: the prejudice remained: the Countess of Castlemaine, a woman lively and discerning followed the delusive shadow; and though undeceived in a reputation which promised so much, and performed so little, she nevertheless continued in her infatuation: she even persisted in it, until she was upon the point of embroiling herself with the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... upwards, thus producing images similar to those produced by water. I have seen the image of a rock called Mont Tombeline distinctly reflected from the heated air of the strand of Normandy near Avranches; and by such delusive appearances the thirsty soldiers of the French army in Egypt were ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... never going back, you may assure yourself of having seen the worst, and the positive improvements, if trifles separately, must soon gather into a sensible magnitude.' This may be true in a case of short standing, but as a general rule it is perilously delusive. On the contrary, the line of progress, if exhibited in a geometrical construction, would describe an ascending path upon the whole, but with frequent retrocessions into descending curves, which, compared ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... broken out unexpectedly, and in a different manner from what the conspirators proposed to themselves?—If so, his meeting with his plighted bride, after so many years' absence, was but a delusive preface to their separating for ever. Or had the crusaders, a race of men upon whose motions it was difficult to calculate, suddenly taken arms and returned from the opposite shore to surprise the city? This might very possibly be the case; so numerous had been the different causes of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... human frailty. The man erred; and his error terminates in itself. But an error of principle does not terminate in itself; it is a fountain; it is self-diffusive; and it has a life of its own. The faults of a great man are in any case contagious; they are dazzling and delusive by means of the great man's general example. But his false principles have a worse contagion. They operate not only through the general haze and halo which invests a shining example; but even if transplanted where that example is unknown, they propagate themselves ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... virgin land, and cheap negroes gave the several families in Virginia, for three generations, a showy, delusive prosperity, which produced a considerable number of dissolute, extravagant men, and educated a few to a high degree of knowledge and wisdom. Of these families, the Randolphs were the most numerous, and among the oldest, richest, and most influential. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... them by art is, that in every instance in which we see a human mind developing itself, or acting upon other things, we see it surrounded and obscured by an indefinite multitude of unascertainable circumstances, rendering the use of the common experimental methods almost delusive. We may conceive to what extent this is true, if we consider, among other things, that whenever Nature produces a human mind, she produces, in close connection with it, a body; that is, a vast complication of physical facts, in no two cases perhaps ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... imagery often recalled those of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals, such as Crashaw, too readily perhaps asserted a bond between his thought and theirs. Like them, it is true, he turned his back on the delusive splendours of the world; he accepted and expressed in song the divine ordinance of the universe. But he was afflicted with the pain of modern doubt; fear and speculative curiosity struggled with his faith; sometimes the sheer beauty ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... the matter at once, dear aunt," she said, in a gentle, but firm tone. "Believe me, the reality of misfortune is not as painful as its apprehension. You cannot bear the shocks of sorrow, and delusive hopes of happiness, much longer. Do you know what anxiety of mind has done to you? Have you looked in the mirror during the last ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... at ev'ry glance on human kind; How just that scorn ere yet thy voice declare, Search ev'ry state, and canvass ev'ry pray'r: Unnumber'd suppliants crowd Preferment's gate, A thirst for wealth, and burning to be great; Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant call, They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. On ev'ry stage the foes of peace attend, Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end. Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's door Pours in the morning worshipper no more; For growing ...
— English Satires • Various
... what further to say. She half believed that Sir Thomas did labour under some delusion; but then she half believed also that he had upon his mind a sorrow, terribly real, which was in no sort delusive. Under such circumstances, how could she advise her son? Instead of advising ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... quality, a power of divination in regard to value which, on occasions when they are confronted by a stranger whose worth they do not know, informs them immediately of the comparative rarity or commonness of his type. This sense may at first be baffled by the delusive disguises in which men sometimes present themselves, but as a rule a chance word, an artless gesture, or even a glance, quickly corrects the initial error of the eye, and in a moment the original estimate is adjusted to the unmistakable evidence ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... neglect. We regard directness a rudeness, when in reality it is the greatest kindness imaginable. Instead of being positive and direct in our dealings with each other, we constantly exercise a passive cruelty, in other words, the cruelty of refinement. We are evasive, delusive, subdued, falsified. But we deceive with dignity, tell falsehoods fluently, use words and cold behavior ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... eternal." But this pregnant utterance conveyed nothing more to him than a belief of a material heaven to follow his exit from a world of matter. It had never occurred to him that the world of matter might be the product of those same delusive physical senses, through which he believed he gained his knowledge of it. It is true that while in the seminary, and before, he had insisted upon a more spiritual interpretation of the mission of Jesus—had insisted that Christian priests should obey the Master's injunction, and heal the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... tranquillity be restored? We have not forgotten—nor can we be so easily made to forget—that this very agitator himself has declared, that slavery is "a wrong so transcendent" that no truce is to be allowed to it so long as it occupies a single foot of ground in the United States. Is it not, then, a delusive prospect of peace which is offered to us in exchange for the law ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... claimed again that females should have the ballot as a protection against the tyranny of bad husbands. This is also delusive. If the husband is brutal, arbitrary or tyrannical, and tyrannizes over her at home, the ballot in her hands would be no protection against such injustice, but the husband who compelled her to conform to his wishes in other respects would ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... trusting that Francesco might be won to prize the simple enjoyments of which fortune could not despoil him, and to find his dearest happiness in an approving conscience, the light hearted girl indulged in delusive hopes of future felicity. But these expectations were soon damped; as Francesco's health returned he became restless and melancholy; he saw no prospect of arriving at distinction by his talents, or by his sword; peace reigned throughout the Tuscan states, and the jealousy of the government ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... narrowly inquired into, it was found that the ingenious tradesman had no less than five qualities—"Best," "Better than Best," "Better than better than Best," "Best of All," and the "Real Best." Such language is a little delusive, and when I read the epithets of praise which are sometimes lavished, not by the same persons, on Breton and Watson, I ask myself what we are to say of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Van Buren and Frank and the fashionable world all away, Richard's faults were not so perceptible, and Ethelyn even began to look forward with considerable interest to the time when she should be able to start for her Western home, about which she had built many delusive castles. Her piano had already been sent on in advance, she saying to Susie Granger, who came in while it was being boxed, that as they were not to keep house till spring she should not take furniture now. Possibly they could find what they needed in Chicago; if not, they could ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Desponsamuste,Mare,insignumveriperpetuiquedominii. The result of the combats at Chioggia, though fatal to it in the long-run, did not at once destroy the naval importance of Genoa. A remarkable characteristic of sea-power is the delusive manner in which it appears to revive after a great defeat. The Persian navy occasionally made a brave show afterwards; but in reality it had received at Salamis a mortal wound. Athens seemed strong enough on the sea after the catastrophe of Syracuse; but, as already stated, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... mode of speaking on the subject of profits; but it has only the semblance, not the reality, of an explanation. The "productive power of capital," though a common, and, for some purposes, a convenient expression, is a delusive one. Capital, strictly speaking, has no productive power. The only productive power is that of labour; assisted, no doubt, by tools, and acting upon materials. That portion of capital which consists of tools and materials, ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... after day went by, and, for the delusive sake of Madame de Marignan's bright eyes, I neglected my studies, spent my money, wasted my time, and incurred the displeasure of Dr. Cheron. Led on from folly to folly, I was perpetually buoyed up by coquetries which meant nothing, and as perpetually ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's calibre could at that period conceive a plan of policy in which the slavery question had no place; a policy which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption that the secessionists, who had already formed their Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolution preparing to fight for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the Union by some sentimental demonstration against European ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln |
