"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your sufferings are," I replied. "I can not make a step without exciting your alarm. Soon I shall not be permitted to address a word to any one but you. You pretend that you have been abused in order that you may be justified in offering insult; you accuse me of tyranny in order that I may become your slave. Since I trouble your repose, I leave you in peace; you will ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... not mad, and I have not lost my reason. Only you are fools, yes. Do I mean that we are to be really ill? I mean that we are to pretend to be ill, so that we shall not have to go to 'Cheder.' Do ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... the Prince; "how could I deceive you? You see it is so much more flattering to my vanity to be loved by a fairy than by a simple princess. But, even if I am dying of love for her, I shall pretend to hate her until I am ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... tiller sacrifice; "Smite with the axe that neck with labor worn, "With which so oft he had the soil renew'd; "Which had so many crops on him bestow'd. "Nor is this all, the savage deed perform'd, "They implicate the heavenly gods themselves, "Pretend th' almighty deities delight "To see the slaughter of laborious steers. "Spotless must be the victim; in his form "Perfection: (fatal thus too much to please!) "With gold and fillets gay, the beast is led "Before the altar, hears the unknown prayers, "And sees the meal, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... shall do all that, and more, but we cannot do so here. I tell you what we will do—we will pretend to go for a long walk in the country, but instead of that, we will pass through the shrubbery into the orchard and hazelwood, and so gain the little remote summer house, of which I have secured the key; there we shall ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... public, and by which you can make your own condition happier." "Happier?" answered Raphael, "is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which I believe, few courtiers can pretend; and there are so many that court the favour of great men, that there will be no great loss if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper." Upon this, said I, "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire wealth nor greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... how much more becoming the demi-toilette is to you than the evening dress," replied Caroline, "so don't pretend to deny it." ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Sunday forenoon when Captain Zelotes and Olive had gone to church. Ordinarily he would have accompanied them, to sit in the straight-backed old pew on a cushion which felt lumpy and smelt ancient and musty, and pretend to listen while old Mr. Kendall preached a sermon which was ancient ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... proceeding, sufficiently alarming to determine her not to take the potion; but dislike of contention, and a wish to discover whether there was any just foundation for her conjectures, made her, she said, almost instinctively, and in contradiction to her usual frankness, pretend to swallow the medicine. Then, agitated as she had been by her mother's violence, and now by unaccustomed fears, she lay unable to sleep, starting at every sound. Soon her door opened softly, and on her springing ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... let us enquire what a proper covering for the head should be: first of all in point of usefulness, and next in point of comely appearance. But let no man vainly imagine that we expect to suit the fancies of all the creatures privileged to wear hats, or even to cover their heads; we do not pretend to invent, or decide upon, any one given type or form of head-dress. So many are the wants of a man in covering his head, so widely differing from each other are the exigencies of different people, that uniformity in hats is to be given up as a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... ever been a Democrat in principle myself, but not so much of a modern one in practice as to pretend that the Democratic party are free from blame as to the College. If they had been content with Mr. Girard's plain plan, would they have called in architects ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... on biography, always to be a congeniality between the pursuits of agriculture and all great and good minds. We do not pretend to analyze the rationale of this, or why it is that patriotism exists with more elevation and fervency in the retirement of a farm than in the busy mart of crowded cities. The history of man proves this fact, that the noblest instances of self-sacrificing patriotism which have ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... their Sunday experiences. Puritanism was familiar to her by more than speculation; in the compassion with which she regarded Miriam there was no mixture of contempt, as in her husband's case. On the other hand, she did not pretend to read completely her con sin's heart and mind; she knew that there was no simple key to Miriam's character, and the quiet study of its phases from day to day ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... They are not an attempt at a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine, but an effort to restate a few essential Christian convictions in terms that are intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years. They do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship; they aim at the less difficult, but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who (to borrow a phrase of Augustine's) ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... so affected!" cried Mrs Peagrim. "Don't pretend that you don't know every word of ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... upon it; and so they sent for the princess. In she came, sliding and flitting and gliding from one piece of furniture to another, and put herself at last in an armchair, in a sitting posture. Whether she could be said to sit, seeing she received no support from the seat of the chair, I do not pretend to determine. ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... before him some of this very fine wine, which, as he finished speaking, Churchill swallowed without knowing it from some other sherry which he had been drinking. He would have questioned that it was genuine, but the Spaniard, as far as he could pretend to judge, thought ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... office, during the term of St. Michael and St. Hilary, after the expiration of the year, if not sooner discharged. The practice in England appears to have been conformable to these statutes, [2] though the king did pretend to dispense with them by force of the royal prerogative; and this claim and exercise of a power in the crown to dispense with and control the operation of statutes, has been long and universally condemned as odious and unconstitutional; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... have lifted a hand to save a Yankee spy; all her sympathy was with the Confederacy. Yet she was risking all—her reputation, her life—to save me! The knowledge seemed to send fire through my veins, my heart throbbed fiercely. Oh, she could dissemble, could pretend all this was merely duty, could rage against herself and me, but nevertheless I understood—she was doing it for me! I knew, and she should know—yes, this very night, out yonder in the shadows, when we were alone together I would ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... of his many inventions was a new reporter who, according to Mehronay's legend, had just quit work for a circus where he had been employed writing the posters. Mehronay's joy was to write up a local occurrence and pretend that the circus poster-writer had written it and that we had been greatly bothered to restrain his adjectives. A few days after the Sinclair-Handy wedding—a particularly gorgeous affair in one of the stone churches, which had been written up by the bride's mother, as the whole town ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... in a vain endeavour to extricate himself from a bunker, do not stand near him and audibly count his strokes. It would be justifiable homicide if he wound up his pitiable exhibition by applying his niblick to your head. It is better to pretend that you do not notice these things. On the other hand, do not go out of your way to say that you are sorry when these misfortunes happen. Such expressions imply a kind of patronage for which your opponent will not thank you, and he knows all the time that you do ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... of toys has been brought to such a point of complication and perfection that children have at their disposal entire dolls' houses, complete wardrobes for the dressing and undressing of dolls, kitchens where they can pretend to cook, toy animals as nearly lifelike as possible, this method seeks to give all this to the child in reality—making him an actor ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... Delegate of France. Mr. Chairman, I cannot pretend to make any suggestion of any technical value on the question now before us. I only rise to add a few words to the views which have been so authoritatively expounded to you by Prof. JANSSEN, in order to explain clearly the situation of the French ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... me one moment," she said. "Ask yourself whether you have ever tried to make my life a happy one. Did I ever pretend to care for books and solitude? Before I married you I told you that I was fond of change and gaiety and life, and you promised me that I should have it. Ask yourself how you have kept that promise. You deny me every pleasure, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must," said Nycteris, "or I shall have to pretend to leave you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you speak of, and I will take care of you ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... him the scroll, and all waited in silence whilst Robin deciphered it. Carfax snapped his teeth together in vexation at this unexpected turn. "He cannot read the parchment. Is it likely?" he cried. "He will but pretend to read it, and make lies with which to confound me. 'Tis writ in most scholarly Latin, that ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... a camp," said Jake, talking as rapidly as he could, lest the officer should interrupt him again; "Down there in a camp by the bay, an' they've got a boat an' guns, an' they're boys, an' they pretend to ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... where there is a cave in which there is a figure of our Saviour, which they pretend has ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for granted—I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt—" He paused a moment, and for the first time ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... most of the time; but this was no place to practice bein' absent minded. It didn't seem to make any diff'rence whether I put my hat on or left it off, they were wise to the ruddy hair. All I could do was to squeeze myself into one corner of the seat and pretend not to notice 'em. What I wanted most was to stand up and holler for Mr. Robert. Why in blazes didn't he ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... exactly that; but they have things that belonged to their grandmothers,' declared Sarah. 'I know you have much grander things at home, Horatia, though you pretend to admire these so ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... cried Nancy. "Judith's idea of the cabin was an inspiration. Let's pretend we are a ship. Cathy'll be the captain and we'll be the crew and we'll have to be disciplined if ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... and fro, noting every bird on the hedges and every flower in the path, kept bringing them back to his mother's face with a dreamy upward gaze. 'I will try, mother, I really will. I will keep my hands tight in my pockets, and my feet close together; I will pretend I'm going to be shot by a file of soldiers, and then I really think that will help me not to fidget. I promise ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to make them the depositories of all power. It would require a long discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in the generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate representation." I shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned Constitution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion that puts them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can pretend to stand on equal ground with them. I was confused,—affected even with a species of terror,—and wished myself away. The intenseness of their feelings gave them the exclusive property of the soil and atmosphere, and left me no right to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for those gloves! Why did he not say something? She was positive that he had them. To smile and laugh and talk; to face the altar, knowing that he possessed those hateful gloves! To pretend to deceive when she knew that he was not deceived! It was maddening. It was not possible that Warrington had the gloves; he would never have kept them all this while. What meant this man at her side? ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... by being quite sure, and offering a definite and certain solution. Unluckily Science forbids, and conscience is on the same side. We verily do not know how the false Pucelle arrived at her success with the family of the true Maid; we do not know, or pretend to know, who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey; or how Amy Robsart came by her death; or why the Valet was so important a prisoner. It is only possible to restate the cases, and remove, if we may, the errors and confusions which beset the problems. Such a tiny ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... seasons, therefore, spares the colonists two immense sources of expence, and will without doubt in the end, enable them to undersell and ruin the Saxon wool growers; since the only point of superiority these latter can pretend to is their greater contiguity to the market, and this, in consequence of the extreme value of the commodity, is of too trifling import to demand consideration. The freight of wool from the colony, has already been reduced ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... ordinary village. It lies pleasantly nestled among the vines, sheltered by bold ridges on the north-west, with the monotonous plains of La Champagne pouilleuse, unsuited to the cultivation of the vine, stretching away eastward in the direction of Chlons. Avize cannot pretend to the same antiquity as its neighbour Vertus, and lacks the many picturesque vestiges of which the latter can boast. Its church dates back only to the 15th century, although the principal doorway in the Romanesque style evidently belongs to a ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... pretend we have been captured by brigands,' said Peter at last. 'Are you listening? There were three of them, great big men with beards, and they crept up behind me and snatched me up and took me out here to their lair. This is their lair. One was called Dick, the others' ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... hidden under any of the ordinary veils of society. Crosbie's salutation had been made before the eyes of them all, and in the midst of absolute silence, and Lily had risen with so queen-like a demeanour, and had moved with so stately a step, that it was impossible that any one concerned should pretend to ignore the facts of the scene that had occurred. Crosbie was still standing close to Mrs Harold Smith, Mrs Thorne had risen from her seat, and the words which Bernard Dale had uttered were still sounding ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... is that of a bank which keeps the bonds of a depositor in its safe for his accommodation. The bank does not pretend to be a safe-deposit company or anything of the kind, but it has a large vault and wishes to accommodate its customers by keeping their stocks and bonds and other articles for them while they are off ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... could not pretend to misunderstand. He enjoyed the distinction of holding open the door for the transatlantic representative of the line of Offa as he went out, and then made his way through the muddy streets back to his office. There was only one ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Satire, you may say, Makes me pretend to be a Critic—Nay! Rather be roasted than to roast, say I; And I have been ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess
... place, American town and city histories are few. In the second place, the books that pretend to be such are many, and as a rule historically worthless. In the third place, both the real and the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... brilliancy hopped forth, and jumping up to the Queen, held out its beak, having a label therein, apparently beseeching her to accept the offering. She stooped down to receive the billet, which she hastily unfolded. What effect was visible on her countenance we cannot pretend to say, inasmuch as the mask precluded observation; but there was an evident tremor in her frame. She seemed to be overpowered with surprise, and held out the note as though for the moment incapable of deciding whether to accept it or no. Then with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... any person to say that it was one; and that he has in innumerable instances declared in public and in private, both before and after the work was published, that it was not what is generally termed an autobiography: but a set of people who pretend to write criticisms on books, hating the author for various reasons, amongst others, because, having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not in the year 1843, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in London, ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... hardly think he'll take the alarm at sight of any strangers, so long as he doesn't get a glimpse of me. Now, if you three just saunter easily into camp, and pretend to treat him in a friendly way, you'll find he can be a fine gentleman. Humor his failing as much ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... was ended, the two sisters began to pretend such grief at the thought of her leaving them, that she agreed to stay a week more: but all that time Beauty could not help fretting for the sorrow that she knew her absence would give her poor beast; for she tenderly loved him, and much wished ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... pretend to say that I felt altogether comfortable during the march; indeed, to have done so was impossible, for the night was bitterly cold, and at all times there is but little shelter on the bleak and wild Lammermoors; yet the cold gave me but small concern, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... you will kindly drop 'I guess,' I shall like my little Yankee all the better. Now, see here, Rosy, I don't pretend to set myself up for a model in anything, and you may come down on my grammar, manners or morals as often as you think I'm wrong, and I'll thank you. I've been knocking about the world for years, and have got careless, but I want my girl to be what I call well-educated, even if she ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... considered, and man being admittedly a creature of his environment, can we still pretend to horror at this Roderigo and at the fact that being the man he was—prelate though he might be—handsome, brilliant, courted, in the full vigour of youth, and a voluptuary by nature, he should have succumbed to the temptations ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... zealots, who exhorted him to enact severe laws against popish recusants. Such a measure, he observed, would alienate all the papists of Europe from the interests of England, and might produce a new Catholic league which would render the war a religious quarrel; besides, he would not pretend to screen the protestants of Germany and Hungary, while he himself should persecute the Catholics of England. He therefore resolved to treat them with lenity; and though they were not comprehended in the act, they enjoyed the benefit ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... its use would be limited to a single object, that is, to itself, its own perfectness; it would not aid the Artist in the intermediate ascent to it,—unless it contained within itself all the gradations of human character; which no one will pretend. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla, and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... spiritual instruction, came to be beloved, studied and mourned for, by no small or careless school of disciples?—To answer this question would, of course, require more thought and knowledge than I can pretend to bring to it. But there are some points on which I will venture to say a ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... little good-natured banter, and often annoyed Chief Justice Campbell when I woke him up with laughter. And yet he liked me, for although often annoyed, he was never really angry. He used to crouch his head down over his two forearms and go to sleep, or pretend to, by way of showing it did not matter what I said to the jury. I dare say it was disrespectful, but I could not help on these occasions quietly pointing across my shoulder at him with my thumb, and that was enough. The jury roared, and Campbell ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... that to begin with we both pretend to be in an awful funk. If they think that we are only two frightened boys, they won't keep as sharp a watch over us as if they thought we were determined fellows, likely to attempt our escape. There is the sea down there ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... cases there is fusion of the teeth. Pliny, Bartholinus, and Melanthon pretend to have seen the union of all the teeth, making a continuous mass. In the "Musee de l'ecole dentaire de Paris" there are several milk-teeth, both of the superior and inferior maxilla, which are fused together. Bloch ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... pretend to understand these questions. I wish men wouldn't talk business at dinner. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... window, showing her breasts, and if you gave such a one a shilling, she would stoop so that you could see right down past her belly to her knees, and have a glimpse of her cunt-fringe. Sometimes one would pull up her garter, or another sit down and piddle, or pretend to do so, or have recourse to other exciting devices when men ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... beaten. Sir Francis Varney was by far too long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... they won't be all asleep; but we dare not put it off later, for El Zeres may come back earlier than he said he should, and if he does it's all up with us. Let's arrange our plans for good,' I said, 'and then we can each sit up against a corner and pretend to go to sleep. When I am going to cut my cord I will give a very little cough, and then you do the same when you are free. We had better do that before very long, for you will be a long time before you will get any feeling in your feet. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... huddled below. I began to recognize the increasing foulness of air, and to distinguish words of conversation from the groups about me. There was but little profanity but some rough horse-play, and a marked effort to pretend indifference. I could make out gray-beards and mere boys mingling together, and occasionally a man in some semblance of uniform. A few bore wounds, and the clothes of several were in rags; all alike exhibited marks of suffering and hardship. The butcher from Harwich, and the white-faced ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... that, madam," answered Bucklaw, "I only pretend to be a plain, good-humoured young fellow, as I said before, who will willingly make you happy if you will permit him, and show him how to do so." Having said this, he saluted her with more emotion than was consistent with his ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... sofa and restored her from her faint, Mrs. Burton would not let her try to rise. She sent out to Burton, who was reading a novel in the mild forenoon air under the crimson maples, and made him get the carryall and take Cornelia home in it. They thought they would pretend that they were out for a drive, and were merely dropping her at her mother's door; but no ruse was necessary. Mrs. Saunders tranquilly faced the fact; she said she thought the child hadn't been herself since she got ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... butt for wit and sarcasm. A tale of the Mississagas of Skugog represents a bachelor as "having gone off to a certain spot and built a lot of little 'camps.' He built fires, etc., and passed his time trying to make people believe he was not alone. He used to laugh and talk, and pretend that he had people living there." Even the culture-heroes Gluskap and Naniboju are derided in some of the tales for not ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... has now conducted me to that poetical wonder, the translation of the "Iliad," a performance which no age or nation can pretend to equal. To the Greeks translation was almost unknown; it was totally unknown to the inhabitants of Greece. They had no recourse to the barbarians for poetical beauties, but sought for everything in Homer, where, indeed, there is but little which they might not find. The Italians have been ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... against Obedience, which you owe your father. For The contract you pretend with that base wretch, One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes, With scraps o' the court, it is no contract, none; And though it be allowed in meaner parties— Yet who than he more mean?—to knit their souls— On whom there is no more dependency But brats and beggary,—in ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... does not pretend to possess a universal formula, or to have discovered the psychologist's stone, but strives to treat each ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... worse than expose their entire person; however, I cannot conceive of a demand that would be more degrading than this of forcing those benighted souls to prostitute their persons for the gratification of those who pretend to be the followers ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... pretend that I do not pine often for sundry tabooed things. Take pies, now—if there is any person alive who likes his pie better than I do he's the king of the pie likers, that's all. And I am desolated at being compelled to bar out the rice—not ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... what they will undertake; they themselves, of their own authority, set their own limits. They may therefore enlarge their own domain to any extent they please, and reduce indefinitely the domain of the State. On the contrary, the State cannot pretend to more than what they leave; as they advance on their common territory separated by vague frontiers, it is bound to recede and leave the ground to them; whatever the task is, it should not perform it except in case of their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pretend to any special information not hitherto given to the public in this further matter, but the reader may consider for himself whether the conciliatory policy which Lord Salisbury pursued towards Russia in China at this time—a policy which excited hostile criticism in England—was designed to influence ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... they would not unwillingly part with their children, in consideration of some valuable present, but in this we afterward found that we were much mistaken. Happening one day to call myself Toolooak's attata (father), and pretend that he was to remain with me on board the ship, I received from the old man, his father, no other answer than what seemed to be very strongly and even satirically implied, by his taking one of our gentlemen by ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... inexplicable to uninitiated spectators, to those who cherish even a corruscation of mental light, speak volumes of information; and such it was that Eleanor cast upon John Ferguson. What was conveyed in that look we will not pretend to fathom; but simply affirm that its effect was an entire derangement of the love-sick swain's determination to forget the cause of his wretchedness, and a dispersion of every idea save the one ruling sentiment of love for her. Thus, in a moment, discretion was forgotten, and resolution ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... amused at the enemy's accounts of the storming of Plymouth. Their papers pretend to have not heard the result, and would lead their readers to believe that Gen. Hoke was repulsed, and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... collection. We went to the Sistine Chapel, and saw Michael Angelo's frescoes, which Sir Joshua Reynolds says are the finest paintings in the world, and which the unlearned call great rude daubs. I do not pretend to the capacity of appreciating their merits, but was very much struck with the ease, and grace, and majesty of some of the figures; it was, however, too dark to see the 'Last Judgment.' I ended by St. Peter's again, where there were many devout Catholics praying round the illuminated tomb ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... beyond the strength of commerce, or armies, or navies, or intellect of man to produce. But it is necessary that we define power in terms of spiritual value; and then, surely, it appears that Power and Force can never be the same. A Frederick I., or a Napoleon, may pretend to confound power with force, and believe that their might must be right. They possessed a giant's strength and used it like giants. But true Power is ever the attribute of Right and they who strive for it must ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... inflammable passions of the populace, and, instead of amending errors, snarl at restraints. A true patriot points out defects with a view to have them removed, and brings himself into as little notice as possible. We may as well pretend that Wickliffe and Jack Cade were moved by the same spirit, as say, that we cannot discern between those who seek to do good, and those who would breed distractions. Yet, as the mass of mankind are either too ignorant or too much occupied to discover the sophistry by which, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... it so, because my time's Spent pleasantly. My lord's not haughty nor imperious, Nor I gravely whimsical; he has good nature. His sons too are civil to me, because I do not pretend to be wiser than they are; I meddle with no man's business but my own, So meet with respect, and am not the jest ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... very long and very straight marking the landscape with lines no more convincing than those which science was once decided, and then undecided, to call canals on the planet Mars, I had no sight of it. I do not say this was not my fault; and I will not pretend that the canal, like the mills of Manchester, was not running. I dare say I was not in the right hands, but this was not for want of trying to get into them. In the local delusion that it was then summer, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... is you, doctor," said the voice, with a great heave of relief. "But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend to be?" ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... good an appetite. I hope you will make as hearty a dinner at my table as I did the other day at yours." The Fox hung down his head, and looked very much displeased. "Nay, nay!" said the Stork; "don't pretend to be out of humour about the matter; they that cannot take a ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Belgium, France and England in connection with illegal dealings in rifles (? for Germany); apparently liable to more prison in U.S.A. for crime unknown, if returns there; won't say where he gets his money from, but doesn't seriously pretend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... vain. Your friends hope it is not yet too late to give you this caution, if it reaches your hands. The 'squire is absolutely determined to ruin you; and, because he despairs of any other way, he will pretend great love and kindness to you, and that he will marry you. You may expect a parson, for this purpose, in a few days; but it is a sly artful fellow, of a broken attorney, that he has hired to personate a minister. The man has a broad face, pitted much with the small-pox, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... which hats, caps, keys, &c. &c., are suspended in graceful irregularity. The doors open by wooden latches, raised by means of small bits of packthread—I imagine, the same primitive order of fastening celebrated in the touching chronicle of Red Riding Hood; how they shut I will not pretend to describe, as the shutting of a door is a process of extremely rare occurrence throughout the whole Southern country. The third room, a chamber with sloping ceiling, immediately over our sitting-room and under the roof, is appropriated ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... to determine the limit in the gradation of size at which this animal merges from the leopard into the wild cat. The varieties of cats are so numerous that I do not pretend to describe them; some are of sufficient importance to be classed among the smaller leopards, while others are no larger than the ordinary domestic cat. These vary through every shade of feline colouring, from spots to stripes, or to a fulvous brown ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... no man's motives, least of all the motives of the dead; but those who had set this train of events in motion had been always the enemies of the constitutional movement. The constitutional movement must go on, he said; but it would be folly to pretend that it could go on as if nothing had happened. Ireland must face its share in the responsibility. But the real responsibility rested ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Queen or the child should be saved, for it was judged impossible to preserve both? "The child's," he replied, "for I shall be able to find wives enough." Whether, however, her death originated from that terrible cause, we cannot, at this distant period, pretend to affirm, but from the report to the Privy Council of the birth of Edward the Sixth, still extant, it would appear not, as it informs us she was "happily" delivered, and died afterwards of a distemper incidental to women ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... old lady Chia remarked with a laugh, "your ladyship had better give her fifty taels, and I'll share it with her; each one of us taking twenty-five taels; and on any day it might snow, I'll pretend I don't feel in proper trim and let it slip by. You'll have thus still less occasion to trouble yourself, and I and lady Feng will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... There is a light that lightens sage and savage, but the glory of God in the face of Jesus may not have shined on this sage or that savage. The condemnation is of those who, having seen Jesus, refuse to come to him, or pretend to come to him but do not the things he says. They have all sorts of excuses at hand; but as soon as a man begins to make excuse, the time has come when he might be doing that from which he excuses himself. How many are there not who, believing there is something ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... better deserves that of mystical. Pantheism occupies a middle place between a scientific theory of the universe and a form of religious enthusiasm. It supplies an element in which the poetic faculty can move with freedom: for its conclusions, in so far as they pretend to philosophy, are large and general, and the emotions which it excites are co-extensive with the world. Therefore, Pantheistic mysticism, from the Bhagavadgita of the far East, through the Persian ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the censures of the public, annoyed by the hints which he had received from Barillon, afraid of losing character, afraid of losing office, repaired to the royal closet. He was determined to keep his place, if it could be kept by any villany but one. He would pretend to be shaken in his religious opinions, and to be half a convert: he would promise to give strenuous support to that policy which he had hitherto opposed: but, if he were driven to extremity, he would ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to get a divorce!" he cried ironically. "You still pretend to be the injured one. You and Whitmore have it all framed up—eh! But I tell you you've miscalculated this time! No man can wreck my home with impunity! No man can enter my house to steal my wife—and get away with it. I've been blind a long time, but my eyes are wide ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... actuated at their Revolution. But though they have kept our laws, and still respect our reading of those laws, they have greatly altered and simplified our practice. Whether a double set of courts of law and equity are or are not expedient, either in the one country or in the other, I do not pretend to know. It is, however, the fact that there is no ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... seems to show that it is neither a Basque word, nor a Saxon. Whether it is a mere expansion of ydwr, the water, in Welch, I cannot pretend to say, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... got them, called the tender mercies of a savage and licentious soldiery,—and came by slow and difficult stages to England; or such as when their mother began catching cold and didn't seem at last ever able to leave off catching cold, and though she tried to pretend she didn't mind colds and that they didn't matter, it was plain that these colds did at last matter very much, for ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... real mother—she died when I were a little kid, and Juno here, she had pups at the time—not that one, she's Flora, three years old she be—and they used to pretend she suckled me. It bain't likely, be it?" he asked, as if after all he was not quite sure about it himself. "Schoolmaster says as how it's writ that there was once two little rum'uns, suckled by a wolf, but he can't say for sure that ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... more than my escort, perhaps because my skin being more tender they could better succeed in their sanguinary intent, but although my flesh smarted and my strength failed it was necessary to keep cheerful and pretend, every now and then, to recognize our whereabouts just as if I had passed the same way other times. I even assured my five companions that when we reached the Sakais there would be no more difficulties, and so urged ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the devil; that it was not the cup she was anxious about, but the life of her master. What if she should acquaint the earl's lawyer with all she knew! He would be dragged into public daylight! He could not pretend ignorance concerning the identity of the chalice! that would be to be no antiquarian, while Dawtie would bear witness that he had in his possession a book telling all about it! But the girl would never of herself have turned against him! It was all that fellow Ingram, with ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... sensible man whom Lincoln at once converted by drafting the precise message that would have to be sent to the Confederate President. On two earlier occasions such labourers for peace were allowed to go across the lines and talk with Davis; it could be trusted to their honour to pretend to no authority; they had interesting talks with the great enemy, and made religious appeals to him or entertained him with wild proposals for a joint war on France over Mexico. They returned, converted also. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... attended the first meeting of the new class and heard the introductory lecture. Mr. D. began by speaking of the object of the formation of the class. I shall adopt the first person in writing what he said, though I do not pretend to give his words. I have not invited you here to amuse an idle hour, or to afford you a topic of conversation when you meet. One great design has been to cherish in you a love of home and of solitude. Yet ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... could prove that you betrayed that poor, foolish child,—then I would see to it that you paid the price. But I cannot prove it. I only know that she would have been helpless in your hands. Oh, I know your power! I have felt it. And I did not even pretend to myself that I loved you. What chance would she have had if she loved and trusted you? I shudder at the thought of—If Amos Vick should even suspect you of wronging his child, he would not wait for proof. He would tear you to pieces. You may be ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... occupied a modestly opulent office on Madison Avenue, where he did his modest best to pretend to the world at large that he was only a small cog—indeed, an almost invisible cog—in a large advertising machine. His best was, for all ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he could understand a younger person feeling differently, and that he did not wish to set himself up as a censor. But he could not pretend that he was glad to have been called out of nonentity into being, and that he could imagine nothing better than ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... pretend that all is Christlike: "The list of killed and wounded has been unusually large for Tanna, while the atrocities committed have been worse than we ever heard of before. Indignities were offered to ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... has his notions, and it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still, there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them. I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the duty of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... timed for Eugene, whose one idea had been to throw himself down on the bed and pretend to ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... don't pretend to know all that goes on in his mind; but allowing, or rather conjecturing, that he does care for me in the way you mean, I haven't the least fear of his telling me so, and one of the reasons is this, that he is wholly dependent upon his father, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... basis of a certain self-development of the Absolute. We are indebted to Mr. Morell for a specimen,[142] alike amusing and instructive, of Schelling's speculations on this subject. We shall not attempt to interpret its meaning, for, in sooth, we do not pretend to understand it: but one thing is clear, the laws of Matter, of Dynamics, of Organic structure and life, the laws of Knowledge, of Action, and of Art, are all exhibited as mere deductions or corollaries from the "idea of the Absolute;" ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... not like to make any remark till you actually let out the secret, Fritz, but we need no longer pretend not to see through the disguise of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... forget all about salmon and sport, and are thinking, maybe, of kith and kin across the North Sea, or of sins of omission and commission. All at once you are startled by that inspiring cry of the winch which some faddy people pretend to think a nuisance. It is to the angler what the trumpet is to the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... reassure them, though I at any rate would have preferred to stay where we were. We sat down to supper, each next to his sweetheart, and to my surprise the lieutenant's mistress was the first to begin the fun. Thinking that she could not pretend to be a man without being impudent, she began to toy with the lady-lieutenant, who defended himself like a prudish miss. The two cousins, not to be outdone, began to caress us in a manner that was rather free. Zenobia, who was waiting on us at table could not help laughing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "I do not pretend to compare myself with Mr. Winthrop in any way. It would be like the minnow claiming ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... "We'll pretend you're sitting on the stone rim of a great fountain in the King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of the beautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castle under the sea, that had 'a ceiling of amber, ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you all I know about it for nothing," laughed the skipper. "I don't pretend to know much, but somehow I always get along. Won't you take the helm, sir, and try ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... this is going to get itself said. But I can't stop it. That frightens me, rather; I've been used to ordering myself about or, at least, to feeling that I could. But that seems to be over. I don't pretend that I didn't foresee it, or rather that I didn't recognize it right at the beginning. What I did was to put off reckoning ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... talk," he said. "Even if a man has been acquitted by a jury, they'll talk, and nod and wink—and as far as the world goes, a man might often as well be guilty as not. It's a breakdown blow, and it damages Lydgate as much as Bulstrode. I don't pretend to say what is the truth. I only wish we had never heard the name of either Bulstrode or Lydgate. You'd better have been a Vincy all your life, and so had Rosamond." Mrs. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to choose for herself. It pleases her to choose the grandfather instead of the grandson. Is that perfectly plain to you? If it is, my boy, then I submit that there is nothing further to be said. The situation is surely clear enough for even you to see. We do not pretend to be doing anything noble. Mr. Thorpe is seventy-seven. That is the long ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... had calculated upon this want of nerve in his antagonist, I know not, but on the communication of the intelligence I remarked a slight curl upon his lip, that seemed to express the triumph of one whose ruse had taken. This might or might not be, however, for as you are all aware, I pretend to very little observation except (and he turned his eye upon the daughter of their host,) where there is a pretty girl in the case. All I know is, that, attended by Stanley, he has accompanied the flag into the town, and that, having ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... fable has furnished information to a great many people about the economy of their insides, and possibly to you; and I should like you to know the exact truth of all the particulars alluded to. Whether Aesop understood them all, I cannot pretend to say; but the application by the old Roman to the quarrel between the big-wig senators and the people was on one point decidedly unjust; for there was, as far as facts are concerned, something to be said on behalf of the stomach, which ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... not wrong to pretend to fear what we do not?" he objected. "Do the spirits of the water actually rise up and tell you that we must keep to the shore? I do not believe it, although my grandmother says so until my ears ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs |
