"Specious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flight, Or they themselves clandestinely contrive it. 'Tis rumor'd that the ship which brought them here Is lurking somewhere in a bay conceal'd. This stranger's madness, these new lustral rites, The specious pretext for delay, excite Mistrust, and call aloud ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... recent shock, he hurried him away to my house to supper; and there we comforted him as well as we could. He came to consult me about a change of catastrophe; but alas! the piece was condemned long before that crisis. I at first humoured him with a specious proposition, but have since joined his true friends in advising him to give it up. He did it with a pang, and is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... shepherd that carols to the rising day. I had not then been thus entangled in misfortune, thus every way closed in to remediless despair. I had not then been a monument of impotence and misery for the world to gaze at. Ye are all combined against me! Under a specious, smiling countenance you all conceal a heart of gall. But your hypocrisy and your mummery shall serve you to little purpose. Point me, this instant point me, to a path for the gratification of my wishes, or dearly shall you rue the shallowness of your invention ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... leaving to herself then, as now, the entire responsibility of rejecting the advice which he might say, without vanity, was deemed of some value by those who could distinguish between sterling qualities and specious pretences. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... woman can be, literally broke her into Romanism, treated her like a servant, made her groom the horses, and comb the maid's hair, and when all these efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be finished off. The nuns did by specious reasoning what had been begun by persecution, and young Francoise, at the time she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly respectable member of 'the only ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... of his own address or their want of discernment. For my part, as I was never distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my bow, such bodings as these had like to have totally repressed my ambition. I was at a loss whether to give the public specious promises, or give none; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn occasion. If I should decline all merit, it was too probable the hasty reader might have taken me at my word. If, on the other hand, like labourers in ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral: a thing as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by trigonometry; they measure absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persons of the class above described cannot fail to commit in the exercise of their functions, purely judicial, the consequences of their inordinate avarice are still more lamentable, and the tacit permission to satisfy it, granted to them by the government under the specious title of a licence to trade. Hence may it be affirmed, that the first of the evils, and the one the native immediately feels, is occasioned by the very person the law has destined for his relief and protection. In a word, he experiences injuries ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... dear delight; Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets Better than e'er the fairest she he meets: A man of fashion, too, he made his tour, Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour: So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood: His solid sense—by inches you must tell. But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell; His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making work his selfish craft ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... A specious reason, however, is advanced for exempting Literature from the Censorship accorded to Plays. He—it is said—who attends the performance of a play, attends it in public, where his feelings may ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... commerce. This plan, which involves only the maintenance of a few swift cruisers and can be backed by the spirit of greed in a nation, fitting out privateers without direct expense to the State, possesses the specious attractions which economy always presents. The great injury done to the wealth and prosperity of the enemy is also undeniable; and although to some extent his merchant-ships can shelter themselves ignobly under a foreign flag ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... ladies' school, but she wept bucketfuls when I came away. I liked Buns! This is from Marjorie Riggs, my chum. She had a squint, but a most engaging disposition. This is from Kate Strong: now if there is a girl in the world for whom I cherish an aversion, it is Katie Strong! She is what I call a specious pig, and why she wanted to send me a Christmas card I simply can't imagine. We were on terms of undying hatred. This is from Miss Moss, the pupil teacher. She had chilblains, poor dear, and spoke through her dose. 'You busn't do it, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... I not?' retorted the old man, sternly. 'I could not tell how far your specious hypocrisy had deceived him, knave; and knew no better way of opening his eyes than by presenting you before him in your own servile character. Yes. I did express that desire. And you leaped to meet it; and you met it; and turning in an instant on the hand you had ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... they, "that Mr. Vavasour was so romantic;" and thereupon they named him as executor to their wills and guardian to their sons. None but he could, in carrying the lawsuit against Mordaunt, have lost nothing in reputation by success. But there was something so specious, so ostensibly fair in his manner and words, while he was ruining Mordaunt, that it was impossible not to suppose he was actuated by the purest motives, the most holy desire for justice; not for himself, he said, for he was old, and already rich enough, but for his son! ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... institutions of Prelacy, established in the one nation, and Erastianism, under the specious pretext of Presbytery, in the other; and both under an exotic head ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... bill, he would have been withstood by every member of the present Cabinet? Four years ago, Sir, we were discussing a very different bill. The party which was then in opposition, and which is now in place, was attempting to force through Parliament a law, which bore indeed a specious name, but of which the effect would have been to disfranchise the Roman Catholic electors of Ireland by tens of thousands. It was in vain that we argued, that we protested, that we asked for the delay of a single session, for delay till an inquiry ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thoroughly want to do right, and do not content themselves by saying they want to do so, I doubt if they are ever for long left in perplexity. Jacinth Mildmay had found it so. She had courageously dismissed all the specious arguments about 'troubling Lady Myrtle,' 'not going out of her way to dictate to her elders,' or 'interfering in their affairs,' and had simply and honestly done what her innermost conscience dictated. And now, as to how she was to act about and towards the ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... after supper with a book in her hand; a book of selected Bible stories on which Dr. Pound had set the seal of his approval, with a glazed picture cover, representing Daniel in the lions' den and an angel standing beside him. On the somewhat specious plea that Holy Writ might have a chastening effect, she was permitted to minister to me in my shame. The amazing adventure of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego particularly appealed to an imagination needing little stimulation. It never occurred to me to doubt that these ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tangled curls in imitation of a poodle; no pruning scissors had touched the light-springing locks that grew so prettily about their temples; in this, as in much else, they were unlike other girls, for they dared to put individuality before fashion, and good taste and a sense of beauty against the specious arguments of ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... nicely charge your understanding soul] Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... awful fact is deftly obscured behind the deceptive and specious plea for "a dollar of the greatest purchasing power." This is one of those artful expressions that are used by the advocates of the gold standard as a kind of thought-deterrent. It seems so obvious, at the first suggestion, that the best dollar is the dollar that will buy the most, that it is hard ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... fell by a noble hand. I have since examined the originals with a more discerning eye, and shall not hesitate to pronounce, that Bossuet is indeed a master of all the weapons of controversy. In the 'Exposition,' a specious apology, the orator assumes, with consummate art, the tone of candour and simplicity; and the ten-horned monster is transformed, at his magic touch, into the milk-white Hind, who must be loved as soon as she is seen. In the 'History,' a bold and well-aimed ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the days of our pilgrimage here are evil; yea, every day has a sufficiency of evil in it to destroy the best saint that breatheth, were it not for the grace of God. But there are also particular specious times, times more eminently dangerous and ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... sorts of primitive barbarism in modern society. The conservative "on principle" is therefore a most unmistakably primitive person in his attitude. His only advance beyond the savage mood lies in the specious reasons he is able to advance for remaining of the same mind. What we vaguely call a "radical" is a very recent product due to ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... being irresponsible for his acts. These verdicts, undoubtedly, gave rise to a grave discussion, whether the law, as it now stands, was sufficiently stringent to have reached these cases; and though this question was decided in the affirmative, the mere entertaining of the doubt afforded another specious confirmation of the impression, that a singular fatality was attendant upon a state prosecution. This idea received another support from the case of Lord Cardigan, who, about this period, was unexpectedly acquitted, on technical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... into an act of hostility. To meet this scruple it was suggested that the grant might be made for the purpose of encouraging and protecting all settlers on the waters of the Mississippi. And under this specious plea ten thousand pounds were grudgingly voted; but even this moderate sum was not put at the absolute disposition of the governor. A committee was appointed with whom he was to confer ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Coulson replied. "Negotiations of a more formal character are naturally conducted between your Foreign Office and the Foreign Office of my country. These few lines come from man to man. I think that it occurred to my friend that it might save a great deal of trouble, a great deal of specious diplomacy, and a great many hundred pages of labored despatches, if, at the bottom of it all, he knew your true feelings concerning this question. It is, after all, a simple matter," Mr. Coulson continued, "and yet it is a matter with so many ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which involved an act of piracy. But when I came to talk to him I soon found that he was even worse to deal with than the boatswain; for although perhaps not quite so ignorant as the latter, he was still ignorant enough to be convinced by the specious arguments of the Socialist, to readily accept the doctrine of perfect equality between all men, and—like most of those whose labour is of an arduous character, and whose life is one of almost constant hardship and privation—to be dazzled by the alluring prospect of being ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... upstairs to the higher regions of the house. It was as he had expected. He ran from room to room, and saw Although the house had been painted and papered, it was not only uninhabited at present, but plainly had never been inhabited at all. The young officer remembered with astonishment its specious, settled, and hospitable air on his arrival. It was only at a prodigious cost that the imposture could have been carried out upon so great ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Ha! thou specious orator, reconcile the two an thou canst! Thou art a scholar of deep research and eloquence profound we have heard. Speak on, then, in heaven's name!" He flung himself back on his cushions as he spoke, for, despite his wrath, his suspicions, there was that in ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... destructive, in its consequences, of almost all mathematics. The proofs favourable to infinity, on the other hand, involved no principle that had evil consequences. It thus appeared that common sense had allowed itself to be taken in by a specious maxim, and that, when once this maxim was rejected, all ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... house on which the unfortunate youth had pitched was one which was notorious for the character of its inmates. He had been directed to it by a pimp, who found regular employment in hanging about the docks and decoying new-comers to this den. The fellow's specious manner and proffered civility had led the simple-hearted west-countryman into the toils, and though his instinct told him that he was in unsafe company, he refrained, unfortunately, from at once making his escape. He contented himself with staying out all day, and ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be sure, fastidious taste must be repressed, and, as it were, brought under control, if you spare that expense in which one consults rather his own gratification than the feelings of others. But why all this? I write, so that the luxury of some under the specious guise of economy may not impose upon you as a well-disposed youth. And so, out of pure good-will to you, I draw instances from my experience to advise or warn you. There is nothing to be more carefully avoided than that upstart society compounded of meanness and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... that last half-pound of pea meal to be used in a last extremity, and as the argument he had used to force it on George had been at least specious, I could say nothing. George put one-third of the package (one-sixth of a pound) into the kettle, and we each drank a pint of the soup. It was very thin, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... only question in my mind was how far I could afford to be misrepresented as laughing at that for which I have the most profound admiration. I am surprised, however, that the book at which such an example of the specious misuse of analogy would seem most naturally levelled should have occurred to no reviewer; neither shall I mention the name of the book here, though I should fancy that ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... small perplexity—first from doubt as to the propriety of the thing proposed, next because of the awkwardness of it, then from a sudden fear lest his specious tongue should lead herself into the bypaths of doubt, and to the castle of Giant Despair—at which, indeed, it was a gracious wonder she had not arrived ere now. What if she should be persuaded of things which it was impossible to believe and be saved! She did ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... unfortunately what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.' This appears to me to express the whole sense of the question. I do not see much use in dwelling on a common-place, however fashionable or well established: nor am I very ambitious of starting the most specious novelty, unless I imagine I have reason on my side. Originality implies independence of opinion; but differs as widely from mere singularity as from the tritest truism. It consists in seeing and thinking for one's-self: whereas singularity is only the affectation of saying ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... there are lunatics endowed with a marvellous shrewdness to commit senseless villanies, and to put on a specious seeming. Depend upon it, my unfortunate brother-in-law's wanderings at night were not solely spent in communings with the trees and brooks. Who knows what might be discovered if he were under proper restraint? And it is to you, the only relation ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wide-spread feeling among the higher classes against the lottery, it still continues to exist, for it has fastened itself into the habits and prejudices of many; and an institution which takes such hold of the passions of the people, and has lived so long, dies hard. Nor are there ever wanting specious excuses for the continuance of this, as of other reprobated systems,—of which the strongest is, that its abolition would not only deprive of their present means of subsistence numbers of persons employed in its administration, but would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the singularly unpromising title Professor Bernhardi, and is a five-act comedy. Its performance was interdicted in Vienna. The reason given by the Austrian authorities seems a simple one, though it is specious: for fear of stirring up religious animosities Professor Bernhardi was placed on the black books of the censor. The Jewish question, it appears, is still a live one in Austria, and this new play of Schnitzler's, himself of Semitic descent, is ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... Athelred is most to he regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the quickened vision of what was rare in my little companion. It was indeed as if he had found even now—as he had so often found at lessons—still some other delicate way to ease me off. Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?—the fact that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had now come) it would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego the help one might wrest from absolute intelligence? What had his intelligence been ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... avowed his profound disagreement with the methods of the Socialists in practically every State but his own. He and his associates were at one moment so far from the national and international principle that they sought to support a non-Socialist candidate for judge—on the specious ground that no Socialist was nominated. But the National Congress condemned and forbade such action by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Berger's unwillingness to act with his organization even went so far at one point that he was punished by a temporary suspension from the National Executive ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the United Provinces for all time," he said, "is depending on the present transactions." Weigh well the reasons we urge, and make use of those which seem to you convincing. You know that the foe, according to his old deceitful manner, laid down very specious conditions at the beginning, in order to induce my ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Day? In Brooklyn they say the Landing of the Pilgrims was December the 21st; in New York you say it was December the 22d. You are both right. Not through the specious and artful reasoning you have sometimes indulged in, but by a little historical incident that seems to have escaped your attention. You see, the Forefathers landed in the morning of December the 21st, but about ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... boundaries of authority were not properly fixed. Committees exercised legislative, executive, and judicial powers. It is not to be doubted that in many instances these were improperly used, and that private resentments were often covered under the specious veil of patriotism. The sufferers, in passing over to the Loyalists, carried with them a keen remembrance of the vengeance of Committees, and when opportunity presented were tempted to retaliate. From the nature of the case, the original offenders ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... distances, the underestimation of the filled space is, I think, again due to a combination of two illusions. When the finger-tip leaves the filled space, part of it, because of its length, has already, as it were, left the specious present, and has suffered the foreshortening effect of being relegated to the past. And, on the other hand, after the short distance of the open space has been traversed the sensations of muscular strain become very pronounced, and cause ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was Timur informed that the captive Ottoman was at the door of his tent than he graciously stepped forward to receive him, seated him by his side, and mingled ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... nothing but convention, or an arbitrary tyranny, or a mysterious and awful necessity, something extraneous to their own desires, from which they would like to escape. To be able to refute these skeptics, expose the sophisms and specious arguments by which they support their wrongdoing, and show that they have chosen the lesser good, is a valuable help to the community and to one's own integrity of conduct. Too often the people perish for lack of vision; an understanding of the naturalness and enormous desirability ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the bosom of the deep, with its plains and forests, and hills and rocks and streams, and strange new races of men. These are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery of our continent exceeds the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... remembered Joe's confused manner when he had sounded him on the subject of money. Anton felt sure that Joe knew where the purse was. How could he force his secret from the lad? How could he make him declare where the gold was hidden? A specious, plausible man, Anton had, as I before said, made friends with Joe. Joe in a moment of ill-advised confidence had told to Anton his own sad history. Anton pondering over it now in the darkness, for there was no moon shining into his bedroom, felt that he could secure a very strong ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... they were ever so preternatural, ought they to have any weight in opposition to the truth of God, since the name of God ought to be sanctified in all places and at all times, whether by miraculous events, or by the common order of nature. This fallacy might perhaps be more specious, if the Scripture did not apprize us of the legitimate end and use of miracles. For Mark informs us, that the miracles which followed the preaching of the apostles were wrought in confirmation[10] of it, and Luke tells us, that[11] "the Lord ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... some persons entertain other hopes, which I confess appear more specious than those by which at first so many were deluded and disarmed. They flatter themselves that the extreme misery brought upon the people by their folly will at last open the eyes of the multitude, if not of their leaders. Much the contrary, I fear. As to the leaders in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... says, "We palliate our sloth by the specious pretext of difficulty." Nothing, in fact, is too difficult to accomplish, which we set about, with a proper consideration of those difficulties, and pursue with perseverance. The Indian language cannot be acquired so easily as the Greek or Hebrew, but it can be mastered by perseverance. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... All the wrath of the disappointed connoisseur welled forth in his contemptuous words. Their very calmness and precision showed the depth of his anger, and von Kerber, like Abdur Kad'r, felt that the time for specious pretext had gone. So he answered, with ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... are making a mistake. A woman in your position sets an example whether she will or not, and even if all your best reasons for this step were made public, you would do harm by it, for there are only too many people apt enough as it is at finding specious excuses for their own shortcomings, who would be glad, if they dared, to do likewise. And you would not gain your object after all. You would neither be happy yourself, nor make Lorrimer happy. People like you are sensitive about their honour—it is the ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Pamela, and says, she shall be her sister indeed! "For, Madam," said she, "Miss is a beauty!—And we see no French beauties like Master Davers and Miss."—"Beauty! my dear," said I; "what is beauty, if she be not a good girl? Beauty is but a specious, and, as it may happen, a dangerous recommendation, a mere skin-deep perfection; and if, as she grows up, she is not as good as Miss Goodwin, she shall be none ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... in them becomes enamoured of those evil ways, and they are filled with a desire to commit sins. And when, O good Brahmana, their friends and men of wisdom remonstrate with them, they are ready with specious answers, which are neither sound nor convincing. From their being addicted to evil ways, they are guilty of a threefold sin. They commit sin in thought, in word, as also in action. They being addicted to wicked ways, all their good qualities ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... this pleasant shady way he felt sufficiently secure to resume his exercises in riding with one hand off the handles, and in staring over his shoulder. He came over once or twice, but fell on his foot each time, and perceived that he was improving. Before he got to Bramley a specious byway snapped him up, ran with him for half a mile or more, and dropped him as a terrier drops a walkingstick, upon the Portsmouth again, a couple of miles from Godalming. He entered Godalming on his feet, for the ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... to prevent a surprise; the apprehension of hostilities confined the citizens within their houses; and the concerns of trade with the usual intercourse of society were totally suspended. After many attempts, the good offices of the King of the Romans effected a specious but treacherous pacification; and the different leaders left the parliament friends in open show, but with the same feelings of animosity rankling in their breasts, and with the same projects for their own aggrandizement and the depression ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... men of suitable attainments found to serve as judges, the prisoners were in due course tried, found guilty, and sentenced. No attempt was made to clear any of the prisoners by means of clever advocacy or specious argument, the questions before the court were the straightforward ones whether or not the accused were guilty of conspiracy, and, if guilty, to what extent; and in every case the verdict was the same, every prisoner was found guilty, but not all to the same extent, some of them ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... situation. The Charter proclaimed the reign of Money, and success has become the supreme consideration of an atheistic age. And, indeed, the corruption of the higher ranks is infinitely more hideous, in spite of the dazzling display and specious arguments of wealth, than that ignoble and more personal corruption of the inferior classes, of which certain details lend a comic element—terrible, if you will—to this drama. The Government, always alarmed ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... will be made to our association to abandon its one purpose of securing votes for women and turn its attention and organized machinery to the real or imaginary dangers which beset us as a nation, but let us never for a moment forget the specious promises and assurances that were given to the pioneers, who, when the Civil War took place, gave up their associated work and turned their efforts to its demand in the belief that when the war was over the country would recognize ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... expression to suppose that they had been witnesses to some phenomenon, which it was very difficult to account for otherwise than by supernatural causes; but when I have questioned further, I have always found that these “staggering” wonders were not even specious enough to be looked upon as good “tricks.” A man in England who gained his whole livelihood as a conjurer would soon be starved to death if he could perform no better miracles than those which are wrought with so much effect in Syria and Egypt; sometimes, no doubt, a magician will ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... would know the golden secret of the Greek Ideal, we must ourselves first learn how to love with the wisdom and chastity of old Hellenic passion. We must sacrifice Taste and Fancy and Prejudice, whose specious superficialities are embodied in the errors of modern Art,—we must sacrifice these at the shrine of the true Aphrodite; else the modern Procrustes will continue to stretch and torture Greek Lines on geometrical beds, and the aesthetic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... periods of control, for there are times when the mind wearies of rationality, and, as it were in self-defense, in obedience to the instinct of progressive life, craves a specious comfort. It seemed undeniable that Mr. Warricombe regarded him with growth of interest, invited his conversation more unreservedly. He began to understand Martin's position with regard to religion and science, and thus could utter himself more securely. At length he ventured ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... heartily despised about half of the advertising which the paper carried; dubious financial proffers, flamboyant mercantile copy of diamond dealers, cheap tailors, installment furniture profiteers, the lure of loan sharks and race-track tipsters, and the specious and deadly fallacies of the medical quacks. Appealing as it did to an ignorant and "easy" class of the public ("Banneker's First-Readers," Russell Edmonds was wont to call them), The Patriot offered a profitable field for all the pitfall-setters of print. The ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... married, the better. But Furlong, with that affectation of propriety which belongs to his time-serving tribe, pleaded the "regard to appearances"— "so soon after the ever-to-be-deplored event,"—and other such specious excuses, which were but covers to his own rascality, and used but to postpone the "wedding-day." The truth was, the moment Furlong had no longer the terrors of O'Grady's pistol before his eyes, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Antiochus the Great, did it secure permanent control of Palestine. The degenerate house of the Ptolemies made several ineffectual attempts to win back their lost province, but henceforth Palestine remained under the rule of Syria. The personal attractions of Antiochus the Great, the specious promises which he made, and disgust because of the corrupt rule of Egypt inclined the Jews of Palestine to welcome this change of rulers. The court at Antioch, however, soon became almost as corrupt as that of Egypt, and the Jews were the victims of ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... It now remains to advert to a distinction which is of first-rate importance both for clearing up the notion of cause, and for obviating a very specious objection often made against the view which we ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... figures with which it peopled his solitude so real to him, that the creatures of his mind become things, as clear to the memory as if we had seen them. But Spenser's are too often mere names, with no bodies to back them, entered on the Muses' musterroll by the specious trick of personification. There is likewise, in Bunyan, a childlike simplicity and taking-for-granted which win our confidence. His Giant Despair,[296] for example, is by no means the Ossianic figure into which ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... any force latent in Christendom which may check the force of its cupidity, and put a stop to the exploitation and subjugation of Eastern countries for the sake of advancing its own material interests, under the specious pretext of introducing the ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Alcibiades; "where Socrates is, no one else has any chance with the fair, and now how readily has he invented a specious reason for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... lately. Pray recover the same spiritt you had at the Revolution; let us lay assyde all resentments ill founded, all projects which may shake our foundation; let us follow no more phantasms (I may say rather divells), who, with a specious pretext leading us into the dark, may drownd us. I fynd some honest men's eyes are opened, and I shall be sorie if Culloden's continue dimm. You have been led by Jacobitt generales to fight for Presbiterie and the liberty of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... which have been lately imposed upon the World, under the specious Titles of Secret Histories, Memoirs, &c. &c. have given but too much room to question the Veracity of every Thing that has the least Tendency that way: We therefore think it highly necessary to assure the Reader, that he will find nothing in the following ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... a certain specious semblance of truth, is yet, we believe, radically and fundamentally false. It is true that both the male and the female problems of our age have taken their rise largely in the same rapid material changes which during the last centuries, and more especially ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... distinct, and the development of our language having been fairly continuous, while the literature of our nation exhibits a false start—a break, silence, repentance, then a renewal on right glorious lines—our students of literature have been drilled to follow the specious continuance while ignoring the actual break, and so to commit the one most fatal error in any study; that of mistaking ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... have the necessary material in hand to follow these immense reactions in their various fields and they will find their real point of departure not in dates but in the human attitudes and outlooks which then made a specious show of being final—and were ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... mass-meeting last evening, Calvin Ross Shelby, congressional candidate for the suffrages of an intelligent people, stultified alike his hearers and himself. We shall not dignify his specious appeal to local pride with the easy exposure of its fallacy; the victory were too cheap; but since he glibly sought to establish a parallel between his own questionable political methods and the legendary deeds of the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... knowing nor writing English; yet I say, that nevertheless I must say, what I am puffickly prepaired to say, to gainsay which no man can say a word—yet I say, that I say I consider this publication welkom. Far from viewing it with enfy, I greet it with applaws; because it increases that most exlent specious of nollidge, I mean "FASHNABBLE NOLLIDGE:" compayred to witch all other nollidge is nonsince—a bag of goold to ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time."... "There is a vast amount of thinking which ought to be in the market. We hold our best thoughts and give our second best."... "We do a good deal of shirking in this life on the ground of not being geniuses. The truth is, there is an immense amount of humbug lurking in the folds of those specious theories about genius. Let a man or woman go to work at a thing, and the genius will take care ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... been to a Government House ball is no more, mutandis mutatis, than to go to a Court ball at home. Neither will give you admission into the inner circle; and though that circle may not offer any but specious advantages and have but little to recommend it in preference to three or four other societies in the town, admission into it is coveted, and inclusion within its boundaries is as much a reality as if its walls were of stone. In Melbourne the scattered position of the suburbs and the extent ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... a sayer of particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal, division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... us'd to convey his Will to Mankind[45]. Whilst out of a groundless Charity, they do in a manner put all Men upon the Level, as to the Means of Salvation. Which Opinion of theirs, however plausible at first sight, upon the account of that specious Shew of Universal Charity to Mankind, does most certainly tend to the undervaluing and lessening those inestimable Benefits which our Blessed Saviour has purchas'd for, and promis'd to his Church; and ought no more to be receiv'd, than that charitable Opinion ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... religion; and that the honor of the women should be observed. Sir William agreed to the conditions, but declined signing the articles, pompously intimating that the "word of a general was a better security than any document whatever." The French governor, deceived by this specious parade of language, took the New England filibuster at his word, and formally surrendered the keys of the fortress, according to the verbal contract. Again was poor Acadia the victim of her perfidious enemy. Sir William, disregarding ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... the habit of supermarine arboreal produce—of falling to the ground. Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies of hypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain this specious and far-fetched argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, who wrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the Calappa laut,' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrial production, which may have fallen by accident into the sea, and there become hardened, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... description of this guest left Tito in no doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight, sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife broke off short against ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... till the fury Of war subside, the wild, the horrid interval In safety let me sooth to dear delight In a lov'd father's presence: from his sight, For three long days, with specious feign'd excuse Your guards debarr'd me. Oh! while yet he lives, Indulge a daughter's love; worn out with age Soon must he seal his eyes in endless night, And with his converse ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... thus setting aside food for the ghost at a series of funeral feasts appears at first sight, as Dr. Codrington observes, inconsistent with the theory that the ghosts live underground.[579] But the objection thus suggested is rather specious than real; for we must always bear in mind that, to judge from the accounts given of them in all countries, ghosts experience no practical difficulty in obtaining temporary leave of absence from the other world and coming to this one, so to say, on furlough for ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... (loquitur). The mischief a secret any of them know, above the consuming of coals and drawing of usquebaugh! howsoever they may pretend, under the specious names of Geber, Arnold, Lulli, or bombast of Hohenheim, to commit miracles in art, and treason against nature! As if the title of philosopher, that creature of glory, were to be fetched out of a furnace! I am their crude and their ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... king's son called Zardan forth, and, to try his disposition, said unto him, "Thou hast heard what sort of discourses this babbler maketh me, endeavouring to be-jape me with his specious follies, and rob me of this pleasing happiness and enjoyment, to worship a strange God." Zardan answered, "Why hath it pleased thee, O prince, to prove me that am thy servant? I wot that the words of that man have sunk deep into thine heart; for, otherwise, thou hadst not listened gladly and unceasingly ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... But beware of compromises,—that specious temptation not to make religion disagreeable. It can never be really that if it is the true thing,—a burning fire, a shining light,—but some one has well said: "When religion loses its power to repel, it loses also its power to attract." It must be ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... be admitted against him that in Pamela he produced an essay in vulgarity—of sentiment and morality alike—which has never been surpassed. In these days it is hardly less difficult to understand the popularity of this masterpiece of specious immodesty than to speak or think of it with patience. That it was once thought moral is as wonderful as that it was once found readable. What is more easily apprehended is the contempt of Henry Fielding—is the justice of that ridicule he was moved ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... money out of that drawer was awfully like stealing. Of course he would pay it back, and after all it would only be borrowing. Besides, it would enable him to repay what he owed to his mother and to Foxy. Through all the mazes of specious argument Hughie worked his way, arriving at no conclusion, except that he carried with him a feeling that if he could by some means get that money out of the drawer in a way that would not be stealing, it would be a vast relief, ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... unite himself to a woman whose taste and whose temper are adverse to his pursuits, he must courageously prepare for a martyrdom. Should a female mathematician be united to a poet, it is probable that she would be left amidst her abstractions, to demonstrate to herself how many a specious diagram fails when brought into its mechanical operation; or discovering the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasion to deduce her husband's versatility. If she become as jealous of his books as other wives might be ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... camel, when resounds the whistle's shrill, unholy swell; And, native of that guileless land, unused to modern travel's snare, Beware the fiend that peddles books—the awful peanut-boy beware. Else, trusting in their specious arts, you may have reason to condemn The traffic which the knavish ply 'twixt ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... ever hold on her way, undeluded by specious promises of easier methods, inuring her students to toil as the price of success; not rigid and motionless, but plastic and adapting herself to the necessities of different minds; yet never confounding things that differ, nor ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... both views being presented with full array of argument, the reader was left to reach a verdict for himself, the author having nowhere pointedly expressed an opinion. But such an argument, of course, was specious, for no one who read the dialogue could be in doubt as to the opinion of the author. Moreover, it was hinted that Simplicio, the character who upheld the Ptolemaic doctrine and who was everywhere worsted in the argument, was intended to represent the pope himself—a suggestion ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... been natural to suppose that after so recent an example of treachery on the part of Bedden, Major Abdullah would have been keenly suspicious; he was nevertheless deceived by the specious promises of the wily Baris. This officer knew my wish for peace and good-will, and he trusted to be able to assure me, that after my departure he had been able to establish amicable ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... appear, if Collonel Lambert and half a dozen Officers, with all their seduced Partizans, make so much as a single Cypher to the Summe Total. And this shall be enough to answer those devious Principles set down in the porch of that specious Edifice; which being erected upon the Sand, will (like the rest that has been daubed with untempered mortar) sink also at the next high wind that blowes upon it. But I am glad it is at last avowed, upon what pretexts that late pretended Parliament have pleaded on the behalf ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... of alteration either in form or reality, respecting institutions formed for their security. The first kind of alteration leads to the last. As violations of the rights of the governed are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner as to touch individuals but slightly. Every free state should incessantly watch, and instantly take alarm at any addition being made to the power exercised over them." Who are a free people? Not those over whom ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... results of the device were startling. By an act of January 4th, 1801, as many as 130 prominent Jacobins were "placed under special surveillance outside the European territory of the Republic"—a specious phrase for denoting a living death amidst the wastes of French Guiana or the Seychelles. Some of the threatened persons escaped, perhaps owing to the connivance of Fouche; some were sent to the Isle of Oleron; but the others were forthwith despatched to the miseries of captivity in the tropics. Among ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head and fix on the plain leaden chest which ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... the German government (October 27) addressed a note to the President of the United States asking him to intercede with our allies for an armistice and a conference for discussion of terms of peace. This led to four exchanges of notes, in which Germany's expressions were specious, and assumed a right to negotiate. The last of these notes was submitted by President Wilson to the allied council at Paris; and the council answered by referring the whole question of armistice to Marshal Foch and ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... After long and specious arguments, the attorney general Bijnon gave his decision in favour of the Count and Countess of Saint-Geran, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the way that I had handled my troops, first on the right wing and then on the left! As I was quite prepared to find I had committed some awful sin, I did my best to accept this in a nonchalant manner, and not to look as relieved as I felt. As throughout the morning I had preserved a specious aspect of wisdom, and had commanded first one and then the other wing, the fight was really a capital thing for me, for practically all the men had served under my actual command, and thenceforth felt an enthusiastic belief that ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... act at once, or his victim might get beyond his power. He therefore put pressure upon Mrs. Lyons to write this letter, imploring the old man to give her an interview on the evening before his departure for London. He then, by a specious argument, prevented her from going, and so had the chance ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... enjoyments of social life. "But this gentleman, madam, who is her gallant this evening,—is his character unexceptionable? Will a lady of delicacy associate with an immoral, not to say profligate, man?" "The rank and fortune of Major Sanford," said Mrs. Richman, "procure him respect; his specious manners render him acceptable in public company; but I must own that he is not the person with whom I wish my cousin to be connected even for a moment. She never consulted me so little on any subject as that of his ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing, Will they connect, and weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step tracing step, each step a politic progress; And out of all they'll fabricate a charge So specious that I must myself stand dumb. I am caught in my own net, and only force, Nought but a sudden rent, can ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... Realism, thou specious pose! Haply it is good we met thee; But, passed by, we'll scarce regret thee; For we love the light that glows Where Queen Fancy's pageant goes, And Betsinda ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... already tested the goodliness of the land, came when the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race—Teutons overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large numbers, not simply ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... singular aptitude of acquiring various accomplishments, was added a seductiveness all the more dangerous, because she possessed a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was morally. Her large black eyes—which, by turns languished and beamed with beauty beneath their ebon lashes—could feign to admiration all the kindling fires of ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... equal rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,—that their local law ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... idler, though his coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... the pretty Yankee girl,—simple, warm, outpouring in the sympathetic German woman,—and Faust, gallant, ardent, winning in the bright-eyed Italian,—thoughtful, tender, fervent in the intelligent German,—are background figures in the picture your memory paints; while the ubiquitous, sneering, specious, cunning, tempting, leering, unholy Mephistopheles is a character of himself, in the foreground, whose special interpreter you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... check'd the Judge: Oh, proud yet mean! And canst thou hope from me to screen Thy foolish heart, and o'er it spread A veil to cheat th' omniscient dead? And canst thou hope, as once on Earth, Applause to gain by specious worth; Like those that still by sneer and taunt Would prove pernicious what they want; And claim the mastership of Art, Because ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... and came back in great haste to her mistress, to whom she recounted the strange machinations of the count. The two women held a fresh council and had not considered, the time it takes to sing Alleluia, twice, these warlike appearances, watches, defences, and equivocal, specious, and diabolical orders and dispositions before they recognised by the sixth sense with which all females are furnished, the special danger which threatened ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... temples of Bacchus or Venus, &c., &c." But these sallies of religious frenzy must not extinguish the praise, which is due to Mr. William Law as a wit and a scholar. His argument on topics of less absurdity is specious and acute, his manner is lively, his style forcible and clear; and, had not his vigorous mind been clouded by enthusiasm, he might be ranked with the most agreeable and ingenious writers of the times. While the Bangorian controversy was a fashionable theme, he entered the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... cold intellect, is the embodiment of cruelty, malice, and scorn, pervaded and interfused with grim humour. That ideal Mr. Irving made actual. The omniscient craft and deadly malignity of his impersonation, swathed in a most specious humour at some moments (as, for example, in Margaret's bedroom, in the garden scene with Martha, and in the duel scene with Valentine) made the blood creep and curdle with horror, even while they impressed the sense ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult. Sec. 226. Thirdly, I answer, that this ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... may bring about a contamination of meaning. The verb to gloss, or gloze, means simply to explain or translate, from Greco-Lat. glossa, tongue; but, under the influence of the unrelated gloss, superficial lustre, it has acquired the sense of specious interpretation. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Oh! my father, indeed, indeed I have not conducted myself so ill as you perhaps imagine. I shrunk from this secret engagement; I opposed by every argument in my power, this clandestine correspondence; but it was only for a week, a single week; and reasons, plausible and specious reasons, were plentiful. Alas! alas! all is explained now. All that was strange, mysterious, perplexed in his views and conduct, and which, when it crossed my mind, I dismissed with contempt,—all is now ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... conforming to the ancient discipline, and unsupported by witnesses worthy of belief. Nor were Henry's machinations confined to Germany, but he ransacked Lombardy and the marches of Ancona for bishops to sign these articles of condemnation, and even aspired to infect Rome itself by presents and specious promises. But the golden ass could not then leap the walls of ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... in the livery of the Court. "How far," said he, "did Louis XIV. carry his zeal for the Church, that virtue of sovereigns who have received power and the sword only that they may be props of the altar and defenders of its doctrine! Specious reasons of State! In vain did you oppose to Louis the timid views of human wisdom, the body of the monarchy enfeebled by the flight of so many citizens, the course of trade slackened, either by the deprivation of their industry, or by the furtive ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... poor young man been very simple, and very self-sufficient, he had not been so grossly deluded. Mrs. Bevis has the same plea to make for herself. A good-natured, thoughtless woman; not used to converse with so vile and so specious a deceiver as him, who made his advantage of both ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... are commonly chosen because they are specious rather than just; but there is one here which I cannot forbear. If a system like Mr. Jones' were adopted in teaching children to write, we should begin by collecting and comparing all the careless and hasty handwritings of the middle class and ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... endeavours to impregnate the Oriental mind with our insular habits of thought, we should proceed with the utmost caution, and that we should remember that our primary duty is, not to introduce a system which, under the specious cloak of free institutions, will enable a small minority of natives to misgovern their countrymen, but to establish one which will enable the mass of the population to be governed according to the code of Christian morality. A freely elected Egyptian Parliament, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest, by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the publick good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... with abundant flow of words, striking and vivid in his language, his harangues were perfect treatises on the subjects he discussed. The only rival of Mirabeau, he needed but a cause more natural and more sterling to have become his equal: but sophistry could not deck abuses in colours more specious than those with which Maury invested ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... caused much comment and discussion among the dominant class. For down deep in the heart of every man is a conception of right. He cannot extinguish it, or separate it from its comparative. What would I have others do to me? Pride, interest, adverse contact, all with specious argument may strive to dissipate the comparison, but the pulsations of a common humanity, keeping time with the verities of God never ceased to trouble, and thus the moral pebble thrown on the bosom of the hitherto placid sea of public opinion, like ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Ill feeling seeks to destroy—already it turns to wickedness. Gombei's face betrayed him. His talk was specious. At sight of the letter he read the doubting heart learns the truth. Burdensome the knowledge for one's heart. The mind tastes the bitterness of adversity. The hair of the head, behind the temples, is affected by the feelings. To draw ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... for a suit of angelic pin-feathers. There are many church people who will slander you unmercifully for dissenting from their religious dogma, then seize the first opportunity to stick you with a plugged dime or steal your dog. There are worshippers who do not consider in outward rites and specious forms religion satisfied; but these never accumulate vast fortunes. The path to heaven is too steep to be scaled by a man weighted down with seven million dollars. He may be long on hope and faith, but he's short on charity, and without charity religion ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... said that my father, was not one of those who are ready to substitute specious explanations for truth, and those who are thus abstinent rarely lay their hand on a thread without making it a clue. Such an one, like the dexterous weaver, lets not one color go, till he finds that which matches it in the pattern; he keeps on weaving, but chooses ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... the Adam to consort with, was entered by this serpent who tempted her; and if she did not eat, she drank, which was even worse. At first, indeed—and I may mention it to prove how the enemy always gains admittance under a specious form—she drank it only to keep the cold out of her stomach, which the humid atmosphere from the surrounding water appeared to warrant. My father took his pipe for the same reason; but, at the time that I was born, he smoked and she drank from morning to night, because ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... strategy and the theory of war he displayed much ability; and his administrative talents and energy as Quarter-Master-General in 1793 should have screened him from the criticism that he discoursed brilliantly on war in salons, and in the council rhetorically developed specious and elegant plans.[345] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... that there are many specious sayings invented by those who have reasons of their own for trying to prove that when the Son of God spoke these words He didn't mean what He said; and those who have invented these things are amongst the worst enemies of God and His Church on earth, no matter whether they say these lying words ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... a race, but in order to satisfy the idiotic ambitions of a handful. Let not this fact be forgotten. Democracy will not forget it. And foreign policy in the future will not be left in the hands of any autocracy, by whatever specious name the autocracy may call itself. Ruling classes have always said that masses were incapable of understanding foreign policy. The masses understand it now. They understand that in spite of very earnest ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... There is one specious gift which is almost sure to mislead those who are largely endowed with it, and that is fluency. We listen with pain to one who speaks hesitatingly and with difficulty, and who is obliged to search his memory for words that will correctly represent his thoughts; but if, when the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the whole, however, I am quite vain enough, and well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling: it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn, specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Bonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed. "If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it was a real fire." She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow which ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... conversation in this particular instance seemed to me to be that of a person who was concealing something. Politician's talk, Grogan, is specious, but notable for ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... incident of his life must make him appear to the reader, still nursed in his conscience a reserve of specious virtue, to keep him in peace with himself. It was his design to plead, to argue, to implore, nay even to threaten, long before he put his threats in force; and with this and the following reflection, he reconciled—as most bad men can—what he had done, not only to the laws of humanity, but to ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... else is secured, and when the whole of that which I so much court, and which I will have, is in my possession, I will take his life, or you shall. Ay, you are just the man for such a deed. A smooth-faced, specious sort of roan are you, and you like not danger. There will be none in taking the life of a man who is chained to the floor ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... conservation and elimination of waste every subject that seeks admission to the course of study should be challenged at the door and be made to show what useful purpose it is to serve. Nor should any subject be admitted on any specious pretext. If there are subjects that are better adapted to the high purposes of education than the ones we are now using, then, by all means, let us give ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... stories are not so good as fairy tales. They do not always end happily, and, what is worse, they do remind a young student of lessons and schoolrooms. A child may fear that he is being taught under a specious pretence of diversion, and that learning is being thrust on him under the disguise of entertainment. Prince Charlie and Cortes may be asked about in examinations, whereas no examiner has hitherto set questions on 'Blue Beard,' or 'Heart of Ice,' or 'The Red Etin of Ireland.' ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... seem to be the only Goths, in the real and true acceptation of the word. They, to the present day, build Gothic churches; but, instead of confining themselves to the prototypes left them, they are eternally aiming at alterations, under the specious name of improvements. Horace was indignant that, in the Augustan age, the meed of praise was bestowed only upon what was ancient: the architects of this nation of recent date seem under the influence of an opposite apprehension. They build upon ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... a Jayasthalian. In investigating the vestiges of creation, the cause of causes, the effect of effects, and the original origin of that Matra (matter) which some regard as an entity, others as a non-entity, others self-existent, others merely specious and therefore unexistent, he became convinced that the fundamental form of organic being is a globule having another globule within itself After inhabiting a garret and diving into the depths of his self- consciousness for ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... identified with madness. This proof, from the particular to the general, does not follow that of traditional Logic. But with Lombroso, Buechner, Nordau, and the like we have come to the boundary between specious and vulgar error. They confuse scientific analysis with historical research. Such inquiries may have value for history, but they have none for Aesthetic. Thus, too, A. Lang maintains that the doctrine of the origin of art as ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... nephew, Simon Baxter, laid claim to the estates as next-of-kin to the founder, and in this design obtained the support of Sir Francis Bacon, who acted as his counsel. While the suit was still pending, this eminent but corrupt lawyer wrote a lengthy and specious letter to King James, setting forth objections to the proposed scheme, and hinting in effect that if the will were set aside the King might himself obtain considerable influence in the disposal of the property. The Courts decided against Baxter, though this decision was ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... advantages that might be derived from shaping his present course accordingly, he at length resolved to keep aloof, at present, from both parties, believing he had so adroitly managed thus far, that whichever side might triumph, he could put in a specious claim of having acted with it, in ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... too long," they replied, "been duped by specious and deceitful promises. We now demand actions, not words. Let the emperor show us by the acts of his administration that his spirit is changed, and then, and then only, can we ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Rasputin? My pen fails me. He was one of a few great charlatans of saintly presence and of specious words, fascinators of women, and domineerers of men, who have been sent to the world at intervals through all the ages. Had he lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era he would no doubt have been canonised. This rough, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... shifting sands. The incense the sycophant world burned before him became a stench in his nostrils. The fetishes he had tossed to the crowd now faced him as real gods; and they were not to be blinded with dust, nor bought with gold. The specious and tortured verbiage of twisted law never for one moment deceived the open ears of Justice, even though it tied her hands, and her voice was the voice of condemnation. Honor—he had sold it. Faith—he had not kept it. Truth—he had distorted ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... only admire. Men say that mind moves body, but how it moves it they cannot tell, or what degree of motion it can impart to it; so that, in fact, they do not know what they say, and are only confessing their own ignorance in specious language. They will answer me, that whether or not they understand how it can be, yet that they are assured by plain experience that unless mind could perceive, body would be altogether inactive; they know that ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... the fairest seeming and the most specious pretences, affirming time after time that, though he had deceived before, he now was honest, he that shall yet again and again repeat his acts of infamy cannot complain, if no man should be willing to trust his happiness ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft |
