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Pretended   Listen
adjective
Pretended  adj.  Making a false appearance; unreal; false; as, pretended friend.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pretended" Quotes from Famous Books



... the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the street, and over the way, watching me with interest. The group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, "Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing to write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain

... coquetting with a tall and jauntily-dressed fellow, wearing a plumed hat and a red sash, who seemed to be mesmerized by the power of her charms, his large dark eyes following every movement, as she now talked with him gayly and freely, and now pretended errands to this and that and the other person on the bridge, stationing herself here and there, that she might have the pleasure of seeing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... records the pretended four voyages of one Lemuel Gulliver, and his adventures in four astounding countries. The first book tells of his voyage and shipwreck in Lilliput, where the inhabitants are about as tall as one's thumb, and all their acts and motives are on the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... titter, even the ladies, who ought to have had more manners, and that old Miss Mellon, who is a real growth of the hotbed of gossip, simpered and supposed we must look for such things now; and, though I pretended not to hear, my cheeks would go and flame up as red as—-that tasconia, just with longing to tell them Aunt Jane was not so ridiculous; and so I took hold of For Half a Crown, and began to read it as if I could bite ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... kingdom, family, and self—and then banishes Yudhisthira and the latter's four brothers for twelve years. The gambling was conducted in an unfair manner, and the cousins feel that their banishment was the result of treachery, although pretended to be mercy in lieu of death. When the twelve years are over they collect armies of sympathizers, and on the Sacred Plain of the Kurus (the Holy Land of India) the great war is fought out. The good prevails, Duryodhana is slain, and Yudhisthira ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... reform of ministerial abuses, and strengthening the royal authority by the salutary laws of the National Assembly; but he no sooner discovered that impure schemes of personal aggrandisement gave the real impulse to these pretended reformers than he forsook their unholy course. He supplicated Her Majesty to lose no time, but to allow him to save her from the destruction to which she would inevitably be exposed; that he was ready ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... separately, and either the one or the other first, as circumstances should direct. One of these was the severance of the Union of these States by the Alleghany Mountains; the other an attack on Mexico. A third object was provided, merely ostensible, to wit, the settlement of a pretended purchase of a tract of country on the Washita claimed by a Baron Bastrop. This was to serve as the pretext for all his preparations, an allurement for such followers as really wished to acquire settlements in that country and a cover under which to retreat in the event of a final ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... very advantageously, which is derived from a species when you pursue all the separate parts by tracing them back to the whole, in this way "If that is dolus malus when one thing is aimed at, and another pretended," we may enumerate the different modes in which that can be done, and then under some one of them we may range that which we are trying to prove has been done dolo malo. And that kind of argument is usually accounted one of the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... who foresaw the later development of a Country Club, with a golf course, and the provision for every other outdoor sport under its luxurious administration. Those who could afford such luxuries pretended to look upon these things as indispensable, and those who couldn't regarded them with simple pride, and lived in the glamour of their reflected glory, and told each other how such things should ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... Captn. Smith can have no weight, for the Spanish Mercht. acquir'd no property by the Capture and could transfer none to Smith, who has deliver'd the Cargo to the Owners and Freighters, to which he would have had as much right as to the Ship. As the pretended Gift could transfer no property, it could extinguish no right which had been acquir'd by the Revenge, Except as to such part of the Cargo as was taken away by the Spaniard. But the Owners and Company of the Revenge are intitled ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... clean work of it. Let there be no hesitation. It would be a cowardly deference to a defeated and treacherous President, if any account were made of the illegitimate, one-sided, sham governments hurried into existence for a malign purpose in the absence of Congress. These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were excluded by Presidential order, should now be treated according to their true character, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... then rose to be a partner in the business, and in a singularly short period was a man of wealth. Mrs. Uhler was puzzled, sometimes, at this, and so were other people. It was even hinted, that he had never been as poor as was pretended. Be that as it may, as he never afterwards trusted important matters to the discretion of irresponsible clerks, his business operations went on prosperously; and, on the other hand, as Mrs. Uhler never again left the comfort and health of her family entirely in the ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... was a kind of No Man's Land, because, though many tribes of Indians roamed over it, none of them pretended to own it. These bands of Indians were always fighting and trying to drive each other out, so Kentucky was often called the "Dark and Bloody Ground." But, much as the savages hated each other, they hated the white men, or the "pale-faces," as they ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... were fetes, state balls, and many private entertainments; for while all Europe was indignant, or pretended to be so, at the occupation of Saxony, the people of that country were by no means so angry on their own account. They were no more heavily taxed by Frederick than they were by their own court and, now that the published treaty between the Confederates had made ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... Helen Minorkey ever had been; she trembled and shuddered, even with her eyes shut, to think that his eyes were on her—looking her through and through—measuring all the petty meanness and shallowness of her soul. She complained of the cold and wrapped her blanket shawl about her face and pretended to be asleep, but the shameful nakedness of her spirit seemed not a whit less visible to the cool, indifferent eyes that she felt must be still looking at her from under the shadow of that cap-front. What a relief it was at last to get into the warm parlor of the hotel! But still ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... characteristic of this stage of the struggle between reason and authority that (excepting the leading French thinkers in the eighteenth century) the rationalists, who attacked theology, generally feigned to acknowledge the truth of the ideas which they were assailing. They pretended that their speculations did not affect religion; they could separate the domains of reason and of faith; they could show that Revelation was superfluous without questioning it; they could do homage to orthodoxy and lay down views ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury

... Jess pretended not to notice, but saying unconcernedly: "Dat's all right. Now put 'em on lak gentlemen," he held one in each hand toward his pets. They took the bits in their mouths, slipped their heads into the headstalls ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... of science, that of greatness is the most palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all things. "I will speak of ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for tuppence - what do you call this?' And before the others could stop him he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and held them out for Mr Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He snatched ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... naturally be hostile, jealous, and suspicious, with the control of large powers of government. Surely it would be better, safer, and wiser to sweep them away altogether. It may be objected that there was no ground in justice for so doing. This is true, and Bismarck has never pretended that there was. He has left it to the writers of the Prussian Press to justify an action which was based purely on policy, by the pretence that it was the due recompense of the crimes ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... Velasco, derives its name from the circumstance that a soldier, sent by Pizarro to discover the sources of the Rio Piura, having beheld the mighty stream from the neighborhood of Jaen, and, astonished to behold a sea of fresh water, exclaimed, "Hac mare an non?" Orellana's pretended fight with a nation of female warriors gave rise to the Portuguese name of the river, Amazonas (anglicized Amazon), after the mythical women in Cappadocia, who are said to have burnt off their right breasts that ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... showed no sign of being surprised: we sent him in here at once, and he seems to have made friends with everyone. That's all to the good, of course. He's not a nervous subject. No," he added reflectively, "he has an excellent chance of recovery. But I should deceive you if I pretended there was no risk. There is a risk, and we must hope for the best. By the way, gentlemen," he added, taking up his hat, "I hope you won't think of staying in town. Mr. Payne seems most anxious that you should go back, and I think his wish ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... author of the crime, and the circumstances under which it was committed. The public prosecutor (fiscal) moved the court for the extreme penalty of death; but against this sentence arose a strenuous opposition on the part of the bishops, who pretended, in the first place, that the crime was one which ought only to be judged by the ecclesiastical authority, and in the second, that in no case could the penalty of death be inflicted on a priest. The contest was carried to the government for its ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... general, or of any particular rite or doctrine which they were desirous to recommend. St. Jerom in effect confesses it, for after the mention of a silly story, concerning the Christians of Jerusalem, who used to shew in the ruins of the temple, certain stones of a reddish color, which they pretended to have been stained by the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain between the temple and the altar, he adds, but I do not find fault with an error which flows from a hatred of the Jews, and a pious zeal for the Christian faith. If the miracles ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English

... construction to the two parallel banks, the jetties proper. The scheme was always to force the river itself to do all the real work; and though there was, to be sure, a good deal of planning and building, the main idea, as already explained, is exceedingly simple. Eads never pretended to have originated this idea. He had studied many jetties in Europe. He had had the eye to see that they could be adapted to the Mississippi, and the skill to adapt them. For simple as the bald theory is, there was ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... stood one Sunday afternoon, uneasily conscious of his best jacket and collar, waiting its approach. Nor could anything shake his belief that regularly on that occasion the horses ran away with the driver, and that that individual from motives of deep policy pretended not to notice it until they ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... (like a carpet), after He had aforetime cast him into grievous torment?" Then Sherkan let bring a Nubian mule for her riding and said to her, "Mount, pious man, God-fearing and holy!" But she refused, feigning self-denial, that she might attain her end: and they knew not that the pretended devotee was such an one as he of whom ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... gives us a plain simple journal of everything that was done, such as a common soldier might have written, or a sutler who followed the camp. This, however, was tolerable, because it pretended to nothing more; and might be useful by supplying materials for some better historian. I only blame him for his pompous introduction: "Callimorphus, physician to the sixth legion of spearmen, his history of the Parthian war." Then ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries. Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... a sturdy post with a sign-board nailed to the top. I eagerly sought to read the legend. 'Beware!' it began. 'At this place a certain old giant, named Doubt, has a habit of stopping pilgrims and taking them through a pretended examination. He claims to hold a commission from his lord to do this work. His commission is true; but his lord is Beelzebub. After the examination, he usually carries off the pilgrim who allows him to question him. Many have fallen to his devices. He is a cruel, old giant, ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... comedian, of the Charlie Chaplin type. It was a Himalayan black bear, with fine side whiskers, and it really seemed to me absolutely certain that the other animals in the group appreciated and enjoyed the fun that comedian made. He pretended to be awkward, and frequently fell off his tub. He was purposely dilatory, and was often the last one to finish. The other animals seemed to be fascinated by his mishaps, and they sat on their tubs and ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... thinking it over for some time, "she went to a big common shop dressed as if she were an ordinary woman and bought the socks and pretended she was going to carry them home herself. She would do that so that she could take them into some corner and slip the money in. Then, as she wanted to have them sent from the shop, perhaps she bought some other things and asked the people to deliver the ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... front lawn so short with their mowing-machines that 'Biades couldn't possibly have made the front of his blouse in the mess it is unless he had purposely crawled on his stomach to lower me in the eyes of all. When it got to a certain point I pretended to have no connection with him. There was nothing else to do. Then he felt sorry and wanted to hug me in front of everybody. . . . Oh, thank you . . . yes, I've enjoyed myself very much! Mrs Tresawna wears a toque: but I suppose that when you get to ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... framework of art; it chopped and hewed, dismembered, slew the edifice, in its form as well as in its symbolism, in its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing which neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the plea of "good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic architecture the paltry gewgaws of a day,—marble ribbons, metallic plumes, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, wreaths, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... in like manner got a number of tall men with their hair dyed red to give credit to a pretended victory ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... John Barfoote, then Vice-President of the College, and Chaplain to Ambrose Earl of Warwick. I cannot learn the pretended cause; but that they were restored the same month is most certain.[12] I return to Mr. Hooker in his College, where he continued his studies with all quietness, for the space of three years; about ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... abroad to-day, as we heard by a messenger, I spent the morning at my office writing fair my yesterday's work till almost 2 o'clock (only Sir G. Carteret coming I went down a little way by water towards Deptford, but having more mind to have my business done I pretended business at the 'Change, and so went into another boat), and then, eating a bit, my wife and I by coach to the Duke's house, where we saw "The Unfortunate Lovers;" but I know not whether I am grown more curious than I was or ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... be, that men, studying the perversion of the gospel, and seeking the ruin of souls with all their skill, industry, and learning, are setting off with forced rhetoric, and the artifice of words of man's wisdom, and with the plausible advantages of a pretended sanctity, and of strong grounds and motives unto diligence and painfulness, to a very denying and renouncing Christian liberty, when once it is observed, how it entrencheth upon, and darkeneth ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... truly unfortunate," rejoined Mr. Winston, "for he covers his prejudices with such a pretended regard for the coloured people, that a person would be the more readily led to believe his statements respecting them to be correct; and he is really so positive about it, and apparently go deaf to all argument that I did not discuss the subject with him to any extent; he was so very kind to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... The prevalent notions concerning witchcraft operations and spectral manifestations came into full effect among them. Living in the constant contemplation of such things, their minds became inflamed and bewildered; and, at the same time, they grew expert in practising and exhibiting the forms of pretended supernaturalism, the conditions of diabolical distraction, and the terrors of demonology. Apparitions rose before them, revealing the secrets of the past and of the future. They beheld the present spectres of persons ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes. * * * He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye until he saw that she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... of criminality. In other relations, besides the one to which their fate may be mainly attributed, they were doubtless guilty to an enormous extent. Black Jack, Smith and Wilson were unquestionably old offenders; the two former having the heavy scent of blood about them; while Darcy or the pretended Lauder or Greaves, whatever his antecedents may have been, showed himself capable of any atrocity known to the history of crime. The cup of their iniquity was full; or they had not fallen so signally, thus. How steadily the avenging angel follows in the footsteps of the wretch who makes war upon ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... and reaching back, pretended to pull the girl's ears. "Am I going down town with you?" ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... go with me, and 'cause I wouldn't go with him he pretended I had done somethin' and beat me. I fought him back because he had no right to beat me for not goin' with him. His mother got mad with me for fightin' him back and I told her why he had beat me. Well then she sent me to the courthouse to be whipped for fightin' him. They had stocks there ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... covered with leather[85] were prepared expeditiously for the troops to cross. Cauzi Serauje, with seven of his friends disguised as holy mendicants, proceeded to the roy's camp, and repaired to the quarter where the dancing-girls resided.[86] Here the cauzi pretended to be enraptured with a courtesan, and was guilty of a thousand extravagances to support his character. In the evening the girl, having adorned herself in her richest ornaments, prepared to go out, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot. 'Wendy,' he said, 'don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself.' Still she would not look up, though she was listening eagerly. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... to find out anything else. They thought it was great fun to play at Letty and the dove, and they pretended to get into the garden through the door of the cupboard where our cloaks hung. And the play lasted them for a good while without their getting tired of it, and Miss Goldy-hair was quite pleased, and said that was one way of turning the ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth

... the nobleman sent to his daughter a request that she would watch for an opportunity to feel for her husband's ears while he was asleep. He admitted that this would be a dangerous attempt, but his daughter, he said, ought to be willing to make it, since, if her pretended husband were really an impostor, she ought to take even a stronger interest than others in his detection. Phaedyma was at first afraid to undertake so dangerous a commission; but she at length ventured to do so, and, by passing her hand under his turban one night, while he was sleeping ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... they saw they were on the wrong tack, they surrendered. The dear little sleeping infant in the cradle proved a fine lad sixteen years old. The over-fatigued female in the next room turned out a young seaman, whom we secured with the pretended sergeant, the nurse, and the doctor, making in the whole eight good seamen. This was a good haul. We got them without accident to the boats. The delicate American female followed us screaming and abusing ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... payment of the money, secured his passage across the Atlantic in a steamer advertised to start on the 23d, provided himself with a heavily loaded "life-preserver," and went down to Blackwater to await the arrival of his victim. How he met him on the platform with a pretended message from the board, how he offered to conduct him by a short cut across the fields to Mallingford, how, having brought him to a lonely place, he struck him down with the life-preserver, and so killed him, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... to turn away, to rise, to walk to a distant table, and, leaning there in pretended employment, try to subdue the feelings this picture excited. For a few moments her imagination and her heart were bewitched. The idea of becoming what her mother had been; of having the precious name of "Lady Elliot" first revived in herself; ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... was with joy that seemed almost too rich for earthly experience that he found himself walking up the village street with George the ensuing Thanksgiving Eve. Elsie was at the door; and he pretended to be disconsolate that his reception was not the same as on the previous year. Indeed she had to endure not a little chaffing, for her mistake was a ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... the disease in question.—It must have had a spontaneous origin somewhere, and that origin has been clearly traced to a populous unhealthy town in the East Indies—no infection was ever pretended to have been carried there, yet, it devastated with uncontroulable fury, extending from district to district, but in the most irregular and unaccountable manner, sparing the unwholesome localities ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... newspaper, and pretended to read it, but over the top of it she was watching Mona all the time. She loved teasing, and she thought she had power to make younger girls do just as she wished. But Mona stood leaning against the dressers, showing ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... to Canandaigua; after a mock trial he was discharged, but was immediately arrested and committed to prison on a debt. The next night, in the absence of the jailer, he was released from prison by the pretended friendship of a false and hollow-hearted brother Mason. Upon leaving the prison door he was seized in the streets of Canandaigua, and notwithstanding his cries of murder, he was thrust with ruffian violence into a carriage prepared ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... prolonged silence, 'Insarov deserves her. What nonsense, though! No one deserves her... Insarov... Insarov ... What's the use of pretended modesty? We'll own he's a fine fellow, he stands on his own feet, though up to the present he has done no more than we poor sinners; and are we such absolutely worthless dirt? Am I such dirt, Uvar Ivanovitch? Has God ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... Jem complied with pretended alacrity, but real reluctance, casting suspicious glances at Luke as he withdrew the bolts. The door at length being opened, haggard, exhausted, and covered with dust, Dick Turpin staggered into ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of the old Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with reference to his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to his Maker, and a great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if he had yielded the whole matter, and pretended that men had not rights as well as duties. The same logic which had carried him to certain conclusions with reference to human nature, this same irresistible logic carried him straight on from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... just as I did at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown; the guests knew I was posing, and I knew I was posing. But we all pretended to one another that that was the regular order of procedure in our house. So we had a very gratifying concert exercise in hypocrisy. We said our prayers that night just ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... to have a good time, Uncle Wiggily," said Curly Tail, or Curly, as I often call him for short, and then he looked at his brother, and they both laughed and pretended it wasn't anything at all. But ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis

... saving me twenty-two miles on my feet, and I was not wasting any dissatisfaction on the traverse. Only, as I shoved the canoe forward, I was nearer to being played out, from one thing on top of another, than ever I was in my life. I pretended the paddle that began to hang in spite of me was only heavy with freezing spray and that the dead ache in my back was a kink. But I had to put every ounce there was in my six feet of weary bones into lightning-change wrenches to hold the old ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... you. She chooses this moment to force from you your pretended opinion of one and another of her friends, and to insinuate the price of the articles of her dress you so much admire. Nothing is too dear to please you. She sends the ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... give you any reasons to make you certain about that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep them from perishing in battle; and they pretended he was an angel sent from heaven to fight Napoleon and get back Solomon's seal. Solomon's seal was part of their paraphernalia which they vowed our general had stolen. You must understand that we'd given 'em a good ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... merit, when they cannot equal it. Let us be better natured, than to give way to any unkind or disrespectful thought of so bright an ornament of our sex, merely because she has better sense; for I doubt not but our hearts will tell us, that this is the real and unpardonable offence, whatever may be pretended. Let us be better Christians, than to look upon her with an evil eye, only because the giver of all good gifts has entrusted and adorned her with the most excellent talents. Rather let us freely own the superiority, of this sublime genius, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... protecting the public from the inroads of disease; and never was there a greater outrage against a city than the existence of this body of men, absolutely unfit both as regarded character and education for the duties they pretended to discharge. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... it. With a bound like the girl's own, clear day had come. Palely the river purpled and silvered. No sound was anywhere, no human sign on vacant camp ground, levee, or highroad. "Ah!"—Flora made a well pretended gesture of discovery and distress—"'tis true! That bugl' muz' ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... successful Presidents of Republics have been those who are, or pretend to be, nonentities, content to be mere pegs, standing still and lifeless, for things to be hung upon. Jack Meredith was, or pretended to be, this. He never assumed the airs of a leader. He never was a leader. He merely smoothed things over, suggested here, laughed there, and seemed to stand by, indifferent ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... the whole population of a world beyond the Mississippi was to be brought into this and the other branch of the legislature, to form our laws, control our rights, and decide our destiny. Sir, can it be pretended that the patriots of that day would for one moment have listened to it? . . . They had not taken degrees at the hospital of idiocy. . . . Why, sir, I have already heard of six States, and some say there will be, at no ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... with the Germans against the French and the English, and the truth had become known only three full months later, when the Belgian "Gray Book" was published. Then Belgium was practically occupied territory. While Belgium pretended neutrality and friendship toward Germany, it was secretly planning for her defeat in a war which was considered unavoidable. The poor Belgian people, however, must suffer because of the large ambitions of King Leopold of Congo fame and ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... peculiar fashion of wearing his beard and hair. Satisfied that the object of his search was not there, he turned to the man with a glazed hat. He had noticed the master, but tried that common trick of unconsciousness in which vulgar natures always fail. Balancing a billiard cue in his hand, he pretended to play with a ball in the center of the table. The master stood opposite to him until he raised his eyes; when their glances met, the master walked ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... object was the recovery of Malta—an island which the King of Naples pretended to claim. The Maltese, whom the villanous knights of their order had betrayed to France, had taken up arms against their rapacious invaders, with a spirit and unanimity worthy of the highest praise. They blockaded the French ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... influence now. She would ask him to read the Bible, to pray with her; she might talk to him of death and heaven; she might name Donald, and extract some promise from him. And he was determined now that nothing should move him. So he pretended great weariness, drew a large chair ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... impending danger. Henry III. had even been urged by the Pope to send a special ambassador to her for this purpose—as if the persuasions of the wretched Valois were likely to be effective with Elizabeth Tudor—and Burghley had, by means of spies in Rome, who pretended to be Catholics, given out intimations that the Queen was seriously contemplating such a step. Thus the Pope, notwithstanding Cardinal Allan, the famous million, and the bull, was thought by Mendoza ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... plan of the city we are thus of necessity thrown back upon the reports of ancient authors. It is not pretended that such reports are in this, or in any other case, deserving of implicit credence. The ancient historians, even the more trustworthy of them, are in the habit of exaggerating in their numbers; and on such subjects ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... chauffeur's triumphant, vindictive face. He had seen it before, at a reception especially arranged for him by Jerry Durand one memorable night. It belonged to the more talkative of the two gunmen he had surprised at the pretended poker game. He knew, too, without being told that this man and "Slim" Jim Collins were one and the same. The memory of Annie's stricken face carried ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... root themselves in soil that is cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; the post-office is Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may be enough to hang him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free States are being driven out and murdered for pretended complicity in a plot the evidence for the existence of which has been obtained by means without a parallel since the trial of the Salem witches, and the stories about which are as absurd and contradictory as the confessions ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... of this public deck she pretended to drape herself upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... De Soto and came forward with gestures of pleasure, as if delighted to welcome her guests. Taking from her neck a heavy double string of pearls, she hung it on that of the Spanish leader. De Soto accepted it with the courtly grace of a cavalier, and pretended friendship ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... angel, he was. I never seen nobody with such a way o' lookin' at you. Never pretended he didn't understand, but treated me like a lady. I couldn't never forget him. I kep' the piece o' paper he give me, mostly because it was somethin' belongin' to him an' it sort o' proved I hadn't dreamed him. I never meant to ask for no help—but when I come here—an' there ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... which at his death had fallen into the hands of Khojah Zemaz-oddin, who persuaded De Sousa that it was only one million, and delivered that sum to him. Adel Khan afterwards gave notice to De Sousa of the vast fraud which had been used in the pretended delivery of the treasure; but all his efforts to secure ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... only too willing to dismiss the Jack Barto incident and the forced awkwardness of the pretended surprise. "That being the case, I'll jump in on the other matter. But first I'd like to ask a sort of personal question: I've been given to understand that you are handling the political business for the railroad company in ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... the instigation of the priests, demanded his death, although his very judge made public acknowledgement of his innocence. Jesus was sacrificed to the honour of that God with whom he was afterwards confounded. It is of importance, therefore, to distinguish between the pretended character of this being as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and his real character as a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, paid the forfeit of his life to that overbearing tyranny which has since so long desolated the universe in his name. Whilst the one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... on his slim legs, walked after her, then suddenly, for pure excess, he gave her a light cuff with his paw on the side of her face. She ran off a few steps, like a blown leaf along the ground, then crouched unobtrusively, in submissive, wild patience. The Mino pretended to take no notice of her. He blinked his eyes superbly at the landscape. In a minute she drew herself together and moved softly, a fleecy brown-grey shadow, a few paces forward. She began to quicken her pace, in a moment she would ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... Reb Moshe's training, were busy preparing the two guest rooms for the arrival of distinguished customers. Next to the guest rooms was the large bar-room, where, during the fair, crowds of country people were wont to drink and to dance. The servant pretended to clean the benches around the wall, and made a scanty fire in the great black stove, as the morning was cool and the air damp and musty. In Jankiel's room, the first from the entrance, the window of which looked upon the still empty market-square, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... other words, three years after the pretended death of Arsene Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had discovered that Arsene Lupin was really none other than one Floriani, born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be inscribed, on the page ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... new to the ophthalmoscope. The old humbug never saw your right retina at all—nor your left one either, for that matter. He only pretended, and judged entirely by what you told him; and you didn't tell him very clearly. He's a Belgian, you know, and a priest, and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys; and I think it just, in this time of gloom and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that on these very accounts I speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. I seem to hear you say that, for all ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... purporting to have been written from Syra, was printed in pamphlet form at Paris and sent to Greece, where it attracted much attention. This was followed by repeated attacks from a newspaper edited by one Germanos. Pretended revelations and miracles at Naxos inflamed the zeal of the ignorant and superstitious. Professed eye-witnesses circulated absurd stories, of girls in the school at Syra being made "Americans" by sealing them on the arm; that one of them refused to be sealed, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... her. Did they so regard their worldly affairs? By to-morrow they would be at each other's throats, squabbling, cheating, slandering, lying, fighting desperately to gain some ephemeral advantage—all under the eye of the magnificent guerdon they pretended to believe in and knew they were jeopardizing by such acts. No, it was pure self-hypnosis. Weak man demanded offsets for his earthly woes, and he had concocted them in a world of his own imagining. That was the history of man's religions; the concoction ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... he had run about a great deal to get nothing worth speaking of, some bread, wine, sardines, cheese, and an apple tart. I had gone to bed during his absence, and he laid the table beside the bed. I pretended not to notice him, but I could see him plainly, he was pale as death. He shuddered and walked about the room like a man who does not know what he wants to do. He noticed several packages of clothes on the floor in one corner. The sight of them seemed to annoy him, and he placed ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... "'You pretended not to know her! Oh, dear! oh, dear!' and her laughter echoed among the trees again. 'I saw her looking at you, and you ate on like a ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... the morning, and looking carelessly I thought it had been of last night. I dined to-day with Mrs. Barton(15) alone at her lodgings; where she told me for certain, that Lady S—— was with child when she was last in England, and pretended a tympany, and saw everybody; then disappeared for three weeks, her tympany was gone, and she looked like a ghost, etc. No wonder she married when she was so ill at containing. Connolly(16) is out; and Mr. Roberts in his place, who loses ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... historical incident, and believe it or not, as you please. Ferdinand of Naples died on the night of the 3d of January, 1825, and was found dead in the morning. The physicians attributed his death to a stroke of apoplexy; but that was in consequence of their pretended science and real ignorance. The actual cause of his death was this,—and if you do not believe it, ask any true Neapolitan, or Alexander Dumas, if you put more faith in him.—A certain canonico, named Don ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... of slaves at his heels, saw Horace's trouble in a moment, for he knew the Bore well enough, and realized at once that if he delivered his friend, he himself would be the next victim. He was far too clever for that, and with a cold-blooded smile pretended not to understand Horace's signals of distress. 'I forget what it was you wished to speak about with me so particularly, my dear Aristius,' said the poet, in despair. 'It was something very important, was it not?' 'Yes,' answered the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... did not feel at liberty to decide alone, he submitted to Mrs. Mencke, who pretended to consult Violet; but it was only pretense, for she settled everything to suit herself, and the preparations for the wedding went steadily ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... fast to the gangway and most of them climbed over the side with their daggers hidden in their clothing. The mate would have stopped them, but they pretended not to understand his words and acted as if interested in the appearance of the guns and rigging. Their conduct was so natural that the mate and his men gave their whole attention to taking the pepper on board and stowing it away. The mate was absorbed in his work, when suddenly several Malays sprang ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... symptom of the force and health of instinct? Is not empire over oneself, the power of regulating one's acts, a mark of superiority and a motive for self-esteem? Will not this joy of pride have the same authority in preserving the instincts as was once possessed by religious fear and the pretended imperatives of reason?" (Jules de Gaultier, La Dependance de la Morale et ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... myself alone and in a cleft stick. That afternoon, as I sat at tea in the lounge with the woman whose jewels I was ordered to steal, I was torn by a thousand emotions, yet I pretended to be my usual self, and at my invitation she went out for a motor run ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... 2.15 A.M.). I have been asleep against that abominable vegetable of a tree. It had its trunk covered with a soft cushion of moss, and pretended to be a comfort—a right angle to lean against, and a softly padded protection to the spine from wind, and all that sort of thing; whereas the whole mortal time it was nothing in this wretched world but a water-pipe, to conduct an extra ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... undertaking it is for him to make his house the seat for this college. Here was an experiment shown about improving the use of powder for creating of force in winding up of springs and other uses of great worth. And here was a great meeting of worthy noble persons; but my Lord Bruncker, who pretended to make a congratulatory speech upon their coming hither, and in thanks to Mr. Howard, do it in the worst manner in the world, being the worst speaker, so as I do wonder at his parts and the unhappiness of his speaking. Thence home by coach and to the office, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... understand him, or else quite openly expressed his disapproval and even indignation; and when finally Wilton quite tired out, did throw off the mask, Charlie shook him away from him, turned with a sickening sensation from the unbared features of vice, and unfeignedly loathed the boy who had pretended to be his friend—loathed him all the more because he had tried to like him, but now saw the snare which was being spread ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... he beguiled them all the evening with pretended discoveries. That cabin was his mother's cabin. No, it was further on, he remembered those willow-trees. Ulick's object was to get as far away from his home as possible; to get as near the Shannon as ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... grace told me that he is a young man? Now, pretended love is more perfect than genuine love; that is the reason why so many women are deceived! Undoubtedly he has thrown over many mistresses, and heart-free, ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... towards him with eagerness none the less because she pretended it to be half-feigned. "Will, you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... On another occasion, I pretended to forget the whole affair; and talked and played with her as usual, till night, when I put her to bed; then bending over her, while she lay all smiles and good humour, just before departing, I said, as cheerfully ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... her and smiled. His smile suggested a cunning recognition that she was deceiving him by pretended dulness. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... are you going?" thundered a voice from the bailiff's window. The man ducked his head a little and pretended not to hear. "Do you hear, you confounded Kabyle! Erik!" This time Erik turned and darted in at ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... Saxony, to whom Leo X. had addressed a personal appeal, refused to abandon Luther's cause unless it were proved from the Scriptures that he was wrong. He did, indeed, suggest that Luther should write a respectful letter to the Pope, but his suggestion passed unheeded. At first Luther pretended that the Bull was a forgery brought forward by Eck to discredit him, but when this line of defence proved useless, he boldly attacked the papal pronouncement in his pamphlet, /Against the Bull of Anti-Christ/, in which he denounced Leo X. as a heretic and apostate, an enemy of the Holy Scriptures, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. His own words are: "Ambition, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... is found in the 8th chapter of the Spanish work, El Conde Lucanor, written, in the 14th century, by Prince Don Juan Manuel, where a pretended alchemist obtains from a king a large sum of money in order that he should procure in his own distant country a certain thing necessary for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The impostor, of course, did not return, and so on, much the same as in the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... looking round, but she pretended it was to pick up one of her magazines, and, being still afraid that her eyes and nose were red, she continued to pretend to be absorbed in the contents. She was so vexed with the newcomers for invading her carriage that she would not have looked at them—so she told herself—even ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... Delessert pretended to do so, but the rage in his heart so caused his eyes to dance and dazzle, and his hands to shake, that he could scarcely see the figures on the assignats, or separate one from the other. He bundled them up at last, crammed them into his pocket, and hurried off, with a sickly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... for he was superstitiously affected by the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he answered, as he kissed the pretended Bible, that he swore to keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must be sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney, and shook ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... you will marry, and what kind of a fate you will have with them.—Borrow a wedding ring, concealing the purpose for which you borrow it; but no widow's or pretended marriage ring will do—it spoils the charm; wear it for three hours at least before you retire to rest, and then suspend it, by a hair off your head, over your pillow; write within a circle resembling a ring, the sentence from the matrimonial service beginning with, "with this ring I thee wed," ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... Hobbes, a work now-a-days but little known [and not better known now than in Bentham's time], and detested through prejudice, and at second-hand, as a defence of despotism, is an attempt to base all political society upon a pretended contract between the people and ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce

... of Neptune, (or according to some, of Apollo) was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, on the shore at Troy, after the pretended retreat of the Greeks, two enormous serpents appeared swimming from the island of Tenedos, and advanced towards the altar. The people fled; but Laocooen and his two sons fell victims to the monsters. The sons were first attacked, and then the father, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... was upstairs, quietly reading in snatches, and dreaming of Dora—dreams that were interspersed with misgivings and a shuddering fear of the future. In his present state of health, the prospect of jail did not seem so amusing as he had pretended ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... situation, was tempted to retaliate by reminding them that he had offered to board with the Irish, and been turned down; but he feared that the elder Rafferty might not appreciate this joke, so instead he pretended to have supposed all along that the Rafferties were Italians. He addressed the elder Rafferty gravely, pronouncing the name with the accent on the second syllable—"Signer Rafferti"; and this so amused the old ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... long as he is able, as soon as the robbery was discovered he was the first person to exclaim against it, which he did in the bitterest terms, and to prevent a long and circumstantial inquiry after the author of it (which he suspected would not terminate in his favour) he impudently pretended to have been an eye witness of the fact, and then boldly charged it upon one or another of his school mates, who he knew had neither skill nor spirit enough to contradict his evidence in a satisfactory manner. By this means the bashful ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... manners. She was the most daring and dazzling of women, without ever appearing immodest or repulsive. She walked with such proud, secure steps over the commonly accepted barriers of social intercourse, that even those who blamed her and pretended to be shocked were compelled to admire. She was the belle, the Juno, of the saloon, the supreme ornament of the upper deck. Just twenty,—not without wit and culture,—full of poetry and enthusiasm. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... to sigh for their emancipation, to declaim against the evil and wickedness of slavery, or even to denounce the slave trade! But the unfortunate blacks are not now, and never can be, the property of the planters; consequently the claims of their pretended owners are no better than those of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... Burnet, speaking of Baillie's execution, says:—The only excuse that was ever pretended for this infamous prosecution was, that they were sure he was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... miserable meal was over, Wylie got a rope and a butcher's knife, and went out to slaughter the steer; but first there was a row, because he thought—or pretended to think—that somebody had been using his knife. He lassoed the beast, drew it up to the rails, and ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... she learned to lie, learned to deny accusations of being different, pretended that what her sisters accused her of had been merely "stories" ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... the savage license of the state of nature. Usurpation will invoke the weakness of human nature, and insurrection will invoke its dignity, till at length the great sovereign of all human things, blind force, shall come in and decide, like a vulgar pugilist, this pretended contest of principles. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... conversed together over their wine, Cicero watched with sober industry and forethought, and with most admirable sagacity, having several emissaries abroad, who observed and traced with him all that was done, and keeping also a secret correspondence with many who pretended to join in the conspiracy. He thus knew all the discourse which passed between them and the strangers; and lying in wait for them by night, he took the Crotonian with his letters, the ambassadors of the Allobroges acting secretly ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... and yet one had a sense of having come out into fresh air; of saying things that were true—true at least to you, and to the people that were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe, instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn't possibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I have never seen him so moved since—since ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... pretended that the four types of free verse which have been illustrated are marked by clear-cut generic differences. They shade into one another. But they are all based upon a common sensitiveness to the effects of rhythmic prose, a common restlessness under what is felt to be the restraint ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... having a scientific mind and I guess she hasn't one. At any rate, whenever Bob would read her the wonderful things being done with wireless, all she would say was that it wasn't likely folks could send speeches and music loose through the air. Those who pretended to hear them were either fibbing or were genuinely mistaken. So when Bob did get a broadcast you can imagine how wild he was to convince her it ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... later period, "I am not an Italian scholar, and have never even seen Sanarelli's original article"; he had placed dependence for his statement upon a "friend."[1] Who could have been this "friend" who pretended that he had read the article of Sanarelli in the original, and deceived him into making a charge of forgery, for the truth of which there was not a particle of foundation? But the thing of which his readers have a right to complain is not that his "friend" deceived him, for that may happen ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... luxuries. They live chiefly upon milk and butter, with tea for their favourite beverage. Their bill of fare also includes meat, and particularly horse-flesh, which they prefer to any other, but they do not eat it raw, as some writers have pretended. As for cereals, which Europeans value so highly, their use is scarcely known; it is at rare intervals only that some of them buy bread or oatcake from the neighbouring Russians. Their mode of preparing tea would not commend itself to the denizens of Mayfair. It comes to them from China ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... slowly and looked round at Aubrey,—then recovering his composure, sat down and pretended to turn over some documents on the table, but Aubrey went on undeterred by his aspect of frigidity, "How dare you, I say? The God in Man! Do you realize the stupendous meaning of such a phrase? Do you not see that it means A DIVINE LIFE PALPITATING THROUGH EVERY ATOM ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... perhaps the best single test of the general healthfulness of school instruction, and it typifies life in general. The pretended appreciation of an author, an affected manner, insincerity in the profession of friendship and religion, anything that admits a deceitful, artificial element is pernicious in composition as well as in life. Whatever is good must be true. In ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... twelve canoes. They began their journey with forebodings as to their fate, for the Mohawks were once more haunting the St Lawrence. Scarcely had Du Puys and his men passed out of sight of Quebec when they were attacked. The Mohawks, however, pretended that they had supposed the party to be Hurons, expressed regret for the attack, and allowed the expedition to proceed. At Montreal the boats were discarded in favour of canoes for the difficult ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... on all those benefits that would come to the world from the race of mankind which knew nothing of the debility of old age. He saw the beauty of the theory as well as did I myself, and would speak often of the weakness of that pretended tenderness which would fear to commence a new operation in regard to the feelings of the men and women of the old world. "Can any man love another better than I do you?" I would say to him with energy; "and yet would I scruple for a moment to deposit ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... and I prepared surprises for everybody else. The mystery that surrounded the gifts was my greatest delight and amusement. My friends did all they could to excite my curiosity by hints and half-spelled sentences which they pretended to break off in the nick of time. Miss Sullivan and I kept up a game of guessing which taught me more about the use of language than any set lessons could have done. Every evening, seated round a glowing wood fire, we played ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... you may perhaps have seen, that the society of our capital is unusually corrupt. The comic as well as the serious signs of the reaction appear everywhere. A tone of affected cynicism pervades a portion of our high intellect; and a pretended passion for prize-fighting shows that men of culture are weary of civilization, and wish to go back to barbarism for a while. The present head of the Government in England is not only the confederate, but the counterpart, of the head ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... knowledge of what he could not do, he had also proved what he could be—he had recognised the bent of his genius, and he knew that of all the mistakes of his life he had committed none more grievous than that of binding himself to a woman who neither sympathised nor pretended to sympathise with him and his pursuits; and in compliance with whose wishes he was preparing to take up the life for which, of all others within the limits of his profession, he felt himself the least suited. And she? ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... sensations regardless of their source. And if Nature is chary of striking scenes and startling impressions and thrilling experiences, affectation, with profane haste, proceeds to amuse itself with artificial feelings, and pretended raptures. This counterfeited appreciation, like all counterfeits, by its greater cheapness drives out the real enjoyment; and the person who indulges in affectation soon finds the power of genuine appreciation entirely gone. Affectation is worse than ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... of certainty of the indications furnished may be stated in precise terms. The observation of a clear reaction to tuberculin is unequivocal; the animal is tuberculous. The pretended errors imputed to the method are explained by the extreme sensitiveness of the reagent, which is capable of detecting the smallest lesion. It often requires prolonged and minute researches in the depths of all the tissues ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... their cue from their colonel, and march this way and that, right about face, with as little impediment of principles to hamper their twists and turns as the straw he tosses aloft at midnight to spy the drift of the wind to-morrow. Quite the contrary; Rockney was his own colonel; he pretended to think independently, and tried to be the statesman of a leading article, and showed his intention to stem the current of liberty, and was entirely deficient in sympathy with the oppressed, a fanatical advocate of force; he was an inveterate Saxon, good-hearted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of working my way through college with a thankful heart, for though I pretended that I did not care, it would have been a terrible thing to have given up my life's ambition. The thought of Adela trudging to the office hurt—it was the touch of the spur. I needn't tell you, you can guess ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... to the present Pope but to his successors, "canonically coming in," and to "oppose and persecute" all who do not submit to his authority! The oath of every Priest binds him to the Church of Rome "as the chief head and matron above all pretended Churches throughout the whole earth," and to "further her interests more than his own earthly good." The oath of the Jesuit binds him to the Pope, as "Christ's Vicar-General," by "all the saints and hosts of heaven," and to "denounce and disown any ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... suppose, instead of eating those beans yesterday, you had only pretended to eat them, wouldn't it ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the five or six beats of the "Make ready." Silence is made—I gravely set to beating time—they commence! No, never since French operas began, was there such a charivari heard. Whatever they might have thought of my pretended talent, the effect was worse than they could possibly have imagined. The musicians choked with laughter; the auditors opened their eyes, and would fain have closed their ears. But that was an impossibility. My tormenting set of symphonists, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... he was gone, I told Marion I suspected it was all a trick. And so it turned out; for instead of hurrying off, as he had pretended, to see his dying father, he slipt over to Charleston, where, for fear of being seen by any of our officers, he skulked about in the lower lanes and alleys until it was time to go up ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... practitioners; and by that busy crowd, who either boldly wade in darkness, or are led into endless error by the glare of false theory, it is daily practised to the destruction of thousands; add to this the unceasing injury which accrues to the public by the perpetual advertisements of pretended nostrums; the minds of the indolent become superstitiously fearful of diseases, which they do not labour under; and thus become the daily prey of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... them; but still inquired of the servants what present they would make the king on his son's birthday; and when some said that they would give twelve talents, and that others of greater dignity would every one give according to the quantity of their riches, he pretended to every one of them to be grieved that he was not able to bring so large a present; for that he had no more than five talents. And when the servants heard what he said, they told their masters; and they rejoiced in the prospect that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... chief save that he is on his side? But if you cause what is assured to be done, and you respect the orders to yourself and to him, I say nothing more as to the messages you formerly made (and) as to what was pretended by you in them. But thou art not on the side ...
— Egyptian Literature

... no further proof that Raff Brinker was a cured man. In fact, the news had gone forth in every direction, for miles around. Persons who had never before cared for the Brinkers, or even mentioned them, except with a contemptuous sneer or a shrug of pretended pity, now became singularly familiar with every point of their history. There was no end to the number of ridiculous stories ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... see that one or two vessels ahead had boats out. We began to picture ourselves setting around a big school and landing the first mackerel of the year into New York. I think everybody aboard was having that dream, though everybody pretended not to be in earnest. You could hear them: "A nice school now—three hundred barrels." "Or two hundred would be doing pretty well." "Or even a hundred barrels wouldn't be bad." There were two or three young fellows among ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... such, and they had no right to touch it.... Residents and others in the districts where these peculations were going on took advantage of the unsettled condition of the country, and representing themselves as agents of this department, went about robbing under such pretended authority, and thus added to the difficulties of the situation by causing unjust opprobrium and suspicion to rest upon officers engaged in the faithful discharge of their duties. Agents,... frequently received or collected property, and sent it forward which the law did not authorize them to ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... the tribes. McKee sent to the home authorities a full account of this council, where he had assisted at the reception and distribution of the scalps the savages had taken from the soldiers of a nation with which the British still pretended to be at peace; and a few days later he reported that the Lake Indians were at last gathering, and that when the fighting men of the various tribes joined forces, as he had reason to believe they shortly would, the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... the old woman. "He should have turned a deaf ear, and even pretended to slumber; but it is not every one who has courage for this. If one could really fall asleep in the face of the apparition, there would ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... Milord, and the compliments paid to her by the old courtier delighted her. She pretended to understand when he said: 'La femme est comme une ombre: si vous la suives, elle vous fuit; si vous fuyez, elle vous poursuit.' A little later the champagne she had drunk set her laughing hysterically, and she begged him to translate (he had just whispered to her mother, ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... pretended, as became his official position in a Crown Colony, to have a great dislike to Irish Roman Catholics—would allow we boys to go to Patrick Kenna's farm to shoot native bears and opossums, which were very plentiful thereabout, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... distance from the extremity of one room to the extremity of the other. Resigning ourselves to the pillows, each desired his neighbor to extinguish the lights; no one moved to perform this necessary duty. We slept, or pretended to sleep, and for some moments the bungalow was quiet as the grave. In the midst of this refreshing silence a panic seized us; with one accord we sprang to arms; the pillows, stripped of their cases ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... acts of Francis and his successors, and therefore incredible; and that its description of the coast and some of the physical characteristics of the people and of the country are essentially false, and prove that the writer could not have made them, from his own personal knowledge and experience, as pretended. And, in conclusion, it will be shown that its apparent knowledge of the direction and extent of the coast was derived from the exploration of Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot in the service of the king ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy



Words linked to "Pretended" :   sham, false, imitative, counterfeit, assumed, fictitious



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