|
|
|
More "Pretence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dan tried to become honest too. At least he dropped his pretence of dignity, and became as a little child in his simple greed for sympathy. "But it isn't necessarily ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Under the pretence of a Scythian war, he silently led his troops to the frontiers of Iberia; the Colchian guides were prepared to conduct them through the woods and along the precipices of Mount Caucasus; and a narrow path was laboriously formed into a safe and spacious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... father, and of seeing him soon. My father too was very glad. "All the exiles will now be allowed to return from Siberia, and they won't forget my brother Jegor," he repeated, rubbing his hands, but with a somewhat anxious expression. David I and I stopped working, and we did not even make a pretence of going to the gymnasium; indeed, we did not even go out to walk, but we used to hang about the house and conjecture and reckon in how many months, how many weeks, how many days "brother Jegor" would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... Boston, April 4, 1851, at first on pretence of a charge of theft. But when he understood it was as a fugitive from slavery, he drew a knife and wounded one of the officers. He was taken before Commissioner George T. Curtis. To guard against a repetition of the Shadrach rescue, the United ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... sides of these happy hills for the comfort and the delight of man; to think that these springs should be perverted into means of spreading misery over a whole nation and that, too, under the base and hypocritical pretence of promoting its credit and maintaining its honour and its faith! There was one circumstance, indeed, that served to mitigate the melancholy excited by these reflections; namely, that a part of these springs have, at times, assisted in turning rags into Registers! ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... North America, are supposed to act as a specific in the cure of snake-bites; and the A. indica is the plant to which the ichneumon is popularly believed to resort as an antidote when bitten[1]; but it is probable that the use of any particular plant by the snake-charmers is a pretence, or rather a delusion, the reptile being overpowered by the resolute action of the operator, and not by the influence of any secondary appliance, the confidence inspired by the supposed talisman enabling its possessor to address himself fearlessly to his ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... were not held up by the rest of our Empire standing afoot." These passages are written in the spirit which inspired his paper on "The Nigger Question" and the aggressive series of assaults to which it belongs, on what he regarded as the most prominent quackeries, shams, and pretence philanthropies of the day. His own account of the reception ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... the lovely Leah, and the secrets of the paper bags were brought to light. Ephraim Phillips talked horses with Sam Levine, and old Hyams quarrelled with Malka over the disposal of the fifteen shillings. Knowing that Hyams was poor, Malka refused to take back the money retendered by him under pretence of a gift to the child. The Cohen, however, was a proud man, and under the eye of Miriam a firm one. Ultimately it was agreed the money should be expended on a Missheberach, for the infant's welfare and the synagogue's. Birds ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... despairing of deliverance, begged Appius to allow him to ask the maiden whether she were indeed his daughter or not. "If," said he, "I find I am not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter." Under this pretence he drew her aside to a spot upon the northern side of the Forum, afterward called the "Nova Tabernce" and here, snatching up a knife from a butcher's stall, he cried: "In this way only can I keep thee free!"—and so saying, stabbed her to the heart. Then he turned to the tribunal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... morning he made pretence of hunting, and turning his horse's head in the direction of Richmond, called on his mistress, when he apologized to and made friends with her. She therefore returned and exercised her old ascendancy over him once more. It is probable his majesty was the more anxious ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... talk and lie about themselves. I've had them try to work off bad money and worthless jewelry on me. Sometimes they try to make love to me and then steal back the money they have given me. That's the hard part, the lying and the pretence. All day I write the same lies over and over for the patent-medicine men and then at night I listen to these others lying ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Loiseau, under pretence of stretching his legs, went out to sell wine to the dealers of the village. The Count and the manufacturer began to talk politics. They were forecasting France's future. The one kept faith in the Orleans ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... feeble, thought himself in jeopardy, had no such intention. As the night closed in, he remained on deck gradually taking off first one sail and then another, until the brig was left far astern of the rest of the convoy, and the next morning there was no other vessel in sight; then, on pretence of rejoining them, he made all sail, at the same time changing his course, so as to pass between two of the islands. Newton was the only one on board who understood navigation besides Jackson, and therefore the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Suffolk: "I was forced to move as slow in it," he says, "as in any unmended lane in Wales. For, ponds of liquid dirt, and a scattering of loose flints just sufficient to lame every horse that moves near them, with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the pretence of letting the water off, but without effect, altogether render at least twelve out of these sixteen miles as infamous a turnpike as ever was beheld." Between Tetsworth and Oxford he found the so-called turnpike ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... from a ramble, the Owl hooted at him. "Why do you hoot at me, Big Moth?" said the Fox stopping in his trot. (He always called the Owl "Big Moth" to pretend that he thought she wasn't a bird at all, but a moth. He made this pretence because he was annoyed that he could never get an owl to eat). "Why do you hoot at me, Big Moth?" said he. "The Weasel's going to have your bones for his stepping-stones and your blood for his morning ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... culminated in this very month in his exchanging the title of President for that of Emperor, Florence must have seemed very quiet, if not dull. The political movement there was dead; the Grand Duke, restored by Austrian bayonets, had abandoned all pretence at reform and constitutional progress. In Piedmont, Cavour had just been summoned to the head of the administration, but there were no signs as yet of the use he was destined to make of his power. Of politics, therefore, we ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... had been wholly routed out of existence. A few of the old family estates were kept up after a fashion, but it was only as the officers of a defeated garrison are allowed to take their own time about leaving their quarters. Along the broad highway some of them lingered, keeping up a poor pretence of disregarding new grades and levels, and of not seeing the little shanties that squatted under their very windows, or the more offensive habitations of a more pretentious poverty that began to range themselves here and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels between Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that, as one can well understand, the reconciliation between the husband and wife, at least on the latter's side, had never been anything but a pretence; so that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on account of her pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and, leaving Darnley, she went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on June 19th, 1566, three months after the assassination of Rizzio, she gave birth to a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... somewhat singular in the present day—when human beings have adopted a particular sort of mysterious ordinance, by which alone they can become thoroughly known and acquainted with each other—and when no man, upon any pretence or consideration whatsoever, dare speak to a fellow-creature, until some one known to both of them has whispered some cabalistic words between them, which, in general, neither of them hear distinctly. At the time I speak of, however, acquaintance was much more easily made, so ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Dan's pride held him back, but the third being Sunday, he went over in the afternoon with the pretence of a message from his grandmother. As the day was mild the great doors were standing open, and from the drive he saw Mrs. Ambler sitting midway of the hall, with her Bible in her hand and her class ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the least pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, viz. that one colony will be striving ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... confiscated estates of the Templars. Both the king and the leading earls made every excuse to escape attending the ineffective parliaments of that miserable time. Two short visits to France gave Edward a pretext for avoiding his subjects. There were some hasty musterings of armed men on pretence of tournaments. But the king was still formidable enough to make it desirable for the barons to carry out the treaty. Finally, in October, 1313, Lancaster, Hereford, and Warwick made their public submission in Westminster Hall. Pardons were at once issued to them and to over four hundred minor ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the reply, accompanied by a pretence of returning the kiss. But she smiled with a kind of confectionary sweetness on him; and, dropping an additional lump of sugar into his tea at the same moment, placed it for him beside herself; while he went and shook hands with his father, and then glancing shyly up at Hugh from a pair of ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... provoke God to hasten to send to fetch his soul to hell; for so begins the conclusion of the parable—'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?' So that, I say, it is the greatest folly in the world for a man, upon any pretence what ever, to neglect to make good the salvation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... character, though a peculiarity, cannot be a difficulty. The definiteness too in this instance does not differ in kind, hardly even in degree, from the case of other prophecies, but must be admitted to be paralleled elsewhere, if the objector does not assail those equally by the same process. The pretence that the definite character ends at the reign of Antiochus is shown to be incorrect, by proving (1) that the prophecy about the Messiah (ix. 24-26) cannot refer to the Maccabean deliverers; and (2) that the fourth empire ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... intelligence was too blunt and torpid to anticipate as inevitable and inseparable from the general design. In August the conspirators were netted, and Mary was arrested at the gate of Tixall Park, whither Paulet had taken her under pretence of a hunting-party. At Tixall she was detained till her papers at Chartley had undergone thorough research. That she was at length taken in her own toils, even such a dullard as her admirers depict her could not have failed to understand; that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... I'm my own mistress. You have no right over me at all. You have no claim on me. You haven't even that of ordinary brotherly affection, for you have never given me any, so you cannot expect it from me. We needn't make any pretence about it, I am not going to argue any more. I will not go back ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... though she was, Audrey could only make a pretence of taking the meal. To be sitting alone in that big room, which she had hitherto never known without her granny, and feeling that in all probability she would never, never see her there again, was sufficient in itself to destroy any appetite she had. Her ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... over a dozen years ago, and he is married again, to a spare, unattractive woman, who looks after his food and clothes, and makes him in her way a very excellent wife. She was long past middle age when he married her and took her out of service. But there was no pretence of love-making about it. She would be the first herself to tell you that her man's heart was in Kilbride. She said to me once: 'He's a good man to me, and I'm glad to do my duty by him; but if you talked to him about his wife he'd think you meant Kitty, God rest her! Men's ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... stands our fortune on a tickle point, And now or neuer ends Lorenzos doubts. One only thing is vneffected yet, And thats to see the executioner,— But to what end? I list not trust the aire With vtterance of our pretence therein, For feare the priuie whispring of the winde Conuay our words amongst vnfreendly eares, That lye too open to aduantages. Et quel che voglio io, nessun lo sa, Intendo io quel ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... sudden flourish of the red fabric, a burst of applause came from the benches. Orator and audience were en rapport; the former continued to wave the handkerchief, under pretence of swabbing his features, but the intention was so evident and the applause so enlightening that a police officer came part way down the aisle and held up a ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... reasonable details. What if some day his son returned? But she could not even be quite sure that he ever had a son; and if he existed anywhere he had been too long away. When Captain Hagberd got excited in his talk she would steady him by a pretence of belief, laughing a little to ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... expectation that the vessels would go over to the Allies spontaneously as a result of the Venizelist movement, and on this expectation being disappointed they were, as we have seen, sequestered under the pretence of security for the Allied armada. Another excuse was needed for their appropriation; and it came in the nick of time: two Greek steamers at that moment struck mines, presumably sown by an enemy submarine, in the Gulf of Athens. With the promptitude that comes of practice, Admiral ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... the quaint conceits, the frequent play upon words, the unworthy tricks of speech, the painful sacrifice to rhyme which occasionally mar his verse, I believe Petrarch was sincere. If he was only a pretence and a sham, then all the amatory poetry that has been written since his time, intellectual or analytic, passionate or sensuous, is a pretence and a sham. Petrarch's utterance must needs have been founded on truth, else never could it have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... apparent; this precise fellow Is the duchess' bawd:—I have it to my wish! This is a parcel of intelligency Our courtiers were cas'd up for: it needs must follow That I must be committed on pretence Of poisoning her; which I 'll endure, and laugh at. If one could find the father now! but that Time will discover. Old Castruccio I' th' morning posts to Rome: by him I 'll send A letter that shall ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... than thirteen or fourteen years of age, she seemed much older. An observer would have put her down as the oldest of the young girls who on Tuesdays, at Madame de Nailles's afternoons, filled what was called "the young girls' corner" with whispered merriment and low laughter, while, under pretence of drinking tea, the noise went on which is always audible when there is anything ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... queen of the ship, and held her court quite royally from the Powers-that-Be, our commanding officer, down to the roughest old salt in the forecastle. Having a child aboard gave the only real touch of Christmas to our tropical pretence of it. Everything else was lacking—the snow, the tree, the holly and wreaths, the Christmas carol, the dear ones so far away—but the little child was with us, and wherever children are there also will the Christmas spirit come, even though the thermometer registers ninety in the shade, and at ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... Melville, my poor sister Lucretia, whom he induced to accompany him to London, with her family, on the pretence of providing for them all, is now with those children at my house, without means, without even a change of clothing. Yes, my sister Lucretia, who was a mother to him when his own mother ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... an alley in the low wood, with her eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage full of a sweet pensiveness which it did me good to see. I turned my back on the stream before she saw me, and made a pretence of being taken up with something in another direction. Doubtless she espied me soon, and before she came very near; but she made no sign until she reached the brink, and found the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... know the main features of the classic pronunciation of Latin were impossible, then our obvious course would be to refuse the attempt; to regard the language as in reality dead, and to make no pretence of reading it. This is in fact what the English scholars generally do. But if we may know substantially the sounds of the tongue in which Cicero spoke and Horace sung, shall we give up the delights of the melody and the rhythm and content ourselves with the thought form? Poetry especially does ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I stirred my tea and made a pretence of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Lucille and St. Amand were already betrothed; their wedding was shortly to take place; and the custom of the country leading parents, however poor, to nourish the honourable ambition of giving some dowry with their daughters, Lucille found it easy to hide the object of her departure, under the pretence of taking the lace to Bruxelles, which had been the year's labour of her mother and herself,—it would sell for sufficient, at least, to defray ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... court of the hotel, under pretence of waiting for the abbe, in hope of seeing something which would throw light upon the mysterious occupant of the chamber. But the comers and goers were all of the most unobtrusive and ordinary cast. I ventured to question the concierge concerning ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... nor yet insanity. That Hamlet was not far from insanity is very probable. His adoption of the pretence of madness may well have been due in part to fear of the reality; to an instinct of self-preservation, a fore-feeling that the pretence would enable him to give some utterance to the load that pressed on his heart and brain, and a fear that ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... A sheet of old newspaper wrapped round a parcel—just a little chance like that—had given the secret to her. And she had to go down to tea and pretend that there was nothing the matter. The pretence was bravely made, but ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... decoy for them and trapped their game and used to inveigle damsels from marriage-banquets, once caught them a woman from a bride-feast, under pretence that she had a wedding in her own house, and fixed for her a day when she should come to her. As soon as the appointed time arrived, the woman presented herself and the other carried her into the house by a door, declaring that it was a private wicket. When she ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... order to prevent separation from each other, which would be of the worst consequence of any thing that can happen to us: To prevent which, we do agree, that when under way they shall not separate, but always keep within musket-shot, and on no pretence or excuse whatsoever go beyond that reach. The officer, or any other person, that shall attempt a separation, or exceed the above-mention'd bounds, shall, on proof, be put on shore, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... shaded from the sun by a great parasol; to her the heat was soothing and agreeable, for she had lived much in India, and it agreed with her better than cold winds and chilling frosts. The three girls were not far off; the two elder ones making pretence to read, but looking more inclined to snooze, while the restless Gatty utterly prevented their pursuing either occupation. From them came the only sounds in the vessel, and they consisted of peevish expostulation, requests to be left alone, now and then a more energetic appeal, a threat to ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... expecting to capture the whole Boer Government and at least half a dozen generals. This was a distinct nuisance, but the tactics of this worthy officer were so simple that we very soon discovered them. Accordingly, every evening we would make a fine pretence of pitching our camp for the night; but so soon as darkness had set in, we would take the precaution of moving some 10 or 15 miles further on. Next morning Colonel Bullock, who had been carefully "surrounding" us all night, would find that we were unaccountably ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... between Chroniclers and Historians, between those who have provided the materials and those who have designed and reared the complete structure. Sometimes these chroniclers have furnished merely rough and unhewn stones, useful in themselves, but with no pretence to artistic finish or individuality of character; and these have been absorbed into the building. Other chronicles, again, are perfected in form, and are not merely integral, essential portions of the complicated structure, but become a source of endless pleasure from the merit ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... manner, she had a horror of familiarity, as well as of all excess and violence. Her moderation of thought, serenity of soul, and velvet manner, were as unwearying as reason and harmony. Without pretence of any sort, she hid, under the full bloom of her beauty and her fame, like humble violets, modesty and disinterestedness. At the time of her death, Guizot, when a distinguished American lady asked him what was the marvel of her fascination, replied, with great emotion, "Sympathy, sympathy, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... White men care not for such things, being unbelievers and in league with the Father of Evil, who leads them unharmed through the invisible dangers of this world. To the warnings of the righteous they oppose an offensive pretence of disbelief. What is there ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... wont to hang about the house, walking skilfully with her upheld drapery, during this period of the day. It was dusk, but not dark, and there was no artificial light in the billiard-room. There had been some pretence of knocking about the balls, but it had been only pretence. "Even Diana," she had said, "could not have played billiards in a habit." Then she had put down her mace, and they had stood talking together in the recess of a ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... to dress "the sweet queen," and to sit up till midnight, in order to undress "the sweet queen." The indisposition of the handmaid could not, and did not, escape the notice of her royal mistress. But the established doctrine of the Court was that all sickness was to be considered as a pretence until it proved fatal. The only way in which the invalid could clear herself from the suspicion of malingering, as it is called in the army, was to go on lacing and unlacing, till she fell down dead at the royal feet. "This," Miss Burney wrote, when she ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... who might vote for members of the Legislature greatly restricted suffrage. Theoretically every patriot believed in the liberties of the people, and the first article of the Constitution declared that "no authority shall, on any pretence whatever, be exercised over the people of the State, but such as shall be derived from and granted by them." This high-sounding exordium promised the rights of popular sovereignty; but in practice the makers of the Constitution, fearing the passions of the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in command of 300 Natal Mounted Rifles, also actively engaged the enemy near Acton Homes, but was also compelled to retire for fear of being cut off. Being quite conversant with Boer tactics, he refused to be drawn by the pretence of retreat made by the Dutchmen, knowing that concealed forces of the enemy in great numbers were waiting to entrap him. Major Rethman, believing in the old saw that brevity is the soul of wit, reported his ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... that Pharoah conceived Moses and Aaron to be magicians like his own. He wished to support the character of the latter; and he concluded this would be effectually done, if they could only furnish a pretence for affirming that they had performed every wonder accomplished by the former. Without some such supposition of collusion, two of the miracles attempted by the magicians are perfectly absurd and contradictory. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... failure of his scheme, the prince's love became outrageous, and he resolved to gratify it by force, though the object resided in the heart of Feroze Shaw's dominions.[92] For this purpose he quitted Beejanuggur with a great army, on pretence of going the tour of his countries; and upon his arrival on the banks of the River Tummedra, having selected five thousand of his best horse, and giving the reins of his conduct to love, commanded them, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, to march night and day with all expedition ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... the ascension of the Virgin, has not the slightest pretence to external architecture. The walls are mostly whitewashed, and some of the windows have common square heads crowned by mean pediments; the intervening pilasters and floral decorations in relief, and all in the midst of whitewash, are ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... answering with an oath, another, it may be, with a prayer; but no man keeping his wits or shaping a true course. What would have happened but for the holding fog and the sulphurous air we breathed, I make no pretence to say; but Nature stopped us at last, and, panting and exhausted, we came to a halt in the woods, and asked each other in the name of reason what ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... case been in his own hands he would have intervened before now. Rogers, on the contrary, was still satisfied with the shape of affairs—or made pretence to be. For, watching lynx-eyed, Mahony fancied each time the fat man propelled his paunch out of the sickroom it was a shade less surely: there were nuances, too, in the way he pronounced his vapid: "As long as our strength is well maintained ... well maintained." Mahony doubted Polly's ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... always to be telling him not to do things. When he wanted to go to the Lough with Willie Logan to play Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday or to light a bonfire in Teeshie McBratney's field with shavings from Galpin's mill in the pretence that he was a Red Indian preparing for a war-dance, it was his mother who said that he was not to do it. He might fall into the water and get drowned, she said, or, he might fall into the fire and get roasted to ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... information had been derived from the traitors Canada had so long nourished in her bosom; and as several of them were in the practice of absenting themselves for days in their boats, under the plea of duck-shooting, or some other equally plausible pretence, nothing was more easy of accomplishment. Under these circumstances of doubt, the general secession of the Yankees, as they were termed, which had first been regarded as a calamity, was now looked upon as a blessing; and if regret eventually lingered in the minds even of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the great romantic adventures of the Old World. It is not the Texans only who still "remember the Alamo," but when those brilliant and dramatic adventures of border warfare became drawn into the larger struggle for the extension of slavery, the poetic reaction began. The physical and moral pretence of warfare, the cheap splendors of epaulets and feathers, shrivelled at the single touch of the satire of the Biglow Papers. Lowell, writing at that moment with the instinct and fervor of a prophet, brought the whole vainglorious ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... good of my country, I shall be more ready to serve your lordship in this, or in some becoming capacity, than any other minister. They who confided to my management affairs of a higher nature have found me exact as well as secret. My impenetrable negociation at Vienna (hid under the pretence of curiosity) was not only applauded by the prince that employed me, but also proportionably rewarded. And here, my lord, give me leave to say that I have found England miserably served abroad since this change; ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... before he heard from the physician's lips that life with him was swiftly ebbing to its close. He was perfectly conscious and collected. Happily there was no stain of murder on his soul: he had merely enticed the child away, and placed him, under an ingenious pretence, with an acquaintance at Camden-Town; and by this time both he and his mother were standing, awe-struck and weeping, by Henry Renshawe's deathbed. He had thrown the child's hat into the river, and his motive in thus acting appeared to have been a double one. In the first place, because ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... the comfortable arm-chair between the fireplace and the little breakfast-table. She made a sort of pretence at eating, just to please her old nurse, who fidgeted about the room; now stopping by Laura's chair, and urging her to take this, that, or the other; now running to the dressing-table to make some new arrangement about the all-important wedding-toilet; now looking out of the window and perjuring ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was not meant to be offensive, but was propounded in a spirit of critical analysis. He was about to answer it with a pretence of deep gravity, when Casper came around the corner of the house and asked him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... at the same time to advance the cause he had at heart, by securing the suppression of the remaining monasteries. An Act was passed through all its stages in one day vesting in the king the property of all monasteries that had been suppressed or that were to be suppressed. This was done under the pretence that the monks, being ungodly and slothful, should be deprived of their wealth, which if handed over to the king could be devoted to the relief of poverty, the education of youth, the improvement of roads, and the erection of new bishoprics. Under threat of penalties nearly all the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... had scarcely travelled beyond the limits of St. Giles's, know of the inner secrets of St. James's? A Hervey or a Beauclerk, or even a Fielding, might have sufficed; but a Hogarth of Leicester Fields, whose only pretence to distinction (as High Life conceives it) was that he had run away with Thornhill's handsome daughter,—what special title had he to depict that charmed region of cards and folly, ringed with its long-resounding knockers, and ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... from the shack and was seated on the threshold; even she was conscious of a certain elation, for she was humming to herself one of those endless, tuneless, barbaric Indian airs which only take on the pretence of music when they are assisted by the stamping of many feet, and the clapping of many hands. When Granger turned his head in her direction, she lowered her eyes, and her singing ceased. He had not meant ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... will. Good-by, then. I'll see you late this afternoon. You leave this evening at seven-twenty by the Orient Express. I've had the reservations booked and—and—" He hesitated, a wry smile on his lips, "I daresay you won't mind making a pretence of looking after the luggage a ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... combination in London between the disappointed Republicans and the Army malcontents, the Parliament was abruptly dissolved. What then stepped in to take its place? A small body, effectively about eighty strong at the utmost, having no pretence of representing the community at that time, or of being anything else than the casual surviving rag of a Parliament of 500, the members of which had been elected at various times, and irregularly, between 1640 and 1649. Nay, it was not even the surviving rag of that Parliament itself, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... quietly; "that you deliver a letter for me in Thorn. I make no pretence; if it is found on ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... off. The general and three or four of the other passengers were on the poop, smoking under the awning—which they had been obliged to spread for themselves,—and observing the movements of the men under the cover of a pretence of reading; and when the longboat had disappeared the general came down to apprise me of that fact, and also of another, namely, that the steerage passengers Hales and Cruickshank, and two seamen, armed to the teeth ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... within your walls. Here can be no mistake; they can neither be spies nor suspected as such; your security is not endangered, nor your operations subjected to miscarriage, by men immured within a dungeon. They differ in every circumstance from men in the field, and leave no pretence for severity of punishment. But if to the dismal condition of captivity with you must be added the constant apprehensions of death; if to be imprisoned is so nearly to be entombed; and if, after all, the murderers are to be protected, and thereby the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... as to believe him as innocent of evil as the day he was born. His eyes could not shine so, his mouth could not have that childlike—the doctor called it childish—smile otherwise. He put out various feelers to satisfy himself there was no pretence, and found his allusions either passed over him like a breath of merest air, or actually puzzled him. It was not always that Cosmo did not know what the suggestion MIGHT mean, but that he could not believe Jermyn meant that; and perceiving this, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... like to say that it was in bad professional form. After he had left the friendly clerk, however, he walked over to the drug store and made some inquiries in a general way. The place was a shameful pretence of a prescription pharmacy. Cigars, toilet articles, and an immense soda-water fountain took up three-fourths of the floor space. A few dusty bottles were ranged on some varnished oak shelves; there was also a little closet at one side, where ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... private judgment, indeed!" answered Max, with great contempt. "I hold that no person can have a right, on any pretence whatever, to entertain erroneous opinions on important subjects, affecting the welfare of mankind. If a man does entertain such opinions, it is the duty of those who know better to convince him of the error by the most effectual arguments at their command. It ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... (when disorder preuailed) that Commons were distributed into seueralties. For, where, vpon these & such like occasions, Some by ignorance, some by negligence, Some by fraude, and some by violence, did wrongfully limite, measure, encroach, or challenge (by pretence of iust content, and measure) those landes and groundes: great losse, disquietnes, murder, and warre did (full oft) ensue: Till, by Gods mercy, and mans Industrie, The perfect Science of Lines, Plaines, and Solides (like a diuine Iusticier,) gaue vnto euery man, his owne. The people then, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... as he went to Jerusalem from Bethany, and saw on the way a tree with all the promise that a perfect foliage could give. He went up to it, "if haply he might find anything thereon." The leaves were all; fruit there was none in any stage; the tree was a pretence; it fulfilled not that for which it was sent. Here was an opportunity in their very path of enforcing, by a visible sign proceeding from himself, one of the most important truths he had striven to teach them. What ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... compromised by this letter, he also was immediately seized, and strangled without any pretence of trial. The whole palace rejoiced, thanks were rendered to Heaven by one of those sacrifices of animals still occasionally made in the East to celebrate an escape from great danger, and Ali released some prisoners in order to show his gratitude to Providence for having ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... which they were eating. Soft and fond glances were interchanged; and, before they had finished their meal, each had as good as said "I love." When they had done eating, the old man and woman arose, and under some pretence or other left the room, carrying with them the whole brood of odd and beast-like creatures. So the Nanticoke was left alone with the beautiful little maiden, to press her soft little hand, and to say in her ears those affectionate things which are always ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... great deliberation and with decided accents." Her Majesty, while repelling the invasion of her rights and the offence to the religious principles of the country, held, with the calmer judges of the situation, that no pretence, however loudly asserted, could constitute reality. The Pope might call England what he liked, but he could not make ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... whatever his origin, his myth is freely coloured by the savage fancy and by savage ideas, and we ask no more than this colouring to explain the wildest Greek myths. What truly 'primitive' religion was, we make no pretence to know. We only say that, whether Greek religion arose from a pure fountain or not, its stream had flowed through and been tinged by the soil of savage thought, before it widens into our view in historical times. But it will be shown that the logic which connects Tsui ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... hunger, we skinned the serpent and then made a present of it to the Chinese; but they gave us to understand that they would not touch it, at which I was greatly surprised, since they will generally eat anything. I was afterwards convinced that this was all pretence, for on returning some hours later from our hunting excursion and going into one of their huts, we found them all seated round a large dish in which were pieces of roast meat of the peculiar round shape of the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... neither fish nor fowl. I was no longer a gentleman's man—the familiar boundaries of that office had been swept away; on the other hand, I was most emphatically not the gentleman I had set myself up to be, and I was weary of the pretence. The friendliness of these uncouth companions, then, proved doubly welcome, for with them I could conduct myself in a natural manner, happily forgetting my former limitations and my ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... on until it was time to return, but Violet and Kennedy still lingered, sitting on the vast boulder, under pretence of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... tricks were such as these: She gave me the name of the "Devout English Reader," because I was often appointed to make the lecture to the English girls; and sometimes, after taking a seat near me, under pretence of deafness, would whisper it in my hearing, because she knew my want of self-command when excited to laughter. Thus she often exposed me to penances for a breach of decorum, and set me to biting my lips, to ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... Jael, under the pretence of reading my hand, hinted at my secret. I fancied, from what she said, that she knew what it was; and I accused her of having gained the information from Jentham's assassin. However, she would not speak plainly, but warned me of coming trouble, and talked about blood and the grave, until ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... more warrant for describing women as the un-aesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor for poetry, nor for fine art, have they really and truly any sense or susceptibility; it is a mere mockery if they make a pretence of it in order to assist their endeavor to please. Hence, as a result of this, they are incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything; and the reason of it seems to me to be as follows. A man tries to acquire direct mastery over things, either by understanding them, ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... visitors ate sandwiches and pretended to relish Munich beer served in tall stone mugs. Aunt Lucas, who was shaped like a 'cello, made more than a pretence of sipping; she drank one entirely, regretting the exigencies of chaperonage: to ask for more might shock ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they despatched all that remained of ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... were common in that age carry them off exemplarily by families at a time. An adversary is "the devil's exquisite solicitor." All Royalists are of "the wicked faction." She suspected his warders of poisoning Colonel Hutchinson in the prison wherein he died. The keeper had given him, under pretence of kindness, a bottle of excellent wine, and the two gentlemen who drank of it died within four months. A poison of strange operation! "We must leave it to the great day, when all crimes, how secret soever, will be made manifest, whether they added ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded, lest it should interfere with their freedom and rights. Are we then to fall back on the simple reading of the letter of the Bible? No! this, it is granted, would be an 'unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to give 'grammatical, geographical, or historical explanations;' but he is to keep clear of 'theology proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which is not opposed by some ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of the officers was confounded and broken to pieces, in consequence of the dread which at the time lay on their minds of offending General Howe; for they conceived so murderous a tryant would not be too good to destroy even the officers on the least pretence of an affront, as they were equally in his power with the soldiers; and as General Howe perfectly understood the condition of the private soldiers, it was argued that it was exactly such as he and his council had devised, and as he meant to destroy them it would ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... of the shackles, with which he was loaded, he used his liberty by coming to the tolbooth window where he uttered the most violent and horrible threats against Provost Lesly, and the other covenanting magistrates, by whom he had been so severely treated. Under pretence of this new offence, he was sent to Edinburgh, and lay long in prison there; for, so fierce was his temper, that no one would give surety for his keeping the peace with his enemies, if set at liberty. At length he was delivered by Montrose, when he made himself master of Edinburgh.—SPALDING, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... unhappy man, the tears starting to his eyes at this simple question,—"nothing, only I want it." Julie made a pretence to feel for the key. "I must have left it in my room," she said. And she went out, but instead of going to her apartment she hastened to consult Emmanuel. "Do not give this key to your father," said he, "and to-morrow morning, if possible, do not quit him for a ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Sophocles, but she said to herself, 'Only this little bit of pretence and vanity, and then I will be quite good, and make myself quite safe for ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Shah entered into a treaty with him for a subsidiary force for the invasion of Cashmere. The price of this accommodation was fixed at 80,000L. yearly; but, before the expiration of the second year, the Lion of the Punjab, on pretence of the non-fulfilment of the treaty, invaded the valley on his own account at the head of a considerable army. He was repulsed, however, and forced to retreat to Lahore with the loss of his entire baggage. In A.D. 1819, encouraged by recent successes against Moultan, Runjeet Singh ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... in a musical voice, about the soft Spanish names of places in California; and I could not sleep much. Then he spoke of the primitive forms in which minerals crystallized, the five-sided columns of volcanic rock, and the little cubes of gold. I could make no pretence at sleep any longer; I had to open my eyes; and once in a while I asked a question or two, although I would not show much interest, and determined not to become at all acquainted with him, because we were necessarily to be very intimate, travelling all day together, and camping together ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... overshadowing the place, and the small, sharp, triangular beech-nuts lay scattered thickly on the ground. With one of these in his fingers, Sam approached the colt, stroked and patted, and seemed apparently busy in soothing his agitation. On pretence of adjusting the saddle, he adroitly slipped under it the sharp little nut, in such a manner that the least weight brought upon the saddle would annoy the nervous sensibilities of the animal, without leaving any perceptible ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... benefices and impropriations to a vast amount. Viscount Lisle was created earl of Warwick, and Wriothesley became earl of Southampton;—an empty dignity, which afforded him little consolation for seeing himself soon after, on pretence of some irregular proceedings in his office, stripped of the post of chancellor, deprived of his place amongst the other executors of the king, who now formed a privy council to the protector, and consigned to obscurity and insignificance for the short remnant of his days. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... work for any rival power; and how, many years afterward, when the memory of his person had passed away from those who had known him in his younger days, he groped his way back to the scene of his former labors, and, guided by a lad to the tower which enclosed the already famous work of art, under pretence of listening once more to its chimes, he suddenly, with his scissors, severed a single small wire, and the wonderful performances were closed forever. No artist thereafter could be found to restore the work, for none other than the inventor was acquainted with its mechanism, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... may turn up all at once, that will give you that advantage over me. But come! let us to business—make out the deed of appropriation of the boat of that bad pay, Vicente Perez, who under pretence that he has six brats to feed, can't reimburse me the twenty dollars I have ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... ideas of all. We finally lightened the box by removing two-thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home with the chest; reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more just now. We rested until two, and ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... subjugated. I suppose that kind of thing is in humanity. Every boy's school has louts of that kind, who love to torment fags for their own good, who spring upon a chance smut on the face of a little boy to scrub him painfully, who have a kind of lust to dominate under the pretence of improving. I remember——But never mind that now. Keep that woman out of things or your ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... messages,—but nevertheless, when he finished, he raised his eyes inquiringly to his customer. That gentleman, who enjoyed a reputation for equal spontaneity of temper and revolver, met his gaze a little impatiently. The operator had recourse to a trick. Under the pretence of misunderstanding the message, he obliged the sender to repeat it aloud for the sake of accuracy, and even suggested a few verbal alterations, ostensibly to insure correctness, but really to extract ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... room till it was evening. Twice during the day her aunt had come up, and the first time she had got rid of her under pretence of headache, but the second time she was forced in decency to admit her, and listen entirely unedified to a long discourse, proving, beyond power of contradiction, that it was the duty of every young Englishwoman to be guided entirely by her parents in the choice of a partner ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... other ages from what they are now. That is pure absurdity. To claim that the religious mystic is in moments of exaltation brought into contact with a "deeper reality" is to invite the retort that one might make a similar claim on behalf of the inmates of a lunatic asylum. We cannot, with any pretence to rationality, accept the verdicts of both the neurologist and the exorcist. If we agree that certain states of mind to-day have their origin in neural disorder, on what ground can we believe that ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... know me, and what I can do, and do you think I'm going to let a bit of a boy, wi' his pretence about his larning and studies, bunch me and ca' me a fool and a brute when I know more about t'mine wi' one o' my hands than he does wi' ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... how precarious and nominal has been Spanish rule on most of the islands of this vast archipelago. In the interior of the great island of Mindanao there is no system of control, no pretence even of maintaining order. It is a land of terror, the realm of anarchy and cruelty. There murder is a regular institution. A bagani, or man of might, is a gallant warrior who has cut off sixty heads. The number is carefully verified by the tribal authorities, ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... which it is impossible to deny: everywhere the law has grown out of abuse; everywhere the legislator has found himself forced to make man powerless to harm, which is synonymous with muzzling a lion or infibulating a boar. And socialism itself, ever imitating the past, makes no other pretence: what is, indeed, the organization which it claims, if not a stronger guarantee of justice, a more ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... natives to attend Mass, to confess, and to see that their children went to school. In the midst of all this pretended piety, he stole cattle and exacted ransoms for the lives of all those who could pay them; he levied a tax of P100 on each friar. Under the pretence of keeping out the British, he placed sentinels in all directions to prevent news reaching the terrible Simon de Anda. But Anda, though fully informed by an Austin friar of what was happening, had not sufficient troops to march north. He sent a requisition ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... vessel, being wholly unprepared for battle, soon struck her colors. Four of the crew, three being Americans by birth, were taken, on the pretence that they were deserters. Jefferson immediately ordered all British vessels of war to quit the waters of the United States. Though England disavowed the act, no reparation was made. An embargo was then laid by Congress on American vessels, forbidding them to leave ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... brought her thither. But AEnone knew that the most unobservant person, upon entering, could not have failed at a glance to comprehend the whole import of the scene—and that therefore any such studied pretence of ignorance was superfluous. The attitude of the parties, the ill-disguised confusion of Sergius, her own tears, which could not be at once entirely repressed—all combined to tell a tale of recrimination, pleading, and baffled confidence, as plainly as words could ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... States," said the officer, "will require more particulars, and so, for that matter, will the police of Bologna. This is useless for any such purpose, and your pretence only adds urgency to my desire of you. I don't wish to be severe with you. I ask you in a friendly and reasonable way to give ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... tyranny comes from citizens who can claim this negative merit, it may be listened to. When it comes from those who have done what they could to serve their country, it will receive the attention it deserves. Doubtless there may prove to be wrongs which demand righting, but the pretence of any plan for changing the essential principle of our self-governing system is a figment which its contrivers laugh over among themselves. Do the citizens of Harrisburg or of Philadelphia quarrel to-day about the strict ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and the brig was rolling to it as though bent on rolling the masts out of her; while the decks were mid-leg deep with the water that she dished in over the rail at every roll with a regularity that I was very far from appreciating. Worst of all, there was no pretence whatever on the part of the men to watch the ship or keep a lookout—the scoundrels were well aware that I might be depended on for that; the only man on deck was the helmsman; and from the condition of those ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... on some pretence, detained Marie in the library while Master Matyas completed his task in ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... lessons? But all these questions are silenced by one short and singular answer, "That in the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have for these many years given up altogether even the pretence of teaching." Incredible as the fact may appear, I must rest my belief on the positive and impartial evidence of a master of moral and political wisdom, who had himself resided at Oxford. Dr. Adam Smith assigns ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... ill-will. He was bruised and enlightened. He saw with absolute fairness now the reasonableness of his unpopularity. He had behaved like a fool. Disdain, seclusion, are the privilege of the strong. The fallen aristocrat still clinging to his pointless distinction is surely the most pitiful creature of pretence in all this clamant universe. Good heavens! what was there for him to ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... make prevail One colour in thy life, the hue of truth; That justice, that sage order, not alone Natural vengeance, may maintain thine act, And make it stand indeed the will of Heaven. Thy father's passion was this people's ease, This people's anarchy, thy foe's pretence. As the chiefs rule, my son, the people are. Unhappy people, where the chiefs themselves Are, like the mob, vicious and ignorant! So rule, that even thine enemies may fail To find in thee a fault ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... difference in the conduct of the governments of France and England in this respect, but it would be out of place; and I trust that our House of Commons will not be long before they expunge from the statute-books, a law which, under the shameless pretence of "encouraging learning," is in fact a disgrace ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... into sight on that creepily weird wreck. Leyden took fright now with no pretence at concealing it; for at his ensuing move he came up to one of the great water tanks, and out of the manhole peered another cold blue tube, held unwaveringly at his head. He turned again, darting towards the stern; and here he was met full ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... elected sole Consul in February, 52. He at once threw off all pretence of an alliance with Caesar, and devoted himself to the interests of the Senate ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... wine; But sees, admitted to an equal share, Each faithful swain the heady potion bear: Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of taste, Weigh gout and gravel against ale and rest; Call vulgar palates what thou judgest so; Say beer is heavy, windy, cold, and slow; Laugh at poor sots with insolent pretence, Yet cry, when tortured, where is Providence? In various forms the madd'ning spirit moves, This drinks and fights, another drinks and loves. A bastard zeal, of different kinds it shows, And now with rage, and now religion ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... in that embrace. What terrified her most was the thought that had suddenly come that possibly the unknown woman in Florence had been the real lawful wife, and that her own marriage had been a sin, a vile pretence and horror. For the first time in her life the grandest words of confidence that have expressed and interpreted the clinging faith of humanity seemed an unreality. Rose had never known the faintest temptation to doubt Providence before this miserable ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... no interest extending beyond their own lifetime. The only feature distinguishing the ecclesiastical residence from that of one of the minor secular princes was that the parade of state was performed by monks in the cathedral instead of by soldiers on the drill-ground, and that even the pretence of married life was wanting among the flaunting harpies who frequented a celibate Court. Yet even on the Rhine and on the Moselle the influence of the great King of Prussia had begun to make itself felt. The intense and penetrating industry of Frederick was not within the reach of every petty ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... table. Washington, looking like himself on a monument, was making not a pretence to entertain poor Lady Sterling, who was almost sniffling. Lord Sterling, having gratified, an hour since, Mrs. Washington's polite interest in his health, was stifling yawn after yawn, and his chubby little visage was oblong and crimson. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... secrets of the paper bags were brought to light. Ephraim Phillips talked horses with Sam Levine, and old Hyams quarrelled with Malka over the disposal of the fifteen shillings. Knowing that Hyams was poor, Malka refused to take back the money retendered by him under pretence of a gift to the child. The Cohen, however, was a proud man, and under the eye of Miriam a firm one. Ultimately it was agreed the money should be expended on a Missheberach, for the infant's ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... or about Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelming cavalry, before they could agree upon the mode of defence, and long before any mode could have been tolerably matured. The result was one universal massacre, which raged for three days, and involved every living ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in Prussia, a secret society was discovered which was partly composed of people of rank, who, under pretence of meeting for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... made a curtsey to the priests, genuflected calmly, laid down the aspergill, and, under pretence of having been sent for something which these careless priests had forgotten, retired with honors; and then I suppose had a good long cry. But poor Bittra was blushing furiously; Ormsby was calm as on the quarterdeck; but Dr. Armstrong was pulling at his mustache, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the promise that I hereby give, as a gentleman, that if it be handed over to me, I shall only allow the notary to see the signature, so that he may attest that it is the document that he authenticated; and then immediately, in the presence of him who hands it to me, or in the pretence of your Lordship (for which purpose I shall go to your residence), I shall burn it so that nothing of it can remain. It has also seemed best for me to ask the judge-conservator to grant your Lordship four or six days more than ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... which might strike us as peculiar or distasteful in her own attitude and the way in which she received the news. 'We shall be married directly,' she continued with that strange absence of shame or pretence which always marked her, 'and then it'll be all right, and nobody'll be able to say a word in the future.' She went on in this strain for a long while, until Madame de Kries at last insisted on her calming herself, and proposed to accompany her to her own ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... notwithstanding the polite treatment they had received, under the pretence that they were about to be attacked by some junks, the Spaniards seized several in the harbour, which they knew were richly-laden, and kidnapped a number of wealthy ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... showy pretence of orderliness and system, but it is only a pretence. I will not go so far as to say it is a harum-scarum jumble, for it is not that, but I think it fair to say it is at least jumbulacious in places. For instance, Articles III. and IV. set forth in much detail the qualifications and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... slumber steep each weary sense, Weary with longing?—shall I flee away Into past days, and with some fond pretence Cheat myself to forget the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the present administration. I ask your excellency whether the patent which I received, bearing date the 25th November, 1823, did not contain a clause of limitation by which I might at any time be dismissed from the service under any pretence or without any pretence whatever—without even the form of a hearing in my own defence. Then again I ask your excellency whether my office as commander-in-chief of the squadron was not reduced for ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... debilitated in bodily vigour. Some were sent away on furloughs, at first individuals, then some cohorts also, on the plea that they had wintered far from their home and domestic affairs. When different individuals were sent to different places under pretence of the business of the service, a considerable number were put out of the way; which multitude the other consul detained in Rome under different pretences. And first indeed, not suspecting the artifice, they returned ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... behaviour; with the natural history of the states of consciousness which accompany some of their actions; and with the relation of behaviour to experience. We will endeavour to follow Darwin in his modesty and candour in making no pretence to give ultimate explanations. But we must note one of the implications of this self-denying ordinance of science. Development and evolution imply continuity. For Darwin and his followers the continuity is organic through physical heredity. Apart from speculative hypothesis, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... Almanac—it became necessary for him to vindicate his title to being a living person. Whether the next tract, Squire Bickerstaff Detected, was, as Scott asserts, the result of an appeal to Rowe or Yalden by Partridge, and they, under the pretence of assisting him, treacherously making a fool of him, or an independent j'eu d'esprit, is not quite clear. Nor is it easy to settle with any certainty the authorship. In the Dublin edition of Swift's ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... By-and-by all pretence of formality and order is put aside and the battle really begins. At this stage of the proceedings the rule is that no fewer than two of the protagonists must be roaring at the same time, of which one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called for water. The thing that was ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... a pretence of indignation, that makes her charming face a perfect picture. "Teaching him to regard us as second best! I ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Rolfe had abandoned even the pretence of study. He could not feel at home among his books; they were ranked about him on the old shelves, but looked as uncomfortable as he himself; it seemed a temporary arrangement; he might as well have been in lodgings. At Pinner, after a twelvemonth, he was beginning to overcome the ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... he was stern And harsh in manner, cold and taciturn, And none might see, without a secret fear, Those thin lips ever curling to a sneer. And yet he was of note and influence Among the chieftains; true he rarely lent More than his presence in the council tent, And when he rose to speak disdained pretence Of arts rhetoric, but his few words went Straight and incisive to the question's core, And rarely was his counsel overborne. The Raven was the fitting name he bore; And though his winters well-nigh reached three-score, Few of his tribe excelled him in the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... upon any Pretence whatever, to alter the Diet ordered by the Physicians or Surgeons to the Patients on the Diet Boards; nor to suffer their Patients to use any other Diet than what is allowed by the Hospital; nor are they to bring, or allow others to bring, Meat, spirituous ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... the structure of the Government—he coincided with Senator Sumner, who was perhaps the leading spirit in the Senate on the subject of reconstruction, but he did not, like the Massachusetts Senator, make any pretence that his project to subjugate the Southern people and reduce their States to the condition of provinces was constitutional, or by authority of the Declaration of Independence. President Lincoln well understood the characteristics ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... for my country, requires me to say. Against whom, O my brethren, is this array of battle? and whose blood seek ye to spill on the plains which our forefathers have cultivated? Is it our own blood that must be poured forth over these lands to enrich them for a stranger's benefit? Is it not under pretence of fighting for the Princess of Cassimir, who has been long since dead, that the Sultan of India's troops are now ravaging, not on our borders only, but penetrating even into the heart of our nation? But suppose ye that the conquerors will give up the treasures they hope to earn by ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... not of what we pondered Or made pretty pretence to talk, As, her hand within mine, we wandered. Toward the pool by the lime-tree walk, While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers And the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... as if I had waked in the middle of some chaos over which God had never said: 'Let there be light.' And the next day was worse. I began to see the bad in everything—wrong motives—and self-love—and pretence, and everything mean and low. And so it has gone on ever since. I wake wretched every morning. I am crowded with wretched, if not wicked thoughts, all day. Nothing seems worth anything. I ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Carnot, "Memoires," II. 526. "As his bureau was in a separate place, where none of us set foot, he could retire to it without coming in contact with any of us, as in effect, he did. He even made a pretence of passing through the committee rooms, after the session was over, and he signed some papers; but he really neglected nothing, except our common discussions. He held frequent conferences in his house with ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I make no pretence of giving an accurate description of the combat. To me it was a confused medley of men and horses inextricably mixed; of shining swords, of blinding red flashes; and my ears were deafened with the fierce cries ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... thousand. It is at this age that the clever teacher begins his real business, as a student and a philosopher who knows how to probe the heart and strives to guide it aright. While the young man has not learnt to pretend, while he does not even know the meaning of pretence, you see by his look, his manner, his gestures, the impression he has received from any object presented to him; you read in his countenance every impulse of his heart; by watching his expression you learn to protect his impulses and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... awful persecution to which we Poles are exposed. Whole villages are destroyed, and the inhabitants banished to Siberia; our young men are taken and compelled to serve in the Russian army. Scores are shot down, after a mockery of a trial, on the pretence of discontent with Russian rule. Women, ay, and ladies, are publicly flogged. Priests are massacred, our churches closed, our very language proscribed. Death is a thousand times preferable to the living torture we undergo, and when we at last rise, it is vengeance and death ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... epitomised, and highly conventional renderings of the actual facts, mere hieroglyphics, in fact, or, as it were, counters or bank-notes, which serve to express and to convey commodities with which they have no pretence of analogy. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... and put on their trial. "The Gael," said the Keeper of the Key, "must be pure-blooded in his art. I am of the Clann Gael, I shall not allow any half-artist to come to my door, there work under false pretence and go unpunished." The goldsmiths protested that their work was the work of artists and flawless as the design. Not another word would they be allowed to speak. Bards and artists, scholars and men skilled in controversy, flocked from all parts to see the door knob. A terrible ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... 284 there came to the front an emperor "of iron," Diocletian. He did what Augustus had done three centuries before, re-formed and recast the government of the world. The last empty ceremonies of the Republic were discarded. Even the pretence of Rome's leadership was brushed aside. The Empire was divided into four districts, each with a capital of its own, and Diocletian selected three other generals to share its rule with him. He and his colleagues restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... century, when the Countess of Blois and the widow of Mountford were at war against each other, a conference was agreed to, on pretence of settling a peace, but in reality to appoint a combat. Instead of negotiating, they soon challenged each other; and Beaumanoir, who was at the head of the Britons, publicly declared that they fought for no ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... subject, nominally at least, to the ard-ri or to the local chief; paying him tribute when he was strong, raiding his territory when he was weak, and fomenting recurrent disorder highly prejudicial to law, religion, and civilization. They never made any pretence of extending their laws to Ireland, and their attempt to conquer the country was finally frustrated at ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the mortification of the body (chap. 2:23); their speculations concerning angels, in the fact that they are described as "delighting in humility and the worship of angels" (chap. 2:18, 23). The apostle apparently refers to a false humility which, under the pretence that God is too great to be approached except through the mediation of angels, made them instead of Christ the way of access to him, thus disparaging the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... at this address—my knowledge of the language told me immediately that the quotations were out of the Latin grammar, and that all his learning was pretence; still there was a novelty of style which amused me, and at the same time gave me an idea that the speaker was an uncommon personage. I gave Timothy a nudge, and ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... is no necessity to keep up the pretence of ignorance. I can quite understand that your friend is not very anxious to expose herself to the chance of rubbing shoulders with me; and I quite understand, too, whom I have to thank for being ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... acquiring Cuba for the South: let them bring eight hundred thousand French and English Papists, under the name of acquiring Canada for the North: let them bring two millions of Mexican Papists—brown, tawny, red and black, being a mixture of all colors and all nations—under the specious pretence of "extending the area of freedom"—let all this be done—and your party, made up of native traitors, and foreign vagabonds, and Catholic paupers, are aiming at it—let it be done, I say, and farewell ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... automaton, and take no interest in any thing. I can only answer to those who like such service, let them have it: and as they sow they will assuredly reap. But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was soundly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon discovered by both, lay consulting together over ways and means. How could the family expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week as rent, possibly be met by the only actual certain family income, their 50 ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... you when I know that all your difficulties have come from him? It hasn't been your fault; it has been his throughout. It is he who has driven you to sacrifice yourself on this altar. If we can, both of us, manage to lay aside all delicacy and pretence, and dare to speak the truth, we shall acknowledge that it is so. Had Mr Grey come to you while things were smooth between you and George, would you have thought it possible that he could be George's rival in your estimation? It ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Portugal, John Affonso de Alemquer, he decided on this African crusade instead. For the same strength and money might as well be spent in conquests from the Moslem as in sham-fights between Christians. So after reconnoitring the place, and lulling the suspicions of Aragon and Granada by a pretence of declaring war against the Count of Holland, King John gained the formal consent of his nobles at Torres Vedras, and set sail from Lisbon on St. James' Day, July 25, 1415, as foretold by the dying ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... this village, she recognised, in the infant he had adopted, her own son. She recounted, that those persons whom he had seen in her dungeon had plotted to remove both her and the infant, as their existence interfered with certain plans of their own. One of her servants had been bribed, who, under pretence of bearing the child to a place of safety, and the better to deceive her, having taken with it jewels of value, had feigned to be set upon by robbers, and had her son forcibly torn from him. Three months afterwards, the man, overcome with remorse and wretchedness for his crime, fell sick, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... had caused a timber fort to be built before the walls of Moscow for a martial spectacle which he had planned for the entertainment of his bride. Shuiski put it abroad that the fort was intended to serve as an engine of destruction, and that the martial spectacle was a pretence, the real object being that from the fort the Poles were to cast firebrands into the city, and then proceed to the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... sway of the Dutch in India, it is strange that they should not have any factory in China. They have indeed formerly sent ambassadors to that country, under pretence of demanding a free trade, but in reality on purpose to gain a more accurate knowledge of the nature of trade in China, and in consequence of their discoveries in that manner, have been induced to decline entering upon any direct trade to that country. While ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Fesch were from his own country, Corsica; among these was one of the name of Pauline Riotti, who inspected the economy of the kitchens. It is Bonaparte's custom to take a dish of chocolate in the forenoon, which she, on the morning of his departure, against her custom, but under pretence of knowing the taste of the family, desired to prepare. One of the cooks observed that she mixed it with something from her pocket, but, without saying a word to her that indicated suspicion, he warned Bonaparte, in a note, delivered to a page, to be upon ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Derues bears testimony to the truth of this observation. An avaricious poisoner, he attracted his victims by the pretence of fervent and devoted piety, and drew them into the snare where ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... than ordinary importance, awakens them into life and action. Indeed, any one in the habit of observing the world, may have occasionally noticed, that even within the range of his own acquaintances, there has been many a quiet and apparently diffident girl, without pretence or affectation of any kind, who when some unexpected and stunning blow has fallen either upon herself or upon some one within the circle of her affections, has manifested a spirit so resolute or a devotion so heroic, that she has at once constituted herself the lofty example whom ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... ignorant, and though ye would be it is now, thanks to God, known to the whole world, by His infallible word, that the benignity or alms of all Christian people pertains to us allanerly [exclusively]; which ye, being hale of body, stark, sturdy, and able to work, what [partly] under pretence of poverty (and nevertheless possessing most easily all abundance) what [partly] through cloaked and hooded simplicity, though your proudness is known, and what [partly] by feigned holiness, which now is declared superstition and idolatry, have these many years, express against God's ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... Claude set out as soon as breakfast was over, and came back about three o'clock; Claude was tired with the heat, and betook himself to the sofa, where he fell asleep, under pretence of reading, but the indefatigable Marquis was ready and willing to set out with Reginald and Wat ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... police, who, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, gave orders, according to his own good pleasure, either to turn you out at the gate, or to throw you into prison, I had provided myself with a commission of inspector general of provision, and presented myself at Bale under the pretence of making large purchases there. Money will always secure a ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... of nothing but the stranger; and Emily is determined to call on her again to-morrow, on pretence of enquiring after the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... was a striking contrast to his young brothers, all tall, stout, and comely, without pretence to accomplishment except their dexterity in field sports. He welcomed me with the air of a man of the world, and though his appearance was far from prepossessing, he was possessed of a voice the most soft, mellow, and rich I ever heard. He ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of your clothes in winter by the fire side: and cause your bed to bee heated with a warming panne: vnless your pretence bee to harden your members, and to apply your selfe vnto militarie discipline. This outward heating doth wonderfully comfort the inward heat, it helpeth concoction, and ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... and, not content with that, we are furnishing them with instructions which place upon the Act the most restricted and loyalist construction of which the terms are susceptible. Truly, if ever rebellion stood upon a rickety pretence, it is the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... also open and leading to convincing results would dwell upon the glaring improbability of the entire story outside that miraculous element. There is no colourable pretence of likelihood, for example, in the connection instituted between fakirs and Freemasons, or between secret societies in China and a sect of Luciferians in Charleston. But the partisans of Dr Bataille are prepared to believe anything of Masonry, and to dismiss ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... had risen, ending his speech, her need to talk with him past. Her self-absorption was without pretence. Wan and white and with a redness about her misty dark eyes, she stood facing the old enemy, and spoke in a ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... have a good word than a bad one from any person: but if a critic abuses me from a high place, and it is worth my while, I will appeal. If I can show that the judge who is delivering sentence against me, and laying down the law and making a pretence of learning, has no learning and no law, and is neither more nor less than a pompous noodle, who ought not to be heard in any respectable court, I will do so; and then, dear friends, perhaps you will have something to ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... members of an ill-trained, ill- treated, ill-organized, poorly respected and much-abused [Footnote: Peccavi.] profession with reproaches for doing what they cannot do, or to clamour for legislation that will give more school time or heavier subsidies to the pretence of teaching what very few people are able to teach. We all know how atrociously English is taught, but proclaiming that will not mend matters a bit, it will only render matters worse by making schoolmasters ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the facade of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence, the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the very fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office, under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams. Women passengers eye other women passengers with suspicion and distrust. It is very interesting to notice how people who scowl at each other on the first day of a voyage exchange ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... got over the panic feeling which came to her on her first few visits to the bank. On these earlier occasions she had felt rather like an inexpert forger, who was endeavouring to get money by false pretence, and it was both a relief and a wonder to her when the nonchalant cashier thrust thick wads of bank-notes under the grille, without so much ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... we shall set out on our journey; and I hope to be back in a fortnight, and on my return will have one pull more with my mother for a London journey: and, if the pretence must be the buying of clothes, the principal motive will be that of seeing once more my dear friend, while I can say I have not finally given consent to the change of a visiter into a relation, and so can call myself ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... think of himself leading a cavalry charge or climbing the Matterhorn. Often, indeed, his vanity leads him to imagine the thing done, and he admits by winks and blushes that he is a bad one. But at the bottom of all that tawdry pretence there is usually nothing more material than an oafish smirk at some disgusted shop-girl, or a scraping of shins under the table. Let any woman who is disquieted by reports of her husband's derelictions figure to herself how long it would have taken him to propose ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the topgallant mast-head, and, waiting till Spellman had got close up to him, under pretence of being tired, he slid down the lift on to the yard-arm, and running in on the yard, had descended to the cross-trees, leaving all his pursuers above him. In similar ways he contrived to evade his pursuers, I and others helping him by pulling at their legs, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... temper. The family knew this, and so did Jane, although she had an annoying way of looking hurt, a gentle heart-brokenness of speech that made the family, under the pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not deceived. Also, knowing Jane, the family was quite ready to believe that while it was swearing ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... grace of the procession, but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It substitutes cold and deliberate preparedness for courage and manly impulse, and arms the one to disarm the other. It makes the mere trick of the weapon superior to the noblest cause and the truest courage. Its pretence of equality is a lie; it is equal in all the form, it is unjust in all the substance. The habitude of arms, the early training, the frontier life, the border war, the sectional custom, the life of leisure, all these are advantages which ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive thing that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Kitty. She swallowed down a sob in her throat and made a pretence of laughing while her hands played with her hair-brush, and her eyes, which endeavoured to blaze defiance, only succeeded in looking large and ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... religion was honoured in the age of faith, the bourgeois spirit found matter of mirth in the adventures of dissolute priests and self-indulgent monks. Not a few of the fabliaux are cynically gross—ribald but not voluptuous. To literary distinction they made small pretence. It sufficed if the tale ran easily in the current speech, thrown into rhyming octosyllables; but brevity, frankness, natural movement are no slight or common merits in mediaeval poetry, and something of the social life of the time is mirrored ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Napoleon, which culminated in this very month in his exchanging the title of President for that of Emperor, Florence must have seemed very quiet, if not dull. The political movement there was dead; the Grand Duke, restored by Austrian bayonets, had abandoned all pretence at reform and constitutional progress. In Piedmont, Cavour had just been summoned to the head of the administration, but there were no signs as yet of the use he was destined to make of his power. Of politics, therefore, we hear ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... are three classes of alcaldeships, namely, entrada, ascenso, and termino (vide Royal Ordinances of March, 1837); in each of which an alcalde must serve for three years. No official is allowed, under any pretence, to serve more than ten years in any of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... of all diseases by one school, to viscidity of the blood, by another, to the presence of some acid or alkali, and, in politics, by the assumption that some special form of government or society is absolutely good. 5. In False Analogies (which fall under this Fallacy) there is no pretence of a conclusive induction. The argument from Analogy is the inferring, in the absence of evidence either way, that an object resembles a second object in one point, because it is seen to resemble ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... high-plumed hats of a feudal cut; in heraldic scutcheons; in the divine right of Kings, in the divine right of Game-destroyers. Belief, or what is still worse, canting half-belief; or worst of all, mere Macchiavellic pretence-of-belief,—in consecrated dough-wafers, and the godhood of a poor old Italian Man! Nevertheless in that immeasurable Confusion and Corruption, which struggles there so blindly to become less confused and corrupt, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... another with the same woman; each time I had less difficulty, for she liked the poking. Dusk was coming on, she got lights, she fetched some liquor, and after the liquor I got her to lay on the sofa (for we then had gone downstairs), and on pretence of kissing her quim I got her to open her thighs wide, and saw in the twilight what I had seen before, large and ugly inner-lips. For all that I fucked her again, after frigging myself up gently to stiffness, and fucked as if it was the ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... said Festus crossly. 'You know well enough what it is, ma'am; only you make pretence otherwise. But I'll bring her to book yet. You shall drop your haughty airs, my charmer! She little thinks I have kept an ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... there come to me, Some summers hence, In all the childish glee Of innocence, Fair babes, aglow with beauty vernal, My heart would bound with joy diurnal! This sweet display of sympathy maternal, Well, that would also be A mere pretence! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... care I if this be all pretence? 'Twill serve a heart that seeks for truth no more. All one thy folly or indifference, - Hail, lovely mask, thy ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... means proficients in boxing (and how should they box, seeing that they have never had a teacher?)—are, I repeat, a most pugnacious people; at least they were in my time. Anything served them, that is, the urchins, as a pretence for a fray, or, Dorically speaking, a bicker; every street and close was at feud with its neighbour; the lads of the school were at feud with the young men of the college, whom they pelted in winter with snow, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... say that it was in bad professional form. After he had left the friendly clerk, however, he walked over to the drug store and made some inquiries in a general way. The place was a shameful pretence of a prescription pharmacy. Cigars, toilet articles, and an immense soda-water fountain took up three-fourths of the floor space. A few dusty bottles were ranged on some varnished oak shelves; there was also a little closet at one side, where the blotchy-faced young clerk ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... help feeling that they were indeed plain, but she made haste to say that she did not need any excitements and that her life had hitherto been devoid of them. They seemed to think that it was the proper thing to sit round the table while she was making her pretence of a meal; but when it was finished, Mr. Joseph stretched himself out in what was erroneously called an easy-chair, and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... destruction of that doctrine will do away with all cant and all pretence. It will do away with all religious bigotry and persecution. It will allow every man to think and to express his thought. It will do away with bigotry in all its ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr. John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any other fowl ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... dotted with cows and flowers, from whence its spires and quaint roofs are seen to advantage. The pale colours of the sky, and a few gleams of watery sunshine, gave a true Flemish cast to the scenery, and everything appeared so consistent, that I had not a shadow of pretence ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the beauty that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months, and that he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us, to my father's house under the pretence, which he would make to the duke, of going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my city, which produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so, even if his resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed it as one of the happiest that could be imagined, prompted ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist to extract the tooth; it had to come anyhow in the long run, and the rest was all pretence. ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... my patience too!' muttered I, getting up; and, seizing the poker, I dashed it repeatedly into the cinders, and stirred them up with unwonted energy; thus easing my irritation under pretence of mending ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... pistol, is sufficient to frighten a common Chinese into convulsions; and their warriors shew but few symptoms of bravery. The Chinese may certainly be considered among the most timid people on the face of the earth; they seem to possess neither personal courage, nor the least pretence of mind in dangers or difficulties; consequences that are derived probably from the influence of the moral over the physical character. Yet there is perhaps no country where acts of suicide occur more frequently ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... could talk of. We had no sail in the boat, so the first thing we had to do was to make one. The natives, like most of the people in those parts, manufactured fine mats; these would answer for what we wanted, but the difficulty was to get them. We could now make ourselves understood, so under the pretence that we wanted them for bedding, we obtained several in exchange for most of our pigs, and yams, and other ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... that which animated and harmonised all their proceedings, how various soever they may have been, was to signify to the world that the Court would proceed upon its own proper forces only; and that the pretence of bringing any other into its service was an affront to it, and not a support. Therefore when the chiefs were removed, in order to go to the root, the whole party was put under a proscription, so general and severe as to take their hard-earned bread from ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... did care. When the wagoners driving their long teams pretended not to hear his greeting, for the jingling of their bells, he knew it was pretence, and the wagoners' aversion hurt him. When the herdsmen sauntered away from his path, and preferred not to talk to him, he felt the bitterness of their dislike, though they were only shepherds. When the gentlemen of the neighborhood looked straight ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fact, Naples seems like a holiday town, with everybody merely playing at work, or resting from even that pretence. The Neapolitans are so essentially an out-of-door people and a leisurely people that it seems a crime to hurry. The very goats wandering aimlessly through the streets, nibbling around open doorways, add an element of imbecile helplessness to ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... was a paper sedan-chair, to be sent for the use of some rich man in heaven. Painted scrolls of paper were on the walls, and on old ledges were torn books in the Burmese character, which a few boys made a pretence of reading. Where I slept the floor was raised some feet from the ground, and underneath, seen through the gaping boards—though previously detected by another of the senses—were a number of coffins freighted with dead, waiting for a fit occasion ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the UNITED STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous character. Any free citizen with a dark skin, may be arrested on pretence of being a fugitive slave, and committed to the UNITED STATES' PRISON, and unless within a certain number of days he proves his freedom, while immured within its walls, he is, under authority of Congress, sold as a slave for life. Do you ask why? Let the blood mantle ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... army, and become a general, and you will be a great lady. There's our future; now work for it. But I must have a pledge to bind this agreement. You are to give me, within a month from now, a power of attorney from my uncle, which you must obtain under pretence of relieving him of the fatigues of business. Also, a month later, I must have a special power of attorney to transfer the income in the Funds. When that stands in my name, you and I have an equal interest in marrying each other. There it all is, my beautiful aunt, as plain as day. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... postponed in the expectation that the vessels would go over to the Allies spontaneously as a result of the Venizelist movement, and on this expectation being disappointed they were, as we have seen, sequestered under the pretence of security for the Allied armada. Another excuse was needed for their appropriation; and it came in the nick of time: two Greek steamers at that moment struck mines, presumably sown by an enemy submarine, in the Gulf of Athens. With the promptitude that comes of practice, Admiral ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... sold to pay their honest debts, when money is so scarce, they say, that they cannot pay their creditors in currency—just as if the court could make money for the idle knaves! But that is mere pretence. They have other motives, and those, too, of a more dangerous character to the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... is impossible: the demonstration is complete. Atheism is a philosophy for which the natural sciences are in no degree responsible. We shall not undertake here the general discussion of this philosophy. Let us confine ourselves to the examination of the pretence which it puts forward to find a new support in ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... guise of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel are even now conspiring to free the woman Marie Antoinette and her son from prison and to place the latter upon the throne of France. You are quite well aware that under the pretence of being the leader of a gang of English adventurers, who never did the Republic of France and her people any real harm, I have actually been the means of unmasking many a royalist plot before you, and of bringing many ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... my pretence of indifference, my whole heart was given to Mdlle. X. C. V., and I dreaded the moment when she would be no longer able to hide her condition from her family. I was sorry for having spoken about the aroph, as three days had gone by without her mentioning it, and I could ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... thinking to bring her back slowly on some pretence or another. But she galloped away as soon as she saw me, and I was forced to ride after her in earnest. She called back over her shoulder—"Go away! I'm going home. Oh, go away!" two or three times; but my business was to catch her first, and argue later. The ride ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... approach Tono-Bungay, which is modern and representative of our whole industrial system, by way of something prior to it—the old social order which exists only as a tradition, which is maintained as a vast, stupid, demoralising pretence, undermined by Tono-Bungayism. The old order, in Mr. Wells' language, is called the Bladesover System, Bladesover being the house where "I," George Ponderevo, the housekeeper's son—one of the many incarnations ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... he said, putting it down upon the table by the Colonel's chair, and then lingering on the pretence of adjusting a curtain and brushing up the hearth, but really waiting to see what effect the letter ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Eve in the garden of Eden. Do they still teach the dear old tale in these modern schools? No. But you have heard it—very well. You will remember that if they had not allowed the serpent to scrape acquaintance with them, on pretence of a friendly interest in their intellectual development, Adam and Eve would still be inventing names for the angelic little wild beasts who were too well-behaved to eat them. They would still be in paradise. Moreover Orsino ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Julian Alps; the imperial family sent their treasure into Hungary; the middle ranks, whose interest is always peace, became clamorous for some termination to a war, which during six years had been so unfortunate; and the Archduke was ordered to avail himself of the first pretence which circumstances might afford for the opening ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the pros and cons of shooting him as he was crossing. "I could certainly hit him," thought, or said, the constable; "but what of that? A dead highwayman is worth nothing—alive, he weighs 300l. I won't shoot him, but I'll make a pretence." ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... is therefore any thing but hilarious in its tendency. A certain number of grave-faced gentlemen and a few broad-jowled ladies are visibly constrained by the force of circumstance to dine at the same table and hour, et voila tout. There is no pretence that any more sociable and neighborly motive has brought them together. Indeed, they each suspect the other of being a German, or a Nihilist, or, worse still, a Government servant. They therefore sit as far ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... not remember ever to have had a more perfect impression of contentment. We dined pleasantly—two good courses, that was all; a dinner without pretence, where we served ourselves with the pepper-mill. The charming Madame Miraz presided with her bright smile, having her child by her side in a high-chair. She spoke but little, but her sweet and intelligent attention followed our light and paradoxical chat, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... with this, were it all; but the person concerned—who (I need scarcely tell one so familiar with Mr. Dunborough's amiable disposition) is solely to blame—has the wit to affect virtue, and by means of this pretence, often resorted to by creatures of that class, has led my generous but misguided pupil to the point of matrimony. Your ladyship shudders? Alas! it is so. I have learned within the hour that he has followed her to Wallingford, whither she has withdrawn herself, doubtless to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... against himselfe conspirde. Then equall Iustice wandreth banished, And in hir seat sitts greedie Tyrannie. Confus'd disorder troubleth all estates, Crimes without feare and outrages are done. Then mutinous Rebellion shewes hir face, Now hid with this, and now with that pretence, Prouoking enimies, which on each side Enter at ease, and make them Lords of all. The hurtfull workes of pleasure ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... your address, and it may be a fortnight or more before the Henrietta is ready to take her crew on board." He took out his tablet and wrote down the address. "Come and see me if there is anything you want to ask me. Do not let the clerks keep you out with the pretence that I am busy, but send up your name to me, and tell them that I have ordered it shall be taken up, ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... week witnessed a falling off. Though always promptly on hand at the serving out of rations, Mr. O'Rourke did not even make a pretence of working in the garden. He would disappear mysteriously immediately after breakfast, and reappear with supernatural abruptness at dinner. Nobody knew what he did with himself in the interval, until one day he was observed to fall out of an apple-tree ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... however, is observable in this. It is seen that Brahmanas take refuge with Kshatriyas. The Kshatriyas never seek the refuge of Brahmanas. indeed, throughout the earth, the Brahmanas, accepting such refuge under the pretence of teaching the Vedas, draw their sustenance from the Kshatriyas. The duty of protecting all creatures is vested in Kshatriyas. It is from the Kshatriyas that the Brahmanas derive their sustenance. How then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... you think," said they, "that King Richard is on the track, that you stray so wildly from it?" The most curious register of the history of King Richard is an ancient romance, translated originally from the Norman; and at first certainly having a pretence to be termed a work of chivalry, but latterly becoming stuffed with the most astonishing and monstrous fables. There is perhaps no metrical romance upon record where, along with curious and genuine history, are mingled more absurd and exaggerated incidents. We have placed ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... all was ready for departure. La Chesnaye and the marquis had come back with the partridges that were to make pretence for our quick return to the Prince Rupert. Ben Gillam had disguised as a bush-runner, and the canoe lay ready to launch. Fools and children unconsciously do wise things by mistake, as you know; and 'twas such an unwitting act sprung M. Radisson's ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... broke repeatedly into the consultations of the parents and the shadchan, and that was the voice of Henne Roesel, one of my father's numerous poor cousins. Henne Roesel was not unknown to my mother. She often came to the store, to beg, under pretence of borrowing, a little flour or sugar or a stick of cinnamon. On the occasion of the betrothal she had arrived late, dressed in indescribable odds and ends, with an artificial red flower stuck into her frowzy wig. She pushed and elbowed ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... I also paused, hesitating. What should I do?—pass him under the lamp, and try to see his face? Go boldly up to him, and invent some pretence to address him, or wait in this angle of deep shade, and see what would happen next? I was deceived, of course—deceived by a merely accidental resemblance. Well, then, I should have had my run for my pains, and have taken cold, most likely, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... handsome looking in his tourist knicker-bockers and close fitting steamer cap, Kenneth held both Helen's hands in his. Ray and Mr. Parker, under the pretence of visiting the anchor weighed, had discreetly withdrawn. Francois, the valet, could be seen in the distance, making signals to some one on shore. Husband and wife were standing alone behind one of the big ventilators, Helen glad that no one saw them, ashamed that anyone should ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... prettiest girl I ever saw," cried Alice Tennant; "but of course we can have nothing to do with her. She entered a week ago. She doesn't pay any of the fees; she has no pretence to being a lady. Oh, here she comes! Did you ever see ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... love, who was a handsome man, excellent, and celebrated, was there on her finger. Peace was hallowed. Now she believed thoroughly in Melanie, she believed that the indifference Melanie showed towards Lorand was no mere pretence. The field was already occupied ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... to me does not seem in any degree true. Did I perceive those impulses, decussations, and directions of the rays of light in like manner as hath been set forth, then indeed it would not be altogether void of probability. And there might be some pretence for the comparison of the blind man and his cross sticks. But the case is far otherwise. I know very well that I perceive no such thing. And of consequence I cannot thereby make an estimate of the situation of objects. I appeal to anyone's experience, whether he be ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... one in all respects, and our flying visit to Italy was very pleasant. My mother's book was duly written, and published by Mr. Bentley in 1842. But the Visit to Italy, as the work was entitled (with justly less pretence than the titles of either of its predecessors had put forward), was in truth all too short. And I find that almost all of the huge mass of varied recollections which are connected in my mind with Italy and Italian ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... escaped me,—I remember it well; but it seems to have escaped you, that it is a very transparent sophism. For what is it but a pretence that the Christian in general is confident enough of his virtue to think that he has not been sufficiently well treated, and that his Creator and Judge cannot do less than make amends for his injustice, by giving ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... possible that the Brazilians may imitate the example of those fellows at Bahia, and attempt to attack you," said Jack to Bevan; "you will therefore keep a good lookout, and allow no boat to approach under any pretence whatever. Order them to keep off, and fire a musket-shot or two ahead of them, as a sign that you are in earnest. If they still come on, fire the carronades into them, and drive them back ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sam had seen little of the colonel, who had given up all pretence to an active part in the management of the business and who, finding Sue's new friends disconcerting, seldom appeared at the house, living at the clubs, playing billiards all day long, or sitting in the club windows boasting to chance listeners ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... residence in a material Temple. He was no sickly, sentimental seeker after cloistered seclusion. He knew the necessities and duties of life far better than in a cowardly way to wish to shirk them, in order that he might loiter in the temple, idle under the pretence of worship. Nor would the saying fit into the facts of the case if we gave it that low meaning, for no person had his residence in the temple. And what follows in the next verse would, on that hypothesis, be entirely inappropriate. 'In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sampan and joined the crew of the Anna Maria. He brought with him as his kit a bundle of broken clothes and a flat paper parcel containing a single suit of clean white duck, which he cherished under the straw mattress of his bunk and never wore. He made no pretence of being a seaman. He could neither steer nor go aloft, and there fell to him, naturally, all the work of the ship that was ignominious or unpleasant or merely menial. It was the Dago, with his shrug and his feeble, complaisant smile, who scraped the boards of the pigsty and hoisted coal ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Otaheite, after they had pretty well stripped their lovers of shirts, found a method of clothing themselves with their own cloth. It was their custom to go on shore every morning, and to return on board in the evening, generally clad in rags. This furnished a pretence to importune the lover for better clothes; and when he had no more of his own, he was to dress them in new cloth of the country, which they always left ashore; and appearing again in rags, they must again be clothed. So that the same suit might pass through twenty different hands, and be ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... (American libretto) purlieus of modern Montmartre, with its spurious extravaganzas of rouge and roister, with its spider webs of joy. For him, there is romance in the pleasure girls who sit at the tables touching St. Michel before the Cafe d'Harcourt, making patient pretence of sipping their Byrrh until a passing "Eh, bebe" assails their tympani with its suggested tintinnabulation of needed francs: for him—"models." And the Bullier, ghost now of the old Bullier where once ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... an exposure of these useless and false distinctions, which are adopted to help carry out erroneous principles. The only pretence for a subjunctive mood is founded on the fact that be and were were formerly used in a character different from what they are at present. Be was used in the indicative mood, present tense, when doubt or supposition was implied; as, If I be there; ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... fairly definite and coherent ideas, but unless it also conveys these ideas to some other living intelligent being, either man or brute, that can understand them. We may speak to a dog or horse, but not to a stone. If we make pretence of doing so we are in reality only talking to ourselves. The person or animal spoken to is half the battle—a half, moreover, which is essential to there being any battle at all. It takes two people ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... that irreligion, neglect to practise what we believe will destroy that habit. People who neglect their duty often complain that they have no taste for religion, cannot get interested, find no consolation therein. This justifies further neglect. They make a pretence to seek the cause. The cause is lack of faith; the fires of God's grace are burning low in their souls. They will soon go out unless they are furnished with fuel in the shape of good, solid, practical religion. That is their only salvation. Ignorance, supplemented by lack of prayer ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... of the universal kingdom of God. Before this great idea, embodied in concrete form, and not a paper doctrine, partial scandals and abuses seemed to sink into insignificance. Objections seemed petty and ignoble; the pretence of rival systems impertinent and absurd. He resented almost with impatience anything in the way of theory or explanation which seemed to him narrow, technical, dialectical. He would look at nothing but what had on it the mark of greatness ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... that she loves Felix? There is no pretence about that. I do think she is good. The other night at the party she ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... for the summer, as had been arranged, he determined to remain in St. Petersburg, under the pretence of devoting himself to military studies. This change of plan occasioned more disappointment to the Princess Martha than vexation to Prince Alexis. The latter only growled at the prospect of being called upon to advance a further supply of rubles, slightly comforting ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... the first one to reach her. He spoke some kind words and told her that they were there to help her, to fulfill any wish she might express. And he begged her to cast away any pretence, for he was certain that she was there because of some misery that had ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... am out of my senses or not," retorted Margarita, and ran back to the dining-room. And after the dining-room door was shut, and the unhappy pretence of a supper had begun, old Marda had herself crept softly to the Senorita's door and listened, and heard Ramona sobbing as if her heart would break. Then she knew that what Margarita had said must be true, and her faithful soul was in sore ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... But I couldn't do anything," said Maida. "He is a wicked man—you don't know yet how wicked. He got me up to Montenegro by a horrid pretence, and when I wouldn't promise to marry him at once he tried arguments for about an hour, then locked the door of a room in the house where we were because his motor broke down, and threatened to shoot me. I don't know if ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... anything that you require, Your Royal Highness?" he saluted. Lawrence, carrying out his pretence of intoxication, gave a perfect imitation of the Prince when in ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... never made a pretence to him or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful to Tom. But Tom had been the subject of all the little tenderness of my life, perhaps he became so ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... these Twelve Hundred? Belief in high-plumed hats of a feudal cut; in heraldic scutcheons; in the divine right of Kings, in the divine right of Game-destroyers. Belief, or what is still worse, canting half-belief; or worst of all, mere Macchiavellic pretence-of-belief,—in consecrated dough-wafers, and the godhood of a poor old Italian Man! Nevertheless in that immeasurable Confusion and Corruption, which struggles there so blindly to become less confused and corrupt, there is, as we ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... collection of natural history is that it should be made as accessible and as useful as possible, on the one hand to the general public, and on the other to scientific workers. That need is not met by constructing a sort of happy hunting-ground of miles of glass cases; and, under the pretence of exhibiting everything, putting the maximum amount of obstacle in the way of those who wish ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... question. At a meeting of Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, "Have two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?" In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it was repeatedly urged that the Americans need not make so much ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... as soon as breakfast was over, and came back about three o'clock; Claude was tired with the heat, and betook himself to the sofa, where he fell asleep, under pretence of reading, but the indefatigable Marquis was ready and willing to set out with Reginald and ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Reverend Father Schalkinsky naively confesses, "the inhabitants fled them like the plague." They interviewed, however, the so-called chiefs of the new religions, who listened to them with gravity and made some pretence of being convinced by ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... his soiled thumb and finger, turned it over in a pretence of great interest, and finally endeavored to "sight" it with his eye, as a workman does ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... pastor has gone?" he asked. "He is out now buying provisions with his own money to feed a crowd who came here under the false pretence of giving a donation, but, in truth, seemingly to eat him out ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the inquest from those who were present. But that evening, as he sat in his parlour at the Normandale Arms, the landlord, coming in on pretence of attending to the fire, approached him with an air of mystery and jerked his thumb in the direction of the regions which he ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... {238} induce the King to withdraw his confidence from poor Sir Luke. The King agreed that it was necessary some one "in whose fidelity and dexterity he can depend" should set out from England to Hanover, "and take Paris on his way hither, under pretence of a curiosity to see that place, and without owning to any one living the business he is employed in." The person selected for this somewhat delicate mission was Horace Walpole, Robert Walpole's ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Sin's wages, Grace's now? shall Art Make us more learned, only to depart? If merit be disease; if virtue death; To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath 10 Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem Labour a crime? study, self-murder deem? Our noble youth now have pretence to be Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully. Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise, Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise: Than whom great Alexander may seem less, Who conquer'd men, but not their languages. In ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... reply, that our pleading the word of God is a false pretence, and that we are nefarious corrupters of it. But that this is not only a malicious calumny, but egregious impudence, by reading our confession, you will, in your wisdom, be able to judge. Yet something further is necessary ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... my poor hypocrisy, Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense; No man could love me, for all men could see The hollow vain pretence. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... glance at the girl, now making a pretence of arranging the table,—"and so this is Fouchette, eh? And your ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... school if he did not like it, he was silly enough to be pleased, and gave them in return his playthings and his money; nay, he would even take sugar, cakes, fruit, and sweetmeats from his mother's store-room to bestow on these ill-chosen friends; and their false pretence of love for him made him quite careless of gaining the real love ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... remember ever to have had a more perfect impression of contentment. We dined pleasantly—two good courses, that was all; a dinner without pretence, where we served ourselves with the pepper-mill. The charming Madame Miraz presided with her bright smile, having her child by her side in a high-chair. She spoke but little, but her sweet and intelligent attention followed our light and paradoxical chat, the good-humored fooling of ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... compounded, which is not perfectly Homogeneous, but is further Resoluble into any number of Distinct Substances how small soever. And as for the Chymists calling a body Salt, or Sulphur, or Mercury, upon pretence that the Principle of the same name is predominant in it, That it self is an Acknowledgment of what I contend for; namely that these productions of the Fire, are yet compounded bodies. And yet whilst this is granted, it is affirm'd, but not prov'd, that the reputed ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... fox; he wasn't too tired for that. But he had given up all that sort of thing. It brought only vexation and trouble. Besides, he had told everybody that he did not think it worth his while to waste his time on such things and perhaps catch his death to boot. The Lord knew that was mere pretence. Eighty crowns for a beautiful, dark brown fox skin was a tidy sum! But a man had to think up something to say for himself, the way they all harped on fox-hunting: Bjarni of Fell caught a white vixen night before last, or Einar of Brekka caught a brown dog-fox yesterday. Or if a man ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... me now—all I can tell you I have told. I return home by the noon-day train; and, before I go, I should like to see this girl who is to be your wife. See, I will remain by this window, screened by the curtain. Can you not fetch her by some pretence or other beneath it, that I may look and judge ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... dining-room servant, was also in the kitchen eating his dinner, and, being exceedingly fond of Tot, he told her to wait a moment, and he would get her something from the house. So, getting the keys from Aunt Delia, the housekeeper, on pretence of putting away something, he buttered two or three slices of light bread, and spread them with jam, and, putting with them some thin chips of cold ham and several slices of cake, he carried them back to the kitchen as an addition ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... horoscope is now accomplished, and that being led back—though as thou knowest I went out of curiosity—to these people and their Red Bull I must needs go to a madrissah and be turned into a Sahib. Now I make pretence of agreement, for at the worst it will be but a few meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away and follow down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore, Holy One, keep with that Kulu woman—on no account stray far from her cart till I come again. Past ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... as outside of his own premises. The furniture of this room consisted of a chair, a lounge, a table, a music-rack, and a piano. From the sanctum so chosen, seldom opened to others, and never allowed upon any pretence to be disarranged, came his choicest compositions. His disposition was naturally amiable, although, from the tax imposed by close application to study upon his nervous system, he was liable to fits of fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional and transient as they were, told ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word "Farewell!" It was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there—my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... knife, he ordered one of lead to be given him; and when he desired a private conference with him, he would not grant his request, but on condition that his son Drusus should be present; and as they walked together, he held him fast by the right hand, under the pretence of leaning upon him, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Easter euen, we were called vnto the tent, and there came forth to meete vs the foresaid agent of Bathy, saying on his masters behalfe, that we should go into their land, vnto the Emperor Cuyne, deteining certaine of our company with this pretence, that they would send them backe vnto the Pope, to whom we gaue letters of al our affaires to deliuer vnto him. But being come as farre as duke Montij aforesaid, there they were kept vntill our returne. [Sidenote: They trauelled post ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... aside my pen, and looked up into her face, which she made no pretence of hiding from me. And I saw that it was as ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... outer court of the hotel, under pretence of waiting for the abbe, in hope of seeing something which would throw light upon the mysterious occupant of the chamber. But the comers and goers were all of the most unobtrusive and ordinary cast. I ventured to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... almost disgust me," replied the young man. "Their brutal way of speaking of women and love wounded me, and you too, Maurice. So much the worse! I will be honest; you, who are so refined and proud, tell me that you did not mean what you said—that you made a pretence of vice just to please the others. It is not possible that you are content simply to gratify your appetite and make yourself a slave to your passions. You ought to have a higher ideal. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the Nabob of Arcot with very private persons are so enormous, that they evidently set aside every pretence of policy which might induce a prudent government in some instances to wink at ordinary loose practice in ill-managed departments. No caution could be too great in handling this matter, no scrutiny too exact. It was evidently the interest, and as evidently at least in the power, of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Good-by, then. I'll see you late this afternoon. You leave this evening at seven-twenty by the Orient Express. I've had the reservations booked and—and—" He hesitated, a wry smile on his lips, "I daresay you won't mind making a pretence of looking after the ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... I met on a visit at Catthorpe in Leicestershire a young gentleman of distinguished learning and abilities, who at certain times was speechless. The vulgar thought it a pretence: and a jocose lady, where he was at tea with company, putting him as she said to a trial, poured out a dish very strong and without sugar. He drank it and returned the cup with a bow of great reserve, ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... Resistance like this was so unexpected by the Germans that it dismayed them; and first wavering a moment, then becoming panic-stricken, they broke and fled, infantry, cavalry, and artillery coming down the slope without any pretence of formation, the French hotly following and pouring in a heavy and constant fire as the fugitives fled back across the ravine toward Gravelotte. With this the battle on the right had now assumed a most serious ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... kingdom.—I could say a great deal upon the difference in the conduct of the governments of France and England in this respect, but it would be out of place; and I trust that our House of Commons will not be long before they expunge from the statute-books, a law which, under the shameless pretence of "encouraging learning," is in fact a ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... you do?" he said. "I refuse to know you. I refuse to recognise you. My brother Roger is dead, and was buried long years since. You are some impostor come here to claim what is not your own, under the paltry pretence of revenge." ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... our community may ever arrogate to himself extraordinary gifts or supernatural perfection, or through vainglory give himself out to be a holy man; such, for instance, as to withdraw into solitary places on pretence of enjoying ecstasies like the Ariahs, and afterwards to presume to teach others the way to uncommon spiritual attainments. Sooner may the lofty palm-tree that has been cut down become green again, than an elect guilty of such pride be restored to his holy station. Take care for ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... In Jackson, even as a cadet, self was subordinate to duty. Pride was foreign to his nature. He was incapable of pretence, and his simplicity was inspired by that disdain of all meanness which had been his characteristic from a child. His brain was disturbed by no wild visions; no intemperate ambition confused his sense of right and wrong. "The essence of his mind," as has been said of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... pretence of promoting agriculture, he wants the best part of the forest for himself, which is of no great use to the community. And this pretended plea is a garden, he means to lay out in the English style ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... husband declared that he was very ill, and could not eat anything; but this was only a pretence so that he might get what he wanted. The family were all much distressed, and begged him to tell them what ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... "passionately." Passion in U.T.! Well, to us it was a splendid joke. I sometimes wonder whether the vicar, too, at times, had lucid intervals of the bare, naked reality. He had a fine sense of humour, and he would have considered it a baseness to laugh at the poor thing, with its pretence of passion, trying to screen its forlornness. What U.T. felt was not the passion for music, but just the soothing, comforting sense of being at home with us, of being accepted as one of ourselves, of ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... have no other friend on earth but yourself, I hope you will pardon my writing to you at this season; though I do not know that you can relieve my distresses, or, if you can, have I any pretence to expect that you should. My poor dear, O Heavens—my—-lies dead in the house; and, after I had procured sufficient to bury him, a set of ruffians have entered my house, seized all I have, have seized his dear, dear corpse, and threaten to deny ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... he added with a shrug of the shoulders, "you do not see the tragedy yet, as I have seen it before me all along. The frivolous young wife, the flirtation with the friend?—all a blind, all pretence. I took the trouble which the police should have taken immediately, of finding out something about the finances of the Hazeldene menage. Money is in nine cases out of ten the ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... wet day and no real ladies had been to see the house, so we thought as we had nothing to do we'd have a good game of pretence ones. Racey had to be Pierson this day (of course Pierson didn't know he was acting her), and we were doing it very nicely, for a dreadfully fussy lady had been only the day before and we had still got her quite in our heads. I—being the lady, you ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... House of Commons now began to appropriate a considerable part of the additional duties to their own use. This was done under pretence of encouraging public works such as inland navigation, collieries, and manufactories of different kinds; but the truth is that most of these public works were private jobs carried on under the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... officer!" he exclaimed. He bent over again and Fred winced as he saw him shaking Boris by the shoulder. He wondered if Boris was shamming, or if he had really fainted. Then it was plain that there was no pretence. The officer, gently enough, raised Boris's head, and taking a flask from his pocket, forced a little of the spirits it contained into Boris's mouth. Fred saw his cousin stiffen; he was coming to his senses. Then the officer let ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... old and feeble," I said, drawing her close, under pretence of handing her the basket; "and yet with your gentle hand to smooth my pillow, and your eyes to look into mine, I could ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... Council, which would soon begin, served as a pretence for leaving them. Eva was to blame for what he had just suffered; but he knew everything concerning the rumours about the inexperienced girl and Heinz Schorlin, and there fore was aware that her fault was trivial. To ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... behold what I endure, While I their sick hearts may cure, Jealousy mine own heart gnaws. Lady, I proposed to be Their bold spokesman here, that you Might decide betwixt the two Which you would select (ah, me!) That I might (oh, misery!) Ask you of your father: vain This pretence. No more I'll feign:— For you see while I am speaking About them, my heart is seeking But a vent for ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to see your old acquaintance on the Ellangowan property, Mr. Sampson—You would find most of the old stagers still stationary there. I have too much respect for—the late family to disturb old residenters, even under pretence of improvement. Besides, it's not my way—I don't like it—I believe, Mr. Sampson, Scripture particularly condemns those who oppress the poor—, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... had committed a murder, she believed she would acquaint you with it. At last the expected day came, and Mrs Wilkins, who had been kept a week in readiness, and put off from time to time, upon some pretence or other, that she might not return too soon, was dispatched. Then the child was born, in the presence only of myself and my mother, and was by my mother conveyed to her own house, where it was privately kept by her till the evening of your return, when I, by the command of Miss Bridget, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... in our sense of the term only when the growth of knowledge revealed the fact that the measures taken were inadequate to attain the desired end; while the "magician" continued to make the pretence that he could attain that ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... to cope with enemies without, but with sedition within. Societies formed for propagating the principles of the revolution advocated the subversion of the constitution under the pretence of parliamentary reform; the populace, angered by the privations caused by the clearness of food, listened readily to the agitators; riots were frequent, but the most mischievous form taken by sedition was that of armed conspiracy. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... inspired and rendered learned. Have we not again calendars in which are marked the lucky and unlucky days, as has been done during a time, under the name of Egyptians? Do they not prevent people from inhabiting certain houses, under pretence of their being haunted? that is to say, that in the night spectres are seen in them, and a great noise of chains is heard, some saying that it is devils who cause all this, and others the spirits of the dead who make all this clang; which is surprising enough that it should be spirits ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other. Everything that is eatable, and many things apparently uneatable, are devoured by them. They fairly ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... look for beauty, and you will find it. Could you predict that from the plants lying in the stagnant pool such a perfect flower as a lily would spring? If you were passing a low, thatched cottage made of rough stone, its only pretence being a coat of whitewash, would you guess it held a poet? And, if you were riding along in a horse-car, interested only in the foreign-looking faces and the remarkable clothes, would you be likely to know that a great philanthropist ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... for the short walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which I ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... gentlemen, meekness and forbearance, to support what they call a religious cause, by irreligious means; and would not hunt down, when bidden, your unoffending fellow-citizens, to the hollow cry of 'No Popery,' and on the pretence of a fabled aggression." ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... of God and in his humble service. And he is humble, and venerates Holy Church and the sacraments, and he is temperate in meat and drink, in his words, and in all relations of life. He is content with poor raiment, with menial employment, and his face is naturally humble, without pretence. And he is hunible in his practices, within and without, before God and before men, that none may be offended by reason of him. Thus he tames and removes far from him all pride, which is the cause and ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... with the names and whereabouts of certain persons who under the guise of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel are even now conspiring to free the woman Marie Antoinette and her son from prison and to place the latter upon the throne of France. You are quite well aware that under the pretence of being the leader of a gang of English adventurers, who never did the Republic of France and her people any real harm, I have actually been the means of unmasking many a royalist plot before you, and ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... there's any need of me. Remember that you can't do everything yourself—and you may only get into trouble yourself without really helping if you try to do it all. So call on me if there's any need. And, whatever you do, don't let Zara go out of the house alone on any pretence. Remember that, will you?" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... Pretence.—As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, sniveling ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... with some of the deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... repression, with forbidding and restraint. She seemed always to be telling him not to do things. When he wanted to go to the Lough with Willie Logan to play Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday or to light a bonfire in Teeshie McBratney's field with shavings from Galpin's mill in the pretence that he was a Red Indian preparing for a war-dance, it was his mother who said that he was not to do it. He might fall into the water and get drowned, she said, or, he might fall into the fire and get roasted ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... is not so cold, I think," said Sophy. "And, dear mother, you are not to fret. We can go easily, and it will all come right, you'll see." And Sophy made a great pretence of hastening the dressing of her little brothers, that she might get their breakfast first and ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... from one of these waking reveries, little Ned gazed about him, and saw Elsie sitting with this pretty pretence of thoughtfulness and dreaminess in her little chair, close beside him; now and then peeping under her eyelashes to note what changes might come over his face. After looking at her a moment or two, he quietly took her willing and warm little hand in his own, and led her ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and powers which he has given. He has called you to your present position, He may be calling you to something more. If he has given you the power and opportunity of raising yourself, he meant you to use them. It is a false humility and a false view of religion that encourages sloth under the pretence of being contented with one's humble lot. There is God's work—real every day work to be done in worldly as well as in what seems to be more directly spiritual work. One's whole interest is not to be centred on earthly things, neither are we to be so heavenly minded ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... without this apparatus for the confection of masterpieces, but he did not get away without a sketching-box which he had had no intention of buying. The young lady was too energetic for him. He was afraid of being too curt with her lest she should turn on him and tell him that pretence was useless—she knew he was Priam Farll. He felt guilty, and he felt that he looked guilty. As he hurried along the High Street towards the river with the paint-box it appeared to him that policemen observed him inimically and cocked their helmets at him, as who should say: "See here; this ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... medicine-man, and is worshipped just as ghosts of the dead are worshipped. Thus, whatever his origin, his myth is freely coloured by the savage fancy and by savage ideas, and we ask no more than this colouring to explain the wildest Greek myths. What truly 'primitive' religion was, we make no pretence to know. We only say that, whether Greek religion arose from a pure fountain or not, its stream had flowed through and been tinged by the soil of savage thought, before it widens into our view in historical times. But it will be shown that the logic which connects Tsui Goab with ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... the blows her ladyship had achieved such ingenuity in dealing. She again and again repeated that she wouldn't so much have minded having her "attainments" held up to scorn and her knowledge of every subject denied, hadn't she been branded as "low" in character and tone. There was by this time no pretence on the part of any one of denying it to be fortunate that her ladyship habitually left London every Saturday and was more and more disposed to a return late in the week. It was almost equally public that she regarded as a preposterous "pose," and indeed as a direct ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... So the Peace of Amiens was signed in March 1802. With this peace ended Napoleon's last pretence that he was trying to save the peoples of the world from their wicked rulers. Some of them did need saving; and many of the French Revolutionists were generous souls, eager to spread their own kind of liberty ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... six when he finished dictating, and with aching heart and burning face Miss Wallen closed her desk and silently went for her cloak and overshoes. For over half an hour Mr. Forrest had stood to his guns across the room, making much pretence of being busy with the atlas and his notes, but time and again his eyes wandered, following his thoughts, to the other two,—Wells rapidly dictating, his stenographer with bowed head, determinedly wielding her pencil. When Wells finally started, the lieutenant arose ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... Rebecca sat beside the window and sewed, Caleb shelled corn in the chimney-corner, and Ephraim made a pretence of helping him. "You set down an' help your father shell corn while I am gone," his mother ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and in a few days, treasure was brought up to the value of about 300,000 pounds, with which Phipps set sail for England. On his arrival, it was urged upon the king that he should seize the ship and its cargo, under the pretence that Phipps, when soliciting his Majesty's permission, had not given accurate information respecting the business. But the king replied, that he knew Phipps to be an honest man, and that he and his friends should divide the whole treasure amongst them, even though he had returned with double ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... and in the neighboring provinces not under the control of the Spanish Government, are evading the orders issued by these Headquarters, and in view of the large number of those who are storing and monopolizing food and other most necessary articles, under the pretence of desiring to sell them to the Americans, but whose real intention is to ship them secretly to Manila where they receive higher prices for their merchandise, without regard for the injury they are doing the cause of our independence, I have seen fit ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Shandy was observing her progress; but a huge worsted bag, designed for some flat-footed old pauper, with heels like an elephant—And there she squats, counting all the stitches as she works, and refusing to speak, or listen, or look up, under pretence that it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... to understand. Their pretence made you despise and pity them. It was a horrid thing, as though a skeleton came to life and jiggled its bones and mouthed at you, "You see, I used to do that too." That was why you told ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... use of the time before Spain takes a decided opinion, to sow jealousies between us. Governor Johnson sounded the dispositions of this Court early last winter. At the close of it Sir John Dalrymple obtained permission to come to Madrid, on the pretence of the bad state of health of his lady. His strange Memorial to the Count de Florida Blanca, is transmitted to you.[6] I have no doubts that other attempts will be made to bring about a negotiation. If they succeed no better than Sir John's, we shall not have much to apprehend ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... very atrocity. Such an opening was made some years ago by those who saw the possibility of founding purses for parents upon the murder of their children. This was done upon a larger scale than had been suspected, and upon a plausible pretence. To bury a corpse is costly; but of a hundred children only a few, in the ordinary course of mortality, will die within a given time. Five shillings a-piece will produce 25L annually, and that will bury a considerable number. On this principle arose ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the matter was, he failed to take any account whatsoever of Mrs. Spofford in his calculations; he did not even make a pretence of consulting her in matters relating to the common good of the common people, and as she was in the habit of devoting a considerable portion of her time, energy and executive ability to the interests of the common or lower class people, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... a-breast, and so close, that one miscarrying would leave little doubt of the Fate of all the rest. This in the Camp we commonly call the Park; and here it was that our new Guest, like another Phaeton, though under Pretence of Weariness, not Ambition, got Leave of the very last Carter to the Train to take a Nap in his Waggon. One who had entertain'd a Jealousy of him, and had watch'd him, gave Information against him; upon which he was seiz'd and brought to me as Captain of the Guard. I caus'd him to be search'd; ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... murmured he, "if it be, so much the better, for I have made a rare acquisition." Under pretence of being fatigued, Dantes asked to take the helm; the steersman, glad to be relieved, looked at the captain, and the latter by a sign indicated that he might abandon it to his new comrade. Dantes could thus ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that our Meditation on the Custom House, as well as that on the Bed, has already revealed certain means of discerning the thought of a woman; but we make no pretence in this book of exhaustively stating the resources of human wit, which are immeasurable. Now here is a proof of this. On the day of the Saturnalia the Romans discovered more features in the character of their slaves, in ten ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... said the father, almost scoffingly, looking up at his son's face, suspiciously. And yet, though he would not show it, he was touched. Only if this were a ruse on the part of the young man, a mock sentiment, a little got-up theatrical pretence,—then,—then how disgraced he would be in his own estimation at having been moved by ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... felt that the visit was not in vain. He had gained something, and he said to himself if he could get to the Emir's place some day alone and under some pretence about the horses, he might manage to have a word or ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... has no suspition of my servants, That, under the pretence of formall Courtship To mee, should ayme at his dishonour: there's One that would ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... and pretended to relish Munich beer served in tall stone mugs. Aunt Lucas, who was shaped like a 'cello, made more than a pretence of sipping; she drank one entirely, regretting the exigencies of chaperonage: to ask for more might shock the proper ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... in England laboured hard in the same cause. Elizabeth herself was ambiguous, though loving, and sometimes even Anjou was almost persuaded by his mother to accept the English crown matrimonial at the price demanded. For Elizabeth it was necessary to keep up the pretence at all costs, for the Spaniards were plotting her murder; and to split the Catholic party whilst secretly aiding the rebel Netherlanders seemed her only chance of safety. On one occasion, when Spain and France drew together, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... armament was kept a profound secret, which was to rob the pagoda of Tremele, 12 miles inland from St Thomas of Meliapour, in the kingdom of Bisnagar, for which express orders had been given by King John, under pretence that India was wasted, as if any pretence could justify robbery. The design was however discovered, or as others say it was disappointed by contrary winds. Yet the governor was persuaded to plunder other pagodas, where it was thought ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... married his wife because her desperation drove him to do so. I have often heard people say that Leonora used to dance at parties as if she wished to kill herself, and would drink quantities of iced water when she was in a most heated condition. It was no longer a pretence with her. What scenes took place at home between her mother and herself it was no business of mine to pry into; but this I know right well that the girl one day went straight to Szephalmi and threatened him there and then with something terrible ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... spectre at his elbow Barnabas rose and dressed, and went downstairs to make a pretence of breaking ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of her front garden, to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the works, which he put together again, by some undiscovered process, in so wonderful a manner, that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would bring in ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... no opening for further explanation; nor was there room for it on the usual terms of civility; for, as he neither asked my name, nor expressed the least interest concerning my condition, I—the obliged person—had no pretence to trouble him with such ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Makaroff and other officers—all these men knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and they voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did, disguising themselves in pretended patriotism, a pretence not condemned merely because it is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men drawn from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious fraud, and under fear of punishment, have been torn from an honest, reasonable, useful, laborious family ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... sort of talk in the presence of Constance Ellsworth. Disgusted with himself and with all things, be arose and made a pretence of searching in the wagon. Rummaging about, his hand struck one of the round, gutta-percha plates which had accompanied the phonograph. With silent vigor he cast it far above the tree tops below him ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... who were natives of the Ionian Islands; they having become subjects of Great Britain by the terms of the peace. For many years, while the powers of Europe were engrossed in the tremendous strife of the French Revolution, these piratical states, under pretence of regular hostilities, had preyed upon the coasts as well as upon the commerce of the weak Mediterranean countries, and captives taken by them were kept in bitter slavery. Nelson in his correspondence, in 1796, mentions a curious incident which sufficiently characterizes the general motives ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... did not know which way to look; physically, he regarded the ground. Happily at that very moment Hornie caused a diversion, and Gibbie understood what Donal was feeling too well to make even a pretence of going after her. I must, to his praise, record the fact that, instead of wreaking his mortification upon the cow, Donal spared her several blows out of gratitude for the deliverance her misbehaviour ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... be unsavoury and loathsome. The repute it obtaineth is in all respects unjust. So would it appear, not only were the cause to be decided in a court of morality, because it consists not with virtue and wisdom; but even before any competent judges of wit itself. For he overthrows his own pretence, and cannot reasonably claim any interest in wit, who doth thus behave himself: he prejudgeth himself to want wit, who cannot descry fit matter to divert himself or others: he discovereth a great straitness and sterility of good invention, who cannot ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the United States' stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French was searching American ships on pretence they was helping England, but really for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only t'other way round, and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... remorse the stern duty of expelling heresy from the provinces and punishing all those, and especially the leaders, who had ventured to oppose the arbitrary exercise of the royal authority. He had for some time been preparing this expedition. He still kept up the pretence that he was coming in person to enquire into the alleged grievances, but he never had the slightest intention of quitting Madrid. Alva sailed from Cartagena (April 27) for Genoa, and proceeded at once to draw together from the various Spanish garrisons ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... soliciting for him, and as he had very good interest, nothing but his son's notorious misbehaviour made him not prevail. In the current of his extravagancies Jack fixed himself often upon young men coming into the world, and under pretence of being their tutor in the fashionable vices of the town, shared in their pleasures and helped them ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
