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Make-believe   Listen
noun
make-believe  n.  A feigning to believe, as in the play of children; a mere pretense; a fiction; an invention. "Childlike make-believe." "To forswear self-delusion and make-believe."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Make-believe" Quotes from Famous Books



... mouth war a-watering after the Dew beasts in the pinfold, and after the brown horse in partickelar! And so I loaned him a horse, and sent him off to Logan's. Well, sir, and what does the brute do but ride off, for a make-believe, to set us easy; for he knew, the brute, if he war in sight of us, we should have had guards over the cattle all night long; well, sir, down he sot in ambush, till all were quiet; and then he stole back, and turning my own horse among the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... inspiration which may have seized Madame Prune. But one thing never varies, either in our household or in any other, neither in the north nor in the south of the Empire, and that is the dessert and the manner of eating it: after all these little dishes, which are a mere make-believe, is brought in a wooden bowl, bound with copper,—an enormous bowl, fit for Gargantua, and filled to the very brim with rice, plainly cooked in water. Chrysantheme fills another large bowl from it (sometimes twice, sometimes three times), darkens its snowy whiteness with a black sauce flavored with ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... which proved a tragedy so often for the poor mother compelled by the custom to rise in her weakness and even neglect her new-born baby, in order to do double work and to tempt the appetite of her lord after his make-believe pangs of childbirth, was one sign that primitive consciousness found the new knowledge of ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... great deal better than that," cried Kitty. "I'd grind a real piano, and I'd learn to play on it my own self. I wouldn't have any old make-believe music-boxes ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... we can play at Make-Believe—once when we are children, once when we are lovers. And these are the happiest times of our lives. We are not commoners then; we are emperors. We touch the sceptre and it is a magic wand. We rule the world, shaping it as we will, dropping from between our fingers all the stony obstacles that ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... 1914 had been marked by the utmost caution and self-containment. Contemplated from a distance by certain of the Allies whose attention was absorbed by the political aspect of the matter, this method of cool calculation seemed to smack of hollow make-believe. Why, it was asked, should Italy hold back or weigh the certain losses against the probable gains, seeing that she would have as allies the two most puissant States of Europe, and the enormous advantage of sea power ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... only a poor hut, a little patch of corn, and a garden in which to grow a few vegetables. Our life was to be spent in continual contemplation, one praying while the other engaged in active duties. All was done with religious gravity and decorum. If we went out, the make-believe continued even in the street; the two hermits would say the Rosary, using their fingers to count on, so as not to display their devotion before those who might scoff. One day, however, the hermit Therese forgot herself—before eating a cake, given her ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... the ditch after me, licking my face in such a friendly fashion and holding still so that I could help myself to the flask and bandages, I thought how grateful a fellow would feel to him if he were really rescued by him that way. It was all make-believe to me, but it was dead earnest to the dog, and he did his part as faithfully as any soldier who ever ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... murmured, wrinkling her forehead in a pretty make-believe of woe—the question of the sale had ceased to be acute: 'I just came out here ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the long period of make-believe in England. Discipline. So salutary and so irksome. Now for the battle. I own I long to get into the thick of it soon. We see infantry returning and going up, and we feel sick, ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson

... acquaintance with the journalist increased. Thorpe Athelny was a good talker. He did not say brilliant things, but he talked inspiringly, with an eager vividness which fired the imagination; Philip, living so much in a world of make-believe, found his fancy teeming with new pictures. Athelny had very good manners. He knew much more than Philip, both of the world and of books; he was a much older man; and the readiness of his conversation gave him a certain superiority; but he was in the hospital a recipient of charity, subject to ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... together as if it were a picnic. She had never seen him so cheery and inconsequent. It was as if he also were engaged in some species of make-believe. Or was it the enchantment of spring that had fallen upon them both? Dinah could not have said. She only knew that she had never felt so happy ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... one can make-believe everything lovely, too! I see it. What fun we'll have! Let's begin at once. We're in the enchanted forest. We've been enchanted ourselves. But the fairy king has come and shown us where to find the magic treasure ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... kind and another in the management of the industries they are connected with. Some of them are directors, for example, but they are always paid for their services before there is any distribution of profits. Even when their "work" is quite perfunctory and useless, mere make-believe, like the games of little children, they get paid far more than the actual workers. But there are many people who own stock in the company you work for, Jonathan, who never saw the foundries, who were never in the city of ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a person is born with absolutely nothing—nothing of the human things a human baby is entitled to—she has to evolve something to live in; a sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp—just ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... thing that struck me most about her, and the thing that has set me writing about her, was this: I noticed that her face was painted and powdered. Now if there is one thing I abominate above all others it is a painted face. On the stage, of course, it is right and proper. The stage is a world of make-believe, and it is the business of the lady of sixty to give you the impression that she is a sweet young thing of seventeen. There is no affectation in this. It is her vocation to be young, and she follows it as willingly or unwillingly as you or I follow ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... "Of course our make-believe engagement expires automatically now, and I hope you'll soon find the one woman meant to make you happy. I am glad to think that I've helped you a little when you came to a hard place, for the most that any one of us may do for another is to smooth ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... they haven't, Phil!" cried Joel Jackman, showing signs of growing excitement. "Nothing make-believe about that alarm, let me tell you. There's a genuine fire broken ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... yet, to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm rather proud of it. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn't abear to see and hear me coming out as a reg'lar brown one. Couldn't abear to make-believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we was everlastingly in ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... cried Arthur. "Think of the yards and yards of top-spit. It does rejoice me to think I can go to you now when I'm making compost, and need not be beholden to that old sell-up-your-grandfather John for as much as would fill Adela's weeding basket, and that's about as small an article as anyone can make-believe with." ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the class if confronted by a mechanical and lifeless teacher. The teacher is the model unconsciously accepted and responded to by his class. He leads the way in interest and enthusiasm. Nor will any sham or pretense serve. The interest must be real and deep. Even young children quickly sense any make-believe enthusiasm or vivacity on the part of the teacher, and their ardor ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts

... none of them, except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream. But it was only now and then ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... maid to herself, "did the Pani really think she was so stupid? Rats had to be [Pg 5] here. The Pani wished rats to be here; the Pani tried to make-believe that rats were here. Well, let people who were more stupid than she was believe it, for she, Marianna ['S]roka, was much too clever, nobody could humbug her. The mistress must have some reason for saying it, for there ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... know, you onbelievin' swab, as how the Singapore mail steamer was nearly as possible plundered by a whole gang o' them gettin' aboard of her as make-believe passengers and then setting fire to her and plundering the cargo, and that this occurred only ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson

... circle was a tray with little dishes, and Emma held a tiny cup in her hand, for the children were just finishing a make-believe dinner party that had water ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 8, February 22, 1914 • Various

... It's Halloween—that is, it isn't really Halloween, because it's too late. I lost that, being sick, you know. So we're going to pretend, and Mr. Jack is going to show me what it is like. That is what Mr. Jack and Jill always do; when something ails the real thing, they just pretend with the make-believe one. He's planned lots of things for Jill and me to do; with nuts and apples and candles, you know. It's to-morrow night, ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... as well to let them take their time about it," remarked Captain Link. "These Moros always get very much worked up in their war-dances, and occasionally they forget that it is all make-believe and send a spear into a spectator. It's safer to leave them alone. They're ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... desired psychophysical effect. The patient who by merely mental inhibition has lost his voice for weeks may get it back as soon as the physician has looked into his larynx with a mirror and has held an electrode without battery connection on the throat. Another way of helping by make-believe methods is to give the impression that a decided improvement is noticeable. The uneducated patient believes it easily when the physician at his very entrance into the office expresses his surprise about the external symptoms of a change ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... accepted Mlle. Fouchette as Mlle. Remy and pressed her to his heart. He mingled his tears and kisses with hers. Her fair hair fell upon his face and he covered it with passionate caresses. He poured out the endearing words of a heart surcharged with love. It was a very clever make-believe on both sides,—very clever ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... gnome-frequented caves. It was she who invented the plays which were the most delightful. Mary was rather tiresome when it came to anything more than sober facts. She would play very nicely with the dolls, but, when it came to make-believe creatures, she was sadly wanting, and the best response Molly could expect to get when she built a fairy dwelling was: "Oh, I say, that is a proper little house, isn't it?" or "What a duck of a tree that is you are planting; it ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard

... lightly playing around with ideas about how she'd found a home and a protector, knowing she was kidding herself, that it was the most gimcracky feminine make-believe, but enjoying it just ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... as director, with such men as Nairn, when it was a question of running a mine; but it's doubtful if I'd make a successful financial juggler. It's hard to keep one's hands off some of the professional tricksters. Bluff, assumption, make-believe—Pshaw! I've had enough of them. Better stick to the ax and cross-cut; that's ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... these make-believe dudes," he shouted. "That's the kid old Skin Flint Crawford took out of an orphan asylum. He's a kid that old Crawford took up with because he was too mean t' have t' Lord bless him with one o' his own. That's straight, fellers. I was ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... imaginative eye. I was told by one who was present at this ball that as the Cardinal swept up the staircase, his long train held magnificently over his arm, a sudden wave of reality seemed to sweep upstairs with him, and reduce to the prettiest make-believe all the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... him to merit the like; finds his way back at last, still light of heart, to his own poor fare, able to do without what he would enjoy so much. As, grateful for his scanty part in things—for the make-believe of a feast in the little white loaves she too has managed to come by, sipping the thin white wine, he touches her dearly, the mother is shocked with a sense of something unearthly in his contentment, while he comes and goes, singing now more abundantly than ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... hint for another year," murmured Ethel Blue to Ethel Brown. "We can have a make-believe county fair and charge admission, and ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... see we're all in it. We're the Mount of Gold Quartz-minin' Company—me an' Jacker an' them—but it's on'y a make-believe company, an' I'd like Mr. McKnight, an' Mr. Peterson, an' Mr. Doon to come, an' the detective cove too, cause there's somethin' else ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It meant nothing, but the boys and girls we associated with thought it did and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts herself on seeing it, we shall know in one ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... here with you to-night. I have heard this opera before, and it will be so tiresome. I get so sleepy while they are singing, for I never care to watch the acting. I did at first, when it was new, but now it seems insipid to see them make-believe, while the theatre is worse yet," and she gave a ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... and first time; so the King and Queen were married almost before they knew it themselves, and certainly before the people discovered that somebody was really being married at last. This, however, was not at all surprising, for the real wedding was very much the same as all the make-believe ones, except that it took a little longer because the King and Queen were not so used to being married as the ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp

... few things in which the make-believe is superior to the genuine," said Ronnie, "it lasts longer, and you get more fun out of it, and it's easier to replace when you've ...
— When William Came • Saki

... excitement, and your breath is blown like a white incense to the skies. That is the real North. How tame he will look to you, when you go back in August and find a few hard apples, a few tough plums, and some sour little things which are apologies for grapes! He looks sneaky enough then, with his make-believe summer, and all his furs off. No, then is the time for the South. All is simmering outside, and the locust saws and shrills till he seems to heat the air. You stay in the house at noon, and know what a virtue there is in thick walls which keep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... than make-believe to make its appearance in the child is story-telling the fourth type of manipulation. Where in make-believe he has an actual object to manipulate according to the meaning attached to it, in story-telling he simply talks about persons and things and makes them ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... those animals and much-debated vehicle, quite another. Unless the presence of her ex-pupil could be made to redound to her own glory, Theresa much preferred reserving representation of The Hard and its distinguished proprietor wholly and solely to herself. So in the spirit of pretence and of make-believe did she go forth; to find, on her return, that spirit prove but a lying and treacherous ally—and for more ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... Radcliffe, whom a later generation was to welcome as "the mighty magician bred and nourished by the Muses in their sacred solitary caverns, amid the paler shrines of Gothic superstition," and he despised the neo-classic make-believe of grottoes. He says, with firmness, that epic poetry—and he is thinking of Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser—would never have been written if the critical judgments current in 1754 had ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... order this thing differently; they exhibit the same spirit of enterprise that in a lesser degree characterized certain promoters of rubberneck tours who some years ago fitted up make-believe opium dens in New York's Chinatown for the awed delectation of out-of-town spectators. Knowing from experience that every other American who lands in Paris will crave to observe the Apache while the Apache ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... of all by what we call "our faith," and fruitless struggles to work out a faith which is but a make-believe and a desperate trying to trust God, which must ever come short of His vast and glorious promises. The truth is that the only faith that is equal to the stupendous promises of God and the measureless needs of our life, is "the faith of God" Himself, the very trust which He will breathe into the ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... Their dreary make-believe had all his life oppressed him. He now knew why. Men, driving their forces outwards for external possessions had lost the way so utterly. It truly was amazing. He no longer quite understood how such feverish strife was possible to intelligent beings: the fur-merchant, the tourists, his London friends, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... games are things that are appropriate to the restless days of boyhood, when one will take infinite trouble and toil over anything of the nature of a make-believe, so long as it is understood not to be work; but as one gets older and perhaps wiser, a simpler and quieter range of interests ought to take their place. I can humbly answer for it that it need imply no loss of zest; my own power of enjoyment is far deeper and stronger than it ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... either to contemplate ridicule of them or to ask comedy to be other than satiric. We know what happened when the dramatists gave way: there followed, Hazlitt says, 'those do-me-good, lack-a-daisical, whining, make-believe comedies in the next age, which are enough to set one to sleep, and where the author tries in vain to be merry and wise in the same breath.' These in place of 'the court, the gala day of wit and pleasure, of gallantry, and Charles ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... not a bigot, and he made allowances for art-in-error. His hand fell heavy only upon those heretics who not merely denied the faith but pretended that artifice was better than nature, that decoration was more than structure, that make-believe was something you could live by as you live by truth. He was not strongest, however, in damnatory criticism. His spirit was too large, too generous to dwell in that, and it rose rather to its full height in his appreciations ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... like a make-believe sister of her own, and talked of her at last as a living child. What long moral conversations took place between Juliet and her mother, what admirable remarks did that excellent mother make, referring to sundry small sins of omission and commission on Juliet's part! When I saw Flurry wince and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... and when I got to the theatre I found a scene before me which was not Tolstoi's scene, a foolish, sentimental conversation in which I recognised hardly more than a sentence of Tolstoi (and this brought in in the wrong place), and, in short, the old make-believe of all the hack-writers for the stage, dished up again, and put before us, with a simplicity of audacity at which one can only marvel ("a thing imagination boggles at"), as an "adaptation" from Tolstoi. Tolstoi has been hardly treated by some translators and by many ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... Needless to add, these screens would serve to obscure neither sound, sight, nor smell of drunken rowdies who sat behind them! In summer cars black and white passengers may be separated not even by a make-believe screen; they are simply required, respectively, to occupy certain seats in the front or the back ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... far below, and stand up, like the ruins of cottages, amid the trees, are of singular beauty,—worth all the imitation-ruins ever erected, and obnoxious to none of the disparaging associations which the mere show and make-believe of the artificial are sure ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... before he started away he Kissed her, and it wasn't any Make-Believe such as you see in Comic Opera. It was a genuine Olga Nethersole Buss, full of Linger and Adhesion. To cap the Climax he said he would stop ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... hopped down, and waved both ears backward and forward, and made a low bow to a make-believe crowd of people, only, of ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... not make-believe. I am in love with him myself, and have been any time since Nelson and the Nile. As for you, Dolly, since he went away six months ago, you have been positively in the megrims. I shall date your loss of appetite ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at that very moment was uppermost—obtruded itself like a wall between himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he reached up, took her hand, and ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... night was coming; they had hardly thought of this before and were not at all prepared for it. But it was still warm, for the June afternoon lingers long and far into the evening. Then they fell to eating strawberries again, for make-believe tea where everything is water and sand is not very satisfactory. After the strawberrying they came back to the shore again, and little Bo, now quite disheartened began to make a noise which sounded a little like crying, it was a whimper; but Yulee was brave and kept ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were in. You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland was all make-believe. ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... have felt the sting of the prelate's delicate sarcasm. At bottom, beneath this make-believe Florentine all-angelicalness, with long curly hair and mauve eyes which grew dim with rapture at sight of a Botticelli, there was a thoroughly practical, business-like young man, who took admirable care of his fortune and was even somewhat miserly. However, he contented himself with lowering ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... She so loved that make-believe Moira, moving forward toward glowing things, that she cried aloud: "That's me! Me!" And of course her voice broke the spell—the dream vanished; there was nothing left but the fleecy cloud, the ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... of the lack of moral and intellectual elevation, in spite of frivolity and make-believe, this art was infinitely better than the pompous imitation of foreign example set up by Louis XIV. It was more spontaneous, more original, more French. The influence of Italy began to fail, and the painters began to mirror French life. It was largely court ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... Florian, to whom the monkey was showing a magic lantern without a light, and describing what she ought to have seen. Believing her, however, to be there on such good authority, we were getting very sorry for Bellini's mother, when we were unexpectedly relieved, by finding it was only a bit of make-believe; for it was now divulged, che questa madre che piangea il suo figlio, was not in fact his personal mother, but "Italy" dressed up like his mother, and gone to Paris on purpose to weep and put garlands on the composer's tomb, amaranth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... delude yourself with that, nor think that because this time I fired over your heads I dare not fire into your ranks. I give you my word that if I have to command my men to fire a second time it shall not be mere make-believe, and I also give you my word that if at the end of a minute I have not your reply and you are not moving out of this—every rogue of you shall have a very bitter knowledge of how much ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... combat it, partly I think from pride, for he hated everything that savoured of earwigging; he was not going to put constraint upon himself that his following might be more enthusiastic. There was no make-believe about him, and he was never one who liked discussion ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... off than when I first met Dorothy," he thought. "Then, I was stuck on a pole in a cornfield, where I could make-believe scare the crows, at any rate. But surely there is no use for a Scarecrow stuck on a pole in the middle of a river. I am afraid I shall never have ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... win her to work for him? He started to speak and say: "Cousin Alethea, may not all this be stopped, this debt and poverty and make-believe—this suffering of pride, transfixed by the spears of poverty? Let you and me arrange it, and all so satisfactorily. I have loved ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... make-believe," Russ Bunker told himself. "They are not doing anything dangerous. It's a—a play, that's what it is. Why, those men have got moving ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope

... two main kinds; fights between men and beasts—occasionally between two kinds of wild beast—and fights between men and men. There was no make-believe about these combats; they meant at least serious wounds, even when they did not mean death. Those who fought with beasts might in some cases be volunteers; in general they were captives or condemned criminals, and it perhaps hardly needs pointing out that, when St. Paul says he had "fought with ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... interesting story which will appeal strongly to the "make-believe" instinct in children, and will give them a healthy, active interest ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the line of argument in The Prophetical Office of the Church was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do without ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... and say good-natured things, like Mr. Tudor? He is real, and not make-believe, pretending that he is too bored to live at all. One would think there was no truth anywhere, nothing but tinsel and sham, to listen to them. That is why I like Mr. Tudor: he has the ring of the true metal about him. Even Miss ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... that? How does he know what's in your heart? He doesn't need to understand that your action is make-believe, and not sincere. You'll see, after such actions, he'll believe in you so much that even though you made love before his very ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... it was meltin'," and Mikie drew back a dirty hand he had reached over toward a big empty clam shell. That shell was the make-believe dish of ice-cream, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope

... amused herself by imagining stories about the buttons and their former owners, for she was a fanciful girl, and her child-life, without brothers or sisters, had bred in her the habit of solitary play and "make-believe," which clung to her now that she was a tall girl of sixteen. But to-day she was not thinking of the Blue Egyptians. Her thoughts were following Lena on her homeward way, and she was hoping devoutly that her ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... You are wilful and obstinate; but I thank God I am more wilful and obstinate than you. I am sick of this fencing and diplomacy and irony. You know what I am—I am not at all the fine gentleman that leaned his head on the chimney-breast—that was make-believe and foolishness. I am a bully and a brute—you have ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... greens, and make-believe things that don't nourish you at all. And there was such nice fish. Why do they not get some? The river certainly hasn't ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... had no Manx blood in her—but my father accepted U.T.'s assurance with the utmost confidence. His chivalrous nature, more deeply tinged than hers with Celtic tenderness, or the very finest kind of Celtic make-believe (Anglice—humbug; oh those English!), had no difficulty in accepting U.T.'s "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. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... gentleman, he is," Bob would say; "and not one of your make-believe gentry. It is all along of him and Spot and the little 'un, Tim, that I don't hate Sundays; but he comes reg'lar, does the squire; and he brings some rare good books with him; and Tim curls himself up on my blanket, and ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... need evidence," said Charity. "I never saw a picture yet that was worth a red cent. It's only a make-believe." ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... he need make no concessions to the fact that he is to have two fairly well-dressed women along. We will go as they go, without any fuss, or they may leave us at home. I despise those condescending, make-believe-rough-it trips, with which men flatter women into thinking themselves genuine campaigners. Consequently our outfit is a big, bony ranch-team and a Shuttler wagon with the double-sides in; spring seats, ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to lapsing from the love of himself; ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... something that realizes without argument, frequently without what is called education (though I think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name), an intuition of the absolute balance, in time and space, of the whole of this multifariousness this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettiedness, we call THE WORLD; a soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events, however trivial, however momentous, like a leashed dog in the hand of the hunter. [Of] ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... time. His glare of wrath at Banks had been followed by one last yearning look at Brenda, and some sentimental realisation of his loss rose and choked him, temporarily superseding the powers both of make-believe and instinct. One lesson he had learnt at Harrow and Oxford so thoroughly that he re-acted to it even in this supreme crisis of his life. He might give expression to brutal passion, but in no circumstances whatever must he break ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... novel, and for long the only one, was written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden forth with his overseer to make-believe to inspect the flocks, but in reality to get an ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... sick of the pious make-believe, and itched to escape over here. But the fools had let me sell indulgences, and I had a goodly stock on hand, and trade was slack"—here he interrupted himself with a fervent "Amen!" conceded to the service—"in ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... Elephant. "Santa Claus and the workmen are coming in and they must not see us at our make-believe play. Quick! To ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope

... laughed Freddie. "You ought to have seen that monkey's face when he bit on those make-believe cherries on Flossie's ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope

... is dead theology. It is sentimentalism and make-believe. Perfectly scriptural doctrines are cast aside while others are arbitrary retained. Vague talk about "Christ and him crucified" takes the place of time-honored dogmas, logically deduced from the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... only pretended or make-believe. There was something of the roar of the lioness in her last words. Did you notice ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... the right sort, and real Christians don't bear malice, and so, do you see, the captain doesn't bear malice," answered Tom, giving a tug to the waistband of his trousers, a nautical trick he had never lost. "If he was a make-believe Christian, like too many folks, I can't say what he might do. Becky, does you say your prayers? Now I do, since the captain taught me, and I know that I axes God to forgive me my trespasses as I forgive others as trespasses against me; and I'll moreover make bold to declare that the ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston

... pistols and paper caps for himself and his following of urchins; or that his whim would lead him to expend all the money in tin flutes. In one case the group he so incongruously headed would be for that one day a gang of make-believe banditti; in another, they would constitute themselves a fife-and-drum corps—with barreltops for the drums—and would march through the streets, where scandalised adults stood in their tracks to watch them go by, they all the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... of pastimes, with make-believe audiences, such as little children create for their plays. For these two were children in a big child world. The wilderness is never grown up. It is Nature's little one waiting to be led on and disciplined to mature uses. Asher and Virginia had already peopled the ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... of the "guests," who had sung "Oh, the Mistletoe Bough!" and had looked up at it, and she had seen at the side-scenes how the bride had laughingly stepped into the trunk. But the trunk then was only a make-believe of some boards in front of a sofa, and ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... the firmly struck octaves of the opening pages. No hesitating, morbid view of life, but rank, harsh assertiveness, not untinged with splenetic anger. The chorale of the trio is admirably devised and carried out. Its piety is a bit of liturgical make-believe. The contrasts here are most artistic—sonorous harmonies set off by broken chords that deliciously tinkle. There is a coda of frenetic movement and the end is in major, a surprising conclusion ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... on the lounge; then was the time she had become so familiar with everything in the room, and she had been allowed to have the shell to play with all the time. She had had her toast brought to her in there, with make-believe tea. It was one of her pleasant memories of her childhood; it was the first time she had been of any importance to anybody, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... bride of a millionaire and adoring duke; the peerless Berengaria wrought havoc with the peace of Lord Arthur, and had more suitors than she could count on the fingers of both hands. It was a fascinating make-believe; but, as Ruth plaintively remarked, it did come with somewhat of a shock to be ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... his standard was not, to an excessive degree, a standard of subtlety rather than of creative imagination—at least, in his later period. And undoubtedly his subtlety was to some extent a matter of make-believe. He loved to take a simple conversation, and, by introducing a few subtle changes, to convert it into a sort of hieroglyphics that need an interpreter. He grew more and more to believe that it was not possible to tell the simple truth except in an involved way. He would define ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... think, when I reflect upon the lives of theatrical artists, that they are altogether unnatural existences, and produce—pardon the bull—artificial natures, which are misplaced anywhere but in their own unreal and make-believe sphere. They are the anomalous growth of our diseased civilizations, and, removed from their own factitious soil, flourish, I half believe, in none other. Do not laugh at me, but I really do think that creatures with the temperaments necessary for making good actors ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... she answered, waving them back with her small hand. "'Tis only that they play at make-believe in love, the princess and her betrothed! But after all, it is far more sensible than real love-making, where if the pleasure be more acute, the pangs are therefore the greater. She addresses to him the tenderest counterfeit verses; he returns them in kind. She even simulated such an illusory ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... it was the last day before Lent, and Carnival time, Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt vaguely defrauded, rather like the time he had seen "The Flying Dutchman," which had turned out to be only a make-believe ship and did not fly at all. To add to the complications, Miss ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain provinces, and in a few years the reform—deep and real, not the make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day—will ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... see!" she said briskly. "What a splendid idea! Of course the President will know where he is and will send it to him. Let me think—we learned all that in school and had to address make-believe letters to him—" Taking a sheet of paper she ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... had cork stoppers for heads, with faces marked on the sides, the rest, only wads of paper or cloth fastened on the ends of sticks that reached down into the bodies. A strip of cloth tied around each neck, below the bulge, served as make-believe arms, suitable for all ordinary purposes, and, with a little assistance, capable of saluting an officer or waving to ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... long afternoon they lived in a fairy world of freedom, of dreams and make-believe. They talked of great hunters and discussed the best methods of attacking all manner ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... him!" ordered Cunningham and there was a thoroughly well acted make-believe of fear, while every eye watched "Cunnigan-bahadur," and the horses, spurred and reined at once, pranced at their bits for just so long as a good man needs to make his mind up. And Cunningham ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... I occupied a seat in his 'eligible pew' last Sunday. The lath and plaster walls pretended to be Caen stone. The cheap deal was all 'make-believe' oak. The brick pillars were 'blocked off,' and unblushingly claimed to be granite. As I entered, I observed that the pulpit stood under the arch of a recess, roofed with carved stone, with clustered columns rising on the sides and spreading into ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... the crew of the king's yacht manned the rail and levelled at their single assailant the squirt-guns, which were the principal weapons of warfare used in these "make-believe" naval engagements, the fun grew fast and furious; but none had so sure an aim or so strong an arm to send an unerring and staggering stream as young Arvid Horn. One by one he drove them back while as his boat drifted still nearer the yacht he made ready to spring ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... these words spoken from under the brim of her hat (oh yes, certainly, her head was down—she had put it down) gave me a thrill; for indeed I had never doubted her sincerity. It could never have been, a make-believe despair. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... Another element of comfort was the children's love, for they turned to her as flowers to the sun, drawing confidently on her fund of stories, serene in the conviction that there was no limit to Rebecca's power of make-believe. In this, and in yet greater things, little as she realized it, the law of compensation was working in her behalf, for in those anxious days mother and daughter found and knew each other as never before. A new sense was born in Rebecca ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... too," said Fred soberly. "But I guess it's hard work to be the real thing. Maude must be a make-believe one," he added. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul—because of its believing and make-believe nature—a vessel (An untranslatable pun,—dia to pithanon te kai pistikon onomase pithon.), and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... about him, as if he was a bit off his head and it made him get up to larks; for he can't be—No, no, that's impossible, even if it looks like it. He ain't the sorter chap to be playing at sham Abram and make-believe because he was sick of fighting and didn't want ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... care whether I make trouble with you or not. I'm not going to pretend and make-believe, if that's what you want. I don't have to ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... nerves were deceiving him, and picked up another handful. It behaved exactly in the same way. It glinted and flashed yellow in a way that no sand could ever do. All at once it dawned upon him. This was no trick of sunlight on wet sand. This was no make-believe of tired nerves. ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... chansons; serenade—that is, an evening song; auberde, or day song; servantes, written to extol the goodness of princes; tenzone, quarrelsome or contemptuous songs; and roundelays, terminated forever with the same refrain. There was also what was called the pastourelle, a make-believe shepherd's song. ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... aestheticism—worshipped Carpaccio, adored Chopin, and turned his rooms at Merton into a museum of old tapestry, Roman brass-work, and Venetian glass. Then he dabbled a little in Comtism; but very soon he threw aside that gigantic make-believe at believing. Nevertheless, whatever was his whim of the moment, it was for him no whim at all, but a burning reality. And in this enthusiasm of his there was no room left for shyness. In fact, these two companions had been accustomed to talk frankly; ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... the hunters at the temporary camp were aroused to a high pitch of excitement. Some turned their buffalo robes and put them on in such a way as to convert themselves into make-believe bison, and began to tread the snow, while others were singing the buffalo song, that their spirits might be charmed and allured within the circle of the camp-fires. The scout, too, was singing his buffalo bull song in a guttural, lowing chant as he neared ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... Their play was not at all unlike that of human children. They loved to dig holes in the ground; to hide behind tree-trunks and spring out upon one another with terrifying cries and pretended fierceness; all kinds of make-believe appealed to them greatly, and to none of them more keenly than to Finn, who liked to come galloping down from the other end of the orchard to the old oak tree, flying exaggerated danger signals, and making believe that he was pursued by a ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... Lady Babbie. As the quaint, slyly humorous, make-believe gipsy, she found full play for all her talents, and she captured her audience almost with ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... a Chinese actor has many more difficulties to face than his colleague in the West. In addition to the expression of all shades of feeling, from mirth to melancholy, the former has to keep up a perpetual make-believe in another sense, which is further great strain upon his nerves. There being no scenery, no furniture, and no appointments of any except the slenderest kind upon the stage, he has to create in the minds of his audience a belief that ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... interior, with a book for company. She liked Cowperwood's pictures, his jades, his missals, his ancient radiant glass. From talking with Aileen she realized that the latter had no real love for these things, that her expressions of interest and pleasure were pure make-believe, based on their value as possessions. For Stephanie herself certain of the illuminated books and bits of glass had a heavy, sensuous appeal, which only the truly artistic can understand. They unlocked dark dream moods and pageants for her. She responded to them, lingered ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... sustained piano note is, indeed, the great mechanical desideratum for the music of the future. In music, as at present written and published for the piano, which is, and must continue to be, the real "King of Instruments," there is a good deal of make-believe. A long note—or two notes tied in a certain method—is intended to be played as a continued sound, like the note of an organ; whereas there is no piano in existence which will produce anything even approximately ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland



Words linked to "Make-believe" :   unreal, imaging, imagination, simulation, feigning, pretending, mental imagery, imagery



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