"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "There can be no source other than a future time! You can't send short waves through three-dimensional space to a given spot and not have them interceptible between. Anyhow, the Compubs wouldn't work it this way! They wouldn't put us on guard! And an extra-terrestrial wouldn't pretend to be a human if he honestly wanted to warn us of danger! He'd tell us the truth! Physically and logically it's impossible for it to be anything but ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... and it might be thought that there is something either grotesque or pathetic in so much emotional enjoyment issuing in so slender a performance. But the essence of the happiness is that the joy resides in the doing of the work and not in the giving it to the world; and though I do not pretend not to be fully alive to the delight of having my work praised and appreciated, that is altogether a secondary pleasure which in no way competes with ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that they would not unwillingly part with their children, in consideration of some valuable present, but in this we afterward found that we were much mistaken. Happening one day to call myself Toolooak's attata (father), and pretend that he was to remain with me on board the ship, I received from the old man, his father, no other answer than what seemed to be very strongly and even satirically implied, by his taking one of our gentlemen by the arm and calling him his son; thus intimating that the adoption which he proposed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... from her faint, Mrs. Burton would not let her try to rise. She sent out to Burton, who was reading a novel in the mild forenoon air under the crimson maples, and made him get the carryall and take Cornelia home in it. They thought they would pretend that they were out for a drive, and were merely dropping her at her mother's door; but no ruse was necessary. Mrs. Saunders tranquilly faced the fact; she said she thought the child hadn't been herself ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... You'll have to get some other little boy to play with." He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it was almost threatening: "Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you don't. You don't help things any by pretending. It's then that I want to pull the corners of the Divide together. If you WON'T understand, you know, I could ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in your hour of fear, aid me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the grounds. It is a fraud. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the Seamew; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers. Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot escape—the walls are a prison; and I believe ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... guessing, and I don't pretend it was ingenious or scientific. I wasn't any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like this. I don't know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my brains as far as they ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... write and get about, and all the conditions of life have changed, the cosmopolitan public, so far from being confined to a handful of scholars and merchants, extends down to and is largely made up of that terrible modern production, "the man in the street." It is quite ridiculous to pretend that because an Erasmus or a Casaubon could carry on literary controversies, with amazing fluency and hard-hitting, in Ciceronian Latin, therefore "the bald-headed man at the back of the omnibus" can give up the time ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... of course, pretend to connect, in any way whatever, the drama of the rue Norvins with the bygone drama which ended in the execution of Gurn,[1] but we cannot pass over in silence the strange coincidence that, within the space of a few years, the same halo of mystery surrounds ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... hoping to get work. Even if the mills had been running as usual that would not have diminished one particle of the sin and vice and drunkenness that saturated the place. And as Philip studied the matter with brain and soul he came to a conclusion regarding the duty of the church. He did not pretend to go beyond that, but as the weeks went by and fall came on and another winter stared the people coldly in the face, he knew that he must speak out what ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... I thought I told you. At any rate, if you have not been told by your uncle, you had better pretend to know nothing about it," ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... that one ancient schoolmaster whom this good lady appointed was not overgood at spelling, and would allow a pupil to laboriously spell out a word and wait for him to explain. If the master could not do this he would pretend to be preoccupied, and advise the pupil to "say ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... To-morrow when we are ready to start, I will call you to come to me, but you must pay no attention to what I say. Run off, and pretend to be chasing squirrels. I will try to catch you, and if I do so, I will pretend to whip you; but do not follow me. Stay behind, and when the camp has passed out of sight, chew off the strings that bind those children; and when you have done this, show them where I have ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... materially hastened from perpetual drinks. It is one of the greatest curses of this country, and I cannot say that I believe it to be on the decrease." One reason, doubtless, why it is so pernicious, is the constant habit of drinking before breakfast. That he was correct in his per-centage, I do not pretend to say; but I certainly have seen enough of the practice to feel sure it must have a most pernicious effect on very many. To what extent it is carried on by the lowest classes I had no opportunity ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... seems to have borrowed the device of tampering with the calendar for the purpose of fiscal fraud, and when the provinces complained, the Emperor hushed up the matter, partly to avoid scandal, partly because Licinius was cunning enough to pretend that his peculations had been intended to cut the sinews of revolt, and that his spoils were reserved for the imperial exchequer. The rebellions of Vindex and Civilis seem to prove that even Caesar's favourite province was not happy. Spain was misgoverned ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... in church when attending requiem masses for Mamma, and that Katenka sighed and rolled her eyes about when playing the piano—all these things seemed to me sheer make-believe, and I asked myself: "At what period did they learn to pretend like grown-up people, and how can they bring themselves ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... representative body of colored people anywhere in the world.... I believe most profoundly in the work of this convention because it represents the common masses of all our people, those who are the foundation of our success as a race. I believe in you because you do not pretend to represent the classes but the masses of our people. I am here, too, because the Baptist Church among our people throughout the country is affording them an opportunity to get lessons in self-government in a degree that is true ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... not beautiful: more than any other of the older colleges in Oxford, she has suffered from the "restorations" of the 70's and 80's. It is a favourite jest to pretend to confuse her with the Great Western Railway Station, which never fails to bring a flush to a Balliol cheek. But whatever the merciless hand of the architect has done to turn her into a jumble of sham Gothic spikes and corners, no one can doubt her wholesome democracy ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... pretend to have any religion or any religious services, but would, like bank and railroad companies, conduct their affairs without religious forms, it ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... did not intend, or pretend, to teach a milder ethics, or an easier virtue, on the Mount of Beatitudes, than that which He had taught fifteen centuries before on Mt. Sinai. He indeed pronounces a blessing; and so did Moses, His servant, before Him. But in each instance, it is a blessing upon condition of ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... words, all the deities that were present, having first filled the court with murmurs, answered in this manner: 'Great goddess, be pleased to reflect a little on the animosities such a choice may create among the rival flowers; even the worthless Thistle will pretend to deserve the crown, and if denied, will perhaps grow factious, and disturb your peaceful reign.' 'Your fears are groundless,' replied the goddess; 'I apprehend no such consequence; my resolution is already fixed; hear, therefore, what I have determined:—In the deep ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the grass and Sue made a nice bouquet. Then Bunny found a place where he could break off long, willow branches from a tree, and he had fun playing he was the ring-master in a circus, cracking the willow whip, and making the make-believe horses jump over "pretend" elephants. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... that come from the French Islands, and in France and Spain they prefer them to these latter. But in Germany and in the North (Fides sit penes autorem) they have a quite opposite Taste. Several People mix that of Caraqua with that of the Islands, half in half, and pretend by this Mixture to make the Chocolate better. I believe in the bottom, the difference of Chocolates is not considerable, since they are only obliged to increase or diminish the Proportion of Sugar, according as the Bitterness of the Kernels ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... an hour when, as they say, all cats are grey. He went to bed late and slept sound, his conscience being clear enough after all. Accordingly, when Tafi's shrill voice woke him up out of his beauty sleep, he would only turn round on his pillow and pretend to be deaf. But his master invariably persisted, and at a pinch would go into the apprentice's room and very soon have the sheets dragged off the bed and a jug of cold water emptied ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... matters under discussion. Our normal schools, with possibly two or three exceptions, are not equipt to give the extended qualification now demanded for the high school teacher. Barring the two or three, the best of them do not pretend to carry the student more than two years beyond high school graduation. And whether it be one or two years, the work is, as it ought to be, mainly professional—not academic. Indeed, the presidents of many of our strongest normal schools insist that they do not do any ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... for the moment into a dull, unreasoning dread of seeing Madame Lavaux come in; and then, suddenly fancying she heard footsteps approaching the door, she hastily blew out her candle, and all dressed as she was, crept under the coverlet of the bed. She would pretend to be asleep, she thought, and then no one would disturb her. The footsteps passed on, but presently the door did open, and some one looked in: it was Madame Lavaux, who, seeing that Madelon made no sign, concluded that she was asleep, and went away softly, with a kind pity in her heart ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... that you are a Hellene you will not pretend, you realize, I trust, you incur considerable danger ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... of the Bible has been referred to several times in these pages, it is time that the righteousness of a certain indignation be examined which Catholic writers display. They pretend to be scandalized by the tale that in Luther's time the Bible was such a rare book that it was practically unknown. With the air of outraged innocence some of them rise to protest against the stupid myth that Luther "discovered" ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... stain on his son's cheekbones. He sought the youth's eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate, an abject copy of Adrian's succulent air at that employment. How could he pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully endeavouring to masticate The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the transfer had taken place, one of his friends had told him that, in order to save his life, he must submit to hardship and suffering, for a single imprudent step would bring destruction, not only on himself, but on his benefactors. It was, therefore, agreed that he should pretend to be deaf and dumb. On awaking he remembered the injunctions of his friends, resolved that no indiscretion on his part should endanger their safety, and waited with patience and in silence in his dreary abode, being supplied at intervals with food, which ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... assembled in the place where the comedy was to be performed, four of those young men who had come to blows with one another in the city on other occasions, dashing out with naked swords and cloaks wound round their arms, began to shout on the stage and to pretend to kill one another: and the first of them to be seen rushed out with one temple as it were smeared with blood, crying out: "Come forth, traitors!" At which uproar all the people rose to their feet, men ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... restraint. We show our eagerness, our disgust, our disappointment, our amusement simply as the mood moves us. In Moscow they eat all day and are not ashamed. Why should they be? In Kiev they think always about women and do not pretend otherwise ... and so on. We have, of course, no sense of time, nor method, nor system. If we were to think of these things we would be compelled to use restraint and that would bother us. We may lose the most important treasure in the world by not keeping an appointment ... on the other hand ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... were forbidden "all books which affirm the motion of the earth." Henceforth to read the work of Copernicus was to risk damnation, and the world accepted the decree.(48) The strongest minds were thus held fast. If they could not believe the old system, they must PRETEND that they believed it;—and this, even after the great circumnavigation of the globe had done so much to open the eyes of the world! Very striking is the case of the eminent Jesuit missionary Joseph Acosta, whose great work on the Natural and Moral History ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... seem," says the writer just quoted, "as if these mementos of mortality were not so painful or so saddening to Pagans as to Christians; and, that death, when believed to be final dissolution, was not so awful or revolting as when known to be the passage to immortality. I pretend not to explain the paradox, I only state it; and, certain it is, that every image connected with human dissolution, seems now more fearful to the imagination, and is far more sedulously shunned, than it ever was in times when the light of Christianity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... was drugged and was given to us to put us to sleep. If we pretend to be overcome it may throw them off their guard, and that will give us another chance to gain possession of the vessel. What do you say if we lie down and pretend to be asleep when ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... to New Mexico or Utah. There is no slavery there, it is utterly impracticable that it should be introduced into such a region, and utterly ridiculous to suppose that it could exist there. No one, who does not mean to deceive, will now pretend it can exist there. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... [Footnote 785: "Do you pretend to know more about military affairs than General Scott? ask a few knaves, whom a great many simpletons know no better than to echo. No, Sirs! we know very little of the art of war, and General Scott a great deal. The real question—which ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... too wise for anything!" said Constance, with a rather significant arching of her eye-brows. "You mustn't expect other people to be as rural in their acquirements as yourself. I don't pretend to know any rose by sight but the Queechy," she said, with a change of expression, meant to cover the ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a perfect jam this evening at Blair's. What sort of a compliment is it to be one of five or six hundred people, not half of whom can be squeezed into a small house, and not one of whom can pretend to taste a morsel without the danger of having server and all jammed ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... unfeeling we had been. So, in shame and remorse, I did the one little thing that was all I could do, and covered the grave of our dear, patient, gentle, saint-like mother with the flowers she loved the best of all, but which we had not let her gladden her life with. I do not pretend to know whether or not there is a hereafter, or whether there is anything more of her than what lies under those red flowers back there. But often I wish—oh, how I wish!—that it may be so, and that from somewhere her spirit may look down and see and be pleased by ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... adjoining the glaciers. During the day they go up again into the snow, for which they have an extraordinary love, and in which they skip and play, amusing themselves like a band of scholars in play hours. They tease one another, butt with their horns in fun, run off, return, pretend new attacks and new flights with charming agility ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... more gay and joyous than Men; whether it be that their Blood is more refined, their Fibres more delicate, and their animal Spirits more light and volatile; or whether, as some have imagined, there may not be a kind of Sex in the very Soul, I shall not pretend to determine. As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men. They should each of them therefore keep a Watch upon the particular Biass which Nature has fixed in their Mind, that it may not draw too much, and lead them ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... travaux sur le Concordat de 1801," by Portalis, p.87 (on the Organic Articles), p.29 (on the organization of cults). "The ministers of religion must not pretend to share in or limit public power.... Religious affairs have always been classed by the different national codes among matters belonging to the upper police department of the State... The political magistrate may and should ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Nellie Jackson before that." She leaned across the table, smiling, with heightened colour; "I believe I'd never have to pretend with you. The minute I saw you I liked you. Will you let me talk ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... only pretend that you have been wounded, and purpose following us. But we shall keep strict watch, and woe unto any one of you that we catch in pistol range again. We now leave you." With these words the two sanguinary girls turned their ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... pounds. He told everybody that he neither expected to see his capital again nor even to get any interest on it. He hinted darkly at worse things to come from the transaction, though what these might be he didn't pretend to know. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... imperfection, and glow, of a mind like that of Novalis, seem refreshingly human to me. I have wished fifty times to write some letters giving an account, first, of his very pretty life, and then of his one volume, as I re-read it, chapter by chapter. If you will pretend to be very much interested, perhaps I will get a better pen, and write ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... me those letters?" he demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here and knock your head ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... mother, "no one ever said this house was so nice as the large one where you were born, and we can't pretend life is so pleasant as if we had your father here with us; but we have a great deal to be thankful for. If we haven't much money, we have health and strength and each other. Your father said to me when he went away: 'Mary, if I don't come back, I don't want you and the children ever to forget ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... doubt about it, but we must pretend to be awfully surprised when the captain brings it out. But Peter, don't you ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... reverenced as Prophets which fore-tell Futurity. They will needs be look'd upon to have an unlimited Power. They boast of being able to make it Wet or Dry; to cause a Calm or a Storm; to render Land Fruitful or Barren; and, in a Word to make Hunters Fortunate or Unfortunate. They also pretend to Physick, and to apply Medicines, but which are such, for the most part as have little Virtue at all in 'em, especially to Cure that Distemper which ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... It's nonsense to pretend you don't know it. All the town is talking about you." The white face looked at the brown, mischievously. "And now that you have got him, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... out in his car with him to-morrow afternoon, and to the theater the next night—but I stopped it there. You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while YOU pretend to run away!" ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... see them getting attention he craved for himself. He could no sing, but he was a great story teller. Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, 'twould have been all richt enough. But, no—Jock must pretend he'd been everywhere he told about, and that he'd been an actor in every yarn he spun. He was a great boaster, too—he'd tell us, without a blush, of the most desperate things he'd done, and of how brave he'd been. He was the bravest man alive, ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... once I turned very sudden, and had her swift into mine arms, as she did pretend to drive me; and she to laugh with a sweet and joyous gurgle against mine armour; and I to heed that I hurt her not, because I did be like an iron man that should put ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... and the doctors who have not realized this are living in a fool's paradise. As to the humor and conscience of doctors, they have as much as any other class of men, no more and no less. And what other men dare pretend to be impartial where they have a strong pecuniary interest on one side? Nobody supposes that doctors are less virtuous than judges; but a judge whose salary and reputation depended on whether the verdict was for ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... do you understand? So he sends me to tell you that a car will be waiting at nine o'clock to-night outside the Cavalry Club. The driver will be a Hindu. You know what to say. Oh, my Nicol, my Nicol, go for my sake! You know it all! You are clever. You can pretend. You can explain you had ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... Batteries." Therefore, I conclude, "If it eventually becomes necessary to take the Gallipoli Peninsula by military force, we shall have to proceed bit by bit." This will vex him no doubt. He likes plans to move as fast as his own wishes and is apt to forget, or to pretend he has forgotten, that swiftness in war comes from slow preparations. It is fairer to tell K. this now, when the question has not yet arisen, than hereafter if it does ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... credit and your fame: To raze and spoil our right-renowned town; And if you Love or Lucre do regard, Or have of Conscience any kind of care, The world shall witness by this action; And of the love that you to us pretend, In this your valour shall assurance give. More would I speak, but danger's in delay: You know my mind, and heavens record my thoughts, Which[267] I with prayers for you will penetrate, And will in heart be present in your ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... theory of descent." But this at the best is but a partial and very incomplete explanation. It is one, moreover, which Mr. Wallace does not accept.[30] It is very incomplete, because it has no bearing on some of the most striking cases, and of course Mr. Darwin does not pretend that it has. We should have to go back far indeed to reach the common ancestor of the mimicking {36} walking-leaf insect and the real leaf it mimics, or the original progenitor of both the bamboo insect and the bamboo itself. As these last most remarkable cases have ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... patriotic brig in chase of her, and that through fear she had taken shelter under our guns. The Captain wished a supply of wood and water; but I told him I knew him to be engaged in the slave trade, and that, though we did not pretend to attempt suppressing this trade, we would not aid it, and that I allowed him one hour, and one only, to get out of the reach of our guns. He was very punctual, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we are looking for them and can't ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... consolations, and laments in such profusion that Lesley, half blind and dazed, was fain to get rid of her by promising again that nothing should keep her away. And on Monday the headache had gone, and she had no excuse. It was not in Lesley's nature to simulate: she could not pretend that she had an illness when she was perfectly well. There was absolutely no reason that she could give either to the Kenyons or to Miss Brooke for not keeping her promise to sleep at Ethel's house on the Monday night, and be present at her ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of one as anybody in this house, for all their fine talk. Only they pretend to like being governed by their plumbers ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... do if you can't keep awake?" I asked. "You slip out quietly, go to your room ask a maid to call you after you have had forty winks, then you go back and pretend you are having a good time," ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... said he, trying to pretend to be racking his memory; 'the grape-vine pattern? It seems to me that I do recall something about a design with that name. Did you say we ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... "acknowledge one God, who, they pretend, doth inhabit the heavens, but whom we find buried in the entrails of the earth: gold, O Prince, is their god, for whose sake they will undertake the most daring enterprises, and forsake the best of friends. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... had ordered to be made of a material that should resist rain and damp, said to the tailor in attendance, "But are you sure that it is impervious." "O dear, no, Sir," replied the man, with a look of astonishment, "I certainly can't pretend to say that it is impervious, for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... can't stand it. We were making all kinds of money with The Baroness. Come, let's go back to it!" His voice filled with love, for she was his ideal. "Sis, I hate to see you doing this. It cuts me to the heart. Why, some of these newspaper shads actually pretend to pity you—you, the greatest romantic actress in America! This man Douglass has got you hypnotized. Honestly, there's something uncanny about the way he has queered you. Brace up. Send him whirling. He isn't worth a minute of your time, Nellie—now, that's the fact. He's ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... his part, how much stronger is the evidence afforded to the peaceable character of the Protestant gathering by the numbers of women and children found there? But the very fact that, as against the twenty-five or thirty Huguenots whom he concedes to have been slain in the encounter, he does not pretend to give the name of a single one of his own followers that was killed, shows clearly which side it was that came prepared for the fight. And yet who that knows the sanguinary spirit generally displayed by the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... desires some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinions and his enthusiasm, sure of an attentive listener,—since nothing is so pleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend that in such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptive of theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like to be obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it must be confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... must try not to be vain, and I must try to love my lessons. I don't think I am really vain, Jesus. It is just because my mother likes me best when I am pretty that I want to be pretty. It's for no other reason, really and truly; but I don't like lessons, particularly spelling lessons. I cannot pretend I ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... drawing nice distinctions. This indiscriminate denunciation has naturally caused annoyance and reprisals. Because some critics disliked A Chinese Honeymoon enormously, because wild motor 'buses could not drag them to see The Scarlet Pimpernel, they do not doubt, or pretend to doubt, that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people have enjoyed these pieces. Without for one moment believing in the phrase "De gustibus non est disputandum" as ordinarily interpreted, one must fully recognise that palates differ. If M. Steinheil ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... is interested in the fellow, although just how I won't pretend to say. But you'll remember how excited he got when he found out that the wild man called ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... time followed; my dear mother was heartbroken; to her, with her wide and vague form of Christianity, loosely held, the intensity of my feeling that where I did not believe I would not pretend belief, was incomprehensible. She recognised far more fully than I all that a separation from my home meant for me, and the difficulties which would surround a young woman not yet six-and-twenty, living ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... thing about these Spaniards. Sometimes they show themselves cowardly beyond expression, at others they fight like heroes. Just at present, even the Juntas do not pretend that they have an army capable of driving the French out of the Pyrenees; which is a comfort, for we shall have to rely upon ourselves and not be humbugged by the Spaniards, the worthlessness of whose promises, Lord Wellington ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... Yes, it is just these Reports, why there is nothing at all remarkable in the matter. Our reply is: We do not pretend to miracles. We have no desire even, that the work, in which we are engaged, should be considered an extraordinary one, or even a remarkable one. We are truly sorry that many persons, inconsiderately, look ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... volume to you in memory of your father, who, as you know, fell on March 12th, 1915, in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. These Letters, which were written to me from France during the first winter of the World War, do not in any way pretend to literary attainment; they are just the simple letters of a soldier recording as a diary the daily doings of his regiment ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... all nonsense," Sam thought, "he only pretend dat as excuse; any one can see de creature as quiet as lamb; don't he let his master ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... be "distempers of society" which rot the very life out of a nation, and for which legislation and criminal law are wholly inadequate. Honest-minded men who will not trifle with alarming abuses, who will not pretend they have found a remedy, must simply rend their garments in their presence. And it is well that in our day, as in others, there are men who, trusting in personal effort and Divine aid, practically ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... you say to the way I have arranged my little home, Beautrelet?" cried Lupin. "There's a style about it, isn't there? I don't pretend that it's as comfortable as it might be. And yet, some have been quite satisfied with it; and not the least of mankind, either!—Look at the list of distinguished people who have owned the Needle in their time and who thought it an honor to leave ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... be foolish to pretend I do not catch your meaning, but I had never faced the matter in that light. In France there may be strife of faction, plottings and intrigues and blood-spilling for position in the State; yet is the Crown ever secure. The struggle is but for place near the Throne, never for ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Jataka relate another plot without specifying the year. Some heretics induced a nun called Sundari to pretend she was the Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her. They then accused the Bhikkhus of killing her to conceal their master's sin, but the real assassins got drunk with the money they had received and revealed the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... her, and so willing to help and be helped by her in so many ways in which girls can help each other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and give Miriam my ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... said, is a fragment. It ends anywhere, or nowhere, as if the pen had dropped from a weary hand. Thus, and for other reasons, one cannot pretend to set what is not really a whole against such a rounded whole as "Rob Roy," or against "The Legend of Montrose." Again, "Kidnapped" is a novel without a woman in it: not here is Di Vernon, not here is Helen McGregor. David Balfour is the pragmatic Lowlander; ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Andy said indifferently, though he secretly felt much relief. The roan would go off like a pet dog, and he could pretend to be somewhat surprised, and declare that he had reformed. Bad horses do reform, sometimes, as Andy and every other man in the crowd knew. Then there would be no more foolish speculation about the cayuse, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... It did possess the little face entire. And then there grew to be a knuckled knot— An aching kind of core within his throat— An ache, all dry and swallowless, which seemed To ache on just as bad when he'd pretend He didn't notice it as when he did. It was a kind of a conceited pain— An overbearing, self-assertive and Barbaric sort of pain that clean outhurt A boy's capacity for suffering— So, many times, the little martyr needs Must turn himself all suddenly and dive From sight of ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... be derived from the Father, and not to be the Unoriginated—No doubt! yet, after all, could I seriously think that morally and spiritually I was either better or worse for this discovery? I could not pretend ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... public spirit of the citizens, in erecting and maintaining religious institutions on a respectable footing, in towns, cities, and villages, and among rival sects—and in this manner operating as a species of constraint—is worthy to be called voluntary, we pretend not to say. But this comprehends by far the greatest sum that is raised and appropriated to these objects. All the rest is a mere fraction in comparison. And yet it is allowed, and made a topic of grievous lamentation, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... know what I mean, too; you needn't pretend you don't. Why did you ask me if I had been in that room, and why do you ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... word to designate the ALMIGHTY; signifying good, to do good, doing good, and to benefit; terms such as our classic borrowings cannot pretend to. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... me an Irishman," he remarked. "Here you've been telling me how Europe is an education and a delight, and in the next breath you deliberately deprive your little daughter, whom you pretend to love, of the advantages she might gain by a trip abroad! And why? Just because you want her yourself, and might be a bit lonesome without her. But I'll settle that foolishness, sir, in short order. You shall ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... it," Smith replied. "I don't pretend to know how many cats there were in the city of Albany. Indeed, I never heard that they were included in the census. I do not undertake to say that they all congregated nightly on the roofs of those out-houses. But if there ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... absurd to pretend that all his jokes were of an equally high order. In his essays and public letters he is always and supremely good; in his private letters and traditional table-talk he descends to the level of his correspondent or his company. Thus, in spite of his own protests against playing on ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... war of Granada was such as to raise the militia throughout the kingdom nearly to a level with regular troops. Many of these levies, indeed, at the breaking out of the war, might pretend to this character. Such were those furnished by the Andalusian cities, which had been long accustomed to skirmishes with their Moslem neighbors. Such too was the well-appointed chivalry of the military orders, and the organized militia of the hermandad, which ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... No, I don't think that at all, Lancelot. I believe you when you say that about me. And I don't imagine for one moment that you're not really in love with Vivien. I know you are. I could pretend to myself that you weren't—just as you've tried to pretend to yourself sometimes, that I'm not really in love with Arthur. But you know I ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... still,' Pavel Petrovitch declared, getting up from his chair. 'But after the courteous readiness you have shown me, I have no right to pretend to lay down.... And so, everything is arranged.... By the way, perhaps you ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... exceedingly rare character hath been displayed by Pandu's son in this matter. When Dhritarashtra and his sons, however, are so covetous, I do not see why hostility should not run high. Thou canst not pretend, O Sanjaya, to be more versed than I am or Yudhishthira is, in the niceties of right and wrong. Then why dost thou speak words of reproach with reference to the conduct of Yudhishthira who is enterprising, mindful of his own duty, and thoughtful, from the very ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... these papers has been accompanied by a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the "Daily News" or the "Daily Chronicle" (I mean in so far as it deals with politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... money in the bank, aye, some of them have several hundred pounds. And yet they took the seed potatoes sent by England. Well, they wanted a change of seed, and they must do the same as their neighbours. It would not do to pretend to be any better off than the rest. They are compelled to do as the majority do in everything, or they would be boycotted at once. They cease work when a death occurs in the parish. If an infant three days old should give up the ghost, every man shoulders his spade and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... well," Trent said, "what I have come about. Of course you'll pretend you don't, so to save time I'll tell you. What have you done ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... may argue and moralists pretend, a lie like that of Sir Henry Lee for saving his prince from the hands of Cromwell (vide Woodstock), or like that of the goldsmith's son, even when he was dying, for saving the prince Chevalier from the hands of his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... man made him repeat the question. When at last he was assured of Graham's words, he nudged him violently. "That's too much," said he. "You're poking fun at an old man. I've been suspecting you know more than you pretend." ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... from one object to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that "he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges on the subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to be well acquainted with the principles on which they were established, but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in their produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been advised by three judges, his most intimate friends, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... so easily checked, and laughed loudly, flourishing her violets in his face again. "You WOULD like it; you know you would; you needn't pretend! Just think! A whole big audience shouting, ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... three years only, he fell into a violent passion, swore it was a shame and a scandal to send such raw boys into the world as surgeons; that it was great presumption in me, and all affront upon the English, to pretend sufficient skill in my business, having served so short a time, when every apprentice in England was bound seven years at least: that my friends would have done better if they had made me a weaver or shoemaker; but their ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... sir, though not complimentary to me, I can excuse, on account of the peculiarity of your present position and frame of mind, and you shall be satisfied of the truth of that which you pretend to doubt," and drawing from her pocket two papers, Mrs. Fraudhurst held them with a firm grasp before him, but in such a position that it enabled him to read every line. "There," she continued, in a low tone, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... when one reads sentences like these that one begins to take a mischievous delight in the later onslaught of a Scottish reviewer who, indignant that Wordsworth should dare to pretend to be able to appreciate Burns, denounced him as "a retired, pensive, egotistical, collector of stamps," ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Prince said as the procession began to move slowly up-hill again, at a pace to keep time with the "Dead March in Saul," I don't pretend to know, but if his remarks matched his expression, I would not in any case have ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the state dates from the time when he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The king said to the astrologers and magicians: "I know my dream, but I do not want to tell you what it was, else you will invent anything at all, and pretend it is the interpretation of the dream. But if you tell me the dream, then I shall have confidence in your interpretation ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... my little book pretend to be any defence of slavery. I know not whether it was right or wrong (there are many pros and cons on that subject); but it was the law of the land, made by statesmen from the North as well as the South, long before ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... good place for confidences." He took her hand and, seating himself, drew her down beside him. "I will pretend that you are a charming dryad, and I—what ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... ask such a question? How could a nation, who despised song, pretend to any nobility ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... put upon the stage. Miss Kemble, or somebody else, electrified the choruses; for, wonderful to relate, they condescended to act—to perform—to pretend to be what they are meant for! Never was so efficient, so well-disciplined, so unanimous a chorus heard or seen before on the English stage. The chorus-master deserves everybody's, and has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... that he is the very "first man in Virginia," an expression which in this region has grown into an emphatic provincialism. Frank, in return, is a devout admirer of her accomplishments, and although he does not pretend to have an ear for music, he is in raptures at her skill on the harpsichord, when she plays at night for the children to dance; and he sometimes sets her to singing "The Twins of Latona," and "Old Towler," and "The Rose-Tree in Full Bearing" ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... fierceness and cruelty, and the malignity and savage ferocity of their natures, were hidden, however, under a show of peace. They laughed, and grinned, and did the other things, which mortals do when they are, or pretend to be, pleased, making the unsuspecting Abnakis think that they were their very good friends, when they were only waiting for a chance to rend them limb from limb. Nor was their disposition wholly hidden by the mask, which ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... he be a charlatan, pretend to bring home some hieratic message above the understanding of his fellows: for he is an interpreter, and the interpreter's success depends upon hitting his hearer's intelligence. Failing that, he misses everything and is ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... nor any consequences from them be drawn in favour of others. I know how it is by my own experience, and by that of several amongst you, as well as by many who are now no more, and with whom I was acquainted. Believe me, gentlemen! to pretend to the favours of fortune it is only necessary to render one's self useful, and to be supple and obsequious to those who are in possession of credit and authority; to be handsome in one's person; to adulate the powerful; to smile, while ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... able to observe how each side blundered on in a blind, desperate way, sacrificing masses of human life without a clear vision of the consequences, until at last one side blundered more than another and was lost. It will be impossible to pretend in history that our High Command, or any other, foresaw the thread of plot as it was unraveled to the end, and so arranged its plan that events happened according to design. The events of March, 1918, were not foreseen nor prevented by French or British. The ability of our ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... she replied, looking at him calmly, and without seeming to regard his threat; "oh, I only wish I could ring the fear of Providence into your heart—I wish I I could; I'll do for yourself what you often pretend to do for others: but I'll give you warnin'. I tell you now, that Providence: himself is on your track—that his judgment's hangin' over you—and that it'll fall upon! you before long. This is my prophecy, and; a black one you'll ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... loading up Mr. Merriman's goods in petalas {cargo boats}, their destination being Murshidabad. Desmond saw at once that the Armenian was taking advantage of the disturbance to make away with the goods for his own behoof. He could always pretend afterwards that his godown had been plundered. It was pretty clear, too, that his long detention of the goods must be due to his having had a hint ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country in the Middle Ages and asked charity, under pretense of going 'a la Sainte Terre'—a Sainte-terrer, a Holy Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who go there are saunterers, in the good sense. Every walk is a kind of crusade preached by some Peter the Hermit within us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... I, laughing at this singular regret; "they contrive to make their eyes answer nearly the same purpose, though. Well, Lawless, my answer is this—I cannot pretend to judge whether you and my sister are so constituted as to increase each other's happiness by becoming man and wife; that is a point I must leave to her to decide; she is no longer a child, and her destiny shall be placed in her own hands; but I think I may ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... who was very shortly to be, and ought three weeks before to have been, shrinking from his frown. Nevertheless, Sawbridge was a good-hearted man, although a little envious of luxury, which he could not pretend ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... or Spur-rowel: Piggs-hair (A) is somewhat triagonal, and seems to have neither pith nor pore: And other kinds of hair have quite a differing structure and form. And therefore I think it no way agreeable to a true natural Historian, to pretend to be so sharp-sighted, as to see what a pre-conceiv'd Hypothesis tells them should be there, where another man, though perhaps as seeing, but not forestall'd, can discover ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... but I shall sing and act both. Now then pretend that I am Marguerite, in Faust, you know, and see if you don't think I can do both, as well as one." So they all looked and listened, while she sang and sang, 'till the very birds hushed their music in envious listening, and the rustling leaves ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... "No Frenchman am I. Already I am condemned, so I no longer need even pretend that I am French. No! Though I was born in Alsace, my father's name was Bamberger. Twenty years ago he moved to Paris, to serve the German Kaiser. He fooled even your boasted police into believing him French, ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... accustomed to. The British Consul, Mr. Gagliuffi, has rendered important aid to the administration, in embellishing the appearance of Mourzuk, and giving it the air and character of a Turkish city of the coast. Our camel-drivers pretend that it is already superior to Tripoli. At the Consul's suggestion a colonnade has been built in the main street, in front of the shops, affording shelter from the fiery rays of the summer sun, as well as being an agreeable place for the natives to lounge under and ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... has taken over a thousand people to write this excursion, and we are, so far, the last. And not by any means do we pretend because of that to be the best of them; rather, because of that, perhaps, we cannot be the best. We should have done much better—if we could. Oh, this has been written by Greeks and Romans and ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... misrepresent is often greater; and, what is sufficiently vexatious, truth seems to fly from curiosity, and as many inquiries produce many narratives, whatever engages the publick attention is immediately disguised by the embellishments of fiction. We pretend to no peculiar power of disentangling contradiction or denuding forgery, we have no settled correspondence with the antipodes, nor maintain any spies in the cabinets of princes. But as we shall always be conscious ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... a moment's warning. First of all, the other boarders noticed that he had become most frightfully irritable in his temper. He had not been over polite to any of them lately, but to her he was insufferably rude, most ungentlemanly, she called it. He would pretend not to see her if by any chance she looked his way, not to hear her if by any chance she spoke to him. Once (they were quite alone) he had broken off in the middle of an exciting conversation and rushed ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... twins will pretend to go off on a hunting trip to-morrow morning," said the circus man one night, "but they won't come back. They'll wait for us ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... of the people, popular orators. (The word now means those who mislead the people or who pretend to be interested in public affairs and reforms merely to gain their own ends.) In Greece these orators usually addressed assemblies or bodies of ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... not pretend to be exhaustive, but to give the more important collections, especially those containing ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... a real woman yet who failed to be intrigued by the suggestion of a romance lying dormant in the past life of a man of her acquaintance, and Ann was far too essentially feminine to pretend that her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... those killed was Monsieur Jumonville, the commander. The principal officers taken are Monsieur Drouillon, and Monsieur La Force, of whom your Honor has often heard me speak as a bold, enterprising man, and a person of great subtlety and cunning. These officers pretend that they were coming on an embassy; but the absurdity of this pretext is too glaring, as you will see by the instructions and summons enclosed. Their instructions were to reconnoiter the country, roads, creeks, and ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... pretend that there haven't been moments in my years of stress and struggle when I've been tempted to join the gaudy, cackling fowl whose feathers I flatter myself I've plucked pretty thoroughly in my book! But I've resisted the devil by prayers and fasting; and, by George, sir, I wouldn't swap my modest ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... were for long regarded with terror, like so many warning signs of divine wrath. Men have always thought themselves much more important than they really are in the universal order; they have had the vanity to pretend that the whole creation was made for them, whilst in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence. The Earth we inhabit is only one of the smallest worlds; and therefore it can scarcely be for it alone that all the wonders of the heavens, of which the immense majority remains ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... to make Chronology suit with the Course of Nature, with Astronomy, with Sacred History, with Herodotus the Father of History, and with it self; without the many repugnancies complained of by Plutarch. I do not pretend to be exact to a year: there may be Errors of five or ten years, and sometimes ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... the sort," Blake laughed. "Who am I to rob him of a delightfully wicked past upon which he can pretend to look back in horror? It is the only past he will ever have, so why spoil it for him? On the contrary, I am prepared to lend a hand and to start him off with a list of damning disclosures which it will require years to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... flood-tide, the latter being generally much the weaker of the two, and therefore either wholly counteracted by the current, or simply tending to accelerate it. On this account, though I attended very carefully to the subject of the tides, I cannot pretend to say for certain from what direction the flood-tide comes on this coast; the impression on my mind, however, has been, upon the whole, in favour of its flowing from the southward. The time of high water on the full and change days of the moon is from half-past eleven ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... dull display of submission, furiously angry with him. It occurred to me to ask myself why I should defer and qualify my opinions to him. Why should I pretend a feeling of intellectual and social inferiority toward him. He asked what I thought of Burble. I resolved to tell him—if necessary with arrogance. Then perhaps he would release me. I did not sit down again, but stood by the corner of ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... see ye are none other than two pestilent atheistical fellows, who make sport of Cadis and magistrates and stand not in fear of reproach. Never did any tell or hear tell of aught more extraordinary than that which ye pretend. By Allah, from China to Shejreh umm Ghailan[FN158] nor from Fars to the Soudan, nor from Wadi Numan to Khorassan, ever was heard or credited the like of what ye avouch! Is this bag a bottomless sea or the Day of Resurrection, that shall gather together the just ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... persuades God to be good to His children. There is nothing that influences Him. He is infinite—infinite mind, Katie, and infinite good. Oh, Katie, what awful things are taught in this world as truth! How little we know of the great God! And yet how much people pretend they know about Him! But if they only knew—really knew, as Jesus did—why, Katie, there wouldn't be an old person, or a sick or unhappy one in the whole world! Katie," after a little pause, "I know. And ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... have a tendency to believe themselves betrothed or married to kings, emperors, Jesus Christ or God. Pregnancy and childbirth play a large part in their delirium. Some patients imagine themselves pregnant and pretend that they were fecundated secretly. Afterwards they believe that some one has taken away their child while ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... is one of the most decisive proofs of the awfully degraded state of human nature. Men believe, or pretend to believe, that this life is but a span in companions with eternity—that there is a heaven to reward the righteous and a hell to receive the unconverted sinner; and yet make no personal inquiry at the holy oracles of God whether they have been born again to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Newton could not doubt George Liddell's story. He could not go back from his own involuntary recognition, nor could I pretend to doubt what I believe ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander |
