"Pretended" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... piece of highly-flavoured Gruyere into a roll, and publicly at breakfast produced it before Mr. Irvine as a proof of the bad butter provided by the unfortunate housekeeper. He was overborne against his own convictions, by the heroic impudence of chief big boys whom he dared not offend, and actually pretended indignation, promising better ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... book?" He pretended he had forgotten all about it. He waved it away. "The book is only a recreation, an amusement. Plenty of time for that when I've got my League going. Still, I shall be glad when I can settle down to it, again.".... He was considering it now with ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... But Horace Walpole panted with a secret desire for literary celebrity; a full sense of his distinguished rank long suppressed the desire of venturing the name he bore to the uncertain fame of an author, and the caprice of vulgar critics. At length he pretended to shun authors, and to slight the honours of authorship. The cause of this contempt has been attributed to the perpetual consideration of his rank. But was this bitter contempt of so early a date? Was Horace Walpole a Socrates before his time? was he born that prodigy of indifference, to despise ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... lived. It was evident that he could not be so poor as she had thought; his pretended poverty might be to escape notice. She could not tell, but she knew that she ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... romance; they are also frequent in Shakespeare's plays and in most of the novels of the time. Parthenia gives herself out to her admirer, Argalus, as the Queen of Corinth, whom she resembles, and announces her own death. As pretended queen she offers her hand to Argalus, to prove him; but he refuses with horror; she then discovers herself to this paragon of lovers, and gives him his Parthenia alive and more ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the same time, the superiority of a democratical government, and railing, as these persons generally do, against the title of king. Though the Englishman heard what was said distinctly enough, he nevertheless pretended to be deaf, and begged his tempter to come a little nearer, that, in his own words, "he might tell him all about it." Jonathan, exulting at the prospect of drawing this fine fellow from his duty, approached within twenty paces ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... honest citizen. On many occasions it has been brought to the knowledge of the Government that certificates of naturalization are held and protection or interference claimed by parties who admit that not only they were not within the United States at the time of the pretended naturalization, but that they have never resided in the United States; in others the certificate and record of the court show on their face that the person claiming to be naturalized had not resided the required ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate was as open with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him adventures, he was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of the country. Duane did not even bother ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... was that the warrior had his own particular reasons for attaching truth to this statement, or that he merely pretended to do so, Captain de Haldimar saw with secret satisfaction his last argument ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... this one conquest will secure the victory, that they have only obtained King Stork in the lieu of King Log; a vulgar and most hideous tyrant for one of royal birth and gentle manners. They may set up the rule of patriots by profession, in place of the dominion of those who have so long pretended that the art of governing descends from male to male, according to the order of primogeniture, and live to wonder that love of country should have so many weaknesses in common with love of itself. They may rely on written charters for their liberties, instead ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... like the puzzle you sent me. I often think about you. I love you very much. I hope I shall see you again. I played fairies all yesterday and pretended you were here. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... everything," said Mildred, coldly. This woman's attitude was unbearable. It would seem that she even dared to criticise her, Mildred Wayland, for her treatment of Boyd. She pretended to a truer friendship, a more intimate knowledge of him. But no—it wasn't pretense. It was too natural, too unconscious, for that; and ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... boundary between the duchy of Warsaw and the Russian empire. The main body, at least 300,000 strong, was commanded by Napoleon himself. A northern division, including the Prussian contingent, was commanded by Macdonald, and, after advancing to Riga, which it pretended to besiege, remained idle throughout the campaign. The Austrians, under Schwarzenberg, formed a southern division, but they merely manoeuvred, and made no serious attempts to impede the movements ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... detained. Business still occupied the letters he sent now and then to his native county; but it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was a man of learning and taste, as times went; and his love of the Arts had taken him some time before our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended to taste; and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a lady of great beauty, and a comedian high in favor with ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... admiration. At the same time they did not omit these opportunities of rifling our pockets; and, at last, one of them snatched a small bayonet from Mr Gore, which hung in its sheath by his side. This was represented to the chief, who pretended to send some person in search of it. But, in all probability, he countenanced the theft; for, soon after, Omai had a dagger stolen from his side, in the same manner, though he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... was hanging on the wall, and then crept silently from the room. But in the morning the youth saw the slit, and he marked the sleeves of his two companions in the same way, and all three went down to breakfast with the Sultan. The old witch was standing in the window and pretended not to see them; but all witches have eyes in the backs of their heads, and she knew at once that not one sleeve but three were cut, and they were all as alike as before. After breakfast, the Sultan, who was getting tired of the whole affair and wanted to be alone to invent some other ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... a loud voice, and speaking with pretended anger, so as to awaken the two women between whom I lay. "How can I sleep? 'Tis too hot. Let us go to the beach awhile and feel the ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of making her life as beautiful as lay in human power,—beautiful not in the common meaning of the word, but in the highest artistic sense. Besides she did not consider she had any duties toward her husband, as she had never even pretended to love him; she had for him as much pity as repugnance, and as he was indifferent to everything, he was of no more account than if he were dead. She added that she did not take account of anything that was contrary to her ideas of a purely beautiful ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... lying and stealing. He used to come with tears streaming down his face and say that some man had stolen market money intrusted to him. He plundered the store-room, though it was hard to tell which stole the most, he or the wild monkeys that were about the house. He had pretended to be eager to learn, and had been so tractable that we were greatly disappointed to have him turn out such a bad boy. We found this true of every man that we tried, and most strongly true of the ones who ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... It is not pretended by any one that the land in question is a highway, upon the last of these grounds. I shall therefore confine myself to the consideration of the other two questions: namely. Was there ever a formal and regular laying out of a street here? or was there ever a regular and sufficient dedication ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... occasionally, John, but never with me. And I envy these dead young fools. . . . You see, they loved each other, John. I left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living creatures. I looked back once. I pretended to have dropped my handkerchief. I imagine they were talking of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her complexion. It was a scene out of Theocritus. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... his journey to the earth, and going to a mountain where the monkeys lived, squatted down at the foot of a tree and pretended to be asleep though keeping his claws and tail out. There he waited patiently, well knowing that curiosity and the monkey's love of tricks would bring one within reach of his talons. Pretty soon, a family of chattering monkeys came running along among the branches overhead, when suddenly a young ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... has been ruined by women," said Athanase Georgevitch, who pretended to know the entire chronicle of ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... the matter that you fled before your trial came on. Yet what greater demonstration of your bloodguiltiness could there be than that you came in danger of perishing at the hands of those very persons in whose behalf you pretended you had done this, that you were afraid of the very ones whom you said you had benefited by these acts, and that you did not wait to hear from them or say a word to them, you clever, you extraordinary man, you ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... this Humour of mine to very good Account; for whenever I heard any Narration utter'd with extraordinary vehemence, and grounded upon considerable Authority, I was always ready to lay any Wager that it was not so. Indeed I never pretended to be so rash, as to fix the Matter in any particular Way in Opposition to theirs; but as there are a hundred Ways of any thing happening, besides that it has happen'd, I only controverted its falling out ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... attack or sally of the enemy struck his troops before it did Hooker's; that General Hooker knew of it at the time; and he offered to go out and show me that the dead men of his advance division (Hascall's) were lying farther out than any of Hooker's. General Hooker pretended not to have known this fact. I then asked him why he had called on me for help, until he had used all of his own troops; asserting that I had just seen Butterfield's division, and had learned from him that he had not ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... nationality differences melt into Americanisms, all responding in about the same way to American opportunity. No, our test must be something that cannot be put on and off, cannot be left at home, cannot be concealed or pretended, something inseparable from the child and beyond his control. This test it has been conclusively proved in Chicago, Boston, Brookline, Philadelphia, and particularly in New York City, is the physical condition of the school child. To learn this condition the ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... seemed to be no end to the flood. She sopped them away with the black-bordered handkerchief, and tried walking about, and drinking cold water, but it was of no use. Her heart seemed broken, there was no avenue for her thoughts that did not lead to loneliness and grief. They had all pretended to love her—but not one of them did—not one of them did! She had never had a father, and never had a mother, she had never ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... a peculiarity of this age of terror, that every one, including Charles the Ninth himself, dreaded what the accident of war might make, not merely of his enemies, but of temporary allies and pretended friends, in an evenly balanced but very complex strife—of merely personal rivals also, in some matter which had nothing to do with the assumed motives of that strife. Gaston de Latour passing on his country way one night, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... living flesh, attacked the very skeleton and framework of art; it chopped and hewed, dismembered, slew the edifice, in its form as well as in its symbolism, in its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing which neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the plea of "good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic architecture the paltry gewgaws of a day,—marble ribbons, metallic plumes, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, wreaths, draperies, spirals, fringes, stone flames, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 26th of February, I paid the Ambassador an early visit, and mentioned these circumstances to him minutely. I expressed my apprehensions, that the pretended discontents of the King belonged to the same system of delays and pretexts, with which we had been so long amused; and which in this instance were probably dictated by a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... if in some sort astounded. "They pretended to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow into that boat? into that boat—I . . ." The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... judges to ask ridiculous and silly questions, affecting not to know what everybody in the world knows quite well. There was one the other day—I don't think it was you—who inquired quite solemnly what a 'bike' was; and I recollect another—it was in a horse-racing case—who pretended not to know the meaning of the phrase 'two to one on.' I don't profess to understand why you all do that kind of thing, but I'm willing to suppose that there's some good reason for it. I daresay it's what's called a legal fiction, and is an essential part of the machinery by which justice ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... logical deductions. Pille-Miche turned several times sharply to look at his victim, as children do when they try to guess, by the conscious expression of the comrade who has hidden an article, whether they are nearer to or farther away from it. D'Orgemont pretended to be alarmed when the Chouan tapped the ovens, which sounded hollow, and seemed to wish to play upon his eager credulity. Just then three other Chouans rushed down the steps and entered the kitchen. Seeing Marche-a-Terre among them Pille-Miche discontinued his search, after casting upon ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... but it was much more and worse and more damnable that there had been thorough deception as to the girl's own appreciation of her rank. The sympathy tendered through so many years must have been always pretended sympathy. With these feelings hot within her bosom, she could not bring herself to speak one kindly word to Lady Anna after the return from Yoxham. The girl was asked to abandon her odious lover with ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... It is not pretended, in this short view, to trace out all the effects or remedies of over-manufacturing; the subject is difficult, and, unlike some of the questions already treated, requires a combined view of the relative influence of ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... up to us with a look of deep but pretended solemnity, while he shook hands and kissed each of us on the cheek—"farewell! And while you are gone I shall repose my weary limbs under the shelter of this bush, and meditate on the changefulness of all things earthly, with special reference ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... be in the way of that Great Force which creates cyclones, hurricanes and earthquakes, or the pyrotechnics of a thunderstorm. How little these people knew of the Great Intelligence behind the laws of the universe, with whom they pretended to talk in the Hebrew language, and from whom they claimed to have received directions as to ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... King or no in this affair, and set before him the danger which by law is incurred by any one that conceals or abets traitors; to which the Deputy Leete answered, 'We honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences'; to which we replied, that we believed that he knew where they were, and only pretended tenderness of conscience for a refusal.... We told them that for their respect to two traitors they would do themselves injury, and possibly ruin themselves and the whole Colony ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... that," he said very quietly. "Not yet. I won't begin, now, after all these years to make protestations of love. The thing called Love we've discussed too often already, and without result. Anyway, that's not the point. We never pretended to be lovers, even when we were married. We were simply useful, very useful to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... following,—whether he was, or was not, to blame in employing that word; for as to the meaning which he, individually, attached to the phenomenon of which "rakia" is the name, it cannot be pretended that any one living knows anything at all about the matter. A Greek, Latin, or French astronomer who should speak of Heaven, would not therefore be assumed to mean that it is hollow; although koilon, 'coelum,' ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... fore-yard-arm." Let me assure him that the bearer of a United States private commission of war would run no risk even of being hanged at Newgate. President Lincoln, it is true, at the outset of the Civil War, threatened to treat as pirates vessels operating under the "pretended authority" of the rebel States; but he was speedily instructed by his own law Courts—e.g. in the Savannah and in the Golden Rocket (insurance) cases—that even such vessels were not pirates iure gentium. It is also tolerably self-evident ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... A similar incident is found in the 8th chapter of the Spanish work, El Conde Lucanor, written, in the 14th century, by Prince Don Juan Manuel, where a pretended alchemist obtains from a king a large sum of money in order that he should procure in his own distant country a certain thing necessary for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The impostor, of course, did not return, and so on, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for self-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! She had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had never pretended anything else. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... down the river I met him traveling fast in a canoe paddled by hard men whom I know. He pretended to be greatly grieved when I told him you all were dead. Oh yes, senores, I told him that! I was playing with him, and it amused me to see how he thought he was deceiving me when I was really fooling him. I said we were attacked by Indians a short ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... herself a much happier woman now that the sweet sunlight of childish love had penetrated and melted her former frigid reserve. Westonley had noted the change with unalloyed delight, but, like a wise man, had pretended not to notice; but one day, soon after Gerrard's letter had arrived, he could not suppress himself. He had been away on a business visit to his squatter neighbour Brooke, to whom he had sold his cattle station in Central Queensland at a very satisfactory figure, and as he rode up ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... story of Beowulf the Saxon going out to sea in his burning ship to die.' 'Oh, Mr Borrow! that isn't a Saxon story at all. It is in the Heimskringla! It is told of Hakon of Norway.' Then, I asked him about the gipsies and their language, and if they were certainly Aryans? He didn't know (or pretended not to know) what Aryans were; and altogether displayed a miraculous mixture of odd knowledge and more odd ignorance. Whether the latter were real or ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... been released from a lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... an went away wi Sydney, but when shoo axed him afterwards what th' joke wor he'd promised to tell her, he pretended ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... Timar pretended to be very angry, but allowed the four men to go on board. Meanwhile, the crew had made a coffin and laid the body in it: there was nothing more to do but to nail the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Perhaps he didn't really die, after all. Don't you remember, in Ivanhoe, how Athelstane of Coningsburgh was supposed to be killed, and he was really only stunned; and the monks of St. Edmunds put an empty coffin in the chapel, and kept him in a dungeon and pretended he was dead, because they wanted his property? Mrs. Wilson ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... who hated his step-son. By a special courier he sent a letter to Poppaea's second husband, Otho, in Spain. He sacrificed his property and himself, until he saw at last that he was simply the plaything of people; that if he had pretended that the imprisonment of Lygia concerned him little, he would have ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... friends ought to be content; his admirers are not well advised in representing him as endowed with all sorts of qualities which he was very far from possessing. Thus it is pretended that he was one of those men who were ever on the watch for new ideas, ever ready to give a helping hand to those who were trying to advance our knowledge, ever willing to own to a mistake and give up even his most cherished ideas if truth required them at his hands. No conception ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... spirits, was John, at that hour of our departure for Udolpho; he pretended so well that I was for a while altogether deceived. He had wished to call for me with the conveyance in which he should drive us out into the lonely country through the sunny afternoon; but instead, I chose to walk round to where he lived, and where I found him ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... and Theophrastus, was not a dream; if he established by deeds that there was nothing visionary in what St. Gregory pointed at in one of his letters to St. Clement; if, in a word, Columbus proved by his discovery the existence of the land which Madoc had visited before him, as Hakluyt and Powell pretended; and ascertained for a certainty that which for the ancients had always been so uncertain, problematical, and mysterious—his glory becomes only the more splendid, and more ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... A.M.). I have been asleep against that abominable vegetable of a tree. It had its trunk covered with a soft cushion of moss, and pretended to be a comfort—a right angle to lean against, and a softly padded protection to the spine from wind, and all that sort of thing; whereas the whole mortal time it was nothing in this wretched world ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... 1830, secretary of Bibi-Lupin, chief of the secret police. Prison spy at the Conciergerie, he played the part of a son in a family accused of forgery, in order to observe closely Jacques Collin, who pretended to be Carlos Herrera. [Scenes from ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Martius, fourth king of Rome. The just and zealous detestation of Christians towards Pontius Pilate, is here comically expressed by their placing his palace just at its exit into the Tyber; and one who pretended to doubt of its being his residence, would be thought ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the oldest man present, was entitled to the position of spokesman; and he made a very prolix statement of all the events which had transpired since he first saw the pretended Allan Garland. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... terrified by this thought that Chatter Chuk took flight and darted home at his best speed. He lived in a tree very near to the burrow where Mrs. Wuz resided, but the squirrel did not go near the rabbit-burrow. The sun was already sinking in the west, so he ran into his nest and pretended to sleep when his mother asked him where he had ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... occasional hat. Then I heard the captain's voice, "Front rank, simulate fix bayonets!" and in a moment, full of sarcasm: "Don't draw that bayonet! I said simulate. Don't you understand the English language?" The clicking kept up at only half rate, and I saw a few rifle muzzles; then the rear rank pretended the same; then I heard the order, "Prepare to charge!" And it was ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... prompting in her bosom, and donning her dressing-maid's attire, had thus dressed in humble costume, stepped into a volante, and ordering the calesaro to drive to the infantry barracks, where she knew the sick man was, had entered as we have seen, under pretext of bringing necessities from her pretended mistress to the wounded soldier. Her scheme had succeeded infinitely well, nor would she have betrayed herself to even the surgeon's observant eye, had it not ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... to have a dining-room," breathed Prudence happily. "I always pretended it was rather fun, and a great saving of work, to eat and cook and study and live in one room, but inwardly the idea always outraged me. Is that ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... Roman general for an instant remained motionless. Then, urged either by compunction for his violence; or by the certainty that, if he attempted force, he would have but a corpse in his possession; or, as the unscrupulous libertine later pretended, by a generous impulse that had guided him throughout;—whatever his motive, Caesar stepped back several paces, and raised his hand to heaven as if to call the gods to witness that he would respect his prisoner. Still suspicious, the Gallic ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... at all events, not less than forty-one separate indictments (that being the number of the pretended owners) were found against each ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... allies in the Peloponnese, when the Thebans failed to obey his summons. For from this, too, you may clearly see that he concealed the real reason for his action—the fact that he was taking measures against Hellas and the Thebans and yourselves—and pretended to represent the common cause and the will of the Amphictyons. And the man who provided him with all these occasions and pretexts was Aeschines. (To the ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... prerogatives of the crown, declaring "that in them they are most fully, rightfully, and entirely invested, incorporated, united, and annexed." In the clause which follows, for preventing questions, by reason of any pretended titles to the crown, they declare (observing also in this the traditionary language, along with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a rubric the language of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that on the preserving ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... hunting costume, cap and gaiters of leather, a havana-colored waistcoat, and had a complete assortment of pockets of all sizes for the cartridges. He pretended to be a great authority on all matters relating to the chase, although he was, in fact, the worst shot in the whole canton; and when he had the good luck to meet with a newcomer, he launched forth on the recital of his imaginary prowess, without any ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... crystal, and unable to find it, he concluded that one of us must have taken it. My brother asserted that he had not touched it, and I, although guilty, said the same; but my father, satisfied that he could not be mistaken, threatened to search us and to thrash the one who had told him a story. I pretended to look for the crystal in every corner of the room, and, watching my opportunity I slyly slipped it in the pocket of my brother's jacket. At first I was sorry for what I had done, for I might as well have feigned to find the crystal somewhere about the room; but the evil deed was past ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him to squander his fortune, kingdom, family, and self—and then banishes Yudhisthira and the latter's four brothers for twelve years. The gambling was conducted in an unfair manner, and the cousins feel that their banishment was the result of treachery, although pretended to be mercy in lieu of death. When the twelve years are over they collect armies of sympathizers, and on the Sacred Plain of the Kurus (the Holy Land of India) the great war is fought out. The good prevails, Duryodhana is slain, and Yudhisthira ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... xii. 173; Virgil wrote "dant fruges manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Summa notant pecudum"; to which Servius adds that the symbolic movement was a (pretended) cut from head to tail of the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... were silent and constrained. She tried not to see Prissie shaking and jerking and spilling soup down the front of her gown. Robin's face was smooth and blank; he pretended to be absorbed in his food, so as not to look at Prissie. It was as if Prissie's old restlessness had grown into that ceaseless jerking and twitching. And her eyes fastened on Robin; they clung to him and wouldn't let him ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... Martin Behaim, in 1492, repeats the island of Antillia, and inserts beyond it to the west, the isle of St Brandan or Ima, from a fabulous work of the middle ages. Occasion has already occurred to notice two other ancient pretended discoveries of the New World: the fabulous voyages of the Zenos, another Venetian tale; and the equally fabulous Portuguese island of the Seven Churches, abounding in gold, and inhabited by Spanish or Portuguese Christians. Britain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... and talked foreign languages and pretended very seriously to understand one another. One said the stars were in opposition, another said he had gazed into a crystal and had seen a glow-worm chasing a hippopotamus which a third interpreted as meaning the princess would die if the ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... up his back and growled, but Jack instantly closed his eyes, and made himself perfectly rigid. I generally held him up by the tail, and if I moved, he cautiously opened one eye; but if he caught sight of even a corner of the cage, he shut it fast, and again pretended to be dead. His drollest trick was practised on a poor little black monkey; taking the opportunity when a calm, similar to that spoken of above, left him nearly the sole possessor of the deck. I do not know that he saw me, for I was sitting behind the companion door. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... you mustn't say that sort of thing to me, Miss Cary!" he said in a subdued aside. "Superior officer, you know! If you want an index to my feelings, study my countenance." He pretended to smother a gigantic yawn, and Beatrice's cool, unchecked laughter broke ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... horsed his wagons with eight. And the law knew of no distinction between wagon and post- chaise, coach-horse or cart-horse. However, we could not compass this point of the eight horses, the double quadriga, in one single instance; but the true reason we surmised to be, not the pretended puritanism of loyalty to the house of Guelph, but the running short of the innkeeper's funds. If he had to meet a daily average call for twenty-four horses, then it might well happen that our draft ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... her best to cheer him—she was afraid of his looking melancholy; she would try singing to him, and telling him every sort of funny story or reminiscence that she could recall. The prince nearly always pretended to be amused, whether he were so actually or no; but often enough he laughed sincerely, delighted by the brilliancy of her wit when she was carried away by her narrative, as she very often was. Nastasia would be wild with joy to see the impression she had made, and to hear his laugh of real ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... something to desire, and much to fear. But as smooth as now their fortune seemed, they knew not how soon a storm might rise, and give a sudden interruption to that felicity they enjoyed.—The charms of Charlotta were every day making new conquests; and among the number of those who pretended to admire her, how probable was it that some one might be thought worthy by her father, and she be compelled to receive the addresses of a rival. These were reflections too natural not to occur to them both, and whenever they did, could not fail ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... estimate of "The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Woman's Eights," as she was called. In the columns of "The Free Inquirer," a newspaper which she and Robert Dale Owen established and edited in New York City in 1829, she attacked religion in every form, marriage, the family, and the State. She pretended to no basis of scientific investigation, but in a brilliant flood of words endeavored to sweep away faith in the Bible, the home, the Republic, in favor of negation, communism, free love. I have place for but a single quotation from one of ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... mother monkey, "I think you are right." When she turned Jocko over, he was so afraid of being punished, that he pretended to be fast asleep; but he heard all that his father and mother had said, and knew ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... him up on a beam put beneath him, so that, when weariness made them take their hands from the burden, they might be as good as guilty of the young man's death, and by their own fault exonerate the king from an unnatural murder. He also pretended that, unless the accused were punished, he would plot against his father's life. The adulteress Swanhild, he said, ought to suffer a shameful end, trampled ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... succeeded by his son Cambyses, who, far from following the virtuous example of his father, committed numberless crimes, among which was the murder of his own brother. After him reigned Smerdis the impostor, who pretended to be the true Smerdis that had been killed by Cambyses: next to him Darius, who was chosen because his horse neighed before any of those belonging to the other competitors for the crown: then Xerxes, a very vain-glorious prince, who attempted to conquer Greece, but was himself beaten, and ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... pursues the pretended messengers with such insulting question that Orestes, goaded beyond endurance, betrays that their character is assumed. They are seized and about to be led to prison in chains, when Electra enters and in her anguish at the sight exclaims, "Orestes led to die!" Then ensues a heroic scene, in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... doctrines, who is? So far as I am aware, not one tangible discovery in the so-called science has ever been ascribed to any other observer; at least, no general principle or law, of consequence enough to claim any prominence in Homoeopathic works, has ever been pretended to have originated with any of his illustrious disciples. He is one of the only two Homoeopathic writers with whom, as I shall mention, the Paris publisher will have anything to do upon his own account. The other is Jahr, whose Manual is little more than a catalogue of symptoms and remedies. If ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of a Messiah. Among her followers there was on old associate of Robespierre in the constituent assembly, the Chartreux Dom Gerle, who had a civic certificate from Robespierre himself. When the committees discovered the mysteries of the Mother of God, and her predictions, they believed or pretended to believe, that Robespierre made use of her instrumentality to gain over the fanatics, or to announce his elevation. They altered her name of Theot into that of Theos, signifying God; and they craftily insinuated that Robespierre ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... had resolved, on his own initiative, to remedy the encroachments that his officers had made on the rights of the Church, and would have done so sooner had he not feared the appearance of submitting to the menaces and orders of the Pope, who pretended to reduce to a condition of vassalage the most noble kingdom of France, which had never been raised but from God. Peter Flotte dwelt especially on this latter argument, and appealed in turn to the interests of the nobility and of the clergy, and to national pride. The fiery Count of Artois arose, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... afraid we might recognize 'em. They didn't see our faces that night, so they don't know how we look; but they tried to make me talk enough so that they might recognize my voice. Guess that lookout's not so deaf as he pretended to be! Once Brittler felt sure who it was, he gave orders to the wheelman to run over us. He'd have done it, too, if I hadn't seen the schooner's bow ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... he had given them. If any man was to tell you that monkish rhymes had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it? Just the reverse is the case of Rowley's pretended poems. They have all the elegance of Waller and Prior, and more than Lord Surrey—but I have no objection to any body believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an astonishing genius-but I cannot think that Rowley foresaw metres that were invented long after he was dead, or that our ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Ohio boy, John Kinney, he made an excursion afoot to Tahoe, a trip described in one of the best chapters of "Roughing It." They staked out a timber claim and pretended to fence it and to build a house, but their chief employment was loafing in the quiet luxury of the great woods or drifting in a boat on the transparent water. They did not sleep in the house. ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... an indignant fist in pretended anger. "If it hadn't been for us, or rather for you, Bob, this farm would have been sold ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... it was my father himself who pretended to see nothing strange or mysterious in my deeply agitated state of mind. The substance of the matter he had now explained to me scientifically, biologically, physiologically and anatomically; to this nothing need be added nor did it ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... town for the day, we had wine in one another's rooms after hall in the evening, and behaved like young fools, and threw oranges wildly at one another's heads, and generally enjoyed ourselves. It was all very silly and irrational, no doubt, but it was life, it was reality; while the pretended earnestness of those pallid Somerville girls is all an affectation of ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... they did not give him the "quick and painless." He never had forgiven Joe his unwillingness to gossip with him in jail. The fellow's vindictiveness was evident in the sneering delight that he took on his last night in jail in calling Joe out of his sleep, or pretended sleep, to hear his description of the terrors waiting a man condemned to prison ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... performance did remind Hugh of occasions when he had watched a red-tailed hawk chasing a frightened bunny, now slowing up on quivering pinions, then making numerous pretended lunges in order to frighten the quarry still more, and finally ending the pursuit by a well-directed swoop that gave the bird of prey its ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... the incident as being in the nature of a practical joke, and resented it. But the others were enchanted, and professed thereafter a rooted suspicion of the soundness of the Schoolmaster's Natural History, which nobody actually felt. For he had never yet pretended to know anything that he didn't know well; and when Potts would say something disparaging of Mac's learning behind his back (which was against the unwritten rules of the game) the Colonel invariably sat ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... man of some scholarship and much conceit; took a first class when very young, having entered college a mere schoolboy, and read hard; got his appointment as tutor soon after, and sneered at older men on the strength of it. He pretended to be exceedingly jocular and familiar with his pupils, but was really always on the alarm for his dignity. His great delight was to impress the freshmen with an idea of his abilities and his condescension. "Always come to me, Mr ——, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... hours, Mrs. McChesney held rigidly to business. Her handsome partner tried bravely to follow her example. If he failed occasionally, perhaps Emma McChesney was not so displeased as she pretended to be. A business discussion, deeply interesting to both, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... Lusitania was armed, that she carried ammunition in defiance of American laws, and that our official inspection of her was careless. Your own Government has itself abandoned the false charge that the Lusitania carried guns, and no longer makes such a ridiculous claim; while the German reservist who pretended to have seen the gun has admitted that he lied and is now serving a term in prison for perjury. You are not familiar with American shipping-laws which expressly permit the carrying of certain types of ammunition on passenger vessels, ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... pure, nor hell itself without its extreme satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... looms, and pretended to be working, but they had nothing at all in the frames. Again and again they demanded the finest silks and the most magnificent gold thread, but they put it all in their own pockets, and worked at their empty ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... and pretended to become absorbed in the litter of papers on his desk. But in truth he could see nothing save the young man's face: calm, unmoved, expressing negligent interest in what should be the most vital thing in his existence, next to life. If the man hadn't met Elsa, to her ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... three days ago, on a pretended visit to my sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school, just beyond the third mile-stone, where there is a very large laburnum-tree and an oak gate,' said the old lady, stopping in this place to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... He paced the deck to and fro, to and fro, almost in despair, and yet determined to venture something for the captain's sake. Then he noticed that the first-mate was in the hold, serving out water, and suddenly an idea came into Birt's head. He pretended to stumble, threw himself right down the hatchway as though by accident, and fell a distance of sixteen feet into the hold. As you may imagine all was immediately stir and excitement, for at first they thought he was killed—and, indeed, he was badly ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... that had preyed upon a still weaker. It made its lair where it chose, crushing under its careless body those other still lesser things which had not sense enough or the opportunity to slip out from under it. Love, as man looked upon it or pretended to look upon it, was no real emotion but a poetical illusion. Nor was it so much as truly poetical, since poetry is truth and this thing was a lie. There was no love but the old, primal love of life, a blind, unreasoning instinct. He did not love Ygerne; he had never loved Ygerne ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... up one night at the Palace with the Doctor, till the pages of the backstairs asked if they would have fresh candles, my father endeavouring to persuade him to subscribe again, as he had for the living of St. James's. Clarke pretended he had then believed them. "Well," said Sir Robert, "but if you do not now, you ought to resign your living to some man who would subscribe conscientiously." The Doctor would neither resign his living nor accept the bishopric.' Journal of the Reign ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... school, so he kept the question he had in mind till the Christmas holidays, and then one day he made an opportunity. It was after supper and prayers were just finished. Mrs. Carey was counting the eggs that Mary Ann had brought in as usual and writing on each one the date. Philip stood at the table and pretended to turn listlessly the pages of ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham |
