"Dissembling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... affectation of thoughtfulness. Trent watched him curiously. He knew quite well that his partner was dissembling, but he scarcely saw to what end. Monty's eyes, moving round the grass-bound hut, stopped at Trent's knapsack which hung from the central pole. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you ask what has been the turn of his common conversation? Instead of being pious, useful, benevolent, candid, and sincere, it has at one time been proud and passionate, at another vain and flourishing, at another slanderous and revengeful; now again, it has been selfish, crafty, and dissembling, often also daringly impious and profane, and not seldom exceedingly polluting and impure. Do you ask what have been the sinful deeds he has done? O what a dreadful variety has there been in them! At one time he has been trying ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... hardly dissembling her aversion to the "continental system," and openly refusing to acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain, would avail herself of the insurrection of that country, necessarily followed by the march of a great French army across the Pyrenees, as affording a favourable ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... negotiations: "The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling those so ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... what I might and ought to be. I was like a grasshopper before, drunk with dew, and then sobered by a plunge into a clear, cool spring. Besides, I have thought more about your advice in regard to the lady, you dissembling old rascal! For you know that in such matters you never mean what you say; and when you counsel me to fall in love with a coquette, you only wish me to be warned in time and make good my escape. If it were light enough, I should see that grizzly moustache of yours curl ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... requested to arrest them, and to confiscate their drugs and spices. His Majesty warned the viceroy that this decree was issued to please the king of Portogal, and requested him to send news of the outcome. Dissembling and secrecy was ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... settled at Onondaga before signs of the dangers that were gathering became too plain for the blind zeal of the Jesuits to ignore. Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas, togged out in war-gear, swarmed outside the palisades. There was no more dissembling of hunger for the Jesuits' evangel. The warriors spoke no more soft words, but spent their time feasting, chanting war-songs, heaving up the war-hatchet against the kettle of sagamite—which meant the rupture of peace. Then came four hundred Mohawks, who not only shouted their war-songs, but built ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... what I wanted to have you say to me," he answered, dissembling his feelings in a glance which would have reassured any ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of dissembling. They were drawn together by the possibility they did not mention, drawn together in the very thing of not ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... our friends gainsaid; But then Romance required dissembling, (Ann Radcliffe taught us that!) which bred Some ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... are indeed undefinable; strong and weak by turns, indiscreet, dissembling, they are capable of anything.' 'Without doubt,' said M. de Lille, distressed that nothing had yet been said to him, and with a familiarity which was not likely to succeed; 'Without doubt. Look—' said he. The King interrupted him. I cited some traits in support of my opinion,—as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and wondered, and said, "Is it possible?" or, "Did you ever hear the like?" and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so handsomely and ingenuously. And all these were prosperous: whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, Occultior non melior, wherein Sallust concurreth, Ore probo, animo inverecundo, made it his design, by infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for necessity and protection, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... master named them, and they were three seamen. Upon this the captain-major retired to his cabin, and told his servants to stand at the door of the cabin, and put inside the clerks to draw up the document, and ordered the three seamen to enter; and, dissembling, he made inquiries as to returning to port, and all was written down and they signed it. He then ordered them to go down below to another cabin which he had beneath his own for a store-cabin, and he ordered the clerk to go down also with them, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... cursed hagge and false dissembling wretch! That slayest me with thy harsh and hellish tale, Thou for some pettie guift hast let him goe, And I am thus deluded of my boy: Away with her to prison presently, Traytoresse too keend and ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... countrymen on the shores of Long Island, or some equally exposed spot, without the rites of burial, and their names never be heard of by those who, in future ages, would look back to the roll of patriots, who died in defence of liberty, with admiration and respect, while, on the contrary, by dissembling for a time, they might be able to regain a place in the service so dear to them, and in which they were ready to endure any hardship or ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... masterpiece of dissembling. It suggested, without promising, that Charles Maxwell intended to send his young charge to boarding school along with his housekeeper's daughter. It asked the school's advice and explained the deformity that made Charles Maxwell a recluse. The reply ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... within him; and he kissed the maiden, and sent her into the tent. A little while afterward, the queen came and spoke to him and asked him about the man to whom their daughter was to be wedded; and Agamemnon, still dissembling, told her that the hero's name was Achilles, and that he was the son of old Peleus ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... and chat set her and young Armiger down in Cheapside, and so my wife and I home. Got home before our mayds, who by and by came with a great cry and fright that they had like to have been killed by a coach; but, Lord! to see how Jane did tell the story like a foole and a dissembling fanatique, like her grandmother, but so like a changeling, would make a man laugh to death almost, and yet be vexed to hear her. By and by to the office to make up my monthly accounts, which I make up to-night, and to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the queen-mother to receive with complacency and encouragement the dissembling professions of Elizabeth; by which she was not herself deceived, but which served to deceive and to alarm her enemies the protestants, and in some measure to mask her designs against them. We have seen what high civilities had passed between the courts on occasion of the admission of the French ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... don't spill your milk on your bibs," he answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed that Mr. Height had not been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... have been finally decided in a long and stormy Cabinet session held on December 13. The events of the few preceding days had evidently shaken the President's confidence in his own policy. He startled his dissembling and conspiring Secretary of War with the sudden questions, "Mr. Floyd, are you going to send recruits to Charleston to strengthen the forts?" "Don't you intend to strengthen the forts at Charleston?" The apparent change of policy alarmed the Secretary, but he replied promptly that he did not. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... there be in that estate, Which your unquietness has made me hate? I shrink far off, Dissembling sleep, but wakeful with the fright; The day takes off the pleasure ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... what circumstance gives us the honour of this visit?" asked Mr. Faringfield, not dissembling his disgust. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to an end and in despair that he had fired the camp of the Libyans. This army came to him like a relief from the gods; dissembling his ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... art a happy man," said the Dishonest Gain, "and thy bleeding head is but mere dissembling. Who art ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... with him, just without the walls, In a dark vale were left. When the first grant T'approach the monarch was obtain'd, he rais'd The olive in his suppliant hand; then told His name, and lineage, but his crime conceal'd. His cause of flight dissembling, next he beg'd, For him and his, some pastures and a town. Then thus Trachinia's king with friendly brow: "To all, the very meanest of mankind, "Are our possessions free; nor do I rule "A realm inhospitable: add to these "Inducements strong, thine own illustrious name, "And grandsire Jove. In ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... rewardes, to them that would present them quicke or dead. The Erle being offended in his conscience, for that he was fled, innocent of the facte, made himself culpable therof, and arriued at Callice with his children, dissembling what he was, and sodainlye passed ouer into England, and in poore apparell, trauailed vp to London. And before he entred the citie, he gaue his children diuers admonicions, but specially of two things: First, that they should ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... clearly seeing the treachery intended by the minister, dissembling his anger, sent word to his brother that he was convinced, even should the boats full of goods be landed, he himself would not be given up; and he therefore charged him to send the hostages on shore, and then to make sail and return to Portugal. "If he himself should be ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... art thou dearer to me Than all the comforts ever yet bless'd man. But let not marriage bait thee to thy ruin. Trust not a man; we are by nature false, Dissembling, subtle, cruel, and unconstant: When a man talks of love, with caution trust him; But if he swears, he'll certainly deceive thee. I charge thee, let no more Castalio sooth thee; Avoid it, as thou wouldst preserve the peace Of a poor brother, to ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... that there was to be an insurrection shortly, and other similar things. Although the governor always considered these statements as fictions and the exaggerations of that nation, and did not credit them, yet he was not so heedless that he did not act cautiously and watch, although with dissembling, for whatever might happen. He took pains to have the city guarded and the soldiers armed, besides flattering the most prominent of the Chinese and the merchants, whom he assured of their lives and property. The natives of La Pampanga ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... suspicious of husbands—and in reality his domestic vision was as guileless as that of a boy—he could have caught no glint of any smoldering spark of the long ago. Grant found himself thinking of this dissembling quality as one of nature's provisions designed for the protection of women, much as the sombre plumage of the prairie chicken protects her from the eye of the sportsman. For after all the hunting instinct runs through all men, be ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... death. That, and some consequent embarrassments, have delayed what I know to be my Faulkland's most ardent wish. He is too generous to trifle on such a point:—and for his character, you wrong him there, too. No, Lydia, he is too proud, too noble to be jealous; if he is captious, 'tis without dissembling; if fretful, without rudeness. Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the little duties expected from a lover—but being unhackneyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere; and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... kicke and kill her with my heels. But a better thought reduced me from so rash a purpose: for I feared lest by the death of Fotis I should be deprived of all remedy and help. Then shaking myne head, and dissembling myne ire, and taking my adversity in good part, I went into the stable to my owne horse, where I found another asse of Milos, somtime my host, and I did verily think that mine owne horse (if there were any natural conscience or knowledge in brute beasts) would take pitty ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... "I have only two hands—I wish I had a hundred to defend you—and there were three throats. By that time their Pedro was in the room too. Had he seen me engaged with their two throats, he would have been at mine like a fierce dog, or any other savage and faithful brute. I had no difficulty in dissembling my longing for the vulgar, stupid, and hopeless argument of fight. I remarked that I really did not want a servant. I couldn't think of depriving them of their man's services; but they would not hear me. They had made up ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... was only dissembling. During all the time that General Sheridan was making his preparations for his intended winter campaign against the allied plains tribes, Satanta made frequent visits to the military posts, ostensibly to show the officers that he was heartily for peace, but really to ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Why, really, 'tis yourself, who hope that, by dissembling in this manner, you'll be able to ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... and brings us into a certain rapport, a reciprocal subjective relation, which immediately interferes with our taking an objective view. As everybody strives to win either respect or friendship for himself, a man who is being observed will immediately resort to every art of dissembling, and corrupt us with his airs, hypocrisies, and flatteries; so that in a short time we no longer see what the first impression had clearly shown us. It is said that "most people gain on further acquaintance" but what ought to be said is that "they delude us" on further acquaintance. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... this language made few proselytes. They had too often already been the dupes of his hypocrisy, the victims of their own credulity; they scrupled not, both in public companies, and from the pulpit, to pronounce him "a dissembling perjured villain;" and they openly threatened him with "a worse fate than had befallen the last tyrant." If it was necessary to silence these declaimers, it was also dangerous to treat them with severity. He proceeded with caution, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... beauty, Is this your promise, that whene'er you prayed I should be still the partner of your vigils, And learn from you to pray? Last night I lay dissembling When she who woke you, took my feet for yours: Now I shall seize my lawful prize perforce. Alas! what's this? These shoulders' cushioned ice, And thin soft flanks, with purple lashes all, And weeping furrows traced! Ah! precious life-blood! ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... and staring, for out from the gloom of the smithy issued Black George himself, with Prue upon his arm. The Ancient stared also, but, dissembling his vast surprise, he dealt the lid of his snuffbox two loud, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... 'Temple,' said I, dissembling a little; 'I tell you candidly: you won't please me by doing anything disagreeable to you. A dog pulled by the collar is not much of a companion. I start for Julia to-morrow before daylight. If you like your bed best, stop there; and mind you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he, "it is no use dissembling with me, I know all. Be easy; we are playing a game in which you are laying one against a thousand; moreover, here is something on account to compensate you for the trouble I ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... carried his scheme through well," declared Mrs. Coddington. "Yet for our part we are very glad that the time for dissembling is past." ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... morning, good morning! > Both sitting on the table and BERTRAND. Early birds, early birds. / dissembling box. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fellowship, teaching and confirmyng them in the truth and Gospell of Christe. But in the ende such was the prouidence of God, who disposeth all thinges to the best, the xij. daye of December, he with Cutbert Simson and others, through the crafty and traiterous suggestion of a false hipocrite and dissembling brother called Roger Sargeaunt, a taylor, were apprehended by the Vicechamberlaine of the Queenes house, at the Saracens heade in Islington: where the Congregation had then purposed to assemble themselues to their godly and accustomable exercises of prayer, and hearyng the word of God: which ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... of these descendants of the nobility and gentry of Britain. They were the cavaliers in chivalry and daring, and despised, as their descendants despised, the Roundheads and their descendants, with their cold, dissembling natures, hypocritical in religion as faithless in friendship, without one generous ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... I, that am not shap'd for sporting tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty, To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;— I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;— Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to see my shadow in ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... the Foreign Office that their Lordships have for some time been uneasy at the turn events are taking in the East. They have endeavoured to disguise from each other their perturbed feelings. But STRATHEDEN felt that CAMPBELL's eye was upon him, whilst CAMPBELL at last abandoned the futile effort of dissembling his uneasiness under the cold steel-grey glance of STRATHEDEN. They finally agreed that the best thing they could do was to set forth for Berlin, making secret detours in order to call at other of the principal capitals, and confer with the Foreign Ministers. The result, we are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... deprived of the guiding influence of her fond parents, and seldom mixing in society—had very rare opportunities of forming any opinion of the world or its motives; and knew not the accomplished art of dissembling her feelings, when the ice of her outward reserve had been once broken. The conversation and ingenuous manner of her companion pleased her, and she took an interest and pleasure in his society, which she had no idea of concealing. What her feelings were, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... her mask and fan, She never would so much as name a man. Not name a man? quoth I; yet be advis'd; Not love a man but me! let it be so. You shall not think, quoth she, my thought's disguis'd In flattering language or dissembling show; I say again, and I know what I do, I will not name a man alive but you. Into her house I came at unaware, Her back was to me, and I was not seen; I stole behind her, till I had her fair, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... spirits low, He'd beg, write panegyrics, cringe, and bow; But when good pensions had his labours crown'd, His panegyrics into satires turn'd; O what assiduous pains does Prior take To let great Dorset see he could mistake! Dissembling nature false description gave, Show'd him the poet, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... know that last night, as she slept, she murmured 'Philip?'" said the doctor quietly, dissembling his alarm. ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... she knew it before that," replied Trent with a slightly crestfallen air. "And I thought I was acting the part of a person who was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good at dissembling. I shouldn't wonder if even old Peppmueller noticed something through his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been as an undeclared suitor, I am going to be much worse now. Here's the place," ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... door to the Jew, who said to her, "What ailed thee to lock the door?" Quoth she, "It hath never ceased to be locked thus during thine absence; nor hath it been opened night nor day;" and cried he, "Thou hast done well; this pleaseth me." Then he went in to Masrur, laughing and dissembling his chagrin, and said to him, "O Masrur, let us put off the conclusion of our pact of brotherhood this day and defer it to another." Replied Masrur, "As thou wilt," and hied him home, leaving the Jew pondering his case and knowing not what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... truth is no other than an inseparable conjunction of life. Good God! What divorces, or what not worse than that, would daily happen were not the converse between a man and his wife supported and cherished by flattery, apishness, gentleness, ignorance, dissembling, certain retainers of mine also! Whoop holiday! how few marriages should we have, if the husband should but thoroughly examine how many tricks his pretty little mop of modesty has played before she was married! ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... dissemble. It was necessary to flatter Robespierre's vanity, and, by panegyric, to impel him to the attack. This was the motive which induced me to load him with those praises of which you complain. Who ever blamed Brutus for dissembling with Tarquin?" ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... home training. If they have not been trained properly as they are not adepts in dissembling and they reflect their mothers in all their ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... kind of seeming seriousness in the performance of duties, and in seeking of God, deceiveth many. They think, because they are not conscious to their own dissembling, but they look upon themselves as earnest in what they do, that therefore all is well. Sayeth not Christ, that not "every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God?" Matth. vii. 21; that is, not every one that reneweth their suits, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... think, and if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong Argument to the Cartesians, for the supporting of their [Doctrine,[2]] that the Soul always thinks. But as several are of Opinion that the Fair Sex are not altogether Strangers to the Art of Dissembling and concealing their Thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that Opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to seek after some better Reason. In order to it, a Friend of mine, who is an excellent Anatomist, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Archdeacon knew, by this time, Ronder's character and abilities too well not to realise that he must dissemble. Dissembling was the hardest thing of all that a man of the Archdeacon's character could be called upon to perform, but ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... conscience perplext: Great men that will have less do for them, still Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill; Meanness must pander be to Excellence; Pleasure atones Falsehood and Conscience: Dissembling was the worst, thought Hero then, 200 And that was best, now she must live with men. O virtuous love, that taught her to do best When she did worst, and when she thought it least! Thus would she still proceed in works divine, And in her sacred state of priesthood shine, Handling ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... using incantations, signifies unpleasantness between husband and wife, or sweethearts. To hear others repeating them, implies dissembling among your friends. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... fearful shape with fair resembling: His torch put out, a mild youth doth repose; Soft is the end as the lyre's mournful trembling. Remembrance fades i' the gloom a shadow throws: So sang the song, a dreadful doom dissembling. Yet undefined remained eternal Night, The stern ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... Dissembling what I knew too well; My love! my life! said I, explain This change of humour; pray thee tell: That falling tear.—What does ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... knew she was not dissembling. I could not think; I could not speak! The floor seemed flying beneath my feet, and I must ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... do remayne ther / it wil brust forthe at lengthe / and a litill leauen will soure the whole lumpe of dowe. &c. Truly for all this goodly clooke / it is easily perceyued that through this dissembling the edifying of the churche is hindered and not furthered. These men pretende with Athlas to beare vp heauen withe their shulders / but they do ouerthrow altogether: Godd doth se more then we / in the thinges which shall happen ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... Sim Squires came in to supper, he made casual announcement that he understood Bas had gone away somewhere. His vapid grin turned to a sneer as he mentioned Rowlett's name after the never-failing habit of his dissembling, but Dorothy set down his plate as though it had become suddenly too hot ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... never be demanded, until the infant should be of age, unless some accident should happen which he could not then foresee. Pickle believed this declaration sincere, because he could have no interest in dissembling; but what he chiefly depended upon, for his own security, was the integrity and confidence of the borrower, who assured him, that happen what would, he should be able to stand between him and all danger; the nature of his plan being such as would infallibly ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did now long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... life of Mr. Hamilton, which there was reason to believe would be granted. This measure affords full proof, that notwithstanding the friendly conferences which they kept up with him for some time, they had resolved on his ruin from the beginning: but such instances of Popish dissembling were not new even ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... ten thousand; neither is the solitude so uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kind of beasts—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilest, methinks, of all nations, are those whom we account the most barbarous; there is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinambaltians who eat no men but their enemies, whilst we learned and ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... and perfidy, shall be held in honor, bringing in their train a decadence of all good and sound habitudes. What can be more fatal to a State than to exile, as malcontents, honest citizens, simply because they do not hold the opinion of the multitude, and because they are ignorant of the art of dissembling! What can be more fatal to a State than to treat as enemies and to put to death men who have committed no other crime than that of thinking independently! Behold, then, the scaffold, the dread of the bad man, which now becomes the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... town and burnt down the large sugar factory outside. He led a mutiny against his relative and benefactor, Captain Sharp, on New Year's Day, 1681, being the "main promoter of their design" to turn him out. Sharp afterwards described his old friend as a "true-hearted dissembling New-England Man," who he had promoted captain ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... lampooning the Duc d'Epernon. Some days afterwards he appeared at court, but being still lame from the rough treatment he had received, he was forced to support himself by a cane. A wit, who knew what had passed, whispered the affair to the queen. She, dissembling, asked him if he had the gout? "Yes, madam," replied our lame satirist, "and therefore I make use of a cane." "Not so," interrupted the malignant Bautru, "Benserade in this imitates those holy martyrs who are always represented with the instrument which ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... "Now, Zoraide Reuter," thought I, "has tact, CARACTERE, judgment, discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... that this mayor, Don Fernando, (he bore no resemblance to the Don Fernando of Don Quixote,) advanced with the gravity and solemnity of one whose business it was to kill giants; for though he was a man of much humor, he had a necromantic facility for dissembling, and could declare before high heaven his innocence of any crime laid at his door, and in the very next breath issue an order giving peace and comfort to pickpockets. And while I am writing of this great man, I may mention that if there was any ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Dissembling deceitfully, Ephron then offered to give Abraham the field without compensation, but when Abraham insisted upon paying for it, Ephron said: "My lord, hearken unto me. A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... my stay May aid the cause; dissembling I must learn, Necessity shall teach me how to vary My features to the looks of him I serve. I'll thrust myself disguis'd among the croud, And fill their ears with murmurs of the deed: Whisper all is not well, blow up the sparks Of discord, and ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... his survey of the situation in its remotest bearings, and determination to practice dissembling, cautious craft, Paul's decisive acts in this brooding tragedy were to be the result ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... all the sublimer arts, like that of trees, affords a pleasing prospect; whereas the roots and stems are scarcely beheld with indifference: and yet the former cannot subsist without the latter. But whether I am restrained from dissembling the pleasure I take in the subject, by the honest advice of the ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... lies turn to the hindrance of God's truth, they be in no ways to be tolerated and suffered. Wherefore these be to signify to the world that it was not I that did set up the mass at Canterbury, but a false, flattering, lying, and dissembling monk, which caused the mass to be set up there without my advice and counsel: and as for offering myself to say mass before the Queen's Highness, or in any other place, I never did, as her Grace knoweth well. But if her Grace will give me leave, I shall be ready to prove against ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... in age, melancholick, ruling after the crabbed forwardness of his doting will, impartial, for he loved none but himself, politic because experienced, familiar with none except for his profit, skillful in dissembling, trusting no one, silent, covetous, counting all things honest that were profitable." This characterisation cannot possibly have referred to Shakespeare in the year 1585. When it is noticed, however, that nearly all of Greene's later attacks are directed against the Theatre ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... in danger to bee cast away. Whilest he was thus perswading, he caused the lead to be cast, and hauing craftily brought the shippe in three fadome and a halfe water, he suddenly began to sweare, and teare God in pieces, dissembling great danger, crying to him at the helme, beare vp hard, beare vp hard, so we went off, and were disappointed of our salt, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... not at all at his ease, but being a business man, and being also blessed with a peculiarly inexpressive face, he was successfully dissembling his discomfort. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Methinks thou shouldst not bring them else; yet he Is full of deep dissembling; knows no honour Divided from his interest. Fate mistook him; For nature meant him for an usurer: He's fit indeed to ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... chooses them indeed precisely for the reasons for which it ought to reject them, that any moderate, clear-headed, practical man who wants to be elected and make use of his powers, has to start by dissembling his moderation, and by making a noisy display of factious violence. If he wants to be nominated to a post where it will be his business to defend and guarantee public security, he has to begin by advocating civil war: to become a peacemaker he must first ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... parson, girl, the forerunner of a midwife, some nine months hence. Well, I find dissembling to our sex is as natural as swimming to a negro; we may depend upon our skill to save us at a plunge, though till then, we never make the experiment. But how ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... believe you," he replied, dissembling; for he saw at once, by Connor's agitated manner, that every word she uttered was a lie; "the sleep will be good for her, the darlin'; but take care of her, Connor, for the masther's sake; for what would become of him if any ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the Lake, as they expressed their desire to make a few halts there, and barter their hire of cloth for jembes (iron hoes), to exchange again at Unyanyembe, where those things fetch double the price they do in these especially iron regions. Now, to-day these dissembling creatures, distrusting my word as they would their own brethren's, stoutly refused to proceed until their business was completed,—suspecting I should break my word on returning, and would not then wait for them. They had come all this way especially ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... and date; then, with Mrs. Toplady's smile still on his lips, awaited the response. That Lord Dymchurch would much have preferred to excuse himself was visible enough in the pleasant, open countenance, little apt for dissembling; but no less evident was the amiability which made it difficult for him to refuse a favour, and which, in this instance, allied itself with something like a sense of duty. Lord Dymchurch had been considerably impressed by Lashmar's talk; the bio-sociological theory and all ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... have any principles to stand by," he wrote, "by all means stand by them; but if all you mean is throwing cold water on other people's principles, my advice is to make no move. Dissembling your own uneasiness in the matter and quieting their anxious scruples is one of those matters which seem so simple that heroism appears to have no part in it. It would be so much nobler (we are tempted ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... things which seem fair, and even generous in them, it is true. And Fairbanks has a way of looking very meek and innocent; and one of two things is certain: he must be unacquainted with the world, and incapable of a thought of deception, or else he is an arch and dissembling rogue. But there are some expressions about his eyes that I cannot like; and I think there is a little blarney about them both. I may be wrong; I hope I am, and if I am, that I may be forgiven. It is unpleasant to be haunted by these suspicions. But there, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... M. de Montmorin made no secret of the necessity there was of Their Majesties dissembling their feelings; the avowal of which, he said, would only tend to forward the triumph of Jacobinism, 'which,' added he, 'I am sorry to see predominates in the Assembly, and keeps in subordination all ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... irony." That is profoundly true. A would-be writer of light verse who has not an ironical habit of mind had better change his purpose and write an epic. Locker has his full share of the necessary gift. Half gay, half melancholy, always ironical—dissembling most of pain and some of pleasure—he is in certain ways the appropriate spokesman of a society like our own, which is really most natural when most dissembling, or dismissing with a smile, its deeper emotions. There is nothing about Locker ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... compendious way. The most compendious, is that which is according to nature: that is, in all both words and deeds, ever to follow that which is most sound and perfect. For such a resolution will free a man from all trouble, strife, dissembling, and ostentation. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... no, dear madam. Do but hear me, have but a moment's patience—I'll confess all. Mr. Mirabell seduced me; I am not the first that he has wheedled with his dissembling tongue. Your ladyship's own wisdom has been deluded by him; then how should I, a poor ignorant, defend myself? O madam, if you knew but what he promised me, and how he assured me your ladyship should come to no damage, or else the wealth of the Indies should not have bribed me to conspire ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... it was a question of life and death; but it may be imagined with what feelings the Abbe Cavelier and his nephew, Father Anastase, and I regarded these murderers, of whom we expected to be the victims every moment." [Footnote: Journal Historique, 205.] They succeeded so well in their dissembling, that Duhaut and his accomplices seemed to lose all distrust of their intentions; and Joutel says that they might easily have avenged the death of La Salle by that of his murderers, had not the elder Cavelier, through scruple or ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... he did by all this; he knew that his making the worst of his case, was the way to speedy help, and that a feigning and dissembling the matter with God, was the next way to a demur ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... mind, he ordered that, on a certain Sunday, after dinner, all the cavalry should get to horse, on the pretext of a tournament. The infantry, too, he caused to be ready for action. He himself, a Tiberius in dissembling, went to play at quoits, and was disturbed by his men coming to him and begging him to look on at their sports. The poor Indian queen hurried with the utmost simplicity into the snare prepared for her. She told the governor ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... Kapellmeister at the City Theatre was vacant, and she tried to have Daniel appointed to it. She was promised that it would be given to him; but the usual intrigues were spun behind her back; and when she urged that the matter be settled immediately and in favour of her candidate, she was fed on dissembling consolation. She was quite surprised to be brought face to face with hostile opposition, which seemed to spring from every side as if by agreement against the young musician. Not a single one of his enemies, however, allowed themselves to be seen, and no one heard ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... practice is a dangerous one. It would be fatal to a less strenuous temperament. To leave, in a manner and so far as obvious insistence on it goes, "handling" to take care of itself, is to incur the peril of careless, clumsy, and even brutal, modelling, which, so far from dissembling its existence behind the prominence of the idea, really emphasizes itself unduly because of its imperfect and undeveloped character. Detail that is neglected really acquires a greater prominence than detail that is carried too far, because ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Prohack, admirably dissembling his purposes, crept with dignity out of the room, Dr. Veiga followed him, and shut the door, leaving Machin ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... later, with vast relief, he watched her go through the door, then collapsed, a limp creature, into the chair by the table, his arms going out and sweeping the papers into a pile close to his body. His face, relaxed from the strain of dissembling, looked old and his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... terrible, too humiliating. Yet, after all, could she blame her daughter? What was her present life, what would be her future, without education, without money—unless she had someone who could take care of her? Dissembling her indignation as much ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Rogero, still dissembling, as I said, Armed, to the gate on Rabican did ride; Found the guard unprepared, not let his blade, Amid that crowd, hang idle at his side: He passed the bridge, and broke the palisade, Some slain, some maimed; then t'wards the forest hied; But on that road small ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... diffident and uncertain, was walking by his side; and from the peremptory and numerous instructions he was receiving, it became patent that his companion was the "boss." Everybody looked hastily, stealthily, at the Queen, who hid her pleasure under a very transparent veil of dissembling, as she helped us unload a truck. Never before had I heard the queen laugh so merrily, and never before had I realized what a superb, handsome animal she was. There was a certain rhythmic movement as she ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... I found I was to carry money to one Jessie Broun, who was no better than she should be, I supposed it was some trip of his own that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I was the more impressed when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the same yapiya was still warbling, the same south breeze still blew into the roam, making the bed-curtain shiver; the same moonlight lay on the bed next the open window, sleeping like a beautiful heroine exhausted with gaiety. All this was unreal! Love was more falsely dissembling than she herself! ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... in human form, that bears a heart— A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth— That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts, dissembling, smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... for flight; the rascals vanished; for the death of their Ataman dissolved the knot of the leash which bound them together. Whilst Ammalat, after the oriental fashion, was stripping the dead of their arms, and tying together the reins of the abandoned horses, I lectured him on his dissembling and making a false oath to the robber. He lifted up his head with astonishment: "You are a strange man, Colonel!" he replied. "This rascal has done an infinity of harm to the Russians, by secretly setting fire to their stacks of hay, or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... she did not look at him at that moment. Unskilled as he was in the art of dissembling, his face expressed no pleasure at all, but only painful surprise. For weeks, but more especially since his gloomy broodings on New-Year's night, the anxious thought lay heavy on him, "What if our connection should have results?" The situation would then become ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... There's a Rogue too, A young dissembling slave; well, get you in, I'le have a bout with that boy; 'tis high time Now to be valiant; I confess my youth Was never prone that way: what, made an Ass? A Court stale? well I will be valiant, And beat some dozen of these Whelps; ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and life! but not in him, 145 In mine owne dark love and light bent to another. Alas! that in the wane of our affections We should supply it with a full dissembling, In which each youngest maid is grown a mother. Frailty is fruitfull, one sinne gets another: 150 Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine When they goe out; most vice shewes most divine. Goe, maid, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... enemies. The inhabitants of Paris, intoxicated with admiration of Guise, and strongly prejudiced against their king, whose intentions had become suspicious to them, took to arms and obliged Henry to fly for his safety. That prince, dissembling his resentment, entered into a negotiation with the league; and having conferred many high offices on Guise and his partisans, summoned an assembly of the states at Blois, on pretence of finding expedients to support the intended ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Had there been the least chance of calling him to account, I should, you may be sure, have proclaimed his guilt. But early in the morning fresh forces began to arrive to his aid. My only endeavour was to get the lady Edith and her remaining children safe from the castle; and it was only by dissembling my feelings, by talking face to face with the man of blood, by pretending to trust him, that I could succeed. Had he not thought us all perfectly satisfied, he would never have left the hall to go foraging in person; and now all would be well, but for this sad, sad chance, which has placed ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... arbitration had become so painful to me, the schoolwork so vague, my doubts arising from the wish to teach others, while dissembling my own ignorance of what should be taught, were so heartrending that I fell ill. I might then have reached the despair to which I all but succumbed fifteen years later, if there had not been a side of life as yet unknown to me which ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... boldly. His muscles tensed, Blaine watched every movement of the Zara's straying fingers. But her gaze was direct and kindly; there was no dissembling here. It was not the same Clyone ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... skilled, nevertheless, in dissembling, and he hid his chagrin perfectly. There was only reproach in his voice as ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... mood for dissembling. "Well," she retorted, "I may pack my trunks if I please. They're my trunks, and my ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... A proper conjunction! as who should say, Lately come out of the fire, I would go thrust my self into the flame. Let Maistres nice go Saint it where she list, And coyly quaint it with dissembling face. I hold in scorn the fooleries that they use: I being free, will never subject my self To any such as ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the paunch Which he prefers, and shall with us thenceforth Feast always; neither will we here admit Poor man beside to beg at our repasts. He spake, whom all approved; next, artful Chief Ulysses thus, dissembling, them address'd. 60 Princes! unequal is the strife between A young man and an old with mis'ry worn; But hunger, always counsellor of ill, Me moves to fight, that many a bruise received, I may be foil'd at last. Now swear ye ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... pitiful complaints Of such as your oppression feeds upon, Forsaken your pernicious faction, And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.' O monstrous treachery! can this be so, That in alliance, amity and oaths, There should be found such false dissembling guile? ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... to his King, which Tuscaloosa said he was more used to getting than giving. When Soto wished for food and carriers, Tuscaloosa gave him part, and, dissembling, said the rest were at his capital of Mobila. Against the advice of his men Soto consented ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... had sought counsel of the dying Tilly. Tilly had given them counsel bitter but inevitable. Dissembling their hate and fear they called like trembling necromancers when they invoke the fiend upon the name of power. The name of Wallenstein gave new life to the Imperial cause under the very ribs of death. At once he stood between the Empire and destruction with an army of 50,000 men, conjured, as it ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... I have been as one sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience, that I persuaded them to be aware of. I can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror, even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work; and then immediately, even before ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan |
