"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself on the arm of a rocking-chair close to Cyn, and appropriating a wooden cover for a plate as he spoke. "He and Quimby did me the honor to call on me to-day, but left for metal more attractive—whether the dinner or you ladies, I will not pretend to say!" ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... the army. If I were a man," declared the girl, "I'd be ashamed to admit anything was stronger than I was. You never let pain beat you. I've seen you play polo with a broken arm, but in this you give pain to others, you shame and humiliate the one you pretend to love, just because you are weak, just because you ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... German trenches are about 70 yards away in some places and as much as 400 in others. It is rather exciting wandering about in front of the line, as lights go up every now and then and show a bright white light in the air for a minute or two like a rocket. When one goes up you fall flat and pretend you are a sandbag or a milk-can or a rat. You may meet Fritz on the same job sometimes; I always have a bomb handy to give ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... such an awful East-end Cockney in his ways, for he's a splendid fellow inside. Times and times he has brightened the poor fellows up out yonder, singing and telling stories and playing some of his india-rubber games, bad as his own wounds are. I believe he'd pretend to laugh even if he ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... remains to say a few words of the translator's labours; and although we do not pretend to decide on the fidelity of the version he has given us, or how much his author may have lost or gained in his hands, we cannot but think that we perceive internal evidence of efforts to be faithful, even at the hazard of losing perhaps something ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... mounted on his pony, fretted to be gone, while Dorothy chatted a minute or so with Aunt Jane and Bartley. Finally they rode off, with Jimmy in the lead, explaining that there would be no rabbits on the flat until at least five o'clock, and in the meantime they would ride over to the spring and pretend they were starving. That is, Dorothy and Bartley were to pretend they were starving, while Jimmy scouted for meat and incidentally shot a couple of Indians and returned with a noble buck ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... deceive. Those who dream they can play false with Him are mistaken. This dead man, my father, living among you for years, was contented for years to seem like you,—yes!—for you all have something which you think you can cover up from the searching eye of Fate; and many of you pretend to be what you are not,—while many more wear the aspect of men over the souls of beasts. My father who rests here to-day at our feet, was a priest of the Roman Church. In that capacity he should have been clothed with sanctity. Human, yet removed from common frailty. Yet reckless ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... sent here under an assumed name—by His Majesty. Ye—I was indiscreet enough with ye, to tell—to show that I was other than what I pretend to be, but I felt then and now that I could trust ye. Ye will keep secret ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... he is the proud deil! His high stomach could no stand my plain words. Forty quid, odd, he owed me, but I could no hold my tongue when he raided the cutter and made off wi' the shell. The MacLeans were ne'er pirates, ye ken. They are honest men and kirkgoers—though I'll no pretend in the old days they didna' lift a beastie ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... pretend that you don't know, I'll have pleasure in telling you again. When I first struck this city, played out and ragged, she was waitress at a little hotel, and she brought me a double portion of the nicest things at supper. What's more, she sewed up ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... and thou, who carest for the smallest part of thy creation, will not deny her thy protection. Oh! Lord defend her innocence! Let her obtain a place in thy kingdom after death; and for all the rest I submit to thy providence; nor presumptuously pretend to dictate to supreme wisdom. Thou art a gracious father and the afflictions thou sendest are.... Here her voice failed her; but by her gestures we could perceive the continued praying, and, having before taken the child in her arms the little angel continued there for fear of disturbing ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... words which they overhear when they listen, and peep, and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... trying to pretend that she was not at all tired after the interminable hot journey on the ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... pretend that all our problems in this whole field of prices will solve themselves by mere Federal ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... suffrage. But these wayes Were not the paths I meant vnto thy praise: For seeliest Ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right; Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're aduance The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance; Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise, And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd to raise. These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore, Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more? But thou art proofe against them, and indeed Aboue ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Shakespeare's Sonnets (which you wrote me of) I cannot pretend to judge of: what he said of the Englishwomen, to whom the Imogens, Desdemonas, etc., were acceptable, seems to me well said. I named it to Aldis Wright in a letter, but what he thinks on the subject—surely no otherwise than Mrs. Kemble—I have not yet heard. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... while preparations are being matured for attacking them from other directions. On the latter point one cannot express an opinion without full knowledge of the circumstances such as we cannot hope to get while communications are cut off. But nobody can pretend to regard our present inaction following investment as anything but a disagreeable necessity, or affect a cheerful endurance of conditions that become more intolerable day after day. Now and then we have hopes that the Boers may risk everything in a general ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... pretend," he said, "that he was there by accident; but I maintain that he was there simply in the capacity of a looker-on. He stands, in fact, precisely in the same position that any member of the general public might ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... A carpenter's apprentice! a mechanic, Whom we have seen at work here in the town Day after day; a stripling without learning, Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God To men grown old in study of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... told you in my other books, the toys could pretend to come to life and move about after dark, when no one was in the store to see them. The toys could also move about by themselves in the day time, if no human eyes watched them. But as there was nearly always some ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... not pretend to have acquired the power it is claimed we may attain to; but I am satisfied that the fault is in me, and not in the Principle. I think I can almost hear you ask, What! do you believe in miracles? I answer unhesitatingly, Yes; I believe in the manifestations of the power of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the smile than the words of his rival, "I am not aware by what right or on what ground you assume towards me the superiority, not only of admonition but reproof. My uncle's preference towards you gives you no authority over me. That preference I do not pretend to share."—He paused for a moment, thinking Aram might hasten to reply; but as the Student walked on with his usual calmness of demeanour, he added, stung by the indifference which he attributed, not altogether without truth, to disdain, "And since you have taken upon ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to me, and in a talk I had with Shuffles just now, he didn't pretend to deny the correctness of ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... here," he said. "But, no matter what happens, pretend you think it's all right. Let anyone who speaks to us think we're foolish—it'll be easier for us to get away then. And keep your eyes wide open, if we stop anywhere, so that you will be sure ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... but I know that she has really been grieving over the approaching loss of her favorite. But of course that was nothing to what she will feel when she finds that no news whatever can be obtained of the creature; and it was hard to play the part and to pretend to know nothing about it, when all the time one knew it was lying dead and ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... selfish, that you would sacrifice me to your whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this cottage is yours, and your precious oil can, and your rotten old bedstead. But, besides that, I can teach you many things. You may be assured I can pay you for more oil than I shall burn to the end of my days, and for more sleeps ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... me, as I knew she would; for it would not be an easy thing to tell her that her father was at the root of my troubles and had behaved like a treacherous hound. Yet sooner or later she must be told, unless I lost heart altogether. I might soften it and soften it—pretend that her father owed a greater duty to the King than to me, and must have thought it right to do as he had done. But she would see through it all: that ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... with betel-leaf at the time of their departure, and there is no shame in accepting this. A very rich man may give a gold mohar (guinea) to each Brahman. Other Brahmans act as astrologers and foretell events. They pretend to be able to produce rain in a drought or stop excessive rainfall when it is injuring the crops. They interpret dreams and omens. In the case of a theft the loser will go to a Brahman astrologer, and after learning the circumstances ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... her from her faint, Mrs. Burton would not let her try to rise. She sent out to Burton, who was reading a novel in the mild forenoon air under the crimson maples, and made him get the carryall and take Cornelia home in it. They thought they would pretend that they were out for a drive, and were merely dropping her at her mother's door; but no ruse was necessary. Mrs. Saunders tranquilly faced the fact; she said she thought the child hadn't been herself since she got back from her school, and she guessed she ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... tell me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important in my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you with criticism in detail) you will confer a lasting obligation on me, and one which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance. I do not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it is possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. But with my high respect for your power in your Art and for your experience as an artist, it would be quite impossible for me to hear a general ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... I don't pretend to relish the prospect. However, the fact remains that we came out here to look for fuel. We found it. We should have reported it the day we found it, and we can't put it ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... autumn before His death, while in attendance on one of the Jerusalem feasts, the leaders are boasting of their direct descent from Abraham, and attacking Jesus. On their part the quarrel of words gets very bitter. They ask sharply, "Who do you pretend to be? Nobody can be as great as Abraham; yet your words suggest that you think you are." Then came from Jesus' lips the words, spoken in all probability very quietly, "Your father Abraham exulted that he might see my day, and ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... the nights when he came home in his fits of frenzy. She never said a word, and did everything he bade her. Yet he would beat her so, my heart felt ready to break. I used to cover up my head and pretend to be asleep, but I cried all night. And then, when he saw her lying on the floor, quite suddenly he would change, and lift her up and kiss her, till she screamed and said he smothered her. Mother ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... father, child, when he knows of your running thus from your lawful guardian, and committing yourself to a brace of raw-boned gallow-glasses that ye scarce know the names of, and for all we know, are bringing us into worse plight than ever they pretend to save us from? Ochone? glad I shall be to see ye safe under O'Neill's roof; for since the day I had charge of ye, I never knew a moment's peace. Are ye not ashamed, hussy? Had ye not lesson enough ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... said he. "Your sons will get to know of my coming here to-day, and will inquire about it. You must pretend that I came to discharge a long-standing debt with you, and that you are several thousands of rupees richer than you thought you were. Keep these bags in your own hands, and on no account let your sons get to them as long as you are alive. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Don't pretend to be stupider than you are. You know perfectly well that every public fund has to be started by somebody with a respectable looking subscription. I put it to you now as a business man, did you ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... It afterwards transpired that Aram had induced Clark to give a great supper, and to invite all the principal people in the town, borrowing all the silver vessels he could from them, on the pretence that he was short. The plot was to pretend that robbers had got in the house and stolen the silver. Clark fell in with this plot, and gave the supper, borrowing all the silver he could. After all was over, they were to meet at Clark's house, put the silver in a sack, and proceed to St. Robert's Cave, which at that time was in ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the country of the many; the few find less and less place for them; and the individual—well, the individual has quite ceased to be recognised. He is recognised as a voter, but he is not recognised as a gentleman—still less as a lady. My daughter and I, of course, can only pretend to constitute a FEW! You know that I have never for a moment remitted my pretensions as an individual, though, among the agitations of pension-life, I have sometimes needed all my energy to uphold them. "Oh, yes, I may be poor," I have had occasion to say, "I may be ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... local and factional ideas and interests. No one could or would recognize the constructive relation between the democratic purpose and the process of national organization and development. The men who would rend the national body in order to protect their property in negro slaves could pretend to be as good democrats as the men who would rend in order to give the negro his liberty. And if either of these hostile factions had obtained its way, the same disastrous result would have been accomplished. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... this place, pretend to attempt it: we have no finished portrait of his character to offer, no formal estimate of his works. It will be enough for us if, in glancing over his life, we can satisfy a simple curiosity, about the fortunes and chief peculiarities of a man connected with us by a bond so kindly as ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... down in the mud at the bottom of the river, and when he heard what the little Jackal said, he thought, "Aha! I'll pretend to be a little crab, and when he puts his paw in, I'll make my dinner of him." So he stuck the black end of his snout above the water ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... word more. Of course I cannot pretend to say how the version published in your issue of September 20, 1914, got copied into the "Old Scrap Book" to which "W. L." refers, but violence to the text and the meter—which you may determine by reference to the authentic copy inclosed herewith—would ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... his head vaguely. "Yes, yes, you are right. I have been neglecting the boy. But pray end as honestly as you began, and do not pretend to be consulting my future when you are really pleading for his. To begin with, I don't want a companion; next, I should not immediately make a companion of Harry by sending him away to school; and, lastly, you know as well as I, that long before ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... close enough to the other personally to at least pretend lack of awe. He grinned and said, "You mean young Josip? Sit down, ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... discoursed of these things. What did they think a fellow was to do with his knees? Didn't they sell tea enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women pretend to really like tea? ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... are!" returned the captive. "I shall only pretend to be hung, of course. See here!" and he fastened together several pieces strong string which had tied some of the other boys' books, piled the latter together, and standing on tiptoe on this very insecure basis, fastened one end of the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... there is fusion of the teeth. Pliny, Bartholinus, and Melanthon pretend to have seen the union of all the teeth, making a continuous mass. In the "Musee de l'ecole dentaire de Paris" there are several milk-teeth, both of the superior and inferior maxilla, which are fused together. Bloch cites a case in which there were ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... I am not the master. It's not what I would have. I have stood between your father and mother for a number of years. I don't pretend to stand between ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... reform? Let me again remind you that this assembly has the power—if it has the will. Is it so constituted at present as to have the will? There is the question! The number of members is a little over six hundred and fifty. Out of this muster, one fifth only represent (or pretend to represent) the trading interests of the country. As for the members charged with the interests of the working class, they are more easily counted still—they are two in number! Then, in heaven's name (you will ask), what interest ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... even found some of the Spectator's Works in a Bog-house, Companion with Pocky-Bills and Fortune-telling Advertisements; but now, as Dr. R——ff said, You shall live; and I dare venture to affirm, no Body shall pretend to use any of your bright Compositions for Bum-Fodder, but those who pay for them. I am not in this like many other Publishers, who make the Works of other People their own, without acknowledging the Piracy they are guilty of, or so much as paying ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... But they which dispose thus of the winds, know not how the Prophet doth assure us, that God keeps them in his Treasures; and that Philosophy, as clear sighted as it is, could never discover their retreat. Howbeit I pretend not hereby to banish Shipwrecks from Romanzes, I approve of them in the works of others, and make use of them in mine; I know likewise, that the Sea is the Scene most proper to make great changes in, ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... she said, "and a fine baby no doubt, as babies go. I don't pretend to be a judge. He is very bald and very flabby, and very fat just at present. Whom does he resemble? Not you, Victor. O, no doubt the distaff side of the house. What do you call him, nurse? Not christened yet? But of course the heir of the house is always christened ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... easily are blasted the reputation of the living and of the dead. "Who, then, was Lorenzo?" exclaim the readers I have mentioned. If we cannot be sure that he was his son, which would have been finely terrible, was he not his nephew, his cousin? These are questions which I do not pretend to answer. For the sake of human nature, I could wish Lorenzo to have been only the creation of the poet's fancy: like the Quintus of Anti Lucretius, "quo nomine," says Polignac, "quemvis Atheum intellige." That this was the case many expressions ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... queen, of which nothing is expressed but the out-lines. There is no intimation from whence the drawing was taken; but by a collateral direction for the colour of the robe, if not copied from a picture, it certainly was from some painted 'window; where existing I do not pretend to say:—in this whole work I have not gone beyond my vouchers. Richard's face is very comely, and corresponds singularly with the portrait of him in the preface to the Royal and Noble Authors. He has ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... gangway to the waiting boat, hold your handkerchief over that Irish mug of yours. Pretend you're blowing your nose. The man in the boat won't recognize you until you're on ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... three times. When this ceremony is over, the child is handed back to its guardian, and three wine-cups are produced on a tray. The sponsor drinks three cups, and presents the cup to the child. When the child has been made to pretend to drink two cups, it receives a present from its sponsor, after which the child is supposed to drink a third time. Dried fish is then brought in, and the baby, having drunk thrice, passes the cup to its sponsor, who drinks thrice. More ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... and stood holding it. "I should be able to say things to you that I can't give myself the pleasure of saying now," he went on. "I could tell you how much I admire you, without seeming to pretend to that which I have no right to pretend to. I should make violent love to you," he added, laughing, "if I thought you were so placed as not to be ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... manner of address, aye, even the same facies or general racial appearance, as have Bretons, some Frenchmen, Cornishmen, Welshmen, and Highlanders—that surely would argue an indwelling racial strength such as not even the Roman or any other world-empire might pretend to. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... that are treated like brutes—sold every year to the lowest bidder, to be kept. They go hungry, and naked, and cold. They are in the hands of a man who has no more blood in his heart than there is in a turnip, and we pretend to be Christians, and go to church, and coddle ourselves with comforts, and pay no more attention to them than we should if their souls had gone where their money went. I tell you it's a sin and a shame, and I know it. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... perhaps Mrs Jamieson had found out that most of the county families were in London, and that those who remained in the country were not so alive as they might have been to the circumstance of Lady Glenmire being in their neighbourhood. Great events spring out of small causes; so I will not pretend to say what induced Mrs Jamieson to alter her determination of excluding the Cranford ladies, and send notes of invitation all round for a small party on the following Tuesday. Mr Mulliner himself brought them round. He WOULD ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... her—she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the tragedy of a farewell visit—if I am going to Les Rochers or to Provence, when I go to pay my last visit I must pretend it is only an ordinary running-in; yet her delicacy does not prevent her from making very indelicate proposals, to suit her own convenience. You remember what one of her commands was, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... at length over the whole mouth. These sloughs are whitish, sometimes distinct, often coalescing, and remain an uncertain time. Cullen. I shall concisely mention four cases of aphtha, but do not pretend to determine whether they were all of them symptomatic or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... contented themselves with considering the pieces of Gozzi as the wild offspring of an extravagant imagination, and with banishing them from the stage. The comedy with masks is held in contempt by all who pretend to any degree of refinement, as if they were too wise for it, and is abandoned to the vulgar, in the Sunday representations at the theatres and in the puppet-shows. Although this contempt must have had an injurious influence ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... a good many years," said Hennessey; "and I've managed to survive it. It's not Chicago, of course; it's just Dublin, and it doesn't pretend to be ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... I must try to love my lessons. I don't think I am really vain, Jesus. It is just because my mother likes me best when I am pretty that I want to be pretty. It's for no other reason, really and truly; but I don't like lessons, particularly spelling lessons. I cannot pretend I do. ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... recognition they can get nothing that their former political subordinates are not willing for them to have. With a hope of getting a few crumbs that may fall from the official table they make wry faces and pretend to be satisfied with what is being done, and with the way in which it is done. They are looked upon with suspicion and their loyalty to the new order of things is a constant source of speculation, conjecture, and doubt. But, for reasons of political ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... said mildly, "you tell as much by what you pretend isn't, as by what you pretend is. ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... said, "you don't know each other, do you?" I called Bogie, who was giving a vivid imitation of a cavalry screen protecting our advance, and made him sit up and pretend to be begging. "Now fix your eyes on the kind lady," I commanded. "Woggles—Bogie: Bogie—Woggles. Two very nice people." Bogie barked, put out his tongue and let the wind blow his left ear inside out. Woggles laughed in that excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... "don't pretend to be stupid. You may very well look at us. Here is a gentleman, a grandson of yours, who has come from ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... fingers reproachfully from the insistent reminder of virtuous intention, and resolutely she turned her back on it and tried to pretend herself to sleep. But every broken section of her treaty had a voice, and above them all clamored the call of Number 9 that it ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Now some pretend we can have it both ways: they call it play or pay. But that expensive approach is unstable. It will mean higher taxes, fewer jobs, and eventually, a system under complete government control. Really, there are only two options. And we can move toward a nationalized system, a system which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hell" of the Apostles' Creed of course meant the passing to the place of disembodied souls—the lower Astral Plane. Even the orthodox teachers do not now pretend that the term "hell" meant the place of torture presided over by the Devil, which theology has invented to frighten people into the churches. "The third day he arose from the dead" (and the corresponding passage in the Nicene Creed) refers to the appearance in the Astral Body—the ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... conclusion that it was my duty to be confirmed. I have felt much more comfortable ever since, I assure you. My wife, you know, is a strict churchwoman. She and you will agree first rate if you come with us. For my part, I don't pretend to be so very exact. I believe in the spirit more than the letter, and our clergyman don't find any fault with me. What say you, will you call on him? If yes, I will open up a little plan which I have this moment concocted for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how did he come prepared to the very dissimilar subjects he proposed? When he resolved to write the history of Charles V., he confesses to Dr. Birch: "I never had access to any copious libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors; but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down as I found them mentioned in any book I happened to read. Your erudition and knowledge ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... let me not grow old. Ah, let Me not grow old, and falter In my delusion, or forget My heart was once an altar. Let me still think myself a star With these my rays about me; Pretend these green perspectives are All ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... tried to ruin my life, and I do not want your kisses. I hope I shall not always feel thus," she added, regretfully, as she saw the guilty flush which mounted to the woman's forehead, "but, just now, I am afraid I do not love you very much, and I will not be hypocritical enough to pretend that ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... have to send Cloudy away awhile, or put her to bed and pretend she is sick every time he comes, or something!" said Leslie one night, after his departure had made them free to express their feelings. "We've tried everything else. He just won't take a hint! What do you say, Cloudy; ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... nearly every instance the passages quoted from various authorities have been retranslated from the Russian. As the time and labor needful for verification would he too great, the sense only of these passages is given here. They do not pretend to be textual.—Translator ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... ones in the Palais du Tribunat, though there are many of a rather inferior order where substantial breakfasts in the French style are provided. Whether Voltaire's idea be just, that coffee clears the brain, and stimulates the genius, I will not pretend to determine: but if this be really the case, it is no wonder that the French are so lively and full of invention; for coffee is an article of which they make an uncommon consumption. Indeed, if Fame may be credited, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hovering about the young artist, were hated secretly as rivals; certain projects of duels, after the American fashion, were profoundly considered. To say that Maria was not a little flattered to see all these admirers turn timidly and respectfully toward her; to pretend that she took off her hat and hung it on one corner of her easel because the heat from the furnace gave her neuralgia and not to show her beautiful hair, would be as much of a lie as a politician's promise. However, the little darling was very serious, or at least tried to be. She worked conscientiously ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... if humouring her friend's vagaries. "But in time you'll want something else; you'll want a husband and children—a life of your own. And then you'll have to be more practical. It's ridiculous to pretend that comfort and money don't make a difference. And if you married a rich man, just think what a lot of good you could do! Westy will be very well off—and I'm sure he'd let you endow hospitals and things. Think how interesting it would be to build ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... and require, and in future will receive, the closest looking after. You, little boys," said the Doctor, turning to the row of abashed culprits, "take a word of warning from me. Do not be silly as well as dunces. Do not think, as long as you know least of any one in the school you can pretend to rule the school. I hope some of you have been led to see to-day you are not as clever as you would like to be. If you try, and work hard, and stick like men to your lessons, you will know more than you do now; and when you do know more you will see that the best way for little ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of his "boys" ceased to be the old joy to him. Something was gone out of the ceremonial. It took all his esprit de corps to pretend to himself as well as to others that he felt no difference. He felt the limpness and dejection in Nelly. He saw that her roses had faded, that she walked without the old joyous spring. He heard her no longer talking to the dogs, trilling to the canary. It was January now, and raw, cold ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... to the Mercat Cross of Ayr head Burgh of the Sheriffdome thereof, and thereat I made due and lawful intimation of the foregoing disposition and assignation to his Majesties lieges, that they might not pretend ignorance thereof by reading the same over in presence of a number of people assembled. Whereupon William Crooks, writer, in Ayr, as attorney for the before designed Gilbert Burns, protested that the same was lawfully intimated, and asked and took instruments in my hands. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Strait was one of the most important articles of my instructions which had been executed only in part; and although I could not pretend to make any regular survey in the Porpoise, it was yet desirable to pass again through the strait, and lay down as many more of its dangers as circumstances would admit; and this being represented to governor King, the following paragraph was made ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... new principles? Would you pretend that it is the right thing that woman should be made common? Lycurgus and certain Greek peoples as well as Tartars and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... in Rousseau's New Heloisa, is distressed by the chagrin which his unbelief inflicts on the piety of his wife. 'He told me that he had been frequently tempted to make a feint of yielding to her arguments, and to pretend, for the sake of calming her sentiments that he did not really hold. But such baseness of soul is too far from him. Without for a moment imposing on Julie, such dissimulation would only have been a new torment to her. The good faith, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... present position. But I will not pretend, Eros, that it is not the source of my agitation. Look at it now, as it flings itself round the stalk, and opens and waves its fans. ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... fleeting and impoverished life of Vauvenargues his friendships were the main adventure. We have mentioned a name which is too frequently the object of malignity on English lips, the name of Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... talked to the servants freely, softly, and easily, yet with a superiority, which suddenly was imposed in the case of the huntsman at the kennels—for the Whipshire hounds were here. Gaston had never ridden to hounds. It was not, however, his cue to pretend knowledge. He was strong enough to admit ignorance. He stood leaning against the door of the kennels, arms folded, eyes half-closed, with the sense of a painter, before the turning bunch of brown and white, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... familiar expectancy than of surprise. Also when the wrapper artist clothes a volume with a picture of an elderly gentleman obviously giving up an attractive young woman of perhaps one-third his years it is idle to pretend that the contents retain all the thrill of the unforeseen. Having said so much, I can let myself go in praise (as how often before) of those qualities of insight and gently sub-acid humour that make a BENSON novel an interlude of pure enjoyment to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... generally bad things. In the abstract they are always so; but about the abstract there is no dispute. Every one dislikes or professes to dislike shams, hypocrisies, phantoms,—by whatever tiresomely reiterated epithet he may be pleased to address things that are not what they pretend to be. Diogenes's toil with the lantern alone distinguished the cynic Greek, in admiration of an honest man. Similarly the genuine zeal of his successor appears in painstaking search; his discrimination in the detection, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... street, one of us would call, "Waiter open a bottle of that extra dry." The waiter would say, "Certainly, sah," take a bottle between his knees, run his finger in his mouth and make it pop, and then pretend to pour out the champagne in glasses, imitating the "fizzing" perfectly. It was the extra dryest champagne that I ever had. But all that foolishness had the desired effect. It convinced the citizens of Carrollton that we were no ordinary soldiers. We were ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... while listening to the details of her family visit. "She certainly lies!... I must pretend to ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... had already happened to him. He prevailed upon M. le Coislin, through the mediation of friends, to spare him this pain, and M. de Coislin had the generosity to do so. He agreed therefore that when Novion called upon him he would pretend to be out, and this was done. The King, when he heard of it, praised very highly ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... as I have told you," she replied. "They will come tonight and kill you while you sleep. Find me pistols and a rifle and ammunition and we will pretend that we go into the jungle to hunt. That you have done often. Perhaps it will arouse suspicion that I accompany you but that we must chance. And be sure my dear Herr Lieutenant to bluster and curse and abuse your servants ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a man with strange melancholies he found there, with a ludicrous decorum for a person of his condition, rising regularly on the hour, it seemed, and retiring early to his chamber like a peasant, keeping no company with the neighbouring lairds because he could not even pretend to emulate their state, passing his days among a score of books in English, some (as the Sieur de Guille) in French, and a Bedel Bible in the Irish letter, and as often walking aimlessly about the shore looking ardently at the hills, and rehearsing to himself native rhymes that ever account ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... woman. That it was stipulated in the convention between himself and Fladge, he should take her unto himself, we are not justified in asserting; nevertheless, that that functionary encouraged the passion rather than prevented their meetings is a fact our little world will not pretend to deny. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... had not then—have I indeed yet found what that cure is? I am at all events now able to write with calmness. If suffering destroyed itself, as some say, mine ought to have disappeared long ago; but to that I can neither pretend ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active "pretence" with its shouts and perspiration, how much better—I held—to lie at ease and pretend to one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But the persistent Harold was ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... gentlemanly letter, saying that of course he trusted that Ralph had informed his father of his engagement; that Mr. Corbet was well known to Mr. Wilkins by reputation, holding the position which he did in Shropshire, but that as Mr. Wilkins did not pretend to be in the same station of life, Mr. Corbet might possibly never even have heard of his name, although in his own county it was well known as having been for generations that of the principal conveyancer and land-agent ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he were estimating what good or evil might result to the world from such a change. Then, with a gesture of displeasure, he said: "A Vignon ministry! The devil! that would hardly be any better. Those young democrats pretend to be virtuous, and a Vignon ministry wouldn't admit Silviane to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... The cure would pretend to look surprised as he relit his pipe. Once the cure asked the factor why he was so indifferent to the welfare of the Crees, who were the real producers, without whose furs there would be no trade, no post, no job for the ruddy-faced factor. The priest was ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... one can pretend that the above principle is a priori or self-evident or a "necessity of thought." Nor is it, in any sense, a premiss of science: it is an empirical generalisation from a number of laws ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... Bruyere is defective as to Propriety of Style and Justness of Expression, I chuse to set down in the Words of one of his [V]Countrymen, a very judicious Writer, and a better Judge in this Matter than I pretend to be. ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... moment it was known every sort of speculation was afloat as to the probable changes this event would make in the Ministry. It was remarked how little anybody appeared to care about the man; whether this indifference reflects most upon the world or upon him, I do not pretend to say. A report was generally circulated that the Duke of Cumberland was dead, which was believed, but turns out ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... author as the best of his productions, was printed by Louis Elzevir, at Amsterdam, and dedicated to the Count de Noailles, the French ambassador at Rome. Various attempts to have it printed in Germany had failed; and, in order to save himself from the malignity of his enemies, he was obliged to pretend that the edition published in Holland had been printed from a MS. entrusted ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... happened to you so that you wouldn't be back here this summer. You know me well enough, Jenny Wren, to know that you can't hurt me with your tongue, sharp as it is, so you may as well save your breath to tell me a few things I want to know. Now if you are as fond of the Old Orchard as you pretend to be, why did ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... and easily approached, and always set equal estimate upon the manhood of a colored man; believing every thing of him, that he expressed in his proclamation to the colored freemen of Louisiana. He did not pretend to justify the holding of slaves, especially on the assumed unjust plea of their incapacity for self-government—he always hooted at the idea; never would become a member of the Colonization Society, always saying "Let the colored people be—they were quiet now, in comparative ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... one of my guard," he urged, "and he could then pretend to be the Caesar escaping through the crypta ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... form". Then there's the other lot of people—a much larger class—who won't give up dogma, but have learnt that bishops, priests, and deacons no longer hold it with the old rigour, and that one must be "broad"; these are clamorous for treatises which pretend to reconcile revelation and science. It's quite pathetic to watch the enthusiasm with which they hail any man who distinguishes himself by this kind of apologetic skill, this pious jugglery. Never mind how washy ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... without meaning any harm.[266] Of course there is the handkerchief (10); but then why should she not give it away?' Then, affecting to renounce this hopeless attempt to disguise his true opinion, he goes on: 'However, I cannot, as your friend, pretend that I really regard her as innocent: the fact is, Cassio boasted to me in so many words of his conquest. [Here he is interrupted by Othello's swoon.] But, after all, why make such a fuss? You share ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... is the history of Philosophy. Masons do not pretend to set themselves up for instructors of the human race: but, though Asia produced and preserved the Mysteries, Masonry has, in Europe and America, given regularity to their doctrines, spirit, and action, and developed the moral advantages which mankind may reap from them. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... was never shaken; for though he did not pretend that in the distant future trade-unionism would be sufficient to redress all social ills, holding it, as Lady Dilke did, to be, not "the gospel of the future, but salvation for the present," he believed that during ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... "We do not pretend to be but, as you see, we are sailors who have done service on board ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... and higher education, with an enrollment of over forty thousand pupils. There are, of course, thousands of our people who are still very ignorant, but that there is vastly more intelligence in the race now than at the close of the war, no one will pretend to deny. The colleges and universities, the high and normal schools, are turning out hundreds of graduates every year. The educational outlook for the race is certainly ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy"—she was sitting up again—"I see you looking down your nose and thinking your mother's a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it's affectation to pretend ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... nobleman who was then known, and is still remembered on Tweedside, as the "Good Duke James." The history of his life, were there any one now to tell it correctly, would be replete with interest. I cannot pretend to authentic knowledge of it; but I know the outline as I heard it when a child—as it used to be recited, like a minstrel's tale, by the gray-haired cottager sitting at his door of a summer evening, or by some faithful ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the ocean! All I pretend is that the author doesn't see—" But a dish was at this point passed over his shoulder, and we had to wait while he ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... ghost, if you please, suh," he said, stiffly. "I don't pretend to have any claim on the object in question—if there really is such a thing. I'm only wanting to know; and I come from South Carolina, ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... he put his feet in the window ledge, "she's as good as I am—if you come down to that! Why shouldn't I, who pretend to be a gentleman,—a Virginia gentleman, I may say, sir,—why shouldn't I be ashamed, disgraced, sir, disgraced in point of fact, that I had to be forced to invite any person in all God's beautiful ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... liking for Mr. Dunne hasn't reached that stage," laughed Clyde, flushing a little, but too wise to pretend density. She had ever found that the best defence against such badinage lay in frankness. "But don't leave me alone with him, Kitty. It might end with his endowing me with his name and worldly goods. 'Mrs. Casey Dunne!' Euphonious, don't you think? ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... a reconciliation. But then the king's eye falls on Madame Henrietta during the comte's absence, and this time Monsieur's jealousy has no recourse. Anne of Austria intervenes, and the king and his sister-in-law decide to pick a young lady with whom the king can pretend to be in love, the better to mask their own affair. They unfortunately select Louise de la Valliere, Raoul's fiancee. While the court is in residence at Fontainebleau, the king unwitting overhears Louise confessing her love for him while chatting ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... celestial phenomenon that had been predicted.—This is the beginning of my Gazette; can only come out twice a week, owing to the arrangement of the Posts. Friday, the day your Majesty crosses into Silesia, I shall spend in prayer and devotional exercises: Astronomers pretend that Mars will that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... spoken to an archdeacon. I have felt the compliment to be very great. The archdeacon came whole from my brain after this fashion;—but in writing about clergymen generally, I had to pick up as I went whatever I might know or pretend to know about them. But my first idea had no reference to clergymen in general. I had been struck by two opposite evils,—or what seemed to me to be evils,—and with an absence of all art-judgment in such matters, I thought that I might be able to expose them, or rather to describe ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... as it were divided among our captors. I with five others was taken into a hut, where we were made to sit upon the ground, and certain herbs were given to us, which the blacks made signs to us to eat. Observing that they themselves did not touch them, I was careful only to pretend to taste my portion; but my companions, being very hungry, rashly ate up all that was set before them, and very soon I had the horror of seeing them become perfectly mad. Though they chattered incessantly I could not ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... old lady returned quickly. "What do you mean? This is horrible," she began, suddenly flinging off her cap and sitting down on Lisa's little bed; "it is more than I can bear! this is the fourth day now that I have been boiling over inside; I can't pretend not to notice any longer; I can't see you getting pale, and fading away, and weeping, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... says Mr. Browne meekly, "but my dear girl, there lies the gist of my argument. You have condemned me. All my devotion has been scouted by you. I don't pretend to be the wreck still that once by your cruelty you made ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... foot of the stairs and covered the retreat of his henchman. Petrak may not have been able to stop and report what he had heard, so Meeker fished for the information from me, ready to confirm the report that the sailing of the vessel was delayed, or pretend that he was about to set ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... thing; what should be the simple purpose of the North is another. That this war, however it may turn, will be disastrous to slavery, is evident from a great variety of considerations. But that we should pretend to fight for the Constitution and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its provisions, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... I will be on the watch for him as soon as he has finished his toilet. [[Walking and looking about.] Oh! here he comes, attended by the Yavana women with bows in their hands, and wearing garlands of wild flowers. What shall I do? I have it. I will pretend to stand in the easiest attitude for resting my bruised and crippled limbs. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson |
