"Pretending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warm, Merle; the cab will not be here for another half hour; what is the use of our pretending that we are not exceedingly unhappy? My dear, you are leaving us with a sore heart, I can see that, and it only makes me love you all the better. Yes, indeed, Merle," for I was clinging to her now and sobbing softly under my breath; "and however things may turn out, whether ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... cause of his distress, took him home; there he gave him a bowl of gold and a lesson which the old man learned and acted. When all the ungrateful sons and daughters had gone to a preaching, the old man went to a green knoll where his grandchildren were at play, and pretending to hide, he turned up a flat hearthstone in an old stance,[86] and went out of sight. He spread out his gold on a big stone in the sunlight, and he muttered, "Ye are mouldy, ye are hoary, ye will be better for the sun." The grandchildren came sneaking over the knoll, and when they had seen ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the intention of Red Shirt to hush the matter up by pretending ignorance, or was it lack of nerve? I was not the only fellow who suffered the consequence of living in a ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... contemptuous intelligence. Indeed Nancy soon drifted out of the room, and Riatt found himself committed to a long tete-a-tete with Laura on the subject of Christine's perfections, and his supposed deceitfulness in pretending indifference. "Oh, you protested too much, my dear Max," Laura insisted with the most irritating exuberance. "I knew when you began to say that she was the last woman in the world you would fall in love with, that your hour had come. ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... near the landing-place. There was no other spot admitting of debarcation on the home side; if we got out on the other, and made for the bridge, we should certainly be seen and cut off. Then it was that I blessed my stars that our elder brother was with us that day,—he might be little good at pretending, but in grappling with the stern facts of life he had no equal. Enjoining silence, he waited till we were but a little way from the fated landing-place, and then brought us in to the opposite bank. We scrambled out noiselessly, and—the gathering ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... possession with a gesture and the Dillon faction, including Whizzer and the giant twins, drew aside together—the father morose; Daws watching Dolph and Rube with a look of much meanness; little Tad behind him, watching Chad, his face screwed up with hate; and Whizzer, pretending not to see Jack, but darting a surreptitious glance at him now and then, for then and there was starting a feud that was to run fiercely on, long after the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... will. I am a pretty good hand myself at stopping my engine, and being unable to start her, especially when my master or mistress wants to get there in a hurry and doesn't consult my convenience. So I was down in a jiffy when his lordship spoke, and there I stood, pretending to swing the handle and to poke about inside the bonnet until the sergeant had turned the corner of the drive, and it was safe ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... for a half-a-crown, and then, pretending still to be unaware that there was any one there, he fumbled for the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... me how he had prepared the will, and how Benton, who was staying with old Mr. Henfrey away in the country, got him to put his signature to it by pretending it to be for the purchase of a house at Eltham, in Kent. The house was, indeed, purchased at Benton's suggestion, but the signature was to a will which Howell's man, Cooke, and a friend of his, named Saunders, afterwards witnessed, and which has now been proved—the will by which ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... jacket, and a little flounced frock of a dark silk figured with blue, that looked slightly fuzzed out; and perhaps she was not at ease in this fine dress, for she stood with her head down, and one hand on the window-sill, pretending to look out of window, but really ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Madame de Berny, which had taken place on July 27th. Balzac was utterly crushed by this blow. He had not seen Madame de Berny for some time, as since the death of her favourite son she had shut herself up completely, pretending to Balzac that she was not very ill, but saying laughingly that she only wanted to see him when she was beautiful and in good health. Now she was dead, and the news came without preparation in the midst of his other troubles. She was half his life, he cried in despair; and writing to Madame ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... said, pretending to groan, as he handed the missives, "if you had a party every day here I think I should be completely worn out!" But his ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... He played with his supper a little, pretending to eat it, then forgot it, and sat looking sadly into the fire. Beth watched him furtively, but once he caught her gazing at ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... came to her mind. They looked so secure. They had passed by too soon. We have always been in a false position, she pondered. Always lying and pretending and keeping up a show—never daring to tell anybody.... Did she want to tell anybody? To come out into the open and be helped and have things arranged for her and do things like other people? No.... No.... "Miriam always likes to be different"—"Society is no boon to those not sociable." ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... shoulder, for the latter would not leave him alone with the horses. He returned finally to grunt out that there was nothing special in sight, except a shifting of those smoke signals to points farther north. Then they lay down again, Hampton smoking, Murphy either sleeping or pretending to sleep. And slowly the shadows of another black night swept down and shut ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... election. Nothing like commerce nowadays! That young Wakem nearly went out of his mind; he always was rather queer; but he's gone abroad again to be out of the way,—quite the best thing for a deformed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Guest,—such nonsense! pretending to be better than other people. Society couldn't be carried on if we inquired into private conduct in that way,—and Christianity tells us to think no evil,—and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... festival, a docile slave of the Emperor, were obliged to acknowledge that it was raining. Madame de Remusat made a very true remark about this; she said with truth that one of the commonest, though one of the absurdest, flatteries of every time, was that of pretending that a sovereign's need of fine weather was sure to bring it. "At the Tuileries," she said, "I noticed the opinion that the Emperor needed only to appoint a review or a hunt for a certain day, and that day would be pleasant. Whenever that happened, a great deal was said about it, while silence ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... his voice suddenly sounding in the profound stillness of his bedroom, but the words themselves. It was his first admission to himself of the vicious truth he had known from the outset and had been pretending to himself that he did not know—the truth that his reform movement was a fraud contrived by Dick Kelly to further the interests of the company of financiers and the gang of politico-criminal thugs who owned the party machinery. It is a nice question ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... and with bisons' horns fastened to their heads. These devils pretended to take no notice of the French, but to die suddenly as they reached the shore, while the rest of the natives gave vent to howlings of despair and consternation. The three devils were pretending to have brought a message from a god to these Hurons of "Canada" that the country up river (Hochelaga) was so full of ice and snow that it would be death for ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... confess that her letter was a stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I could be guilty of such an artifice. I doubt it is not right: it was done in a hurry of spirits. How could I see a man who had so mortally injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest people of the house? Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he found out my meaning on perusal of my letter. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Pretending to reflect upon these things, but in reality watching the blue-jays, who are pecking at the purple berries of the woodbine on the south gable, I approach the house. Polly is picking up chestnuts on the sward, regardless ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... Pretending, at last, to be overcome by these entreaties, Boris consented to raise and lead an army to repel the Tartars, and he promised that should Providence prosper him in this enterprise, he would regard it as an indication that it was the will of Heaven ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... you, my lord, that part of my task was hard. But I contrived to do it by pretending to watch him, and affecting to dodge out of sight every time he saw me. This excited his curiosity, and caused him to conceal himself in order to watch me. When I knew that he had done this, I began to creep towards my lady's apartments, knowing full well ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... straw during the whole of Lent, and took care that Madame Legrand heard of this through the servant, pretending at first to hide it as if it were something wrong. He tried to prevent the maid from going into his room, and when she found out the straw he forbade her to mention it—which naturally made her more anxious to relate her discovery. Such a piece of piety, combined ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... innocence. What a harvest of whirlwind these letters would have brought me had they passed into the hands of Smith or the authorities! Here's where the profits come in, thought I, when a fellow sets up to do a jobbing business in love, as I read on and on through the first pile, pretending to have some difficulty in recognizing Hosley's handwriting. A few off the top of pile No. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... flashed into Cora's mind. That man somehow knew the Blakes. He was pretending to place little vain Mabel with some theatrical company. When he left the Casino it was to show her the bogus message. And Jack must have been somewhere around within hearing distance. Surely things were getting complicated and mysterious in the summer colony. But Cora ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... wage—with the enemy without and the enemy within. Should the Christians gain possession of the sea-coast, it would be ruinous to the kingdom; should he leave Granada to oppose them, his vacant throne might be seized on by his nephew. He made a merit of necessity, and, pretending to yield to the remonstrances of the alfaquis, endeavored to compromise with Boabdil. He expressed deep concern at the daily losses of the country caused by the dissensions of the capital: an opportunity now ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... quietly and uncomplainingly let him drink our wine, and actually give orders for more; that we never objected, in fact, to any of his sayings and doings. What seemed also strange was that the waiter, while yet receiving and executing his orders, was evidently pretending to ignore his presence. But then, as I dare say you know as well as I do, French ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... even highest, magnificently because otherwise, obviously, it wouldn't be there; but she could at the same time take it as a direct source of light upon herself, even though that might present her a little as pretending to equal him. Wanting to know more about a patient than how a patient was constructed or deranged couldn't be, even on the part of the greatest of doctors, anything but some form or other of the desire to let the patient down easily. When that was ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment. Art, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth. And as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her dislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending to wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his excitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges immediately into a very slough of art, and ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs. Chickenstalker's; and presently came back, pretending he had not been able to find them, at ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... would begin again; but not just yet. She "couldn't begin again to order—couldn't make herself begin again. They must not trouble, only be patient with her, please, a little longer—she wasn't, indeed she wasn't, pretending"—a statement which, in its simplicity, cut Carteret to the quick—for "she meant to begin ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... far forgot himself as to make use of a rude local method of showing contempt in pretending to spit upon ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... power. This protection was extended not only over actually ordained clergymen, but all who held any office in connection with ecclesiastical affairs—all students, nay, all who were clerks enough to read and write. Thus the wild borderers, when made prisoners, escaped the halter by pretending to read a verse of the Miserere, which they had learnt by heart in case of such an emergency, and called their neck-verse; and "without benefit of clergy" was added to new laws, to prevent education from exempting ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... dreadfully fussy lady had been only the day before and we had still got her quite in our heads. I—being the lady, you know—knocked at the nursery cupboard door, and when Tom the footman opened it, I stood pretending to look round the ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... Femmes Savantes" ("The Learned Women")—"The Blue-Stockings," we might perhaps freely render the title—we present one scene to indicate the nature of the comedy. There had grown to be a fashion in Paris, among certain women high in social rank, of pretending to the distinction of skill in literary criticism, and of proficiency in science. It was the Hotel de Rambouillet reduced to absurdity. That fashionable affectation Moliere made the subject of his comedy, "The ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... people, who toil through nominal pleasures, dressing by rule and compass, lacing, bracing, patching, painting, plastering, penciling, curling, pinching, and all to go out and be looked at: going from party to party in the middle of the night, pretending not to be sleepy, suppressing each rising yawn, and trying to make the lips smile and the eyes twinkle, and to look animated in spite of fatigue: and all this for no earthly purpose—too old to care about lovers, and without daughters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... under these circumstances? What did you do? You seized that last chance; you turned it to the best account; you made this poor girl buy something from you; you made her sell herself to you for nothing—pretending that your nothing was a something of great value. What term shall we apply to that? To say that you cheated again seems ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... made her laugh, because he blessed by rote—pretending paternal emotion, which he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... all my examples from the calling I was lately pretending to despise. I should like to read you some passages of a letter from a man of another calling, which I think will hearten you. I have the little filmy sheets here. I thought you might like to see the actual letter; it has been a long journey; it has been to the South Pole. It is a letter to me ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... had the mother been so completely seduced into the discussions of the young people. At the very moment when the post-hour arrived she was deeply busied in solving a riddle, which Henrik and Gabriele endeavoured to make only the more intricate by their fun and jokes, whilst they were pretending to ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... been pretending all these years, and that he is actually capable of walking, was disproved three hours ago, when he actually injured himself by trying to throttle me. His legs are incapable of carrying him even one step—much less carrying him to the top ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... especially the doctors, made an infinity of experiments," he insinuates under every form that the commissioners accepted of a very passive line of conduct. Thus, putting aside the most positive declarations, pretending even to forget the name, the titles of the reporter, Servan no longer sees before him but one class of adversaries, regent doctors of the Faculty of Paris, and then he gives full scope to his satirical ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... you?" he answered, as he busied himself in loosening the baggage. "They will pay their score, and all sorts of mad folk come to this country, pretending to be what they are not. Also you sought them—why, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... contrary, I am certain I'm right,' retorted Arkady. 'And what are you pretending for? If it comes to that, haven't you come here ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... time to think about that yet," said Miss Atherton, coming forward from the sofa where she had been sitting; "the winter is hardly begun yet. For my part, I like winter. But," she added, pretending to whisper very secretly to Miss Gertrude, "I don't mind telling you that I get a little stupid on ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... word with you, Mr. Would-Be-Slacker. If you 're thinking of trying to dodge the selective draft by pretending physical disability when you get before the local exemption board, here's a bit of advice: Don't. Since you are Mr. Would-Be-Slacker there is no use preaching patriotism to you. But here is something that will influence you: If you try to dodge the draft and are caught, there is a ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... care what you do." (She was almost sobbing in her anger.) "I don't understand you.... I don't want to.... But you're not going to get away with it ... that cool air of yours ... pretending not to see.... If you are human at all you'll see ... and ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... them the society, and turned them out to shift for themselves. They went away sullen and refractory, as neither contented to go away or to stay; but as there was no remedy they went, pretending to go and choose a place where they should settle themselves, to plant and live by themselves; and some provisions were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... for her, and pretending to be asleep, though she clearly saw him wink one of his eyes. However, she took no notice, but throwing the sack roughly on ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... thought it possible, but I assure you, that this hot little schoolroom has its heroes and heroines as certainly as many another place which might have seemed far more pretending. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... Pretending unconcern, but keeping a watchful eye on what was taking place all round, I stopped here and there to examine the small water-skins hanging in couples or more outside each doorway, and halted in the small square of the village to admire the wretched ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... he did mean it," said Janet, sharply. "If he'd seen you again and again—he'd never have paid it—not as he's pretending to pay it now." ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... from their use as the flower from its stem, so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come. But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances. Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... This justified several visits, until Miss Pillbody could decide positively that it would be impossible for her to take them—an announcement which greatly relieved Overtop, though it temporarily put an end to his calls. Then he hit upon the expedient of pretending to write an essay on Popular Education, for a monthly magazine, and desired to obtain hints from her upon the subject. Miss Pillbody, not displeased with the compliment, though declaring that she had not an idea to give him, gave him a great many good ideas, to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... pretend not to hear this time. "Oh, how do you do, Danny?" said Old Mr. Toad with a very grand air, and pretending to be much surprised. "Sorry I can't stop, but I've been dining with, my friend, Buster Bear, and now I must get home." When he mentioned the name of Buster Bear, he puffed ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... returned with passion; "I waiting for Lord William, who never loved me, who caused me to commit a thousand follies, who broke my heart, and who must now be nearly sixty! No, Leopold; don't humiliate me by pretending to be jealous of Lord William. Could I have told you the history of his stay with us if I still ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... said. "We're in the same business ourselves, only this time we got the hot end of the poker. But he played it low down on me, pretending to be friendly and all that." The two men did not speak again until the carriage drew up at the brown stone mansion, which earlier in the day Sneed would have called his own. Sixteen reporters were waiting for them, but the old man succeeded in escaping ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... in associating the Deity in the government of their realms, in pretending to be His lieutenants and His representatives upon earth, in admitting that they hold their power from Him, must necessarily accept His ministers as rivals or as masters. Is it, then, astonishing ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... request that no prayers be solicited from any person, and that no priest be invited to perform any ceremony whatever, over or after my body. The Priesthood are an order of men, as I believe, falsely assuming to be reverend and divine, pretending to be called of God; the great body of them in all countries have been on the side of power and oppression; the world has been too long cheated by them; the sooner they are unmasked, the better for humanity. As I have heretofore borne my testimony against ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... noblemen. Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing fellow who associates with the gentry—but it's a queer sort of enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you, the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... to it. I must first explain to my readers the occasion of so extraordinary an outburst on the part of the proprietor of the Daily Mail. I have become, with many others, convinced that a great combination of newspapers pretending to speak with many voices, but really serving the private interests of one man, is dangerous to the nation. It was breeding dissension between various social classes at a moment when unity was more necessary than ever; pretending to make and unmake Ministers; weakening ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... sheltered, and hidden by innumerable confederates —big and little native chiefs, customs officers, village officials, and native police, all ready to lie for it, and the mass of the people, through fear, persistently pretending to know nothing about its doings; and this condition of things had existed for generations, and was formidable with the sanctions of age and old custom. If ever there was an unpromising task, if ever there was a hopeless task in the world, surely it was offered here—the task ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... misgivings for the future. This demonstration looked extremely bad after the departure of my thirty-six men with the post to Fatiko. If Kabba Rega and his people were treacherous, they could easily murder the party whom they were pretending to escort as friends. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... passed through a small door into another room, from which she soon returned, bringing some large pieces of willow-bark, which she laid at the feet of the warrior and his guest. While the warrior-beaver was chewing the willow, and the Osage was pretending to do so, they fell to talking over many matters, particularly the wars of the Beavers with the Otters, and their frequent victories over them. He told our father by what means the beavers felled large trees, and moved them to the places where they wished to make dams; ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... indeed, rather difficult work the first few days for Mrs. Guy Flouncey, especially immediately after dinner. It is not soothing to one's self-love to find oneself sitting alone, pretending to look at prints, in a fine drawing-room, full of fine people who don't speak to you. But Mrs. Guy Flouncey, after having taken Coningsby Castle by storm, was not to be driven out of its drawing-room by the tactics even of a Lady St. Julians. Experience convinced her that all that was ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... across the great Snake River plain, which spreads itself out like an Arabian desert, and on which a cavalcade could be descried at a great distance. The scouts soon returned, having proceeded no further than the edge of the plain, pretending that their horses were lame; but it was evident they had feared to venture, with so small a force, into these exposed and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... much terrified as not to be able to comprehend the trick which had been played him. Our travellers, having indulged their mirth, retired once more to their resting-places. The Major found Omrah and Begum both in their corners of the waggon, the former pretending to be fast asleep, while the latter was chattering and swearing ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... up a grievance. Why is a mere child like Violet to be allowed to spend hours with this wonderful professor, pretending to translate or copy, while she, who has actually translated poems for publication, is kept outside of the charmed circle? How delightful it would be to say, "My dear, I am so busy translating with Prof. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had neither seen ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... killed this Antiochus the epitome of Livy informs us, ch. 53, viz. that he corrupted his physicians or surgeons, who falsely pretending to the people that he was perishing with the stone, as they cut him for it, killed him, which exactly agrees ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... he goes to the Indian villages, where there are dark— skinned maidens. I know it; and then he comes back here, pretending to be ill and tired ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... upon her brothers, nodding and laughing, but yet with a sort of stateliness in her rosy little face. As the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and said, "Good-bye," playfully pretending that she was now bound on a distant journey, and might not see her brothers again for nobody could tell ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'If I put myself in a similar position, and make myself decodletee too, will that satisfy you? You see these murderous weapons. Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. They are laid there to impose on the world, and I believe they do. They have imposed on you. Now, you would never think of pretending to a moral quality you do not possess. But, silly, simple man that you are! You can give yourself the airs of wealth, buy horses to conceal your nakedness, and when you are taken upon the standard of your apparent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and adviser, and apart from every human creature, save the spies with which every prison in Ireland abounds—(persons who are kept there at the public expense, and who are put to sleep with such men as Pat Ring; and who, pretending to make a confidant of the fresh prisoner, tell tales of the assaults and murders which, as a trap, they profess to have been concerned in—they urging the new prisoner to confess all, to split on his accomplices, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... really mean it," she said, "why, of course, I should love it. It is no good my pretending that if I had known I should have been better prepared," she continued, "because it really wouldn't have made any difference. ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be difficult to say which of the two young people was the more astonished at this sudden change of affairs. Miss Boom, pretending to think that her parent's reason was affected, treated him accordingly, a state of affairs not without its drawbacks, as Mr. Boom found to his cost Tarrell, on the other hand, attributed it to greed, and being forbidden the house, spent all his time ashore on ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... the knowledge of how to enjoy life, under no necessity of pretending to enjoy a false culture, conforming to no false values and artificialities, these simple-hearted people went their quiet round of daily duties, took a normal amount of pleasure, and in their old-fashioned way, probably lived more than any modern devotee of the Wall Street they knew so ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... pretending that I care for your rascally lives," Moore went on, vindictively. "I'd kill you all this moment if it lay in my power to do so. I'm thinking of my ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... lawfully begotten,' into 'natural-born issue,' conceiving the latter to be a more delicate phrase. But this created a suspicion among the people, that the Queen's favourite, Leicester, intended after her death to set up some bastard of his own, pretending it was born of her, and bred up privately."—Duke of Buckingham On Treasons, cited ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... observed that advertisements set her on fire; and therefore, pretending to emulate her laudable frugality, I forbade the newspaper to be taken any longer; but my precaution is vain; I know not by what fatality, or by what confederacy, every catalogue of genuine furniture comes to her ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... is taking off his puggree and pretending to take a handkerchief out and mopping his ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... and Renie threw herself upon the old man, pretending to caress him, so as to hide the fact of his unconsciousness and to gain ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... for you are really much nicer when you are cuddling so, than when you are running about the world pretending to be pigs and snakes and fireworks, and murdering people with your ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... putting you, Mr. Blaine, on the mysterious attempt at robbery. That would be a joke, wouldn't it, if it wasn't really, in my estimation at least, a covert threat. Why should he, Mallowe, take me into his confidence about an affair which took place in his private office? He did not make the excuse of pretending to retain me as his attorney. I think he was merely warning me that he was suspicious ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he confessed that there were very many among the orthodox Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... years have passed since I fished Loddon and St. Patrick's stream that I will not be tempted to lead anyone astray by pretending to prescribe, advise, or dogmatise. It was not first-rate in the days of my personal knowledge, but it yielded then as now tolerable coarse fishing, pike and perch being the standing dish; and there are deep, slow-going lengths, natural haunts of heavy roach. A brother angler ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... indignantly. "There's no merit in that when a man's been in love with a girl all his life and didn't know it until she'd got good and tired of him! You know I'm for you every time, Sylvia; what's the game in pretending you didn't ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... characteristic speech to the Lancashire deputation, admitted that the fall of the mark had not had "the effect which we all anticipated"—that is, which he and his advisers anticipated—and this in the very act of pretending that the further fall of the mark is a reason for adhering to the course of taxing fabric gloves. All this is the temporising of men who at last realise that the case they have been putting forward will bear no further scrutiny. The idea of systematically regulating an occasional ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... was joined in his enterprise by a certain sorcerer called Kao Hoshang. They sent two Lamas to the Council Board with a message that the Crown Prince was returning to the Capital to take part in certain Buddhist ceremonies, but no credit was given to this. Wangchu then, pretending to have received orders from the Prince, desired an officer called CHANG-Y (perhaps the Chenchu of Polo's narrative) to go in the evening with a guard of honour to receive him. Late at night a message was sent to summon the Ministers, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... rules in English fiction, both as producer and as consumer, craves inevitably a more confident and comforting view of the world than Conrad has to offer. It seeks, not disillusion, but illusion. It protects itself against the disquieting questioning of life by pretending that all the riddles have been solved, that each new sage answers them afresh, that a few simple principles suffice to dispose of them. Women, one may say, have to subscribe to absurdities in order to account for ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... 7 or 8 A.B. can remember various trifling incidents. "One of the games I used to play with my sister," he writes, "consisted in pretending we were 'father and mother' and were relieving ourselves at the w.c. We would squat down in various parts of the room, prolong the simulated act, and talk. I do not remember what our conversation was about, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of mismated life told the wife of Ruskin their mistake, and she told him. But Mrs. Grundy was at the keyhole, ready to tell the world, and so Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin sought to deceive society by pretending to live together. They kept up this appearance for six sorrowful years, and then the lady simplified the situation by packing her trunks and deliberately leaving her genius to his chimeras; her soul doubtless softened by the knowledge that she was bestowing a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... that peculiar handicraft creation of Lord Palmerston, is there to confirm the fact, no less than Russia, than France, than Belgium, and other lands. The League themselves ostentatiously proclaim it, whilst pretending to impugn the retention of the very shadow of a shade of the same principle, for the country, above all others, which has grown to greatness under it—the very breath of whose nostrils it has been, during the struggles of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the river," he said, moving on without waiting for a possible protest. None came: it seemed easier, for the moment, to let herself be led without any conventional feint of resistance. And besides, there was nothing wrong about this—the wrong would have been in sitting up there in the glare, pretending to listen to her husband, a dutiful wife ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Metz, you don't look half bad! Now go and do as well as you look. If Aunt Maria heard me she'd be shocked, but what's the use pretending to be so stupid or innocent as not to appreciate your own good points. Any person with good sight and ordinary sense can tell whether their appearance is pleasing or ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... half-past six, he hovered like a shadow about the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, pretending always to be a hurrying pedestrian and yet fearful lest he should miss his object. He was slightly nervous, too, now that the eventful hour had arrived; but being weak and hungry, his ability to suffer was modified. At last he saw that the actors were beginning ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... started out by visiting from house to house. He determined to visit every town from Jersey City to Lakewood, and he started in at one of the oldest towns and then commenced his search again. He started in by looking in the face of every woman he met, and he also went from house to house, pretending to be acting as agent for a monthly publication. He had the picture of Amalie, and believed that with his marvelous keenness he could detect a resemblance even though forty years had passed since the picture had been taken. He in this way spent one whole week, and believed he ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... congratulated him. "You have got what I most wished to have in the world; but I will not envy you, for envy is a vile passion. You have the good fortune to serve a genial chief. I had to deal with a Harley,—cold, suspicious, ambiguous, pretending to be profound, and always ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... the roaring fire in the huge open chimney, and entertaining certain of the Protestant young gentlemen of my own age . . . with extraordinary accounts of my own adventures and those of the corps, with an occasional anecdote extracted from the story-books of Hickathrift and Wight Wallace, pretending to be conning the lesson all the while." Borrow calls Hickathrift his countryman; the legend is that Tom Hickathrift ridded the Fenland between Lynn and Wisbech, of a monstrous giant, by slaying him with the axle-tree of his cart. ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... smoking and pretending to read a newspaper in a retired corner of the piazza, but from which, nevertheless, he could see whether Miss Burton made ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe |
