"Imposture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... uttered in the simplest manner possible. The strange woman smiled as sweetly as she spoke, and seemed as far from being guilty of a deliberate imposture ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... could have given a thousand reasons—they did then and they do now—why an indulgence should be believed in; when honesty and common sense could give but one reason for thinking otherwise. Cleverness and imposture get on excellently ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... on the honest imposture the better, just now, in presence of Mrs. Harris, and Mrs. Andrews, and me, asked the former, if it was not necessary to have in the house the good woman? This frighted Mrs. B. who turned pale, and said she could not ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... could not be discovered, were attributed to the influence of malignant spirits. To meet these, the medicine-man, or juggler, invested himself with his mysterious character, and endeavored to exorcise the demon by a great variety of ceremonies, a mixture of delusion and imposture. For this purpose, he arrayed himself in a strange and fanciful dress, and on his first arrival began to sing and dance round the sufferer, invoking the spirits with loud cries. When exhausted with these exertions, he attributed ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... enough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, he might have been convincing, but he used the word "they" constantly, and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful Carmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about her gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely contrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... greedily plundering his prize, communicated the discovery to an officer, who immediately set out for the spot. When they had arrived there they continued for a long time to search in vain for their object, and the soldier was just about to be stigmatized with ignorance, credulity or imposture, when suddenly up started the old bird and the treasure was found at ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... shocked to learn that such is not the case, and that your imposture must come to an end. Perhaps you counted on his friendship for you, and thought that even if he did return he would not expose you. In that you were quite right, but you did not count on me. Sidney Ormond is at this moment in ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... archbishop, she was in all likelihood deep in lying before she actually knew it. Fanaticism and deceit are strangely near relations to each other, and the deceiver is often the person first deceived, and the last who is aware of the imposture. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... from hearing one literal version during his whole sojourn in the Highlands. Sir Walter Scott wished that somebody might have the manliness to recover Highland poetry from the mystification of paraphrase or imposture, and to present it genuine to the English reader. In that spirit we promise to execute our task; and we shall rejoice if even a very moderate degree of success should attend our endeavours to obtain for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was the issue of an Arabian princess, and that his father was a salamander; while others, more reasonable, affirmed him to be the son of a Portuguese Jew established at Bourdeaux. He first carried on his imposture in Germany, where he made considerable sums by selling an elixir to arrest the progress of old age. The Marechal de Belle-Isle purchased a dose of it; and was so captivated with the wit, learning, and good manners of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... subversive of the exclusive Deity and adorability of the one God of heaven and earth, or any seduction to a breach of God's commandments, he was to be put to death at once, all other proof of his guilt and imposture being superfluous. [10] So St. Paul. If any man preach another Gospel, though he should work all miracles, though he had the appearance and evinced the superhuman powers of an angel from heaven—he was at once, in contempt ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the air of an experiment, to ascertain whether I were really a commander in the British navy; and had the invitation been accepted without explanation or a change of treatment, an inference might have been drawn that the charge of imposture was well founded; but in any case, having been grossly insulted both in my public and private character, I could not debase the situation I had the honour to hold by a tacit submission. When the aide-de-camp returned from ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... of his situation rushed upon his spirit. He shrank from the rude scenes that opened before him,—from the mocker's sneer and the ruler's scourge; from the glare of impatient revenge, and the weeping eyes of helpless friendship; from the insignia of imposture and of shame; and from the protracted, thirsty, torturing death. He shrank from these,—he shrank from the rupture of tender ties,—he shrank from the parting with deeply-loved friends,—his soul was overburdened, his spirit ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, in his Journey to the Hebrides, lashes Macpherson for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original. Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: "I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian ... I thought ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... classes I may be thought to have taken a hypercritical view of things; I may even offend their susceptibilities—if I adulated them I should fail to chronicle the truth, and my work would be a deliberate imposture. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... glorious life that had ended in the shame and cruelty of the Cross, when suddenly, like a cloud swooping darkly across the heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: "Is it all true? Was Christ indeed Divine—or is it all a myth, a fable—an imposture?" Unconsciously I struck a discordant chord on the organ—a faint tremor shook me, and I ceased playing. An uncomfortable sensation came over me, as of some invisible presence being near me and approaching softly, slowly, yet always more closely; and I hurriedly ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... laboratory of the Creator, and found him at the task of fashioning with invisible hands the dust of the earth and the viewless air into forms of life. I had never seen plants actually grow before and had deemed the Indian juggler's trick an imposture. But here I saw them lifting their heads, putting forth their buds, and opening their flowers by movements which the eye could follow. I confess that I fairly listened ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... literature—I said: "unfortunately for the reputation of Cotton Mather, Hutchinson has preserved the Address of the Ministers, entire." Regarding the document published by Mather in the light of a historical imposture, I expressed satisfaction, that its exposure was provided in a work, sure of circulation and preservation, equally, to say the least, with the Life of Phips or the Magnalia. The Reviewer, availing himself of the opportunity, hereupon pronounces me ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... Imposture too commonly rules in republics; they seem to be ever in their minority; their guardians are self-appointed; and the unjust thrive better than the just. The Despot, like the night-lion roaring, drowns all the clamor of tongues at once, and speech, the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... not the act of one party. The thing had become inevitable when the prince was born. It was delayed until the issue was decided between the crown and the Church. The associates assured William that the Prince of Wales was an imposture, and that he must come, in order to secure his own birthright, as well as the liberties of England. William of Orange had not intrigued that the crown should pass to his wife before the time, and had given his uncle ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... without his Hat; he saunter'd about for a Minute or two, and then found an Opportunity to slip away, leaving the Reck'ning to be paid by his Companions above stairs. The Master of the House had the more reason to be shock'd when he heard of the Imposture, because he had not only paid the three Guineas for the Steeple-Musick, but had lent him ten Guineas more out of his Pocket for pretended Exigencies. The Gentlemen could not afterwards pass through the Hall without being insulted; one unlucky Rogue bawling ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... personal welfare, and for no other reason. He had yielded to the overwhelming petitions of his friends, indeed, not without considerable pain. And then Jimmy read something that for the first time caused him to appreciate the possible grave consequences of his ebullient imposture: ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... any effort on the part of the orang betuah: and that hundreds of instances of the like nature, where the invulnerable man did not possess the smallest natural means of opposition, had come within their observation. An English officer, with more courage and humour than discretion, exposed one imposture of this kind. A man having boasted in his presence that he was endowed with this supernatural privilege, the officer took an opportunity of applying to his arm the point of a sword and drew the blood, to the no little diversion of the spectators, and mortification of the pretender ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... death, and brought forth in the Plaza, or public square of Santiago, in order to be shot. Benavides, though terribly wounded by the discharge, was not killed; but he had the presence of mind to counterfeit death in so perfect a manner, that the imposture was not suspected. The bodies of the traitors were not buried, but dragged away to a distance, and there left to be devoured by the gallinazos or vultures. The serjeant who had the superintendence of this part of the ceremony, had a personal hatred to Benavides, on account of that person having ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... had their suspicions aroused; and both, as evidently, were men of courage, not to be blinded by superstitious panic. Is it a probable thing that they would destroy an old and valued family mansion, without having exhausted every conceivable expedient to detect imposture? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... not attempt to deny or palliate this imposture, but he made a fairly adequate reply to other counts of the indictment, and promised a judicial inquiry into the casualties enumerated by Mr. BILLING. The revelation that he himself has a son in the Flying Corps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... before 1882. In the ten years that have transpired since that time, it has been seen and described at eight or ten observatories. Nevertheless, some still deny that these phenomena are real, and tax with illusion (or even imposture) those who declare that they have ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... "admirable," &c. The Literary World does not, we believe, pretend to be an authority in such matters, but that a "historical society" should receive such a gross imposition is somewhat surprising. The letter is as much a forgery and imposture as the "exceedingly interesting letter from General Washington to his wife," published a few months ago in the Day Book. Without going into any further statement or argument on this subject, it may be sufficient to remark, that Washington was not within two hundred miles of Cambridge on ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... attended Madame Cheron in all her visits, was sometimes entertained, but oftener wearied. She was struck by the apparent talents and knowledge displayed in the various conversations she listened to, and it was long before she discovered, that the talents were for the most part those of imposture, and the knowledge nothing more than was necessary to assist them. But what deceived her most, was the air of constant gaiety and good spirits, displayed by every visitor, and which she supposed to arise from content as constant, and from benevolence as ready. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... holes bored at the bottom stopped only by wax to keep it in, a seeming miracle extinguished the flames, as soon as approached by Canopus; whose triumph was of course proclaimed, and he respected accordingly. The figure was a monkey, whose sitting attitude favoured the imposture: our antiquaries tell us the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... now rapidly losing its hold on the consciences of the multitude. The high places of idolatrous worship often exercised a most demoralising influence, as their rites were not unfrequently a wretched mixture of brutality, levity, imposture, and prostitution. Philosophy had completely failed to ameliorate the condition of man. The vices of some of its most distinguished professors were notorious; its votaries were pretty generally regarded as a class of scheming speculators; and they enjoyed neither the confidence nor the respect of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... who, having contracted to take them back that night to Naples, were now trying to fly their bargain and remain at Capri till the morrow. The Danes beat them, however, and then sat down to dinner, and to long stories of the imposture and villany of the Italians. One of them chiefly bewailed himself that the day before, having unwisely eaten a dozen oysters without agreeing first with the oyster-man upon the price, he had been ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... collect alms throughout the kingdom for the purpose of building a chapel on the hill where the Earl was beheaded, and praying all prelates and authorities to give him aid and heed. This sanction gave rise to imposture; and in December a proclamation appeared, ordering the arrest and punishment of unauthorised persons collecting money under this pretence, and taking it for their ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... painted for amusement, or like swindlers endeavouring to pass themselves off for well-known and respectable members of society. What is the meaning of this strange travestie? Does Nature descend to imposture or masquerade? We answer, she does not. Her principles are too severe. There is a use in every detail of her handiwork. The resemblance of one animal to another is of exactly the same essential nature as the resemblance to a leaf, or to bark, or to ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... revolted at the flimsy, contemptible sham; he bitterly resented the innuendoes against the piety of the Sudleys, not that he cared for piety, save in the abstract; he was daunted by the brutal ignorance, the doltish inefficiency of the imposture that had so readily accepted his patently false answers to the simple questions. He had a sort of crude reverence for education, and it had seemed to him a very serious matter to take such liberties with the multiplication table. He ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... peerage is a valueless title to natural gifts, except so far as it may have been furbished up by a succession of wise intermarriages.... I cannot think of any claim to respect, put forward in modern days, that is so entirely an imposture as that made by a peer on the ground of descent, who has neither been nobly educated, nor has any eminent ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... "in very little of what I have seen. But that little is quite sufficient to dispose of the theory of pure imposture. On the other hand, there is nothing spiritual and nothing very human in the pranks played by or in the presence of the mediums. They remind one more of the feats of traditionary goblins; mischievous, noisy, untrustworthy; insensible to ridicule, apparently ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... a few moments, and then raised her abashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A single glance satisfied her that he knew nothing of the imposture that had been practised upon her,—knew nothing of the trap into which her vanity and self-will ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... "Kingdom Believers" will be from the ever multiplying "False Christs." Each new imposter parading some new notion, but each in turn, either publicly slain by order of the "False Prophet," or mysteriously disappearing. The only likeness of imposture in them all, existed in their claim to be the Saviour who should deliver from the awful days of tribulation which the would-be godly were ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... wanted to give sincere and clear-thinking writers encouragement and opportunity, to improve the critical tribunal and make it independent of advertising interests, so that there would be a readier welcome for luminous thinking and writing and a quicker explosion of intellectual imposture. We sought to provide guides and intelligencers to contemporary thought. We had already set up or subsidized or otherwise aided a certain number of magazines and periodicals that seemed to us independent-spirited, out-spoken and well handled, but ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... what the sculptor's work properly consists, and thus render less pernicious the representations of those who, either from thoughtlessness or malice, dwelling upon the fact that assistance has been employed in certain cases, without defining the limits of that assistance, imply the guilt of imposture in the artists, and deprive them, and more particularly women-artists, of the credit to which, by talent or conscientious labor, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... lawn about her, on the other, which would you be for?' 'For both, to be sure,' cried the chaplain.—'Right Frank,' cried the 'Squire; 'for may this glass suffocate me but a fine girl is worth all the priestcraft in the creation. For what are tythes and tricks but an imposition, all a confounded imposture, and I can prove it.'—'I wish you would,' cried my son Moses, 'and I think,' continued he, 'that I should be able to answer you.'—'Very well, Sir,' cried the 'Squire, who immediately smoaked him,' and winking on the rest ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... Strauss, when, in the days of our own youth, he placed the myth and the legend, with their unconscious origin and growth, not alone in opposition to the idea of Deity intervening to interrupt established order, but also to that of imposture and conscious fraud; Otfr. Mueller, when he proved that Greek mythology, far from containing moral abstractions or historical facts, is the involuntary personification of surrounding nature, subsequently developed by imagination; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... enabled them to form happy matrimonial connections; in short, doing good seems to have been one of the most ardent passions of his soul. In three memorable instances he shewed his hatred of cruelty and injustice, and unmasked triumphantly ecclesiastical imposture and fanaticism. He has been reproached with vanity, but surely that may be pardoned in a man who received the hommage of the whole literary world, who was considered as an oracle, and whose every sentence was recorded; whose talent was so universal, that he excelled in every ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... which at first so many were deluded and disarmed. They flatter themselves that the extreme misery brought upon the people by their folly will at last open the eyes of the multitude, if not of their leaders. Much the contrary, I fear. As to the leaders in this system of imposture,—you know that cheats and deceivers never can repent. The fraudulent have no resource but in fraud. They have no other goods in their magazine. They have no virtue or wisdom in their minds, to which, in a disappointment concerning the profitable effects of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ascribes all such phenomena to imposture or delusion; and, inasmuch as these supposed miracles of casting out of evil spirits are associated with other miracles of Christ in the same narrative, he uses the odium with which this class of miracles is in this day regarded, for the purpose ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... had never been to explain Shakspeare! and that he was even conscious he had frequently imputed to the poet meanings which he never thought! Our critic's great object was to display his own learning! Warburton wrote for Warburton, and not for Shakspeare! and the literary imposture almost rivals the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... lower regions for this purpose, where they force the spirits to communicate the desired information. The superstitious reverence in which these wizards are held, and a considerable degree of ingenuity in their mode of performing their mummery, prevent the detection of the imposture, and secure implicit confidence in these absurd oracles. Some account of their ideas repecting death, and of their belief in a future state of existence, has already been introduced in the course of the foregoing pages, in ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... forgotten God, ye have quitted the ways of God, or ye would not have been unhappy. It is not according to the laws of Fact that ye have lived and guided yourselves, but according to the laws of Delusion, Imposture, and wilful and unwilful Mistake of Fact; behold therefore the Unveracity is worn out; Nature's long-suffering with you is exhausted; and ye ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... so by breath is bard, It is not so with him that all things knowes As 'tis with vs, that square our guesse by showes: But most it is presumption in vs, when The help of heauen we count the act of men. Deare sir, to my endeauors giue consent, Of heauen, not me, make an experiment. I am not an Imposture, that proclaime My selfe against the leuill of mine aime, But know I thinke, and thinke I know most sure, My Art is not past ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... his fortunes, was his hypocrisy; so much so, that South—a most acute observer of mankind, and who had been educated under the Commonwealth and Protectorate—in his sermon on "Worldly Wisdom," adduces Cromwell as an instance of "habitual dissimulation and imposture." Oliver, Mr. Macaulay tells us, modelled his army on the principle of composing it of men fearing God, and zealous for public liberty, and in the very next page he is ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... transfixed with surprise, and a-tremble between vanity and doubt, desire and trepidation. He bent his beaded eyes close over the sweet thing and read its first page again and again. It might—it might be an imposture; but it had come in a Rosemont envelope, and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... said the maiden, interrupting him, "say not thus to me —others thou mayst deceive, but me thou canst not—There has been that in me from the earliest youth, which fraud flies from, and which imposture cannot deceive. For what fate has given me such a power I know not; but bred an ignorant maiden, in this sequestered valley, mine eyes can too often see what man would most willingly hide—I can judge of the dark purpose, though it is hid ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... over the five hundred crowns I wrench from him; but he has not yet done with me, and I will make him pay in a different money his imposture about me to ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... convinced that they belong to the previous day. One o'clock may be coaxed or bribed easily enough into winking at a pretence that it is only a corollary of twelve; two o'clock protests against it audibly, and every quarter-chime endorses its claim to be to-morrow; three o'clock makes short work of an imposture only a depraved effrontery can endeavour to foist upon it. Rosalind was aware of her unfitness to sit up all night—all this next night—but nursed the pretext that it had not come, and that it was still to-day, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... not believe it; 'tis imposture; Improbable they should presume to attempt, Impossible they should effect ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... therefore be returned not only in public benefactions to the race, but in private kindnesses. Your wife, your children, your friends stand nearest to you, and should be helped the first. There at least there can be little imposture, for you know their necessities of your own knowledge. And consider, if all the world did as you did, and according to their means extended help in the circle of their affections, there would be no more crying want in times of plenty and no more cold, mechanical charity given ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than common force. Such, for example, were the periods of the Renaissance and the Reformation, when changes in the intellectual condition of Europe produced a widespread conviction of the vast amount of imposture and delusion which had received the sanction of a Church that claimed to be infallible, the result being in some countries a silent evanescence of all religious belief among the educated class, even including a large number of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... revulsion here; for if there are two things on earth that John Bull hates, they are an abstract proposition and the pope.' 'You need not be afraid, I think,' he told Lord Aberdeen (December 1, 1851), 'of Mazzinism from me, still less of Kossuth-ism, which means the other plus imposture, Lord Palmerston, and his nationalities.' But then in 1854 Manin came to England, and failed to persuade even Lord Palmerston that the unity of Italy was the only clue to her freedom.[252] The Russian war ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the cavern of Ataruipe. Doubtless you think me pitiably benighted, and possibly I might find more favor in your sight if I affected a prodigious amount of literary enthusiasm, and boundless admiration for scholarship and erudition; but that would prove too troublesome an imposture,—for I am constitutionally, habitually, and ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... circumcise us, too, so we will be taken for Jews, pierce our ears so we will look like Arabs, chalk our faces so that Gaul will take us for her own sons; as if color alone could change one's figure! As if many other details did not require consideration if a passable imposture is to result! Even granting that the stained face can keep its color for some time, suppose that not a drop of water should spot the skin, suppose that the garment did not stick to the ink, as it often ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... nor an exteriour representation of authority and grandeur, but which is founded on more noble and immoveable principles, those of esteem and respect, arising from a sentiment of true greatness and of generosity. Be assured that when contemptible discord, with its odious attendants, artifice and imposture, could effectuate nothing, absolutely nothing, at the moment when the present war broke out, to prejudice in the least the fidelity of the Citizens of the Amstel, or to shake them in the observance of their duties; the inconveniencies and the evils that a war naturally and necessarily draws ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... economic measure came to the relief of a nation in which 'one person in every seven was a pauper.' The new law limited relief to destitution, prohibited out-door help to the able-bodied, beyond medical aid, instituted tests to detect imposture, confederated parishes into unions, and substituted large district workhouses for merely local shelters for the destitute. In five years the poor rate was reduced by three millions, and the population, set free by the new interpretation of 'Settlement,' were able, in their ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... principle of disguise, the Jesuit was suffered to assume the tenets of Protestantism, and even to act as a Protestant pastor, for the purpose of more complete deception. The good of the church was the plea which purified all imposture; the power of Rome was the principle on which this tremendous system of artifice was constructed; and the reduction of all modes of human opinion to the one sullen superstition of the Vatican, was the triumph for which those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... knowledge of God and its account of God entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue about God; it relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe and reverence that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as one tells of a friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a beautiful thing found and picked up by ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... the end? Is that conceivable? A crime may be never so skilfully planned—when the eyes of deep wisdom rest on it, it becomes like a trivial show that we offer to very small children at nightfall: some magic-lantern performance, whose tawdry imposture a last gleam of sunshine lays bare. Can you conceive Jesus Christ—nay, any wise man you have happened to meet—in the midst of the unnatural gloom that overhung Elsinore? Is not every action of Hamlet induced by a fanatical impulse, which tells him that duty consists ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... phenomena, and especially those of a disastrous and terrible nature, are attributed to the direct action of these evil spirits, and are considered as plain manifestations of their displeasure. It is claimed by many that the whole system of Shamanism is a gigantic imposture practised by a few cunning priests upon the easy credulity of superstitious natives. This I am sure is a prejudiced view. No one who has ever lived with the Siberian natives, studied their character, subjected himself to the same influences that surround them, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the darkness of hell. Wherefore it is well done in all orders of men, but especial in the order of prelates, to put a difference between children of light and children of the world, because great deceit ariseth in taking the one for the other. Great imposture cometh, when they that the common people take for the light, go about to take the sun and the light out of the world. But these be easily known, both by the diversity of minds, and also their armours. For whereas the children of light are thus minded, ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... "method in his madness"—to support the deception during a long period. The anachronism of his character in a tale—the data of which is nearly a century back—will, perhaps, be overlooked, when it is considered of how much value, in the illustration of "wise saws," are "modern instances." Imposture and credulity are of all ages; and the Courtenays of the nineteenth are rivalled by the Tofts and Andres of the eighteenth century. The subjoined account of the soi-disant SIR WILLIAM COURTENAY is extracted from ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... people. Its force built the pyramids, and enshrined whole generations of Egypt's embalmed population in richly adorned sepulchres of everlasting rock. Its substance of esoteric knowledge and faith, in its form of exoteric imposture and exhibition, gave it vitality and endurance long. In the vortex of change and decay it sank at last. And now it is only after its secrets have been buried for thirty centuries that the exploring genius of modern times has brought its hidden hieroglyphics to light, and taught ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... fifteenth century an age of imposture, shown in the invention of printing. II. The curious discovery of the first six books of the Annals. III. The blunders it has in common with all forged documents. IV. The Twelve Tables. V. The Speech of Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals. VI. Brutus creating the second class of nobility. ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... completion of the preceding scheme, his high breeding and his delicately sensitive taste almost always came to his aid at times when he was left without any other protection; and the efficacy of these qualities in keeping a man out of harm’s way is really immense. In all baseness and imposture there is a coarse, vulgar spirit, which, however artfully concealed for a time, must sooner or later show itself in some little circumstance sufficiently plain to occasion an instant jar upon the minds of those whose taste ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... have time to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to imposture." ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sometimes Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hera). Here the patient is expected to sleep over night in the temple, and the god visits him in a dream, and reveals a course of treatment which will lead to recovery. Probably there is a good deal of sham and imposture about the process. The canny priests know more than they care to tell about how the patient is worked into an excitable, imaginative state; and of the very human means employed to produce a satisfactory and informing dream.[] Nevertheless it is a great deal to convince the patient that he is ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... well indeed pause—at least I know I did—to shake ourselves, and ask whereabouts we are. Is this a gigantic imposture? or are the Witch of Endor and the Cumaean Sibyl revived in the unromantic neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, and under circumstances that altogether remove them from the category of the miraculous? England will take a good deal of convincing ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... ungracious distrust of him. Not only had she wronged Grace Roseberry—she had wronged Julian Gray. Could she deceive him as she had deceived the others? Could she meanly accept that implicit trust, that devoted belief? Never had she felt the base submissions which her own imposture condemned her to undergo with a loathing of them so overwhelming as the loathing that she felt now. In horror of herself, she turned her head aside in silence and shrank from meeting his eye. He noticed the movement, placing his own interpretation on it. Advancing closer, he ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... the slight put upon their own connoisseurship. The art of imitating the old works in question has been brought to such a pitch of perfection that it needs a very special education of the eye and large practice to detect the imposture. A circumstance occurred a few years ago at Florence which curiously illustrates both the facts I have mentioned—the frequent innocence of the producer of the imitation and the extreme difficulty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... doors, and left the public to be losers by their nefarious schemes. I had the misfortune myself, in my ignorance, to take from a dishonest store-keeper a ten-dollar bill of this spurious currency, and did not detect the imposture until I offered it to the captain of the boat I had engaged a passage in to La Belle Riviere, as the Ohio is called. I must mention, however, that I took it previously to the interview with the gentleman I have adverted to, and actually, without ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... to the travelling shows. They charged 2 sen. We were shown a mermaid, peepshows, a snake, an unhappy bear, three doleful monkeys and some stuffed animals which may or may not have had in life an uncommon number of legs. There was a barefaced imposture by a young and pretty show-woman who insisted that two marmots in her lap were the offspring of a girl. "Look," she cried, "at two sisters, the daughters of one mother. See their hands!" And she held up their paws. She rounded off the fraud by feeding ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... which each new lure was potent to excite, despite the quicksands of baseless hope that had whelmed its many precursors. Still, she expected only another instance of deliberate and brazen fraud, or crafty and sleek imposture, or, worse still, honest mistake. The little suit-case, packed with all that the child might need, which had journeyed through so many vicissitudes, so many thousand miles, was once more in her hand as she took the train. She never ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 67, et seq. (Lima, 1865).] That this spirit of civic pride in that same community may have actuated the fabrication of the Verrazzano letter is not improbable; but in justice to the memory of Verrazzano it must be added, there is no reason to believe that he was in any way accessory to the imposture. ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... information to himself and of no benefit to any one else. If George should be discovered by the king, Lilly could honestly disclaim knowing him. If affairs turned to our desire, the Doctor could lose nothing by his ignorance whether pretended or real. So I doubt not he thanked us for the imposture, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... Panchalas. Then, O tiger among kings, those nurses of the Dasarnakas country were filled with great grief and sent emissaries unto their king. And those emissaries represented unto the king of the Dasarnakas everything about the imposture that had taken place. And, thereupon, the king of the Dasarnakas was filled with wrath. Indeed, O bull of the Bharata race, Hiranyavarman, hearing the news after the expiry of a few days was much afflicted with wrath. The ruler of the Dasarnakas then, filled with fierce wrath, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... been notorious among the anti-social conspirators, the Illuminati: most of them are knaves of abilities, who have usurped the easy direction of ignorance, or forced themselves as guides on weakness or folly, which bow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity, and hail their sophistry and imposture as inspiration. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Imposture is hereditary; and as soon as the son of a conjuror enters his twentieth year, his right ear is pierced, he is required to wear a ring, and he is trusted with the secrets of ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... than the remaining portion of the journal printed in the proceedings of the investigating committee, is itself strong circumstantial proof of the imposture underlying the whole transaction. Many sections of the completed constitution are not even mentioned in the journal; it does not contain the submission clause of the schedule, and the authenticity of the document rests upon the signature ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... sensation at Naples in that day, and the narration of which first induced me to collect the materials of this history, which the reader will perceive, as it advances, is altogether different in its nature, its agencies, and its aims from those tales of external terror, whether derived from ingenious imposture or supernatural mystery, that have given life to French melodrama ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all, the doctrine of transubstantiation was fortified by the circulation of stories of wonders such as that which took place at Poitiers, in 1516, when the consecrated wine, spilled by a crazy man, from white instantly became red.[112] At other times imposture was resorted to in support of such profitable beliefs as the existence of purgatorial fires, or to inculcate the advantage accruing from masses for the souls of the dead. The "ghost of Orleans" has become ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... whether the oracles, mentioned in profane history, should be ascribed to the operations of daemons, or only to the wickedness and imposture of men. Van dale, a Dutch physician, has maintained the latter opinion, and Monsieur Fontenelle, when a young man, adopted it, in the persuasion (to use his own words) that it was indifferent, as to the truth of Christianity, whether the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... you see his pretensions in so wrong a light; but if you think there is any imposture in the case, go with us, and be a witness of all ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... to the gravity of him who took the trouble of getting it up. With respect to his motive, the agreeable month at his country-house sufficiently explains it; nor could his conscience have felt much scruples about an imposture, which, so far from being attended with any disagreeable consequences, furnished the lady with an incident of romance, of which she was but too happy to avail herself, and procured for him the presence of such a distinguished ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... resolved that her stepdaughter's obtrusive womanhood should remain in obscurity a very much longer time, under pretence that Jacqueline was still a child. She was a child, at any rate! The portrait was a lie! an imposture! an ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... not at indiscriminate alms-giving, but at "the encouragement of industry and frugality among the poor by visits at their own habitations; the relief of real distress, whether arising from sickness or other causes, and the prevention of mendicity and imposture." Visitors were appointed, who went from house to house among the poor, encouraging habits of thrift and cleanliness; whilst a savings bank received deposits, and trained these same poor to save ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... seething Chaudiere, they came at length to Allumette Island. Here the old Algonquin chief, Tessouat, received them; but he presently convinced Champlain that there was no such northern route as he looked to find. Whereupon Vignau confessed his imposture, and Champlain ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... servants, that Cromwell contrived and wrought out the deception of March, 1655, and obtained in the bloodshed that it produced, the essential result that he desired. And then, to give validity to his imposture, to grace it with the Divine sanction, he ascribed his course of acted and uttered lies, and the cruelty and misery they had engendered, to ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... it was possible to see within the figure of a woman richly dressed seated in a chair of cedar and this was believed to be the mummy of the Augusta Galla Placidia. However, we hear nothing of it before the fourteenth century, and Dr. Ricci suggests that it may have been an imposture of about that time. It is possible, but perhaps unlikely, for the Augusta was not a saint, and what reason could men have in the thirteenth century, when the very meaning of the empire was about to be forgotten, for such an imposture? However ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humourous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness—your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... to the admiring comments of the new-comers. I think it should be added, in extenuation of what would otherwise seem a gross imposture, that his granddaughter was really ignorant of Crely's exact age—that he, being ever a gasconading fellow, was quite ready to personate that certain Joseph Crely whose name appears on the baptismal records of the Church ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... his fraud and our own faith o'ercome, 190 A feigned tear destroys us, against whom Tydides nor Achilles could prevail, Nor ten years' conflict, nor a thousand sail. This seconded by a most sad portent, Which credit to the first imposture lent; Laocoon, Neptune's priest, upon the day Devoted to that god, a bull did slay; When two prodigious serpents were descried, Whose circling strokes the sea's smooth face divide; Above the deep they raise their scaly crests, 200 And stem the flood with their erected breasts, Their winding ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... fraudulent career. We started to the supper room, and met two other men whom I had known elsewhere. How odd and unfair it is: wicked impostors go around lecturing under my NOM DE GUERRE and nobody suspects them; but when an honest man attempts an imposture, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she had been reared so tenderly, so delicately, in an atmosphere of honour and refinement, if destined to fall at last into the hands of that coarse vicious man? The audacity of his claim almost overwhelmed her faint hope that some infamous imposture was being practised at her expense; and the severity of the shock, the intensity of her mental suffering, rendered her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... John Carter in 1787, he having had much trouble in getting permission to study the original for that purpose! He took letters of introduction to the Corporation, but they appeared to suspect him of some imposture; at first they refused to entertain his proposal at all, but after several applications, he was allowed to have the original before him, in a closed room, in company with a person appointed by them but at his expense, to watch him and see that ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... Eunus would be questioned about his kingdom, and each of the guests would bespeak his patronage and clemency. His answers as to his future conduct were given without reserve. He promised a policy of mercy, and the quaint earnestness of the imposture would dissolve the company in laughter. Portions of food were handed him from the board, and the donors would ask that he should remember their kindness when he came into his kingdom. These were requests which Eunus did ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... reform. She saw this man a saint amongst his tribe, and would not believe in the virtues of his brethren, great and unquestionable as they might have been proved to a more dispassionate and humbler inquirer. The imposture she detected she deemed universal in the circle in which she dwelt; and Satan once more smiled upon the subject he regained. Lucretia became a mother; but their child formed no endearing tie between the ill-assorted pair,—it rather embittered their discord. Dimly even ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of life falls to pieces, and the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view "a huge imposture ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... inspired the apostles, and enabled them to give to the world the purest and most perfect system of morality that can be conceived, is it to be supposed that in the remainder of their writings he would leave them to themselves, and permit error or imposture to be mixed and confounded with truth?" No: from the same source cannot proceed sweet waters and bitter. As the moral precepts of the Gospel are divinely inspired, so, likewise, must be its doctrines. This reasoning appeared to me incontrovertible, and I received with full ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... husband, the deed speaks for itself, the imposture is frightful. It is too great an insult to accuse me of infidelity. If these confused transports mean that you seek a pretext to break the nuptial bonds which hold me enchained to you, all these pretences are superfluous, for I am determined that this day all our ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... turning-point in their history in another and more serious respect. In Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture, but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism. Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the other hand, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... He therefore denied the reality of such a language as Sanscrit altogether, and wrote his famous essay to prove that Sanscrit had been put together, after the model of Greek and Latin, by those arch forgers and liars, the Brahmins, and that the whole of Sanscrit literature was an imposture.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... this word is with the odium which credulity on the one hand and imposture on the other have during many centuries of superstition and ignorance gradually caused it to be associated, let us consider for a moment its real meaning, and the terrible effects which its practice is ever destined to ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... theologian, says: "The practice of the Church of interceding for the dead at the celebration of the Eucharist, is so general and so ancient, that it cannot be thought to have come in upon imposture, but that the same aspersion will seem to take ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... Onslow, and pretended to be the Speaker's son, having forged letters of credit Ind drawn money from several bankers, came to Florence, and was received as an Englishman of quality by Marquis Riccardi, who could not be convinced by Mr. Mann of the imposture till the adventurer ran away on foot to Rome in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... set up as the husband of Purcell's sister in a little shop precisely opposite to that of his former employer, he had again thrown over all pretensions to sanctity, was, on the contrary, convinced afresh that all religion was one vast perennial imposture, dominated, we may suppose, in this as in most other matters, by the demon of hatred which now possessed him towards his brother-in-law. His wife, poor soul, was beginning to feel herself tied for good to the tail of a comet destined ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... difficult as it sounded. I had found that out in Shainsa. Charin is a long, long way from the major Trade City near the Kharsa. I hadn't a single intimate friend there, or within hundreds of miles, to see through the imposture. At most, there were half a dozen of the staff that I'd once met, or had a drink with, eight ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... in wickedness, thy inflexible imposture, amazes me beyond all utterance. Thy effrontery in boasting of thy innocence, in calling this wretch thy friend, thy soul's friend, the means of securing the favour of a pure and all-seeing Judge, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... exclaimed Lady Jocelyn. 'How I regret never meeting that magnificent snob! that efflorescence of sublime imposture! I've seen the Regent; but one's life doesn't seem complete without having seen his twin-brother. You must give us warning when you have him down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... least so it was believed) that she would die in battle against the infidel and that her mantle would fall upon a maid of Rome. But such a saying, if it were known to these nobles of Metz, would be more likely to denounce this so-called Jeanne as an imposture than witness to the truth of her mission.[2617] However this might be, they believed ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... author, were by these critics considered to constitute his chief merit, and transmitted as essentials to be observed by all his successors. To these encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... farther and express a grave suspicion whether the Scotland of these bookish romances is not the daring imposture of a ben trovato. For, after a prolonged residence of over a fortnight, I have never seen anything approaching a mountain pass, nor a dizzy crag, surmounted by an eagle, nor any stag drinking itself full ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... that the advantages resulting from their abrogation will more than compensate for any disturbance of existing relations which may ensue from the change. Apart from force, or mere rant, rhetoric, or imposture, it is difficult to see what other resource the reformer has open to him. And, in those cases where there is no accumulation of antiquated rules and no need of the individual reformer, but where society at large has the happy knack of imperceptibly accommodating its practice and principles ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... thing as divination, or soothsaying, or prophesy, or fortune telling in this world. It is all coarse imposture, that can deceive only the weakest mortals. You know that, of course, Ryland. It follows, then, that this old woman could have had no knowledge of what was going to happen unless she was in league with conspirators who had planned to kidnap or ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for the red man. Naturally superstitious, he was prepared for the advent of some divine agency to help him in his distress. No one understood this better than the Prophet. He may have been the dupe of his own imposture, but impostors are generally formidable. He was no longer Laulewasikaw, but Tenskwatawa, "The Open Door." "He affected great sanctity; did not engage in the secular duties of war or hunting; was seldom ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... in his hands; he was anxious not to let any sign of his give any clue in case of its being all imposture and extraordinary quickness of sight. He purposely passed over the letters, but was rapped back by the recognised signal till the name "Marguerite" ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... lands, and offering them succor in the shape of costless denunciations of their best friends, or by scattering among them "firebrands, arrows and death." Such folly and madness, such wild mockery and base imposture, can never win for you, in the sober judgment of future times, the name of philanthropists. Will you even be regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely, when the purposes you have in view, can only ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... he would show us the imposture so that we might be warned against it, and not be taken in by it; and he fetched Uncle's pack of cards from the tea-caddy, and, selecting three cards from the pack, two plain cards and one picture card, sat down on the hearthrug, ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... and the mingled fire, rudeness, pride, meanness, and ferocity of his character[503], concur in making it credible that he was fit to plan and carry on an ambitious and daring scheme of imposture, similar instances of which have not been wanting in higher spheres, in the history of different countries, and have had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... monarchy was thrice interrupted by democratic governments, and that there were four periods. This is the Indian tradition. But the whole was conceived as one history, doubtless with a prehistoric ideal beginning, like our Manus and Tuiskon. Therefore, no cosmic periods (Brahmanical imposture), but four generations of Aryan history ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... fut cette imposture, Louis ne put pas s'en defendre. Il resolut d'envoyer, au prince et au Kan convertis une ambassade pour les feliciter de leur bonheur et les engager a favoriser et a propager dans leurs etats la religion chretienne. L'ambassadeur qu'il nomma fut un Frere-precheur nomme Andre Longjumeau ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... already established body of Christians, anathemas are hurled at their heads, and they are told that they are guilty of the heinous crime of schism—schism, in the sense they give it, a figment of sacerdotalism, priestcraft, and imposture. But does the crime of schism not exist? Ay, it does; but it is schism from the true Church of Christ, the Church of which He is the head corner-stone, the beautified in Heaven, the sanctified on earth; ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... not essentially an imposture, though it might seem so if we consider it as its defenders present it to us rather than as its discoverers and original spokesmen uttered it in the presence of nature and face to face with unsophisticated men. Religion is an interpretation of experience, honestly made, and made in view ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... conclude, that it was judged not fit to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen; which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution, would, surely, have given clear testimony against, as a notorious imposture." ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... centuries those institutions fell from their first estate, and began to fancy that their wealth and wisdom was their own, acquired by their own cunning, to be used for their own aggrandizement, they became an imposture and imbecility, an abomination and a ruin. And it was this faith, too, in a still nobler and clearer form, which at the Reformation inspired the age which could produce a Ridley, a Latimer, an Elizabeth, a Shakspeare, a Spenser, a Raleigh, a Bacon, and a Milton; which knit together, in spite ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... anything else. The Holy Mother herself (whom I wish to speak of with profound respect), and the saints, and the forgiveness of sins, would have all been there had it been the Sisters, or even M. le Cure. This, though I had myself suggested an imposture, made it very unlikely to my quiet thoughts. But if not an imposture, what could it be supposed ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... the present moment, and to be characterised, as it was in the past, by the strong evidence of miracles,—in other words, by transcendental phenomena of a very extraordinary kind, connecting in a direct manner with what is generically termed Black Magic. Now, Black Magic in the past may have been imposture reinforced by delusion, and to state that it is recurring at the present day does not commit anyone to an opinion upon its veridical origin. To say, also, that the existence of modern diabolism has passed from ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... citizens of London assembled by tens of thousands to burn the Pope in effigy. The government posted cavalry at Temple Bar, and placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that year our tongue was enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable memorials of a season of tumult and imposture. [21] Opponents of the court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists. Those who took the King's side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers, and Tantivies. These appellations soon become obsolete: but at this time were first heard two nicknames which, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that he had dismissed the idea as romantic and unlikely—though possible, there was no denying—he could not help pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a picture of what his condition would be, if he should discover such an imposture when he was grown old. Whether a man so situated would be able to pluck away the result of so many years of usage, confidence, and belief, from the impostor, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... may make penal laws against swearing and blasphemy, why not as to rites and ceremonies of public worship? (39.) Devotion towards God is a virtue akin to gratitude to man; religion is a branch of morality. The Puritans' talk about grace is a mere imposture, (76) which extracts from Parker vehement language. What is there to make such a fuss about? he cries. Why cannot you come to Church? You are left free to think what you like. Your secret thoughts are your own, but living ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... have told you little; nor have you seen the book! Yet you must see it, for it alone remains to us of that other, better time. And though my folk mock at it as imposture and myth and fraud, you shall judge if it be true; you shall see what has kept the English speech alive in me, kept memories of the upper world alive. Only the book, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... there are epidemics in religion as well as in disease; but the truth is, that the knavery or distress of two or three Catholics who were relieved, when in a state of famine, by a benevolent and kind-hearted nobleman, who certainly would encourage neither dishonesty nor imposture, first set this Reformation agoing. The persons I speak of, fearing that his Lordship's benevolence might cease to continue, embraced Protestantism pro forma and pro tempore. This went abroad, and almost immediately all who were in circumstances of similar destitution ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... masqueraders dressed up and painted for amusement, or like swindlers endeavouring to pass themselves off for well-known and respectable members of society. What is the meaning of this strange travesty? Does nature descend to imposture or masquerade? We answer, she does not. Her principles are too severe. There is a use in every detail of her handiwork. The resemblance of one animal to another is of exactly the same essential nature as the resemblance to a leaf, or to bark, or to desert sand, and answers ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... coast Steer'd of Sidonia, and me left forlorn. 340 He ceased; then smiled Minerva azure-eyed And stroaked his cheek, in form a woman now, Beauteous, majestic, in all elegant arts Accomplish'd, and with accents wing'd replied. Who passes thee in artifice well-framed And in imposture various, need shall find Of all his policy, although a God. Canst thou not cease, inventive as thou art And subtle, from the wiles which thou hast lov'd Since thou wast infant, and from tricks of speech 350 Delusive, even in thy native land? But ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... muscular frame, and a countenance which bespoke authority. When Dorrel came to the declaration of his extraordinary powers, he had no sooner uttered the words, "No arm can hurt my flesh," than Foster rose, indignant at the imposture he was practising on his deluded followers, and knocked down Dorrel with his fist. Dorrel, in great trepidation, and almost senseless, attempted to rise, when he received a second blow, at which he cried for mercy. Foster engaged to forbear, on ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... by their assessor, by the provost's lieutenant, and a clerk. They had to knock repeatedly before anyone seemed to hear them, but at length a nun opened the door and told them they could not enter, being suspected of bad faith, as they had publicly declared that the possession was a fraud and an imposture. The bailiff, without wasting his time arguing with the sister, asked to see Barre, who soon appeared arrayed in his priestly vestments, and surrounded by several persons, among whom was the queen's ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have all their mystical, as well as their explicable, side. It is only because they don't readily lend themselves to the comprehension of our material nature, that we try to scoff them into the limbo of absurdity and imposture." ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... filled up by any other. To the most trivial talk he gave the attraction of his own character. It might be a small matter,—something he had read or observed during the day, some quaint odd fancy from a book, a vivid little out-door picture, the laughing exposure of some imposture, or a burst of sheer mirthful enjoyment,—but of its kind it would be something unique, because genuinely part of himself. This, and his unwearying animal spirits, made him the most delightful of companions; no claim on good-fellowship ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... to Philip that possibly the whole story was an elaborate imposture, not told with any base motive, but merely from a wish to impress, startle, and amaze. Athelny had told him that he was at Winchester; but Philip, sensitive to differences of manner, did not feel that his host had the characteristics of a man educated at a great public school. While he pointed ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... himself a cripple and maketh believe to wax whole upon the body of St. Arrigo. His imposture being discovered, he is beaten and being after taken [for a thief,] goeth in peril of being hanged by the neck, but ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... all, Putois was the child of our mother's invention, as Caliban was the poet's invention. Without doubt the faults were not equal, and my mother was more innocent than Shakespeare. However, she was frightened and confused to see her little falsehood grow inordinately, and her slight imposture achieve such a prodigious success, that, without stopping, extended all over town and threatened to extend over the world. One day she even turned pale, believing that she would see her falsehood rise up before her. That ...
— Putois - 1907 • Anatole France
... have been a proportionate revolution in your fortunes upon earth. If nothing has happened within that space to secure your power, or advance your favour, then am I indeed a cheat, and the divine art, which was first devised in the plains of Chaldea, is a foul imposture." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... maid: they put an apron before her eyes, and then one other person touched her hand, which produced the same effect as the touch of the witch did in the Court. Whereupon the gentlemen returned, openly protesting, that they did believe the whole transaction of this business was a mere imposture. This put the Court and all persons into a stand. But at length Mr. Pacy did declare, That possibly the maid might be deceived by a suspicion that the witch touched her when she did not. For he had observed divers times, that although ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... priestly hypocrisy and occult necromantic jugglery,—we, who perhaps in our innermost heart of hearts ardently desire to believe in a supreme Divinity and the grandly progressive Sublime Intention of the Universe, but who, discovering naught but ignoble Cant and Imposture everywhere, are incontinently thrown back on our own resources, . . hence it comes, I say, that we are satisfied to accept ourselves, each man in his own personality, as the Beginning and End of Existence, and to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear of dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true currency of the country on one side, and the store or property of the country on the other. We place gold, and all such substances, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... harm, and that he and Sir Piercie are going on a hunting expedition. "Say not thus," said the maiden, interrupting him, "say not thus to me. Others thou may'st deceive, but me thou can'st not. There has been that in me from the earliest youth which fraud flies from, and which imposture cannot deceive." The transforming influence of the Lady is here just what it should be, and the consequence is that she ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... strongly inclined to believe not only the corpse was refused Christian burial, but that the heart which was brought to Vancouver some time after the event, and which the Hawaiians stoutly maintained was that of Captain Cook, was no such thing; and that the whole affair was a piece of imposture which was sought to be palmed off upon the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville |
