"Make believe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grew old with his master and mellowed, he would make believe to work close by, so that at times they might drop into talk, recalling names that had died out of the Glen, shrewd sayings that fell from lips now turned to dust, curious customs that had ceased forever, all in great charity. Then there would come a pause, and John would ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... said a word aginst any vittles that was set before him, but I mistrusted that he was more partickerlar in his eatin' than he wanted folks to know of, for I've know'd him make believe to eat, and leave the vittles on his plate when he didn't seem to fancy 'em; but he was very careful never to hurt my feelin's, and I don't belief he'd have spoke, if he had found a tadpole in a dish of chowder. But nothin' could hurry him when he was about his vittles. Many's the time I've ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions. In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this). "I should like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and slip off mentally into a deep sleep. Possibly ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... itself, unreasonable persons are not lacking to point out that it is of the busman's variety. It is true that we are no longer face to face with the foe, but we—or rather, the authorities—make believe that we are. We wage mimic warfare in full marching order; we fire rifles and machine-guns upon improvised ranges; we perform hazardous feats with bombs and a dummy trench. More galling still, we are back in the region of squad-drill, physical ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... a year of sorrow Gridley!" he quivered indignantly. "I'll hang on, and make believe I'm meek as a lamb, but I'll spoil Gridley's record for this year! There was in olden times a chap who had a famous knack for getting square with people who used him the wrong way. I wish I could remember his ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. 'Why! they don't come down here to dine, you know, they only make believe to dine. They dine here, Lord bless you! They go to some of the swell clubs, or else to some grand dinner-party. You see their names in the Morning Post at all the fine parties in London. They dine! They ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... struck me. "Why don't you boys make believe that big packing-box in your play-room is ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... in short, he hasn't a bit of dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur le comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... it be as well to row around boldly, and make believe we've jest come for a visit? Then when he wasn't looking you could clap ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... much to say about U-bars. He states that they are useful in holding the tension bars in place and in tying the slab to the stem of a T-beam. These are legitimate functions for little loose rods; but why call them shear rods and make believe that they take the shear of a beam? As to stirrups acting as dowel pins, the writer has already referred to this subject. Answering a query by Mr. Porter, it may be stated that what would counteract the horizontal cleaving ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... knows how you live; you are a vagrant on the water—you have the reputation of a bad man—you live with us. Who will you make believe that you are ignorant ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... did that?" he asked dubiously. "I think not. It was another of the guests who was Chater's bitterest enemy. But Philip Leithcourt took advantage of the fracas in order to make believe that he had fled because of Chater's arrival. Ah!" he added, "you haven't any idea of their ruses. They ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... awning over the trolley-car she might have used the parasol to make believe she had not seen us. But the awning precluded that, and we were not more than ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... with cheap brooches and babs of ribbon, leading by the hand the little child of his daughter wronged and dead. He said never a word but stood just within the door expectant—a reproach to cleanliness, content, good clothes, the well fed, and all who make believe ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... brain feels in a whirl; and on his arrival at the Diligence-yard, when he hopes to obtain a little repose, he is annoyed by being asked for the keys of his trunks, for the Custom House officers, to make believe to look into them to ascertain that you have not smuggled any liquors or other material within the walls of Paris. Those who are fortunate enough to travel in their own carriages, are exempted from such ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... these gentlemen going to make believe I was a coquette?" exclaimed the "child" in ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... as we had! One man got bitten; but after a while foxy was caught. Then what did the cunning little thing do but make believe he was dead! Foxes are very cunning: they can ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... with her flowered Dresden teacups, pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded to be taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe: the two understood each other only too well: but it was wiser to keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return to his senses. For this reason Laura always spoke as if his choice of a coffined life were only a day or two old. Had he said—as he might ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... loose-tongued friend, says to him, 'Do not be afraid!'—but he ought to be afraid. That is about all that worldly wisdom and morality have to say to us, when we are in trouble and anxiety. 'Shut your eyes very hard, and make believe very much, and you will not fear.' An impossible exhortation! Just as well bid a ship in the Bay of Biscay not to rise and fall upon the wave, but to keep an even keel. Just as well tell the willows in the river-bed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as if terrified of losing that which tore his heartstrings to hear. He was afflicted with a ghastly sense of impotence. He had no right to intrude on her grief. Yet how could he lie supine when she was in trouble, and make believe not to hear? He could not lie still. He got up, taking no care to be quiet, and built up the fire. She could not know, of course, that he had heard that broken breath. Perhaps she would speak to him. Or, if she could not speak, ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... heard the question she saw fit not to answer it. Not a word passed her lips until they reached the house, crossed the wide garden between pomegranate shrubs, and entered the dark door across the body of a sleeping watchman—or a watchman who could make believe he ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... that and lots of other things—just to make believe. Then they came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right till Mrs. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... Dorcas Knight! Now I must make believe I'm Clara, and do the sentimental up brown!" concluded Capitola, as she seated herself near the door where she could be heard, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... come once in a while, as in the past, to pay a visit to this henhouse, and we'll take away eight chickens. Of these, seven are for us, and one for you, provided, of course, that you will make believe you are sleeping and will not bark for ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... him where I was going he took me back in the library and started in," she went on. "He was so angry he could scarcely speak. If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad. But to try to make believe he wasn't angry! His hypocrisy ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... diced with them, and taught them all the oaths of a free company. So much wine, and no more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... night was dark and very wet. Then the shore seemed to go back from us, and he went with it; and Coldwater, and our old house, and them as were up on the hill went with it, and we were alone on the water in the rain. But I said 'Joe,' over and over to myself, trying to make believe he was near. I sat there until late. The night was very dark, and I was wet; but the boat kept heaving up and down, and there was a noise underneath like some great beast trying to get out. I did not know what they had down there. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... manner, to take a chew of tobacco. "No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out—seems like, by granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now, she knows might' well she can't fool me. I've hearn Man ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... that there were present to us just the simplest facts of life. Hills and the naked sun, great winds and death—before these we may cease to make believe; they tune and temper us to accordance with pulses which, if only we are honest, will give us back multiplied our own faintest vibration. Honesty is easy when we can forget ourselves; and here, where the wind seemed to pluck the words from the reader's ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... green and growing things—not only of flowers, you know, but of the new things just coming up in the vegetable garden, and—and—well, this parsley happens to be the only really gardeny thing I have, so I thought I'd bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make believe it's the country, up there on ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... glad if there is a market for his wares. Without a market for his wares he must perish, or turn to making something that will sell better than pictures, or poems, or statues. All the same, the sin and the shame remain, and the averted eye sees them still, with its inward vision. Many will make believe otherwise, but I would rather not make believe otherwise; and in trying to write of Literature as Business I am tempted to begin by saying that Business is the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ready for your coming, and then to your own. I would see you sitting in your own chair and all my dreams would find rich fulfilment in that royal moment. Oh, Alice, we would have a beautiful life together! It's sweet to make believe about it. You will sing to me in the twilight, and we will gather early flowers together in the spring days. When I come home from work, tired, you will put your arms about me and lay your head on my shoulder. I will ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... were playing there. Then guests came; but instead of the children receiving, as they had been accustomed to do, all the spare cake and all the roasted apples, they only had some sand given them in a tea-cup, and were told that they might make believe that was something good. The next week the Queen took the little sister Eliza into the country, to a peasant and his wife; and but a short time had elapsed before she told the King so many falsehoods about the poor Princes that he did not trouble ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... "I will lie down upon the steps, and make believe I am a bear gone to sleep, and you come and poke me with your stick, and then I ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... right ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs - deceased, sir - deceased,' said the tender-hearted attorney, waving ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... to the parlour, I stopped, saw her legs, and told her she had jolly fat legs. She wished I would go upstairs, for I was in the way with my chemicals, and after that ceased talking to me. But it was difficult to avoid me, I got rude, would tuck my coat between my legs, laugh and make believe to stoop down to see her ankles, but she took no notice. Begging her to kiss me one day; she gave me two or three at once saying, "There now, go on with your chemicals," in such a motherly way, that it mortified me excessively; ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... make believe the fire's out," said Bunny. "I was going to stop playing, anyhow. Where are you going, Mother?" he asked, for he saw that his mother was dressed as she usually was when ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... much worse; they were certainly better, at a first glance, than at Sing Sing, which I had visited on a newspaper assignment about fifteen years before. I had resolved beforehand to make the best of everything, and it seemed already possible that I might not have to make believe ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... reached me, O auspicious King, that when the neighbours proposed to heap fuel about the cabinet and to burn it the Kazi bawled out to them, "Do it not!" And they said to one another, "Verily the Jinn make believe to be mortals and speak with men's voices." Thereupon the Kazi repeated somewhat of the Sublime Koran and said to the neighbours, "Draw near to the cabinet wherein we are." So they drew near, and he said, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... would tell you so. You will sing that song from the 'Camp in Silesia' for me next Sunday evening, or I will whip you, Daisy you may depend upon it. I have done it before, and I will again; and you know I do not make believe. Now go to ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... goad into the hand of the bashful fellow. "There's a hitchpost right side of you, my man. Make believe it's a yoke of oxen. What are your motions and your style of language in getting a start. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... use of for the rest. Artifices were employed to accelerate their death; the last remnant of their foul portion was stolen from them; they were trodden on as though by inadvertence; those in the last throes wishing to make believe that they were strong, strove to stretch out their arms, to rise, to laugh. Men who had swooned came to themselves at the touch of a notched blade sawing off a limb;—and they still slew, ferociously and needlessly, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... such a quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a real treat. All the time you're eating your breakfast, I'll repeat "The Walrus and the Carpenter" to you; and then you can make believe it's ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, "We are not to believe, but to make believe." That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as opposed ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... home, to try and make believe I'm sober. After this I stick to beer, And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. A man's a fool to look at things too near: They look back and begin to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... anything funnier, and at the same time more provokingly stupid, dirty, and inefficient, than the tribe of black-faced heathen divinities and classicalities who make believe to wait upon us here,—the Dianas, Phillises, Floras, Caesars, et cetera, who stand grinning in wonderment and delight round our table, and whom I find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... also had a mother-in-law in England from whom she expected great things for her little boy. But the boy died, and Mrs. Reed, being afraid that her mother-in-law would not be willing to leave any property to a girl, determined to play a little trick, and make believe that her second child was also ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... for her own private satisfaction and amusement! And she knew perfectly well, Laetitia did, that she had been eliciting, and that she meant to wait a day or two, and begin again ever so far on, and make believe Sally had said heaps of things. And Sally ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... sight now, on the bank, pretending to skip stones. Gid was like a Chinese juggler; he could make believe do one thing, while he ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... One can ride for miles and miles through the grandest, wildest places,—and—there aren't any cigar and baking-powder and liver-pill signs plastered over the rocks, thank goodness! If man has traveled that way before, you do not have the evidence of his passing staring you in the face. You can make believe it is all your own—by right of discovery. I'm afraid your England would seem rather little and crowded after a month or two of this." She swept her hand toward the river, and the grass-land beyond, and ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... this method is, that the individual laggard cannot screen his deficiencies, as he can when reciting in concert. He cannot make believe to know the lesson by lazily joining in with the general current of voice when the answers are given. His own individual knowledge, or ignorance, stands out. This is clear, and so far it is an advantage. But ascertaining ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... talk, but they are very seldom in earnest like you are, Joan. They don't believe half they say, they pretend and make believe; they've got to do so, poor things, because the world they live in is all built up on ancient foundations of great festering lies. The lies are carefully coated over and disinfected as much as possible and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... imagination of an Indian. You see, they make believe they are hunting buffalo again, and the chase is quite as exciting to them as if they were doing the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... give it to him only. This was maddening to them. They would rage around just outside the throwing-distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit- sah protected him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a distance and make believe to give meat ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered—just as if some ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... wonderful attire; "I won't talk about them. Because I know about them even—even if they don't know me. They sent me a message; they didn't know, but they did it just the same. So I belong too. You can make believe you have a uniform—you can. You can be miles and miles and miles ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... even approaching along the same road, saw Jimmie before Jimmie saw him, Jimmie was taken prisoner, and before sunrise was shot as a spy. He was seldom shot. Or else why on his sleeve was the badge for "stalking"? But always to have to make believe became monotonous. Even "dry shopping" along the Rue de la Paix, when you pretend you can have anything you see in any window, leaves one just as rich, but unsatisfied. So the advice of the war correspondent to seek out German spies came to Jimmie like a day at ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... darling Nora. Do you know, when I am out at a party with you like this, why I speak so little to you, keep away from you, and only send a stolen glance in your direction now and then?—do you know why I do that? It is because I make believe to myself that we are secretly in love, and you are my secretly promised bride, and that no one suspects ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... It was easy to make believe that a girlish figure was seated in the dark beside the bed; that a tender face was bending down, a gentle hand touching the troubled forehead, stroking the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and Brindle, and all the rest of the dear creatures, rubbing their horned heads against the hedge as usual; and two or three of them standing knee-deep in the great shallow pool, where Fred and Allan used to sail their boats, and make believe it was the Atlantic. We always called the little bit of sedgy ground under the willow America, and used to send freights of paper and cardboard across the mimic ocean, which did ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and make believe it was delicious. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... to tea occasionally, and Doris tried to make believe it was so now. They would have missed her more but Martha was a great talker. There were seven children at the Grants', and one son married. They had a big farm and a good deal of stock. Martha's lover had bought a farm also, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... cross his path again. So whatever he did didn't much matter. She was marvelously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and the rest of the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time—only a very little time—to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania was his old ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... wife would sing songs and hymns, accompanied by the harp. The children, too, would add their voices to the concert. The little boy Josef, sat near his father and watched his playing with rapt attention. Sometimes he would take two sticks and make believe play the violin, just as he had seen the village schoolmaster do. And when he sang hymns with the others, his voice was sweet and true. The father watched the child with interest, and a new hope rose ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... varnish right and puzzle wrong; exaggerate &c 549; blague[obs3]. invent, fabricate; trump up, get up; force, fake, hatch, concoct; romance &c (imagine) 515; cry "wolf!' dissemble, dissimulate; feign, assume, put on, pretend, make believe; play possum; play false, play a double game; coquet; act a part, play a part; affect &c. 855; simulate, pass off for; counterfeit, sham, make a show of; malinger; say the grapes are sour. cant, play the hypocrite, sham Abraham, faire pattes de velours, put on the mask, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to put a garland on my head and make believe I'm drunk, yes, and I'll climb out on the roof yonder (pointing to Amphitryon's house) and repel our returning hero in glorious style from up above there. I'll see that he's both soaked and sober. Then that servant Sosia of his shall promptly smart for it, Sosia being accused of doing what ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... said she knew Alice would find it dull at the Falls except for him, but they would all do their best, and she would find the place very different from what she had seen it in the winter. Alice could make believe that she was there just for the summer, and Mrs. Mavering hoped that before the summer was gone she would be so sorry for a sick old woman that she would not even wish to go with it. This part of the letter, which gave Dan away so hopelessly, as he felt, was phrased so touchingly, that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... antlers were large and strong, and the children liked to find them. They would pick them up and hold them in their hands and would then make believe they were Cave-men trapping reindeer ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... kindness towards this ancient dame, and I surely will look to her case even as thou hast enjoined me; but my heart misgiveth me and much I fear some evil will result from thy goodness. This woman is not so ill as she doth make believe, but practiseth deceit upon thee and I ween that some enemy or envier hath plotted a plot against me and thee. Howbeit go now in peace upon thy journey." The Prince, who on no wise took to heart the words of his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... three days longer I'd have gone mad or turned religious. Man, it's the nights, with the stars up above you, and the dead still all around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of things you've never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven days: and he was only out one night. But I think it's the loneliness that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness that comes toward morning!" He stood up. "It's a great pity, because he's as good a fellow as ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... my love with death-dust, Lest the draught should make me mad; I must make believe at sorrow, Lest I ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing "make believe," very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, interesting, and attractive experience in his short ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... has a great deal to say about churches, 'ligion, an' parsons. He's down on 'em all. The young fellers hereabouts git him to talk to them, an' make believe they are mighty interested in his views. That is only their excuse fer visitin' the place, so's they kin meet Nell an' Nan. Ho, ho! it's a great joke. The old boy thinks they're listenin' to him, but they don't remember a word ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Donkey said this, was because at night, when Santa Claus and his merry helpers had gone, the toys were allowed to do as they pleased. They could make believe come to life, and move about, ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... might come and ask again. Now when she was so far away his fancy teemed with stories. Every roadside flower had its fairy-tale which cried, "Tell me to little Wonder"—and once he tried to make believe to himself that Wonder was holding his hand, and looking up into his face with her big grave eyes, as he told some child's nonsense to the eternal hills. He broke off—half in anger with himself. Was he ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... of your well-groomed gods, your make believe and your show; I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shakedown in the snow; A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another bout ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... the tenant of Rannoch; and, further, when I came to examine the list of guests at the castle, I found that they were really persons unknown in society. They were merely of that class of witty, well-dressed parasites who always cling on to the wealthy and make believe that they are smart and of the grande monde. Rannoch was an expensive place to keep up, with all that big retinue of servants and gamekeepers, and with those nightly dinners cooked by a French chef; yet Leithcourt seemed to possess a long pocket and smiled upon those ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... of the same Thrust, pushing at the Time of your going under, you must make believe to push there, returning quickly to the Parade above, and ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make believe." ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... go that way of a dark night, that's all," said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it ever sin' I were a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... intoxication when some absurd and monstrous statement is made, while the first sensation of a deliberate break with truth causes a real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four suddenly to assert that they saw a pig with five ears, apples on a cherry tree, and other Munchausen wonders, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... you are very much disconcerted, so much so that you are now blushing in evidence of it." The gentleman replied, "Well, you know in this day and age of conventionality and form we have to put on the show and sometimes make believe what we do not really feel." My friend once more looked him in the face and said, "Again you are mistaken. Let me give you one little word of advice: You will always fare better and will think far more of yourself, always to recognize and to tell the truth ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... not want to use the roads. It was with the old familiar sense of make believe adventure that they started on what they called a Bee-line southwest. And it was mid-afternoon before, hungry and leg weary, they reached the store that backed up against ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to the giver of the parcel is to remain unknown as long as possible, and even if the present is sent from one member of the family to another living in the same house the door-bell is always rung by the servant before she brings the parcel in, to make believe that it has come from some outsider; and if a parcel has to be taken to a friend's house it is very often entrusted to a passer-by, with the request to leave it at the door and ring the bell. In houses where there are many children, some of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... serious), whether he didn't say these things because he knew we saw him as he really was; because he saw himself as he really was, and couldn't bear it; because there was no escape for him unless he could make believe that he was in fun ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... represented Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... could examine the result of her work; but we watched her one day, and I was much surprised to find that she imagined she was writing a letter. She would spell "Eva" (a cousin of whom she is very fond) with one hand, then make believe to write it; then spell, "sick in bed," and write that. She kept this up for nearly an hour. She was (or imagined she was) putting on paper the things which had interested her. When she had finished the letter she carried it to her mother and spelled, "Frank letter," and ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... cried Gosse. "They'll sit down and have a nap under the first hedge, and make believe they ran ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... fascinating and daring enough to say things he "hadn't oughter," and the music and the moonlight gets into your head, and you feel young and reckless and sentimental, then all of a sudden Memory recalls another moonlight night when the youth and the romance weren't merely make believe, and your mind travels wearily over the intervening years, and you sit up straight and look severe and put your ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... aiding me, I will be thus no longer, but will go forth in the strength of the Lord God. Believe you these lying wonders and deceitful doctrines? for I do not, and have never so done, though I have made believe to do it. I will make believe no longer. I will be a man, and no more a puppet, to be moved at the priest's pleasure. Thank God, Pan is safe, and Gertrude is not like to fall in trouble. How say you? Go you with me, or keep you ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... is the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must "make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of which ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... that Emmy used has an auxiliary with less favorable meaning. In English "to make believe" is in other words to impose on a person's credulity. It was as though this thought had made me suspicious and I began to surmise that Emmy's anxiety and anger were akin to that of the schoolgirl who is praised for a composition which she has copied from another. But ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... "Say, make believe that beach doesn't look good!" exclaimed Teddy to Billie, for they had fallen a little behind the rest. "And the good old ocean—say, what a day ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... who thus far had not fared over well in his wooing, ventured to urge Hannah the housemaid to join her lot with his and follow the example of their master and mistress. But although Hannah still said "Nay," she added: "Thee may make believe and see what comes of it, Joseph." So I am inclined to think that she did ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... did so, it was his intention to make believe that he had just come in and was disturbed at being caught. Then he would explain his need of his clothes and find out how ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... the Parlour. The real progress, Remington, is a graver thing and a painfuller thing and a slower thing altogether. Look! THAT"—and he pointed to where under a boarding in the light of a gas lamp a dingy prostitute stood lurking—"was in Babylon and Nineveh. Your little lot make believe there won't be anything of the sort after this Parliament! They're going to vanish at a few top notes from Altiora Bailey! Remington!—it's foolery. It's prigs at play. It's make-believe, make-believe! Your people there haven't got hold of things, aren't beginning to get hold of things, don't ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Magnus," sound the voices of my fellow-boarders, "be a good fellow and sing us one of the old chap's songs; or at least something or other of that day, and we'll make believe it was the air with which ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... consisted, I should think, in this species of cunning. We were never secure. He could see or hear us nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump, tree, bush and fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so far, that he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going to St. Michael's; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his horse tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the ditch, with his head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner, watching every movement of the slaves! I have known ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... might make some purchases. She found him waiting for her at her journey's end, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gay spirits, though still harping on that notion of their being rich; and he said, now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was theirs, and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; what would Bella, in that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Bella didn't know: already having ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 25 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:— And thou wert aye a masker bold! 30 What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe, that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips. 35 And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... impudent if you weren't simply so stupid as they. The only impudence is unprovoked, or even mere dull, aggression, and I indignantly protest that I'm never guilty of that clumsiness. Ah for what do they take one, with their beastly presumption? Even to defend myself sometimes I've to make believe to myself that I care. I always feel as if I didn't successfully make others think so. Perhaps they see impudence in that. But I daresay the offence is in the things that I take, as I say, for granted; for if one tries to be pleased one passes perhaps inevitably ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... make believe I was a British armed sentry. But the figure ran on, and I began to stride after it. This led me up and up the ridge over very broken ground. Whoever it was (it was probably a Turkish sniper, for there were many out night-scouting) I lost sight ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... of fog hung plume-like over Alcatraz, veiled the Exposition domes and turrets in a mystic glory. Sometimes it was like a great white nothingness; then, as if by magic, Color, Forms and Beauty leaped forth like some startling vision from a Land of Make Believe. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... hire a waiter in white gloves, and get up a circuitous dinner-party on English principles, to entertain a friend from England. Because the friend in England lives in such and such a style, he must make believe for a day that he lives so too, when in fact it is a whirlwind in his domestic establishment equal to a removal or a fire, and threatens the total extinction of Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two principles of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... a low voice. "Sometimes I pretend I have gone off in a ship, and that I've found my father. I make believe that he and I are sailing together. And oh! how I wish it would ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... seconds we stared at each other in blank amazement. I could see that though he recognized me, he was trying to make believe that he did not; or, perhaps, he really doubted whether I was ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stab will tell the tale. But who's this yer, lurkin' aroun' the kitchen do'; if it ain't Jack Wonnell, I hope ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... was called when Somerset came back, and it repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other good things; though it unhappily retained the punishment of burning for those people who did not make believe to believe, in all religious matters, what the Government had declared that they must and should believe. It also made a foolish law (meant to put down beggars), that any man who lived idly and loitered about for three ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... when the laughter had subsided; "you make believe to care something about me, and yet will not listen to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in an impressive, awestruck whisper. "He had to come out of his bed at night—Santissima Maria!—and it was the ghosts of all the people buried in San Marcuolo who dragged him and kicked him to teach him better, because he wanted to make believe the dead stayed in their graves! So where was the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... would like well to see you married. Truly we women must marry, or be nothing at all. But as to marrying for love, as we used to think of, and as charming poets make believe—my dear, now-a-days, nous ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... pour the molasses over your back and let it spread and spread and run down your legs." Friend Elephant did as he was ordered. Friend Mouse-deer then instructed the Elephant as follows: "As soon as I begin to lick up the molasses on your back, bellow as loud as you can and make believe to be hurt, and writhe and wriggle this ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... her with sombre eyes. He was beginning to tire of their pretty game of make believe; perhaps impulse was waning within him. Anyway he felt he had wasted enough time on the chase. But to-day Joan seemed very charming, and her fear, for he could see plainly enough that she was afraid, was fanning the flame of his desire into ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... awkward in a false position. It is absurd of you to fancy that I can think of you in any other light than that of a beautiful woman, gifted with more than your share of intellect. I prefer that our friendship should rest on this obvious fact. We are too old 'to make believe,' as children say. I came to this conclusion within an hour ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... met with opposition from prominent men or women, their opponents were put to the rack, burnt, or their heads sent flying. In this country no leading Protestant's life or property was safe. Even Elizabeth, during the reign of her half-sister, Mary, was obliged to make believe that her religious faith was Roman in harmony with that of the Queen. It was either adoption, deception, or execution, and the future queen outwitted all their traps and inventions until Mary passed on, and Elizabeth took her place on ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... have to share and share about, unless the lady's to go without,' say I. And then I make believe to whisper something ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... understand. If you've got to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that you're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think about ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... the window, but the monotony was not relieved by any change in the face of things and so they determined that it was rather stupid to stand there. Nettie brought down her two dolls and they played with these for a while, but keeping house in a make believe way was not so exciting when there was the reality close at hand, and they decided that paper ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... them any time," Bunny answered, with a laugh. "It's more fun to throw snowballs at a snow man and make believe he's real. He ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... make believe to be on the trail of Hugo and Humphrey here? And would ye lead them far from the trail? I see that ye would, knaves that ye are. I have discovered ye. And there is no restraining ye when once ye have ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... friends, and make believe Their spirits grieve, Brood, and rejoice with mine; I talk to them in phrases quaint and fine Over ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... knew how to do it. A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque only when they are called lanes and make believe that they are ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... done you can take them outdoors and eat them while they're hot," she said. "Make believe you're having a picnic." ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... productions. To act a part seems as natural to humanity as to tell a story; and originally the drama is but an old story retold to the eye, a story put into action by living performers, who for the moment "make believe" or imagine themselves to be the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... foolish word; but now we're all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? It's easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionarying because their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make believe be blacksmiths ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... tea." I have a suspicion that he sleeps across our door, for his own or our protection, I am not sure which; but sometimes, when the terrible howls of fighters reach me, as I doze in a chair, I turn on the light and sit by my fire to shake off a few shivers, trying to make believe I 'm home in Kentucky, while Jack sleeps the sleep of the convalescent. Then a soft tap comes at my door and a very gentle voice says, "Missy, I make you tea." Shades of Pekoe! I 'll drown if this keeps up much longer. He comes in, brews the leaves, then drops on his haunches and looks into the ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... which she had spoken to the portrait fled. Why was it that, so often, when absent from him, her imagination helped her to make excuses for him, inspired her to press the real truth out of sight, and to make believe that he was worthy of a love which, but through some inner fault of her own, might be his altogether, and all the love of which he was capable ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... may seem, also, that the former love wisdom, but they do so only as an adulterer loves a noble woman, that is, as mistress, speaking caressingly to her and giving her beautiful garments, but saying of her privately to himself, "She is only a vile harlot whom I will make believe that I love because she gratifies my lust; if she should not, I would cast her away." The internal man of the unreformed lover of wisdom is this adulterer; his external man is ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... I never did know. Somewhere out West, we thought. I used to make believe the letters came from Helena, or Butte, because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. "And sometimes she'd be able to go out in the yard and fuss with her flowers, after ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... things; there was so much grass-green in them that it greened all the water in the tub last wash, she told mother; that was when we played the Coramantic Captive, you know, and I had to keep fainting all the time. We'll just make believe we sank, ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... he longed to do something to confer this great boon upon his wife and children whom he left behind him in Kentucky. He soon found a way to solve this problem. He said to himself, "I'll go to old Massa's plantation, and I'll make believe I am tired of freedom. I'll tell old Massa a story that will please him; then I will go to work hard and watch for a chance to slip ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... Bull, get a move on," advised the foreman. "Make believe you're hunting palefaces," he added, and then, speaking in a lower tone he said: "this is the last time I'll ever hire a lazy Indian ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... out back of camp last night," he murmured. "Me make believe sleep, me watch. I think I ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... her straw hat,—she made that oak-leaf wreath about the crown one bright summer day, as we sat on the soft moss in the cool fragrant wood. Nelly liked the woods. She liked to lie with her ear to the ground and make believe hear the fairies talk; she liked to look up in the tall trees, and see the bright-winged oriole dart through the branches; she liked to watch the clouds, and fancy that in their queer shapes she saw cities, and temples, and chariots, and people; she liked to see the lightning play; she liked the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... "I conclude you make believe to allude to the ups and downs you have had in regard to Verner's Pride. That's not the cause, Lionel Verner—if you do want to go away. You have had time to get over that. Perhaps some lady is in the way? Some cross-grained disappointment in that line? Have you been refusing ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... once—that was a rum go as ever I see. You can't have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things. But it went in again. I's swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I'm alive. Now, sirrey" (this was addressed to Primrose), "come alonk—you musn't make believe as you can't." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... said his father. "If you were lying down upon the ground, and I were to come up to you with an axe, and make believe cut your head off, it would make you very uneasy, though there would be really ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... Englishwoman stepped from her jobbed carriage and appeared in all the glory of that phlegmatic humor peculiar to Britain and to all its products which make believe they are alive. The apparition put you in mind of the Commandant's statue in Don Juan, it walked along, jerkily by fits and starts, in an awkward fashion invented in London, and cultivated in every ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... my eyes and tried to "make believe" that they would open on far-off, familiar scenes. Nothing could have been more weird and incongruous than the American air with this alien soil and people. It was "Hiawatha," and to the inspiring strains of "Let the women do the work, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... please," she interrupted him vehemently. "I—have to! And I'm not going to make believe that I don't know what you are going to tell me—what you have been saying to me, all morning. But it can't do any good. Why, I'm just realizing that something which has been hurting me for hours was just—just sorrow for you. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans |
