"Make-believe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stoppers for heads, with faces marked on the sides, the rest, only wads of paper or cloth fastened on the ends of sticks that reached down into the bodies. A strip of cloth tied around each neck, below the bulge, served as make-believe arms, suitable for all ordinary purposes, and, with a little assistance, capable of saluting an officer or waving ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... hear of any situation which you can fill with advantage, I will not fail to let you know, and I hope that your father and the Colonel will approve of your accepting it; you know that I mean what I say, and therefore do not look upon it as a mere make-believe promise." ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... the children wanted it, and then they began playing in it. Russ pretended that he was the pirate, and that the others were his prisoners. He made them dig little holes in the sand, and bring in shells and stones as well as seaweed. This last he made believe was hay for a make-believe elephant. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... of the bowling green. The girls required to be persuaded a little to this humble curriculum, which, in truth, is a comfortable, serviceable, and labour-saving way of mastering the rudiments. Granted it is make-believe, yet not more than practising at a target. The pupils at last were convinced that it was a sensible means to an end, and began with a flower-pot saucer varying yards up the lawn. Blind took almost naturally to the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... It is not accepted, however, until the gallant youth who offers it is accepted as the lord of their hearts' affections, and firmly united with one, his "chosen love," beneath the same bright star that rules their destiny for ever. The common confectionery make-believe kisses, wrapped in paper, with a verse to sweeten them, won't answer with them. We are certain they won't, for we once saw such a one handed to a beautiful young ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... terror acknowledges that her dignified reserve was the cloak of passion, and Eve acknowledges that her profession of love was transferred to the wrong man; both ladies recover their self-possession and resume their make-believe decorums, and Adam, like a gallant gentleman, will not see through what is transparent. These are harmless jests at the ironies of life. Browning's best gifts in this volume, that looks pale beside its predecessors, are one ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... all sorts of pastimes, with make-believe audiences, such as little children create for their plays. For these two were children in a big child world. The wilderness is never grown up. It is Nature's little one waiting to be led on and disciplined to mature uses. Asher and Virginia ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... whoever encourages it in himself finds himself personating someone else, either signing what he writes by fictitious name, or, spelling out, by ouija-board or table-tips, messages from the departed. Our subconscious region seems, as a rule, to be dominated either by a crazy "will to make-believe," or by some curious external force impelling us to personation. The first difference between the psychical researcher and the inexpert person is that the former realizes the commonness and typicality of the phenomenon here, while the latter, less informed, thinks it so rare ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... very ungrateful, Aunt Pen; and if Mr. Evan should happen to be poor, it does not become me to turn up my nose at him, for I'm nothing but a make-believe myself just now. I don't wish to go down upon my knees to him, but I do intend to be as kind to him as I should to that conceited Leavenworth boy; yes, kinder even; for poor people value such things more, as ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... vermilion, is a conspicuous object at the top of the hill above the town, as you turn off towards the Rope-walk. The firemen, of course, wear an appropriate uniform, with brazen helmets and shoulder-straps and a neat axe apiece, suspended in a leathern case from the waistband. But the spirit of make-believe has of necessity animated all their public exercise, if I except the 13th of April, 1879, when a fire broke out in the back premises of Mr. Tippett, carpenter. His shop was (and is) situated in the middle of the town, and in those days a narrow gatehouse gave, or rather prevented, access ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... most of you think biography dull reading. You would much rather sit down with a good story. But have you ever thought what a story is? It is nothing but a bit of make-believe biography. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... across the whole after-end of the cabin. Mr. Burns motioned to sit down, dropped into one of the swivel-chairs round the table, and kept his eyes on me as persistently as ever, and with that strange air as if all this were make-believe and he expected me to get up, burst into a laugh, slap him on the back, and vanish ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... shape some object or fact or relation for human use. The propensity may in large measure be overborne by the more immediately constraining incentive to a reputable leisure and an avoidance of indecorous usefulness, and it may therefore work itself out in make-believe only; as for instance in "social duties," and in quasi-artistic or quasi-scholarly accomplishments, in the care and decoration of the house, in sewing-circle activity or dress reform, in proficiency at dress, cards, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... and the thing that has set me writing about her, was this: I noticed that her face was painted and powdered. Now if there is one thing I abominate above all others it is a painted face. On the stage, of course, it is right and proper. The stage is a world of make-believe, and it is the business of the lady of sixty to give you the impression that she is a sweet young thing of seventeen. There is no affectation in this. It is her vocation to be young, and she follows it as willingly or unwillingly as you ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... in the city, he might all this time have been with the Spaniards, whom he is so constantly praising and advising the people to confide in. When the fighting is going on he is never to be seen on the ramparts, and though he receives his rations I suspect that it is only a make-believe, and that he has a secret store of provisions in his ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... he were a well-known connoisseur," I faltered, "with the pride of one who has handled the best gems? He would know that the deception would be soon discovered and that it would not do for him to fail to recognize it for what it was, when the make-believe was in his hands." ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... all resistance, the full tide of a pure passion poured itself into his heart. There was no pretence or make-believe about it; the bold that sped from Angela's grey eyes had gone straight home, and would remain an "ever-fixed mark," so long as life itself ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... poetry was no part of any stage make-believe. Varney, having found her the day before sitting on a coil of rope with Mr. Pope's Odyssey from the ship's library, had conceived a veneration for her taste. Now, as he drew near them again, she was telling Mary ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... said at last. "When a person is born with absolutely nothing—nothing of the human things a human baby is entitled to—she has to evolve something to live in; a sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp—just skin ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... surprise that this was necessary, I was met with the oracular reply that though it wasn't talked about, such an arrangement would be found "in every office in London." Of a piece with this half-reality, half make-believe, with which, as I say, Townsend transformed his quiet life into one long and thrilling adventure, was a remark which I remember his making in the course of a most innocent country walk: "If the country ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... is not better. I occupied a seat in his 'eligible pew' last Sunday. The lath and plaster walls pretended to be Caen stone. The cheap deal was all 'make-believe' oak. The brick pillars were 'blocked off,' and unblushingly claimed to be granite. As I entered, I observed that the pulpit stood under the arch of a recess, roofed with carved stone, with clustered columns rising on the sides and spreading ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... There was no make-believe about him now, no mockery. He was naked man, stripped of his tinsel, and laid bare to the soul by the inexorable Master, Pain. Across his chin, as though to mock ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... going to be something exciting," replied Tom, motioning toward the book he had discarded. "But say! the make-believe adventures that fellow had, weren't anything compared to those we went through in the city of gold, or while rescuing the exiles ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... drew it away and hit her on the side of the head with his other hand. He did not hit hard enough to hurt her, and it was evidently done in play, because as he did it she got up on her hind-legs and slapped at him, first with one hand and then with the other, growling all the time in angry make-believe. Sometimes the man came too near, and Kahwa would hit him, and the other men all burst out laughing. Then I saw him walk deliberately right up to her, and they took hold of each other and wrestled, just as Kahwa ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... stay with some of my make-believe people," he said. "She'll be the first person to come here that I ever knew before. She shall stay with—with? I have it, she's a guest of Lord Harrow's daughter, and they've just moved into Harrow Hall. That's the new ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... forewarning, the brute, that his mouth war a-watering after the Dew beasts in the pinfold, and after the brown horse in partickelar! And so I loaned him a horse, and sent him off to Logan's. Well, sir, and what does the brute do but ride off, for a make-believe, to set us easy; for he knew, the brute, if he war in sight of us, we should have had guards over the cattle all night long; well, sir, down he sot in ambush, till all were quiet; and then he stole back, and turning my own ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... to pay an extra price for sunlight? And must he herd in a filthy slum full of awful plumbing and crowded by more awful neighbours? Does he have to put up with municipal neglect and corruption, and worry along on make-believe milk and doctored bread and adulterated medicines, and endure long hours in unsanitary places under a tyrannical foreman and in constant dread ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... answered more than a dozen times, "That isn't allowed here." So at last I understood, and as I didn't want to lead him to do anything out of the way, I didn't say it any more. But now you see the difference between a real aunt and a make-believe one. There is nothing in the world that we can't ask you. If you can't do it, you say so, and there's the end of it. But that's no reason for not asking another time; there is always something to ask, and you understand that, and don't expect us to stop asking just because you ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... order this thing differently; they exhibit the same spirit of enterprise that in a lesser degree characterized certain promoters of rubberneck tours who some years ago fitted up make-believe opium dens in New York's Chinatown for the awed delectation of out-of-town spectators. Knowing from experience that every other American who lands in Paris will crave to observe the Apache while the Apache is in the act of Apaching round, the canny Parisians have provided a line ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the ball-room surrounded by a laughing jostling throng of pierrots, jockeys, Dresden-china shepherdesses, Roumanian peasant-girls and all the lively make-believe creatures that form the ingredients of a fancy-dress ball. As she stood watching them she experienced a growing feeling of annoyance, chiefly with herself. She was assisting, as the French say, at one of the gayest scenes ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added. "I suppose I'm making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin' but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really travelin'—just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his last years, about me. Seemed to feel ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... they'll waste any make-believe cordiality on us, after that," grimaced Mr. Pollard, as he dropped into a chair at ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... main kinds; fights between men and beasts—occasionally between two kinds of wild beast—and fights between men and men. There was no make-believe about these combats; they meant at least serious wounds, even when they did not mean death. Those who fought with beasts might in some cases be volunteers; in general they were captives or condemned criminals, and it perhaps hardly needs pointing out that, when St. Paul says he had "fought ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... enough—was surrounded with them for instance on the stage of the other house; as a new one he probably wouldn't have so much as noticed her. He would have liked to invent something, get her to make-believe with him that some passage of a romantic or critical kind had originally occurred. He was really almost reaching out in imagination—as against time—for something that would do, and saying to himself that if ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... by the utmost caution and self-containment. Contemplated from a distance by certain of the Allies whose attention was absorbed by the political aspect of the matter, this method of cool calculation seemed to smack of hollow make-believe. Why, it was asked, should Italy hold back or weigh the certain losses against the probable gains, seeing that she would have as allies the two most puissant States of Europe, and the enormous advantage of ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of a minor character, but I think it is fairly representative of Remington's later attitude. "But of all the damned things that ever were damned," says the plain-spoken Britten, "your damned shirking, temperate, sham-efficient, self-satisfied, respectable, make-believe, Fabian-spirited Young Liberal is the utterly damnedest." As a commentary, I find this exaggerated; and although it is in the mouth of one who is not presented as a spokesman for Mr Wells' own opinions, I feel that it comes very near to being a text for a considerable ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... sort, to identify his life with theirs. Watch him when he is playing with other children, or even when he is alone, except for the companionship of his dolls and toys. He is pretty sure to be acting, playing at make-believe, pretending to be something that he is not, some grown-up person of his acquaintance, some hero of history or romance, some traveller or other adventurer, some giant, dwarf, or fairy, some animal, wild or tame. He plays the part of one or other of these, and his playmates play other parts, ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... hunters at the temporary camp were aroused to a high pitch of excitement. Some turned their buffalo robes and put them on in such a way as to convert themselves into make-believe bison, and began to tread the snow, while others were singing the buffalo song, that their spirits might be charmed and allured within the circle of the camp-fires. The scout, too, was singing his buffalo bull song in a guttural, lowing chant as he neared the hunting camp. Within arrow-shot he ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... plenitude of silver among the ash-gold of her hair, a deepening of the lines of discord between her brows, and the threads of discontent which were daily being hemstitched into her face by the sharp needles of make-believe, covetousness, and a precarious banking account, she had recently decided to try and annex, or rather try and graft herself on to a certain unsuspecting male being ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... this small hero, and what was he doing? He was last seen in the hammock, playing with the long-suffering terrier, Lubin, who was making believe go to sleep. It proved to be entirely a make-believe; for, at the first loosening of Dicky's strangling hold upon his throat, he tumbled out of the hammock and darted into the woods. Dicky followed, but Lubin was fleet of foot, and it was a desperate and exciting race ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden pretty high in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly hard to bear. But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the bitterness of recent shame; and my clerk took his orders, and fell to his new duties, with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this garb only till we be through London," resumed Humphrey. "The Canon Thurstan bid me wear it only so far. He said naught of what should be done later. And once we leave London I will be again Humphrey the serving-man, and no make-believe priest. ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... disasters without hope. No, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration. Death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat, the endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skeptic often tells us that he will have no "make-believe." Let us have no "make-believe" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for all that it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it, if reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut the gate on the thought of death, by no ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... out came a thoughtless 'Mein Gott!' for he thought he had broken his ankle. Now of course that would have been a catastrophe indeed, but so was that slip into the German tongue. A kindly Providence saw to it that an alert Tommy had heard, and in a trice those six make-believe English soldiers had been rounded up and were on their way to headquarters. Next morning there was a sunrise party, for those Germans must be taught it isn't ever healthy for them ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... is a great game of make-believe. All sorts of liberties are taken, the clock is put forward or back at the command of the general, a great enemy army is created in the twinkling of an eye, day is turned into night and a regular game of topsy-turvydom indulged in. On the occasion of which I write the whole division was out. ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... the hotel knew. The vast edifice of make-believe that Denry and Nellie had laboriously erected crumbled at a word, and they stood forth, those two, blushing ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... may again. And, let it be remembered, the grotesque costume of the bard wonderfully heightened the effect. His long beard, made of tow, became matted with the saliva which ran down upon it from the corners of his mouth; his make-believe bald scalp was accidentally wiped to one side, as he mopped away the perspiration from his forehead with a red cotton handkerchief; and a nail in the gallery front catching his ancient robe, in a moment of frenzy, a fearful rending sound indicated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... "Make-believe ghosts and nothing more," he mused. "I wonder who is trying to scare folks away from the old mill? Most likely it is this Matlock Styles and it is part of another game of his. He must have gotten his idea from the old miser in the 'Chimes ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... the older boy. "But maybe, if Flossie wants it, we could put a make-believe chimney on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... whether I make trouble with you or not. I'm not going to pretend and make-believe, if that's what you want. I ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... had no objections to fighting on the side of rascals, or against rascals. He objected to them only in the calmer moments of private life; and as he was of course ignorant that the expedition was only a make-believe, he felt a certain respect for his fellow-conspirators as men who were willing to stake their lives for a chance of better fortune. But that their bravery was of the kind which would make them hesitate to rob and deceive a helpless girl he very much doubted; for he knew that even the bravest of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... which was safety. Very often dreams would break up about them in this fashion, and they would be separated, to endure awful adventures alone. But the most amusing times were when he and she had a clear understanding that it was all make-believe, and walked through mile-wide roaring rivers without even taking off their shoes, or set light to populous cities to see how they would burn, and were rude as any children to the vague shadows met in their rambles. Later in the night they were sure to suffer ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... one of your Polish nobles, Whose presence their country somehow troubles, And so our cities receive them; Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees, Who ply our daughters with lies and candies, Until the poor girls believe them. No, he was no such charlatan, Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan. Full of Gasconade and bravado, But a regular, rich Don Rataplan, Santa Claus de la Muscavado, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... work with previous ships. True, the music which accompanies its entry is always impressively ghastly; yet, while we know this, we are acutely conscious that our feeling is more or less a laudable make-believe—a make-believe that requires some little effort. Then Heine's notion, which seemed so brilliant at first, that the Dutchman could be redeemed by the unshakable love of a woman, has now all the disagreeable staleness of a decrepit and obvious ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... furnished an inspiration for our plot. It was the arrest of a make-believe Italian female organ-grinder, whose offence appeared to be that she was carrying about in a cradle attached to the organ an infant that did not belong to her. And as the infant brought her in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... of soil or apples or potatoes at me now; but he would often make-believe to be about to hurl something, and if he could not get away because of his work he ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... is an English art, not a French art, my dear Sylvia. A Frenchman either loves—and when he loves he adores on his knees—or else he has no use, no use at all, for what English people mean by flirtation—the make-believe of love! I should feel much more at ease if the Count had ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... filled at the bottom of the social ladder by foreigners, and by immigration of residents and "summer boarders" of the "world's people." Above all, the powerful ideal of Quakerism was shattered. The community had lost the "make-believe" at which it had played for a century in perfect unity. With it went the moral and social authority of the Meeting. Two Meetings mutually contradicting could never express the ideal of Quakerism, that asserted the inspiration of all ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... pronounced its owner gave a ceremonious little bow such as is always used in make-believe introductions, and the newcomer bowed gravely to each in acknowledgment. Then she turned again to ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... we're all in it. We're the Mount of Gold Quartz-minin' Company—me an' Jacker an' them—but it's on'y a make-believe company, an' I'd like Mr. McKnight, an' Mr. Peterson, an' Mr. Doon to come, an' the detective cove too, cause there's somethin' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... black spectacles round her eyes. She is a perfect fright, and John plays all the time that dreadful things happen to her. She pricks her with pins, and pretends she has the ear-ache, and lets her tumble down and hurt herself, till sometimes I nearly feel sorry, though it's all make-believe. When you wrote us about only having pudding for dinner, I didn't a bit. John put her into the rag-closet that very day, and has been starving her to death ever since, and Phil says it serves her right. You can't think how ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... far from her own doorstep; nor need she for variety. On one side of the field there was a violet bank, mossy, and hung over with thorn trees. Under the thorns it was possible to hide as within a greenhouse, and children love such make-believe. On the other side of the bank was a steep descent to a tiny stream prattling over shining stones; and fox-gloves grew in the water with the meadow orchis, and many other water-loving flowers. That field was a meadow every year, and ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... was thinking about her all the time, and by and by she became real to me. You see, it was making believe, and I knew it all the time, and then again I did n't. Whenever I 'd think of the men, and the work, and the hard life, I 'd know it was make-believe; but when I 'd think of her, it was n't. I don't know; I ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... looking down at her. There had been no make-believe on her part when he held her in his arms. He knew that. And now? She had said that she hated him. Perhaps she did for having made her do that which she had never dreamed of doing. But he told himself that he could stand ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if I had kissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one." ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... to push in a hair-pin so that he wouldn't see the tremble that I could feel in my lower lip. For an unreasonable and illogical and absurdly big wave of compassion for my poor old Dinky-Dunk was welling up through my tired body, threatening to leave me and all my make-believe dignity as wobbly as a street-procession Queen of Sheba on her circus-float. I was hearing, I knew, the words that I'd waited for, this many a month. I was at last facing the scene I'd again and again dramatized on the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... fairy tale," Rod exclaimed. "But, no, it isn't, either," he mused. "A fairy tale is only a make-believe, while this is really true. It's better than a fairy tale. Isn't it great!" and his eyes sparkled. "But, say, do grandad and grandma ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... little too handsome," said Mrs. Starling, "and that was what they liked about it. I'd like to know what is the use o' having great clumsy forks of make-believe silver"— ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... could not sleep. In the summer she had played with the thought of love, and then she had been able to close her eyes and feel Jean Avenel close beside her, leaning towards her, saying that she must not be afraid, that he would not hurt her. It had been a sort of game, a childish game of make-believe that seemed to hurt no one, not even herself. But now she was hurt indeed; the remembrance of his kisses ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... and picked up another handful. It behaved exactly in the same way. It glinted and flashed yellow in a way that no sand could ever do. All at once it dawned upon him. This was no trick of sunlight on wet sand. This was no make-believe of tired nerves. ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... clothing, shelter. To-day it's called competition in business. Look at your father. He has fought and beaten men like Neuman. Look at the wheat farmers in my country. Look at the I.W.W. They all fight. Look at the children. They fight even at their games. Their play is a make-believe battle or escaping or funeral or capture. It must be then that some kind of strife was implanted in the first humans and that ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... here comes an army with guns painted red, And swords, caps, and plumes of all sorts; The captain rides gaily and proudly ahead On a stick-horse that prances and snorts! Oh, legions of soldiers you're certain to meet— Nice make-believe soldiers—in Good-Children street. ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... games of make-believe come true. You couldn't meet him, but you might meet some one his equal—a man who's, perhaps, already waiting for you, while you squander yourself ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... floor; with rags and straw, and I think a miserable make-believe of a bed. No sheets, no blankets, nor anything. It ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... charcoal, and things even worse, disgusting to look at, much more to eat; so that it will be necessary to have recourse to some artifice to cure me; and this can be easily effected if only thou wilt make a beginning, even though it be in a lukewarm and make-believe fashion, to pay court to Camilla, who will not be so yielding that her virtue will give way at the first attack: with this mere attempt I shall rest satisfied, and thou wilt have done what our friendship binds thee to do, not only in giving me life, but in persuading me not to discard my honour. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... erected with greater eye to internal convenience than those crannied places of defence to which the name strictly appertains. It was a castellated mansion as regular as a chessboard on its ground-plan, ornamented with make-believe bastions and machicolations, behind which were stacks of battlemented chimneys. On still mornings, at the fire-lighting hour, when ghostly house-maids stalk the corridors, and thin streaks of light through the shutter-chinks lend startling winks and smiles to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... yet?" I told a lie. I said my mother was long dead. "And what did she tell you?" "She said that . . . ." "Tell me, tell me!" "I cannot repeat that in Russian." "Then say it in Yiddish." I looked with make-believe surprise at Anna. "She said: 'I shall come to Anna at night and choke her, if she doesn't give up abusing you.'" At this Anna turned red. I continued: "And she said also, 'Anna ought to have pity on Jewish children, because she is a Jewess ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... packing in my own room, enlivening my work by humming gay airs, just to make-believe to myself that I was very merry at the prospect of my visit to London. The door opened quickly, and Rachel came in, walking on tiptoe, with her hand to her lips in trepidation. Her face was as pale as snow, and large tears stood in ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden forth with his overseer to make-believe to inspect the flocks, but in reality to ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... instead. Youd appreciate my qualities then: you would indeed sir. I shant never do myself justice at soljering, sir: I cant bring myself to think of it as proper work for a man with an active mind, as you might say, sir. Arf of its only ousemaidin; and the other arf is dress-up and make-believe. ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in the children's faces, the slow-breaking smile of the little girl with ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the long period of make-believe in England. Discipline. So salutary and so irksome. Now for the battle. I own I long to get into the thick of it soon. We see infantry returning and going up, and we feel sick, somehow, to be ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... a fiction he himself sincerely and innocently believed. His imaginative appetite, having devoured science by day and sixpenny romances by night, still remained unsatisfied, and, quite probably, went on to mix up reality and make-believe past all recognition for its next dish. Francis Thompson, with all respect to many critics, was right when he noted what a complete playfellow Shelley was in his life. When he was in London after his expulsion from the University, he could throw ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... "You know you're only talking just because it is nice to make-believe. I like to hear you, too; but what is the use when it's ONLY make-believe? You know what father's health really is; you know how nervous he is. Doctor Powers told me he must not be overexcited or—or dreadful things might happen. You saw him at ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... were quite unheeded. Morva's sympathy alone seemed to have any consoling effect upon him. She would kneel beside him with her elbows on his knees, looking up into his face, and with make-believe cheerfulness would reason with a woman's inconsequence, fearlessly deducing results from causes ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... sidewalk and only one row of buildings; the other side of the street is given up to piles of metal rails and wooden ties and ballast for the track. The stores are large fronted, with a mockery which would lead the unenlightened to believe they are two-storied; but this is make-believe. The upper windows have no rooms behind them. They are the result of overweening vanity on the part of the City Council and have nothing ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... laughter. I held her gently to me, and could not help seeking whether she had a mole in the same place, to which she opposed but a feeble resistance. I was prevented by my unfortunate condition from immolating the victim on the altar of love, so we confined ourselves to a make-believe combat which only lasted a minute; however, our eyes took in it, and our excited feelings were by no means appeased. When we had done she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and "yes" to all this, feeling very confidential and courageous, but I dare say the good Father gave the same counsel to my mother also, for she and I had many games of make-believe, I remember, in which we laughed and chattered and sang, though I do not think I ever suspected that the part we played was easier ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... look somewhat amused and interested. They are interested in the fog and in the fact that one cannot see three feet ahead. And their faces say to each other, "Here we are, all alike. The city is only a make-believe. It can go away but we still remain. We are much more ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... it strict etiquette at first to prevaricate concerning the real nature of his errand, and consequently the actor told a cock-and-bull story about the purchase of a horse; rather a transparent bit of make-believe considering the matter ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... drinking in the maddening perfume of her glorious hair, so perilously near his own face. The shimmer of her shoulders, the adorable curves of that enticing scarlet mouth murmuring so near his own, and yet so far away, in this soul-racking game of make-believe, stirred his blood as nothing else had done ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... on your return home and see. Then the print. Observe that the type is identical on both sides of this make-believe clipping, while in fact there is always a perceptible difference between that used in the obituary column and that to be found in the columns devoted to other matter. Notice also," I continued, holding ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... of them, except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream. But it was only now and then that Robert could ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... perfect picture of physical perfection, work on your vision until you can produce and hold the most beautiful idealized picture of human beauty of flesh, form and character. Never forget to illumine your perfect thought-patient with a divine light of spiritual radiance. This perfected "make-believe-self" must be the risen God within them and it must come forth resplendent in a new glory. When you can hold a perfect vision of him and make yourself blind to anything but this image of beauty, health and power—then ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... of decay; Doubts to the world's child-heart unknown Question us now from star and stone; Too little or too much we know, And sight is swift and faith is slow; The power is lost to self-deceive With shallow forms of make-believe. W e walk at high noon, and the bells Call to a thousand oracles, But the sound deafens, and the light Is stronger than our dazzled sight; The letters of the sacred Book Glimmer and swim beneath our look; Still struggles in the Age's breast With deepening ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... greater number of cases, we have to do, not with the general culture of the people with the utterances of individuals or of learned circles; and here, too, a distinction must be drawn between the true assimilation of ancient doctrines and fashionable make-believe. For with many, antiquity was only a fashion, even among ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... however, fond of the society of women, especially those older than he. He has a somewhat effeminate voice and walk. Though he has begun of late years to smoke and drink a little, these habits sit rather oddly upon him. When a child, one of his favorite make-believe games was to pretend that he was a famous woman singer. At school he was always found hanging ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... evening meal. If she was thinking of Giovanni Celleni, his brute face filled with semi-madness; if she was thinking of a burned baby, sobbing alone in a darkened tenement while its mother breathlessly watched the gay colours and shifting scenes of a make-believe life, her expression did not mirror her thought. Only once she spoke, as she was folding her ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... this principle the line of argument in The Prophetical Office of the Church was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident from the ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... pond. He was like a very small boy. Where his elders floated timbers from three inches to a foot in diameter to the big dam, Umisk brought small sticks and twigs no larger around than a lead pencil to his playground, and built a make-believe ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... to sin,— I see you over the footlights' glare Down in the pit 'mid the common mob,— Your throat is burning, and brown, and bare, You lean, and listen, and pulse, and throb; The viols are dreaming between us two, And my gilded crown is no make-believe, I am more than an actor, dear, to you, For you called me your king but yester eve, And your heart is my ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... that no matter how long it takes to get ready for breakfast, the slowest boy or girl can button himself into a make-believe outfit in the twinkling of an eye. In an incredibly short time, the five youngsters were dressed, each to satisfy his own peculiar taste: Joseph as an Indian in blanket and beads, with a crimson band about his head; Jacob, carrying a sword, wore a moth-eaten smoking jacket, a bright sash ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... was the still water of jungle pools, and the cribs were trees which a hideous and ferocious beast, radically differing in every way from little Gerald Gregory, climbed at will. Jim was a lion who liked to be interrupted by grown-ups, who was laughing at his make-believe all the time, but Derry was so frightfully in earnest as to often terrify himself, and almost always impress his brother, with his roarings ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... do not make-believe. I am in love with him myself, and have been any time since Nelson and the Nile. As for you, Dolly, since he went away six months ago, you have been positively in the megrims. I shall date your loss of appetite from George Austin's vanishing. No, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard. Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever towers had been hers ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... sin! My sin! My sin!" his spiritual adviser gave him the answer, "You long to be without sin, and you have no real sin. Christ is the forgiveness of real sins, such as parricide and the like. If Christ is to help you, you must have a list of real sins, and not come to Him with such trash and make-believe sins, seeing a sin in every trifle." The manner in which Luther gradually raised himself above such despair was decisive for his whole life. The God whom he served was at that time a God of terror. His anger was to be appeased only by ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... trifle closer. Bill held a little steadier. The last shot he took his time about and pulled carefully, using his finger instead of his whole side. A bell clanged. He had actually hit the bull's eye! Bill fell against Lee in a make-believe faint. ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... cruel that a man, because he has been a poet or genius or artist, must needs have every weakness (real or conjectured) in his life served up and grinned at and chatted over, as if he forsooth were a clergyman or some kind of make-believe saint. However, the more vulgar a nature is the more it will gloat on gossip; and herein the most pretentious of the higher classes show themselves ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland |
