"Pretence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a sketch, but surely not as a book. The trouble with Krehbiel, of course, is that he mistakes a newspaper morgue for Parnassus. He has all of the third-rate German's capacity for unearthing facts, but he doesn't know how either to think or to write, and so his criticism is mere pretence and pishposh. W. J. Henderson, of the Sun, doesn't carry that handicap. He is as full of learning as Krehbiel, as his books on singing and on the early Italian opera show, but he also wields a slippery and intriguing pen, and he could be hugely ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... arc light shining like cold blue crystal before the dark Town Hall, and the post-office light where the dog-eared list hung and the telegraph key clicked out its pretence at hand touching with all the world, these were the only lights the street showed—save Capella, that went beside her and, as she looked, seemed almost ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity had endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery, needlessly bestowed on evil meats,—left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally omnipresent,—left her, half lifeless from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters,—left her, crushed down in spirit with the desolation of her ruin, and the ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... delighted to see him rise in his seat in Parliament to address the House, for his towering form literally caused his pro-slavery opponents to 'hide their diminished heads.' He is a very good speaker, but not an orator: his manner is dignified, sincere, and conciliating, and his language without pretence. But he has hardly decision, energy, and boldness enough for a leader. His benevolent desires for the emancipation of the colonial slaves led him to accede to a sordid compromise with the planters, and he advocated the proposition ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... and gave himself up; he was Gowrie's steward; his name was Henderson; it was he who rode with the Master to Falkland and back to Perth to warn Gowrie of James's approach. He confessed that Gowrie had then bidden him put on armour, on a false pretence, and the Master had stationed him in the turret. The fact that Henderson had arrived (from Falkland) at Gowrie's house by half-past ten was amply proved, yet Gowrie had made no preparations for the royal visit. If Henderson ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... could suddenly, without the slightest probability, believe me capable of the most horrible crime, appeared to me scarcely credible. In reality, many would not give themselves the trouble to think about the matter, but were glad of a pretence to shake off the acquaintance of a man of whose stories and songs they began to be weary, and who had put their names to a subscription, which they did not wish to be called upon to pay. Such is the world! Such is the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... of gardening. No garden should ever tell a lie. No garden should ever put on any false pretence. No garden should ever break a promise. To the present reader these proclamations may seem very trite; it may seem very trite to say that if anything in or of a garden is meant for adornment, it must adorn; ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... their rich acquisition. When it came to be opened, they found to their horror that it was filled only with slates, scratched with hieroglyphic and cabalistic characters. Indignant at the insult, they determined to refuse him Christian burial, on pretence that he was a sorcerer. He was, however, honourably buried in Paris, the whole court ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... origin; but this will be best ascertained by a comparison of the languages. For this purpose I have deposited in the Company’s library a copious vocabulary of the Murmi dialect. The doctrine of the Lamas is so obnoxious to the Gorkhalese, that, under pretence of their being thieves, no Murmi is permitted to enter the valley where Kathmandu stands, and by way of ridicule, they are called Siyena Bhotiyas, or Bhotiyas who eat carrion; for these people have such an appetite for beef, that they cannot abstain from the oxen that die a natural death, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... made no pretence to misunderstand. He was being told clearly that Sylvia was in league with her father and Captain Barstow to pluck Walter Hine. But he was anxious to discover how far Garratt ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... days Dan's pride held him back, but the third being Sunday, he went over in the afternoon with the pretence of a message from his grandmother. As the day was mild the great doors were standing open, and from the drive he saw Mrs. Ambler sitting midway of the hall, with her Bible in her hand and her class of little negroes at her feet. Beyond her there was a strip of green and the autumn glory ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... supreme contempt (but all the same there was a faint flush on the clear olive complexion). "You laugh at me, Leo! Nicolo! He was all, as they say here, sham—sham jewelry, sham clothes, all pretence, except the oil for his hair—that was plenty and substantial, yes. And a sham voice—he told lies to the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... all the other countless mummeries of Popery? Something might be pretended for the material images of the Cross worn at the bosom or hung up in the bed-chamber. These may, and doubtless often do, serve as silent monitors; but this eye-falsehood or pretence of making a mark that is not made, is a gratuitous superstition, that cannot be practised without serious danger of leading the vulgar to regard it as a charm. Hooker should have asked—Has it hitherto had this effect on Christians ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... other's throats, or dash in each other's heads with stones, after the fashion of prehistoric males. It is my well-supported conviction, however, that Jaffery, honest old bear, seeing his comrade's very soul set upon the honey, trotted off and left him to it, and made pretence (to satisfy his ursine conscience) of growling his ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... what is at the bottom of them all, simply the greed of English adventurers for Irish land; and, not content with having dispossessed the ancient owners of three-fourths of the cultivated land of the country, they want the remainder, and under the pretence that we, the descendants of the early settlers, are in sympathy with our Irish neighbours, they have marked us out for destruction, and already a great portion of our estates is in the hands of Cromwell's men. So ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... the allied Generals, (for it was not his own single Opinion) and according to the just Rules of War, went on gradually to take their fortified Towns, and ruin their Defences on the Frontiers, that at last, he might have a sure and easie Conquest of the rest: This was one Pretence. The second was just the Reverse of this: For at a great Battle with the Tartarians, the Commander having resolved to attack the Enemy in their advantageous Camp, and having drawn up in Battalia his whole Army, he gives the Post of Honour to the Prince, appointing him, with ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... came after this suggestion, and Margaret turned over the pages of her book as if making up her mind where to begin reading. This was not quite a pretence, for Lushington had told her that it was a book she ought to read, which it was her intellectual duty to read, and which would develop her reasoning faculties. By way of encouragement he had added that she would probably not like it. On that point she agreed with him readily. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... but when sixty years old, to the surprise of her friends, she married Monsieur Le Hay, a gentleman of her own age. One of her biographers, leaving nothing to the imagination, assures us that "substantial esteem and respect were the foundations of their matrimonial happiness, rather than any pretence of ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... and left the hall, going straight to the gatekeeper's house, where he had put off his armour on arriving. On pretence of sharpening his sword, he borrowed a pot of ointment from the man, and, unseen by him, rubbed the paste thickly over his armour. After this he looked about to see that no one was watching him, and took the path that ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... position or authority. The gist of it was that King Charles the Second was the only supreme governor in the realm over all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, and that it was unlawful for any subject upon pretence of reformation, or any pretence whatever, to enter into covenants or leagues, or to assemble in any councils, conventicles, assemblies, etcetera, ecclesiastical or civil, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... fallen to about two hundred thousand, or two thirds of its former produce. Of this the Company's demand amounted only to a fourth part, that is, about fifty thousand pounds yearly. This was at that time provided by agents for the Company, under the inspection of their commercial servants. On pretence of securing an advantage for this fourth part for their masters, they exerted a most violent and arbitrary power over the whole. It was asserted, that they fixed the Company's mark to such goods ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... The child in the next room had not stirred. The dumfounded husband sat motionless under pretence of listening. His wife made a despairing gesture. He motioned to hearken a moment more; but no human sound sent a faintest ripple across the breathless air; the earth was as silent as the stars. Still he ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... farms had been wholly routed out of existence. A few of the old family estates were kept up after a fashion, but it was only as the officers of a defeated garrison are allowed to take their own time about leaving their quarters. Along the broad highway some of them lingered, keeping up a poor pretence of disregarding new grades and levels, and of not seeing the little shanties that squatted under their very windows, or the more offensive habitations of a more pretentious poverty that began to range themselves here and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... the greatest consent and indeed applause of the Roman people, from that (place) bicycles are to be ejected by one guardian of books. O singular impudence of the man! For be unwilling, Conscript Fathers, be unwilling to believe that in this pretence of consulting for (the interests of) a public building something more is not also being aimed at and sought to be obtained: in such a way (lit. so) he attacks bicycles that in reality he endeavours to oppress the liberty of each one of you: that by this example and as it ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... Virginian of the later period had a most exalted conception of what a man should be, and they respected themselves as exemplifiers of their ideals, but they were always ready to accord to others the same reverence they paid themselves. The change that had taken place is shown in the lack of pretence and self-assertion in judges, councillors, in college presidents and other dignitaries. Thomas Nelson Page, in speaking of the fully developed Virginia gentleman, says, "There was the foundation of a certain pride, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... was something horribly humiliating in the terms (however veiled in plausible language) which Henry was evidently prescribing to me as the price of his protection. I was never a self-deceiver, and I saw clearly through the shallow pretence of better hopes for the future—of kindness to Alice—of help to pursue the better course—his unswerving determination never to give up those habits of intimacy, which would give full scope for the exercise of his secret power. I ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... officers hid it there, fearing to trust their own crew with it in their vessel. Their pretence was to stop for turtle, just as you must do: whilst the hands were turtling, the captain and his mates walked about the key, and took occasion to make their deposits in that hole on the coral rock, as you have heard me say. Oh! it's all too natural ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... house—and casually, without hesitation, mounted the steps—and quite as casually, making a pretence of ringing the electric bell, opened the unlocked outer door, stepped into the vestibule, and, without a sound now, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Chancery bar ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be—as are they not?—ranged in a ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... more vigorously for hearing. Nadie had turned her head away, and so far as the back of a neck and the tips of two ears could express oblivion of what had passed, it might have been gathered from hers. But Elfrida knew better, and she resented the pity of the pretence more than if she had met Mademoiselle Palicsky's long light gray eyes full ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr. John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... was in the green oblong, and all North Bay left their houses and shops to attend. The visit had more the air of a family party than aught else, for, after a mere pretence of keeping ranks, the people broke in upon the function, and Prince and Staff and people became inextricably mixed. When His Royal Highness took car to drive around the town, the crowd cut off the cars in the procession, and for half an hour North Bay ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... do so. I have often heard people say that Leonora used to dance at parties as if she wished to kill herself, and would drink quantities of iced water when she was in a most heated condition. It was no longer a pretence with her. What scenes took place at home between her mother and herself it was no business of mine to pry into; but this I know right well that the girl one day went straight to Szephalmi and threatened him there and then with something terrible if he did not marry her. I will not tell you, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... under her eyes, and a head that throbbed tormentingly. She breakfasted with Isabel in the latter's room, and was again deeply grateful to her friend for forbearing to comment upon her subdued manner. She could not make any pretence at cheerfulness that day, being in fact still so near to tears that she could scarcely keep ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... orderly, elegant, and brilliant: a prince not risen from behind a counter like Medicis and Petruccis, nor out of blood like Baglionis and Sforzas, but of a noble old house whose beginnings are lost in the mist of real chivalry and real paladinism; a duke with a pretence of feudal honour and decorum, at whose court men were all brave and ladies all chaste—with the little licenses of baseness and gallantry admitted by Renaissance chivalry. A bright, brilliant court at the close of the fifteenth century; ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... the Indians who make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other. Everything that is eatable, and many things ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all, "Where ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... only fair to reproduce Hobbes' capitalization—"are not sufficiently known. For the work of an heroic poem is to raise admiration (principally) for three virtues, valor, beauty, and love; to the reading whereof women no less than men have a just pretence though their skill in language be not so universal. And therefore foreign words, till by long use they become vulgar, are unintelligible to them." Dryden is similarly restrained by the thought of his readers. He does not try to reproduce the "Doric dialect" of Theocritus, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... pulled away lustily, in the hopes of at length finding a slaver which they could make their lawful prize. At this time, however, the Sultan of Zanzibar issued licences to no inconsiderable number of vessels, on the pretence that they were engaged in bringing him negroes to work on his plantations; although, were his island ten times the size that it really is, he could not have employed one-tenth of the blacks carried off to slavery. On this flimsy ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... unfamiliar surroundings, he could not be persuaded to try change of air. The disease intensified his native stubbornness, made him by turns fretful and furious, disposed him to a sullen solitude. He would accept no tendance but that of Mary Woodruff; to her, as to his children, he kept up the pretence of gout. He was visited only by Samuel Barmby, with whom he discussed details of business, and by Mr. Barmby, senior, his friend of thirty years, the one man to whom he ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... this aggravating remark, the Reverend OCTAVIUS made a jab with the comb at the old lady's false-front, pulling it down quite askew over her left eye; but, upon the sudden entrance of a servant with the tea-pot, he made precipitate pretence that his hand was upon his mother's head to give ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... by one laid aside, in tacit preparation for the meal. The Butlers rose to go, and were persuaded to remain. Mr. Stewart, who had an Old-World prejudice against tippling during the day, was induced by the baronet to taste a thimble of hollands, for appetite's sake. So we waited, with only a decent pretence of interest in ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... was sorely disappointed. Instead of giving a creed to Christendom, he received back his confession in a form which at first he could not sign at all. There was some ground for his complaint that, under pretence of inserting the single word of one essence, which our wise and godly Emperor so admirably explained, the bishops had in effect drawn up a composition of their own. It was a venerable document of stainless orthodoxy, and they had laid rude hands on almost every clause ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... her course. Let us not be deceived in our premises. Campaigns of vilification, corruption and false pretence have lost their usefulness. The evolution of national energy is towards a more intelligent morality in politics and in all other relations. The situation admits of no compromise. The temper and purpose of the American public will tolerate no other view. The indifference of the American people ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... said to me," interrupted La Palferine, "'My one affectation is the pretence that I make of living ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... sisters went upon a hunting excursion for ten days, only one (his kindest friend) remained in the palace, under pretence of attending Mazin, whose health, she said, was too delicate to bear the exercise of the chase. When the others were departed, she informed Mazin that the beautiful beings he had seen in the garden were of a race of genie much more powerful than her own, that they inhabited a country surrounded ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... now—all I can tell you I have told. I return home by the noon-day train; and, before I go, I should like to see this girl who is to be your wife. See, I will remain by this window, screened by the curtain. Can you not fetch her by some pretence or other beneath it, that I may look ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... voice,—"and this is the first time that I have ever heard their legitimacy questioned." He then went on to compare his eyes to two full moons rising upon the scene, a phenomenon made necessary to dispel a little of the darkness that, under the pretence of light and justice, had been ingeniously thrown around the cause they were to decide. For a full half hour this rambling burlesque was continued, with a manner of delivery indescribably ludicrous, only now and then touching upon the cause on trial, and then only to fling ridicule ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... that the volunteer force have only one regret, that they have not had the opportunity of driving from the soil of Canada those misguided men, who, under the flimsy veil of so-called patriotic feeling, would have carried war into a country with which they have no pretence of quarrel. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... suspicion. Moreover, among the papers is a complete collection of passports, suitable for any character the Queen and her attendant may be forced to assume. It has taken me some months to collect them, so as not to arouse suspicion; I gradually got them together, on one pretence or another: now I ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Of secret enemies in this abyss. While in her castle sits at Fotheringay, The Ate [1] of this everlasting war, Who, with the torch of love, spreads flames around; For her who sheds delusive hopes on all, Youth dedicates itself to certain death; To set her free is the pretence—the aim Is to establish her upon the throne. For this accursed House of Guise denies Thy sacred right; and in their mouths thou art A robber of the throne, whom chance has crowned. By them this thoughtless woman was deluded, Proudly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... caused a timber fort to be built before the walls of Moscow for a martial spectacle which he had planned for the entertainment of his bride. Shuiski put it abroad that the fort was intended to serve as an engine of destruction, and that the martial spectacle was a pretence, the real object being that from the fort the Poles were to cast firebrands into the city, and then proceed to the slaughter of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... generally known, that at the time of the three days at Paris, there was an emeute in Switzerland, in which the aristocracy were altogether put down; and in Berne, and some other cantons, the burghers' families, who, on pretence of preventing the aristocracy from enslaving the count, had held the reins of power for so long a period, were also forced to surrender that power to those who had been so long refused participation in it. This was but the natural consequence ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... honor that he has never borrowed money on the pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land. He is not a liar. I don't want to make him better than he is. I have blown him up well—nobody can say I wink at what he does. But he is not a liar. And I should have thought—but I may be wrong—that there was no religion ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... court of the hotel, under pretence of waiting for the abbe, in hope of seeing something which would throw light upon the mysterious occupant of the chamber. But the comers and goers were all of the most unobtrusive and ordinary cast. I ventured to question the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... better to call it the unaesthetic sex. Women have neither the appreciation nor the knowledge of music, any more than they have of poetry or of the plastic arts; with them it is merely an apelike imitation, pure pretence, affectation cultivated from their ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... passage of flirtation between Thomas Thurston and Julia Monson. As for the latter, she took such a distaste for me, that she presented me to Mademoiselle Hennequin, at the first opportunity, under the pretence that she had discovered a strong wish in the latter to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... who drinks and asks the Sir Knights to pledge him in the cup "in commemoration of the Last Supper of our Grand Heavenly Captain, with his twelve disciples, whom he commanded thus to remember him." Here, says Mr. Burnand, there is no pretence to sacrifice. Participation in the wine is a symbol of a particular and peculiarly close ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... hundred thousand who had started the day before in obedience to the order of the Tsar; and these were split up into formless squads and ragged companies fighting desperately amidst heaps of corpses for dear life, without any pretence at order ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... of oppression. He paid for every article extorted by the police, but strictly forbade the vendors to give any further credit. The Sub-Inspector was deeply incensed in finding this source of illicit profit cut off, and his vengeance was perpetrated under the pretence of law. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... with this discovery. The ring of an old love, who was a handsome man, excellent, and celebrated, was there on her finger. Peace was hallowed. Now she believed thoroughly in Melanie, she believed that the indifference Melanie showed towards Lorand was no mere pretence. The field was already ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... lawful faith in Bohemia. "And as for these Brethren," he said, "whose teaching has been so often forbidden by royal decrees and decisions of the Diet, I order them, like my predecessors, to fall in with the Utraquists or Catholics, and declare that their meetings shall not be permitted on any pretence whatever." ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... at once," said his wife; "the poor fellow has fallen again. I am afraid some of the party have made a pretence of doing him special honor in order that they might entice him to drink, and then waylay and rob him. Do you know, dear, whether he carried much money on ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... beseechingly under the table, but his blood was up. He was inflamed by the intellectual pretence and fraud of those who sat in the high places. A Superior Court Judge! It was only several years before that he had looked up from the mire at such glorious ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... their homes to find that shelter in the wilderness and that protection among hostile savages which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christianity and civilisation." It concluded by forbidding all armed forces of every description to enter the Territory under any pretence whatever, and declaring martial law to exist until further notice. The little band hurried on, eager to ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... sopped his bread in ale, and in that inconvenient manner continued to get drunk, excusing himself with the plea that though it was forbidden to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. When this was in turn prohibited, the Soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of the obnoxious decree. A good Rabelaisian tale, that must ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the National Assembly, he became obnoxious to them, for his firmness in adhering to constitutional principles; and, though generally censured by the royalists as an advocate for liberty and reform, was hated and opposed by the factions, with the pretence of his being still attached to the ancient regime. He retained his hold on the affections of the people for some time, and enjoyed also, more of the confidence and regard of the King, then any other who had favored the revolution. ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... decency: and the ill-advised and feeble King committed to Albany, who had been standing by waiting for some such piece of good fortune, the reformation of his son. The catastrophe was not slow to follow. Rothesay was seized near St. Andrews on the pretence of stopping a mad enterprise in which he was engaged, and conveyed to Falkland, where he died in strict confinement, "of dysentery or others say of hunger" is the brief and terrible record—blaming no one—of the chroniclers, on Easter Eve 1401. It would be vain ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the secret now. A sheet of old newspaper wrapped round a parcel—just a little chance like that—had given the secret to her. And she had to go down to tea and pretend that there was nothing the matter. The pretence was bravely made, but it wasn't ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... that they would stand no fair chance for victory, taken completely at unawares. But the orders were imperative to allow no man to leave the ranks, and to shoot the first who should attempt it on any pretence. Then of the nature of the ground between the opposing forces I knew nothing, except that it was said to be crossed and seamed by swamps, in many places almost impassable by daylight, much more so at night. If, then, ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... presume, intend to deny, that you attended your host Glennaquoich to a rendezvous, where, under a pretence of a general hunting-match, most of the accomplices of his treason were assembled to ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... kind. A religion was simply a cultus, a threskeia, a mode of ritual worship, in which there might be two differences, namely: 1. As to the particular deity who furnished the motive to the worship; 2. As to the ceremonial, or mode of conducting the worship. But in no case was there so much as a pretence of communicating any religious truths, far less any moral truths. The obstinate error rooted in modern minds is, that, doubtless, the moral instruction was bad, as being heathen; but that still it was as good as heathen opportunities ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... he might carry it on without endangering their good names, had urged her to meet him the next morning in the semi-disguise of a gossamer over her fine dress and a heavy veil over her striking features; making the pretence, no doubt, of this being the more appropriate costume for her to appear in before the old gentleman should he so far concede to her demands as to take her to the steamer. For himself he had planned the adoption of a disfiguring ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... a mere pretence, now informed Robin he should no longer be persecuted, and proposed that he, Little John, Will Scarlet, and Allan a Dale should enter his service. The rest of the outlaws were appointed game-keepers in the royal forests, a life which suited ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... to attempt to monopolize the Christian name, and assume that all the piety, godliness, and virtue in the land, is to be found in its borders alone, is to place itself in a most ridiculous position. A pretence so arrogant and groundless, in our enlightened day, can have no other effect than to excite a smile of pity on the countenance of sincere and candid Christians. I would have the young give no countenance to these pretensions; but seek to attain ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... these expeditions were attended by considerable danger, for the wars that had for some years devastated the country had resulted in general disorder. Armed bands, under the pretence of acting in the interest of one claimant or other to the throne, traversed the country, pillaging the villages, driving off flocks and herds to the mountains, and ruthlessly slaying any who ventured to offer the smallest ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... obtained a week's respite, but at the end of that time the lout gave orders that my cell should be swept. He had the bed carried out into the garret, and on pretence of having the sweeping done with greater care, he lighted a candle. This let me know that the rascal was suspicious of something; but I was crafty enough to take no notice of him, and so far from giving up my plea, I only thought how I could put it on good train. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... some knowledge of the forgeries. Further suspicion was excited, and directions were given to detain him at some future period. The following day the teller was informed that "his friend Maxwell," as he was styled ironically, was in Cornhill. The clerk instantly went, and under pretence of having paid Mathison a guinea too much on a previous occasion, and of losing his situation if the mistake were not rectified in the books, induced him to return with him to the hall; from which place he was taken before ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... that magnificent military enterprise, the conquest of Antwerp, had just been effected. "God will be weary of working miracles for us," he cried, "and nothing but miracles can save the troops from starving." There was no question of paying them their wages, there was no pretence at keeping them reasonably provided with lodging and clothing, but he asserted the undeniable proposition that they "could not pass their lives without eating," and he implored his sovereign to send at least money enough to buy the soldiers shoes. To go foodless and barefoot without complaining, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... vainly tried to overcome Hwitserk, who ruled over Sweden; but at last he enrapped him under pretence of making a peace, and attacked him. Hwitserk received him hospitably, but Daxo had prepared an army with weapons, who were to feign to be trading, ride into the city in carriages, and break with a night-attack into the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... out, though the people were suffering greatly with famine and disease. At last a pretended traitor, Bellido Dolfos, offered to deliver the city into the hands of Sancho. While riding along with the king, under pretence of pointing out the gate whereby the troops might enter Zamora, this lying wretch stabbed the unsuspecting Sancho through and through with his own royal golden spear, given by the king to the knave to ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... a pretence of answering him. But when we were in the study and the door was closed behind us, I felt that there was no longer ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Grand Company of Associates trading in New France, as their charter named them—the "Grand Company of Thieves," as the people in their plain Norman called them who robbed them in the King's name and, under pretence of maintaining the war, passed the most arbitrary decrees, the only object of which was to enrich themselves and their higher patrons ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... concerned, any desire of eating chestnuts, but as she feared lest, on account of the cream, some trouble might arise, which might again lead to the same results as when Hsi Hseh drank the tea, she consequently made use of the pretence that she fancied chestnuts, in order to put off Pao-y from alluding (to the cream) and to bring the matter speedily to an end. But telling forthwith the young waiting-maids to take the chestnuts away and eat them, she herself came and pushed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... before his writing-table, which was heaped with papers, directories, and maps; but he could no longer see to read or write. He made a stiff pretence of rising to greet the doctor as he entered, and then resumed ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... harbour, and there were lights in the temple of Khamon. They thought of Hamilcar. Where was he? Why had he forsaken them when peace was concluded? His differences with the Council were doubtless but a pretence in order to destroy them. Their unsatisfied hate recoiled upon him, and they cursed him, exasperating one another with their own anger. At this juncture they collected together beneath the plane-trees to see a slave who, with eyeballs fixed, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... had followed the child's death! Cyriax raved as if he had really been seized with the lunacy whose pretence helped him to beg his bread. Besides, he gave himself up to unbridled indulgence in brandy, and, when drunk, he was capable of the most brutal acts. The dead Juli's mother, who, spite of an evil youth and a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... occasional exhortation and chiding of his companion, the noise of the horsemen's feet continuing to approach, Wamba could not be prevented from lingering occasionally on the road, upon every pretence which occurred; now catching from the hazel a cluster of half-ripe nuts, and now turning his head to leer after a cottage maiden who crossed their path. The horsemen, therefore, soon overtook them ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... introduced, bowed, and exchanged a few words, while Mr. Wynkoop busied himself in peering about the room, making a great pretence at searching out the lady guest, who, in very truth, had scarcely been absent from his sight during ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... and did not utter a word during the dinner; my silence was construed into a proof of my sagacity. As we rose from the table, the Abbe Gama invited me to spend the day with him, but I declined under pretence of letters to be written, and I truly did so for seven hours. I wrote to Don Lelio, to Don Antonio, to my young friend Paul, and to the worthy Bishop of Martorano, who answered that he heartily wished himself ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... But if we are to have our noses rubbed together in this course of flight, let us each dare to be ourselves like savages, and each swear that he will neither resent nor deprecate the other. I am a pretty bad fellow at bottom, and I find the pretence of virtues ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lathered like clowns and trussed up in what is perhaps the least heroic posture and costume possible for man, are seated at the windows, where they may enjoy the outside procession during the boresome processes of the shave and the hair-cut. In the windows of the downtown shops, with no pretence whatever of the curtains customary in the East, men clerks disrobe and re-robe life-sized female models of an appalling nude flesh-likeness. They dress these helpless ladies in all the fripperies of femininity from the wax out, oblivious to the flippant comments ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... lawful prize, because, on searching her, he found a few old English newspapers in a trunk belonging to Mr. Wilson, an English gentleman on board, who had escaped from Hyder Ali's prison. This was pretence sufficient for a Frenchman to seize upon a neutral Danish vessel, nor could any redress be ever procured, to the great loss of the Mission. After long and vexatious detention, the mate and the three Brethren purchased a Malay prow, for 75 dollars, and stole off in the night; as the Malay prince ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... a pretence to get me away, I know," said she, "and you may as well confess it at once. You are tired of waiting ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... stone, while the side and rear walls are constructed of rough brick, painted and marked off to resemble the stone, is very common, we know, both in town and country, but it is a species of deceit and false pretence which ought not to be. If the best and costliest material cannot be used for the entire structure, let the rougher and inferior material be fairly shown, in every part. If the means and liberality of the parish cannot provide oak or walnut for the interior finish, let the wood work be plainly ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... jogging on as usual, I suppose: but I know very little about any of them—except Harry,' said she, blushing slightly, and smiling again. 'I saw a great deal of him while we were in London; for, as soon as he heard we were there, he came up under pretence of visiting his brother, and either followed me, like a shadow, wherever I went, or met me, like a reflection, at every turn. You needn't look so shocked, Miss Grey; I was very discreet, I assure you, but, you know, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... him, and charmed his eyes and thoughts even to the hag on his arm. He brought himself to address courteous and pleasant remarks to his companion, and to meet unwincingly her one-eyed glance; and was as gallant as though her pretence had been truth. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... this kitchen; they are making preparations for the Sabbath, and we shall be able to find food." The Bear followed the Fox, but, being bulky, he was captured and punished. Angry thereat, he designed to tear the Fox to pieces, under the pretence that the forefathers of the Fox had once stolen his food, wherein occurs the saying, "the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."[89] "Nay," said the Fox, "come with me, my good friend; let us not quarrel. I will ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... he exclaimed rather sadly. "But I make no pretence of being what I am not. Your religion interests me, although, as you know, I have never been taught the belief you have. My gods are in the air, in the trees, in the sky. I believe what I have been ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... "The Swiss Postmark," following so soon upon the housekeeper's reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding's agitation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a pretence of ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... unconscious perception of the fact that the whole institution has been ignominiously degraded, and that the sonorous words of wise and apathetic teachers are contradictory to the dreary, barbaric, and sterile reality. So there are no true cultural institutions! And in those very places where a pretence to culture is still kept up, we find the people more hopeless, atrophied, and discontented than in the secondary schools, where the so-called 'realistic' subjects are taught! Besides this, only think how immature and uninformed one ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... seduce, was absent from home, Wolfenschiess entered Conrad's house and ordered his wife to prepare him a bath, at the same time renewing with ardor his former proposals. With the cunning of her sex, the wife feigned to be willing to accede to his wishes, and on the pretence of retiring to another room to undress sped to her husband, who quickly returned and slew Wolfenschiess while he was still in the bath. After this exploit an entrance was effected into the bailies' castle of Rotzberg by one of the conspirators, who was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to cope with enemies without, but with sedition within. Societies formed for propagating the principles of the revolution advocated the subversion of the constitution under the pretence of parliamentary reform; the populace, angered by the privations caused by the clearness of food, listened readily to the agitators; riots were frequent, but the most mischievous form taken by sedition was that of armed conspiracy. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... alliance with us and the other allies, to give up the Hellenes in Asia, whom the Lacedaemonians had previously handed over to him, he thinking that we should refuse, and that then he might have a pretence for withdrawing from us. About the other allies he was mistaken, for the Corinthians and Argives and Boeotians, and the other states, were quite willing to let them go, and swore and covenanted, that, if he would pay them money, they would make over to ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... Sparta, will you find revelries and the many incitements of every kind of pleasure which accompany them; and any one who meets a drunken and disorderly person, will immediately have him most severely punished, and will not let him off on any pretence, not even at the time of a Dionysiac festival; although I have remarked that this may happen at your performances 'on the cart,' as they are called; and among our Tarentine colonists I have seen the whole city drunk at a Dionysiac festival; ...
— Laws • Plato
... the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... half the things I have as yet," spoke Tom. "But I don't like this, just the same. Those giants may turn from us, and favor him on the slightest pretence. I guess we've got our work cut out ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... it seems was but a pretence, for afterwards he headed the same Runnagado English that he formerly found ready to undertake and go sharers with him in any of his Rebellions, and adding to them the assistance of his own Slaves and Servants, headed them so far till they toucht at the Occonegies Town, where he was treated ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... Loiseau, under pretence of stretching his legs, went out to sell wine to the dealers of the village. The Count and the manufacturer began to talk politics. They were forecasting France's future. The one kept faith in the Orleans dynasty, the other expected an unknown ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... it in that immensely effective fashion, he recognised that he must just unprotestingly and not so very awkwardly—not so very!—take from her; since, whatever he had thus come to her for, it wasn't to perjure himself with any pretence that, "another woman" or no other woman, he hadn't, for years and years, abhorred her. Now he was taking tea with her—or rather, literally, seemed not to be; but this made no difference, and he let her express it as she would while he distinguished a man he knew, Charley Coote, outside ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... says Jocelyne, with a pretence of indignation, that makes her charming face a perfect picture. "Teaching him to regard us as ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... a cup of coffee, and Babette had sat down and begun to sip it (for she knew she must make a pretence of breakfasting) when the eldest son came in. There was a very uneasy look ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... temperament to seek rapport with all sorts of men. He was infinitely related;—not an individual of note in his day but was linked with him by some common interest or some polemic grapple; not a savant or statesman with whom Leibnitz did not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of communication. Europe was reticulated with the meshes of his correspondence. "Never," says Voltaire, "was intercourse among philosophers more universal; Leibnitz servait l'animer." He writes now to Spinoza at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... discoveries. To have gained one victory, is an inducement to hazard a second engagement: and though the success of the general should be a reason for increasing the strength of the fortification, it becomes, with many, a pretence for an immediate surrender, under the notion that no power is able to withstand so formidable an adversary; while others brave the danger, and think it mean to surrender, and dastardly to fly. Melissa, indeed, knew better; and though she could not boast the apathy, steadiness, and inflexibility of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... later a boy walked casually through the dining-room bearing beans in a basket. Time went on, and the Senator was compelled to send word that he had not ordered the repast for the following day. The small waiter then made a pretence of activity, and brought vinegar and salt, and rolls and water. "The peutates is notta-cooks," said he in deprecation, and we were distressed to postpone the Count for those peutates. But what else ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... finding the cattle. But on the 21st of the month, Corbet made his appearance near a farm belonging to the Governor, and entreated a convict, who happened to be on the spot, to give him some food, as he was perishing for hunger. The man applied to, under pretence of fetching what he asked for, went away and immediately gave the necessary information, in consequence of which a party under arms was sent out and apprehended him. When the poor wretch was brought in, he was greatly ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... following week I went to see Betty frequently under the pretence of wishing to see Hamilton, but she told me (honestly, I believed) that he had left the Old Swan and that she did not know where he was. So I repeated my visits every day, each visit growing longer and I growing ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... since ceased to regard them seriously as a possible aid to conduct. But we are such deceivers, such miserable, moral cowards, in such terror of appearing naive, that I for one am not to be taken in by that smile and that pretence. The individual who scoffs at New Year's Resolutions resembles the woman who says she doesn't look under the bed at nights; the truth is not in him, and in the very moment of his lying, could his cranium suddenly become transparent, we should see ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... felo-de-se. Fatal as this aldermanic determination may be to the interests of the shareholders of Waterloo, Vauxhall, and Southwark Bridges, Sir PETER has resolved that no man—not even in the suicidal season of November—shall drown, hang, or otherwise destroy himself, under any pretence soever! Sir PETER, with a very proper admiration of the pleasures of life, philosophises with a full stomach on the ignorance and wickedness of empty-bellied humanity; and Mr. HOBLER—albeit in the present case ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... village on Rock river. It is probable that he would have remained neutral during the remainder of the war, had it not been for one of those border outrages, which lawless and unprincipled white men but too often commit upon the Indians, under pretence of self defence or retaliation, often a mere pretext for wanton bloodshed and murder. Previous to joining Colonel Dixon, Black Hawk had visited the lodge of an old friend, whose son he had adopted and taught to hunt. He was anxious that this youth should ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... not to be imagined what Offence some of them take at the Custom of Saluting in Places of Worship. I have a very angry Letter from a Lady, who tells me [of] one of her Acquaintance, [who,] out of meer Pride and a Pretence to be rude, takes upon her to return no Civilities done to her in Time of Divine Service, and is the most religious Woman for no other Reason but to appear a Woman of the best Quality in the Church. This absurd Custom ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... imposed upon by a prowling sharper, who, observing his figure, had marked him for an easy prey. I therefore asked the circumstances of his deception. He sold the horse, it seems, and walked the fair in search of another. A reverend-looking man brought him to a tent, under pretence ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... her forehead into lines of acute distress. "Oh, Goody! It's as bad as lessons every bit. Look here, I'm not clever, and I don't make any pretence at poetry or the rest of it. You'll just have ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... business coming before our Highland Representative Institutions—such as the local Parliament of the Highland Capital, Gaelic and other Celtic Societies, and passing incidents likely to prove interesting to our Celtic readers. We make no pretence to give news; simply comments on incidents, information regarding which will be obtained through the ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... out into ye hen house then I hard her presently shreek out I ran presently to her and asked her what is ye matter, she was in such pain she could not Hue & presently fell into a fit stiff. We carried her in and laid her upon ye bed and then I got my kniffe ready and fitting under pretence of doing sum great matter then presently she came to herselfe & said to me Joseph what are you about to doe I said I would cutt her & seemed to threten great matters, then she laid her down upon the bed & said she would confess to us how ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... frequently committed. Sam Rogers thus describes a successful mode of operation: "A boy was carried covered over in a butcher's tray by a tall man, and the wig was twisted off in a moment by the boy. The bewildered owner looked all round for it, when an accomplice impeded his progress under the pretence of assisting him while the tray-bearer made off." Gay, in ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... in the hall We gambol'd, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... and driving her ahead under bare poles. When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled above the deck. {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors were landed with fourteen women. Two watched their chance and dashed for liberty in the hills. On the way back to the ship, one woman was brained to death by a sailor, Gorelin; seeing which, the others on board the jolly-boat took ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... into the hands of Gustavus. To revenge himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but too severely from his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins. But these barbarities only served ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
