"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in keeping ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... have fulfilled my mother's intentions, in engaging to leave out in this edition of her works*, no production susceptible of being printed. My fidelity in adhering to this engagement gives me the right of disavowing beforehand, all which at any future period, persons might pretend to add to this collection, which, I repeat, contains every thing, of which my mother had not formally forbid ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... that," answered Isabella laughingly, "I do not pretend to determine what your thoughts and designs in time past may have been. All that is best known to yourself. A little harmless flirtation or so will occur, and one is often drawn on to give more encouragement ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... not; but at all events, I should risk it. I do not pretend to know Elsie's feelings, but if she cares for you at all, it would be treating her very badly indeed, to go away without letting her know yours; unless her parents ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... to know. Be careful, above all things, of professing to see in the phenomena of the material world the evidences of Divine pleasure or displeasure. Doubt those who would deduce from the fall of the tower of Siloam the anger of the Lord against those who were crushed. Doubt equally those who pretend to see in cholera, cattle-plague, and bad harvests, evidences of Divine anger. Doubt those spiritual guides who in Scotland have lately propounded the monstrous theory that the depreciation of railway scrip is a consequence of railway travelling on Sundays. Let them not, as far ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... succession was disputed by the husbands of the two elder sisters of his wife; but the ministers and people being in favour of the sultan's will, they resigned their pretensions and submitted to his authority. His wife being brought to bed of a son, her sisters bribed the midwife to pretend that the sultana had produced a dog. They did the same by another son. At the third lying-in of the sultana Abou Neeut resolved to be present, and a beautiful princess appeared. The two infant princes having been thrown at the gate of one of the royal palaces, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... be back here this summer. You know me well enough, Jenny Wren, to know that you can't hurt me with your tongue, sharp as it is, so you may as well save your breath to tell me a few things I want to know. Now if you are as fond of the Old Orchard as you pretend to be, why did you ever ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... does not greatly exceed one quarter; whereas, if the disappearance is rapid after a very few shakes, the contrary, of course, is the case." The dilute lime-water is measured out and carried in ordinary half-ounce phials. This method does not pretend to great accuracy, but as a method of distinguishing between good and bad air it is very convenient, and will ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... stupidity as to your powers of speech? I ask you, is there anything more idiotic than the inference that, because the names of two things resemble each other, the things themselves are identical? Or did you think it a particularly clever invention on your part to pretend that I had sought out these two fish for the purpose of using them as magical charms? Remember that it is as absurd an argument to say that these sea-creatures with gross names were sought for gross purposes, as to say that the sea-comb is sought for the adornment of the hair, the fish ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Hovstad. Pretend to be doing something, Aslaksen. (Sits down and writes. ASLAKSEN begins foraging among a heap of newspapers that are lying ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... talkin' quietly with the Greek when you were below asleep, and I've seen him confaberlatin on the quiet with the second mate and the bo'sun—all three together—and if you chanced to come up they'd either quit talkin' or pretend to just be having a yarn about nothin' in partikler. I believe, sir—and so does my mates and Velo—that they means mischief o' some ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... only way anybody who happened to be interested would find out about your meeting, wouldn't it? I don't intend to talk about it, as I said before. I thought perhaps if it had anything to do with the political situation, for instance,—detectives, you know—around election time. I don't pretend to know very much about these things, ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... relations were with him I do not pretend to know. It is evident, however, that they continue, as he writes to her. It will also be apparent to you that she has not scrupled to continue her relations ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... false," cried Mrs. Mowbray, her anger and vexation getting the better of her fears. "I will not believe it. Who are you, that pretend to know the secrets of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... warmed it, and restored it to life: and the dove reviving, gaily said, "I know you, in spite of your disguise; follow my advice: when you arrive at the rock, remain at the bottom and begin to sing the sweetest song you know; the green bird will listen to you; you must then pretend to go to sleep; when it sees me, it will come down to peck me, and at that moment you will be able ...
— The Song of Sixpence - Picture Book • Walter Crane
... will be doing an act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this is what I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong those who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend to entreat from ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... circular, therefore, to his lordship, he underlined the word "respectable," by which it was made to appear deliberately offensive. Whether it was used with the design of reflecting upon the licentious violence of the blood-hounds, we pretend not to say, but we can safely affirm that the word in the original document was never underlined by Hartley. Lord Cumber, like his old father, was no coward, and the consequence was, that having once conceived the belief that the offensive term in the circular was levelled at his own ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... regard to the use of the seed of Henbane by mountebanks, for obstinate toothache: "Drawers of teeth who run about the country and pretend they cause worms to come forth from the teeth by burning the seed in a chafing dish of coals, the party holding his mouth over the fume thereof, do have some crafty companions who convey small lute strings into the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Miss Minerva, Miss Sylvia, Miss Aspasia, Miss Euterpe, and many others, evidently borrowed from the different men-of-war which had been on the station. All these young ladies gave themselves all the airs of Almack's. Their dresses I cannot pretend to describe—jewels of value were not wanting, but their drapery was slight; they appeared neither to wear nor to require stays, and on the whole, their figures were so perfect that they could only be ill dressed by having on too much dress. A few more ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the most frequently imitated metre is the Sapphic strophe. Swinburne's Sapphics in Poems and Ballads are the best known; but though they are finely musical they do not pretend to give more than an ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... latter replied, "just put me among machinery and I'll tell you what's what, but I never learned anything about astronomy, so will not pretend to any knowledge of it, but now I should be very glad to hear what the Professor has to say ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... her cousin. "Be a snivelly little hypocrite. Pretend to be so sorry—when you're not ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... decent, normal man, without any special moral or intellectual equipment, who becomes a doctor. "As to the honour and conscience of doctors, they have as much as any other class of men, no more and no less. And what other men," he adds characteristically, "dare pretend to be impartial where they have a strong pecuniary interest on one side?" He analyses the psychology of the practitioner and the specialist. He shows how much guesswork there must be where even the most distinguished differ; in what manner we are all handed over, bound, to the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... pretend to go deeply into the technical side of aviation, there are certain terms and expressions in everyday use by aviators that it is ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... sovereign, speak and act naturally in the presence of a simple merchant, the equal of themselves. This pleases the Caliph, and affords him the gratification and amusement of observing men as they are. As Prince of the Faithful he sees them only as they pretend to be. Well, I have the same fancy, only in the contrary direction. I know how men act when they accept me as their equal, I play at being their Prince and then watch their behaviour. Taking advantage of the Caliph's ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... we took occasion, in a former work, to berate the narrow-minded parsimony which left the grounds of the White House in a condition that was discreditable to the republic. How far our philippic may have hastened the improvements which have been made, is more than we shall pretend to say, but having made the former strictures, we are happy to have an occasion to say (though nearly twenty years have intervened between the expressions of the two opinions) that they ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... a good deal in all that,” said Larry. “We don’t pretend to any judicial functions. We are perfectly willing to submit the whole business and all my client’s ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... prosecuting this good work of his is doomed to perform a serious act of disenchantment. The ideal Gipsy is destined to be scattered to the winds by the unvarnished picture which Mr. Smith will cause to be presented to our vision. He does not pretend to show us the romantic, fantastically-dressed creature whose prototypes have long been in the imaginations of many of us as types of the Gipsy species. Those of our readers who have formed their notions ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... who call themselves my sons? Has your haughtiness reached such a degree that you not only pretend to be feared and worshiped by governors and governed, but neither recognize nor respect me, whose name you dishonor, and whose condignity you abuse? How do I find you? Insolent with the unfortunate and cowardly towards those who do not ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... to get back to the fire and pretend to be busy with the dinner when the captain and Chris appeared bearing ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... countrymen at a most critical time when England the puissantest of Moslem powers is called upon, without adequate knowledge of the Moslem's inner life, to administer Egypt as well as to rule India. And while Pharisee and Philister may be or may pretend to be "shocked" and "horrified" by my pages, the sound common sense of a public, which is slowly but surely emancipating itself from the prudish and prurient reticences and the immodest and immoral modesties of the early xixth century, will in good ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... contiguous drops the floods come down, Threatening with deluge the devoted town: To shops in crowds the draggled females fly, Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy: The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach: The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... does pay," returned Loudon. "I never pretend to be a business man. My partner appears happy; and the money is all his, as I told you—I only bring ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Poignancy and Pleasantry of Sentiment, and Expression, he seems to have perfectly succeeded; there being perhaps no Variety, in all the Extent of these Subjects, which he has not presented to View in this Description.—But he does not pretend to give any Definition of WIT, intimating rather that it is quite impossible to be given: And indeed from his Description of it, as a Proteus, appearing in numberless various Colours, and Forms; and from his mistaking, and presenting for WIT, other different Mixtures ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... But I have seen you scratch yourself ever so deep and not so much as wink; and I mind that time when you twisted your ankle and you didn't even pretend you ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... of the prude in him, but, perhaps because all his life there had been a Vision before his eyes, he had retained a singularly untroubled mental chastity. His mind was clean with the cleanliness of knowledge. He could not pretend to misunderstand the girl. She was nothing but a child in years. The immaturity of her body showed through her extreme clothes, and even her sharp, painted little face was immature, for all its bold nonchalance. She was smiling; but one sensed ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... better, that is to say, a heavenly country, will for the joy that is set before him, endure a cross and will despise the shame. He will have a conscious superiority to hostile facts of whatever sort or magnitude, for he knows that they deceive in so far as they pretend to finality. When religion has thus acquired a clear-sighted and thoroughgoing indifference to the natural order, then, and then only, it begins to be potent within that order. Then, as Professor Hocking says, it rises superior to the world of ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... I expected," said the temperance man. "He's a mere winebibber at best. He pretend to preach the gospel! I wonder he isn't ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... by one's own nature is best of all, (6) and next best to learn of those who really do know some good thing rather than of those who have an art to deceive. It may well be that I fail to express myself in subtle language, (7) nor do I pretend to aim at subtlety; what I do aim at is to express rightly-conceived thoughts such as may serve the need of those who have been nobly disciplined in virtue; for it is not words and names that give instruction, but thoughts and sentiments worthy ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... he added, after a few moments' pause, "it's Nature's fault for making a fellow like this. I don't want to be a coward; I want to be as brave as brave—well, as brave as Murray is. I wouldn't care if I was just as full of pluck as he is. Anyhow I won't be a sham and go and pretend that some one is coming. I could never look him in the eyes again for fancying that he was reading me through and through. And he would—I'm ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... is our civilised world but a big masquerade? where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you will find moneymakers. One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of law, which he has borrowed for the purpose from a barrister, only in order to be able to give another man a sound drubbing; a second has chosen the mask ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... affected to temper absolute rule, met only once in three years. Their function was to express an opinion upon local matters when consulted by the Government: their enemies said that they were aristocratic and did harm, their partizans could not pretend that they did much good. In the bitterness of spirit with which, at a later time, the friends of liberty denounced the betrayal of the cause of freedom by the Prussian Court, a darker colour has perhaps been introduced into the history of this period than really belongs to it. The wrongs ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Nikolai Artemyevitch, 'Elena Nikolaevna I don't pretend to understand. I am not elevated enough for her. Her heart is so large that it embraces all nature down to the least spider or frog, everything in fact except her own father. Well, that's all very well; I know it, and I don't trouble ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... me pretend this is a club meeting for a minute or two instead of a party. I want to tell the people here who aren't members of the U. S. C. what it is we are ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... pretend any other business at Paris, than the gratifying of that curiosity, which draws numbers thither yearly, merely to see so famous a city. With the assistance of Monsieur Dubourg, who understands English, you will be able to make immediate application ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... sit round and throw your pennies in the cap," says the author, "and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater a young lady named Angelina, who is the most beautiful young lady that ever existed. And in Notting Hill, we will pretend, there resides a young man named Edwin, who ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... its back. But many Little Riversites, including the Doge, had their sad days, when they looked away at the pass oftener than usual, as if seeing a life-story framed in the V. His came usually, as Mrs. Smith observed, when he had a letter from the East. And it was then that he would pretend to cough to Firio. These mock coughing spells were one of the few manifestations that ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the empire of thy heart, Where I should solely be, If others do pretend a part And dare to vie with me, Or if committees thou erect, And go on such a score, I'll laugh and sing at thy neglect, And never ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... denies either of the other two, and which declares that the particles of the sugar are, as it were, shaken asunder by the forces at work in the yeast plant. Now I am not going to take you into these refinements of chemical theory, I cannot for a moment pretend to do so, but I may put the case before you by an analogy. Suppose you compare the sugar to a card house, and suppose you compare the yeast to a child coming near the card house, then Fabroni's hypothesis ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... torn her dress. Helen had done it herself lifting her pet out of the doll carriage, but she liked to pretend the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... went on. "I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'm going to have to trust you." He leaned back in his chair again, his eyes still on me. "Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not a likable man. I do not pretend to be. That's not my function." He said it as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished it ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was lessened. Accepting the statements of a previous chronicler, Dugdale observes of the members of the Middle Temple under Henry—"They have no order for their apparell; but every man may go as him listeth, so that his apparell pretend no lightness or wantonness in the wearer; for, even as his apparell doth shew him to be, even so he shall be esteemed among them." But at the period when this licence was permitted in respect of costume, the general ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... it. I answered Patty's letter as if I were really Azalea Thorpe,—you see, I had known her all my life, until she moved away, and then I packed up my things and came East, resolved to pretend I was Azalea and see what happened. It didn't seem so dreadful—I thought at first, it was just a big lark,—but now,—oh, now I know how right and honourable people look ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... an egoist because he is so content to be what he is he will not pretend to be something else! I respect your country in him, my dear young lady; and he cares nothing whether I am a king or a commoner. Everywhere the people bow and salaam half on their knees to me; ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... going to 'play pretend,' as children say, that I'm just as young as any of you. In my busy life I've not had much time for 'playing' but I mean to make up for lost time. Come, I'm sure that Wun Sing has made ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... and less dissimulations. And, therefore, it seemed to him scandalous that a princess, who must, of course, in her heart regard (in common with himself) all mysteries as solemn masques and mummeries, should pretend in a case of downright serious business, to pump up, out of dry conventional hoaxes, any solid objection to a man of his shining merit. 'The Trinity,' for instance, that he viewed as the password, which the knowing ones ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... writer just quoted, "as if these mementos of mortality were not so painful or so saddening to Pagans as to Christians; and, that death, when believed to be final dissolution, was not so awful or revolting as when known to be the passage to immortality. I pretend not to explain the paradox, I only state it; and, certain it is, that every image connected with human dissolution, seems now more fearful to the imagination, and is far more sedulously shunned, than it ever was in times when the light of Christianity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... was going to tell him of her engagement to young Rowcliffe; and though he had been prepared for the news any time for the last three months he had to pull himself together to receive it. He would have to pretend that he was pleased about it when he wasn't pleased at all. He was, in fact, intensely sorry for himself. It had dawned on him that, with Alice left a permanent invalid on his hands, he couldn't really afford to part with Gwenda. She might be terrible in the house, but in her ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... her real nature.... The alleged emptiness of her silence hid feminine thoughts and mysteries of feeling which transported her far from this court. Magnificent though cruel exile!... She could not pretend anything, either during the days of her grandeur, nor after her husband's overthrow; that was her crime. The theatrical world of the court wanted to see a pretence of conjugal affection in a victor's captive. She was too natural ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Tom. By this time light had begun to dawn upon the bronzed, athletic young engineer, but he preferred to pretend ignorance a little ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... the Bishop let well alone?" said Paul, as he returned the letter. "Of course, you will not go. I don't pretend to constitute myself a judge of a clergyman's work, but I should say that you have this place as well in hand as any man could. To move you, will be equal ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... of the Tower Bridge were lifted 3,354 times last year," says a news item. Yet there are those who pretend that petty ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... German writers often pretend that the Fuehrer principle does not necessarily result in the establishment of a dictatorship but that it permits the embodiment of the will of the people in its leaders and the realization of the popular will much more efficiently than is possible in democratic states. ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails,—they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... his remarkable work. Laws, he wrote, are not a product of the wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be evolved. As to the state, Godwin frankly claimed its abolition. A society, he wrote, can perfectly ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... endeavoured to excuse himself and his countrymen; alleging, that "the management of affairs was not in their hands; for the robbers, having gained admittance, had reduced the fort entirely under their own power." The consul ordered him to return home, and pretend some plausible reason for having been absent; and then, "when he should see him advancing to the walls, and the robbers intent on defending the city, to seize the citadel with such men as favoured his party." This was executed ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... on an ill-natured word in her presence, and that even the Comte de Provence, who especially aimed at the reputation of a sayer of good things, and affected a character for cynical sharpness, learned at last to restrain his sarcastic tongue, and at least to pretend a disposition to look at people's characters and actions with ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... in the Revolutionary War, but for the ideals which had become more and more the inspiration of the Revolution he cared nothing, and was too honest to pretend to care. He had on the other hand a strong and genuine American patriotism. Perhaps his origin helped him to a larger view in this matter than was common among his contemporaries. He was not born in any of the revolted colonies, but in Bermuda, of good ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful. Say your grace and put your chair away, and come along. I want to hold a court-martial!" And seizing his own chair by the seat, Robin carried it swiftly to its corner. As he passed Sarah, he observed tauntingly, "You pretend to know, but ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... You won't say a word, will you, Bob? Not for ever so long? You will pretend it was ever so ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... feeling that mentioning a thing will bring it to pass. Or, again, if a misfortune has happened, many people feel that it only makes it worse to talk about it. While everybody avoids speaking on the subject, we can half pretend to ourselves that it is ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... Through his brilliant Italian campaigns, onward to the peace of Luben, one would say his inspiration is: 'Triumph to the French revolution; assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that pretend to call it a simulacrum!' Withal, however, he feels, and has a right to feel, how necessary a strong authority is; how the revolution cannot prosper at all without such. To bridle in that great devouring, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... stories. Look at this, for instance, where a gentleman falls in love with a shadow. Now I see no substantial foundation for such an extravagant passion as that. Here is another, who is equally smitten with a pair of French gaiters. Now I don't pretend to be over sensible, but I do not think such things at all natural, or likely to occur; and if they did, I should look upon the parties concerned as little less than simpletons. But a real, true-hearted love story, such as 'Edith Pemberton,' or Mrs. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... the fanaticism of the Bosniacs, by setting himself up as a little Christian potentate. As a necessary consequence, he was obliged to fly for his life, and his house was burned to the ground. The Vassoevitch clan have from time immemorial occupied certain mountains near Novibazar, and pretend, or pretended, to complete independence of the Porte, like ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... the lonesome corner of the Green Forest where Hooty and Mrs. Hooty had made their home and at once began to caw at the top of his voice and pretend that he was terribly ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... in the conservatory, that they were pretending it was summer. And Roland added shrewdly, "You see, Aunt Sibyl, James shuts out the winter in here, doesn't he? And so he makes it easy for us to forget it. We pretend there is no cold, and no dead trees and flowers and graves, when we are here. Don't you think it a good plan?" I told them I thought it a very good plan. It is the same game we older people play at sometimes. We shut out from our minds and thoughts ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... the country is greatly varied by hills, dales, copses, small prairies, and a great number of lakes; the whole of which I do not pretend to have laid down on my map. * * * * The lakes to which I have just alluded are distributed in separate groups, or are arranged in prolonged chains along the rivers, and not unfrequently attached to each other by gentle rapids. ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... not pretend to bend a whole people to his tastes and European habits. He came not to censure with a stern look their costumes, their dances, and their music; on the contrary, he entered into their national dances, he learned their warlike songs, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... down on hands and knees In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, I went to show you how to make it stay, If that was your idea, against the breeze, And, if you asked me, even help pretend To make it root again and grow afresh. But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day, Nor was the grass itself your real concern, Though I found your hand full of wilted fern, Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover. 'Twas ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... misfortune, to these plain white people I must have dropped; and then Roxy and Virgie, sold to some temporary rich man, would have been above me, slaves as they would continue! How false, how fatal, both slavery and proud riches to the republicans we pretend to be! Compelled 'to see' at last, I shall not close my ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... pretend to account for the phenomena presented by the caverns, yet it is evident, from the sediments of mud forming the extensive margins of the Darling, that at one period the waters of that spacious basin were of much greater volume than at present, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... of the world implied considerable acquaintance—how obtained I do not pretend to know—with the characters of men. Discovering that she was in danger of overstepping the limits of my patience, she drew back with a skill which performed the retrograde movement without permitting it ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... he does not pretend to any novelty of research; but simply to present a connected narrative of such events in the history of Pope Adrian IV. as have hitherto lain broken and concealed in old chronicles, or been slightly touched for the most part in an incidental ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... that you are a downright humbug," Scudamore said; "and that while you pretend to hate anything like exertion, you are just as fond of ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... difficulty is ever merely transferred; this will continue so, until we possess higher insight. I shall not pretend that as Milton I can justify God's ways before mankind, nor yet that as Dante I can say everything there in to be said concerning God and the Universe, nor even that as Spinoza, Hegel or Schopenhauer I can build up a complete system. That is unscientific, all true science ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... one is not dependent upon money," said Mrs. Graves, "it doesn't very much matter. The real point is to take the world as it comes, and to be sure that one is on the side of what is true and simple and sincere; but I do not pretend to have solved everything, and I am hoping to learn more. I do learn more every day. One can't interfere with the lives of people; poverty is not the worst evil. It is nice to be clean, but I sometimes think that the only good I get from money ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... referred to herself as an artist) "must?" And she would proceed to maintain—what is perhaps true sometimes—that people rather liked being put into books, just as they like being photographed, for all that they grumble and pretend to be afflicted when either process is levied against them. In discussing this matter with Miss Liston I felt myself on delicate ground, for it was notorious that I figured in her first book in the ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... Don't pretend to defend him. No positive engagement indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the very rooms they were to live ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Levana in my dreams. I knew her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana? Reader, that do not pretend to have leisure for very much scholarship, you will not be angry with me for telling you. Levana was the Roman goddess that performed for the newborn infant the earliest office of ennobling kindness—typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which belongs to man every where, and of that benignity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... she was withdrawing her lips ... But suddenly she put them again to his for one second, with a hysterical, clinging pressure. It was nothing. Nobody could have noticed it. She herself pretended that she had not done it. Edward Henry had to pretend not to notice it. But to him it was everything. She had relented. She had surrendered. The sign had come from her. She wished him to enjoy ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... this, and I am sometimes, I believe, nearly crazy. I fear you think me so, now. I want to love my brother, but he will not permit me to do so. I fear he has a nature so unlovable that such a feeling toward him animates no heart. My sisters and a drunken sot of a brother-in-law pretend to love him—but they measure their affection by the hope of gain. They reside in Louisiana, and I am glad they are not here during your stay—for you would certainly be insulted, especially ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... enough that the servant should be as his master." Neither have I ever been able to see the very great difference between right and wrong in a clergyman, and right and wrong in another man. All that I can pretend to have yet discovered comes to this: that what is right in another man is right in a clergyman; and what is wrong in another man is much worse in a clergyman. Here, however, is one more proof of approaching age. I do not mean ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... them from this room last night. At the very time you pretend you were after the robber at Mrs. Canby's house you were here ransacking ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... be hard at work on this case, now," he said, smiling, "but I don't even pretend to be. I am at a standstill and I don't care ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... opinions. We are agreed, too, that the term ought not to be chosen most likely in its operation to spread corruption, and to augment the already overgrown influence of the crown. On these principles I mean to debate the question. It is easy to pretend a zeal for liberty. Those who think themselves not likely to be encumbered with the performance of their promises, either from their known inability, or total indifference about the performance, never fail to entertain the most lofty ideas. They ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... very well for you to pretend that you have such good manners, and are so much better than we, but we have at least a father and mother, while you have only got the river, like the toads and ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... may remark at the outset that any anticipation which; the reader may form on this point will be more than justified by his perusal of this book. We shall proceed to give a sketch of the results which strike us as most important, although we cannot pretend to render within the limits of a few columns any adequate epitome of so large a body of facts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... blind, Drayne," continued the young captain. "And don't be silly enough to pretend that you don't know just what I mean. You remember last ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... I cannot pretend to give you an idea of the excitement and turmoil of that last week of the Confederacy. Every minute of your grandfather's time was taken up with his duties as a state officer, until he, in company with Governor Graham and Dr. Warren, were despatched ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... account of the air-bladder of fishes. He was very full upon the subject of agriculture, but retired from the conversation when horticulture was introduced in the discussion. So he seemed well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, but did not pretend to know anything of other kinds of coal. There was something so odd about the extent and limitations of his knowledge, that I suspected all at once what might be the meaning of it, and waited till I got an opportunity.—Have you seen the "New American Cyclopaedia?" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... may be mistaken," he added: "I do not pretend to be infallible." He was just then completing a brief inventory of all the papers found in the old desk. There was nothing left but to examine the drawer which was used for a cash drawer. He found in it in gold, notes, and small change, seven ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... labour, from morning till night in the surroundings we know and see, how much mind and leisure is left for higher things on six days of the week? ... We must look this matter in the face. I do not pretend to establish the proportion between different sections in which these things happen. Still less am I willing to lay the blame on those who are houseless, landless, and property less. What I say is that ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... which we sailed from the Fatherland. They called him the doctor, and if he were not or had not been a charlatan, he resembled one; the second was our skipper, Padechal, who had told us so many lies; and now this infamous woman. They all belong to this people who, it is said, pretend to special devoutness; but we found them, the sailor, and the rest, like all other Englishmen, who, if they are not more detestable than the Hollanders, are ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... With the great facts of the Roman Empire as they gradually formed themselves from the fall of Carthage, when the Empire began,[52] to the establishment of Augustus, when it was consummated, I do not pretend to deal, although by far the most momentous of them were crowded into the life of Cicero. But in order that I may, if possible, show the condition of his mind toward the Republic—that I may explain what it was ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... what high time it is to treat it as it deserves, and give it no longer in typography those implied awful significances, those under-breaths and intensifications of initials and hyphens, which make it pretend to have a meaning, and are the main cause why it survives. The word damned in Lord Thurlow's mouth, for all its emphasis and effect, had as little meaning as the word blest, or the word conscience. It has equally little meaning in any body's. It no more signifies what it ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... mine," observed the Major, after Swinton was gone; "we are too near the pool, and we shall be surrounded with lions to-night; the Hottentots may pretend that they will go, but ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... in the colonies, miss," I retorted. "I confess to a thrill, and will not pretend that I have seen such sights often ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in books have a way of doing, but the conversation she held with herself was very much like this: "I 'm afraid there is something in it. I 've tried to think it 's nothing but vanity or imagination, yet I can't help seeing a difference, and feeling as if I ought not to pretend that I don't. I know it 's considered proper for girls to shut their eyes and let things come to a crisis no matter how much mischief is done. But I don't think it 's doing as we 'd be done by, and ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... very long and very straight marking the landscape with lines no more convincing than those which science was once decided, and then undecided, to call canals on the planet Mars, I had no sight of it. I do not say this was not my fault; and I will not pretend that the canal, like the mills of Manchester, was not running. I dare say I was not in the right hands, but this was not for want of trying to get into them. In the local delusion that it was then summer, those ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... a woman with her gifts, her energy, her power, and her social prestige, can hardly be estimated. It was not in the direction of the new drift of thought. "I am not a fanatic as to liberty," she said; "I believe it is an error to pretend that it exists in a democracy. One has a thousand tyrants in place of one." She had no breadth of sympathy, and her interests were largely personal; but in matters of style and form her taste was unerring. Pitiless in her criticisms, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... priests or medicine men who pretend to cure diseases. They also pretend to talk to their gods and other spirits. They have many ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... his neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go farther and discover what is really true. He is content to find that things are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they do not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is wholly good; but he has not even suspected that there is another equally true, to wit, that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Colorado are plentiful as cranberries; but never one of them had withdrawn his mind's eye from his work. Why, then, was he so ready now to devote his energies to the safeguarding of Helen Wynton? It was absurd to pretend that he was responsible for her future well-being because of the whim that sent her on a holiday. She was well able to take care of herself. She had earned her own living before he met her; she had risen imperiously ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... stainless shepherds, they must not be polluted by unclean lips. I grant you a very creditable stock of effrontery: but you will scarcely have the assurance to call yourself an educated man; you will scarcely pretend that your acquaintance with literature is more than skin-deep, or give us the names of your teacher and ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... do. Accordingly, the company, in an evil hour, came all aboard of the pirate, consisting of nine persons; they were armed with muskets and cutlasses, but what was their real design in so doing we will not pretend to say. They had no sooner laid down their arms and taken up their pipes, than Barnet's sloop, which was in pursuit of Rackam's, came ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... whereat the Jew marvelled and said, 'Never heard we of that city, but we have heard from the merchants of the caravans that in that direction lieth a land called Al-Yaman.' 'How far is that land from this place?' asked Janshah, and the Jew answered, 'The Cafilah merchants pretend that it is a two years and three months' march from their land hither.' Quoth Janshah, 'And when doth the caravan come?' Quoth the Jew, 'Next year 'twill come.' "—And Shahrazed perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... your power, sir, to do any further harm to any of them. You don't pretend to think that after what has passed, you can have any personal authority over that ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... which we know by experience will not do. Since the year 1773 and the year 1780, the Company has been under the control of the Secretary of State's office, and we had then three Secretaries of State. If more than this is done, then they annihilate the direction which they pretend to support; and they augment the influence of the crown, of whose growth they affect so great an horror. But in truth this scheme of reconciling a direction really and truly deliberative with an office really and substantially controlling is a sort of machinery that can be kept ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... as can easily be seen, is a tradition of the robbers who pretend to have been blessed by Christ. St. Peter is the hero of several stories, in which he plays anything but a dignified role. In one (Pitre, No. 122), he is sent to buy some wine, and allows himself to be persuaded by ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... force, and, as for origin, do people ever repeat pleasant facts about a neighbour's pedigree? I believe that his family is every bit as good as ours. His second name is de Hausee. No one can pretend that we are even so good as a genuine de Hausee. We may ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... of duplicity appears to enter into their scheme, much resembling that enjoined to the Ismaili Dais when enlisting proselytes belonging to other religions: thus in talking to Mohammedans, the Druses profess to be followers of the Prophet; with Christians, they pretend to hold the doctrines of Christianity, an attitude they defend on the score that it is unlawful to reveal the secret dogmas of their creed to a "Black," ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Strafe-Barrack did not seem too bad, for we could see people and talk occasionally; and after the Strafe-Barrack the prison-camp was comparative freedom, for we could get our parcels and read, and see the boys, so I thought I will pretend now that my punishment was sitting still.... I can't move a muscle; the cut-throat guard that was over us in the Strafe-Barrack is standing over me with his bayonet against my chest—I must not move—or he'll drive it in.... I wish I could change ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... where he is now," I said to Naomi, "until I have time to get round by the other way to the tool-house. Then pretend to be fearful of discovery at the dairy, and bring him round the corner, so that I can hear him ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... "I can't pretend to say. Do any of us really know, I wonder, what we would do under any given circumstances? I wish you would tell me exactly what your friend complained of ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... tell them about the old North Church and Paul Revere and the shot heard 'round the world, and what liberty meant and democracy, and now we've got to show them. I am going to take you around to-morrow, Becky, and pretend you are Olga from Petrograd, and that you are seeing America for the ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... words, beat each of the others more than thou hast beaten me and he will surely open his eyes." The prefect bade begin with my brother: so they bound him to the whipping-post,[FN104] and the prefect said, "O rascals, do ye abjure the gracious gifts of God and pretend to be blind?" "Allah! Allah!" cried my brother, "by Allah, there is not one amongst us who can see!" Then they beat him, till he fainted and the prefect said, "Leave him till he revives and then beat him again." And he caused each ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... with her he had sometimes noticed that she ate hardly anything and looked unwell; but to his affectionate inquiries she used to answer: "My health is good enough, thank you; and I know what you imply when you pretend to be anxious about it—you mean that I am cross and ill-tempered." She made it a point never to plead guilty to any physical ailment, as if it were a weakness unworthy of her, and also to discourage all attempts ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... not beautiful: more than any other of the older colleges in Oxford, she has suffered from the "restorations" of the 70's and 80's. It is a favourite jest to pretend to confuse her with the Great Western Railway Station, which never fails to bring a flush to a Balliol cheek. But whatever the merciless hand of the architect has done to turn her into a jumble of sham Gothic spikes and corners, no one can doubt her wholesome democracy of intellect, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... grass near the camp. Then she called her dog to her—a little curly dog. She said to the dog: “Now listen. To-morrow when we are ready to start I will call you to come to me, but you must pay no attention to what I say. Run off and pretend to be chasing squirrels. I will try to catch you, and if I do so I will pretend to whip you; but do not follow me. Stay behind, and when the camp has passed out of sight, chew off the strings that bind ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... pretend it is only sleep-walking," she went on, heedless of his efforts to interrupt her, "you know perfectly well there is something wrong with me. You know it, so did your father, so does Auntie, people here are whispering it. Yes! they are, they are," she reiterated, "and they are right. Something ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest. It was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... your ship has landed here on Archimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up a signal—you saw it, didn't you?—just before Miss Prince and I came aboard. He was trying to pretend that he was your Earth-party, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... heart not single, but double; it will pretend to serve God, but will withal lean to the devil and sin (Psa ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... possesses, and is it immodest of him to let others perceive by his conversation that he is quite aware he possesses them? Or, on the contrary, is not the fact that he is talented purely a piece of good fortune, and would it not be the merest humbug on his part to pretend to be blind to it? Again, if a man performs what is called a good deed, ought he to claim merit for that? Does not the performance of such a deed give one pleasure, and is not that pleasure the real end in view? It has struck me of late that on such points there's a great confusion of thinking, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... to pretend to go along to Flora City," he added. "I don't like to sneak. It goes against my grain; but business is business. Come on, Higgins. Next trip in a week, Mr. Granger? Good enough. We're going to our stateroom and catch up some sleep. Wake us at peril ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... of course she pretended not to. Girls always pretend. But I did my duty as a parent. And I told her that if she got herself into any mess she mustn't come ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reached Gondokoro he saw that it was absurd to pretend that the Khedive ruled any of the country outside its walls. No one dared go half a mile outside without being in danger of his life from the tribes whose wives and children and cattle the slavers ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... only oaks or beeches, but not and never a tree. And what is true of tree is true of all words, or to speak with Plato, of all ideas, or to speak with the Stoics, of all Logoi. There are no doubt conjurers who pretend to be able to think without words, and even take no little pride in being able to perform this trick. They forget only too often that their inexpressible thoughts are nothing but obscure feelings, in fact, they do not even distinguish between presentation and idea, ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the cool draught that was brought him, then flinging himself on a pile of matting in a corner of a dim room, sank forthwith into slumber. He had intended to pretend to sleep, but to lie awake and think. His custodians, however, had arranged things differently, and Black's wits were not working up ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... do not agree in this circumstance, and pretend that Little Thumb never robbed the Ogre at all, and that he only thought he might very justly, and with a safe conscience, take off his boots of seven leagues, because he made no other use of them but to run after little children. These folks affirm that they are very well assured of this, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... in political circles in those days was of caucuses on the Birmingham plan, and of the rise of the National Liberal Federation, the existence of which people were just dimly beginning to recognise. I am not writing the history of the National Liberal Federation, and I pretend to no special knowledge on the subject of its origin. Popular opinion credits Mr. Schnadhorst, the famous organiser, of Birmingham, and subsequently of London, with the authorship of the scheme. But I doubt the truth of this. I knew Mr. Schnadhorst well, and had a great ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... street" and its accompaniments must wear an aspect of at least seeming to belong to the right order of detachment and fashionable ease, one was always in debt and forced to keep out of the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things and tell lies with aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and the invention of plausible excuses ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lives with her husband! Let them go on plotting. I am not the Government. I am sure I don't much dislike her. Yes, I hate her, but why should I hurt myself? She will wear those jewels on her forehead; she will wear that necklace with the big amethysts, and pretend she's humble because she doesn't carry earrings, when her ears have never been pierced! I am lost! Yes, you may say, lookup! I am only a poor singer, and he can ruin me. Oh! Countess d'Isorella, oh! what a fearful punishment. If Countess ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... herself obliged to give me her Mimi; but I won her by kindness, and in such a way that the mother could pretend with decency to know nothing about it. I redeemed all the goods she had pawned, and although the daughter had not yet yielded entirely to my ardour, I formed the plan of taking them to Colmar with Madame d'Urfe. To make up the good lady's mind, I resolved to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... We will not pretend to decide the question. Alas! either construction was now equally unsuited to the family fortunes. Such changes had taken place in England since the Greshams had founded themselves that no savage could any longer in any way protect them; they must protect themselves ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that Mind is in matter? Can the infinite [15] be within the finite? And must not man have preexisted in the All and Only? Does an evil mind exist without space to occupy, power to act, or vanity to pretend ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... mildly, "you tell as much by what you pretend isn't, as by what you pretend is. You know what ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... value your friendship and don't mean to give it up, but I can't pretend, and think you wouldn't be deceived ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... spend an hour—it was one of those surprises that delighted them—they had just withdrawn the key, as usual, when there came a familiar knock with the fist on the door. Claude at once recognised the rap, and felt so upset at the mishap that he overturned a chair. After that it was impossible to pretend to be out. But Christine turned so pale, and implored him with such a wild gesture, that he remained rooted to the spot, holding his breath. The knocks continued, and a voice called, 'Claude, Claude!' He still remained quite still, debating with himself, however, with ashen lips and downcast ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... children must have fathers as well as mothers. Who are the fathers to be? All monogamists and married women will reply hastily: either bachelors or widowers; and this solution will serve as well as another; for it would be hypocritical to pretend that the difficulty is a practical one. None the less, the monogamists, after due reflection, will point out that if there are widowers enough the superfluous women are not really superfluous, and therefore there is no reason ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... This is not true. The only places where the traffic is carried on, north of the line, are in the neighborhood of the most powerful English settlements on the whole coast; while even British authority does not pretend that the vicinity of the American colonies is polluted by it. Individuals among the colonists, unprincipled men, may, in a very few instances, from love of gain, have given assistance to slavers, by supplying goods or provisions at ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... the Abyssins, like that of all other nations, is obscure and uncertain. The tradition generally received derives them from Cham, the son of Noah, and they pretend, however improbably, that from his time till now the legal succession of their kings hath never been interrupted, and that the supreme power hath always continued in the same family. An authentic ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... another. In this movement it bends its back, and appears higher on its legs than when at rest. We often heard this rattling of the scales very near us on the shore; but it is not true, as the Indians pretend, that, like the armadillo, the old crocodiles "can erect their scales, and every part of their armour." The motion of these animals is no doubt generally in a straight line, or rather like that of an arrow, supposing it to change its direction at certain ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If I had rolled one more bandage I should have ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... wealth, if they chose, by tampering with the unclean thing. Owen Saxham would none of it. At this juncture the woman would have hysterics of the weeping or the scolding kind, or would be convinced of the righteousness of the forlorn cause he championed, or would pretend the hysterics or the conviction. Generally she pretended to the latter, and swam or stumbled out, pulling down her veil to mask the rage and hatred in her haggard eyes, and went to that other man. Then, after a brief absence accounted for as a "rest cure," she would shine forth again ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places—sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
