"Pretending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words, the magician, who pretended illness only to know where the prince lived, did not refuse the kind offer he made her so freely, and to show her acceptance rather by action than by word, she made many affected efforts to get up, pretending that her illness prevented her. At the same time two of the prince's attendants alighted off their horses, helped her up, and set her behind another. They mounted their horses again, and followed the prince, who turned back to the iron gate, which was opened by one of his retinue ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... enter. Afterward when at the monastery it was discovered he had gone without a guide, a great search was made for him. Coming down from Mount Olivet he met a girdled Christian, those who are bound to wear a girdle to distinguish them from the Mussulmans; this man, pretending to be very angry, threatened him with a large stick, and approaching, firmly grasped him by the arm. He allowed himself to be led, but the good man once he had hold of him did not let him go. In the meantime, as he was thus led along a captive, he was visited with great consolation, as he seemed ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... your horse yesterday was an expert. With one jab of that needle he passed the hair through the flesh just back of this cord. It went in at one side, and came out on the other. After that, while he was pretending to look at the horse's feet, he clipped off the ends, and the hair was left in there. It could remain a day or so without doing any particular injury, but it was bound to make the horse lame as soon as he used that leg much. If it had been left there permanently it might have ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... the only person who will speak for him. I don't wonder papa is provoked with you,' said she, pretending to be wilful. 'I only hope you don't want to make me do the same. I could bear anything better than his old saying about your attractive manners and good impulses, and his opinion that has never altered. O Guy, he is the most provoking person in all the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... correct yourself, but rather tell us why we are so bad," said Katerina Alexeevna, playing with her words and pretending not to notice ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... near the tent, arranged his countenance and threw back his long hair—as though the wind had blown it about in his rapid flight—and then entered the tent like a man out of breath and pretending to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Oroche had ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... getting into the riot more, while pretending to try to get out, invading the Judge's back, and rubbing their clean wool into his whiskers, and the two neat servants, brought up like white children in his family, were not unaccustomed to either jovial handling ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... choking with apprehension, in an attempt to do that, without instruction, which he came purposely to learn; and furnishing amusement to his classmates, by a pardonable awkwardness, which should be punished in the person of his pretending but neglectful preceptor with little less than scourging. Then visit a conservatory of music; observe there the orderly tasks, the masterly discipline, the unwearied superintendence and the incessant toil to produce ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... them there," I denied hastily, "except that he was a pale little runt of a German, pretending to be a thief, who will wish he had died young if I ever see ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I could be guilty of such an artifice. I doubt it is not right: it was done in a hurry of spirits. How could I see a man who had so mortally injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest people of the house? Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he found out my ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... worldly manners; in being slow to anger, in having a good heart, in having faith in the Sages, and in bearing chastisements; in being sensible of his situation, and rejoicing in his portion; in being circumspect in his language, in not pretending to pre-eminence, in sincerely loving God, and loving His creatures; in loving admonition, and that which is right; in avoiding honor, and in not priding himself on his acquired knowledge; not rejoicing in pronouncing sentence, in bearing the burden equally with his ...
— Hebrew Literature
... been so great a lover," he writes, and then he makes a list of his loves, thus following, perhaps all unconsciously, Lamb's John Woodvil in that rhymed passage which, under the title "The Universal Lover," has been detached from the play. But Lamb, pretending to be Elizabethan, dealt with the larger splendours, whereas Rupert Brooke's modernity took count of the smaller. John Woodvil's list of his loves begins with the sunrise and the sunset; Rupert Brooke sets down such mundane and domestic trifles as white plates and cups, the hard crust ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... While pretending to move and speak as if quite at ease, Mr. Bugbee was obviously nervous and unsettled. Mrs. Carey observed this, but without appearing ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... leg-breaker is described in the Weekly Medical Review of St. Louis, April, 1890. This person's name was E. L. Landers, and he was accredited with earning his living by breaking or pretending to break his leg in order to collect damages for the supposed injury. Moreover, this individual had but one leg, and was compelled to use crutches. At the time of report he had succeeded in obtaining damages in Wichita, Kansas, for a supposed fracture. The Review quotes a ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... women dandle his children, while the younger admire his robes. At a signal they arose, slew the children and blinded him. On hearing the tumult, Agamemnon hurries in; turning to him, the Thracian demands justice, pretending he had slain Polydorus to win his favour. Hecuba refutes him, pointing out that it was the lust for her son's gold which caused his death. Agamemnon decides for Hecuba, whereupon Polymestor turns fay, prophesying the latter end of ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... without being seen? This was plainly impossible; for there was the woman of the house—being the same whom Marian's father met the following morning—hanging out the clothes in the garden, close to the hedge. Marian trotted on, pretending not to know that there was any one near. Then she felt hot all over, as she became aware the woman had seen her, and was calling across the road. But she just gave her dusky little head a determined shake, and pursued her way. The woman, being weighted with ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... torture to Pinky for the short time she remained. As soon as she was satisfied that Edith would not be there, she threw down the garment on which she had been pretending to sew, and almost ran ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... true, they say, a very rude and violent man—daring, reckless, and often unjust, and even cruel—but he was not treacherous. What he did, he did in the open day; and he was wholly incapable of such a deed as pretending deceitfully that he would accede to Conrad's claims with a view of throwing him off his guard, and then putting him to death ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... before I can visit you?" said Bixiou, pretending to misunderstand the speech; but he said to himself, "You may be Goliath, but I have got my ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... immediately after our arrival, I alone got nothing. From Sigurdr and the Doctor to the cabin-boy, every face was beaming over "news from home!" while I was left to walk the deck, with my hands in my pockets, pretending not to care. But the spell is broken now, and I retract my evil thoughts of the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... and who played carefully and lived by gambling. She was one of those queer, mysterious old creatures who enter the Rooms each morning as soon as they are open, secure the best seats, occupy them all the luncheon hour pretending to play, and then sell them to wealthy gamblers for a consideration—two or three louis—perhaps—and then at once go to their ease in their ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... Form. The Lady was not a little pleas'd that her Fancy was like to become a Pattern to the Town, willingly drew it off her Finger, not in the least suspecting any Trick, for as yet his Fame was untouch'd. I think he made two or three Visits without returning the Ring, pretending the Workman was dilatory in taking a Pattern; but 'tis suppos'd he wanted time to prepare himself for a Flight, and brush off with the Ring. However, none of these Suspicions enter'd the Ladies Head, he not being her Aversion. About three or four Days after, a Lady visiting her, told her the ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... avowed the same opinion. Minutius Felix, for example, said to the Heathen, 'Not one of you reflects that you ought to know your Gods before you worship them.' [15:2] As if he felt the absurdity of pretending to love and honour an unknown 'Perhaps.' That he did himself what he ridiculed in them proves nothing but ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... the malt tax and the hop duties. I am one of those who think that the excise duties ought to be taken off. But, sir, I do not pretend that you can repeal the malt tax or the hop duties, or remove the soap tax without commutation for other taxes. I will not delude the people by pretending that I could take off more than seven millions and a half of taxes without replacing them by others, and not leave the nation bankrupt. But I think these reforms of Sir Robert Peel have been in a mistaken direction; I think that revenue duties on all foreign imports ought ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... Beausire, who kept it for some time, pretending to admire its ingenious construction, while he cleverly took the impression of it in wax. Then he gave it back, saying, "Keep it, M. Ducorneau; it is better in your hands than in mine. Let us now go ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... Yawning, and pretending to wake up gradually, though all the time she felt as if she had been lying there for hours, she called out, "Aunt Anne, I can't sleep, so I'm coming ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... Jungfersteige (a promenade at Hamburg), that he had pointed it out to him, and then said, "Have I not the honour to speak to General Moreau?" upon which the General answered, "Yes, but say nothing about having seen me; I am here incognito." All this appeared to me so absurd that, pretending not to know Moreau, I asked the person to describe him to me. He described a person bearing little resemblance to Moreau, and added that he wore a braided French coat and the national cockade in his hat. I instantly perceived the whole was a mere scheme for getting a little money. I ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... as we have said, they were sleeping or pretending to sleep as they were drawn by two horses at full speed along the road of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... thought Frank; and pretending to be somewhat intoxicated, he proffered her his arm, which she took, at the same time informing him that her residence was in Anthony street. This street was but a short distance from where they had met; a walk of five minutes brought them to ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... their dirty secrets, make them our slaves." (Sec. 18.) ... "The fourth class is composed of sundry ambitious persons in the service of the State and of liberals of various shades of opinion. With them we can conspire after their own program, pretending to follow them blindly. We must take them in our hands, seize their secrets, compromise them completely, in such a way that retreat becomes impossible for them, so as to make use of them in bringing about disturbances in the State." ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... tried to move forward. But the storm seemed to grow even fiercer, and the wind blew so keenly in his face that he could scarcely stand. "I cannot go another step," he said, and down he sank in the snow, which began to cover him with a downy blanket, pretending to be a careful mother. He hugged the bird closer and began to feel afraid. He knew that he was in great danger. "Dear Dove," he whispered, "I am sorry that I cannot save you. We shall turn into ice-images together. But I will keep you warm as long as I can." Then he closed his eyes, for ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... business to do for him in London in connection with the case—business that nobody can do but myself—and the house was watched. I escaped in the disguise which you see me wearing, and had to throw off a gang of ruffians that accompanied me in the train by pretending to be drunk. I could only shake them off and destroy the suspicions which they expressed by ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... implied something very dreadful. Then I marched off to the doctor, and next to the chaplain, who (knowing who I was) asked me if I could read and write, to which I meekly replied, "Yes, sir;" but apparently being doubtful upon the point he gave me a book. Opening it and pretending to read, I said in a solemn tone of voice: "When time and place adhere write me down an ass." He took the book from me, looked at the open page, gazed solemnly in my face with a funny wagging of his head, as much as to say, "you ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Rome and is of great value to the city and in the highest degree useful to the Romans. Amulius, a descendant of Tiberinus, displayed an overweening pride and had the audacity to deify himself, pretending an ability to answer thunder with thunder by mechanical contrivances and to lighten in response to the lightnings and to hurl thunderbolts. He met his end by the overflow of the lake beside which his palace was set, and both he and the palace were submerged in the sudden rush ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... honor with her gifts. She knew how embarrassing it is to receive presents from one to whom no present has been sent, and she made it a point of honor somehow to forewarn her prospective beneficiaries betimes. Her favorite method was the classic device of pretending to let slip a secret. ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... opinions and institutions; with its pontificate (as is claimed) dating from the fisherman of Galilee, and still reigning there in the city that heard Saint Peter preach, and whom it saw martyred; impiously pretending to sit in his chair and to bear his keys; shaken, exiled, broken again and again by schism, by Lutheran revolts and French revolutions; yet always righting itself and reasserting a vitality that neither force nor opinion has yet ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... not be possible to say where the one ends and the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come. But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances. Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... me an idea, but I don't tell Parker what's on my mind. I sends the head waiter for the house detective, and when the house detective comes I show him my badge, and on the strength of that he lets me and Parker go into the cloak room. Parker's hoping to find his own coat and I'm pretending to help him look for it, but what I'm really looking for is a brown derby hat and a short yellow coat—and sure enough I find 'em. But Parker can't find his duds at all; and so in putting two and two together it's easy for me to figure how the switch was made. I dope it out that ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... he was deaf, or else he was pretending not to hear, in order to thorn the Captain. He ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... industrious persistence which nearly drives landlords frantic and ourselves as well. In these kind of important matters we are indeed "superior" to Byron and other ranting dreamers of his type, but we produce no Childe Harolds, and we have come to the strange pass of pretending that Don Juan is improper, while we pore over Zola with avidity! To such a pitch has our culture brought us! And, like the Pharisee in the Testament, we thank God we are not as others are. We are glad we are not as the Arab, as the African, as the Hindoo; we are proud ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... to go back for my things," interrupted the outlaw, whose keen ears had caught the low conversation. "I'll be back again in a minute. I'll fix up some excuse to return. I guess pretending that you are considering surrendering will do as ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... is what we have to be studiously on our guard against. His detection is not by any means the easiest thing in the world, for he often covers his servility under the guise of contradiction, and flatters by pretending to dispute, and then at last giving in and allowing himself to be beaten, that the person hoodwinked may think himself to have been the clearer-sighted. Now what can be more degrading than to be thus hoodwinked? You must be on your guard against this happening to ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... preserve his manhood. I had rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. I think I will stand higher at the judgment day, if there is one, and stand with as good a chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man who sneaks through life pretending he believes what he does not. I tell you one thing; there is going to be one free fellow in this world. I am going to say my say, I tell you. I am going to do it kindly, I am going to do it distinctly, but I am going to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... not offend any one. [Aside.] What clever pretending! [Aloud.] Let me try if our grenadier is still as stubborn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... But, as a government pretending to liberty, and yet suppressing liberty of conscience (which, because religion not according to a man's conscience can to him be none at all, is the main) must be a contradiction, so a man that, pleading for the liberty of ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting the poor lass to skin and bone with pretending he can take the law of her for not living with him, and ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... which a P and O steamer was gliding on its homeward way. An awning was hoisted over the deck, but not a breath of wind fluttered its borders, and the passengers lay back in their deck-chairs too limp and idle to do more than flick over the pages of the books which they were pretending to read. It was only twenty-four hours since they had left Calcutta, and they were still in that early stage of journeying when they looked askance at their fellows, decided that never, no, never had Fate placed them in the midst of ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... of her, my heart leaped into my mouth, for she resembled the very last link that joined me to the Queen, in a feminine form. But at the very moment that I saw her, she saw me also; and she turned away, pretending not to see me, and went round the corner into another street. And instantly, I leaped after her like a deer, and caught her, almost running to escape me. And then, seeing that there was absolutely no help for it, she stopped, and stood looking at me with defiance, like ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... lengthy interrogation The Spirit had been pretending to doze, But he waked himself up at the peroration, And most ungallantly turned up his nose, And turned on his heel, and turned him away,— Sulkily saying, ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... false," she cried, with the violence of a spoilt woman. "I never had a letter from Comte Chabert; and if some one is pretending to be the Colonel, it is some swindler, some returned convict, like Coignard perhaps. It makes me shudder only to think of it. Can the Colonel rise from the dead, monsieur? Bonaparte sent an aide-de-camp to inquire for me on his death, ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... green-room and coffee-house,—and concocted a farce ridiculing the person and office of the Laureate. "The Rehearsal" was acted in 1671. The hero, Mr. Bayes, imitated all the personal peculiarities of Dryden, used his cant phrases, burlesqued his style, and exposed, while pretending to defend, his ridiculous points, until the laugh of the town was fairly turned upon the "premier-poet of the realm." The wit was undoubtedly of the broadest, and the humor at the coffee-room level; but it was so much the more effective. Dryden affected to be indifferent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... space for me that has been dark. I knew you were doped half the time, but I thought you were going the pace with the pipe, though I'll admit I couldn't fathom what drug you were taking. But now I know Crimmins fed you dope while pretending to hand you nerve food. I know it. I know he bet against his stable time and ag'in and won every race you were accused of throwing. I tracked things pretty clear that day after ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... o' gruel I have on the fire for you," said the nurse, pretending not to mind the rising anger of the squire, as she stirred the gruel with one hand, while with the other she marked herself with the sign of the cross, and said in a mumbling manner, "God presarve us! he's the most cantankerous Christian I ever ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... of his life in many a long talk they had together, as well as he knew his own. In his delirium he must have confused himself with his old partner, and half in dreams, he said, half in the crazy satisfaction of pretending to himself he had a son, he allowed the delusion to go on; saw it work upon me, and half feared it, half encouraged it. Afterwards he was frightened at the thought of meeting my mother, who would know him for an impostor. His seeming scruples were fear of exposure, not consideration for ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... Africa, gave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and relatives, resolved (according to the fashion of the time) to fill them all to the full with generous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he himself pretending to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,—in fact, dishonest toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fashion of the day. The result, of course, was what he desired; everybody but himself had too much, whilst his mean ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... mouth and pucker it as if you were going to cry. Cry away. It won't do any good. You can't make a man yours, any more than you can make somebody's clothes yours. They don't fit you any more than he does. You look horrid in blue, and you know it, in spite of all your prinking around and pretending. I'd be ashamed to be tricked out that way and know that every dud I had was made for somebody else. As for going around and pretending you have a husband—it's a lie. You know he's nothing to you. You know he never ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Lord Lovat went to France, and pretending to have authority from some of the Highland clans and Scottish nobility, offered the services of his countrymen to the Court of St. Germains. This offer was made shortly before the death of James the Second, and a proposal was made in the name of the Scottish Jacobites to raise ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... a great difference between not being for Jesus Christ and saying so, and not being for Jesus Christ and pretending to be so. The one party can do miracles, not the others. For it is clear of the one party, that they are opposed to the truth, but not of the others; and thus ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... minstrel, I cannot presume to understand what you call prophecies, with or under warranted authority of old painted books, expositions of dreams, oracles, revelations, invocations of damned spirits, judicials, astrologicals, and other gross and palpable offences, whereby men, pretending to have the assistance of the devil, do impose upon the common people, in spite of the warnings of the Privy Council; not however, that I suspect you, worthy minstrel, of busying yourself with these attempts to explain futurity, which are dangerous attempts, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... heard loud and repeated shouts to halt, but pretending not to hear passed out of the field and entered a ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... daughter of the MacMorrogh Kavanagh; the earldom had been long in the male line; all Irish sentiment was against the feudal custom which would take it out of the family, and the two co-heirs were widows of English knights. In 1522, styled "Sir Piers Butler pretending himself to be earl of Ormonde," he was made chief governor of Ireland as lord deputy, and on the 23rd of February 1527/8, following an agreement with the co-heirs of the 7th earl, whereby the earldom of Ormonde was declared to be at the king's disposal, he was created earl of Ossory. But ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... thought, there where it deals with questions of pure reason, the unity and limits which must be observed in matters of the understanding and which give validity to this third law, do not obtain. This view has been closely criticized, and, I think, with justice. Pretending to deal with matters of pure reason, it constantly though surreptitiously proceeds on the methods of applied logic; its conclusions are as fallacious logically as they are experimentally. The laws of thought are formal, and are as binding in transcendental subjects as in ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... and refused, even once, to see the one with whom he had lived for so long. A friend took care of this woman's pension and assured her an income. Jacques paid, but he did not even wish to hear of her, pretending even to ignore her name. She wrote him letters which he never opened. Every week he would recognize the clumsy writing of the abandoned woman, and every week a greater anger surged within him against her, and he would quickly tear the envelope and the paper, without ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Virgil did write some things called "Georgics," and that Georgics were a kind of pastoral, and that pastorals always had sheep in them, and shepherds. It was a good risk, anyhow, and he could see that it was justified by success. When his conscience reproached him for pretending he knew more Latin than he did, he told it that he would soon know heaps. If all by himself, in cold blood, and for no particular reason, he could keep slogging away at a difficult language evening after evening, what couldn't ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... this up by bribing the soldiers with our whole morning's catch, and in the end they contented themselves by insisting that we should wait under the battery until nightfall and so depart. And this we did: but in the meanwhile, pretending our anxiety to avoid her, we cross-questioned the soldiers so precisely on the Englishman's bearings that, when darkness fell and we slipped our anchor, we ran straight down on her without the slightest difficulty. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his mother with a natural Chifney bit in his mouth, there comes to him a time for loathing the wearisome ways of society,—a time for not liking tamed people,—a time for not dancing quadrilles,—a time for pretending that Milton, and Shelley, and all sorts of mere dead people are greater in death than the first living lord of the treasury,—a time, in short, for scoffing and railing, for speaking lightly of the opera, and all our most cherished institutions. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Genoa's], part of Piacenza [when once got]: there must be some slice of the Lombard parts to this Charles Emanuel justly angry!) Whereat the high Queen storms, and in her high manner scolds little George, as if he were the blamable party,—pretending friendship, and yet abetting mere highway robbery or little better. And his cash paid Madam, and his Dettingen mouse-trap fought? 'Well, he has plenty of cash:—is it my Cause, then, or his Majesty's and Liberty's?' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dog was. He thought he had really saved Beth's life. He did not know that she was just pretending for the fun of having him come ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... say, and she stiffened her arm as if to annul even the seeming submission of that separate part of her; "for I don't love you, William; you've noticed it, every one's noticed it; why should we go on pretending? When I told you I loved you, I was wrong. I said what I knew ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... While pretending to resume his reading he closely observed Paula, as did also Charlotte De Stancy; but thanks to the self-management which was Miss Power's as much by nature as by art, she dissembled whatever ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... books of the Buddhists; the "Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus; the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the "Imitation of Christ," of Thomas a Kempis; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my splendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish with. We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... over with them. They have not the smallest idea where the man is, and do not know how to go to work to discover him. I don't say that my father is judicious in his brazen-faced opposition to all inquiry. He should pretend to be a little anxious—as I do. Not that there would be any use now in pretending to keep up appearances. He has declared himself utterly indifferent to the law, and has defied the world. Never mind, old fellow, we shall eat the more dinner, only I must go ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... and I concluded that Government, in its wasteful way, was paying him some sort of compensation over and above saving his crop for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or next ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... seize upon him to carry him to the Tower, and to endeavour to inveigle him into treasonable expressions:—"While Sir Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer were bussie in trussinge upp his bookes, Mr. Riche, pretending," &c.—"Whereupon Mr. Palmer, on his desposition, said, that he was soe bussie about the trussinge upp Sir Tho. Moore's bookes in a sacke, that he tooke no heed to there talke. Sir Richard Southwell likewise upon his disposition said, that because he was appoynted only to looke to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... thee, thou egregious painter! Well for thee thou art not within my arm's length. I should certainly bestow upon thee a hearty— kiss or two. My blundering pen! I recall the word. I meant cuff; but my saucy pen, pretending to know more of my mind than I did myself, turned (as its mistress, mayhap, would have done, hadst thou been near me, indeed) her cuff into ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the right one, Miss Silvester may be making herself very unhappy without any real cause. If this invisible man at Craig Fernie has actually meddled, I won't say with marrying her, but only with pretending to make her his wife, and if he has attempted it in Scotland, the chances are nine to one (though he may not believe it, and though she may not believe it) that he has really married her, after all.' My uncle's ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... nurse-agency. There was a terrible time at the house in the Avenue d'Antin. A few months previously Valentine had given birth to a daughter, and her husband had obstinately resolved to select a fit nurse for the child himself, pretending that he knew all about such matters. And he had chosen a big, sturdy young woman of monumental appearance. Nevertheless, for two months past Andree, the baby, had been pining away, and the doctor had discovered, by analyzing the nurse's milk, that ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... there the next day, pretending he wanted Luke to come and help about some mowing that was in hand. Luke's wife said that her husband had not been out of bed for two days, with a hurt he got on the cars the Saturday before. Then Will offered to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... lips, staring at the embers and straining her hearing to catch the sound of some one coming to the door—some one bearing the welcome news that the good ship was sighted at last. But no sound came, all through that weary evening, nor any message of comfort. Lady Victoria sat with her, and Miss Skeat, pretending not to notice her distressed mood; and once or twice the Duke came in and spoke cheerfully of what they would do "when Claudius came back." But Margaret went to her room at last with a heavy heart, and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... married in a week," said the colonel. "She'd come to ask me to help her, do you see? but she found I was the one that needed help. And I had an idea I might do something for her by taking the responsibility of her two little girls. But it was no use pretending. I didn't marry her for anything except, once I'd seen her, I couldn't ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... pretending not to hear, and took his heaped plate and brimming glass in the direction ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... while the latter has written an entire treatise on the malignity of Herodotus. Xenophon and Quintus Curtius have been considered rather as novelists than historians; and Tacitus has been censured for his audacity in pretending to discover the political springs and secret causes of events. Dionysius of Harlicarnassus has made an elaborate attack on Thucydides for the unskilful choice of his subject, and his manner of treating it. Dionysius would have nothing written but what tended to the glory of his country ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... pretend to be agents for others when really they have no authority to act. When this is done, and the person for whom they are pretending to act finds out what they are doing, then it is his immediate duty to take such action as the circumstances require to disown the acts of such pretenders. If this is not done he may be bound by them. His action in adopting or approving ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... dearest Arthur, would it be less imprudent for that man Percival to find me here? I shudder to think of ever again meeting him; and moreover, by flattering this Pepito and pretending to place entire confidence in him, I shall win him to a devoted submission to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... have a minister, a good minister, a live, wide-awake, practical man. Such men were in demand. If one could not be got for $1,200, we must pay $1,500. That was the way in which he managed railroads; and business was business, whether in church or railroad. Not pretending to be a saint, he naturally took a worldly view of the matter; but he at least tried to conduct worldly matters on equitable principles. It was certainly true that the laborer was worthy ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... wait on gentlemen had only helped the pretending youth to try him. A rejection of the demand would have been infinitely wiser and better than this paltry compromise. The postillion would have fought it: he would not have despised ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now the truth is out! And you came here pretending a friendly concern that the tangle should be straightened out! We were to distinguish between the sound and unsound firms, and you requested me, most politely, to give you my assistance in ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... is mysterious, but he really is a dear: he was the most aggravating boy that ever lived, and I sometimes used really to hate him. I am afraid we used to fight a great deal; at least I did, but I suppose he was only pretending, for he never hurt me, and I know I used to hurt him—but then he ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to abandon the position of those who seek to give consolation the force of rational and logical truth, pretending to prove the rationality, or at any rate the non-irrationality, of consolation; and we had to abandon likewise the position of those who seek to give rational truth the force of consolation and of a motive for life. Neither the one nor the other of these positions satisfied us. The one is at variance ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... is a rite to which all London bows during April as far as it can afford it. The lodging-house may restrict itself to picking out in fresh green its front door and window-frames, or perhaps reddening its area railing; but private houses pretending to be smart clothe themselves from eave to basement in coats of creamy white, or other blond tints susceptible of the soonest harm from the natural and artificial climates of London. While the paint is fresh, or "wet," the word by which you are warned ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... muscles, other minds, are pulling the island to its subterranean home. Through the advancing wall of waters he sees no grisly faces, no ghastly medieval limbs, but—But what nonsense! When real things are so wonderful, what is the point of pretending? ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... the cost of faithfulness, and he soon had to pay it. The would-be friends threw off the mask, and, as they could not hinder by pretending to help, took a plainer way to stop progress. All the weapons that Eastern subtlety and intrigue could use were persistently employed to 'weaken the hands' of the builders, and the most potent of all methods, bribery to Persian officials, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... (pretending to look out the window) wiped his eyes, and turning to the teacher, they whispered a long while together, now and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... midst of "the Tale of Troy divine," which also is much scratched and interlined with Pope's corrections; a manuscript of one of Ben Jonson's masques; of the Sentimental Journey, written in much more careful and formal style than might be expected, the book pretending to be a harum-scarum; of Walter Scott's Kenilworth, bearing such an aspect of straightforward diligence that I shall hardly think of it again as a romance;—in short, I may as well drop the whole ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... will you?" said Danglars, pretending to restrain Caderousse, who, with the tenacity of drunkards, leaned out of the arbor. "Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make love without interruption. See, look at Fernand, and follow his example; he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... egg, which is inside a duck, which is inside a hare, which is inside a stone, which is on an island [i.e., the fabulous island Buyan].[123] In another variant[124] Koshchei attempts to deceive his fair captive, pretending that his "death" resides in a besom, or in a fence, both of which she adorns with gold in token of her love. Then he confesses that his "death" really lies in an egg, inside a duck, inside a log which is ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Sphodrias, (10) the Spartan governor left in Thespiae, by offering him, as at least was suspected, a substantial sum, in return for which he was to make an incursion into Attica; their great object being to involve Athens and Lacedaemon in hostilities. Sphodrias lent a willing ear, and, pretending that he could easily capture Piraeus in its present gateless condition, gave his troops an early evening meal and marched out of Thespiae, saying that he would reach Piraeus before daybreak. As a matter of fact day overtook him at Thria, nor did he take any pains even ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see her brother and come to his assistance. Once in Sedan chance had brought her face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in the Prussian Guards. He had passed her with his haughty, supercilious air, pretending not to recognize her. She, also, with a sensation of loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband's murderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a sudden change of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back and told ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... kindly jailer, was ordered to bring his prisoners into Court. He found old Brown in bed, pretending to be ill. He refused to rise. He was determined to get the effect of an arraignment of his prostrate body in the court room. He had foreseen the effect of this picture on the imagination of the North. The crowd of eager ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... train from Winchester. To-morrow evening I shall be sitting on a form in a big bare class-room, listening to the babble of a lot of girls pretending ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... best part of two hours during which to think out his line of conduct and to dress. At dinner he would meet Terry—how would she act? And what was the right thing for him to do as her family's trusted friend? He felt very tired. It took a tremendous lot out of one pretending to other people that one wasn't tired. He was ashamed to have to own to himself how quickly nowadays he could use up his physical reserves. For the moment there was no one to watch him; he stretched himself out at full length on ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... is grown into a great man;" and they began to be afraid, because they thought they could not now ill-treat Phrixos, as they used to do when he was a little boy. So they tried to entice him away by pretending to be glad to see him, and they said, "Come away with us, and we shall live happily together." But Phrixos saw from the look of their faces that they were not telling the truth, and that they hated him still, and he said to them, "I will not go with ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... dinner; and some of our passengers left us, the excitable man with the handbills among the number. I got down, and stood on the doorstep of the inn, pretending to be looking about me, but in reality watching ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Rajah Moussa arrived in a baju of rich, gold-colored silk, which suited his swarthy complexion. He sat in the room pretending to look over the Graphic, but in reality watching me, as I wrote to you, just as I should watch an ouf. At last he asked how many Japanese ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... dress, was Mr Aresby, a captain in the militia; a young man who having frequently heard the words red-coat and gallantry put together, imagined the conjunction not merely customary, but honourable, and therefore, without even pretending to think of the service of his country, he considered a cockade as a badge of politeness, and wore it but to mark his devotion to the ladies, whom he held himself equipped to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... naughty—at least your nautical—scheming at once? Don't you lay your course to the nor'-west and pretend you are going in that direction, and then don't you soon tack about—isn't that what you call it—and steer nor'-east, pretending that you are going that way, when all the time you are wanting to go due north? What do you call that, sir, if it is not ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... quite the custom for Indians to eat breakfast in settlers' homes, and to sleep before the settlers' fire-places. In this manner the habits of every family upon the scattered plantations were known. There were Indians in the fields and in the houses and yards, pretending to be ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... to find a man to take this agent's place. The individual to whom I was sent was a ribbon manufacturer on one of the main streets, and, pretending a desire to visit his weaving rooms, we went to the manufactory in the upper stories, and then I disclosed, with no preamble, my mission. The good man was in ecstasies, and to show his joy invited me down into his living apartments and introduced me to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... with even more than her wonted stateliness, and was about to follow her niece; but M. de Bois, pretending not to perceive her intention, closed the door ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... The interpreter lingered, pretending to smooth the door rug. He looked up suddenly and his eyes met Pauline's with an expression of friendly interest. Instinctively she accepted the tacitly ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... which are usually placed at the end of academic memoirs, that they may not interrupt the connection of the text by lengthened description. Though I have taken great pains to render this part clear and methodical, and have not omitted any essential instrument or apparatus, I am far from pretending by it to set aside the necessity of attendance upon lectures and laboratories, for such as wish to acquire accurate knowledge of the science of chemistry. These should familiarise themselves to the employment ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... and chain were at once taken off, and he was given his supper, with wine to drink, and then put in the stocks, that he might not try it on again. There both remained all night, talking sadly and in confusion. At dawn, the captain, pretending that he quarrelled with all for putting them in the stocks, let them out. He then ordered the barber to shave off their beards and hair, except one tuft on the side of their heads. He also ordered their finger-nails and toe-nails to be cut with scissors, the uses of which they admired. Queiroz ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... pretending to understand perfectly, 'it is probably nothing serious. You must diet yourself; take nothing but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... I ought to have told you before. Well now, Mr. Cayley, we shan't do any good by pretending. Here's a man been shot—well, somebody ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... to go. One of them cries for Parpignol'S toys and his mother pulls his ear. The mothers, relenting, buy some. Parpignol moves down the street, followed by the children, pretending to play ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... with one another. I can't answer your questions. Now if you are a man of sense, as I take you to be, and not a man like those others, who think everyone but themselves is mad, you will recognize why I can't answer your questions. I'm not Rochester. I thought I'd get out of here by pretending that I'd played a practical joke on those guys; it was a false move, I acknowledge it, but when I fixed on the idea, I didn't know the man I had to deal with. If you will listen to my story, I will tell you in a few words how all this business ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... up to the Cuif and pretending to pick a bit of heather off his courting coat. She did this with a caressing touch which soothed the widower, and made him wish that Meg would do the like. He began to think that he had ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... qualified to say about it is, that it is very well and earnestly written; but on a Subject, like your own Olympia, that I am no Judge of. I think of forwarding it to Cowell at our Cambridge, who is a Judge of Everything, I think, while pretending to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her alone, save for Martina. The first thing that I noticed was that she wore about her neck an exact copy of the necklace of golden shells and emerald beetles; further, that about her waist was a girdle and on her wrist a bracelet of similar design. Pretending to see nothing, I ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... (No. 13, December 25th, 1710) remarks: "When he ... promises to discover 'only about eight or nine thousand of their most scandalous abuses,' without pretending to discover one; and when he audaciously reviles a general, whose services have been the wonder both of friends and enemies ... all this he calls 'defending the cause of the Q—— and both Houses of Parliament, and nine parts in ten ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... imagination had been developed somewhat beyond the elementary stage by his reading of romantic fiction, suggested luring Ford into the liquor room by the simple method of pretending an assault upon him by way of the storeroom window, which could be barred from without by heavy planks. Secure in his belief in Ford's friendship for him, Sandy even volunteered to slam the door shut upon Ford and lock it with the padlock which guarded ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... play with those whom he could trust; to feel that he could talk with "open heart," understood without explaining, appealing for a response which would not fail, though it was not heard. He could be stiff enough with those who he thought were acting a part, or pretending to more than they could perform. But he believed—what was not very easy to believe beforehand—that he could win the sympathy of his countrymen, though not their agreement with him; and so, with characteristic naturalness and freshness, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... from me to himself. His coolies I saw groaning under heavy burdens, when those of my people were light; and the truth only came out when he had the impudence to attempt to impose a part of his coolies' loads on mine, to enable the former to carry more food, whilst he was pretending that he used every exertion to procure me a scanty supply of rice with my limited stock of money. I had treated this man and his soldiers with the utmost kindness, even nursing them and clothing them from my own stock of flannels, when sick and shivering ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Christmas party last year, and how Rob made us all think he was a poor young man, and she didn't like him at all. All of us girls thought she was so queer not to want to dance with him, when he was so handsome and danced so beautifully. I suppose she was just pretending she ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... good order. See that no tricks are played with them; for in this city rogues of all sorts abound. Some, for instance, on pretence of looking at them, may come in and lame them, perchance to depreciate their value; you understand me? You must watch, too, that no one, pretending to try their paces, gallops off, and leaves you to follow if you list, and to find, when you come back, that the rest have been disposed ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... we believe for a moment that what Huxley had in view, or what other agnostics have in view, is no more than a counsel of intellectual perfection. What is really at issue here is one's attitude of mind in relation to the belief in God. It is in pretending to know about God that the theist finds himself at issue with the Agnostic, and it is to mark himself off from the theist that the Agnostic gives himself a special label. And the trouble of the Agnostic ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... Donnegan, pretending to be constrained by his agreement with Lord Nick, was in reality cunningly pleading his own cause. But his passion excused him. When has a woman condemned a man for loving her beyond the ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... to walk home to dinner together this bright summer's day, and to tell this young man, to whose intervention it pleased her to think that she owed her reconciliation to her father, how it was by pretending not to understand the new harpsichord that she had inveigled her father into speaking to her.... But it was only one o'clock—an hour still remained before dinner would be ready at Dowlands, and they ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... the battle. The doubts of the Peloponnesians revived. They wanted to sail away and guard their own shores, but Themistocles was so resolved that they should fight that he sent a slave with a message to Xerxes, pretending to be a traitor, and advising him to send ships to stop up the other end of the strait, to cut off their retreat. This was done, to the horror of honest Aristides, who, still exiled, was in AEgina, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the fort, and his lieutenant, Leslie, stood without the palisades to watch the sport. Suddenly the ball was thrown near the open gate and behind the two officers. The Indians pretending to rush for the ball instantly encircled and seized Etherington and Leslie, and crowded their way into the fort, where the squaws supplied them with tomahawks and hatchets, which they had carried in, hidden under their blankets. Quick as a flash, the instruments of death ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... this expression, that Mrs. Garman was listening to Mr. Aalbom, the tall assistant master, who was holding forth about the delicacy and effeminacy of the rising generation. Mrs. Aalbom sat by the window, pretending to listen to the Consul, who was describing with great clearness, and in carefully chosen language, how the garden had been arranged in his late father's time. But the lady was in reality listening to her husband, for whom she had a most unbounded admiration. Mrs. Aalbom was extremely tall, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... woodenly on the little sofa, pretending to see none of them. Mother Corey looked from one to the other, and then back to Gordon. "Well? You must have had some reason ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... identities is not found to answer in everyday life. When then our love of independence is backed up by the fact that continuity of life between parents and offspring is a matter which depends on things which are a good deal hidden, and that thus birth gives us an opportunity of pretending that there has been a sudden leap into a separate life; when also we have regard to the utter ignorance of embryology, which prevailed till quite recently, it is not surprising that our ordinary language should be found to have regard to what is important and obvious, rather than to what is ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... explaining at great length, as choruses in operas often do, that it was absolutely necessary not to make the least noise, while Rigoletto stood at the foot of the ladder, pretending neither to hear them nor to know, in the supposed total darkness, that his eyes ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the night following his arrest was shot to death by a squad of soldiers in the garden of the Citadel, and President Madero met a similar fate a few nights afterward. General Huerta, who by this time had got himself officially recognized as President, gave out an official statement from the Palace pretending that Gustavo Madero had lost his life while attempting to escape, and that his brother, the President, had been accidentally shot by some of his own friends who were trying to rescue him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... occasioned sufficient vexation.' I made no reply. Mr. Venables then, in an assumed tone of softness, intreated me, 'to consider what he suffered, and my own reputation, and get the better of childish resentment.' He ran on in the same strain, pretending to address me, but evidently adapting his discourse to the capacity of the landlady; who, at every pause, uttered an exclamation of pity; or 'Yes, to be ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... mania for conformity. He was a prosecutor by birth. Against that which did not conform, against all that squirmed for some expression beyond the tick-tock of life, he was a force—an apostle with a sword. Men pretending virtues as relentless as his own were often inclined to eye him askance. Virtue breeds skepticism among the virtuous. But there ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... not the same child," she finished. "Oskar found him the other day with a rolled-up piece of paper lighted at the end, pretending he was smoking." ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... after all, the young sprig was not pretending genteel ignorance. How now, master Fid; you are welcome back to ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... him so much with his facetious conversation that he invited him to breakfast with him the next morning. Tom took occasion to put a strong purge into the ale and toast which the Londoner was drinking, he himself pretending never to take anything in the morning but a glass of wine and bitters. When the stranger got on horseback, Tom offered to accompany him, For, says he, I can easily walk as fast as your horse will trot. They had not got above two miles before, at the entrance of a common, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward |
