"Delusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... succeeded Mr. Montagu. He said, that although slavery was repugnant to his feelings, he must vote against the abolition, as visionary and delusive. It was a feeble attempt without the power to serve the cause of humanity. Other nations would take up the trade. Whenever a bill of wise regulation should be brought forward, no man would be more ready than himself to lend ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... the delusive impression was of short continuance. The rumor of the destruction of half his army was almost immediately propagated in that city, from the singular commotion produced by extraordinary events, which is known frequently to spread almost instantaneously to prodigious ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... or any large town, of their confederacy, could make a separate war or a separate peace with a foreign nation, or any part of it. Some member of the league, as, for example, the Cayugas, would make a covenant of friendship with the enemy, and, while the infatuated victims were thus lulled into a delusive security, the war-parties of the other nations, often joined by the Cayuga warriors, would overwhelm them by a sudden onset. But it was not by their craft, nor by their organization,—which for military purposes ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... least rely on never going back, you may assure yourself of having seen the worst, and the positive improvements, if trifles separately, must soon gather into a sensible magnitude.' This may be true in a case of short standing, but as a general rule it is perilously delusive. On the contrary, the line of progress, if exhibited in a geometrical construction, would describe an ascending path upon the whole, but with frequent retrocessions into descending curves, which, compared with the point of ascent that ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... types, such as apports, where objects are brought from a distance, levitation of objects or of the human frame into the air, the production of lights and other wonders. Then comes prophecy, which is a real and yet a fitful and often delusive form of mediumship—never so delusive as among the early Christians, who seem all to have mistaken the approaching fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, which they could dimly see, as being the end of the world. ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as a counter for the merchandise. No delusive display is there; only samples of the business, whatever it may chance to be,—such, for instance, as three or four tubs full of codfish and salt, a few bundles of sail-cloth, cordage, copper wire hanging from the joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Lygians. He pursued the intruders far into their German thickets; and nine of the native German princes came spontaneously into his camp, subscribed such conditions as he thought fit to dictate, and complied with his requisitions of tribute in horses and provisions. This, however, is a delusive gleam of Roman energy, little corresponding with the true condition of the Roman power, and entirely due to the personal qualities of Probus. Probus himself showed his sense of the true state of affairs, by carrying a stone wall, of considerable height, from the Danube to the Neckar. He made various ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... ardently wished that Johannesburg itself had gone thither, before they had heard of its unlucky and delusive existence, and among this daily increasing number might now be reckoned Laurence Stanninghame. He, infected with the gambler's fever of speculation, had not thought it worth while to "hedge"; it was to ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... "But delusive ideas, sir, are the motives of the greatest part of mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their actions are incited: the world, in the eye of a philosopher, may be said to be a large madhouse." "It is true," answered Harley, "the passions of men are temporary ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... seduced from its discipline and its fidelity, first by every kind of debauchery, and then by the terrible precedent of a donative in the increase of pay? Are the curates to be secluded from their bishops, by holding out to them the delusive hope of a dole out of the spoils of their own order? Are the citizens of London to be drawn from their allegiance by feeding them at the expense of their fellow-subjects? Is a compulsory paper currency to be substituted in the place of the legal coin ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... (1726), and Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736), are among the highest contributions to theology produced in the last century, called the imagination 'a forward, delusive faculty,' and he could have boasted that it was a faculty of which no trace is to be found in his works. Moreover, he is generally regarded as wholly destitute of style, and in a sense this is true, for Butler is so intent upon what he has to say that he cares little how he says ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... supposed superiority would enable the Southern Confederacy to enter into a successful contest with the North for empire. The potency of 'King Cotton' was to be made the powerful agency with which the rest of the civilized world was to be dragooned into acquiescence. On this delusive dream was built the fabric of that mighty empire, whose history, from its origin to its subversion, is nearly ready ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... "copy" occasionally leads to artful embroidering on humdrum actuality; but, after spending much time in scanning similar embroidery in the literature of the Napoleonic Era, I unhesitatingly place the work of Archibald Forbes, and that of several knights of the pen still living, far above the delusive tinsel of Marbot, Thiebault, and Segur. I will go further and say that, if we could find out what were the sources used by Thucydides, we should notice qualms of misgiving shoot through the circles of scientific historians as they contemplated ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Protestant Christians. The last and most pretentious form of this dogma is, that the sense of the miraculous fades away in the progress of what arrogates to itself the name of Rationalism. This is one of the delusive results of introducing generalization into historical disquisitions. History deals with man. Man is always the same. The race consists, not of an aggregation, but of individuals, in all ages, never moulded or melted into classes. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... exertion tends to fatigue and exhaustion, with a natural desire to relieve them by some special means, such as alcohol. To do so is often but to make a beginning of the end. How many bright lights in the dramatic and musical professions have been prematurely quenched through indulgence in the delusive draught! If tonics, sedatives, etc., are to be taken, which should not be a habitual practice, they should be used only under the direction of a medical ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... now that he was no longer under the observation of his family, he again tried to satisfy his conscience by promising himself that he would gradually reduce the amount used until he could discontinue it utterly—delusive hope, that has mocked thousands like himself. If he could have gone to an asylum and surrounded his infirm will by every possible safeguard, he might have been carried through the inevitable period of horrible depression; ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... they say, some evil spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive light, Misleads th' amaz'd night wand'rer from his way To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool; There swallowed up and lost from ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... call.... Sad is the present if no future state, No blissful retribution mortals wait, If fate's decrees the thinking being doom To lose existence in the silent tomb. All may be well; that hope can man sustain. All now is well; 'tis an illusion vain. The sages held me forth delusive light, Divine instructions only can be right. Humbly I sigh, submissive suffer pain, Nor more ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... statesmen were apt to be senators; and the Senate was the true battleground in a contest that was beginning to dwarf all others. From the beginning to the end of Douglas's service there, saving a brief, delusive interval after the Compromise of 1850, the slavery question in its territorial phase was constantly uppermost, and in the Senate, if anywhere, those measures must be devised, those compromises agreed on, which should save the country from disunion or war. There was open to him, therefore, a path ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... idolatry, and various other abominations of his country, he exposed himself to cruel reproach, to manifold hardship and hazard of life; about fourteen years almost unsuccessful he persevered in this difficult, but delusive attempt. What hunger, what cold, what torment and death have some Jesuitic and other antichristian missionaries undergone, to propagate the most ruining delusions of hell; all under the pretence of earnestness to gain sinners to Christ and his church. The Scripture, however, nowhere saith, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... 4th of March was saluted by the guns at the Battery in New York and by the ringing of church bells. This day was to witness the inauguration of the new Government. Delusive expectation! The dilatory habits of a decade were not so readily unlearned. To the amusement of ill-wishers, barely a score of Congressmen appeared in the city; and the carpenters were still at work remodeling the old City Hall into a fitting habitation for the new Federal Congress. ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... hasten to encounter every difficulty, the removal of which would spare your gentle bosom those pangs; but you know Headley would never permit it. His prudence is a mania, and even were he to yield his consent—let me not sustain you with delusive hopes—I fear ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Roman empire; his worst error was his apostacy from Christianity; he hated the religion he had deserted, and laboured strenuously to substitute in its place an idle system which combined the most rational part of the old heathen system with the delusive philosophy of the schools. Vanity was his besetting sin; he chose to be considered a philosopher rather than a sovereign, and to acquire that title he thought fit to reject the decencies of this life, and the best ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Good! and not a fox Stretch'd on the earth, with fine delusive sleights, Mocking a gaping crow? ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... was at that time the western terminal of the few railroads then in existence, and there was very little probability that they would make farther progress toward the setting sun. The individual who had determined to start for the new, but delusive, western mountainous El Dorado, must perforce make his wearisome journey by slowly plodding ox-teams, pack-mules, or the lumbering stage-coach. Such means of travel had just been inaugurated by Mr. W. H. Russell ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... audible voice to the reflexion—"It's a great mistake, either way, for a man to be in love with an actress. Either it means nothing serious, and what's the use of that? or it means everything, and that's still more delusive." ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the horn?" I inquired of the youngster afterwards, quite in a pleasant tone, and with a smile on which I had learned to depend for a particularly delusive effect; at the same time I put up my glasses to impress him with ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... college honors, in which renown, not learning for the sake of learning, is the aim. The seeming proficiency achieved through the influence of such motives—knowledge acquired for the nonce, not assimilated—is often delusive, and is apt to vanish when the stimulus is withdrawn. The students themselves have recorded their judgment of the value of this sort of learning in the word "cramming," a phrase which originated in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... Memoires de Trevoux, the Benedictine Chaudon, the Abbe Trublet, the journalist Freron, and many others, lay and clerical. The answers of the churchmen to their Philosophic opponents are generally inconclusive. Lefranc de Pompignan declared that the love of dry and speculative truth was a delusive fancy, good to adorn an oration, but never realized by the human heart. He sneered at Locke and at the idea that the latter had invented metaphysics. His objections and those of the Catholic church to that philosopher's teachings were chiefly that the Englishman maintained that thought might be ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... house in London. Could you not come down and beat up agents for me? I know you will not deny me your help. I hear of a house at Brixton, with a garden of two acres, and only L130 a year." In a day or two even this last hope had proved delusive: "I find the house at Brixton will not do, and I hear of nothing else.... I am anxious as to having become perfectly deaf on the right side of my head. Partial approaches to this have sometimes occurred to me and passed away, so I will not be too ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... perceived that a reputation so lightly established, was still more weakly sustained: the prejudice remained: the Countess of Castlemaine, a woman lively and discerning followed the delusive shadow; and though undeceived in a reputation which promised so much, and performed so little, she nevertheless continued in her infatuation: she even persisted in it, until she was upon the point of embroiling herself with the King; so great was this ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... being conducted by Miss Baylis, who for five blissful weeks reigned supreme, while "hope" hinted a permanent one. But, alas! nothing is so delusive as human hope. That city across the sea settled Miss Baylis' plans, and Miss Woodhull's future. That lady had found her true place among England's "gentlewomen"(?), though she had utterly failed to do so among Virginia's. Over there she could chuck books at the heads of dignified ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... pleasure, no doubt, but it must be admitted, nevertheless, that the pleasure they seek there is of a delusive kind and lasts but for a few minutes ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... doubt, greatly retarded by leaving slavery and the slave-holder unmarked by public reprobation, and concentrating all the energies of philanthropy upon a fruitless effort to abolish the slave-trade. And in this country the Colonization scheme, with its delusive promise of good to Africa, and its vague anticipations of putting an end to the slave-trade by armed colonies on the coast of that ill-fated continent, has been the means of obstructing emancipation at home, of unprofitably absorbing the ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, and that it is a matter of duty to be mindful, in this very particular, of the warning words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... merely to excite a childlike and unreasoning admiration? Is all this appearance of gradual modification by the action of natural causes—a modification the successive steps of which we can almost trace—all delusive? Is this harmony between the most diverse groups, all presenting analogous phenomena, and indicating a dependence upon physical changes of which we have independent evidence, all false testimony? If I could think so, the study of nature would have lost for me its ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of life, to mar our happiness in our family- like institution (February 23d) was the listless waywardness of some of our dear students, in a determined purpose to attend a dancing party under the guise of an oyster supper. How many delusive snares are laid to entrap and turn aside the youth into divergent paths. We found it necessary to suspend eight of our students for the remainder of the term. It is a painful duty of the surgeon to amputate a limb, yet it may be an imperative duty, in order to ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... came aside from that flood. The lane opened slantingly into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a delusive appearance of coming from the direction of London. Yet a kind of eddy of people drove into its mouth; weaklings elbowed out of the stream, who for the most part rested but a moment before plunging into it again. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... darkness, till the common daylight of common sense became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an ignis fatuus; and exhorted all who would listen to his friendly voice, which were about as many as called 'God save King Richard,' to shelter themselves from its delusive radiance in the obscure haunt of Old Philosophy. This word Old had great charms for him. The good old times were always on his lips; meaning the days when polemic theology was in its prime, and rival prelates beat the drum ecclesiastic ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... uncontrolled. In some of these happy freaks I have endeavoured to take as agreeable a sleigh-ride as you had to Goshen; but I find it impracticable, unless you will make one of the party; for my imagination, when most romantic, is not lively or delusive enough to paint an object that can, in my eyes, atone for your absence. From this you will conclude that the news you heard of me at Princeton is groundless. It is so far from being true, that scarce two persons can fix on the same lady to tease me with. However, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... us in its grip, Would raise the prisoning paw, And Nature, like a mouse set free, Enjoyed delusive liberty, While every water-pipe must drip To greet the passing thaw. Then rudely dashed from eager lip The cup of joy would be, And fingers numbed, and chattering jaw, Owned unexpelled the winter's flaw, And on the steps the goodmen slip, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... gave Hume no pain. JOHNSON. 'It was not so, Sir[432]. He had a vanity in being thought easy. It is more probable that he should assume an appearance of ease, than that so very improbable a thing should be, as a man not afraid of going (as, in spite of his delusive theory, he cannot be sure but he may go,) into an unknown state, and not being uneasy at leaving all he knew. And you are to consider, that upon his own principle of annihilation he had no motive ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... no! At first I flattered myself with this delusive hope; and even then my heart was filled with grief and anguish to behold thee thus. Thy doom is real! Is certain! No, I cannot command myself. Who will counsel, who will aid me, to meet ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape[cx] The fascination of thy magic gaze? A Cherub-Hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... with a genius for it. Some people are born with a genius for one thing, and some with a genius for another. I, for example, am an artistic genius, forced to be an amateur by the delusive possession of early wealth, and now burning with a creative instinct in the direction of the sheep or cattle business; you have the gift of universal optimism; Lurella Blood has the genius of good society. Give that girl a winter among nice people in Boston, and you would never know that she ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Montagu. He said, that although slavery was repugnant to his feelings, he must vote against the abolition as visionary and delusive. It was a feeble attempt, without the power, to serve the cause of humanity. Other nations would take up the trade. Whenever a bill of wise regulation should be brought forward, no man would be more ready than himself to lend his support. In this way the rights of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... stratum, are sometimes totally reflected upwards, thus producing images similar to those produced by water. I have seen the image of a rock called Mont Tombeline distinctly reflected from the heated air of the strand of Normandy near Avranches; and by such delusive appearances the thirsty soldiers of the French army in Egypt were ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... these babbling, lawless productions, albeit countenanced by the patronage, and in some degree the example of Lorenzo himself, otherwise a friend to true learning, as a sign that the glorious hopes of this century are to be quenched in gloom; nay, that they have been the delusive prologue to an age worse than that of iron—the age of tinsel and gossamer, in which no thought has substance enough to be moulded into ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of sustaining her equanimity in this pressing emergency. "Love, dear, delusive love!" as she expressed herself to a friend some time afterwards, "rigorous reason had forced her to resign; and now her rational prospects were blasted, just as she had learned to be contented with rational enjoyments". Thus situated, life became an intolerable ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the bottom man was working in the bowels of the earth, and every shovelful he took out had to be passed up from step to step, so that four or five other men had been employed before it reached the top. Damp patches were sometimes found quite early but the hopes they raised were usually delusive and water was only struck at a considerable depth, and then not in any abundance. Fortunately wells sunk in other parts of the wadi proved more successful, but it was a little trying to read in Mr. Belloc's few paragraphs on our campaign—"of the Wadi Guzzeh, that considerable body ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... sad tribulation at finding his expectations delusive, endeavoured for some time, it is said, to dispose of his necklace among the various Courts ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... specific effects on the human constitution. However, it is of the greatest consequence to point it out here, lest the want of discrimination should occasion an idea of security from the infection of the smallpox, which might prove delusive.] ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... for a moment, consider the nature of this thing called criticism, which exerts such a sway over the literary world. The pronoun we, used by critics, has a most imposing and delusive sound. The reader pictures to himself a conclave of learned men, deliberating gravely and scrupulously on the merits of the book in question; examining it page by page, comparing and balancing their opinions, and when they have united in a conscientious verdict, publishing it for the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Watchman What of the Night? The Caution given us on another occasion may with propriety be adapted to this. Be ye ready; lest when the Time of Danger approaches, ye be found distracted with the eager Pursuit of Riches, or sleeping in the delusive Lap of pleasure & Dissipation. But this is a Digression from the intended Subject of my Letter. You ask my opinion of two Men who have lately appeard on the publick Stage; and with your usual Frankness, express your own opinion without a Doubt, that Congress will soon convince ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... was there a time when rash monetary speculation seized with a firmer grip upon people and governments than during the early part of the eighteenth century. Concurrently with the delusive "Mississippi Scheme" of John Law (1717), which resulted in financial panic in France, a similarly disastrous enterprise was carried on in England. This was the attempt to turn the South Sea Company into a concern for enriching ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... held out even more delusive hopes; they actually built a nest in a neighbor's yard, the family in the house maintaining an appearance of the utmost indifference, so as not to alarm the birds till they were committed to that ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... under many different forms, renders labour absolutely an enjoyment. Sometimes ambition is merely a desire of amassing property, an avaricious disposition: sometimes it is a desire to create a family; and even, sometimes, the vain and delusive idea of retiring from business, and becoming happy in a state of total idleness, spurs a man on to labour. It is a very curious, but well-known fact, that, after necessity has entirely ceased to promote industry, the love ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... continued to be practised by them, and the name "Chaldean" became a by-word, a synonym for "a wise man of the East,"—astrologer, magician or soothsayer. They dispersed all over the world, carrying their delusive science with them, practising and teaching it, welcomed everywhere by the credulous and superstitious, often highly honored and always richly paid. Thus it is from the Chaldeans and their predecessors the Shumiro-Accads that the belief in astrology, witchcraft and every kind of fortune-telling ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... instantly perceived its beauty, and saw how his language and his imagery often recalled those of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals, such as Crashaw, too readily perhaps asserted a bond between his thought and theirs. Like them, it is true, he turned his back on the delusive splendours of the world; he accepted and expressed in song the divine ordinance of the universe. But he was afflicted with the pain of modern doubt; fear and speculative curiosity struggled with his faith; sometimes the sheer beauty of the external world, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... respects to Lady C(arlisle) and my love to the children, and last of all do not despair of me about Hazard, for it being what I love so much, is precisely the reason why I shall be more upon guard in respect to it. I do not mean by this to limit, but the ense recidendum; every other parti is delusive and childish. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence. If it were to be otherwise—if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for—I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... manner, the poet turns the imperfect intellect and delusive knowledge of man to a moral use. Ordinarily, the intellectual impotence of man is regarded as carrying with it moral incapacity as well, and the delusiveness of knowledge is one of the strongest arguments for pessimism. To persons pledged to the support ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... youth, near his home. This is a simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A perpetual and excruciatingly ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... (Sept. 17th): "Our unhappy mortality prevails." On the 23d, he says: "Mr. Whitney has been lying at the point of death for the last ten or twelve days. We hope he begins to improve." These hopes were delusive. He died. Mr. Whitney had been abroad; he was an assiduous and talented advocate—a native of Hudson, N.Y.—was on the high road to political distinction—a moral man and a ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... exception being made in their favour during the general ruin which they see impending over others. I am, however, not the less convinced of the truth of my own opinion, which is unhappily already confirmed by too many instances of the effects which this delusive security, as I think it, has produced, and is daily producing. I can see no grounds, in the state of this country, to hope for such an exception in our favour, and I do verily believe that we must prepare to meet ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... when Antwerp would pay dearly enough for this baseness. Still more bitter were the complaints of the Lutheran clergy, whom the magistrate himself had invited into the country to preach against the Calvinists. Under the delusive representation that the king was not unfavorable to their religion they had been seduced into a combination against the Calvinists, but as soon as the latter had been by their co-operation brought under subjection, and their ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... passed through much the same phases. Vandal and others have told us of the Utopia which was created in the minds of the French when the old regime crashed to the ground. Sydney Smith caricatured the delusive hopes excited by the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, when he said that all the unmarried young women thought that they would at once get husbands, and that all the schoolboys expected a heavy fall in the price of jam tarts. A process of disillusionment may confidently ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... him, led on, to triumph and to die; Like him, by mighty magic compass'd round, And seeking sceptres on enchanted ground. Such spells invest, such blear illusion waits The trav'ller bound for Fame's receding gates, Delusive splendours gild the proud abode, But lurking demons haunt th' alluring road; There gaunt-eyed Want asserts her iron reign, There, as in vengeance of the world's disdain, This half-flesh'd hag midst Wit's bright blossoms stalks, And, breathing winter, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... pang none but I could ever understand!— No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I now cling with ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... between the front and the back view of any temptation to which we yield—all radiant and beautiful on the hither side, and when we get past it and look back at it, all hideous. Like some of those painted canvases upon the theatre-stage: seen from this side, with the delusive brilliancy of the footlights thrown upon them, they look beautiful works of art; seen at the back, dirty and cobwebbed canvas, all splashes and spots and uglinesses. Let us be thankful if memory can show us the reverse ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... silence and surprise We see Britannia's monarch rise, A godlike form, by thee displayed In all the force of light and shade; And, awed by thy delusive hand, As in the presence-chamber stand. The magic of thy art calls forth His secret soul and hidden worth, His probity and mildness shows, His care of friends and scorn of foes: 10 In every stroke, in every line, Does some exalted virtue shine, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... equally urgent on them "to maintain a certainty in the succession thereof, to which the subjects may safely have recourse for their protection." Both these acts, in which are heard the unerring, unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the delusive gypsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors," prove to a demonstration how totally adverse the wisdom of the nation was from turning a case of necessity into a rule ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... weakly delusive. Hazel, you must give me a Christmas gift, and you must let it be that thing which of all others ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... Pagett. 1st edn 1734. 4to. says Lord Orford. An edn in 8vo. was printed in 1736 'for Fletcher Gyles against Grays Inn in Holbourn,' and was called (as this is) the third; but it gave no delusive intimation in the title that Pope was the author, honestly assigning it to the Right Hon. Lord Pagett. To the preface was added ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... no doubt largely due to its many points of contact with philosophical and theological questions in which every intelligent man feels a profound interest; but a good deal must be assigned to a somewhat delusive simplicity of style, which tends to disguise the complexity and difficulty of the subject, and much to the wealth of information on all sorts of curious problems of natural history, which is made accessible to the most unlearned reader. But long occupation ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... tone familiar, stealing, Drew me from harrowing thought's bewild'ring maze, Touching the ling'ring chords of childlike feeling, With sweet harmonies of happier days: So curse I all, around the soul that windeth Its magic and alluring spell, And with delusive flattery bindeth Its victim to this dreary cell! Curs'd before all things be the high opinion, Wherewith the spirit girds itself around! Of shows delusive curs'd be the dominion, Within whose mocking sphere our sense is bound! Accurs'd of dreams the treacherous wiles, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... evening with us and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he and Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... seconds south. The country still retained the same woody, hilly, and irregular, though not unpleasing, appearance; but in running along the shore it manifestly grew worse, having more tendency to sand. The small projections of land which appeared as they sailed along often presented the delusive appearance of openings behind them; and they were the more inclined to entertain these hopes, as Captain Cook passed along this part of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... presents no objects of enjoyment or comfort, they seem to look with anxiety towards another, which they believe will be better suited to their natures; but concerning which they are far from indulging vain and delusive conjectures. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... office with a high stool, a dusty ledger, and sandwich lunches, had no attraction for me. I had always had a turn for mechanics, but was never allowed to adopt engineering as a profession, my father's one idea being that I should follow in his footsteps—a delusive hope entertained by ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... find means to dissipate this delusive cloud that interposes itself betwixt us. Meanwhile, accept my hand, in token that, however changed ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... sips sweets, the poison too drained; Ah! 'twas all delusive, for sorrows would come, Oh, 'tis home where the heart is, where the heart ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... certainly they will have their Use. The Character of Shamela, will make young Gentlemen wary how they take the most fatal Step both to themselves and Families, by youthful, hasty and improper Matches; indeed, they may assure themselves, that all Such Prospects of Happiness are vain and delusive, and that they sacrifice all the solid Comforts of their Lives, to a very transient Satisfaction of a Passion, which how hot so ever it be, will be soon cooled; and when cooled, will afford them ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... prospects spread, And woo me from the confines of the dead? The pleasing scenes that charmed me once retrace— Gay scenes of rapture and ecstatic bliss? How did my heart embrace the dear deceit, And fondly cherish the deluding cheat! Delusive hope, and wishes sadly vain, Unless to sharpen ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... streams the heart o'erflow In gushes pleasure with the tide of woe; And when its waves retire, like those of Nile, They leave behind them such a golden soil That there the virtues without culture grow, There the sweet blossoms of affection blow. These were his words; void of delusive art I felt them; for he spoke them from his heart. Nor will I now attempt with witty folly ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... my face, and it came disagreeably into my head that he was playing some part; that his talk was delusive, his anger feigned; that, perhaps, he still suspected me of being a Separationist. He went on talking about the failure of the boat attack. All Jamaica had been talking of it, speculating about it, congratulating itself ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... and then attempting to set it on fire, for which exploit the "learned and judicious Bianchi," as Smollett called him in his first edition, was sent to prison for life. The Arrotino which Smollett so greatly admired, and which the delusive Bianchi declared to be a representation of the Augur Attus Naevius, is now described as "A Scythian whetting his ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... is a gift, not a device. They whose courage, talents, and will entitle them to lead, will lead .... If we cannot gain their support of the just measures needful for the work of safe reorganization, reorganization will be delusive and full of danger. They are the most hopeful subjects to deal with. They have the brain and the experience and the education to enable them to understand... the present situation. They have the courage as well as the skill to lead the people in the direction their ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... weakness had been her portion at the time our story commences. So accustomed had she become to her sad situation, that it seemed like a delusive dream when she remembered the sportive hours of her earlier childhood. Like other sick children, she was far more thoughtful than was quite natural at her age, and very seldom in her easiest moments laughed aloud. But she was not ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... the owner of estates in South Uist and Barra, in the highlands of Scotland, has sent off over 1100 destitute tenants and cotters under the most cruel and delusive temptations; assuring them that they would be taken care of immediately on their arrival at Quebec by the emigrant agent, receive a free passage to Upper Canada, where they would be provided with work by the government ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... why should the glittering stream Reflect thus delusive the scene? Ah, why does a rosy-ting'd beam Thus vainly enamel the green? To me nor joy nor light they bring: I tell thee, Phoebus, 'tis ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... but be grateful to one so tender to her brother. Three letters of Charles Spencer's had been, in the afflictions of the house, only answered by a brief line. She now took the occasion of a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur's disease to write to him more at length. She was carrying, as usual, the letter to her mother, when Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter from her hand. He looked embarrassed ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hope of safety seemed a delusive one; the skiff swooped away from the rock, spun more giddily about, and threw both men upon their knees. Another instant that seemed endless,—an instant which decided the fate of both, as far as this ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... of Man,' and it consists of the (following) four chapters: (1) Refutation of Delusive and Prejudiced (Doctrine); (2) Refutation of Incomplete and Superficial (Doctrine); (3) Direct Explanation of the Real Origin; (4) Reconciliation of the Temporary with the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... the greatest philosophers who have ever appeared in the world. The first of them is Aristotle, who, in a passage of his Politics, to which I cannot at this moment turn, plainly condemns the pursuit of a delusive geometrical accuracy in moral reasonings as the constant source of the grossest error. The second is Lord Bacon, who tells us, with that authority of conscious wisdom which belongs to him, and with that power of ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... He stretched himself on the sofa; his good friend considerately took up a newspaper. For the first time that day, he had now the prospect of a quiet interval for rest and thought. In less than a minute the delusive prospect vanished. He started to his feet again, disturbed by a new anxiety. Having leisure to think, he had thought of Regina. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "she's waiting to see me—and I never remembered it till this moment!" He looked at his watch: ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... turn their backs on the German fatherland, or liberal declaimers, dreaming of an ideal of freedom which could scarcely be realized in Utopia, but of sober excellent families of the middle class, who, free from all delusive fancies, do not expect to find in the western world wealth and honorable offices, but desire only to inhabit a land, wherein they may dwell quietly and happily with their children." "What the German wants is room—a new broad field for his abilities—and this America extends to him in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... mean by clasping God? I mean making daily efforts to rivet our love on Him, and not to let the world, with all its delusive and cloying sweets, draw us away from Him. I mean continual and strenuous efforts to fix our thoughts upon Him, and not to allow the trivialities of life, or the claims of culture, or the necessities of our daily position so to absorb ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... experience in the Kimash Hills. He did not share the opinion of Lazenby, the Company's clerk at Fort Luke, who said, when the matter was talked of before him, that it was all hanky-panky,—which was evidence that he had lived in London town, before his anxious relatives, sending him forth under the delusive flag of adventure and wild life, imprisoned him in the Arctic regions with the H. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Forrester's start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh—whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was thankful to see her double upon Peter; but, in a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowland's Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the beasts of burden) ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... particular day. All the members of this party were in the secret, except a certain lady, here designated by the title of the Countess de B. who was pitched upon as a proper person for Monsieur St. Gille's delusive powers, as she knew nothing either of him or of ventriloquism; and possibly for another reason, which the Abbe, through politeness, suppresses. She had been told in general, that this party had been formed in consequence of a report, that an aerial spirit had lately established itself in the ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... principles of that party, seemed to be willing to go after strange gods, and to form new alliances, to do anything to gain success, and that old party sought to form at least temporary alliances, so that the people would forget the great issue, and follow after these strange and delusive ideas of which I will speak. Therefore it was that my friend General Ewing was nominated for Governor of Ohio, with the expectation that as he had advanced some such ideas in times past, a coalition would be made between the parties naturally hostile, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... scripture and philosophy have sung and whom the saints love to contemplate, even the Lord God, he is the son of Dasarath, King of Kosala."[616] By the power of Rama exist Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, as also Maya, the illusion which brings about the world. His "delusive power is a vast fig-tree, its clustering fruit the countless multitude of worlds, while all things animate and inanimate are like the insects that dwell inside and think their own particular fig the only one in existence."[617] God has made all things: pain and pleasure, ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... readmission of the Pennsylvania Synod, Sprecher declared: "I fear there will be divisions, no matter what course is taken. As to the hope of gaining over the Symbolic Lutherans, I consider it altogether delusive. If they ever join the General Synod, it will be with the hope of controlling it eventually into their own views and for their own purposes." (353.) Thus, realizing the giant strides which Western confessionalism had already made, and the steady growth ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... glittering bubble had burst. The shares, each one of which had seemed a fortune, found no more purchasers, and in its fall the Company dragged down with it its ally and chief creditor, the bank. All was dismay and despair, except in those who had sold out in time, and turned delusive paper into solid values. John Law, lately the idol and reputed savior of France, fled for his life, amid a howl ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... before their birth these objects lent the same delusive countenance to others, to those unknown now turned to dust and gone to nothingness, who may not even have been of their ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... empire, during which the Christians of Philadelphia would be spared. This may have been the fact; but whether it was or not, we have no means of information. When we come to consider the symbols of chapter 9, in which the delusive error of Mohammedanism is set forth, we will see what a period of sore trial this delusion was to the Eastern churches. It is also a fact that, in the midst of this abounding heresy, the church of Philadelphia was preserved as was no other church of Asia. When the followers ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the fickle maid, My love is turned to grief and pain; In vain delusive hopes I stray'd, Through days that ne'er will dawn again; And she, in beauty like the dawn, From me has now her heart withdrawn! A constant suitor—on her ear My sweetest melodies I pour'd; Where'er she wander'd ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... himself.) He meant this, that we, thus unsuspecting, should be led away by delusive joy; that now in hope, {all} fear being removed, we might during our supineness be surprised, so that there might be no time for planning a rupture of the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... which the beloved Apostle sharpened his gentle lips to pronounce when he said, 'If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.' 'Gird up your loins,' detach heart, desire, effort from perishable things, and lift them above the fleeting treasures and hollow delusive sparkles of earth's preciousness, and set them on the realities and eternities at God's right hand. 'For where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,' and only that heart can never be stabbed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it only seemed, I would tell not what I dreamed, But what I beheld, I may. I awoke, and lo! I lay (Cruel and delusive thing!) In a bed whose covering, Bright with blooms from rosy bowers, Seemed a tapestry of flowers Woven by the hand of Spring. Then a crowd of nobles came, Who addressed me by the name Of their prince, presenting me Gems and robes, on bended knee. Calm soon left me, and ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... by degrees to recover our composure, and chased from our thoughts the cruel recollections which afflicted us. We recovered our tranquillity, and dared at last to cherish the hope of seeing more fortunate days. That hope was not delusive. Our benefactor, M. Dard, since then having become my husband, gathered together the wrecks of our wretched family, and has proved himself worthy of being a father to us. My sister Caroline afterwards married M. Richard, agricultural botanist, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... grille through which they show like beauteous wraiths or frescoes in the flat. That screen is emblematic of their real exclusion from the higher government which their social participation in parliamentary elections, and the men's habit of talking politics with them, flatter them into a delusive sense of sharing. A woman may be the queen of England, but she may not be one of its legislators. That must be because women like being queens and do not really care ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... on, without any renewed hints of interference, and she began to hope that she was forgotten. Delusive hope! It was felt as a disgrace that she should suffer, when the law had provided a remedy, and they had paid for it. And it was therefore decreed by the magnates of the town that she must be removed, and the day had arrived (with which we commenced our narrative,) on which the paupers ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... mind of man capable of these bolder conceptions, but even the wretched fool who sees in the material world the whole of what man can know, could never get so far as to think even of the delusive objects on which he pins his foolish faith, unless the very mind which he insults and misunderstands, had by its nature that infinite capacity of comprehension which, he says, exists not. For otherwise, if the mind be limited, there must be a definite limit to its comprehensive faculty, and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... altogether hateful in his eyes now. Instead of feeling grateful (as he surely ought to have been) for the one night of perfect security and comfort he had passed there, he only loathed it for the delusive peace it ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... half-sigh. "It was not indeed wholly, but in great part the hope of the poet's fame that made me a truant in the way to that which destiny, and such few gifts as Nature conceded to me, marked out for my proper and only goal. But what a strange, delusive Will-o'-the-Wisp the love of verse-making is! How rarely a man of good sense deceives himself as to other things for which he is fitted, in which he can succeed; but let him once drink into his being the charm of verse-making, how the glamour of the charm bewitches his understanding! how long ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wide brown waste. The huntsman warily shapes his course so as to avoid any limestone-quarries or turf-pits. He points out a jack-o'-lantern dancing merrily on the surface of a dangerous morass, and tells a dismal tale of a traveller lured into it by the delusive ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... she said to herself; "I was placed here to help them, and I have neglected that very clear duty by giving way to delusive fancies." ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... Spanish king's beard." Elizabeth used the daring blow to back some negotiations for peace which she was still conducting in the Netherlands. But on Philip's side at least these negotiations were simply delusive. The Spanish pride had been touched to the quick. Amidst the exchange of protocols Parma gathered seventeen thousand men for the coming invasion, collected a fleet of flat-bottomed transports at Dunkirk, and waited impatiently for the Armada to protect ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... several influential members had left, or at the last moment had refused to sign. "The people of this commonwealth," said Patrick Henry, "are exceedingly uneasy in being brought from that state of full security which they enjoyed, to the present delusive appearance of things." A special objection was made to the lack of a bill of rights, such as existed in State constitutions. The reply was that the framers of the Constitution had deliberately omitted it because Congress was in no case to have powers not ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... great republic appeared to have its emblem in the vast unfinished Capitol, at that moment surrounded by masses of stone and prostrate columns never yet lifted into their places, seemingly the moment of high but delusive aspirations, the confused wreck of inchoate magnificence, sadder than any ruin ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... delusive diversion at Trianon after Josephine had taken up her abode at Malmaison. His sympathetic and affectionate attentions from there could not have been more earnestly shown. Nothing that would appease her grief and add to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... exceedingly delusive in thus looking back, through the long vista of departed years, and catching a glimpse of the fairy realms of antiquity. Like a landscape melting into distance, they receive a thousand charms from their very obscurity, and the fancy delights to fill up their outlines with graces and excellences ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... seemed to him delusive, and his sense of dignity rose against it—Harvey had begun with unwonted decision, but he was soon uncomfortably self-conscious and self-critical; he spoke with effort, vainly struggling against that peculiar force of Alma's personality ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... battered hat And eye that told of blank despair, On wooden bench the traveller sat, Cursing the fate that brought him there. "Nine hours," he cried, "we've lingered here With thoughts intent on distant homes, Waiting for that delusive train That, always coming, never comes: Till weary, worn, Distressed, forlorn, And paralyzed in every function! I hope in hell His soul may dwell Who ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... kinder, gods! Let not the dreams come true Which last night's cruel slumber bade believe! Begone! your vain, delusive spells undo, Nor ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... is claimed again that females should have the ballot as a protection against the tyranny of bad husbands. This is also delusive. If the husband is brutal, arbitrary or tyrannical, and tyrannizes over her at home, the ballot in her hands would be no protection against such injustice, but the husband who compelled her to conform to his wishes in other respects ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... who found himself turned out of office by the Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises were insincere, and any expectations built upon them likely to prove delusive. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... revival movement was set on foot, starting in the Mississippi valley under the leadership of an eloquent exhorter, who declared that, although a false prophet had arisen, whose delusive prediction was contrary to Scripture, yet it was true that the world was about to be punished in unexpected ways for ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the book throughout is excellent. The delusive character of sin is plainly pointed out. The devices of Satan are laid bare with unsparing hand. The abominations of vice are not concealed. All this is done in language well chosen and unexceptionable. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... considered, &c. Charitable allowances are made; the books are purchased by associations of complaisant friends or opulent patrons; a kind of forced demand is raised, but this can be only temporary and delusive. In spite of bounties and of all the arts of protection, nothing but what is intrinsically good will long be preferred, when it must be purchased. But granting that positive excellence is attained, there is always danger that for works of fancy the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... enlarged upon the barbarous manners of the wild untutored hordes among whom the proud pageantry of pretended faith, false honour, and affected punctilio, had its rise. He traced it through its gilded course of blood and carnage, stripped of the fantastic and delusive mantle which romance delights to fling over its native deformity, to the present time, when the general civilization and protection enjoyed in this enlightened age, has left nought but the grim shadow of the destructive form which harassed ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fancied to be made upon the partisans of Montmorency should at once be repressed by his guards. It was not until the soldiers returned with the assurance that everything was quiet throughout the city, that he consented to retire to his rest again. For an entire week the delusive cries seemed to return at the self-same hour.[1228] These fancies—the creations of his fevered brain—may soon have left him, not to return until the general closing in at the death-bed. But there were ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird |
