"Feigning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are exemplified, such as the "booby-trap" loaded with a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape death occurs, as well as in the better-known Hamlet story. These ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... 14th of February the anxiously-expected postman brought four valentines, all on delicately tinted paper, all enhanced by a verse of original poetry, touching on some pleasant characteristic in each recipient. What merriment and comparing of notes! What pleased feigning of indignation! The girls determined to reward him with a Rowland for his Oliver, and Charlotte wrote some rhymes full of fun and raillery which all the girls signed—Emily entering into all this with much spirit and amusement—and finally despatched ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not! I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... as high as Katherine's, and he was a witty and most happy-tempered humourist, and withal so wise, and of such a true judgment, that he well knew how to feign a passionate and furious deportment, when his spirits were so calm that he himself could have laughed merrily at his own angry feigning, for his natural temper was careless and easy; the boisterous airs he assumed when he became the husband of Katherine being but in sport, or, more properly speaking, affected by his excellent discernment, as the only means ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... heroes of popular romance. More than three centuries after it was still related how one of them, by name Thutii, had reduced and humbled Jaffa, whose chief had refused to come to terms. Thutii set about his task by feigning to throw off his allegiance to Thutmosis III., and withdrew from the Egyptian service, having first stolen the great magic wand of his lord; he then invited the rebellious chief into his camp, under pretence of showing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and means that might be called the trapeze of the mind; a little mimicry goes with it; in fact there is always, morally speaking, something of the comedian in a poet. There is a vast difference between expressing sentiments we do not feel, though we may imagine all their variations, and feigning to feel them when bidding for success on the theatre of private life. And yet, though the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may have gangrened a poet, he ends by carrying the faculties of his talent into the expression of any required sentiment, just ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... sketch of By-ends' great-grandfather, the founder of the egoistical family of Fairspeech, who was, to begin with, but a waterman who always looked one way and rowed another? By-ends' wife also is a true helpmate to her husband. She was my Lady Feigning's favourite daughter, under whose nurture and example the young lady had early come to a quite extraordinary pitch of good breeding; and now that she was a married woman, she and her husband had, so their biographer tells us, two firm points of family ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... the top of this eminence, Roland stumbles and falls across a Saracen, who has been feigning death to escape capture. Seeing the dreaded warrior unconscious, this coward seizes his sword, loudly proclaiming he has triumphed; but, at his first touch, Roland—recovering his senses—deals him so mighty a blow with his horn, that the Saracen ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... joints felt like water, his heart was straightened, stretched, and corded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into the angle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long and gangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum feigning death. Only his watery blue eyes wandered—not for curiosity, but that he might see and dodge ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... of day coming through the chinks of the barn, he was up and abroad. Ere long finding himself in the suburbs of a considerable village, the better to guard against detection he supplied himself with a rude crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight through the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur, which kept up a continual, spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel longed to have one good rap at him with his crutch, but thought it would hardly look in ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... sticks, and consequent sore backs, then piu forte, "Sahib!" crescendo, "Sahib, Sahib!" and then at last, in a burst of harmony, "Sahib purana Baira kutch bukshish mil jawe?"[33] and the miserable doolie traveller, who has been, probably, feigning sleep in sulky savageness for the last ten minutes, makes a sudden dive through the curtains with a stick, an exclamation is heard very like swearing, only in a foreign language, and the troop of applicants vanish like a shot, keeping up, however, a yelping of Sahibs, and Purana Bairas, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... eyes— They are only feigning sleep While their truant glances peep Into Paradise. See, the face, though cold and white, Holds a hint of some delight E'en with Death, whose finger-tips Rest ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... by this judgment he seemed to stand convicted of arguing in bad faith; but, feigning indifference, he opened his papers in the next case, Maslova's, and began to peruse it attentively. The other Senators in the meantime called for tea, and began a talk about Kamensky's duel and his death, which was then the subject of conversation throughout ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... in favor of those who were in need at the marriage feast, which led Christ to perform his first miracle. Then as an example of exposing one's self to death for the sake of another, the incident is recalled of the pagan Pylades feigning himself to be Orestes to save the latter from death. The voice saying, "Love those from whom ye have had evil," is an exhortation to the heroic act of charity of returning good for evil. In contrast with those counsels of charity, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... in the hope that, by feigning death she might escape further wounds and torture. But the Indians came, and taking the arrows from her body, punctured her flesh with the jagged instruments, as a test whether physical sensation would disclose a sign of life remaining. She lay with ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... true coyness better than any definitions. There are no "coy looks," no "feigning" in the actions of an Australian girl about to be married to a man who is old enough to be her grandfather. The "cold disdain" is real, not assumed, and there is ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... was listening eagerly; and feigning surprise, he exclaimed: "Oh, what suspicious people are these Christians! It is because of their own hard dealings that they doubt the truth of others.—Look here, my lord Bassanio. Suppose Antonio fail in his ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... for Katharine and he were really feigning talk, being more entertained by the couple across the cloth. Katharine knew that by this last statement Pellams had sounded a dominant note in the soul of her opinionated sister. She was not surprised, then, when Miss Meiggs turned more ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... reserved man, who preferred reading some ancient and abstruse treatise on metaphysics to even the charms of her society—and often, when she urgently desired my company, I would sit in her drawing-room, turning over the leaves of a book and feigning to be absorbed in it, while she, from her velvet fauteuil, would look at me with a pretty pensiveness made up half of respect, half of gentle admiration—a capitally acted facial expression, by the bye, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... to tell him all and seek his counsel: but I would not. Still, I would answer him, and so feigning cheerfulness, said: ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... ground on opposite sides of the circle. Carelessly, and without apparently having noticed one another, the roosters walked about picking at the grass but gradually getting nearer to one another. When they got within a yard of each other they became more wary, though still feigning carelessness, until one seeing an opportunity, sprang into the air and struck at the head of the other with the curved wire nails attached to his legs in place of spurs. The other dodged and counter attacked ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... were performed originally in a state of apparent sleep, that is actually practiced in the conscious state until later they were carried out quite unconsciously. She would never then betray what when feigning sleep she had to conceal as causes. Finally the directly precipitating causes in her erotic nature for the sleep walking and moon walking seem especially to have been light and the shining of the moon, her puberty and her ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... Eve; how wise you are! It is wonderful. But what is to be done? I am bad at feigning. I can't make ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... tokens here. How midst a lying happiness we wore the last night by 'Thou know'st: yea; overwell belike thou hold'st that memory Now when the baneful Horse of Fate high Pergamus leapt o'er, With womb come nigh unto the birth of weaponed men of war, She, feigning hallowed dance, led on a holy-shouting band Of Phrygian maids, and midst of them, the bale-fire in her hand, Called on the Danaan men to come, high on the castle's steep: But me, outworn with many cares and weighed adown with sleep, 520 The hapless bride-bed held meanwhile, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... smile means. I know what you wish to say to me.... I can see myself; you believe without doubt that such has been my former life. No,... no! You are mistaken. I have not been that. There has to be a special predisposition, a certain talent for feigning what I do not feel.... I have tried to sell myself, and I cannot, I cannot avail myself of that. I embitter the life of men when they do not interest me; I am their adversary. I hate them ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... your litter to find food, the Eagle is prepared to pounce upon one of your little pigs." Having instilled these fears into the Sow, she went and pretended to hide herself in the hollow of the tree. When night came she went forth with silent foot and obtained food for herself and her kittens, but feigning to be afraid, she kept a lookout all through the day. Meanwhile, the Eagle, full of fear of the Sow, sat still on the branches, and the Sow, terrified by the Eagle, did not dare to go out from her cave. And thus they both, along with their families, perished from ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the emperor was induced to have some of his faithful servants slain. Then Dschang Liang left his service and went to the Gu Tschong Mountain. There he found the old man by the yellow stone, gained the hidden knowledge, returned home, and feigning illness loosed his soul ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... in dread of a possible separation he proposed to fly with her to America, to the Alps, to "some unsuspected isle in the far seas;" and she suggested the idea of feigning death, like Juliet, and rising from the tomb. Neither expedient was called for. When the Count went to Bologna, in August, with his wife, Lord Byron was allowed to follow; and—after consoling himself during an excursion which ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... simply designed that their functions were unguessable. He sat up and looked around groggily. The people, their costumes—definitely not Pan-Soviet uniforms—and the room and its machines, told him nothing. The hardness under his right hip was a welcome surprise; they hadn't taken his pistol from him! Feigning even more puzzlement and weakness, he clutched his knees with his elbows and leaned his head forward on them, ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... give us more. [They whisper with Terentius. Lep. I'll ne'er believe, but Caesar hath some scent Of bold Sejanus' footing. These cross points Of varying letters, and opposing consuls, Mingling his honours and his punishments, Feigning now ill, now well, raising Sejanus, And then depressing him, as now of late In all reports we have it, cannot be Empty of practice: 'tis Tiberius' art. For having found his favourite grown too great, And with his greatness ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... friends sought to make known their true estate to Philoclea and Pamela. So Dorus, feigning a love in attendance on Pamela, told her, in the presence of her mistress, the story of the two friends, Pyrocles and Musidorus, but in such words that Pamela understood who it was that was speaking, and carried to Philoclea ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... fraction of an instant he hesitated, and then his quick American wits came to his aid. Feigning intoxication he answered the challenge in dubious Austrian that he hoped ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hut of his faithful old swineherd Eumaeus; the dogs set upon him, but Eumaeus scared them away and welcomed him to his dwelling. In spite of Odysseus' assurance that the master would return Eumaeus, who had been often deceived by similar words, refused to believe. Feigning himself to be a Cretan, Odysseus saw for himself that the old servant's loyalty was steadfast; a deft touch brings out his care for his ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... listened. Bit by bit he gathered the details of her story, and in truth he knew it of old. By turning his head he had seen the crucifix on the young man's breast and he also had recognized it. He lay still and silent, however, feigning death, for to have discovered himself would have resulted in his instant despatch. When they had gone he painfully crawled over to the body ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his daughter, in various discordant keys, and with such a variety of impatient and exasperated intonation, that the whole room was full of laughter. His daughter not appearing nor answering, he next instituted a make-believe search for her, feigning to go into the kitchen, the buttery, her bedroom. Not finding her, and making a great deal of amusement for the spectators by the way, he at last comes back and asks in a deploring ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... forbidding, upon pain of death, any proposition for the renewal of the enterprise. Indignant at this pusillanimous policy, Solon devised a plan for rousing his countrymen to action. Having some poetical talent, he composed a poem on the loss of Salamis, and, feigning madness in order to evade the penalty of the law, he rushed into the market-place. PLUTARCH says, "A great number of people flocking about him there, he got up on the herald's stone, and sang the elegy ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... became cooler, to take a run in the country before dinner. Camille talked about his office, and related silly stories; then, feeling fatigued, he let himself fall backward and went to sleep with the rim of his hat over his eyes. Therese had closed her eyelids some time previously, feigning slumber. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... replacement thereof with such as are more advanced, more perfect, has followers, who in theory stand for the most extreme radical ideas, and who, nevertheless, in their every-day practice, are like the next best Philistine, feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. There are, for example, Socialists, and even Anarchists, who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... leaving her post, came to the fire, and in its kindling ray her eye fell upon Peter's face. She was surprised to see him there, feigning to be one of themselves. If, like John, he had gone quietly into some recess of the court, and waited unobtrusively in the shadow, she could have said nothing. In her kind-heartedness she would have respected them both; for she knew that they sympathized with ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... peaks, the trees are very high. Four terraces of polished marble shine; On the green grass count Rollant swoons thereby. A Sarrazin him all the time espies, Who feigning death among the others hides; Blood hath his face and all his body dyed; He gets afoot, running towards him hies; Fair was he, strong and of a courage high; A mortal hate he's kindled in his pride. He's seized Rollant, and the arms, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... the town for her maintenance. In a subsequent trial before Lord Chief Justice North himself, that judge detected one of those practices which, it is to be feared, were too common at the time, when witnesses found their advantage in feigning themselves bewitched. A woman, supposed to be the victim of the male sorcerer at the bar, vomited pins in quantities, and those straight, differing from the crooked pins usually produced at such times, and less easily concealed in the mouth. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... feigning, for as long as these men did not seek to injure her, why should he incur their further notice? He lay on the rug, quite as though he was helpless; but she knew he was alert and was ready, if occasion arose, to show ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... spear in my hand, I turned back, and was surprised and startled to notice that Kua-ko had moved in the interval. He had turned over on his side, and his face was now towards me. His eyes appeared closed, but he might be only feigning sleep, and I dared not go back to pick up the spear. After a moment's hesitation I moved on again, and after a second glance back and seeing that he did not stir, I waded cautiously across the stream, walked softly twenty or thirty yards, and then began to run. At intervals ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... commotion which they noticed in the city, and by the frequent passage to and fro of men carrying arms, sent a gentleman to the Louvre to ask the king for a few guards to protect the dwelling of their wounded leader. The request was only for five or six guards; but Charles, feigning astonishment and deep regret that there should be any reason for such apprehensions, insisted, at the suggestion of his brother Anjou, who stood by, upon despatching fifty, under command of Cosseins. So well known was the captain's hostility to Coligny ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... OUT.] —Thou, Volpone, By blood and rank a gentleman, canst not fall Under like censure; but our judgment on thee Is, that thy substance all be straight confiscate To the hospital of the Incurabili: And, since the most was gotten by imposture, By feigning lame, gout, palsy, and such diseases, Thou art to lie in prison, cramp'd with irons, Till thou be'st ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... circuit to avoid the dead tiger, holding his trunk high, and evidently in doubt as to whether the beast was feigning death; and directly after we were close up to the messenger, whom I saw to be Denny, the man who had come over in the Jumna, and whose sweetheart I had ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Feigning a great desire to see her brothers, she entreated Etzel to invite them to visit her; and the king, not suspecting her fell purpose, and glad of an opportunity to welcome her friends, at once despatched messengers ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... of worth and sensibility it is of some little consequence whether contemporaries believe, and posterity be taught to believe, that his debauched and reprobate life cast a Stygian gloom over the evening of his father's days, saved him the trouble of feigning a character completely detestable, and succeeded, at last, in bringing his "grey hairs with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Manners," said the old man. "I make no doubt at all that he hath promised to assist him against them all—against Mr. John his father, it may be, or Mr. Bassett, or God knows whom! And yet still feigning to be true! ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the duchess spent her evening in the hall, sitting in every possible place; first close to him; then, away in a distant corner; in an arm-chair placed behind a screen; reading, with her back turned, feigning not to notice him; facing him with concentrated attention. Tommy merely clicked his tongue at her every time she emerged from a hiding-place; or, if the rather worried butler or nervous under-footman passed hurriedly through the hall, sent showers of kisses after them, and then ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... among the ancestors in the very oldest genealogical papyrus, {128} as in the genealogies of the old English kings. Next the Arcadians transferred the ancestral bear to the heavens, and, in doing this, they resembled the Peruvians, of whom Acosta says: 'They adored the star Urchuchilly, feigning it to be a Ram, and worshipped two others, and say that one of them is a sheep, and the other a lamb . . . others worshipped the star called the Tiger. They were of opinion that there was not any beast or bird upon the earth, whose ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... need of me. After all, I would rather go shares with them than get nothing; but without doubt this Golden Valley is bewitched. You allow, master hunter," he continued, addressing the Canadian, and feigning a surprise he did not feel at the aspect of his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Wherewith she yielded, that was won before. 330 Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war: Women are won when they begin to jar. Thus, having swallow'd Cupid's golden hook, The more she striv'd, the deeper was she strook: Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still, And would be thought to grant against her will. So having paus'd a while, at last she said, "Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid? Ay me! such words as these should I abhor, And yet I like them for ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... expected by the tramping fraternity, leading the way through quiet woods to "swimming holes" where they bathed and solaced their souls. They must not get ahead of their schedule, he explained. When Archie, knowing nothing of schedules, timidly asked questions the Governor, feigning not to hear, would deliver long lectures on Ohio history, praising the pioneers of the commonwealth, and enthusiastically reciting the ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Forest district, its south side became quiet; not so its north, for there the following incidents occurred. The first of them arose from Colonel Massy's efforts to retake Monmouth, which he strove to accomplish by feigning a sudden retreat from before it towards Gloucester, as though he had received unfavourable tidings. With this view he and his forces drew off some three miles into the thickets of the Forest, sending out scouts at the same time to prevent his being surprised ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... taunts or jests on those who lost. She enlivened the game with jokes which Oscar thought singular; but reflection was stifled by joy; for the first two throws produced a gain of two thousand francs. Oscar then thought of feigning illness and making his escape, leaving his partner behind him; but "honor" kept him there. Three more turns and the gains were lost. Oscar felt a cold sweat running down his back, and he was ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... and lay down bodily in it, with my head between two blocks of stone, and some flood drift combing over me. I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave and hide myself. She was lying beneath a rock, thirty or forty yards from me, feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beautifully, and her ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... by the most splendid achievements gain for himself so great a name for wisdom and prudence as is justly due to Junius Brutus for feigning to be a fool. And although Titus Livius mentions one cause only as having led him to assume this part, namely, that he might live more securely and look after his patrimony; yet on considering his behavior we may believe that in counterfeiting folly it was also his ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... place which opened into Billy Buch's bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and basking in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was doing his star trick and one which could have originated only in the brains of a born genius. Feigning sleep, he thus enticed within striking distance all the timid country dogs visiting Cottontown for the first time, and viewing its wonders with a palpitating heart. Then, like a bolt from the sky, he would fall on ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... son held his ascent to honours by his own efforts a fact to be proclaimed without wincing. The secretary was a vain and pompous man, but he was also an honest one: he was sincerely convinced of his own merit, and could see no reason for feigning. The topmost round of his azure ladder had been reached by this time: he had held his secretaryship these twenty years— had long since made his orations on the ringhiera, or platform of the Old Palace, as the custom was, in the presence ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and quick to rove, From folly kind, from cunning loath, Too cold for bliss, too weak for love, Yet feigning all that's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... of the waters. The sympathetic and slandered monkey only has the importance of a first cousin who has failed to make a career for himself, of an unfortunate and absurd relative whom one leaves outside the door, feigning ignorance of his family name, denying him a welcome. The mollusk is the venerable grandfather, the chief of the house, the creator of the dynasty, the ancestor crowned with a nobility of millions of centuries. These ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must for ever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear every ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Executive, or were sent to foreign courts, or presided over the Upper House, were using the power of such high trusts for the consummation of a conspiracy against their country, yet retaining the cant of patriotism and feigning a devotion to the Union. We have dwelt almost exclusively, in the present chapter, upon Senators whose highest honors have been tarnished or obliterated by the gravest of crimes, that of treason toward a vast community. But it has ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... feigning to be asleep, he had managed to overhear a small portion of what had passed between Thady, Joe Reynolds, and the rest; but what he had overheard had reference solely to Keegan; for when they began to speak of Ussher, everything ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... what the divine powers advised the city at this time, to be quiet. Whether, therefore, the astrologer Meton feared these presages, or that from human reason he doubted its success, (for he was appointed to a command in it,) feigning himself mad, he set his house on fire. Others say he did not counterfeit madness, but set his house on fire in the night, and he next morning came before the assembly in great distress, and besought ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... just what he saw, and saw only what was clearly apparent. Therefore Lottie, by tolerably fair acting, would have no difficulty in deceiving him, and she was proving herself equal to very skilful feigning. Indeed she was one who could do anything fairly ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... only four female portraits; and of these, two represent children, another an ancient matron, and a fourth his own wife! The Duke of Abuquerque, who at the door of his own palace waylaid and horsewhipped Philip IV., and his minister Olivarez, feigning ignorance of their persons, as the monarch came to pay a nocturnal visit to the Duchess, was not very likely to call in the court painter to take her Grace's portrait. Ladies lived for the most part in a sort of Oriental seclusion, amongst duennas, waiting-women, and dwarfs; and going abroad ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... a person of degraded ancestry endeavoured to remove the undoubted cloud of depression by feigning the nocturnal cry of the domestic cat; but in this he was not successful, and a maiden opposite, after fixedly regarding a bone on her plate, withdrew suddenly, embracing herself as she went. A moment later the slave returned, proclaiming aloud that the dish which had been ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... the season. The massacre of July and September is quite different. The drones then have age and strength—an effort is apparently first made by the workers to drive them out without proceeding to extremes; they are harassed sometimes for several days; the workers feigning only to sting, or else they cannot, as I never succeeded in seeing but very few dispatched in that way; yet there is evidence proving beyond doubt that the sting is used. Hundreds will often be collected together in a compact body at the bottom of the hive; this mutual ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... to their own country, rather than in the contemplation of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a part; a return so passionately longed for, that, despairing of happiness here, that is, of escaping the chains of their cruel task-masters, they console themselves with feigning it to be the gracious reward of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... and admit that no man has ever understood a woman, a man, or himself, and vice versa? 'T is seemingly the opinion of Nordau that, after the first flush of youth, we do but play "The Comedy of Sentiment," feigning and making ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... tramp to see his approach. He ran swiftly and softly over to the further corner and dropped down as if sound asleep. The key turned in the lock and the small man entered, careful to lock the door to Elaine's room. He moved over to where the tramp was feigning sleep. ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... mother with that shrewdness whose rare occasional displays laid her open to the unjust suspicion of feigning her ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... exceedingly grave. What tormented Pere Merlier was to find out how this rogue of a poacher had managed to fascinate his daughter. Dominique had never visited the mill. The miller watched and saw the gallant on the other side of the Morelle, stretched out upon the grass and feigning to be asleep. Francoise could see him from her chamber window. Everything was plain: they had fallen in love by casting sheep's eyes at each other ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... daughter makes him cunning and wise. Before he will trust his daughter to Ferdinand, he tests both the character and the love of the latter most severely. He even feigns anger and appears to be cruel and unjust. That he is feigning, neither suspect, but Miranda says: "Never till this day saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd," and "My father's a better nature, sir, than he appears by speech." When he is assured of Ferdinand's ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... said to her, "We have to thank you for devising a perfect climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of plastik," there was a flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a belief what was really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that the betrayal into a passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and wished her to understand that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen cherished the idea that now he was struck with her talent as well as her beauty, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... usual, for Porphyry complains that the 'spirits' were always as deceitful as the Cock Lane ghost, feigning to be gods, heroes, or the souls of the dead. It is very interesting to note how, in Greece, as Christianity waxed, and paganism waned, such inquiring minds as that of Porphyry fell back on seances and spiritualism, or superstitions unmentioned by Homer, and almost unheard of in the ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... agreeable to her than that of the Duke of Omnium, there was nothing to hinder her for a moment. And then came a smile over her face,—but the saddest smile,—as she thought of one with whom it might be pleasant to look at the colour of Italian skies and feel the softness of Italian breezes. In feigning to like to do this with an old man, in acting the raptures of love on behalf of a worn-out duke who at the best would scarce believe in her acting, there would not be much delight for her. She had never yet known what it was to have anything ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... after dark and rode on from Chavignon to Pinon. There, as he entered the park-gates, just after midnight, three men, one of them Jocquet, the valet de chambre of the Comte de Lameth, sallied out upon him from under an archway, and, feigning to take him for a robber, opened fire upon him. He killed one of his assailants, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... sufferer from gout, and was moreover believed to be demented.) As a matter of fact he had been incommoded previously by loss of mind to the extent of having a guardian placed over his domain by Augustus; but at that time he was no longer weak-witted and was merely feigning, in the hope of saving himself by this expedient if by no other. He would now have been executed, had not some one in testifying against him stated that he had once said: "When I get back home, I will show him what sort of sinews I possess." A shout of laughter went up at this, for the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... have not come yet!" exclaimed Napoleon's veteran, civilly feigning concern. "I am not surprised at that. It is some time since I have seen 'them' here. It is the middle of the month, you see. Those fine fellows only turn up on pay days—the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... vague and inexperienced youth, whom he would hardly have given the preference over me. I felt the compliment, but upon the whole it embarrassed me; it was too intimate, and it gave me a publicity I would willingly have foregone. I did what I could to reject it, by feigning an indifference to his jokes; I even frowned a measure of disapproval; but this merely stimulated his ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and looked over his audience with a woe-begone ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the king's arrival I accompanied my father to the castle where the reception royal took place. There were no ladies present on this occasion. The king was, as has been said, totally blind, but indulged in the curious habit of feigning to have an unimpaired eye sight and pretended to admire scenic objects which had been pointed out to him beforehand as though he really saw them, carrying out this illusion to the extent of ridiculousness. It is said ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... for battle, and come quickly towards me: for I have the ambassadors of the king of Egypt with me, and I desire that they should see the might of my army." This letter Nadan sent to me, and I began to make preparations as it commanded me. Thereafter Nadan took the first letter, feigning to have found it in my chamber, and brought it to king Esarhaddon. And when the king had read it, he was very angry and said, "O ye gods! what have I done to Ahikar that he should seek to betray me thus?" Nadan said, "Perhaps, my lord, it is a forgery; be not too soon disturbed; let us wait ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... against an adjoining type-rack leaned a tall youth with fair curling hair, a weak tremulous mouth, and an almost girlish physiognomy. This youth had been drummed out of the army, the discipline of which he had found too severe, for feigning illness, since when he had passed his time between the bosom of his family, the workhouse, and the Anarchist party. He paid very little attention to the proceedings of the meeting, but discoursed eloquently, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... for some demonstration of affection. Sally had done none of these things. With a giant effort she had struggled against her inertia. There she was before him, walking up and down the room, talking anything that came into her head with forced courage, feigning a strength which any fool could see she did ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... talk big, Miro," he said in bored fashion, feigning indifference; "but it means nothing to me. The point is, what do you intend doing ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... who also had looked down the path, hurriedly approached him, feigning worry. "Frank, I haven't got 'em again, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the green Holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the Holly! ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... beautiful and picturesque tale of Oriental life reads like a chapter out of the "Arabian Nights." The heroine is a beautiful young Greek girl who escapes the gilded dishonour of the harem by feigning death and enduring torments. The scene of the story is Stambul, in the eighteenth century, and every phase of life in the great metropolis is described with ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... she furiously drove, passing Gondremark at the entrance to the palace avenue, but feigning not to observe him; and as Kleinbrunn was seven good miles away, and in the bottom of a narrow dell, she passed the night without any rumour of the outbreak reaching her; and the glow of the conflagration was concealed by intervening hills. Frau ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as though by accident, a man, who joined himself to the travellers. This was the Jew already mentioned, who being almost a stranger to the Moors, had engaged himself to the friends of Sol not to lose sight of her during her journey. He entered into conversation with the soldiers, and feigning ignorance of the circumstances of the case, soon obtained from them an account both of their destination, and of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... "Your feigning may be honest in the sense that your only feeling is your feigned one," Peter pursued. "That's what I mean by the absence of a ground or of intervals. It's a kind ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... guardhouse rid of a most important prisoner last night. Canker has put the officer-of-the-guard in arrest. Remember good old Billy Gray who commanded us at Apache? This is Billy Junior, and I'm awful sorry." Here the soft gray eyes glanced quickly at the anxious face of Miss Lawrence, who sat silently feigning interest in the chat between the others. The anxious look in her eyes increased at Armstrong's next words: "The prisoner must have had friends. He is now said to be among your men, disguised, and those ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... only chance to escape being killed is by feigning death, Oswald drops heavily to the ground. With yell the other spurs forward, followed in the distance by another, who, having lost his horse, now rushes to be in ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... watched him, feigning sleep. The fellow was a sneak—he had always thought so—who cared about nothing but rattling through his work, and getting out to his betting or his woman or goodness knew what! A slug! Fat too! And didn't care a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Master Thomas to presume I was feigning sickness to escape work, for he probably thought that were he in the place of a slave with no wages for his work, no praise for well doing, no motive for toil but the lash—he would try every possible scheme by which to escape labor. I say I have no doubt of this; the reason is, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... went out one day to angle with Cleopatra, and, being so unfortunate as to catch nothing in the presence of the queen, he gave secret orders to the fishermen to dive under water, and put fishes that had been already taken upon his hooks; and these he drew so fast that the Egyptian perceived it. But, feigning great admiration, she told everybody how dexterous Antony was, and invited them next day to come and see him again. So, when a number of them had come on board the fishing boats, as soon as he ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... shouldn't you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... growing bolder, barked louder and ventured as far as their cruppers, feigning to be about to bite them. They began to grow uneasy, and the nervous twitching of their skin, to get rid of the flies, became more frequent ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... the boys—for such they were in years, if not in proficiency in vice—was enforced and embellished in the queen mother's hearing by the Cardinal of Lorraine. The trick had the desired effect. Believing, or feigning to believe, the improbable story, Catharine consented that the persecution of the "Christaudins" should proceed; while to some of her maids of honor, strongly suspected of leaning to the doctrines of the Reformation, she declared ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... fear and rage—"to account for Adrian's decided and almost lover-like attentions to her in the room we visited, that you had had a lovers' quarrel with him some time before, earlier in the day; that, in his fit of pique, he had sought to be revenged upon you, and soothe his slighted feelings by feigning a sudden interest in her. You ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess" |
