"Deceptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The web of deceptive circumstances that had been spun about him had been brushed away at last: he saw the whole truth now—saw his own blindness, blundering, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... this case were deceptive. Hidden behind the breastwork was a body of troops from Beausejour. There were nearly four hundred of them—Acadians and Indians, with a few regulars to give them steadiness. Pierre, as might have been expected, was among the band, beside his instructor, ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the still hunt for deer in the brushy, sparsely timbered foothills of the Sierra Range of mountains, or higher up in the extensive forests, some of the hunters wore for a headgear a false deer's head, by which deceptive device they were enabled to get to a closer and more effective range with their bows and arrows. This head-dress was made of the whole skin of a doe's head, with a part of the neck, the head part stuffed with light material, the eyeholes filled in with the green feathered scalp of a duck's head, ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... the landfalls do not exist. Several soundings made by Wilkes were indicative of the approach to land, but he must have frequently mistaken for it distant ice-masses frozen in the pack. Experience has proved what deceptive light-effects may be observed amid the ice and how easily a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... its relatives also vary the volume of their song by raising or lowering the elytra so as to enclose the abdomen in a varying degree, but none of them can obtain by this method results so deceptive as those produced ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... square knot, take the ends of the rope and pass the left end over and under the right end, then the right over and under the left. If you once learn the simple formula of "Left over," "Right over," you will never make a mistake and form the despised "Granny," a most useless, bothersome, and deceptive makeshift for any purpose (Fig. 13). The true "Reef Knot" is merely the square knot with the bight of the left or right end used instead of the end itself. This enables the knot to be "cast off" ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. Dumont came just in time to save him, came to build him up from the most shunned of coyotes into a deceptive imitation of a wolf with aspirations ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... pounds, down in black and white, and it is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles are so deceptive. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to Deanery Street to see whether the vision of Regent Street was deceptive, and came away wondering and hoping. From this time the vagaries of Eustace Lane became more incessant, more flamboyant, than ever, and Mrs. Lane was perpetually in society. If it would not have been true to say, conventionally, that no party was complete without her, yet it certainly ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... the throuble was at uts finest an' Jock was bleedin' like a stuck pig, an' little Orth'ris was shquealin' on one leg chewin' big bites out av Dearsley's watch, I wud ha' given my place at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an' Jock was deceptive. Nine roun's they were even matched, an' at the tenth—About that palanquin now. There's not the least throuble in the world, or we wud not ha' brought ut here. You will ondherstand that the Queen—God bless her!—does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape elephints an' palanquins an' sich in ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... place again, or, according to Alzura, even went a step backward. The night was not particularly dark—indeed, we had doubted whether it was dark enough for us to swim ashore unobserved—but the marsh was fearfully deceptive. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... boat across without evident risk, by which no real good would be obtained, as the rise and fall of the tide, eighteen feet, on this low coast, was more than sufficient to account for the imposing, though deceptive appearance of this opening. From the main-top-gallant yard I was enabled to take an almost bird's-eye view of the level country stretched apparently at my feet. The shore, like the south side of Roebuck Bay, was ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... talk of love many years before we know anything about it, and we think we know it because we talk of it, or because we repeat what other people say of it, or what books tell us about it. So that there are ignorances of different degrees, and degrees of knowledge which are quite deceptive. One of the worst plagues of society is this thoughtless inexhaustible verbosity, this careless use of words, this pretense of knowing a thing because we talk about it—these counterfeits of belief, thought, love, or earnestness, which all the while ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... same relative amount of definite information as manana. Never having measured the distance to my prospect, I have tried for the past two days to give you an approximate idea. But in this country you must know that distance is a deceptive, 'find X' sort of proposition—so please refrain from asking me that same question every two miles. If the water holds out we'll get there; and when we get there we'll find more water, and then you may shave three times a day if you feel so inclined, I'm sorry you have a blister on your off heel, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... would appear to the finest radar available on the ground as a single echo twenty-five miles across. It would be a giant haystack in the sky, concealing the most deadly needle of all time. No ground-controlled intercept scheme had any hope of selecting the warhead from among that deceptive cloud and destroying it. ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... safeguards against abuse, by requiring a satisfactory medical certificate as to treatment, and so on. Mr. Ellice then showed that "these statements had no foundation in fact; that they were positively untruths, and entirely deceptive, year after year, as to the real state of the lunatics in Scotland." In subsequent Reports the Board boasted that it had endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to improve the condition of the insane, but Mr. Ellice showed that "the condition and treatment of the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... we to establish positive verification of these views? How are we to do away with the danger of illusion? The proof will in this case result from a criticism of adverse theories, along with direct observation of psychological reality freed from the deceptive forms which warp the common perception of it. And it will here be an easy task to resume Mr Bergson's ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... entertained by persons of this creed, that to be fully convinced of the truth of the doctrine is a sufficient ground of confidence that they are therefore of the number of the chosen people. The strongest conviction may be deceptive. The firmest assurance may be the result of ignorant or fanatical presumption. And whatever may be the readiness of this class of persons to say, "My mountain standeth firm—I shall never be moved," it cannot but be feared respecting ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... the prophecies, the more enlightened elements of society began to scoff at the priests, who were temporarily demoralized, but true to their deceptive instincts, soon rallying with the plea of a mistake having been made in the calculations based upon the prophecies, they undoubtedly concocted scripture to meet that very emergency, for, to the taunts of ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... are so pitilessly, so glaringly apparent. Not a rag to cover them from the discerning eye. And what a veil has fallen between us and the years of our offending. There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities. How loud and shrill the voice of the girl at our elbow. How soft the voice which from the far past breathes its gentle echo in our ears. How bouncing the vigorous ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... road,— When each immortal turned his face away, She, the compassionate, alone Took up her dwelling in that house of clay, With the deserted, banished one. With drooping wing she hovers here Around her darling, near the senses' land, And on his prison-walls so drear Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... slowly along in the darkness, with the black loom of the craggy hills around us, and the yellow speck of light burning steadily in front. There is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a light upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be far away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a few yards of us. But at last we could ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... is made so invisible by his wonderful colour that, when he crouches in the bright sunlight amid the tall brown grass, it is almost impossible to see him. But the zebra and the giraffe are the kings of all camouflagers! So deceptive are the large blotch-spots of the giraffe and his weird head and horns, like scrubby limbs, that his concealment is perfect. Even the cleverest natives often mistake a herd of giraffes for a clump of trees. The camouflage of zebras is equally deceptive. Drummond says that ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... cup—ample for all—with all men. This is the true motive of the conquest of civilisation; and under the banner of such a cause, it is a question whether war and anarchy and confusion be not preferable to the deceptive peace and apparent prosperity of despotism, that, like the death-dealing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... competition at the Conservatoire offers the spectators a series of amusing studies, instructive, puzzling and deceptive also at times. Ambition, jealousy, vanity border on loyalty, sensibility, and pride. Most of these young people are preparing themselves to begin a sharp and bitter struggle for life itself. Others—and these are very few—are in search ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... a man of thirty-six—suave, steady, incisive, with eyes as fine as those of a Newfoundland or a Collie and as innocent and winsome. They were wonderful eyes, soft and spring-like at times, glowing with a rich, human understanding which on the instant could harden and flash lightning. Deceptive eyes, unreadable, but alluring alike to men and to women in all walks ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was morally. Her large black eyes—which, by turns languished and beamed with beauty beneath their ebon lashes—could feign to admiration all the kindling fires of voluptuousness. And yet, the burning impulses of love beat not in her ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... our voyagers very much was the deceptive appearance of land, so that they found it extremely difficult to judge correctly of distance. On one occasion, when sailing towards one of the large islands, Fred went up to Bob Bowie, who was leaning ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... grown much colder. The sun hung low in the horizon, and the deceptive warmth of mid-afternoon had given place to the chill dampness in the atmosphere. Half unconsciously, feeling that the time must have slipped away more rapidly than she had suspected, Sara quickened her steps, Garth ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... well and faithfully served. Yet the outward show and glamour of his reign were very deceptive of the true internal conditions. Colbert tried to do too many things, with the result that his plans repeatedly miscarried. The nobles became more indolent, wasteful, and pleasure-loving, and the middle class more selfish and more ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the liabilities and capitalization were enormous; and much of the mileage was distinctly unprofitable. About this time many disquieting facts began to leak out: during the previous year the Richmond and Danville had been operated at a large loss, and this fact had been concealed by deceptive entries on the books; the dividends, paid on the Central Railroad of Georgia stock had not been earned for some years; and the East Tennessee properties were hardly paying ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... with a twinkle, "if you did, I shouldn't have ventured to speak to you. On the contrary, you have a candid air that ought to banish distrust. Of course, I don't know if it's deceptive." ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... true if there were not a curse upon the earth." And then they seemed to deduce, from the fact of that curse, a vague notion (for it was little more) that this world was the devil's world, and that therefore physical facts could not be trusted, because they were disordered, and deceptive, and what not. ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... not the tendency of the system. No one who has either reflected on the matter or observed the actual working of the system can honestly suppose that it is. It is a notorious fact that, as a general rule, wherever this system exists, the slave is indolent, deceptive, dishonest, improvident, not to be trusted away from ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... improbabilities of the Flat Island Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the "Saga of Eric the Red," the only doubtful part of which is the "uniped" episode, a touch of mediaeval superstition so palpable as not to be deceptive. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... moving shadow always sent him crouching into the nearest thicket. He no longer sprawled and straddled, and already he was developing the gait of his mother, slinking and furtive, apparently without exertion, yet sliding along with a swiftness that was as deceptive as ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... he had developed into a long, lank, loutish youth, with a face of extraordinary pallor, a sullen mouth, hot black eyes, and dark hair like a mane, so seldom was it trimmed. He looked considerably older than he was and the slightness of his body was deceptive, disguising a power of sinewy strength. More than this, he could care very handily for himself in a scrimmage: la savate had no secrets from him, and he had picked up tricks from the Apaches quite as effectual as any in the manual of jiu-jitsu. Paris ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Cycle is the process by which information is acquired, converted into intelligence, and made available to policymakers. Information is raw data from any source, data that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive, or wrong. Intelligence is information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted. Finished intelligence is the final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... this great material gain of the people to be accompanied by a corresponding spiritual advancement? Was man to become the chief object of reverence in this wonderfully expanding industrial empire? If not, all this progress was deceptive, and nobody could predict how soon our very superiority should be turned to the advantage of that aristocracy which had perverted so many things in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "How deceptive those things are!" sighed the King. "This argument reminds me of the story of Tom Tick, which my ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... striking. His hair was short, his restless eyes seemed always to be seeking something, his very long nose was narrow and sharp. After his affliction, his mouth, formerly well shaped, became deformed; his lower lip had sunk, and gave him a deceptive look of simplicity. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... All these deceptive ideas were required to be infused into the minds of the people, in order to prepare the way for rebellious action. The right of secession was an indispensable condition, without which there could ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... awakened her every night, she told him, and she would be glad if the disturbance were discontinued. "I am sorry, Madam, but I cannot imagine who it can be," the man replied. "Of course, it may be some one next door, sounds are so often deceptive; no one inhabits the rooms above you." But Mrs. Gordon was not at all convinced, and made up her mind to complain to the landlord should it occur again. That night nothing happened, but the night after she was roused ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... in deformity the impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the weather became warmer and summer-like. In Virginia there comes often at this season a deceptive gleam of summer, slipping in between heavy storm-clouds of sleet and snow; days and sometimes weeks when the temperature is like June; when the earliest plants begin to show their hardy flowers, and when the bare branches of the forest trees alone protest against the conduct of the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... could boast of no architectural beauty, and which indeed presented a somewhat cheerless aspect, with its wire blinds and tall, straight windows. A gaunt, town-like house—such was the impression made upon the casual passer—by; but appearances are apt to be deceptive, and that same stranger would have speedily altered his impression, if he had been taken round the garden to view the other side of the house. It was almost impossible to believe in such a different aspect! From one side a busy high road, strings of cyclists, char a bancs ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the entire length of the room—said to be the largest in Europe. There are marble fireplaces at either end, over one "Solomon's Prayer," by G. Flinck, and over the other "Jethro Counselling Moses to Appoint Judges from the People," by Bronkhorst. Quite a feature of this room is the wonderful deceptive painting by this master over each door, and on a continuous frieze. All of this is such an exact representation of sculptured relief, that it is almost necessary to touch it ere one can be convinced of its really level surface. I was told that this is the only known example ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... Revenue Act, which imposed duties on various articles of merchandise, excited great resentment in America. It was looked upon by the colonists, indeed, as a deceptive measure, having a similar object to that of the Stamp Act, and it had the effect of reviving a question, which the British parliament should have endeavoured to have consigned to utter oblivion. The Americans, animated by a spirit of resistance, would now no longer acknowledge that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Indian-summer days that resemble early spring. There is the same suggestion of warmer sunshine yet to come; the air has a scent as of growing things, the kind of muffled hopes and suppressed excitement of April is in the deceptive air. This sort of day is dangerous to charming people not in their very ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... that, consequently, it was useless to subject it to forms. Such was the chain of sophistry, by means of which the committee transformed the convention into a tribunal. Robespierre's party showed itself much more consistent, dwelling only on state reasons, and rejecting forms as deceptive. ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... studied those distant sky-scrapers, which looked, at the distance, like dream buildings, deceptive structures of the clouds. The waters intervening were palpitant with life. As an hour passed, and then another, the young watchers gave more and more attention to the landscape and less to the house near by. The air was vibrant with ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... badness of such work depends absolutely on the truth of the single line. You will find a thousand botanical drawings which will give you a {116} delicate and deceptive resemblance of the leaf, for one that will give you the right convexity in its backbone, the right perspective of its peaks when they foreshorten, or the right relation of depth in the shading of its dimples. On which, in leaves as in faces, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... a sentry with a loaded rifle guards each street after sunset. But his bloated face was curiously haggard, and his prominent eyes looked at the soldiers with the unconscious aspect of a man whose castle in Spain had suddenly proved itself the most deceptive of mirages. Perhaps, for a brief space, he saw himself as Felix saw him, and a species of horror may have fallen on him at the mere conceit that another man was able to peep into his heart and surprise there the foul notion that had seized him when John Sobieski ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... stirred Belgium up, holding out the deceptive hope of effective French and English help, did Belgian fanaticism break loose against Germany. Without the intervention of England in Brussels the events in Belgium, one may safely assert, would have taken an entirely different ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... is more deceptive than falsehood, because it is commonly employed by those from whom we do not expect it, and so passes for what it ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... will agree. At more than one stopping-place we were called upon to solve the riddle of that skirt, and I verily believe that, being women, they were even more awed at the thought of a garment fastening invisibly at one side of the front under a very deceptive little pocket than at all the electrical marvels shown them on ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... began to feel doubtful; others when he fancied it might be some deceptive marsh light; and then a great despair came upon him, for, just as he had come to the hopeful conclusion that there really was a cottage in the glen, where he could find rest, and warmth, and food, the ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... here on the po'ch," explained Leroy, amused. "It's a great fad, this outdoor sleeping. The doctors recommend it strong for sick people. You wouldn't think to look at him York was sick. He looks plumb husky. But looks are right deceptive. It's a fact, Miss Mackenzie, that he was so sick last night I wasn't dead sure ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... reductions are deceptive. No. 1 is the saving of an abnormal grant, Nos. 2 and 5 signify mere transfers to Grants in Aid of Local Taxation, No. 7 a transfer of duties to the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Scott, that further bloodshed might be avoided by means of the armistice, proved deceptive. Military operations, after a temporary interruption, were actively renewed; and on the 8th of September was fought the bloody battle of Molino del Rey, one of the fiercest and most destructive of ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very deceptive disease, the nerves alone being affected; the humours and coverings of the eye remaining perfectly transparent and natural, imposes upon the inexperienced observer, but is easily detected by those who have witnessed the disease in others. There is ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... vulgarity; even his slips and slovenlinesses are those of the well-bred. To pass from him back to Richardson is to realize how stiffly correct is the latter. Thackeray has flexibility, music, vernacular felicity and a deceptive ease. He had, too, the flashing strokes, the inspirational sallies which characterize the style of writers like Lamb, Stevenson and Meredith. Fitness, balance, breeding and harmony are his chief qualities. To say that he never sinned or ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... display none of its exterior beauties, beyond what could be seen from the narrow streets that closed it in on every side. Gabriel, who was acquainted with its interior magnificence, thought of the deceptive oriental houses, outwardly squalid and miserable, but inwardly rich in alabasters and traceries. Jews and Moors had not lived in Toledo for centuries in vain, their aversion to outward show seemed to have influenced the building of the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a swinging object dangling from the limb on which he had fastened his gaze. Even though the light proved so deceptive Paul knew that he was looking at a hanging boy, caught in the act of changing his location by the sudden return of the light, and meaning to remain still in the hope ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... I want to say to you," said Mrs. Maldon, in that deceptive matter-of-fact voice. "I wanted to tell you yesterday afternoon, but I couldn't. And then again last night, but I ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the Roman Church exhibited to perfection the evil, the folly and fatality of that false and deceptive proposition that the Church is the kingdom ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... moon's light is only derivative. Still we must recollect that the most powerful telescope can only bring the surface of the moon to a distance from us of about 250 miles; and it need not be said that objects seen at such a distance on our earth present very deceptive appearances; so that we gain little information regarding the composition of the moon's crust, or exterior surface, simply from observation by the ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... three killed in the battalion so far, two men and one officer, and about half a dozen slightly wounded, almost all on working parties, on which trench mortar batteries do not go. If you are with the battalions you come out for four days rest, but it is a very deceptive rest; you usually have to send large working parties up at night-time to work on the trenches. Our rest, fortunately, is really rest. The only things we have to do is to take rations up to the dump for the rest of ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... through all the achievements and crimes of his eventful reign; the abandonment of him by the grieved and indignant Samuel; his deceptive prosperity; and his conscious desertion by God, until his fits of depression bordered on madness. He had genius and heroism, but a bad heart, and the hour of his ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... observation to discover that this strange object was revered as a god. By the side of the big and lusty images standing sentinel over the altars of the Hoolah Hoolah ground, it seemed a mere pigmy in tatters. But appearances all the world over are deceptive. Little men are sometimes very potent, and rags sometimes cover very extensive pretensions. In fact, this funny little image was the 'crack' god of the island; lording it over all the wooden lubbers ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... mad!" cried Trenck. "I had confidence in myself—I had faith in my good star—but the curse of my evil genius has overtaken me. Oh, my God! I am lost, lost! All my hopes were deceptive—the king is my irreconcilable enemy, and he will revenge my past life on my future! I have this knowledge too late. Oh, Halber! go slowly, slowly; I must give you my last testament. Mark well what I say—these are the last words of a man who is more to be pitied than the dying. It is a small ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... "How deceptive resemblances are," said he in a hollow voice. "I once knew a woman who had the same contour of face, and one evening, by the sole power of my eye, I compelled her to fall at my feet, crying: 'Vladimir Paulitch, do with me what you will.' But your young friend ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... amid the intoxicating but deceptive triumphs of the present, they may regain the consciousness of their crushing responsibilities towards the future! It is my hope that they will remember that every one of their mistakes or their sins of omission will have to be paid for by their ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... leaving the Luxembourg having arrived, Bonaparte still used many deceptive precautions. The day filed for the translation of the seat of government was the 30th Pluviose, the previous day having been selected for publishing the account of the votes taken for the acceptance of the new Constitution. He had, besides, caused the insertion ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... elated at the chance to further his secret ambition of developing into a catcher, put on a big mitt and Jack pitched all sorts of curves to him. Then he took his bat and tried to straighten out the elusive, deceptive ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... this day speak to me. Now the lord of the earth, who assumes shapes at will, has taken upon him the condition of humanity, to accomplish some object cherished in his heart. Glory to that being whose deceptive adoption of father, son, brother, friend, mother, and relative, the world is unable to penetrate. May he in whom cause and effect, and the world itself, is comprehended, be propitious to me, through his truth; for always do I put my trust in that unborn, eternal Vishnu; by meditation on whom man ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... of trade at this time wore a deceptive aspect. Dr. Henderson reckoned the actual profit of the colony at 1-1/2 per cent., while Mr. Prinsep, a barrister, of Calcutta, described every branch of business as a path to opulence. In 1829, a merchant sold L1,500 worth of goods at an advance ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... had little communication with Europeans would be of course the most valuable, though those made on any natives would be of much interest to me. General remarks on expression are of comparatively little value; and memory is so deceptive that I earnestly beg it may not be trusted. A definite description of the countenance under any emotion or frame of mind, with a statement of the circumstances under which it occurred, would possess ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... seeing when too late that he had talked to his own undoing, "but ye'd better be lettin' me handle thim be moonlight; 't is deceptive, moonlight is," and he reached to take the reins from her. But alas! empires may be lost by a second's delay, and a second ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... ignores the fact that it owed its origin to an Englishman, which surely, to a man whose object was reality, should have seemed an object worth recording. These letters, so full and apparently so frank, really so deceptive, are, as we have said, but one instance among many of the way in which popular writers on Japan travesty history by ignoring the part which foreigners have played. The reasons for this are not far to seek. A wonderful tale will please ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... waver for a moment in reference to your visit to Europe. If you were to decline coming, would not the many on the other side, who are strictly watching your movements, at once say that the whole arrangements are deceptive, and merely designed to make an impression on me for a certain purpose. You know they would. Of course you will act as you please. I neither advise nor persuade, but say: Be not too soon nor too much alarmed. There are no jealousies, no evil surmisings, no ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... in our presence. An instinctive policy to avoid feeling with respect to this prevailing destruction, has so effectually taught us how to maintain the exemption, by all the requisite sleights of overlooking, diverting, forgetting, and admitting deceptive maxims of palliation, that the art or habit is become almost mechanical. When fully matured, it appears like a wonderful adventitious faculty—a power of evading the sight, of not seeing, what is obviously and glaringly presented to view on all sides. There is, indeed, a dim ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... with simply an auxiliary steam power, and making the passages but little shorter than the sailing vessels, and not even so short as their best passages, they have but little more daily expense than the sailing vessels, with all of the deceptive advantages of being called steamers. They thus get these better freights and a large number of immigrants, which with small interest on prime cost ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... natural affections, over a whole and unhumbled heart. Experience incontestably establishes the fact, although it may be difficult for philosophy to explain the reason of it, that slight persecutions have often been as effectual as the heaviest in blasting the deceptive appearance of religion, which, under favouring circumstances, grew for a time in the life of an unrenewed man. In point of fact, a sneer from some leading spirit in a literary society, or a laugh raised by a gay ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... month past loving aunts had tenderly relieved the child's inexperienced parents of the daily ministrations and of the more exacting night watches. After the doctor's warning there came "the calm before the storm". It only lasted for one day; the deceptive strength which had temporarily buoyed the little patient up was now passing away and the inevitable reaction was setting in. Oh, if he were only a year older so that he could have communicated to us by speech his ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... dry and tropically hot, and my footsteps rang crisply upon the hard ground. There is nothing more deceptive than a straight road up a hill; and half an hour's steady tramping but ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... and green. The town which I thought had such winding streets when I walked through them now looked as if it had been laid out by a landscape architect. Up, up we travelled, and the higher we were the more deceptive ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... Commissary of Police was no fool. He was an adept at reading character, but he was certainly puzzled after a sharp scrutiny of Brett's clear-cut, intelligent features. Nevertheless, he knew that the criminal instinct is often allied with the most deceptive external appearances. So he turned to the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... little that Phebe felt greatly disappointed; though her eyes grew blind with tears as she thought of Felicita standing here before this deceptive cross and calling herself of all women the most miserable. The cross itself had had no message of peace to her troubled heart. "Most miserable," repeated Phebe to herself, looking back upon yesterday with a vain yearning ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... many a grown child is content to bask instead of putting it to a profitable use. With mistaken notions as to the significance and the motive of social relations they imagine that they shall always meet with deceptive smiles; and so at last the moment comes for them when the world leaves them bald, stripped bare, without fortune or worth, like an elderly coquette by the door of a salon, or a ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... However he was surprised by his own maid-servant while committing arson and taken in the very act, in spite of his cleverness and his equally great luck, and it was to this circumstance that my father, who had been talked into going security by all sorts of cunning deceptive promises, owed the few years of quiet possession which he enjoyed during ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... he, "Brassfield is absolutely the most deceptive josher I ever saw. He had me going just now by pretending that he was about to publish a platform of principles, and a statement of campaign disbursements. So blooming solemn it gave me the shivers for a minute. List of disbursements: ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... fish-pole is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, if the fishing is good, but one of these deceptive, three carde monte, political fish-poles, that shoves in and appears to be a cane, is incendiary, and ought to be suppressed. There ought to be a law passed to suppress a fish-pole that passes in polite society for a cane, and in such a ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... words that have come to be used in an indefinite, canting sort of way, so that they have no meaning at all, or, at least, a meaning very deceptive. These words represent bugbears to unthinking people, and unscrupulous men do not fail to pervert this fact to their own or party ends. Such are some of the terms which have been applied to New England, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of nature has its mystery and its beauty, its logic and its explanation; and the epigraph given me by Fabre himself, which appears on the title-page of this volume, is in no way deceptive. The tiny insects buried in the soil or creeping over leaf or blade have for him been sufficient to evoke the most important, the most fascinating problems, and have revealed a whole ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... the wheel, sending it hard over. The cruiser still had way on; the momentum of her ten-ton weight scarcely had slackened, and she answered the helm. Out of the deceptive thickness ahead loomed the sharp, flaring bow of another forty-footer, sheering quickly, as her pilot sighted them. She was upon them, and abreast, and gone, with a watery purl of her bow wave, a subdued mutter of exhaust, passing so near than ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... British manufacture. His pen-knives with rounded or beveled backs, to turn in the quill and shave the point, are simple and effective improvements. He showed me plain pocket-knives so highly finished, that the first cost is 38s., yet so deceptive is cutlery, that I might have preferred others which I saw at only 7s. or 8s. It is the same in regard to the scissors of Champion and Son,—articles at two or three guineas did not appear to my uninstructed eye worth more than others at a few shillings; yet in all these high priced articles, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... back to the top of the bluff, and on the way Bertrand explained to the Elder all that had transpired. "It seemed best to Mary and me that you should look the ground over yourself, before any action be taken. We hoped appearances might be deceptive, and that you would have information that would set our fears at rest before news of a mystery should ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... thousands; there are artists, as we have said, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one single work, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus they convert themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Their performances, it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless eye; but working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to reproduce the surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinable nothing, that inestimable something, that constitutes the life and soul through which the picture gets its immortality. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... left any impression on it. This would be a fearful country for any one to be lost in, as there is nothing to guide them, and one cannot see more than three hundred yards around, the gum-trees are so thick, and the small belts of lancewood make it very deceptive. Should any one be so unfortunate as to be lost, it would be quite impossible to find them again; it would be imprudent to search for them, for by so doing the searchers would run the risk of being lost also. Arrived at Auld's Ponds and camped. Wind, south-east. ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... hundred ships were in the deep roadstead, a cable's length from each other—their hulls, spars, and rigging magnified to gigantic proportions under the deceptive and tremulous moonbeam. They were motionless as if the sea had been frozen around them into a solid crystal. Their flags drooped listlessly down, trailing along the masts, or warped ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... of the mirage is almost continuous. The bed of air in contact with the surface of stones scorched by the blazing sun becomes rarified and dilated, so that the horizon appears to be fringed on all sides with lakes of rippling water, most deceptive and tantalising to the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould |
