"Delusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fatigued, and worn out with the horrors which the approaching fate of the poor wretch, who lay under a sentence which he had iniquitously brought upon him, had suggested, sleep promised him relief; but this promise was, alas! delusive. This certain friend to the tired body is often the severest enemy to the oppressed mind. So at least it proved to Wild, adding visionary to real horrors, and tormenting his imagination with phantoms ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... their proportion in any other way. Moreover, it must be prejudicial to the national interest to impose parliamentary taxes. The advantages promised by an increase of the revenue are all fallacious and delusive. You will lose more than you will gain. Britain already reaps the profit of all their trade, and of the increase of their substance. By cherishing their present turn of mind, you will serve your interest more than by ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... tell Menelaus the truth devoid of all delusive shows; ere the latter can leave Egypt and return to Greece he must put himself into harmony with the Greek Gods, Zeus and the rest. So he has to go back to Egypt's river and start over again in the right way. Then he will make ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... are neither gold nor good paper, but are a kind of fiat currency, having no intrinsic character, being cheap, delusive, irredeemable and worthless." ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... him is that the aspect of things which he shows us is merely the outward and natural, as opposed to the inner or ideal. His answer would probably be either that the ideal, in any sense in which it can be opposed to the natural, must be false and delusive; or that it is merely an accident of novel-writing, as hitherto practised, and not anything essential to this species of composition, which has prevented it from exhibiting the highest aspect of things; or, finally, that admitting the view which the novel presents ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... could be accomplished by intrigue alone. Metellus, when the leisure of winter quarters gave him time to think over the situation, decided that scattered negotiations with lesser Numidian magnates would prove as delusive in the future as they had in the past. The king's mind must be mastered if his body was to be enslaved; but it was a mind that could be conquered only by confidence, and to secure this influence it was necessary to ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... committee-man comes like Nemesis, aequo pede, the lesson is unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher orders out the rack known as staying after school. But what durance beyond hours in the indescribably desolate schoolroom ever taught mortal boy to shun the delusive insect created for his special undoing? So long as the heart has woes of its own breeding, so long also will it dodge the discipline of labor, and grasp at the flicker ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... views were delusive. The world was simply weary of fighting; it was not impressed with a sense of the wickedness, but only of the inexpediency of war, except in case of great national dangers, or to gain what is dearest to enlightened people,—personal liberty and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... their grunting and the snapping of boughs in the undergrowth: and in that clear delusive air it seemed but three minutes' work to reach the next ridge. I followed then, confidently enough—and made my first acquaintance with the Corsican macchia by plunging into a cleft twenty feet deep between two rocks of granite. I did not actually fall more than ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... that which we should naturally have chosen, we still cannot escape from the circle, this very desire becoming, as Mr. Hume observes, itself a motive. Again, consciousness of the possession of any power may easily be delusive; we can properly judge what our powers are only by what they have actually accomplished; we know what we have done, and we may infer from having done it, that our power was equal to what it achieved; but ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... faint, we lift our heads in doubt. Wind, or the blood that beats within our ears, Has feigned a dubious and delusive note, Such as a ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... rate her powers too highly. Her voice is indeed not bad, and it has a wide compass; but what else are all these fantastic warblings and flourishes, these preposterous runs, these never-ending shakes, but delusive artifices of style, which people admire in the same way that they admire the foolhardy agility of a rope-dancer? Do you imagine that such things can make any deep impression upon us and stir the heart? The 'harmonic shake' ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape The fascination of thy magic gaze? A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste, thy dear, delusive shape." BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... the fire, and as the myriad sparks flew up the chimney, he wished he had just so many dollars; he would give them all if she would but love him. Growing weary of this delusive sport, he looked at his watch, compared it with Miss Sidebottom's yankee clock, and finding his own time-piece was just five minutes the faster, concluded that both were wrong just two minutes and a half, and he would split the difference. He might be mistaken, but if he was he ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... of mankind; in proportion as they are willing to sustain, in their own persons, the burden of government, and of national defence; and are willing to prefer the engagements of a liberal mind to the enjoyment of sloth, or the delusive hopes of a safety purchased by submission ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... foe as opinion; but you will remember that a great majority of our people, if not absolutely on a level with circumstances, being purely practical, are much nearer to this level, than the class termed the endoctrinated. The last are troublesome and delusive, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... eight miles from the town, and were connected by a system of patrolling, which rendered communication from within or without almost impossible. A few messengers (natives) occasionally came into the town, but these were mostly charged with the delivery of delusive messages invented for special purposes by the Boers. There was an ever-present difficulty—that of keeping the natives in check. Many examples of Boer cruelty to these poor blacks are recorded, and they naturally shuddered at ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... 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 quickly both its private and its governmental ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... fallen into the general and delusive mistake of those who err, in supposing himself unfortunate rather than criminal. With an ingenuity, that, exercised in a better cause, would have made him a respectable man, he had been endeavouring to ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Alban's? Never did any people display, within the limits prescribed by law, so generous a fervour, or so steadfast a determination, as that very people whose apparent languor had just before inspired the enemies of Reform with a delusive hope. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... 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
... or Shiva has won more victims to his shrine than has this idea of Japanese loyalty which is so beautiful in theory and so hideous in practice. Despite the military clamps and frightful despotism of Yedo, which for two hundred and fifty years gave to the world a delusive idea of profound quiet in the Country of Peaceful Shores, there was in fact a chronic unrest which amounted at many times and in many places to anarchy. The calm of despotism was, indeed, rudely broken by the aliens in the "black ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... been cruelly deceived. I was guided too much by appearances, and they were very delusive. I am beyond measure glad I came here to-day. I called at your house and learnt that you were here; and as I was going out of town, in any indefinite direction, I settled then to come this way. What a happy idea it was! To think of you now—and I ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... civilized. Teach and show her rulers and her people, that they can obtain, and that white men will give them, more for the productions of their soil than for the hands which can produce these—and the work is done. All other steps are futile, can only be mischievous and delusive, and terminate in disappointment and defeat. To eradicate the slave trade will not eradicate the passions which gave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... eternal." But this pregnant utterance conveyed nothing more to him than a belief of a material heaven to follow his exit from a world of matter. It had never occurred to him that the world of matter might be the product of those same delusive physical senses, through which he believed he gained his knowledge of it. It is true that while in the seminary, and before, he had insisted upon a more spiritual interpretation of the mission of Jesus—had insisted ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the Great War followed the same course. Under Napoleon's directions they ran the whole gamut of every scheme that ever raised delusive hope before. Beginning from the beginning with the idea of stealing his army across in flat-boats, he was met with the usual flotilla defence. Then came his only new idea, which was to arm his transport flotilla to the point of giving ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... purpose to maintain them, stronger than armaments. It came from the furnace of the Revolution, tempered to the necessities of the times. The thoughts of the men of that day were as practical as their sentiments were patriotic. They wasted no portion of their energies upon idle and delusive speculations, but with a firm and fearless step advanced beyond the governmental landmarks which had hitherto circumscribed the limits of human freedom and planted their standard, where it has stood against dangers which have threatened from abroad, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... incidents that are daily befalling mankind. I was, indeed, much in the position of those who stimulate the fancy by extraneous applications; all the boasted efforts of judgment I tried to mix up with and control the workings of my fancy, I found were but a species of delusive energies, to take myself out of a class of dreamers I heartily despised. I was, in fact, just as complete a visionary as they—with this difference,—I thought I required to satisfy the condition ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... are not confined to these regions, knave," rejoined Wolsey. "Mankind are often lured, by delusive gleams of glory and power, into quagmires deep and pitfalls. Holy Virgin; what have ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... an enigma. Every day is a mystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses 70:3 cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can 70:6 never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There is but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man, made in God's likeness, reflects God. In this scientific 70:9 reflection ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... courage. Through great difficulties and hardships he dauntlessly led his band to the high-perched and almost impregnable town. Pages might be filled in telling how toilsome was this campaign, now requiring canoes and bateaux, now taxing the strength of its resolute little horde with rough rocks, delusive bogs and all those fiercest terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold, unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... 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 those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... there has been a defect in our hearing. We may listen to the word for mere entertainment. Or we may attach a virtue to the mere act of listening to the word. We may assume that some magical efficacy belongs to the mere reading of the word. And all this is perverse and delusive. No listening is healthy which is not mentally referred to obedience. We are to listen with a view to obedience, with our eyes upon the very road where the obedient feet will travel. That is to say, we are to listen ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... indignant disclosures? It made her bring down her foot sharply on the pavement with vexation as she suspected that he thought her so foolish, and then again her heart warmed with the perception of self-denying care for her. She trusted to that same prudence for no delusive hopes having been given to Mark and ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... now, Bruce, that's put on," said the doctor. "No man, whatever his profession, unless he be a farmer, can convince me of a pressure of business at this season. Banish the delusive idea and make yourself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Jeremiah was called from the womb. (Jeremiah, i. 5.) In all cases we must test the quality of the evidence without relation to the time of its commencement. I do not generally lay much stress on our impressions, which are often uncertain and delusive; yet I have had an impression that the Lord would be pleased to make some singular manifestations of His grace through this young person. In the economy of grace there is neither male nor female; and Peter says (Acts, ii. 17) that the Spirit of the Lord shall be poured out and your sons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... month of song and sunshine—and still the faint flame flickered, leaping up at times with a delusive strength and activity, then sinking down again until it almost expired forever. One afternoon I returned late. I had gone out into the fields in search of a handful of Mayflowers. I thought they might bring a smile to my darling's lips, and for hours I had wandered ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... that our heads had crowned with laurels green, By priestly staff whose verdure had decayed, Robbed me of Hope's sweet solaces, and e'en The last delusive comfort caused to fade; Yet thus was nourished in my soul serene An inward trust, by which my faith was stayed; And if to this trust I prove ever true The withered staff shall ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... mistaken," said Armstrong. "Life is wretchedness, with now and then a moment of delusive respite to tempt us not ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... prefer to flatter people is only another phase of life; there is nothing in it to make us laugh. You may even combine these two men into one, and arrange that the individual waver between offensive frankness and delusive politeness, this duel between two opposing feelings will not even then be comic, rather it will appear the essence of seriousness if these two feelings through their very distinctness complete each other, develop side by side, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... tastes of the present generation and is dying out, I think. The second kind is invaluable if your purpose is to pass an examination. He knows English well, dresses smartly, and is altogether a superior sort of person to the last, especially in his own estimation; but appearances are delusive, and the sign that really distinguishes him from other Pundits is that he enjoys in a high degree the esteem and confidence of a native member of the examining body. Another unfailing characteristic of him ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Charles and Clement proclaimed the pacification of Italy at Bologna on the last day of 1529, that the peninsula would no longer be the theater of wars for supremacy between the French and Spaniards. This expectation proved delusive; for the struggle soon broke out again. The people, however, suffered less extensively than in former years; because the Spanish party, supported by Papal authority, was decidedly predominant. The Italian princes, whether they liked it or not, were compelled to follow in the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... what they imagined to be strengthening broths for invalids, though their virtue must have been somewhat delusive, for, after having boiled down various materials in a close kettle and at a slow fire, they then distilled from this, and the water thus obtained was administered as a sovereign remedy. The common ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... exploded the delusive notion of liberty which Locke had borrowed from Hobbes, Leibnitz proceeds to take what seems to be higher ground. He expressly declares, that in order to constitute man an accountable agent, he must be free, not only from constraint, but also ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... to doctrine, expressed by the phrase, the "consent of the Fathers." The other objection was the inherent contradiction of the notion of infallibility to the conditions of human reception of teaching and knowledge, and its practical uselessness as an assurance of truth, its partly delusive, partly mischievous, working. But he felt, as all deep minds must feel, that it is easier to overthrow the Roman theory of Church authority than to replace it by another, equally complete and commanding, and more unassailable. He was quite ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... you would have me look upon you and live!" Lord Etherington remained standing, as if uncertain whether to advance or retreat, while with incredible rapidity she poured out her hurried entreaties that he would begone, sometimes addressing him as a real personage, sometimes, and more frequently, as a delusive phantom, the offspring of her own excited imagination. "I knew it," she muttered, "I knew what would happen, if my thoughts were forced into that fearful channel.—Speak to me, brother! speak to me while I have reason left, and tell me that what stands before me is but ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... finally, we enter the drawing-room with our best hat and best Sunday smile foremost, does it ever happen that we interrupt a family row! that we come simpering and smiling in, and stepping over the delusive ashes of a still burning domestic heat? that in the interval between the hall-door and the drawing-room, Mrs., Mr., and the Misses Jones have grouped themselves in a family tableau; this girl artlessly arranging flowers in ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rule under study. This is the true connection that unites and harmonises them all, that each leads the pupil directly to the attainment of his object—the mastery of the rule. The illusory connection of some insipid narrative is only delusive. ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... had helped himself, laid it down on the vacant seat opposite to him, that he might not have to apply again, and fell back and shut my eyes, as a hint to him that I did not wish to enter into conversation. A pause ensued, and I had hopes; but they were delusive. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Desponsamuste,Mare,insignumveriperpetuiquedominii. The result of the combats at Chioggia, though fatal to it in the long-run, did not at once destroy the naval importance of Genoa. A remarkable characteristic of sea-power is the delusive manner in which it appears to revive after a great defeat. The Persian navy occasionally made a brave show afterwards; but in reality it had received at Salamis a mortal wound. Athens seemed strong enough on the sea after the catastrophe of Syracuse; but, as already stated, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... forced from him his last words to Alexa Trent. It was bad enough to interfere with the girl's chances by hanging about her to the obvious exclusion of other men, but it was worse to seem to justify his weakness by dressing up the future in delusive ambiguities. He saw himself sinking from depth to depth of sentimental cowardice in his reluctance to renounce his hold on her; and it filled him with self-disgust to think that the highest feeling of which he supposed himself capable was ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... jester's lightsome mien, And his spangles and his sheen, All had vanished when the scene He forsook. Yet in some delusive hope, In some vague desire to cope, ONE still came to view the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... every wild fancy that springs up in his mind to the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the great judgment-seat, the open books, and the unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape from these vexing thoughts, he flies to amusement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only makes his misery darker and more hopeless. At length a turn takes place. He is reconciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of one who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the priest, "what you say seems truth; and yet, nearly viewed, too much of the comfort you describe will be found delusive. It is true, there was a period in the Christian world when good men, maintaining themselves by the work of their hands, assembled together, not that they might live easily or sleep softly, but that they might strengthen each other in the Christian faith, and qualify themselves to be ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient counsel in the cabinets of princes, and has taught kings to tremble at what will hereafter be called the delusive plausibilities of moral politicians. Sovereigns will consider those who advise them to place an unlimited confidence in their people as subverters of their thrones. This alone is an irreparable calamity to you ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... ourselves 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 ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... 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
... 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
... one. Memories of past years swept over him—half-forgotten incidents of his boyhood when his father was his only friend and he walked with his hand in his—memories of his father's love for him, his hopes, his aims, his ambitions, and all the vast ado of his poor delusive dreams. And then came thoughts of the broken old man dying alone, and of himself in his prison cell. It had been a strangely familiar thought to him of late that if he left London at seven in the morning he could speak ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... while the Springfield Republican pronounced his declaration impolitic and likely to do him and his party harm. On the other hand, the radical anti-slavery papers thought it bold and commendable. "With the instinct of a statesman," the Tribune said, "Seward discards all minor, temporary, and delusive issues, and treats only of what is final and essential. Clear, calm, sagacious, profound, and impregnable, showing a masterly comprehension of the present aspect and future prospects of the great question which now engrosses our politics, this speech ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... without a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown master and friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but I grope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusive shadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, as the sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, the despairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand years I have cried in infinite ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... displaced by the Russians under a pledge of restoring the province to the Chinese whenever they should return. Judged by the extent of territory involved, the Mohammedan rebellion might be said to be not less important than the Taeping; but the comparison on that ground alone would be really delusive, as the numerical inferiority of the Mohammedans rendered it always a question only of time for the central power ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... stood by and witnessed the assault, but I well know my life would be in jeopardy if I attempted to interfere. I, however, screwed up my courage to stay, in the hope that some sense of shame might induce the fellow to hold his hand. This was, however, a delusive hope, for he continued to lay on the whip ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... 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 with Herculean vigour, ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... flies he onward, like a phantom he disappears there on the border of the forest. Was it only a delusive appearance, a ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... jealousies in either of them—"willow widows"— though Mysie's name stuck. There was nothing but comfort to Magdalen in the certainty of the ultimate "coming home" of one who had finished a delusive dream of her younger days, and been yearned after with a heartache now quenched; and Angela, who had never been the least in love with Henry Merrifield, could quite afford her interest in the scanty records of his younger days, and fill ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... easy to act on good counsel as to give it. The murder of such a man as Caesar was not to be so easily smoothed over. But the delusive vision seemed for a moment to please. The Senate passed an act of oblivion. The agitation in the army was quieted when the men heard that their lands were secure. But there were two other questions which required an answer, and an immediate one. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the view of the conscience with the purest brightness, and, as was said by one of the ancients, if it could reveal itself to our eyes in a sensible form, it would excite in our souls feelings of inexpressible love. Vice is ugly when once stripped of the delusive fascination of the passions; the vicious excesses of the lower nature are ugly and repulsive as soon as the intoxication is over. Error is ugly too; there are no beautiful errors but those which contain a larger portion of truth than the prosaic verities, which are nothing else ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the lists; and his constancy to the lady of his love remained entirely unshaken. Far rather would he have been with Aveline, in her humble dwelling, than in those superb festal halls, surrounded by all that was noble and beautiful—all that was dangerous and delusive. Far rather would he have received one smile from her, one kindly look, than all the blandishments showered ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... appeared on p. 148, Vol. LV., and the last on November 20th, 1875. He was hardly out of his studentship at the time—he was a pupil of Bonnat—and his work was "young;" but he might have risen on Punch had he not allowed himself to be tempted away by a delusive offer of Tom Hood's of constant work on "Fun," so that he closed the door in his own face, and had thenceforward to look to news-drawing and book-illustration ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... miles an hour was fast sailing for a boat of the size of the Skylark; but he knew she would do it if she was well handled. The two gentlemen kept looking at their watches, and as the distance diminished they declared she would make the point in half an hour; but distances are very delusive on the water, and when half an hour had elapsed, they thought that five minutes more would bring the boat up with the headland. Bobtail watched his sails, and "steered small." In forty minutes he found that he should make the point a little too soon, and he let out the ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... on property, taken merely as such, in the abstract; it is founded on unequal property; the inequality is an essential term in the position. The phrases—higher, middle, and lower classes, with reference to this point of representation—are delusive; no such divisions as classes actually exist in society. There is an indissoluble blending and interfusion of persons from top to bottom; and no man can trace a line of separation through them, except such a confessedly unmeaning and unjustifiable line ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... had achieved that object this thought occurred to me: "You are upon a fool's errand; turn back, or you will destroy forever one of the sweetest of your boyhood illusions! You seek Fiammetta in the delusive hope of finding her in the person of Mrs. Henry Boggs; there is but one Fiammetta, and she is the memory abiding in your heart. Spare yourself the misery of discovering in the hearty, fleshy Lincolnshire hussif the decay of the promises of years ago; be content to do reverence to the ideal Fiammetta ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... used to bait the hook for him, partly because she knew his integrity too well to expect to shake it, and partly because he was perfectly aware of her real birth, and could not be gulled with such delusive hopes as poor ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the sphere of liberty and social enjoyment and among those who did not believe that wine was a mocker, but something to make glad the heart and give joy to the countenance; and when it began to flow he was among the first to taste its delusive sweets. Blanche, for whom he poured a glass of champagne, took it from his hand, but with only half a smile on her lips, which was veiled by something so like pain or fear that Ellis felt as if the lights about him had suddenly lost a portion of their brilliancy. He stood holding ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... more enormous" (p. 161). The wealth of the Church increased rapidly; it grew fat on the wages of sin. "Abandoned profligates, who had passed their days in the most enormous pursuits, and whose guilty consciences filled them with terror and remorse, were comforted with the delusive hopes of obtaining pardon, and making atonement for their crimes by leaving the greatest part of their fortune to some monastic society. Multitudes, impelled by the unnatural dictates of a gloomy superstition, deprived their ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... after all, it is we, ourselves, who are the victims of delusive hope in reference to the destiny of our noble Union. Possibly our disinterested friends across the water, calmly looking on from a distance, may be better able to understand the tendency of events, and to foresee the issue of the mighty civil contest which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... in addition to this artificial blindness, he is practically both deaf and dumb owing to his ignorance of the language of the people among whom he moves, it is almost certain that he will make many mistakes, if not insure failure. Now few results are apt to be more delusive than a mere collection of words, or even of short sentences. The instances of "a dead policeman" as a Non-aryan equivalent for the abstract term "death" which the inquirer wanted; of the rejoinder ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... soothed his desponding spirit with music's gentlest sound. Fondly trusting that Francesco might be won to prize the simple enjoyments of which fortune could not despoil him, and to find his dearest happiness in an approving conscience, the light hearted girl indulged in delusive hopes of future felicity. But these expectations were soon damped; as Francesco's health returned he became restless and melancholy; he saw no prospect of arriving at distinction by his talents, or by his sword; peace reigned throughout the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... vain attempt to make it more. These are the cords of man. Man acts from 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 of ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... pillars). But he was by no means satisfied with the efforts of the reformation that had been effected; nothing appeared to him more sinful or more silly than the false confidence produced by it in Jehovah and in the inviolability of His one true temple. This confidence he maintained to be delusive; Judah was not a whit better than Israel had been, Jerusalem would be destroyed one day like the temple of Shiloh. The external improvements on which the people of Judah prided themselves he held to leave this ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... to establish such a court for the purpose of strengthening the cause of international peace would have been looked upon as "a splendid but delusive dream." To-day many of the ablest men on both sides of the Atlantic believe that the time is not far off when England and America will agree to settle by arbitration all questions which diplomacy cannot deal with, which ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... park, half a mile away from the great house, where, for all its corridors and galleries, she could never feel, at all events, spiritually alone. All that was most sugared and musical and generally delusive in the old library of her fathers had been brought out to this little woodland library, and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poets and romancers, long since dead, yet as alive and singing on their shelves as any ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... in reasoning and literature, as to be ever putting one in mind of what travellers tell us of the genius of the proper Indians, who, although the veriest bunglers in all the fine arts of manual operation, yet excel everybody in slight of hand and the delusive feats of activity."[16] Whatever may be said of Collins and his achievement, one fact remains constant. He was a brilliant and persistent trickster whose cunning in the techniques of polemic often silenced an opponent with every substantive right to ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... time of inhalation of a foreign body may be unknown or forgotten. 2. Cough and purulent expectoration ultimately result, although there may be a delusive protracted symptomless interval. [130] 3. Periodic attacks of fever, with chills and sweats, and followed by increased coughing and the expulsion of a large amount of purulent, usually more or less foul material, are so nearly diagnostic of foreign body as to call for exclusion of this probability ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... understand this man and his character in any other way? To be sure this word itself does not help us to understand it. O young man, young man, do you not feel now how thoroughly right I was? I trusted this man unlimitedly, because he was not girt round with any delusive deceitful show; because nothing in my heart sallied forth to meet him, and I did not lie to myself in his behalf for the sake of pampering my own vanity. Ay, my friend, now everything is detected and noised abroad; he is going ... and in this will he gives ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... of the agitators proved as delusive as those of the propagandists. The muzhik turned a deaf ear to their instigations, and the police soon prevented their further activity. Thus the would-be root-and-branch reforms found themselves in a dilemma. Either they ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... was small and almost entirely indirect. He himself confessed his unfitness for dealing with questions of finance. The commercial prosperity that was produced by his war policy was in a great part delusive, as prosperity so produced must always be, though it had permanent effects of the highest moment in the rise of such centres of industry as Glasgow. This, however, was a remote result which he could ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... 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 man, ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... me thou art an empty Form, Like me alone, thou'rt made; Like me delusive seem'st a Man, But only art ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... thought the letter written about little Miss Thompson (Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently delusive, he sends an equally absurd production to his niece, Charlotte Nelson, who lived a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is "truly sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, Horatia," and although her ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's calibre could at that period conceive a plan of policy in which the slavery question had no place; a policy which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption that the secessionists, who had already formed their Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolution preparing to fight for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the Union by some sentimental demonstration against European interference; a policy which, at that critical moment, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... searched 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 on it. British valour ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... corrupted by the hope of money; while the mass of private citizens either showed no foresight, or else were caught by the bait of ease and leisure from day to day; and all alike had fallen victims to some such delusive fancy, as that the danger would come upon every one but themselves, and that through the perils of others they would be able to secure their own position as they pleased. {46} And so, I suppose, it has come to pass that the masses have atoned for their great and ill-timed indifference ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson, and thus provided her with what, I dare say, she considered a most enviable partner. I had told Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called "talented women," and had a delusive notion that he was himself a genius:) he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her rather stupid; I ought, perhaps, to have given him the key-note. During the dance which followed, I remember I was silent and distrait; and when it was over, and Clara told me she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... clad, in cloak of satin trimmed With lace, and hat with splendid ribbon bound. A serving-maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea and died. Her fancy followed him through foaming waves To distant shores, and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return, And dream of transports she was not to know. She heard the doleful tidings of his death, And never smiled again. And now she roams The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day, And there, unless ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... "race soul" is a convenient, though delusive, because highly figurative, expression for the psychic unity of a social group. The unity is due entirely to the more or less complete possession by the individual members of the group, of common ideas, ideals, methods of thought, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... inclose has put an end to those fond delusive hopes: I must return immediately to England; did not my own heart dictate this step, I know too well the goodness of yours, to expect the continuance of your esteem, were I capable of purchasing happiness, even the happiness of calling you mine, at the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Mr. Newman describes the movement of the present moment as being directed towards "something better and deeper than satisfied the last century," this description, although in some sense true, is yet in practice delusive; and the delusion which lurks in it is at the root of the errors of Mr. Newman and of his friends. They regard the tendencies of the last century as wholly evil; and they appear to extend this feeling to the whole period of which the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... Roman 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
... six paper bags, and of the Weissnichtwo allusions which drop as puzzling fragments into Book I. The second book is wholly biographical. It is in human life and experience that we must fight our way through delusive appearances to reality; and Carlyle constructs a typical and ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... of the points which he was chiefly anxious to inculcate was that it is possible for a man to lead a life entirely free from sin by obeying the dictates of his own reason without any assistance from the grace of God—a dogma certainly to the last degree delusive and dangerous. When the convocation met there were a great many sermons preached by various learned and eloquent divines, but nothing was produced which was pronounced by the general voice a satisfactory answer to the doctrines of the heresiarch. At length it was resolved to send for Dewi, a celebrated ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... between the two first nations of the world," his flash of rhetoric dazzled nobody but himself. He was the Mr. Perker of politics, an accommodating attorney rubbing his hands and exclaiming "My dear sir!" while he bartered the interests of his client for the delusive terms of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... 'a discovery of our intentions may make them send to their king for aid; and if that be done, I know quickly what time of day it will be with us. Therefore let us assault them in all pretended fairness, covering our intentions with all manner of lies, flatteries, delusive words; feigning things that never will be, and promising that to them that they shall never find. This is the way to win Mansoul, and to make them of themselves open their gates to us; yea, and to desire us too to come in to them. And the reason why I think that this project will ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... societies relative to the laws and administration of the Government; proceedings, in our apprehension, founded in political error, calculated, if not intended, to disorganize our Government, and which, by inspiring delusive hopes of support, have been influential in misleading our fellow-citizens in the scene ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... because you have sold a poem, probably for more than it is worth. But why do you praise spring? What do you fellows do it for? You know perfectly well that it is the most capricious, the most treacherous, the most delusive, deadly, slatternly, down-at-heels, milkmaid-handed season of the year, without decision of character or fixed principles, and with only the vaguest raw-girlish ideals, a red nose between crazy smiles and streaming eyes. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... rescued from the incubus of a delusive superstition, should be remitted to the care of the Church Widows' and Orphans' Augmentation Society, and should be ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... now changed. Commerce sought new channels; fortune smiled on other nations. How Venice dragged onward from the end of her commercial greatness, and tottered with a delusive splendor to her political death, is surely one of the saddest of stories if not the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... on fallacies so flimsy and leading to conclusions so paradoxical was advanced by eminent and experienced politicians, and accepted by many persons, both in the North and in the South—not so much, perhaps, from intelligent conviction as under the delusive hope that it would afford a satisfactory settlement of the "irrepressible conflict" which had been declared. The terms "popular sovereignty" and "non-intervention" were plausible, specious, and captivating to the public ear. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of business and opulence on their own ground. If this principle will fill one's own treasuries, it will fill the treasuries of the Lord. Let it then be regarded. I would sound it in the ears of the million who are delving the earth for gold, and startle them from their delusive dreams. I would that it might echo and re-echo till its solemn utterances should make every votary of Mammon tremble. Hear, ye rich men; give ear, ye who are pursuing the bubbles of wealth! is it christian, is it right, ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... difficult to find arguments in favour of that which the heart is set upon. The one that knows the Lord, will pray until the other is brought to him; neither will be guilty of casting the slightest hindrance in the way of the other, etc., etc., but how often have these pretty delusive devices been cast to the winds, or broken to atoms like glass toys in after life, and their framers made to pay the bitter penalties of disappointment, regret, and even backsliding for their early transgressions? The selection of a husband or wife is not a question of mere sentiment or ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... robes for him get ready; Then invite the loveliest damsels Rome can boast of, to come hither To the feasts and to the dances. Bring musicians, and in fine Let it be proclaimed that any Woman of illustrious blood Who from his delusive passions Can divert him, by her charms Curing him of all his sadness, Shall become his wife, how humble Her estate, her wealth how scanty. And if this be not sufficient, I will give a golden talent Yearly to the leech who cures him By some ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca |
