"Feign" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lone cabin, where the cane Hid the black mire before the lowly door, De Soto died—although they sought to feign By some pretended magic mirror's lore That still he lived, a gentleman of Spain,— And the dread flood rolled ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... in derision, yet it was evident that she and Hobart would have their way. Some one brought a rope, which was deftly wound about him, West continuing to feign unconsciousness. He secretly hoped this condition might result in some carelessness on their part, in either speech or action. Anyway it would undoubtedly save him from further brutal treatment. He had no reason to suspect ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... sympathising crowd, while the footman ran with a paragraph to the newspapers. But there was the likelihood that the crowd might carry me in to the rival practitioner opposite. In various disguises I was to feign fits at his very door, and so furnish fresh copy for the local press. Then I was to die—absolutely to expire—and all Scotland was to resound with how Dr. Cullingworth, of Avonmouth, had resuscitated me. His ingenious brain rang a thousand ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... to feign ignorance when, gripping the frame of the doorway, she said in a voice that trembled noticeably in spite of her ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... day, in a great passion, and said, "Would you believe that there is a man in my Court insolent enough to dare to raise his eyes to one of my daughters?" Madame had never seen him so exasperated, and this illustrious nobleman was advised to feign a necessity for visiting his estates. He remained there two months. Madame told me, long after, that she thought that there were no tortures to which the King would not have condemned any man who had seduced one of his daughters. ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... could get them, and pardons to sanctify the place, and to make it more haunted. And there he lieth, and is a saint, as right is: for he did for Christ's Vicar as much as the great Turk for Mahomet; but to save his holiness, that he might be canonised for a saint, they feign that his abiding there so continually was for the hot-baths' sake which be there." (Works, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Thamar, "although there are women clever enough to feign all these symptoms, for some reason or another, so skilfully as to deceive the most clear-sighted. I believe that the maiden had swooned, as a ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... is a joy here only to sit still and live. The air, always loaded with perfume, seems to convey essential nutriment to those who breathe it; and its hue, especially when a morning or evening sun shines through it, is of that golden cast, which, as poets feign, bathes the tops of Olympus. Never do we tremble here before blasts like those which from the Appenines sweep along the plains and cities of the Italian coast. No extremes of either heat or cold are experienced in this happy spot. In winter, airs, which in ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, - The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the like with the Lady Zubeideh, and we will take of them, in a twinkling, two hundred dinars and two pieces of silk." "As thou wilt," answered she; "but what thinkest thou to do?" And he said,"We will feign ourselves dead and this is the trick. I will die before thee and lay myself out, and do thou spread over me a kerchief of silk and loose [the muslin of] my turban over me and tie my toes and lay on my heart a knife, and a little salt.[FN35] Then let down thy hair and betake thyself ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... was on the lock of the door: an almost irresistible impulse urged me to spring from the bed and draw the bolt. On second thoughts, however, I determined to feign sleep, and watch ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... conclusion that it must be close upon daybreak, and Dale had risen to light the fire and make coffee so that they might start for the ravine as early as possible, he determined to lie perfectly still and feign sleep till the last minute, and a sharp ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... Amorous Convert; being a true Relation of what happened in Holland, which may very well be the first sketch of Mrs. Behn's maturer novel. The fact that she does not 'pretend here to entertain you with a feign'd story,' but on the contrary, 'every circumstance to a tittle is truth', and that she expressly asserts, 'To a great part of the main I myself was an eye-witness', aroused considerable suspicion in Bernbaum as to the veracity of her narration, a suspicion which, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... passed over; and it was not until we came to the scene of our wreck, and found the diligence stranded high and dry upon the roadside, that we could believe the whole landscape about us had been flooded three days before. The offending stream had shrunk back to its channel, and now seemed to feign an unconsciousness of its late excess, and had a virtuous air of not knowing how in the world to account for that upturned diligence. The waters, we learned, had begun to subside the night after our disaster; and the vehicle ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... the practice which these authors speak of, as an innovation of "some late writers," and "an idle affectation of the Latin idiom," is in fact a practice as different from the blunder which they quote, or feign, as their just correction of that blunder is different from the thousand errors or irregularities which they intend to shelter under it. To call a lady an "incident," is just as far from any Latin idiom, as it is from good English; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... repress every betrayal; and I was therefore shaken, on the spot, by my first glimpse of the particular one for which I had not allowed. To see her, without a convulsion of her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the direction of the prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at ME an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me—this was a stroke that somehow converted ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... to bend aside the twigs that met her hands. But the vigilance of the Indians rendered this act of precaution both difficult and dangerous. She was often defeated in her purpose, by encountering their watchful eyes, when it became necessary to feign an alarm she did not feel, and occupy the limb by some gesture of feminine apprehension. Once, and once only, was she completely successful; when she broke down the bough of a large sumach, and by a sudden thought, let her glove fall at the same ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... luck to carry the bulletin to Domsie, and I learned what he had been enduring. It was good manners in Drumtochty to feign amazement at the sight of a letter, and to insist that it must be intended for some other person. When it was finally forced upon one, you examined the handwriting at various angles and speculated about the writer. Some felt emboldened, after these precautions, to open the letter, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... a faint gnawing sound at the wire outside the cage. Mice might have made that sound, sharpening their teeth on the wire. Bentley decided to feign sleep. Had Barter come personally to supervise his capture? That didn't seem reasonable as Barter must realize that all his effectiveness depended upon his ability to retain control of whatever organization ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... solid Saxon array, and with sword and battle-axe attempted to hew down the hedge of spears, but in vain. At last their leaders, convinced that they could not overcome the obstinacy of the resistance, ordered their followers to feign ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... our former grievances were feign'd, King James has been abused, and we trepann'd; Bugbear'd with popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government, and leagues exotic; The revolution's a fanatic plot, William's a tyrant, King James was not; A factious army and a poison'd nation, ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... men all day, and talk business, and to return at five o'clock and find her, punctual and perfect, smiling in her duty, over another teapot; to rack his brains for something to talk about to her; not to be allowed to mention his own friends, but to have to feign indestructible interest in the Eliotts and the Gardners; to dine with the inspiration drawn again from the paper; and then, perhaps, to be read aloud to all evening, till it was time to go to bed again. That was how his days went on. The child and Edie were his only accessible sources of ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... of frankness throughout." Her voice trembled. "I tried my best,—I thought I could do better,—but I cannot feign what I do not feel. I am sorry, but I . . . I am disappointed. No, I cannot explain, and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... commendation! He pours out the torrents of his ridicule, not indiscriminately upon the works of the old masters themselves—though he regarded Nature as the grandest of all the old masters—but upon those half-baked sycophants who bend the knee to an art they do not understand, an art of which they feign comprehension by mouthings full of cheap and meaningless tags. As potent and effective as ever, in its fine comic irony, is that passage in which he expresses his "envy" of those people who pay lavish lip-service to scenes ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... her. The latter greeted her with quite a show of cordiality; but the orphan shrank back from the offered kiss, and merely touched the extended hand. She had not forgotten the taunts and unkindness of other days; and, though not vindictive, she could not feign oblivion of the past, nor assume a friendly manner foreign to her. She took her seat in the carriage, and found it rather difficult to withdraw her fascinated eyes from Pauline's lovely face. She knew what was expected of her, however; ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... name of Dorus. Complications, moreover, have already arisen, Basilius falling in love with the supposed Amazon, while Gynecia sees through the disguise and falls in love with the concealed Pyrocles. The disguised lover, in order to allay suspicion, has to feign a return of love to the queen and also to humour the dotage of the king, in the meanwhile revealing himself and his love to Philoclea, whom her father employs to court the affections of the Amazon. Musidorus, on his part, while pretending ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like potoroo, belonged to this singular order. The order ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... as I surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in their dollar affairs. I longed to mount a chair and tell them how they had been duped, but my role called for different lines. It was my part to feign satisfaction and my duty to keep every cent invested in our enterprise from shrinking a mill. I pumped as much enthusiasm ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... thinking of this fable, Of story feign'd and false, But meaning veritable, My mind the image calls Of one who writes, "The war I sing Which Titans waged against the Thunder-king."[14] As on the sounding verses ring, What will be brought to ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... we believe, or feign Believing, that such lands exist Through ages drenched with blotting rain, For ever folded in ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... to what I was Ere we met; (Such can not be, but because Some forget Let me feign it)—none would notice That where she I know by rote is Spread a strange and withering change, Like a drying of the wells Where ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... Brethren,[268] he carefully concealed the bravest of his auxiliaries in a wood overlooking the road. The cavalry were ordered to ride forward down the road and provoke an engagement. They were then to feign flight and lure the pursuers on in hot haste until they fell into the ambush. This plan was betrayed to Otho's generals. Paulinus took charge of the infantry, Celsus of the horse. A detachment of the Thirteenth ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... the mystery in which it always pleased Madam Liberality to shroud her small preparations, was to give her dire offence. As a rule, the others respected this caprice, and would even feign a little more surprise than they felt, upon occasion. But if during her preparations she had given umbrage to one of the boys, her retreat was soon invaded with cries of—"Ah! I see you, making birthday ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... woes. [ee]Should heav'n's just bolts Orgilio's wealth confound, [J]And spread his flaming palace on the ground, Swift o'er the land the dismal rumour flies, And publick mournings pacify the skies; The laureate tribe in venal verse relate, How virtue wars with persecuting fate; [ff]With well-feign'd gratitude the pension'd band Refund the plunder of the beggar'd land. See! while he builds, the gaudy vassals come, And crowd with sudden wealth the rising dome; The price of boroughs and of souls restore; And raise ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... stubborn; her stature was low; and it would not be true to declare, in satisfactory antithesis, that she had all the virtues. Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty; it is apt either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the repulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called an ugly thing in contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of the last rite, a thing which Cardan says he could not have believed, had he not been assured of the same by the testimony of many witnesses. It was reported too, that Rigone himself, though a man of good reputation, was forced to feign death in order to escape accusation on some charge or other. His only son had died shortly before, so it might be said with reason that his house was as it were thrown under an evil spell by the avenging Furies of ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... her lodge of cedar boughs, and partook of her dish of milk. She then told him she was his real mother, and that he had been stolen away from her by the detestable Toad-Woman, who was a witch. He was not quite convinced. She said to him, "Feign yourself sick, when you go home, and when the Toad-Woman asks what ails you, say that you want to see your cradle; for your cradle was of wampum, and your faithful brother, the dog, bit a piece off to try and detain you, which I picked up, as I followed in your track. ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... already seen so much of nuns, nunneries and the like, that I sorely begrudged the time thus spent. Good manners forbade a demur. There was nothing to do but to feign some slight interest in the schoolrooms, dormitories, playground, chapel—facsimiles, as were the nuns themselves, of what I had seen dozens ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Tad sat up until late, hoping vainly for word from Jinny, but none came. When the guard approached the tent along toward midnight, Tad feigned sleep, and so well did he feign it that he really ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... timid, and sometimes when birds of this species are chased—for gaucho boys frequently run them down on horseback—and when they find no burrows or thickets to escape into, they actually drop down dead on the plain. Probably, when they feign death in their captor's hand, they are in ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Upgrove, is living still; well and happy, both of them, thank God, and as proud of their sons as if either had ever done anything to deserve it. Neither of them has much to say of Margarita, I have noticed, though both fondle her children, a little absently, perhaps, and feign to wonder what it is we see in Peggy that blinds us to the excellencies of the others—stouter children and more respectful, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... at cards may hold a good hand by accident. In the same way, if such wonders can happen (as so much world-wide evidence declares), they may have happened at Woods Farm, and Emma, "in a very nervous state," may have feigned then, or rather did feign them later. ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... breast of snow, My peerless, promised bride. A viper by the name of Jones Came in between us twain; With honeyed words he stole away My loved Belinda Jane. For he was rich and I was poor, And poets all are stupid Who feign the god of Love is not Cupidity, but Cupid. Perchance 'tis well, for had I wed That maid of dark-brown curls, You had not been, or been, instead Of boy, a pair of girls. Now listen to me, Walter Smith; Hie to yon plumber bold, An thou would'st ease my dying pang, His 'prentice be enrolled. ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... of my business whether it was a Madonna or a kodanna (young master), they let pose there any old way, but it was vulgar to feign assurance that one's subject is in no danger of being understood so long as others did not know the subject. Clown claims himself as a Yedo kid. I thought that the person called Madonna was no other than a favorite ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... to feign to be subdued; but I counterfeited to be older than I was in all respects (Heaven knows! my heart being all too young the while), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... the Aristocracy. And wherever there is any danger of imposture we cannot trust to this method. Amongst our lowest orders, the vocal organs are developed to a degree more than correspondent with those of hearing, so that an Isosceles can easily feign the voice of a Polygon, and, with some training, that of a Circle himself. A second method is therefore ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... offend, Though that perforce he must agree To sound such tunes as I intend To sing to them that heareth me; Then though my songs be somewhat plain, And toucheth some that use to feign, Blame not my Lute! ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... ring of genuineness which means more than any other; the ring which sounded so clearly in her father's. She knew it, and was sorry; but she could not help it. There was that to be said for Audrey—she was honest. She could not feign a pleasure she did not feel; and she had yet to learn to feel the pleasure which comes with trying ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to behold its father's face. He received warnings in Paris, by which he scorned to profit. The Spanish ambassador in that city informed him that Philip's wrath at the recent transactions in the Netherlands was high. He was most significantly requested, by a leading personage in France, to feign illness, or to take refuge in any expedient by which he might avoid the fulfilment of his mission. Such hints had no effect in turning him from his course, and he proceeded to Madrid, where he arrived ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... (as all men do) speak boldlier, better In their friends cause still, than in your own; But speak your utmost, yet you cannot feign, 274] I will stand by, and blush to witness it. Tell him, since I beheld him, I have lost The happiness of this life, food, and rest; A quiet bosome, and the state I went with. Tell him how he has humbled the proud, And made the living but a dead Erota. Tell him withal, that ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... thou attend, How Bharat may his throne ascend. Dost thou forget what things befell? Or dost thou feign, remembering well? Or wouldst thou hear my tongue repeat A story for thy need so meet? Gay lady, if thy will be so, Now hear the tale of long ago, And when my tongue has done its part Ponder the story in thine heart. When Gods and demons fought ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... abuses? Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to make them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,—as Homer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by Apollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous gods. So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay, that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius made men hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... feign that he is Enoch: others dream He was pre-Adamite, and has survived Cycles of generation and of ruin. The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence, And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, Deep contemplation and unwearied study, In years outstretched ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... point, that at the present moment," Raskolnikov tried his utmost to feign embarrassment, "I am not quite in funds... and even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... informed that it was over. She longed to be sought more than she cared to be won; it soothed and comforted what had been a painful sense of disadvantage to know that one man at least had sighed for her in vain. He would not have been a desirable husband, but as a former lover she could feign him what she pleased, and while, under new and advantageous circumstances, he became more and more like what she feigned, it was not surprising that in the end she forgot her feigning, and found her feet entangled for good and all in the toils she herself had spread ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... since I'm forced to do it, I'll make this hypocrite put off his mask, Flatter the longings of his shameless passion, And give free play to all his impudence. But, since 'tis for your sake, to prove to you His guilt, that I shall feign to share his love, I can leave off as soon as you're convinced, And things shall go no farther than you choose. So, when you think they've gone quite far enough, It is for you to stop his mad pursuit, To spare your wife, and not expose me farther Than you shall need, yourself, ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... traveller Bankes beats Cicero, Or Mr. Bishop Weber; When sinking funds discharge a debt, Or female hands a bomb; When bankrupts study the Gazette, Or colleges Tom Thumb; When little fishes learn to speak, Or poets not to feign; When Dr. Geldart construes Greek, I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... disaster also should be watched and he should then be induced to fly. O sire, an enemy should never be scorned, however contemptible. A spark of fire is capable of consuming an extensive forest if only it can spread from one object to another in proximity. Kings should sometimes feign blindness and deafness, for if impotent to chastise, they should pretend not to notice the faults that call for chastisement. On occasions, such as these, let them regard their bows as made of straw. But they should be always on the alert like a herd of deer sleeping ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... my eyes he gleams, A Brother of the Leaves he seems; When in a moment forth he teems His little song in gushes: As if it pleas'd him to disdain And mock the Form which he did feign, While he was dancing with the train Of Leaves among the ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... a topping Dyer, Was cuckol'd by a Frier: He saw the Case, How bad it was, And feign'd to take a Journey, Saying softly, Madam, —— burn ye But stopping by the Way He saw the Priest full gay, Running fast to his House, To tickle his Spouse: 'Tis d——n'd vile, thinks the Dyer, But away went ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... And would Love feign in thee Some shadowy palpitating grove that bears Rest for man's eyes and music for his ears? O lonely night! art thou not known to me, A thicket hung with masks of mockery And watered with the ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... was by no means sure that he had acted rightly. Perhaps it would have been better to temporize but that would have meant a surrender young to Chaldea's unmaidenly wooing. And, as the man had not a spark of love for her in a heart given entirely to another woman, he was unwilling even to feign playing the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... feet! But not to tell of that in tears come I, but this: I'm foolish, weak, and small, And fear to fall. If long he stay away, O frightful dream, wise Mother, What keeps me but that I, gone crazy, kiss some other!' 'The fault were his! But know, Sweet little Daughter sad, He did but feign to go; And never more Shall cross thy window-sill, Or pass beyond thy door, Save by thy will. He's present now in some dim place apart Of the ivory house wherewith thou mad'st him glad. Nay, this I whisper thee, Since none is near, Or, if ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... Come to my breast, for by its hopes thou look'st Lovelily dreadful, and the fate of Venice Seems on thy sword already. Oh, my Mars! The poets that first feign'd a god of ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... you what I feel at this complete collapse of all my hopes and plans. The one consideration of my child is all that restrains me from leaving my husband, never to see him again. As it is, I must live a life of deceit, and feign respect and regard for a man whom I despise with my ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... servant because the two hearts are in a strange land. If my heart knows how to serve up flattery as one is bound to serve it up at court, it will be rich before it returns. He who wishes to be on good terms with his lord and to sit beside him on his right, as is now the use and custom, must feign to pluck the feather from his lord's head, even when there is no feather there. But here we see an evil trait: when he flatters him to his face, and yet his lord has in his heart either baseness or villainy, never will he be so ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you not hear their voices, cold and hollow as the winter wind, calling, calling you, and saying, 'Come, come, proud robber, from over the far seas; come and gather the beautiful rose of the northern forest'? Yes, Yes! You have obeyed the dead—the dead who feign sleep, but are ever wakeful;—you have come as a thief in the golden midnight, and the thing you seek is the life of Sigurd! Yes—yes! it is true. The spirit cannot lie. You must kill, you must steal! See how the blood drips, drop by drop, from the heart of Sigurd! And the jewel you steal—ah, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... scale against the King. John was now in a very distinct inferiority, and even of his personal attendants a considerable number left the Court on learning of the defection of London. In all this long struggle nothing but the occupation of the capital had proved enough to make John feign a compromise. As excellent an intriguer as he was a fighter he asked nothing better than to hear once more the terms ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... parts company with Scaliger and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the characteristic mark of poetry. The Cyropaedia of Xenophon, and the Theagines and Cariclea of Heliodorus are poems, although written in prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest rayment."[220] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," and "seates," from the mnemonic system ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... she had profess'd herself, goes Home again to her Parents. The crafty Tricks of the Monks are detected, who terrify and frighten unexperienced Minds into their Cloysters, by feign'd Apparitions ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... 234. May Allah never make you parting dree, May coins thou makest joy in heart instil, ix. 69. May God deny me boon of troth if I, viii. 34. May that Monarch's life span a mighty span, ii.75. Mazed with thy love no more I can feign patience, viii. 321. Melted pure gold in silvern bowl to drain, v. 66. Men and dogs together are all gone by, iv. 268. Men are a hidden malady iv. 188. Men craving pardon will uplift their hands, iii. 304. Men have 'plained of pining ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... plans were conceived in treachery, and put into operation as the living embodiment of a lie. Choosing some of their number who had not before appeared in personal antagonism to Jesus, and who were supposed to be unknown to Him, the chief conspirators sent these with instructions to "feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... cast off every appearance of anxiety and to feign easy indifference, for the station people were showing somewhat too much curiosity about this train, whose crew were strangers, and concerning which the telegraph had sent them no advices. The practised spy was full of resources, but their searching ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... many days. Those who were initiated, mimicked whatever the poets had thought fit to feign of the god Bacchus. They covered themselves with the skins of wild beasts, carried a thyrsus in their hands, a kind of pike with ivy-leaves twisted round it; had drums, horns, pipes, and other instruments calculated to make a great noise; and wore upon their heads wreaths of ivy and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... serenest Waters of sweetness, from our fabled springs. Oh, close him round with visions of all rareness, Make him see everything with smiling eye; Let all his dreams be unsurpassed for fairness, And what we feign out-charm reality. Come, sister spirits, up and do your duty; When the Poet pines, feast his ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... as she said, she could not set herself up as a censor of things that she must keep on doing as other people did. She could have renounced the world, as there are ways and means of doing here; but she had no vocation to the religious life, and she could not feign it without a sense of sacrilege. In fact, this generous and magnanimous and gifted woman was without that faith, that trust in God which comes to us from living His law, and which I wonder any American can keep. She denied nothing; but she had lost the strength to affirm anything. She no longer ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Journey, thus beautifully describes his situation here:—'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head; but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... much the same manner as one perfectly simple and undivisible, and requires not a much greater stretch of thought in order to its conception. From this similarity of operation we attribute a simplicity to it, and feign a principle of union as the support of this simplicity, and the centre of all the different parts and qualities ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... worse, this paper I take it—" (he tapped it) "this paper is to be a secret for the present. Mr. Thomas will still feign himself to be a Catholic, with Catholics, until he comes into all his inheritances. And, meantime, he will supply information to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Mustagan, "as you move around among the apparently dead ones. Wolves are most treacherous brutes, and sometimes badly wounded ones will feign to be dead when very far from it. By doing this they hope to escape the extra bullet or fatal blow of the axe that would quickly finish them. Then when the hunters are off their guard, or night comes on, they hope to ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... stirs without encountering a romantic adventure. Noble ladies nearly always take pity on good-looking captains, and Smith was far from ill-favored. The charming Charatza delighted to talk with her slave, for she could speak Italian, and would feign herself too sick to go to the bath, or to accompany the other women when they went to weep over the graves, as their custom is once a week, in order to stay at home to hear from Smith how it was that Bogall took him prisoner, as the Bashaw had written her, and whether Smith was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... boat whene'er thou wilt, Can'st make it serve thee for a tilt! Capacious house! 'tis own'd by all Thou'rt well contrived, tho' thou art small: For ev'ry Wit in Britain's isle May lodge within thy spacious pile. Like Bacchus thou, as Poets feign, Thy mother burnt, art born again, Born like a phoenix from the flame: But neither bulk nor shape the same; As animals of largest size Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies; A type of modern wit and style, The rubbish of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... "I will feign myself to be Rosalind, and you shall feign to court me in the same manner as you would do if I was Rosalind, and then I will imitate the fantastic ways of whimsical ladies to their lovers, till I make you ashamed of your love; and this is the way ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... longer feign ignorance of your meaning, father," replied Magde, with a visible effort to suppress her anger. "It is true that in words, and even in actions, he has conducted himself with more presumption than he would have dared to assume last ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... from this palace, whose haughty dome Towering o'er Saxony, rises to the skies; In which thy fearful mind confines the tempest. Which agitates at the court, a nation of enviers. Look at this fragile grandeur, And cease at last to admire The pompous shining of a city Where all feign ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... and you act unjustly therein. You feign false grounds for discord, that you may live with her when you have got rid of this witness {of your actions}; your wife has perceived it too; for what other reason ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... of some sort, it seemed, in her first returning consciousness. Her first distinct feeling was one of wonder that Dunwody himself should be the first to bend over her, and that on his face there should seem surprise, regret, grief. How could he feign such things? She pushed at his face, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Westray stopped, Lord Blandamer looked neither to the right nor to the left; he walked with his hands folded lightly behind him, and with his eyes upon the ground, yet did not feign to have his thoughts disengaged. His companion shrank from any attempt to understand or fathom what those thoughts could be, but admired, against his will, the contained and resolute bearing. Westray felt as a child beside a giant, yet had no doubt as to his own ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze. By the sweet power of music: therefore, the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods: Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... of obtaining a livelihood as a beggar in Egypt is to feign idiocy, which, I am told, is frequently done. Idiots are regarded as saints, and are never restricted in their movements, maniacs alone being confined, and they are often met with in the streets. My Swedenborgian friends ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... am too proud of loving thee, too proud Of the sweet months and years that now have end, To feign a heart indifferent to this loss, Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed Our orbits cross, Beloved and lovely friend; And though I wend Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray, I shall not be all lonely on the way, Companioned with the attar ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... but that of every other cell in the prison, if required. The prisoners were generally in couples in each cell at that time, and the plan agreed upon was as follows: One of the convicts was an old man subject to fits, and it was arranged that he was to feign a fit for the occasion; the assistance of the night officer was to be called, who was to have his "light put out" by the fellow prisoner of the one in fits, who was a strong muscular fellow. Meanwhile the "cracksman," ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... the true principles of legislation. Now, I once really felt what you only feign. In my time, I attempted to carry out my ideas of amelioration, and wanted to improve the moral and physical condition of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... one who was lying on my right, not knowing whether she was Nanette or Marton. I find her bent in two, and wrapped up in the only garment she had kept on. Taking my time, and sparing her modesty, I compel her by degrees to acknowledge her defeat, and convince her that it is better to feign sleep and to let me proceed. Her natural instincts soon working in concert with mine, I reach the goal; and my efforts, crowned with the most complete success, leave me not the shadow of a doubt ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Lest she survive, detains me here, When "all the life of life" is fled?— What, but the deep inherent dread, Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign, And realize the hell that priests and beldams feign? ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... Desert, prevails during these two months. It is reported, that Muley Ismael was so rich in gold, that the bolts of the gates of his palaces, and his kitchen utensils, were of pure gold. Timbuctoo continued to carry on a most 483 lucrative trade with Marocco, &c.; during the Feign of the Emperor Muley Abd Allah, son and successor of Ismael, and also during the reign of Seedy[283] Muhamed ben Abd Allah, who died about the year 1795, a sovereign universally regretted, and hence aptly denominated the father of his people: since the decease ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... they set out to contend, Saint Paul will lie and Saint John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls! They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither should you put yourself in a false position with your contemporaries by indulging ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... than all these base favorites I have chastised. Let the magician be brought to me presently." The grand vizier immediately sent for her, and as soon as she was brought Schaibar said, at the time he fetched a stroke at her with his iron bar: "Take the reward of thy pernicious counsel, and learn to feign sickness again." ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... who, as soon as they assumed this new form, began to hunt the animals, and make war against them. It is expected that these animals will resume their human shapes, in a future state, and hence their hunters feign some clumsy excuses for their present policy of killing them. They believe that all animals, and birds, and reptiles, and even insects, possess reasoning faculties, and have souls. It is in these opinions, that we detect ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... playing with Scripture in this way. It says the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ. Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises, that is temporary promises, promises which would be fulfilled only in this life, and end and ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... we dare not even complain! Doomed to eternal falsehood, we must feign a happiness we do not experience, and a love we do ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... as were possible for the capture and punishment of the men who were primarily responsible for Butler's death, he had done everything that a strict sense of duty claimed from him, and was not called upon to feign and outwardly manifest a sorrow which had no place in his heart. Besides, he was now the responsible head of the survey party; upon him depended— for at least the next three months—the conduct of an important and highly scientific operation; ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... time. Kosciusko enquiring what he meant, he answered, "As soon as a poor man on the road takes off his hat and asks charity, the horse immediately stands still, and will not stir till something is given to the petitioner; and as I had no money about me, I was obliged to feign giving something, in order to ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... 'tis plain that poets feign, And from the truth depart; They write with ease what fibs they please, With artifice, not art; Dearer to you the simply true— The fact without the fancy— Than this false play of colours gay, So very vague and chancy. No doubt 'tis well the truth ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... and I to the Duke's playhouse, where we saw the new play acted yesterday, "The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marall;" a play made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as every body says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the name of the water spirit they believed in. So I became all the more sure that Gunnhild was there. It would be easy for her to feign to be the White Lady and so terrify any man who sought her. A man is apt to shape aught he sees into what ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... whatever efforts the Resident may make to obtain it for them; and where one is satisfied, four become discontented; while the dishonest and idle portion of their brother soldiers, who have no real wrongs to complain of, and feign them only to get leave of absence, throw all the burthen of their duties upon them. Others again, by fraud and collusion with those whose influence they require to urge their claims, often obtain more than ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... horses as in the old days one took women. Well, well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask save at the lance's point. Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and they feign penitence, but behind my back I know they call me a toothless ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... slow tread announced the approach of the confessor, "you must feign to be dead; spread the pallet opposite to the grating, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... of the husband, that, by the usual course of gestation, they could not be begotten by him. But, this being a matter of some uncertainty, the law is not exact as to a few days[l]. And this gives occasion to a proceeding at common law, where a widow is suspected to feign herself with child, in order to produce a supposititious heir to the estate: an attempt which the rigor of the Gothic constitutions esteemed equivalent to the most atrocious theft, and therefore punished ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... that feign to hide That which they feign to render up? Is there, in Tantalus' dim cup, The shadow ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers? For what is love (let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and guests), what is love, but the very inspiration of that Deity whose name is Love? Be sure that not without reason did the ancients feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods, by whom the jarring elements of chaos were attuned into harmony and order. How, then, shall lovers make him the father of strife? Shall Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice's egg? or the soul be filled ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... She would be punctual. But how escape Vaudrey? She could not now feign sickness since she had received him! Moreover, he would instal himself near her and bombard her with his attentions. Was there any possible pretext, any way of getting out now? Her lover had the devoted, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie |
