"Make believe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trout-fishing in June is a suitable place for ladies to go? I should give a decided negative. My brother takes his wife and his sister usually, although he fortunately left them at home last time. I think they must have to "make believe" a good deal to think it fun. I am certain that had they been with us they would have been forced to exercise their largest powers of imagination. We set out in fine weather, but entered the woods in a driving snowstorm, and enjoyed a forty-six-mile drive over a road that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... and specially where it touched England—I think, after this, you would enjoy meeting any one from Italy almost as much as if you had been there, and you would not feel you had read up for nothing. I should take a fresh country every year, and make believe that you were going to it next summer, and that you were getting ready to be 'Eyes,' and not 'No Eyes,' while there. You would have got the spirit of the country by this, far more than ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who go to it in the flesh. You are ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... if you try; I've heard you whistlin' 'Rule Britannia' scores of times, or bits of it. Now I'm goin' to beat this mat and make believe to be talkin' to 'ee. At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury'll poke her head out, she always does. So you go on whistlin', and don't mind anything I say. There'll be no peace in life for us after she gets ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... company. So much wine, and no more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been indeed that fierce ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... a fool would tell you so. You will sing that song from the 'Camp in Silesia' for me next Sunday evening, or I will whip you, Daisy—you may depend upon it. I have done it before, and I will again; and you know I do not make believe. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair is that it's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we hide under the seats," returned Freddie. "See, there are long side seats in the police automobile wagon, and we can lie down under 'em and make believe we're in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... doing rather something very different? You're just trying to dodge it. You're trying to make believe—not perhaps to yourselves but ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... quite satisfy him, an uncertain mark of erasure leaving the approved portion in doubt: "Read proudly. Put the duty of being read invariably on the author. If he is not read, whose fault is it? I am quite ready to be charmed—but I shall not make believe I am charmed." Dear man! he never would "make believe." Transparent, sincere soul, how he puts to shame all affectation and pretense! Mr. Jackson says his townsmen found it hard to realize that he was great. They always thought of him as the kindly neighbor. One old farmer told ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... mother," thought Boo. "I'll just hide behind this piece of rock, and then I'll jump out and make believe to scare her. It ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... might be too lonely and neglected at the log-cabin. Then she would make believe she was going to ask daddy to let them be married right away, insisting that two rooms were enough for them, and that she herself would do the washing and ironing and the cooking, at which Jack would ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you are. You haven't to make believe, you know; you have got only to act yourself. Come, begin.—I declare, Satinalia, I think this satin ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... them real robbers—an' Jase Mallows forewarned me erginst you. I 'lowed he war lyin'—but I couldn't take no chances. Thar war jest one feller I knowed I could trust without question, an' thet feller was Bud. So he tuck ther money an' thet bundle I rid away from bank with was jest make believe. I aimed ter lead 'em over ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... scarcely up to his big hairy chest. So when Elmira says the cistern is full of fish, that woman opens the trap door and looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him out. He allows he'll keep quiet in there and make believe he is drowned and give her a good scare and make her sorry fur him. But when the cistern door is opened, he hears a lot of clacking tongues all of a sudden like they was a hen convention on. He allows she has told some of the neighbours, and he'll scare them ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... wheat soon grew so tall that it stood above the heads of the children. They used to go in among it, and make believe that they were ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... then, and with sparkling eyes, Marjorie completed her confession. "Yes," she went on, "after you said last night that you b'lieved us children could turn your hair white in a single night, I thought I'd make believe we did. So,—and you know, Grandma, you told me I could stay around in your room for a while, and look at your pretty things,—so, when I saw that queer sort of a powder-shaker I couldn't help playing with it. And then when I saw your bed all fixed so nice for the night, I thought it would ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... my love with death-dust, Lest the draught should make me mad; I must make believe at sorrow, Lest I ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... the new things just coming up in the vegetable garden, and—and—well, this parsley happens to be the only really gardeny thing I have, so I thought I'd bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make believe it's the country, up ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... Wealthy says she can't imagine what I do to my things; there was so much grass-green in them that it greened all the water in the tub last wash, she told mother; that was when we played the Coramantic Captive, you know, and I had to keep fainting all the time. We'll just make believe we sank, I guess. ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... while Henry said "Don't kick and flounce so, my little beauty. If there's any thing I hate, it's seeing girls make believe they're modest. That clodhopper Bill kisses you ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... would have glowered; but I laughed, and out came the hairpins, for the good of the game. I have always had to "make believe" all alone, so it was extra fun having such a grand playfellow as Sir Somerled—whether he liked it or not. And I determined that I would make him like it! I wanted him to play properly, and not be ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... come on the chance of meeting us there, but we hadn't got any word, and didn't know whether she could manage it nor whether George would bring her. I had a sort of half-and-half notion that perhaps Gracey might come, but I didn't like to think of it for fear of being disappointed, and tried to make believe ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... of a masculine lover? George Sand, George Eliot, Charles Egbert Craddock, made pretty good men in print. The authoress of "Jane Eyre" was taken for a man by many persons. Can Number Five be masquerading in verse? Or is one of the two Annexes the make believe lover? Or did these girls lay their heads together, and send the poem we had at our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is so severe in his ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a wife with, ain't it? I can see 'em comin'. I cal'late you'd stay single till Jedgment, and then you wouldn't git one. No, sir! The thing to do is to be sort of soft-soapy and high-toned. Let 'em think they're goin' to git a bargain when they git you. Make believe it's goin' to be a privilege ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... very exciting. It is the one thing I really care for. There is often danger, but it is the kind that does not steal round your back. Hereafter I shall devote my time to butterflies. You can make believe—is that what you call it?—each butterfly is a great rascal. The more difficult the netting, the more cunning the rascal . . ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... house has now become a time for low subterfuge on the part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else when Junior appears dragging the "funnies" (a loathsome term in itself) to be read to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fall apart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls from upstairs that she may be some time ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... how you live; you are a vagrant on the water—you have the reputation of a bad man—you live with us. Who will you make believe that you are ignorant ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... imagination peopled her path with merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life, where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements. In a "make believe" assembly of choice spirits everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives you the chance to say just what YOU want to say. Attended by this invisible company, Anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fir lane just ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of person. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Harry! Why, in all the world, should I make believe not well 'to get rid of it,' as you so elegantly express ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... mornin' that Minnie Bell was goin' to get married. My daughter is doing some sewing for her, and it slipped out that way. She was trying to keep it secret. Some girls is mighty funny that way. They will do anything to get engaged, and then they will lie like Sam Hill to make believe they ain't. Well, that makes a vacancy." He did not turn his head, but he cast a quick glance sideways at Farnham, who made no answer, and Pennybaker resumed: "So I thought I would come to you, honor bright, and see if we couldn't agree what to do. That's ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... awkward in a false position. It is absurd of you to fancy that I can think of you in any other light than that of a beautiful woman, gifted with more than your share of intellect. I prefer that our friendship should rest on this obvious fact. We are too old 'to make believe,' as children say. I came to this conclusion within an hour after I ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered—just as if some one had ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... sewing-machining in the next room; I have been pulling down their hair, and Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out. Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has gone to his lessons, and I make believe to write to you in despair. But there is nothing in my mind; I swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten nut; I shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away some part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Virgie, addressing her vis-a-vis with the hospitable courtesy due to so great a lady, "we are goin' to have some breakfas'." She paused, in a shade of doubt, then smiled a faint apology: "It isn't very much of a breakfas', darlin', but we'll make believe it's waffles an' chicken an'—an' hot rolls an' batter-bread an'—an' everything." She rose to her little bare feet, holding her wisp of a skirt aside, and made a sweeping bow. "Allow me, Miss Jemima, to make you a ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... twitched at her gown and pulled it down over her knees and brushed the crumbs off with energy. She continued, 'I can't abide people who everlastin' make believe they are put upon. Suppose I were allus a-hankering every foggy day after Great Oakhurst, and yet a-tellin' my daughter as I knew my place was here; if I was she, I should wish my mother ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... laughing the while, because she was so awkward a little dress-maker. There is her straw hat,—she made that oak-leaf wreath about the crown one bright summer day, as we sat on the soft moss in the cool fragrant wood. Nelly liked the woods. She liked to lie with her ear to the ground and make believe hear the fairies talk; she liked to look up in the tall trees, and see the bright-winged oriole dart through the branches; she liked to watch the clouds, and fancy that in their queer shapes she saw cities, and temples, and chariots, and people; she liked to ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... We can begin by asking the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... I never did know. Somewhere out West, we thought. I used to make believe the letters came from Helena, or Butte, because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. "And sometimes she'd be able to go out in the yard and fuss with her flowers, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... the 22d, with the Twentieth Corps, which laid its pontoon-bridge and crossed over during the 23d. Kilpatrick arrived the next day, in the midst of heavy rain, and was instructed to cross the Catawba at once, by night, and to move up to Lancaster, to make believe we were bound for Charlotte, to which point I heard that Beauregard had directed all his detachments, including a corps of Hood's old army, which had been marching parallel with us, but had failed ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Jean pleaded. "You remind me that I am quite uninteresting when I am trying to make believe that I am subtle, or 'subtile,' as the Psalmist says ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... me, shortly before, the chapters in which the Marchioness nurses Dick in his fever, and puts his favorite philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made believe it was wine. "If you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much flavor:" so it stood originally, and to the latter word in the little creature's mouth I seem to have objected. Replying (on the 16th of December) he writes, "'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice; ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "Now let us make believe that we've hoisted our sails on 'Mononday morn' and been in Noroway 'weeks but only twae,'" said our leading man; "and your time has come now," turning ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... riddles, Al. He's the only one's got the answers and when he gets ready enough maybe he'll tell 'em. Until then it'll pay us fo'mast hands to make believe we're busy, even if we ain't. Hear that, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Ivarsdale. He was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone. You must make believe that you are coming home." So he spun on, carelessly good-humored, as they ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... put a garland on my head and make believe I'm drunk, yes, and I'll climb out on the roof yonder (pointing to Amphitryon's house) and repel our returning hero in glorious style from up above there. I'll see that he's both soaked and sober. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... The mere fact that he celebrated it would make it right in spirit. It might be the 20th or the 30th of December, but if he chose to call it the 25th, the 25th it would be. Endowed so liberally with fancy and with such a power of projecting the mind, it was easy for him to make believe, to turn imagination into reality. And this power was heightened by his loneliness and isolation, and by the turning in of his mind so tremendously ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... revel long among such dreary slices of life. The Poe illustrations are grotesque and shuddering, but after all make believe. The plate of The Black Cat piles horror on horror's head (literally, for the demon cat perches on the head of the corpse) and is, all said, pictorial melodrama. The Berenice illustration is, we confess, a little too ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... where you sit, like the miserable little beetle you are! Now then.—Here, steady, Rajah!—Hold tight, Mister Archie! I am coming to you; but just you make a show of that other spear. You needn't get up, but make believe to be about to chuck it at him if ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... you are anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can't fool myself. Are you ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... take the snow man into the snow house?" Freddie wanted to know. "That'll be more fun than dolls. And we can make believe the snow house gets on fire, and I'll be a fireman and put it out. Oh, let's play that!" he cried, his eyes ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... matter. She was marvelously like the girl who "took a deep interest" and the rest of the formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time—only a very little time—to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania was his old love, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... turning quickly to his companion. "That would be just the idea. What great times we three could have, riding off into the open country! And we could go on exploring expeditions, too, and make believe we were cowboys and—and all ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... was at any rate as much disliked by her as by any one of the family. Mr. Harding, however, was by no means sufficiently a man of the world to conceal the blunder he had made. He could not pretend that he had entertained no suspicion; he could not make believe that he had never joined the archdeacon in his surmises. He was greatly surprised, and gratified beyond measure, and he could not help showing ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Get in!" shouted the cabman, excitedly. "Never mind the dust; I've turned it on to make believe we're ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... be moral, we should rather say that all true morality is art—that art is the test of morality. To attempt to make this heavenly Pegasus draw the sordid plough of our selfish moralistic prejudices is a grotesque subversion of true order. Why should the novelist make believe that the wicked are punished and the good are rewarded in this world? Does he not know, on the contrary, that whatsoever is basest in our common life tends irresistibly to the highest places, and that the selfish element in our nature is on the side of public ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... this year a year of sorrow Gridley!" he quivered indignantly. "I'll hang on, and make believe I'm meek as a lamb, but I'll spoil Gridley's record for this year! There was in olden times a chap who had a famous knack for getting square with people who used him the wrong way. I wish I could remember ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... anything funnier, and at the same time more provokingly stupid, dirty, and inefficient, than the tribe of black-faced heathen divinities and classicalities who make believe to wait upon us here,—the Dianas, Phillises, Floras, Caesars, et cetera, who stand grinning in wonderment and delight round our table, and whom I find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room, so great is their amusement and curiosity at my outlandish ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... European counterparts, so portions of their machinery appear to be without exact western equivalents. The stupendous transformations which now and then take place (see pp. 5, 148, 244) can reconcile themselves only to an oriental imagination. However much the occidental mind may attempt to "make believe," it cannot credit such a statement as that when the Bel-Princess died, her eyes turned into two birds, her heart into "a great tank," and her body into "a splendid palace and garden," her arms and legs becoming ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... they would soon let you know," answered Belle. "A cowboy isn't so polite as to make believe he likes a ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... explain to the chief, through the interpreter, that this was only a 'make believe' wedding; but the old savage shrugged his shoulders, and gave such a terrific 'Ugh!' that I was glad to make my peace by ordering another blanket. As we gave two performances per day, I was out of pocket $120 for twelve 'wedding blankets' ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... it up, tore it open, and flopped down on the sofa. Miss Jane snatched up an imaginary letter, tore it open (in imagination), and flopping down beside her sister, looked over her shoulder, apparently to make believe to herself that she read it along with her. Thus they read and commented on ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... a series of violent and altogether idiotical contortions of the face, that were very far from expressing what he intended. However, I knew what the poor fellow meant by it, so I smiled to him in return, and endeavoured to make believe that he was winking. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Zora, "to make believe you likes people when you don't, when you'se afeared of them and thinks they may rub off ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... life after dark, and make believe we are alive when no one sees us," explained the China Cat. "That is one of the things we are allowed to do. But as soon as daylight shines, or when any one comes into the store to look at us, we must turn back into toys that can move only ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... he; but the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny, for thy dogs have already gnawed their way through ten doors!" The little Tsar picked up the rottenest wood he could find and flung it on the fire, to make believe he was making haste, but sprinkled it at the same time with water, so that it might not burn up too quickly, and yet the kettle soon began to boil. Again he went to the forest for more wood, and the starling said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar, for ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... read delightful books. For you must know I can never get about or do things like other children. I draw and I paint over pictures, and I have an autoharp, and a beautiful big doll that I make believe is alive and we go traveling. Edith ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... no chance against Cochise? He's the only living creature that Cochise fears. Can't you see we must make believe—must keep up with him until we are rid of the Apaches? Bad as he is, he's a white man. Cochise is a—devil! When he tired of Blossom, he'd give ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... giver of the parcel is to remain unknown as long as possible, and even if the present is sent from one member of the family to another living in the same house the door-bell is always rung by the servant before she brings the parcel in, to make believe that it has come from some outsider; and if a parcel has to be taken to a friend's house it is very often entrusted to a passer-by, with the request to leave it at the door and ring the bell. In houses where there are many children, some of the elders dress up as the good Bishop ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... hell than any marriage without love, you left me without refuge: I had been trying not to face the truth, but I had to face it then. I came away in hell, and I have lived in hell ever since. I had tried to think it was a crazy fancy, and put it on my failing health; I used to make believe that some morning I should wake and find the illusion gone. I abhorred it from the beginning as I do now; it has been torment to me; and yet somewhere in my lost soul—the blackest depth, I dare say!—this shame has been so sweet,—it is so sweet,—the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing "make believe," very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, interesting, and attractive experience in his short ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... gave cabled instructions to have sent to me, so as to make believe that you were in America on the day of the races. A present, indeed! What humbug! The fact is, you didn't like to think of the poor fellow whom you had murdered. So you restored the money to the widow, publicly, of course, because you love playing to the gallery ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... spotted as not," affirmed the unimaginative Emma Jane. "I think it's an awful foolish word; but now we're all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? It's easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionarying because their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make believe be blacksmiths ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a low voice. "Sometimes I pretend I have gone off in a ship, and that I've found my father. I make believe that he and I are sailing together. And oh! how I ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... other, "when we were really hard up, she wanted me to let her try to earn money with her voice. She could, you know! But do you think I'd allow it? Sooner I'll fry the soles of my boots and make believe they're beefsteak!—Look at her, and remember her when you're seeking for a wife of your own. Never mind if you have to wait; it's worth it. When it comes to wives, the best or none! That's ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... could be the prisoner, and the other the barrister who defends him. I'd better be the barrister, because I know more about English law than Selwyn does. And the furniture'll have to be the other counsel and the gentlemen of the jury. Sit over there, Charlie, near that railing, and we'll make believe it's the bar. The only trouble is the barrister will have no gown and wig. ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life—not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half-hours of strength ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... all around their village and near their nestlings are bespangled with myriads of dewdrops. The cocks crow vigorously, and strut and ogle; the kids gambol and leap on the backs of their dams quietly chewing the cud; other goats make believe fighting. Thrifty wives often bake their new clay pots in a fire, made by lighting a heap of grass roots: the next morning they extract salt from the ashes, and so two birds are killed with one stone. The beauty of this morning scene of peaceful ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the neighbours proposed to heap fuel about the cabinet and to burn it the Kazi bawled out to them, "Do it not!" And they said to one another, "Verily the Jinn make believe to be mortals and speak with men's voices." Thereupon the Kazi repeated somewhat of the Sublime Koran and said to the neighbours, "Draw near to the cabinet wherein we are." So they drew near, and he said, "I am so and so the Kazi, and ye are such an one and such an one, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... teaches us that we cannot know anything of God, duty, or immortality; and that faith means, taking for granted on some outward authority. To use a striking expression of President James Walker, "We are not to believe, but to make believe." That is, we are not to believe with our intellect, but with our will. Or, in other words, we are to believe not what is true, but what is expedient. This he calls regulative truth, as opposed to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... that feminine ingenuity and a case-knife could compass, not forgetting a bird for Janey, with a remarkably plump bill, and a little girl for Mary, with the toes turned out. She also made some balls of brown sugar (the Boyds never thought of such a luxury as white sugar), to make believe candy, for she didn't know Jack had ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... We've improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields—there was another rush at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN CASSEROLE. If you make believe very hard you might possible imagine it young venison.... Here, Kuppi!' The Malay boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on the table between the fire and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet 'Tis known that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be, that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:— And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on To make believe that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this alter'd size: But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but Thought: so think I will That Youth and I are ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Stevenson, usually called Bob, visited them; a great treat for Louis, not only because his ill health kept him from making many companions of his own age, but because Bob loved many of the same things he did and to "make believe" was as much a part of his life as Louis's. Many fine games they had together; built toy theatres, the scenery and characters for which they bought for a "penny plain and twopence colored," and were never tired of dressing up. One of their chief delights, he says, ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... instead of the children receiving, as they had been accustomed to do, all the spare cake and all the roasted apples, they only had some sand given them in a tea-cup, and were told that they might make believe that was something good. The next week the Queen took the little sister Eliza into the country, to a peasant and his wife; and but a short time had elapsed before she told the King so many falsehoods about the poor Princes that he did not trouble ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... buried treasure, turtles' eggs, and guano, with his body-guard of Zouaves and his Grand Cross of Trinidad, certainly possessed many things that Harden-Hickey lacked. But they in turn lacked the things that made him happy; the power to "make believe," the love of romance, the touch of adventure that ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... we can make believe that the queen has sent them off, so as not to scare Pocahontas; that's what they call poetical license," said Polly. "Jean can see about that. There are lots of splendid things to wear, right here in this garret. Don't you suppose ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... operative in the mind, though no longer with the vividness of primitive times; when some of them still hold together, but for the most part they are decaying and falling to pieces, and are only like the faded rags of a once splendid robe which a child may gather round its puny form and make believe for the moment that it is a king. To the genuine credulity of the South-Sea Islander, and to the conscious make-believe of the Arab story-teller and the peasant who repeats the modern maerchen, all things are possible. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... a decent, healthy boy, or if you can make believe that you once were such a boy, you must remember that you were once in love with a girl a great deal older than yourself. I am not speaking of the big school-girl with whom you thought you were in love, for one little while—just because she wouldn't ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... manner, to take a chew of tobacco. "No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out—seems like, by granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now, she knows might' well she can't fool me. I've hearn Man swear ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... naturally. Make believe there is something up—some joke that we are going to keep Janice ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... arm stiff; but that his idea to blush really dilates the blood-vessels of his cheek is much less open to our causal understanding; still less that in very exceptional cases perhaps a part of the skin becomes inflamed, if we make believe that we touch it with a glowing iron. And yet here too we see that we move in the same direction and that we have to explain these exceptional and bewildering results by comparing them with the simpler and simpler forms, that the process of attention contains all the germs ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... buttered toast," said Nurse Rosemary; "and don't tell me any more naughty stories about the duchess. No! That is the thin bread-and-butter. I told you you would lose your bearings. The toast is in a warm plate on your right. Now let us make believe I am Miss Champion, and hand it to me, as nicely as you will be handing it to her, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... feeling, but you were inspiring to look at—though now that the scales have fallen from my eyes I wonder at my infatuation—and I continued to worship you as a goddess on a pedestal. I used to say to Gregory, 'there's a couple who are to the manner born; they never have to make believe. They are genuinely free and gentle souls.' Your husband? I can't believe that I have been deluded in regard to him, also. I just wonder if you appreciate him—if it is possible that he has been deluded, also. That's rank impertinence, I know; but after all, we are unbosoming our thoughts ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... not often done to him. He saw a long way, but he did not make believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it. A rare virtue ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom, And wanly make believe Against the general doom, For me the earth you leave Shall be for ever but a haunted room; Yea! though my heart beat on a little space, When thou art strangely gone To thy far hiding-place, Soon shall I follow on, Out-footing ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... were surprised the next day by our black cook from Sierra Leone bearing in a second course. "What have you got there?" was asked in wonder. "A tart, sir." "A tart! of what is it made?" "Of cabbage, sir." As we had no sugar, and could not "make believe," as in the days of boyhood, we did not enjoy the feast that Tom's genius had prepared. Her Majesty's brig "Persian," Lieutenant Saumarez commanding, called on her way to the Cape; and, though somewhat ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... be better to only pretend it's night in the woods," agreed Bully. "We can go in a dark place under the trees, and make believe it's night, and that ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Mrs. Somers, laying hold of the elbow of the suggestive coat, "what do you mean by keeping Mr. Linden and yourself back here. That's the way with you young men—stand off and gaze at a safe distance, and then make believe you're fire proof." ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... looking at the triangle of elastic in the teacher's congress boot, and tired of wishing it was his instead of hers, he would tie one end of a bit of thread to the button of his gingham shirt, and, carrying it round his left ear several times, make believe he was Paganini languishing in prison and playing on a violin with ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that be not a whit the more deserving of honour. I blush to say this, for in censuring others I condemn myself. Tricked out, bedecked, bedizened thus, we are either silent and impassive as statues, or, if we answer aught that is said to us, much better were it we had held our peace. And we make believe, forsooth, that our failure to acquit ourselves in converse with our equals of either sex does but proceed from guilelessness; dignifying stupidity by the name of modesty, as if no lady could be modest ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... threadbare and their shoes into holes for him, and left wife and children, and melted their silver and squandered their gold for him—those are the men who love his memory dearest, and for whose poor sakes we of the younger generation must make believe to think him ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... at last, let down among us sinners!—a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners about our sins! Powerful holy critter, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious,—didn't you never hear, out of yer Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body and soul?" he said, giving Tom ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to say to Rudyard except what could be said upon the surface, before all the world, as it were; things which must be said through an atmosphere of artificial sounds, which would give no response to the agonized cries of the sentient soul. She could make believe before the world, but not alone with Rudyard. She shrank within herself at the idea ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... appeal to me for help. He was out of a job, and I told him I'd blow him to the supper of his life if he would render up the secrets of his trade. He took my offer, but jarred me by confessing that the professor really could hypnotize him. He had to make believe only part of the time. ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the voices of my fellow-boarders, "be a good fellow and sing us one of the old chap's songs; or at least something or other of that day, and we'll make believe it was the air with which he ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... beautiful razor! oh my! how sharp it is! Uncle James shaves with it every morning. I'll tell you a first-rate play, Horace. I will be a barber, and you shall come to me to be shaved. You know I will only make believe; I won't ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... permission we shall, while these lessons continue, make believe that teacher and pupil are together in a class-room, or, better still, in a country workshop, with chips flying in all directions under ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to that of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... "I'm going to make believe that I'm one of them," the lonely child said to herself, smiling as she caught a friendly nod from Betty. So she listened eagerly to Mr. Forbes's account of their visit to Venice, and to the volcano of Vesuvius, and laughed with the others ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... God's will! Are you sure it isn't the devil's?" said Fothergill. "It seems more like it. If you think it is God's will, you may persuade yourself it's yours, for aught I know. But I'm not such a damned hypocrite as to make believe it's mine." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways of forming a mind—to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... gloss, put false coloring upon; color, varnish, cook, dress up, embroider; varnish right and puzzle wrong; exaggerate &c 549; blague^. invent, fabricate; trump up, get up; force, fake, hatch, concoct; romance &c (imagine) 515; cry 'wolf!'. dissemble, dissimulate; feign, assume, put on, pretend, make believe; play possum; play false, play a double game; coquet; act a part, play a part; affect &c 855; simulate, pass off for; counterfeit, sham, make a show of; malinger; say the grapes are sour. cant, play the hypocrite, sham Abraham, faire pattes de ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... gallantry. He laid the letter down and picked it up again. He studied the postmark over and over. He got up and walked to the window and back again, and then began fumbling in his pockets for his knife. No, he did not want it; yes, he did. He would just cut the envelope and make believe he had read it to pique his wife; but he would not read it. Yes, that was it. He found the knife and slit the paper. His fingers trembled as he touched the sheets that protruded. Why would not Leslie come? Did she ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... in which the Captain tried to make believe that the cause of these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The pipe soon getting into better condition, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... easy," said Naason, "to make believe before the foolish mob; it is another thing to stand before ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... of the front door while the servants were busy in the dining-room about the breakfast. She hailed a passing hansom, and in this, to the poor child, novel conveyance, she was whirled safely to Cheiron's little hotel in Jermyn Street, and Priscilla returned to her room, to make believe that her ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... as occupied by the tenant of Rannoch; and, further, when I came to examine the list of guests at the castle, I found that they were really persons unknown in society. They were merely of that class of witty, well-dressed parasites who always cling on to the wealthy and make believe that they are smart and of the grande monde. Rannoch was an expensive place to keep up, with all that big retinue of servants and gamekeepers, and with those nightly dinners cooked by a French chef; yet Leithcourt ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... mean you're hard-hearted—for you ain't. You've pulled me and a dozen other girls out of the hole lots of times. But you're independent. Can't you take me along? I can drop that bum across the hall. I don't give a hoot for him. But a girl's got to make believe she cares for somebody or she'd blow ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... he would make believe he wanted to buy their house and lot, and the lots adjoining them, and that his intentions were to build a stave and barrel factory. He had been foreman in such a factory, and could talk ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... the sports of the white. Just as their fathers find joy in a greasy, blackened, imperfect pack of cards, throwing them down with significant gestures, but in absolutely perfect ignorance of the rules of any game or capacity to appreciate any number greater than three—so do the children make believe to play cricket with a ball worlds away from a sphere (for it is none other than a pandanus drupe), and a bat of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... all that and lots of other things—just to make believe. Then they came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... deliberate break with truth causes a real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four suddenly to assert that they saw ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... I come for. My breath and brains is clean gone this mornin'. I wonder if Miss Puss Jenkins is home? I think I'll just step up the street and ask her if she's got any more of them missionary aprons to sell." She winked at Mr. Blick. "Ain't folks funny? And don't we have to make believe a lot in life? Miss Puss has told so many people she makes aprons for her missionary money that she believes it sure enough. I make out I believe it, too. It helps her feelin's and pays your bills. She says ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason it away,—a great deal more than I should think they would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... is good for the mental and physical health of both old and young to be lifted, once in a while, out of the world of reality into that of the imagination. All children and young people like to play, to act, to make believe. This is a part of their life, and it is conducive to their mental and social welfare to express themselves in simple plays or to see life in its various phases presented dramatically ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... is the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must "make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of which many authors appear to be insensible. Perhaps they suffer ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the holiday itself, unreasonable persons are not lacking to point out that it is of the busman's variety. It is true that we are no longer face to face with the foe, but we—or rather, the authorities—make believe that we are. We wage mimic warfare in full marching order; we fire rifles and machine-guns upon improvised ranges; we perform hazardous feats with bombs and a dummy trench. More galling still, we are back in the region of squad-drill, physical ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... means the interest of certain towns and districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many. Banknotes rob the public, but are such a daily convenience that we silence our scruples, and make believe they are gold. So imposts are the cheap and right taxation; but by the dislike of people to pay out a direct tax, governments are forced to render life costly by making them pay twice as much, hidden in the price of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... if you are." Just as if Sally had been talking all this for her own private satisfaction and amusement! And she knew perfectly well, Laetitia did, that she had been eliciting, and that she meant to wait a day or two, and begin again ever so far on, and make believe Sally had said heaps of things. And Sally had ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... beasts and birds talking. Now we begin to feel that human nature is quite enough, and that the best an author can do is to show it as it is. But in those stories of his Dickens said to his readers, Let us make believe so-and- so; and the result was a joint juggle, a child's-play, in which the wholesome allegiance to life was lost. Artistically, therefore, the scheme was false, and artistically, therefore, it must perish. It did not perish, however, before it had propagated ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... frankly stated that he, like every one else, had been guilty in the matter; but he insisted that he uttered the sentiments of the decent railway men of the country when he said that he hoped the practice would be stopped, and that if I would really stop it, and not merely make believe to stop it, he would give the testimony which would put into the hands of the Government the power to put a complete check to the practice. Accordingly he testified, and on the information which he ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... found a key that did fit it. They kept me very short," said the small servant, "so I used to come out at night after they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark, for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches, or even pieces of orange-peel to put into cold water, and make believe it was wine. If you make believe very much, it's quite nice," continued the small servant; "but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning! Well, one or two nights before the young man was took, I come upstairs while Mr. Brass ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... well to see you married. Truly we women must marry, or be nothing at all. But as to marrying for love, as we used to think of, and as charming poets make believe—my dear, now-a-days, nous avons change ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik |
