"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... next week," she wrote, "though what possible benefit can accrue from our returning I cannot pretend to say. Either home is distasteful to me; so is the rest of the world; so are the people in it. Enviable condition, is it not? I seem to be afflicted with a sort of dreadful mental indigestion. Everything ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... very distinctly. "I've got a tip for you. Pretend that you want to make something like the gadget that stops winds and warms places. ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... as they pretend to sleep, are crazy for their coffee," she smiled, "but they've got to wait, like people at a circus do, till the animals are fed. The older folks get, the earlier they go to bed and the earlier they rise. Heaven only knows where it will end. If ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... prosecuting attorney, there was always some son, son-in-law or nephew, fitted by domestic training, by a technical apprenticeship, by moral adaptation, not only to perform the duties of the office, but to be contented in it, pretend to nothing beyond it, not to look above himself with regret or envy, satisfied with the society around him, and feel, moreover, that elsewhere he would be out ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fact that the voyager learns to take an exquisite, but quite rational, delight in the mere act of eating. I know that I ought to speak as though dinner were an ignoble institution; I know that the young lady who said, "Thanks—I rarely eat," represented a class who pretend to devote themselves to higher joys; but I decline to talk cant on any terms, and I say that the healthy, hearty hunger bestowed by the open sea is one of ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... it will be years before either of them is as young. But it is quite a minute before we suspect this; we must look the other way while the Colonel dries her tears. He is quite a grizzled veteran, and is trying hard to pretend that having done without his children for so many years, a few minutes more is no great matter. His adorable Alice is this man's one joke. Some of those furrows in his brow have come from trying to understand her, he owes the agility ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... generalizations, but only that these generalizations must necessarily be relative to a given form of civilization and a given stage of social advancement. This, we apprehend, is what no political economist would deny. None of them pretend that the laws of wages, profits, values, prices, and the like, set down in their treatises, would be strictly true, or many of them true at all, in the savage state (for example), or in a community composed of masters and slaves. But they do think, with good reason, that ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... funny here," he said. "But, no matter what happens, pretend you think it's all right. Let anyone who speaks to us think we're foolish—it'll be easier for us to get away then. And keep your eyes wide open, if we stop anywhere, so that you will be sure to know the ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... do things a thousand times more useful, Sally. I don't pretend to compare with you in the useful arts, and I am only a bungler in ornamental ones. Sally, I feel like a useless little creature. If I could go round as you can, and do business, and make bargains, and push ahead in the world, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... have been in a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia against the authority and laws of the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John Letcher, and William Smith were late the respective chiefs, are declared null and void. All persons who shall exercise, claim, pretend, or attempt to exercise any political, military, or civil power, authority, jurisdiction, or right by, through, or under Jefferson Davis, late of the city of Richmond, and his confederates, or under John Letcher or William Smith and their confederates, or under any pretended political, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... just as soft hearted as I am, feyther, every bit, so don't pretend you are not;" and indeed upon the previous day Luke Marner had broken down even more completely than Mary. He had followed the funeral at a short distance, keeping with Mary aloof from the crowd; but when all was over, and the churchyard was left in quiet again, Luke ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... how you say that in French," said Lucile, her eyes merry. "If they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn't understand." ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... seem to have obtained a majority.—For, of the four hundred deputies who have their seats in the center, one hundred and sixty-four are inscribed on the rolls with them at the Feuillants club, while the rest, under the title of "Independents," pretend to be of no party.[2225] Besides, the whole of these four hundred, through monarchical traditions, respect the King; timid and sensible, violence is repugnant to them. They distrust the Jacobins, dread what is unknown, desire to be loyal to the Constitution ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... following pithy proposition:—"I know well," said he, "it is the custom of the fathers of this old and honourable republic, ripely and well to consider all their proceedings over a proper allowance of liquor; and far be it from me to propose the breach of so laudable a custom, or to pretend that such an affair as the present can be well and constitutionally considered during the discussion of a pitiful gallon of Rhenish. But, as it is the same thing to this honourable conclave whether they drink first and determine afterwards, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... not pretend to desire it. I am not false to my own people. But the fact remains that you are coming to the front, and we are falling behind. And the sooner you get to the front, the better it will be for the ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... I began, "I am quite ashamed." "Oh, you are, are you?" was the rejoinder. "I should rather think you ought to be, too. But it's always the way with you fellows who pretend to be steady and moral, and all that sort of thing: when you do find a chance of getting into mischief, you're worse a great deal than a man like myself, for instance, who, without being bothered with any particular principles of any kind, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... would bowl me out. All that I knew I had picked up colloquially while interned at Sennelager, and although it was adequate to enable me to hold a general conversation, it was hopelessly insufficient for commercial purposes. Consequently I decided to pretend ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Enemy, when drove into the inward Fort, were expos'd to our Fire from those Places we were possess'd of, in case they offer'd to make any Sally, or other Attempt against us. Thus we every Moment became better and better prepar'd against any Effort of the Garrison. And as they could not pretend to assail us without evident Hazard; so nothing remain'd for us to do, till we could bring up our Artillery and Mortars. Now it was that the General sent for the thousand Men under Brigadier Stanhope's Command, which he had posted at a Convent, ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... West we don't pretend to go out in such a storm," remarked Cora Dartmore. "But, of course, our distances are greater, and we have so few landmarks that it is an easy thing ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... moments' pause, "it's Nature's fault for making a fellow like this. I don't want to be a coward; I want to be as brave as brave—well, as brave as Murray is. I wouldn't care if I was just as full of pluck as he is. Anyhow I won't be a sham and go and pretend that some one is coming. I could never look him in the eyes again for fancying that he was reading me through and through. And he would—I'm ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... many fine things here; in particular, this Dutch cabinet, with heavy brass mountings. Send it to my residence. And that Venetian mirror with the silver frame will match the silver sconces you sold me at the New Year. I do not pretend to be a judge, but these things are surely extremely handsome. Pray, sir, let us see the Moorish leather that William Walton has reserved for his new house. I hear you are to have the ordering of the carpets and tapestries. You ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... the cafes, where perhaps the captains might have been, he left Archangel in sadness, determined to skirt the coast towards Onega. He would thus pass the celebrated monastery without the necessity of stopping, and pretend that he was proceeding to Novgorod and Moscow on the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the old religions, he says that it is a most flagrant fallacy to suppose that modern ages have a monopoly of scientific discovery. The greatest discoveries are not those of modern ages. 'No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra, or language. What are the most brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of fire and the metals?' Hipparchus ranks with the Keplers and Newtons; and Copernicus was but the champion of Pythagoras. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... in the trap, let him be battered to death... Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces, mansions, and chateaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will be the recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will be conquered in turn. The nation shall ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... teeth, naturally they could not have the toothache, and if they could furnish amusement for Marcella by having her pretend they had the toothache, then ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... above all, one is now able to observe how each side blundered on in a blind, desperate way, sacrificing masses of human life without a clear vision of the consequences, until at last one side blundered more than another and was lost. It will be impossible to pretend in history that our High Command, or any other, foresaw the thread of plot as it was unraveled to the end, and so arranged its plan that events happened according to design. The events of March, 1918, were not foreseen ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... at a glance what it is; but we pretend to read it through. It was one of them old time typewritten green goods letters explaining how for $1,000 you could get $5,000 in bills that an expert couldn't tell from the genuine; and going on to tell how they were ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... After all, it couldn't do any harm—Hilary would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to have some definite basis ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... last fight only a repetition of the first. Oh, I have heard it all a thousand times. They tell me too of their last-born: the clever thing the darling child said yesterday, and how much more wonderful or witty or quaint it is than any child that ever was born before. And I have to pretend to be surprised, delighted, interested; though the last child is like the first, and has said and done nothing that did not delight Adam and me when you and Abel said it. For you were the first children in the world, and filled us with such wonder ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... "I feel so responsible for getting you home safely, and it would be sneaking, you know, to pretend we'd been simply trolley-riding when we'd been ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of figures the extreme length of the skull is given in inches and decimals. I am aware that these measurements pretend to greater accuracy than is possible; but I have found it the least trouble to record the exact length which the compass gave. The second and third columns give the length and weight of body, whenever these observations were made. The fourth column ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... was in your voice and your eyes. That moment has come back to me a thousand times since; has been with me in the thick of battle, singing through my ears as the bullets whistled past. 'I love you now, and from the first moment you ever looked at me.' It is no use to pretend you did not mean those words then. I know in my heart you did. You were bound in some way, no doubt, and fancied you had no right to say them. The announcement of your engagement suggested that. But you are free now, or you would not be here, and I ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... you superstitious, Roddy? Of course you are: and so are all of us who pretend that we are not. . . . Monte Carlo is the hell of a hole. I had never seen it before: but as I went into the Casino, all of a sudden I had a queer recollection—of a breakfast-party at Cambridge in young La Touche's rooms, in King's (he was killed in the South African War), and of his saying ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... getting away at once, having to respond to the hubbub of acclamation, to speak yet again, to thank his electors individually and collectively, to chaff the Tories without cheap elation, to be carried hither and yon, and above all to pretend that the interest of the business was now greater for him than ever. If he had said never a word after putting himself in Julia's hands to go home it was partly perhaps because the consciousness had begun to glimmer ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... from my errand. I won't pretend that I've come of my own accord. I'm a very old friend of Mr. Allerton's, and he's asked me—or practically asked me—to ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge, and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world, and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... desert we saw numbers of elephants' teeth, but no animals. How the teeth came there, unless it were that the elephants were lost in attempting to cross the desert, I cannot pretend to say. Before we had crossed the desert, our water was expended, and we suffered dreadfully from thirst, walking as we did during the whole day under a vertical sun. The night was equally painful, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... sure. I'm going to 'play pretend,' as children say, that I'm just as young as any of you. In my busy life I've not had much time for 'playing' but I mean to make up for lost time. Come, I'm sure that Wun Sing has made something ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... oil-cloth cut the shape of soles and fastened with tape, but the dust gets into your toes so, and we decided boots were better for such a long walk. Some of the pilgrims who were very earnest decided to tie their boots with white tape crossed outside to pretend sandals. Denny was one of these earnest palmers. As for dresses, there was no time to make them properly, and at first we thought of nightgowns; but we decided not to, in case people in Canterbury were not used to that sort of pilgrim ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... Strait was one of the most important articles of my instructions which had been executed only in part; and although I could not pretend to make any regular survey in the Porpoise, it was yet desirable to pass again through the strait, and lay down as many more of its dangers as circumstances would admit; and this being represented to governor King, the following paragraph was made an article ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... cheek; her eyes, like gray stars now that they were less anxious, went to my head a little, I suppose. Oh, yes, she was lovely. Of course that was a factor. If she had been past her first youth and skimpy as to hair, and dowdy, I don't pretend that I should ever have mixed myself up in ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... "DEAR MAMMA,—If we pretend that this note comes to you from papa at the Palais, and that he wants us both to dine with his friend because proposals have been renewed—then the cousin will go, and we can carry out our plan of going ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... same time forgot very sincerely an hundred texts which made directly against them. I had more sense than to contest with him, since there is no possibility of convincing an enthusiast. A man should never pretend to inform a lover of his mistress's faults, no more than one who is at law, of the badness of his cause; nor attempt to win over a fanatic by strength of reasoning. Accordingly I waived ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... have some appearance of indistinctness, because he is defective in the vowel-points; but we cannot help it, for all our books are unpointed. In this, which, indeed, we consider a matter of little importance, we do not pretend to compete with the Jews, who teach theirs from pointed books. If your sublime highness ever heard a bear read more articulately than this one, it must have been one of theirs; and if you would have your own perfected ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... wouldn't be back here this summer. You know me well enough, Jenny Wren, to know that you can't hurt me with your tongue, sharp as it is, so you may as well save your breath to tell me a few things I want to know. Now if you are as fond of the Old Orchard as you pretend to be, why ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... like all the other men she had ever known; apparently none of them could be simple and sincere; she supposed it had been his way of condescending to her, to pretend that he was poor and in similar circumstances to herself; perhaps he had guessed that she would never have allowed him to pay for her supper or tea, or have talked to her as he had done, if she had known him to ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... had not before, or whether the being conversant in high matters, and called to a destiny beyond that of other men, had a natural effect in giving becoming confidence to his language and manner, we pretend not to determine. But it was evident to all, that, from this day, young Halbert was an altered man; that he acted with the steadiness, promptitude, and determination, which belonged to riper years, and bore himself with a manner which appertained to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Try all your Friends, and find out the best and nearest to your Heart, That done, be sure to kill him for my sake. This fail not to do, if you respect and Love (as you pretend.) ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... leave off caring for me came to me like a great shock. I had never thought of it like that; I had always fancied that whatever I did I could keep Didier devoted to me; I had amused myself with picturing my return from Paris quite a grand lady, and how I would pretend to be changed to Didier, just to tease him. But now something in his manner showed me this would not do; if I defied him and my friends now, he would no longer care for me. Yet—would you believe it, my little young ladies ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... my tongue for this! I don't know what fiends possessed me to be such an unmitigated ass! It was as unfair as poison—an insult to the only precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud of: the code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have been making a silly joke she brushed away my contrition ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... that happened—if that unthinkably awful thing came to pass, she made up her mind, here and now, never to say anything. She also would pretend to be amazed, shocked, unutterably ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... seemed no base thought in any mind, only that cleanness, that wholesomeness that had so appealed to Marvin—that somehow Madison found he was taking a delight in responding to, and, because it afforded him whimsical pleasure, chose to pretend that he was quite a genuine exponent ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... incipient manufactures and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted during the war. The Southern States, which have no manufactures to encourage, and which are exclusively agricultural, soon complained of this measure. Such were the simple facts, and I do not pretend to examine in this place whether their complaints were well founded ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... humour, the only thing to do is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, "Life is real, life is earnest," and then goes into a room and stuffs alien ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... minute received your cipher dispatch of to-day, which I have just answered and sent down to the telegraph-office, and the clerk is just engaged in copying my letter to the President to go with this. If the President or his friends pretend that I seek to go to Washington, it will be fully rebutted by letters I have written to the President, to you, to John Sherman, to Mr. Ewing, and to Mr. Stanbery. You remember that in our last talk ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... capable of bearing arms was forced to assume them, and again, as in 1807, the young men disappeared as rabbits underground. It is quite possible that the peasants, who have found these refuges so convenient in the past, should know more about them and where they are situated than they pretend, thinking that at some future time, another revolution or another German invasion, the knowledge may ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... I understand you, sir. There must be some, who, wanting a relish for refined pleasures, pretend to despise what they are ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... making jocular allusion to the spread of the recognition of the Jewish sabbath. In his ninth satire he describes himself as being buttonholed by a bore, and, seeing a friend pass by, as begging the latter to pretend business with him and so relieve him of his trouble. His friend mischievously excuses himself from talking ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... went on Felix, "was, that age and habit, vested interests, culture and security sit so heavy on this country's chest, that aspiration may wriggle and squirm but will never get from under. That, for all we pretend to admire enthusiasm and youth, and the rest of it, we push it out of us just a little faster than it grows up. Is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... certainly was you, sir, who advised me to make more of the scene between Deborah and the old gentleman in the last act. As you know, it is now the great scene in the play. You will not pretend to deny—" ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... his cousin, "wouldn't it be a lark to pretend to make a good shot, and knock that lamp over." He pointed as he spoke to one of the flaring oil lamps which, fastened to a stake a few feet above the ground, illuminated ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... hard to please," he said, "who would not be enticed to eat by such a display of good victuals. Tea for me, before everything!—How am I to pretend to swallow the stuff?" he murmured, rather than muttered, to himself.—"But," he went on aloud, "didn't that ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... some theologians who are not only opposed to such a cult, but who go the length of saying that the phenomena and messages come from fiends who personate our dead, or pretend to be heavenly teachers. It is difficult to think that those who hold this view have ever had any personal experience of the consoling and uplifting effect of such communications upon the recipient. Ruskin has left it on record that his conviction of a future life came from Spiritualism, ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... consequence that men should not acquire the habit of opposing. No earthly advantage would arise to Ireland from ceding what is retained, where so much has been already yielded up. Indeed the Catholic gentry do not pretend that the granting the immunities they require would tranquillise the country, but only that it would remove from men of honour all pretext for countenancing them. This is on the principle of the solicitor ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... when mother used to play with us. Then she put her back to the rock, and we both attacked her at once from opposite sides, each trying to get hold of a hind-leg just above the foot. If she put her head down to pretend to bite either of us, the other jumped for her ear. Sometimes we would each get hold of an ear, and hang on as hard as we could, while she pretended we were hurting her dreadfully, growling and shaking her head, ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... without a struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly prized by the peasants. ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... ez oncet was, I mean! Mary Ellen—your wife ez is to be," said Byers, with deep irony. "Oh, come now. Pretend ye don't know! Hi there! Hands off! Don't strike a man when he's ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... and the pork so damnified, being so soaked in bilge water during the transportation from Europe, that they were not fit to be eaten by human creatures, and when they were eaten were very unwholesome. Such bread and pork as they would not pretend to give to their own countrymen they gave to our poor sick ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... "You don't pretend to tell me, do ye, that the Smyrna Ancients are afraid to have one of their own citizens as a referee?" demanded the brisk little man suspiciously. "If that's so, then there must be something decayed ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... lies my foible, I confess; no fortifications, no courage, conduct, nor vigilancy, can pretend to defend a place where the cruelty of the governor forces the garrison ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... said at last. "I don't believe in you. There is a mystery here. You pretend you know me and yet you act as if you were afraid of me—just like a common bird who is made of nothing but feathers. I don't believe you are Tweetie at all. You ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that his bile was raised by this parade and display in a lad, who was very shortly to be, and ought three weeks before to have been, shrinking from his frown. Nevertheless, Sawbridge was a good-hearted man, although a little envious of luxury, which he could not pretend to indulge in himself. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... be seen, is a tradition of the robbers who pretend to have been blessed by Christ. St. Peter is the hero of several stories, in which he plays anything but a dignified role. In one (Pitre, No. 122), he is sent to buy some wine, and allows himself to be persuaded by the wine merchant ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... try to pretend that you were expecting this all the time. You know you never thought of it," Ruth cried, slipping her hand through her brother's arm, and giving ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... pretend to be a complete bibliography of Socialism or Communism. It contains the titles of all the works which have fallen under my own observation relating to the Communistic Societies now existing in the United States, and referred to in this book. Most of these are in my own collection; a few I found ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... this village, if I say that I require coal, coal is here, and with it the Buergermeister inquiring politely if my needs are satisfied. We must have beds? The spare beds of the village are forthcoming. If we want baths for the men, our Mr. Carfax, who speaks a language which the inhabitants pretend to understand, goes round to the householders and explains the necessity. Should there be any difficulty he explains further that it would be much better, don't they think, and much more convenient if the men visited the houses, rather than that baths should be carried to some central place? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... could not see that she was taking part with himself against the devil; that it was not the cup she was anxious about, but the life of her master. What if she should acquaint the earl's lawyer with all she knew! He would be dragged into public daylight! He could not pretend ignorance concerning the identity of the chalice! that would be to be no antiquarian, while Dawtie would bear witness that he had in his possession a book telling all about it! But the girl would never of herself ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... have," Albert Edward went on. "They're wonders; pretend they're in mid-ocean all the time, stuck in the mud on the Beaucourt Ridge, gummed in the clay at Souchez—anywhere. They 'come aboard' a trench and call their records-office—a staid and solid bourgeois dwelling in Havre—H.M.S. Victory. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... meaning of the word "fear," but the bursting shells produced a disagreeable impression on him. "Does it always go on like that?" he asked, when he heard the vicious hammer of the enemy's Maxim. "Yes," somebody gloomily answered, "it always goes on like that, till at length we pretend to like it, and that we should feel ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... every word I say. There is a law as old as Germany that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducal chair before she hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people, SHE SHALL DIE! So heed my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your judgments from the Premier's chair, which stands at the foot of the throne. Do this until you are crowned and safe. It is not likely that your sex will ever be discovered; but still it is the part of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... swarmed below again, closed the hatch, and submerged. Tom took his time in bringing the jet pumps up to speed. "Wonder if we should pretend to proceed on course, or turn around and head for home?" ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... lad. He may pretend to some right of that natur', but he is so far away that his claim will never trouble old Tom Hutter, who has got possession, and is like to keep it as long as his life lasts. Tom is no squatter, not being on land; I ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Baptist church, and there bipedal brutes with beards, creatures who have thus far succeeded in dodging the insane asylum, whom an inscrutable Providence has kept out of the penitentiary to ornament the amen-corner—many of whom do not pretend to pay their bills—some of whom owe me for the very meat upon the bones of their scorbutic brats—branded me as a falsifier while solemnly protesting that they had never read a line of my paper. They proclaimed in stentor ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... modern sycophants, would pretend that their hero was the inventor of German unity. Passionately, though not over-wisely, had that ideal been striven after and suffered for by the best patriots in various parts of Fatherland, their vision becoming hazy just as often as they attempted to combine ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... to Mexicalsingo, where there is a cave in which there is a figure of our Saviour, which they pretend ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... in suspense as to my meaning." He seemed to be speaking to Dunham, but he was really thinking aloud, and Dunham waited for some sort of question before he spoke. "But it's a great satisfaction to have had it out with myself. I haven't got to pretend any more that I hang about her, and look at her, and go mooning round after her, for this no-reason and that; I've got the best reason in the world for playing the fool,—I'm in love!" He drew a long, deep breath. "It simplifies matters immensely to have reached the point of acknowledging ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... care of. All of a sudden Peter remembered his stomach; and his wits, which had been sharpened by twenty years' struggle against a hostile world, realized in a flash the opportunity which fate had brought to him. He must pretend to be wounded, badly wounded; he must be unconscious, suffering from shock and shattered nerves; then they would take him to the hospital and put him in a soft bed and give him things to eat—maybe he might stay there for weeks, and they might give him ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... have told you," she replied. "They will come tonight and kill you while you sleep. Find me pistols and a rifle and ammunition and we will pretend that we go into the jungle to hunt. That you have done often. Perhaps it will arouse suspicion that I accompany you but that we must chance. And be sure my dear Herr Lieutenant to bluster and curse and abuse your servants unless they note a change in your manner and realizing your fear know that ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... contribute thereto. We remain still in the same mind; we desire to see the same brotherly love to each other among those Churches: but how hard a business this is of settling a peace among those sons of peace, as they pretend themselves, we understand, to our great grief, only too abundantly. For it is hardly to be hoped that those of the Reformed and those of the Augustan confession will ever coalesce into the communion of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... had again sent the young prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king's death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction [h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his father's affections; but being indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his education; and he had already ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... least explain the system any more than the discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the watch itself. So far from dispensing with "the activities of a guiding power," Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation, since it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the "law" came into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how they happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind never seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... Kolb's idea to go to the bailiff, to pretend to be willing to betray his master, and in this way to discover the traps which would be laid for David. Kolb told the servant who opened the door that he wanted to speak to M. Doublon on business. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... view that petals are modified stamens, and not modified leaves; though Poinsettia seems to show that true leaves might be converted into coloured petals. I grieve to say that I have never been properly grounded in Botany and have studied only special points—therefore I cannot pretend to express any opinion on your remarks on the origin of the flowers of the Coniferae, Gnetaceae, etc.; but I have been delighted with what you say on the conversion of a monoecious species into a hermaphrodite one by ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... and daringly ungodly of every rank in every age. This son, when he rudely refused to obey his father, meant what he said; he was not willing to obey, and he plainly said so. This represents those who have neither the profession nor the practice of true religion; they neither fear God nor pretend to fear him. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... seems to be soaping and rubbing at the same place, and one is forced to wonder at the area of stuff which it takes to cover a comparatively small body. My work is never finished by midnight, but I generally pretend that it is, and after taking the observations for that hour, return to wring everything out. I am astonished to find that even this is no light task; as one wrings out one end the water seems to fly to the other; then I hang some heavy garment on a hook and wring until I can wring no more; but ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... that means, have the advantage of giving the first impressions. Afterwards you have stronger influences, which well managed, have more force on your behalf, than all our privileges of jurisdiction can pretend to have against you. You have more strength in your looks, than we have in our laws; and more power by gentleness, than we have ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... shining sink had grown a gray, rough skin, a sort of fungoid coat, from the grease that clung to it, and the gas stove, furred with rust, skulked like some obscene monster in its corner. He was afraid, morally and physically afraid, to look at that thing of infamy behind the back door. He tried to pretend the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... otherways account for that their Conduct, but that Theocritus happen'd not to make any true Female Characters, nor to introduce any such of the Fair-Sex, as would shine in Pastoral, and they pretend to nothing farther than the Copying ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... it, Robert. I don't pretend to defend my husband. Once he was different, but drink has changed his whole nature. I never had any reason to complain before he ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... in a place that merely rejoices in a court. This it is which renders Naples, insignificant as its commerce comparatively is, superior to Vienna, and Genoa to Florence. While it would be folly to pretend that Mark, in his situation, obtained the most accurate notions imaginable of all he saw and heard, in his visits to Amsterdam, London, Cadiz, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Leghorn, Gibraltar, and two or three other ports that might be mentioned and to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... told me this afternoon, when I found them in the conservatory, that they were pretending it was summer. And Roland added shrewdly, "You see, Aunt Sibyl, James shuts out the winter in here, doesn't he? And so he makes it easy for us to forget it. We pretend there is no cold, and no dead trees and flowers and graves, when we are here. Don't you think it a good plan?" I told them I thought it a very good plan. It is the same game we older people play at sometimes. We shut ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... during peace-time, and about whom, when I would have made an example of one officer, a Minister telegraphs to me to let him down easy. I beg to recall to you that Her Majesty's Government disapproved of the former Basuto war; therefore, why should I, who am an outsider to the colony, even pretend I could make war against a noble people, who resist magistrates of no capacity? The Government were well warned by me, and they cannot, therefore, plead being ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger |
