"Pretend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finished his training and gone to the front, I didn't know: but I wafted a blessing to our benefactor. I little dreamed then of the unforgivable injury I was fated to do him! You see, Padre, I use the word "fated." That's because I've turned coward. I try to pretend that fate has been too strong for me. But down deep I know you were right when you said, "Our characters ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the direction of rotation and of revolution is the same for all the planets and satellites of our system; and that the planes on which these motions are performed, are nearly coincident. That this concordance is due to one common cause, no one acquainted with the theory of probabilities will pretend to deny. ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... father's lawfull wife, Elizabeth Humes being yit alive; Next, because his grandfather was borne by Mary Stuart to James Hammilton, when her lawfull husband Thomas Boyd was yet alive. So the Earle of Lennox did not only pretend to be lawfully next to the Crowne, as the late King James the Fifth did often declare, That if he died without heire male, he would settle the Crowne upon him, but also lawfull heire of the Earledome of Arran, as being descended from Margaret ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... and quiet of my old home, the door shut against all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I had remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by an arbor covered with honeysuckle, where, in the bygone days of my childhood's summers, I used to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to learn my lessons. Oh, those days when I was supposed to learn my lessons! How my thoughts used to rove—what voyages, what distant lands, what tropical forests did I not behold in my dreams! At that time, near the garden-bench, in some ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... of course. She isn't our mother, an' I'm not going to call her mother; I shall call her 'she.' You can call her what you like. Why does she pretend to be our mother when she isn't? It's different with granny, 'cos she's our granny right enough. Didn't I hear her say 'Meg 'ud rue it?' It's a shame to have made a secret ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very Sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... was now loading up Mr. Merriman's goods in petalas {cargo boats}, their destination being Murshidabad. Desmond saw at once that the Armenian was taking advantage of the disturbance to make away with the goods for his own behoof. He could always pretend afterwards that his godown had been plundered. It was pretty clear, too, that his long detention of the goods must be due to his having had a ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... that," she answered, and even smiled a little. "We women never resent having such things said to us—never—though it is supposed we do, and though we must pretend to. But I remember, too, I was in a bad mood that night, and was angry with you, after all. Everything seemed to have gone against me. In the theatre—in ... Oh, no, no!" she cried, as she remembrance of that past night, with its alternations of pain and ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... fellow-working-men we artists are the shadows of names, or not even the shadows. I like to look the facts in the face, for though their lineaments are often terrible, yet there is light nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in this light, that the masses care any more for us than we care for the masses, or so much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of the classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and then they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their spiritual dulness with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... second, to tell her I can't stay. All my fault anyway; ought never to have started in and jollied Maud along in the old days. If it's my fault, I've got no right to punish Maud. I could just drop in for a second and then pretend I had a country call and beat it. Damn nuisance, though, having to fake up excuses. Lord, why can't the women let you alone? Just because once or twice, seven hundred million years ago, you were a poor fool, why can't they let you forget it? Maud's own fault. I'll stay strictly away. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... gestures and warm cries of "No! No! No!" And he appealed to Audrey as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept saying to herself: "Why do I pretend to agree with him? He is not sincere. He knows he is not sincere. We all know—except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not be so sympathetic. She is more subtle even than Madame Piriac. I shall never be ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... so much and so universally adored this ariston metron, "excellent mediocrity,"[780-1] of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... her face, but this did not discompose her, as she knew she was good-looking. He then arranged his brief, solemnly drew up his shirt sleeves, and then began: "Are you sure it was not your master you saw in bed with your mistress?"—"Perfectly sure."—"What, do you pretend to say you can be certain when the head only appeared from the bedclothes, and that enveloped in a nightcap?"—"Quite certain."—"You have often found occasion, then, to see your master in his nightcap?"—"Yes—very frequently."—"Now, young woman, I ask you, on your solemn oath, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... uncommon ability to sense danger when it approaches. And sensing danger, Black Eyes can thwart it. Your creature sends out certain emanations—I won't pretend to know what they are—which stamp aggression out of any predatory creatures. Neither of ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... seen her this very day, and I own that I know where she resides. More than this, it will be useless for you to attempt to extort from me. I refuse beforehand to answer any further interrogatory. I can fully conceive the hatred my presence must inspire within your breast; I will not even pretend to regret it; for this hatred, springing from a sense of dishonor, will preclude the possibility of any thing save the death of one of us, terminating the appeal for satisfaction which I have already claimed. I have done, sir, and wait ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... man, show me an Irishman," he remarked. "Here you've been telling me how Europe is an education and a delight, and in the next breath you deliberately deprive your little daughter, whom you pretend to love, of the advantages she might gain by a trip abroad! And why? Just because you want her yourself, and might be a bit lonesome without her. But I'll settle that foolishness, sir, in short order. You shall go ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... that the moral breakdown of these papers has been accompanied by a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the "Daily News" or the "Daily Chronicle" (I mean in so far as it deals with politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious quality in its degradation than a sort of carelessness, ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... crime flitted through my mind. Miss Smawl would not remain president—or anything else very long—if she persisted in her desire for the tigers. And then when she called for help I would pretend not to hear. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... first. We travelled along the Strand, about a hundred yards behind the other vehicle, then turned up Southampton Street, through Covent Garden by way of Henrietta Street into Long Acre. After that I cannot pretend to have any idea of the direction we took. I know that we passed through Drury Lane, crossed High Holborn, to presently find ourselves somewhere at the back of Gray's Inn. The buildings of the Parcels' Post Depot marked another stage in our journey. But still the other cab did ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... say something to the lackey, when he paused. "No," he said; "he would see that we attach too much importance to his answer; therefore question him yourself; I will pretend to be writing." Aramis accordingly placed himself at a table, his back turned towards the old attendant, whose every gesture and look he watched in a ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... man being admittedly a creature of his environment, can we still pretend to horror at this Roderigo and at the fact that being the man he was—prelate though he might be—handsome, brilliant, courted, in the full vigour of youth, and a voluptuary by nature, he should have succumbed to the temptations ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... conversation. I fear some of my younger readers will think my story slow; and say: "What! are they not going to fall in love with each other yet? We have been expecting it ever so long." I have two answers to make to this. The first is: "I do not pretend to know so much about love as you—excuse me—think you do; and must confess, I do not know whether they were in love with each other or not." The second is: "That I dare not pretend to understand thoroughly such a sacred ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... you, for this reason. Our colonel, the most cross-grained old crabstick that ever breathed, happened himself to be taken in when young, and resolving, like the fox who lost his tail and said it was not the fashion to wear one, to pretend he did the thing for fun, determined to make every fellow marry upon the slightest provocation. Begad, you might as well enter a powder magazine with a branch of candles in your hand, as go into society in the island with a leaning towards the fair ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... don't pretend to be a connoisseur or conoscenti myself; but I'm told the style is undeniably modern. And was not I lucky, Juliana, not to let that Medona be knocked down to me? I was just going to bid, when I heard such smart bidding; but, fortunately, the auctioneer let out that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... certainly was not intended to liberate him. "He ought," she said, "to understand that a girl situated as she was could not ultimately dispose of herself till her friends had told her that she was free to do so. She herself did not pretend to have any interest in the affairs as to which her father and his lawyers were making themselves busy. They had never even condescended to tell her what it was they wanted on her behalf;— nor, for the matter of that, had he, Morton, ever told her ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... "Let's pretend we lived then," she said, "and I am the miller's daughter of this dear little mill, and you are the bailiff's son who lives opposite, and you have come with your corn to be ground. Oh, and I shall make a bargain, and charge you dear!" ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... pretend that Bryant is not a poet in the grain, and that the wondrous boy, Willis, was not also 'to the manner born?' Read 'Thanatopsis,' or are you acquainted with it already? I hardly think you can be. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... the most valuable in this world are not the books that pretend to solve life's mystery with a system. They are the books which create a certain mood, a certain temper—the mood, in fact, which is prepared for incredible surprises—the temper which no surprise can overpower. These books of Dostoievsky must always take their place in this great roll, because, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... larger class—who won't give up dogma, but have learnt that bishops, priests, and deacons no longer hold it with the old rigour, and that one must be "broad"; these are clamorous for treatises which pretend to reconcile revelation and science. It's quite pathetic to watch the enthusiasm with which they hail any man who distinguishes himself by this kind of apologetic skill, this pious jugglery. Never mind how washy the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... I shall sing and act both. Now then pretend that I am Marguerite, in Faust, you know, and see if you don't think I can do both, as well as one." So they all looked and listened, while she sang and sang, 'till the very birds hushed their music in envious listening, and the rustling ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... the eyes of Norway, as our poets pretend, it must be admitted that poor Norway has more than one beam in her ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... necessary. She hoped he would not stay long at Mallow. It would be unbearable to meet him day after day—to feel his eyes resting upon her with the same cool gravity to which he had compelled them this morning, to pretend that he and she meant no more to one another than any two other chance guests at ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... she said, but with great gentleness—"I know it's the right and proper thing for me to do in the country if I wish to stand well with my neighbours,-but I can't! I don't believe in it,— and I won't pretend that ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... it brings a smile to one's lips to see a very young man pretend he is bored with life. I have often wondered what the answer would be from one of these chaps, and what he would actually say, if you held a loaded pistol to his head—I mean the man who says he doesn't think life ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... meekly, and slightly disgusted with his jargon, "I pretend not to judge of either events, or the intentions of my fellow creatures, much ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be a government "of the people." All power, it is said, centers in the people. Our State constitutions also open with the words, "We, the people." Does any one pretend to say that men alone constitute races and peoples? When we say parents, do we not mean mothers as well as fathers? When we say children, do we not mean girls as well as boys? When we say people, do we not mean women ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... for good government." Where the courage and spirit of burghers were displayed was in the maintenance of their own privileges, or purely in self-defense. In all other relations they showed the utmost humility; and in the twelfth century, when their emancipation is commonly dated, they did not pretend to interfere in ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... come when he's hungry, I tell myself. Ah, yes, our young days, they're soon gone. And you stand there and stare like a baa-lamb and the girl down there is nodding at you fit to crick her neck! Yes, the men are a queer race; they pretend they wouldn't dare—and yet who is it causes ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... another that one should abstain from begetting children on feast days, because it was a great undertaking; and he observed the feasts like a man who wished to enter into Paradise without consent. Sometimes he would pretend that if by chance the parents were not in a state of grace, the children commenced on the date of St. Claire would be blind, of St. Gatien had the gout, of St. Agnes were scaldheaded, of St. Roch had the plague; sometimes that those begotten ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... organization which was so near the heart of all of them. No better proof of it can be shown than the incident which has just been described, viz., the refusal of Theodore Roosevelt to be the permanent chairman. Although I do not pretend to be able to explain the processes of thought and reasoning which led Colonel Roosevelt to take the action he did, still I do know this much! There are very few young men who would have been so deaf to the plaudits of the multitude, to the advice of old friends and to the ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... without 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 ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... finds conditions much the same as on earth; people are rich and poor; they need houses; they plant and reap; and they conduct ceremonies for the superior beings, just as they had done during their life on earth. Beyond this, the people do not pretend to be posted, "for Kaboniyan did not tell." With the exception of the people of Ba-ay and a few individuals influenced by Christianity, the Tinguian has no idea of reward or punishment in the future life, but he does believe that the position ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... didn't! she was a perfect plague. All the day on board the steamboat she scarcely came near us; we couldn't pretend to keep sight of her; mamma had to send her maid out to look after her I don't know how many times. She scraped acquaintance with some strange man on board, and liked his company better than ours, for ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... nature; the Italians contented themselves with considering the pieces of Gozzi as the wild offspring of an extravagant imagination, and with banishing them from the stage. The comedy with masks is held in contempt by all who pretend to any degree of refinement, as if they were too wise for it, and is abandoned to the vulgar, in the Sunday representations at the theatres and in the puppet-shows. Although this contempt must have had an injurious influence on the masks, preventing, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... be rebuilt; but its reconstruction is merely a matter of enlargement, so that it may become the home of all noble human beings, of all who have permanently increased the sum of the mind's delights and possessions. As for me, who cannot, obviously, in any degree pretend to be the architect or designer of such a temple, I shall confine myself to expressing a few earnest wishes, to submit, as it were, my designs for the edifice. Above all I should desire not to exclude any one among the worthy, each should be in his place there, from Shakespeare, the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... "Now, my dear Newland, I have given you a proof of friendship, which no other man in England has had. Your dress will be the ne plus ultra. There are little secrets only known to the initiated, and Stulz is aware that this time I am in earnest. I am often asked to do the same for others, and I pretend so to do; but a wink from me is sufficient, and Stulz dares not dress them. Don't you want some bijouterie? or ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... got all I mean to give him though," said his antagonist, whose heart began to relent towards his old associate; "and I would rather by half give the rest to yourself, Mr. Fleecebumpkin, for you pretend to know a thing or two, and Robin had not art enough even to peel before setting to, but fought with his plaid dangling about him.—Stand up, Robin, my man! all friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak a word against you, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... Torres' 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 ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... shouldn't also pretend to be artful flatterers to cajole me!" nurse Li added; "do you imagine that I'm not aware of the dismissal, the other day, of Hsi Hseh, on account of a cup of tea? and as it's clear enough that I've incurred blame, I'll come by and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of the same all round; the only fault was the pure white of the Calico made all the ladies look dirty. There were 160 or 170 people, many I did not know, many Men, but where the majority came from I cannot pretend to say; Darlingtons, Ramsdens, Cookes, Taylors, etc, and our large party the chief from ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... night? And when my tittle-tattle came to the ears of his acquaintance, he would drop his eyes in confusion and shake his little finger. And would not he, I thought, looking at his little honeyed face, this very evening at cards pretend and perhaps declare that he had already won ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you so!" But Lady Richard did not even pretend to understand his exultation or what he meant. Whatever he had happened to mean about poor May, the Dean ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... owing to their laxity in practice. It is not wonderful that students of Chinese literature should despise their own country for being without a system of morals, but that the Japanese, who were acquainted with their own ancient literature, should pretend that Japan too had such a system, simply out of a feeling of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Scots' Covenant, Wentworth was Charles's only hope; the King sent for him, saying he desired his personal counsel and attendance. He wrote: 'The Scots' Covenant begins to spread too far, yet, for all this, I will not have you take notice that I have sent for you, but pretend some other occasion of business.'" Certain it is that from this time Wentworth became the most trusted counsellor of Charles, that is, as far as Charles was capable of trusting any one. The condition of affairs to which Wentworth returned is brought out in the play ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the deltas of the creeks are fragrant, gigantic "spider lilies" (CRINIUM). I do not pretend to catalogue botanically all the plants that contribute to the specific odour of the island. I cannot address them individually in scientific phraseology, though with all I am on terms of easy familiarity, the outcome ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Although the Socialists pretend that they denounce co-operation and thrift, and even abstinence from alcoholic drink, on economic and scientific grounds, their real reasons are political. Socialism can flourish only if the masses are dissatisfied. The Socialists ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... time.' 'Oh! but it is next time,' would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the midst of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to fall fast asleep, to our ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... without a great amount of difficulty. But you have got to go back to first principles there and realize that very few trees are able to succeed after they have been set out unless they receive a great deal of care subsequently. Those of us who give a great deal of attention to trees, who pretend to care for our trees, will lose a percentage so large that I would hardly dare state what it probably is. Among the hundreds and thousands of trees I have set out, all from reputable nurserymen or raised by myself; I doubt if 25% are alive today, and I have pretty good success too. This is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... for instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, 'Elena Nikolaevna I don't pretend to understand. I am not elevated enough for her. Her heart is so large that it embraces all nature down to the least spider or frog, everything in fact except her own father. Well, that's all very well; I know it, and I don't trouble myself about it. ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... inequality in love. Give and take must balance. One must be one's natural self or the whole business is an indecent trick, a vile use of life! To use inferiors in love one must needs talk down to them, interpret oneself in their insufficient phrases, pretend, sentimentalize. And it is clear that unless oneself is to be lost, one must be content to leave alone all those people that one can reach only by sentimentalizing. But Amanda—and yet somehow I love her for it still—could ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... caught the tiger last night. When the keeper couldn't get it. He does everything well. He is the most fascinating man in the world—until you get used to him. I've got used to him. He fascinates all women. That would not matter so much, but nearly all women fascinate him. I pretend not to notice it. I think he does it partly to see how I will take it. I remain merry and bright. With a breaking heart, you understand. How much longer I shall be able to stand it, I do not know. Oh, my hands are ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... pretend to know all that goes on in his mind; but allowing, or rather conjecturing, that he does care for me in the way you mean, I haven't the least fear of his telling me so, and one of the reasons is this, that he is wholly ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... body. So closely are physical and mental health related, so complex the reactions of a disordered nervous system on bodily health, or the effect on the mind of physical weakness, that the wisest doctors do not pretend to say this illness is either wholly mental or physical. They do know that some violation of the laws of right living, some neglect to follow natural impulses, is chiefly responsible for the long list of ills that afflict mankind. And they are unanimously agreed that proper diets ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... Shishak was not the same person with the famous Sesostris, as some have very lately, in contradiction to all antiquity, supposed, and that our Josephus did not take him to be the same, as they pretend, but that Sesostris was many centuries earlier than Shishak, see Authent. Records, part ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... can't pretend to give you the sermon, Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; Whatever he preached in, I give you my word The meaning was easy to all that heard; Famous preachers there have been and be, But never was one so convincing as he; So blunt was never a begging friar, No Jesuit's tongue ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... society, where you may select a husband of your own position and fortune, if you choose; or you may turn Romanist, and go into a convent, and devote yourself to good works and idolatry, or anything else. I do not pretend to care what becomes of you, so long as you show any decent respect for your name. But if you persist in pining and moaning and starving yourself, because I will not allow you to turn dancer and ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... it was evident from the beginning that she had picked Ralph to tease most. After a long while, the others learned to ignore, or to pretend to ignore, her tantalizing overtures. But Ralph could look at nothing else while she was about. She loved to lead him in a long, wild-goose chase across the island, dipping almost within reach one moment, losing ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... "Do you pretend to oppose a dog to a man! brutality to learning! instinct to reason!" exclaimed the Doctor in some heat. "In what manner, pray, can a hound distinguish the habits, species, or even the genus of an animal, like reasoning, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who lives at Garden Green does not count," he assured her. "Besides, it was the other fellow who married her. She isn't really my wife at all. It would be most improper of me to pretend that ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reply. "I pretend to nothing more than the art of being a good listener. I merely waited until the duke had spoken his will, and then interposed my suggestion. It was adopted at once; and now our young friend has only to ride hard to-night, and come to shade his brow with a share of any laurels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... is the man did once pretend "God was his father and his friend; "If God the blessed lov'd him so, "Why doth he ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... may add that this epistle does not mention the martyrdoms of the eye-witnesses, and it is hard to know why Paley drags it in, unless he wants to make us believe that his eye-witnesses suffered all the tortures he quotes; but even Paley cannot pretend that there is a scintilla of proof of their undergoing any such trials. Thus falls the whole argument based on the "twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known," dying for the persistent assertion of "a miracle wrought before their eyes," ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... of saying it. Now if you'd said it was surprisingly jolly! Well, shake hands, Marko, and pretend you're glad." ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... mere auditor of the tale might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the "Iliad" to prompt the sole resource that remained. Yet so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No: but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant; such a shout would suffice as might carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people and one gig-horse. I ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Novalis, seem refreshingly human to me. I have wished fifty times to write some letters giving an account, first, of his very pretty life, and then of his one volume, as I re-read it, chapter by chapter. If you will pretend to be very much interested, perhaps I will get a better pen, and write them to you.' ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... all in vain that he sought to win back that semblance of affection which he had lost. Mrs. Dexter was too sincere a woman—too earnest and true—for broad disguises. She could be courteous, regardful, attentive to all the needs of her husband; but she could not pretend to love, when daily her heart experienced ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... last places before you come to our gate are the Dog's Cemetery and the chaffinch's nest, but we pretend not to know what the Dog's Cemetery is, as Porthos is always with us. The nest is very sad. It is quite white, and the way we found it was wonderful. We were having another look among the bushes for David's lost worsted ball, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... The trick that had served with the sergeant of police would not do now. She knew the king too well to believe that she could be mistaken about him; she was too much of a busybody to be content to pretend that ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... course I would not pretend to say it positively—that is why your fears are not unnatural, though peculiar; I fancy that you heighten them by your self-concentration. The world and objects in it divert other men, while your attention is upon your own feelings. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... making himself. Hoped we'd forgive him. He couldn't say that if he were as young as us he'd enlist like a shot, any more than he could say that if a woman jumped off Waterloo Bridge on a dark night he'd jump in after her. On the whole he thought it would be much easier to pretend he hadn't noticed. In fact that's very likely what he would do. But if someone, say the mother of the girl, pointed out the body to him, then he'd have to come to a decision. Well, he was in the position of that mother, he had come down to point out the body. He confessed it wasn't the job he ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... me, if you meant to back out in the end? I could have kissed you twenty times, but refrained for reasons you would not understand. Now when those reasons are finally swept aside and I am ready to be your lover, you pretend ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... you, because you are not well, but what do you mean by saying that you will come, "although of course we shall never see each other"? Dear silly, do you imagine that I spend the whole day with that creature you pretend to ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... is patent to every student of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the wide-spread agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of Christianity by the crudity ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... hand,' replied Mr Mantalini, in an admiring tone, 'the cunningest, rummest, superlativest old fox—oh dem!—to pretend now not to know that it was the little ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... into Chapel Alley, at Mrs. Pratt's anxious request, and had pronounced her lodger, to be in the height of "typhoid fever." The case was even more dangerous than he cared to pretend, and the circumstances that had driven a respectable young fellow, such as his patient looked, to seek lodgings in a dilapidated quarter like Chapel Alley were such as engaged his ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... is quite foreclosed. On the contrary, (47) we know for certain that service rendered through terror will stimulate as far as possible the ministrations of affection. And it is a fact, that plots and conspiracies against despotic rulers are oftenest hatched by those who most of all pretend ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... Ugarit, that my envoys so saw, and who was it that spoke to them to satisfy that nothing wrong was done?' And does not your message say all this? But if she has died—your sister, and I am concealing, as you pretend, her ... in former times, which we ... the God Amanu ... (I rejoice that the wife I love?) ... she has been made queen ... I deny that ... beyond all the wives ... that the Kings of Egypt ... in the land of ...
— Egyptian Literature
... necessary to specify the matter which it was proposed to discuss. Arthur knew perfectly that Susie wished to talk of Margaret, and he was too straightforward to pretend otherwise. Susie ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... time I ever heard a jockey pretend to be one!" chuckled the first speaker. "What ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... truly thankful. Say your grace and put your chair away, and come along. I want to hold a court-martial!" And seizing his own chair by the seat, Robin carried it swiftly to its corner. As he passed Sarah, he observed tauntingly, "You pretend to ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... half-circular, and half-square, corner towers, hanging over the ever-restless wave, interested us exceedingly. The guide shewed us where the prisoners used to be kept—in a dungeon, apparently impervious to every glimmer of day-light, and every breath of air. I cannot pretend to say at what period even the oldest part of the castle of Montmorenci[194] was built: but I saw nothing that seemed to be more ancient than the latter end of the fifteenth century. Perhaps the greater portion may be of the beginning of the sixteenth; but, amidst unroofed rooms, I could not ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... at thirty-two, he could pretend to ignorance of this world of emotion. About his knowledge let it be enough to say that what he had learned had come unpursued and unpurchased, and was without intolerable memories; broken to the realities of sex, he was still troubled by its inscrutable history. He went through life full ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... my line. As for 'Arms and the man' and the 'Sabine farm,' why, all I can say is, I always hated them. I detested Virgil, and Horace, and Cicero, and the whole lot of them, at school; and why I should turn round now, and pretend to like them, I don't know, I'm sure. Horace and Virgil, indeed! Bother Horace ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... know what I mean, too; you needn't pretend you don't. Why did you ask me if I had been in that room, and why do you act ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla, and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... care very greatly for the part of an accessory to what may easily develop, as you know very well, into a very serious flirtation. An absurd, mischievous, irrelevant flirtation. You may not like the word. You may pretend it is a conversation, an ordinary intellectual conversation. That is not the word. Simply that is not the word. You people eye one another.... Flirtation. I give the affair its proper name. That ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... like a mother in Israel; you would think her a model spouse. Yet no one knows what I suffer. Mabel, I had not been with him ten minutes last May when he noticed my premature baldness, and general fagged-out and jaded look; and to hide the secrets of my prison-house, I had to pretend that I had been working too hard in Water Street. You all know how painful deception is to my candid nature; but I did it for your sake, Mabel. When did I ever return aught but good for evil? Yet O, the curtain lectures, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering little thief. You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. Hold out ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... me, Mr. Bryant; you mustn't do that. In a few minutes more I'll be entirely recovered. I should be foolish to pretend that the happening wasn't a shock to me, but I'm not a weakling—I've health and strength. I'll not permit the thought of the operation to depress my spirits. Indeed, I know I'll be very proud of what I did this afternoon, ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... the Christians are two works which the infallible church does not pretend to understand, and never attempts to explain,—the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse; two cabalistic clavicules, reserved, no doubt, in Heaven, for the exposition of the Magian kings; closed with Seven seals for all faithful believers; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... keep out of things like that," said Lady Frensham with the utmost gusto, "when the country's on the very verge of civil war.... You people who try to pretend there isn't a grave crisis when there is one, will be more accountable than any one—when the civil war does come. It won't ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... looking at the matter more philosophically. After all, things were never quite hopeless; she had played for big stakes and lost— through no fault of her own, but through the treachery of others. Well, this was not her first defeat, and certainly it would not be her last opportunity. She would pretend to yield; she would go away and wait. Yes, that was best. She could always return, and so long as her money lasted, so long as those blessed powders were available, she was assured of bodily and mental comfort at least. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... same, it's a question. I don't pretend to understand Eve Madeley, and I'm afraid you are just as ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... coast of France, and increased by our own forces, should draw the French forces from Switzerland and Italy, it does not follow that the Russians may be greatly, and perhaps equally useful to the objects of the campaign, although they will cease to act on the eastern side of France. I do not pretend to know precisely the number and state of the French armies, but reason only on probabilities; and chiefly with the view of solving the honourable gentleman's difficulty, how the Russians can be useful, if not on the continent. It is unnecessary to occupy the time and attention of the House with ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... illegally,—acquitting his friend in his own mind of theft, simply by supposing that he was wool-gathering when the cheque came in his way. But in speaking to Mr Crawley, it would be necessary,—so he thought,—to pretend a conviction that Mr Crawley was as innocent ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress, fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chop-fallen. Oh ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... futile to pretend that there are twenty thousand plaster saints in the Metropolitan Police—there are not. Yet, man for man, in efficiency, in honesty, there is not their equal in the ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... her turn, It was an age of impressions not facts, "What!" she cried, "doth not a father know his own child? and a man of God, too? Fie, Gerard, to pretend! nay, thou art too wise, too good, not to have—why, I watched thee; and e'en now look at you twain! 'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Morales and Von Arnheim, and they were our two worst dangers. If we had encountered them at rebel headquarters and they had recognized me, our goose would have been cooked. We would have been taken prisoners, too. But now there will be nobody to recognize us. The rebels will take us for what we pretend to be, young Americans seeking adventure ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... now. There was some, but it has passed. The man will hold the skylight in place until it can be fastened. And while he is doing that I wish those who are sitting under it would move quietly out into the aisles. Don't crowd or rush. You children can pretend it is like the fire drill ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... pretend to be satisfied with this explanation and ordered my supper, and, shortly afterwards, to my great relief, new guests arrived; they were four Missourian planters, returning home from a bear-hunt in the swamps of the St. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Mr. Caspian spoke of that, and said it was "bad taste," because Mr. Storm could never have been to the Museum of Athens, and "a man of his stamp" was no judge. It was only an impertinence of him to pretend, and an accident that he should have climbed up for a while from his position ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel) |
