"Deceptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dreams as having two gates: one, whence issue all deceptive and flattering visions, being formed of ivory; the other, through which proceed those dreams ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... erection of a convenient and comfortable residence. The walls being necessarily constructed thicker than is usual when mere stone or brick is used, the fancy took him to make the place represent a ruined building, which he christened "Hockley Abbey," and to carry out his deceptive notion the date 1473 was placed in front of the house, small pebbles set in cement being used to form the figures. In a very few years by careful training nearly the whole of the building was overgrown with ivy, and few but ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... horse, a lion will this day speak to me. Now the lord of the earth, who assumes shapes at will, has taken upon him the condition of humanity, to accomplish some object cherished in his heart. Glory to that being whose deceptive adoption of father, son, brother, friend, mother, and relative, the world is unable to penetrate. May he in whom cause and effect, and the world itself, is comprehended, be propitious to me, through his truth; for always do I put ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... truth) as dirty green. These defects would have mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious countenance, so to speak, covers a warm heart. With Monk, however, appearances were not deceptive. He looked a bad lot, and he ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... to allow readers to browse the subjects mentioned in this book. The bracketed numbers indicate how many mentions are made. A brief mention or 10 pages worth can both count as a single mention, so the numbers are sometimes deceptive.) ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... me that you want? The real me! The truly me! No mere pink and white likeness? No actual proof even of 'seared and yellow age'? No curly-haired, coquettish attractiveness that the shampoo-lady and the photograph-man trapped me into for that one single second? No deceptive profile of the best side of my face—and I, perhaps, blind in the other eye? Not even a fair, honest, every-day portrait of my father's and mother's composite features—but a picture of myself! Hooray for you! A picture, then, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... wonderful speed of foot offsets his lack of height, and he hits either side with equal facility. There are no gaps in Kingscote's game. It is perfectly rounded. His favourite forehand shot is 'cross court, yet he can hit equally well down the line. His backhand is steady, very accurate and deceptive, but rather lacks speed. His volleying is remarkable for his court covering and angles, but is not the decisive win of Williams or Johnston. He is the best volleyer in the British Isles. His overhead is reliable and accurate for so short ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... know more than you think. My simplicity of appearance is deceptive," she mocked, beginning to set her sketch-box in order. "You don't realise that Mrs. Harman and I are quite HURLED upon each other at Quesnay, being two ravishingly intelligent women entirely surrounded by large bodies of elementals. She has told ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... alms to a beggar, if he appeals to the feelings and awakens emotion; and in this favor many a grown child is content to bask instead of putting it to a profitable use. With mistaken notions as to the significance and the motive of social relations they imagine that they shall always meet with deceptive smiles; and so at last the moment comes for them when the world leaves them bald, stripped bare, without fortune or worth, like an elderly coquette by the door of a salon, or a stray rag ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... had been dry and tropically hot, and my footsteps rang crisply upon the hard ground. There is nothing more deceptive than a straight road up a hill; and half an hour's steady tramping but saw me approaching ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... lead the life of elegance, the amiable corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as this pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over everybody else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men, literature, and the fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and Coburg of each year; interrupt a conversation with ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... they wish to share that sweet cup—ample for all—with all men. This is the true motive of the conquest of civilisation; and under the banner of such a cause, it is a question whether war and anarchy and confusion be not preferable to the deceptive peace and apparent prosperity of despotism, that, like the death-dealing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... enable you to supply the rest of the idea yourself, providing always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like. But in this drawing of the falls of Terni,[27] the painter has strained his skill to the utmost to give an actually deceptive resemblance of the iris, dawning and fading among the foam. So far as he has not actually deceived you, it is not because he would not have done so if he could; but only because his colors and science have fallen short of his desire. They have fallen so little short, that, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling." A responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all—I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune—that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of human nature at its best and worst,—the profound Thinker and Artist who dealt boldly with the facts of good and evil as they truly are,—and did not hesitate to contrast them forcibly, without any of the deceptive 'half-tones' of vice and virtue which are the chief stock-in-trade of such modern authors as we may ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... is also somewhat deceptive. We know that Dunois was one of the most intelligent and prudent men of his day, and that he was considered a good speaker. In the defence of Orleans and in the coronation campaign he had displayed considerable ability. Either ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole world, and was the natural inheritor of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... it should also be mentioned that nothing perhaps is more deceptive than the size which objects in the sky appear to present. The full moon looks so like a huge plate, that it astonishes one to find that a threepenny bit held at arm's length will a long way more than ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... continued my poetical comparison of the two Williams, Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness! Of course it was my plain duty to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row away across the bay, with a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to catch a basket of ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... developed somewhat after the fashion of those plants which Hindoo jugglers cause magically to sprout, blossom, and bloom before the very eyes of astonished beholders—with this difference, however, that whereas the development of the jugglers is deceptive as well as quick, that of our botanists was genuine and natural, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... First she fashioned doubts of her doubt. How did she know she had not made a mistake, there at that corral? Other men wore gray hats and rode dark bay horses; other men were slim and tall—and she had only had a glimpse after all, and the light was deceptive down there in the shadows. When that first doubt was molded, and she had breathed into it the breath of life so that it stood sturdily before her, she took heart and created reasons, a whole company of them, to tell her why she ought to give Ward the benefit of the doubt. She ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... best; you can rely on that," answered Mr. Lawrence, gravely. "But that steamer is farther off than some of you may imagine. Distances over the water are rather deceptive." ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... sky-scrapers, which looked, at the distance, like dream buildings, deceptive structures of the clouds. The waters intervening were palpitant with life. As an hour passed, and then another, the young watchers gave more and more attention to the landscape and less to the house near by. The air was vibrant with the tooting of whistles. The wind was sweeping the water before ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... him now. That also will fade in the desert of old barbed wire and weeds. When will he see that a doom is over all his ambitions? For his dreams of victory are like those last dreams that come in deceptive ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... coming upon Mont Blanc, with its awful form towering into the sky, when he didn't suspect he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked a great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without trouble, or tramp, or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Caesars in his hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous vault, the skull of the universe, carries the Milky ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... back to the quarter. He in turn passed it to the back, who got in a perfect kick that sent it far down the field and close to the enemy's goal. One of the 'Greys' made a grab at it, but it was one of those twisting deceptive punts and bounded out of his hands down toward the southern line. One of his mates was just behind him and, quick as lightning, he caught the ball on the bound, tucked it under his arm and scooted down the field ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... dry weather were a daily occurrence. We did not see imaginary castles and cities turned upside down and all that sort of thing, but apparent lakes of water were often seen, so deceptive as to puzzle even the oldest plainsman. Cattle appeared as big as houses and mounted men as tall as ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... phenomenon of the mirage is almost continuous. The bed of air in contact with the surface of stones scorched by the blazing sun becomes rarified and dilated, so that the horizon appears to be fringed on all sides with lakes of rippling water, most deceptive and tantalising to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... presided over the destinies of Egyptian cities, and formed a true feudal system of divinities, belonged to one or other of these natural categories. In vain do they present themselves under the most shifting aspects and the most deceptive attributes; in vain disguise themselves with the utmost care; a closer examination generally discloses the principal features of their original physiognomies. Osiris of the Delta, Khuumu of the Cataract, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is called a Material Fallacy. Sometimes, however, the conclusion will appear to follow from the premisses until the meaning of the terms is examined, when it will be found that the appearance is deceptive owing to some ambiguity in the language. Such fallacies as these are, strictly speaking, non-logical, since the meaning of words is extraneous to the science which deals with thought. But they are called Semi-logical. Thus we arrive by a different road at the same three heads as before, namely, ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming as his invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, the original patent is inoperative or invalid, provided the error has arisen from inadvertence, accident or mistake and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... forwards looked capable, and when, after the School full-back had returned the ball into touch on the half-way line, the line-out had resulted in a hand-ball and a scrum, they proved that appearances were not deceptive. They broke through in a solid mass—the Beckford forwards never somehow seemed to get together properly in the first scrum of a big match—and rushed the ball down the field. Norris fell on it. Another hastily-formed scrum, and the Nomads' front rank was off again. Ten yards nearer ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... procession, which never ceases dribbling its thread as it goes. The rail is simply doubled and has no branches anywhere, for my brush has destroyed them all. What will the caterpillars do on this deceptive, closed path? Will they walk endlessly round and round until ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... and looked at her father; then she bestowed her attention once more upon the Albula. "To be sure," resumed M. Moriaz, stroking his whiskers with the head of his cane, "Camille is just the man to make his way through difficulties. He has a youthful air that is very deceptive, but he always has been astonishingly precocious. At twenty years of age he became head of his class at the Central School; but the best thing about him is that, although in possession of a fortune, yet he has a passion for work. The rich man ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... and the deceptive farm; now trees damaged by the rains, or years of dearth, now summer's heat burning up the petals, now destructive ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... whatever about what she was to undergo. On the contrary, she had rather a desire to know what the sensation of being mesmerised might be. Of the phenomena which were to be developed in the mesmeric state, she knew absolutely nothing; thus all deceptive imitation of them, on her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... showed her that she had walked for an hour when she heard a dog barking somewhere on the left of the road. Presently, she saw a blurred patch of radiance apparently on the ground in front of her. So deceptive are lights seen through a fog that she was quite taken aback suddenly to come upon a long low house with a great beam of light streaming ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... off under your roof, but would go and call another unprotected female who knew the past, present, and future, and could tell me why this was thus, that I had been lured from my fireside by the ignis fatuus of a deceptive invitation. ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... saw nothing to justify his anxiety; everything seemed still in the swamp. But he knew that this silence was deceptive, and the canopy of marsh loving trees completely hid the bushes and undergrowth from his sight. It was just noon when a Roman trumpet sounded, and at once at six different points a line of Roman soldiers issued from the bushes. Beric raised his horn to his lips and blew the signal for retreat. At ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... Gardening is now so little read that authors think they may steal from it with safety. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica the article on Gardening is taken almost verbatim from it, with one or two deceptive allusions such as—"As Mr. Walpole observes"—"Says Mr. Walpole," &c. but there is nothing to mark where Walpole's observations and sayings end, and the Encyclopaedia thus gets the credit of many pages of his eloquence and sagacity. The whole ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... I returned to the pool with a gun, and, building a hide of bushes, waited all day. Towards evening two fine emus came stalking along, and I shot one. By the time I had him skinned and the legs cut off it was dark. A most deceptive bird is an emu, for in reality he has but little meat on his body. The legs, that is the thighs, are the only parts worth taking, so shouldering these I started for camp a couple of miles off. It was pretty late when I got back, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... found this Place, this warmth, these leaves that were fine for burrowing. Gral came erect and stared into the visage of Obe the Great Bear; just six feet away he saw the great head that swayed with deceptive gentleness, the amber eyes burning, the twinned mountainous muscle of shoulders ... and in that quick moment Gral saw something else. Obe stood directly astride the pointed shaft which Gral had ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... under each." The improbabilities of the Flat Island Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the "Saga of Eric the Red," the only doubtful part of which is the "uniped" episode, a touch of mediaeval superstition so palpable as not to be deceptive. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... in?" asked Craig of a girl in the first room, given up to picture post-cards. The room was as deceptive as the trade, for it was only an anteroom to the storeroom I have described above. This storeroom was also a factory, and half a dozen artisans were hard at work ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... before on the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven, looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way, these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to the horizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could not realize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows were great valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked like scattered boulders were in reality ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... the approaching deputation of Iroquois, murdered several and made the others his prisoners. Having done so, he secretly gloried in the act, afterward saying that he had "killed the peace." Yet in dealing with the captives he put another and a deceptive face on the matter; for, on courteously questioning them as to the object of their journey, being told that they were peaceful envoys, he affected great wonder, seeing that it was Denonville himself who had sent him on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... him this remnant of superstition on account of his great services; let us nevertheless examine this phantom in man which he regards with infantile vision. We admit it into our minds through faith, and faith is always suspicious. It is forged by ignorance, fear, and imagination, which are all deceptive powers. At first it was simply the fetish of savages; in vain have we striven to purify and aggrandize it; its origin is always apparent; its history is that of a hereditary dream which, arising in a rude ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and white, and it is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles are so deceptive. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the truth, looked at him with a sort of horror. But the young man had again concentrated his attention on his plate. "How deceptive are appearances," thought Mr. Lavender; "one would say an intellectual, not to say a spiritual type, and yet he eats like a savage, and lies like a trooper!" And the pinchings of his hunger again attacking ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the process by which information is acquired, converted into intelligence, and made available to policymakers. Information is raw data from any source, data that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive, or wrong. Intelligence is information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted. Finished intelligence is the final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to be ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hedged in on the right and in front by woods which could conceal the movements of a foe without impeding them. Only one way of retreat was open—towards Metz, whose bishop was Charles's last ally. But to reach Metz, it was necessary to cross several small streams and deceptive marshes, half frozen as they were, besides the river Meurthe, a serious obstacle with the garrison of Nancy on the flank. In short, there was ample reason to dread surprise, while in case of defeat a terrible catastrophe ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... journey? For an instant, whilst Sidney was still speaking, she caught a gleam of hope in renunciation itself, the kind of strength which idealism is fond of attributing to noble natures. A gleam only, and deceptive; she knew it too well after the day spent by her grandfather's side, encouraging, at the expense of her heart's blood, all his revived faith in her. But she would not again give way. The old man should reap fruit of her gratitude ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... children upon those of previous generations of toy-books. Most of what was once considered the "perfume of youth and freshness" in a literary way has been discarded as dry and unprofitable, mistaken or deceptive; and yet, after all has been said by way of criticism of methods and subjects, these chap-books, magazines, gift and story books form our best if blurred pictures of the amusements and daily life ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... was an unimportant detail which you misstated, pass right on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link in the chain, put it in, later, as skillfully as you can, and with as deceptive an appearance of its being in the intended order; but never take the children behind the scenes, and let them hear the creaking of your mental machinery. You must be infallible. You must be in the secret of the mystery, and admit your audience on somewhat unequal terms; they should have ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... Confederate commands still operated bravely west of this line, the whole of Mississippi and a large part of Alabama were beyond aid from Richmond. But the average man did not grasp the situation. When a region is dominated by mobile armies the appearance of things to the civilian is deceptive. Because the powerful Federal armies of the Southwest, at the opening of 1864, were massed at strategic points from Tennessee to the Gulf, and were not extended along an obvious trench line, every brave civilian would still keep up his hope and would still insist that the middle Gulf ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... look for: the brassy, regularly cut crystals with the black stripings, such as has led countless men to go through untold hardships in the belief that they had found gold. In fact, iron pyrites is often called "fool gold," so deceptive is its glitter. ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... my personal means were larger, so that I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow; but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But you won't ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the salt sea snakes is distinguished by its odd, deceptive shape—a broad, flattened tail whence the body consistently diminishes to the head, which is the thinnest part. Other aquatic ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... trusted attendant should be at hand to serve them. Those who patronize this room will, if they wish to lay any claim to the name of "gentlemen," carefully refrain from the slightest over-indulgence in these cooling, but deceptive drinks. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... stoppered it, glanced slowly about the brightness of the river mouth, and shook his head. This was a great surprise, and anybody who did not know Yeo would have questioned him. But it was certain he knew his business. There is not a more deceptive and difficult stretch of coast round these islands, and Yeo was born to it. He stood up, and his long black hair stirred in the breeze under the broad brim of a grey hat he insists on wearing. The soft hat and his lank hair make him womanish in ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... warm Indian-summer days that resemble early spring. There is the same suggestion of warmer sunshine yet to come; the air has a scent as of growing things, the kind of muffled hopes and suppressed excitement of April is in the deceptive air. This sort of day is dangerous to charming people not ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... X, I lay hands on you and drag you in as the Conscientious Objector. 'How?' you will ask. 'Is not the plain truth good enough for men? And if poetry must win acceptance for her by beautiful adornments, alluring images, captivating music, is there not something deceptive in the business, even if it be not downright dishonest?' Well, I think you have a right ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the first, been put upon this architecture, as I think can be shown, and inferences with respect to the social condition and the degree of advancement of these tribes have been constantly drawn from it both fallacious and deceptive, when the plain truth would have been more creditable to the aborigines. It will be my object to give an interpretation of this architecture in harmony with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes. The houses of the different tribes, in ground-plan and mechanism, will be considered and compared, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... sordid!' he said indignantly to the professor. 'You have no eyes for the Immaterial, the intangibly Ideal, that lies behind the shadowy and deceptive veil that ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... a British explorer, who has left his name on the most important island of the North Pacific coast, baffled by the deceptive appearances of the two capes that guard the way to a noble stream (Cape Disappointment and Cape Deception), passed them without a thought. But Captain Gray, sailing the good ship "Columbia," of Boston, who coasted those shores for more than two ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... found. Slowly she stood on. The first heave showed twenty fathoms, the next fourteen, when it seemed as if the ship was directly under the cliffs. But the more experienced seamen knew that the darkness was deceptive. ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... drove slowly back to the top of the bluff, and on the way Bertrand explained to the Elder all that had transpired. "It seemed best to Mary and me that you should look the ground over yourself, before any action be taken. We hoped appearances might be deceptive, and that you would have information that would set our fears at rest before news of a mystery should ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... reading because of the purity of its style, its genuine pathos and healthy sentiment, has in it so strong a dramatic element that it will attract readers of all ages and of either sex. The incidents of the plot, arising from the thoughtless indulgence of a deceptive freak, are exceedingly natural, and the keen interest of the narrative is sustained from beginning to end. It is worthy of the high reputation attained by the author as a writer of stories interesting as novels and destined for the delight of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the prairies is wonderfully fantastic and deceptive. The effect which seamen call looming is one of the commonest of its forms. This brings real but distant objects into view, and dignifies them in size and color, till we can take a farm-house for a white marble palace, and leafless woods with sunset clouds behind them for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... decrying others, self-restraint, and habitual freedom from backbiting: these eight vows, with senses restrained, he should steadily pursue. He should always practise a sinless mode of conduct, that is not deceptive and not crooked. Freed from attachment, he should always make one who comes as a guest eat (at least) a morsel of food. He should eat just enough for livelihood, for the support of life. He should eat only such food as has been ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... replied, addressing himself to the Mandarin, "the words that have been spoken are bent to a deceptive end. They of our community are a simple race and doubtless in the past their ways were thus and thus. But, as it is truly said, 'Tian went bare, his eyes could pierce the earth and his body float in space, but they of his seed do ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... it?" said Antony. The park lay quietly in the moonlight on either side of the drive, wearing a little way ahead of them a deceptive air of smoothness which ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... I wept not less bitterly than he, for I had learned that the dead one was none other than that Clarimonde whom I had so deeply and so wildly loved. A prie-dieu stood at the foot of the bed; a bluish flame flickering in a bronze patern filled all the room with a wan, deceptive light, here and there bringing out in the darkness at intervals some projection of furniture or cornice. In a chiselled urn upon the table there was a faded white rose, whose leaves—excepting one that still held—had ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... much broken up in various directions, owing to the continual winds during the last week. The lanes are difficult to cross over, as they are full of small pieces of ice, that lie dispersed about, and are partly covered with drift-snow. This is very deceptive, for one may seem to have firm ice under one at places where, on sticking one's staff in, it goes right down without any sign of ice." On many occasions I nearly got into trouble in crossing over snow like this on snow-shoes. I would suddenly find that the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... he seemed happy appearances were deceptive. A worm gnawed at his heart. He had hoped to be created Freiherr—baron—and here he was a simple "Herr von." How rarely is happiness ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... The deceptive glow made him loom gigantic and black, and tinged his snowy chest with the phosphorous gleam of a snowfield. His eyes ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... through all the achievements and crimes of his eventful reign; the abandonment of him by the grieved and indignant Samuel; his deceptive prosperity; and his conscious desertion by God, until his fits of depression bordered on madness. He had genius and heroism, but a bad heart, and the hour of his ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... in their dim and muted loveliness, their grave reticence, the deep and immitigable sadness with which, even at their most rapturous, they are penetrated. This is a score rich in beauty and strangeness, yet the music has often a deceptive naivete, a naivete that is so extreme that it reveals itself, finally, as the quintessence of subtlety and reticence—in which respect, again, we are reminded of its perfect, its well-nigh uncanny, correspondence with the quality of ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... to the higher crustaceans, if we want to judge of the class. By going too low, we run the risk of not seeing clearly. Animal creation is here on a system of experiments: and they are so endlessly multiplied, and exhibit such a profusion both of deceptive resemblances, and of differences which disappear by transformations, that classification no longer knows which way to turn. Worms, crustaceans, mollusks; to which group do these and those belong? To which ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... see that such sudden appearances are deceptive, and are, in fact, only what we ought to expect from the known imperfection of the geological record. The conditions favourable to the fossilisation of any group of animals occur comparatively rarely, and only ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the Colonel, "you had better make all haste to the police station beyond the town. My friend, whom I seconded under somewhat deceptive circumstances, seems to me to exaggerate very much the possibilities of a general rising; but even he would hardly maintain, I suppose, that you were not safe with ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Your prospect is about as deceptive as a fata morgana! What have you been doing, I ask you again, toward realizing this prospect and earning the ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... God is shedding more light on his Word, his plan, and his holy bride, he is also giving us more light on the workings of Satan and his deceptive power. As the light shines brighter, of course the battle waxes hotter between God and the devil, between light and darkness. As the light reveals the hiding-places of the devil and exposes his works, he is becoming more and more enraged and is making a desperate fight, for his time is ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... gentleness. Pendleton, when he gets you in a corner, purrs to you alone; yet you feel that he has claws. His voice rings on the parade ground; I'm sure of it. I can't make out what Captain Kirby's would sound like. There is a deceptive sympathy to it, deceptive because I feel in him much purpose. When an army officer can't flirt he either likes his profession too little or he ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... joint designer or in naming an alleged joint designer shall not affect the validity of the registration, or the actual ownership or the protection of the design, unless it is shown that the error occurred with deceptive intent. ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... this heart-awakening recital? I looked round at Lucy Anderson in lively sympathy with what I had heard. How little did her appearance give token of the deep domestic grief that must have settled upon her young heart! How deceptive is the human countenance! Though pale and fragile, yet her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... undoubtedly be undergoing. The lioness, for it was she, passed so quickly that we could not even distinguish her movements, much less fire. Indeed at night it is absolutely useless to attempt to shoot unless the object is very close and standing perfectly still, and then the light is so deceptive and it is so difficult to see the foresight that the best shot will miss more ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... age, in sum, that is the most romantic and tender of all ages—for a male. I mean the age of fifty. An age absurdly misunderstood by all those who have not reached it! A thrilling age! Appearances are tragically deceptive. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... set. A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light, that seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted a fantastic shape. In the orchestra stalls, the drugget covering them looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous waves had been suddenly rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as everybody ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... the admonition was nevertheless woefully deceptive. Like the subdued beat of drum by which, some five years later, the seamen of London were lured to Tower Hill, there to be seized and thrown bodily into the waiting fleet, it masked under its mild exterior the old threat of coercion in a new form. The ancient pains and penalties were indeed ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... number; so much indeed, that, in point of population, the city of San Antonio de Bejar, with its bishopric and wealthy missions, has fallen to the rank of a small English village. It still carries on a considerable trade, but its appearance of prosperity is deceptive; and I would caution emigrants not to be deceived by the Texian accounts of the place. Immense profits have been made, to be sure; but now even the Mexican smugglers and banditti are beginning to be disgusted with the universal ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... as passed in a similar manner, in going distances varying from ten to twenty-five miles daily in pursuit of houses which we were induced to think must suit us, but when seen proved as deceptive a those I have mentioned. We gained nothing by our travels but the loss of time, money, and hope. At last the idea entered our heads of going to some of the house-agents, and ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... the rocky points of the Sardinian coast, I observed the ruins of a building, but so deceptive is distance, I could not at first determine whether it had been a fortress or a cottage. I asked one of the officers for his telescope; and being still in doubt, questioned him as I returned it. He smiled and said: 'For the last five or six ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... his unfortunate luck or not, he was not able to summon a desire to go again. He had not forgotten his other experience. It was a part of that something fundamentally, monumentally lacking in the German race—something shoddy, deceptive, which he had met with at ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... subtilty; girt us with trenches round; "Inspirited our soldiers; made them bear, "With mind unmurmuring, all the tedious war; "Taught where to find the means to gain supplies "Of food and arms; wherever need me call'd, "There always was I sent. Lo! when the king, "From Jove's deceptive dream, gave word to quit "Th' unfinish'd war, he might the deed defend "Through him who bade. But Ajax disapproves "The flight; insists Troy shall in ruins lie, "Asserts our power may do it! No! our troops "Embarking, he not stay'd. Why seiz'd he not "His arms? ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... pedantry in the multiplication of foot notes, I have inserted many authorities incidentally in the text itself, and have omitted all except such as I thought would be desired by the reader. Every scholar knows how easy it is to increase the number of references almost indefinitely, and also how deceptive such an ostensible evidence of wide reading ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... political rights the acquisition of which was alike the object and supposed reward of our Revolutionary struggle, a system of exclusive privileges conferred by partial legislation. To remove the influences which had thus gradually grown up among us, to deprive them of their deceptive advantages, to test them by the light of wisdom and truth, to oppose the force which they concentrate in their sup-port—all this was necessarily the work of time, even among a people so enlightened and pure as that of the United States. In most other countries, perhaps, it could only be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... free people is the preservation of their liberty, and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just division of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretense of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority and give many positive and ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... girls have told you all about it. We knew for the last month that it must come before long, though there was a deceptive improvement ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool, balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all, like sea groves and mosses beneath ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... is a misleading or deceptive appearance. The happiness that he had looked forward to was turning out to ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Distance also is deceptive and cannot be estimated as under other skies. The far-off mountains are brought near and made to glow in a halo of mellow light. Manifold ocular illusions appear in the mirage and deceive the uninitiated. An indefinable dreamy something steals ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... leader had yielded, when the majority of the chiefs favored Piqua instead of Chillicothe, but now he would certainly hold them to the agreement. The trail led on unceasingly, but the brightening of the skies was deceptive. The clouds soon closed in again, heavier and blacker than ever. Although it was only mid-afternoon it became almost as dark as night. Then the lightning began to play in swift flashes, so bright that the men were dazzled, and ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of her—had I bestowed the smallest attention upon her. She was twenty-five years old, while I was but fourteen. Also, she was very beautiful. But I hesitate to give a further description of her lest my imagination should once more picture the bewitching, though deceptive, conception of her which filled my mind during the period of my passion. To be frank, I will only say that she was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently developed, and a woman—as also that I was ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... The deceptive heart of Louise led her to hope, notwithstanding she had voluntarily sought the cloister, that the king, yearning for her presence, would come himself, as soon as he heard of her departure, and affectionately force her back to the Louvre. Early ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... hope—a single chance—and I took it. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took careful aim. It was a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed to it, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work. There is, though, something about marksmanship which is ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... inefficient workers found in our towns, and that the two classes present different problems for solution. The character of the "chronic" class of unemployed makes the problem appear to be, not one of economic readjustment, but rather of training and education. But this appearance is deceptive. The connection between the two kinds of "unemployment" is much closer than is supposed. The irregularity of the "season" and "fashion" trades, the periodic spells of bad trade, are continually engaged in degrading and deteriorating the physique, the morale, ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... softened, natural affections, over a whole and unhumbled heart. Experience incontestably establishes the fact, although it may be difficult for philosophy to explain the reason of it, that slight persecutions have often been as effectual as the heaviest in blasting the deceptive appearance of religion, which, under favouring circumstances, grew for a time in the life of an unrenewed man. In point of fact, a sneer from some leading spirit in a literary society, or a laugh raised by a gay circle of pleasure-seekers in a fashionable drawing-room, or the rude jest of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... gain of the people to be accompanied by a corresponding spiritual advancement? Was man to become the chief object of reverence in this wonderfully expanding industrial empire? If not, all this progress was deceptive, and nobody could predict how soon our very superiority should be turned to the advantage of that aristocracy which had perverted so many things ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... The sun hung low in the horizon, and the deceptive warmth of mid-afternoon had given place to the chill dampness in the atmosphere. Half unconsciously, feeling that the time must have slipped away more rapidly than she had suspected, Sara quickened her steps, Garth striding ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... and deceptive to write of those subconscious imaginings that convict the souls of most men some time or another. In that condition things are largely what we fashion them to be, and one may be thought to be asserting their ultimate truth in speaking of their influence. But there is no escaping from the fact ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... the girls spoke, and all looked black and miserable as they bent over their work, or slacked and glanced around them. Outside, the rain began to fall, and the sky was grey with cloud. The lights had to be switched on, and they cast a deceptive glow upon all work, and idiotic shadows of the moving fingers of the girls. Miss Summers glowered and rubbed the tip of her nose; and at each crack or rustle of a chair or a piece of material she glanced sharply up, as though she were fighting with an impulse to scream. Sally felt that ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... however, that all talk of compromise on the part of the Southern leaders was deceptive—that they were relentlessly pursuing the course marked out from the first, hoping, undoubtedly, that the government would be paralyzed by their allies at the North, and that their purposes would be effected ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... great excitement to all, for we had ice of all kinds to encounter, from the iceberg of huge quadrangular shape, with its stratified appearance, to the sunken and deceptive masses that were difficult to perceive before they were under the bow. I have rarely seen a finer sight. The sea was literally studded with these beautiful masses, some of pure white, others showing all shades of the opal, others emerald green and occasionally, here ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... "What is eternity?" "A day without yesterday or to-morrow, a line that has no end." "What is God?" "The necessary being, the sun of eternity, the mechanist of nature, the eye of justice, the watch-maker of the universe, the soul of the world." The deceptive and acute question, "Does God reason?" was put to him, it is said, by Sir James Macintosh, Massieu at once wrote, "Man reasons because he doubts; he deliberates, he decides; God is omniscient; He knows all things; He never doubts; ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... was most deceptive. Neither peace nor loneliness lurked amid those sombre rock shadows; over all was the dominance of men—primitive, fighting men, rendered almost wholly animal by the continued hardships of existence, the ceaseless ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the southwest. Low dun-colored sandhills waved from him down and down, in slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached out into gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse, glimmered ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... surface would be more or less like that of the figure 8[Symbol: 8 turned 90 deg.], although in old stems this may give place to an elliptical outline, but even then traces of two medullary canals may be found. This argument is very deceptive, for the appearance of the transverse section must depend, not only on the intimacy of their union, but also on the internal structure of the stems themselves. When two flowers cohere without much pressure they exhibit uniting ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... swimming a few small canals, I passed through some open flood-gates, built in a grass ridge made to keep the water from encroaching on the low-lying farms, and came upon a most disheartening sight. Beyond several hundred yards of dangerous marsh flowed the river, looking very white in the deceptive light of early morning. The wavelets formed by the steady wind and the current were making a faint, but disconcerting, noise. Though it was only just possible to discern the opposite bank, there seemed to be a ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... these frictions do not survive ten minutes. Public officials do not become political marionettes, though people pretend that they are. When theory runs against the grain of living forces, the result is a deceptive theory of politics. If the real government of the United States "had, in fact," as Woodrow Wilson says, "been a machine governed by mechanically automatic balances, it would have had no history; but it was not, and its history has ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... artist he is if he were less deceptive. He has his problems no less than Ibsen had, and he is much preoccupied with them even when he appears lost in ribald laughter. They are different from Ibsen's, however, and in that difference lies one of the chief explanations of Hamsun's position as an artist. All of Ibsen's ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... the brain, the body, and their environment, which is continually acting upon the entire man, are of no importance whatever, would not be worthy even of mere mention if it were not for the fact that this form of delusion has of late become so common, under the deceptive names of metaphysics, Christian science, and mind-cure, when the theory is simply an attempt to get rid of science ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... which had been beating on the sands now outside, seemed peaceful and green. The town which I thought had such winding streets when I walked through them now looked as if it had been laid out by a landscape architect. Up, up we travelled, and the higher we were the more deceptive was the North Sea. ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... precinct. With the insight on which he prided himself, he fancied that he could look through Phoebe, and all around her, and could read her off like a page of a child's story-book. But these transparent natures are often deceptive in their depth; those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain are farther from us than we think. Thus the artist, whatever he might judge of Phoebe's capacity, was beguiled, by some silent charm of hers, to talk freely of what ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which the newly-discovered body pursued through the heavens was ascertained by those calculations with which astronomers are familiar. It happens, however, that Uranus possesses a superficial resemblance to a star. Indeed the resemblance is so often deceptive that long ere its detection as a planet by Herschel, it had been observed time after time by skilful astronomers, who little thought that the star-like point at which they looked was anything but a star. From these early observations it was possible ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... a curious coincidence," said Queed, with great but deceptive mildness, "that Fifi said much the same thing to me, though in quite a ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... slender, and—at brief distance—invisible thread of land, with the dark waters rolling around them far and near, they presented an insubstantial dream-like aspect, seeming rather like castles floating between air and ocean than actual fortifications—a deceptive mirage rather than reality. There was nothing imaginary, however, in the work ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to speak, and checked herself. She had been chiefly intent upon her own accomplishment, and Gerard's playing was of a deceptive ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... my head, or, more definitely—a violin. I bought a fiddle on my own account. Of course my father saw the instrument; if I could keep it out of his sight I could not very well keep it out of his hearing. Then, besides, little boys should not be deceptive. He says: "What are you going to do with that?" I says: "I'm going to learn to play it." Then he asked me where I had bought it, and I told him like a dutiful son—"Tom Carrodus's in Church Green." He summoned my mother and asked: "Mally, what dos'ta think o' this lot?" She—good woman—said ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... a good time in Texas and escaped some cold weather. This deceptive sort of winter here is grippe-laden. I've had the thing, but I'm now getting over it. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... makes it unlawful for anybody to induce or persuade workmen to change from one place to another (except presumably the labor unions themselves), or to bring workmen into the State by means of any false or deceptive representations, false advertising or false pretences, or by reason of the existence of a strike or other "trouble." Failure to state in an advertisement, proposal or contracts for the employment of workmen that there is a strike ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... reasons for wishing that Clara should first see Colonel Le Noir with other company, to have an opportunity of observing him well and possibly forming an estimate of his character (as a young girl of her fine instincts might well do) before she should be exposed in a tete-a-tete to those deceptive blandishments he knew so well how ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... proud trophy to his saddle-flap by a piece of whipcord, and, mounting the now tractable Hercules, began to cast about in search of a landmark. Like most down countries, this one was somewhat deceptive; there were plenty of landmarks, but they were all the same sort—clumps of trees on hill-tops, and plantations on hill-sides, but nothing of a distinguishing character, nothing that a stranger could say, 'I remember seeing that as I came'; or, 'I remember passing that ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... suit. Two hundred yards away from us, in its very centre, was the third of these ghostly statues. I think it was the best of the three—the most like, the most deceptive. It stood boldly outlined against the wild sky: the horse on its hind legs, with its curiously attenuated tail; the man bareheaded, pointing with his plumed hat to the now ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... to regard old work has misled us into a slavish worship of precedent, and an abject craving for authority by which to shape our own work. Close imitation of old work has been regarded as the only safe course, deceptive imitation of it the highest measure ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various
... from its own gossamer substance; and beyond this are nothing. Space and time, or, as Koheleth expresses it, the universe and eternity, were placed in our consciousness from the very first, and are as deceptive as the mirage of the desert.[124] Kant would define them to be functions of the brain. A projection of the organ of human thought, the world is woven of three threads—space, time, and causality—which, being identical with the mind, appear and vanish with it. The one underlying reality, whether ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... paper to me, and that (if it turns out so) I thought it worth communicating to the Linnean Society. I shall feel great interest in studying all your facts on Primula, when they are worked out and the seed counted. Size of capsules is often very deceptive. I am astonished how you can find time to make so many experiments. If you like to send me your paper tolerably well written, I would look it over and suggest any criticisms; but then this would cause you extra copying. Remember, however, that Lord ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... "You believed old Abdul-Ali of Damascus? He's a French secret political agent. So whatever he told us is certainly not true. Or, if it is true, or partially true, then it's the kind of truth that is deadlier deceptive than a good clean God-damned lie. Get this: such men as Abdul Ali would face torture rather than betray an associate—unless they're sure the associate is a traitor or about to become one. A government can't easily punish its own spies on foreign ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the affairs of life was a Gordian knot impossible to untie and which genius ought to cut. Far from accepting the pettiness of middle-class existence, she was angry at the delay which kept the great things of life from her grasp,—blaming fate as deceptive. Celestine sincerely believed herself a superior woman. Perhaps she was right; perhaps she would have been great under great circumstances; perhaps she was not in her right place. Let us remember there are as many ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... gaze at the passing man, follow his steps, and laugh at him. Yes, the Chinese vase is laughing—its body seems to swell more and more from laughter, and in the blue painting the white background has, here and there, a deceptive similarity to grinning teeth. Darvid strives not to look at the vase, and hastens on; behind him Puffie's shaggy feet tread the floor more hurriedly, but as he returns, the porcelain monster thrusts out ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... expression are realised through a method at once plastic and unlaboured; his art has spontaneity—the deceptive spontaneity of the expert craftsman. It is not, in its elements, a strikingly novel style. His harmony, per se, is not unusual, if one sets it beside the surprising combinations evolved by such innovators as d'Indy, Debussy, and Strauss. ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... came to visit him at Hanover, and urge this matter. The taciturn, inarticulately thoughtful, rather sulky old Gentleman, he had weighty burdens lying on him; felt fretted and galled, in many ways; and had found life, Electoral and even Royal, a deceptive sumptuosity, little better than a more or less extensive "feast of SHELLS," next to no real meat or drink left in it to the hungry heart of man. Wife sitting half-frantic in the Castle of Ahlden, waxing more and more into a gray-haired Megaera (with whom Sophie Dorothee under seven seals of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had been transferred a large number of the altered muskets sent from Springfield, Massachusetts, so that in 1861 the arms in that arsenal were, perhaps, numerically second only to those at Springfield. These arms, by a conjunction of deceptive and bold measures, were removed from the arsenal in Missouri and transported to Illinois. To whom did those arms belong? Certainly to those whose money had made or purchased them. That is, to the States in common, not to their agent the General Government, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the discovery, our adventurer paused, more particularly to survey so deceptive an object, which seemed to have been constructed on the most efficient principles; probably by some broken down wax figure costumer. It comprised the complete wardrobe of a scarecrow, namely: a cocked hat, bunged; tattered coat; old velveteen breeches; and long worsted stockings, full ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... were not a curse upon the earth." And then they seemed to deduce, from the fact of that curse, a vague notion (for it was little more) that this world was the devil's world, and that therefore physical facts could not be trusted, because they were disordered, and deceptive, and what not. ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... explore, to my own content, this forbidden treasure, searching in the dark soul of Marmaduke Considine and the tender heart of Gabrielle; threading the lanes that spread in a net about the schoolhouse at Lapton Huish; brooding over the deceptive peace of Overton Manor; recalling the scene in the yew-parlour, the atmosphere, terrifically charged with emotion, of the day when Mrs. Payne took her courage in her hands and fought like a maternal tigress for Arthur's soul. My heart beat ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... to Rome; but she was told that priests were not in sufficient favor just then in France, to get a vessel so obviously superior to the ordinary craft of the Mediterranean, to carry them about. While a third, more imaginative than either, ventured to doubt whether it was a vessel at all; deceptive appearances of this sort not being of rare occurrence, and usually taking the aspect of something out ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper |
