"Make believe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason it away,—a great deal more than I should think they would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies her self-respect, that not only secures her acquiescence, but arouses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... started off, and on and on they walked together, Dicky having tight hold of Lola's hand, while she told him about the wonderful things Bruno could do; how he could go up and down a ladder, play the fife and beat the drum, make believe go to sleep, and dance a jig. It was by these tricks of his that Lola earned money for her uncle, with whom she lived; for her father and mother were both dead, and there was no one in the whole world ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Brindle, and all the rest of the dear creatures, rubbing their horned heads against the hedge as usual; and two or three of them standing knee-deep in the great shallow pool, where Fred and Allan used to sail their boats, and make believe it was the Atlantic. We always called the little bit of sedgy ground under the willow America, and used to send freights of paper and cardboard across the mimic ocean, which did not ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hear you're sick. Don't say that again, Gerald," she silenced him, letting her anxiety at last plainly appear. "Don't tell me you aren't sick, for I know better. It's been taking away my appetite to see you make believe to eat, and choke over it. Your cough is so tight it sounds as if it tore your lungs. Give me your hand. It's as hot, dear boy, and as dry!... Wait, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... to you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions. In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this). "I should like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and slip off mentally into a deep ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... imply that the rite was Aryan, it is far more important to point out that among the higher races "the feeling that the slaying involves a grave responsibility and must be justified by divine permission" appears, and "care was taken to slay the victim without bloodshed, or to make believe that it had killed itself."[230] This feeling marks distinctly the Greek sacrifice as at Thargelia and in the Leukadian ceremony, the Roman sacrifice at the Tarpeian Rock, the sacrifice at the Valhalla rock of ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the boy; "you whispered to him, when he was half a mile away, but did not yell for help. Oh, you're a mark, trying to make believe you are young enough to enjoy sport. Say, you ought to have a shawl strap on you, so your rescuer can have something to take hold of; and if I were in your place, I would get the dimensions of Noah's ark, and have one made to fit me. You better ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... that occasion represented Aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even Aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only one with you in friendship but your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, and would fain make believe that he is telling us something which is new. For you, in your poems, say The All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the other hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... (you know there's never any one there to look after it), and sail across to Long Stork Island, and knock about there for the day, just to see how we get on. Of course, we shall have to come back before six; but we must make believe we've landed there for good, and see how we manage. And, of course, if we get on there, we're bound to get on at New Swishford, for it's a far jollier ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... sad work to us—saying good by to our friends, and we tried to make believe that we should spend the next summer in Deephaven, and we meant at any rate to go down for a visit. We were glad when the people said they should miss us, and that they hoped we should not forget them and the old place. It touched us to find that they cared so much for us, and we said over and over ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... didn't want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and make believe it ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Which tells me, Youth 's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit— It cannot be that thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd— And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe that thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this alter'd size: But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make believe." ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... voices of my fellow-boarders, "be a good fellow and sing us one of the old chap's songs; or at least something or other of that day, and we'll make believe it was the air with which he killed ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... give him meat and would give it to him only. This was maddening to them. They would rage around just outside the throwing-distance of the whip, while Lip-lip devoured the meat and Mit- sah protected him. And when there was no meat to give, Mit-sah would keep the team at a distance and make believe to give ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... know! I never did know. Somewhere out West, we thought. I used to make believe the letters came from Helena, or Butte, because that was where she heard from him last. He was always promising to come home—in the letters. That used to make her so much better," she explained naively. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... both in Sallie's wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky girls are all pretty, I suppose—everybody says so, and you have to make believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one—you know her? Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first thing I knew I ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... it will be better to only pretend it's night in the woods," agreed Bully. "We can go in a dark place under the trees, and make believe it's night, and that will ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... palatable? Can't we in some way make ourselves believe that we are eating candy instead of taking quinine? For you know that we grown-ups have not lost all our powers of imagination. How often we play make believe, even yet! I'll tell you what we can do. Let's have this same physical exercise idea but introduce into it the element of sport which Webster defines as "that which diverts and makes mirth." Let's ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... "Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up by relentless creditors; you are out of work—which is horse-shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and your wife is sick, your children are crying because they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rascal tries to make believe that he is scared, And really, when I first began, he stared, and stared, and stared; And then his under lip came out and farther out it came, Till mamma and the nurse agreed it was a "cruel shame"— But now what does that same wee, toddling, lisping baby do But laugh and kick ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... tell him? I have said something horribly stilted about esteem and friendship, which I would have left out, only that my letter seemed to be heartless without it. He has been to me as good as a man could be; but was it my fault that I could not love him? If you knew how I tried,—how I tried to make believe to myself that I loved him; how I tried to teach myself that that sort of very chill approbation was the nearest approach to love that I could ever reach; and how I did this because you bade me;—if you ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... us build a fort; and we will call that ship away out there, an enemy's vessel, and make believe we are firing great cannon ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... strong sense of humour, and every day he had some new episode, some characteristic opinion held by the American or some story of his past to tell me. Sometimes he would take out his note-book and make believe he was respectfully taking notes on some especially happy passages from these enlightening conversations. And at the same time he would say ...
— The Shield • Various
... itself, unreasonable persons are not lacking to point out that it is of the busman's variety. It is true that we are no longer face to face with the foe, but we—or rather, the authorities—make believe that we are. We wage mimic warfare in full marching order; we fire rifles and machine-guns upon improvised ranges; we perform hazardous feats with bombs and a dummy trench. More galling still, we are back in the region of ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... when some of them still hold together, but for the most part they are decaying and falling to pieces, and are only like the faded rags of a once splendid robe which a child may gather round its puny form and make believe for the moment that it is a king. To the genuine credulity of the South-Sea Islander, and to the conscious make-believe of the Arab story-teller and the peasant who repeats the modern maerchen, all things ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... play. They accept the disguised suitors, and even consent to a marriage. Dolores appears in the shape of a notary, without being recognized by the men. The marriage-contract is signed, and the lovers disappear to return in their true characters, full of righteous contempt. Isabella and Rosaura make believe to be conscience-stricken, and for a long while torment and deceive their angry bridegrooms. But at last they grow tired of teasing, they present the disguised Dolores, and they put their lovers to shame by showing ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... this first serious wound was to invest the war with a breathless and all-absorbing interest. It was now no longer "make believe," but deadly earnest. Blood had flowed; insults had been exchanged in due order, and offended ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... plan: We'll come once in a while, as in the past, to pay a visit to this henhouse, and we'll take away eight chickens. Of these, seven are for us, and one for you, provided, of course, that you will make believe you are sleeping and will not ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... just have to share and share about, unless the lady's to go without,' say I. And then I make believe to ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... let the wind blow high or low, and if I can't overhaul the wish of my heart, well, I'll carry her flag to the last. I'll die a bachelor for her sake, as sure as you are the moon, my lass, and you the polar star, and from this hour I'll never look at you, but I'll make believe it is her I am looking up at; for she is as high above me, and as bright as you are. God bless her! and to think I never even said good-night to her! I stood there like a mummy." And David ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Kosciusko asking what he meant, he answered, "As soon as a poor man on the road takes off his hat and asks for charity, the horse immediately stands still, and won't stir till something is given to the petitioner; and, as I had no money about me, I was obliged to make believe to give something, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... is the time, Corry?" asked Wilkinson. "It's eleven by my repeater," he answered. "Then it is quite safe to bathe; what do you say to a dip?" The lawyer unstrapped his knapsack, and hastened off the road towards the beach. "Come on, Wilks," he cried, "we'll make believe that it's ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... as we had! One man got bitten; but after a while foxy was caught. Then what did the cunning little thing do but make believe he was dead! Foxes are very cunning: they can play dead ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... at last, let down among us sinners!—a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners about our sins! Powerful holy critter, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious,—didn't you never hear, out of yer Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a year of sorrow Gridley!" he quivered indignantly. "I'll hang on, and make believe I'm meek as a lamb, but I'll spoil Gridley's record for this year! There was in olden times a chap who had a famous knack for getting square with people who used him the wrong way. I wish I could remember his ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... stag's antlers were large and strong, and the children liked to find them. They would pick them up and hold them in their hands and would then make believe they were Cave-men trapping reindeer in ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... the list of guests at the castle, I found that they were really persons unknown in society. They were merely of that class of witty, well-dressed parasites who always cling on to the wealthy and make believe that they are smart and of the grande monde. Rannoch was an expensive place to keep up, with all that big retinue of servants and gamekeepers, and with those nightly dinners cooked by a French chef; yet Leithcourt seemed to possess a long pocket and smiled ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... kind always used by whalers and sealers—that you can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... out back of camp last night," he murmured. "Me make believe sleep, me watch. I think I ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... by no means the interest of certain towns and districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many. Banknotes rob the public, but are such a daily convenience that we silence our scruples, and make believe they are gold. So imposts are the cheap and right taxation; but by the dislike of people to pay out a direct tax, governments are forced to render life costly by making them pay twice as much, hidden in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... eagerly. "We don't know anything at all about why we love. Folks who marry for money make believe love—I have watched them—I know. I love you. You're my big boy. That's all. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never could move, come creeping to his window with their stories and with trays ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... glance, than at Sing Sing, which I had visited on a newspaper assignment about fifteen years before. I had resolved beforehand to make the best of everything, and it seemed already possible that I might not have to make believe very ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of the parcel is to remain unknown as long as possible, and even if the present is sent from one member of the family to another living in the same house the door-bell is always rung by the servant before she brings the parcel in, to make believe that it has come from some outsider; and if a parcel has to be taken to a friend's house it is very often entrusted to a passer-by, with the request to leave it at the door and ring the bell. In houses ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... the harp. The children, too, would add their voices to the concert. The little boy Josef, sat near his father and watched his playing with rapt attention. Sometimes he would take two sticks and make believe play the violin, just as he had seen the village schoolmaster do. And when he sang hymns with the others, his voice was sweet and true. The father watched the child with interest, and a new hope rose within him. His own life ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... and ought to be made use of for the rest. Artifices were employed to accelerate their death; the last remnant of their foul portion was stolen from them; they were trodden on as though by inadvertence; those in the last throes wishing to make believe that they were strong, strove to stretch out their arms, to rise, to laugh. Men who had swooned came to themselves at the touch of a notched blade sawing off a limb;—and they still slew, ferociously and needlessly, to ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... "make believe you are stealing upon a band of Indians to scalp 'em—the poor things! You don't walk like a prairie rose. You stamp along more like a ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the right way ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... "I used to make believe, Aaron, as you say," Tommy replied sadly. "If you knew how I feel the folly of it now, perhaps even you would wish that ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the thing seemed to penetrate even his darkened mind, and then he would whisper, "I'll make believe it's Charlie, any way," so Charlie he persisted in calling her, and Richard encouraged him in this whim, when he found how much satisfaction it afforded the old man to ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... the first with natural irritation that a power of the powerlessness of Hawaii should thus profit by its undeniable footing in the family of nations, and send embassies, and make believe to have a navy, and bark and snap at the heels of the great German Empire. But Becker could not prevent the hunted Laupepa from taking refuge in any hole that offered, and he could afford to smile at the fantastic orgie in the embassy. It was another matter when the Hawaiians ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frequent attempts only resulted in a series of violent and altogether idiotical contortions of the face, that were very far from expressing what he intended. However, I knew what the poor fellow meant by it, so I smiled to him in return, and endeavoured to make believe ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... his life, all the world was truly a stage. He went gaily along playing his part, and when he came to Samoa, he, on whose brows the dews of youth still sparkled, gleefully revelled in the pomp and circumstance which allow him to make believe he was a chieftain. He could go flower-bedecked and garlanded without comment in among his adopted subjects. He paid deference to Samoan codes of manners, a thing he had scorned to do in ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... little necessary make believe before the numerous servants. How far it deceived them may be faintly guessed when one considers anyone's secrets in relation to ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... increased tilting of his chair. "I venture the conjecture, that if he has any darling pet name for her, such as Pinky-winky,' 'Little Fooly,' 'Chignonentily,' or 'Waxy Wobbles,' he feels horribly ashamed if any one overhears it, and coughs violently to make believe ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... peevish at the preference you mention — Or imply, to be precise — you may believe, or you may not, That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are. But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot. Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, — but in the meantime Don't go back to rocking-horses. There, ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... skillful use of carpenters' tools, his ingenious devices for amusing her and diverting his own weariness as he lay sick in bed, e.g., tearing up sheets of white paper into tiny bits, and then letting her pour them out of the window to "make believe it snowed," or counting all the bristles in a clothes-brush, and then as she came in from school, holding it up and bidding her guess their number—his coolness and efficiency in the wild excitements of a conflagration, the calm deliberation with which he walked past the horror-stricken ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... disarmed us was really as funny as it looked (the idea of disarmament, you see, was serious), whether he didn't say these things because he knew we saw him as he really was; because he saw himself as he really was, and couldn't bear it; because there was no escape for him unless he could make believe that he was in fun ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... be no trouble to him to keep his balance, and when up like that he would twist his legs about, open them wide, put them forwards and backwards, and end by insulting me with his feet, so it seemed to me, for he would spar at me with them and make believe to hit out. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... might sicken and die in that wilderness of houses, nothing above me but "a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." Overcome with dread, I rose and bestirred myself. Blinds drawn, lamp lit, and by a blazing fire, I tried to make believe ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... word; but now we're all named and our officers elected, what do we do first? It's easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play at missionarying because their folks work at it, same as Living and I used to make believe be blacksmiths when we ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... reached me, O auspicious King, that when the neighbours proposed to heap fuel about the cabinet and to burn it the Kazi bawled out to them, "Do it not!" And they said to one another, "Verily the Jinn make believe to be mortals and speak with men's voices." Thereupon the Kazi repeated somewhat of the Sublime Koran and said to the neighbours, "Draw near to the cabinet wherein we are." So they drew near, and he said, "I am so and so the Kazi, and ye are such ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... be—indeed, usually is—accompanied by very poor oratory. The occasion may be trivial as you please; that it be unselfish will suffice to unlock the goodness within men, who, if often worse than they believe, and usually than they make believe, are always better than ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... man into the snow house?" Freddie wanted to know. "That'll be more fun than dolls. And we can make believe the snow house gets on fire, and I'll be a fireman and put it out. Oh, let's play that!" he cried, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... Naason, "to make believe before the foolish mob; it is another thing to stand before a wise ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... no chance against Cochise? He's the only living creature that Cochise fears. Can't you see we must make believe—must keep up with him until we are rid of the Apaches? Bad as he is, he's a white man. Cochise is a—devil! When he tired of Blossom, he'd ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... morning, she went to work. First, she patted the manuscript pile, which grew so amazingly fast. Then she filled her fountain pen and looked off over the treetops, beyond her window, until, like Peter Pan, she slipped off into another world, the Land of Make Believe, a country she had discovered for herself and peopled with human beings to suit her own taste. To be sure, heir story concerned itself mainly with herself, Jarvis, and the Professor, but only the traits ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... strange stuff they may contain, and declaring them to be sound historical material, while he applies to all the strange stuff of a similar kind surrounding them the most rigorous principles of modern science. Or he has to make believe that the reasoning processes exhibited in the speeches of the Acts, in certain passages of St. Paul's Epistles, or in the Old Testament quotations in the Gospels, have a validity for the mind of the nineteenth century, when in truth they are the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Say, make believe that beach doesn't look good!" exclaimed Teddy to Billie, for they had fallen a little behind the rest. "And the good old ocean—say, what ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... an early hour. After breakfast Mrs. Freeman said: "Now, Anne, we will make believe that you are my own little girl, and I will tell you what to do to help me, just as I do Rose. You see," she added with a little laugh, "that I am like Frederick. I like to play that all sorts of ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... it up, tore it open, and flopped down on the sofa. Miss Jane snatched up an imaginary letter, tore it open (in imagination), and flopping down beside her sister, looked over her shoulder, apparently to make believe to herself that she read it along with her. Thus they read and commented on ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... hadn't got any word, and didn't know whether she could manage it nor whether George would bring her. I had a sort of half-and-half notion that perhaps Gracey might come, but I didn't like to think of it for fear of being disappointed, and tried to make believe I didn't expect her. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... said the girl, her eyes dilating as she watched the mystic beam. "You know you don't half like the look of it yourself. It makes you feel uncanny, and you're just talking nonsense to make believe you don't think there ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... will! I understand. You are all anxious about me. Theoretically, this yacht is a volcano, and you're trying to keep me from kicking off the lid. But I've an idea that the lid will stay on tightly if we make believe we are Mr. Cunningham's guests. But it is almost impossible to suspect that anything is wrong. Whenever a member of the crew comes in sight he is properly polite, just as he would be on a liner. If I do go to the bridge again I'll give you warning. Good-night, ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... Oh, pipe and make us dance! Oh, pipe and make us run away from school! Oh, pipe and make believe we are ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... was, my boy," and the corners of Mr. Mayne's mouth relaxed in spite of his efforts to keep serious. "I fell in love with your mother, and stuck to her for seven or eight years; but I did not make believe that I was brother to a lot of pretty girls, and waste all my time dancing attendance on them and running ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... discover whether they love one another in silence, Indian-like. One of the caresses consists in throwing to the loved one a small pebble, or grains of Indian corn, or else some other object which cannot hurt. The swain, on throwing the pebble, is bound to look in the opposite direction, to make believe he did not do it. Should the adored one return it, matters look well, else, the game ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... "Oh, I guess we'll make believe the fire's out," said Bunny. "I was going to stop playing, anyhow. Where are you going, Mother?" he asked, for he saw that his mother was dressed as she usually was when she went ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... 1856-57 his favorite cousin, Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson, usually called Bob, visited them; a great treat for Louis, not only because his ill health kept him from making many companions of his own age, but because Bob loved many of the same things he did and to "make believe" was as much a part of his life as Louis's. Many fine games they had together; built toy theatres, the scenery and characters for which they bought for a "penny plain and twopence colored," and were never tired of dressing up. One of their chief delights, he says, was in "rival kingdoms ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... opinion of Jack Nelson. "He's dead broke, but he wants to make believe that he's a dead game ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... dangling from his fob, and a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction; so that he looked as a man might, who, in the very act of smacking his lips over choice old wine, tried to make believe ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to make believe that a girlish figure was seated in the dark beside the bed; that a tender face was bending down, a gentle hand touching the troubled forehead, stroking ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... t' give her mother's ring. "Moses," says mother, "you better take the ring off my finger. It isn't no weddin'-ring," says she, "for I never was what you might call wed by a real parson in the fashionable way, but on'y accordin' t' the customs o' the land," says she, "an' I got it from the Jew t' make believe I was wed in the way they does it in these days; for it didn't do nobody no hurt, an' it sort o' pleased me. You better take it, Moses, b'y," says she, "for the dirt o' the grave would only spile it," says she, "an' I'm not wantin' it no more. Don't wear it at ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... knife into my heart. And yet he went on slowly, as if his very object were to stab her to the quick. And then, all at once he changed. And he whispered in her ear: Dear cousin, why dost thou so obstinately destroy thyself and me? What! dost thou make believe to love me, calling thyself slave, and yet refuse to follow me wherever I may go? Or dost thou think that thou art dreaming, mistaking a shadow for reality, expecting suddenly to wake, and find nothing in thy arms, and thy vision of happiness a phantom, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... much as stuck-up people pretend to look down at the place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe that they only come to amuse the children, or because their country cousins visit them; and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one finds there, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but Jockey Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutes they're ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... so tall that it stood above the heads of the children. They used to go in among it, and make believe that they were lost in ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life—not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half-hours of strength and exaltation ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... it does not satisfy me yet. I want a longer, prettier story. Let us make believe the Wind and the Sun are two men. Make them talk so they will seem real to us. Can't you ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... the other the barrister who defends him. I'd better be the barrister, because I know more about English law than Selwyn does. And the furniture'll have to be the other counsel and the gentlemen of the jury. Sit over there, Charlie, near that railing, and we'll make believe it's the bar. The only trouble is the barrister will have no gown and wig. Isn't ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... he was in the fresh air, and Laura hastily busied herself with her flowered Dresden teacups, pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded to be taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe: the two understood each other only too well: but it was wiser to keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return to his senses. For this reason Laura always spoke as if his choice ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... diced with them, and taught them all the oaths of a free company. So much wine, and no more, should they have; when they frowned, I let them see that their frowning and their half-drawn knives mattered no doit to me. It was their whim—a huge jest of which they could never have enough—still to make believe that they sailed under Kirby. Lest it should spoil the jest, and while the jest outranked all other entertainment, they obeyed as though I had been indeed that ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... steamer stood two figures. The sky was gray. Drifts of fog hung plume-like over Alcatraz, veiled the Exposition domes and turrets in a mystic glory. Sometimes it was like a great white nothingness; then, as if by magic, Color, Forms and Beauty leaped forth like some startling vision from a Land of Make Believe. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... in the nursery, And I want to talk to you, dear; So you must come and sit by me, And make believe you hear. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Harry, "suppose we do—it's good fun at any rate to make believe that robbers, and outlaws, and smugglers, and all other sorts of odd visitors are coming—and—I cannot help owning that what Bob says sounds probable. So here go two bullets for this barrel, and nine buckshot ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... my mother," thought Boo. "I'll just hide behind this piece of rock, and then I'll jump out and make believe to scare her. It will ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he's alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs - deceased, sir - deceased,' said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... exciting the charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to that of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... told him where I was going he took me back in the library and started in," she went on. "He was so angry he could scarcely speak. If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad. But to try to make believe he wasn't angry! His ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the worst of it. The man, the writer, over whom the irresistible desire to mock at himself, his work, his puppets and their fortunes has power, will never be a novelist. The novelist must "make believe very much"; he must be in earnest with his characters. But how to be in earnest, how to keep the note of disbelief and derision "out of the memorial"? Ah, there is the difficulty, but it is a difficulty of which many authors appear to be insensible. Perhaps they ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... of the county of Limerick, Ireland. Eliza was an upper servant, who took care of her mistress and her children. Catharine was and is now the cook. Eliza appeared to her mistress to be a very well educated, and a very intellectual woman of 35, though she would try to make believe she could not write, and that she was subject to fits of insanity. There was then presumptive evidence that she wrote a good deal, and there is now positive evidence that she could write. She used often, in the presence of Mrs. L., to take the Bible ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... into holes for him, and left wife and children, and melted their silver and squandered their gold for him—those are the men who love his memory dearest, and for whose poor sakes we of the younger generation must make believe to think him a saint ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... beginning of our literature because they had no depth of earth, and withered away rootless and sunstruck, is to be over-taken half with scorn for their pretense, and half with pity for conductors and readers, who had to make believe very hard to find them quite nice. "They would bear a little more seasoning certainly," like the marchioness's orange-peel and water; yet how strong must have been the passion for literature when money was expended and pains taken with these ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which the Marchioness nurses Dick in his fever, and puts his favorite philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made believe it was wine. "If you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much flavor:" so it stood originally, and to the latter word in the little creature's mouth I seem to have objected. Replying (on the 16th of December) he writes, "'If you make ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... bearers laid him gently upon the ground and commenced to examine him. Pinocchio decided to make believe he was dead. ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... JULIA. Make believe that you are he, and that I am you! You did some fine acting when you were on your knees before me—then you were the nobleman—or—have you ever been to a show and seen one who could ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... distinction of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their pleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of person. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... off troubling about that," Anne said. "Remember, however much we make believe, I have really shaken the dust of respectability off my feet. Hamilton Place knows me no longer. I am a dweller in the byways. Even if I come back, it will be as a stranger. People will be interested in me, perhaps, as some one outside their lives. 'That strange ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she said, and her clear hazel eyes brimmed over with tears as she spoke. "I am very, very miserable. Nobody loves me, and I have nobody to love except you, of course, Eleanor Humphreys, and sometimes I cannot make believe that you are ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... our fare. Particularly the Cigarette, for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough beefsteak and all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have been flavoured by the look of the other people's bread-berry. But we did not find it so in practice. You may have a head-knowledge that other people ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to put a garland on my head and make believe I'm drunk, yes, and I'll climb out on the roof yonder (pointing to Amphitryon's house) and repel our returning hero in glorious style from up above there. I'll see that he's both soaked and sober. Then that servant Sosia of his shall promptly smart ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... because she was so awkward a little dress-maker. There is her straw hat,—she made that oak-leaf wreath about the crown one bright summer day, as we sat on the soft moss in the cool fragrant wood. Nelly liked the woods. She liked to lie with her ear to the ground and make believe hear the fairies talk; she liked to look up in the tall trees, and see the bright-winged oriole dart through the branches; she liked to watch the clouds, and fancy that in their queer shapes she saw cities, and temples, ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... constantly been held in honour, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forward a claim to the epithet of "liberal." In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognised sources of credit. It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science—a merit appreciated in a community in which the ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... she might come and ask again. Now when she was so far away his fancy teemed with stories. Every roadside flower had its fairy-tale which cried, "Tell me to little Wonder"—and once he tried to make believe to himself that Wonder was holding his hand, and looking up into his face with her big grave eyes, as he told some child's nonsense to the eternal hills. He broke off—half in anger with himself. Was he ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... masks, and dominos except now and then! Believe me, cherie, underneath it all we are much the same—very sad people. Only it wouldn't do to admit it. Life would be too terrible then. So we dance on and make believe we enjoy it, and by-and-by, if we play hard enough, we do believe it for a minute or two. From one point of view, you know, it is ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore |
