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Pretense   /pritˈɛns/   Listen
Pretense

noun
1.
The act of giving a false appearance.  Synonyms: feigning, pretence, pretending, simulation.
2.
Pretending with intention to deceive.  Synonyms: dissembling, feigning, pretence.
3.
Imaginative intellectual play.  Synonyms: make-believe, pretence.
4.
A false or unsupportable quality.  Synonyms: pretence, pretension.
5.
An artful or simulated semblance.  Synonyms: guise, pretence, pretext.



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"Pretense" Quotes from Famous Books



... his age, his dyes, his artificialities, to all the crowd, so to touch him where it would most pain him! For was he not the vainest man in the whole world? How well I knew his vulnerable point: the monstrous depth of his vanity in that pretense of youth which he preserved through superhuman pains and a genius of a valet, most excellently! I had much to pay Antonio for myself, more for my father, most for my mother. This was why that last of all the world I would have wished ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington

... the result of my surroundings. I have been trying to pretend to myself, ever since we left Washington, that we are traveling through a strange country; but it is a mere pretense. I have been trying to verify some previous impressions ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... (adj.), stretched; ten'sion; intense' (-ify); osten'sible (Lat. v. osten'dere, to stretch out or spread before one), apparent; pretense'. ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had deliberately planned this piece of foolishness. He must have had some idea of work when he had telephoned her; perhaps he still had. It was his way of being facetious, she argued, this fine pretense that it was all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his idea of hospitality. Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in the thought that there must be instinctive standards in a man ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... well as ever, but the doctor keeps some of the children still confined to the house for fear of bad consequences following the fever. He visits them twice a day for the same reason, or at least under that pretense, but I really believe he comes because he has got the habit of coming, and because he admires Aunty so much. She has a real affection for him, and is continually asking me if I don't like this and that quality in him which ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... polished exterior! Yet how ill he had concealed it! For intuitively she had always recognized its presence, but had deliberately closed her eyes, finding a joy in the secret knowledge of danger. Now at last he had discarded pretense. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... subject to military law who, on any pretense whatsoever, strikes his superior officer or draws or lifts up any weapon or offers any violence against him, being in the execution of his office, or willfully disobeys any lawful command of his superior officer, shall suffer death or such other ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... him up on the shore before the tents of the captive women. Hecuba, on seeing the corse, recognized it; and having imparted her design to Agamemnon, sent for Polymestor to come to her with his sons, concealing what had happened, under pretense that she might discover to him some treasures hidden in Ilium. But on his arrival she slew his sons, and put out his eyes; but pleading her cause before the Greeks, she gained it over her accuser (Polymestor). ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... omitted for the same reason—a previous visit. At Nottingham we were within ten or fifteen miles of this section, and by following a splendid road could have reached Rowsley Station, with its quaint inn, near Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall. No one who makes any pretense of seeing England will miss either of these places. Haddon Hall is said to be the most perfect of the baronial mansion houses now to be found in England. It is situated in a wonderfully picturesque position, on a rocky bluff overlooking the River Wye. The manor was originally ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... was no pretense about that. We selected this wood as well adapted for our purpose, and, as I was not familiar with the locality, I thought it best for all reasons to hire ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... has hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated in the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to play the part of constitutional President, has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator. As a consequence, a condition of affairs now exists in Mexico which has made it doubtful whether even the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... incumbent of the office that the city ever beheld, had been courted so persistently that, fearful of being picked up, he remained in hiding disguised as a Broadway fortune teller, where the Mayor came at intervals to consult him on pretense ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town on his melancholy load. The passenger, carrying his flat bag, came ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... their respective laws and obligations." From this it will be seen that the ground assumed in the message has been fully maintained at the same time that the stipulations of the treaty of Ghent are to be carried out in good faith by the two countries, and that all pretense is removed for interference with our commerce for any purpose whatever by a foreign government. While, therefore, the United States have been standing up for the freedom of the seas, they have not thought proper to make that a pretext for avoiding ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler

... meeting with Gingersnap was not as different from the first as one might have expected. He jumped on me, made much vigorous pretense to bite, and growled frequently, but it was a deep-chested growl and his ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... street, just off Columbus avenue, is Bonini's Barn, making great pretense through an unique idea. So far as the restaurant is concerned the food is a little below the average of Italian restaurants. One goes there once through curiosity and finds himself in a room that has all the appearance of the interior of a ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... its greatest encroachments at the period that chivalry was at its height; the outward show of respect and honor to woman keeping pace in its false pretense with the destruction of her legal rights. Woman's moral degradation was at this time so great that a community of women was even proposed, and was sustained by Jean de Meung, the "Poet of Chivalry," in his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... other dismally, making a pretense of hobbling, as if his muscles had given out. "How in the world ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... laws, perfectly proper on their face, are perverted to reduce persons to a condition of peonage, among which are false pretense or false promise laws, absconding debtor laws, board-bill laws, and in fact every ordinance, regulation, or statute defining a misdemeanor or crime. It can readily be seen that if the States may by legislative enactment define any act to be a crime the thirteenth amendment may become ...
— Peonage - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 15 • Lafayette M. Hershaw

... dropped all pretense at cordiality. "Us will—" He shook his head in annoyance. "I will not do that without order from my superior, Minister Modrilensky. Now you will be kind to leave. ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia

... forbid such practices as necromancy, or a "pretended" communication with the dead?—Because it would be only a pretense at best; for such communication is impossible. The dead are unconscious in their graves, and have no power to communicate with the living. Let this truth be once established, and it is the death-blow to the claims of Spiritualism, in the cases of all who will receive it. Allusion has already ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... back onto the deck, for he suddenly understood the futility of questions. Harrigan, in the meantime, had waited for the return of McTee, and when the latter did not come, the Irishman lingered on the bridge for an hour or more, pottering about with his brush in a pretense of finishing up a perfect job. His attention was drawn then by a gathering crowd and bustle in the waist of the ship between the wheelhouse and the forecastle. The entire crew of the Heron seemed ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... friendliness. The various ministers, for instance, did not sit together as ministers, off on a holiday. On the contrary, each one sat at the table with his countrymen. Over all there was a feeling of constraint, distrust, national antipathies but thinly veiled, with but the merest superficial pretense of disguising intense ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... on pretense of getting a little wooden stool from under an unoccupied table close to the object of my curiosity, and, as I stoop to pick it up, I fraudulently glance over the nearest warrior's shoulder. My sin finds me out. He turns and catches me in the act, and at ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... the plague, do you suppose I want this pretense to be kept up for an age? 'Tis but for a single day, {only} till I have secured the money: you be ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... truth of policy, but religious truth—your manners will be sincere. They will have earnestness, simplicity, and frankness—the best qualities of manners. They will be free from assumption, pretense, affectation, flattery, and obsequiousness, which are all incompatible with sincerity. If you have sincerity, you will choose to appear no other, nor better, than you are—to dwell ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... were themselves unable to govern. Princes were in fear of them; for, fighting or running away, the popes always obtained the advantage, unless it happened they were entrapped by deceit, as occurred to Boniface VIII., and some others, who under pretense of friendship, were ensnared by the emperors. Rodolph did not come into Italy, being detained by the war in which he was engaged with the king of Bohemia. At this time Adrian died, and Nicholas III., of the Orsini family, became ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... that she was not to be allowed to go sat down and for a space made a pretense of ignoring what went forward before her. But presently as the atmosphere grew strained and intense, she forgot her pretense and leaned forward and watched eagerly. Zoraida had a couch drawn up for her, richly colored silken ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... about the room, where portly Mrs. Haverford was still knitting placidly, where the Chris Valentines were quarreling under pretense of raillery, where Toots Hayden was smoking a cigaret in a corner and smiling up at Graham, and where Natalie, exquisite and precise, was supervising the laying out of a ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... set Stillwell, with no pretense of explanation or apology, left the courts to his enemy who stood waiting his appearance in a silence so oppressive that it seemed to rest like a pall upon the side lines. So overwhelming was Stillwell's defeat, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... comparatively little. This little, however, she determined to tell him, together with any embellishments she might see fit to use. Accordingly, one afternoon, when he had been there two months or more, and Maggie had gone with her grandmother to ride, she went down to the parlor under pretense of getting a book to read. He was much better now, but, feeling somewhat fatigued from a walk he had taken in the yard, he was reclining upon the sofa. Leaning over the rocking-chair which stood near by, Anna inquired for his health, and then asked how long ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... 4 sepoys, going on toward Indore, met 4 strolling players, and persuaded them to come with us, on the pretense that we would see their performance at the next stage. Murdered them at a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Housecleaning Company had a suite of three rooms. During the day two stenographers, both men, sat before machines and made a pretense of business at such times as the door opened, or when an occasional client, seeing the name, came in to inquire for rates. At such times the clerks were politely regretful. The firm's contracts were all they could ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Henry Monckton stood on the curb outside my carriage, near the Garden, where I was blockaded in the fog. I heard your voices. There was talk about a wager. The time imposed upon the fulfilment of this wager was six months. Shortly after, Lord Monckton entered my carriage under the pretense of getting into his own and took my necklace of sapphires. He did it very cleverly. Then they were turned over to you. You were to carry them for six months, find out to whom they belonged, and ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... Greek fleet, which had sailed away under pretense of finally abandoning the country, had proceeded only to the island of Tenedos, which was about a league from the shore, and there they had concealed themselves during the day. As soon as night came on they returned to the main land, and disembarking with the utmost ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... made, our man of business rents an office in a reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show," he says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind"—an observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... aside ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... slippery villain, young man, but you cannot throw me off the scent by any such pretense as this. I've trapped too many criminals, and heard their smooth talk. Let me tell you that I heard your confession to your wife, that you murdered Victoria Vane and ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... haven't you a law to keep out pictures and statues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the great masters must not enter America, that they are not wanted? A people that tolerate such a law have no love for art; their protestation is mere pretense." ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz

... mountaines to hide themselues; whereupon the Turkes made generall proclamation, that if they would all come in and yeeld themselues, they would restore them to their former reuenues and dignities: who not mistrusting the mischieuous pretense of the Turkes, assembled together to make themselues knowen; whom after the Turkes had in possession, they (as the Lords executioners) put them with their wiues and children all to the sword, pretending thereby to cut of all future rebellion, so that at ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... pillow, with shut eyes, I mean to weld our faces—through the dense Incalculable darkness make pretense That she has risen from her reveries To mate her dreams with mine in marriages Of mellow palms, smooth faces, and tense ease Of every longing nerve of indolence,— Lift from the grave her quiet lips, and stun My senses with her kisses—drawl the glee Of her glad ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... The English Government and the English people without regard to party—I hear it and feel it everywhere—are of one mind about this: they think we have acted dishonourably. They really think so—it isn't any mere political or diplomatic pretense. We made a bargain, they say, and we have repudiated it. If it were a mere bluff or game or party contention—that would be one thing. We could "bull" it through or live it down. But they look upon it as we look upon the repudiation of a debt by a state. Whatever the arguments by which the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... affectionate as ever, she has been very shy with me and Maria of late—and indeed, has made it a point to keep aloof from us! Three or four times I spoke to her in a tone of confidence, as if I was about to introduce some secret of my own, but she always under some pretense or other left me. I had not thought of Osborne at the time, nor could I guess what troubled her—but something I saw did." Her father sighed deeply, and, clasping his hands, uttered a silent ejaculation to heaven on her behalf. "That is true," said he, "it is now the hour of evening ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... own impression on the poor and anxious; so, divided between two courses, I wandered up and down, finding rest nowhere until I chanced upon a large new atlas in my uncle's library. Martin Lorimer was proud of his library. He was a well-read man, though like others of his kind he made no pretense at scholarship, and used the broad, burring dialect when he spoke in his mill. Here I found occupation studying the Dominion of Canada, especially the prairie territories, and lost myself in dreams of half-mile furrows and a day's ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... and discomfort in the weather, which travelers passing their first winter in Italy find it hard to reconcile with the habitual ideas of the season's clemency in the South. But winter is apt to be very severe in mild climates. People do not acknowledge it, making a wretched pretense that it is summer only a ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... officials of the International Cloth Company, and a liberal sum for expenses, the neophyte went to Sippiac. There he visited the strongly guarded mills, still making a feeble pretense of operating, talked with the harassed officials, the gang-boss of the strike-breakers, the "private guards," who had, in fact, practically assumed dominant police authority in the place; all of which was faithful to the programme arranged by Mr. Vanney. Having done so much, he undertook ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... recipe for duck a la rouennaise or spring chicken au gros sel. Not fifty lines are needed, but two or three hundred, and even then I should have told you only my way of working, which has no general significance and makes no pretense to being the best. It's natural with me, that's all. Besides, you will find it indicated in part in the preface to 'La Haine' and in a letter which I wrote to La ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various

... theory: the great European nations need colonies, for colonies send raw material—cotton fibre, unwashed wool, spices, etc., to the mother-land. And the mother-land, under pretense of sending them manufactured wares, gets rid of her damaged stuffs, her machine scrap-iron and everything which she no longer has any use for. It costs her little or nothing, and none the less the articles ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... beguiled, and have supposed him to be one of those high persons who have whole suites to themselves and see their consorts only at state banquets, when there are celery and olives, and the squire invited to dinner. There was nothing these partners in life more enjoyed than the one night's pretense that they were aloof. But they suddenly forgot their roles; they squealed with pleasure and patted each other's shoulders fondly. For simultaneously they had discovered the surprises. In Mother's suit-case, inside her second-best boots, Father had ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... this, and of the additional fact, that the garrison was invulnerable from the river side only, and that much of the artillery that manned the citadel was all but worthless, on the pretense of being a friend to the cause of Irish freedom and a deadly enemy to England, he learned that not only were there many Fenian sympathizers within the walls of the garrison, but that the city outside was literally alive with similar friends, some of whom were to be found among ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... the sum of Oriental philosophy. For centuries Moulay Idriss had held out fanatically on its holy steep; then, suddenly, in 1916, its chiefs saw that the game was up, and surrendered without a pretense of resistance. Now the whole thing was over, the new conditions were accepted, and the chief of police assured us that with the French uniform at our side we should ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... He was entitled to it. Besides, since he had eyes and a brain with which to reason he was not ignorant of the girls' waning friendship. Pretense was foolish. Imogene leaned forward in her seat and rested her crossed arms upon her knees, directing her look at the floor. Her fluffy golden hair had been slightly disarranged when she removed her hat and so remained. Her face was thinner than in the summer, with a pinched ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... was rehearsing an impassioned proposal to your beloved stepmother," O'Reilly explained, with a pretense of annoyance. ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... now sound prophetic he eloquently referred to Napoleon I and to his Spanish campaign, likewise undertaken under the pretense of regenerating a nation. "The mighty man who had conceived such projects," he cried, "all know where they led him. On April 14, 1814, the sentence of deposition thus expressed the motives of the Senate for ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... him, to St. Peter, if he wants to shut the door in my face under the pretense that I did not go to mass—you will say to him: 'Bah! let him in all the same. It is Bernard, one of the farmers of Madame la Marquise, an honest man. He was common councilman, and he voted for the maintenance of the sisters when they were ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... had been partly opened. Thrown among men who pretended nothing, in a land where pretense is generally useless, he was learning to depreciate much that he had admired. Called upon to make the true adventure he had blindly sought for, he found that little counted except the elemental qualities of courage and steadfastness. Dear life ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... said Mary, observing the almost rigid attitude of her callers. But each politely declined to share the seat offered on the handsome low divan. Grace noticed its carvings looked rather ferocious, while Madaline clung to Jennie, without any pretense of apology. Cleo was now peering at something behind the stained glass door that separated the long living room from that adjoining. It was not exactly a light, yet it passed back and forth and threw weird shadows ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... pretense of posting a country letter, reached out and snatched the correspondence from Soames' hand. The gaze of his left eye crookedly sought the face ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... coordinate in the fraternal enormities of the Factory and Poorhouse,—the Barracks and Hospital. And the final law in this matter is that, if you require edifices only for the grace and health of mankind, and build them without pretense and without chicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Thomas Thorpe entered the translation, with the address to the reader signed John Healey, who was the translator.{2} This carried the title: "The Discovery of a New World, or a Description of the South Indies hitherto unknown."{3} It is a satirical work with no pretense of touching upon realities. Hallam wrote of it: "I can only produce two books by English authors in this first part of the seventeenth century which fall properly under the class of novels or romances; and of these one is written in Latin. This is the Mundus Alter and Idem of Bishop Hall, ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... will be so noted. And now—(Makes a pretense of scanning his brief.) Now we come to an area of vital interest—an area demanding our most urgent attention, inasmuch as it gives indication of threatening our basic fundamental of cybernetic detection; believe me, I cannot place enough emphasis here; I refer, of course, to Mr. Beardsley's ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse

... in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... irresistible curiosity. Willetts was talking earnestly; Glen Naspa was listening intently. Shefford watched long enough to see that the girl loved the missionary, and that he reciprocated or was pretending. His manner scarcely savored of pretense, Shefford concluded, as he slipped away ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... no intensive work with them, and the following notes make no pretense of being first-hand knowledge. I have drawn on all possible sources for this scanty information, but am mostly indebted to the letters and reports of the late Governor Bolton, who, without doubt, knew more of this people than ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... Cardinal de Retz, like a later French prelate, Talleyrand, made no pretense of being fitted for the Church. Talleyrand's only qualification was that he was lame; and, as a younger son, he had to be provided for. But Cardinal de Retz, with all his faults, had a saving grace in spite of many ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... some pretense of aping the architecture of buildings in other towns. The eating-house was a two-story structure, with an outside stairway leading to its upper floor. It had a flat roof and an adobe chimney. Its second floor had been subdivided into lodging-rooms. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has neither ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... to be sure, in the churches, but there are many churches in Brazil in which there has been no pretense of preaching a sermon within five years. The priests do not preach. They say mass, read prayers and sing songs in Latin, a language which is not understood by the people. Occasionally, a Catholic fraternity will invite a special orator to preach a sermon upon ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray

... with a pretense at incredulity. "In another day or two I'll find out just what special favor I'm able to do Mr. Gordon. The regular thing is to bring flowers or candy, you know. Generally they say, too, that there never ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... into England, as not necessary for the good of Religion, or safety of this Kingdome, or as tending to the diminution of the Kings just power and greatnesse: Their confounding of the Kings Honour and Authority, with the abuse and pretense thereof, and with Commissions, Warrants, and Letters, procured from the King, by the Enemies of this Cause and Covenant, as if we could not oppose the latter, without encroaching upon the former: Their whetting of their tongues, to censure and slander those whom GOD hath honoured ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... cards, built on lies and deception, would immediately collapse if our enemies were now to refuse negotiations and thus would have to admit openly their desire for conquest. I am rather afraid that England may make a pretense of entering into negotiations and then try to put ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... Ben-Zayb as a source of information, but finding the writer armed to the teeth and using two loaded revolvers for paper-weights, took his leave in the shortest possible time, to shut himself up in his house and take to his bed under pretense of illness. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... sway'd: One who condemn'd divine and human laws. Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause. The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth, With steel invades his brother's life by stealth; Before the sacred altar made him bleed, And long from her conceal'd the cruel deed. Some tale, some new pretense, he daily coin'd, To soothe his sister, and delude her mind. At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears Of her unhappy lord: the specter stares, And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares. The cruel altars and his fate he tells, And the dire secret of his house reveals, Then warns ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... chance of our hearing him. A little notion of mine, sir, to prevent our being surprised in the fog. Do you see any objection to it?' Objection! In the days when diplomacy was something more than a solemn pretense, what a member of Congress that gardener would have made! Well, we shipped our oars, and away we went. Not quite haphazard—for we had a compass with us. Our course was as straight as we could go, to a ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... a-here, listen!" Susan dropped all pretense of work now, and came close to the fence. She was obviously very much in earnest. "That boy hain't been dressed but twice since that woman came a week ago. She won't let him dress himself alone an' now he don't want to be dressed. Says he's too tired. An' she says, 'Of course, you're too ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... was churning in his veins, his breast laboring, his mind whirling with the wonder of that moment and its promise, he made himself deliberate. He wanted more than anything he had ever wanted in his life to see if she would keep up that pretense of sleep and let him kiss her. She must have felt his breath, for her hair waved off her brow. Her cheeks were now white. Her breast swelled and sank. He bent down closer—closer. But he must have been ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... not make pretense to pant And puff as some light-footed messenger. In sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought Made many a halt and turned and turned again; For conscience plied her spur and curb by turns. "Why hurry headlong to thy ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... orthography. When we passed out, the master gave these poor busy bees an atom of holiday, and they all swarmed forth together to look at the strangers. The teacher was a long, lank man, in a black threadbare coat, and a skull-cap—exactly like the schoolmaster in "The Deserted Village." We made a pretense of asking him our way to somewhere, and went wrong, and came by accident upon a wide flat space, bare as a brick-yard, beside which was lettered on a fragment of the old city wall, "Giuoco di Palla." It was evidently the playground of the whole city, and it gave ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... ornament is more abused than the bow. In order not to appear intrusive, ribbons require the most delicate handling. The only excuse for a ribbon as an ornament is when it makes a pretense of tying. When used as a sash where folds or gathers are confined, the tone of the ribbon should, in general, vary scarcely ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... dare keep up the pretense?" cried Lord Town brake. "Know, you villain barber, that your master, the Marquis de Mirepoix, is in ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington

... one thing remained to temper the distrust: sporadic communication had been established, a thing new and yet heavy with pretense, which again like a serpent at its tail spelled mutual distrust. But it was there, begrudging, and all the smaller tribes knew of it too—those scattered ones who were little more than clans. All the peoples of the valley watched and waited, aware of this thing between the ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse

... insisted that she drink two glasses. Lorraine observed that Swan himself ate very little, bolting down a biscuit in great mouthfuls while he carried a mattress and blankets out to spread in the wagon. It was like his pretense of weariness on the long carry down the canyon, she thought. It was for her more than for himself that ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... I know; but your friends. If they had a plausible pretense to offer, perhaps the ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... down at every point, and the two irreconcilable elements whose suspensions of hostilities are mistaken for peace are about to try their hands at each other's tempting display of throats. There is no longer so much as a pretense of amity; apparently there will not much longer be a pretense of regard for mercy and morals. Already "industrial discontent" has attained to the magnitude of war. It is important, then, that there be an understanding of principles and purposes. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... cried. "Oh, unheard-of perfidy! Is it possible that a man calling himself a Californian could give utterance to such sentiments? Oh, abomination! You would invite, welcome, uphold, the American adventurer? You would tear apart the bosom of your country under pretense of doctoring its evils? You would cast this fair gift of Almighty God at the feet of American swine? Oh, Diego! Diego! This comes of the heretic books thou hast read. It is better ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... begin with the first shot at Sumter, it did not begin when the slaveocracy broke up the Charleston Convention, in order to secure the election of Mr. Lincoln, and thus palm upon the Southern masses a false pretense for rebellion. It did not begin with nullification in 1832, nor in the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution; nor yet in that which adopted the Articles of Confederation; but it began in 1620, when the Mayflower landed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Jonathan and his colleagues cunningly exhorted me not to neglect this matter, nor to suffer the land to be spoiled by the enemy. And this they said with a design to remove me out of the city, under the pretense of the want of extraordinary assistance, while they might dispose the city to ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus

... and so close the certainty of the vote, that even a project of kidnapping a Senator under the pretense of taking a trip to Baltimore for much needed rest, where, if the terms to be there proffered were refused, a vacancy was to be created—by assassination, if necessary—then a recess of the Senate ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... counties in themselves; and (2) residence of freemen in those towns in which they had a right to vote prior to 1832. The conditions and exceptions by which these various franchises are attended are so numerous that few people in England save lawyers make a pretense of knowing them all, and the volume of litigation which arises from the attempted distinction between "householder" and "lodger," and from other technicalities of the subject, is enormous. Voters ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Under pretense of placing the Prince in greater safety, and removing him from persons who might influence him, to the detriment of the peace and welfare of the kingdom, he was conducted, in great state, to the Tower; his uncle assuming the office of Lord ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... patient—and it is on account of this patient that he made Jean come to him. But who is the patient? Oh, ho! I surmise that it is a woman—that woman—his former mistress, who has played this card today. Sick! I suppose she has made a pretense of poisoning herself in order to show him that she loves him still and will always love him. Oh, the little wretch! [To Leon.] This is the kind of people you stand up ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... over-decoration which characterized the fifteenth century throughout Europe. In Spain this decoration was even less constructive in character, and more purely fanciful and arbitrary, than in the northern lands; but this very rejection of all constructive pretense gives it a peculiar charm and goes far to excuse its extravagance (Fig. 146). Decorative vaulting-ribs were made to describe geometric patterns of great elegance. Some of the late Gothic vaults ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... whose form was nothing but bone. "Yes, we know it," and he and his followers moved off a little space from Maidwa, as if they were afraid of him. "You have come," resumed the buffalo-spirit, "to a place where a living man has never before been. You will return immediately to your tribe, for, under pretense of recovering one of the magic arrows which belong to you by your father's dying wish, they have sent you off that they might become possessed of your beautiful wife, the Red Swan. Speed home! You will find ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... learning, and combine together; they teach men what is contrary to your laws. When they hear that an ordinance has been issued, every one sets to discussing it with his learning. In the court, they are dissatisfied in heart; out of it, they keep talking in the streets. While they make a pretense of vaunting their Master, they consider it fine to have extraordinary views of their own. And so they lead on the people to be guilty of murmuring and evil speaking. If these things are not prohibited, Your Majesty's authority will decline, and parties ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... Bobbie, did we make a gigantic mistake. If we had not been so influenced by Dol Vin's idea, perhaps we might have managed some way without all that hateful pretense. I can't help blaming myself dreadfully. And to think Miss Allen is so kind without ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... would he. Then had Tristram carried the maiden to point of safety and so earned her gratitude. Nor would any knight of King Mark take issue with him for none felt the King's deed to be knightly. And though the King made pretense of bearing no ill will, yet did Sir Tristram ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... which is glad to be swept along by the full current of adventure, which is sincerely touched by manly pathos, which is satisfied by vigorous and exact portrayal of character, which respects shrewdness and wisdom and sanity and which appreciates a healthy hatred of pretense and affectation and sham. Perhaps no one book of Mark Twain's—with the possible exception of 'Huckleberry Finn'—is equally a favorite with all his readers; and perhaps some of his best characteristics are absent from his earlier books or but doubtfully latent in them. Mark Twain is many-sided; ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... under such conditions, something was nevertheless accomplished. Many children, it is true, learned little or nothing and gave up the pretense of attending school. Others, however, found something to feed their hungry minds and, when they had exhausted what their neighborhood school had to offer, they attended the academies which had been reestablished or had sprung up in the villages nearby or at the countyseat. ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... tree. A still, hot summer morning does not incline the mind or the body to activity, and all of them had sunk into attitudes of ease. Mrs. Lane's work was reposing in her lap; her sister, Miss Jane Chambers, had ceased the pretense of reading; the Rector was enjoying what he kept assuring himself was only just five minutes' peace before he crossed over to his parsonage and his sermon; Lady Claudia Territon and Miss Katharine Bernard were each in possession of a wicker lounge, while at their feet lay two young men in ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... which we are enabled to realize the greatness of the truly great. We must value everything in its own kind, affirming what it is, and not regretting what it is not. But the prerequisite of all appreciation, without which our contact with art is a pastime or a pretense, is that we be honest with ourselves. In playing solitaire at least we ought ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes

... on Miss Wynton at this initial stage of the journey revealed a subtlety that demanded equal restraint on Spencer's part. Helen herself was so far from suspecting the truth that Bower would be compelled to keep up the pretense of a casual rencontre. Nevertheless, Spencer's chivalric nature was stirred to the depths. The conversation overheard in the Embankment Hotel had given him a knowledge of the characteristics of two women that would have amazed both of them were they told of it. He was able to ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... more, too, it seemed to her, with the emotions always just a scratch beneath the surface those war times, that the agony of pretense between her and Bruce Visigoth could not endure. That he had applied for a commission in active service Lilly knew, but merely from correspondence. There had been no talk about it. She awoke nights, heavy with a dread she ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... Nyhedsblad[4] has a short, popular article on Stratford-on-Avon. It contains the usual Shakespeare apocrypha—the Sir Thomas Lucy story, the story of the apple tree under which Shakespeare and his companions slept off the effects of too much Bedford ale—and all the rest of it. It makes no pretense of being anything but an interesting hodge-podge for popular consumption. The next year, 1864, the same periodical published[5] on the traditional day of Shakespeare's birth a rather long and suggestive article on the English drama before Shakespeare. ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... measured his span of life. And, as one after another served his need of warmth in the kindling of a fire, so his high courage dwindled steadily, until, when but a single splinter of the precious wood was left him, he gave over the last pretense of bravery, and shook cowardly in the clutch of fear. He continued a staggering advance for a long time, but hope was fled. The desire for food was not so mordant now. In its stead, a raging thirst tortured ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... suggested for the beginning of the period with which we have first to deal must not be regarded as making any pretense to exactitude. We have no means of assigning a definite date to any of the most primitive-looking pieces of Greek sculpture. All that can be said is that works which can be confidently dated about the middle of the sixth century show such a degree of advancement as implies more ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... rather than by plain theft, which is a mere brutal way. For, first, the book-snatcher marks his prey; he finds the shop which has a set containing the volume which is missing in his own set; next, he arms himself with a volume which closely resembles the one he covets, and then, on pretense of turning over the leaves, he watches his opportunity to effect an exchange, and goes away rejoicing, his set complete. No collector, as is very well known, whether of books, coins, pictures, medals, fans, scarabs, book-plates, autographs, ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... lost, for to be so unfortunate as to be lost presupposed being so fortunate as to have a home. And she knew that he was of the homeless. But because that was so terrible a thing to face, between him and her she kept up that pretense of ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... Leila questioned. "And why have they called you to tell of her?" Her eyes blazed with a fire that seemed about to singe pretense from his soul. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... to say, the desire of pleasing men, which is determined by reason, is related to piety. But if affability arise from an emotion, it is ambition or desire, by which men, generally under a false pretense of piety, excite discords and seditions. For he who desires to assist other people, either by advice or by deed, in order that they may together enjoy the highest good, will strive, above all things, to win their love, and not to ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... cannot say, who make no pretense of sorcery, but 't is certain that the mice linger and spiders swing low from the rafters with presentiment of tragedy as Tim Cannon stands his last guard in the corner of the doomed old terminal. Twice he catches glimpses of Regan without, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea—other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the cause of it. Some asserted that my presentation had been deferred for the present, and, in all probability, would never take place; that the princesses had opposed it in the most decided manner, and had refused upon any pretense whatever to admit me to their presence. All these suppositions charmed my enemies, and filled them with hopes which their leaders, better informed, did not partake. Meanwhile the king's restlessness increased; he kept continually approaching the window to observe what ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... I don't believe it. They just pretended, and there is no pretense between Anthony and me"—she stooped and kissed me—"they just pretended, Elizabeth, and the reason that I love Anthony is because ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... would have been so cordially welcomed into society as he was, for which, according to the abbe de La Porte, he possessed all the qualities required, "an exact honesty, a noble disinterestedness,... a pleasing candour, a charitable soul, a modesty without affectation and without pretense, an extremely sensitive courtesy, and the most scrupulous attention to avoid whatever might ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... with us but not of us. She is in very truth "but little lower than the angels," and we should not drag her down to our level under pretense of lifting her to greater heights. Give to her every possible advantage; open to her every calling and profession that she cares to enter; accord her all she asks, not grudgingly but cheerfully; but do not force upon her "rights" she does not want, duties she would shun, and ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... himself by even a tremor. He had all the grand egotism of the born criminal. His disguise was impenetrable. He was never sure how far my knowledge went, but not a sign of anxiety did he ever show. We played a game of cross purposes. I used him, under the pretense of requiring his assistance, to keep him by my side, and in the hope that as he saw me draw nearer to him step by step, he would break down. He, on his side, allowed himself to be used in order to keep watch on my moves, and safeguard himself against them, as he did in the case ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... affairs for a two weeks' trip to New York and Boston. They took an afternoon train for New York, which required five hours to reach. When they were finally alone in the Astor House, New York, after hours of make-believe and public pretense of indifference, he ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... had not given way in 1873 he might even have become President in the place of Hayes; for he was a person whom every man felt that he could trust. His loyalty to Sumner bordered on veneration, and was the finest trait in his character. There was no pretense in Henry Wilson's patriotism; everyone felt that he would have ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... had been dethroned and killed by Amasis. Since the downfall of her family, Nitetis had been a captive; but, as she was very beautiful and very accomplished, Amasis conceived the design of sending her to Cyrus, under the pretense that she was the daughter whom Cyrus had demanded. He accordingly brought her forth, provided her with the most costly and splendid dresses, loaded her with presents, ordered a large retinue to attend her, and sent ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... last. Although the aforesaid admiral ought not to have allowed out of his convoy the vessel which he had captured and taken from the enemy, so that it might not be lost again on account of his having put very few men on it, he left it; and, under pretense that he was sending it to be repaired, he ordered it to the island of Luban with other intentions—where on the same day, near night-time, there appeared the flagship of the enemy, which, if it had seen this ship, could have seized and taken it easily, because ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... the death of Lupin as possible would have been baffled. But I had not admitted this eventuality for an instant (first, by intuition and, secondly, by reasoning). Pretense thereupon became useless and every scheme vain. I said to myself at once that the block of stone disturbed by the pickaxe had been placed there with a very curious exactness, that the least knock was bound to make it fall and that, in falling, it must inevitably ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... cannot master the little sidewise shift of the pack which the captain showed us, and which Godwin says makes shooting prone "just as easy!" Looking at the other men, I often saw them flop on their faces to rest; they were working as hard as on the range. The pretense of firing, when our cartridges were gone, took away some of the excitement. Then at about the fifth dash, which the others took with some briskness but which I had to finish at a slow jog, I began to get pumped. When the first sergeant asked me how I was ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... seemed really supererogatory. When she went to Irene to have her button her dress in the back, she had such a sensation of holiness, such a consciousness of a forbearing, pure, and gentle spirit, that her sister's malicious pretense of ignoring her presence appeared to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... table, and chairs in red damask. She sat down, and Wilhelm took a chair near; they were silent for a minute or two, while she, with eyes downcast, went alternately red and white, and could scarcely breathe. There was no pretense this time about her agitation. It seemed as if suddenly a flash of lightning had illuminated his mind, showing him a picture of this trembling, pretty girl clashed to his heart, and he with his arms round her. It only lasted for a second, but it struck him like an electric shock, and left in his ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... a curious inversion. It is a fact of common observance that in this lower middle class there is no pretense of leisure on the part of the head of the household. Through force of circumstances it has fallen into disuse. But the middle-class wife still carries on the business of vicarious leisure, for the ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... the sheriff, without paying the slightest attention to Peter, "in the king's name, upon suit of the Baron von Dunderhead, for obtaining goods under false pretense." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... and tired, and asked Thea to go on with her game, as he was not equal to talking much before dinner. He sat down and made pretense of glancing at the evening paper, but he soon dropped it. After the railroad began to grow tiresome, Thea went with the children to the lounge in the corner, and played for them the game with which she used to amuse Thor for hours ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... prepared himself for some denial, for some pretense of ignorance, at least, and he was taken aback at this ready acceptance of his challenge. Something malevolent in her air increased his uneasiness. The girl was as hard as flint and seemed ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... the Sylver matter, the effort was made to leave the impression on the mind that the patient really died of a heart difficulty, though he probably would have died of the congestion, but not so soon. No pretense, however, was made that any unhealthy condition was found about the heart, except in the attending physician's assertion, that, on puncturing the pericardium; a little gas, as he thought, whizzed out, and that he ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... my surroundings wholesome; I was brought up neither in poverty nor riches; my parents were what were called "well-to-do-people''; everything about me was good and substantial; but our mode of life was frugal; waste or extravagance or pretense was not permitted for a moment. My paternal grandfather had been, in the early years of the century, the richest man in the township; but some time before my birth he had become one of the poorest; for a fire had consumed ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... meet the incomparable Wesley Elliot, and had straightway set her affections upon him. Fanny had been thinking it over, ever since the night of the social at Mrs. Solomon Black's. Up to the moment when Wesley—she couldn't help calling him Wesley still—had left her, on pretense of fetching a chair, she had instantly divined that it was a pretense, and of course he had not returned. Her cheeks tingled hotly as she recalled the way in which Joyce Fulsom had remarked the plate of melting ice cream on the top shelf ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... drawing-room, with its sweet scents and mellowed light, to be too warm; so they had gone out on to the lawn, where a sweet western wind was blowing. Lady Peters had taken with her a book, which she made some pretense of reading, but over which her eyes closed in most suspicious fashion. The duchess, too, had a book, but she made no pretense of opening it—her beautiful face had a restless, half-wistful expression. They had quitted the drawing-room ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... him to follow Him. The Pharisees studied the Scriptures and explained them to the people, but they did not follow the teachings of Scripture. They were proud, and pretended they were more religious than other men, but it was only pretense. Jesus compared them to whited sepulchres, and said they were hypocrites, who led ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous

... benefits all around, and is an object of so much favor, that some portion of the same popularity attaches even to him who spends what does not belong to him; who not only destroys his own capital, if he ever had any, but, under pretense of borrowing, and on promise of repayment, possesses himself of capital belonging to others, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... dining-room. She intended to show it to Emma, but the latter, who had risen early on account of some special work she wished to do, had eaten a hasty breakfast and departed. Grace slipped the letter into her blouse and made a pretense of eating breakfast. But she had lost all appetite for food. After sipping part of a cup of coffee she rose from the table and, returning to her office, opened ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... be mutually beneficial, for the unwearied workman could produce as much in the shorter day as the wearied workman in the longer. "As long," Steward wrote, "as tired human hands do most of the world's hard work, the sentimental pretense of honoring and respecting the horny-handed toiler is as false and absurd as the idea that a solid foundation for a house can be made ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... all!" corrected Mr. Tutt. "The law makes no pretense of being an arbiter of morals. Even where justice is concerned it expects the mere sentiment of the community to be capable of dealing with trifling offenses. The laws of etiquette and manners, devised for 'the purpose of keeping fools at a distance,' ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... clergyman, whose dirty white neckcloth seemed adjusted on a secret understanding of moral obliquity, its knot suggesting a gradual approach to the last position a knot on the neck can assume, kept walking up and down the parti-colored gloom, flaunting a pretense of lecture on the scenes presented. Whether he was a little drunk or greatly in his dotage, it was impossible to determine without a nearer acquaintance. If I venture to give a specimen of his mode of lecturing, it will be seen that a few lingering rags ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... condemnation without trial, for trials under it are simply farcical, since neither defense nor appeal is granted. Nearly five hundred revolutionists were put to death under this system, many of them without even the pretense of a trial. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... Memory, for example, cannot be tested separately from attention, or sense-discrimination separately from the associative processes. After many vain attempts to disentangle the various intellective functions, Binet decided to test their combined functional capacity without any pretense of measuring the exact contribution of each to the total product. It is hardly too much to say that intelligence tests have been successful just to the extent to which they have been guided by ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... and storm. I did not will it so, indeed, I did not wish it so, as you know; but it came in spite of all. And I shall speak to you of it as to my own soul. I want no illusions, no self-deception, no pretense to be added to my debt to you. With wide-open eyes I want to look at it. I know that this love of mine for you is my fate, the first and the last passion of my soul. And to have known it with all its misery,—for misery there must be; misery, Jasmine, there is—to have known it, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... by any one, and they are led away by many. Sometimes the ever-watchful and lynx-eyed Chinaman singles out some pretty little girl, on the pretense that he has some curious things to show her in his laundry. Sometimes an old, eminently respectable gentleman (?) has a package of candy for the little girls. Sometimes, again, bright-eyed young girls are attracted, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... no pretense of gladness, I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me; I will not go from you when all the ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... as he trudged on his way home with a heavy heart, "I thought the old rogue was quite drowned in liquor, but I now see it was all a pretense. One must indeed be very sober to play the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... denunciations of "that—— Yankee Cook." Cook was a Kentuckian, but his enemies could think of no more dreadful stigma to apply to him than that of calling him a Yankee. Senator James A. McDougall once told us that although he made no pretense of concealing his Eastern nativity, he never could keep his ardent friends in Pike County from denying the fact and fighting any one who asserted it. The great preacher, Peter Cartwright, used to denounce Eastern men roundly in his sermons, calling them "imps who lived on oysters" instead ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... commander-in-chief gently. "Why keep up the pretense? You are discovered. Why not ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... pretense of pursuing them, but truth to tell their course really lies in an altogether different direction, and, as if by mutual consent, they ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... producing the more disastrous delusion which followed three years after. The Goodwin children soon got well: in other words, they were tired of their atrocious foolery; and the death of their victim gave them a pretense for a ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... to Congress and the Senate to annul the elections, alleging fraud and intimidation. Without the slightest pretense of considering or investigating these charges Congress and Senate—long the mouthpieces of Cientificismo—ratified the elections as just and legal. Every peaceful measure to bring about justice in the elections and insure the free expression of the nation's will was now exhausted. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor



Words linked to "Pretense" :   imagery, dissembling, mannerism, pose, pretentious, bluff, deception, color, colour, artificiality, hypocrisy, misrepresentation, gloss, pretence, pretending, affectedness, semblance, imaging, deceit, stalking-horse, masquerade, pretend, mental imagery, make-believe, lip service, show, simulation, imagination, dissimulation, affectation, appearance



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