"Deception" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mistakes both of judgment and of feeling, connect themselves, perhaps, with a long series of disasters, neither to be foreseen nor prevented. Sometimes the individual himself does not discover his error for a lapse of years; continuing under the deception, till the course of providential events awakens him from the dream of enjoyment, and successive afflictions restore him ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the people. But no circumstance of this kind is so extraordinary as that this policy should be continued in France, since the revolution; and that a state lottery should still be reckoned among the permanent sources of revenue. It has its origin in deception; and depends for its support, on raising and disappointing the hopes of individuals—on perpetually agitating the mind with unreasonable desires of gain—on clouding the understanding with superstitious ideas of chance, destiny ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... without faltering her execrable role. Her love for me was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses, lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses? And for what was all this heroism of deception, this caution, this duplicity? To betray me more securely, to despoil me, to rob me, to give to her bastard all that lawfully appertained to me; my name, a noble name, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... the clerical, professional, and theological sort,—especially when in the fighting mood,—enabled him to measure accurately the personal equation in every problem, even when masked to the point of self-deception. His judicial balance and his power to see the real point in a controversy made him an admirable guide, philosopher, and friend. His vital rather than traditional view and use of the truth, and his sunny calm and poise, were especially manifested during that famous period of trouble ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... that he rejoiced at being unexpectedly free at last from the slavery of her power. It was perhaps the satisfaction of an aspiration, good in itself, of a long-smouldering revolt against the life of deception she had imposed upon him; but in respect of his manhood, it was mean. For good is what men are, when they are doing good. It cannot be the good itself, which, though it profit many, may be so done as to stab and wound the secret enemy of the man's own heart. The good such a man does the ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... results, the inevitable issues of his betrayals, were never immediately before his eyes. Between him and the punishment of his victims there was always some space of time spent in prison, some appearance of a legal trial, some pretence of a just judgment. He was able, with that strange power of self-deception which most men possess, to conceal from himself that it was his information which led to the brutalities which followed it. If James Finlay had been obliged himself to execute the men whose execution his testimony ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... "Hither," said the watchman, "fly hither to your lawful king, who yet offers you pardon through us, if you return to your obedience, and abandon the rebel Belial and his deceitful daughters. Though their appearance is so splendid, it is only deception; Belial at home is but a very poor prince, he has only you for fuel, and only you as roast and boiled to gnaw, and you are never sufficient, and there will never be an end to his hunger and your torments. And who would serve such a malicious ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... was no other than Basil Bainrothe himself, disguised for his own dark purposes; but the tall, square, high-shouldered form that rose before me to depart (taller, by half a head, than the man I suspected of this fresh deception), and the angular movements and large extremities of Dr. Englehart, dispelled this delusion forever. After all, might he not be honest, even if a tool ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural model, for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of fly-paper for these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to nobody's deception) business interest: "Good thing this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it, I suppose, as a medium of advertisement for my article?"—which was perhaps toilet soap. Others (a still worse variety) carried us to neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no deception or disappointment. I want you to play with an idea as children play at ball—not football—but the old game of catch. And out of this discussion, for I trust that you will all differ, if not with me, at least with each other, trains of thought may be quickened; mental grassland ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... storm of indignant reproaches was caused by the discovery of her real name and her relation to a convict. She had been sent out under an assumed name—a highly recommended orphan of honourable parentage. Her distress, her burning cheeks, her endeavours to express her regret for this deception were taken for a confession of guilt. "You attempted to bring dishonour to my home," the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... began to hobble up and down exactly as Gaspare had on the terrace, looking over his shoulder at Maurice all the time to see whether his deception was working well. Gaspare, seeing that Nito's attention was for the moment concentrated, slipped away behind a boat that was drawn up on the beach; and Maurice, guessing what he was doing, endeavored to ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... deception involved him in the very difficulty he designed to escape. The king's courtiers saw the handsome Hebrew, and extolled her beauty before him. He summoned her to the apartments of the palace, and captivated by her loveliness, determined to make her his bride. During the ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... that they paid little heed to a mounted camel-man who trotted swiftly between the palm trunks. All might have been well had not Fardet, carried away by his own success, tried to repeat his trick once more, with the result that the date fell out of his palm, and the deception stood revealed. In vain he tried to pass on at once to another of his little stock. The Moolah said something, and an Arab struck Fardet across the shoulders with the thick shaft ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... could see how desperately overworked Headquarters was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet landlady's, a Mdlle. Juliette, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... conscience may be overshadowed by this weed of fear. The fear of a whip, in a hand which may be strong but not necessarily just, very naturally brings into play the instinct of self-defence, to prompt and justify all manner of concealment, deception, cunning, lying. Those are a lot more weeds which may in time crowd out the ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... pretended to familiarity with the devil, so I fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight in his way of life by possessing some of the mental and moral characteristics—the lighter and more comic ones—of the devil in popular stories. Among them might be reckoned a love of deception for its own sake, a shrewd eye and keen relish for human weakness and ridiculous infirmity, and the talent of petty fraud. Thus to this old man there would be pleasure even in the consciousness—so insupportable to some minds—that ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that the affairs of men are determined by a spontaneous action or free will; we keep that overpowering influence which really controls them in the background. In individual life we also accept a like deception, living in the belief that everything we do is determined by the volition of ourselves or of those around us; nor is it until the close of our days that we discern how great is the illusion, and that we have been swimming, playing, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... This deception was looked upon as of the nature of robbery, which we know to have been for a long time punishable by death. Robbery on the part of merchants found no indulgence nor pardon in those days, and the whole corporation demanded immediate ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... me that my attentions to her were neither unnoticed nor uncared for. Among the many gay and dashing companions of our rides, I remarked that, however anxious for such a distinction, none ever seemed to make any way in her good graces; and I had already gone far in my self-deception that I was destined for good fortune, when a circumstance which occurred one morning at length served to open my eyes to the truth, and blast by one fatal breath the whole ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... all the deception consisted of!... From the day in which they had spoken together for the first time going to Paestum, he had guessed that what she had told him about ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a flake in the ferment Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, I knew what came the nearest to content. For there at least my troubled flesh was free From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so; Discord and Strife were what I used to know, Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy; By War transported far from all of these, Amid the clash of arms I was ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... o'clock. Half an hour after I left them, worn out with my exertions, and I remained in bed all day. In the evening I went to see the syndic and his young friends. I found Helen there, and she was cunning enough to feign not to be more vexed at my departure than the others, and to further the deception she allowed the syndic to kiss her. I followed suit, and begged her to bid farewell for me to her learned cousin and to excuse my taking leave of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... had ever passed the calm, patient lips, which had forgotten how to laugh, and now, as he watched her pale, melancholy face, which bore traces of extraordinary beauty, he exonerated her from all blame in the ruinous deception that had blasted more lives than one; and honored the silent heroism which so securely locked her disappointment in her own heart. He knew that consumption was the hereditary scourge of her family, that she bore in her constitution the seeds ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... a fearful punishment for his deception," returned Mrs. Lee. "It reminds me of an anecdote I read lately, of a horse belonging to an Irish nobleman, who became restive and furious whenever a certain ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... whose ambition had been built upon his son from his birth, appeared to have more difficulty in submitting to the sore conditions of the Prince's loss than the Prince himself showed. By a curious self-deception, the King of Hanover never acknowledged his son's blindness, but persisted in treating him, and causing others to treat him, as if he saw. The Queen of Hanover, once a bone of contention at the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Henry Adams[252], in an essay entitled "The Declaration of Paris, 1861," in the preparation of which the author studied with care all the diplomatic correspondence available in print[253]. His treatment presents Russell as engaged in a policy of deception with the view of obtaining an ultimate advantage to Great Britain in the field of commercial rivalry and maritime supremacy. Following Henry Adams' argument Russell, on May 9, brought to the attention of France a proposal for a joint request on the American ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... one of the consonants of the word or sentence decided upon by the company. The consonants must be taken in order. On the player's return, supposing the word chosen to be "March," his confederate would commence:—"Many people think this game a deception" (initial letter M). One tap on the floor (A). "Really it is very simple" (initial letter R). "Coming to the end soon" (initial letter C). "Hope it has been quite ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... are growing old. That expanding forehead, with the retreating hairs, tells the tale of time. The gray upon your cheeks is whitening and the razor must be used more vigilantly to further deception. Those creases in your face can no longer be dismissed as character lines; the shagginess of your eyebrows has the flying years to account for it. Plainly, John, you and humbug must part company. You are not of this generation and it is not ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... to her to receive him, she sent him a summons for a certain hour—an hour at which she had planned that Verena should be out of the house. She withheld this incident from the girl's knowledge, reflecting with some solemnity that it was the first deception (for Olive her silence was a deception) that she had yet practised on her friend, and wondering whether she should have to practise others in the future. She then and there made up her mind that she would not shrink from others should they be necessary. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... putting on the hypocritical garb of innocence, Ruus ran hither and thither screaming, and lamenting in the face of all his saints the irretrievable misfortune which had happened to his master. By such deception, leading the friars by the nose, Ruus caused them to see combined in him tenderness of heart and guilelessness of conduct, and to make him straightway their master-cook. This was precisely the elevated point of trust to which Ruus had aspired, since his entrance into ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... their own ends. It is probable that in nine cases out of ten, where practice does not accord sufficiently with profession to please the censorious, the discrepancy is due to inherent weakness of purpose, to the duality of our nature, and not to any conscious deception. If a man leading the lower life should find himself in religious, or high-minded, or pure society, and speak or behave as if he were religious, or high-minded, or pure, he does so in nine cases out of ten not with any definite ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... his gendarme uniform, put on his own clothes; then he stuffed the blankets and pillow into the gendarme's dress, and laid it down on the outside of the bed, as if it were a man sleeping in his clothes—indeed, it was an admirable deception. He laid his musket by the side of the image, and then did the same to my bed, making it appear as if there was a person asleep in it, of my size, and putting my cap on the pillow. "Now, Peter, we'll ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... heard what she said. She was standing at the open window, in the stillness that tells of intense mental engrossment. Self-deception was impossible for her; her mind was too acute for tolerance of subterfuge; and for her, also, away and beyond the merciless findings of intellect was the besetment of presentiment, intuition, inward convictions that can ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... expostulation the sky suddenly uncovered itself, the clouds piled themselves against the horizon and disclosed their silver linings, and over the whole earth there spread a broad smile, as if the hypocritical performance had been part of the original deception. I am confident now that it was, for that brief drenching of trees and sward was almost the last noticeable preparation before the curtain rose. The next day there was a deep, unbroken quiet across our piece of world, as if a fragment of eternity had been ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to do it in self-defence; and this very Martin, who has been so ready to expose the little deception, ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... the active Swartboy recovered his feet, and was about to make off in a new direction. But the elephant, having discovered the deception of the kaross, had dropped it, and turned suddenly after him. Swartboy had hardly made three steps, when the long ivory curve was inserted between his legs from behind; and the next moment his body was pitched high ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... certainty, your wooing was at least novel, Sir Knight of the Vulture's Nest," dryly observed the jester. "Although, had my master known the deception, you would, perhaps, have paid ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... greater than we know": Arnold thought it a misfortune. Wordsworth drew from the shadowy impressions of the past the most splendid intimations of the future. Against such vain imaginings Arnold set, in prose, the "inexorable sentence" in which Butler warned us to eschew pleasant self-deception; and, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... front of him... Dead ... quite dead! No wonder his wife put flowers before this photographic shrine... For a moment he had a swooning hope that he had misjudged her ... that he had misread everybody ... that they had done everything for him that they thought was best. But he emerged from this brief deception with a shuddering laugh... He would not have cared so much if his wife had swept him from her life completely ... but to trample on him and still use his shadow as a screen—this was too much! What really pallid creatures these women of convention ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Mogador is our only chance," said Jim; "and I wish I were guilty of no worse crime than using deception, to induce some one to take us there. I have a hope that these men will buy us on speculation; and if lies will induce them to do so, they shall have plenty of them from me. And you," continued he, turning to the Krooman, "you must not let them know that you speak their language, or they ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... when P. T. Barnum said, "The public delights in being humbugged," he knew that it was not true, for he never attempted to put the axiom in practice. He amused the public by telling it a lie, but P. T. Barnum never tried anything so risky as deception. Even when he lied we were not deceived; truth can be stated by indirection. "When my love tells me she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies." Barnum always gave more than he advertised; and going ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... to consider my feelings in the matter, Mr. Darrell. If, as you say, you found yourself mistaken, to attempt after that to carry on what could only be a mere farce would be simply unpardonable. A mistake I could forgive; a deliberate deception, never!" ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... plead for my being brought into it; but then this insensibility kept me so much the mistress of my mind and motions, that I could the better manage so close a counterfeit, through the whole scene of deception. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... the splendid power of realisation, which these greatest of artists had reached, there was the latent possibility of amusement by deception, and of excitement by sensualism. And Dutch trickeries of base resemblance, and French fancies of insidious beauty, soon occupied the eyes of the populace of Europe, too restless and wretched now to care for the sweet earth-berries and Madonna's ivy of Cima, and too ignoble to perceive ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin's hand. "Oh, Mary," she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild entreaty, "consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as this. Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love—but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this. And you," she ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Patroons. And all the while I was debating within my mind how this proud and handsome, newly-married girl might receive my halting story. For it would not do to conceal anything vital to the case. Her clear, wise eyes would see instantly through any evasion, not to say deception—even a harmless deception. No; if she were to be of any aid in this deeply-perplexing business, I must tell her the story of Lois—not betraying anything that the girl might shrink from having others know, but stating her case and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... natural that you should be dazzled by the title—maybe even unconsciously, you being English—and that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you loved only me, and find you didn't love me when the deception was swept away; so it makes me proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that you do love just me, only me—oh, prouder than ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... situation of d d d, then the knife, following the staff, will open, not the bladder which contains the stone, but the sac, which, moreover, if it happen to be filled with urine regurgigated from the urethra, will render the deception more complete. ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... tropical forest. There are to be seen creatures, not singly, but in tens of thousands, whose every appearance, down to the minutest spot and wrinkle, is an affront to truth, whose every attitude is a pose for a purpose, and whose whole life is a sustained lie. Before these masterpieces of deception the most ingenious of human impositions are vulgar and transparent. Fraud is not only the great rule of life in a tropical forest, but the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... and things of which Miss Caruthers might disapprove, and Betty Mercer was on her knees winding up a toy bear that Max had brought her. What would he think? It was evident that he thought badly of us already—that he was contemptuously amused, and then to have to ask him to lend himself to the deception! ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ago, it was Eden, plain and simple. Existence there proving conclusively the dissimilarity between it and the original Eden, the New England conscience made itself heard in Town Meeting, and insisted on the addition of the qualifying word Village, lest they appear to be practising deception toward the world at large. But this is only a theory. True it is, however, that while Stepping and Tottingham and Little Maynard and all the other settlements around are content to exist without explanatory ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... by Tiberius himself. "Consequently," he said, "if the emperor did rightly in having such a friend, neither have I done any wrong: and if my sovereign, who knows all things accurately, erred, what wonder is it that I shared his deception? Our duty is to cherish all whom he honors without concerning ourselves overmuch about the kind of men they are, but making one thing determine our friendship for them,—the fact that they please the emperor." The senate for these reasons acquitted ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... though he does not really change his belief and adherence, he compromises and partially surrenders his ideal. The fable is similar to that of Ibsen's The League of Youth, but the telling here is straighter and clearer. William White's self-deception is made evident to him and to us by his honest and courageous wife, who tells him frankly of it. "Haven't you sometimes noticed that is what bitterness to another means: a failure within oneself?" she comments wisely. An effective contrast ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... relieved him; still, when the day had passed, his unrest returned. Then he set to deliberate thinking, and there came to him the startling conviction that he must leave Surprise Valley and take Bess with him. As a rider he had taken many chances, and as an adventurer in Deception Pass he had unhesitatingly risked his life, but now he would run no preventable hazard of Bess's safety and happiness, and he was too keen not to see that hazard. It gave him a pang to think of leaving the beautiful valley just when he had the means to establish a permanent and delightful ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... any room for self-deception; every quaking heart felt now that the nebula had come. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... reasoning with herself that "it need not be." Neither the physician nor Madam Conway had paid any attention to Margaret's child; it had been her special care, while no one had noticed hers, and newly born babies were so much alike that deception was an easy matter. But could she do it? Could she bear that secret on her soul? Madam Conway, though proud, had been kind to her, and could she thus deceive her! Would her daughter, sleeping in her early grave, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... They asserted that it was of the same character as those meteoric stones which had been found in every part of the world, and that I had merely procured a piece of one of these for the purpose of deception. I then exhibited some of what I considered my most curious Lunar plants: but this made the matter worse; for it so happened, that similar ones were then cultivated in Mr. Prince's garden at Flushing. I next produced some rare insects, and feathers of singular ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... in the solitude of his cell—his evil character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness—he almost wept to think of the cruel deception that had doubtless been practised on her. "They have told her that I was dead, in order that she might learn to forget me; but she could not do that. I have thought of her so often during these weary ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... objection to secret societies is that they set up false claims. No doubt a secret association may exist without doing so, but the setting up of false claims is the legitimate result and the usual accompaniment of secrecy. The object of secrecy is deception. When a man endeavors to conceal his business affairs, it is with the design of taking advantage of the ignorance of others. Napoleon once remarked, "The secret of majesty is mystery." This keen observer knew that the false claims of royalty would become contemptible but for the deception ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... used to say that the Queen of the Baths was innocent of all deception as regarded the custom-house officials; for that if any article was ever honestly described as roba usata, the old colonel might be ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... is a deception of the senses, a misinterpretation of sensory impressions; the normal person can be convinced of this deception. The mirage, for example, is an optical illusion which has a starting point ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... hazard of life. Obviously, a humbug, thinking only of winning his little race, would stand a chance of profiting by his artifices. Men, professors or coal-heavers, are easily deceived; they even have an extraordinary knack of lending themselves to deception, a sort of curious and inexplicable propensity to allow themselves to be led by the nose with their eyes open. But a ship is a creature which we have brought into the world, as it were on purpose to keep us up to the mark. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... slowly. "It all seems so ... so tangled. It still seems as though the whole deception is ... well, ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... As a deception only increases the ardor with which a man of really great nature explores the infinite of sentiment in a woman's heart, so Castanier awoke to find that one idea lay like a weight upon his soul, an idea which ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... night orderly. As you may be aware, it is this gentleman's duty to wash all the bad bed patients. When he came in soon after reveille and asked if there were any bed patients to be washed, we all feebly replied, "Yes, all of us," and he had ablutionised three before he discovered the deception, when ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... right," he said, with his head still down. "You cannot live here any longer. This life of deception must end." ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... and, in default of proof to the contrary, we are compelled to assume that he practised the generosity which he so earnestly and sedulously praised. At least it will be advisable for the moment to assume that he pictured himself as generous Antonio, without difficulty or conscious self-deception. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... your life twice, and each time I did you harm. On the first occasion I turned you into Herbert Strange, and sent you out on a career of deception; on the second, I came between you and Evie, and brought you to the present pass, where you're facing death again, as you were eight or nine years ago. It's no use to tell you that I wanted to do my best, because good ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... lawyer, but, later, a judge and a jury, as to such a point of fact. But from what I know of Mrs. Dampier she would be quite incapable of inventing, or perhaps what is quite as much to the purpose, of keeping up such a deception." ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... now released from work and labors, To indulge in care-free quiet. Apollo, full of indignation, did not endure longer that the deadly Contagion of such easy ruin should creep over them thus. And, That he might take away from seers all means of deception, he Enticed from the rich bosom of the earth this friendly plant, Than which no other is more ready either to refresh for work the Mind wearied by long studies, or to sooth troublesome sorrows of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Dost thou so little fear calumny, and so little [fear] false reports? When people shall know my crime, and that thy passion [for me] still continues, what will not envy and deception spread abroad? Compel them to silence, and, without debating more, save thy fair fame by causing me ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... makes me tired? Willy Dickson was bad enough all the way home, without having more of it here. People would think I care what happens to Tony Taylor;" and she stood looking down at her father with wide-opened blue eyes that were as innocent of deception as a babe's. ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... their eggs, only one in a place, in the nests of other birds. For some reason their eggs always hatch a little sooner than the eggs rightfully belonging there, consequently the foster-parents, not knowing of the deception, are quite delighted with the first little one that comes out of the shell, and immediately fly off to get food for it. This is very unfortunate, for during their absence their own eggs get cold and will ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... what my supposed skill at golf meant to you, and then it was too late. I loved you too much to let you go! I could not bear the thought of you recoiling from me. Oh, I was mad—mad! I knew that I could not keep up the deception for ever, that you must find me out in time. But I had a wild hope that by then we should be so close to one another that you might find it in your heart to forgive. But I was wrong. I see it now. There are some things that no man can forgive. Some things," ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... presence would probably have been the one that was true. There was so little of that vulgar and common character, which is usually seen in men of his pursuit, in the gentle aspect and subdued air of his fine features, that it might be fancied he was thus singularly endowed by nature, in order that deception might triumph, if there were moments when a disregard of opinion was seen in his demeanor, it rather appeared assumed than easy; and even when most disposed to display lawless indifference to the ordinary regulations of society, in his interview with the Alderman, it had been blended with a reserve ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... canons of taste to which Keats has conformed in his other compositions are the very reverse of my own. I leave you to judge for yourself: it would be an insult to you to suppose that, from motives however honourable, you would lend yourself to a deception of the public.' ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... this very deception, I err in too great strictness; and sometimes to that degree, as to wish the whole melody of sweet music which is used to David's Psalter, banished from my ears, and the Church's too; and that mode seems to me safer, which I remember ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... was not above accepting a handsome private fee. He wrote to the new landlord of the inn, falsely announcing his client's death, in the letter which I repeated to you in the railway carriage on our journey to London. Other precautions were taken to keep up the deception, on which it is needless to dwell. Your natural conclusion that you were free to pay your addresses to Miss Restall, and the poor young lady's innocent confidence in 'Miss Benshaw's' sympathy, gave this unscrupulous woman the means ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... allowance for occurrences outside of his routine. Yet at this moment a sudden thought whitened his yellow cheek. What if the Father Superior deemed it necessary to impart the secret to Francisco? Would the child recoil at the deception, and, perhaps, cease to love him? It was the first time, in his supreme selfishness, he had taken the acolyte's feelings into account. He had thought of him only as one owing implicit obedience to him as ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... distress, describing the splendid countries to which he expected to conduct them, promising them land, riches, and everything that could arouse their cupidity or inflame their imaginations; nor were these promises made for purposes of deception, for he certainly believed ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... sat dumb, helpless, overcome, he continued: "I tried to explain the mistake before, but your kindness cut me off. I can only say that, though you have given me a mother's care and a Christian's consideration under a misunderstanding, I trust you will not blame me for willful deception nor regret the goodness you have shown the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... rendered all the more so by the presence of a pair of large eyelike spots. Every one who sees one of these caterpillars is struck by its likeness to a snake, and the so-called "eyes" do much to increase the deception. Moreover, the ring on which they are placed is swollen, and the insect, when in danger, has the habit of retracting its head and front segments, which gives it an additional resemblance to some small reptile. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... Dutch maiden, Maria Cvetskens, of Stevenswerth, who on December 5, 1895, had been asleep for two hundred and twenty days. She had been visited by a number of men of good professional standing who, although differing as to the cause of her prolonged sleep, universally agreed that there was no deception in the case. Her parents were of excellent repute, and it had never occurred to them to make any financial profit out of the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... resemblance; he would now point out the difference between the plaintiff and William Stanley in two points, which, if clearly proved, must convince the jury that identity was utterly impossible, a pure fiction, a gross deception. He then produced the portrait of William Stanley; after acknowledging that there was some general resemblance, he suddenly showed the difference in the formation of the hands, fingers, and nails, between the boy and the plaintiff. This difference was indeed ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's friends; careless, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show; "pray ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... the world by silent gravity; negative philosophers, who never commit themselves beyond the utterance of a self-evident proposition, or hazard their position by a feat of greater boldness than is to be found in the avowal of the safe truth which has been granted for a thousand years. There is a deception here, which should never be submitted to. Sagacity may be manifest in the nod of Burleigh's head; but it does not follow that all who nod are Burleighs. He who habitually says nothing, must be content if he be regarded as having ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... intensified her ardour, lavishing enormous unnecessary force: it was like a steamhammer cracking a nut. Her conscience had instantly and finally decided against her. But she ignored her conscience. She knew and owned that she was wrong to abet Mr. Cannon's deception. And she abetted it. She would have abetted it if she had believed that the act would involve her in everlasting damnation,—not solely out of loyalty to Mr. Cannon; only a little out of loyalty; chiefly out of mere unreasoning pride and obstinate ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... required to bestow value on the one is to be measured in feet and tons, and on the other in lines and carats. The shafts must therefore be, without exception, of one block in all buildings of this kind; for the attempt in any place to incrust or joint them would be a deception like that of introducing a false stone among jewellery (for a number of joints of any precious stone are of course not equal in value to a single piece of equal weight), and would put an end at once to the spectator's confidence in the expression of wealth in any portion of the structure, or of ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... discussion, to save myself the trouble of the negotiation. I should have no objections to this part: but it is to avoid the impropriety of meddling in a matter wherein I am unauthorized to act, and where any thing I should pretend to conclude with the court of Denmark, might have the appearance of a deception on them. Should it be in my power to render any service in it, I shall do it with cheerfulness; but I repeat, that I think you are ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... I will venture to assert that a strong imagination like yours, over-heated and saturated with Oriental ideas—to which I fear I may have contributed—is not incapable of unconsciously assisting in its own deception. In other words, I think that you may have provided all this yourself from various quarters without any clear recollection of ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... caricature, burlesque, travesty, travestie^, paraphrase. [copy with some differences] derivative, derivation, modification, expansion, extension, revision; second edition &c (repetition) 104. servile copy, servile imitation; plagiarism, counterfeit, fake &c (deception) 545; pasticcio^. Adj. faithful; lifelike &c (similar) 17; close, conscientious. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... obedience as a virtue, but it is that she can not be otherwise, nor wish to do otherwise; she allows herself to be drawn along without knowing why or how, as a person who should allow himself to be carried along by the current of a rapid river. She can not apprehend deception, nor even make a reflection thereon. Formerly it was by self-surrender; but in her present state it is without even knowing or understanding what she does, like a child whom its mother might hold over the waves of a disturbed sea, and who fears ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... relation. It isn't as if I were the scum of the earth, is it? I AM a Castleton. My father comes of a noble family. And, Brandon, the only thing I've ever done in my life that I am really ashamed of is the deception I practised on you when you brought that magazine to me and faced me with it. I did not lie to you. I simply let you believe I was not the—the person you thought I was. But ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... frauds in regard to weights were also made against the planters, and this species of deception at one time was so general, that it became necessary to pass a special law declaring the English statute concerning weights to be in force in Virginia. The Act is as follows, "To prevent the great abuse and deceit by false stillyards in this colony, It is ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... of the court, and on the eve of a secret mission from the priest, who was now waiting for him with the despatches. Dick resolved, with his usual cunning it seems, to conceal his possession of these documents, and, at the same time, to prevent the real messenger from revealing the deception by his appearance ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... I must add, however, that he also took not a little rubbish for poetry, much sentiment for pathos, and all passion for love. He was no intentional deceiver; he was so self- deceived, that, being himself a deception, he could be nothing but a deceiver—at once the most complete and the most pardonable, and perhaps the most ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... heart's on fire; Away, away! ere I expire— I burn, this base deception to I find my duty hard to do to- repay. day! This very night my vengeance dire My heart is filled with anguish dire, Shall glut itself in gore. It strikes me to the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... "The deception seemed necessary at the time, sir," he said, "and you must not forget the old adage that 'all's fair in love and war.' But I beg that you will forgive us both and overlook our fault, if fault it was. Hereafter it is our desire to be perfectly frank ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... accordingly retired from the stage. The company, however, kept on the road, using Bill's name, and employing an actor to represent him not only on the stage but on the street and elsewhere. Bill heard of this deception and sent word to the manager to stop it, but no attention was ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... Captain John K. Daylight saving Deception Islands Diatoms Discovery Discovery Bay Mount Distances, Ross Sea Party Dog-pemmican Dogs Dominican gulls Dudley Docker Mr. 'Dudley Docker' (boat) Dunlop ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... offence against maritime law in having 'cooked' his log; but I checked myself, I scarcely know why, probably because I guessed the joke would touch a sensitive place and fail. Delicacy shrank from seeing him compelled either to amplify a deception or blunder out a confession—he was too easy a prey; and, after all, the matter was of small moment. I returned the book to the shelf, the only definite result of its perusal being to recall my promise ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... says to a young man: "Sow your wild oats. Time enough to be religious when you grow old." The young man yields himself to a life of extravagance and excess, under the false hope that he will obtain solid satisfaction; and it is well if he awakens to the deception before his appetites become tyrants, dragging him down into depths of want and woe. Satan promises great things to his victims in the indulgence of their lusts, but they never realize the promises. The promised pleasure turns out to ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... different way of sustaining the Union. At once sincerity is questioned, and motives are assailed. Actual war coming, blood grows hot, and blood is spilled. Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and thrives. Confidence dies and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among honest men only. But ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... out, they encountered by night a frigate-like craft, supposed to be an enemy. The vessels came within hail, both showing English colors, with purposes of mutual deception, affecting to belong to the English Navy. For an hour, through their speaking trumpets, the captains equivocally conversed. A very reserved, adroit, hoodwinking, statesman-like conversation, indeed. At ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... almost inaudibly. "I'm sure Freddie heard part of what you said. Do be careful. She's going to reveal the whole plot to Mrs. Odell-Carney just as soon as Roxbury gives the word—treating it as a very clever and necessary ruse, don't you see. Mrs. Odell-Carney will be implored to aid in the deception for a few days, and she'll consent, because she's really quite a bit of a sport. At the psychological moment the Rodneys will be told. That places Mrs. Odell-Carney in the position of being an abettor or accomplice: ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... clerk was an apt learner in deception and trickery. Shortly after this experiment upon the public credulity, a careless boy lighting the lamps in the window (for this was before the introduction of gas) set some netting on fire, causing a damage ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... such is the case. First, then, we will examine their modern meanings. Magic is the unholy art of working secret spells, of using invisible powers, and holding intercourse with the unseen world of ghosts and demons, by means of enchantments. It also means the expert deception of the senses by the tricks of a conjurer, SO-CALLED hocus-pocus and fraud, and a magician is either an evil-minded, superstitious mortal, fool enough to believe in charms, or an expert pretender and imposter of the first water, who cheats ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... as the consequence. When it is affirmed that, in his neighbor's behalf, such grand interventions have been vouchsafed, he cannot do otherwise than believe that his neighbor is either deceived, or practising deception. ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... violent temper, a tendency to hysterics if crossed, and, it is said, a leaning towards avaricious ways. At the end of four years the Baron de Feucheres woke up to the fact that Sophie was deceiving him. It does not appear, however, that he had seen through her main deception, because it was Sophie herself, we are told, who informed him he was a fool—that she was not the Prince's daughter, ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... veil of dissimulation, a satisfaction of a superior order is mixed with the mischievous joy we feel in having caught any one in the act. This is because nature, opposed to affectation, and truth, opposed to deception, must in every case inspire us with esteem. Thus we experience, even in the presence of simplicity originating in surprise, a really moral pleasure, though it be not in connection ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Russians affirm that their emperor was grossly imposed upon by this report. They are still unacquainted with the motives of such a deception, which at first procured Kutusoff unbounded favours, that were not withdrawn from him, and afterwards, it is said, dreadful menaces, that were not ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... his own eyes, will not be much troubled at being little in the eyes of others—(Watson). Those circumstances that will not disturb a humble man's sleep, will break a proud man's heart—(Matthew Henry). They that get slips in going down the hill, or would hide his descent by deception, or repine at it, must look for combats when ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Turn now to Marlowe's proceedings. He finds himself in a perilous position from which, though he is innocent, telling the truth will not save him. Is that an unheard-of situation? He escapes by means of a bold and ingenious piece of deception. That seems to me a thing that might happen every day and probably does so." He ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... to any other. Now, although she was as different from her mother as nature could make her, precepts with which her mind had been plied from infancy had formed her thought. She was incapable of self-deception, she knew that he had been her ideal man; but she was also incapable of seeing him in the same ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... possible nefarious traffic and deception, practised by mercenary dealers, that of adulterating the articles intended for human food with ingredients deleterious to health, is the most criminal, and, in the mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... certain specious appearance of soundness in their position; they have forced upon women an artificial character which well conceals their real character, and women have found it profitable to encourage the deception. But though every normal man thus cherishes the soothing unction that he is the intellectual superior of all women, and particularly of his wife, he constantly gives the lie to his pretension by consulting and deferring to what he calls her intuition. That is to say, he knows ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... himself!—the scholar, author, professor,—his height, size, figure, stoop,—his head, his face, his features, eyes, mouth, nose, chin, every one,—skullcap, study-gown, neck-tie, all, everything: there was no mistaking him, no deception whatever: there stood Dr. De Wette in his own library, and he out in the street:—why, he must be somebody else! The Doctor instinctively grasped his body with his hands, and tried himself with the psychological tests of self-consciousness and identity, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... her practices of deception. Her voice held the accents of unimpeachable truth, and her eyes looked unflinchingly into those of ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... opinion of all mediums. A medium, if sincere, is one who has abandoned his intellect and turned the bark of reason rudderless, adrift. This is entirely apart from the very common reinforcement of usual psychic powers with fraud, which, beginning in self-deception, puts out from port without papers and sails the sea with forged letters ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... could easily practice a new deception on the people and make fresh trouble for us. His disciples might take his body away secretly and then give out that he ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for this very slight displeasure.—This, stated in a few words, is one of the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of containing, justified ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... whether or not to tell our friends the true history of the camp. I thought that it was not right to keep up the deception, while Euphemia declared that if they were sensitive people, they would feel very badly at having broken up our plans by their visit, and then having appropriated our camp to themselves. She thought it would be the part of magnanimity ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... this confirmation of my suspicion, my vanity as well as my love of justice led me to act with the promptitude which I have exhibited in greater emergencies. I rated La Trape for his carelessness in permitting this deception to be practised; and the main body of my attendants being now in sight, I ordered him to take two Swiss and arrest both brothers without delay. There remained three hours of daylight, and I judged that by hard riding they might reach Rosny ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman |
