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More "Illusion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one always suffered thus on those feast-days on which he had to receive Communion, his superiors, discovering that there was no fault on his part, ruled that he was not to refrain from communicating on that account, and the demoniacal illusion ceased. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... charms, 150 And to my wily trains: I shall ere long Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl My dazzling spells into the spongy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, And give it false presentments, lest the place And my quaint habits breed astonishment, And put the damsel to suspicious flight; Which must not be, for that's against my course. I, under fair pretence of ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... labours we owe much of the great Universal History, exceeded in powers of deception any of the great impostors of learning. His Island of Formosa was an illusion eminently bold,[44] and maintained with as much felicity as erudition; and great must have been that erudition which could form a pretended language and its grammar, and fertile the genius which could invent the history of an unknown ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... defined like Jupiter; and such it still remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the sun? Have they suddenly vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his own children? or was the appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which the glasses have for so long a time mocked me, and so many others who have often observed with me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of the new ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... great way back, and begin with our grandfathers, with the ancestors who freed us from Great Britain, but did not free themselves from the illusion that equality resides in incivility and honesty in bluntness. That was something they transmitted to us intact, so that we are now not only the best-hearted but the worst-mannered of mankind. If our habitual carriage were not rubber-tired ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... opportunity. So Chang no longer studied anything but various ball games, he abandoned himself to the pleasures of the theatre, and took his delight in those gardens where the breezes of love blow in the moonlight. In a word, he followed the changing flowers of illusion; and, as he was himself seductive, as impassioned as expert in pleasure, and rich and generous, he became the favorite of all the women of the town. One day, when spring had but just caused all the flowers to come out on the amiable banks of the Lake of the West, Chang invited a company ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. Fortunately there are a few simple conjuring tricks which are within the reach of us all. With practice even the clumsiest of us can obtain sufficient dexterity in the art of illusion to puzzle the most observant of our fellow-guests. The few simple tricks which I am about to explain, if studied diligently for a few days before Christmas, will make a genuine addition to the gaiety of any gathering, and the amateur prestidigitator (if ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... windows, with its vases on pedestals, and its open fireplaces, its carved doors and gloomy reception rooms, hung with pictures—this palazzo did much, by its very appearance after they had moved into it, to confirm in Vronsky the agreeable illusion that he was not so much a Russian country gentleman, a retired army officer, as an enlightened amateur and patron of the arts, himself a modest artist who had renounced the world, his connections, and his ambition for the sake of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... awakening. He opened his eyes to a murky darkness that was barely relieved by the little night-light. For a second, the nightmare was so strong on his mind that he seemed to see two shadows beyond the door, rushing down the steps. He fought off the illusion, and with straining senses jerked his head around the ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... known its pang, for him The torturing ghost of days that are no more, For him no more illusion, but remorse And memory's serpent ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... knowledge, whereby they were able not only to speak, but also to understand what was said by others. Whereas if their one language were intelligible to all, this would either have been due to the knowledge of those who understood their speech, or it would have amounted to an illusion, since a man's words would have had a different sound in another's ears, from that with which they were uttered. Hence a gloss says on Acts 2:6 that "it was a greater miracle that they should speak all kinds of tongues"; ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Can the illusion be due to the colouring, which is light in the cork and not unlike the tint of the silk globe when soiled with a little earth, while it is white in the paper and the cotton, when it is identical with that of the original pill? I give the Lycosa, in exchange for ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... The glories of Swiss landscape, which quicken his imagination, do not suffice to fill the void that is in his soul; yet perhaps in old age—if ever it come—he may resign himself to the infinite illusion of life. It is an indication of the current of the time that fifteen years later, when the Libres Meditations appeared, Senancourt had found his way through a vague theopathy to autumnal brightness, late-born hope, and tranquil reconcilement ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... gradually resolving themselves into the harmonious and cheerful rhythms of bodily and mental health. It needed but the timely word from the fitting lips to change the whole programme of her daily mode of being. The word had been spoken. She saw its truth; but how hard it is to tear away a cherished illusion, to cast out an unworthy intimate! How hard for any!—but for a girl so young, and who had as yet found so little to love and trust, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reverberating roar, and Lane clutched at a piece of the rock, and closed his eyes, feeling that all was over, but opened them again directly to see that the bridge before him was not undulating, and he knew that it was an optical illusion due to the heat and the giddiness from ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... the ordinary way of unguarded young girlhood. She gave herself to a young fellow she met in the street one evening, without joy but with deep seriousness. She did not even explain to him that it was her first experience. She wanted nothing from him but the passionate illusion of sex. And she parted from him without tenderness and without explanations, to take up with other men and boys in the same spirit of serious recklessness. She had for the time lost hope, and therefore, of course, care for ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... optical illusion, Sam, such as are produced by some magicians on the theater stage. The sun comes down through yonder hole and reflects your image on the wet rock, which in turn reflects the form on ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... lose the less of it. Do not imagine that the illusion is, or can be, or ought to be, complete. If it were possible, no Phalaris or Perillus could devise a crueller torture. Here are two imitations: first, the poet's of the sufferer; secondly, the actor's of both: poetry is superinduced. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... themselves, and that Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... between these hedges that Linnaeus at times saw his own double—that optical illusion which presents the express image of a second self—from ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... went towards the door. He even moved differently, like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether it is worth while to move ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not, never could, exist. Too often the realisation of the truth that the idol has feet of clay is enough to burst the iridescent glowing bubble. Too seldom the love deepens, develops into the true and lasting devotion of the woman, clear-sighted enough to see the real man through the mists of illusion, but fondly wise enough to cherish him in spite of his faults, aye, even because of them, as a mother loves her deformed ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... African night. When one dropped one's eyes form these ethereal harmonies, the dark masses of masonry below them, all veiled and muffled in a mist pricked by a few altar lights, seemed to symbolize the life on earth, with its shadows, its heavy distances and its little islands of illusion. All that a great cathedral can be, all the meanings it can express, all the tranquilizing power it can breathe upon the soul, all the richness of detail it can fuse into a large utterance of strength and ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... this sweet illusion faded, and the young man sat up in bed and looked quickly round him, trying to recollect where he was and what had brought him here. During the last two years, in which he had been forced to lead the roving life of an adventurer—common enough ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... miss anything good. All irritation was forgotten and healed as they stood gazing raptly at the beautiful view. The cliffs looked as if volcanic fires were again burning within their hearts, and the mist from the valley crept up to form an illusion of smoke rising from the sharply outlined peaks. A purple haze enveloped the mountains and the dusky-red streaks in the sky perfected the appearance of a vast eternal fire consuming ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... astonishing statement, one's thoughts fly at once to Kinglake's well-known experience in the Arabian desert, when on a Sunday morning he heard distinctly the bells of his village church at Marlen. But there was no illusion here. The bells were chiefly musket barrels, and they hung in actual raupo chapels built by ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the sphere of illusion to that of reality, Madame de Bergenheim was wounded at every step. A bitter feeling of discouragement overwhelmed her, as she thought of the impossibility of happiness to which a deplorable fatality condemned her. Marriage and love struggled for existence, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the Ideal through the Forest of Illusion. I've often thought, Joan, there was a lot in the motive of that novel of Thomas Hardy's THE WELL BELOVED. But I seem to be mixing up my metaphor, and it's time I went back to Government House.' She got up and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... action is one of control and of verification, to hinder souls from being lost in the depths of illusion and in the deceits of pride. But besides this, humility, obedience, self-abnegation, virtues dear by excellence to the heart of Jesus Christ, are impossible without due submission to the external authority. When one believes only in himself, he obeys only himself, and hence has never practised ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... leave it for the winter; and this probably being known to his enemies, they made an effort to destroy him before he got beyond their reach. He, at all events, seems to have been under the spell of no pleasing illusion as to the supposed tranquillity and the reign of order. On the contrary, he is alleged to have stated that more outrages than ever are committed, and that but for the deterrent force employed by the Government, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... expressive of the sweetest and most ineffable emotions; Adrienne appeared to luxuriate in delight, and to fear losing the least particle of it; then, as reflection told her, that she was, perhaps, the dupe of illusion or falsehood, she exclaimed suddenly, with anguish, addressing herself to M. de Montbron: "But is ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... glory long has made the sages smile, Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind— Depending more upon the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind. Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... is trying to help is hardly one of the absent-minded enthusiasts, mis-called idealists. There never was, we feel, one who so thoroughly looked through his friends, who loved them so much and yet without a shade of illusion. This brings us to the subject of ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... given to the circular path in the heavens round which the sun appears to move in the course of the year, an illusion caused by the earth's annual circuit round the sun, with its axis inclined at an angle to the equator of 231/2 degrees; is the central line of the ZODIAC (q. v.), so called because it was observed that eclipses occurred only when the earth was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to hear Mrs. Aubyn waken the echoes of academic drawing-rooms with audacities surpassing those of her printed page. Her intellectual independence gave a touch of comradeship to their intimacy, prolonging the illusion of college friendships based on a joyous interchange of heresies. Mrs. Aubyn and Glennard represented to each other the augur's wink behind the Hillbridge idol: they walked together in that light of young omniscience from which fate so curiously ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... that, in that forlorn hour of wreck and ruin, with the night of death closing around her, she should have been granted that beautiful illusion—that the latest vision which rested upon the clouded mirror of her mind should have been the vision of her mother, and the latest emotion she should know in life the joy and peace ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... contrary. She knew her brother thoroughly and liked him as he was. Moreover, the scorn and loathing of mankind were the lot of the Jacobin Fouche, who, exploiting for his own advantage every weakness, every virtue, every generous illusion of mankind, made dupes of his whole generation and died ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... But as a show it was surely the most enchanting that human eyes had ever looked on, and after more years than I care to count it remains one of memory's most precious possessions. The one thing which always somewhat impairs the illusion in such instances—the absence of the horizon water-line—did not greatly abate the vraisemblance in this, for the large island in the distance nearly closed the view seaward, and the ships occupied most of the remaining space. I had but to ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... House was taken up by the city. The bells were rung, and bonfires were kindled; and a rumour obtained credence that the Duke of Buckingham himself had fallen, and was expecting his reward on the scaffold. Of what an illusion were men the victims! The King clung to Buckingham as firmly as ever: in granting the Petition he did not mean to surrender a jot of his lawful prerogative. We have seen what he thought of his right to make arrests. In resigning his claim to levy taxes that had not been granted ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... of such clothes even in my dreams of heaven. But the French are an extravagant race. There was hardly a gown worn last season which was not of the most delicate texture, garnished with chiffon and illusion and tulle—the most crushable, airy, inflammable, unserviceable material one can think of. Now, I am a utilitarian. When I see a white gown I always wonder if it will wash. If I see lace on the foot ruffle of a dress I think how ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... to three hours.—The dramatic poet must, according to them, be punctual to his hour. In the main, the latter plead a sounder cause than the more lenient critics. For the only ground of the rule is the observation of a probability which they suppose to be necessary for illusion, namely, that the actual time and that of the representation should be the same. If once a discrepancy be allowed, such as the difference between two hours and thirty, we may upon the same principle ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... I merely refer to the deplorable tendency of your sex. All you require is moral stamina to tear yourself away from the arms of Morpheus at an earlier hour in the It is a popular illusion, you know, that work performed before sunrise takes less time to accomplish and is better done than later in the day. My mother used to affirm that she accomplished the work of two days in one when she arose at three a.m., but then my mother was a most exceptional ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... rubbing his eyes, that he did not want it now; but however Fleda contrived to dispel that illusion, and bread and butter was found to have the same dulcifying properties at Queechy that it owns in all the rest of the world. Little Rolf was completely mollified after a hearty meal and was put with his mother to enjoy most unbroken slumbers in Fleda's room. Fleda herself, after a look at ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... so that you shall hardly come nigh the dancers for the press; and when you have, with difficulty and many contortions and much apologizing, threaded the solid mass, piercing through the forest of fans,—what? An inclosure, but no more illusion. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of evening—died gradually away—then ceased. Then, it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak, And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek, Rings the concord harmonious, both tender and strong So be it with thee, if forever united, The heart to the heart flows in one, love-delighted; Illusion is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of their household, I give you Senator Sumner's denial, in his great speech on Equal Rights in the First Session of the 39th Congress. Quoting from James Otis, he says: "No such phrase as virtual representation was known in law or constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... so, I assure you," cried Mrs. Frederic, her eyes sparkling, her heart beating with vexation, but determined to keep up the illusion of ingratiating herself with the miserly uncle. "Pray remember this is ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... and then dipped suddenly to the banks of the River Arun. The house faced the south, and from its high-terraced garden, a great stretch of park and forest land was visible, where amidst the green and russet of elm and beach, a cluster of yews set here and there gave the illusion of a black and empty space. Beyond the forest land a lower ridge of hills rose up, and over that ridge one saw the spires of Chichester and the level flats of Selsea ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... weaving, she seemed to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,—but Western eyes, amber-coloured, with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And as they gazed up at him now they seemed to reflect, without disclosing the flitting thoughts behind them. He felt antagonism and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you can put it on properly and always with the same result. Don't seek to look made-up, ever, but to look your best for the part you are playing, always. If the makeup ingredients are in evidence to the audience you have not created the proper illusion and must practice making up until you acquire skill. It usually takes about one-half hour to put a good makeup on after you have perfected the process ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... said Anthony. "Of course, it has n't really happened. But how—how do you produce so strong an illusion of reality? I could have sworn I saw a greenfinch feeding from your hand, I could have sworn I saw him cling there, and heard him sing his song. I could have sworn I saw you ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Corey had another illusion among her collection of illusions about herself. She believed that she was a very light sleeper; that the slightest noise woke her, and that she would then lie for hours wide-eyed. Indeed she frequently declared that she did her best mental work during ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... himself to the will of his Maker, and in the discharge of ministerial duties be happy. He had fancied his heart was full of the love of God alone, blessed in that, however changed his earthly lot. Suddenly he was awakened from his illusion: now in the hour of separation he knew an earthly idol; he discovered that he was not so completely the servant of his Maker as he had hoped, and sometimes believed. But in the doubts and fears which shadowed his exalted mind, he sought ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... be it, they are illusions. I am an illusion; those savages who died upon the rock will tell you so. This fair woman before you is an illusion; Humphrey, I am sure, knows it as you will also before you have done with her. These halls are illusions. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... regarding him. He hardly heard her for the first part of the play: and he thought with such rage of the humiliation to which she had subjected him, that he began to fancy he was jealous and in love with her still. But that illusion did not last very long. He ran round to the stage-door of the theatre to see her if possible, but he did not succeed. She passed indeed under his nose with a female companion, but he did not know her,—nor did she recognise him. The next night he came in late, and stayed very quietly for the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... play is disappointing. The plot is too fantastic; Proteus too much of a cad; Julia, though brave and modest, is yet too faithful; Valentine {149} too easy a friend. The illusion of romance throws a transitory glamour over the scene, but, save in the development of character, the play seems immature, when compared with the greater ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... it is seen helps the illusion, and we almost forget that it is a picture we are beholding, and not the action itself as it took place some three thousand years ago. A small speos, situated at some hundred feet further north, is decorated with standing colossi ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... part of the artless. And the healthy state is attainable in a cold country like ours only by familiarity with the undraped figure acquired through pictures, statues, and theatrical representations in which an illusion of natural clotheslessness ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... came, and brought with it that terrible waking time which sets a man's hopes and projects before him, the great as well as the small, stripped bare of every illusion, it is not to be concealed that I felt less sanguine of our success in entertaining the coming guest. So far as external preparations were concerned, there seemed, indeed, but little to improve; but apart from these, what had we to offer, in ourselves and our society, to attract her? ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... yielding to fear, the angry Chitrasena sprang from his seat, resolved to exterminate the Kuru army. And conversant with various modes of warfare, he waged on the fight, aided by his weapons of illusion. And the Kaurava warriors were then all deprived of their senses by the illusion of Chitrasena. And then, O Bharata, it seemed that every warrior of the Kuru army was fallen upon and surrounded by ten Gandharvas. And attacked with great vigour, the Kuru host ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... out from behind the table, where leaning forward and wrapped up he had lent himself to the illusion, and put both hands on the General's shoulders. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... have not this time fallen prey to the dangerous illusion that treaties alone will stop an aggressor. By a series of vigorous actions, as varied as the nature of the threat, the free nations have successfully thwarted aggression or the threat of aggression in many different ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... wild bull, and with us a brace of carrion crows, seated upon the crest of a ridge, were actually thought to be buffaloes, until they suddenly took wing and rose into the air, thus dispelling the illusion! ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Columbus. His Cruises and Studies. Asia to be Reached by Sailing West. Appeals for Aid. Rebuffs. Success. Sails from Palos. The Voyage. America Discovered. Columbus's Later Voyages and Discoveries. Illusion Respecting the New Land. Amerigo Vespucci. Rise ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... associations. He had sat by her when, after the birth of her first and only child, she lay pale, beautiful, and weak on a sofa by a window blown by the tide of summer scent; and the autumn of that same year he had walked with her in the garden, where the leaves fell like the last illusion of youth under the tears of an incurable grief; and staying in their walk they looked on the house which was to be for ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... in New York: the ancient order had somehow to be invoked when such "advantages" as those were the best within our compass and our means. Not further to anticipate, at all events, that climax was for a while but vaguely in sight, and the illusion of felicity continued from season to season to shut us in. It is only of what I took for felicity, however few the years and however scant the scene, that I am pretending now to speak; though I shall have strained ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Illusion—woe to him who robs us of it. A Dramatic Anecdote, from the miscellaneous works of ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... beside him sat his three companions, who had since expiated their offences on the gibbet. The chapel was again crowded with visitors, and every eye—even that of Jonathan Wild who had come thither to deride him,—was fixed upon him. So perfect was the illusion, that he could almost fancy he heard the solemn voice of the ordinary warning him that his race was nearly run, and imploring him to prepare for eternity. From this perturbed state he was roused by thoughts of his mother, and fancying ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... famous man, "starring," singing duets with him, clasping hands that had been kissed by the queens of art, was deeply stirred. This, at last, was the world she had dreamed of in her dingy garret in Milan. Salvatti's presence gave her just the illusion of aristocratic grandeur she had longed for. Nor was he slow in perceiving the impression he had made upon that promising young woman. With a cold calculating selfishness, he determined to profit by her naive admiration. Was ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... rivalry of life, and the gentlemen of the press who are engaged in stage-managing and drama which, after all, is the real article, must always command more spectators than the humble artists who seek truth in the garb of illusion. I cannot sufficiently admire the enterprise of these great newspapers which keep the diary of mankind. In time of war their representatives are in the thick of danger; and though he may subscribe to the dictum, so familiar to playgoers, that the pen is mightier than the sword, the war correspondent ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... was afraid it might be an illusion; but as I did not think so, I knew not what to do, because I was very much ashamed to go to my confessor about it. It was not, as it seemed to me, because I was humble, but because I thought he would ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... passion such as that which had opened Hubert's intellectual manhood, the mild, progressive attachments sanctioned by society show so colourless as to suggest illusion. Thinking of Adela Waltham as he lay recovering from his illness, he found it difficult to distinguish between the feelings associated with her name and those which he had owed to other maidens of the same type. A week or two at Wanley generally resulted in a conviction that he was in love with ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... to dispel the illusion, dear. I guess they were more eager to pick up some cake crumbs I left than to admire ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... The illusion was soon dispelled by the fierce yells which rose on the air from the Turkish armada. It was the customary war-cry with which the Moslems entered into battle. Very different was the scene on board of the Christian galleys. Don John ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... (a good name in the city, with only a letter changed), striking a sixteenth century flint, for the purpose of lighting a candle, but, failing in the attempt, compelled to destroy sixteenth-century illusion, and employ, in a sneaking kind of way, the nineteenth-century match, which strikes only on its own box. Mlle. NUOVINA, not so good here as in the part of Marguerite, but there is very little for a soprano to do. JEAN reckless in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... confirmed gait that he could establish was a Canterbury gallop with the hind legs, in which those more forward assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces to the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his sinuous way on his footsteps with ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... might once have been, she could not believe it such at present. His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny, all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt her to forgive! He had been blamable, highly blamable, in remaining at Norland after he first ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... till, by the power which in childhood she had exerted over Emma, she forced out an answer. 'Forgive me, if I must tell you. I have thought her too fond of going out. It was no wonder, so very young as she was. I do not find fault, but it seemed to dispel an illusion that she was superior to other people. Don't you remember one party she would go to against warning, that one where she fainted? I could never feel the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... forget that I've been behind the scenes. I'm not simply an ordinary member of the audience. I know how the illusion is produced. I've seen the strings pulled. Why, dash it, I showed you how to pull them. I never came across a finer example of seething the kid in its mother's milk. I put you up to the system, and you turn round and try to take me in with it. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... them without statute. Such power either has no beginning or it has no end. If it exists, it need submit to no legal restraint. I am not alarmed that it would plunge us straightway into dictatorship, but it is at least a step in that wrong direction. * * * But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... imagination and great generosity on the part of the public to accept a tenor, whose waist-girth would not unfit him for the part of Sir John Falstaff, as a youthful and romantic Romeo, or a half-starved and emaciated Rodolphe. Illusion is rudely shaken, if not absolutely dispelled, in witnessing a soprano, whose age and embonpoint are fully in evidence, impersonate a girlish Gilda or a consumptive Traviata. Such discrepancies may be overlooked by the public ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... the question of Drink, though you timidly shrink from it, harries you. Your wit's in a whirl, as you think, if some girl with a penchant for you, ups and marries you. And ties you for life to the thing called a Wife,—that figment, that fraud, that illusion, Where, what will you be? And you can't find a key to the epoch's chaotic confusion. It seems Local Option is sure of adoption, and what a tyrannic majority May "opt" for one day, you're unable to say, and in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... fight against it for their lives. The ultimate purpose of Christ's coming is to transform the world into the likeness of heaven; and all in the world which hates such likeness is embattled against Him. He saw realities, and knew men's hearts, and was under no illusion, such as many an ardent reformer has cherished, that the fair form of truth need only be shown to men, and they will take her to their hearts. Incessant struggle is the law for the individual and for society till Christ's purpose for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... line of each verse was sung, it was no fancy thought in us, in Nelly more than all others, that suggested the union of other voices with our own; neither was it an illusion that pictured a great thing with harps, repeating the words, "We shall ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... the point from which the meteors start on their flight. This point is an apparent one, however, due to an illusion of perspective, for the meteors really approach the ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... disposed to believe that we must have a real history before us. But such a supposition is only a compliment to the skill of the composer. Bunyan's inventive faculty was a spring that never ran dry. He had a manner, as I said, like De Foe's, of creating the illusion that we are reading realities, by little touches such as 'I do not know,' 'He did not tell me this,' or the needless introduction of particulars irrelevant to the general plot such as we always stumble on ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... my deceased bride. So far as natural gifts are concerned, there were heaps and heaps of candidates, but in the way of virtue they all failed me. I think of them with shame, and yet there are some among them whom the world has loaded with its applause. And every fresh attempt has proved a fresh illusion." ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... is up; here today and gone tomorrow; non semper erit aestas [Lat.]; eheu! fugaces labuntur anni [Lat.]; sic transit gloria mundi [Lat.]; a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of the hour! [Byron]; dum loquimur fugerit invidia aetas [Lat.]; fugit hora [Lat.]; all that is transitory is but an illusion [Goethe]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, into a distinct consciousness that the happiness after which we are here striving is unattainable; that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls; and that all earthly enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary illusion. When the soul, resting as it were under the willows of exile, [Footnote: Trauerweiden der verbannung, literally the weeping willows of banishment, an allusion, as every reader must know, to the 137th Psalm. Linnaeus, from this Psalm, calls the weeping willow Salix Babylonica.—TRANS.] ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... soldiers sat drinking, while maids in huge caps filled their flagons. Isobel remarked: "It is like a scene in an opera; all we need is music." At that moment a band at the corner struck up "La Fille de Madame Angot," and the illusion was complete. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... to Mr. Chase and his youthful contemporaries, that they had come upon times when, as Sir Thomas Browne thought two hundred years ago, "it is too late to be ambitious," and "the great mutations of the world are acted," the illusion was soon dispelled. It has been sadly said of Greece in the age of Plutarch, that "all her grand but turbulent activities, all her noble agitations spent, she was only haunted by the spectres of her ancient renown." No doubt, forty ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... retain the child's love of "make-believe" but are too unimaginative to create a dream-world for themselves. Having lost the child's power of creation, a more material dream-world has to be elaborately constructed for them, with every adjunct that can heighten the sense of illusion, an element the unimaginative are unable to supply for themselves. They require all their "i's" carefully dotted and their "t's" elaborately crossed; so they love "real water" on the stage, and "real leaves" falling in a forest scene, and genuine taxi-cabs rumbling about the stage so ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... chair-back. Strange and curious things in the air, and in the water, and in the earth beneath, are seen every day except by those who are looking for them, namely, the naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon gets his eye on the unknown bird, the illusion vanishes, and your phenomenon turns out to be one of the commonplaces of ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... viewed in a small telescope will often seem like a nebula, for the rays of the stars become blended. A powerful telescope will, however, dispel the illusion and reveal the separate stars. It was, therefore, thought that all the nebulae might be merely clusters so exceedingly remote that our mightiest instruments failed to resolve them into stars. But this is now known not to be the case. Many of these ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... From a known optical illusion derived from interference or fits of perception, as illustrated in quick moving shadows, this great speed was not realized to the eye, as the observed motion of these shadows was apparently far ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... the romance that clothes war and battle, and that has with us ten times more than elsewhere, the power of exciting enthusiasm in the people. It would be a service to humanity and to one's people to dispell this illusion, and to show what battles are. They are buffooneries, and none the less buffooneries because they are made terrible by the spilling of blood. The actors, heroes in the eyes of the crowd, are only poor folk ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... to me a matter of half-painful interest to see what vital importance they attached to a supply of this stimulant—to see how much more they leaned upon its strength and comfort than upon food. It was not in my heart to argue the question with them, or to seek to dispel the hereditary and pleasant illusion, that beer alone, of all human drinks, could carry them through the long, hot hours of toil in harvest. Besides, I wished to get at their own free thoughts on the subject without putting my own in opposition to them, which might have slightly restricted their full expression. Every ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... manuscript of it is extant) has the incredible appearance of a system of philosophy sprung full-grown from an unhesitating mind. Even a most cursory reading of the Short Treatise completely dispels this preposterous illusion. The Ethics was the product of ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... same. It's white with blue stripes and daisies in the stripes; the loveliest thing you ever saw, and can't be got here. So simple, yet distingue, I know you'll like it. Next, my bonnet,"—here the solemnity of Kitty's face and manner was charming to behold. "I shall make it out of one of my new illusion undersleeves. I've never worn them; and the puffed part will be a plenty for a little fly-away bonnet of the latest style. I've got blue ribbons to tie it with, and have only to look up some daisies for the inside. With my extra two dollars I shall buy ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... sweet accents fell upon his ear like heavenly music, failed to dispel the illusion, though the voice spoke ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... trunk, with a lighted candle on a chair near her, looking over various ornaments and articles of dress which it contained. With a small hand-glass she tried the effect of jet and pearls in her ears; of black velvet, or satin rosettes, in her soft wavy brown hair; of white crape and illusion on her throat and wrists—glancing all the time with an expression of pleased triumph at the reflection on ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... It is like the bark of a dog that is instantly hushed. To Alec it seemed a dream or an illusion; and yet he could not help putting on a spurt of speed and veering a little out of his course to see the rocky islands, surrounded by the smooth ice, from which the dog's bark seemed to come. As he swiftly dashed along how suddenly all things changed to him, and quick and swift was his deliverance. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... diffidence. These were not traits which I could imagine in Strickland. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out of himself; the most clear-sighted, though he may know, cannot realise that his love will cease; it gives body to what he knows is illusion, and, knowing it is nothing else, he loves it better than reality. It makes a man a little more than himself, and at the same time a little less. He ceases to be himself. He is no longer an individual, but a thing, an instrument to some purpose foreign to his ego. Love is never quite ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... public business conceive themselves to be forbidden by duty, or by respect for authority, to disclose all they know. Others, again, preserve notes, with the intention of reducing them to order when they shall have reached the period of a happy leisure; vain illusion of the ambitious, which they cherish, for the most part, but as a veil to conceal from their sight the hateful image of their inevitable downfall! and when it does at length take place, despair or chagrin deprives them of fortitude to dwell upon the dazzling period which they ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to dive into the depths of the ocean; and, when she rose again in recovering herself, it seemed as if she were going down bodily by the stern, the surge of the sea along the line of ports in the cabin bearing out the illusion as it swelled ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... legitimately centred. Unfortunately, "the progress of knowledge," as Hazlitt would say, exposed the falsity of this conception. A closer inspection of the documents, and further analysis of the condition of Norway in 1528, destroyed the fair illusion, and showed Ibsen in the light ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... of those weird passages of psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and illusion hold contested sway,—where the relations between spirit and matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words created for our coarse material needs seem no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the moon looked down pitifully upon him in his great anguish. Yes, great. Perhaps the greatest anguish of a life. His arms on the table, his head on his arms, he thought, in the misery of that moment, that he must die, and he wished to die. The illusion of a life was destroyed, and how? So rudely, so cruelly, so heartlessly broken! He could have borne it if there had been one kind word, only a look of interest or pity; but that pride and haughtiness were like the stabs of a dagger in ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... recherche rusticated style, planned by Mr. Gray, whose taste in these matters is elaborately correct; and it requires but the social blaze on the hearth, (which our artist has liberally supplied,) to complete the well-devised illusion of the scene. The apartment was painted about two years since as a scene for a musical piece at Covent Garden Theatre, the incidents of which lay ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... of his finger, and he saw clearly that the island was surrounded by very deep waters. Nothing could be more decisive and reassuring, in the eyes of a mariner. But still he felt sure that it was not an illusion, those noises which he had heard, and which certainly were made by waves breaking upon a rocky shore very ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... Sefton and the date of his death, attracted him, and held him by an irresistible spell. At first, in the strange weakness of his mind, he could hardly believe but that he was dead, and this inexplicable second life as Jean Merle was an illusion. It would not have amazed him if he had been invisible and inaudible to those about him. That which filled him with astonishment and terror was the fact that the people took him to be what he said he was, a Swiss peasant, and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... straining ears fell the sound of a door slammed shut. There was no mistake, no illusion about it. Some one had entered the shop. Then came the sound of a second door. This time it was being opened. And it was the door leading ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the evidence of her own senses. Her belief in the man she loved was so great that his words seemed at first to have destroyed and swept away what must have been a bad dream, or a horrible illusion, and her face was quiet and happy again as she passed him and went in through the open entrance. She found herself in a vestibule from which doors opened to the right and left. He turned in the latter direction, leading ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... to an illusion. When he found that out, he had nothing left. He was bewildered by the task of working out a happiness where no love was. How could he rebuild when he had not even wreckage with ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... you don't know what it means to a man to be fired with a great idea ... whether it be love of humanity, hatred of war or any other beautiful illusion. It lights us and leads us. It is our pride and our faith. We seem to have a second life, the real life, that belongs to it, and an unknown heart that beats for it alone. And we are prepared to suffer any sacrifice, any pain, any wretchedness, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... crowd gave way in sheer astonishment. Pentaur had recovered from the stunning blow, but he thought he must be under some illusion. He felt as if he must throw himself on his knees before Bent-Anat, but his mind had been trained under Ameni to rapid reflection; he realized, in a flash of thought, the princess's position, and instead of bowing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... turn out a great artist in disguise. It was a surprise to me, too,—ah, another illusion destroyed. Dear child! You have still so many illusions,—beautiful, pure illusions. Dieu! how I envy you!" They generally talked French together, though the baroness knows ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... these thousands of crevasses, opening up in every direction, the melting snow mixed with earth and sand, those little mounds whence numerous streamlets were issuing,—all these combined to make the illusion perfect." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... inner truth, to find the world permeated by an informing righteousness, to know himself at one with the inner essence of the entire universe. And though he could never feel sure whether it was all illusion or not, he had hungered and thirsted after believing it, till, as he told his father timidly that day, he actually did believe it somehow in his heart of hearts. Let us not seek to probe too deeply into those inner recesses, whose abysmal secrets are never perfectly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... friends" don't use him well, and put him on the mantel-piece when he refuses to "have in more champagne-wine," and lock him in the sideboard when he "won't give up his property." And I see—yes, I declare I see, as I saw when Dickens was reading, such was the illusion of voice and gesture—that dying flame of Scrooge's fire, which leaped up when Marley's ghost came in, and then fell again. Nor can I forbear to mention, among these reminiscences, that there is also a passage in one of Thackeray's lectures that is still in my ears as on the ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... not ask you for a banter," he replied angrily. "I can draw my own conclusions. All I wanted was to satisfy myself that I was free from a monomaniacal illusion. We cannot both be mad; besides, you're a sceptic, and the testimony of a sceptic's eyes is better than ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... pressure in our ears for a moment. We were cut off from outside and silence reigned. But this silence was merely an illusion—and was due ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... ideal being, such as we have of sensible qualities or of mathematical relations. In dreams and in hallucinations appearances may deceive us, and the objects we think we see may not exist at all. Yet in suffering an illusion we must entertain an idea; and the manifest character of these ideas is that of which alone, Locke thinks, we can have ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... early-acquired knowledge of the American youth is in the long run salutary; that his image of womanhood is, as is claimed, more "practical," and likely to form a better basis for happiness in life, than the dream and illusion of the English boy; but here we get into a quagmire of mere speculation in which no individual opinion has any ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... handling the raw material dug out of existence and of the artist's self—the process of transmuting life into art? There is no process. That is to say, there is no conscious process. The convention chosen by an artist is his illusion of the truth. Consciously, the artist only omits, selects, arranges. But let him beware of being false to his illusion, for then the process becomes conscious, and bad. This is sentimentality, which is the seed ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... wonderful to be believed—too much like a happy dream to have the stable feeling of reality—She extricated herself from his close and affectionate embrace, and held him at arm's length, to satisfy her mind that it was no illusion. But the form was indisputable—Douce David Deans himself, in his best light-blue Sunday's coat, with broad metal buttons, and waistcoat and breeches of the same, his strong gramashes or leggins of thick grey cloth—the very copper buckles—the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... almost too late, to live in each moment as it passed over my head, believing that the sun as it is now rising is as good as it will ever be, and blinding myself as much as possible to what may follow. But when I was young I was the victim of that illusion, implanted for some purpose or other in us by Nature, which causes us, on the brightest morning in June, to think immediately of a brighter morning which is to come in July. I say nothing, now, for or against the doctrine ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... have been an optical—and aural—illusion, for all the trace there was of him. But when the three rode out into the little street, a bullet pinged close to Rowdy's left ear, and the red bark of a revolver spat viciously from a black shadow beside the ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... night forward my existence was as it were doubled, and there were in me two men, strangers each to the other's existence. Sometimes I thought myself a priest who dreamt that he was a gallant, sometimes a gallant who dreamt that he was a priest.... I could not distinguish the reality from the illusion, and knew not which were my waking and which my sleeping moments. Two spirals, entangled without touching, form the nearest representation of this life. The young cavalier, the coxcomb, the debauchee, mocked the priest; the priest held the dissipations of the gallant in horror. Notwithstanding ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... actress plays the part of a woman of fashion—of rank. As she makes her first appearance, she is supposed to have returned from the opera. Therefore, though she may wear them but one moment, hood and opera cloak are needed because they will help out the illusion. Suppose, then, she wears a long cloak of velvet or cloth, with a lining of delicate tinted quilted satin or fur; if the impression of warmth or elegance and comfort is given, its work has been well done. But suppose the actress enters in an opera ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... world, was the splendid pontiff, Gregory the Great; the great pontiff who sent St. Augustine and his companions to preach the gospel to the English conquerors of Britain. If we would clearly understand the work of St. Augustine we must free our minds from the illusion produced by familiar names. One of these is the name Britain. In the time of Gregory the Great the island called by that name was, of course, the same as that on which Julius Caesar had landed. The barbarians whom Caesar encountered had been subdued by his successors, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... original of our dome at Washington; but externally I think ours is the more graceful, though the effect inside is tame and flat in comparison. This is owing partly to its lesser size and height, and partly to our hard, transparent atmosphere, which lends no charm or illusion, but mainly to the stupid, unimaginative plan of it. Our dome shuts down like an inverted iron pot; there is no vista, no outlook, no relation, and hence no proportion. You open a door and are in a circular pen, and can look in only one direction,—up. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Was it a sweet illusion, this flashing fragment of rainbow; a beautiful vision to fade upon approach, typical of so much that is un-understandable in rook life? He made a dart forward and tapped it with his beak. No, it was real—as ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... remember, before the dwarf left the queen, he followed us one day into those gardens. I must needs show my wit by a silly illusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language as it does in ours. Whereupon, the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head, by which ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... all have our particular mode of self-expression in moments of elation. Fillmore's took the shape of buying a new waistcoat and a hundred half-dollar cigars and being very fussy about what he had for lunch. It may have been an optical illusion, but he appeared to Sally to put on at least six pounds in weight on the first day of the new regime. As a serf looking after paper-knives and other properties, he had been—for him—almost slim. As a manager he blossomed out into soft billowy curves, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... the son of Pandu had crossed that car-force, the preceptor Drona, smiling the while, covered him with showers of arrows, desirous of checking his course. Stupefying thy force then with his powers of illusion, and drinking, as it were, those shafts shot from the bow of Drona, Bhimasena rushed against those brothers (viz., thy sons). Then many kings, that were all great bowmen, urged by thy sons, rushing impetuously, began to surround him. Encompassed by them, O Bharata, Bhima smiling ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... at his reflection, the red cross in the center of the shield took on the hue of freshly-shed blood. The period-piece expert who had designed the shield had insisted on the illusion, saying that it made for greater authenticity, and Mallory hadn't argued with him. He was glad now that he hadn't. Raising the visor of his helmet, he winked at himself and said, "I hereby ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... indicated by the reflection of the faces of the king and queen in a small mirror, where you would expect to see your own. The longer you look upon this marvellous painting, the less possible does it seem that it is merely the placing of color on canvas which causes this perfect illusion. It does not seem possible that you are looking at a plane surface. There is a stratum of air before, behind, and beside these figures. You could walk on that floor and see how the artist is getting on with ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... often the realisation of the truth that the idol has feet of clay is enough to burst the iridescent glowing bubble. Too seldom the love deepens, develops into the true and lasting devotion of the woman, clear-sighted enough to see the real man through the mists of illusion, but fondly wise enough to cherish him in spite of his faults, aye, even because of them, as a mother loves her deformed child for ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... before the match, Samuel Wilberforce Gosling came to school with his right arm in a sling. Norris met him at the School gates, rubbed his eyes to see whether it was not after all some horrid optical illusion, and finally, when the stern truth came home to him, almost swooned ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... arrived, and it is easy to understand how an unscrupulous mediaeval Hermann or Kellar might completely deceive even the most intelligent and thoughtful scholars. In scoffing at the credulity of such an age, it should not be forgotten that the "Keely motor" was a late nineteenth-century illusion. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... alone could act those most wonderful of all plays, watching with hateful, sardonic amusement the light and shadow of emotion upon her dirty face. Oh, he was a magician, no doubt at all of that! Past master in the rare art of a true genius, that of producing illusion. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... all was, that although the brain and eye were thus impressed with that which had no real existence, I was perfectly calm and self-possessed, knowing the whole thing to be but a pleasing illusion. I did not in the least fear these figures of the brain, but on the contrary found them pleasant company. Not always, however, did they personate the same characters. Occasionally they would change to the old feudal knights, sometimes on horseback, sometimes ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... when such subjects of antiquity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to remind us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the illusion. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... itself may stimulate a convict. His human mind cannot comprehend despair. Instinct forces him to hope. So weeks, months, years go by, and hope seems to him more instead of less justifiable, till at last, perhaps, he dies with the illusion still strong in him. Real despair is un-human and possibly rare. Otherwise prison mutinies and killings would be more frequent. The argument of despair is, "Since I must die here anyway, I'll take ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... meant the point from which the meteors start on their flight. This point is an apparent one, however, due to an illusion of perspective, for the meteors really approach the earth in ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... sufficiently plausible to cause the ruin of the domineering favourite who presumed to treat them rather as inferiors than as equals. Thus the gilded surface of the Court concealed a mass of hatred, jealousy, and unrest, which threatened every instant to reveal itself, and to dispel an illusion as false as it was flattering: and while the foreign guests of the young monarch danced and feasted, and the native nobility struggled to surpass them in magnificence and frivolity, the more thoughtful spectators of the glittering scene ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... "Catholic sovereigns" calculated that nominees of Rome would, of course, prefer the rights of the Church to those of the crown, but they fancied, or they wished to fancy, that priests of their own choice would prefer their interests to those of a stranger. This was an illusion, and therefore Rome made little difficulty; and after due correspondence, and some changes, the Supreme Council of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... those very celebrated seances with Eusapia. 'When I left Milan,' Richet says, 'I was convinced that all was true; but no sooner was I back in my accustomed channels of work than my doubts returned. I persuaded myself that all had been fraud or illusion.'" ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... events at Belgrade on Saturday, July 25, ending with the order for mobilization given by the Serbian Government, which had retired to Kragoujewatz, whither it was followed by the French and Russian Ministers. At Vienna people "soothe themselves with the illusion that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... sheep-farmers follow the same business as Abraham and Isaac, and are as sharp in their dealings as Jacob of old. The Indians are our Bedouins, and like them they "fold their tents and silently steal." Once in looking back the illusion was perfect. The Sea of Galilee was behind us, and upon its banks stood the old cities of Capernaum and Nazareth towered and walled and gray. We had not then seen the verses of Joaquin Miller, in which he expresses the same idea in better words—in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... in the new thriving French Morocco, the outline of a ruin or the look in a pair of eyes shifts the scene, rends the thin veil of the European Illusion, and confronts one with the old grey Moslem reality. Passing under the gate of Chella, with its richly carved corbels and lofty crenellated towers, one feels one's self thus completely reabsorbed into ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... the second place, it links her with the Colonial Puritan stock of which she is so justly proud—being scornful of mere Daughters of the Revolution—and finally, though Mrs. Conklin is a grandmother, her maiden name seems to preserve the sweet, vague illusion of girlhood which Mrs. Conklin always carries about her like the shadow of a dream. And Miss Larrabee punctuated this with a wink which we took to be a quotation mark, and she went on with her work. So we knew we had been listening to the language ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Confucianist, some Christian and syncretic Chondogyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way) note: autonomous religious activities now almost nonexistent; government-sponsored religious groups exist to provide illusion of religious freedom ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... am here, and with one word I could dispel the illusion," he acquiesced. "But I know myself; I am cursed with a peculiar, sinister sense of humor, and I am afraid I would not say the word. Hence, when the husband enters we are all silent. Then I say, 'I regret to have arrived at such an inopportune moment.' I take my hat and walk out, leaving you, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... rashly and romantically decided to be Miss Phyllis Desmond. The pianist was indeed Miss Desmond, but to no purpose, if the violinist was some one else; it availed as little that the violinist was the illusion that had lured him to Lower Merritt in pursuit of Miss Desmond's piano, if she were really Miss ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... whole the play is disappointing. The plot is too fantastic; Proteus too much of a cad; Julia, though brave and modest, is yet too faithful; Valentine {149} too easy a friend. The illusion of romance throws a transitory glamour over the scene, but, save in the development of character, the play seems immature, when compared with the ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... Age,—the fatal Three! Illusion, Struggle, and Regret! So hath it been, so shall it be, And to what end? We know not yet; Still sweeps the mighty life-flood ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... himself had done. First, I sought for the fluid, which he supposes the seminal, in cells containing eggs. Several were actually found with that appearance; and, during the first days of observation, neither my assistant nor myself doubted the reality of the discovery. But we afterwards found it an illusion arising from the reflection of the light, for nothing like a fluid was visible, except when the solar rays reached the bottom of the cells. Fragments of the coccoons of worms, successively hatched, commonly cover the bottom; and, as they are shining, it may easily be conceived that, when much ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... sued in assumpsit, although he had ceased to be liable in debt. /2/ There was the same remedy on a promise in consideration that the plaintiff would marry the defendant's daughter. /3/ The illusion that assumpsit thus extended did not mean contract, could not be kept up. In view of this admission and of the ancient precedents, the law oscillated for a time in the direction of reward as the true essence of consideration. /4/ But the other view prevailed, and thus, ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... extremely slippery and steep, to which the missionaries had given the name of Baxada del Purgatorio, or Descent of Purgatory. It is a rock of schistose sandstone, decomposed, covered with clay, the talus of which appears frightfully steep, from the effect of a very common optical illusion. When we look down from the top to the bottom of the hill the road seems inclined more than 60 degrees. The mules in going down draw their hind legs near to their fore legs, and lowering their cruppers, let themselves slide at a venture. The rider ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... fight like men." Having thus given due warning, he led his "army" forward, marching and counter-marching his meager forces among the trees and hills to give an appearance of great numbers, while he and his captains helped keep up the illusion by galloping wildly here and there on horses they had confiscated, as if ordering a vast array. At nightfall the men advanced upon the stockade and opened fire ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... husband, but the relatives of the sainted Annabel, make her life a burden to her. Then it comes to her knowledge—she obtains absolute proof—that Annabel was anything but the saint she was believed to be. By a single word she can overturn the altar of her martyrdom, and shatter the dearest illusion of her persecutors. Shall she speak that word, or shall she not? Here is a crisis which comes within our definition just as clearly as the other;[8] only it happens to be entirely natural and probable, and eminently illustrative of character. Ought we, then, to despise ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... some of them might have belonged to him whom I have murdered. Therefore I sought for them round about, in the deep beds of the mountain-torrents, and in the high nests of the eagles and vultures. And while I was searching, I sometimes—could it have been only an illusion?—seemed to meet a being who was very like myself, but far, far more powerful, and yet still paler and ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."[12] ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... layman who asked, "What is impressionism?" Mauclair has given the most succinct answer in his book L'Impressionisme: "In nature," he declares, "no colour exists by itself. The colouring of the object is pure illusion; the only creative source of colour is the sunlight, which envelops all things and reveals them, according to the hours, with infinite modifications... The idea of distance, of perspective, of volume is given us by darker or lighter colours; this is the sense of values; a value ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... real and eternal, - nothing is Spirit, - but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither 71:3 person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... shellfish had deepened their love of the sea—its ways of mystery that were ever bringing to their attention some new loveliness of form and tint. Now, before their incredulous eyes there appeared rising from the cloud bank the illusion of graciously rounded domes, spires, minarets, and the next instant they were gazing on a city of enchantment softly reflected in a pearly sea—a silvery city of fantasy like an exquisite shadowy drawing of some foreign land. . . . They sat silent, entranced. How long the vision lingered neither ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... changes they were, in May, 1848, established in the home in which they remained during Mrs. Browning's life. It was a suite of rooms on the second floor of the Palazzo Guidi. Of the practical side of this early Florentine life, Mrs. Browning wrote, "My dear brothers have the illusion that nobody should marry on less than two thousand a year. Good heavens! how preposterous it does seem to me! We scarcely spend three hundred, and I have every luxury I ever had, and which it would ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... heeding the interruption. "This violation by the King of the obvious rights of a country engaged in framing a constitution that shall make it free has shattered every philanthropic illusion we still cherished. There are those who go so far as to proclaim the King the vowed enemy of France. But that, of ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... those more forward assisted for doubtful moments, though generally content to maintain a loping trot. Perhaps the rapidity of the changes from one of these paces to the other created an optical illusion, which might thus magnify the powers of the beast; for it is certain that Heyward, who possessed a true eye for the merits of a horse, was unable, with his utmost ingenuity, to decide by what sort of movement his pursuer worked his sinuous way on his footsteps with ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... an illusion, if you will. Wise men have protested that vehemently enough in all conscience. But there are two ends to every stickler for his opinion here. Whether you see, in this fleet hour's abandonment to love, the man's spark of divinity flaring in momentary splendor,—a tragic ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... current, losing in a few minutes as much as I had gained in double the time. Fortunately these seizures were brief, but they would leave me sick and shaken and grasping the reeds for support. Another illusion came at this time: I would hear the woman calling, calling my name. Sometimes she cried that I had forsaken her. That left me weaker than the fever of ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... It is the mirage, from the Latin miror, to wonder, which appears to be what you are doing just now. The steamer you see sailing along the shore is an optical illusion, a reflection, and not a reality. Refraction, which is the bending of the rays of light, produces this effect. If you look at a straight stick set up in the water, it will appear to be bent, and this is caused by refraction. The learned gentlemen present will excuse me ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... with the starred 'tiare's' white, And white birds in the dark ravine, And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night, And jewels, and evening's after-green, And dawns of pearl and gold and red, Mamua, your lovelier head! And there'll no more be one who dreams Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff, Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems, All time-entangled human love. And you'll no longer swing and sway Divinely down the scented shade, Where feet to Ambulation fade, And moons are lost in endless Day. How shall we wind these wreaths of ours, Where there are neither heads nor flowers? Oh, Heaven's Heaven! ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... Greece that gave Life to the world, could not avoid a grave. Hence the inspired Prophets of old Rome Too great for earth fled to Elizium. But the same Ostracisme benighted one, To whom all these were but illusion; It tooke our FLETCHER hence, Fletcher, whose wit Was not an accident to th' soule, but It; Onely diffused. (Thus wee the same Sun call, Moving it'h Sphaere, and shining on a wall.) Wit, so high placed at first, it could not climbe, Wit, that ne're grew, but only show'd by ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass; but the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler—say five shades—than the other. I got up and the thing melted away; and I went ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... properties, and not only refused to use it themselves, but endeavoured to prevent it being used by the natives; and a royal decree was actually issued, declaring that the idea entertained by the Indians that cacao gave them strength, is an "illusion of the devil." The mine-owners, however, perceived its importance in enabling the slaves to undergo fatigue; and its use, therefore, rather increased than diminished. It, however, excites the brain, somewhat as does opium, and thus its intemperate ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... certain distance in the rear of these, rises a melancholy-looking forest of half-naked trees, with not a single rise or gap along the hazy line of the horizon resting upon them. The glowing heat of this calm day also favoured the illusion, which was certainly in all its points the most perfect imaginable: it would require very little to persuade a man landed here on such a day that ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... them in the universal scheme, how can we condemn them? Must we not plainly either modify our optimism and keep our faith in God within bounds, or, on the other hand, make every failure "apparent" only, sin a phantom, and the distinction between right and wrong a helpful illusion that stings man to effort—but ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the mass was sufficient to support his weight. With a double ended paddle rudely shaped from the thin buttress roots of the red mangrove, and comic in the crudeness and disproportion of its parts, he felt himself safe miles out to sea. When he approached a passing vessel he presented the illusion, not of walking, but of sitting on the water, for the float was almost completely submerged. If it became necessary for his wife to attend him on his marine excursions, she was towed behind, and used ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and interesting illustration of such combinations as Dr. Hibbert has recorded of the spectral illusion with an actual disorder, and that of a dangerous kind, was frequently related in society by the late learned and accomplished Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, and sometimes, I believe, quoted by him in his lectures. The narrative, to the author's best recollection, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... the goddess: 'Son! thy grief lay down, And turn this whole illusion on the town:[308] As the sage dame, experienced in her trade, By names of toasts retails each batter'd jade; (Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris Of wrongs from duchesses and Lady Maries;) Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift; Cook shall be Prior,[309] ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... dramatic seclusion, but surely in his obstinate avoidance of prose-work of any kind we have a subtler expression of his carefulness for fame. It is a mistake for a poet to write prose, however good, for it is a charming illusion of the public that, comparatively speaking, any one can write prose. It is an earthly accomplishment, it is as walking is to flying—is it not stigmatised 'pedestrian'? Now, your true Bird of Paradise, which is the poet, must, metaphorically speaking, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... are, unless we could describe how fine nature is. All that portion of the history of his country that he has touched upon (wide as the scope is) the manners, the personages, the events, the scenery, lives over again in his volumes. Nothing is wanting—the illusion is complete. There is a hurtling in the air, a trampling of feet upon the ground, as these perfect representations of human character or fanciful belief come thronging back upon our imaginations. We will merely recall a few of the subjects ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... horizon, and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset, looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion, and our hearts sank back into the illimitable sea, breathing a long prayer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... was—should turn out to be interested in Rub-a-Dub, and sorry for his untimely end, why, then, Diana felt there was a possibility of her squeezing a little corner for her in her hearts of hearts. But Mrs. Dolman's next words disturbed the pleasant illusion. ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... next day, there sat Karl, as if nothing had happened, finishing the drawing on which he had been at work when the fit of insensibility came upon him. The painter started, stared, rubbed his eyes, thought it was another spectral illusion, and was on the point of yielding to his terror, when Karl rose, and approached him with a smile. The healthy, sunshiny countenance of Karl, let him be ghost or goblin, could not fail to produce somewhat of a tranquilizing ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... the appearance of an old-fashioned log-cabin, and from this we called it "Log-cabin Cliff." The cabin was in reality a butte of shale, as we could see by means of our glasses, and of course of far greater size than a real cabin, but from below the illusion was complete. At this camp, No. 40, we remained the next day, Prof. wishing to make some investigations. He and Jones crossed to the other side and went down on foot two or three miles; then returning ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... construction of the plot was of no consequence to the reader who tasted a novel for the first time in his life. The naivete of the plot was in keeping with the naive, artificially reproduced language of the prophet Isaiah and the biblical annals, which intensified the illusion ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Another illusion which had been dispelled was Lesbia's comfortable idea of her own expectations. Her grandmother had told her that she might take rank among heiresses; and she had held herself accordingly, deeming that her place was among the wealthiest. And now, since Mr. Smithson's ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... when they first caught sight of the Venetian girl, for neither of them had expected such rare beauty; and with the added illusion of the gold-shot veil and the all-generous sunshine, it was nothing less than transcendent. Trombin and Gambardella looked at each other quietly, as they always did when the ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... what you do in particular so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had? I'm too old—too old at any rate for what I see. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. Still, we have the illusion of freedom; therefore don't, like me to-day, be without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it, and now I'm a case of reaction against the mistake. Do what you like so long ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... we mean not all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions which, on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry, we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors. Thus the greatest of the poets has described it, in lines universally admired for the vigor and felicity of their diction, and still more ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... gross, and let the more subtle parts | of nature escape our observation: | their range is limited to the most | conspicuous information. On the other | hand, they are misleading, by a | fundamental illusion: they offer | things to the mind according to the | measure of human nature. "For it is a | false assertion that the sense of man | is the measure of things. On the | contrary, all perceptions as well of | the sense as of the mind are | according ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... 1798-'99. If, however, any such hope may have been entertained, but few moons had filled and waned before the defiant occupation of her territory and the enrollment of her citizens as soldiers in the army of invasion must have dispelled the illusion. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of over-weening arrogance when it identifies the human self with the universal self and merges man in the Divinity and the Divinity in man, and of demoralizing pessimism when it preaches that life itself is but a painful illusion, and that the sovereign remedy and end of all evils is non-existence. Its mythology is often as revolting as the rigidity of its caste laws, which condemn millions of human beings to such social abasement that their ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... further into his pillow. 'Do as you think best, Sheila,' he said. 'For my own part, I believe it may be as he suggests—partly an illusion, a touch of nervous breakdown. It simply can't be as bad as I think it is. If it were, you would not be here talking like this; and Bethany wouldn't have believed a word I said. Whatever it is, it's no good crying it on the housetops. Give me time, just time. Besides, how do we ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... that she would remain afloat even after they knew the extent of the damage. Some of them may have done so—and perhaps, from their scientific knowledge of her construction, with more reason at the time than those who said she would sink—but at any rate the stokers in our boat had no such illusion. One of them—I think he was the same man that cut us free from the pulley ropes—told us how he was at work in the stoke-hole, and in anticipation of going off duty in quarter of an hour,—thus confirming the time of the collision as 11.45,—had near ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... Round thee flinging, Its glad mirth overflowing— Oh! thou Spirit from me springing, Life on me bestowing! Dazzled, blinded, confounded, I see in thy glances The whole world and its rounded Unbounded expanses; And round us it dances In drunken confusion, Like floating illusion; Around thee I'm reeling, All round me is wheeling— And Heaven and Ocean, In flashing commotion, Round us both as thou singest, Roll reeling and rushing— Thou Joy to me that wingest, Thou ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... then reasons for reserving a part of the case from the knowledge even of my father and mother. Being convinced by the result of these enquiries, and by the tenor of Lord Byron's proceedings, that the notion of insanity was an illusion, I no longer hesitated to authorise such measures as were necessary, in order to secure me from being ever again placed in his power. Conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him on the 2d of February, to propose an amicable separation. Lord Byron at first rejected this ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... masters, to the honest sailors who lived only to do their duty, to little Noemi who died because she was too beautiful, to my grandfather who would not buy the national property, and to good Master Systeme, who was happy inasmuch as he had his hour of illusion. Happiness consists in devotion to a dream or to a duty; self-sacrifice is the surest means of securing repose. One of the early Buddhas who preceded Sakya-Mouni obtained the nirvana in a singular way. He saw one day a falcon chasing a little ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... one would take either gin or whisky, being careful to hold to the nose during the act of swallowing, a sponge well saturated with pure alcohol. Between the pungency communicated to the taste by the horse-radish and the fumes of the spirit invading the nasal avenues, the illusion of a good "square drink" ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... rain, we found no difficulty in keeping a straight course. A herd of camels trotted away as we approached and we started up a fox. Otherwise we came across no sign of life. As we advanced mile upon mile the mysterious tower seemed to get further away, an illusion possible in flat countries. I have often observed a similar phenomenon in Holland. Perhaps in this case mirage had ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... glass of brandy neat to someone who had never been weaned from a milk diet. I have not read Tom Cringle's Log from that day to this, and I think that I should be unwilling now to break the charm of memory, which may be largely illusion. But I remember a great deal of the plot and not a little of the language, and, while I am sure it is enchantingly spirited, I am quite as sure that the persons it describes were far from being unspotted by the world. The scenes at night ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... light and air, through which can be seen a minute bell surmounting a sort of anvil. Such it appears, at least, from the Place Saint Andre des Arts. Symbolically it might be called a piteous appeal, always rejected by souls hardened and hammered by vice, of that anvil which was only an optical illusion, and that very ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... in as great anxiety for the others as for him; so they bore them all away. In every case but one they were misled. But like the man who dreams and takes a fiction for the truth, so the shields cause them to suppose this illusion to be a reality. It is the shields, then, that cause this mistake. [222] Carrying the corpses, they move away and come to their tents, where there was a sorrowing troop. Upon hearing the lament raised by the Greeks, soon all the others gathered, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... that pass with feet fear-goaded: there They see the likeness of a woman bowed, In depths of anguish sobbing, and her tears Drop, as she mourns grief-stricken, endlessly. Yea, thou wouldst say that verily so it was, Viewing it from afar; but when hard by Thou standest, all the illusion vanishes; And lo, a steep-browed rock, a fragment rent From Sipylus—yet Niobe is there, Dreeing her weird, the debt of wrath divine, A broken heart ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... made the sages smile, Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind— Depending more upon the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind. Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the awakening. He opened his eyes to a murky darkness that was barely relieved by the little night-light. For a second, the nightmare was so strong on his mind that he seemed to see two shadows beyond the door, rushing down the steps. He fought off the illusion, and with straining senses jerked his head around the ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... and sisters, who have so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaintance." Bessie Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion. ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... troops, resigned his conquests, respectfully visited the church of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of interest is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was congenial to the Lombards; and both the prince and people were irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... London ceased its ravages. The street runs down to London Wall. The ground floor of the houses is occupied by shops, in which the different trades of the old City Guilds are carried on. Perhaps the only thing that spoils the illusion—apart from the unavoidably modern crowds of sightseers—is that the interiors of the houses are connected by a gallery that runs from one end of the street to the other, so that you may enter the "Rose" Inn and come out at All Hallows' Church, ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... sudden calling for lights to his chamber, and affecting or partly feeling a sudden sickness, he abruptly left the theatre. The king being departed the play was given over. Now Hamlet had seen enough to be satisfied that the words of the ghost were true, and no illusion; and in a fit of gaiety, like that which comes over a man who suddenly has some great doubt or scruple resolved, he swore to Horatio that he would take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds. But before he could make up ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... overlooking the street from the second floor in reality bore no relation to it. For light it depended on a complete oval of lights overhead so arranged as to be themselves invisible, but shining through richly stained glass and conveying the illusion of a slightly clouded noonday. The absence of windows was made up for, as I learned later, by a ventilating device so perfect that, although everyone was smoking, a most fastidious person could scarcely have been offended ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... to acknowledge an evil is in a manner to countenance its existence, and both clung fervently to the belief that a pretty sham has a more intimate relation to morality than has an ugly truth. Yet so unconscious were they of weaving this elaborate tissue of illusion around the world they inhabited that they called the mental process by which they distorted the reality, "taking a true view of life." To "take a true view" was to believe what was pleasant against what was painful in spite of evidence: to grant honesty to all men (with the possible exception ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... upper surfaces of these clouds are not uniformly level, like the under sides seen from the earth, but they are of a conical or pyramidal shape. These imposing masses seem to precipitate themselves upon the earth, as if to engulf it, but this optical illusion was due to the apparent immobility of the balloon, which at the moment was rising at the rate of about twenty ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... hesitated. And then—then, a little more than a week ago, I saw the man himself! Changed, without doubt, but not half as much changed as I am myself. Nevertheless, sure as I am of him now, I hesitated then. For it was here in the meadow that you know, near the barn, and the thing seemed so likely to be illusion that I almost suspected my senses. It was dusk, and he was walking and talking with another man, a good deal younger. And presently, while I was still confounded with surprise, and as they passed behind a clump of trees, Mayes was gone, and I saw his companion ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... reward some actions, though vicious; and punish other actions, though virtuous."—Bp. Butler cor. "Hence, to such a man, arise naturally a secret satisfaction, a sense of security, and an implicit hope of somewhat further."—Id. "So much for the third and last cause of illusion, that was noticed above; which arises from the abuse of very general and abstract terms; and which is the principal source of the abundant nonsense that has been vented by metaphysicians, mystagogues, and theologians."—Campbell cor. "As to those animals which are less common, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... rose in all the splendor of an unclouded sky in the east, the objects in the west became suddenly elongated vertically, the long rank grass stretching to an amazing altitude, while its various hues of green were reflected with vivid accuracy. As the emigrants approached the optical illusion, it gradually contracted laterally above and below towards the centre, at the same time rapidly receded towards the horizon, until it assumed its original aspect. As the sun approached the meridian, the atmosphere become so intensely warm ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... strength, its reason, its knowledge, has been undermining that doctrine with every possible heresy. In sheer wilfulness it has tried to empty life of all its values. It has made us ashamed of loving anything; for all love, it has told us, is illusion produced by the will to live, or the will to power, or some other figment of its own perverse thought. And now, as a result of that perversity, the storm breaks upon us when we seem to have stripped ourselves of all shelter against ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... wher thei duelle 1350 Thei ben al redi obeissant As damoiselles entendant To the goddesses, whos servise Thei mote obeie in alle wise; Wherof the Greks to hem beseke With tho that ben goddesses eke, And have in hem a gret credence. And yit withoute experience Salve only of illusion, Which was to hem dampnacion, 1360 For men also that were dede Thei hadden goddes, as I rede, And tho be name Manes hihten, To whom ful gret honour thei dihten, So as the Grekes lawe seith, Which was ayein the rihte feith. Thus have I told ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... many a time forfeit some measure of the blind, the head-strong, fanatical zeal that has enabled some men, whose reason was fettered and bound, to achieve results that are nigh superhuman; but therefore none the less is it certain that no man of upright soul should go forth in search of illusion or blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a region inferior to that of his noblest hours. To do our true duty in life, it must ever be done with the aid of all that is highest in our soul, highest in the truth that is ours. And even though ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Of course, we had known it for some time, but had not had the heart to admit it to each other, could not find courage to say that one more golden Summer was at an end. But the paper I had torn from the roadside left us no further shred of illusion. There was an authoritative announcement there was no blinking, a notice to quit there ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... discovery, anticipating no result, the habit once indulged became to her that luxury which writing for the eye of the world is to an author oppressed with the burthen of his own thoughts. At length she saw him, and he did not destroy her illusion. She might have recovered from the spell if she had found him ready at once to worship at her shrine. The mixture of reserve and frankness—frankness of language, reserve of manner—which belonged to Maltravers, piqued her. Her vanity became the auxiliary to her imagination. At ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impertinent sailor grinning at him from the rigging. Instantly his legs became rigid, and he affected an interest in the horizon intended to convince the sailor that he had been the victim of an optical illusion. Of course it was quite beneath his dignity to take part in these rollicking dances, especially in such a public place as on shipboard. He realized that fully; yet he thought of Bobby and sighed. There were actually times in his life when he almost wished ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... that this relief from pain was only a sign that Nature had succumbed at last, and that Death had gained the victory. Tom hated to dispel the illusion, but it ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... minds of your audience to accept gladly what follows—and to look forward to it eagerly. You must not only plainly show what the causes of every action are, but you must also make the audience feel what they imply. Thus you will create the illusion which is the chief charm of the theatre—a feeling of superiority to the mimic characters which the gods must experience as they look down upon us. This is the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... endless cycle of disease and misery would cease, and a new dawn of hope burst with blinding radiance upon weary humanity. And then a mood of unbelief would darken my mind and I would view the creation of the bacillus as an idle and vain dream, an illusion never to be realized.... ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... throughout his life, to tread the same steps on the same circle; always applauding his past conduct, or, at least, forgetting it to amuse himself with phantoms of happiness, which were dancing before him; and willingly turned his eyes from the light of reason, when it would have discovered the illusion, and shown him, what he never wished to see, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... rather liked making fools of themselves, and that Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also vanished to ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... small hours I dropped off to sleep, and eventually slept soundly, to be awakened by the noise of steam blowing off, close at hand. I started up, listened for a moment to assure myself that the sound was not an illusion, and, satisfied that it was real, scrambled up on the junk's deck, to be greeted with the sight of several ships of war close at hand. A single glance sufficed to assure me that my troubles were at an ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... that these things were barbarisms, but held his peace to escape a scolding or reminders of his stuttering. To increase the illusion of approaching maternity she became whimsical, dressed herself in colors with a profusion of flowers and ribbons, and appeared on the Escolta in a wrapper. But oh, the disenchantment! Three months went ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... virtues on which might rest a delightful sympathy, a pure and generous affection, and a tender and trusting confidence between them. On casting her eyes upon him for the first time, however, she felt at the moment like one disenchanted, or awakening from some delightful illusion to a reality so much at variance with the beau ideal of her imagination, as to occasion a feeling of disappointment that amounted almost to pain. There stood before her a young man, with a countenance so like her father's, that the fact startled her. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... road of antiquity, though no Roman road ever passed over a mountain 10,000 feet in height. The ruin into which it has fallen in many places during the last thirty years of civil war, serves to keep up the illusion, though it falls far short of those ancient roads in the material of which it is constructed, being of small rough stones, covered over with ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and he crept across that absolutely bare, flat ground, with never a tuft of fur or a feather of a single live thing upon it to be seen, till one might have thought that he had gone mad, and was stalking an illusion—as many, not beasts, have done before him; only they were men, and blew their ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... in their acreage; and the farmhouses which had been without windows in their outer walls, now sometimes opened as many as two to the passing train. Flocks of black sheep and goats, through the optical illusion frequent in the Spanish air, looked large as cattle in the offing. Only in one place had we seen the tumbled boulders of Old Castile, and there had been really no greater objection to La Mancha than that it was flat, stale, and unprofitable and wholly unimaginable as the scene ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
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