"Blunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... startled. What was wrong? He saw the Eagles and the Foxes carrying their loads slowly, with precious care. All at once he understood. Oh, what a blunder he ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... other acquaintances; and Levin heard and uttered various criticisms on the meeting, on the new fantasia, and on a public trial. But, probably from the mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he made a blunder in speaking of the trial, and this blunder he recalled several times with vexation. Speaking of the sentence upon a foreigner who had been condemned in Russia, and of how unfair it would be to punish him by exile abroad, Levin repeated ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... hell— Blow the bugle, draw the sword— 'Fore I see him 'live an' well— 'Im the best beside the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under, By the ford o' Kabul ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... I am as anxious to push on as you, but we have already made one blunder and we can't afford another; when the time comes that it is safe to trot you shall do ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... stifled with laughter, "do you know the blunder I fell into? it is really too good. Could you only guess who I took you ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... to lay on the hounds and cast down the blinks which hinder the stricken deer in its flight. But above all I pray you, Nigel, to have a care in the use of the terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table, so that those who are wiser may have the laugh of you, and we who love you may ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one, many of the bulkheads having been blown down, and nineteen officers and men seriously injured, of whom fourteen died. It came near leading to a still more serious blunder; for, when the flames broke out, the quartermaster was ordered to hoist the signal, "A fire on board." In his trepidation he mistook the signal, and announced, "A mutiny on board." Seeing this, Capt. Rodgers of the "John Adams" beat his crew to quarters, and with shotted guns and open ports took ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... almost in his dotage. He was shedding tears of joy, and we all maintained the pious and serious aspect suited to the occasion, until the time arrived for the novice to step forward, when, lo! Father Panizzoni advanced with open arms toward the place where I stood, mistaking me for my brother; a blunder which for a moment imperiled ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... she was come to ask for its fulfilment. What would he think of her? How interpret a precipitancy so foreign to the cool assurance of her bearing in the garden? She frowned; the instinct that urges a woman to any folly short of the supreme blunder of unveiling herself to masculine eyes took possession of her. But only for a moment, for again the imminence of the peril in which she stood broke over her like a wave. There was but one thing to do; the signal ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... might set in the same direction; or, again, she might wish to renew her early engagement with the emperor himself. The same uncertainty had been felt at Brussels; the Bishop of Arras, therefore, had charged Renard to feel his way carefully and make no blunder. If the queen inclined to the emperor, he might speak of Philip as more eligible; if she fancied Courtenay, it would be useless to interfere—she would only resent his opposition.[87] Renard obeyed his ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... always gave her. Dr. Knapp points out that 'carreta' means a Spanish dray-cart, and that 'carita,' 'my dear,' was probably meant. But, careless as was the famous word-master over the spelling of words in the tongues that he never really mastered scientifically, he could scarcely have made so obvious a blunder as this, and there must have been some particular experience in the lives of husband and wife that led to the playful designation.[142] Here ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may bring me a little good of you all. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... blunder, and he perceived at length that the person addressing him in no way resembled ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tank-deck with a piece of bell-cord, one end of which was fixed to the fellow's left foot and the other to the whistle lever, Yank set his fireman, with a white light and the robber's gun, on the rear car and flagged back to the rescue. The robbers, seeing the blunder they had made, took a few parting shots at the trainmen on the top of the train, mounted their horses, and ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... arising; and knowing that dawn was near at hand, the boys had pushed the sleepy ones off their beds and started them feeding. The incident had little effect on the irrepressible Parent, who seemed born to blunder, yet gifted with a sunny disposition which atoned ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Germany was guilty of another and a still more capital blunder in relation to ourselves. ["Hear, hear!"] I am not referring for the moment to the grotesque understanding upon which I dwelt a week ago at Edinburgh, their carefully fostered belief that we here were so rent with civil distraction, [laughter,] so paralyzed by luke-warmness ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... scarcely more heartless, who countenance this inhuman logic. The average mercantile sentiment of this and other great Northern cities runs thus: 'True, Slavery is unjust and barbarous—it is at once a wrong and a mistake—but it is not our blunder. Its perils are braved and its evils endured by those who cherish it, hundreds of miles away; while to us it is a positive advantage. By obstructing the mechanical and manufacturing development of the South, it dooms her products, her commerce, her navigation, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... but how could one guess, from the mere sight of that fellow's big carcass, that things would turn out as they have? The turn of events is enough to make one giddy! I took the colonel for one of those fire-eaters who haven't two ideas in their head; that was the blunder I made. As I didn't have the sense to double like a hare in the beginning, I'll not be such a coward as to back down before him. He has lowered me in the estimation of this town, and I cannot get back what I have lost ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... think I would, Frank," whispered Roberts sadly. "I'm so weak and helpless I don't know what to do, and we're just as likely to blunder against the enemy as they are to come upon us. If I could only have ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... replied, "Sir, I have given the whole right of publication to Mr. Trubner, and I would not take it from him for ten thousand pounds." Hotten at once published an edition which was a curiosity of ignorance and folly. There was a blunder on an average to every page. He had annotated it! He explained that Knasterbart meant "a nasty fellow," and that the French garce was gare, "a railway station!" Trubner had sold 5,000 copies before ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... can do right. You would think that now and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense. But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education. As a matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... mean but wish to hide from ourselves or others; when we forget an appointment which part of us really wishes to avoid, or forget a name with which we are perfectly familiar; when we lose the pen so that we cannot write or the desk key so that we cannot work; when we blunder and drop things and do what we did not mean to do; then we may know—the normal as well as the nervous person—that our subconscious minds with their repressed desires are trying to get the reins and ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... through the ceremony of guard mounting without a single blunder, I was not at all at ease. I inspected the front rank, while my junior inspected the rear. I was sorely displeased to observe some of the cadets change color as they tossed up their pieces for my inspection, and that they watched me as I went through that operation. Some of them were ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... glosses, collections of Sumerian formulas translated into Semitic speech—a child's guide, in fact, which the savants of those times consulted with as much advantage as those of our own day have done, and which must have saved them from many a blunder. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... but pardonable blunder," said Mr. Witham, "that I died, and reached the Paradise of Poets. I had, indeed, published volumes of verse, but with the most blameless motives. Other poets were continually sending me theirs, and, as I could not admire them, and did not like to reply by critical ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... continued Billy, "the parson's showed some sense. He might's well do the 'Harbor,' 'cause that's only one place an' he can't blunder much—seems if. You take the streets, same's he said; and I—if you'll put a needle an' thread through me, bime-by, after he's found, I'll go find him an' call it square. I'll begin to the lowest ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... but when the morrow came it was found that, through some one's blunder, the sloop containing the fish had been burned, and an empty one towed to sea with us. The joke, if it might be so termed, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... now that she has become an establishment, she begins to perceive that she made a blunder in trusting herself to the ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... Sousa has spent a long season at the Exposition. A blunder was somewhere made in dating the arrival of the March King and his splendid instrumentalists, who came while yet the Boston Symphonists were playing in Festival Hall. As a result the finest of bands was placed in competition with the finest of orchestras. But nothing disastrous ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... comfort in proving that my own blunder had led me into such a mess. I threw the pencil down and sat on the edge of the lower berth. My anger was giving way to alarm. I began to realize that perhaps being a prisoner was the safest for me while on the steamer, for if Meeker had brought ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... one whose talents and virtues merited a nobler arena than that on which they were displayed, and who would have indeed distinguished himself in any age and country. Profiting by experience, the successful Minister did not repeat the former blunder of retiring to Agra, where, moreover, his presence was no longer required; but continued for the brief remainder of his life to reside in the metropolis, and enjoy the fruit of his laborious career in the administration of the Empire, to which he had restored something of its old importance. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... not safe"—broke in Danton, stepping forward. Then, conscious of the blunder, he turned away, and took ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... in the old copies, sarua voulra boungrace, but surely Mercatore was not intended to blunder in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... reasonably be called upon to render such an account, if any of their words were spoken for money; I only say this. If Aeschines in his private capacity has spoken wildly on some occasion or committed some blunder, do not be over-strict with him, but let it pass and grant him pardon: but if as your ambassador he has deliberately deceived you for money, then do not let him go, or tolerate the plea that he ought not to be called to account for what he said. {183} Why, for what, if not for his words, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... changed his tone, becoming very apologetic. He probably knew by experience that for a blunder such as this evidently, was, he, rather than his superior, would have to bear the brunt. But Rhodes was implacable; the world, he said, would ring with the outrage. As soon as the British Government learned of the disgraceful manner in which one of its subjects ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder perpetrated by the reformers everything has been going from bad to worse. When it was retorted that the census proved the population to be growing, he replied that the census was a lie. Were the facts truly stated, he declares, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... another blunder. Lord Abinger, it seems, is too Conservative to resign. After all the editorial boasting about "exclusive information," "official intelligence," &c. it is very evident that the "Morning Twaddler" must not be looked upon as a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... told,—and would have been cut down by a British sergeant, but for his wearing a uniform that resembled that of a British colonel. He was helped to a horse at a most fortunate moment. He did not know, in consequence of the blunder of Clarke, that the dragoons whom he had fought and beaten, were only an advanced guard of a body of infantry. Horses and men were in his hands, and, dividing his force, he sent off one party of his men in charge of the prisoners and trophies. A sudden attack of the British infantry ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... handling men and women told him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to redden at his blunder. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Deventer was anxious to make amends for his blunder of a moment before. "Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on each floor in turn and ask everybody ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... to be executed on this date. Yet surprise indubitably was the first and most overpowering emotion; for, in truth, no one up to that hour had really credited that England would take the lives of those three men on a verdict already publicly admitted and proclaimed to have been a blunder. Now, however, came the news that all was over—that the deed was done—and soon there was seen such an upheaving of national emotion as had not been witnessed in Ireland for a century. The public conscience, utterly shocked, revolted against the dreadful act perpetrated in the ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... instrument can be used skilfully; and to the novice there is some danger of one of the balls hitting him a crack on the head, and knocking over himself instead of the game. But there was no danger of Guapo's friend the vaquero committing this blunder. He had been swinging the bolas around his head ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... of the Great and Little Parks. Several villages of little note stand upon it. Of these Wokingham has the distinction of an ancient hostelry yclept the Rose; and the celebrity of the Rose is a beautiful daughter of the landlord of a century and a half ago. This lady missed her proper fame by the blunder of a merry party of poets who one evening encircled the mahogany of her papa. It was as "fast" a festivity as such names as Gay and Swift could make it. Their combined efforts resulted in the burlesque of Molly Mog. These two and some others contributed each a verse in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... done. 13. Or president of the public games, chosen yearly by the common-council of Asia. 14. Dr. Middleton ridicules the mention of a dove issuing out of the wound of the side; but this is only found in some modern MSS. by the blunder of a transcriber: it is not in Eusebius, Rufinus, Nicephorus, or the Greek Menaea; though the last two would have magnified a prodigy if they had found the least authority for any. According to Le Moyen, (Proleg. ad varia sacra.) Ceillier, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... blunder, I admit, to put it this way. So I will be frank with you. My family is also, my friend, as old as yours. My niece is all I have left in the world. I would like to see her married to an Englishman. I would like to see her married to ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... blunder indeed. In your anxiety to save the threatened Bishop, which you feared to withdraw to Q. Kt's 3d sq., on account of the adverse Knight's giving check at your Queen's 3d square, you have actually left your Q's Rook en prise! Black takes ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... and—his father has a hold upon him. But I said to myself at the outset, 'No, whatever happens, I will not usurp the place of God. I will not be the Priest-Patriarch of my children. They shall grow and I will grow beside them, helping but not cramping or overshadowing.' They grow more. But they blunder more. Life ceases to be a discipline and becomes ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... summer's morning grows drowsy with the heat. The crimson and creamy-gold of the opening honeysuckle swings heavy with its own sweetness. The hart's-tongue ferns, matted all over the steep banks, hang down like the tongues of thirsty dogs. The bees blunder sleepily from flower to flower. The black and crimson butterflies take short flights and long panting rests. Even the late wild roses seem less saucily cheerful than usual, and the branching ferns on the hillsides look as though they were ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... If that be not so, we have neither a flag nor a country,—we can neither contract a debt nor make a treaty,—we have neither honor abroad nor strength at home,—our experiment of free government is a blunder and a failure, and for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... other Eastern experiences on me; five weeks on the Nile; Brugsch Bey's account of his discovery of the royal mummies; my visit to Artin Pasha and the great Technical School of Cairo. Dinner with the Khedive; my curious blunder. American and English missionaries in Cairo and Alexandria; Dr. Grant's lecture on the Egyptian Trinities. Mr. Nimr; bis scientific and other activities in Egypt. My enjoyment of Saracenic architecture. Revelation to me of the connection between Egyptian and Greek ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... arrived with dispatches, in which the general must have found all the proof of the imposture, for he has caused the false duke or prince to disappear very suddenly. Nobody knows where he has been sent to, and nobody ventures to mention the fellow before the general, for he made the most egregious blunder respecting him." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... on this question of the fortification of Paris the staff of "Le National" are not agreed. This would prove, if proof were needed, that a journal may blunder and falsify, without entitling any one to accuse its editors. A journal is a metaphysical being, for which no one is really responsible, and which owes its existence solely to mutual concessions. This idea ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... suggestion is eminently plain and practical, if not an all too obvious one. It is this: if all your preparation and confidence fails you at the crucial moment, and memory plays the part of traitor in some particular,—if, in short, you blunder on a detail of the story, never admit it. If it was an unimportant detail which you misstated, pass right on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link in the chain, put it in, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... are both ministers and reside in Boston, were confused in this comment. The one, who had recently been South, but who did not preach the sermon, was read a severe lecture, because after partaking of the hospitality of the Southern people, he had spoken in so severe terms of them. It was an amusing blunder, but illustrates the fact that more and more even the Southern editor is coming to feel the importance of Northern criticism. It is a very hopeful sign. It is sometimes said that time will settle these monstrous inequalities that prevail in the South, but time never settles ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... you gentlemen here, but to all British constituencies—that it is well you should have patience enough to listen to a speech about India; because it is no secret to anybody who understands, that if the Government were to make a certain kind of bad blunder in India—which I do not at all expect them to make—there would be short work for a long time to come, with many of those schemes, upon which you have set your heart. Do not dream, if any mishap of a certain kind ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Perhaps the greatest blunder of the present day, upon the part of scientists, is their attempt to bring into disrepute the cosmogony given in the Bible by a scientific cosmogony, which leaves off as "unknown" the only active world-forming force. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... roads which were not needed nor desired, and one million was diverted from the wages fund to purchase land for this experiment. The aid which the stronger country proposed to give to the weaker, from the Treasury to which both contributed, was the remission of one-third of this debt. A blunder in foreign policy, the escapade of an ambitious minister in India or Africa, has cost the British taxpayer more in a month than he spent to save millions of fellow-subjects ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... chiefly, or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I write politics for my own sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, with perhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my readers. In this way I think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainly a blunder to take him from Ireland—into which I was led by the circumstance that I created the scheme of the book during a visit to Ireland. There was nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, and there was an added ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... to the first, it was a blunder rather than a fault. Peter the Great caused his heir to be tried and sentenced to death, because he was a sot, a liar, and a fool. He dared not intrust the interests of his Empire to so unworthy a son; the welfare of Russia was more to him than the interest of his family. In that respect ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... proper concomitants and antecedents, not yet relegated to his private mind, nor explained by his personal endowment and situation. To take these private feelings for the substance of other beings is evidently a gross blunder; yet this blunder, without ceasing to be one in point of method, ceases to be one in point of fact when the other being happens to be similar in nature and situation to the mythologist himself and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not, I warrant, by any means so dangerous but that a few simple remedies would soon have set you, with your strong constitution, on your legs again, had you not through Carlos's well-intentioned blunder in running off for the nearest physician fallen into the hands of the redoubtable Pyramid Doctor, who was making all preparations for bringing you ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is a good officer, and he will make his way, if he was guilty of a blunder in letting the Bellevite ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... gravely, yet very coldly, "perhaps it would be as well for you to know that you made quite a blunder yesterday, when you said I told you wrong; I hadn't the slightest notion of telling you, right or wrong. But I know how you came to think so. I was looking out a word in Mr. Burrows' dictionary, and stood just behind you, when Mr. Bailey leaned ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... survivors, were prisoners, and were on their way to the frontier—in fact, we had no certain news until three days ago, when we heard of the battle, his death, and the embarkation of the army, and its sailing for England. The last was a terrible blunder." ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... which lay within the power of the officers of this club. Very well, then, far as it was from my original intention, I present my personal grievance and I claim redress. The vote of censure which the committee has passed upon me I regard as merely a stupid and offensive blunder; the implication conveyed by listening to a servant in relation to a charge against a member is an insult to him as a gentleman, which, to me personally, seems too intolerable to be endured. I came into this club as to a body of gentlemen, and I have a ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... is the one Dickens work of which the date is essential. It is really an important part of the criticism of this book to say that it is his first book. Certain elements of clumsiness, of obviousness, of evident blunder, actually require the chronological explanation. It is biographically important that this is his first book, almost exactly in the same way that it is biographically important that The Mystery of Edwin Drood was his last book. Change or no change, Edwin Drood has this plain point of a last story ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... of the word "bull," for a verbal blunder, involving a contradiction in terms, is of doubtful origin. In this sense it is used with a possible punning reference to papal bulls in Milton's True Religion, "and whereas the Papist boasts himself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the scientific correctness of the expressions used. Metal, I know, will burn in vivid-coloured flame, exposed to galvanic action, but whether it is consumed, I am not sure. Perhaps you or Mr. Taylor can tell me whether there is any blunder in the term employed—if not, it might ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... temporary skipper of the Chih' Yuen, during which he ascertained that the vessel had fortunately struck only very lightly; and, as she had been considerably sheltered from the seas by the part of the reef through which she had somehow managed to blunder before striking, she had not bumped to any extent, and was making but little water. It was therefore to be hoped that her bottom was not so badly injured as Wong-lih had at first anticipated, and that, at the rising of the tide, it might be possible, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... movements, by means of the confederate who awaited his arrival at the station. As it happened, they simply hit upon the wrong person. It might have paid them much better to follow me. The outcome of the blunder is that I am in a fair way towards ascertaining all I want to know about them, whereas, up to the present, they do not even suspect my existence as an active agent ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... would have made some comment; but Hamilton, who now perceived his blunder, which might have a disastrous effect on the attitude of these men toward him, hastened to make a ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... has all been a strange blunder, but it is perfectly clear how it happened. That man Beaton evidently had never seen Frederick Cavendish. He was simply informed that he would leave New York on that train. He met this Cavendish on board, perhaps even saw his signature on the ticket, and cultivated his ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... who could succeed in anything you tried—yes, anything. Perhaps you know the Marquis thought so too, and even today I believe we were nearly right. We saw you in Brussels later, and in Holland, and then at Blanzy this year. I have known of a dozen commissions you have performed without a single blunder. Indeed, I know of only one thing in which you have ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... credit to Massilia, and to revile the "cowardly flight" of the Punic leader. Thus the Romans had for the third time through pure negligence abandoned their allies and an important line of defence; and not only so, but by passing after this first blunder from mistaken slackness to mistaken haste, and by still attempting without any prospect of success to do what might have been done with so much certainty a few days before, they let the real means ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... for my stupidity in speaking her name. Such a blunder! Why, it might have been overheard by anybody on the line. No wonder she left me. Doubtless I had driven her ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... being publicly shown. Then, amid tense silence, he gave the word of command—Quick, March!—while every officer felt his trigger. To the immense relief of all concerned the men stepped off, marched straight between the flags and back to quarters, tamed. The criminal War Office blunder was rectified and peace ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... to, the brows of the French officers clouded, and they denounced in angry terms the fatal blunder of the marshal of weakening his centre to strengthen the left against a feigned attack. But the subject soon changed again, for, as the marquis said, "It would be quite time to talk it over tomorrow, when they would know who had fallen, and what were the losses;" for from their position on the left, ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... a jump when an open gate or gap is handy, unless the hounds are going fast. Don't attempt to show in front, unless you feel you can keep there. Beginners, who try to make a display, even if lucky at first, are sure to make some horrid blunder. Go slowly at your fences, except water and wide ditches, and don't pull at the curb when your horse is rising. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the horse will be better without your assistance than with it. Don't wear spurs until you are quite sure that you won't spur at the wrong ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... given us a little more room," he muttered. "However, it will be all right unless we get fog. We might blunder into one another then." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do, for a fact. Perhaps it would be safer to wait. I've made enough trouble for one day by my blunder-headed thoughtlessness." ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... companions it seemed that the expedition had already failed. Through some blunder its plans had evidently become known, and all was ruined. That was the worst of these Cubans; they couldn't keep a secret. Branch stalked the hotel lobby like a restless wraith. O'Reilly was furious. Of the entire party Ramos alone maintained an unruffled pleasantry; he spent ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... a man of business, and very forgetful, or he could not have made such a blunder as this. And there was Flaxie's new and elegant doll, Christie Gretchen, all packed in cotton, in a box by itself, on purpose to ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... thought them, and at sea as to the direction from which they came; so they hid away in a dense new growth of Engelmann spruce. When I rode in sight with rifle ready across my saddle, they lay low, no doubt fearing to blunder into an ambush if ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... to my salon and sat down to reflect on the consequences of my mishap. Of course, it was easy to set the matter right, but what a muddle! I must make haste in the morning to correct my blunder. ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... off the reef, light winds and calms delayed the voyage to the Victoria River; but as the Tom Tough worked along the coast better than the Monarch, I went on with the schooner to examine the entrance of the river. Ascending the Victoria to Blunder Bay, found that the locality was not suited for landing horses, and therefore returned to Treachery Bay, near which Mr. H.C. Gregory had discovered abundance of grass and water under Providence Hill of Captain Stokes; commenced landing the horses on the ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that they were wondering how they could get him to blunder—apparently closed their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He never knew whether he was ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... marching with the purpose to get around the enemy's right flank during the operations that were to succeed the mine explosion, but when I reached General Meade's headquarters I found that lamentable failure had attended the assault made when the enemy's works were blown up in the morning. Blunder after blunder had rendered the assault abortive, and all the opportunities opened by our expedition to the north side were irretrievably lost, so General Meade at once arrested ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with great contempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely when I tell them I have no order to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours."[16] And this scrupulous observance of his orders, at a time when a little excess of zeal was unlikely to be regarded as a very serious blunder, is yet more strikingly illustrated in his next letter, written a week later from Dumfries. In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over the Nith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately set up a large meeting-house. The clergy, as wild against the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... and presently Herbert passed a bent nail to the young detective, and instructed him how to operate on the lock, which speedily yielded to the boy's efforts. In another instant the trap door was thrown up, and, by a most unfortunate blunder, it fell ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... of superstition hugged their chains Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... can't do anything but blunder to-night. I'm all broken up, distracted by conflicting duties and feelings. I picked up important information this evening. The Yankee column, halting in the rich valley to the northwest, have been ranging the country far and near, loading their wagons and resting their horses. They ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... such a minority will not obey parliamentary rules, and, rather than yield to the majority that it will introduce into the debate boos and hisses, insults, threats, and scuffles with daggers, pistols, sabers and even the "blunder busses" of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... am going to let you off so," said he; "you must give me half-a-dozen kisses at least to prove that you have forgiven me for making so great a blunder." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... to think it was time for him to go to bed, when I heard somebody else blunder into my sitter, and in a moment Lambert appeared at the door. Now Lambert, who was only gorgeous by day, frequently became aggressive at night, and I told him to clear out jolly quickly. But instead of doing what he was wanted to he lit a huge cigar, and began smoking the thing ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... from the piratical invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. It includes anger, awe, baffle, bang, bark, bawl, blunder, boulder, box, club, crash, dairy, dazzle, fellow, gable, gain, ill, jam, kidnap, kill, kidney, kneel, limber, litter, log, lull, lump, mast, mistake, nag, nasty, niggard, horse, plough, rug, rump, sale, scald, shriek, skin, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... plain as the nose on your face," said Bates. "That story will come out to-morrow morning, and everybody will say it was the blunder of a newspaper reporter; and then Waterman will come forward and do the rescue act. It'll ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... pachydermatous material and will daily make himself such a nuisance that they'll give him an order, and possibly a long contract, to get rid of him. By a proper system of book-keeping he will also save me from the occasional blunder of sending the same article to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... his subjects was a patriot by saying: "I don't care if he's patriotic for the country, but is he patriotic for me?" Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... King's being a good man. After the unjust assault upon him, and considering the just claims of Tazewell County, as indicated in the letters I inclose you, it would in my opinion be injustice, and withal a blunder, not to appoint him, at least as soon as any one is appointed to either ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... an armed party to the spot. He was exceedingly chagrined by the cruel blunder perpetrated by his envoy. Though he could not blame the Indians, he knew full well that, their vengeance being thus aroused, they would, if they could, doom all to indiscriminate slaughter. It was necessary for him therefore to take the most decisive action in self-defence. The dead were buried. ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... a dryness in the tone of this reply which warned Barrant that he had made a blunder in allowing his irritation to get the better of him. But his private opinion was that the letter was the outcome of some secret of the dead man's which he had imparted to his lawyer. He changed his mood with supple swiftness, in order to extract ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... hurt in his professional pride by the signal failure of his Museum of Marvels in Rabbit township. In the first place, the great impresario had been guilty of a grievous blunder in selecting Rabbit for a two-night's pitch, but things had been going so remarkably well of late, due mainly to the eccentric adventures of the Missing Link, that the boss was getting proud, and was beginning ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... of this good cheer, and my lady's little pearl necklace, there was the family basket-hilt sword, the great Turkish cimiter, the old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... David. Notwithstanding the Hurons were necessarily ignorant of the little channels among the eddies and rapids of the stream, they knew the common signs of such a navigation too well to commit any material blunder. When the pilot chosen for the task of guiding the canoe had taken his station, the whole band plunged again into the river, the vessel glided down the current, and in a few moments the captives found themselves on the south bank of the stream, nearly opposite to the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... would have made an excellent short story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr. PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain it he was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style . . . . The greatest blunder in the printing that I have met with is in page 220, v. 3, where two speeches are made into one. There might as well be no suppers at Longbourn; but I suppose it was the remains of ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... Wellington, the dedication of his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales, all of which are of great excellence. His Charge of the Light Brigade, at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military blunder, must rank as one of the finest ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... through the post, opened it, and, as she expected, found its contents were not of a kind to give her much satisfaction. In fact, in her emotion of anger and indignation she made a false step in her state-craft of a nature one can hardly imagine a person so astute as the Princess making. This blunder ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... should not wonder at his exerting himself for a great reform in the process of inquiry, preaching the method of Induction, and, if he fancied that theologians were indirectly or in any respect the occasion of the blunder, getting provoked for a time, however ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... was, I suppose, a clerical corruption out of Canjus or Cianjus. In the chronicle of St. Antonino, however, we have him called "Chinghiscan rectius Tamgius Cam" (XIX. c. 8). If this is not merely the usual blunder of t for c, it presents a curious analogy to the form Tankiz Khan always used by Ibn Batuta. I do not know the origin of the latter, unless it was suggested by tankis (Ar.) "Turning upside down." (See Pereg. Quat., p. 119; I. B. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... thus kill two birds with one stone), and the Chouan's threats, piqued her curiosity. She left the dirty window from which she could see the formless heap which she knew to be Marche-a-Terre, and returned to the landlord, who was still standing in the attitude of a man who feels he has made a blunder, and does not know how to get out of it. The Chouan's gesture had petrified the poor fellow. No one in the West was ignorant of the cruel refinements of torture with which the "Chasseurs du Roi" punished those who were even suspected of indiscretion; ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... to witness. He was not usually wanting in courage, but the events of the evening had shaken his confidence and his composure. The hope of gain and the fear of loss had deprived him of his wonted clearness of mind. Feeling that he had just committed a terrible blunder, he racked his brain to find some way of repairing it, and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was grossly inefficient. There was not a single member of the Cabinet fitted to carry on war, or able to influence George III. For such a body of men to undertake to direct the operations in America {78} at the distance of 3,000 miles was a worse blunder than it would have been to commit the conduct of the war to any one of the generals in the ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... or sending to you. When you were brought here I was still in durance vile, and Higgins was in his strait-jacket. On being released, my hands were full, as you can suppose. Moreover, I did not learn at once of your detention. The saddle and the valise caused me to suspect that a blunder had been committed. I cannot adequately express my regrets. In ten minutes," continued Dr. Pendegrast, turning a fat gold watch over on its back in the palm of his hand, where it looked like a little yellow turtle, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... still debating this knotty point when a knock at the door apprised him that his expected guests had arrived. Alas! blunder number two trod hard on the heels of number one! He had no tea or coffee, not even a box of biscuits, to take off the edge of the interview and offer a retreat for his own inevitable embarrassment ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... he said. "Stokes was on the right track, but made a bad blunder. You see, his appearance ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... seem to blunder," Gifford said, his face stinging from the cut about friendship. "I never seem to know how to tell the truth without giving offense—but—but, Lois, you know I think you are the best ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... share the spoil. At the appointed hour Bonaparte's agent arrived, and was completely the dupe of these adventurers, who plundered him of twelve hundred thousand livres. Though not many days passed before he discovered the imposition, prudence prevented him from denouncing the impostors; and this blunder would have remained a secret between himself, Bonaparte, and Talleyrand, had not the unusual expenses of Caumartin excited the suspicion of the Russian Police Minister, who soon discovered the source from which they had flowed. De Gausac had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... American correspondent in the paper attacked these attacks on the ground that they were inspired by British Imperialism! Chesterton felt it a little hard to be at this date confused with Kipling. He replied that his correspondent committed "the blunder of an extravagant and excessive admiration for England." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The stranger had uttered words of apology, but his tone had been insolent, and his apology was more offensive than his original blunder. Had it not been for Ben's reluctance to make a disturbance, he would have struck the offender in the mouth. If he had had a pistol, he could have shot him; his great uncle Ralph, for instance, would not have let him ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "Never tell people how you are! They don't want to know." Up to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. One does undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely minimising them. But there is a significance in suffering too. It is not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. It is a deliberate part of the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... case waiting which promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even in the thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff had fired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... been occasioned by anything human, by the co-operation of human circumstances, can be, and invariably is, removed by the same means. Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life. Mix in the world, and in a month's time you will speak to me very differently. A young man, you meet with disappointment; in spite of all your exalted notions of your own powers, you immediately sink under it. If your belief of your powers ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... For instance, he tells us that the cow sheds her horns every two years; a most palpable errour, which Goldsmith has faithfully transferred into his book. It is wonderful that Buffon, who lived so much in the country, at his noble seat, should have fallen into such a blunder. I suppose he has confounded the cow with the deer. BOSWELL. Goldsmith says:—'At three years old the cow sheds its horns and new ones arise in their place, which continue as long as it lives.' Animated Nature, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... in turn handing the pile to her mother, while the others watched, counting each for himself in silence, ready to check any blunder that might be made. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... and distinguished persons and to the youngest student was exactly the same: and to all he showed the same winning courtesy. He would receive with interest the most trifling observation in any branch of natural history; and however absurd a blunder one might make, he pointed it out so clearly and kindly, that one left him no way disheartened, but only determined to be more accurate the next time. In short, no man could be better formed to win the entire confidence of the young, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... I am sorry!" said Penuel, in a tone of great distress. "Mother will be sore troubled. Everybody loves Mistress Benden, and few loveth her master. There's some sorry blunder, be ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... is the fault? Tis not my arrogance, But candor, Lord, that puts the blame on Thee. What right hadst Thou to make these people free And let all nature prompt them to advance?— Oh, no such blunder, Lord, hadst Thou called me, Instead of ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... enough, only you like to make me blunder where you can talk," said my wife, putting her hand in mine. "But I will try. Sometimes, after thinking about something for a long time, you come to a conclusion about it, and you think you have settled it plain and clear ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... those who know next to nothing of it. They know enough to have pedestals of their own; to be on their guard; to have a reputation to maintain; to conceal the "dram of folly;" to be, to that extent, artificial in their relations with men. They dare not betray the "laughable blunder," which, said Charles Lamb, is the test your neighbour giveth you "that he will not betray or ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... what a lovable married lady you would be, who growls at her husband because she has made a blunder. ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg |
