"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it seemed, cared to risk even a semblance of rivalry with that monstrous aggregation of capital, for the interlacing of financial interests was amazingly intricate, and financiers were fearful of the least misstep. Everywhere O'Neil encountered the same disheartening timidity. His battle, it seemed, had been lost before ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... was strewn with rock fragments! Her valley! The valley of the photographs! She laughed aloud, and urged her horse down the steep descent, heedless of the fact that upon the precarious, loose rock footing of the slope, a misstep would mean ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... you to go first. The rise is easy for a half-mile or so. I can better watch out for you and catch you—if you make a misstep. The stones are loose and mischievous; the path is ridiculously near the edge of things. If one should—now do not get nervous, but if you should go over, just clutch the bushes, the sturdy little clumps, and nothing can ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... of fudge fading and realized that he had made a misstep in laughing so loudly. "Don't get mad," he said pleadingly to the back of her head, "I won't tell any of the others what you said. But it was so funny I had to laugh," he said ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... But my big bay did his part well, and I did not lose my head or my nerve, as we cautiously made our way along the narrow path on the side of the steep gorge, with a foaming torrent rushing along at its foot, nor yet when we forded the rocky and rapid Yellowstone. A misstep or a stumble on the part of my steed, and probably the first bubble of my confidence would have been shivered at once; but this did not happen, and in due time we reached the group of tents that formed the ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... came into her face, and she turned away. The boy was embarrassed. He had taken a misstep. She turned impatiently and gave him a ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... outside his base. A ball caught in this way does not score, but the misstep is not a foul unless with both feet. The outer basemen may put one foot outside their bases when trying to catch the ball. A guard must stay within three feet of the base he guards, and may not step within it. Guards, of course, try to prevent the basemen ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... with the joy of life, and bringing sunshine wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life," says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There is nothing ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... in order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he resigned his place as our 'boss,' and left post-haste for the main-land. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... from him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... but a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their work had warmed them again. All of the skidways had to be placed on the edges of the islands themselves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain meant a mired horse. Three times heavy snows obliterated the roads, so that they had to be ploughed out before the men could go to work again. It was ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... organ which "touch the spinal cord of the universe")—sent all her blood to her heart. Under ordinary circumstances, she surely would not have started at the rustling made by the timid hare in the thicket near by. There was no reason why she should shiver so when a misstep caused her to scratch her face with the thorny twigs of a wild plum-tree. But the effort necessary to the undertaking and the agony of the long waiting had exhausted her nervous force, and she had none ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... bone which enters into the socket of the pelvic bone and forms the hip joint. It occurs most commonly in aged people as a result of so slight an accident as tripping on a rug, or in falling on the floor from the standing position, making a misstep, or while attempting to avoid a fall. When the accident has occurred the patient is unable to rise or walk, and suffers pain in the hip joint. When he has been helped to bed it will be seen that the foot of the injured side is turned ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... ground with her class on account of her constant association with the juniors, and the slightest misstep on her part would jeopardize her place on the team. She had a genuine love for the game, and since she couldn't play on the junior team, she concluded it would be just as well not to lose her place ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... reasons she tickled all vanities and strove to please all parties; and—what is far more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... superimposed American pilgrims, upon their shoulders. Then began a triumphal march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... stems of a thorn thicket two cock-pheasants were having a difference, and were enthusiastically settling that difference in the approved method of game-cocks. He lingered to see which might win, but a misstep and a sudden crack of a dry twig startled them, and they withdrew like two stately but indignant old gentlemen who had ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... trying. They revel in descriptions of desirous damsels with burning eyes who crave companionship, but when an artfully devised encounter throws one of these passionate persons across the path of the man behind the pen, does he falter or swerve or make a misstep? Never. Right there is where the blood of the Galahads tells. Supremely he rises above temptation! Gracefully he ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... A misstep backward, a tumble and a bumped head brought this sport to an end, just as Shannondale was reached, and in her attempts to soothe the little girl, Edith failed to see that the shade was lifted for a single moment, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... in the instant of their most violent motion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river with cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the victim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down on of these and met his death. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they did not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not go straight down; one can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Italy in the fifth year to make a campaign against Greece, not long afterward met his death in Argos. A woman, as the story runs, being eager to catch a sight of him from the roof as he passed by, made a misstep and falling upon him killed him. The same year Fabricius and Pappus became censors; and among others whose names they erased from the lists of the knights and the senators was Rufinus, though he had served as dictator and ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... Robin met on a narrow bridge a stranger who refused to make way for him. Irritated by what he considered the man's insolence, Robin seized his quarter-staff, only to find that his antagonist more than matched him in the skilful use of this weapon. Then a misstep suddenly toppled Robin over into the stream, where he might have perished had not some of his men leaped out of the thicket to his rescue. Vexed at being beaten at quarter-staff, Robin now proposed a shooting-match, and, his good humor entirely restored by winning a ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... small, straggling country town, and clattered through its one street to the jail. To the negro, at least, it was a welcome moment, for, with his feet tied under the horse, his hands tied behind his back, and a rope with a slip-knot round his neck, he had not found the ride a pleasant one. A misstep of his horse would surely have precipitated his hanging, and he knew well that such an accident would have given much satisfaction to his captors. So he uttered a fervent "Teng Gawd!" as he was hustled into the jail gate and heard it close ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... along, he at length found himself close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a few minutes he ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the valley towns. The troops showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition not a man was laid up for any length ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... her duties, if mechanically yet with a sense of pleasure and serenity. At this moment she was as one pushed unexpectedly to the brink of a precipice, over which the slightest misstep would topple her. The world was out of joint. Shockingly bad wishes flitted through her head. Each wish aimed at the disposal, imaginary of course, of Warrington: by falling overboard, by being seized with one of the numerous plagues, by having a deadly fracas ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... made a misstep—if she went down in a heap—Betty was pretty sure that she, herself, would be hurt. She retained a tight grip upon the reins. The mare was no velvet-mouthed animal. Betty doubted if she had the strength in her ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... the man with a future has almost of necessity sense enough to see that any odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't Sidney Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a false quantity uttered in early life? Our public men are in little danger of this fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of introducing Latin into their speeches,—for good and sufficient reasons. But they are bound to speak decent English,—unless, indeed, they are rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... it against my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases which extended around the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... it. It was only a momentary seduction, a boy's misstep through ignorance, which will never be repeated; Eugen has given me his ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... went, mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, he hoped it might be done quickly. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... estimation, he yet lacked that which the ordeal of a battle would give him at home, and more than all, in Rachel's eyes. He heard nothing from or of her, but he consoled himself with the hope that the same means by which she had been so promptly informed of his misstep, would convey to her an intimation of how well he was deserving her. When he gained his laurels he would himself lay them at her feet. Until then he could only hope and strive, cherishing all the while the love for her that daily grew stronger ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... of the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching thirst of this dying enemy whose words had changed frailty ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... followed after the pack-horse, and Frank came next. Roderick pricked up his ears, looked over into the gorge, and snorted loudly. He moved very slowly and carefully, and well he might: for a single misstep on his part would have sent both him and his rider to destruction. The path was so narrow that, although Roderick walked on the extreme outer edge, Frank's feet now and then brushed against the rock on the opposite ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... on his ankles. To prevent it from wearing his ankles, a string was tied to the centre, by which the victim suspended it when he walked, with one hand, and with the other carried his burden. Whenever he lifted, the fetter rested on his bare ankles. If he lost his balance and made a misstep, which must very often occur in lifting and rolling logs, the torture of his fetter was severe. Thus he was doomed to work while wearing the torturing iron, day after day, and at night he was confined in the runaways' jail. Some time after this, I saw the same dejected, heart-broken ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... proper solution, unfortunately an impracticable one, and being there, to turn back was inadmissible. So I took myself in hand and started. For the first few steps I was far too much given up to considering possibilities. I thought how a single misstep would end. I could see my footing slip, feel the consciousness that I was gone, the dull thuds from point to point as what remained of me bounded beyond the visible edge down, down. . . And after that what! How long before the porters missed me and ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... place, of course, no girl that has not made some misstep or committed some indiscretion, could be enticed to a dance-hall or kept there for a moment if it were possible to get her inside its doors. But in every city or village in the country there are persons in the guise of men [yes, and women also] who are actively ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... notwithstanding the lay-idea that a broken back means certain death, patients with well-authenticated cases of vertebral fracture have recovered. Warren records the case of a woman of sixty who, while carrying a clothes-basket, made a misstep and fell 14 feet, the basket of wet clothes striking the right shoulder, chest, and neck. There was fracture of the 4th dorsal vertebra at the transverse processes. By seizing the spinous process it could be bent backward and forward, with the peculiar crepitus of fractured ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... able to tell unerringly when they were bearing the Viaticum, and it was plain that he felt the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to the saddle, and his ragged leggins were heavy and clumsy with ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... her, but she flew down the long stairs like a wild thing. The least misstep might have precipitated her to the bottom; but ere Carteret, with a remonstrance on his lips, had scarcely reached the uppermost step, she had thrown open the front door and fled precipitately out ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... do not shut themselves irrevocably out of heaven, because repentance and reformation of life will reinstate them into the divine favor, and place them back into the good way again. But such may lose much, both in the church and the world by the misstep. After the sin of adultery, for example, has been fairly proved against a brother or sister, he can hardly reinstate himself fully into his former standing either in the church or in society at large. Thus is he like ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep. But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have precipitated me into ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Reaching the top after a tedious and slippery climb, there was a long view of icy billows, as if the sea had suddenly congealed amid a wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... stranger in your own country, and I believe it. The very first day you arrived you began by wounding the vanity of a priest who is regarded by the people as a saint, and as a sage among his fellows. God grant that such a misstep may not have already determined your future! Because the Dominicans and Augustinians look with disdain on the guingon habit, the rope girdle, and the immodest foot-wear, because a learned doctor in Santo Tomas [75] may have once recalled that Pope Innocent III described ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the crossing of the Swiftwater. Now the rotting and worm-eaten timbers of the open trestle-work were under his feet; mechanically, he avoided the numerous gaps, where a misstep meant destruction, and so at last gained the farther bank and sank down panting on ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... stairs made him think they were not so nearly perpendicular as was the fact. While the thought was in his mind, he made a misstep and, unable to check himself, went bumping all the way ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... rather than hope, the forlorn lady recollected that her uncle, who had some spiritual supervision over the Roman convents, though he was sure to be more outraged by her misstep than any one else, had (besides the motive of shielding a family name from disgrace) perhaps some remaining affection for his favorite niece. At any rate, if she were to die, she thought it would be a satisfaction to die humanely, by the speedy stroke of offended ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thirty feet of the ground when I made ever so slight a misstep and brought Peter up short. The next moment he'd caught me up bodily in his right arm, and to steady myself I let my arms slip about his neck. I held on there, tight, even after I knew what I was doing, and let my cheek rest against ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... ran a deeper trench or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must stay all night. The tension was ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... a misstep for one who desired peace, and Bonaparte soon found another war with Austria on the tapis because of it. Emperor Francis Joseph, jealous perhaps of the copyright on his name, declined to recognize King Joseph of Spain. Whereupon Bonaparte again set ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... procession began threading along the face of a mass of rocks, where the path was so narrow that she felt the swish of her skirts against the mountain wall, and on her right it sloped downward perpendicularly, until what seemed a bottomless pit was hidden in a pool of gloom. A misstep by any member of the party would have sent him or her to instant destruction. But the animals and men moved confidently, though the pace was slow. Evidently, with the exception of the women, all were familiar, not only with this method of ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... up, as if moved by a spring. "Well, yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you have correctly guessed. But how can we obtain this double result? A single misstep at this moment might lose all. Ah, if I only knew your father's real situation; if I could only see him and speak to him! In one word he might, perhaps, place in my hands a sure weapon,—the weapon that I have as yet been unable ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... self-consciousness of one urged by a great purpose. His head was bent in reflection. His hand held his claw behind him, and his shoulders stooped. He knew his goal, but the way was hard and uncertain, and he realized the peril of a strategic misstep at the outset. Heavily he mounted the steps to the hall, entered, and took a seat in the rear. He sat with his head bowed and his gaze on the floor. He was aware that Judge Van Dorn was speaking; ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... wish to climb the Matterhorn many paths lead up the lower slopes, and a stumble here may cost you only a sprain. And I suppose that several paths lead to the base of the cone. But thence to the summit there is but one path, and a misstep means death. Pardon these quotations and illustrations. They are my only means of at all adequately presenting to you a scientific man's conception of the meaning of the struggle for life. The laws of evolution are written in blood and bear ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... administration. The enactment of such a law would be quite within the power of Congress without constitutional amendment, and it has such possibilities of usefulness that we might well make the experiment, and if we are disappointed the misstep can be easily retraced by a repeal of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... impressed by the enormous certitude of her. In this eternity that seemed so indubitably hers, there was time and to spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And the more I learned of Margaret ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a dependency of the great British Empire, a king ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... around, and she smilingly nodded her head. He began picking his way along the ledge, carefully feeling his way, for a misstep or a treacherous support was liable to precipitate him to the fathomless depths below with the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... any one on the same bank, although he could be plainly seen from the opposite shore. Oonomoo now commenced his descent of the river with the intention of recovering his canoe. This was necessarily a tedious and prolonged operation, as a single misstep, a slip or splash of the water might betray him to his enemies. But, he was equal to the task, and never hesitated for a moment except to listen for some sign ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... not done, by any means. The road grew worse still, as if the rain here had been harder. Making a misstep, down slipped Charley's horse from the trail, over the edge of a clay bank, and landed on his side twenty feet below. Charley sprawled on his face in ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... the purpose of the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered—never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the Remington, and sinking on one knee, began ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... enough now, young man," said Gramps, but he made the change. And, from there, he went without a misstep through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for which were disrespectfulness ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... could not bear to think of the life she had once desired—a peaceful one in the shadow of the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... I. "Well; suppose you've been climbing a mountain late in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of it. It is a mountain of big boulders, loose little stones, thorny bushes. The slightest misstep would send pebbles rattling, brush rustling; but you have gone all the way without making that misstep. This is quite a feat. It means that you've known all about every footstep you've taken. That would be business enough for most people, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... not find. Florentin had had charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of his trousers was ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... and her breath was short. This crisis had come upon them swiftly, unexpectedly, unwanted by either. Now it loomed over them in a terrible, because unknown, portent. Each realized that a misstep might mean irreparable consequences, but each felt constrained to go on. The situation must now be developed. Keith, faced with this new problem, lost his heat, and became cool, careful, wary, as when in court his faculties marshalled themselves. Nan, on the other hand, while well ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... above were much larger than they had seemed from the sub. Twice, as he climbed over them, Dave's foot slipped and each time his heart was in his mouth. One stumbling misstep and all might be over for him. But he had the clear, cool head of a clean boy who had lived right, and an appreciation of the joy of living, which would take him far and keep him safe through many an adventure. So, safely, they reached the top of ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... forced to conclude that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep, and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all through. Nevertheless, I was ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its truth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing to live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege of giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule below. Moreover, though not a vestige of a parapet consoles the dizzy rider, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... whatever he comes to you seeking my address, or me, I depend on you to in no way help him, if it should happen that you could. For this reason I am keeping it out of your power, unless I make some misstep that points to where I am. I don't wish to make any mystery of my location, or to disregard any intention that it is barely possible Leslie could bring Mr. Minturn to, concerning me. I merely wish to be left alone for a time; to work out my own expiation, if there be any; and to test my soul until ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... positive you are right. If you are watching a person, and know he has something concealed, arrest him and search his person; otherwise, no matter how strong your suspicions, do not act upon them, as a single misstep of this sort may lose the case, and is certain to put the parties on their guard, and in a few minutes to ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... misstep was one of precipitation. General Jackson, after a three years' war upon the Bank, was alarmed at the outcry of its friends, and sincerely desired to make peace with it. We know, from the avowals of the men who stood ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time he ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... them to rise to power. To commit a great crime in order to secure his own aggrandizement, and yet to manage the commission of it in such a way as not only to shut himself off from the expected benefit, but to secure that benefit to a hated rival, would have been a very fatal misstep. So the plan of destroying ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... well get to an understandin'," said the Cap'n, not yet placated. "I ain't used to a dog underfoot, I don't like a dog, and I won't associate with a dog. Next thing I know I'll be makin' a misstep onto him, and he'll have a hunk out ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... alarm increased with every moment's delay, and hoping to come out somewhere, she ran on till a misstep jostled the candle from ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... a misstep.... but if I had not held you by the arm.... Well, this is the stagnant water that I spoke of to you.... Do you perceive the smell of death that rises?—Let us go to the end of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. It will strike you ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... water was up to her hips, and no river in the Rockies has a swifter current than the Gunnison. The bottom too is covered with smooth slippery stones and bowlders, so that a misstep might send her plunging down. Deprived of the use of her landing pole, she could make less resistance to the tug of the stream, and the four or five pounds of dynamic energy at the end of her line would give her all she could do to take care of for the next few minutes. ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... if the truth were known, did draw the Opera House. Ten years from now there will stand on the scaffold, or behind the prison door, or in the lonely room in which the suicide writes his farewell to wife or parents, men who will say that the first misstep of their life that put them on the wrong road was the ticket they bought in ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... was clear enough now. He realized his good fortune. He had never been so happy in his life. He called the pups and romped with them until an unlucky misstep sent Mrs Gummidge, with a shriek, to the top of the wardrobe, whence she glared at Gethryn and ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the courage necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... cautiously as the footway was crumbling and rotten and slippery with grass. At the lower end of the cleft she peered out. Trees and bushes—plenty of them, a thick shield between her and the valleys. She moved slowly downward; a misstep might send her through the boughs to the hillside forty feet below. She had gone up and down several times before her hunger-sharpened eyes caught the gleam of white through the ferns growing thickly out of the moist mossy cracks which everywhere seamed the wall. She pushed the ferns ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Master whom he had long served, and who kept him on very short commons, happened one day in his old age to be oppressed with a more than ordinary burden of earthenware. His strength being much impaired, and the road steep and uneven, he unfortunately made a misstep, and, unable to recover himself, fell down and broke all the vessels to pieces. His Master, transported with rage, began to beat him most unmercifully, against whom the poor Ass, lifting up his head as he lay on ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... and then in but few places. The river bed is full of stones worn rounded and smooth and slippery, from the size of a man's head to large boulders, thus making footing for animals uncertain. After my first experience, I dreaded the crossings to come more than all else on the trip, for a misstep of the ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... hope of a mitigation of her punishment, and the fear of being sent immediately back to Germany; for De Graun has her well watched; at the slightest misstep he will ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and carefully concealed, the Seminoles and their captives turned into the gloom of the shadowy cypresses, and made their way in single file along the narrow trail that led away from the lagoon. It was often covered with water, and a misstep on either side of its entire length would have plunged the unfortunate who should make it into a bottomless morass. From it, without assistance, he would never be able to extricate himself, but would only sink deeper and deeper, until he ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... an immense boulder that is almost surrounded by water is perched my tent companion, Miss Hayes. She says the view from there is grand, but how she can have the nerve to go over the wet, slippery rocks is a mystery to all of us, for by one little misstep she would be swept over the falls and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... several unpleasant, not to say sensational, occurrences in this town of late. I don't suppose you're to blame for everything that has happened. I have insisted that you could not be blamed for the unfortunate misstep of Brother Hewett, who was tempted to take a little more hard cider than was really good for him. Your detractors have insisted that the deacon was led into this action through his exuberance over the arrival of your friends. Some of them have tried to hold you responsible ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... her slender wrists surprised him. She struggled up the vertical crevasse inch by inch. His heart was full of fear, for a misstep now would be fatal. He lay down with his face over the ledge and lowered to her the buckled loop of his belt. Twice she stopped exhausted, her back and her hands pressed against the walls of the trough angle ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... long swallow. 'To your health my worthy colleagues! Thus drinks trumpet-blower Rassmann.' Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... peccadilloes that go to make this life a sinful one. Science, by a purely logical advance along the lines already mapped out for itself, and in part already traversed, will enable men to avoid the pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life; we shall all see what terrible consequences await on a single misstep, and we shall not make the misstep. Can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... picture is in the act of springing upon a timid hare. Although he can measure twenty paces in a jump, I think for once he has made a misstep, and the dear little creature with one more bound will be safe. One very remarkable fact about these animals is this: if there are several together, and one starts over the snow in pursuit of booty, all the others will follow ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... the mysterious South Seas. The volcano was not a large one and the crater, though somewhat threatening at times, was correspondingly minute, which explains—in apology—to some extent, his unfortunate misstep. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... on a rounded stone and set down a little ungracefully in spite of his effort to be fully himself. He saw at once his misstep and hastened to apologize. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... their journey. Now their road ran along the fertile valley, and again passing through a sharp defile in the mountains, and finally winding its way along a narrow ledge of rock, where the slightest turn to left or right, a single misstep of the sure-footed animals, or an awkward move of their driver, would have hurled them into an abyss hundreds of feet below, where instant ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... your companions. Such a gift, however large, could never be acceptable to the just God, who knows all hearts, and bids us to do good in secret and He will reward us openly. You see, my little girl, how one misstep makes the way for another,—how this pride begat envy, and envy covetousness, and then how quickly did deceit and dishonesty and disobedience come after. Do not think me harsh, my dear child, from my heart I forgive you; ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... practically no flooring, and Ward Porton had to jump from one piece of steel work to another, while Dave and Roger, of course, had to do the same. Once those in the rear saw the rascal ahead make a misstep and plunge downward. But he saved himself, and, scrambling to his feet, dashed ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... Segestan, and, working diligently, soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it with his tongue,—it was salt! And thus, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... that he had made a misstep, and again inspired Thiuli with hope. While they were yet conversing, a black slave came from the seraglio to tell the physician, that the drink had been ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... occurred Merry was certain, but whether a human being had fallen from the mountain by some misstep or had been hurled to his doom he could ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... he was saying as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... for she knew what she knew about scandalmongers in her own family, yes, certain persons who had the nerve to accuse her of going astray with Nana and finding an indecent pleasure in watching her take her first misstep. Then Coupeau found out from the proprietress that Nana was being corrupted by that little floozie Leonie, who had given up flower-making to go on the street. Nana was being tempted by the jingle of cash and the lure ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Mignon occurs to me—how she dances blindfolded between eggs. My love is adroit; you can rely thoroughly on its instinct; it will also dance on blindly, and will make no misstep. * * * ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... horseback. An electric flashlight suddenly flared against the gleam of the carbide. An exclamation, an excited command to the horse, and the rider wheeled, rushing down the mountain side, urging his mount to dangerous leaps, sending him plunging through drifts where a misstep might mean death, fleeing for the main road again. Anita ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... receiver. He had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely. That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth. The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed to complete ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... trail was haunted; of prospectors who had verged from that dim path and had been lost in the wilderness, where their bones were found by Indians or white hunters long after; of strange stories of wild beasts; of all the weird sounds of the jungles; of places where a misstep would send one lifeless to the jagged feet of huge precipices. And through that trail of terror ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... away from the others and was looking at your picture. They started up a lion and he came straight at me from behind. If he hadn't made a misstep in his hurry and loosened a stone, I guess he would have got me. As ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, now ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... "I'm most up already." And she sped up stairs as fast as she could go. Luckless speed! She had just reached the door of the Blue-room, when she tripped upon her boot-lace, which, as usual, was dangling, made a misstep, and stumbled. She caught at the door to save herself; the door flew open; and Katy, with the tray, cream, raspberries, rose and all, descended in a confused ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... Once outdoors, the darkness of the night and the roughness of treacherous, rock-strewn ground made progress barely possible. Neither did Jean nor David dare to undertake carrying him. Burdened with Tom, a single misstep on the part of either was likely to prove disastrous to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower |
