"Mistake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "There is no mistake!" she cried with intense bitterness, pushing past me. "If you were a gentleman you would grant the last request I shall ever ask ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... perchance, friend Hagen, / if hate to thee they bear? Then would I well advise thee / of them full well beware And guard both life and honor. / That methinks were good, For if I much mistake not, / full wrathful ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... no pretending to mistake where the voice came from now, so the stranger, having no other resource, at last looked Sam ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the mistake of minimising the crafty cunning of Pierre, nor of interpreting his troubles at the mine and mill at their obvious values. Cunningly devised as was the wreck of the stage, he felt sure that there was another ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... been wilful, now, he might have said a lily, whose glory is without comparison and beauty matchless; for Solomon, the most sumptuous king that ever was, was never comparable in glory with the lily; neither is there any city matchable with the pomp of London. Mistake me not, good boys, that this pomp tends to pride; yet London hath enough, but my Lord Pomp doth rightly represent the stately magnificence and sumptuous estate, without pride or vainglory, to London accommodate; and therefore the word is well applied to the impress (Glory sans ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... startled or shocked; Stafford stood perfectly still, still as a piece of Stonehenge, and gazed with an expressionless countenance at Mr. Falconer. That the man was indeed and in truth mad, occurred to him for a moment; then he thought there must be some mistake, that Mr. Falconer had made a blunder in the name, and that it was a case of ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... his note in order to be recognized, for few that are learned in bird lore can discriminate him save from his notes. He proclaims himself by calling forth his own name, so that it is impossible to make a mistake about him. Well, his note is an agreeable one and has made him famous. As he loses his song in the summer months, he is inclined to make good use of it when he finds it again. English boys are so skillful in imitating the Cuckoo's song, which they do to an exasperating ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... his positive instructions and against the protests of the steersmen, too recklessly sailed near the South-land, and thereby been the cause of this disaster, but also that he has attempted to impose upon his superiors by falsified journals, hoping thereby, if possible, to conceal his grievous mistake... ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... entirely covered by sand, with the exception of his feet, and dead, of course. They got the sand off of him, and found he was a white man, in sailor's clothes. First they had thought he might be one of our party, but they soon perceived that this was a mistake, for they had never seen the man before. He was dried up until he was nothing but a skeleton with skin over it, but they could have recognized him if they had known him before. From what they had heard of the rainless climate of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... tactics, improvements of armament, methods of mobilization. The inexpert soldier submits to the military expert as a person about to undergo a necessary operation would submit to a surgeon. It is a mistake to suppose that the Germans, a highly intelligent and educated people, are being cowed into submission by brutal non-commissioned officers. Brutality, when it occurs, is looked upon as exceptional and incidental to a system on the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... considered and treated as a slave, all the laborious duties of cooking, collecting food, &c. devolve on her. She must obey the orders of all the women, and even of the children belonging to the village, and the slightest mistake or disobedience subjects her to the infliction of a heavy punishment. The ashes of her husband are carefully collected and deposited in a grave which it is her duty to keep free from weeds, and should any such appear, she is obliged to root them out with ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... into the room by mistake, and not finding there what he expected to find, he was flying about and about, trying in vain to make his way to something more in his line than books; and the soft buzz of the creature was the only sound to be heard, till Rosy began to complain. She ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... girl, took advantage of your infirmity; for there is no concealing that I was born and bred up in a workhouse; notwithstanding that, my blood is better than your own, and as good as the best; you having yourself told me that my name is a noble name, and once, if I mistake not, that it was the same word as baron, which is the same thing as bear; and that to be called in old times a bear was considered a great compliment—the bear being a mighty strong animal, on which account our forefathers called all their ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... are with love they retain perfect mastery over themselves. This is so abundantly clear from the first moment when their love is revealed—when they drink the potion—that it is inconceivable for a misunderstanding to occur to any one who follows the text with any attention. Were the mistake confined to vulgar and careless people who make up the bulk of the audience, however deplorable, it would be intelligible, but from scholars and professional critics we expect at least acquaintance with the text. An author who enjoys a deservedly high reputation as an authority ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... rights to the lender; my rights in "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin" shall be secured to him in any way he thinks desirable or necessary. If I am not worthy of such a service, then you must own that I am in a bad way, and all has been a mistake! Help me over this, and I will undertake once more to ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... looker-on who lived to erect a throne in the place of the one that fell that day, and to be the next sovereign who reigned at the Tuileries. In 1813 Napoleon told Roederer that he had watched the scene from a window on the Carrousel, and assured him that he had made a fatal mistake. Many of the National Guard were staunch, and the royal forces were superior to those with which he himself conquered in Vendemiaire. He thought that the defence ought to have been victorious. I do not suppose he seriously resented the blunder ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... grimly. "Still, it was a chance we took,—or I took, rather. I seem to have made a mistake or two, in my estimate of both you and myself. That is human enough, I suppose. You're making a bigger mistake than I did though, to let Monohan ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... appearance, not characteristic of the world as it really is. Now, however, owing to the labours of the mathematicians, notably Georg Cantor, it has appeared that the impossibility of infinite collections was a mistake. They are not in fact self-contradictory, but only contradictory of certain rather obstinate mental prejudices. Hence the reasons for regarding space and time as unreal have become inoperative, and one of the great sources of ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... much neglects, not knowing how high and noble it is, and that his duty lies at home, however much he ignores it, with his wife and with his children. But when it is said that home is woman's only sphere—and that is what is meant—it is simply a mistake; it is simply a narrow statement. Take the very woman who says this. As she passes along the street, she sees a placard for a Woman's Rights meeting, and with scornful lip she says, "I think woman's sphere is home"—and goes promenading ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... judgment on any one of the three circumstances above-mentioned, they build on a reasonable foundation; but, when many instances of noble conduct have made a man favourably known, that the foundation is still better, since then there is hardly room for mistake. I speak merely of those honours which are bestowed on a man at the outset of his career, before he has come to be known by continued proof, or is found to have passed from one kind of conduct to another and dissimilar ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... for her, or putting the police on her track. Young Van Quintem would take the alarm, and move her out of town. She will go anywhere with him, if I mistake not, until she finds him out better. Have you no clue to her whereabouts; or can you think of any one that could give us ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... you to introduce her to me, darling," said Fluff. "I can't possibly mistake her, for she is tall, and has a hooked nose, and always wears black, you say. And you know what I am, just exactly like my name; so it will be impossible for us ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... mistake to think, as many are apt to do when some terrible war overwhelms some part of the world, that war is on the increase among men and that we are probably on the eve of a portentous new era of it. The temptation to think so is strong when two or three ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... gentleman the other day pointed out to me a grand ice-cliff at the end of a hanging glacier, which must have been at least 100 feet high, and asked me whether that snow was three feet deep. Nothing is more common than for tourists to mistake some huge pinnacle of rock, as big as a church tower, for a traveller. The rocks of the Grands Mulets, in one corner of which the chalet is hidden, are often identified with a party ascending Mont Blanc; and I have seen boulders as big as a house pointed out confidently as chamois. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the motor car, which lay directly in their path. Helen turned, appreciated the danger, and put the machine at its full speed. The road branched for a space of about fifty yards, and in her excitement she made the mistake of choosing the lower, more level, one. Into a deep sand bed they plowed, the wheels sinking at every turn. Slower and slower went the car; finally came ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... they had already seen us, and rode away for a canyon, where there was some thick brush. I saw one old woman—I thought she was an old woman—but I was mistaken, for when I overtook the Indian a man jumped off his horse and got behind a tree. When I saw my mistake, it was too late to stop my horse. I was but a few feet away from him at that time. He shot at me once and missed me. I was lucky that time or I would not be telling this story now, if he had been a better shot than that. My horse gave a big jump just as he ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... the real Savior. When we make a man a Freethinker, we need not trouble greatly about his politics. He is sure to go right in the main. He may mistake here or falter there, but his tendency will always be sound. Thus it is that Freethinkers always vote, work and fight for the popular cause. They have discarded the principle of authority in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, and left it to the Conservative party, to which ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... over his shoulder showed that they had turned down the narrow Rue Dareau. Madeleine had made a mistake. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... bridges and tunnels are well along toward completion. Our funds are diminishing, simply because we have delayed so long in preparing for this loan. There has been too much bickering and too much inane politics. I still maintain that we have made a mistake in refusing to take up the matter with St. Petersburg or Berlin. Why should we prefer England? ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... mistake of the messengers the rage of Aiwohikupua was stirred against his messengers, and they ceased ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... Redeemer too, for that likeness had in one sense always underlain the tumult of mistake and conflict. He had brought man out of darkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way of peace. He was the Saviour for the same reason—the Son of Man, for He alone was perfectly human; He was the Absolute, for He was the content of Ideals; the ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... a strange matter; yet I seldom mistake my man. Tom, I am going to trust you to act as my second in a little affair I have with another gentleman tomorrow morning, in a certain spot of which I have knowledge. Another man was to have acted for me—he has, indeed, made all the arrangements; but, ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... resembling the Comedy of Errors, in which twin brethren suffer through mistaken identity. "This," said Chikamatsu, "has the proper spirit of the drama, for it takes the audience into consideration. The public is permitted to know more than the actors. It knows where the mistake lies, and pities the poor figures on the board who innocently ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... uncalled for," said the agent,—"but you cannot irritate me, my dear sir! I know that youth is hot,—particularly military youth yet inexperienced; and therefore I pardon you. I made a mistake. It was not the South America, it was—it was—upon my word I cannot recall ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... not miss the Great Guest when he came. But the Great Guest did not come. As the evening came and the shadows were falling through the window of his shop, more and more the truth, with all its weight of sadness, bore in upon him, that the dream was not to come true; that he had made a mistake; that Christ was not to come to his humble shop. His heart was broken and he cried out in ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... sat down dubiously and looked at his watch. Four minutes left. He would wait two, and then if nobody came he would—he gasped; he couldn't imagine what he would do. How could he find the right class-room? Maybe his class didn't come at this hour at all. Suppose he and Carl had made a mistake. If they had, his whole schedule was probably wrong. "Oh, golly," he thought, feeling pitifully weak, "won't that be ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Spanish, that I was grateful for the honour they had done me in visiting me in this dreadful situation. Donna Ignazia did not speak, she only wept in silence; but Don Diego gave me clearly to understand that he would never have come to see me unless he had felt certain that my accusation was a mistake or an infamous calumny. He told me he was sure I should be set free, and that proper ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... mistake, Dig, a grave mistake. We were watched by somebody in the employ of Francis. When I returned to Tunbridge Wells he taxed me with having met you, described our trysting-place—the fountain—and how we had walked and walked until, becoming too tired, we had entered that quiet ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ejaculated. "I have made a great mistake—an unpardonable error! In renewing the insurance for the various buildings I overlooked that for the West Dormitory and its contents. The insurance on that ran out a week ago. There was not a dollar on it ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... the completion of the work, be effected—a most material object for the poor, and the general benefit of commerce. The rule by which this computation is made, compared with others we have seen, is very much on the safe side, but should a trifling mistake occur, we confidently believe that the decrease in the price of this article will very much enhance its consumption, without anticipating any increased demand at the lime-works and bleach-grounds, arising from an increase of business, ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee
... and has gone forward in the past. We know that the human race has passed through a long evolution during which it has acquired five senses by which knowledge is gained. Nobody who has given thought to the subject will make the mistake of supposing that this evolution is completed and that the five senses are all we shall ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... A.H. 828, when he advanced against Warangal over the undulating plains of the Dakhan, then rich in crop, and was completely successful. The Hindu kingdom was completely and for ever destroyed. The English date usually given for this event is A.D. 1424, but it is quite possible that a mistake has been made owing to the use of imperfect chronological tables by those who have written on the subject, and that Ahmad Shah's capture of Warangal may have taken place in A.D. 1425. Briggs, for instance, calls A.H. 828 "A.D. 1424," but the year only began on November 23, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... at least, die in infancy. It is not necessary to argue to convince a candid man (and for candid men only is this article written) that this is, as a general rule, the condition of the free negro. And it shows, beyond the possibility of mistake, what in this country his destiny must be. Like his brother, the Indian of the forest, he must melt away and disappear forever from the midst of us. I do not affirm or intimate that this must be his destiny in all countries. In the tropical regions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and running streams; the green Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set, the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights; and he feels—yes, indeed, there is now no mistake—the well-known, well-loved magical fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy mountains and meadows watered by perennial streams. The last hour is one of exquisite enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle, he scarcely sleeps all night for hearing the swift Rhine ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... rally. Napoleon ordered Lannes and Ney to crush the armies of the right and the centre, commanded by Palafox and Castanos. Ney failing to keep his appointment at Tudela on the 23rd November, owing to a mistake on the march, Lannes made the attack alone, taking by surprise the Spanish generals, who were undecided as to their course of action, disagreeing as to the place for meeting the enemy, and yet urged ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... paroxysm of violent sensation. 'Good God!' she exclaimed to herself, 'what is this?' And then, a moment after, she was saying assuredly, 'I shall know more of that man.' She was tortured with desire to see him again, a nostalgia, a necessity to see him again, to make sure it was not all a mistake, that she was not deluding herself, that she really felt this strange and overwhelming sensation on his account, this knowledge of him in her essence, this powerful apprehension of him. 'Am I REALLY singled out for him in some way, is there really some pale gold, arctic light ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... argue about it and get cross at each other, dear. If I have made a mistake in coming now, I am sorry. But I am here. Let me stay a few days; I may be able to help you a little. Anyway, I promise not to be a trouble to you. It is so long since I have seen you, Alice. And—" Again ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... that the people when left to their own judgment, do seldom mistake their true interests; and indeed they naturally love the constitution they are born under, never desiring to change but under great oppressions. However, they are to be deceived by several means. It has often happened in Greece, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... no sooner clear of the city, so says the story, than they met with favourable omens of thunder and lightning, and after that they went forward without further divination, for they felt that no man could mistake the signs from the Ruler of the gods. [2] And as they went on their way Cyrus' father said to him, "My son, the gods are gracious to us, and look with favour on your journey—they have shown it in the sacrifices, and by their signs ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... after her return to England, we have the following evidence from Coles' Manuscripts. Let us observe, first, that in the extract there is a mistake. It was not Lady Purbeck, but the wife of her son, whose maiden name was Danvers. Anybody who may choose to discredit the whole, on account of this error, can do so if he pleases; but it is certain that Lord Purbeck "owned the son" ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... There could be no mistake. Despite a false moustache and a pair of dark eyeglasses, Andy had recognized the defaulting cashier of the disbanded circus. Beyond dispute he had recognized the welcoming tones above as belonging to his aunt, ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... great a deficiency of observation as to approach a kind of brutish stupidity only worthy of the lower animals. A man could not be charged with such obtuseness if he were only ignorant of some philosophical truth, or even of a fact commonly known, or if his mistake were clearly from inadvertence. I have heard the question asked "Which is it more correct to say. Seven and five is eleven, or seven and five are eleven?" and if a man reply hastily "Are is the more correct," he could not be charged with having made a "bull," any more ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Saturninus in his second tribunate for his schemes of colonization (De Viris Ill. 73, 5, and thereon Orelli, Ind. Legg. p. 137), is not in itself decisive, and may, moreover, have been easily transferred by mistake from the first African to the second general agrarian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Harte ironically; "a most solemn and solemnious promise; an' only that I know he's not a Methodist, I could a'most mistake him for Paddy M'Mahon, the locality preacher, when ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Mr. Parker is in the preceding page: I had read it, and I do not see how it at all relieves the disgust which every right-minded man must feel at this passage. My disgust is not personal: though I might surely ask,—If Parker has made a mistake, how does that justify insulting me? As I protested, I have made no peculiar claim to inspiration. I have simply claimed "that which all[16] pious Jews and Christians since David have always claimed." Yet he pertinaciously defends this rude and wanton ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... do not like to believe that; I know that it is much more convenient to fancy that when a man repents, and, as he says, turns over a new leaf, he need trouble himself no more about his past sins. But it is a mistake; not only is the letter and spirit of Scripture against him, but facts are against him. He may not choose to trouble himself about his past sins; but he will find that his past sins trouble him, whether ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... two gentlemen came out and stood on the steps. One was a tall fine-looking boy, grown almost into a young man; but I could not mistake the open good-humored countenance of my old friend Edward. The other was older, and I recognised him as the traveller who used ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... set in rather rigid lines. He had made a mistake, had put himself outside the sympathies of this comfortable circle. Miss Hitchcock was looking into the flowers in front of her, evidently searching for some remark that would lead the dinner out of this uncomfortable slough, when Brome Porter began ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... rose early, for the steam-packet from Corfu had arrived in the night, and, lo! all the passengers who quitted us at Zante were on board of her. It appears there had been a mistake in the number of days first allotted them for quarantine; and, instead of three, they were condemned to seven days' misery, all crowded together in a very small building, where they suffered dreadfully from the combined effect of heat, vermin, and bad living. The expected ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... some had dark companions. Once (I weep When I remember that) we sailed the tide, And found fair isles, where no isles used to bide, And met there my lost love, who said to me, That 'twas a long mistake: he had not died. Sleep, in the world to come how strange 'twill be Never to want, never to wish ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... behaviour did not end with breaking the drum, and costing a new one.—In the course of the winter it was his custom to beat, "Go to bed, Tom," about ten o'clock at night, and the reveille at five in the morning.—In one of his drunken fits he made a mistake, and instead of going his rounds as usual at ten o'clock, he had fallen asleep in a change house, and waking about the midnight hour in the terror of some whisky dream, he seized his drum, and running into the streets, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... experience is only now beginning to accumulate: and here we may take occasion to mention that we had ourselves been misinformed as to the duration of the experiment; for a period of four years, we were told, a school had existed under the system here developed: but this must be a mistake, founded perhaps on a footnote at p. 83 which says—'The plan has now been in operation more than four years:' but the plan there spoken of is not the general system, but a single feature of it—viz. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... before Manuel Pedro Felipe and Carlota had knelt before their altar for their devotions. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and myself and Jerrine, knowing the rosary, surprised them by kneeling with them. It is good to meet with kindred faith away off in the mountains. It seems there could not possibly be a mistake when people so far away from creeds and doctrines hold to the faith of their childhood and find the practice a pleasure after so many years. The men bade us good-night, and we lost no time in settling ourselves to rest. Luckily ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... the necessary consequences of the Hartleian Theory—Of the original mistake or equivocation ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... caution is to be very certain that we do not mistake a reactionary turn for a return of common sense. We have passed through a period of fireworks of every description, and the making of a great many idealistic maps of progress. We did not get anywhere. It was a convention, not a march. Lovely things were said, but when we got home we ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... of little consequence how we behave at home if we conduct ourselves properly abroad, is a very fallacious one. Persons who are careless and ill-bred at home may imagine that they can assume good manners abroad; but they mistake. Fixed habits of tone, manner, language, and movements can not be suddenly altered; and those who are ill-bred at home, even when they try to hide their bad habits, are sure to violate many of the obvious rules of propriety, and yet be ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... produced in either direction and to any extent, they never meet. The distance between the parallels does not count: or rather, it is just a matter for the author to choose. It is here that Mr. Howells makes his mistake, who speaks contemptuously of Romance as Puss in Boots. Puss in Boots is a masterpiece in its way, and in its way just as true to life—i.e., to its distance from life—as that very different masterpiece Silas Lapham. When Mr. Howells objects to the figure of Vautrin in Le Pere Goriot, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worry are innumerable. They represent the sum total of the errors, faults, missteps, unholy aims, ambitions, foibles, weaknesses and crimes of men. Every error, mistake, weakness, crime, etc., is a source of worry—a cause of worry. Worry is connected only with the weak, the human, the evil side of human nature. It has no place whatever in association with goodness, purity, holiness, faith, courage and ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... sixteen, and very pretty, with gray eyes, fair hair, a straight nose, and two bewitching dimples when she smiled. These dimples were rather misleading, for they gave strangers the impression that Lilias was humorous, which was entirely a mistake: it was Dulcie who was the humorist in reality, Dulcie whose long lashes dropped over her shy eyes, and who never could say a word for herself in public, though in the society of intimate friends she could be amusing enough. Dulcie, at fourteen, seemed years ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... arise. It is not, as in the later "Heroics," shown merely in lengthy harangues, but in short and almost dramatised dialogue. No doubt this is often clumsy, but it may seem to have been not a whole mistake in itself—only an abortive attempt at something which, much later again, had to come before real novel-writing could be achieved, and which the harangues of the Scudery type could never have provided. There is a little actual ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... but they had no sooner come forgainst the harbour but the captain caused hoist sail, set oars and steers aside, immediately bangs up a bagpiper and gives them shots. The rest, finding the cheat and their own mistake, made such a hurly-burly setting out their boats, with their haste they broke some of them, and some of themselves were bruised and bad broken shins also for their prey, and such as went out whole, perceiving the galley so far off; thought it was folly to pursue ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... indignant Antiquary between his teeths"I'll have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this." And then, in a louder tone,"Never mind, Edieit is all a mistake." ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... "Women are always full of notions! They can spy game at hawk's distance; only they make a mistake sometimes, which the hawk don't, I reckon; and think they see ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... it's not like to be," said the Doctor, plucking up courage. "Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being quite remembered, and that is, its being half remembered. We can't stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the hooks, and be in folks' mouths, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and placed upon the field an enormous and fairly organized army, has given rise to a strong impression concerning the energy put forth by the executive department during the two months which intervened between this event and the inauguration. No mistake could be greater. On the very day of the election of Mr. Lincoln the South possessed a military establishment quite equal, in proportion to its population, to that of either France or Russia. At the time of the John Brown excitement, a rumor was spread through the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... into the depths on either side. The first pinnacles were gained in safety. Just beyond them the path twisted to the right. Black Boy's stride had carried him too near the left-hand pillar. An angry jerk of the reins emphasised his mistake. He resented it, as he had resented much in his treatment that morning already. His head came round furiously, his heels slipped in the crumbling gravel, he kicked out wildly for safer holding, and in ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... particular group of friends, to whom he was holding forth, between slow cigar-puffs, on the squalor of the Arabs, the frightful thievery of the Sheiks, the incompetency of his own special dragoman, and the mistake people made in thinking the Egyptians themselves a ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... machine is actually automatic. It performs all its operations without human assistance or direction. Occasionally it will stop of its own accord and refuse to work, but this merely means that it has found something amiss with the perforated instructions, a mistake as to the length of a line or so forth, and it refuses to continue until the workman in charge of it puts the error right, then it starts on again and continues on its even course, casting letters and spaces and punctuation marks, and arranging them first in words, then in lines, next in paragraphs, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... senor, you mistake," began the Franciscan, somewhat hastily. "The master of the bark will bear witness that I came to Margarita upon the Santa Maria, sailing directly from Cartagena, but that, being ill, I chose to recover myself at ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... as the days went on, what had become of the man who had sprung up and nearly strangled me that night. It almost seemed as though there was some mistake, as though my brother had vanished into the night and some other beach comber, with a big nose and dark eyes, had applied for the job. Never by any sign did he let on that he had seen me before. When I took him ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... I heard the direction given to one party, "Cavalry School—Rue de Lorraine." The young officer who commanded the group took a direction exactly the reverse of the right one; and hastening down from the rampart, I at once overtook them, and explained the mistake. I offered them my guidance to the place, which being willingly accepted, I walked along ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... above the station, an enormous valley stretches away to the Bogagh mountain in front and the peaked summit of Lettermoughra on the left. At the latter point of view are some wooden cabins which the Saxon might mistake for pigsties or small cowsheds until he discovered they were inhabited by patriots, keen on Home Rule and charitable coppers. Beware of civility in these parts. From casual passers-by it nearly always means an appeal ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... it ever so slow, the battle has got to be fought, and fought out. For it is one thing or the other: either we wipe out the slum, or it wipes out us. Let there be no mistake about this. It cannot be shirked. Shirking means surrender, and surrender means the end of government by ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Brocas." Old poem, supposed to be the original of the scene "on the Brocken" in Faust. A curious mistake of GOETHE's, probably due to his not having been ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... must not allow myself to even THINK it," cried the girl. "Why, if what Addison says is true, Courtney Thane is not fit to—There must be some mistake, Aunt Nancy. There were two men of the same name. I ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... no mistake but what he was a wonderfully busy dog just then. It looked as if he was trying to be all around, everywhere, at the same time; and every few moments he would give expression to his excitement in ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... have come with their bright eyes clear, And their young hearts pure, but—alas! Oh dear! They've made a mistake in the ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... me. Alas! what manner of men I associated with! I blush to think of it. While, on the other hand, I shunned those who deserved my friendship; I knew neither the vices of the ones nor the virtues of the others. A twofold mistake, and in both cases equally fatal! Ah! what a misfortune was mine! But I want to change everything; and in future I mean to prove to mankind that, if I gave to the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... then a stranger to me, and until I saw him give the Danite sign of distress I believed him to be one of the Missouri ruffians who were our enemies. In this contest I came near committing a serious mistake. I had raised my club to strike a man, when a Missourian rushed at him and struck him with a loaded whip, and called him a cursed Mormon. The man then gave the sign, and I knew how ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... anything prettier for your sister than a string of beads," he said. "Women and girls like them better than anything else. They are always in fashion. You will not make any mistake, I ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... preserved copyright protection if the notice was omitted by accident or mistake from a "particular copy or copies." Unauthorized Publication. A valid copyright was not secured if someone deleted the notice and/or published the work without authorization from ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... Thus thro' mistake I rashly plung'd my Life Into that Gulph of Miseries a Wife. With joyful Arms I thus embrac'd my Fare, Believ'd too soon, was undeceiv'd too late; So hair-brain'd Fools to Indian Climates rove, With a vain hope their Fortunes to improve; There spend their slender Cargoes, then ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... grew again I was afraid to crawl back. You'll laugh, but I was afraid to come home and find things just the same! I couldn't have stood it, after what I learned. I would have felt like a ghost. A lot of fellows feel this way. It's all a mistake for our home folks to think they're doing the best for us by trying to ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... Herman stood confused, even confounded, but still suspicious. And now, this very day, he had stumbled on something. A great lady from the Court had made a purchase, and had left, under a roll of silk, a letter. There was no mistake. And Peter Niburg had put away the silk, and pocketed the letter, after a swift glance ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... would have been amused as was Matthews' and the boy's mother, at the old man's painful efforts to use short words easy of comprehension. Professor Brierly never made the mistake of treating the boy or his questions lightly. He always gave them serious consideration; he always treated the boy with the grave ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... had taken more time than he realized, for at this point, to his surprise, the conductor thrust his head in at the door shouting, New London, as if the passengers were likely to mistake it for the older city on the other Thames. Here a boy came aboard the train with a basket laden with oranges, scalloped gingerbread, and papers of popcorn labelled, ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... not quite so. It isn't like that. You mistake the situation. We're both cheques equally, and neither is a counterfoil. Cyril and I depend for our characters, as everybody else does, upon our father and mother and our remoter progenitors. Only being twins, and twins cast in very much the same sort of mould, we're naturally ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis were very angry with him ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... “Is this an American ball? I was asked at nine o’clock; it is now past eleven. Is there not some mistake?” ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... which Mr. St. Clair took belonged to a man who came from Cherry Valley. Here, you see, was a mistake. But Mr. St. Clair not only took the wrong cart, he took the wrong little girl, as will now be told. He drove in haste to the station, knowing he had staid too long walking up the bank of the stream. ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... persuasions or mildness convinced General Monk, whilst I so roughly treated this dear general, that I furnished your prince with an opportunity of showing himself generous: this generosity was inspired in him by the fact of my fortunate mistake, and Charles is paid by the restoration which Monk has ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... same time she raised the queen, and with arm outstretched from the window, she showed her the beacon, the eternal symbol of hope, relighted in the midst of this dark night on Kinross hill: there was no mistake possible, not a star was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... there is some mistake. Roger was here much of the afternoon, and he never said one word about it," Mildred answered, with a ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... 271. At the request of the Assembly, Baltimore forgave Thompson for acts which he might have committed by reason of ignorance or through a mistake. ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... good old practice of applying torture to enforce confession had long since been done away with? A great mistake, my friend. Driven from that ancient stronghold of conservatism, the Spanish Inquisition, it found refuge in this modern stronghold of conservatism, American Slavery. Here the records of its deeds are ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... per ton, and one hundred bushels of unleached wood-ashes, at 30 cents per bushel; making a total cost of $70. The result was a strong, rapid growth of plants early in the summer, but in September and October they began to show signs of not having plant food enough, and then we saw our mistake in using fish in place of bone, or some other slow- acting fertilizer that the plants could not have taken up so greedily early in the summer, but would have had to feed on slowly all through the season. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... to talk a lot about the weather. I believe you've been had. Write a little note to the poulterers and ask if you can change it. You've got a bad one by mistake." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... trying to knock each other down, the infuriated woman kept up a constant administration of blows, half at least of which, in her aimless hurry, were received by the companion of her life for whom she was fighting. Once she hit the poor man so hard—by mistake—that he fell down in a dead faint, upon which the soldier ran for his life, while she, jumping like a tiger at him, caught him by the throat, spinned him round like a top, and floored him, knocking him down on the ice. Then ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... answered Linda in impatience. "California is full of girls; but this is the finest Cotyledon of this family I have ever seen. Don't mistake this for any common stonecrop. It looks to me like an Echeveria. I know what I mean to do with the picture I have made of her, and I know exactly where she is going to grow from this ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... advance on the enemy, the ground was cleared of bears and bees alike, only two of the former remaining, of which one was already dead and the other dying. As for the bees, they followed their retreating enemies in a body, making a mistake that sometimes happens to still more intelligent beings; that of attributing to themselves, and their own prowess, a success that had been ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... three-fold interest. Then she led me to the cabin of her parents, who gave me a warm welcome, and have ever since strove to make my happiness complete. And now, to shorten the story, I will just tell your excellency, that having given such proofs of our affections as none could mistake, a priest was called in, and we were married on the very next morning. And as you will see that Angelio is possessed of charms no critic could possibly resist, I will say here, that from that hour nothing has occured to mar the bright stream of our love, except that Angelio still continues ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... offered anything else that would so have touched her. How she had longed to do something for Flukey those last hours in the graveyard! But Flea wanted no mistake. Did the gentleman understand ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... certain inevitable results; on these one hesitates to pronounce opinion, not so much, I think, because of the uncertainty one feels, as in the case of a special motive, or temptation to any special act, and the liability to mistake, both in the quality of motive and quality of temptation; as because so much deeper a condemnation is involved in such judgments. It is the difference between a physician's opinion on an acute attack of illness or a radical and fatal ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... risk coming back to-night," he said. "The direct way is hardly ever the way they take to anything—let alone a matter like this, in which the slightest mistake might be fatal to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... but, since the construction of the North Staffordshire, which joins the Trent Valley at Colewich, the most direct way to Manchester is through the pottery district and Macclesfield, instead of by Stafford and Crewe. Direct lines have generally proved a great mistake, except so far as they have accommodated the local traffic through which they passed. To the shareholders they have been most unprofitable wherever the original shareholders were not lucky enough to bully the main lines into a lease, and, to the average of ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... nel mezzo. M. RAVAISSON, in his edition of MS. A (Paris), p. 52, reads nel muro—evidently a mistake for nel mezzo which is quite plainly written; and he translates it "fait lui une petite ouverture dans le mur," adding in a note: "les mots 'dans le mur' paraissent etre de trop. Leonardo a du les ecrire par distraction" But 'nel mezzo' is clearly legible even on the photograph facsimile ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... a mistake there, certainly. If anything of the kind occurs again our motto must be 'take it or ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... On this Katherine said, "Pardon me, old gentleman; the sun has so dazzled my eyes, that every thing I look on seemeth green. Now I perceive you are a reverend father: I hope you will pardon me for my sad mistake."—"Do, good old grandsire," said Petruchio, "and tell us which way you are travelling. We shall be glad of your good company, if you are going our way." The old gentleman replied, "Fair sir, and you my merry mistress, your strange encounter ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gauged pretty closely the malignity of Francis, he may have fancied that the malignity was not very likely to prove dangerous. But he wholly misunderstood the character of the other foes, as important as Francis was unimportant, who were ranged against him. He made the extraordinary mistake of despising Burke. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Napoleon's hands, and by blindly following his enemy's lead to be jockeyed into sacrificing the position which his enemy wished to secure. If our maxim be suffered to usurp the place of instructed judgment, the almost inevitable result will be that it will lead us into just the kind of mistake which ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... the short, fat German, in his white cap and apron, from behind the lunch counter. It was clear that he was not favorably impressed with these new customers, who were muddy, wet and bedraggled, from their long chase of the afternoon and evening. But do not make a mistake; it was not their character, which Fritz Scheff viewed askance; they might be cutthroats and villains of the deepest dye, and it would not worry him any in the least. But could they pay? that was ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... substituted for sugar. On making a complaint about this fraud at the shop where the article was sold, I was informed that there were two kinds of ginger lozenges kept for sale, the one at three-pence the ounce, and the other at six-pence per ounce; and that the article furnished to me by mistake was the cheaper commodity: the latter were distinguished by the epithet verum, they being composed of sugar and ginger only; but the former were manufactured partly of white Cornish clay, with a portion of sugar only, with ginger and ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... it a mistake, then," said Margaret, "not to look up to it till all is night below, and there is no light to be seen but by ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... the hair of the hare, mixed with cotton. With regard to the larger hare, known farther north as the Jackass rabbit, the Indians generally refuse to eat its flesh, under the pretense that it feeds on dead bodies, a mistake which as yet they have not been persuaded ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... sympathized with his schemes, and was completely dazzled by his eminence. He spoke of him with bated breath, as a being almost superior to humanity. "It looks," said Pope once, "as if that great man had been placed here by mistake. When the comet appeared a month or two ago," he added, "I sometimes fancied that it might be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for other visitors." Of all the graceful compliments ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... tell you. It feels just like a whole bunch of friction matches touched off at once in my stomach—that's so. I'm a poor boy and no mistake, Grossbeck." ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... almost before it was seen, and yet we knew there was no mistake; it was the Snout that was there looming behind the moving rack, and we were in Moonfleet Bay. Oh, what a rush of thought then came, dazing me with its sweet bitterness, to think that after all these weary years of prison and exile we had come ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... construction, which was unlike that of the toy bells which had adorned the necks of the wooly beasts abroad at Christmas-time. It was heavy for its size, and when he moved it had a decisive and very mellow note. Who would send him a thing like this and why? There must have been a mistake. He took up the paper wrapper from the waste basket and ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... degrees 15 minutes to the east. The land lay then north-east, east-north-east, and again south-south-west, so that we imagined there had been a passage between those two points; but we were soon convinced of our mistake, and that it was all one coast, so that we were obliged to double the West Cape and to continue creeping along shore, and were much hindered in our passage by calms. This description agrees very well with that of Schovten and Le Maire, so that probably they had now sight again of ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton |
