"Miscalculation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... succor arrived. And scarcely had these hasty preparations been made, before the piratical schooner, which had made a wide tack outward to catch the wind, came swiftly sweeping round to their side, like a towering falcon on his prey. But, by some miscalculation of her helmsman, she went twenty yards wide of them—not, however, without betraying the full extent of her bloody purposes; for as, under the impulse of a speed she found herself unable instantly to check, she swept by on the long, rolling billows, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... us. The Groenland, a large transport, was wrecked some way south of Larrache. By some miscalculation or other she ran aground, going nine knots an hour, at high water, on a spring tide, at the foot of a cliff as high as those of the English Channel. When the fog cleared, some Arabs, very few fortunately, on the top of the rocks, saw her, and poured their ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... or three weeks; then return the cattle, and the grass will be as sweet as before. It requires practice to know the number of cattle, and the proper time to put on these cattle, to secure the full benefits of new grass. Three days' miscalculation may cause a heavy loss. I have been bit so often, and found the difficulty so great, that I fear to extend my observations on this part of the subject, when I am addressing gentlemen many of whom make their young ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... up and attempted to grasp Ditson's arm, but he was so full that he made a miscalculation and caught nothing but empty air. Then he struck across the table ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... repeatedly sought to make clear our position in this matter so that there would not be danger of Communist miscalculation. The Secretary of State on September 4th made a statement to the same end. This statement could not, of course, cover every contingency. Indeed, I interpret the joint resolution as requiring me not to make absolute advance commitments but to use my ...
— The Communist Threat in the Taiwan Area • John Foster Dulles and Dwight D. Eisenhower
... hyper-pilot is always anxious just before crossover. You've got to be, because the slightest miscalculation can send you fifty ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... men with not too broad a vein of envy. He was no woman hater—anything but that. Indeed, those who wished him ill had from time to time hoped to see him tumble down, through miscalculation in some of his audacities with women. No—he did not hate women. But there were several women who hated him—or tried to; and if wounded vanity and baffled machination be admitted as just causes for hatred, they had cause. He liked—but he did not wholly trust. When he went to sleep, it was ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... bridegrooms;—they were, in short, the mere rags and tatters of the human race, whom some east-wind of evil omen, howling along the streets, had chanced to sweep together into an unfragrant heap. Each and all of them, conscious of his or her individual misery, had blundered into the strange miscalculation of supposing that they could lessen the sum of it by multiplying it into the misery of another person. All the couples (and it was difficult, in such a confused crowd, to compute exactly their number) stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... down nearly thirteen hundred persons, all of them non-belligerents and more than one hundred of them American men, women, and children. This atrocious crime the Germans committed out of their stupid miscalculation of the motives which govern non-German peoples. They thought that the British and Americans would be so terrorized that they would no longer dare to cross the ocean. The effect was, of course, just the opposite. A cry of horror swept over the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... soft snow. There is always something new, either in the track or the woods through which it leads; always a fresh hunting story; always a disappointment or two, a long cold wait for a rabbit that didn't come, or a miscalculation over the length of the snow tunnel where a partridge burrowed for the night. Generally, if you follow far enough, there is also a story of good hunting which leaves you wavering between congratulation over a successful stalk after nights of hungry, patient ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... like a lion, and several of the conspirators had reason to repent their miscalculation in assaulting so spirited an antagonist. But this did not content him; his blood was up, and he determined to attack the evil at its source. He strode through his discomfited enemies straight into Brigson's ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... its rebound. A player should never turn his face away, even at the risk of being hit, for by watching the ball all the time, he may be able to change the position of the hands enough to meet some slight miscalculation as to ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... them and she turned to go into the house; her head gradually sank forward as she went, and her unparagoned ear and neck flushed to a burning red. On the threshold, by some miscalculation, her burdened arm struck the jamb, and the whole load fell again. I sprang and began to gather the stuff into a chair, but she walked straight on as though nothing had occurred, and shut the ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... has been brought about our ears. Almost all countries wish for our destruction and are trying to bring it about. Italy deserts us. Even America, though you cringe to her, dislikes us and mentions Louvain when we speak of culture. What a masterpiece of folly and miscalculation and wasted opportunity it has all been. And the truth is that there's nobody to thank for it except your sublime self. Others have made mistakes, but you alone were capable of constructing this colossal monument of detestable blunders. Our fault ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... now it had been suddenly thrust forward almost within my reach. If true, this would mean the well-nigh certain achievement of my heart's desire—the completion of my husband's work. Yet there were the rapids, where the skill and judgment of the men were our safeguards. One little miscalculation and it would take but an instant to whelm us in disaster. Still we had come so far on the way with success, surely it would be given to us to reach the goal in safety. But here inevitably thought flew ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... whether a growth in the size of the business unit is likely to diminish risk, the law of averages thus cuts both ways. The risks arising from the element of pure chance are more likely, those arising from miscalculation are less likely, to cancel out. Upon these grounds alone, it would be unsafe to conclude that there would be on balance an economy of risk under any system of national ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... sanction of a public that can often understand nothing in a controversy except personal sarcasm or slanderous ridicule, it is likely to continue. The sufferings of its victims are often as little regarded as those of the sacrificial pig offered in old time, with what we now regard as a sad miscalculation of effects. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... was more than eighty years old at the time, it would seem to have been a most reprehensible miscalculation on the part of the Grim Reaper to have gone ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... also erred when he believed the French social structure to be breaking up. Here again the miscalculation was perfectly natural in an age which regarded kings, nobles, and bishops as the fixed stars of a universe otherwise diversified only by a dim Milky Way. The French were the first to dispel these notions. In truth the strength ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... writing these pages seventeen months later, and the War is not over yet. But Dr. Doyle is not a prophet, and cannot be reproached for a miscalculation of this character, for if I, and many with me, had been asked at the time what we thought of the future, we might have been as wide of the mark ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... jumped knew that she would be there. A black, tiny speck on the broad expanse of water, sheltered by a night of almost stygian darkness, she lay outside the narrow radius to which visual observation was confined, patiently waiting for the Doraine to pass a designated point. There was to be no miscalculation on the part of either the boat or the men who went over the side of the big steamship into the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... he expects it to go up to six dollars; it may fall to four dollars. If a man, by straightforward operations in stocks, meets with disaster and fails, he deserves sympathy just as much as he who sold spices or calicoes, and through some miscalculation ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... all sure that she had relinquished her hope at the first symptom of his change of heart. But, though one couldn't but feel stern at the thought, one couldn't, also, repress something of pity for the miscalculation of the defeated love. To feel pity, moreover, was to show herself anybody's equal ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... of our time,' he remarked, looking at the big clock. 'I dislike having a miscalculation of ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... But this was a miscalculation. Raymond now turned the tables. Though favorable to the idea of a new play, he declared this one did not present his old Sellers at all, but a lunatic. In the end he returned the MS. with a brief note. Attempts had already been made to interest other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Pole, the difference between the first degree of the meridian nearest the equatorial line, and, for example, the sixty-sixth degree, which crosses the polar circle, will be great enough, even by Huyghens' hypothesis, to show itself irresistibly, and beyond the possibility of miscalculation, because the difference would be repeated just as many times as there are ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the church was not planned for stone vaulting. The builders seem to have thought that they could get in six bays between the transept and the space planned for one of the western towers; but found that, on the measurements they had adopted, there was room only for five. They corrected their miscalculation by broadening the division of the wall between the fourth and fifth bay of the aisles. When they came to build the arcades, they were conscious of their previous error, and planned them in five equal bays irrespective of ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... responsible for the estimates of the number of troops necessary is not known. It is certain, however, that everyone—Ministers, generals, colonists, and intelligence officers—concurred in making a most remarkable miscalculation. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made a great miscalculation—I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his life he had made a miscalculation, and the next instant he realized it. He had reckoned without the blunderer Kelly. For a fierce oath broke from the Irishman at sight of the weapon, and in the same second he beat it down with the stock of his riding-whip ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... a miscalculation about the New Day, my dears," she began; "one can't expect people to be perfect all at once. ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... to the shore, and drawn up, and in their eagerness, each tried to gain the elevation first. A miscalculation was made, in the attempt to reach the object, which was not visible from their location, and they were compelled to thread their way down again and go around the broken ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... usual warning, and the bell from a train from behind was beginning to be heard. We had commenced to switch off, to allow the express train to pass. But by some carelessness or miscalculation our train was a minute too late. Father and I were comfortably occupying one of the front seats of the rear car; and I was in a state of impatient excitement to reach our destination. But there came, in an instant, a stunning, frightful crash; and I was thrown violently ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... ask, "Why do these shrewd, hard men seem so certain that our favourite must lose? Are they the kind of persons who risk thousands in hard cash unless they know particularly well what they are doing? They bet with an air of certainty, though some of them must be almost ruined if they have made a miscalculation; they defy even the owner of the animal, and they cheerfully give him the opportunity of putting down thousands if he wishes to do so. There must be some reason for this assurance which at first sight looks so very overweening. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... he could hardly credit his senses: he who had long felt himself sure of being one day dictator by public acclamation, and to have been deceived by that dreamer, Robespierre, was most humiliating. But Robespierre would not dare to put him to death! Grave miscalculation! He was immolated like the rest; the crowd looking on with indifference. Along with him perished Camille Desmoulins, a young man of letters, and a Jacobin, but convicted of advocating clemency. Robespierre was one of Camille's private and most valued ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... that he darted forward, until he supposed he had attained the required momentum, when suddenly making a twisting motion with his feet, he threw himself round. But unfortunately he had made some miscalculation or slip, for instead of alighting square upon the skates, his heels flew up, and with a tremendous thump, down came ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... on the nerves of the croupier. Twice I corrected a miscalculation of his, and before I had played an hour his hand was ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... and the colour of the hair; and it was not this gentleman's habit, as he informed me, to squabble about trifles, or to let a man's neck out of the halter for a pretended flaw of a few inches in his stature. "If a man were too short," he said, "there was no remedy like a little stretching." The miscalculation in my case happened to be the opposite way, but his reverence did not think proper to lose his jest. Upon the whole, he was somewhat at a ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Ellis. "And so it is really true that every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so only by virtue of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull himself up and remember that, after all, the preservation of his life was the only motive that induced him to endanger it, he would run away like a sensible man, and try some other device to achieve his end, the device of society ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... some of the Dutch colonists in tolerating, or supporting, the violent propaganda, which could not but lead the enemy to believe that they had only to come into the Colony in order to meet with general active support. But this was a miscalculation on the part of the enemy, though a very pardonable one. They knew the vehemence of the agitation in their favour as shown by the speeches in Parliament, the series of public meetings culminating in the Worcester ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... Marie had made a miscalculation. She knew that presently Robin would seek Marian, even in the lion's mouth. Then would come the ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... got into serious difficulties it was not from miscalculation but from financial embarrassment which in 1866 pressed upon him in such a manner and with such severity that his property of all kinds was largely committed and he weathered the storm only by the aid of the staunch friends ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... misjudgment, obliquity of judgment; miscalculation, miscomputation, misconception &c (error) 495; hasty conclusion. [causes of misjudgment. 1] prejudgment, prejudication^, prejudice; foregone conclusion; prenotion^, prevention, preconception, predilection, prepossession, preapprehension^, presumption, assumption, presentiment; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... on the person who had shot the fatal arrow was no longer regarded by him as among the possibilities. Whoever this person was, he had found a way of escape which rendered him for the time being safe from discovery. But there was another possible miscalculation which he felt it his duty to recognize before he proceeded further in his difficult task. The bow found back of the tapestry had every appearance of being the one used for the delivery of the arrow. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... intensified when, as is frequently the case, he witnesses the dying struggles, and hears the heart-rending groans; we must not forget that the best contrivances sometimes fail to do good work, and that a certain percentage of victims have to suffer a prolonged death-agony owing to the miscalculation of a bad workman. Most people go through life without thinking of these things: they do not stop and consider from whence and by what means has come to their table the flesh-food that is served there. They drift along through a mundane existence without feeling a pang ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... very unfortunate miscalculation, however, the note missed its proper object, and, clearing the partition, fluttered deliberately down on the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... good friends who had no troublesome sentiment to worry them. But then every eye in the room was watching this farewell, and speculating about it. Ratcliffe looked on with particular interest and was a little perplexed to account for this too fraternal cordiality. Could he have made a miscalculation? or was there something behind? He himself insisted upon shaking hands genially with Carrington and wished him a pleasant ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Dandridge, the one in her customary white, the other in a blue that marvellously set off dark hair, dark eyes, and brilliant bloom, entered Saint John's together and passed up the aisle to a seat halfway between door and pulpit. By some miscalculation of Unity's they were very early, a fact which presently brought a whispered ejaculation of annoyance from Miss Dandridge. "I love a flutter when I come in and the knowledge that I've turned every head—and here we've entered an empty church! Heigho! Nothing ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... in making estimates and in figuring out the result of business transactions is of the greatest necessity to the man of business. A miscalculation may involve the loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars, in many cases, while a slow and tedious calculation involves loss of time and the advantage which should have been seized at the moment. It is proposed ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Pennell had kindly fixed to-day for giving us a party in the country, and accordingly some of our young people were to go and assist in putting up tents, &c.; but a miscalculation of tide and time, and a mistake as to the practicability of landing on part of the beach beyond the light-house, occasioned a variety of adventures and accidents, without which I have always heard no fete champetre could be perfect. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He calculated how much he would need to trim in, to sail close to the danger-line and still avoid disaster. He made a miscalculation during the forenoon and received warning; a second offense would mean punishment. He did not mean to be caught the second time, but he had not learned Miss Horr yet, and was presently startled by being commanded to go out and bring a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... them where they were, of course—come back and said that that little fool of a Xuriel had made a miscalculation, as ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... going—swept down that great Niagara—if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength, and reach the solid ground—I know he may be saved. It is an awful risk to run. A moment's miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing, far away down yonder upon the white turbulent foam. 'One was saved upon the Cross,' as the old divines used to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... acknowledged to be the greatest living expert, inserted a knife in the saw-mark, and with the second blow of a steel rod, the marvellous stone parted precisely as intended, cutting the flaw exactly in two, leaving half of it on the outside of each divided portion. The slightest miscalculation would have meant enormous loss, if not ruin, to the stone, but the greatest feat the world has ever known in the splitting of a priceless diamond was accomplished successfully by this skilful expert in an Amsterdam ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... 40,000. It soon became apparent that the number of existing parishes throughout the country had been grossly miscalculated. There were not more than 9,000, and the amount of assessment had to be proportionately raised. It was necessary to summon a council at Westminster in June, to remedy the miscalculation that had been made in March. Half of the representatives of the late parliament were summoned to meet the king, and among them two of the city's members, Bartholomew Frestlyng and John Philipot—"the first Englishman ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the stomach, but there wasn't time to stop. Anyway, Dan's stomach wasn't in the mood for dim lights and pale wine, not just this minute. Questions howling through his mind. The knowledge that he had made the one Class A colossal blunder of his thirty years in politics, this last half-day. A miscalculation of a man! He should have known about McKenzie—at least suspected. McKenzie was getting old, he wanted a Retread, and wanted it badly. Before, he had planned to get it through Dan. Then something changed his mind, and he decided Rinehart would ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... morning, soon after sunrise; but long before that, indeed the moment the hedgehog had first attacked the owl and forced her to turn her attention to him, the little female bank-vole, who by some mischance or miscalculation, had evaded the first terrible handshake of the owl which spells death, had rolled clear of the fight, and dashed for her life to the nearest tussock of grass that offered shelter; and the first thing she fell over there was our bank-vole, "frozen" motionless. He was there because ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... for she knew that he had lied. His miscalculation was all the other way. She bent again over her work. It was all that he could do not to lift her arms gently but firmly from the table, to take away her pen and ink, and put out her lamp. He would have liked to have done some violence ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... until nearly time for slack water again, when we weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return—and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice during six years we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... stock represented only by little Dick, a very cheerful orphan, who stared complacently with big blue eyes at fate, and made mud-pies in the lane whenever he could elude the vigilance of the kindly old woman who had taken him under her roof. This atom of humanity, by some strange miscalculation ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the day was to retrace my steps of the previous afternoon, by climbing over the ridge into the upper valley and visiting the famous Seven Lakes, which I had missed the day before through a miscalculation in my direction. Clark's crows and the mountain jays were abundant on the acclivities. One of the latter dashed out of a pine bush with a clatter that almost raised the echoes, but, look as I would, I could find no nest or young or ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... three lancets shows how the artists dealt with a difficulty that upset their rule. The border of the southern window does not count as it should; something is wrong with it and a little study shows that the builder, and not the glassworker, was to blame. Owing to his miscalculation—if it was really a miscalculation—in the width of the southern tower, the builder economized six or eight inches in the southern door and lancet, which was enough to destroy the balance between ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... been nearly two hours awake; the race against a well-nigh impossible time limit which would brook neither mistake nor miscalculation had been picked up automatically at daybreak, where it had hesitated at nightfall the day before. While he stared down at this activity, a realization of the months of bitter toil which stood between them and ultimate, uncertain success, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... withstand the internal Chinese resistance. Its founder died in 948, and his son, owing to his youth, was entirely in the hands of a court clique. In his effort to free himself from the tutelage of this group he made a miscalculation, for the men on whom he thought he could depend were largely supporters of the clique. So he lost his throne and his life, and a Chinese general, Kuo Wei, took his place, founding the ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... the baronet's death to the curse of his family, as they certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an accomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I fancy that in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had not been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. A woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly. And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes, I cannot give you a more ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... every one for years has known that the key to peace or war lay in Berlin, and at this crisis no one doubts that Berlin, if it had chosen, could have prevented this terrible conflict. [Cheers.] I am afraid that the miscalculation which was made about Russia was made also about us. The dispatch which the right honorable gentleman referred to is a dispatch of a nature which I believe would not have been addressed to Great Britain if it had been believed that our hands were free and that ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... old carpenter whom he had observed, when the addition was being put to their house, and who, after measuring a board three blessed times, and picking up his saw, made ready to cut it in twain, when, possessed of an idea that he must not make a miscalculation, laid down his saw, and went to work to measure it for the ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... medals. He may be marked as a rising soldier. And yet each time he comes under fire his chances of being killed are as great as, and perhaps greater than, those of the youngest subaltern, whose luck is fresh. The statesman, who has put his power to the test, and made a great miscalculation, may yet retrieve his fortunes. But the indiscriminating bullet settles everything. As the poet ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... be some miscalculation,' said Lord Martindale. 'There is not the least occasion for her to be straitened. You thought ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could believe this, for the knowledge had been forced on him that there were an incredible number of intriguers at that time, spies and conspirators, often in the pay of both parties, impartially betraying the one to the other, and sometimes, through miscalculation, meeting the fate they richly deserved. Many a man who had begun enthusiastically to work in underground ways for what he thought the righteous cause, became so enamoured of the undermining process, and the gold there to be picked up, that from ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... field soon after one o'clock, several about two, and between three and four I met a dozen women and several men coming to their cabins, having finished their day's work.... If, after a hard day's labor he (the driver) sees that the gang has been overtasked, owing to a miscalculation of the difficulty of the work, he may excuse the completion of the tasks, but he is not allowed to ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... said to myself that I would find another weapon, even if I should have to take a leaf out of your own book, dad, to do it. I took the leaf, and I have the weapon. You drove Gryson away, but you made one small miscalculation. You didn't believe that his desire for revenge would be stronger than ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... pointed the finger of scorn at him; how Respectability had called him crazed! John Brown at Harper's Ferry is only a ridiculous old fool; his effort is absurd; even gentlemen in the North feel an "intellectual satisfaction" that he is hanged, because of his "preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." Yes, no doubt; you hang him, and there is an end; but "his soul goes marching on," and the slaves are freed! You want to abolish the Corn-laws?—all good society shrieks at you at first: you are a Radical, a regicide, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... he threw me, when I threw myself," was his thought; "but I will undeceive them in a moment. Next time I will drive him into the earth beneath me! There'll be no further miscalculation." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, I had lost my way; and, quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log-house in the middle of a moonlight night, the hoar frost covering the trees and the ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... suspicion of our being near any, although the reckoning of the chart with increasing degrees showed only 120 miles, and the reckoning by the terrestrial globe only 50 miles distance from the land. But to this little attention had been paid. It seems certain now that the miscalculation involved in the plane chart from Cabo de bon' Esperanca to the Southland in 35 degrees latitude gives an overplus of more than 270 miles of sea, a matter to which most steersmen pay little attention, and which has brought, and is still daily bringing, ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... significance the event may have, it is conclusive evidence of the failure of German diplomacy in America. The Kaiser has made many miscalculations about nations and about men, but no greater miscalculation than that which he has made in regard to President Wilson and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... private houses were known to be forts: not until rebellion commenced was it ascertained of what strength they were; and eventually the city proved more formidable to the Bala Hissar than the Bala Hissar to the city. Such a blunder of ignorance and miscalculation, we believe, was never heard of. But, 2dly, Even that was a trifle by comparison with the capital evil—and the capital evil was this. The enemy was allowed, throughout the autumn of 1841, to accumulate ad libitum in Cabool. Retainers of the chiefs, Ghilzyes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... you have to do is to count the number of attacking and defending units, and to compare their relative values; the latter must never be forgotten. If Black were to play KtxP in the following position, because the pawn at K 5 is attacked three times, and only supported twice, it would be an obvious miscalculation, for the value of the defending pieces is smaller. [Footnote: It is difficult to compare the relative value of the different pieces, as so much depends on the peculiarities of each position, but, generally speaking, minor pieces, Bishop and Knight, are reckoned ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... millions of miles of him, with a speed of 45,000 miles per hour, and then directing the whole force of the current in his direction, I should arrive at his surface at a speed nearly equal to that at which I had ascended from the Earth. I knew that I could spare force enough to make up for any miscalculation possible, or at least probable. Of course any serious error might be fatal. I was exposed to two dangers; perhaps to three: but to none which I had not fully estimated before even preparing for my voyage. If I should fail to come near enough to ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... squalid streets, seeking groups and crowds, and finding no end of them, but never any sign of the boy. This greatly surprised him, but did not discourage him. To his notion, there was nothing the matter with his plan of campaign; the only miscalculation about it was that the campaign was becoming a lengthy one, whereas he had expected it to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... or miscalculation the vessel lost passenger traffic out of a port other than San Francisco, Mr. Skinner did not feel discouraged. To lose passengers out of San Francisco, where the home office of the Blue Star Navigation Company was located, however, savored ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... but one moment of attainment. The thrust that drove him from her was that, indeed, of the strong young goddess, implacable and outraged. Yet even as he read his deep miscalculation in her aspect he felt that the moment had been worth it. Not many men, not even many poets, could say that they had held, in such a scene, on such a night, an unwilling goddess ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... that in proportion as business men fail to take account of forces outside the business, in that proportion they are likely to miscalculate the results of business policies. Striking examples of such miscalculation are found in the experience of Mr. George M. Pullman back in the nineties, and of Mr. Patterson, of the National Cash Register Company, a decade later. Each of these men, with apparent good faith, undertook to ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... we work," returned the other dryly. "There's been one—miscalculation—to-day, and we can't afford any more. If he likes to do it himself, when he comes round, that's a different matter. I don't think he will, somehow. He doesn't strike me as that sort. He'll face it out, I believe, though it will go hard with ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... he said, as Fred joined him, "when I was right over the middle of the canyon, and knew, if I had made any miscalculation, I should never stop until pretty well down toward the centre ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... a miscalculation, when he thought that Mr. Fabian would fall into the hands of the Medusa within the bed-curtains. The very thought of the humiliation he had undergone, and the fear of what was yet in store for him, inspired Mr. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... 19 year old offender who was drunk when he sinned, but had premeditated his deed. Woe to the judge, if he misses his calculation in adding or subtracting the third, or sixth, or one half, corresponding to the prescribed extenuating or aggravating circumstances! If he makes a miscalculation, the court of appeals is invoked by the defendant, and the inexorable court of appeals tells the judge: "Figure this over again. You have been unjust." The only question for the judge is this: Add your ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... though occasionally rather alarming; for instance, there seemed to him to be no particular reason for dragging in Neddy's predilection for murder; though, of course, a man of his inches and weight might commit murder through some trifling and pardonable miscalculation of force. "Same as if that Captain Naylor hit you!" the Sergeant reflected, as he finished the ample portion of rum with which the conversation had been lightened. He felt pleasantly muzzy, and saw Mr. Bennett's ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... reached Chancellorsville with but little opposition, as both Lee and Stuart thought it was making for Gordonsville and the Virginia Central Railroad. In consequence of this miscalculation, Stuart planted himself at Brandy Station. When he found that he was out of position and that it was too late to prevent the crossing at Germania Ford, he made a circuit with Fitz Hugh Lee's brigade to get between Slocum and ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... with his hind legs on my stomach and his front paws propped against my chin. When he scratched, as he not infrequently did, what I decided must be a flea, his hind leg beat upon the canvas and produced a noise not unlike a drum. Thus we slept, but through some miscalculation I must have slept over, for it seems that the Master-at-arms, a very large and capable Irishman, came and shook ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... redskin, who probably believed his strength to be superior to that of the scouts, advanced boldly and seized him, with the evident purpose of drawing him down among the others and making him a prisoner in spite of himself. But he found he had made a slight miscalculation when he was lifted like a child from the ground and hurled over the heads and among the glowering redskins crowding below. The momentum of his body was such that a half dozen were forced backward and almost off their feet. Had the Apaches chosen to do ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... objections, the officers concluded that he did not know the difference between the gig and the first cutter. At certain stages of the tide, there is a three-mile current in the Scheldt, with strong eddies, formed by the sweep of the river. By a miscalculation of the coxswain, the cutter fell astern of the ship, and had to pull up to her, which prolonged the passage somewhat, thereby increasing the ill nature ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... luxury."[9] They overlook the fact that an income, either of money or of other goods, coming even to the wealthiest, will be used in some way. It may be used either for immediate consumption or for further indirect use in durable form. Through miscalculation there may be, at a given moment, too many consumption goods of a particular kind, but the durable applications can find no limit until the inconceivable day when the material world is no longer capable of improvement. At the time of a crisis, there is unquestionably ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... such love as had been felt was already moribund, overcome by supposed interest and local pride. Thus misled, it was easy to believe that in the North, controlled by considerations of advantage, yielding would follow yielding, even to permitting a disruption of the Union—a miscalculation of forces more fatal even than that of "Cotton is King." But forces will often be miscalculated by those who reckon interest as more powerful than principle ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... have reasonable prospects of eventual success with three divisions, with four the risks of miscalculation would be minimized, and with five, even if the fifth division had little or no gun ammunition, I think it would be a much simpler matter to clear the Asiatic shore subsequently of big guns, etc., Kilid Bahr would be captured at an earlier date and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... old story," he said. "It happens every day; but sometimes those who are blamed—those who do the wrong—don't intend it, and are not so bad. It may happen through a mistake—a miscalculation; they may ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mary Dodds, in room of the domesticated Jenny, it was in perfect accordance with the law of cause and effect. No doubt they did their best to be happy, as all creatures do, even the devil's children, only in a wrong shaft; but they had made that fearful miscalculation, which is the wages of sin, when they counted upon conscience as a pimp to their pleasures, in place of a king's-evidence against them, that king being the Lord of heaven and earth. And so it turned out in the course of several years, that, as their love lost ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... rashly decided that a visionary of this stamp might be useful for furthering certain projects of his own. He hoped, by placing under an obligation, to fashion out of the young reformer an amenable instrument—a miscalculation which he lived (though not for long) to repent. Under the Procurator's aegis, Bazhakuloff was summoned to the Capital. The political period was beginning. Moscow, on the whole, was glad to see the last of him—particularly the Chief ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... or two, and still no sign of the figures he sought, and, wondering whether they could have passed through some miscalculation on his part, he stepped forward quickly to make sure, when he became visible to Brettison, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... different story there would have been to tell had someone had that thought only half an hour earlier! But it is often so. The most trivial miscalculation, the most insignificant mistake, seemingly, may prove to be of the most vital importance. Dick went to the telephone. It was one of the old-fashioned sort, still in almost universal use in the rural parts of England, that require the use of a bell to call the central office. ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... the voice sat on the table and hummed fiercely. In the stress of mental anguish caused by his position, Henry made a miscalculation, and in turning bumped the table heavily ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... have read nine millions in place of the numbers that were burning themselves into my brain. But what if it were rightly but two and a half millions, and the great sum on which all my market movements had been predicated was a hideous miscalculation on my part? Then inevitably was I hopelessly bankrupt, or saved from that only to find my neck irrevocably caught in the "Standard Oil" noose. I strove fiercely to steady my nerves, to arrest the stampeding terrors that had broken loose in my brain. There came to me a feverish ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... at that moment needed all his fortitude. The least mistake or miscalculation on the part of his friends, and what might not be ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... search of the treasure. We walked on without undeceiving him. To quote again from an old friend: "There is nothing more conducive to the production and maintenance of a healthy mind in a sound body than enterprise and industry, even when, owing to misapprehension or miscalculation, their exercise leads to no ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... suffering from the heat, but much more from mental perturbation. Though not a stingy or penurious man, it was still true that of all earthly things he suffered most from a financial loss. How often had he seen chance or miscalculation sweep apparently strong and valiant men into the limbo of the useless and forgotten! Since the alienation of his wife's affections by Cowperwood, he had scarcely any interest in the world outside his large financial holdings, which included ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... made a slight miscalculation. The distance between himself and Tangier was twenty-five miles, and involved several detours inland into country which was wholly uninhabited, save at that moment it held the camp of Muley Hafiz, who was engaged in negotiation with the Spanish Government for one of ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... life had Nakpa been in more desperate straits. The larger of the wolves came fiercely forward to engage her attention, while his mate was to attack her behind and cut her hamstrings. But for once the pair had made a miscalculation. The mule used her front hoofs vigorously on the foremost wolf, while her hind ones were doing even more effective work. The larger wolf soon went limping away with a broken hip, and the one in the rear received a deep cut on the jaw which proved an ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... appalling loss of life, so that it is said, of course with exaggeration, that every sleeper laid represented the death of a man. Then the French canal company started work, and for two or three years did a good deal, until it became evident that the task far exceeded its powers; and then to miscalculation and inefficiency was added the hideous greed of adventurers, trying each to save something from the general wreck, and the company closed with infamy ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... charming and wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom one may say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote of Caesar Borgia to the Duke of Parma: "e tutto festo"—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful and sound.... These petty bigots make a capital miscalculation. They attack, but everything they attack is thereby distinguished. Whoever is attacked by an "early Christian" is surely not befouled.... On the contrary, it is an honour to have an "early Christian" ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... the production of food would stop at some point a good deal short of universal satisfaction. So, too, with the production of clothing, shelter and other necessary things; never enough would seem to be produced, and this apparently not by accident or miscalculation, but as if some peculiar social law were at work adjusting production to the point where there is just not enough, and leaving it there. The countless millions of workers would be seen to turn their ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... world, is strikingly exemplified in your complete misjudgment as to the cohesive power of the British Empire and as to the loyalty of its component parts and subject races; by your gross underestimate of France and by your general miscalculation as to how the peoples challenged by you would react to the supreme test ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... one hundred bushels of wheat, sold ultimately for L40, were transferred to a succession of speculating purchasers, who raised among them L1000, on credit of the exchange from one to another. The governments of the colonies had exhibited remarkable miscalculation. In all the treasury failed to meet the expenses. The deposits formerly realised by land sales were withdrawn from the banks. Debentures were issued; new taxes were imposed. The commercial panic was in full career when the crown renewed transportation to Van Diemen's ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... and ran down to the bottom of the scale by the time it reached the end of the first line. When the congregation had got two-thirds of the way down, they found they could go no farther, not even those who sang bass. The leader, in some confusion, had to pitch the tune higher, and his miscalculation was looked upon as exceedingly funny by the reckless spirits at the back of the hall. The door opened quietly; and they all turned expecting to see Macdonald, but it was only Sandy. He had washed his face with but indifferent success, and the bulge in ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... removal. He threw the bolster and pillows across first, and then, getting out of the berth, and holding firmly to the edge of it, he waited for a moment's pause in the motion of the ship; and then, when he thought that the right time had come, he ran across. It happened, however, that he made a miscalculation as to the time; for the ship was then just beginning to careen violently in the direction in which he was going, and thus he was pitched head foremost over into the couch, where he floundered about several minutes among the pillows ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... Whence came their miscalculation? In part no doubt it was connected with that curious and recurrent illusion which postulates in human affairs—a thing called "Progress." This illusion, though both logically and practically the enemy of reform—for if things of themselves tend to grow better, ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... his life to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years—for he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse the miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon a course of insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the currish and resentful hatred of the worthless for the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... thousand of them remained dead in their graves. After forty years, however, when the herald repeated his customary call the ninth day of Ab, all arose, and there was not a single dead man among them. At first they thought they had made a miscalculation in their observation of the moon, that is was not the ninth day of Ab at all, and that this was the reason why their lives had been spared. Hence they repeated their preparations for death until the fifteenth day of Ab. Then the sight of the full moon convinced them that the ninth day of Ab had ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the Samians' relief, and to fight them at as great a distance as could be from the island; but, as Stesimbrotus says, with a design of putting over to Cyprus; which does not seem to be probable. But whichever of the two was his intent, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure, Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time general in Samos, despising either the small number of ships that were left or the inexperience of the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the British troops, as these and subsequent events proved, there had been a slight miscalculation in the landing, and the men had actually gone ashore a mile and a half northeast of Gaba Tepe, instead of at that point. Gaba Tepe is so rugged and uninviting that it was believed that the Turks would not trouble to intrench it. Actually the Turks appeared to have ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... game of deceit; but there was no one who was so thoroughly deceived as Napoleon himself. By some extraordinary miscalculation on the part of his secret agents, he was led to believe that the the forces of whole force of Austria, both in the north and the south, amounted to only 100,000 men, [183] and it was on this estimate that he had formed his plans of intimidation. In reality Austria ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe |
