"Unintentional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... raise a general tempest. The worthy chaplain, who was, at Woodstock, grand referee on all disputed matters, would have been the damsel's most natural resource, for he was peaceful as well as moral by profession, and politic by practice. But it happened he had given Phoebe unintentional offence by speaking of her under the classical epithet of Rustica Fidele, the which epithet, as she understood it not, she held herself bound to resent as contumelious, and declaring she was not fonder of a fiddle than other ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... of course, not have in mind that conviction and persuasion which is brought about by the use of many words. We have to consider only that adduction of facts and explanation, simple or complex, in a more or less skilful, intentional or unintentional manner, by means of which we are convinced at least for a moment. The variety of such conviction is ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... turned the current of Monsieur the Viscount's thoughts. No more selfish reflections now. He must comfort this poor creature, of whose death he was to be the unintentional cause. Antoine's first anxiety was that Monsieur the Viscount should bear witness that the gaoler had treated him kindly, and so earned the blessing and not the curse of Monsieur le Cure, whose powerful presence seemed to haunt him still. On this score ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... one. And, with increasing refinement of moral appreciation, the problem of desert, which arises out of this distinction, acquired more and more theoretical and practical importance. If life must be given for life, yet it was recognized that the unintentional slayer did not altogether deserve death; and, by a sort of compromise between the public and the private conception of justice, a sanctuary was provided in which he might take refuge ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... afraid I touched one of your weaknesses," said the pastor, not wishing to offend the wealthy one, "but it was quite unintentional, I assure you." ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... nest. "I can see no special difficulty in its having gradually acquired, during successive generations, the blind desire, the strength and structure necessary for the work of ejection." "The first step towards the acquisition of the proper instinct might have been mere unintentional restlessness on the part of the young bird."—Origin of Species, ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... a boy of eleven or twelve, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, to be much referred to later (a son of Mrs Stevenson by a former marriage), whose delight was to draw the oddest, but perhaps half intentional or unintentional caricatures, funny, in some cases, beyond expression. His room was designated the picture-gallery, and on entering I could scarce refrain from bursting into laughter, even at the general effect, and, noticing this, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... was then she spoke of her plan for restoring the old house by pulling down that addition which disfigured it; and Paul had objected to this erasure. It would take from the house's veracity, he said. The words carried their unintentional sting. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... palace, I entered the chapel. To my surprise, I found Lady Helen there, I heard her pray for the happiness of Scotland, for the safety of her defenders; and my mind being in a frame to join in such petitions, I apologized for my unintentional intrusion, and begged permission to mingle my devotions with hers. Nay, impressed and privileged by the sacredness of the place, I presumed still further, and before the altar of purity poured forth my gratitude for the duties she ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... while carrying out my elder brother's wish, to act entirely on it without troubling him in any way. He is, I am sorry to say, very ill, so ill that the least, the very least, agitation is dangerous to him. He feels with me the unintentional injustice done to your wife, but he cannot bear the subject ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... to come to her again; entreated him; wept. He had promised that he would do so, and he meant to carry out that promise. He could not desert her now. Awkward as such unintentional connections were, the interspace of a hundred miles—which to a girl of her limited capabilities was like a thousand—would effectually hinder this summer fancy from greatly encumbering his life; while thought of her simple love might do him the negative ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... task more or less foreign to every other medical inquiry is the intentional or unintentional effort of the patient to hide the sources of the trouble and to mislead as to their true character. Too often he is entirely unconscious of the sources of trouble or else he has social reasons to deceive ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... forgive myself. I can hardly hope you can forgive me. If you will be generous enough to try to do so, you will make me less unhappy. If you accept the sum I enclose you to meet the expenses of your journey, I shall be less miserable. By taking it you will prove that you pity and forgive me,—the unintentional cause of so much evil to you and your excellent mother." George enclosed a check for five hundred dollars, all he had saved from his earnings as a clerk for the two ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... and earlier. Just as the Coverley Papers could, by one process and no difficult one, have been thrown into a novel; so by another, a not much more difficult and a much less complicated one, could the Polite Conversation be thrown into part of a novel—while in each case the incomplete and unintentional draft itself supplies patterns for the complete work in new kind such as had never been given before. Indeed the Conversation may almost be said to be part of a novel—and no small part—as it stands, and of such a novel as had never ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... to have discovered her to be altogether sensible and agreeable. Apparently the young English Girl Guide had understood and accepted the circumstances. She not only failed to express any show of resentment at Tory's unintentional disregard of her, she appeared not ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... most stately of earthly institutions is a peculiarly modest, truthful, and unintentional epigram ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... you of seas mountains high, as if she were still under the effect of a just resentment for the affront offered to her. There she stood waiting in all dignity for Mr Vanslyperken to repair the injury done, whether unintentional or not. In few words, there she waited for the biscuit to be presented to her. And it was presented, for Vanslyperken knew no other way of appeasing her wrath. Gradually the storm was allayed—the flush of anger disappeared, the corners of the scornfully-turned-down mouth were turned up again— ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... and making deeper and more numerous burrows, she came to the farthest recesses of a Dragon's den,[27] who was watching some treasure hidden there. As soon as {the Fox} perceived him, {she began}:— "In the first place, I beg that you will pardon my unintentional {intrusion}; and next, as you see clearly enough that gold is not suited to my mode of life, have the goodness to answer me: what profit do you derive from this toil, or what is the reward, so great that you should be deprived of sleep, and pass your life in darkness?" ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... the spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St. Peter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a character reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance—a manner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We know well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the impression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the soft impeachment while ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... matter of history. Justin seems to be mistaken in regarding Cyrenius as 'procurator' [Greek: epitropou] of Judaea. He instituted the census not in this capacity, but as proconsul of Syria. The first procurator of Judaea was Coponius. Some of Justin's peculiarities may quite fairly be explained as unintentional. General statements without the due qualifications, such as those in regard to the massacre of the children and the conduct of the disciples in Gethsemane, are met with frequently enough to this day, and in works of a more professedly critical ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... motion, with her head eagerly bent forward, and her eyes fixed upon him. He looked up carelessly as he came along, and with his chin in the air, in a fashion peculiar to him, which, by-the-way, gave a quite unintentional superciliousness to his expression. For an instant his eyes rested upon her, then they moved away, without the ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... chance would give her the opportunity of privately questioning Philip, but it seemed to be equally her husband's wish to thwart any such intention of hers. He remained in the house-place, till after Philip had left, although he was evidently so much fatigued as to give some very distinct, though unintentional, hints to his visitor to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not written to you for a long time, but it has not been unintentional. I could not write you frankly, and so I would not write at all. I can be frank with you now, but not by letter. It is a great deal to ask, but I wonder if you could come to New York to help me out? I have got into difficulties, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... avenged," that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined," (Aunash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word anash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19: "They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3: "He ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... not always possible to do this, in the case of moving objects, which cause animals far more terror than stationary ones. The whip should never be used on a shying horse with the object of hurting him, because it is unjust to inflict pain for an unintentional mistake, and idiotic to regard the exhibition of his fear as a personal affront, which is often done by ignorant riders. Almost all horses when they are very fresh, and especially on cold days, will shy and jump about on first being taken out, partly with the desire to keep ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... intentionally, and was then only fined according to the rank of the deceased. The Code does not say what would be the penalty of murder, but death is so often awarded where death is caused that we can hardly doubt that the murderer was put to death. If the assault only led to injury and was unintentional, the assailant in a quarrel had to pay the doctor's fees. A brander, induced to remove a slave's identification mark, could swear to his ignorance and was free. The owner of an ox which gored a man on the street was only responsible for damages if the ox was known by him to be ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... to come down for a week at some vague future date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, which was purely unintentional, or rather, purely natural, reflecting the one ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... falling off of custom in any quarter, in comparison with failing to give satisfaction. We have always tried, I am sure, to give satisfaction in our dealings with your family, sir; and if there has been any offence, I can assure you it is unintentional, and shall feel obliged by knowing what it is. We cannot conceive, sir, where you get your meat, if not from us; and if you have the trouble of buying it from a distance, I can only say we should be ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... from the local dialect, applying to a slight mishap, careless accident or unintentional disaster in any department of Hut life. The fall of a dozen plates from the shelf to the floor, the fracture of a table-knife in frozen honey, the burning of the porridge or the explosion of a tin thawing in the oven brought down on the unfortunate cook a storm of derisive applause ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... of the house, much to the annoyance of the person in charge, who rushed out upon the aeronaut, and told him that he had no business to come in contact with the chimney. His reply exhibited an extraordinary coolness, for he assured the man it was quite unintentional upon his part. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... I'm very sorry. I hope I haven't given any unintentional offence?" said the widow, again ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... heure!" cried Aristide, excitedly casting away his straw hat, which an unintentional twist of the wrist caused to skim horizontally and nearly decapitate a small and perspiring soldier who happened to pass by. "A la bonne heure! Let him divorce you. You are then free. You can be mine ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... purity, continence and self-mastery. The other point of view—I don't think this was clear to me at the time; I don't believe that I intentionally pursued this course with the object in view that it actually accomplished; nevertheless, whether intentional or unintentional, planned or unplanned, the effect was produced. The physical work required of me was light, very light, and all my leisure time was spent in study. I studied so hard and so conscientiously that I tired not only my mind, but my body. There came a time ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... handful, though he loved Ireland and the Irish with an affection greater than that felt by any other Englishman of his time, has, in his Recollections, placed on opposite pages—all the more striking to me because unintentional—illuminating testimony to the difference between the Irish and the British temperament. And this testimony supports the point I am trying to make—that the "typical" logicless, inconsequential Irish mind, so ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... eleven officers, the candles were kicked out, and a long argument ensued as to whose plate was which, and why Martin's spoon should have gone down Fenton's neck, and if the latter should be made to forfeit his own spoon to make up for his unintentional theft. ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... preparing baby's food if there is any trouble such as is described above. Despite your absolute assurance that you are making no mistake, do not be surprised to find that you are not following directions to the letter, and because of this unintentional mistake, your negligence is responsible for your baby's condition. Go over the instructions with your husband, and let him follow your method of preparation, as you repeat it. He may detect the mistake if any exists,—two heads are always better than one. So important ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... been too sorely wounded to recover its tranquillity. For the purpose of what was then deemed an expiation to her unintentional offence, she performed a weekly penance, going barefooted from Haigh to a place outside the walls at Wigan, where a stone cross was erected, which bears to this day the name of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... course, some misrepresentations, both intentional and unintentional, of Miss Anthony's attitude. The fact of her speaking on the platforms of all political parties was something which many people could not comprehend, and the party organs could not refrain from twisting her remarks a little bit in ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... thought the board did "not speak with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity unintentional. Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of equivocation based on ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... providential order that each man, by helping himself, unintentionally helped his neighbours. The moral sense based upon sympathy was therefore not opposed to, but justified, the economic principles that each man should first attend to his own interest. The unintentional co-operation would thus become conscious and compatible with the established order. And, in the next place, so far from there being a want of humane feeling, the most marked characteristic of the eighteenth century was precisely the growth of humanity. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... it being ordered, that work, in the weaving of which machinery is employed, shall be paid precisely at the same rate as if done by hand; that these acts have frequently given rise to the most vexatious regulations, the unintentional breach of which has subjected manufacturers to ruinous penalties; and that the introduction of all machinery being prevented, by which labor might be cheapened, and the manufacturers being compelled to pay at a fixed price, under all circumstances, they are unable to afford employment ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of laughter came from the counter. "It's I who make them," said the girl. "I thank you for the unintentional compliment." Then she walked straight back to my table. "I can't help it," she said, laughing still, and her delightful, insolent nose well up; "how can I behave myself when a man goes on as you do?" A nice white curly dog followed her, and ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... chance to fight last night; your informant's plans went wrong Dickey was my unintentional substitute. As for Ravorelli's challenge this morning, I did ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... following his unlucky criticism of the pictures was one of great despondency to Dennis. He had read in Christine's face that he had wounded her sorely; and, though she knew it to be unintentional, would it not prejudice her mind against him, and snap the slender thread by which he hoped to draw across the gulf between them the cord, and then the cable, that might ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... word would be spoken. But I had no desire to wait to hear it. I felt an intruder. I would leave them alone together for the last time. So I walked to the door, but, seeing a key in it, I changed my mind, and locked it on the inside. In the hall I might become the unintentional instrument of the squire's capture, though, so far as my ears served me, it was still empty as we had left it. I preferred to run no risks, and would have a look at the ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively horrid; they inflict the horror suitable to their compound nature; but there is no insinuation that they ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... your note, which conveys all that can be said on the subject. I can easily conceive your feelings must have been irritated in the course of the affair. I am sorry that I have been the unintentional cause of so disagreeable a business. The line of conduct, however painful to myself, which I have adopted, is the only effectual method to prevent the remarks of a meddling world. I therefore again take my leave for the last time. I repeat, that, though the intercourse, from which ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... unintentional speech and quite uncalled for; for nobody could be more regular, more punctual, than Warrender. It was the first thing she could ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Nevertheless this autobiography rivals in historic and poetic worth Rousseau's "Confessions" and Benvenuto Cellini's "Life." The absolute candor with which Andersen lays bare his soul, the complete intentional or unintentional self-revelation, gives a psychological value to the book which no mere literary graces could bestow. I confess, until I had the pleasure of making Andersen's acquaintance, "The Fairy Tale of My Life" impressed me unpleasantly. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar situations ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... not seem to be so good friends as formerly. If I have done anything to offend you, I know that you will believe me when I say that it was quite unintentional on my part and that I am very sorry for it, and ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... is a mistake, though unintentional, no doubt, and ignorantly on the part of Cook. Captain Marion, a French navigator, and mentioned occasionally in these voyages, visited Van Diemen's Land about a twelve-month before Captain Furneaux. The account of his voyage was published at Paris in 1783, but is little known in England; for which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... refer to the kind of mind-reading in which one person thinks of a hidden coin, and the other holds his wrist and is then able to find the secreted object. There is no mystery in such apparent transmission of the idea, because it is the result of small unintentional movements of the arm. The one who thinks hard of the corner of the room in which the coin is placed cannot help giving small impulses in that direction. He himself is not aware of these faint movements, but the man who has a fine sense of touch becomes conscious ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... like to undertake the mission, Mr. Owen," said the Deputation briskly; for the reflection stung him, unintentional as ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... found a young man of about his own age standing close to him, and apparently as much lost in reverie as he had been. As in turning round Alexander brushed against him, he thought it right to apologise for the unintentional act, and this occasioned ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... punitive as well as preventive, will be one of the first military necessities, unless the tone and disposition, not of the best, but of the worst, of its members shall have become sensibly improved; for occasional unintentional leakage, by well-meaning officials possessing more information than native secretiveness, cannot be wholly obviated, and must be accepted, practically, as one of the ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... times where an anecdote is available and appropriate. In connection with this same Fafnir, as showing how necessary it is for the tourist to be careful of his personal safety in Hades, it is related that upon one occasion the keeper of the dragon having taken a grudge against Siegfried for some unintentional slight, fed Fafnir upon Roman-candles and a sky-rocket, with the result that in the fight between the hero and the demon of the wood the Siegfried was seriously injured by the red, white, and blue balls of fire which the ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... I should like to be allowed to make the same request. Your Majesty is obviously very much upset, and I am sure we are all unwilling that our presence—which, indeed, was unintentional and unsought by us—should augment a distress of mind which is so natural in one of your Majesty's noble disposition, and so inevitable considering the deep sense of gratitude your Majesty must feel ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... cities, and his former profession, not to speak of his knowledge of the world gained thereby, entitles him to esteem. It has raised him to the rank of a species of oracle on any subject upon which he is pleased to discourse; the result is a not unpleasing, because altogether unintentional, dogmatism which seasons Willy's ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... despite the wishes of the prisoner and (as he contended) against his interests—had got on to Luis de Leon's nerves, had led to occasional moods of depression, and had betrayed him into a few irritable or intemperate outbursts. But these results were unintentional. The Valladolid judges were well aware from the outset that no time was to be lost. As early as July 29, 1572, they delegated a piece of work to one of their commissaries in Salamanca, and impressed on him the urgency of dispatch.[181] They secured from Benito Rodriguez, the commissary ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... gazed at the old basket maker as if estimating his peculiar strength, then he said with an unintentional touch of contempt in his heavy voice, "So ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly faces, and you'll see how I despise you." He could hardly breathe. "And what if it's only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through inexperience I get angry and don't keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it's all unintentional. All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is something about them.... It all might be said, but there is something. Why did he say bluntly, 'With her'? Why did Zametov add that I spoke artfully? Why do they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin is sitting ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... went, while Magdalen succeeded in saying what she had intended—that Hubert must not consider himself in the smallest degree bound by what had been accident, entirely unintentional and innocent. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... given the cue to her saying yes when she had meant to say no. And in some such fashion, in some future crisis of greater moment, might she not, in violation of all dictates of sober judgment, give another unintentional consent? ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... is continually varying. Why does it vary? Because it disregards the relative and goes and finds the antecedent, and accommodates its number to that."—Ibid. To this wild doctrine, one erratic Irishman yields a full assent; and, in one American grammatist, we find a partial and unintentional concurrence with it.[389] But the fact is, the relative agrees with the antecedent, and the verb agrees with the relative: hence all three of the words are alike in person and number. But between the case of the relative and that of the antededent [sic—KTH], ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... court is whether he did it "with malice aforethought", i.e., with full will and intention, whether he did it in a sudden fit of anger, i.e., impulsively rather than quite voluntarily, or whether it was an accident and so wholly unintentional or involuntary. The court wishes to know, since a man who has committed one sort of homicide is a very different character from one who has committed another sort; different acts can be expected from him in the future and different precautions need ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more strange, because she wore something different, or said something unexpected, Ralph's sense of her romance welled up and overcame him either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine, with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or contradicted with some severity or assertion of prosaic fact. Then the vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... man's hearty invitation, I proceeded to make myself and my companions at home, pinning, skewering, and otherwise suspending our cloaks and shawls across the various intentional and unintentional air-gaps, thereby increasing both the comfort and the grotesqueness of the apartment in no small degree. The babies had bowls of milk furnished them, and the elder portion of the caravan was regaled with a taste of the colonel's home-made wine, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... in the House of Commons. It was a thin House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional, but a fellow-member, who did not wish it to be supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. One or two of the papers noted "a laugh" in brackets, and another, which was notorious for the carelessness of its political news, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... fact, the minister's calls were in the nature of a compromise, although an unintentional one. He dropped in on Zebedee Mayo, owner of the big house on the slope of the hill. Captain Zeb took him up into what he called his "cupoler," the observatory on the top of the house, and showed him Trumet spread out like a map. The ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and yet avoid having actually murdered it (Schol. Eur. Phoen., 26); the whole treatment of the parricide and incest, not as moral offences capable of being rationally judged or even excused as unintentional, but as monstrous and inhuman pollutions, the last limit of imaginable horror: all these things take us back to dark regions of pre-classical and even pre-homeric belief. We have no right to suppose that Sophocles thought of the involuntary parricide and metrogamy as the people in his ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... just alluded to, which have been raised by different breeders without any wish for such a result, and the unintentional modification of foreign breeds in their new homes, both afford excellent evidence of the power of unconscious selection. This form of selection has probably led to far more important results than methodical selection, and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... that purpose. A blockade of 3,000 miles of seacoast could not be established and vigorously enforced in a season of great commercial activity like the present without committing occasional mistakes and inflicting unintentional injuries upon foreign nations and their subjects. A civil war occurring in a country, where foreigners reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations is necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite misapprehensions, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... An English merchant brig was at anchor. Our pilot observed, that this settlement was not in a flourishing condition, because it received no great "resistance" from the Colonization Society. Of course, he meant to say, "assistance;" but there was an unintentional philosophy in the remark. Many plants thrive ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... Too much modulation produces an unpleasant effect of artificiality, like a mature matron trying to be kittenish. It is a short step between true expression and unintentional burlesque. Scrutinize your own tones. Take a single expression like "Oh, no!" or "Oh, I see," or "Indeed," and by patient self-examination see how many shades of meaning may be expressed by inflection. This ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... tenderly he bound the handkerchief round the sightless eyes. Having done so, he said to the nurse with unintentional quotation from the Gospel of St. John, and a sad ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... one of those Friendly Society meetings which in France, as in England, move the bottle as well as the soul, when, owing to an irregularity of the road, for which he was in no way to blame, he took an unintentional dive down a very steep bank, at the bottom of which was a dense forest of brambles. As he was quite unable to extricate himself, his companions, after a consultation, decided to haul him up by the legs; and it was to this manner of being rescued that he attributed most of the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... "It's unintentional, then, on your part—forgive my asking it, Frances, dear?" I blundered, hardly knowing what to think or say. "Between the lines" of her letter came back to me. "I mean, you make the sketches in your ordinary way and—the result comes out of ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... daughter, if her unhappy father dared to pray, he would invoke Heaven's choicest blessings on her young innocent head. And, Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips successfully plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins against the wife he never ceased ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... know how to commence my answer to your letter after so long a delay which has been unintentional and unexpected, and in a great measure unavoidable. I might, indeed, and ought to have written to you when I first received it, but I then hoped it would be in my power to make you a short visit in compliance with your invitation. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... phenomena. In doing this we need not necessarily deny the reality of some of the physical phenomena but the larger part of the residue which might possibly be left after the elimination of fraud on the part of the medium and unintentional misrepresentation on the part of the witnesses is so utterly meaningless as to have no value at all. The only physical phenomena which can have any direct bearing on spirit communication are the tappings and table tippings which can by a deal of ingenuity be made to spell out ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... this monstrous claim, that sedition may be unintentional and may consist in some action which the Government judges by its results, one would have to hark back to the days of Judge Jeffreys, whom indeed McQueen of Braxfield resembled in ferocity, cunning, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... now in a position to appreciate the unintentional humor of Ashe's indignant outcry, cited at the beginning of this chapter, against those who calumniate these innocent people "by denying that there is anything but 'brutal passion' in their love-affairs." He admits, indeed, that "no expressions of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the artistry of the dainties and devices Jack Dobson and I were so fond of. And if I did not soon learn to do something well, even were it only how to farm my five hundred acres to a profit, Kate's cooking would really require the miraculous aid suggested in her unintentional and, to me, biting epigram. I put the book down, and gave over the hunt for my Virgil. It would probably be useless in any case, since Kate had a cunning all her own, and had surely bestowed it far beyond any searching of mine. I contented myself with a fair reprisal, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... The unintentional irony of Mr. Jefferson's letter of credit now became apparent. The trading vessels that were used to making yearly visits to this part of the coast from abroad had gone away for the winter, and no white face was seen through all those weary months. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... and full report of symptoms to the physician, when he visits his little patient, is of the first importance. An ignorant servant or nurse, unless great caution be exercised by the medical attendant, may, by an unintentional but erroneous report of symptoms, produce a very wrong impression upon his mind, as to the actual state of the disease. His judgment may, as a consequence, be biased in a wrong direction, and the result prove seriously injurious to the welldoing of the patient. The medical man cannot sit ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... grey and blue-grey are known. It is difficult to draw the line, in some instances, between true shades and "fades" but the grey would appear to be undoubtedly a true color variety and one that should be recognised as a provisional, if wholly unintentional, color change. Scott, in fact, lists it as a separate issue under the date 1875-77, but this is an arbitrary classification which has, apparently, no foundation in fact, and the best plan is to include the variety in its logical place with the rest ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... distracted in her understanding, —nay, never start, look wildly, or lay your hand on your sword, I do not affirm this is the case. I say again, that no woman in her senses would have pardoned a common acquaintance for his behaving to her with unintentional disrespect and unkindness, during the currency of a certain masquerade, and, at the same time, sternly and irrevocably broke off with the lover to whom her troth was plighted, although his error in joining in the offence was neither grosser nor more protracted ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Brown answered rather stiffly, "that I am as yet conspicuously superannuated. Indeed, I never felt younger in my life than I have felt during the past fortnight. I have a little touch of rheumatism to-night," he added, frankly, and at the same time gave unintentional emphasis to his admission by catching his breath and almost groaning as he slightly moved his legs, "but it has nothing to do with sitting on the rocks with Dor—with your charming niece. You forget that my rheumatism is ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... not to think, therefore, the difference between the colour of the upper and lower frescos unintentional. The life of St. Francis was always full of joy and triumph. His death, in great suffering, weariness, and extreme humility. The tradition of him reverses that of Elijah: living, he is seen in the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to more than the common ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... People were taken unawares. We were unprepared for war, and the changes it had brought;—we were as unprepared as the woman who said, in speaking of unexpected callers, "I had not even time to turn my plants." There was much unintentional humor. One lady, whose home was one of the most beautiful in the city, and who entertained lavishly, told us, in her address on "Economy," that at the very outbreak of the war she reduced her cook's wages from thirty to ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... an impossibility. The more he reflected, the deeper became his conviction of the guilt of Hadley and of the existence of a plot to defame Duffel. Another idea suggested itself: "Was his daughter an intentional or an unintentional party to these transactions? Might not her dislike of Duffel and her preference for Hadley induce her to seek for some means to accomplish the disgrace of the former?" While he was weighing this supposition in the balance of his mind, he chanced to see ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... has been bestowed upon me as well for the working out of a labor problem here, but it is honor undeserved, for the thing began in the entirely unintentional manner which I have set down, and the working out of it came at a later date through Nancy's thinking and the zeal ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... more surprising in regard to sublunary matters than the way in which unexpected events arise out of what may be called unintentional causes. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... primary."[285] The extraordinary fact, which shows us how God can deluge a planet when he pleases, I give not in the words of a divine, but of a philosopher, whose thoughtless illustration of Scripture is all the more valuable, that it is evidently unintentional. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... a bit o' me thought of it," replied the wife, laughing at the unintentional allusion to the circumspect character of Peter's eyes,—"upon my faix, I didn't—ha, ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... the shooting of the animal was unintentional," he said. "I shall settle the affair by paying you the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the doctor. "My friend should, perhaps, have taken you along with him; but the slight, if there be one, was unintentional. And ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sent to-morrow,[1] together with the confession of my sins, intentional and unintentional, for which I beg your gracious absolution. My eyes, alas! prevent me from saying to-day as I could wish my hopes and desires that all ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... been strongly aroused on such occasions with a child's terror of being made an exhibition before the others. As a boy at Harrow, in the form of the Rev. F.W. Farrar, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, I had an unpleasant experience, though it was no fault of his and quite unintentional. The Russian Government had sent a deputation of two learned professors to England, to inquire into the educational system of the Public Schools, with the view of sending a member of the Royal family for education in this country. Among other schools, they ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... sure he meant it. He said, with that Western drawl of his: "Boys, while I was back there trying to do a little something for you in Congress, I heard a lot of swell bands; but I didn't hear any such music as this little old band of ours has made to-night!" The unintentional humor somehow didn't make you want to laugh ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... greater or lesser skill with which the objects of external nature are studied and copied, for, in certain stages of artistic consciousness and artistic activity, the misrepresentation and distortion of natural objects are not unintentional technical inexpertness and incapacity, but conscious alteration, which depends upon the content that is in consciousness, and is, in fact, demanded by it. We may thus speak of imperfect art, which, in its own proper ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the poor child's infrequent leisure with anti-toxin injections of the higher morality as conveyed in the poetry of TENNYSON. You now take my meaning when I speak of Mr. INGE as sufficiently single-minded to brave some danger of unintentional humour. Really my sketch has done less than justice to a story that will hold your interest, if only for the sincerity with which it is handled; for myself I was first impatient, then derisive, finally curious to know how it was going to end. I rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... correctness of the information we were asked to impart on this occasion is impugned by the learned historian, we will, we hope, be pardoned for setting this point at rest. Dr. Miles has committed some egregious, though no doubt unintentional, error. The publication in our Tourist's Note Book, in 1876, of the name of Miss Simpson, in connection with Captain Nelson, three years before the appearance of Dr. Miles' essay, which was published in March, 1879, and its repetition, as previously shown, in the Chronicles ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... this time become in the last degree maudlin, and wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One. Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be, plighted his ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... constitutional change absolutely Henry's or Cromwell's own; the spoliation was the same, but reflects no credit on either; the severance from Rome was an accident; and the creation of the duty, to be ultimately recognised as the right, of private judgment was unintentional. And on the kindred subject, the persecution of innovators labelled as heretics, Henry's policy represented nothing but the commonplace attitude of Authority ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... did not occupy her mind with any thought of that little unintentional and grateful jibe—that she always divined that sort of thing. Among the other great patiences of her life she had learnt to know that the mother and son, loving and tender as they were, had put ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... nature to these. If one wanted to get anything out of him, therefore, the first step was to put him in good humour by gifts; and if one desired to escape his wrath, which might be excited by the most trifling neglect or unintentional disrespect, the great thing was to pacify him by costly presents. King Finow appears to have been somewhat of a freethinker (to the great horror of his subjects), and it was only his untimely death which prevented him from ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... thought of including Hippopopolis in the list, but when I realized that it was entirely owing to his villany that I had enjoyed the delightful privilege of visiting the gods in their own abode, I spared him. And to think that because of an unintentional error this great opportunity to rid the world, and incidentally myself, of much that is vexatious was wholly lost is a matter ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... at which Earl Elgar, son of Earl Leofric, was outlawed almost without any guilt; because it was said against him that he was the betrayer of the king and of all the people of the land. And he was arraigned thereof before all that were there assembled, though the crime laid to his charge was unintentional. The king, however, gave the earldom, which Earl Siward formerly had, to Tosty, son of Earl Godwin. Whereupon Earl Elgar sought Griffin's territory in North-Wales; whence he went to Ireland, and there gave him a fleet of eighteen ships, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... unintentional it may be, is thus entirely obviated and every one feels satisfied that all is fair, even though one may look a little enviously at the next man's helping, which differs in some especially appreciated detail from one's own. We break the Tenth Commandment energetically, but as we are ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... place after his many years of Boston; but he had got used to the ugly grandeur, to the noise and the rush, and he had divined more and more the careless good-nature and friendly indifference of the vast, sprawling, ungainly metropolis. There were happy moments when he felt a poetry unintentional and unconscious in it, and he thought there was no point more favorable for the sense of this than Stuyvesant Square, where they had a flat. Their windows looked down into its tree-tops, and across them to the truncated towers of St. George's, and to the plain red-brick, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... unintentional break.... I fancied the door creaked.... No, she's not coming yet, the heartless wretch! You will ask me how all this is going to end, and what I intend to do with myself, and whether I shall stay here long? ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Keene's death Mr. Tuer's humorous vein was turned on to others of the Staff. One of his contributions may be quoted as illustrating how unintentional are the originals of some of Punch's jokes. In 1889 appeared a picture entitled "A New Trade," in which a country maid, on being asked what her last employer was, replied, "He kept a Vicarage." The circumstance had actually taken place in Mr. Tuer's own house. When the number ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... and cannot help saying that I feel very hurt at your decided refusal to allow me to take you out. I thought we were to be friends? Have I been so unfortunate as to offend you? If so, I can only assure you that it has been utterly unintentional. Won't you let me see you, if only for a moment? I will meet you at any time or place.— ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... who at last saw that all his good endeavours were misplaced, shrugged his shoulders. Lieutenant Temple, however, thought he had a good idea, and with an apparently unintentional, though violent, movement pushed against the light camp-table, and sent ashtrays, bottles, glasses, and cards flying on the ground. But he did not gain anything by this, for the two players held their cards firmly in their hands, and did not allow this contretemps to disturb their ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... partly from unforeseen circumstances, and partly from official forms and the pressure of business deemed of greater importance, he was destined to experience a long succession of delays; which, though certainly unintentional, and perhaps in some degree unavoidable, were ultimately productive of very unfortunate results. Nor was it till after waiting two months, (a period of great uneasiness and mortification) that he received his official instructions: after which nearly another ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... interest in the game became a sort of midsummer madness which pervaded the two households, at Keokuk and at Quarry Farm. Howells wrote his approval of the idea of "learning history by the running foot," which was a pun, even if unintentional, for in its out-door form it was a game of speed as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I was the unintentional cause of making a quarrel between her and the nun of Chelles. At the commencement of the affair of the Duc du Maine, I received a letter from my daughter addressed to Madame d'Orleans; and not thinking that it was for the Abbess, who bears the same title with ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans |
