"Wide of the mark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than fair to return the compliment," thought Warren, raising his Winchester, taking careful aim, and pulling the trigger. Truth compels us to say, however, that his shot went as wide of the mark as the one aimed at him. Thus far honors were ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... manifestations whatever, are little things compared to love.... The Heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else. If you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, 'Have you received this or that blessing?' if you mean any thing but more love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them upon a false scent. Settle it, then, in your heart, ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... parliamentary reasons, and you will find a result exceedingly favorable to the accommodating spirit of the German minister when it is compared with that of any other country. I consider, therefore, the insinuating references to my quarrelsome disposition and fickleness distinctly wide of the mark. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... improvements effected that the vendor regretted having sold it for such a trifling sum, and the more so when it was whispered about that the instrument was a veritable Amati—a report, by the way, very far wide of the mark, as it was simply ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... wide of the mark, therefore, to attribute that which bears the stamp "made in Germany" to England. Bernhardi and the Crown Prince with their thousands of officers and the multitudes in the ranks to whom Nietzsche has become an inspiring motive are not to be ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... unsuspicious, the manner in which it tinges every event, and every reflection, are painted with a vividness and a detail of which we can scarcely conceive any one but a female, and we should almost add, a female writing from recollection, capable.' This conjecture, however probable, was wide of the mark. The picture was drawn from the intuitive perceptions of genius, not from personal experience. In no circumstance of her life was there any similarity between herself and her heroine in 'Mansfield Park.' She did not indeed ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... dodging the submarines which were attacking them from beneath the surface of the water and the aircraft hovering over them. Bombs dropped from the latter failed to find their targets, and by swift maneuvering the torpedoes shot at them were also caused to go far wide of the mark. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... not so wide of the mark. It was recollection of the events of the preceding night that had brought the burning blush to Myra's cheeks, and the thought of the interpretation the old woman might have put on what she had seen ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... one of the walks at Frogmore. We were, in fact, theorizing and practically commenting on the art of throwing stones. Boys have a peculiar contempt for female attempts in that way. For, besides that girls fling wide of the mark, with a certainty that might have won the applause of Galerius, [2] there is a peculiar sling and rotary motion of the arm in launching a stone, which no girl ever can attain. From ancient practice, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the dark. All that Peter knew of the jewel-case was Rose Winter's description of it, when she told of Mary's arrival in her absence, to take it away; but Lady Dauntrey's face said that the shot had not gone wide of the mark. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the line of the land more rapidly than our progress made it distinct. She said nothing more, she only looked in front of her; but her very quietness prompted me to something suggestive of sympathy and service. It was difficult indeed to strike the right note—some things seemed too wide of the mark and others too importunate. At last, unexpectedly, she appeared to give me my chance. Irrelevantly, abruptly she broke out: "Didn't you tell me you knew ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... books, the whole conception of boyhood seems at fault; a boy is generally represented as a generous, heedless, unworldly creature. My experience leads me to think that this is very wide of the mark. Boys are the most inveterate Tories. They love monopoly and privilege, they are deeply subservient, they have little idea of tolerance or justice or fair-play, they are intensely and narrowly ambitious; ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... clear idea may thus be obtained of Rashi's early education; and in assuming that he soon distinguished himself for precocity and for maturity of thought, we shall not be shooting wide of the mark. But legend will not let its heroes off so cheaply; legend will have it that Rashi, in order to complete his education, travelled [traveled sic] to the most distant lands. Not satisfied with having him go to ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... because the majority of men who are civilized would do nothing of the kind. This, to my mind, is not to say that men are good; it is merely to say that Rousseau, in his enthusiasm for humanity, as well as in his aversion to it, is wide of the mark. The evil in man is not evil of this active sort, so theatrical, so self-interested; it is a passive, torpid evil which lies latent in the depths of the human animal, it is an evil which ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... powers of man to the subordination of the blind forces of Nature, its votaries were first decisively termed magicians—a corruption of the word "Magh," signifying a wise or learned man. Sceptics of a century ago would have been as wide of the mark if they had laughed at the idea of a phonograph or telegraph. The ridiculed and the "infidels" of one generation generally become the wise men and saints of ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... afternoon with the sun still hot. Passing by a bare, desolate-looking cemetery, I asked a sad-looking woman who was leaning on the gate if she could direct me to Golden City. I repeated the question twice before I got an answer, and then, though easily to be accounted for, it was wide of the mark. In most doleful tones she said, "Oh, go to the minister; I might tell you, may be, but it's too great a responsibility; go to the ministers, they can tell you!" And she returned to her tears for some one whose spirit she was doubtless thinking of as in the Golden City of our hopes. ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... view of human life, and till we see our neighbours as Omniscience sees them, our kindest and cruellest estimates will be equally wide of the mark. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... whether play could be at the same time within the laws and clean contrary to the ethics of cricket. But there was also a deal of talk about what was 'due to the public'; talk which would have been altogether wide of the mark in the old days, when Oxford and Cambridge met to play a mere friendly match and the result concerned ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... very effective notice of ejectment. The back of the trench is protected by a ridge of earth commonly known as a parados. My servant, whose vocabulary was limited, called it a paradox, and was not very wide of the mark. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Frobisher, drawing his chair a little closer to Wong-lih's, and lowering his voice. "Should I be very wide of the mark in guessing him to be a ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... but they both met with the same fate, being exposed to the aim of the two best marksmen in the fortress, the rest of the assailants in the mean time firing away, aiming at the loopholes and roof. As few of them had before handled muskets, their bullets flew wide of the mark, while the garrison kept pouring down a continual fire among them. Even more experienced troops might have retired before such ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... wait on you with all necessary materials. Now I mention no Mr. Bickerstaff, nor do I say, that a certain star-gazing 'squire has been playing my executor before his time; but I leave the world to judge, and if he puts things and things fairly together, it won't be much wide of the mark. ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... a term used by the men when their firing is so wide of the mark that it fails to hit any spot on the card. The men apply it indiscriminately to anything in ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... Falconer was thus as far removed as possible from the young lady of the house, and was consequently, though he struggled as much as possible against it, frequently distrait, unconsciously and unwillingly observing Miss Gryll and Lord Curryfin, and making occasional observations very wide of the mark to the fair damsels on his right and left, who set him down in their minds for a very odd young man. The soup and fish were discussed in comparative silence; the entrees not much otherwise; but suddenly a jubilant expression ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... boats Pluton and Furor bringing up the rear. The Infanta Maria Teresa, leading the procession, was the flagship of Admiral Cervera. He sent a shell toward the American vessels, but, in accordance with the rule, it went wide of the mark. The Texas opened with her big guns and her companions quickly joined in ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... long-range, they fired their carbines and escopettes; but their bullets cut the grass far in front of us, and one or two that hurtled past were wide of the mark. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... religious men to bring the Scripture miracles within the scope of the order of nature, but all such attempts are rejected by Mr. Mozley as utterly futile and wide of the mark. Regarding miracles as a necessary accompaniment of a revelation, their evidential value in his eyes depends entirely upon their deviation from the order of nature. Thus deviating, they suggest and illustrate a power higher than nature, a 'personal ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... adapted that when given according to instructions, it will give a correct measure of the child's mental age. But when given by superior persons in ignorance of its true character, it gives results very wide of the mark. So much ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... vanity. He did not feel that he was shedding lustre on the Elizabethans as a patron: he regarded himself as a follower. Voltaire was infuriated by the suggestion that Shakespeare wrote better than himself; Lamb probably looked on even Cyril Tourneur as his superior. Lamb was in this as wide of the mark as Voltaire had been. His reverent praise has made famous among virgins and boys many an old dramatist who but for him would long ago have been thrown to the antiquaries, and have deserved it. Everyone goes to the Elizabethans at some time or another in the hope of coming on ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... as the New York World. They dubbed him, "Frick's man," and predicted that the Department of Justice would be turned into a Wall Street anteroom for the convenience of the capitalistic combinations then flouting the Sherman anti-trust law. The charges, of course, were as wide of the mark as most of the ebullitions of the ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... a mass of children, how much about it has already developed itself in them; what requires to be stimulated, what to be directly communicated. The answers to your questions may be as unsatisfactory as they will, they may wander wide of the mark; if you only take care that your counter-question shall draw their thoughts and senses inwards again; if you do not allow yourself to be driven from your own position—the children will at last reflect, comprehend, learn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the poor girl never heard me, for she was unconscious. Don Rodrigo stopped, as if determined to resist me. Would to God he had! But he put spurs to his horse and fled. I shot at him, but as the distance was great, and the light uncertain, the bullet went wide of the mark. I soon forgot him on reaching Felicita, as she lay with an ugly cut on her head caused by striking the carriage step when she fell. There lay my child-friend, unconscious. She was dressed for retiring, her other clothes ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... east, they hired a fast livery and drove overland. They found E. at the station, awaiting the arrival of a train. H., with a pistol, strode forward and in his excitement said: 'You exposed me, did you?' Being near-sighted, his aim proved wide of the mark. E. sprang forward and grappled with H. for possession of the pistol, and was fired upon by C. and J., who shot him in the back. He expired in a few minutes, his last statement being to the effect that H. was guilty ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... only, but throughout the whole population of Ireland. I spent two autumns in Ireland in the years 1849 and 1852, and I recollect making a speech in this House not long afterwards, which some persons thought was not very wide of the mark. I recommended the Ministers of that time to take an opportunity to hold an Irish Session of the Imperial Parliament—to have no great questions discussed connected with the ordinary matters which are brought before us, but to keep Parliament ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... surprisingly, so that it not only broke into a gallop, but set off at racing speed as it used to do when young. The Indian was badly mounted, and gradually lost ground, whereupon he sent after the fugitives several more arrows which all fell wide of the mark. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Socrates rather than in his own, Plato admits the calculation of pleasure to be the true basis of ethics, while in the Phaedo he indignantly denies that the exchange of one pleasure for another is the exchange of virtue. So wide of the mark are they who would attribute to Plato entire consistency ...
— Laws • Plato
... when and under what circumstances he had seen him before, for that this was not their first meeting was evident. If they had been strangers, the major would not have greeted him in so cordial and friendly a manner. This was what Elam told himself, but he had shot wide of the mark. ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... begin at once to talk about it, and think about it, and suggest and hazard descriptive remarks, according to the idea each has formed of it; that is, they try, though in the dark, to "throw light." As the interest increases, the excitement becomes intense. Many of the ideas expressed are absurdly wide of the mark, yet even these help to show what the answer is not; and often, by their coming in contact, a light is struck which helps amazingly. And so, in regard to our problem, we have the hints; then why not begin at once to think about it, and talk about it, and suggest, and guess, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... covered with slime, and prepares to cast his projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark; the schooner swung round into a long reach of water, where the breeze was in her favor; another shout of laughter drowned the maledictions of the muddy man; the sails filled; Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the moment, ducked ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... close to the fire filled with apprehension that gradually decreased as they saw the panther feared to approach. Thrice Charley fired at the dim skulking form, but, in the darkness, his bullets went wide of the mark, and he stopped wasting ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... millions of tiny blows dealt every minute in our body-battle, what wonder if some go wide of the mark! ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... chance to have a feeling for the House of Commons, not merely as an institution, but as a place of resort, Marvell's satirical poems must always be intensely interesting. They strike me as honest in their main intention, and never very wide of the mark. Hallam says, in his lofty way, "We read with nothing but disgust the satirical poetry of Cleveland, Butler, Oldham, Marvell," and he adds, "Marvell's satires are gross and stupid."[231:1] Gross they certainly occasionally are, but stupid they ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... chapman ran to the tent door with a bent bow in his hand and an arrow notched to the string, and drew on the said Carline, who was but some ten yards from him by then. But, whether it were the caitiff's evil shooting or the Carline's wizardry, ye must choose between the two, the arrow flew wide of the mark, and the Carline laughed merrily as she rode along. Thus were those two quit of ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... guarantee in itself," thought Birotteau, as he went away full of gratitude to his old clerk. "Well, a benefit is never lost!" he continued, philosophizing very wide of the mark. Nevertheless, one thought embittered his joy. For several days he had prevented his wife from looking into the ledgers; he had put the business on Celestin's shoulders and assisted in it himself; he wished, apparently, that his wife and daughter should be at liberty to ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... that came into the Indian's face and manner told Menard that he was not wide of the mark. He began to understand. Tegakwita wished to get him at work and off his guard,—the rest would be simple. And as Menard well knew, more than one brave of the Onondagas, who had known him both as friend and enemy, would shrink ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... hear them sob and moan, and saw that they wrung their hands in fruitless agony. He could make out little that they said, but between whiles he gathered enough to assure him that his suggestion was not very wide of the mark, and that they not only suspected by whom the body had been removed, but also whither it had been conveyed. When they had been in conversation a long time, they turned towards him once more. This ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... any but gave to its words an inordinate degree of attention, endeavouring by conjecture to penetrate that which he intimated that 'twas meet he should keep secret. Divers were the interpretations hazarded, but all were wide of the mark. At length, however, the queen, seeing that ladies and men alike were fain of rest, bade all ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and by the time it had settled to a drizzle I was down in the paymaster's camp. Things were sure in an uproar there. Two men killed, two more crippled, and the paymaster raving like a maniac. I hadn't been far wide of the mark. The men that passed me on the ridge had held up the outfit—and looted fifty ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... neither the featherless biped of the Greek Philosopher, nor the tool-using animal of the Sage of Chelsea. For animals, too, have their tools, and man, in his visible flounces, has feathers enough to make even a peacock gape. Both my Philosophers have hit wide of the mark this time. And Man, to my way of thinking, is a flounce-wearing Spirit. Indeed, flounces alone, the invisible ones in particular, distinguish us from the beasts. For like ourselves they have their ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... wide of the mark, but the accusation was so suddenly and so bluntly made that it brought the blood to Babe's face—a tremulous flush that made her fairly radiant for a moment. Undoubtedly Mr. Chichester had played a very pleasing part in her youthful imagination, but never for an instant had he superseded ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... shrub. Finally in desperation I took a snap shot at him, hitting under him, making him jump. Then in rapid succession I fired four more times. I had the satisfaction of seeing where my bullets struck up the dust, even though they did go wide of the mark. After my last ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... exists at the present time that a man convicted of murder has but to appeal his case on some technical ground in order to secure a reversal, and thus escape the consequences of his crime. How wide of the mark such a belief may be, at least so far as one locality is concerned, is shown by the fact that in New York State, from 1887 to 1907, there were 169 decisions by the Court of Appeals on appeals from convictions of murder in the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... forth in quest of supper, with Pluto at my heels. Nor had I far to seek, for presently I espied several of these monstrous birds among the trees and, stringing my bow with a length of cord, I crept forward until I was in easy range and, setting arrow to string, let fly. Away sang my shaft, a yard wide of the mark, soaring high into the air and far beyond all hope ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... diagnosis. His only point of contact with Tolstoi is his grim fidelity to detail, the peculiar Russian realism common to every Russian novelist. Tolstoi said that Chekhov resembled Guy de Maupassant. This is entirely wide of the mark. He resembles Guy de Maupassant merely in the fact that, like the ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... thought he must be one of the huge giants of Spor; and others claimed he was a dwarf, like his tiny but ferocious dart-slingers; and still others imagined him one of the barbarian tribe, or a fellow to the terrible Gray Men. But, of course, no one knew positively, and all these guesses were very wide of the mark. The only certainty about this king was that his giants, dwarfs, barbarians and Gray Men meekly acknowledged his rule and obeyed his slightest wish; for though they might be terrible to others, their king was still ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... succeeded so perfectly in at once stimulating and baffling the curiosity of his readers. He stirred the dullest minds to guess the secret of his mystery; but, so far as we have learned, the guesses of his most intelligent readers have been almost as wide of the mark as those of the least apprehensive. It has been all the more provoking to the former class, that each surprise was the result of art, and not of trick; for a rapid review of previous chapters has shown that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... earlier date. A more likely reckoning seems to me to be 8,000, but it probably rose near the higher figure before November, and must much have exceeded it by the 1st of December, unless British {p.116} estimates are more wide of the mark than is probable. The lowest maximum for the forces of the two republics that I have seen was given by one of the Boer envoys now[9] in the United States; viz., 38,000. Allowing 30,000 to Natal by November 1, there is nothing ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... dropped his ray weapon, and now searched for it with blinded eyes. He flung his riot club, and it flew wide of the mark. It was obvious that he was going to be beaten ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... damage appeared to be done. The enemy started her screw immediately, and swung around so as to present her starboard broadside before the Parrot could be made ready for another shot. The Tallahatchie delivered another three shots, two of which went wide of the mark. The third struck the carriage of the pivot gun, but fortunately it was not disabled, for it had been built to resist a heavier ball than the one ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... which may be, and very likely is, extremely wide of the mark. Such ideas may be merest wild speculation, and have no truth in them at all. And yet I think that if they were true, they would explain a thing to me otherwise ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... were it not at variance with that reputation which the French have long en- joyed of being a pre-eminently sociable nation. The common report of the character of a people is, how- ever, an indefinable product; and it is, apt to strike the traveller who observes for himself as very wide of the mark. The English, who have for ages been de- scribed (mainly by the French) as the dumb, stiff, unapproachable race, present to-day a remarkable ap- pearance of good-humor and garrulity, and are dis- tinguished by their facility of intercourse. On the other hand, any one who has seen half a dozen Frenchmen ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... probable, however, that he meant assent, for he turned aside in passing to set free the Blackfoot who had been bound to a tree. That red man, having expected death, went off with a lively feeling of surprise, and at top speed, his pace being slightly accelerated by a shot—wide of the mark and at ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... the character of a country gentleman. Bates was getting on in years, of course, which would account for much of his increased graveness and passivity, but not all. Unless Miss Ocky's suspicions were wide of the mark, he, too, had come under the deadening influence of Varr's dominance—ah! but had he entirely? At the very moment she was thinking about it, Simon had uttered a terse comment, as biting as acid, upon some negligible feature of the dinner-service. No faintest ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... laughed; it was all very familiar, sounded very old, and was ludicrously wide of the mark. She had not been careless, she had not suffered from the dangerous stupidity of ultra-maidenly blindness, she knew quite well how Quisante felt. Accordingly she would not acquiesce in Mrs. Baxter's diplomatic ignoring ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... He quoted Emerson to the effect that in all the ages that man has been upon the earth, no communication has been established between him and the lower animals, and he affirmed that we know quite as little of the thoughts and motives of our own children. Both conclusions are wide of the mark. There is much more communication between man and the domestic animals than between animals of the same species. The understanding between an Arab and his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between a sportsman and his setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of command. Then ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Blue that she was released from the promise, for her guesses went wide of the mark. Ethel Brown made something that she guessed to be a hen, Roger called it a book, Dicky maintained firmly that it was a portrait of himself. The rest gave it up, and they all needed a long argument by the artist to believe that she had meant to ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... is generally conceded that "three make a crowd," the rule was certainly wide of the mark in this case. The girls were bound by a tie even stronger than friendship, and that tie was the law of the camp-fire. The latter had taught them many brave lessons in the game of life, lessons in self-denial, in sympathy and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... in the Thames, over against Whitehall." That was sure of finding him within a certain number of fathom; but your ladyship's longitude varies so rapidly, that one must be a good bowler indeed, to take one's ground so judiciously that by casting wide of the mark one may come in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... fantasies which could never be made to agree, for they passed from one extreme to the other, endowing each other in turn with faults and charms which they did not possess—charms when they were parted, faults when they were together. In either case they were wide of the mark. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... that the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and that we, who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, come very wide of the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure of his dinner," says our Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of humanity." The boy is a part of Nature; he is as indifferent, as careless, as vagrant as she. He browses, he digs, he hunts, he climbs, he halloes, he feeds on roots and greens and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... in the nature of information or knowledge on the point. This did not satisfy Dr. Coster, who then pressed the question, 'Well, what did you think? What were your thoughts?' The witness objected to state what his thoughts were, as they could have no bearing on the fact, and might be absolutely wide of the mark. He could only repeat that he had no knowledge. The witness appealed to the Bench for protection. Mr. Wessels urged that it was an unheard-of proceeding to compel a witness to state what he thought and to use it as evidence. The objections were again overruled, and the witness ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... various were the guesses hazarded but each fell wide of the mark. Helena alone preserved a smiling silence and waited to hear what the others had ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... in any various reading where I could make any sense at all of the text as given by him. Sometimes I have been content to put down what I felt was a wrong rendering rather than omit; but only in cases where the original was plainly corrupt, and all suggested emendations seemed to me hopelessly wide of the mark. What, for instance, may be the true meaning of [Greek: bolbhost tist kochlhiast] in the fourteenth Idyll I have no idea. It is not very important. And no doubt the sense of the last two lines of the "Death of Adonis" is very unlikely to be what I have made it. But no suggestion that I met ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... Keats, as "a tadpole of the Lakes," was ridiculously wide of the mark. He was nearly of the second generation of romantics; he was only three years old when "The Ancient Mariner" was published; "Christabel" and Scott's metrical romances had all been issued before he put forth his first volume. But though he owes much to Coleridge[29] ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... "You aim wide of the mark, then," she retorted valiantly, though confusion waved a red flag in ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... in what I have said so far to explain what I understand by the philosophical spirit and what I regard as the primary problems with which Philosophy has to wrestle. If what I have said is not wholly wide of the mark, it should be clear what is the deadliest enemy of the true spirit of Philosophy. It is the temper which is too indolent to think out a question for itself and consequently prefers to accept traditional ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... fifty knights against Norman of Torn, Mary? Thy reasoning is on a parity with thy fears, both have flown wide of the mark. ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quickly. The bullets flew wide of the mark. The fog suddenly lifted and a steady fusillade from the men hidden in the hills of Fredericksburg began to pick off the bridge builders with cruel accuracy. At times every man was down. New men were rushed to take ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... waiting followed, in which only a single shot was fired, and that by the warriors, to go wide of the mark, as usual, and the wrath of Henry and the shiftless one, at being held there so long, became intense. It seemed the veriest piece of irony that this unfortunate chance should have occurred, but Henry presently recalled the arrangement they had made with ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... itself every twenty-five years. If it did this, the time must come, through sheer power of multiplication, when there would not be standing room for it on the globe. All of this is undeniable, but it is quite wide of the mark. It is time enough to cross a bridge when we come to it. The "standing room" problem is still removed from us by such uncounted generations that we need give no thought to it. The physical resources of the globe are as yet only tapped, and not exhausted. We have done little more ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... with every shot in her broadside, slipped gaily under our helm, on her way to regain the course she had left, and finish her career down the line of the Dons. Don Alonzo was so taken by surprise, and unready for this sudden move, that he had not a word to say. His broadside, when it went off, fell wide of the mark in the open sea, at the very moment when the English shot rang about his stern, riddling his sails, and knocking the gilded cross in shivers by the board. Nor did they give us shot only, for a cloud of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of fire. Hence life is the deeper mystery. The ancients thought of a spirit of fire as they did of a spirit of health and of disease, and of good and bad spirits all about them, and as we think of a spirit of life, or of a creative life principle. Are we as wide of the mark as they were? So think many earnest students of living things. When we do not have to pass the torch of life along, but can kindle it in our laboratories, then this charge ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... good many things, but most of them are a little wide of the mark. I haven't any leaning at present towards a ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the wonder and talk of Paris, when I did appear; and most of the surmises were wild and wide of the mark—some even going so far as to say it was all owing to my wonderful unheard-of beauty that I was thus mysteriously concealed from view. I had a soft voice, and a tolerable shape; and upon this, I presume, they founded the affirmation. But my father and I kept our ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... wide of the mark, and as Jonathan placed another bullet in the circle, this time nearer the center, Alfred had to ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... all times, was now terrified to such a degree, that the Captain had absolutely to support him, or he would certainly have dropped. Presently, Sir Wiley gave the signal to fire; Tom complied at once, and sent his bullet flying somewhere above my head, about as wide of the mark as it well could be; and then, without waiting for the compliment of a return, off he started as fast as ever his legs carried him in his life, cleared the hedge at a bound, and ran straight into a thick wood. I nearly died ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... to bear the consideration of a well-balanced mind, Elizabeth," I interrupted, "and therefore I decline to notice them further than to say that you are entirely wide of the mark. Perhaps I did not express myself in language as choice as I might have used; but what I meant to say was—to quote the copy-books—that 'opportunities imply obligations,' and that, while my opportunities are many, the obligations arising therefrom have not ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... little girl, deliver such an oration, and with such an entire forgetfulness of self. Not knowing then how great her heart was nor how she longed to make glad every single person in the world, even though most of her schemes went so wide of the mark that her own father had ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the omission of est, which often takes place after the emphatic pronoun. Impediamini: cf. n. on 33. A veris: if visis be supplied the statement corresponds tolerably with the Academic belief, if rebus be meant, it is wide of the mark. Id est ... retentio: supposed to be a gloss by Man., Lamb., see however nn. on I. 6, 8. Constitit: from consto, not from consisto cf. 63 qui tibi constares. Si vera sunt: cf. 67, 78, 112, 148. The nonnulli are Philo and Metrodorus, see 78. Tollendus est adsensus: i.e. even that qualified ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the subjects were estimated too low, the average error being 2 years and 2 months. These figures would seem to imply that an estimate with nothing to support it is wholly unreliable, more especially as many of the estimates were four or five years wide of the mark.[36] ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... like the delicate mouth, was still young, almost boyish. Sweetness and a rather weak refinement—a stranger would probably have summed up his first impressions of Lord William, drawn from his bodily presence, in some such words. But the stranger who did so would have been singularly wide of the mark. His wife beside him looked even frailer and slighter than he. A small and mouse-like woman, dressed in gray clothes of the simplest and plainest make, and wearing a shady garden hat; her keen black eyes in her shriveled face gave that clear promise of ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... imagine that, whatever dispatch might be employed, the execution of seventy persons, would demand a rather considerable portion of time, an hour and a half, or two hours, for instance. But, how wide of the mark! Samson, the executioner of Paris, worked the guillotine with such astonishing quickness, that, including the preparatives of the punishment, he has been known to cut off no less than forty-five heads, the one after the other, in the short space of fifteen minutes; consequently, at ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... qualities of a leader." Mr. Henry Greenleaf Pearson, the biographer of Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, illuminates this point in a few instructive sentences. "To comprehend this objection, which to us seems so astonishingly wide of the mark," says Mr. Pearson, "we must realize that whenever a New Englander of that generation uttered the word 'leader' his mind's eye was filled with the image of Daniel Webster. Even those who called the fallen statesman 'Ichabod' could not forget his commanding presence, his lofty tone about affairs ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... obey them. A bitter wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered, would be found embodied in the gastric juice. He was not altogether a fool, this man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram; yet was he wide of the mark. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... translations of the various documents in actual use at present, and finally attempts to estimate the number of women engaged in the business. The method of reaching his conclusions does not commend itself to the present writer and his results seem absurdly wide of the mark, when compared with more carefully gathered figures. They are hardly worth quoting, yet they serve to show what exaggerated views are held by some in regard to the numbers of prostitutes in Japan. He tells ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... since." Well, then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you would be measured by. And then, what do you think is the best thing in your work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the invention, the judgment, or the learning? For I find that men are, commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those of others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for want of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force and fortune, may second the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... essential element of good living. But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of mechanism. It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion, would risk dislocating something before he had taken a step. You have what you need to walk with, then forward! Take care not ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... you're wide of the mark this time. But, that we may understand each other, we'll begin at the beginning like, which will let you into the whole history of the pale-face religion. As we've had a smart walk, however, and here is ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Almost as wide of the mark is Mr. Swinburne's description of the volume as "worthless." It contains twenty-one numbers, besides that lofty dirge, so unapproachably solemn, The Phoenix and the Turtle. Of these, five are undoubtedly by Shakespeare. A sixth (Crabbed ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... unsparingly into the flanks of his horse, while encouraging him with well known words of cheer, he rushed over the scene of his late struggle with a velocity that set all restraint at defiance—his late opponent scarcely being able to put himself in safety. A couple of shots, that whistled wide of the mark, announced his extrication from the difficulty—but, to his surprise, his enemies had been at work behind him, and the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... little soft head, already sprouting a suspicion of curly red hair, with hearty kisses; and Billy, entering into the fun, crowed and gurgled, clutching wildly at the dark head bent above him and managing now and then, when he did not grasp too wide of the mark, to bury his chubby creased hands ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... had never handled a fencing-foil nor fired a pistol, took offence at something M. de Mauleon had said in disparagement of the Duke of Wellington, and called him out. Victor de Mauleon accepted the challenge, discharged his pistol, not in the air—that might have been an affront—but so as to be wide of the mark, walked up to the lines to be shot at, and when missed, said, 'Excuse the susceptibility of a Frenchman loath to believe that his countryman can be beaten save by accident, and accept every apology one gentleman can make ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seemingly soaring in peace like a graceful bird poised in the air, when suddenly we see it surrounded by a dozen little white patches of smoke which show that it has come within range of the enemy's anti-aircraft guns and the clouds of shrapnel are bursting about it. Most of them break wide of the mark and it sails on unscathed over the enemy's lines. Just above us is hanging a German taube, obviously watching us and the automobile which we had left below in the road, while the British huge anti-aircraft guns near by are feeling for it, ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... they will sell you wax flowers, old books, ostrich feathers, odd numbers of Myra's Journal, or any rubbish they may have by them; I dare say that most of the writers of these letters are just as wide of the mark. Sit here at my feet, Fan; and you shall open the letters for me and read the addresses. No, not that way with your fingers. If you stop to tear them to pieces, like a hungry cat tearing its meat, it will take too long. Use the paper-knife, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... readers to draw a very natural conclusion—that, as Dr. Davy admitted that there were no prevalent sensible states of the atmosphere to which the cholera could be attributed, he, therefore, believed it to have been propagated by contagion, an inference which we now see must be quite wide of the mark. Dr. Hawkins had, it appears, like many other medical gentlemen, access to the reports from Ceylon, &c., in the office of the chief of the army medical department in London, and it is to be regretted I think that, with respect to one of the Ceylon reports, he only tells us (p. 174) that "Mr. ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... 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 as ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing to be done?' 2. The Master replied, 'What is necessary is to rectify names.' 3. 'So, indeed!' said Tsze-lu. 'You are wide of the mark! Why must there be such rectification?' 4. The Master said, 'How uncultivated you are, Yu! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. 5. 'If names be not correct, language is not in ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... throat spraying is dangerous. A New York singer, suffering while on a concert-tour from a case of sub-acute laryngitis, sought advice from a physician who honestly tried to aid him, but shot wide of the mark through injudicious use of a spray, in which he used menthol and eucalyptus, a combination much affected by a certain well-meaning class, and which for a time gives to the throat a delightful sense of coolness. The singer became afflicted ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... unfeathered, and sent by a tyro, it was no wonder that it flew far wide of the mark, striking a bough away to the left and then dropping from twig to twig till it reached the ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... you acquired the art of master-singing?" Beckmesser jeers; "Your song no doubt smacks of its teachers!"—"What do you think, masters," inquires Kothner, upon this hopeless revelation, "shall I proceed with the questions? It strikes me his lordship's answers are altogether wide of the mark."—"That is what will presently be seen," Sachs interposes warmly; "If his art is of the right sort, and he duly proves it, of what consequence is it from whom he learned it?" Whereupon Kothner proceeds, addressing Walther: ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... inconsiderable opponent. It was at this meeting that Cavour first entirely revealed himself. He showed that faith in the prudence of daring which was the keynote to his great strokes of policy. The demands of the Genoese, he said, were not too large, but too small. They hit wide of the mark, and the second of them was idle, because the king, while he remained an absolute prince, was certain not to consent to it. The government was now neither one thing nor the other; it had lost the authority of an autocracy, and had not gained that ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... acquainted with the facts of his position. Now that discussion was rife, it would have been prudent in the Misses Lumb to divulge as much of the truth at they knew, but (in accordance with the law of natural perversity) they maintained a provoking silence. Hence whispers and suspicious questions, all wide of the mark. No one had as yet heard of Andrew Peak, and it seemed but too likely that Lady Whitelaw, for some good reason, had declined to discharge the expenses of Godwin's last year ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... of a heart-burning or heart-breaking kind; either the father was dead, or the home was in a state of terrible poverty and distress, or the child was a child of shame; you can only guess, and all your queries will probably be wide of the mark. But the mother looked mournfully upon him, and wished he had not come, and could not believe that a life which commenced so untowardly would ever be anything better than a burden to her, and a misfortune and misery to himself. She ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... British Republic held on its way under one President. It is wide of the mark to object that other Republics, which change their President more frequently, support the semblance of over- lordship at considerably less cost to the people. Britons are minded for the present that the Head of ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... systematic attempt to gather and compile the statistics of the Peanut has ever been made, and until this is done we shall never know its full extent and value. The "estimates"—mere guesses—of certain mercantile houses and newspapers, to express the bulk of the crop are, beyond a doubt, far wide of the mark. The following from a Georgia paper, ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich |
