"Mistook" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I don't care! If I mistook you for Thurston, it is not the first mistake I ever made about you. I mistook you once before for a man!" ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... coasting schooner. At 2 A.M., we were off the north end of the island, but now heavy rain-squalls came up, and rendered it so thick, that we were obliged to slow down, and even stop the engine, it being too thick to run. The squall lighting up a little, we endeavoured to feel our way in the dark; mistook the south for the north end of Prince Rupert's Bay, and only discovered our mistake when we had gotten fearfully near the shore, and had whitened our water! Hauled her broad out, and again put her under very ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Growler has ceased to walk from table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall—the cotton one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly spreads out his great red ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reduced to that painful necessity. If I'm not mistook, this young gentleman was paid a hundred dollars this afternoon for his bravery in throwing a royal Bengal tiger over his shoulder and bringing him back to the circus, from which erstwhile ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Lobby. DRURIOLANUS, feeling happy at the Opera prospects, and rejoicing in a full subscription, said to the Committee, "Gentlemen, let's have 'glasses round'!" Some officious person, hearing this, mistook the meaning of the great Chief, and straightway ran off and ordered looking-glasses all round for the Lobby! Grand effect! brilliant! dazzling!—too much so, in fact; several glasses too much. So, after a couple of nights' reflection, when the habitues came on Thursday, behold, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... moving along the starboard side slowly. Trask caught a foreign sound, a gurgle which he at first mistook for rain water running from the scuppers. But the deck was scarcely wet and, besides, the sound was to starboard. Water running off would go to port, for the schooner was heeled a little ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... Old Bailey.' 'You must marry the red waistcoat,' said Hodges. Scott leaves the country, comes up to London, finds his gentlewoman married: two years after going into Dover, in his return, he refreshed himself at an inn in Canterbury, and as he came into the hall, or first room thereof, he mistook the room, and went into the buttery, where he espied a maid, described by Hodges, as before said, drawing a can of beer, &c. He then more narrowly viewing her person and habit, found her, in all parts, to be the same Hodges had described; ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... the first of several new and strange forms of animal life. As Piet and I were, as usual, riding forward some distance ahead of the wagon, we suddenly came upon a small herd of seven curious-looking animals, which we at first mistook for young giraffes; but as they stood gazing at us curiously, thus permitting us to approach within less than a hundred yards of them, we observed that while the creatures bore a certain general resemblance ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... speech calculated to make Lesley furiously angry, and it was with great difficulty that she restrained the words that rose impetuously to her lips. She stood motionless and silent, and Maurice mistook her silence for that of stupid obstinacy, when it was the silence of wounded feeling and passionate resentment. He went on hotly, for he began to feel himself once more in ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Comet" of 1680, predicted expressly that the famous comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (fracas) on May 19, 1719; he assured us that in truth its perruque would signify nothing mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible sign of the wrath of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after all, but a matter of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... to know," he says—"though to be sure I begin to know now,—as I take the letters off the tray, which of those envelopes contains a real bona fide letter, and which a thorn? One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn letter, and kept it without opening." Then he gives the sample of a thorn letter. It is from a governess with a poem, and with a prayer for insertion and payment. "We have known better days, sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... how to interpret his expression: surprise was in it, and eagerness, and suppressed agitation, and an appeal for secrecy, and at the same time (if I mistook not) ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the son; he marked this oversight. And then mistook reverse of wrong for right; (For What to shun, will no great knowledge need, But What to follow, is a task indeed!) Moral Essays, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... said simply. 'It was all a mistake, George. Flossie mistook—— Oh, you don't really think that I have left off caring for you? I haven't, dear, indeed I ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... "the words of the man was words of prayer. Never in my life was I taken so unawares or was so unbalanced as when I heard the voice of that man I had mistook for an animal break out in prayer. For a minute the blood stopped in my heart and my hair moved in my scalp; then I shook like a man with the chills. I had come that nigh being ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... bank, Kent was already at a great distance, yet they continued their pursuit, and had gone some distance, when the first report of Leland's rifle reached their ears. This they mistook for Kent's, and abandoning the trail, made directly toward it. The second discharge of the young man's gun occurred when he was but a short distance from them. Kent endeavored to warn him of his danger, but as we have seen, it was too late. ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... Theodore for one of the boon companions of his son. The driver, overhearing the remark, chuckled softly, and remarked to himself: "That's a good one! He's mistook his chap this time, I could tell him;" but Theodore bowed in respectful silence, and felt a consuming pity for ...
— Three People • Pansy
... name of all, and yet not much less used than that of America, is the West Indies: West, in regard of the western situation of it from these parts of Europe; and Indies, either as mistook for some part of India at the first discovery, or else because the seamen use to call all countries, if remote and rich, by the name of India."—Heylyn's Cosmography, 1677, Book iv., ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... a very small one by monotonous or feeble delivery), and uttered it, like his discourse, with solemnity, warmth, tenderness and all his soul, the people lingered some moments in the church and seemed unwilling to go at all. Second, nobody mistook their pew for their four-poster during the sermon. This was the more remarkable as many of the congregation had formed a steady habit of coming to this place once a week with the single view of snatching an hour's repose from ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... by Marco Polo to an island or islands supposed to be the modern Japan, for outlying portions of which Columbus mistook the West Indies.] ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... no man at court had a nobler air than Racine, Corneille looked very much like a cattle-dealer, and Descartes might have been taken for an honest Dutch merchant; and visitors to La Brede, meeting Montesquieu in a cotton nightcap, carrying a rake over his shoulder, mistook him for a gardener. A knowledge of the world, when it is not sucked in with mother's milk and part of the inheritance of descent, is only acquired by education, supplemented by certain gifts of chance—a graceful figure, distinction of feature, a certain ring in the voice. All these, so important ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... heated by the affections, it burst out with great force, but always as servant, not master. But if he had no one faculty that might be, to use the loose words of common speech, original, he was so as a whole,—such a man as stood alone. No one ever mistook his look, or would, had they been blind, have mistaken his voice or words, for those of any one else, or any ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... laid away three dear wives in foreign lands," as he confided to me afterward over a plate of ice-cream. He seemed to me to be "taking notice," as they say of babies, and it is barely possible that he mistook me for a single woman, for his attentions were rather pronounced till I introduced my husband prominently into conversation; after that he seemed more attracted by ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... o'clock that invaded even Union Square with heliotrope dusk, Mr. James Batch mistook, who shall say otherwise, Miss Gertie Slayback, as she stepped down into the wintry shade of a Subway kiosk, for Miss Whodoesitmatter. At seven o'clock, over a dish of lamb stew a la White Kitchen, he ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... no harm, sir, I'm sure. The young woman came to the door last evening—mistook the house, she did. And then we got talking. It's lonesome, when you're ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gave some disgust, nobody, at the time, replied any thing, but that Sir Humphrey mistook the meaning of the house, and of the member who made the motion: they never had any other purpose, than to represent their grievances, in due and seemly form, unto her majesty. But in a subsequent debate, Peter Wentworth, a man ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... country, and only to some few ports in that country;[84] there is, I say, something so sottish, that it wants a name in our language to express it by: and the good of it is, that the more sheep we have, the fewer human creatures are left to wear the wool, or eat the flesh. Ajax was mad, when he mistook a flock of sheep for his enemies; but we shall never be sober, until we have ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... portico of the Baths there came a squall that knocked us all sideways. Foe and Jimmy cast their arms about one pillar, I clung to another; and the policeman, who at that moment shot his lantern upon us from his shelter in the doorway, pardonably mistook our condition. He advised us—as a friend, if he might ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice when ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... occasions fell down to the ground in his presence and respectfully kissed his hand. Abouna Salama for a time believed that his influence over Theodore was unbounded, as it had been over Ras Ali and Oubie; mistook Theodore's show of humility for sincere admiration and devotion; and the more humble Theodore seemed disposed to be, the more arrogant did the Bishop, publicly show himself. But he had not quite understood ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... and again, telling her that he carried a royal pardon for her, and that all she had to do was to forsake her father and follow her betrothed instead. But in the din of battle she did not hear, or mistook the tenor of his words; and ere he could make himself understood the garrison of the castle began to yield, and a moment later the building was in flames. Many of the besieged were burnt to death, but Liba and her father hastened to ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... business myself," said he, "And you've mistook my expression; For I uses the technical terms, you see, Employed ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... axils of its abundant, opposite, lance-shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality suppressed branches, are usually borne after the flowering season. Occasionally no flowers are produced, only these strange bulblets. In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe. This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... gleam that flashed into his eyes as he looked into hers. He could have cursed himself. A swift warm flush raced from her throat to her cheeks. Her direct, steady gaze faltered under fire, and a confused, trapped expression flickered perceptibly for a moment or two. He mistook it for dismay, or, on second thought, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness over a sense of ill-usage. 'I am not altogether to blame,' he said. 'There were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her relative the testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too, like a taut rope—"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it; and you've money, too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure as God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... She probably mistook the action for the emotion of shame and despair born of bitter grief; perhaps of terror of the law. It frightened her a little, but pity dominated. She could scarcely endure to do what she ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... door, but I confidently reckoned upon five minutes' conversation with you, ere you repaired to the evening lecture, to which I concluded a sober man like you was about to adjourn. While hesitating upon the fit mode to address you, a figure descended the stairs, which, at first sight, I mistook for an Alguazil, in a plethora, but upon nearer approach found to be your worshipful self, posting to the opera, clad in a great-coat of the newest cut, all fringe and frippery, the offspring of a German tailor. You and your cloak were so enveloped in frogs and self-conceit, that I could ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... single writer—a writer no doubt of great authority, but still one not wholly infallible. We might say, then, that Herodotus probably made a mistake—that his memory failed him in this instance, or that he mistook his notes on the subject. Or we may explain his error by supposing that he confounded a canal from the Euphrates, which seems to have anciently passed between the Babil mound and the Kasr (called Shebil by Nebuchadnezzar) with the main stream. Or, finally, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... came forth from his hiding-place pale and trembling, and wishing to recover himself a little by a potion, mistook the cups in his confusion, and drank the water of weakness, while the Kalevide took another draught of ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... heard of thim, too!" he said. "But 'tis of insects they be professors, and not of one kind of insects alone, Mrs. Muldoon, mam. Ye have mistook th' understandin' ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... which, we rose early, my hostess and the ladies of the establishment appearing in the early part of the day in the most extreme deshabille. Indeed, on one occasion when I was first introduced into the family of a respectable citizen, and shown into my bedroom, I mistook one of two females who were making the bed for the servant, and was surprised to see her hand a little douceur I gave her as an earnest of attention on her part, to the other with a smile. She soon afterwards went to bed: we all did, from 11 A.M. till about 3 P.M., at which hour I was horrified ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... statement, Sir Scudamore offered to fight both informers, who, laughing at him for being jilted, rode contemptuously away. These two mockers hadn't gone very far, however, before they encountered a beautiful damsel, whom they mistook for the long-lost Florimell, but who was merely an image of her conjured up by the witch to comfort her son when he blubbered over the loss of his fair lady. As many knights were in quest of Florimell, some of them soon encountered the scoffers, who declared they were ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the claim upon Sir Thomas's influence which he was about to establish with reference to the magistracy. It was the reflection, then, of this train of little ambition which Sir Thomas read in his countenance, and mistook for some communication that might relieve him, and set his mind probably at ease. The scowl we allude to accordingly disappeared, and Sir Thomas, after the glance we have recorded, said, checking himself into a milder ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... knew thou didst not brook Half-hearted worship, and a love that wavers; Haho! there is the wisdom I mistook, Therefore I seek with desperate endeavours; That fault dissevers ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... for her to do; and she remained in complexion much as before. O, the mockery of it! That secret dream—that sweet word 'Baroness!'—which had sustained her all the way along. Instead of a Baron there stood Jim, white-waistcoated, demure, every hair in place, and, if she mistook not, even a deedy spark in ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions. He would try every way deliberately, till he found out what I wanted him to do, and when I once made him understand a direction he never forgot or mistook it again." ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... preservation, that the late Duke of Northumberland proposed to restore it, and make it his residence, instead of Alnwick Castle. Near it a hermit dwelt in a cavern: he became a hermit in consequence of having killed the brother of his betrothed, whom he mistook for a rival, after his return from ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... discourteous street-car persisted callously in remaining upon its track Gloria ducked down a side-street—and thereafter that afternoon was never able to find her way back to the Post Road. The street they finally mistook for it lost its Post-Road aspect when it had gone five miles from Cos Cob. Its macadam became gravel, then dirt—moreover, it narrowed and developed a border of maple trees, through which filtered the weltering sun, making its endless experiments ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... you see how you mistook, I was a Rival to his Mistresses, But to his Friends, one ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... that I had never in my life been at Colchester. He begged my pardon and hoped no offence would be taken where none had been meant. My voice, coming right back to its own quarters, reassured him that of course I had taken no offence at all, adding that I myself very often mistook one face for another. He replied, rather inconsequently, that the world was ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... where he was waiting for Durfee's return, and they walked down a lane to a fence corner, where a Mormon named William Bird was lying, armed with a gun. Here occurred what might be called an illustration of "poetic justice." In the twilight, Bird mistook his victim, and fired, killing Potter. As Bird rose and stepped forward, Parrish asked if it was he who had fired the unexpected shot. For a reply Bird drew a knife, clenched with Parrish, and, as ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... that she never made these reproaches in terms; so far from that, she would not even believe the slanders of those she mistook for his enemies; but Clinch could not always quiet the spirit within him, and he often felt degraded as he remembered with how much more firmness Jane supported the load of hope deferred than he did himself. The recent interview with Cuffe had aroused all that remained of ambition and self-respect, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... died as he lived, an example of true courage, honour, and humility. On the 24th General Mansel narrowly escaped being surrounded at Villers de Couche by the enemy, owing to a mistake of General Otto's aide-de-camp, who was sent to bring up the heavy cavalry: in doing which he mistook the way, and led them to the front of the enemy's cannon, by which the 3rd Dragoon Guards suffered considerably."—Extract from the Evening Mail, May ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... claim to commendation, that, although the intrigue is licentious, according to the invariable licence of the age, the language is, in general, free from the extreme and disgusting coarseness, which our author too frequently mistook for wit, or was contented to substitute in its stead. The liveliness and even brilliancy of the dialogue, shows that Dryden, from the stores of his imagination, could, when he pleased, command that essential requisite of comedy; and that, if he has seldom succeeded, it was only ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... taken place, that I hardly realized what had happened. I rushed forward to stay the combat, but he mistook the purpose, struck my scimitar with a force that sent it flying through the air, and had raised his staff to deal a second for myself, when brave Lev-el-Hedyd stepped in to save me, and thrust quickly at him. But alas! the Mehrikan warded ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... family, took upon him pragmatically to reprove me for standing with my hat on before the magistrates, and snatched my hat from off my head, Knowls, in a pleasant manner, corrected him, telling him that he mistook himself in taking a cap for a hat (for mine was a montero-cap), and bade him give it me again; which he (though unwillingly) doing, I forthwith put it on my head again, and thenceforward none meddled ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... stick, which I had procured in Connecticut. It was covered with strange carvings and he mistook them for hieroglyphics, and gave me ten ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... of me. You are afraid to let me kiss you, because you are afraid of loving me. This afternoon—here—I all but kissed you. I mistook you for Death. I was enamoured of Death. I was a fool. That is what YOU are, you incomparable darling: you are a fool. You are afraid of life. I am not. I love life. I am going to live ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... insomuch that, purely in compassion to their own ears, they had been forced to send for another surgeon, purposely to tell her, though against his judgment, and (being a friend of the other) to seem to convince him, that he mistook the case; and that if she would be patient, she might recover. But, nevertheless, her apprehensions of death, and her antipathy to the thoughts of dying, were so strong, that their imposture had not the intended effect, and she was raving, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... police. The attempt of the detectives to excuse themselves at headquarters by reporting that they were also on the track of an alleged escaped Sydney Duck was received with the derision and skepticism it deserved, as it seemed that these worthies mistook the mail steamer, which they should have boarded to get certain extradition papers, ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Cunningham, who visited the spot (1862), found a pillar, evidently of the age of Asoka, with a well-carved elephant on the top, which, however, was minus trunk and tail. He supposes this to be the pillar seen by Fa-hien, who mistook the top of it for a lion. It is possible such a mistake may have been made, as in the account of one of the pillars at Sravasti, Fa-hien says an ox formed the capital, whilst Hsuean-chwang calls it ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... doomed to a heavy draft upon our faith. After a very busy day of measuring, cutting, and fitting garments for the little ones, I went in haste to place a bundle of patches in the box in the hall room. It was now dark twilight, and I mistook the cellar door for that of the hall. Passing through, I fell headlong seven feet against the corner of a hard-wood beam. I received many bruises, and the concussion fractured both the inner and outer layers of the left temporal bone, and severed the temporal artery. I was taken ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... and Lammen, which still stood between the fleet and the city. From the latter they fled in alarm at the noise of the falling of a large portion of the town walls which had been thrown down by the waters, and which in the darkness they luckily mistook for some operation of their adversaries; otherwise they might easily have entered and captured Leyden. The fleet of Boissot approached the city on the morning of October 3d. After the pangs of hunger were relieved the whole population repaired ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Louis Phillippe fled from France. The people flocked around Lamartine. They had been charmed by his grand words for humanity; they were now fascinated by his commanding mien and noble countenance. They thought because he sang sweetly, wrote nobly, that he was a statesman. They mistook. The author had no talents for statesmanship, and he fell. He was too ideal—not sufficiently practical; and he could not hold the position which the populace had given him. For a short time his ambition—never an impure one—was gratified, for he saw France turn ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... she said, "and you has the courage of ten women. I'll tell Andy what you say; but, oh, glory! there's mischief in that man's eyes, or I'm much mistook." ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as inseparable as peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them for my long ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... snap! Brownie Beaver should have known what that meant. But he was so eager to have his picture taken that he mistook the snap for the click that he had first heard almost a ...
— The Tale of Brownie Beaver • Arthur Scott Bailey
... old commercial traveller drunk is an impossibility. Cesar mistook the elation of the man's vulgarity when he attempted ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... one, my spiritual guide mistook the name. He has heard of both, I warrant him, and thinks in his conscience that either is as good a roast ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and thought the group a very pretty one, though a plump toad sat at Sylvia's feet, a roly-poly caterpillar was walking up her sleeve, a blind bird chirped on her shoulder, bees buzzed harmlessly about her head, as if they mistook her for a flower, and in her hand a little field mouse was breathing its short life away. Any tender-hearted girl might have stood thus surrounded by helpless things that pity had endeared, but few would have regarded them with an expression like that which Sylvia ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... rioters was but brief. They mistook the inaction of the few policemen opposed to them for timidity, and the immense masses behind pushed them forward. Therefore, with a new impetus, the howling, yelling throng approached, and Merwyn could distinguish the features of the liquor-inflamed, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... Wellington, whom her son strikingly resembled in features, person, and character; while his father was principally distinguished as a musical composer and performer. [118] But, strange to say, Wellington's mother mistook him for a dunce; and, for some reason or other, he was not such a favourite as her other children, until his great deeds in after-life constrained her to ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... a fact, for that very day the squadron captured well-nigh a dozen merchantmen homeward bound, which mistook it for the Earl of Warwick's fleet, and fell without firing a shot ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cavour entered into a struggle with him, he would have the majority of old diplomatists on his side, but European public opinion would be against him, and it would be right. He argued thus with those who mistook his forbearance for weakness, when it ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... rudeness of versification." It is a fashion. People abuse their "Browning" as they abuse their "Bradshaw," though all that is wanting, in either case, is a little patience and a little common sense. Browning might say, as his wife said in an early preface, "I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet;" as indeed he has himself said, to much the same effect, in a letter printed many years ago: "I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin—the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind construction ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the pledge of this falseness in Pope lay in a disease of his mind, which he (like the Roman poet Horace) mistook for a feature of preternatural strength; and this disease was the incapacity of self-determination towards any paramount or abiding principles. Horace, in a well-known passage, had congratulated himself upon this disease as upon ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... been accused of arrogance; people have never seen that what they mistook for arrogance was the natural, candid consciousness of a great noble that he is more capable of leading the country than most men composing ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... St. Prix, in revenge {221} stirred up many persons against the holy prelate, and with twenty armed men met the bishop as he returned from court, at Volvic, two leagues from Clermont, and first slew the abbot St. Damarin, whom the ruffians mistook for the bishop. St. Prix, perceiving their design, courageously presented himself to them, and was stabbed in the body by a Saxon named Radbert. The saint, receiving this wound, said, "Lord, lay ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... stand and what I will not stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural self-distrust of a girl in the presence of social experience—and under its protection as she had a right to suppose—prevented me from checking you when your conversation became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to remain on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what you have done to me ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... not mad, after all! I thought she mistook you for some one else. If you know her, you have the best right to deal with her. Shall these men ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... a mistake has obtained widely. It has figured in print, and finds a place in at least one dictionary. Several correspondents have written that the word Kangaroo meant "I don't understand," and that Banks mistook this for a name. This is quite possible, but at least some proof is needed, as for instance the actual words in the aboriginal language that could be twisted into this meaning. To find these words, and to hear their true sound, would test how ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... converging on Manassas. Sigel and Reynolds' four divisions passed through Gainesville, not five miles from Sudley Springs, and for a time were actually in contact with Jackson's outposts; and yet Sigel and Reynolds mistook Jackson's outposts for reconnoitring cavalry. Again, when King's single division, the rear-guard of Pope's army, appeared upon the turnpike, Jackson attacked it with the idea that it was the flank-guard of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... fine arts on manual labor." For all these enlightened measures the King had the credit and the glory; and it certainly redounds to his sagacity that he accepted such wise suggestions, although he mistook them for his own. So to the eyes of Europe Louis at once loomed up as an enlightened monarch; and it would be difficult to rob him of this glory. He indorsed the economical reforms of his great minister, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... her, he took this Heart, Which met the welcome Arrows in their flight, And sav'd her from their Dangers. Oft I've return'd the Vows he'as made to her, And sent him pleas'd away; When through the errors of the Night, and distance, He has mistook me for that happy Wanton, And gave me Language of so soft a Power, As ne'er was breath'd in vain ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... impression, not quite of frigidity perhaps, but of that quality of serene self-possession which strangers sometimes mistook ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... with grief, and my soul is sad!" Meanwhile, the other had also stretched out his arms toward the wardrobe, while tears fell from his eyes as he cried to a pair of yellow leather pantaloons which he mistook for the moon, "Fair art thou, daughter of heaven! Lovely and blessed is the calm of thy countenance. Thou walkest in loveliness! The stars follow thy blue path in the east! At thy glance the clouds rejoice, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... her high purpose being sensitive, she mistook the brusque tenderness in Saxham's face and voice ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... remote booming of thunder failed to awaken Paul to the reality of the brewing tempest; it reached him in his daydream, but as a message not of the wrath of heaven but of the wrath of man. He mistook it for the ceaseless voice of the guns and weaved it into his brooding as Wagner wove the Valkyrie theme into the score of the Nibeluengen. A faint breeze whispered ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... "Sure!" says I. "Just mistook the basement for the drawin'-room, didn't you? And you was about to leave cards on the fam'ly. What name did ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Pete mistook Philip's hesitation for a silent commentary on his own unworthiness. "I know I'm only a sort of a waistrel," he said, "but, Phil, the way I'm loving that girl it's shocking. I can never take rest for thinking of her. No, I'm not sleeping at night ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Redman," interposed Nevers, who entirely mistook the singular change which had come over Richard's countenance. "Come, Grant, you and I will talk it over alone;" and he took his arm, and led him away ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... to quench our thirst at a rill, the rest got in advance of us; and we lost our way in a labyrinth of buffalo tracks which we mistook for the trail, so that we wandered about for three hours before we came up with the party, who began to fear for our safety, and were firing signal-guns to direct us. As the river now grew deeper, we all embarked in the canoes, and about ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... His swarthy face forced itself upon her, and her mother's image grew faint. Why did he kiss her, why? Surely it must have been some mistake—it was dark; perhaps he mistook her. Here her heart began beating so that it tolled like a bell in her brain—mistook her, oh, God, for her mother! No! no! That could never be. Had she not caught him watching her very often? But then why should her mother have kissed him—perhaps ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... reply. She was no longer afraid. She knew that her prayers, and those of Abraham, had been answered, and that no harm would befall her. Pharaoh mistook her silence and advanced toward her. As he did so, however, he felt a tremendous blow on the head. He was stunned for a moment. On recovering himself he looked all round the room, but could see nothing. Sarah continued ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... wouldn't tell me his name: I mistook him for a thief at first; but afterwards I felt very, very sorry for him. You see, his case was rather like my own. He was wishing ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... was a human foot-print—too small and slender for the foot of a man, a boy or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible—wider apart—and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson flash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming bush of sumach. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling, he rose ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... say, these wild places are exceedingly disagreeable, for they induce me to make strange metamorphoses: my fancy is continually upon the alert to transform every object into any thing save what it really is: at day-break I mistook my ass for an officer, and your mule for a Moor. Alas! we are alike, my honored master; for you, Don Rodrigo, when in a poetic and loving mood, are ever disposed to convert cheeks into roses, and lips into coral, and to find pearls where others only see teeth. Now, Senor, by a similar process, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... little before that last word, and her voice fell. But Jude Cartwright was wholly fascinated by the color in her face, and the softness of her voice he mistook for a ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... he awoke in the dark and thought that he had gone blind. He raised a disturbance, lamenting and scolding me, saying that I had put his eyes out. When I entered his room with a light he mistook me for Padre Irene ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Harrington, marm, and mistook you for her—that's all," said Ben, without lifting his eyes to the singular girl ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... That she mistook what really was in his eyes was not material, though he was thinking of days when he believed he had discovered the secret of life—a woman whose life was beautiful; diffusing beauty, contentment, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the thick fog, Edward had stationed his men at a venture upon the heath at Gladsmoor, [Edward "had the greater number of men."—HALL, p. 296.] and hastily environed the camp with palisades and trenches. He had intended to have rested immediately in front of the foe, but, in the darkness, mistook the extent of the hostile line; and his men were ranged only opposite to the left side of the earl's force (towards Hadley), leaving the right unopposed. Most fortunate for Edward was this mistake; for Warwick's artillery, and the new and deadly bombards he had constructed, were placed ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... your fal-lals!" she exclaimed; "here's a fine boutigo to make of a parcel of ribands and laces that'll make you look like a couple of the puppets at Corpus Fair. If you wear such as those to the Flora you'll be mistook for a Maypole, and ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... there was a man to load for me and a man to guide the beast. We moved slowly and cautiously. It was dark, as I said, but the showers of falling bananas made yellow streaks against the black that the elephant constantly mistook for tigers flying through the air as they leaped in silent fury against the howdah in which we crouched upon his back. The howdah, you ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... husband, and that, Asta being the fruit of this infidelity, there is no blood kinship between her and Allmers. The danger of relying upon such complexities is shown by the fact that so acute a critic as M. Jules Lemaitre, in writing of Little Eyolf, mistook the situation, and thought that Asta fled from Allmers because he was her brother, whereas in fact she fled because he was not. I had the honour of calling M. Lemaitre's attention to this error, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... usually of freestone. There may have been porphyry from the neighbouring mountains mixed with this, which the Spaniards mistook for marble.] ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... of the ocean of De La Bue were thundering at my feet, while the broad blue waters of Christie Bay stretched away to the southwest. Against the northern horizon, rising out of the ocean like a summer thunder-head, for which at first I mistook it, towered the far-distant, snowy summit ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... night-lamps, they proceeded up the staircase, but soon parted, as their rooms were situated in different galleries. From the dim light, and the many branching corridors, Magdalena mistook her way, and was just convinced of her mistake, when a sudden puff of wind put out her lamp. Feeble glimmering as it gave, it yet would have enabled her to find her way, and she was just on the point of calling out for aid, when she perceived a light approach from an adjacent ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... except immediately on the coast itself, no suspicion of our arrival had joined currency, and even the country people who lived a mile from the shore were ignorant of who we were. The few who, from distant heights and headlands, had seen the ships, mistook them for English, and as all those who were out with fish or vegetables to sell were detained by the frigates, any direct information about us was impossible. So far, therefore, all might be said to have gone most favorably with us. We had safely escaped the often-menaced ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... piece of soap with him, and didn't know enough German to ask for any when he got over there, and didn't see any to ask for even if he had known, and was away for three weeks, and wasn't able to wash himself all the time, and came home so dirty that they didn't know him, and mistook him for the man that was to come to see what was the matter ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... They instantly quitted their prize, and rushed towards the door of the room. He was now returned to a sense of his danger, and endeavoured to escape to the exterior part of the ruin; but terror bewildered his senses, and he mistook his way. Instead of regaining the arch-way, he perplexed himself with fruitless wanderings, and at length found himself only more deeply involved in the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... advance of his men. Suddenly the commander fell, wounded. At first it was thought that the enemy bad shot him, but investigation showed that the ball had entered his back. It was presumed, then, that some of his own men had mistook him for an enemy and had shot him through mistake. Leonard had performed the nefarious deed knowingly. By some skillful detective work, I secured incontestible evidence of his guilt. I went to him with my proof and informed him of my intentions to lay it ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... the gate was a big gray gander with only one eye. That one eye, extra keen and fierce, caught sight of Young Grumpy, and probably mistook him for an immense rat, thief of eggs and murderer of goslings. With a harsh hiss and neck outstretched till it was like a snake, the great ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... down on Arvilly, and I guess Arvilly looked down on her. You know it happens so sometimes—two folks will feel real above each other, though it stands to reason that one of 'em must be mistook. Miss Meechim thought she wuz more genteel than Arvilly, and was worth more, and I guess she had had better advantages. And Arvilly thought she knew more than Miss Meechim, and I guess mebby she did. Miss Meechim thought she wuz jest right herself, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... birds flocked instantly out from the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and thither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell to singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial day for the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly well- ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished so speedily. By means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt out nearly all the old friends. One ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the fleet. Upon approach of the ship there were prolonged cheers from all of Uncle Sam's defenders. The only explanation that I have ever heard for this unpardonable blunder on the part of the ship's crew was that they mistook a signal of a ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... sufficient to resolve the question as to the identity of the Nigir, in which an approximation is all that can be expected or required. Having been totally ignorant of the countries through which that river flows in a southerly direction, Ptolemy naturally mistook it for a river of the interior; he knew the middle Ethiopia to be a country watered by lakes, formed by streams rising in mountains to the southward; he was superior to the vulgar error of supposing that all the waters ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish |
