"Misunderstand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well to misunderstand him, but he was deeply disappointed. He retired into the library behind the drawing-room of the Schuyler mansion, and wrote another and a more elaborate letter to Robert Morris. He began with a reiteration of the impotence of Congress, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... explanatory note upon my last; for I am not learned enough, nor yet dull enough, to make my comment much longer than my text. I told you then, in my former letter, that, with your leave (which I will suppose granted), I would add fifty pounds to your draught for that sum; now, lest you should misunderstand this, and wait for the remittance of that additional fifty from hence, know then my meaning was, that you should likewise draw upon me for it when you please; which I presume, will be more ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... successfully against these unworthy feelings so long as Walter was his friend, but now that he had allowed himself to seek a quarrel with him they grew up with tremendous luxuriance. And he was so thoroughly in the wrong, and so obstinate in persisting to misunderstand and misrepresent his former friend, that gradually, by his pertinacity and injustice, he alienated the regard of all those who had once been his chosen companions. Even Whalley grew cool towards him. He had to look elsewhere for associates, and unhappily he ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... not prepared for such a rebuff. She was interested in him, and not ashamed to show it. She feared only that he might misunderstand her; but to refuse her proffered friendship, that was indeed unexpected. Rude she thought it was, while from brow to curving throat her fair skin crimsoned. Then her face grew pale as the moonlight. Hard on her resentment had surged the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... me at once, and I felt very uncomfortable, lest he should misunderstand the state of affairs and jump to the conclusion that I had been already engaged by the firm. At all risks I determined to put him right ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... well paid for it, my son. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not planning to take her off their hands. I am not going to reconstruct her sphere in life. Not by any means. I am merely saying that it is a crime for her to be penned up for life in this—this ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... "You misunderstand me," she said. "That is not why I am anxious. I am anxious because of something I have just learnt about Percy. I am afraid ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... of negligence; you are hasty, and misunderstand me," she answered, after waiting for him to begin again, as if he were a rash aggressor. "It is possible that you desire to abandon our case, and conceive affront ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... not let us misunderstand each other, or the Apostle's teaching. Do not suppose that I am forgetting, or wishing you to account as of small importance, the awful sense in which Christ's suffering stands as a thing by itself and unapproachable, a solitary pillar rising up, above the waste of time, to which all men everywhere ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... presume to make another remark," said the prince calmly, but pale, "it is only, believe me, sir, from the profound respect I feel for you. Do not misunderstand these feelings, sir. They are not unbecoming the past. Now that my mother has departed, there is no one to whom I am attached except yourself. I have no feeling whatever towards any other human being. All my thought and all my sentiment are engrossed by my country. But pardon ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... misunderstand me, young man," replied the captain gravely. "My friend, Captain Tolley, would be the last man to commit piracy, or anything of that kind. But just look at the case. Here Captain Tolley is, off at sea, attending to his proper business. Well, he comes into some condemned port, just to ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... be mad," said Sir Michael, gravely. "I'm bewildered by what you tell me. Did he really say this, Lucy, or did you misunderstand him?" ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... was mistaken. He got back safely, and secretly offered it in various directions. No one would touch the thing; moreover, although of great value, the stones were very far from flawless, and not really worth the risks which he had run to secure them. Don't misunderstand me; the Key would fetch a big sum, but ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... for a few seconds, and the wonder stirred within her if perhaps even now he could misunderstand her. And then he spoke, his voice very low, curiously uneven. "I know. I loved him, too. That was—the ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... to one like you of the truth that we are made in the image of God? The Kingdom of Heaven—that whole whirling activity of the commonwealth of God—the citizenship towards which you might be pointing Baxter Court—you have not even imagined it. I am not being sentimental. Don't misunderstand. Don't fancy, for instance, that I am exhorting you to go slumming. Deliberately or not, you took a wrong impression from my first letter. You can't mistake this. Reach after a few of the realities. Why not shut your questioning mind a while and open your soul? Live a little—begin ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... neighbor, Dame Chatte, has taken her needle, and who then hurries to tell Dame Chatte that she is accused by Gammer of stealing a favorite rooster. Naturally there is a terrible row when the two irate old women meet and misunderstand each other. Diccon also drags Doctor Rat, the curate, into the quarrel by telling him that, if he will but creep into Dame Chatte's cottage by a hidden way, he will find her using the stolen needle. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Something that will tax all my energy of mind and body. That is what I want. I hope you do not misunderstand me, sir. I do not wish to seem ungrateful ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... "You willfully misunderstand me, Miss Thesiger; the delight consists in being with you, not in working for the Cherokees. Save that I shudder when I hear that they have eaten a missionary, they have no ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... only question whether special confessions will conduce to it. My experience is against them. I almost doubt whether they can be perfectly honest between man and man; and, taking into account the difference of our ages, it seems to be much more likely that we should misunderstand one another. But having said this, I leave it to you to follow your own conscience in the matter. If there is any burthen which I can help you to bear, it will be my greatest pleasure, as it is my duty, to do it. So now, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of trouble, as the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... pretend to misunderstand her then, but when it was put to me so plainly it did not seem to me all so certain that my suit would fare better than my vow. I had no fear once that the last would not have been welcome, and was mistaken enough. Now, perhaps because I was in real ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... parishioners, assisted by such other of the inhabitants of Wychwood-on-the-Heath as had happened to come into personal contact with the reverend gentleman, had sought to impress upon him, by hints and innuendoes difficult to misunderstand, their cordial and daily-increasing dislike of him, both as a parson and a man. Matters had come to a head by the determination officially announced to him that, failing other alternatives, a deputation of his leading parishioners would wait upon his bishop. This it was that had brought it ...
— The Cost of Kindness - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... be plain, now, and you mustn't misunderstand me for a minute," Champers declared. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... are as I have said them. They are sufficiently explicit. You need not misunderstand them. What, I ask, are your pretensions to the hand of my daughter, and how is it that you have so far forgotten yourself as thus to abuse my confidence, stealing into the affections ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... will tell you plainly what I am. I am just a messenger, perhaps more like a policeman," he added, smiling, "than anything else. I just go and appear when I am wanted, if there is a row or a chance of one. Don't misunderstand me!" he said more kindly. "It is not from any lack of interest in you or our friend here. I should very much like to know what step you will take, but it is simply not my business: our duties here ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... awakened, but not morbid, conscience. Prudentius views his past years in the light of that new spiritual truth to which he has opened his soul. We gather that he received a liberal education and was called to the bar. We need not misunderstand the allusion to the deceitfulness of the barrister life, seeing that the ordinary arts of rhetoric stand condemned by his recently adopted ethical standard. He held two important judicial posts and was promoted to a ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... Do not misunderstand me. Carefully weigh, probe, and examine, before God, your impressions and desires. Go into your closet, spread them there before the Lord. Lay them out, examine your own heart. Be sure there is no self-interest, no vain glory, no desire to be great, or to do ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... MURRAY. Don't misunderstand me. Far be it from me to cast slurs at your father's high spirits. I said I envied him his jag and that's the truth. The same candour compels me to confess that I was pickled to the gills myself when I arrived here. Fact! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... life such that some day one or both of us would have died suddenly. For"—she looked him with a hot clearness in the eyes—"for there is just so much that a woman can bear. I wish this talk had not come now, but, since it has come, it is better to speak plainly. You see, you misunderstand. A heathen has a heart as another—has a life to be spoiled or made happy as another. Had there been one honest passion in your treatment of me— in your marrying me—there would be something on which to base mutual respect, which is more or less necessary when one is expected to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have named me would have pleased me as well. During the wild climb, and wilder drop, we had hardly spoken to each other, yet I felt that I could never misunderstand him, or try frivolously to aggravate him again. He was too good for all that, too good to be ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Matthew's account, and virtually so also as stated by Mark, or "when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies" as Luke writes, "then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." This was a specific sign that none could misunderstand. Daniel the prophet had foreseen the desolation and abominations thereof, which comprized the forcible cessation of temple rites, and the desecration of Israel's shrine by ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... misunderstand me! I am not bound by any definite pledge of secrecy; but I am bound in honour to respect Mr. Trelawny's confidence, given to me, I may tell you, in a very large measure. Regarding many of the objects in his room he has a definite purpose in view; and it would not be either right or becoming ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... in distress, "you quite misunderstand Miss Adair, mamma. Besides, it has not deprived me of my teaching: Miss Polehampton had told me that I might go to her sister's school at Worthing if I liked; and she only let me go yesterday ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... true, and yet it is quite possible for people who do not normally see astrally to misunderstand them. Every order of physical matter has its corresponding order of astral matter in constant association with it—not to be separated from it except by a very considerable exertion of occult force, and even then only to be held apart from it as long as force is ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... "Thou dost greatly misunderstand me; he is on the contrary a most delightful person to converse with and every whit fit to be a King;—but we are ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... yield to my wish. The matter really deserves careful reflection on your part as to how you can make amends for having spoilt this day so bright for me, owing as much to my frame of mind as to the cheerful weather. When I said that you misunderstand me, your present judgment of me shows that I was quite right—not to speak of what you thought to yourself about it. When I said that something bad would come of it if I came to you, this was more as a joke. The object was to show you how much everything ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... bush; for the longer one delays in lighting it the greater will be the heat it yields, and the longer will its force endure. One may easily fall into habits which it is very difficult to shake off, for when one desires to do so, he finds he has lost the power. Don't misunderstand my words, my friend: if I had such a fair mistress as you have, I call God and His saints to witness, I should leave her most reluctantly; indeed, I should doubtless be infatuated. But a man may give another counsel, which he would not take ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... It was a good deal your fault. If you had only said who you really were—if my husband had not been idiot enough to misunderstand—if Miss SEATON had been more straightforward, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... let me down gently, Honor," he said, with a rather cheerless smile. "And you may as well save yourself the trouble. Only—this is where you must not misunderstand me, please,—no shadow of blame attaches to Ladybird if she isn't happy. I had no right to bring her up to this part of the world, knowing it as I did; and I've no right to keep her here. That's ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... "don't you misunderstand. I said I had a reason. I have. My folks have some money they want to put into a safe place. And they like Cartwright. I do too, but—you know how it is. I want to be sure. Anyhow I'm glad I asked these questions. ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... firm basis while it was yet time. Were the old form of voting by three chambers intended, it was folly to make the popular one as numerous as the other two together. Were a new form of National Assembly, with only one chamber, to be brought into being, it was culpable to allow the old orders to misunderstand their fall from power. "We are an essential part of the monarchy," said the nobles. "We are twenty-three twenty-fourths of the nation, and the more useful part at that," retorted the Commons. "Our claim rests on law and history," cried the one. "And ours on reason ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... easy to twist out of shape what I have just said, easy to affect to misunderstand it, and, if it is slurred over in repetition, not difficult really to misunderstand it. Some persons are sincerely incapable of understanding that to denounce mud-slinging does not mean the indorsement of whitewashing; and both the interested individuals who need whitewashing, and those others ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... lay, and finding himself thus beset, old Simon falls to his usual artifices, turning this way and that, like a rat in a pit, to find some hole for escape. First he feigns to misunderstand, then, clapping his hands in his pockets, he knows not where he can have laid them; after that fancies he must have given them to his man Peter, who is gone out of an errand, etc.; until Moll, losing ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... ranks; the long columns dragged wearily through the dust, and the Federal cavalry was not easily pushed back. Guns and infantry had to be brought up before Bayard's dismounted squadrons were dislodged. But the real cause of delay is to be found elsewhere. Not only did General Hill misunderstand his orders, but, apparently offended by Jackson's reticence, he showed but little zeal. The orders were certainly incomplete. Nothing had been said about the supply trains, and they were permitted to ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... "You misunderstand me, Miss Verriner. Blake will not come back as an official. There will be changes in the Department, I imagine; changes for the better which even he and his Tammany Hall friends can't stop, by the time he gets back ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... dreary period of Rationalism, the schools established by the Brethren were a "sanctuary for the old Gospel, with its blessed promises and glorious hopes." It would be better, however, to speak of these schools as barracks. If we think of the Brethren as retiring hermits, we shall entirely misunderstand their character. They fought the Rationalists with their own weapons; they gave a splendid classical, literary and scientific education; they enforced their discipline on the sons of barons and nobles; they staffed their schools with men of learning and piety; and ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... to try and misunderstand him, and at last, after two more feints, I felt that there was nothing else to be done but to allow myself to ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... as I know," Laura replied, not affecting to misunderstand his jibe. Lucian Selincourt was her only brother and very dear to her, but there was no denying that his career had its seamy side. He was not, like her father, a family skeleton—he had never been warned off the Turf: but he was rarely solitary and never out of debt. "Poor Lucian, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... Please do not misunderstand me; I am not looking upon this from any narrow point of view, I am not thinking merely of getting these children ready for jobs—certainly not all of them. I am not advocating the transforming of our high schools into trade schools—not ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... suppressed flapping of its rear curtain, a word of plaintive protest. "I am not of the great world," it seems to say; "I make no pretence to fashion. We are steady and solid, but we are not precisely in society, and we are far, very far indeed, from any attempt to cut a great figure. However, do not misunderstand our position; it is not that we are under, nor that we are exactly aside; perhaps we have been left just a little behind. Yes, that might express it—just a ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... I expostulated, "you entirely misunderstand me. I am not in the least sorry that I told you. How could I have done otherwise under the circumstances? But I want you to understand that I have taken the responsibility of communicating to you what is really a professional secret, and that you are ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... on my defence. You at least shall not misunderstand me, Lyra. One intense regret I have; that I did not live in the time of the Amazons. They were free from this question of marriage; this babble of love. Why am I so persecuted? He will not take a refusal. There are sacred ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doorsill; and Jadvyga in her anxiety—for she was fond of Ona—opened the door wide, holding her jacket across her throat. "Are you sure you didn't misunderstand her?" she cried. "She must ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... impossible, forced her to develop her own strength by steady and determined resistance. But her position was more than difficult; it was desperate. There was scarcely one, even amongst the most indulgent of her friends, who did not misunderstand her and blame her at times. She kept the pendulum of public opinion swaying vehemently during the whole of her first season in Malta. Major Livingston shook his head about her from ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... it be? or what?). As I got down near the beach a poor woman, oldish, and seemingly, lately at least, respectable, followed me and made signs. She was drenched to the skin, and looked wretched below wretchedness. You know, I did not like to look back at her; it seemed as if she might misunderstand and be terribly hurt and slighted; so I stood at the end of the street - there was no one else within sight in the wet - and lifted up my hand very high with some money in it. I heard her steps draw heavily near behind me, and, when she was near enough to see, I let the money fall in the ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all wrong about mother and Mr. Clarke. They have nothing to do with what happens." Her beautiful hands were clinched and her face set in the resolution to force her confession upon him. Her bosom rose and fell piteously as she struggled for words, "You must not misunderstand me. I believe in the spirit-world. Sometimes I say I don't, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... "Please don't misunderstand me," pleaded the Philosopher, with a nervous glance towards the lowering eyebrows of the Girton Girl. "I am not saying for a moment woman is not the equal of man; indeed, it is my belief that she is. I am merely maintaining she is not his superior. The wise man honours woman ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... letter: enveloped it: then thought there was something in it you might misunderstand—Yes!—the written word across the Atlantic looking perhaps so different from what intended; so kept my Letter in my pocket, and went my ways. This morning your Letter of April 3 is forwarded to me; and I shall re-write the one thing that I yesterday wrote about—as I had intended to do before ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... (beef); he has plenty of cattle and sheep: and the next day he sent abundance of milk. We stand a good deal of staring unmoved, though it is often accompanied by remarks by no means complimentary; they think that they are not understood, and probably I do misunderstand sometimes. The Waiyau jumble their words as I think, and Mataka thought that I did not enunciate anything, but kept my tongue still ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... could not misunderstand certain mute symptoms, and was sometimes alarmed at this silent jealousy. Fearing to exasperate this most violent feminine sentiment in so strong a soul, he was compelled day by day to resort to tricks which wounded his pride, and probably ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... development of the fertilized egg-cell should be explained in a serious way that will help boys get some fundamental ideas as to what motherhood means Boys, moreover, should be informed concerning the existence of the periodic disturbance in the other sex, for unless they know they are sure at times to misunderstand their sisters and other girls. Professor W.S. Hall has stated the essential information in "Chums" (for boys twelve to sixteen), but his comparison of periodicity in the two sexes is not strictly accurate, for there are not in men any sexual cycles that are strictly ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... just rule other than that of moral and abstract right! With reference to those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to misunderstand it. I take it that I have to address an intelligent and reading community, who will peruse what I say, weigh it, and then judge whether I advanced improper or unsound views, or whether I advanced hypocritical, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and with a bland smile; "you misunderstand my illustrious patron: he loves you, but ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... than was necessary because I had something to say to William which I feared he would misunderstand, but when he announced that it was time for him to catch a train back to London, at which his wife paled, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... attended to at once. Why? Because they are the most law-abiding and influential section of the community? No, but because they are just at the present time the most powerful section of the community. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean that the temperance people of our land have not the balance of power in their own hands. They certainly have, but they do not make use of it, while the liquor element use what power they have for all it is worth. The ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... "Please don't misunderstand me," he said earnestly. "As I see it, that land belonged to you by all that is right and fair. Legally, perhaps, it didn't, but legal honesty isn't always moral honesty. I've found that out even in ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... they didn't have forefathers to hang on to, or money, which of course would speak for itself. And dear, angelic Miss Susanna, who is so worn out with boarders and their special kind of human-nature horridness at times that she's hardly got body enough to cover her soul, said I mustn't misunderstand her, but the Holts had never gone in the same circles as the other people I had met, and that customs, though unkind, were hard to overcome, ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... it is the serious state of our possessions in India, owing to the advances of the English there, that brings me to France. Perhaps I misunderstand." ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... the present constitution of man cannot be understood without going back to the Saturn state, the description therefore must be given. And surely no one will misunderstand such a description who keeps in view the existence of the difficulty, and the fact that owing to it much that is said must be in the nature of a suggestion or hint of the facts in question, rather than an exact ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... and agitated at this appeal, the purport of which I could not misunderstand. My emotions, at first, prevented me from speaking. I arose from the sofa, Josephine still hanging upon my shoulder, and taking her father's hand, led them both to the window. The sun was near the horizon; and mountain, sea, and green valley, and dark forest, were steeped ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... That we misunderstand the gift of tongues, and that it did not mean the power of speaking foreign languages unlearnt, I ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... to the drawing-room; his wife was coming forth then, her cloak and gloves on, her fan in her hand. "Maude, my darling," he exclaimed, "what has kept you? Surely you have not waited for me?—you did not misunderstand me?" ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... this people say—and quite rightly—is both impossible and undesirable. Throughout the preceding chapters I have striven, wherever feasible, to counter this misunderstanding—but I have little hope of success. The DETERMINATION of the world to misunderstand or misinterpret anything a little new or unfamiliar is a thing which perhaps only an author can duly appreciate. But while it is clear that self-consciousness originally came into being through a process of alienation and exile and fear which marked it with the Cain-like brand ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... only true that most people entirely misunderstand Freedom, but I sometimes think I have not yet met one person who rightly understands it. The whole Universe is absolute Law. Freedom only opens entire activity and license under the law. To the degraded or undevelopt—and even to too many others—the thought of freedom is a thought ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... no fears; Ruth could never be anything but kind, although people so often misunderstand her and think her stern. She will never let generosity carry away her sense of justice; and after all that is the better way," thought Agnes, as she descended to the sitting room. Guy was home that night. As Agnes entered the room he laid down his book with the remark: "I say, Agnes, ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... famous advice to Shelley to "be more of an artist and load every rift with ore"—Shelley whose art transcends artistry and whose substance is as the unbroken nugget gold, so that there are no rifts in it to load—is, even when one remembers how often poets misunderstand each other,[29] rather "cold water to the back" ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... misunderstand me," he resumed. "I heard of these things at Borcette, and I said that I should undertake to inquire into them in the place of your father: just as he, health permitting him, would have undertaken for me in my absence, did any trouble arise ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... reader not to misunderstand me; most of the baronet's letters to me were of a public nature, and those that were private, were not about my business, but his own. Thank God! he has no letters from me, about any money transactions; for I hereby most ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... Mrs. G., you are an experienced cateress, that I confess. But there is a delicacy in the thing which two such meals a day would utterly destroy. You misunderstand me? It is the expectancy, the snuffing up of the fumes beforehand, the very consciousness of your inability to cope with it, which makes such a meal delicious. Now two a day would leave a man no chance to get properly hungry. That's the point. It is the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... "You misunderstand me, Citoyen Droulde," she said at last hurriedly. "You have all been kind—very kind—but Ptronelle and I can no longer trespass on your hospitality. We have friends in ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... kindred people from whom nothing separates us except regrettable ignorance and superficial misunderstandings. Yet, in order to dispel that ignorance and to remove those misunderstandings, we do not make the first necessary step—namely, to learn the language of the people whom we are said to misunderstand. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... which we at present misunderstand, may probably become intelligible in the course of future experience, and a great variety of interesting truths now unknown will certainly be revealed in another world. The woman of Samaria could not for a considerable time comprehend the metaphorical ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... "Oh, don't misunderstand me," he said. "It only popped into my head, I don't know why. And Wolfe, you know, was a braggart who made good. He died on the 'Plains of Abraham' after distributing Montcalm's army of ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... to themselves Charles asked Carlton if he really meant to acquit of party spirit the present party leaders in Oxford. "You must not misunderstand me," answered he; "I do not know much of them, but I know they are persons of great merit and high character, and I wish to think the best of them. They are most unfairly attacked, that is certain; however, they are accused of wishing to make a display, of aiming at influence and power, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... His body and blood, why did He not say so? Did He not know how to use language? Did He use dark or misleading words in His last Will and Testament? Why does Paul, in speaking of worthy and unworthy communing, speak of the body of Christ as present, as a matter of course? Was he inspired to misunderstand Christ and lead plain readers astray? If there is nothing more in the sacrament than to remember Christ, why—as already noticed—did not the writers of the first two Gospels put in the words, "Do this in remembrance of Me?" Or why did not Christ plainly say, "Take, eat ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... boy has a strong and decided bias or partiality for any particular work that he knows something about, he has really a certain amount of capacity for that work beyond the average of men, and is led thereto by a higher power than that of man. Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that, when a boy expresses a longing desire to enter the navy or the army, he has necessarily an aptitude for these professions. Far from it. He has only a romantic notion of something ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that still small voice—so sweet and yet so keen, "Understand those who misunderstand thee. Be fair to those who are unfair to thee. Be just and merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thou shalt be forgiven." He comes to us surely, when we are selfish and luxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, "If you do good to one of these, my brethren, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... that trailed two yards behind her, a pair of what had once been white kid gloves, and a blue silk parasol. Dignity! I have seen the offended barmaid, I have met the chorus girl—not by appointment, please don't misunderstand me, merely as a spectator—up the river on Sunday. But never have I witnessed in any human being so much hauteur to the pound avoir-dupois as was carried through the streets of Charleroi by that small brat. Companions of ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... begin already to discard these figments. We begin to return to nature's order, to what I might call, if I were to borrow from the language of therapeutics, the expectant treatment of abuses. You will not misunderstand me," he continued: "a country in the condition in which we find Gruenewald, a prince such as your Prince Otto, we must explicitly condemn; they are behind the age. But I would look for a remedy not to brute ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and incoherently in contrast with her composure: 'You will misunderstand me for a day or two, Renee. I say if you were free I should have my first love mine for ever. Don't fear me: I have no right even to press your fingers. He may throw you into my arms. Now you are the same as if you were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opinions render necessary or proper. I would tear the tongue from my mouth, before reproach, sneer, or argument should be used to bring thee pain, after I once felt that thou leanedst on me for support. All that I have said has come from the wish that thou would'st not misunderstand me in a matter that ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... labor. Promise them renewed diligence in the cultivation of the soil, if they will render to you an equivalent for your services. Point them to the increase of happiness and prosperity in the British West Indies, since the act of Emancipation. Tell them in language which they cannot misunderstand, of the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and of a future judgment, and of the righteous retributions of an indignant God. Inform them that all you desire, is FREEDOM, and that nothing else will suffice. Do this, and for ever after cease to toil for the heartless tyrants, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... you have told me very little that I did not know already. Even in last night's papers the relationship between Oliver Trent and these people in Whitechapel was commented on. And your own name, my darling—that did not escape. Did you think I should misunderstand you?" ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... said mournfully, 'are you going to misunderstand me too? Providence has deprived me of my parents and my only brother: is it strong-minded or peculiar to be so lonely and sad at heart that gaiety only jars on me? Can I forget my mother's teaching ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... seclusion in Marcella's boudoir. Hence, likewise, Marcella's subsequent preference, in her temperance propaganda, for straightforward means which no gentleman could affect to misunderstand. She relied chiefly thereafter upon some highly colored charts depicting the interior of the human stomach in varying stages of alcoholic degeneration. According to these, "a single glass of wine or ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... sight of their real meaning, nor misunderstand the intention which dictated them. What Quesnay said was this: "Let everything alone which is injurious, neither to good morals, nor to liberty, nor to property, nor to personal security. Allow everything to be sold which has been produced ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... "Don't misunderstand me, sir," said I. "You have given me books to read, and have taught me what may be the destiny of our nation on this continent. But you must forgive a people whose lives have been spent in a fierce struggle for their homes, whose families ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; I deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those that stand in the way of laughter ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... I shall need your help and advice every hour of the day. I haven't the slightest doubt you could dictate to me to my great material advantage on every point, only I don't care for this material advantage and I don't want us to misunderstand each ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... bo!" said Chi Foxy earnestly. "Don't you go and misunderstand me. I didn't mean to be mistook that way. I do want fifty ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... extremely unpleasant phrase concerning a letter from Tennyson acknowledging the receipt of Rossetti’s first volume of poems in 1870. Those who have heard Tennyson speak of Rossetti know that to use this phrase in relation to any letter of his dealing with Rossetti’s poetry was to misunderstand it. Yet here are the unpleasant words of a hasty mood, “rather shabby,” in print. And why? Because the public has become so demoralized that its feast of facts, its feast of documents it must have, come what will. But even supposing that ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... "You ridiculous child! you misunderstand me quite. The multiplication table is an arrangement of numbers. I will give it to you to study. In the meantime, come, how many do three threes make when they ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... him. It seemed as if the proposal to separate for the winter had offended rather than frightened her. Well, that was the way with women; there was no pleasing them; when you tried to do the decent thing by them they pretended to misunderstand your motives. If you paid them the compliment of utter confidence they abused it on the pretext that you didn't love them; if you allowed your jealousy to show, they were offended at your lack ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... right, and that I must remove my family, and leave our house and garden to be destroyed," answered Mr Harvey. "Pray do not misunderstand me, and suppose that I mistrust God's protecting care; but I know that He would have us take all reasonable measures for our safety, and fly from earthly, as he directs us to escape ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... sir; I was only putting two and two together. I'm sorry. I dare say I am entirely wrong, perhaps a little bit out of my head because of the—Please, sir, do not misunderstand me. I would not for the world have you think that I connect Mrs. Thorpe with the business. I am sure that she had nothing whatever to do with her brother's visits here,—nothing ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... 2863, Iovis puer primigenia, C.I.L., XIV, 2862, 2863) was confounded with her name Iovis puer, and another cult tradition which made Fortuna mother of two children. As the Roman deity Jupiter grew in importance, the tendency was for the Romans to misunderstand Iovis puer as the boy god Jupiter, as they really did (Wissowa, Relig. u. Kult. d. Roemer, p. 209), and the pride of the Praenestines then made Fortuna the mother of Jupiter and Juno, and considered Primigenia to mean "first born," not "first born ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... silly, Etta. Have I not told you poor old Elspeth is dying?—Miss Garston will not leave her, you may be sure of that." And then Mr. Hamilton said to me in quite a nice way,—oh, I did not dislike him so much that evening,—"I daresay you misunderstand Etta. I assure you we all think most highly of your cousin, and she will always be a welcome guest here, and I hope you will induce her to come soon." Wasn't it nice of him? Dear Etta did not dare ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and I think about your—about our—all our very great loss. But I felt that it must be some comfort for ...
— Different Girls • Various
... heard that there were other great men of the island whom we had not as yet seen. Otago and Toobou, in particular, mentioned a person named Mareewagee, who, they said, was of the first consequence in the place, and held in great veneration, nay, if Omai did not misunderstand them, superior even to Poulaho, to whom he was related; but being old, lived in retirement, and therefore would not visit us. Some of the natives even hinted that he was too great a man to confer that honour upon us. This account exciting my curiosity, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... matter of fact, I did see it, but she has, no doubt, a half-breed lover who'd seriously misunderstand your admiration, which might lead to your getting stabbed some night. Anyhow, why did you ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... face, do not misunderstand my thought! Who dares express him? And who confess him, Saying, I do believe? A man's heart bearing, What man has the daring To say: I acknowledge him not? The All-enfolder, The All-upholder, Enfolds, upholds He not Thee, me, Himself? Upsprings not Heaven's blue ...
— Faust • Goethe |
