"Misunderstanding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you if you say that you have none," said the nobleman courteously. "But there is misapprehension somewhere. If I do not misreckon foully the queen spoke of both seeing and speaking with him during her progress hither. There is grave misunderstanding, I fear." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... woman, children of the same parents, brought up in the same home, ought to be the best of friends. Their friendship is without the danger of misunderstanding. It can be free from the slight feeling of envy or jealousy that might arise between sisters. It would seem that it could be the truest comradeship possible to ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... which, though we prize her above the Indies, is by our dim, horn-eyed, masculine vision undiscernible. It may be something in itself the airiest of trifles: the anniversary of a day in which the first kiss was interchanged, nay, of a violet gathered, a misunderstanding cleared up; and of that anniversary we remember no more than we do of our bells and coral. But she—she remembers it; it is no bells and coral to her. Of course, much is to be said in excuse of man, brute though he be. Consider ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... events occurred which disturbed the wretched monotony of Frances Burney's life. The Court moved from Kew to Windsor, and from Windsor back to Kew. One dull colonel went out of waiting, and another dull colonel came into waiting. An impertinent servant made a blunder about tea, and caused a misunderstanding between the gentlemen and the ladies. A half-witted French Protestant minister talked oddly about conjugal fidelity. An unlucky member of the household mentioned a passage in the Morning Herald reflecting on the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... summary of our affairs with regard to the foreign powers between whom and the United States controversies have subsisted, and with regard also to those of our Indian neighbors with whom we have been in a state of enmity or misunderstanding, opens a wide field for consoling and gratifying reflections. If by prudence and moderation on every side the extinguishment of all the causes of external discord which have heretofore menaced our tranquillity, on terms compatible with our national rights and honor, shall be the happy result, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... some extent the term "contracts," which has commonly been applied to them, is misleading. The use of the term certainly was due to a fundamental misunderstanding, they being once considered as contracts to furnish goods. They were even thought to be promises to pay, which passed from hand to hand, like our checks, and so formed a species of "clay money." These views were both partially true, but do ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any harm. He did not suppose you gave him so much money purposely, so he hurried back to return you the coin lest you might get away before you discovered your mistake. Take it, and give him a penny—that will make ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the citizen of any other, and successively of the whole. The lines, too, separating powers to be exercised by the citizens of one State from those of another seem to be so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for misunderstanding. The citizens of each State unite in their persons all the privileges which that character confers and all that they may claim as citizens of the United States, but in no case can the same persons at ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... mean to wait for that. You are misunderstanding me purposely, Miss Challoner. I want you to come and talk to me one evening,—any evening. No one but Miss ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... It must be some foolish misunderstanding, and you know that there was to be nothing of that sort between us. We, of all people in the world, can't afford it. Is it the Vaynor man, and don't you like to ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... sober. We hadn't intended to kill her, and of course she was only protecting her cubs. It wasn't our mountain; and it wasn't our berry-patch. She had discovered it first. We had intruded on her, not she on us. It all was a misunderstanding. ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... you I am entered now as a student in the high school of knowledge? Yes, Leuchtmar, such is indeed the case, and since it may well be that at times I shall make false steps, and commit blunders through inadvertence or misunderstanding, I demand of you to point out to me ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... spend it with some cliff dwelling friends of mine who, heaven help their wretched lot! lived on the sixth and top floor of one of those famous New York struggle-ups. Before shoving off there was some slight misunderstanding between the inspecting officer and myself relative to the exact color of my, ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... Peter, at this moment of a whole welter of doubt and confusion and misunderstanding of people's motives and positions, to explain a great deal. Was that the reason why he'd been so happy in old Zachary Tan's shop years ago? Why he'd been happy through all that existence at the bookshop, those absurd unreal conspirators—happy, ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... consular convention with France. There being nothing in the transaction which could imply any disrespect to France or its consul, such explanation has been made as, I hope, will be satisfactory. Subsequently misunderstanding arose on the subject of the French Government having, as it appeared, abruptly excluded the American minister to Spain from passing through France on his way from London to Madrid. But that Government has unequivocally ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... not get an answer, because Mama Joy found her gloves too soon, but he learned his lesson and did not ask Flora to ride with him again. Nevertheless, he tried surreptitiously to let her know the reason and so prevent any misunderstanding. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... turned and looked into each other's eyes for one long moment. In its space we read the old, old story through, and a great, up-leaping joy illumined our faces. God, who had let us know each other, had let us stand by this to feel the barrier of misunderstanding fall away. ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... workman himself into an abstract theoria; so that they have to be discovered by a reverent study of his work and lie deeper than the rules of French criticism. Schlegel, whose lectures on dramatic art were translated into English in 1815, speaks with indignation of the current English misunderstanding of Shakspere. "That foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular, who frequently speak in the strangest language about antiquity and the Middle Age, as if cannibalism had been first put an end in Europe by Louis XIV., should entertain this opinion of Shakspere might be pardonable. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the proximate parts of a mellifluous mind are for ever conjoined and unconnected, I submit to you, my luds, that it will of necessity follow, that such clandestine conduct being a mere nothing, - or, in the noble language of our philosophers, bosh, - every individual act of overt misunderstanding will bring interminable limits to the empiricism of thought, and will rebound in the very lowest degree to the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... government in his Epodes, and was of a class—at least technically—which Octavian had been warned not to recognize socially, unless he was prepared to offend the old nobility. But Horace's dignified candor won him the confidence of Maecenas; and that there might be no misunderstanding he included in his first book of Satires a simple account of what he was and hoped to be. Thus through the efforts of Vergil and Varius he entered the circle whose guiding spirit ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... answered, making no pretence at misunderstanding him. "You, too, are from Valmy. No, no. I do not mean that. That was a cruel thing to say; it is you who must forgive me, for you are not of Valmy, you who stood by me and believed in me even when I seemed the vile ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... beginning to understand herself, every instinct of her being led towards reserve. In a misunderstanding with her soldier friends she could easily and frankly effect a reconciliation, but she must be dumb with Merwyn, and distant in manner, to the degree that she ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... name by which it seems desirable that the children of believers should be designated. And, instead of using the term "church-membership," applied to them, we shall include everything which is properly theirs, we shall lose nothing, we shall prevent great misunderstanding, and liability to perversion, by substituting the "Relation of Baptized Children to the Church," whenever we wish to express the peculiar and most precious connection which they hold, in the arrangements of divine grace, with the covenant people ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... a time identified in some measure with Punch itself, besides obtaining recognition as the beau-ideal of "the genial, jolly parson." That he did not become a regular contributor to the paper was due, it is believed, to a subsequent misunderstanding. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... not of faith but ignorance, immigration is steadily changing the character of our civilization. We are face to face with the larger race problem—that of assimilating sixty nationalities and races. The problem will never be solved by minimizing or deriding or misunderstanding it. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... whispering over the back about Debating Society politics. Lewisham was inattentive and brief. What had he to do with these puerilities? At last Smithers went away foiled, and met Parkson by the entrance. Parkson, by-the-bye, had not spoken to Lewisham since their painful misunderstanding. He made a wide detour to his seat at the end table, and so, and by a singular rectitude of bearing and a dignified expression, showed himself aware of Lewisham's ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... volume 4 pages 734 and 764.) which left Sydney on March 29th, 1802, and we know that they reached Whitehall safely. After his arrival in England, Murray seems to have been able to clear up satisfactorily his misunderstanding with the authorities, for shortly after his return he was appointed an Admiralty Surveyor, and his name is found upon several charts of the Home Coasts executed by him in 1804, ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... unpublished memoirs of General Smith, is that his conduct during the continuance, of the arrangement was not only natural and blameless, but that the failure of Butler's army to play an important and decisive part, was due primarily, if not entirely, to Butler's own misunderstanding or mismanagement of what was entrusted to him, or the inherent defects in the organization and staff arrangements of the Union forces operating in Virginia. Under the conditions as they actually existed, effective co-operation and control, it has been shown, could not have been reasonably ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... you're a good boy maybe we're going to forget we had this little misunderstanding. There's others besides Hughie just as soft. But if you're dead set on finding out who is boss; if you want to know whether you're Dunham's man or not, why just cross them orders. Pig-iron's got ten thousand on that fight—ten thousand that you don't win by a knock-out, if ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... any misunderstanding. You will please remember that my journey to England is quite independent of what took place two years and a half ago. It has nothing whatever to do ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... form two sides of a triangle, and are placed with their backs to the wind, along the roads which border the wood the traqueurs are about to beat. On no account ought they to fire to their rear, but always to the front; and in order to prevent, in this respect, misunderstanding and accident, the garde, whose duty it is to place each sportsman at his post, breaks a branch, or cuts a notch in the tree before him, in order that in a moment of hesitation and excitement this broken bough or barked spot may remind him of his real ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... his head, or the cap over it, as he stared again at her. He realized that some amazing, terrible mistake must have been made, as he thought—or that this girl must be the victim of some dreadful misunderstanding, if not of a foul plot. He began to pity her. She looked so weak, so helpless, in spite of the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... physical inventions to the new moral ideas and mental contacts, I must interpolate a comment to save myself from misunderstanding. Generally, those who trace to mechanical utilities new epochs in the development of mankind proceed upon the materialistic theory of history. But this theory I have in no wise committed myself to, for I count it to be false. It is true that I have traced all the great ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... misunderstanding between the modern employer and the modern employed," the chief labour spokesman said, speaking in a broad accent that completely hid from him and the bishop and every one the fact that he was by far the best-read man of the party. "Disraeli called them the Two Nations, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... an oath, under the protection of Heaven, in fact, everything which interests my heart and my affections. Promise me, or rather swear to me, that if in the life we are about to commence, a life which will be full of sacrifice, mystery, anxiety, disappointment, and misunderstanding; swear to me that if we should in any way deceive, or misunderstand each other, or should judge each other unjustly, for that indeed would be criminal in love such as ours; swear ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... man's life was worth about a chinquapin. In fact, one day there was a small battle between me and home—with divers wounds and deaths. This going and coming of mine, among and with rebels, got me into a droll misunderstanding some time after. But I think that the real cause lay less in oil than in the simple truth that these frank, half-wild fellows liked me. One said to me one day, "You're onlike all the Northern men who come here, and we all like you. What's the reason?" I explained it that he had only met with Yankees, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the works of great artists. It is a good practice to consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his "Sergius Paulus," from Masaccio. Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing, which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if Raffaelle could have improved; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... the hope of entertainment offered them at the smaller playhouse. The drama itself was neither here nor there as to intent, but the public appetite or the manager's conception of it—for I am by no means sure that this whole business was not a misunderstanding—had exacted that the actresses should appear in so much stocking, and so little else, that it was a horror to look upon them. There was no such exigency of dialogue, situation, or character as asked the indecorum, and the effect upon the unprepared ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... devotion, back in his face. "Then very certainly I must plead guilty to not understanding, or if you prefer it—for we needn't add to our other discomforts by quarrelling about the extra syllable—of misunderstanding. In my ignorance, I confess I imagined the love, which finds its crown and seal of sanctity in marriage, can be—and sometimes quite magnificently is—the most beautiful thing a man has to give ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that it was simply and solely the trial which has brought them together again? That John Cavendish still loved his wife, I was convinced. Also, that she was equally in love with him. But they had drifted very far apart. It all arose from a misunderstanding. She married him without love. He knew it. He is a sensitive man in his way, he would not force himself upon her if she did not want him. And, as he withdrew, her love awoke. But they are both unusually proud, and their pride held them inexorably apart. He drifted into an ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... family life appears to have been a uniformly happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole, he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than his wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from her for a day. She, on the other hand, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... more admirable is their foresight to save their country from any embroilment with other nations with whom they want to live in peace. And they realise that any predominant interest of a foreign country in their trade or manufacture is sure to lead to misunderstanding and friction. Actuated by this idea, they have practically excluded all foreign manufactured articles by prohibitive tariffs."[40] "Is our country slow to realise the danger" asks Dr. Bose "that threatens her by the capture of her market and the total destruction of her industries? Does ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... written from Ephesus in the spring of A.D. 55. The note at the end of the Epistle to the effect that it was written "from Philippi," though ancient, is incorrect, and is due to a misunderstanding ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... vol. i. p. 460. In the ninth edition (1853), published twenty-three years after the first. Lyell deprives even the most careless reader of any excuse for misunderstanding him: "So in regard to subterranean movements, the theory of the perpetual uniformity of the force which they exert on the earth-crust is quite consistent with the admission of their alternate development and ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... illness, my readers will understand that my statements as to the ingratitude of those who benefit by the prospectors' toil are not unfounded. Unfortunately for me, my old mate, Lord Douglas, was absent in England, and, in consequence, much misunderstanding resulted between the syndicate ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... Mr. Vincent's misunderstanding or misrepresenting you. The risk that he runs is by his voluntary choice; and I am sure that if, after farther acquaintance with him, you find it impossible to return his affection, he will not consider himself as ill-used ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... division between them was no greater than between two cells in a single brain; the understanding was complete. Thus it remained for some seconds; then the silence was broken by speech, and it was as though a cloud had passed over the sun. For, with the first word spoken, misunderstanding began; and, for a time at all events, they drifted far apart, each out of sight and knowledge of the other's soul. Had Snarley begun by saying something inconsequent or irrelevant, had he proposed to build ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... him instantly. Prejudiced against Midwinter by his conduct when his friend had introduced him at the cottage, she now fairly detested him as the unlucky first cause of her misunderstanding with Allan at the picnic. Her face flushed and she drew back from the summerhouse with ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... herself up again and faced her questioner, the color rising in her cheeks. "If that question is necessary," she said with cold distinctness, "I will answer it so that there shall be no misunderstanding. During the last few months of my husband's life his attitude towards me had given me great anxiety and sorrow. He had changed towards me; he had become very reserved and seemed mistrustful. I saw much less of him than before; he seemed to prefer to be alone. I can give no explanation at all of ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... time to entertain France and Europe with the details of a charge of adultery. I spoke to him of Hortense and Eugene, to whom he was much attached. Reflection, seconded by his ardent affection for Josephine, brought about a complete reconciliation. After these three days of conjugal misunderstanding their happiness was never afterwards disturbed by a ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... not come home to him with clear, accurate conviction— his brain was not a first-rate medium for illumination; but the facts struck him now with a blind sort of force; and he accepted the blank sensation of failure. Also, he read in the faces of those round him an alien spirit, a chasm of black misunderstanding which his knowledge of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and permutations, which are unlimited, of the trick. Once a person has mastered the easy dexterity described above to get the ball into the cup, he can devise further developments for himself. The diagrams given will, I trust, clear up any misunderstanding that may be left after reading my explanation. If there is still any uncertainty, for a few annas or pence, any itinerant conjuror will show the sleight, and ten minutes practice ought to bring matters to ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... ich! (I wish that, I should like that) (p. 183). The fourfold designation of his own person in the thirty-second month (p. 180)—by his name, by "I," by "he," and by the omission of all pronouns—was only a brief transition-stage, as was also the misunderstanding of the "dein" (your) which for a time (p. 156) ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... the French at Malta, as he would certainly support him;" for, Naples having a feudal claim upon the island, action there could be represented as merely resistance to aggression. In consequence of this misunderstanding, great confusion ensued in the royal councils when a courier from Vienna brought word, on the 13th of November, that that Court wished it left to the French to begin hostilities; otherwise, it would give no assurance of help. Nelson was now formally one of the Council ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Gorndyke rat in the de Lacorfe granary. Spendthrift Richard, who is always getting urgent blue envelopes from Samuel & Samuel, is bent on marrying for money the very Diana that George loves for her blue hyacinth eyes. There is a misunderstanding between George and Diana (of such a childlike ingenuousness as to suggest that really this too easy spot-stroke should be barred to playwrights), and the idiotic girl promptly engages herself to Richard, who is of course in love with a patently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... misunderstanding, or for failure to appreciate, the increasing signs which go to show that public opinion in France is favourable to reconciliation with us, and that this opinion is growing, not only amongst the higher classes in France, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... possessed a certain subtlety, could not but observe the complimentary nature of these words. It was like saying "I'm not afraid of you misunderstanding me, and thinking me a rascal just because I study ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... blocked—blocked by the haste and worry of modern life, by the multiplicity of material possessions which so frequently choke our sympathies; by the cruelties of competition, too often run to the extremes of crushing out inborn human kindness. And most of all, blocked by ignorance and misunderstanding ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... that Paul could say no more. He rose and, with a faint smile upon his pale face, held out his hand. "I think that is all I have to say. When you see Miss Yerba again,—as you will, no doubt,—you may tell her that I am conscious of no misunderstanding on my part, except, perhaps, as to the best way I could serve her, and that, but for what she has told YOU, I should certainly have carried away no remembrance ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... change; and our ministers at home are sometimes as great strangers to the genius as to the persons of those with whom they have to do. At —— you have placed the most unacceptable man in the world—one that lived in a scandalous misunderstanding with the minister of the States at another court—one that has been the laughing-stock of all courts, for his senseless haughtiness and most ridiculous airs—and one that can never judge aright, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. A story with a laugh on ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were much surprised to see the violent and fiery Max behave with such discretion. No one in Issoudun, not even Potel or Renard, dared broach so delicate a subject with him. Potel, somewhat disturbed by this open misunderstanding between two heroes of the Imperial Guard, suggested that Max might be laying a net for the colonel; he asserted that some new scheme might be looked for from the man who had got rid of the mother and one brother by making use of Fario's ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and they walked home, sending his trunk and portmanteau on in the carriage with Widger. He had anticipated their meeting with strange emotion, feeling as if he were returning to her after a time of misunderstanding, richer in knowledge, more capable of sympathy. He had not seen her since the first performance of "The Magic Casement," and very much had happened to them since then. His desire for Cecily seemed to have died. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... still at the front? Effort after effort! Retreat followed by advance! Misunderstanding and mistake here and there. And then Pieter's Hill! Ask the soldier who has come back wounded from Pieter's Hill—and how many of them are there?—what he thought of it. He can give you but a confused picture of the fight. He has no idea of the plan in the general's mind. But ask him of his experiences. ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... hope everything has been exaggerated through a misunderstanding. Delay in these cases is often simply fatal, Raymond, because it gives a lie a start. And if you give a lie a start, it's terribly hard to catch. Sabina Dinnett came to see me on Sunday afternoon and I trust with all my heart she told me what ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... man, but we are an unusual two, and the business of life has shaken us free from the conventions of the drawing-room and frothy society. With us there need be no cant nor pretence nor false modesty, because there is not the slightest possibility of misunderstanding." ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... the exploration, and I was, of course, quite prepared to do so; but in the meantime a whole host of expeditions from South Australia had come into the field. Mr. Giles, I saw, had started from some part of the telegraph line westward, and I heard afterwards that he had through some misunderstanding—I do not know what it was; I only know by what I read in the papers—returned to Adelaide. Then we heard that the South Australian Government had despatched Mr. Gosse, and that the Honourable Thomas Elder—whom I have the pleasure of meeting to-day—had despatched Colonel Warburton (cheers)—to ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... paragraph of all; and then, as he comprehended the intent of it in all its barbed and venomed malice, he stood suddenly erect, with the outspread paper shaking in his hard grip. For now, coming back to him by so strange a way across fifty years of silence and misunderstanding, he read there the answer to the town's oldest, biggest tragedy and knew what it was that all this time had festered, like buried thorns, in the flesh of those two men, his comrades and friends. He dropped the paper, and up and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... furnished to the king of France, to the pope, and, for some time, to the king of the Netherlands. France, nevertheless, imposed such heavy commercial duties that several of the cantons leagued together for the purpose of taking reprisals. This misunderstanding between Switzerland and France unfortunately did not teach wisdom to the states belonging to the German confederation, and the Rhine was also barricaded with custom-houses, those graves of commerce. The Jesuits settled at Freiburg in the Uechtland, where ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... both at home and abroad, by abstracting him from painful subjects, tend to facilitate his recovery. The duchess, not less the slave of caprice now than formerly, managed to involve herself in a serious misunderstanding with the king, and withdrew, in consequence, her attendance on a court where her presence ceased to be agreeable. This was preceded by quarrels with almost all the oldest and steadiest friends of her husband, such as Cadogan, Stanhope, Sunderland, and secretary Scraggs, which were not composed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... were not very likely to remain unknown to Garrick nor to put him at ease with Johnson, whom, indeed, he always suspected of laughing at him. They had a little tiff on account of Johnson's Edition of Shakspeare. From some misunderstanding, Johnson did not make use of Garrick's collection of old plays. Johnson, it seems, thought that Garrick should have courted him more, and perhaps sent the plays to his house; whereas Garrick, knowing that Johnson treated books with a roughness ill-suited ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... his Embassy, describes the following ludicrous scene arising from a misunderstanding between the sovereign of Birmah and his ministers:—"The ministers last night reported to the king the progress of the negotiation. His majesty was highly indignant, said his confidence had been abused, and that now, for the first time, he was made acquainted with the real state ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... long been intrusted by the council with honorable duties," he said, "but never, before to-day, have I been required to decide upon a domestic misunderstanding, before the parties were actually wedded. This is a grave interruption of the ceremonies of the abbaye, as well as a slight upon the notary and the spectators, and needs be well looked to. Dost thou really persist in putting this unusual termination to a marriage-ceremony, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... should be here in fifteen minutes at the farthest. May I in the meantime offer you a glass of wine, Dictator O'Halloran?" At the Irishman's smile, the Mexican governor hastened to add, misunderstanding him purposely: "Perhaps I assume too much in taking the part of host here. May I ask whether you will be governor in ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... them whether I do or not. As if they expected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did! Who knows but it was finely appreciated? It may be that your silence was the finer thing of the two.... In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. Then there can never be ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... the woman," said the attorney, laying some bills on the officer's table; "and I may say that my client greatly regrets the unfortunate misunderstanding with one of the best of his old slaves. He desires me to say that the woman's services have been entirely satisfactory, and that she can keep right on under ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... recommend, in the most particular manner, the cultivation of harmony and good agreement, and your endeavours to destroy that ill-humour which may have got into the officers. It is of the greatest importance, also, that the soldiers and the people should know nothing of the misunderstanding, or, if it has reached them, that ways may be used to stop its progress and ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... cannot produce form; cohesion must also be present. It is the regulated balance between them that results in Creation. In the old legend, if I remember rightly, the conflict is ended by Tiamat marrying her former opponent. They were never really enemies, but there was a misunderstanding between them, or rather there was a misunderstanding on the part of Tiamat so long as she did not perceive the true character of the Spirit of Light, and that their relation to one another was that of co-operation ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... What was there in him to reach out and touch the sympathies of this beautiful young woman, who came to him with the scent of violets in her hair? Others had despised him for his poverty, and fastened a name upon him which was in itself a reproach. And still misunderstanding, they had carried him off to prison, charged with a dark and hideous crime. Now this light had come to him in his despair, like the beam of that white star above the Judean plains. Like that star, she would stand far off to guide him, and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... established. 'Four-two' would be understood as L.4, 2 (florins), while 'four and two' would convey four florins, two cents. When three denominations were used, it would be 'four-three-two,' there being little danger of a misunderstanding as to whether the 'four' were pounds or florins. So, in writing, it would only be necessary to write after any sum the name of the lowest denomination, as 48, 3, 7c., which would be known as L.48, 3 florins, 7 cents; or, to add ciphers for all lower ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... with you. I don't think that you can say anything too bad about the behaviour of my people. A Shoreditch Jew could not have done worse. And look here, Mr. de la Molle, to come to the point and prevent misunderstanding, I may as well say at once that with your permission, I am anxious to take up these mortgages myself, for two reasons; I regard them as a desirable investment even in the present condition of land, and also I wish ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... only playing up to these stars, giving so much padding to the entertainment. Little wonder that the public is not satisfied with the play of to-day." If we understand this correctly, and we have honestly tried to do so, it involves a complete misunderstanding as to the nature of drama, and means that Mr Lauder thinks that its whole purpose is to provide star acting parts, and that, since plays cannot be written in which all the characters are star parts, drama is a ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... which this assertion is based are the continual recurrence of examples of functions of a fiscal character being exercised by the head of the civitas and his officers, and by them alone; and it appears to me that it could only be by a complete misunderstanding of the spirit of the early writings, and by a comprehensive misapplication of the terms used in them, that these functions could be referred to any other power. These functions of the administration may be grouped under three main heads, viz: 1. Fines ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... Morty felt his cheek flush with the shame which Colonel John should have felt; and Phelim grieved for the family. The gentleman might be mad; it was charitable to think he was. But, mad or sane, he was like, they feared, to be the cause of sad misunderstanding in the country round. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... one of the worst things about "classes" was that they inevitably meant misunderstanding. They bred antagonism, and that prejudice. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... feeling, with now and then gusts of wind and scud,—a kind of weather most abhorred by mariners. But we hope that the wind is changing, and that "fair weather cometh out of the North." God will not suffer us to live long, we earnestly hope, in this condition of misunderstanding and hatred, for it would be contrary to his established laws that we should long continue to be one nation with such feelings toward each other. The change will be in the North. Slavery will come to be regarded as not in itself ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... scene is deeply pathetic. A cloud has risen in the blue of this Greek heaven. A storm, such as life inevitably brings with it, even in the case of great souls who love and esteem each other, has come to trouble the original harmony. What is the cause of it—a misunderstanding, apiece of neglect? Impossible to say, but it breaks out notwithstanding. The andante is a scene of reproach and complaint, but as between immortals. What loftiness in complaint, what dignity, what feeling, what noble sweetness in reproach! The ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... persons before they become husband and wife. See how desirable and wise such a course is, in order to avoid disagreeable contingencies in the form of discoveries afterwards. For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all may be made the basis of some fatal misunderstanding only because it is discovered, and not confessed. They say there never was a couple of whom one had not some secret the other never knew or was intended to know. This may or may not be true; but if it be true, some have been happy in ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the historical presuppositions of Mosaism, there generally underlies it a misunderstanding arising out of theological intellectualism-an attribute found with special frequency among nontheologians. Moses gave no new idea of God to his people. The question whence he could have derived it therefore need not be raised. It could not possibly be worse answered, however, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Eve, the grave injury done was not the source of the pain; it was entirely a matter of feeling upon either side, for the poet in fault, as for the sister who was in no way to blame. Things had reached the point when the slightest misunderstanding, or little quarrel, or a fresh disappointment in Lucien would end in final estrangement. Money difficulties may be arranged, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... The misunderstanding that was to wreck the tender relationship that had begun to grow up between father and daughter began on that evening. Tom Butterworth was furious. He muttered and clinched his fists. Clara's heart beat heavily. ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... of a purple velvet, enriched with diamonds. There was some mistake or misunderstanding about the fact of wearing the crown at the opening of the assembly. As the crown is only a ceremonial badge of dignity, it should have been worn during the ceremony; but owing to the mistake alluded ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day. There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a dimly-lighted office. The mine had not been operated for a number of months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some misunderstanding between the owners of mines in ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... serious in the summer than in the winter. Such argument is perfectly sound, but the method of returning leakage as a percentage of the make has been employed in the coal-gas industry for many years, and as it does not appear to have led to any misunderstanding or inconvenience, there is no particular reason for departing from the usual practice in the case of acetylene where the conditions as to uniform leakage and ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... be no possible misunderstanding," he intervened, "my clients will take not a penny less than the ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the repeated interference of Isabella in behalf of these unfortunate beings, by ordinances tending to secure them a more equal protection of the laws, or opening such social indulgences as might mitigate the hardships of their condition. A misunderstanding gradually arose between the subjects of Castile and Portugal, in relation to their respective rights of discovery and commerce on the African coast, which promised a fruitful source of collision between the two crowns; but which was happily adjusted by an article in the treaty of 1479, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any doubt as to that? I thought—but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel in doubt as to the purport of your answer. I had imagined you were consulting me only as to the wording ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them; and that, in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing forever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife. Whether it produced this desirable object or not our readers may conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to disappear from the neighborhood, in order to ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... sanction to my love." He would have felt such an acknowledgment to be the father's most sacred and evident right, and he was thinking of making it at the very hour in which Sandal was feeling bitterly toward him for its omission. And thus the old, old tragedy of mutual misunderstanding ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... rankled. Laying aside their hereditary feud, Colonna and Orsini made a desperate effort to regain their power. By a misunderstanding they were defeated, and the third part of their force, entering the city without the rest, was overwhelmed and massacred, and six of the Colonna were slain. The low-born Rienzi refused burial for their bodies, knighted his son on the spot where they had fallen, and washed his hands in water ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... will positively take no responsibility concerning exchanges effected by means of this department, neither will the reliability of exchangers be guaranteed. To avoid any misunderstanding in the matter, it would be advisable for those contemplating exchanging, to write for particulars to the addresses, before sending the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... Dickens had his disappointments, and the Americans had theirs; but what was really genuine in the first enthusiasm remained without grave alloy from either; and the letters, as I proceed to give them, will so naturally explain and illustrate the misunderstanding as to require little further comment. I am happy to be able here to place on record fac-similes of the invitations to the public entertainments in New York which reached him before he quitted Boston. The mere signatures suffice to show how universal ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that is a man that is full of fight—that goes without saying. With a couple of thousand rough men under one, one has plenty of that sort of amusement. I had, anyway. At last I met my match, and I got my dose. It was during a misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its neighbor. Then the world went out in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not here follow Dr. Lightfoot into his general remarks regarding my 'conclusions,' nor shall I proceed, in this article, to discuss the dilemma in which he attempts to involve me through his misunderstanding and consequent misstatement, of my views regarding the Supreme Being. I am almost inclined to think that I can have the pleasure of agreeing with him in one important point, at least, before coming to a close. When I read the curiously modified statement that I have "studiously ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... his dad's unfortunate ear for music, not perhaps in so extravagant a degree, but he ever took care to exhibit it on the most untimely and ill-judged occasions. Owing to some misunderstanding between the minister of the parish and the session-clerk, the precenting in church devolved on my father, who was the senior elder. Now, my father could have sung several of the old church-tunes middling well in his own family-circle; but it ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... affectionate greetings Akbar desired that all the nobles might be summoned to the presence; 'for,' he added, 'I cannot bear that any misunderstanding should subsist between you and those who have for so many years shared in my toils, {144} and been the companions of my glory.' When the nobles entered and had made their salutations, he said a few words to them in a body; then, looking at each ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... itself has always been suspected, but who dare lisp it? The payment in zeewant, which is the currency here, has never been placed upon a good footing, although the commonalty requested it, and showed how it should be regulated, assigning numerous reasons therefor. But there is always misunderstanding and discontent, and if anything is said before the Director of these matters more than pleases him, very wicked and spiteful words are returned. Those moreover whose office requires them to speak to him of such things are, if he is in no good fit, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... shouted the miserable man, with a fierceness of expression and tone that there was no misunderstanding. Poor Billy understood it ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Adams assured his visitors that they were all strictly honest in all their dealings, lending or exchanging their various articles of live-stock or produce with each other, in the most friendly manner; and if any little dispute occurred, he never found any difficulty to rectify the mistake or misunderstanding that might have caused it, to the satisfaction of both parties. In their general intercourse they speak the English language commonly; and even the old Otaheitan women have picked up a good deal of this language. The young people, both male and female, speak it with a pleasing accent, and ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... dear child," she said. "I was not half in earnest. The truth is I am so fond of you both that the idea of your misunderstanding each other annoys me extremely. Why, you were made for each other. He would tone you down and keep you straight, and you would stimulate him and ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... Here's a misunderstanding for you! Flora de Barral, who felt the shame but did not believe in the guilt of her father, retorted fiercely, "Nevertheless I am as honourable as you are." And then the German woman nearly went into a fit from rage. "I shall have you thrown out ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... — N. error, fallacy; misconception, misapprehension, misstanding[obs3], misunderstanding; inexactness &c. adj.; laxity; misconstruction &c. (misinterpretation) 523; miscomputation &c. (misjudgment) 481; non sequitur &c. 477; mis-statement, mis-report; mumpsimus[obs3]. mistake; miss, fault, blunder, quiproquo, cross purposes, oversight, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... me still remind you of your mother,—I know she must have been a good woman to have had so good a son,—and when you have found some sweet young girl to make you happy, come to me for a mother's blessing, and we will laugh at the recollection and misunderstanding of this evening." ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... I am sure, that the Holy Father's prudent intentions have been so far defeated by the perverseness and invincible misunderstanding of the heretics, that that which was in itself meant for the good of the oppressed English Catholics has been perverted ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... you know," he said awkwardly. "There seems to be a little misunderstanding on your part. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... A curious misunderstanding which is sometimes encountered comes from assuming that the sentence must be constructed entirely of the three words given. If it appears that the subject is stumbling over this difficulty, we explain: "The three words must ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... Marquis de Simeuse, "we are forced to go to prison; but do not be uneasy; we shall return in a few hours, for there is some misunderstanding in all this ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... adjustment of all our difficulties. At the date of my annual message to Congress in December last no doubt was entertained but that he would be received by the Mexican Government, and the hope was cherished that all cause of misunderstanding between the two countries would be speedily removed. In the confident hope that such would be the result of his mission, I informed Congress that I forbore at that time to "recommend such ulterior measures of redress for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... trip to the grocery arose a misunderstanding that was very funny in the end. Ruth had chosen the very room, at the back of the house, in which the lady from Ipsilanti and her little daughter had slept, for the use of Neale O'Neil. After supper she had ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... men. Wherever and on whatever questions good men are found ranged on opposite sides, one of three alternatives is always true:—either the points of disagreement are purely speculative and of no moral importance—or there is a misunderstanding of language, and the same thing is meant under a difference of words—or else the real truth is something different from what is held by any of the disputants, and each is representing some important element which the others ignore or ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... startled her friend. She wanted, above all things, to have a frank talk with Mrs. Truscott. This keeping a secret from her was distressing, and she could not bear the thought of a possible cloud or misunderstanding between them, but poor Grace had totally forgotten the existence of such a person as Wolf by the time they got home. She was having a little trouble of her own. They were strolling across the parade in the brilliant moonlight, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... with any intention whatsoever to propagate divorce; I want this clearly and conclusively understood, so that there can never be any misunderstanding. ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... — N. disagreement; discord, discordance; dissonance, dissidence, discrepancy; unconformity &c 83; incongruity, incongruence^; discongruity^, mesalliance; jarring &c v.; dissension &c 713; conflict &c (opposition) 708; bickering, clashing, misunderstanding, wrangle. disparity, mismatch, disproportion; dissimilitude, inequality; disproportionateness &c adj.^; variance, divergence, repugnance. unfitness &c adj.; inaptitude, impropriety; inapplicability &c adj.; inconsistency, inconcinnity^; irrelevancy &c (irrelation) 10. misjoining^, misjoinder^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
