"Blunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed, these people evidently believed that a revolution had taken place in the United States; that the two opposing parties had been represented by the passengers of the Excelsior; and that one party had succeeded, headed by the indomitable Perkins. If she could be able to convince them of their blunder, would it be wise to do so? She thought of Mrs. Brimmer's supplication to be ranged "on her side," and realized with feminine quickness that the situation might be turned to her countrymen's advantage. But which side had Todos Santos favored? It was left to her woman's ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... an outrage," replied Ahenobarbus; "it's a sheer blunder of the Fates. Remind me to tell you about Drusus and his fortune, before I ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... "I could only find one answer. It was such an obvious blunder that it must have been intentional. The lumps of lead endorsed this idea. Whilst the large piece was flat and difficult to move, the small piece was like a ball and meant to roll and strike the side the moment the coffin was ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... impropriety of laughing at me. One of the children immediately replied, "Please, sir, do you know what we were laughing at?" I replied in the negative. "Then, sir," says the boy, "I will tell you. Please, sir, you have made a blunder." I, thinking I had not, proceeded to defend myself, when the children replied, "Please, sir, you convict yourself." I replied, "How so?" "Why," says the children, "you said a right-angled triangle had one right angle, and that all its angles are acute. If it has ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... mistake, might blunder in the slowness of his deliberate way—there was the faintest suspicion of a smile on Hugh Carden Ali's face as he remembered, even at this critical moment, how, having won the toss, it had taken Ben Kelham so long to decide, at the foot of the Hill, whether to put his ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... steward, Salome, the mother of James and John, and Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke viii, 3; Mark xvi, 40; John xix, 25), strongly discountenance such a supposition. The error, which had no other source than ecclesiastical tradition, has been fostered and perpetuated by the stupid blunder of the translators of the authorized version in identifying her with the "sinner" who is described in Luke vii, 37-50 as washing the feet of Jesus with her tears (see head-note to ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... the difficult question of imposition and personation by spirits. Thus a soul, or a spirit, may give itself out for a god, and exhibit the appropriate phantasmagoria: may boast and deceive (ii. 10). This is the result of some error or blunder in the ceremony of evocation. {69} A bad or low spirit may thus enter, disguised as a demon or god, and may utter deceitful words. But all arts, says our guide, are liable to errors, and the 'sacred art' must not be judged by its occasional imperfections. We know the same ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... still, each as like the other as peas. But put your thirty men up to run a race, and they will soon assume different forms. And in doing nothing, you can hardly do amiss. Let the doers of nothing have something of action forced upon them, and they, too, will blunder and quarrel. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... reason why we should stay longer," and without sparing himself in the slightest, Bill explained what a blunder had ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... A wooden post or pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the original position of the tree from which it was hewn,—that is to say, with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;—formerly such a blunder was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind, because an "upside-down" pillar would do malignant things. It would moan and groan in the night, and move all its cracks like mouths, and open all its knots like eyes. Moreover, the spirit of it (for every house-post ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... long as the history of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New York paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the censorship. He said that the loss of Pozieres was a blunder. I liked his frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an excuse, which, personally, I think is an ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the parent can do right. You would think that now and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense. But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education. ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... booming his utter unbelief in all he had heard. Clark, it struck him, did not know what he was talking about, and who was Clark anyway? Had a single man in the room ever heard of Clark before that afternoon? The town had made one blunder, and it would be wise to keep ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... herself, and to stand before him as one justified, had gone from her. She felt that having still possessed his love, having still been the owner of the one thing that she valued, she had ruined herself by her own doubts; and she could not forgive herself the fatal blunder. 'It is of no use to think of it any more,' he said at last. 'You have to become this man's wife now, and I suppose you must go through ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... (Al-Kulub?) signifying Ravisher of Hearts" and his names for the six slave-girls (vol. iv. 37) such as "Zohorob Bostan" (Zahr al-Bustan), which Galland rightly renders by "Fleur du Jardin," serve only to heap blunder upon blunder. Indeed the Anglo-French translations are below criticism: it would be waste of time to notice them. The characteristic is a servile suit paid to the original e.g. rendering hair "accomode en boucles" by "hair festooned ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... I should not wonder at his exerting himself for a great reform in the process of inquiry, preaching the method of Induction, and, if he fancied that theologians were indirectly or in any respect the occasion of the blunder, getting provoked for a time, however unreasonably, with ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... think out the first moves in that game of skill of which his life was the stake. He had often read of people of hasty temper, evading the police for a time, and eventually falling into their hands for lack of the most elementary common sense. He had heard it said that they always made some stupid blunder, left behind them some damning clue. He took his revolver from a drawer and saw that it was loaded. If the worst came to the worst, he ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... and when that was over, each was presented with a glass of raisin wine." During the christening ceremony an accident happened to the doll, because Master Tommy, the parson, "in endeavouring to get rid of it before the little gossips were ready to receive it, made a sad blunder.... Miss Polly, with tears in her eyes, snatched up the doll and clasped it to her bosom; while the rest of the little gossips turned all the little masters out of the room, that they might be left to themselves to inquire more privately ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... "The universal blunder of this world is in thinking that there are certain persons put into the world to govern and certain others to obey. Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody to obey. There are no benefactors ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the Senator surprised her by expressing a strong wish to join them. He explained that, as the political lead was no longer in his hands, the chances were nine in ten that if he stirred at all he should make a blunder; that his friends expected him to do something when, in fact, nothing could be done; that every preparation had already been made, and that for him to go on an excursion to Mount Vernon, at this moment, with the British Minister, was, on the whole, about the best use he could make of ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... three men, three dauntless soldiers, had succeeded each other in the command, MacMahon, Ducrot, Wimpfen; MacMahon had only time to be wounded, Ducrot had only time to commit a blunder, Wimpfen had only time to conceive an heroic idea, and he conceived it; but MacMahon is not responsible for his wound, Ducrot is not responsible for his blunder, and Wimpfen is not responsible for the impossibility of his suggestion to cut their way out. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... ball-room, with Mrs. Lincoln leaning on his arm, and took his seat by the side of the President. The evening was pleasantly spent, and the newspapers at once discovered how great a blunder they had made. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... to a hope that there was some mistake, perhaps a blunder on the part of the servant who delivered the message, and that I should receive a note or a visit the next day which would set the matter right. But neither note nor visit came. In a few days the schooner Mary left Baltimore on the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... this justice) is not the author of the famous blunder which is now repeated in every circle. I am assured it was our neighbour, Lord G. though I scarce believe it, who on being presented with the Countess of Albany's card, exclaimed—"The Countess of Albany! Ah!—true—I remember: wasn't ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... this tale. Citoyen Grospierre had paid for his blunder on the guillotine, but what a fool! oh! what ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... purpose; because, not having exercised their powers on small things, their powers lack the development necessary for great ones. Hence, thoughtless people, when forced to act in an affair of importance, blunder through it with no more chance of doing as they should than one would have of hitting a small or distant mark at a shooting-match, if previous practice had not given the power of hitting objects ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... lectures gave us an insight into the second great German blunder after the failure to occupy Paris, which was the failure immediately to swing a line across Northern France, thus cutting off Calais and Boulogne, where they could really have leveled a pistol at England's head. He explained that it was the superiority of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tramloads of wounded soldiers, that there were five thousand in the square in front of the railway station, and that two trains had been provided to take them away! It was evident that some extraordinary blunder had been made; and while we were in doubt as to what to do, a second order came to us cancelling entirely the evacuation order which we and all the other hospitals in Antwerp had received a few hours before. It was all so perplexing that we felt that the only satisfactory plan was to go round to ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... himself recorded a case in which a similar mistake has been made—not in an ordinary communication such its this, but in an Imperial ordinance. In a Rescript of the Emperor Hadrian, Licinius Granianus, the proconsul, is styled Serenus Granianus. [43:3] If such a blunder could be perpetrated in an official State document, need we wonder if the penman of the postscript of the Smyrnaean letter has written Statius Quadratus for Ummidius Quadratus? And yet, if we admit this very likely oversight, the whole chronological edifice ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... try if we could get rid of the annoying restraints which made our residence here a sort of imprisonment, I discovered that the whole affair was not one of blunder or accident, but that we actually were prisoners thus be design. It appeared that Kamrasi's brothers, when they heard we were coming into Unyoro, murmured, and said to the king, "Why are you bringing such guests amongst us, who will practise all kinds of diabolical sorcery, and bring evil on us?" ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... truth. For he bestows those withering words on the nation that has the fifty religions, and attributes "ideas"—as the antithesis of "convenience" and "practical sense"—to the nation that has the fifty sauces. And not for a moment does he suspect himself of this blunder, so manifest as to be disconcerting to his reader. One seems to hear an incurably English accent in all this, which indeed is reported, by his acquaintance, of Matthew Arnold's actual speaking of French. It is certain that he has ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... than ever. The Eusebians had behaved discreditably enough, but they had at least frustrated the council, and secured a recognition of their creed from a large body of Eastern conservatives. So far they had been fairly successful, but the next move on their side was a blunder and worse. When the Sardican envoys, Vincent of Capua and Euphrates of Cologne, came eastward in the spring of 344, a harlot was brought one night into their lodgings. Great was the scandal when the plot was traced up to the Eusebian leader, Stephen of Antioch. ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... to call it a Blunder, he makes about Hell; which he not only makes LOCAL, but gives it a being before the Fall of the Angels; and brings it in opening its mouth to receive them. This is so contrary to the nature of the thing, and so great an absurdity, that no Poetic License ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... it critically and was still confident that it was really composed of precious gems. He believed that if she had had them made to order to replace the stolen ones, either the jeweler had been guilty of a wretched blunder, or else some friend had interposed to replace the jewels which she ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... in Danton, stepping forward. Then, conscious of the blunder, he turned away, and took up ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... doubt or wonder - I check myself, and say, "That mighty One Who made the solar system cannot blunder - And for the best all things are being done." Who set the stars on their eternal courses Has fashioned this strange earth by some sure plan. Bow low, bow low to those majestic forces, Nor dare to doubt their ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... is in this place a blunder of the copyists, which almost makes the sentence unintelligible. The translator, without entering into minute controversies, has, upon all such occasions, adopted what appeared, from the context, to be the most ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... apprehended he was about to salute me. Promptly I acknowledged the expected salute, only to discover that the sergeant had raised his hand for no other purpose than to blow his nose with his naked fingers. Believe me, even now, when I think of this blunder, I catch my breath ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... said the Superintendent, with a slight smile. "Owing to the inexcusable blunder, I'm afraid something about what it contains may leak out prematurely. Those pests, the reporters, are everywhere; you ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... circumstances it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred. Even had they not, differences of opinion between the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict performance of his duties, and writers and debaters must have arisen. It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit, but it seems to me oftener in the selections made of the assistants appointed to aid ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... absolutely dulled. The dressed and waxed moustache, which ran to a needle-like point, looked doubly tasteless against his wax mask of a face. He was the incarnation of walking decrepitude, vapid and slack. Quite evidently he had committed the blunder of trusting to a split in Germany. In his blindness he explained that he had come to free the Germans, who had, against their will, been incorporated into Prussia, and all Germany rose like one man ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... or form of government in France for over a century. It rallied to itself men from the ranks of all its former enemies, but its greatest victory was over the Monarchists. The wreck of their cause by the alliance with a military adventurer was a blunder in the eyes of one section of the Royalists; in the eyes of another, it was a dishonor that amounted ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... despite the utmost care of which I was capable while studying up for the "Coral Island," I fell into a blunder through ignorance in regard to a familiar fruit. I was under the impression that cocoanuts grew on their trees in the same form as that in which they are usually presented to us in grocers' windows—namely, about the size of a large fist with three spots at one end. Learning from trustworthy ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... remaining debtors, and reappeared at Sancerre as Master of Appeals, with an appointment as Royal Commissioner to a commercial association established in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs, an absolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was supposed to have committed a financial blunder, had, in fact, done very good business in ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... and groping his way with a stick, and after an ineffectual attempt to scale the rock above, F. and I also unwillingly followed his example. The water was piercingly cold as it swept against us, and the pain was so great that we were glad to blunder over as quickly as possible, without taking very much trouble about picking our steps. After passing this in safety we came suddenly upon a band of hill-men with their loads, from Thibet; they were the first natives we had encountered, and wild and weird-looking savages they appeared ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. "Pedro," he said, "was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... sarcastic smile. "I beg pardon," said he, "miss; I must guard against that blunder in future, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... his blunder, gives the three blows with his right hoof, followed by the four blows with his left, which represent the most unexceptionable F ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... artillery preparation perform a feat which later required a Division of fresh troops, after one of the most carefully planned and destructive bombardments at that time known? The Brigade could but have failed, and to the onlooker it seemed a tragic blunder, but to those who have read the pathetic story of a tragic day, the title given by "The Student in Arms" of "The Honour of the Brigade" alone provides the excuse for an operation which from every other point of view, was one of the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... they imagine that the Observatory men had committed such a blunder? Barbican would not believe it possible. He made the Captain go over his calculation again and again; but no flaw was to be found in it. He himself carefully examined it, figure after figure, but he could find nothing wrong. They both took up the formula and subjected it to the strongest ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... this morning, and I must not be cheated of my fare.' I would still have refused, but I perceived Clifton began to look serious, and I said to him—'Well, well, good man, here then, take this snuff-box to the marchioness, she may want it: but do not blunder, and break it; for if you do I shall dismiss you my service. Recollect the picture in the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... this blunder of the postmaster on account of the enclosures, some of which I wished to have got to your hands without delay, that they might have undergone the consideration and acting upon which were suggested in the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... tissue of pedantry and error from beginning to end—written, I will wager my head, by some scribbler who never saw Athens! Moreover, the whole article is based upon a glaring blunder; for, according to Plutarch and Diodorus, on the memorable night in question there was a new moon. Pshaw! it is a tasteless, insipid plagiarism from Grote; and if I am to be bored with such insufferable ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... answers were related quickly enough, and the cause of Michael's blunder was plain ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four fifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to make the matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... for information that will help them make good use of their courtship opportunity. They rightly feel that if they blunder in this period, there is little hope of their making their goal later. They have grown suspicious of a strong feeling of attachment, because they have been forced to see in the experiences of many of their friends that this has not guaranteed later happiness. They expect to have sooner or ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... pieces that are away beyond your grasp. This is the greatest fault in our American musical educational systems of to-day. Pupils are permitted to play works that are technically impossible for them to hope to execute without years of preparation. What a huge blunder this is! ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... and looks toward the house. Yes, it is handsome, grand. Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy, art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has found his life-work. He hopes that he may make the world ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... as it might have occurred to him at one time, that Sheila had made some blunder somewhere and been unavoidably detained. He did not think of any possible repetition of her adventures in Richmond Park. He was too conscious of the probable reason of Sheila's remaining away from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... do leave yon barbarian boy at our court as hostage of their faith," demanded young Theodosius the emperor, now speaking for the first time and making a most stupid blunder at ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... sir, I have two vessels waiting for cargoes of India-rubbers there, under a blunder-headed captain, who will do nothing he has not been bidden to,—obey his orders if he breaks his owners. You smile, sir? Why, I should have made thirty thousand dollars this winter, sir, by my India-rubbers, if we had not had this ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... "That was a blunder. Gilks, in his flurry, got hold of the wrong rudder. I really think that's why it wasn't ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... of years, after Shakspeare's birth, and did not settle to the value of twenty-one shillings until a century after his death. The nerve of such an anachronism would lie in putting the estimate into a mouth of that age. And this is precisely the blunder into which the foolish forger of Vortigern, &c., has fallen. He does not indeed directly mention guineas; but indirectly and virtually he does, by repeatedly giving us accounts imputed to Shakspearian contemporaries, in which the sum total ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... and let it pass. It was too pleasing a blunder for a reproach. It is something for a woman to be assured, in her eight-and-twentieth year, that she has not lost one charm of earlier youth; but the value of such homage was inexpressibly increased to Anne, by comparing it with former ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of such set trash of phrase Ineffably—legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile,— Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... are such accidents truly, and serious things be they to encounter," answered Spike, hemming a little to clear his throat, as was much his practice whenever the widow ran into any unusually extravagant blunder; "yes, serious things to encounter. But the land-fall that I mean is a different sort of thing; being, as you well know, what we say when we come in sight of land, a'ter a v'y'ge; or, meaning the land we may happen first to see. The departure is the beginning ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... form—Has the movement of alliterative verse got the initial or the final beat? In the middle of the 18th century Bishop Percy decided this question with sufficient accuracy, though he mixed up his statement with a blunder which it is not easy to account for. He points out how the poets began to introduce rhyme into alliterative verse, until at length rhyme came to predominate over alliteration, and "thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost in the common burlesque Alexandrine or anapaestic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... made a bad blunder, which I attempted to rectify by reaching Buffalo that night; but Tom Barrett had won the game. I was arrested at Fort Erie, handcuffed, jailed, tried, convicted of attempted assault and illicit whiskey-trading on the Grand River Indian Reserve—and spent the next ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... provision boats, and after a little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely deceived the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the darkness. The tiny cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up without a blunder, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... not care to trust Walkirk with this affair. It was plain that he did not thoroughly sympathize with me in the project. I was afraid he might make a blunder, or in some way fail me. Any way, this was a matter which I wished to ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... from subject to subject. They had so much to say that the shadows were rising in the distant end of the room before Mark came to the real matter of moment. It was proof of the change in him that he did not grope and blunder to it but brought it ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was unsaddling his horse, and shaking down some litter for the poor wearied animal, he heard Smith observe to Ganlesse,—"By my faith, Dick, thou hast fallen into poor Slender's blunder; missed Anne Page, and brought us a great ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... symptoms under medication, as well as the full value of the symptoms when not under medication. This knowledge I am using in analyzing this medical classic and from my standpoint I can see how very easy it was for the author of the article under consideration to blunder along as he did. The doctor should not feel lonesome, however, for he has ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... the English. What was the use of it, they asked, if the German army were reduced to 100,000 men? M. Tardieu himself tells the story of all the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, to prevent the blunder which later on was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428. Lloyd George went so far as to complain of political intrigues for creating disorder on the Rhine. But Clemenceau took care to put the question in such a form that no discussion was possible. ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... inquirer doubts the possibility of entering into a scientific knowledge of spiritual truth by following this formula, what then? It can only be because he is so unscholarly as to make the blunder in logic of assuming as untrue or impossible that which remains to ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... seen for miles. The Germans displayed their "thoroughness" as they retired by poisoning the wells with arsenic, and setting high-explosive traps into which they hoped the British advance guards would blunder. Bridges over all the waterways were burned and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... such luck?" grumbled Dick. "You have made yourself a deserter. You did all you could to earn being shot; you walked back, and again did all you could to leave Amherst no other choice but to shoot you. And, again, you blunder into saving half an army! Have ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mischief take it! I am a notary and a member of my chamber!—Pshaw! it was an ambassador's fit of temper, nothing is sacred for people of that kind. To-morrow he shall explain what he meant by saying that I had done nothing but blunder and talk nonsense in his house. I will ask him for an explanation—that is, I will ask him to explain my mistake. After all is done and said, I am in the wrong perhaps—— Upon my word, it is very good of me to cudgel my brains ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... it were a fatal blunder To be blind to this appalling Tragedy you wrong by calling The result of spells—no spells Are such signs, but miracles Outside man's experience falling. He came here because he yearned With his pure and holy breath To give life, and so found death. 'T is a ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... professed loyalty to their sovereign, and one of whom, Egmont, had performed distinguished services for his country and king, was profound. A wave of mingled rage and sorrow swept over the land. It was not only an act of cruel injustice, but even as an act of policy a blunder of the first magnitude, which was sure to bring, as it did bring, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... that on the Bosporus, when we made that trip to the Black Sea in the Maud," added the lady, who seemed to be pleased because she had caught the captain in a blunder. ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... extracted her own letters. She never did it a second time. On the contrary, she begged pardon in real regret at having given such deep offence to her brother and his wife, and in astonishment that so simple an action could offend. She had made an equally distressing blunder in the early days of her life with the Gresleys by taking up the daily paper on its arrival ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... come about, and was equally implicated with my graceless self in this little conspiracy. But one thing yet—tell me before I go, Isabelle, Comtesse de Lineuil, whether you really do intend to accept the Baron de Sigognac as your husband—I don't want to run any risk of making a blunder at this stage of the proceedings, you understand, after having conducted the negotiations successfully up to this point. You do definitely and finally accept him, eh?—that is well—and now I will go to the prince. Engaged lovers sometimes have matters to discuss that even a brother may ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Mohawk River. Burgoyne began his advance in June, with about eight thousand men. Proceeding up Lake Champlain he compelled the Americans to evacuate Crown Point, Ticonderoga and Fort Anne. His first blunder was in failing to avail himself of the water carriage of Lake George, at the head of which there was a direct road to Fort Edward. Instead of taking this course he spent three weeks in cutting a road through the ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... desperation had sought freedom in death. Let no man judge him, and least of all those who are strangers to the fascinating and infernal strength of his enemy. You may call it a grave mistake, a dreadful blunder, a doleful insanity, but do not assume to put him beyond the reach of mercy, or to decide that his lamentable end was not the iron door through which he may have passed to the city ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert, one of the architects of Air Force integration in 1949. American commanders lacked training in the delicate art of community relations, Zuckert later explained, and should even a few of them blunder they could bring on a race crisis of major proportions. He sympathized with the activists' goals and was convinced that the President as Commander in Chief could and should use the armed forces for social ends; but these ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... he had "run his head against a stone wall," and narrowly escaped ruining himself as far as Templeton was concerned. For he knew the young gentlemen of that school well enough to be sure, after a blunder like this, that the place would soon have become too hot ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... that he had been in his neighbourhood, without having formed his personal acquaintance. To Mr Skinner's son, whom he accidentally met in Aberdeen on his return, he expressed a deep regret for the blunder, as "he would have gone twenty miles out of his way to visit ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... to sign the petition," said Mrs. Staggs. "Everybody agrees that you must, before court meets. And that reminds me, I met Henry Bostic's mother today. The old lady doesn't appear to be at all grieved over the part her son took in the affair. It would nearly kill me if a son of mine had made such a blunder." ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... as he hurried back to the station, and his face burned hotly as he thought of the chance such a blunder on his part would have given Quade and Culver Rann to circulate the stories with which they largely played their scoundrelly game. He sent another and longer telegram. This time it ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... will proceed to another, and be aghast at the cellar yawning at his feet. Trying a third, he surprises the housemaid at her work. In the end, no more relying on his own unaided efforts, he procures a trusty guide in some passing person, and in good time successfully emerges. Perhaps as curious a blunder as any, was that of a certain stylish young gentleman, a great exquisite, in whose judicious eyes my daughter Anna had found especial favor. He called upon the young lady one evening, and found her alone in the dining-room at her needlework. ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... his lowest terms," B said firmly, "that'll fetch him." C's life might even then have been saved but they made a mistake about the medicine. It stood at the head of the bed on a bracket, and the nurse accidentally removed it from the bracket without changing the sign. After the fatal blunder C seems to have sunk rapidly. On the evening of the next day, as the shadows deepened in the little room, it was clear to all that the end was near. I think that even A was affected at the last as he stood with bowed head, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... years previously, he had endeavoured to obtain two war-galleons from the Portuguese, and had he succeeded, the history of the Far East might have been radically different. Evidently, however, he committed a blunder which his countrymen in modern times have conspicuously avoided; he drew the sword without having fully investigated his ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... as to startle her by the fear of having ignorantly committed some egregious blunder; 'I'm the last person ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thing," she continued rather proudly, "a thing men too often blunder over—with the very best intentions, bless them, only they do blunder, and that leads to ructions. Please put the question of money out of your head once and for all. I have a certain amount of my own, nothing princely well ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... incontestable superiority! Now all notion of patriotism is extinct in his soul. He has now but one thought, one ferocious desire: to avenge himself upon those who have denied him—and even upon all mankind! Really, Mr. Hart, your governments of Europe and America committed a stupendous blunder in refusing to pay Roch the price ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... laughter overwhelmed her; but it was not shared by Dick, who stood above her on the slope, frowning in perplexity, thinking of the strange blunder into which he had been led by the words of poor old Bells, his acceptance of her identity, his ignorance that Bully Presby had kith or kin, and of the mine owner's sarcastic references and veiled antagonism throughout ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... My blunder was this, I travelled to Bayreuth with an ideal in my breast, and was thus doomed to experience the bitterest disappointment. The preponderance of ugliness, grotesqueness and strong ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... of you! I shall never forgive myself for the foolish blunder I made. See! these people look upon you as a hero, for you risked your life for a child of Malta. I am proud to be known as ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us: It wad frae monie a blunder free ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... cohesion. There is a temptation, from which some people suffer, to think that one can't be fighting for God at all, unless one is doing it furiously, and all the time, and successfully, and on a large and impressive scale. That is a fatal blunder. To hide your adversary's sword is often a very good way of fighting. To have an open tussle often makes the bystanders sympathise with the assailant. It is really a far more civilised thing, and often stands for a higher degree of force and honour, to be able to bear contradiction ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... climax came. Liege had fallen. The English Expedition had landed, and was marching on Belgium. A victorious German army had goose-stepped into defenseless Brussels, and was sweeping out toward the French frontier. The French advance into Alsace had been a blunder. ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... drama. The olla podrida thus cooked up, was denounced, by the best critics in Germany, as the mere cramps of weakness, and orgasms of a sickly imagination on the part of the author, and the lowest provocation of torpid feeling on that of the readers. The old blunder, however, concerning the irregularity and wildness of Shakespeare, in which the German did but echo the French, who again were but the echoes of our own critics, was still in vogue, and Shakespeare was quoted as authority for the most anti-Shakespearean drama. We have indeed ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... eventful night, the air went flaming red before my eyes and helpless wrath came uppermost. I saw no way to clear her, and had there been the plainest way, dumb rage would still have held me tongue-tied. So I could only mop and mow and stammer, and, when the words were found, make shift to blunder out that such an accusation did the lady grievous wrong; that she had come attended and at my beseeching, to take a message from a dying man to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... reconcile the king and the Parliament, which met again in February 1677 after a prorogation of fifteen months. The Country party stood in the way of such a reconciliation, but Danby resolved to break its strength by measures of unscrupulous vigour for which a blunder of Shaftesbury's gave an opportunity. Shaftesbury despaired of bringing the House of Commons, elected as it had been fifteen years before in a moment of religious and political reaction, to any steady opposition to the Crown. He had ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... a forger would pay sufficient attention to his materials to be on his guard against the blunder which earned the perpetrator of the Whalley Will Forgery penal servitude. He put forward a will dated 1862, written on paper bearing in a plain watermark the date 1870! Another indiscreet person asked the ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... idea that there are such faults. The language of children who have heard no language but what is good, must be correct. On the contrary, children who hear a mixture of low and high vulgarity before their own habits are fixed, must, whenever they speak, continually blunder; they have no rule to guide their judgment in their selection from the variety of dialects which they hear; probably they may often be reproved for their mistakes, but these reproofs will be of no avail, whilst the pupils continue to be puzzled between the example of the nursery and of the drawing-room. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... equally ignorant with Lieutenant Loti but uninstructed evidently, marries a geisha whose father had made the happy dispatch at the request of the Son of Heaven after making a blunder in his military command. She is Cio-Cio-San, also Madama Butterfly, and she comes to her wedding with a bevy of geishas or mousmes (I do not know which) and a retinue of relations. All enjoy the hospitality of the American officer while picking him to pieces, but turn from their kinswoman when ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... hear that," said Lionel, sharply. Fairthorn looked frightened. "I 'm afraid I have made a blunder. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Brandon, is the worst," Richter answered with keen bitterness. "We knew he was against us, but thought this something of a joke. Well, it seems we were mistaken. These English are obstinate; often without imagination or forethought, they blunder on, and chance, that favors simpletons, is sometimes with them. But remember, that if your father meets with misfortunes, you ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... "Mr. Sanford Quest is my friend. I am here in charge of his house. Believing as I do that his arrest was an egregious blunder, I shall say or do nothing likely to afford you ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... it. No, you send the old lady packing, for the good of her health, and Mrs. Mackintosh and I'll help you and Cecil entertain, and we'll have a dance, and a marquee, and lots of punch. I dare say you've never been to a dance in your life," she rattled on, not giving him a chance to blunder out excuses. ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Stanley saw his blunder and grew hot with rage. He had been outwitted; and now, as between him and the King, he must ever bear the burden of having first suggested Edward's sons as a menace to the State. The trap was so easy; and yet he had never seen it until it had ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... their lives as we are living ours, in the shimmer of a globule in space, it is not enough that we should lift our faces to the sky and blunder and guess at a God there, because there is so much room between the stars, and murmur faintly, "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." By the infinite bones of our bodies, by the seeds of the million ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that the translators have here made an extraordinary blunder. They have, I think, mistaken [Greek: diamerizo] for [Greek: diamerizo]. For the peculiar meaning of the former verb I beg to refer those who have not observed it, to Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. The substitution of a letter here ([eta] for [epsilon]) would give to the Scripture ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... found means to break off the treaty I was making for that purpose with the Prince de Guemende, who had the reversion of it, and then represented me to the people as one who only sought my own interest. Instead of profiting by this blunder, which I might have done to my own advantage, I added another to it, and said all that rage could prompt me against the Cardinal to one who told it ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... people: until, placed in power some day, he shows that to rule well requires other things than one-sidedness in the ruling person; and is fortunate if he does not acquire that part of renown which consists in notoriety, by committing some colossal blunder, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... Wellington, the dedication of his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales, all of which are of great excellence. His Charge of the Light Brigade, at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military blunder, must rank as one of the finest ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... their journey had been without its risks, but now they had to be more careful than ever. The whole shore of the Straits was, they knew, a network of forts and hidden defences. There was no saying when they might blunder upon something of ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the pitiable mistakes to which love alone is subject. I have inadvertently wandered from my purpose, which was to expose quite an opposite blunder, into which we are no less apt to fall, through hate. How ugly a person looks upon whose reputation some awkward aspersion hangs, and how suddenly his countenance clears up with his character! I remember being persuaded of a man whom I had conceived an ill ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Now what a Blunder would be committed in the Education of such a Family, if, with this different Turn of Mind in the Children, there should be no difference made in the Management of them, or their Disposal in the World. If all should be put into one Way of Life, or brought up to one Business. Or if in the ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... of the mere possibility of such a colossal blunder was, of course, the admission of the whole of John Dillon's contention—namely, that, whatever might happen in Egypt, Ireland was right in not accepting the discretion of any man as the sole guarantee of ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... my day," said Odo wearily. "And meanwhile we blunder on, without ever really knowing what incalculable instincts and prejudices are pitted against us. You and your party tell me the people are sick of the burdens the clergy lay on them—yet their blind devotion to the Church ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... By special direction, Came down the world's wonder, Sir Salathiel Blunder, With a quoif on his head As heavy as lead; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... underwent a radical modification. The original document threw open to the English every port in Japan; the revised document limited them to Hirado. But this restriction may be indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a settlement in Yedo and a port at Uraga. For the foreign policy of the Tokugawa was largely swayed by an apprehension that the Kyushu feudatories, many of whom were not over-well ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... widespread. John G. Whittier and Theodore D. Weld, who were both avowed believers in the idea of women's rights, nevertheless, felt that the agitation of the subject, under the circumstances, was a grave blunder. "No moral enterprise, when prosecuted with ability and any sort of energy, ever failed under heaven," wrote Weld to Sarah and Angelina, "so long as its conductors pushed the main principle, and did not strike off ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... variety of subject. This feat was lately communicated to me by one of his then schoolfellows; and I also recollect him once mentioning the subject to me himself; adding, if I recollect correctly, that there was not a blunder found in any of the verses which he had written. During his vacations he visited France, and mastered the French and Italian languages, with both of which, up to the period of his death, he continued perfectly familiar, and very partial to the writers of both. About ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... with the impishness of childhood, climbed up in the auto. It was a simple matter to even blunder on pushing the button that would set the self-starter in operation. The car had been left standing on a level bit of road, but, just ahead of it, was a rather steep slope. Mollie had neglected to leave the emergency brake set, and when the motor started there was ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... lead me about and show me the things they are interested in. Of course the little ones cannot spell on their fingers; but I manage to read their lips. If I do not succeed they resort to dumb show. Sometimes I make a mistake and do the wrong thing. A burst of childish laughter greets my blunder, and the pantomime begins all over again. I often tell them stories or teach them a game, and the winged hours depart and leave us good ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... said to have occurred. By some mistake of General Mack's, in directing the operations of a feigned fight, it so happened that his own troops were completely surrounded by those of the enemy; when Lord Nelson, vexed at the unfortunate and inauspicious blunder, immediately exclaimed, to his surrounding friends—"This fellow does not ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... and hypnotised and defeated many a more actively intelligent man. Deep in his soul Dubois had hidden his one profound discovery about the modern art of warfare, the key to his career. And this discovery was that NOBODY KNEW, that to act therefore was to blunder, that to talk was to confess; and that the man who acted slowly and steadfastly and above all silently, had the best chance of winning through. Meanwhile one fed the men. Now by this same strategy he hoped to shatter those mysterious ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... being ornamented with this decoration. Can any of your correspondents produce another example? or can they account, from any other cause, for Richard Harpur receiving such a distinction? or may I not rather attribute it to the blunder of the sculptor? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... place!" she scoffed. "Her place where a blunder-headed man puts her! How do you know what her place is? Do you suppose the blood in a healthy-bodied, healthy-minded woman is any different from your blood? How would you like to be told just what your place is? To be jammed, for instance, into a little ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... treaty of "peace", negotiated with the Cherokees at the close of 1759, was worse than a crime: it was a crass and hideous blunder. His domineering attitude and tyrannical treatment of these Indians had aroused the bitterest animosity. Yet he did not realize that it was no longer safe to trust their word. No sooner did the governor withdraw his army from the borders than the cunning Cherokees, whose passions had been inflamed ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... not only to you gentlemen here, but to all British constituencies—that it is well you should have patience enough to listen to a speech about India; because it is no secret to anybody who understands, that if the Government were to make a certain kind of bad blunder in India—which I do not at all expect them to make—there would be short work for a long time to come, with many of those schemes, upon which you have set your heart. Do not dream, if any mishap of a certain ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a tower, and bearing a shield of eight millstones, and as he walked he shouted: 'Ho! blunder-head! by what right do you come to our country and kill our people? Come! make two of me.' As the prince was despicable in his eyes, he tossed aside his club and rushed to grip him with his hands. He caught him by the collar, tucked him under his arm and set off with ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Inches did not come in again. She took out her big check once or twice in the course of the day and looked at it resentfully; and as she brooded upon the matter, it was borne in upon her with peculiar force that she had made a fatal blunder in exchanging her "chances" for that fixed, inexpansive sum. Had it not been cowardly in her to yield so easily? Supposing Dayton himself had lacked courage at the critical moment; where would his four-in-hand have been to-day? She was sure that ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... had dabbled in the humanities; but he would drag forth my smattering of learning with so much glee that one might have thought him ignorant of the plainest A B C of the matter. More than once I have known him blunder in a Latin quotation that I might correct him. Aileen and he had a hundred topics in common from which I was excluded by reason of my ignorance of the Highlands, but the Macdonald was as sly as a fox on my behalf. He would draw out the girl about the dear Northland they both loved and ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Laplace, and Galileo, and Copernicus, and Darwin to contradict the teachings of the previous fifty thousand years. He asks us to believe that God muddled men's minds with a mysterious series of revelations cloaked in fable and allegory; that He allowed them to stumble and to blunder, and to quarrel over these "revelations"; that He allowed them to persecute, and slay, and torture each other on account of divergent readings of his "revelations" for ages and ages; and that He is still looking on while a number of bewildered and antagonistic ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... Ascend, then, with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my Lord and his visitants. But have a care how you proceed; be mindful to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. For, should you make any blunder,—should you go to the right of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear; and should you go to the left, your case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf!—Nor, when you have attained the door, is your danger over; for the hall being decayed, and therefore standing in need of repair, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... restrain them, when intoxicated with success and confident of their strength, would probably have been too hard a task even for him, as it had been, in the preceding generation, too hard a task for Montrose. The new general did nothing but hesitate and blunder. One of his first acts was to send a large body of men, chiefly Robertsons, down into the low country for the purpose of collecting provisions. He seems to have supposed that this detachment would without difficulty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... best we can to solve the problem, and overhaul the Islander," I continued; "but, after all, we may miss her. If Captain Blastblow has made a blunder, or there is any misunderstanding, he must soon discover it. If he has only come out here for a trial trip, and should happen to pass us in the fog without our seeing him, he knows the Sylvania ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... to and fro; "Well, it surprises me," he said; then, after a pause, "I have been accustomed to think both celibacy and marriage good in their way. In the Church of Rome great good, I see, comes of celibacy; but depend on it, my dear Reding, you are making a great blunder if you are for introducing celibacy ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... the Epistles of Phalaris, the import of {men} and {de}, the Catholic question, or the great roots of Christian faith; ending with the latest joke in the town or the West Raw, the last effusion by Affleck, tailor and poet, the last blunder of AEsop the apothecary, and the last repartee of the village fool, with the week's Edinburgh and Glasgow news by their respective carriers; the whole little life, sad and humorous—who had been born, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... I was still in durance vile, and Higgins was in his strait-jacket. On being released, my hands were full, as you can suppose. Moreover, I did not learn at once of your detention. The saddle and the valise caused me to suspect that a blunder had been committed. I cannot adequately express my regrets. In ten minutes," continued Dr. Pendegrast, turning a fat gold watch over on its back in the palm of his hand, where it looked like a little ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... complain extremely when I tell them I have no order to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours."[16] And this scrupulous observance of his orders, at a time when a little excess of zeal was unlikely to be regarded as a very serious blunder, is yet more strikingly illustrated in his next letter, written a week later from Dumfries. In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over the Nith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... was well known that a man had to be up very early in every sense if he wanted to keep an eye on a Putnam horse. Mat Woodburn might be old, but he was by no means sleepy; and Joses could not afford to blunder. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... arises out of the Edgar incident. But that incident merely precipitated a struggle which was certain to come. It is possible to make too much of the killing of Edgar. It was a shocking and, in my judgment, a criminal blunder, such as would have caused a popular outcry anywhere. It was made much worse by the light way in which it was first dealt with by the Public Prosecutor and then by the judge at the trial. By itself, however, it would not have justified, nor, in fact, provoked the present storm. But ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... been of this fact; and now he learnt that this imputed lover of Eleanor's was at any rage as much disliked by her as by any one of the family. Mr Harding, however, was by no means sufficiently a man of the world to conceal the blunder he had made. He could not pretend that he had entertained no suspicion; he could not make believe that he had never joined the archdeacon in his surmises. He was greatly surprised, and gratified beyond measure, and he could not help showing that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we rest, for every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... the enclosed is worth your reading. I am smashed to atoms about Glen Roy. My paper was one long gigantic blunder from beginning to end. Eheu! Eheu! (524/1. See "Life and Letters," I., pages 68, 69, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... step in that course which made Prussia so formidable a member of the Grand Alliance of 1813-15. But even so late as the close of May, 1813, Prussia was in danger of annihilation, and would have been annihilated had not Napoleon proffered an armistice, which was accepted,—the greatest blunder of his career, according to some eminent critics, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... for the last part of our journey. Shortly beyond the town, the road turned, for a moment, into the river, and after passing for a few rods in the river-bed, struck up again onto the bank. At this place we made a fatal blunder. When the road went down into the river, supposing that we were about to ford, we kept straight across the stream. Finding a road upon the other side we had no suspicion but what we were going well and travelled onward. For a long time we found trails of ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr |
