"Misunderstanding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of selection by nature has already brought about many difficulties that should be avoided in the future. On the other hand, the designation of the process as a natural [744] selection of species complies as closely as possible with existing terminology, and does not seem liable to any misunderstanding. ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... are beginning life; there must be no misunderstanding. Be frank, and you will find me indulgent. Come, young girls are often romantic. They picture an ideal; they fall in love with some one who does not return their love, which is sometimes even unknown to him who is their ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a misunderstanding. I wasn't to blame." The section boss turned to Dick. "I'll get a freight engine to run the car with the machine down to Ashton ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... respects the most fascinating figure in American literature. His life, touched by the extremes of fortune, was on the whole more unhappy than that of any other of our prominent men of letters. His character was strangely complex, and was the subject of misunderstanding during his life and of heated dispute after his death; his writings were long neglected or disparaged at home, while accepted abroad as our greatest literary achievement. Now, after more than half a century has ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... 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 ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... appeared that both his mother and his sister had been talking to him as it seemed he had never before been talked to in his life. They had told him a number of home truths in language that it seemed there was no possibility of misunderstanding; and they had done all this so convincingly that the dormant spirit of good that was in him had been effectually awakened. The withering scorn with which his sister had commented upon his behaviour in general and the offensive and contemptible traits of character ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... Blount," said he, just a suggestion of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "Don't you think there has been a slight misunderstanding between us two? If you are so blamed particular and really want a check for fifty, why, here it is." He busied himself a moment, and passed over a strip of paper. Even as he did so, the ire of Colonel Blount cooled as suddenly ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... notoriously perverse, and To' Kaya's wife persisted in misunderstanding the motives which kept him abroad far into the night. She attributed his absences to the blandishments of some unknown lady, and she refused to be pacified by his explanations, just as other wives, in more civilised communities, have obstinately ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... so," said Jasper, with a laugh; feeling surprisingly light-hearted, it was so beautiful to be talking it all over with Polly, "but the trouble is, Mason don't. Well, and then came that dreadful misunderstanding about Mr. Marlowe; that hurt me worse than all. O, Polly! if you only knew the man," and Jasper relapsed ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... I should have explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think—or at least hope—you would have justified me. I had cause to believe that you had not only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It was not so, I now know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding has resulted from that mistake. But you were married—a boy: you knew nothing of the world, little of yourself. To save you in after-life—for there is a period when mature men and women who have married young are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Hebblethwaite continued, "he came over here charged, as you might say, almost with a special mission. He came over here to make friends with England. He has done it. So long as we have him in London, there will never be any serious fear of misunderstanding between the ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... doubtful constitutionality, and he waited patiently until the right hour had struck before he issued the edict of emancipation so eagerly demanded by a large class of earnest and loyal people at the North. Many of these people, misunderstanding his views and intentions, were very impatient; and their criticisms and expostulations were a constant burden to the sorely ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... rights under existing treaties and international comity in the territorial waters of Canada and of Newfoundland, I availed myself of opportune occurrences indicative of a desire to make without delay an amicable and final settlement of a long-standing controversy, productive of much irritation and misunderstanding between the two nations, to send through our minister in London proposals that a conference should take place on ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... signals are prescribed. In making signals either arm may be used. Officers who receive signals, on the firing line "repeat back" at once to prevent misunderstanding. ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... Amalia; "the misunderstanding is explained, and Major Weisspriess is just as ready as Count Ammiani to listen to reason. Besides, Count Ammiani is not so unfriendly but that if he came so near he would come up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Except the misunderstanding with Sir Robert Peel about the dismissal of the ladies of her suite, which occurred early in the reign, this is the only difference on record between the Queen ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... "It looks as if it won't be long before we are fit for a remove,"—that is, for an advance on Ticonderoga. On the twelfth Loudon sent Webb with the forty-fourth regiment and some of Bradstreet's boatmen to reinforce Oswego.[422] They had been ready for a month; but confusion and misunderstanding arising from the change of command had prevented their departure.[423] Yet the utmost anxiety had prevailed for the safety of that important post, and on the twenty-eighth Surgeon Thomas Williams wrote: "Whether Oswego is yet ours is uncertain. Would hope it is, as the reverse would be ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... thin, worn woman, from whose life pleasure had so entirely vanished that she had not even any Sunday clothes which could give her satisfaction in preparing for church—had already had a misunderstanding with her husband since he had come home, and was in low spirits, expecting the worst. But her husband was beforehand ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Emperor, calmly, "I see clearly that there has been some slight misunderstanding among you about this matter, and I am sure Saint Andrew is too gallant a Knight to desire to make any five of you unhappy, or jealous of the sixth. I, therefore, purpose to send you all back, under a proper escort, to your father's court, and I hope that you will there speedily find six noble ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... to him—do you know? The reason he stopped coming to our house was some misunderstanding with my father, of course. I am positive my mother never changed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the picking of these men," insisted Mr. Hand, aggressively. "Every one of them had your personal indorsement. You made the deals with them. You don't mean to say they're going back on their sacred agreement to fight Cowperwood tooth and nail? There can't be any misunderstanding on their part as to what they were elected to do. The newspapers have been full of the fact that nothing favorable to Cowperwood was to be ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of gratitude, moistening her eyes. Very gravely he stooped and kissed it with a "Thank God, mademoiselle!" To say more was unnecessary, for in the three words he said everything. It was the formal wiping out of the day's misunderstanding, the knitting together of life-threads torn apart, and where there is such a knitting the union is firmer, closer, stronger, more indissoluble than before the rent. "Monsieur d'Argenton," she went on, the voice a little tremulous ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... inevitable. I had expected to devote my life in making her happy, but I soon found that the true reason of my friend's apparent unfaithfulness was my own action, combined with a feeling on his part that it was as well that our affection should cease even at the cost of misunderstanding. Since then, three years ago, I have not had a happy day or night, and am therefore quite unable to promote happiness in others. Without my friend, I can find no satisfaction with wife, child, or home. Life has become almost unbearable. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 7. Both armies joined at Smyr'na: the sight of such a formidable force began to revive the declining spirits of the party, and to reunite the two generals still more closely, between whom there had been, some time before, a slight misunderstanding. In short, having quitted Italy like distressed exiles, without having one soldier or one town that owned their command, they now found themselves at the head of a flourishing army, furnished with every necessary for carrying on the war, and in ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... he began again. "I've made a study of horses, Joe. Over forty years I've studied them, and it's my opinion that the average horse knows more than the average man that drives him. When I think of the stupid fools that are goading patient horses about, beating them and misunderstanding them, and thinking they are only clods of earth with a little life in them, I'd like to take their horses out of the shafts and harness them in, and I'd trot them off at a pace, and slash them, and jerk them, till I guess they'd ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... He was conscious that he had somehow played all his cards badly, and he wanted another opening. "You're misunderstanding me altogether! I never said—never ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... father for a few moments in silence. To-night he seemed at a greater distance than ever before, and more lonely than ever. When Austen had entered the room and had seen him sitting with his head bowed forward, the hostility of months of misunderstanding had fallen away from the son, and he had longed to fly to him as he had as a child after punishment. Differences in after life, alas, are not always to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his mind on the night of the November election; but the principal names in it most certainly were. To some of these gentlemen he offered their appointments by letter. Others he asked to visit him in Springfield to talk the matter over. Much delay and some misunderstanding occurred before the list was finally completed: but when he sent it to the Senate, on the day after his inauguration, it was practically the one he had in his ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... issued must be as few as possible; that they be as concise and clear as possible; that the things to be done be as few and as simple as possible, and that all possible foresight be exercised to prevent any confusion or misunderstanding, or any necessity on the part of any one for requesting ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... said frankly that she had undertaken to help the Gadfly with some "frontier work." She had stipulated for the right to tell her old friend this much, in order that there might be no misunderstanding or painful sense of doubt and mystery between them. It seemed to her that she owed him this proof of confidence. He made no comment when she told him; but she saw, without knowing why, that the news ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... necessary to apply common salt, as the gales of winter generally bring as much as is needed; but last winter we had no high winds, and I thought that where salt was applied with other chemical manures, the wheat was more luxuriant than where there was none; but owing to a misunderstanding of the instructions to that effect, the produce was not kept separate. When the chemical manure was applied, one land was left without, for the purpose of comparison. Guano was sowed on the land on the 29th March, at the rate ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... is inclined to think that England's refusal is not very polite. Lord Salisbury, however, says that he is entirely free from all blame in the matter, and that the whole trouble has been caused by a misunderstanding with ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... house of representatives did not explicitly convey their sense of the constitution. Indeed the express grant of the power to the President, rather implied a right in the legislature to give or withhold it at their discretion. To obviate any misunderstanding of the principle on which the question had been 'decided, Mr. Benson moved in the house, when the report of the committee of the whole was taken up, to amend the second clause in the bill so as clearly to imply the power ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself were not on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among us. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I say her son, I mean your ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... your Excellency to inform the French Minister for Foreign Affairs that, in accordance with his wish, his message for M. Marchand has been transmitted to Khartoum, and will be forwarded thence to its destination. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, you should state to M. Delcasse that the fact of Her Majesty's Government having complied with his Excellency's request in regard to the transmission of the message does not imply the slightest modification of the views previously expressed by them. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... red-hot with the talk that goes on. People are not afraid to talk aloud here. There's no one to arrest them and nowhere to exile them to, so you can be as liberal as you like. The people for the most part are independent, self-reliant, and logical. If there is any misunderstanding at Ust-Kara, where the convicts work (among them many politicals who don't work), all the Amur region is in revolt. It is not the thing to tell tales. An escaped convict can travel freely on the steamer to the ocean, without any fear of the captain's giving ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Travilla rose to take leave, declining Mr. Dinsmore's urgent invitation to remain to dinner, but promising to come again before long and stay a day or two. His kind heart was really pained to learn that there was again a misunderstanding between his little friend—as he had been in the habit of calling Elsie—and her father; and as he rode home silently pondering the matter, he determined that he would very soon fulfil his promise of paying a longer visit, for he could not ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... this vehemence! But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be no more disturbed by him. And yet, with all this aversion, I would sooner give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw him, than to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Captain Guy and his nephew, who gave a very bad account of the interior, representing it as one of the most dreary and utterly barren countries in the world. They had remained two nights on the island, owing to some misunderstanding, on the part of the second mate, in regard to the sending a jollyboat from the schooner ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Chief—ambassador extraordinary. Look out of the window, or I shall not have courage to go on. He's put the devil to bed and is monstrous sorry this misunderstanding has occurred—" ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... this is a jolly surprise," said Mr. Kent, laying aside his books. "We heard you were laid up. Some misunderstanding somewhere. We've got a friend of ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... authority by the passport official revealed to him his mistake, and he immediately ordered his subordinates to replace my baggage on the coach; but this I instantly forbade. He then came up to me and insisted that a misunderstanding had occurred. "No,'' I said; "there is no misunderstanding; you have only treated me as you have treated other Americans. The American minister has ordered me to wait here and inform him, and all that I have now to ask you is that you give me the name of a hotel.'' ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... heard the words, misunderstanding their meaning, the Baron turned pale, the blood tingled in his veins, he breathed the airs of heaven. At his age a millionaire, for such a sensation, will pay as much gold as a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the right of it—the right, for example, of converts leaving their homes for Christ's sake and His Gospel's. All will be in sympathy with us when we try to save little children, but perhaps some are out of sympathy when we do what results in sorrow and misunderstanding—"not peace, but a sword." So we purpose now to gather up into three, some of the many objections which are often urged upon those engaged in this sort of work, because we feel that they ought to be faced and answered if possible, lest ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... sentinels at regular intervals within hearing of one another, and messages were shouted from one to the other. Just fancy the number of sentinels required to establish a line between distant cities, and the opportunities for misunderstanding and mistake! The ancient Gauls also employed this method of communication. Caesar records that the news of the massacre of the Romans at Orleans was sent to Auvergne, a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty miles, by ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... with an impatient, womanly impulse to make him speak and have done with it, in order that there might be no more misunderstanding. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... be sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he would presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Something subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... apparent disrepute such ancient maxims about human nature, these people are disposed to conclude that the old economic theory is exploded, since its psychological premises have been shown to be untrue. Such an attitude involves a complete misunderstanding not merely of economics, but of the processes of human thought. It is quite true that the various branches of knowledge are interrelated very intimately, and that an advance in one will often suggest a development in another. By all means let the ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... see the faults of others, their weaknesses, their disagreeable qualities, and we keep silent. How much we should gain, were candor as universal as concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate misfortune,—in short, how much brighter and happier the world would become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... the latter, wilfully misunderstanding. "With you to the death, if need be. But look," she added as they turned a corner, "Methinks we have pretty nearly reached the scene of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road—anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... it hath pleased Him "to regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit." The same connexion between regeneration and baptism is expressed in the Office for Private Baptism and in the Office for the Baptism of Adults. There has been much confusion and misunderstanding caused by using the word regeneration as though it meant conversion. Both the Bible—Tit. iii. 5; John iii. 3-5—and the Fathers use regeneration as the new birth of baptism, but never as meaning anything else, unless ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... struggles, are due to ignorance, misunderstanding, lack of the basis for intelligent appreciation of ideals, motives and sympathy, so among nations knowledge of bodily and mental traits, of aims, aspirations, and national ideals fosters the feeling of kinship and favors the instinctive ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... come and quenched it,—pity that an unselfish life of suffering and loneliness should be crowned with these. The Colonel longed then to clasp his friend in his arms. Quarrels they had had by the hundred, never yet a misunderstanding. God had given to Silas Whipple a nature stern and harsh that repelled all save the charitable few whose gift it was to see below the surface, and Colonel Carvel had been the chief of them. But now ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... edification in our ordinary religious parlance? Good words, wise teaching, or pious speech. But the New Testament means vastly more than this by the word, and looks not so much to other people's utterances as to a man's own strenuous efforts, as the means of edification. Much misunderstanding would have been avoided if our translators had really translated, instead of putting us off with a Latinised word which to many readers conveys little meaning and none of the significant metaphor of the original. 'Being edified' sounds very theological ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... a moment silently; should he leave her under such a misunderstanding? It would be easier for them both, but he had intended no untruth. How was it possible to make such a woman understand? She was quiet now, and he was stealing away from her with a kiss on ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... would be death. I arranged with him the day I definitely said yes, and again on our wedding eve, so as to have no misunderstanding, that I might keep all my pet slang, and even use language if I felt it really necessary; otherwise he would certainly have been the 'Winter ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... penalty of banishment and the confiscation of goods, from harboring the outlaws. Every third man was detailed to act as a minute man whenever required; and the whole population was pledged for the public defence. At the same time, to prevent any misunderstanding, messengers were sent to Connecticut to inform the colonial authorities there, that these measures were adopted solely for the protection of their commerce and the ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... there was a misunderstanding. The driver didn't meet the train, so the person he was going after walked all the way to the forks. We happened upon each other there, Mr. Jones, and we studied the sign-post together. She was bound for a place ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... Galt's fitness for the office of superintendent of the Canada Company, it would, perhaps, be considered presumptuous in me to give an opinion. His position was an unfortunate one, and from his first residence in the country till his resignation, there appears to have been a serious misunderstanding between him, the Governor, and the Executive-council, in consequence of which, Galt's character was misrepresented at home as that of a meddling politician and troublesome person. Other charges regarding the wasteful expenditure of money in forming the new settlements were laid before the ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals where Miss Omar is concerned. Also a disposition to use strong language in the lady's presence. Don't ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... the surest way. Well, sir, you and I never had but this one little misunderstanding, and now that is explained, we ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... reached T. I had a very disagreeable duty before me, namely, to fix a misunderstanding with a customer. The house had written me: "Atkinsen & Co. bought a bill last October from Ned on 60 days' time; goods went exactly as ordered. When the bill became due we sent a statement, with a mem. that if not heard from in ten days we would draw. In reply they sent ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... element of internationalism which lay at the back of his mind. There must be no misunderstanding of this element. It was not pointing along the way of the modern "international." Lincoln would have fought Bolshevism to the death. Side by side with his assertion of the sanctity of the international bond of labor, stands ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... mask, a black hat with wide brim and a long, curling silver feather. He was tall, broad-shouldered, noticeable.... The quarrel had started among unmasked peasants, then had swooped in a numerous band dressed as ravens. Light-fingered gentry, inconspicuously clad, aided in provoking misunderstanding that should shake for them the orchard trees. A company of wine-bibbers with monstrous, leering masks, staggering from a side-street, fell into the whirlpool. With vociferation and blows the whole pulled here and there, the original cause of the falling out buried now in a host of new ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... 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, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... daily life, but they do something which is as necessary. They educate and refine the spirit so that it shall not come altogether without any understanding of delicate loveliness into the Kingdom of Heaven, or gaze on Timanoge with the crude blank misunderstanding of Cockney tourists staring up at the stupendous dreams pictured on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. These fastidious scorners of every day and its interests are always looking through nature for "the herbs before they were in the field and ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... method of lingual communication have been based; and although such merely mechanical inventions were therein distinguished from a Language discovered as existing in the nature of things; several criticisms, emanating from high literary quarters, indicate that there is still much misunderstanding as to the real nature of a Universal Language framed upon the principles of Analogy between Sense and Sound. This misunderstanding seems most prevalent in respect to the two points relating directly to the practical ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to think, that misunderstanding should prevail to such an extent, and heart so seldom really speak to heart, in the intercourse of the world, that the most humane may appear cruel, and the sympathizing indifferent. Judging of Mlle. de l'Espinasse ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... be useless; you would then only be your father's messenger. Does anything occur to yourself? Something must be done. Your father shall not be ruined by so ridiculous a misunderstanding." ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... calm again; and he was masterful for the first time in all his dealings with her. "We are very far from any understanding. Indeed, we are overhead in a misunderstanding already. You misconstrue my words. I am very angry with you. I do not think that in all my life I have ever been so angry with anybody. But you are not to mistake the source of my anger. I am angry with you for the great ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... I informed. And I repeated, that there should be no misunderstanding. "Mrs. Montoyo, from Benton. No ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... of accidents, whereof was author that distinguished inventor of fiction, Miss Sallianna, promised to make the present interview exceedingly piquant and fruitful in entertaining misunderstanding; for the reader will observe the situation of the parties. Miss Sallianna had persuaded Verty that Redbud was in love with Ralph; and, in the second place, had assured Ralph, a few moments before, that Fanny ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... later to point out, has on its side the opinion of men, it cannot hope to endure. The fall of James was caused, not as the Nonjurors were tempted to think, by popular disregard of Divine personality, but by his own misunderstanding of the limits to which misgovernment may go. Here their opponents had a strong case to present; for, as Stillingfleet remarked, if William had not come over there might have been no Church of England for the Nonjurors to preserve. ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... reconstruction pains was to have been expected. That they were unnecessarily severe was due chiefly to the greed of a clique of politicians; partly also to the fact that the North misunderstood us and our black wards, even as we persist in misunderstanding the "Yankee." But no gibbet rose in that storm-swept waste; our very leaders now occupy positions of honor and trust under the flag they defied. Let us not requite the generosity of our erstwhile foes by an attempt to tarnish their well-earned laurels. Rather let us ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Saturday before the election I spoke in Massillon. By some misunderstanding I was advertised to speak on that afternoon at both Massillon and Mansfield, but, by an arrangement subsequently made, I spoke at Massillon to one of the largest meetings of the campaign, and then was taken by special train to Mansfield in time to make my closing speech in the canvass. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... struck at the prosperity of those people whom only a few hours ago she had been proud to call her friends. The underlying goodness of her nature was touched. Should she let a momentary fault—if it were not really, after all, only a misunderstanding—rise between her and them at such a moment? She turned and hurried quickly ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... May 29 of a statement regarding the nationalist aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of this statement, the Secretary of State to-day further announces the position of the United States Government to be that all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... ask you a question, I wonder if you will tell me what you think, without misunderstanding why I ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... last, misunderstanding the cause of the change. She told him to come as often as he pleased. As he was going, he remembered that he had not asked after his son-in-law. Reanda had always seemed to belong to Francesca, and it was natural enough that he should ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... blind now she saw in part. Some flash of clairvoyance had laid bare a glimpse of his heart and her own to her. Without misunderstanding the perfect respect for her which he felt, she knew the turbid banked emotions which this dammed. Her heart seemed to beat in her ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... only had two bottles of champagne," she said, purposely misunderstanding him from pure joy ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... by those who maintain that the modern methods of critical biblical study give us the key to scriptural meanings. There is no doubt that many doors have been opened by critical methods. Now that the flurries of misunderstanding which attended the first application of such methods to biblical study have passed on, we see that some solid results have been gained. In so far as our difficulties arise from questions of authorship ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... mansion? To this question he found no answer, and arrived only at a kind of dim understanding that between him and Lygia, between their ideas, between the world which belonged to him and Petronius, and the world of Lygia and Pomponia, there existed some sort of difference, some kind of misunderstanding as deep as an abyss, which nothing could fill up or make even. It seemed to him, then, that he must lose Lygia; and at this thought he lost the remnant of balance which Petronius wished to preserve in him. There were ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... an end to all our promised pleasures. The enrichment of our museum, the merry parties and the choice wine all forfeited to a simple misunderstanding! Whatever might be their motive, it was an inconsiderate action in the Spaniards wantonly to insult the Russian flag; and even if they mistook us for enemies, it was silly to be afraid of a single ship, considering that the renowned Nelson, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... with him certainly if he were to cause the slightest misunderstanding between Mademoiselle Cecile and myself," said the candidate, with a supplicating look at ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Socialist movement, the Socialism which is rapidly becoming the dominant issue in the thought and politics of the world, without distinguishing sharply between it and the Utopian visions which preceded it. Failure to make this distinction is responsible for the complete misunderstanding of the Socialism of to-day by many earnest ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion to Reynolds and Johnson; but hesitated to say as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result of this want of decision and frankness; repeated interviews and some correspondence took place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... "A misunderstanding that develops to the point of a knock-down blow is never a trifling matter," declared Colonel Cleaves. "If you gentlemen had assured me that it was all frolic then I would have thought no more of it. But I have been assured that there was a misunderstand—-a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... on the wide veranda; he had champagne and water brought, and cigars; and we proceeded to get acquainted—nothing promotes cordiality and sympathy like an initial misunderstanding. It was a good hour before this kind-hearted, hard-soft, typical old-fashioned New Englander reverted to the object of my visit. Said he: "And now, young man, may I venture to ask ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... between words that are at all similar. Lastly, where the pupil has studied Latin, and trusts too much for his knowledge of English words to his knowledge of their Latin roots, there is the possibility of misderiving and misunderstanding a word, owing to ignorance of the changes of letters introduced in the process of derivation; and, on the other hand, there is the danger of misunderstanding and pedantically misusing words correctly derived, from an ignorance of the changes of ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... even sure, to result in false impressions on the mind of the one to whom they are addressed, and who in consequence deceives himself as to the facts, when the purpose of those statements is not the deception of the hearer. A husband may have had a serious misunderstanding with his wife that causes him pain of heart, so that his face gives sign of it as he comes out of the house in the morning. The difficulty which has given him such mental anxiety is one which he ought to conceal. He has no right to disclose it to others. Yet ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... a seat, and then herself sank into a large cushioned easy chair, against which she leaned her head wearily, while she looked at him with eyes which ought to have told Harold how much he was to her, and so put him on his guard, and saved the misunderstanding which followed. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... do it I shall make no objections. But there's some misunderstanding here. Who was it that gave you this money, and told you it was my prize in the lottery? I have my ticket safe in my drawer at home, and nobody ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... garrison, than at Potsdam. The king employed him on a diplomatic mission, and in this also Chasot was successful. But notwithstanding the continuance of this friendly intercourse, both parties felt chilled, and the least misunderstanding was sure to lead to a rupture. The king, jealous perhaps of Chasot's frequent visits at Strelitz, and not satisfied with the drill of his regiment, expressed himself in strong terms about Chasot at a review in 1751. The latter asked for leave of absence in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... own tongue is spoken.[1] His place among the English classics has, from the foreign point of view, never been a dubious question, amatter of capricious taste and unstable ideals. His peculiar message, whether interpreted and insisted upon with clearness of insight, or blindness of misunderstanding, played its not unimportant part in certain developments of continental literatures, and his station in English literature, as viewed from a continental standpoint, is naturally in part the reflex of the magnitude ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Elliott passed a sleepless night of indecision. But next day he went to Marwood and asked for a private interview with the president. As a result, an official announcement was posted that afternoon on the bulletin board to the effect that, owing to a misunderstanding, the Fraser Scholarship had been wrongly awarded. Carl ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... interpolations in the text of the Council's resolutions. He would grant, further, that the decisions of a Council in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. And in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and misconstruction, he once broke off from the Latin, in which the whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in German that he in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the Romish Church, but that the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... never even offered to defray the cost of my 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
... well,' said I, 'now let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly and business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use of the figurative expression—which has something Eastern about it—that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable friend,' said I, 'I never have ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... hostility toward all manner of amateur efforts at self-expression. Free verse aroused the ridicule of the professors of metrics; the Little Theatre movement was solemnly banned by such pundits as Belasco and Mrs. Fiske; the Community Chorus movement has invariably met with opposition and misunderstanding from professional musicians; and with few exceptions the more influential architects have remained aloof from the effort to give skilled architectural assistance to those who cannot afford to pay them ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and joined the young ladies in the Park. Miss Digby, thinking it natural that I might wish to say something in private to my old young friend Violante, walked a few paces in advance. Thus, fortunately, I chanced to be here, to receive your account, and I trust to remove misunderstanding. Lord L'Estrange must now be returned. I will go back to the house. You, meanwhile, return to the town, I beseech you. I will come to you afterwards at your inn. Your very appearance in these grounds, even the brief words that have passed between Helen and you, might only widen ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have secured his corpse. Who knows that, in another twenty years, the verger or even the Dean of Westminster Abbey, in showing visitors through the place, may not say before a certain tomb, "Here is the last resting-place of that eminent Christian, Charles Darwin. There was a little misunderstanding between him and the clergy while he lived, but it has all passed away like a mist, and he is now accounted one of the chief ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... of Louise Bentley, who became Mrs. John Hardy and lived with her husband in a brick house on Elm Street in Winesburg, is a story of misunderstanding. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... are not easily broken. Let me hear no more of this unfortunate business. I have spoken to you very plainly, in order that there might be no chance of misunderstanding between us; and I rely upon your honour that there shall be no clandestine meeting between you and Angus Egerton in the future. I look to you, Miss Crofton, also, and shall hold you answerable for any accidental encounters ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... which the Queens will at present derive from a better understanding between England and France; but as it is, it will be still of some importance to them, and take away from the different political parties the possibility of using the pretended misunderstanding against the Government of the Queens. I trust that you will tell your Ministers to meet this friendly disposition with frankness and kindness. The wish of the King here is, to have matters concerted between ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... board the George Galley, August the 1st, 1724, from the Texel to Santa Cruz, having 15000l. on board, when Gow designed to have seized the Ship as they went out, but could not get a party strong enough to join with him, till he worked up a misunderstanding between the Captain and part of the crew, concerning the provisions of the ship, particularly Winter, Peterson, and Mc.Cawley, who came upon the Quarter-Deck, in presence of the Owners, just before they sailed, and made a long complaint ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... after all? Could there have been some gigantic misunderstanding? I paid a pilgrimage this morning which hitherto I had deferred, I know not precisely why. I went to the old house in the Rue d'Alva—where she lived, our Comtesse. And the sight of its grim, historic frontal ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... humiliation to himself. The prospect of seeing her, of touching her, of hearing her voice, affected him painfully. He could neither eat nor sleep on the way to Nome, but paced the deck in restless indecision. He had come to consider himself wholly to blame for their misunderstanding, and he wished only for a chance to win back her love, with no questions asked and ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... I saw YOU do—who had behaved about it afterwards, as I saw YOU behave? I tell you again, I shrank from the horror of hearing you lie, after the horror of seeing you thieve. You talk as if this was a misunderstanding which a few words might have set right! Well! the misunderstanding is at an end. Is the thing set right? No! the thing is just where it was. I don't believe you NOW! I don't believe you found the nightgown, I don't believe in Rosanna Spearman's letter, I don't believe a word ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... silently thoughtful for a space. "I've got to work hard, hard! upon your case. As I see it now, I am inclined to agree with you that the situation has arisen from a misunderstanding—that the agent thought you expected a bribe, and that you thought the bribe a ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... "We are certainly misunderstanding each other," said Maskull, quite startled. "Do you by any chance imagine that I am making ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... I say?" repeated Pereira, recovering himself. "Why, that it is a lie or a misunderstanding. I never shot at Heer Allan in any kloof. Is it likely that I should have done so when he had just nursed me back to life? I never plotted with the Zulus for his death, which would have meant the deaths of my uncle ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Henry; but he felt it, and was keenly concerned about it. Nevertheless, his own unselfish interest never faltered, and he waited patiently, because he knew that between himself and Henry there could be no permanent misunderstanding. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... mentioned her misunderstanding with her sister, for her pride rebelled against having it known that she was not entirely happy in her home; and when, shortly after dinner, Mrs. Mencke called and asked to see Violet alone, she excused the circumstance by remarking that she supposed ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I would recommend to any German about to visit England; I think it would get him disliked. But I have read books published in London for the use of English travellers abroad every whit as foolish. Some educated idiot, misunderstanding seven languages, would appear to go about writing these books for the misinformation and false ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... knowledge as did the Master, but where He leads, they can follow in a faith that shall sustain them and give them triumph in every path of duty. Opposition may meet them. Difficulties may lie in the path. Evil men may oppose them, and good men, misinterpreting their motives and misunderstanding their work, may misrepresent them. But what matters it? Conscious in the strength that they are doing right, they will work on unhindered and undisturbed. Christian virtue finds in its own development all the reward necessary to ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various
... touch of irony, though hardly of mere hypocrisy, in the fact that the Parliament which effected this reform had just been abolishing black slavery by buying out the slave-owners in the British colonies. The slave-owners were bought out at a price big enough to be called blackmail; but it would be misunderstanding the national mentality to deny the sincerity of the sentiment. Wilberforce represented in this the real wave of Wesleyan religion which had made a humane reaction against Calvinism, and was in no mean sense philanthropic. But there is something romantic in the English mind which can always ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... misunderstanding; just a mistake. (She shudders, lifts the wedding-gown and puts it back in the ottoman. MISS SUSAN sinks sobbing into a chair.) Don't, dear, don't—we can ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... of these islands have fallen into an error, based upon a misunderstanding of a decree of the king, in which he commands that a fourth part of the tributes from the encomiendas shall be set aside in order to construct churches and to provide for divine worship. They imagine that by virtue of this decree those encomiendas which have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... then?" I asked, knowing that nothing would please him better than the chance to discover his own meaning against a little background of apparent misunderstanding and opposition. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... carried to his lordship to be opened, read, and answered. I also went to see him morning and evening, but he would not suffer me to stay with him a single night. I might have had another room in the same house, but was not willing the people who kept it should know that there was a misunderstanding between us; so I contented myself to be a constant visitor, but could not persuade him to forgive me the denying of my daughter, and acting the part of Roxana, because I had kept those two things an inviolable secret from him and everybody else but ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... intend to retain the Philippines, they could raise no objection to Germany's wishing to acquire them. Thanks to his friendly attitude towards Germany, Andrew White had, on his own initiative, exceeded his instructions and was duly censured by his Government for his zeal. Nevertheless, a misunderstanding had occurred, as the result of which the Berlin Foreign Office had acted in perfect good faith. In the public mind in the United States, however, the feeling still rankled that Germany had wished to make a demonstration against their Government; and the English Press, which ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... observed, "there seems to have been a trifling but rather curious misunderstanding. In accordance with written instructions of a fortnight previously, you had arranged to let a certain farm to a certain man, and Sir Reginald then complained that you had overlooked a conversation between those dates in which he had cancelled these instructions. He ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... running? It is high time that we should 'bout ship and haul off on the opposite tack, if we would not be regarded as impertinent intruders. Love-making is a most delightful pastime, particularly when it comes in at the end of a long period of suffering, hardship, and misunderstanding; but it loses all its piquant charm if it has to be performed in the presence of strangers, no matter how sympathetic. So we will leave it to the lively imagination of the intelligent reader to picture ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... doubtless irritating the barber. He had now begun to shave M. de Guersaint's right cheek; and was inveighing against the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, whose greed for gain was the one cause of all the misunderstanding. These Fathers who were at home there, since they had purchased from the Municipality the land on which they desired to build, did not even carry out the stipulations of the contract they had signed, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... international relationship, the everlasting gibe which it is thought necessary to fling at any constructive effort, apart from armament, to make peace secure. These men profess to be friends of peace, they profess to regret the growth of armament, to deplore the unwisdom, ignorance, prejudice and misunderstanding out of which the whole thing grows, but immediately there is any definite effort to correct this unwisdom, to examine the grounds of the prejudice and misunderstanding, there is a volte face and such efforts are sneered at as "sentimental" ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... disappointment which passed over the child's face Joe Barnes felt a sudden rush of anger. Stupidly misunderstanding, he thought that Sonny was merely trying to avoid the child. He straightened up his tall figure, snatched the little one to his breast, and exclaimed in a harsh voice, "If ye can't be nice to the Kid, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... no misunderstanding the honest wonder in her eyes, as she asked the question, and no possibility of construing it into a ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... business and must return immediately. There has been a misunderstanding, my father says. He wired me, directing me to apologize, for him, for Mr. Corrigan's actions of yesterday. Perhaps Mr. Corrigan over-stepped his authority—I have no means of knowing." She passed the morocco bag over to him, and he took it, looking at ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... be married from the Crummleses' lodgings, and shall be delighted to see you—either before church or at breakfast-time, which you like. It won't be expensive, you know,' said the collector, highly anxious to prevent any misunderstanding on this point; 'just muffins and coffee, with perhaps a shrimp or something of that sort for a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens |
