"Mistake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was a play somewhat resembling the Comedy of Errors, in which twin brethren suffer through mistaken identity. "This," said Chikamatsu, "has the proper spirit of the drama, for it takes the audience into consideration. The public is permitted to know more than the actors. It knows where the mistake lies, and pities the poor figures on the board who innocently rush to ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... free mind, he has lent it a strong impulse, it seems to me, in opposing to each other by a harsh contrast the two principles which act upon the human will. Perhaps it was hardly possible, from the point of view in which he was placed, to avoid this mistake; but he has exposed himself seriously to it. Upon the basis of the question there is no longer, after the demonstration he has given, any discussion possible, at least for the heads which think and which are quite willing to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... same year."[98:1] Neither then nor afterward was there any trace of doubt in the minds of the New England settlers, in going three thousand miles away into the seclusion of the wilderness, of their indefeasible moral right to pick their own company. There was abundant opportunity for mistake and temptation to wrong-doing in the exercise of this right, but the right itself is so nearly self-evident as ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... comprehension. Unfortunately the letter did not reach her. Being entirely taken up with great ladies, Leander overlooked their waiting-maids, and did not trouble himself to show them any attentions or gallantries—wherein he made a sad mistake—for if the pistoles he gave to Jeanne, with his precious epistle, had been supplemented by a few kisses and compliments, she would have taken far more pains to execute his commission. As she held the letter carelessly in ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Hitherto very little has been done to inform the world as to the actual contribution of the free Negro prior to the Civil War. Few persons realize that there were half a million such Negroes in the United States at that time. It is a mistake, therefore, to consider this better selected group of the race so insignificant as not to influence the history of the communities in which they lived. A number of histories have been written since the Civil War, however, with a view to meeting this need for a treatment of this neglected ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... bee and the spider. I went into another room, where the walls and ceilings were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the architect to go in and out. At my entrance, he called aloud to me 'not to disturb his webs.' He lamented 'the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silk-worms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave as well as spin.' And he proposed, farther, 'that, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... intended to hurt your feelings; it is only a mistake on your part to think so for a moment. Why, it is quite a joke, one that the audience will not be slow in appreciating, I'll warrant. Come, dry your eyes, and never ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... you knew your master, but don't make no mistake again. Speakin' personal, I don't think no more of knockin' down a Swede than I do of flickin' the ashes ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... set of facts has made the actual nature of the original Charlemagne Romances the subject of much mistake and misstatement on the part of general historians of literature. The widely read and generally accurate Dunlop knew nothing whatever about them, except in early printed versions representing their very latest form, and in the hopelessly ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Fewbanks shot—murdered!" Inspector Seldon gave expression to his surprise in a long low whistle which travelled through the telephone. Then he added, after a moment's reflection, "There must be some mistake. He ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... promised. He did not exactly know what there was to be explained, or why Dr. Grantly's mind should not be disabused of the mistake into which he had fallen, but nevertheless he promised. He owed some reparation to his daughter, and he thought that he might best ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the New Yorker. "I was never farther west than Eighth Avenue. I had a brother who died on Ninth, but I met the cortege at Eighth. There was a bunch of violets on the hearse, and the undertaker mentioned the incident to avoid mistake. I cannot say that I am ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... mistake arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late, it is a rare thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance which haunts me, turn as I will. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... mistake them for common cinders; nor do they resemble the slag of the modern smelting furnace. In fact, they are sui generis, and can only be met with where the manufacture of iron was anciently ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... up over and over Until there's not the least mistake. Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there's a plover! It's gone!) Who's that Saint by the Lake? The red light from his mantle passes Across ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... discuss possibilities, I suppose? The thing's too big. The chief's almost off his head. Is there any chance, do you think, Coulson, that this was an ordinary robbery? I am not sure that the special train wasn't a mistake." ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... them, to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th verse gives directions for the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish cities, after they had taken them. Instead of sparing the women and children, they were to save alive nothing that breathed. The common mistake has been, in taking it for granted, that the command in the 15th verse, "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities," &c. refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th verse, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... irregularities and abuses of authority would entirely cease; because I am aware, more especially in the Indies, that the persons who hold public situations usually have too exaggerated ideas of their own personal importance, and easily mistake the gratification of their own whims for firmness of character, in the necessity of causing themselves to be respected. Still it is an incontestable fact that, by removing the chief temptation, and rescinding altogether the license to trade, the just complaints preferred by the native ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... early days Christians were only to be had by converting Jews or Pagans; and in those days they did actually become Christians. But the Groschuts are a mistake." Then he called to Mary, and in a few minutes she was in her husband's arms on the staircase. The Dean did not follow them, but went into his own room on the ground floor; and Lord George did not see ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Button's forehead. He closed his eyes, and then, opening them, looked again. There was no mistake—he was gazing at a man of threescore and ten—a baby of threescore and ten, a baby whose feet hung over the sides of the crib in which ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Thady, recollecting himself,—"may be she manes her gold watch, which the gentleman discovered in the drawing-room, and carried away in his pocket, by mistake!" ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... English, has a chapter "on the strange names of these devils," in which he observes, (p. 46,) "It is not amiss that you be acquainted with these extravagant names of devils, least meeting them otherwise by chance you mistake them for the names of tapsters, or juglers." Certainly, some of the names he marshalls in array smell strongly of the tavern. These are some of them: Pippin, Philpot, Modu, Soforce, Hilco, Smolkin, Hillio, Hiaclito, ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... willingness to show off his little train of cat accomplishments. He would give his paw with a courteous grace to any lady or gentleman—he drew the caste line rigidly—who asked for it. For his mistress, he would spring to a considerable height and clutch with his two soft paws—never by any mistake scratching—her outstretched wrist, and so would remain suspended while he delicately nibbled from between her fingers her edible offering. For her, he would make an almost painfully real pretence of being a dead cat: extending himself upon the rug with an exaggeratedly death-like rigidity—and ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... those notes on the ship to be in the nature of a jest, or else that somebody was making a mistake. Then troubles began, and I was at a loss to understand them. Next came the murder charge! We will put that aside for the moment, for it seems to be the result of circumstantial evidence and probably has nothing to do with the other affair—merely ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... noticed that his awkwardness had disappeared under his military training, he held himself with a new dignified bearing. "I must not be keeping you," he said, but it seemed as if he could not go. He stood looking down at her and she could not mistake the look in Gavin's eyes. Her own fell ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... Committee, Dexie Sherwood was frequently thrown into his society, but by some mistake or unintentional oversight they had never been introduced, and there was something in Dexie's manner that forbade him to make any advances ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... you? I think you could hardly be that, with seven hundred miles between you. But that man was my friend also; and, secondly, my brother. True it is I killed him. But if you happen to know that this was by pure mistake in the dark, what an old rogue you must be to throw that in my teeth, which is the affliction of my life!' Again, however, as so often in the same circumstances, Catalina thought that it would cause more ruin than it could heal to be candid; and, indeed, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... accusation is founded in his using the word "first:"—"And this taxing was first made:" for, according to the mistake imputed to the evangelist, this word could have no signification whatever; it could have had no place in his narrative; because, let it relate to what it will, taxing, census, enrolment, or assessment, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... certain Down of a Plant, brought from the East-Indies, call'd commonly, though very improperly, Cow-itch, the reason of which mistake is manifest enough from the description of it, which Mr. Parkinson sets down in his Herbal, Tribe XI. Chap. 2. Phasiolus siliqua hirsuta; The hairy Kidney-bean, called in Zurratte where it grows, Couhage: We have had (says he) another ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... making of mistakes, it is just not enough to comment that they have value, provided one has sufficient breadth to learn from hard experience. What is vastly more important is that the mistake, once made, will not be needlessly compounded. That is a normal, human temptation. The attitude, "I don't care if he is a chump; he's my chump," has nothing in its favor. Yet it becomes a point of pride in some men that they will not admit their judgments are fallible. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... true that the woman whom you saw lying dead is now in the house of Dr. Fortoul at Orange; the fact that you once knew the place is an accident—and nothing but an accident. You have, however, Madame, made one strange mistake." ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... only the flowers had perfume, but he soon found this was a mistake. By taking more careful notice he perceived that leaves as well as flowers were sometimes scented, as in the musk plant, the geranium, and even those ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... (orioles of the Merulidae family), whose two colours, red (ntiblii) and golden yellow (enadsi), apparently divide them into as many fighting factions, give a touch, a bright colour to the dulness, and chatter over their pensile homes, which strangers would mistake for cocoa-nuts. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... to where they have entered cover. A messenger then brings the white man to the place, and every one tries to guess at what spot the buffaloes are likely to emerge for their evening stroll. It is remarkably easy to make a wrong guess, and the remaining daylight is rarely sufficient to repair a mistake. And also, in the case of a herd ranging a wide country with much tall grass and several drinking holes, it is rather difficult, without very good luck, to locate them on any given night or morning. A few herds, a very few, may have fixed habits, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... walked away in a huff. But the unusual is always attractive, and the next time he and Miss Kendall met he was as gracious and cordial as ever. But it was not long before he learned that the graciousness was, in her case, a mistake. Whenever he grew lofty, she took him down, laughed at him with complete frankness, and refused to treat him as anything but a boy. So they gradually grew friendly, and when they met at parties or church socials ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... mistake in not coming to my master earlier, for there had been then so much talk that the matter had reached the ears of ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... furnishes weighty evidence of man's descent; for the circumstantial evidence derived from this source is written without the possibility of a mistake, with no chance of error, on the stratified rocks. It is true that the geological record must be incomplete, because it can only preserve remains found in certain favorable localities, and under particular conditions; ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... any mistake about 'em!" responded Roy eagerly. "I've seen all kinds of Indians but these are some I never did see. They're all right, too. If there's anything about a canoe or a flatboat that they don't know, I guess nobody ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... not treat of writing them. That is a different matter, with pains and pleasures of its own, which do not correspond (the word fits nicely to this subject) with those of letters received. For 'tis a metaphysical mistake, or myth of language, like those victoriously exposed by the ingenious M. Tarde, to regard the reading of a letter as the symmetrical opposite (the right glove matching the left, or inside of an outside) of the writing thereof. Save in the case of lovers or moonstruck ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... dollars apeace and his nine children and his sick wife and blind mother wood pray for us on her gnees. i was auful sorry for him he looked so sad. he sed he had looked up a lot of feller and talked with a lot and we was the only fellers that was smart enuf to do it. he sed he never was gnew to maik a mistake in a feller. he gnew he cood trust us enny time. so i asted him what we wood have to do and he sed he wood paint us up like wild men and put on sum firs and leperd skins and sum brass rings on our hine legs and a necklace of tiger claws and all we wood ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... Tom, and raised the pistol he had in his pocket. There could be no mistake about those glaring eyes, and taking hasty aim, ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... questioned what that would be. It stood there before her like a blazing cross of flame; she must hold those two men apart, even though they both trampled her heart beneath their feet. This was her destiny, the payment she must return the world for having once made a mistake. One out of the multitude, she felt strong enough in the crisis to choose deliberately the straight and ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... work. Nobody knew more about raising vegetables, ducks, chickens and pigeons than she did. There were some among the neighbors who could read and write and so thought themselves above mother, but when they went to market they found their mistake. Her peas, beans, cauliflower, cabbages, pumpkins, melons, potatoes, beets, and onions sold for the highest price of any, and that ought to show whose education was the best, because it is the highest education that produces ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... the empty coffee-pot. "To tell the truth, marm, I made a mistake. I 'ain't made the coffee. I plumb forgot it. P'raps you could be prevailed on to assist this yere outfit to coffee while ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... nothing to stop it; and as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got and the blow he missed, he tripped and "went to grass," so far as the back-yard of our boarding-house was provided with that vegetable. It was a signal illustration of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and ardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pectorals, that they can settle most little quarrels on the spot by "knocking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... New Testament truth. It would be an anachronism and an absurdity to make this Psalmist responsible for anything like a clear evangelistic statement of the way by which a man may be made righteous. That waited for coming days, and eminently for Jesus Christ. But it would be quite as great a mistake to eviscerate the words of their plain implications. And when they put side by side the light and the reflection, God and the godly, it seems to me to be doing violence to their meaning for the sake of trying to make them mean less than they do, if ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... difficult not to feel that Coleridge's character, apart altogether from defects of physical constitution, was wanting in manliness of fibre. His willingness to accept assistance at the hands of others is too manifestly displayed even at the earlier and more robust period of his life. It would be a mistake, of course, in dealing with a literary man of Coleridge's era, to apply the same standards as obtain in our own days. Wordsworth, as we have seen, made no scruple to accept the benevolences of the Wedgwoods. Southey, the type of independence and ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... hospital the previous July for a month and could never be made sugar-free with the old method of treatment. At entrance he was putting out 2.5% of sugar (135 grams) per day with strongly positive acetone and diacetic acid tests. Two starvation days made him sugar-free, but we made the mistake of not using twice boiled vegetables for his vegetable day after starvation. So on this day he got about 30 grams of carbohydrates, and for a few days he showed from 0.2% to 1% of sugar. Another starvation ...
— The Starvation Treatment of Diabetes • Lewis Webb Hill
... deliberate prose criticism we find, amid his veneration of Shakespeare, his regard for the rules of the classical drama. The faults of Shakespeare, we read, were not so much his own as those of his time, for "tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age," and there was as yet no definite knowledge of how a play ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... He had made a mistake, so he told himself. Age may be attracted by contrast, but youth has no use for its opposite. He would send Matthew away. He could return for week-ends. Continually so close to one another, they saw only one another's specks ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... all a mistake, my good sir—a devil's own trap! I—I am not the man; I pledge you my sacred word! I—hands off, you cursed villains, or I'll have the law on you!" this last when one of the men cast the noose of a rope over his head whilst a second drew his arms to his sides in the looping ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... she spoke she turned, and Strether turned; for the door of the box had opened, with the click of the ouvreuse, from the lobby, and a gentleman, a stranger to them, had come in with a quick step. The door closed behind him, and, though their faces showed him his mistake, his air, which was striking, was all good confidence. The curtain had just again arisen, and, in the hush of the general attention, Strether's challenge was tacit, as was also the greeting, with a quickly deprecating hand and smile, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... cruel treatment eighteen months before. The growth of these two seasons convinced me that the four-year-old root and the three-year-old stem, if properly managed, have greater possibilities of rapid development than roots or stems of more tender age. I think I made no mistake in planting three-year-old trees. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... States booth there was a pert Miss walking the floor, monarch of all she surveyed, a typical Uncle Sam's daughter. It was a sorry mistake when a dude presumed too much on her patience or a smart young man made too free with his remarks. She was always ready for them, to the delight of the patriotic ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... and when the girl was taken, she struggled frantically and called for help as though being kidnaped. Had the policemen been there alone they would have let the captors have their slave, believing they had made a mistake. But they had not; the missionary knew that; the girl was only thinking ahead of the possibility of the plot failing and of falling back into the hands of her captors. She must never betray to them, until safely out of their clutches, that she wished to come away. She must make it appear ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... geographical center of San Francisco. By keeping this in mind visitors will avoid the mistake of thinking that the end of Market street is the western boundary of ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... in 'actu secundo' till last week, and that is a fit of the stone or gravel. It was, thank God, but a slight one; but it was 'dans toutes les formes'; for it was preceded by a pain in my loins, which I at first took for some remains of my rheumatism; but was soon convinced of my mistake, by making water much blacker than coffee, with a prodigious sediment of gravel. I am now perfectly easy again, and have no ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... door, strode brimful of confidence towards the drawing-room. His thoughts must have gone astray, for he turned by accident into the wrong room—a small apartment hardly used at all; and before he had time to turn back he stopped petrified at the sight of a picture on the wall. There could be no mistake—it was the original of that ill-omened print he had seen in the Edinburgh hotel, "The Execution of Lord Tulliwuddle." The actual title was there ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... annos, ita ut a sole vel igne facile dissolvi non possit. So too in Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of Valentinian, a chaste matron is said to be 'cold as crystal never to be thawed again.'] and Pliny, backing up one mistake by another, affirmed that it was only found in regions of extreme cold. The fact is, that the Greek word for crystal originally signified ice; but after a while was also imparted to that diaphanous quartz which ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... certainly have suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss. A mistake would have been fatal. More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone. But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... used to be very amusing to me. Among the guests that afternoon was Susan's—that was the young lady I wanted to marry—Maltese cat. Now this cat had always pretended to be very fond of me, and Susan often said that her cat never made a mistake in reading character, and that the cat's approval of me was equivalent to a first-class Sunday-school certificate of moral character. I didn't care anything about the cat myself, for somehow I didn't place any confidence ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Preacher should do this, and have Mischief in his Heart, it would not be difficult for him insensibly to mislead his Hearers, extinguish their Charity, and, working upon the Passions, make a sincere Man, who had really been ill treated, mistake in his own Breast the Spirit of Revenge for Religious Zeal, and, to maintain the Truth of the Gospel, act directly contrary to the Precepts of it. And the more regular the Life was of such a Divine, and the greater the Austerity of his Manners, the fitter Instrument would he be ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... impudently immetrical verse as Rowley at once breaks ground with was ever in fashion with any of his famous fellows. Nothing can be worse than the headlong and slipshod stumble of Dekker's at its worst; but his were the faults of hurry and impatience and shamefully scamped work: Rowley's, if I mistake not, is the far graver error of a preposterous theory that broken verse, rough and untunable as the shock of short chopping waves, is more dramatic and liker the natural speech of men and women than the rolling and ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The Consequences of this mistake, appear'd presently in the Most Zealous, in their offering all possible Insults to the Crolian Dissenters, Preaching them down, Printing them down, and Talking them down, as a People not fit to be suffer'd in the Nation, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... presoom;—if the' 's any mistake of figgers or addin' 'em up, it'll be made all right. Everything's accordin' to agreement. The minute written immed'ately after the intervoo is here ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... No mistake, it was a real wilderness—nothing but trees, "goannas," dead timber, and bears; and the nearest house—Dwyer's—was three miles away. I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and I can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log, where the lane is now, ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... are on the alert to catch every report, every murmur, all kinds of news, detractions and calumnies, stories and scandals. I say all kinds of news, no—I make a mistake, it is only such news as is of an exciting or startling nature to break up the monotony of life. Hence those indiscreet questions which provoke answers more indiscreet still; those rash revelations made by thoughtless young ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... praise may be, Hooker nevertheless deserves high encomiums on his management of the campaign so far. Leaving Stoneman's delay out of the question, nothing had gone wrong or been mismanaged up to the present moment. But soon Hooker makes his first mistake. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... another faculty on which she prided herself far more, her ignorance and vanity causing her to mistake it for a grand accomplishment—the faculty of verse-making. She inherited a certain modicum of her father's rhythmic and riming gift; she could string words almost as well as she could string beads, and ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... so surprised at the readiness with which the natives gave them everything, both food and ornaments, that they declared them to be defective in the sense of property, and to have everything in common. This was a mistake: each man had his little possessions; stealing was punished with death, as the crime that did the greatest violence to the natural order; and crimes against domestic purity were severely punished, till the people became ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... by temperance people is doing no harm, for the reason that long before November comes these people will see the mistake they have made. It seems somewhat curious that the Democrats should attack the platform if they really believe ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... it would be too late now, and therefore useless, to repeat that wish; therefore I ask you to see that the proof is read as carefully as possible. Perhaps Professor Wolff, whom I greet cordially a thousand times, would be kind enough to correct a proof. This reminds me that I have corrected a mistake in the manuscript of the libretto, but not in the score. In the last words of Lohengrin's leave-taking of Elsa ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... breakfast—sure thing—an' where I breakfasts there's apt to be oddments goin' for great big grey wolf-dogs as well as black kangaroo bitches; so don't you forget it, Wolf. I'm hopin' to see you in the mornin', mind; and don't eat Jess by mistake in your sleep. I know she only weighs about seventy pounds, but if you're careful, an' don't yawn too sudden-like any time, you'll be able to avoid ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... exclaimed Frank. "There's been a fearful mistake somewhere. This fellow has downed a French plane ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... incurable. She will, however, have the greatest care in that cheerful and magnificent sanitarium. My dear friend, if I also should ever succumb, let me be taken to San Baudilio. I hope to find the proofs of my 'Genealogies' awaiting me on my return. I intend to add six pages more, for it would be a great mistake not to publish my reasons for maintaining that Mateo Diez Coronel, author of the 'Metrico Encomio,' is descended, on the mother's side, from the Guevaras, and not from the Burguillos, as the author of the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... all I wanted. He said he explained everything to the Big Boss down there and that after they had spent hours together and had gotten Dean Erskine on the long distance, he got the money. It was the mistake of some underling, turning me down, after Austin's death. The head of the Institution had supposed I had been ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... out with pride. It was very ugly, but very big, and the streets in front of it were narrow and unclean. When I saw the faces of the men who did business in that building, I felt that there had been a mistake ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... They are out of place in a psychology that means to be an account of what happens in the world. For these dialectical implications do not actually work themselves out. They have no historical or dynamic value. The man that by mistake or courtesy I call a father may really have no son, any more than Herodotus for being the father of history; or having had a son, he may have lost him; or the creature sprung from his loins may be a misshapen idiot, having nothing ideal in common with his parent. Similarly my affection for ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on balance-sheets, and receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are registered on the rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men in spectacles. If there is the slightest mistake in the form of these precious documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such minutiae. Some nations would be satisfied to get as far as this; but Napoleon went further. That great organizer appointed supreme magistrates ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... "No, you mistake. It is not so much to smooth matters over as to rescue him from a bad influence that is ruining him. There is a person in London from whom he must he got away at all hazards. If you only ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of the boy-time obligation voluntarily assumed; but it was quite inevitable that Ardea should mistake the motive. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... most men," she said; "you make me out better than I am. That's not the usual mistake. Yes, it was all that, partly. And I should have liked to stay—for ever and ever—if I could. But suppose I couldn't? Suppose I'd begun to find myself wishing for—all sorts of things, longing for them. Suppose I'd stayed till I began to think of things that I wouldn't think of while she was ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... "Cold?" he repeated in his laziest tone. "My dear girl, you could understudy the North Pole! However, it was my mistake; I'm sorry. Shall ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... is repeated four times, with four blows at the end of the final repetition. The directions imply that the doctor blows only at the end of the whole formula, but this is not in accord with the regular mode of procedure and seems to be a mistake. ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... be Innate. Secondly, It is difficult for us to assent to Innate Practical Principles, ending only in contemplation. Such principles either influence our conduct, or they are nothing. There is no mistake as to the Innate principles of the desire of happiness, and aversion to misery; these do not stop short in tacit assent, but urge every man's conduct every hour of his life. If there were anything corresponding ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... in your existence ever after. You are glad to have seen it—like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in such a parlour it first struck you—like a bust. You wondered ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... mistake, as the fire in their rear deepened, and they saw the gathering squadrons of gray cavalry, a fierce anger seized the retreating Union rearguard. Those wasps had been buzzing and stinging them all day long and they had had enough of it. They ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... himself forward always, by the happiest instinct, only in impossible conditions. He had the happy consciousness of having exposed the important question to the crucial test, and of having escaped, by that persistent logic, a grave mistake. What better proof of his escape than the fact that he was now free to renew the all-interesting inquiry, and should be exactly, about to do so in different and better conditions? The conditions were better by as much more—as much more of his career and character, of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... kept standing for twenty minutes in the hall, among orderlies and common soldiers, he came away in disgust. Next day the General, who was probably a little alarmed, came on board to make an apology, saying the whole matter originated in a mistake, and that the attendants were ignorant of the rank of his English visitor. What! not recognise a captain in his Britannic Majesty's navy, commanding a frigate which lies moored within sight of the Russian army, when he visits its General in full ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... silent; she had expected to meet him, though not here and thus. Her foolish heart bounded so at the sight of him that she seemed to choke, and could only wonder dimly what mistake had been made, and how he would explain to Margaret and get her away, leaving herself and him together to be married. Indeed, she searched the cabin with her eyes to see where the priest was waiting, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... A common mistake among amateur photoplaywrights is to waste far too much time on preliminaries. If a guest is expected from a distant city, all that is necessary, as a rule, is to write in a short letter, which is opened and read by the host- or hostess-to-be, ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... hand, but his fingers closed upon it. "I made a mistake," he said, with dreary conviction, "a great mistake, though God knows I meant well; and now it is out of my power to set it right. I thought her heart was involved. I know now it was not. It's hard ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... frequently spoken of as a nervous Saxon style. That is a great mistake, except as to a few passages where he rose to a white heat. If any person will open a volume of his speeches at random, it will be found that the characteristic of his sentences is a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... him to wait a minute, and leaving the receiver dangling, she crossed the room to Zoie, who was now thoroughly engrossed in the making of a fresh toilet. "Zoie!" she exclaimed excitedly, "Jimmy made a mistake." ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... "I have made a mistake, that is all, Julia," her sister said with forced calmness. "I want time to think and to get right, and to be good—then I could be in peace, I think; but I am in such a confusion of everything, I only know I am drifting on like a ship to the rocks. I can't catch ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... temperance until the Ohio Crusade revived them all over the nation, and gathered the scattered forces into the Woman's National Christian Temperance Union, of which Frances E. Willard is President." This is a mistake, for women were very active in connection with Temperance societies of which men were officers, and in organizations of their own, before and after the W. C. T. U. was founded. The history of that great body furnishes another proof of the injurious ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... about it in an ill way to remedy a mistake, Dewing," said Zurich. "Don't let's be silly enough to fall out over one chance gone wrong. We've got all we can attend to right now, without such a folly as that. Don't mind him, Eric. Tell me, rather, what we are going ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... instead of saving twenty per cent., saves only eight per cent. Is not this as if the treasury prevented cheapness? Thus, in trying to reach the rich, the progressive tax always reaches the consumer; and it is impossible for it not to reach him without suppressing production altogether: what a mistake! ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the Councillor answered, much disturbed, "that there have been such unfortunate occurrences as you say. I am sure that from your appearance and frankness in thus coming to me, there must be some mistake. My son Louis is a man of strict honour; he must have acted on hasty information. To do you entire justice, I shall make it my duty to look over these documents, which are doubtless entirely correct, and will then do the best in my power to rectify this injury so painful and regrettable. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... soda is decidedly more advantageous to the soapboiler, and more particularly in the present age, when the demand is for cheap articles, often quite without regard to the quality or purpose for which they are to be used. As far as consumers are concerned, this has been a mistake. Potash soap, though it may cost more, is in most cases actually the most economical. Soap is never used in exact chemical equivalents, but an excess is always taken. Potash soap is much more soluble than a soda soap; it therefore penetrates the fiber, and consequently removes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... hall of the house was sufficient to reveal to her the number painted on the glass above the door. It was an old, old house, with grimy panes in the windows, and more dull lights behind the shades drawn down over them. But there really could be no mistake, Helen thought. The number over the door and the name ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... so administered as to preserve its efficiency in promoting and securing these general objects should be the only aim of our ambition, and we can not, therefore, too carefully examine its structure, in order that we may not mistake its powers or assume those which the people have reserved to themselves or have preferred to assign to other agents. We should bear constantly in mind the fact that the considerations which induced the framers of the Constitution ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... exclaimed the gay Chevalier; "you have captured me by mistake! The tall Swede—he is your man! The other ladies all know that, and are anxious to get me out of your toils, so that you may be free ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... must view as he has been manifested in the mask of mirth, and also in the mirror of mythology. Then we shall present the woman in the moon, who is less known than the immortal man. Next a hare will be started; afterwards a frog, and other objects; and when we reach the end of our excursion, if we mistake not, it will be confessed that the moon has created more merriment, more marvel, and more mystery, than all of the other orbs ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... now, and I think that you are making the same mistake that better educated men than you have done. You are putting Christianity and its abuses together. I do think, notwithstanding all its perversions, and all the rubbish which has gathered around its simplicity and beauty, that Christianity is the world's ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Freudenberg continued, "there have been many misapprehensions between your country and mine. Ten years ago we seemed indeed on the highroad to friendship. It was then—I speak frankly, mind—that your country made the one fatal mistake of recent years. Great Britain, isolated, left behind in the race for power, a weakened and decaying nation, having searched the world over for allies, held out the timorous hand of friendship to you. What evil genius was with your statesmen that day! When the history ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home manufactures, should ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the meeting with some wild monkeys, that would spring towards me, and pester me now and then. They evidently supposed me to be one of their race. I could not suppress my anger, however, when I observed that the trees seemed to perceive this mistake of the monkeys, which gave the saplings food for laughter at my expense. I must remark that I was carried to court in the same dress which I wore on my descent to the planet, with the boat-hook in my hand and the rope dragging after me. This was by ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... with the way in which his Christmas party went off, he'd give them each a five-pound note at the end of the month. It made them forget the haunted room, I can tell you, ma'am!" She added grudgingly, "He is a kind gentleman, and no mistake." ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man who has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind; nor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he wanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of soul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but steadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man's actions from the accidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... the right thing," she replied; "but we were all a little worried for fear I'd make a mistake." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... periodical the botanical name of this plant has been given as Mentha arvensis, var. purpurascens. It will be well, therefore, to point out that this is an error before the statement is further copied and the mistake perpetuated. The plant has green foliage, with not a trace of purple, and less deserves the name purpurascens than the true peppermint (Mentha piperita), of which a purplish leaved form is well known. The mistake probably ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... granted. Great mistake. Prejudices one way or other great mistake. But, I think, yes, I think it was probably—almost certainly—not done ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... felicity and fecundity of illustration—a gift which he never abused. He delighted in its use for the purpose of carrying a clear impression of his meaning to the mind of another, but I never remember to have heard him mistake illustration for argument, nor endeavour to mislead an adversary by a fascinating but irrelevant simile. The subtlety of his mind was a more serious source of danger to him, though I do not know that he greatly lost by ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... proper administration is to be taken as gospel by the people where her reputation extends, is not fit to be trusted to have her vote counted when the question is who is to be the next person who is to be trusted with that administration. Mrs. Leonard's mistake is not in misunderstanding the nature either of woman or of man, which she understands perfectly; it is in misunderstanding the nature of politics, that is, the political arena; and this lady has been in the political arena for the last ten years ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... Storri, who made the mistake of believing what Mr. Harley said, "then it was you who bought Northern Consolidated—you, and your confederates ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... ought to have come upon him before this," he reasoned, wonderingly. "That stuff would knock out a strong man, let alone a lad like him. He ought to have fallen off, or have gotten off, and become unconscious before this. I wonder if I made any mistake." ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... your merits; it gives you a fair place and fair play. To any one of those men of whom we have spoken was it in the main ungrateful? A king might refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his desk for two years; but it was mistake, and not ill will. Noble and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison! dear and honoured memories of Goldsmith and Fielding! kind friends, teachers, benefactors! who shall say that our country, which continues to bring you ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this letter—perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if introduced it will, of course, carry weight. And this for ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Vicksburg campaign. "After the place had actually surrendered," said the President, "I thought it was about time to shut down on this sort of thing. So one day, when a delegation came to see me, and had spent half an hour trying to show me the fatal mistake you had made in paroling Pemberton's army, and insisting that the rebels would violate their paroles and in less than a month confront you again in the ranks and have to be whipped all over again, I thought I could get rid of them ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... heard the boys talking. Nothing very much, but some girls ran away, not scouts, mill girls, mill detectives on their trail, and the Girl Scouts went on a hike and lassoed some poor guy by mistake. Oh, you know a lot of stuff like that, everybody hears and no one knows the real sense of. Only I thought Molly, just taking up with the Flosston work, ought to keep both eyes open, and wear good sensible shoes. Night, ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... holy warrior, had seen him taken into custody still flourishing the ladle; but could tell me nothing of his after fate, having at that point deemed it prudent to retire, lest he, too, might be put in prison by mistake. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... writes: "The enemy, having become aware of our movement, and having the shorter line, was enabled to reach there first." The statement that General Lee had the shorter of the two lines to march over is a mistake. The armies moved over parallel roads until beyond Todd's Tavern, after which the distance to the south bank of the Po was greater by Lee's route than General Grant's. The map will sufficiently indicate this. Two other circumstances ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... alone. No; I can't think so ill of him as that. If you suggest it by way of offering me consolation, you're making a mistake. Of the two, I'd rather think of him as seeking death from horror—horror of ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... inasmuch as the wherewithal to satisfy it had to be purchased by others; the climate was damp because of the river, and there was no proper market within eight miles; Kathleen was too delicate to live in such a place, and the move from Charlestown was an utter and absolute and entire mistake ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... moonless night, and footpads may mistake me for a Jew." He smiled. "Make my apologies ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... lovely hues, their greater size, and a few other less notable circumstances, the fishes in question might have been taken for mackerel; and it would have been no great mistake to so describe them: since they were in reality of this genus. They were of a different species, however,—the most beautiful species of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid |
