"Unintentional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the clothes which Mark was wearing on that Tuesday morning; all the clothes, the inside ones as well as the outside ones. I didn't know why, but I did feel certain that, in that case, the absence of the collar was unintentional. In collecting the clothes he ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... unintentional sentiment nor unaffected pathos. The art is apparent even in the punctuation. The writer meant to be touching and pathetic and to awaken emotions of tenderness and pity and he succeeded. The description is all he meant it to be. The extract from the newspaper ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... her to withdraw her hands, her wide eyes sending a glance of wounded pride up into his. That look of reproach haunted him the whole night long. Even in the next moment he sought to withdraw the unintentional sting from his words by the gentle reminder that he would come back to her a victor and that she would be proud of him. Still the hurt eyes ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... away by fraternal love, he breaks this injunction, he is blinded by the Furies, and involuntarily perpetrates the deed of matricide. These certainly are singular ideas to assign to the gods, and a most unexampled punishment for a slight, nay, even a noble crime. The accidental and unintentional stabbing of Clytemnestra was borrowed from Crebillon. A French writer will hardly venture to represent this subject with mythological truth; to describe, for instance, the murder as intentional, and executed by the command of the gods. If Clytemnestra were depicted not as rejoicing in ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Upon some such assumption, as upon an incontrovertible axiom, all historical narratives, from the chronicles of a parish to the annals of an empire, alike proceed. But in New England it assumed a form especially apt to provoke challenge. One of its unintentional effects was the setting up of an unreal and impossible standard by which to judge the acts and motives of the Puritans of the seventeenth century. We come upon instances of harshness and cruelty, of narrow-minded bigotry, and superstitious frenzy; and feel, perhaps, a little surprised that these ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... and thanked Philemon by a glance that meant far more than any words. Then she went to her room, only to lie for hours staringly awake, listening to the wild whirring and whistling of the wind as she bemoaned her unintentional treachery to the aide, and sought for some ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... powerful man, who knows nothing of "the noble art of self-defence," at finding himself suddenly confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... this faint and unintentional signal, he smote himself upon the knee, giving utterance again to his feelings of triumph, and departed, considering himself a young man of perception and ability. His amiability lasted so long that his mother congratulated him upon it, and remarked that he must ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... -fate &c. 601; stumble on light upon; take one's chance &c. 621. Adj. casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate; random, statistical; possible &c. 470; unintentional &c. 621. Adv. by chance, accidentally, by accident; casually; perchance &c. (possibly) 470; for aught one knows; as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it; as it may be, as it may chance, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... matter of fact, the minister's calls were in the nature of a compromise, although an unintentional one. He dropped in on Zebedee Mayo, owner of the big house on the slope of the hill. Captain Zeb took him up into what he called his "cupoler," the observatory on the top of the house, and showed him Trumet spread out like a map. The main road was north and south, winding ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hastily—Lucien was coming her way. She worked seated, and as he seemed on the point of passing with merely a casual glance and an ambiguous "H'm!" she started up. The movement effectually arrested him, unintentional though it seemed. He frowned slightly, thrusting his hands deep into ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... man's hearty invitation, I proceeded to make myself and my companions at home, pinning, skewering, and otherwise suspending our cloaks and shawls across the various intentional and unintentional air-gaps, thereby increasing both the comfort and the grotesqueness of the apartment in no small degree. The babies had bowls of milk furnished them, and the elder portion of the caravan was regaled with a taste of the colonel's home-made wine, pending the supper to ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... snow without difficulty was my bull-terrier "Bill," a spotted dog of doubtful ancestry. He had been given to me as a bull-terrier when he was only a little white rat of a thing, and I had raised him at Bunji on tinned milk. He was a most uncanny dog (the joke is unintentional), and it was commonly believed in the force that his father was a tom cat. Poor Bill! Before he got to Laspur he was so snow blind that until we got to Mastuj I had to open his eyes for him every morning and bathe them with hot water ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... he aimed and hurled at the mustachioed strangers, calling out, at the same time, for additional physical force. The astonished Italians, however, were not long, after that, in finding the important documents they looked for, which explained all. The Baron begged the strangers' pardon for the unintentional insult, and was heard to articulate to himself, "Poor unhappy me! a victim to nervousness and fancy's terrors! and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... drawn, according to their arrangement. We must, of course, not have in mind that conviction and persuasion which is brought about by the use of many words. We have to consider only that adduction of facts and explanation, simple or complex, in a more or less skilful, intentional or unintentional manner, by means of which we are convinced at least for a moment. The variety of such conviction is well ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the same with "On the Banks of the Wabash," possibly an even greater success, for it came eventually to be adopted by his native State as its State song, and in that region streets and a town were named after him. In an almost unintentional and unthinking way I had a hand in that, and it has always cheered me to think that I had, although I have never had the least talent for musical composition or song versification. It was one of those delightful summer Sunday mornings ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... leaning line. Where splints variously arranged, or stitches, have given names to decorations—applied even to painted and embroidered designs—it is not difficult for us to see that these same combinations, at first unintentional, must have suggested the forms to which ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... amiable colours, bore the name of Captain Marryat." The truth of the story seems to be that the Captain went in hot wrath to Bentley, and demanded an apology or a statement that the coincidence was unintentional. Maurice replied, through his publisher, that he had never heard of Captain Marryat. It may be questioned whether the apology was not more galling than the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... injury soon spread about the college, it was reported merely as one of those unintentional happenings for which no one was actually culpable. The owners of cherished cars were canny enough to realize that to capitalize the accident meant jeopardy to their privileges. All knew that a certain important college for girls had recently banned cars. None were anxious that Hamilton ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... prop in the court party; their fortunes rest on yours; by a single express you can fix their value with the public, and the degree to which their spirits shall rise or fall; they are in your hands as stock, and you have the secret of the alley with you. Thus situated and connected, you become the unintentional mechanical instrument of your own and their overthrow. The king and his ministers put conquest out of doubt, and the credit of both depended on the proof. To support them in the interim, it was necessary that you should make the most of every ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... issues McCloy thought the board did "not speak with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity unintentional. Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem Board intended black officers to command white ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... you, for I fear the world will not." He bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her hand and departed; yet such was his knowledge of life that now his soul was more deeply troubled than it had been since his unintentional eavesdropping on his manager's ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the hint, and answered as politely as I could, that my ignorance of his condition and rank could be the only cause of my having stumbled on anything disagreeable; and that I was most willing to apologize for my unintentional offence, so soon as I should know wherein ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... damage to the posts at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage headforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way—like coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws of the society, until ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Dr. Gebhard with solemnity, "his Majesty the Emperor Ferdinand sends me to your highness in the assured hope that in your justice and exalted wisdom your grace will be superior to all personal enmities, and not visit upon the son faults, perhaps unintentional, committed ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... their glasses on the dhow. Although some doubted that the black objects they saw thrown over the side could really be human beings, the majority were of opinion that such was the case. Little had Jack thought, when going in chase of the slaver, that he was to be the unintentional cause of the death of numbers of his fellow-creatures; yet he was convinced that such ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the principal contributor, and was keenly interested in its progress, though his mind was ever teeming with other new schemes. The allusion in the following letter to his publication of "many unauthenticated books," if unintentional, seems ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... thou hast served us too faithfully to be quarrelled with, for perchance unintentional irreverence. The imposition of her child's murder, when he lives and is well, is the coinage of thine own brain, sir earl, and thou must reconcile it to thine own conscience. We hold ourselves exempt from all such ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... do not suppose a single hint was ever actually taken from mineral form; not even by the Arabs in their stalactite pendants and vaults: all that I mean to allege is, that beautiful ornament, wherever found, or however invented, is always either an intentional or unintentional copy of some constant natural form; and that in this particular instance, the pleasure we have in these geometrical figures of our own invention, is dependent for all its acuteness on the natural tendency impressed on us by our Creator to love ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... begin to appear, arises at first in a strictly practical and unintentional manner. Later examples elsewhere show us by analogy how it first came into existence. The Indians of the Ohio seem to have modelled their pottery in bags or nettings made of coarse thread or twisted bark. Those of the Mississippi moulded them in baskets of willow ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... we taken off our hats, and bowed a thousand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much like their companion, except that an ordinary red night-cap replaced ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... not seem to be so good friends as formerly. If I have done anything to offend you, I know that you will believe me when I say that it was quite unintentional on my part and that I am very sorry for it, and hope you ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... them a boy of eleven or twelve, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, to be much referred to later (a son of Mrs Stevenson by a former marriage), whose delight was to draw the oddest, but perhaps half intentional or unintentional caricatures, funny, in some cases, beyond expression. His room was designated the picture-gallery, and on entering I could scarce refrain from bursting into laughter, even at the general effect, and, noticing this, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... signification is not discoverable, or, upon the other hand, if it can be pinned down to any definite statement, then that statement will be false.'[2] Mr. Ward in turn says of Mr. Bradley: 'I cannot even imagine the state of mind to which his description applies.... It reads like an unintentional travesty of Herbartian Psychology by one who has tried to improve upon it without being at the pains to master it.' Muensterberg excludes a view opposed to his own by saying that with any one who holds it a verstaendigung with him ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... not to over-inflect. Too much modulation produces an unpleasant effect of artificiality, like a mature matron trying to be kittenish. It is a short step between true expression and unintentional burlesque. Scrutinize your own tones. Take a single expression like "Oh, no!" or "Oh, I see," or "Indeed," and by patient self-examination see how many shades of meaning may be expressed by inflection. This sort of common-sense practise will do you more good than a book of rules. But don't forget ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... settle; but if there is a will there will be a way, and it is easy enough to imagine the sort of civil, complimentary assurances from one to the other, that though there had been a great misunderstanding, it was no doubt unintentional, and all that sort of palaver which is so familiar to old stagers and ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... wine, three lemonades, six glasses!" cried Holsma, assuming the responsibility for Walter's unintentional work ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... and yet avoid having actually murdered it (Schol. Eur. Phoen., 26); the whole treatment of the parricide and incest, not as moral offences capable of being rationally judged or even excused as unintentional, but as monstrous and inhuman pollutions, the last limit of imaginable horror: all these things take us back to dark regions of pre-classical and even pre-homeric belief. We have no right to suppose that ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... criticism of the pictures was one of great despondency to Dennis. He had read in Christine's face that he had wounded her sorely; and, though she knew it to be unintentional, would it not prejudice her mind against him, and snap the slender thread by which he hoped to draw across the gulf between them the cord, and then the cable, that might in time unite ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... going on, that they were taking horses out at a camp we had. It was mentioned to them, the last time that this and other movements excited our suspicion, that they were moving their troops. They said that they had noticed it themselves, and had it stopped; that it was unintentional on their part, and that ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... wrong action and a guilty one. And, with increasing refinement of moral appreciation, the problem of desert, which arises out of this distinction, acquired more and more theoretical and practical importance. If life must be given for life, yet it was recognized that the unintentional slayer did not altogether deserve death; and, by a sort of compromise between the public and the private conception of justice, a sanctuary was provided in which he might take refuge ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... should like, while carrying out my elder brother's wish, to act entirely on it without troubling him in any way. He is, I am sorry to say, very ill, so ill that the least, the very least, agitation is dangerous to him. He feels with me the unintentional injustice done to your wife, but he cannot bear the subject ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... quite as little. What she had done to offend Mr. Reyes, Kate could not guess, except as to the matter of the credit; but then, in that, she only executed her instructions. Still Mr. Reyes was of opinion that there were two ways of executing orders: but the main offence was unintentional on Kate's part. Reyes, though as yet she did not know it, had himself been a candidate for the situation of clerk; and intended probably to keep the equation precisely as it was with respect to the allowance of credit, only to change places with the handsome lady—keeping her on the negative ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... individuals may be affected by magical practices. The close connection between an individual, his garments, or even his name, must be considered to apply with quite as much force to the helpless infant and the afterbirth. So strong is this bond, that even unintentional acts may injure the babe. Evil spirits are always near; and, unless great precautions are taken, they will injure adults if they can get them at a disadvantage, particularly when they are asleep. The child is not able to protect itself from these beings; ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... lost some cotton-batting once before," he half-whispered to Gwendolyn. "It was when you were teething. Oh, I know it was unintentional! You were so little. But—I can't ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... assent of Napoleon to her views, and he regarded with great satisfaction the union of Hortense with Louis. The contemplated connection with Duroc was broken off. Two young hearts were thus crushed, with cruelty quite unintentional. Duroc was soon after married to an heiress, who brought him a large fortune, and, it is said, a haughty spirit and an irritable temper, which embittered ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Van Pelt, his wrong to Mary had been unintentional, as he was ignorant of her connection with the eclipse-glass scheme. Though Mr. Ten Eyck had been honest in advising Miss Trigillgus to abandon her plans, under the persuasion that with her limited means and want of business training the result could not fail to be disastrous, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... originality in the Calender is the attempt at linking the separate eclogues into a connected series. We have already seen how with Googe the same characters recur in a sort of shadowy story; but what was in his case vague and almost unintentional becomes with Spenser a central artistic motive of the piece. The eclogues are arranged with no small skill and care on somewhat of an architectural design, or perhaps we should rather say with somewhat of the symmetry of a geometrical ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... circling about it, the mother accidentally brushed her shoulder under the port quarter of the Mary Turner, and the Mary Turner listed to starboard as her stern was lifted a yard or more. Nor was this unintentional, gentle impact all. The instant after her shoulder had touched, startled by the contact, she flailed out with her tail. The blow smote the rail just for'ard of the fore-shrouds, splintering a gap through it as if it were no more than a cigar-box and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... what might, humanity would never be left absolutely void of the means of instruction, nor any worthy human achievement be absolutely lost or forgotten. The experience of these later years has demonstrated the value of such legacies even when unintentional, unselected, and wretchedly fragmentary. It has made clear also how a legacy deliberately made may be ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... darkened the moon in time to prevent their captain's unintentional defection from being seen by his troops. They had, therefore, fought on against such antagonists as, in the darkness, they could keep located. The moon reappeared, and showed many of the Hessians making for the wooded hill ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of Howe to cooeperate with Burgoyne was no doubt the most fatal military blunder made by the British in the whole course of the war. The failure was of course unintentional on Howe's part. He meant to extend sufficient support to Burgoyne, but the trouble was that he attempted too much. He had another plan in his mind at the same time, and between the two he ended by accomplishing nothing. While he kept one eye on Albany, he kept the other ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... was quite unintentional on my part. I trust you are not offended? Will you allow me to introduce myself? I am Captain C—, of the —. Will you permit me to present my card, and to say how happy I shall be to make your acquaintance?" So saying, the third gentleman presented me with his card, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the unintentional cause of his friend's disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did not last; for, on seeing "the comrade," he received a most unpleasant impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of his face was ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... became still more flushed and she flung up her head as she crossed the room, then put down the tray with a considerable clatter. But the clatter was unintentional—though Miss Ethel would not have believed this—and was due to a small piece of needlework on the table which caused the cup and glass to stand unevenly on the tray. Caroline heard the sharp indrawing of Miss Ethel's breath on the way to the door, and her whole being ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... very large proportion of our modern great properties, tramway systems, railways, gas-works, bread companies, have been created for their present owners the debenture holders and mortgagers, the great capitalists, by the unintentional altruism of that voluntary martyr, the ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... how necessary it is for the tourist to be careful of his personal safety in Hades, it is related that upon one occasion the keeper of the dragon having taken a grudge against Siegfried for some unintentional slight, fed Fafnir upon Roman-candles and a sky-rocket, with the result that in the fight between the hero and the demon of the wood the Siegfried was seriously injured by the red, white, and blue balls of ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... not knowing what to do next. She felt that she had muddled things dreadfully. Instead of making Belle feel better as she hoped to do, she realized she had hurt her in some unintentional way. Presently, she slowly drew herself up from her chair and began to clear the table, piling the few dishes they had used, under the dish-pan in the sink. The house stood open to the summer breeze. It seemed so desolate and deserted with Belle upstairs, drawn in alone with ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... considerable additions to the wealth of the province in the shape of new railway-lines and canals, fine stations, and public buildings, not to speak of the thousands of fruit-trees with which, in German fashion, they have lined the roads—a small, unintentional reparation for the ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... James II. So fervent an admirer was he of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the soft impeachment while gracefully praising ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... said Edie, with hardly a touch of unintentional satire, 'that the best thing about anecdotes of that kind in a newspaper was their utter irrelevancy. But if Beau Brummel won't do, couldn't you manage to work in Guicciardini and the galleys? That's strictly Italian, you know, and therefore relevant; and I'm sure the newspaper leaders ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... fallen into an unintentional mistake. Rider's Almanack for 1794 lay before me; and, in troth, I then had no other. For variety, that sage astrologer has made some small changes on the weather side of 1795; but the caution is the same on the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... food if there is any trouble such as is described above. Despite your absolute assurance that you are making no mistake, do not be surprised to find that you are not following directions to the letter, and because of this unintentional mistake, your negligence is responsible for your baby's condition. Go over the instructions with your husband, and let him follow your method of preparation, as you repeat it. He may detect the mistake if any exists,—two heads are always better than one. So important is this matter that ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... is and ought to be, it may be necessary for the sake of clear exposition, or to steady the course of an argument, to avoid either sophistry or unintentional confusion, that words should be defined and discriminated; and we must discuss the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... her fingers, unintentional as it was. sent a strange thrill through the man, and, for an instant, he wavered in his recital. But he forced himself to continue. And after a few seconds the girl seemed to realize what she was doing. For she ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... of truth and error which most 'spirit communications' present. It typifies in little the elusive problem of spirit identification which many a veteran investigator is still at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives a case of long-continued unintentional and unconscious deception of the general kind which went far to prevent his acceptance of ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... should consider the thing as a matter almost of course, and not place more importance upon it than that which of course belongs to the incivility of not answering your letter, and this really I cannot but think is unintentional. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... to writers in general it is only fair to believe that most cases of plagiarism are quite unintentional. The fault usually is in the writer's memory. Turn your eye inward, and form the habit of tracing the origin of your inspirations—sometimes it may chagrin you to find how near to unconscious imitation you have been. You may get the inspiration for a story and write it; it may ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Aristide, excitedly casting away his straw hat, which an unintentional twist of the wrist caused to skim horizontally and nearly decapitate a small and perspiring soldier who happened to pass by. "A la bonne heure! Let him divorce you. You are then free. You can be mine ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... came with him—gave unintentional emphasis to these conclusions; for where she was richest he was naked. She had a deep-rooted delicacy that drew color and perfume from the very centre of her being: his sentiments, good or bad, were as detachable as his cuffs. Thus her nearness, planned, as ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... that she would cast him off. Probably I was mistaken, but in my despair the impulse to disclose it was almost irresistible. I struggled against it, however, and when she pressed me, I praised him and strove in my praise to be sincere. Whether it was something in my tone, quite unintentional, I know not, but she stopped me almost in the middle of a sentence and said she believed I had kept something back which I did not wish her to hear; that she was certain he had talked to me about her, and that she wished to know what ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... by contemporary mention and his own intentional and unintentional admissions, is of an active-minded and agreeable-mannered man, a hard worker, very markedly prone to quips and whimsical sayings and plays upon words, and aware of a double reputation as a man of erudition and a wit. This latter quality it was that won him advancement ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... general measures, necessary, but an unbiased, faithful, and full report of symptoms to the physician, when he visits his little patient, is of the first importance. An ignorant servant or nurse, unless great caution be exercised by the medical attendant, may, by an unintentional but erroneous report of symptoms, produce a very wrong impression upon his mind, as to the actual state of the disease. His judgment may, as a consequence, be biased in a wrong direction, and the result prove seriously injurious to the welldoing of the patient. The medical man cannot sit hour ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... the last hour, and by the lips to which we listen as to none other,—that this text depends for its interpretation on the position of a single comma, we can readily see what wrong may be done by the unintentional blunder of the most conscientious reporter. But too frequently it happens that the careless talk of an honest and high-minded man only reaches the public after filtering through the drain of some reckless hireling's memory,—one who has played so long with other men's characters and good name that ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of different burials and attendant ceremonies, it has been deemed expedient to introduce entire accounts as furnished, in order to preserve continuity of narrative, and in no case has the relator's language been changed except to correct manifest unintentional, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... dowager afforded the world of high life perpetual amusement. Her whole life was an unintentional caricature of royalty. Beggarly beyond conception in her private affairs, she was as pompous in public as if she had the blood of all the thrones of Europe in her veins. She evidently regarded the Brunswicks as usurpers, and hated them; while she affected a sort of superstitious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... "that I am as yet conspicuously superannuated. Indeed, I never felt younger in my life than I have felt during the past fortnight. I have a little touch of rheumatism to-night," he added, frankly, and at the same time gave unintentional emphasis to his admission by catching his breath and almost groaning as he slightly moved his legs, "but it has nothing to do with sitting on the rocks with Dor—with your charming niece. You forget that my rheumatism is hereditary, Port. Why, I ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... meant to assert was "nowhere in existence." The earliest printed books were intended to be undistinguishable from manuscripts, but occasionally a turned letter betrayed them absolutely. In the same way the modern newspaper now and then introduces an unintentional advertisement of the linotype by presenting to its readers a line upside down. Another trick is the mixing of two paragraphs, which sometimes occurs even in books. The most famous instance of this blunder is probably that which happened in the English "Men ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... and fusing them with Pipino's version for the Navigationi, made those minor modifications in names and other matters which we have already noticed. The mere facts of digestion from memoranda and double translation would account for a good deal of unintentional corruption. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... at times seems a failure, but that is when I am thinking of the little of this world's gear I have accumulated for my family. In you, beloved, and in our dear children, I am blessed beyond my deserts. That you may forgive my unintentional deception, and never have cause to suffer by reason of it, is my daily prayer. ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... at her feet, and seizing her hand, pressed it to his lips in expressive silence. Some moments passed before the confusion of either would suffer them to speak. At length recovering his voice, 'Can you, madam,' said he, 'forgive this intrusion, so unintentional? or will it deprive me of that esteem which I have but lately ventured to believe I possessed, and which I value more than existence itself. O! speak my pardon! Let me not believe that a single accident has destroyed my peace for ever.'—'If your peace, sir, depends ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... whole, though some whimpered that she had not taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a lady to cry out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off to the ball, but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... Franz Lachner, appeared to me very droll. It is well known that Wagner has never heard this work, let alone conducted it!— Ignorance of this kind is, moreover, not the worst on the other side, where intentional and unintentional ignorance and lies (not to mince the matter) are ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... order, the men had raised their pieces, and the condemned man had heard the clicks of the triggers as they were pulled back, and he had not moved. And then happened one of the most cruelly refined, though unintentional, acts of torture that one can very well imagine. As the officer slowly raised his sword, preparatory to giving the signal, one of the mounted officers rode up to him and pointed out silently what I had already observed with some ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... to his captain. Did the secret involve aught unfavorable to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of Captain Delano's about to be verified? Or, in his haunted mood at the moment, had some random, unintentional motion of the man, while busy with the stay, as if repairing it, been mistaken for ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... of men, who could not restrain himself from putting his arms about the necks of his favorite horses, and who had told about the death of one of his mares with tears in his eyes. "He had his cheek cut open by a kick from one of his horses once, and he speaks of it just as we would speak of some unintentional fault of a child." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... substance of men, which is man.' I have to stay in the man-made ruts. They're sacred to me. I'll look with pleasure at the Alps, if only for the sake of Hannibal and Goethe; but I never could look with pleasure at your untutored Rockies. They're so unintentional, you know. Nature is nothing until history has touched her. And as for this geological display outside my windows—you'll kindly permit me to turn my back on it. It's not peevishness." She lifted ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... quite unintentional, as would have been obvious to anyone who knew anything about the game. No one would be fool enough to kick the man, when by kicking the ball he might score a try. But Princeford was on Gordon like a shot. He began to lecture him before all the masters ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... in their business. His statement in reply was a great surprise to me. He said that if there was anything which appeared to be wrong, or that was in fact a violation of law, the error or wrong was unintentional—that he and his partners intended to act always in good faith. He then stated that the claim amounted to more than two hundred thousand dollars, and he proposed then and there to pay the amount claimed, coupled, however, with the condition that the payment should be kept secret. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... to my letter and cannot help saying that I feel very hurt at your decided refusal to allow me to take you out. I thought we were to be friends? Have I been so unfortunate as to offend you? If so, I can only assure you that it has been utterly unintentional. Won't you let me see you, if only for a moment? I will meet you at any time or place.— ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... he loved us. And I'm sure he meant it. He said, with that Western drawl of his: "Boys, while I was back there trying to do a little something for you in Congress, I heard a lot of swell bands; but I didn't hear any such music as this little old band of ours has made to-night!" The unintentional humor somehow didn't make you want to ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... at Edmee by mistake, and that a feeling of fear and shame prevented him from confessing his misadventure. Marcasse had the courage to go and see all those who had taken part in the hunt, and, with such eloquence as Heaven had granted him, implored them not to fear the penalty for unintentional murder, and not to allow an innocent man to be accused in their stead. All these efforts were fruitless; from none of the huntsmen did my poor friend obtain a reply which left him any nearer a solution of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... then embraced a visit to Mrs. Meredith in the morning with the view of discovering whether she was aware of the estrangement, and if aware whether she would in any unintentional way throw light upon the cause of it. Moreover—and this was kept clearly in view—there would be the chance of meeting Rowan himself, whom she also determined to see as soon as possible: she might find him at home, or she might encounter him on the road or riding over his farm. But this visit must ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... here expresses the very general opinion as to the existence of a collection of "logia," having a different origin from the text in which they are embedded, in Matthew. "Notes" are somewhat suggestive of a shorthand writer, but the suggestion is unintentional, for M. Renan assumes that these "notes" were taken, not at the time of the delivery of the "logia" but subsequently, while (as he assumes) the memory of them was living and definite; so that, in this very citation, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined," (Aunash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word anash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be my impulse to forsake you," said Deronda promptly, with that voice which, like his eyes, had the unintentional effect of making his ready sympathy seem more personal and special than it really was. And in that moment he was not himself quite free from a foreboding of some such self-committing effect. His strong feeling for this stricken creature could not hinder rushing images of future difficulty. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... strongly aroused on such occasions with a child's terror of being made an exhibition before the others. As a boy at Harrow, in the form of the Rev. F.W. Farrar, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, I had an unpleasant experience, though it was no fault of his and quite unintentional. The Russian Government had sent a deputation of two learned professors to England, to inquire into the educational system of the Public Schools, with the view of sending a member of the Royal family ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Adrastus and Eurydice, has traced out the events of the drama, in close imitation of Sophocles. The Grecian bard, however, in concurrence with the history or tradition of Greece, has made OEdipus survive the discovery of his unintentional guilt, and reserved him, in blindness and banishment, for the subject of his second tragedy of "OEdipus Coloneus." This may have been well judged, considering that the audience were intimately acquainted with the important scenes which were to follow among the descendants ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... to the suspicion of having become faithless to his art and his nature. In the name of the dead, he thanked his dear comrades for the enthusiastic appreciation his masterpiece had found. Honour to Myrtilus and his art, but he trusted this noble festal assemblage would pardon the unintentional deception, and aid his prayer for recovery. If it should be granted he hoped to show that Hermon had not been wholly unworthy to adorn himself for a short time with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the opportunity of privately questioning Philip, but it seemed to be equally her husband's wish to thwart any such intention of hers. He remained in the house-place, till after Philip had left, although he was evidently so much fatigued as to give some very distinct, though unintentional, hints to his ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... act, when done from different motives, is not the same. The kinsman-avenger took no heed of the motive of the slaying. His duty was to slay, whatever the slayer's intention had been. The asylum of the city of refuge was open for the unintentional homicide, and for him only, Deliberate murder had no escape thither. So the lesson was taught that motive is of supreme importance in determining the nature of an act. In God's sight, a deed is done when it is determined ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... supposing Edward's left was there opposed to him, ordered his gunners to cannonade all night. Edward, "as the flashes of the guns illumined by fits the gloom of midnight, saw the advantage of his unintentional error; and to prevent Warwick from discovering it, reiterated his orders for the most profound silence." [Sharon Turner.] Thus even his very blunders favoured Edward more than the wisest precautions had ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there was at least one advantage in it, that he would at once be made acquainted with all the details of garrison gossip; for, though altogether beneath contempt, they must be known in order to avoid giving unintentional offence. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... had sunk into the ground the parents could not have been more astonished than they were at hearing it thus despised, and Mildrid's silence showed that she agreed with Hans. There was something in this resolution of the young people, unintentional on their part, that, as it were, took away from the parents the right of decision; they felt ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... in that tone of unintentional intention which is most pointed. It was not lost on Miriam, who recoiled from the mere thought. It seemed to her better to ignore the hint, but Evie, with feverish eagerness, refused to ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... is a mighty fine man," asserted Judith, suddenly sober. "Any gal might be glad to git him. But its my belief and opinion that his heart is buried with his first—or his second," and she laughed out suddenly at the unintentional ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... it distress you, my dear girl," he replied soothingly; "we should perhaps make some allowance for unintentional exaggeration. There are always two sides to a story, and we have but ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... many pages with hair-splitting definitions, tracing the laws governing School Commissioners back to 1843, and summing up with the following unintentional satire. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Papers could, by one process and no difficult one, have been thrown into a novel; so by another, a not much more difficult and a much less complicated one, could the Polite Conversation be thrown into part of a novel—while in each case the incomplete and unintentional draft itself supplies patterns for the complete work in new kind such as had never been given before. Indeed the Conversation may almost be said to be part of a novel—and no small part—as it stands, and of such a novel as had ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... firm officials and stewards busy. One of the faithful employees was Richard McCraith, a newly arrived Irishman from Cork. He had that noted propensity of his race for getting orders twisted, but his endeavors to do right were so earnest and conscientious that his unintentional errors of judgment were condoned. One urgent order from a patron asked for delivery to bearer of two sacks of coarse salt. For its hauling the bearer had a cart. "Here, Richard, go with this man to the warehouse on ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the cigar, which he found to be a good one. There was something that made for freedom in the unintentional officiousness with which his guest had thrust aside his hospitality and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... that Miss Beaufort is sufficiently acquainted with the romance of Miss Euphemia's character to pardon the action, unintentional on my part, of having touched her hand? I declare I had no expectation of Miss ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter |
