"Unwittingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... business was to be where I could keep most command over the regiment, and, in a rough-and-tumble, scrambling fight in thick jungle, this had to depend upon the course of events, and usually meant that I had to be at the front. I saw in that fighting more than one elderly regimental commander who unwittingly rendered the only service he could render to his regiment by taking up his proper position several hundred yards in the rear when the fighting began; for then the regiment disappeared in the jungle, and for its good fortune the commanding officer never saw it again until long after ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the dinner is also marked by exhilarating experiences. With one coat-tail unwittingly tucked far up his back, so that it seems to be amputated, and his alpaca umbrella under his arm, he enters a grocery-store of the village, and abstractedly asks how strawberries are selling to-day? Upon being reminded that fresh fruit is very scarce in late December, he ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... terrible one. That which training has implanted in his mind proves the stronger, and, so far as the canons of the Church can warrant it, he saves his soul. But the problem is not quite frankly put by M. Zola; for if Abbe Mouret transgresses he does so unwittingly, at a time when he is unconscious of his priesthood and has no memory of any vow. When the truth flashes upon him he is horrified with himself, and forthwith returns to the Church. A further struggle between the contending forces then ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... healing. Looking over the events of the week, he thought he could perceive that she had been teased by his attentions, and that she wished to indicate this by the coolness of her manner and words to him, during their recent interview. And he had recklessly, though unwittingly, put the climax to her annoyance by this abrupt disclosure of his love. He berated himself unmercifully for his folly. For a full hour, he believed that his blundering impetuosity had cost him the ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... staring out of the window, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. His thoughts were still in a whirl, and even then he could not shake from his mind the more than half belief that in some unconscious way he had indeed, unwittingly and unwillingly—for he was as good a patriot as anyone—aided the runaways. In such a dilemma, feeling vexed and sore at his own loss, and indignant at the cross-examination he had just suffered, it was but natural ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... you, give in your note (to which I have just recurred) of our trip to Paltz Point, it seems that in writing you to-day I have unwittingly fallen on the anniversary of that pleasant excursion. Without this reminder I could not have told the day or the year, but of the excursion itself I have always had a vivid and delightful recollection; and, if I am not mistaken, Mrs. Prentiss ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... in the mind of the laird a fear: might not Cosmo unwittingly have had some share in the frightful event? When first he entered the room, there was Cosmo, dressed, and with a light in his hand: the seeming phosphorescence in the snow must have been one of his PLOYS, and might not that have ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... this," she firmly returned: "that, wittingly or unwittingly, she has so parried and met the questions which have been put to her in this room that any one listening to her would give her the credit of knowing more than she ought to of this horrible affair. She acts"—Mary whispered, but not so ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... and sunrise without leave of the officer in command; (2) that from being a village they had become the 'buildings situate within Fort No. 18'; (3) that they were to be deluged with soldiers; and (4) that they were liable to evacuate their tenements on mobilization. They had become a fort unwittingly as they slept, and all their streets were blocked with ramparts. A hard fate; but they should not have built their village just on the brow of a round hill. They did this in the old days, when men used stone instead of iron, because the top of a hill was a good place to hold against ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... me. Daughters, where are ye? Come unto these arms, These arms that issued from one womb with you, Which on the father that begot you brought This darkness for the light he had before. Blindly, my children, and unwittingly, Offspring I got in an incestuous bed. See you I cannot, but I weep for you, When I bethink me of the bitter life That ye must live, marks for the scorn of men. To what assembly, to what festival, Will ye e'er go and not ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... I can tell you nothing more than I have.... May I thank you for your hospitality, express my regrets that I should unwittingly have been made the agent of this disaster, and wish you good night—or, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... extortionate than anything I had known at Brofft's. "That is as it may be." I said, turning to the landlord, "but I think you will agree with me that if Brofft is a thief, he is not the only one in Bucharest." Things, I hope, have changed since then. If they have not done so I am sorry for the tourist who unwittingly includes Bucharest in the round of the holiday vacation. From Bucharest to London, and thence to Leeds, I came practically without a break, and on reaching my own home once more, in the dead of the night, I had the joy of knowing that the crisis of my daughter's illness ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... the people who passed in was the King, whose heart was no longer proud. The others, who had entered unwittingly, could not speak for wonder. Some of them were poor, and some were lame or blind; but all were ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... contrast of civilization with barbarism, of the East with the West; and there was infinite play for the comic expose of the credulous "tenderfoot" at the hands of the pitiless cowboy. Roars of Gargantuan laughter shook the skies as each new initiate unwittingly succumbed to the demoniac wiles of his tormentors. The West was one vast theatre for the practice of the "practical joke." Behind everything, menacing, foreboding, tragic, lay the stupendous contrast between Man and Nature; and though the miner, the granger, the ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... at the little face before him, and went away thinking his own thoughts. But he had the cruelty to repeat to Dr. Sandford so much of this conversation as concerned that gentleman; in doing so he unwittingly laid the foundation of more attention to Daisy on the doctor's part, than he probably would ever otherwise have given her. To say truth—the idea propounded by Daisy was so very novel to the doctor that it ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... believe, was wealthy, but of whose business he was ignorant. Theodose departed through the Barriere d'Enfer, which has been destroyed since 1860, at the moment when Jacques Collin murdered his uncle. At that time he entered a house of ill-fame, where he had unwittingly for mistress Lydie Peyrade, his full-blooded cousin. Theodose then lived for three years on a hundred louis which Corentin had secretly given to him. On giving him the money, the national chief of police quietly advised him to ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady Flight's garden party. Everybody was going there. Miss Mohun even took Felicia, as it was on a Saturday's holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed all the agitation caused by Wilfred's admiration, and that of others, to the all-unconscious girl. Vera could no longer think herself the reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl or a baby, or a horrid little forward ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... among a few of our writers. Even the venerable Oliver, although well acquainted with the symbolism of the acacia, and having written most learnedly upon it, has, at times, allowed himself to use the objectionable corruption, unwittingly influenced, in all probability, by the too frequent adoption of the latter word in the English lodges. In America, but few Masons fall into the error of speaking of the Cassia. The proper teaching of the Acacia ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... impression was so strong as to jar my nerves, and make me shudder with horror. I knew there was no such d—ting, as well as Macbeth—, but nevertheless it was with an indescribable feeling of curiosity, dashed with awe, that I stared intently at it, as if fascinated, while almost unwittingly I made ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... all, President Jefferson, in 1807, laid an embargo upon American shipping, thus unwittingly striking a terrible blow at our foreign commerce, in his endeavor to force England into an amicable settlement of certain difficulties that had arisen between her and the young Republic. This, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... see Lady Maude Bickerstaffe, his lordship's niece.' He stopped as if he had unwittingly uttered an awkwardness, and then added—'I mean she has not been well, and may not appear while you are at the castle; but if you should—and if, which is not at all likely, but still possible, you should be led to talk of Kilgobbin and the incident that has got into the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the intelligence thus unwittingly conveyed to him, Paco forgot for a second the caution rendered imperative by his position. A half-smothered exclamation escaped him, and by an involuntary start he raised his head completely above the window-sill. As he did so, he fancied he saw Don Baltasar ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... right to step aside out of an equivocal position. He wished to do this without injury to the prisoner and while there was yet an opportunity for him to obtain other counsel. The whole tenor of the speech was the right to be relieved from the obligation of an error; an error that had involved him unwittingly by reason of assurances which the developments of the case had now set aside. And through it all there was the manifest wish to do the ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... cannot agree with the severe and ascetic minds who think that true morality has nothing to do with art, or even that everything moral should be destitute of art. These people are completely deceived and unwittingly promote pornography, by repelling humanity with their austerity and driving it to the opposite extreme. The aesthetic and moral sentiments should be harmoniously combined with intelligence and will, each of these departments of the mind participating by its special energies ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... to regain their liberty. A maxim of Spanish law is that every accused person is guilty, until he proves himself innocent! As a large majority of the people, in their hearts, sympathize with the revolutionists, and are revolutionists in secret, they are liable to say or to do some trifling thing unwittingly, upon which the lynx-eyed officials seize as evidence of guilt, and their arrest follows. What fearful stories the dungeons of Moro could reveal had they ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... pockets don't go far enough down his trousers (that's what's the matter with him), and who contributes to anything that comes along, without troubling to ask questions, like long Bob Brothers of Bourke, who, chancing to be "a Protestant by rights," unwittingly subscribed towards the erection of a new Catholic church, and, being chaffed ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... desert. It was this statement that captured the medieval jurists and which they made their text, but it is now regarded as incomplete and even inaccurate. One may have the disposition, the desire, the will, to render to every one his right, but unless he can know what is his fellow's right he may unwittingly fail to accord it to him and thus unwittingly do injustice. It evidently is not enough to have the disposition or will; hence the definition is incomplete, and any definition is incomplete which does not furnish a criterion for determining what ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... following his flight the simple-minded Carmen, being aware—heaven knows how—that he had not opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death, or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly in discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but little sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto she had known only Concho, her earliest friend, and was true to his memory, as against all Americanos, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... missionary." On my arrival he most hospitably took me to the cupboard which he called "his rooms." It was a raw, cold night, and among other efforts to show his gratitude for my help, to my amazement he offered me "a drop of Scotch." Astonishment so outran good-breeding that I unwittingly let him perceive it. "I am not a regular 'Y' man, Major," he explained. "I'm an Australian, and was living on my little pile when the war began. They turned me down each place I volunteered on account of my age. But I was crazy to do my bit, and I offered to work with ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... attraction. "Christian" mores have been enforced by the best breechloaders and ironclads, but the Japanese now seem ready to bring superiority in those matters to support their mores. It is now a known and recognized fact that our missionaries have unintentionally and unwittingly done great harm to nature people by inducing them to wear clothes as one of the first details of civilized influence. In the usages of nature peoples there is no correlation at all between dress and sentiments of chastity, modesty, decency, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... natures, as exacting as they were delicate, were little pleased with Emilia's silence concerning her intercourse with Wilfrid. Merthyr, who had expressed in her defence what could be said for her, was unwittingly cherishing what could be thought in her disfavour. Neither of them hit on the true cause, which lay in Georgiana's coldness to her. One little pressure of her hand, carelessly given, made Merthyr better aware of the nature ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this pass, Charles Verity waited before finally committing himself, thereby unwittingly giving sentiment—in the shape of the Powers of the Air—the chance to take a rather unfairly extensive hand ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... indivisible." To promote this purpose, he assumes the disguise of a monk; and the history of his progress—addressing now little groups, now single individuals, and now large multitudes of men—at one time captivating, unwittingly, a young and enthusiastic lady, by the fervor of his eloquence, who delivers him from death by suicide—and at another, shaking the walls of his dungeon, through the power and grandeur of his predictions and dreams—till at last, as, after the mockery of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... not welcome visitors, and that the lady was not a little disturbed by our presence. We went up to the side door, where she had entered, and rang the bell. The summons was answered by the servant girl, who, when we asked to see Mrs. Loraine, invited us to the sitting-room. I judged that we had unwittingly chosen an opportune moment for our entrance, for Kate's persecutor was not in the room, and probably had not noticed our approach. If she had, it is very likely she would not have permitted us to ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... statue of Washington that sits facing the Capitol, he unwittingly showed how a man may ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Over and above the good of his soul and other people's souls, a man must eat—to put it baldly. He should earn his keep. He must indeed calculate upon provision for two. Mr. Thompson had made the common mistake of believing himself self-sufficient, and Sophie Carr had unwittingly taught him that a male celibate was an anomaly in nature's reckoning. He had thought himself immune from the ordinary passions of humanity. The strangest part of it was a saddened gladness that he was not. Somehow, he did not want to be a spiritual superman. He would rather love and ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... I unwittingly picked some of his special treasures, some rare exotic which he had cultivated ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... know is that he served as a pivotal point in the lives of two great people, and then passed on, unwittingly, into the obscurity from whence ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the crew from captivity. The "Essex" was pointed for the shore; but when within a couple of hundred yards the wind, which had so far favored her approach, shifted ahead. Still clinging to every chance, a kedge with a hawser was let go, to hold her where she was; perhaps the enemy might drift unwittingly out of range. But the hawser parted, and with it the frigate's last hold upon the country which she had honored by an heroic defence. Porter then authorized any who might wish to swim ashore to do so; ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... quarter sounded against the most hated man in America. That such would be the case he had known yesterday, but he also knew—or thought he did—that his directing hand would still be on the tiller and his uncannily shrewd brain would be puzzling, bewildering and deluding his enemies into unwittingly serving ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... before sunset, we saw the woodland under which his hut was set, and heard the vesper bell ringing far off from the village church. Soon we were on hard ground again, and then I could show Alswythe where I had played Grendel unwittingly, and point the way I ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... off its feeble twigs, and pollards. One of these, hollow and old, had upon its top a crowd of parasites. A bramble had taken root there, and hung over the side; a small currant-bush grew freely—both, no doubt, unwittingly planted by birds—and finally the bines of the noxious bitter-sweet or nightshade, starting from the decayed wood, supported themselves among the willow-branches, and in autumn were bright with red berries. Ash-stoles, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... dropped into a woman's heart. Hereafter she would be changed. She never again would be as she was before. Would her heart be hardened or softened by the experience? She did not love him; that was clear. She had done right; that was clear. But he had said he loved her. Unwittingly she was following him in her thought. She had rejected plain John Lyon, amiable, intelligent, unselfish, kindly, deferential. She had rejected also the Earl of Chisholm, a conspicuous position, an honorable family, luxury, a great opportunity in life. It came to the girl in a flash. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... if he were a witness and you a cross-questioning lawyer. Do not say: "See here, you know more about it than that," and thus try to force unwilling information from him. Go at him in a more round-about way and lead him to give you the facts unwittingly perhaps. ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... which they inlay with grass or branches, as a proof of their industry; and when they are in a certain state they separate from the community and live in small huts, which they build for themselves. Should any one unwittingly touch them, or an article belonging to them, during their indisposition, he is considered unclean; and must purify himself by fasting for a day, and then jumping over a fire prepared by ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... had considered foreign to his nature ever since the day I had seen him rein in his horse so calmly on the extreme edge of a precipice, where a fall would have meant certain death, not only to himself, but also to the two riders who unwittingly were pressing ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... listen to "circumstances," he only clung to facts, and these had shown him Lady Blakeney denouncing a fellow man to a tribunal that knew no pardon: and the contempt he would feel for the deed she had done, however unwittingly, would kill that same love in him, in which sympathy and intellectuality could never ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... struck to the heart by the dreadful secrets Hortense was unwittingly letting out, controlled her grief by one of the heroic efforts which a magnanimous mother can make, and drew her daughter's head on to her bosom ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... national existence have every where turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have aided it by their exertions; those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly; those who have fought for it, and those who have declared themselves its opponents, have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to one end;" "all have been blind instruments in the hands ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... surrounded. And no word was spoken; the scouts just perched and watched him. He was not actually reading, for he had not turned a page for about ten minutes, and it was not a picture book. The difficulty was, however, to get him started. If only Mother would help them! Then Mother, unwittingly, did so. For she dropped her ball of wool, and finding no one at hand to recover it, she looked vaguely round the room—and saw them. And she shook her ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... bestow on a blundering child. Mrs. George experienced that subtle prescience whereby it is given us to know that we have put our foot in it. She felt herself turning an uncomfortable brick-red. What Penhallow skeleton had she unwittingly jangled? Why, oh, why, was it such an evident breach of ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pass that as two of the Brothers were at work together out of doors, one by mischance did unwittingly hurt the other somewhat, and he who had done the injury prayed the other to pardon him for God's sake. But the Brother who was hurt in body was whole in heart, and said: "Even if thou hadst slain my father I would freely pardon thee," ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... note of the 11th inst., received yesterday, until to-day, as I wished to thoroughly review every point connected with the negotiations for the purchase of the stock of the Backus Oil Company, to satisfy myself as to whether I had unwittingly done anything whereby you could have any right to feel injured. It is true that in the interview I had with you I suggested that if you desired to do so, you could retain an interest in the business of the Backus Oil Company, by keeping some number of its shares, and then I understood ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... injury has been done to the common faith in a future life, great disbelief has been provoked unwittingly, by writers who have sought to magnify the importance of revealed religion at the expense of natural religion. Many such persons have labored to show that all the scientific, philosophical, and moral arguments ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... him since the night he read the letter, when he was reading to Barbara and had unwittingly come upon it. Constance was dead and Laurence Austin was dead, but their love lived on. The grave was closed against it, and in neither heaven nor hell could it find an abiding-place. Ghostly and forbidding, it had sent Constance to haunt ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... dwarf all comparison with others, or unless his conduct obeys laws, and can therefore be calculated. Thus the gentlemen who spoke for him in New York, on the 22d of February, at the time he was speaking for himself in Washington, found that they were unwittingly his opponents, while appearing as his mouth-pieces, and had accordingly to send telegrams to Washington of such fond servility, that the vindication of their partisanship could only be made at the expense of provoking the hilarity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... mistake into which I unwittingly fell. I am proud to correct it and do full justice to the acuteness and accuracy which, as far as I can understand the subjects, M. Ampere carries into all the branches of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... superior character of her home. There was nothing the matter with that home except that it was too crowded for the family to stay in it. Father and mother were respectable, hard-working people, and after Annie's first real misadventure, into which she fell almost unwittingly, she was afraid to ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... The woman envied by all the women; the man by all the men. Yet they walked side by side like the ghosts of lovers. And, since he was her betrothed, one or two iron-gray hairs in the man's head had turned white, and lines deepened in his face. The victim had unwittingly revenged herself. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... but, by a series of violently artificial devices, things are so arranged that Marie-Jeanne cannot go unless Madame Fontenais goes too; and Sabine, rather than endanger her daughter's recovery, does not hesitate to let her mother set forth, unwittingly, to her doom. In the last scene of all, Marie-Jeanne light-heartedly prepares to leave her mother and go off with her husband to the ends of the earth; Sabine learns that the man she loved and rejected for Marie-Jeanne's sake ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Waverly Park, roused that desire of pre-eminence which, though absolutely foreign to the principles of Dr. Beaumont, was not overlooked by all his family. She thought it became her to lecture Isabel on her preference, and unwittingly confirmed it by exhibiting, in opposition, two men of most dissimilar characters and endowments; the one, brave, generous, enlightened, accomplished, but unhappy; the other, lord of a vast demesne, but selfish, ignorant, scant of courtesy, and proud ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... went on swimmingly in Tartarus. The obstinate Fates and the sulky Furies were unwittingly the cause of universal satisfaction. Everyone enjoyed himself, and enjoyment when it is unexpected is doubly satisfactory. Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion, for the first time during their punishment, had an ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... displayed his qualifications in order to entrap the heart of his young mistress, he had unwittingly enslaved the affections of her maid. This attendant was also a favourite of the young lady, and, though her senior by two or three good years at least, unquestionably her superior in point of personal beauty; she moreover possessed ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is possible that—unwittingly—I have them the impression that I was as comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a deplorable trait in ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... thought he was fairly on the scent. A sudden blast of wind had caught up the paper and whirled it high in the air. I may have uttered an ejaculation, for he came hurrying to the window. He found me pointing unwittingly to what was already a white speck sailing to the roof of the fire-station. "Is it a pigeon?" he asked. I caught at the idea. "Yes, a carrier-pigeon," I murmured in reply; "they sometimes, I believe, send messages to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... once that he could not read Whitman. He declared it was like chewing glass. When we criticize others, the instant penalty is that we unwittingly confess what we are ourselves. We know the reception of Leaves of Grass was of the kind which not seldom greets the appearance of an exceptional book, though Emerson recognized its worth. So when occasionally we admit, shyly and apologetically, as is our habit (in the way we confess ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... and bewildered. It seemed to me that his existence overshadowed mine, and that in some way he was connected with the death of Alresca. Possibly there was a plot, in which the part played by the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps was only a minor one. Possibly I had unwittingly stepped into a net of subtle intrigue, of the extent of whose boundaries and ramifications I had not the slightest idea. Like one set in the blackness of an unfamiliar chamber, I feared to step forward or backward lest I might ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... I! And, anyhow, one does not have to put himself through a whole criminal performance to apprehend its spiritual experiences. I understood all, and especially what he unwittingly betrayed even now; that deep thirst for the dramatic element in one's own life, which, when social conformity fails to supply it, becomes, to an eager ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... gave him a minute description of the young man as he appeared on the day that he had been trapped into the physician's house, even to the clothing which he had worn, and the doctor was at last convinced that, all unwittingly, he had assisted in the perpetration of a ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of the red man unwittingly chose the easiest path to America and so entered the continent first, but this was their misfortune. They could not inherit the land because they chose a path whose unfavorable influence, exerted throughout centuries, left them unable to ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... arms in the writhings of his ineffable anguish:—his right hand came in contact with a crucifix that hung against the wall; and he mechanically clutched it—not with any motive prepense—but wildly, unwittingly. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... point to point, echoing farther and yet farther in the distance. This was the ancient telegraph-system of the islanders, by which an item of information sped in a moment to the most remote edges of the valley. Unwittingly, in my gratitude, I had raised it, and now I pursued my way in the glare ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... his position, and succeeded in raising his knee against the master's chest. Ford, guarding against what seemed to be only a wrestler's strategy, contented himself by locking the bent knee firmly in that position, and thus unwittingly gave Seth the looked-for opportunity of drawing the bowie-knife concealed in his boot leg. He knew his mistake only as Seth violently freed his arm, and threw it upward for the blow. He heard the steel ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... that has a reputation second only to that of Rome. Of course, if any girl in Porto Ferrajo could imagine the character of the stranger it must be Ghita; and it was on this supposition that she had unwittingly, and, if the truth must be owned, unwillingly, collected around her a clientelle of at least a dozen girls of her own age, and apparently of her own class. The latter, however, felt no necessity for ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he was glad of that single look of reproach which seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turned away and his ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in Wrench's manner that perplexed Lady Wetherby, something almost human, as if Wrench were on the point of coming alive. She did not guess it, but the explanation was that Bill, quite unwittingly, had impressed Wrench. There was that about Bill that reminded the butler of London and dignified receptions at the house of the Dowager Duchess of Waveney. It was deep ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... from side to side uneasily, and muttered a question in his broken dreams. And now the barn was in an uproar; and the dog, chained at his kennel behind the house, was howling, roaring to get loose. Would he never waken? Would the tragedy which he himself had unwittingly planned and staged be played to its end without his hearing a word? (So often it is that way in life.) At last, as one who has long tugged at his own sleep, striving to rend it as a smothering blanket and burst through into free air, he sat up in ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Hellenic soldiers and sailors. We soon find western satraps cultivating cordial relations with the Ionian cities, hospitably entertaining Greeks of distinction and conciliating Greek political and religious prepossessions. They must have attained considerable success, while thus unwittingly preparing disaster. When, a little more than a century later, western Europe would come eastward in force, to make an end of Persian dominion, some of the greater Ionian and Carian cities would offer a prolonged resistance ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... our edifice. Mrs. Capella's yielding to blackmail is the keystone of the arch. Every loose block fits at once into its proper place. The Japanese, Ooma, must have met Sir Alan and discussed this very question with him. The baronet must have unwittingly revealed the family secret, and the Jap was clever enough to perceive its value. Further, the murder was unpremeditated, the inspiration of a desperate moment, and the weapon selected shows a sort of fiendish mandate suggested by family feud. ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... shoulder remains in a normal attitude. Do not believe him, no matter what expression his face may assume. Do not believe him—he lies; his shoulder denies his words. That negative form betrays his thoughts; and, if he expresses ardent passion, you have merely to consult the thermometer which, all unwittingly, he himself offers to your inspection. See, it marks zero! therefore he lies; doubt it not, he lies! but his shoulder does not lie. He amiably puts it at your disposal—read, read at your ease; it bears inscribed in living letters his deceit ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... small way, lest it should fall into the hands of some more formidable competitor; they made a practice of sending prospectuses and circulars—job-printing, as it is called—to the Sechard's establishment. So it came about that, all unwittingly, David owed his existence, commercially speaking, to the cunning schemes of his competitors. The Cointets, well pleased with his "craze," as they called it, behaved to all appearance both fairly and handsomely; but, as a matter of fact, they were adopting the tactics of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... man or by any cabal in the Assembly, history must absolve Patrick Henry of all knowledge of it, and of all responsibility for it. Not only has no tittle of evidence been produced, involving his connivance at such a scheme, but the Assembly itself, a few months later, unwittingly furnished to posterity the most conclusive proof that no man in that body could have believed him to be smirched with even the suggestion of so horrid a crime. Had Patrick Henry been suspected, during the autumn and early winter of 1776, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... premature explosion of the train. To Indiman, apologetic and remorseful, the Countess Gilda had vouchsafed a single pregnant utterance—"Wait for the third appearance of the Queen of Spades." This was his cue; let him make the most of it if he would repair the mischief that he had unwittingly done. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the Dog-Wolf; "unwittingly enough I nearly caused you disaster the last time I fed at Man's expense. That time there was but one hunter; here are many, and they would ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... various republics which France set up all over Europe soon discovered that they were nothing but tributary states of their "deliverer"; and when Napoleon began his career of undisguised conquest, he unwittingly did even more than the Revolution to strengthen the national idea in Europe, for the nationalities had now become thoroughly hostile to France and fought in alliance with their old dynasties to throw off the yoke ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... did not wish to safely reach land in that way, and the exaltation in Mr Brymer's face and tone was due to the power which Jarette had unwittingly placed ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Witch: and why may not this too usual and unhappy Symptom of A Witch, even a Spectral Representation, befall a person that shall be none of the worst? Is it not possible? The Laplanders will tell us 'tis possible: for Persons to be unwittingly attended with officious Daemons, bequeathed unto them, and impos'd upon them, by Relations that have been Witches. Quaery, also, Whether at a Time, when the Devil with his Witches are engag'd in a War upon a people, some certain ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... victory," interrupted the baronet. "Yes; that is quite true. But how can we tell which party—if either— is fighting in the cause of right and justice? We cannot take the part of either the aggressors or the defenders without a certain lurking doubt that in so doing we may perhaps be unwittingly giving aid and encouragement to the evil-doer. My sympathies are, like yours, on the side of the defenders; but I am afraid we must let them ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... thing he valued in this world. I dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined that the man's good name should be cleared. The crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of Conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly sanctioned. Again I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher replied kindly and without a trace of impatience. Would I get some intelligible written statement from Quarriar as ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar were ordered, and sugar—that dirty, brown sticky stuff—got into everything on board—my fingers are sticky even as I write—and no less than ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... beach—I took my way toward Malamocco. But presently I flung myself down again on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse dry grass. It took it out of me to think I had been so much at fault, that I had unwittingly but nonetheless deplorably trifled. But I had not given her cause—distinctly I had not. I had said to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her; but it had been a joke without consequences and I had never ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... as was also the inexperience of several captains. It is pretty certain that some of the mishap must be laid to the fiery and inconsiderate haste of Suffren, who had the defects of his great qualities, upon which his coy and wary antagonist unwittingly played. ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... had shown her from her youth up, and begging her not to go with her to make her death yet more bitter by her cries. The faithful old creature was unable for a long time to say a word for tears. Howbeit at last she begged forgiveness of my child, for that she had unwittingly accused her, and said, that out of her wages she had bought five pounds' weight of flax to hasten her death; that the shepherd of Pudgla had that very morning taken it with him to Coserow, and that she should wind it closely round her body; for that she had seen how old wife Schurne, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... huts, and the filling up of their canals, they consoled themselves with the reflection that their gold and their wealth were all at the bottom of these canals, and that the Spaniards, in their hot haste to enjoy the spoils of the city, were unwittingly burying forever the prize for which they were contending. Such were the thoughts of these Aztecs as they sat in their canoes, longing for death to relieve them from agony of suspense, enduring all the torments of the extremest thirst, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and the two boys would take a walk together, in order to talk over their plans without interruption from others. On the third evening they unwittingly walked a little further than usual. Harry was the first to ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... are young enough to be your sons. If we have unwittingly caused you offence, we beg to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... he went on, 'to deny—perhaps I may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit—that I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... turbulent waters, As the waves of the angry main, Respond with their undulations To the breath of the hurricane; So our lives on Time's boundless ocean Unwittingly toss and roll, And unconsciously drift with the current Which evades our assumed control; But a Hand of love, From the skies above, May have guided us ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... Janice, "not a one of these did I know of; and if you but knew what gladness it brings me to learn that, once he knew we had insulted him unwittingly, he forgave us, and put ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... it might go hard with the man who upset his plan and openly resisted his messenger. Carford had calculated on being able to carry her off, and thus defeat the scheme under show of ignorance. The thing done, and done unwittingly, might gain pardon; to meet and defy the enemy face to face was to stake all his fortune on a desperate chance. He was dumb. Barbara's lips curved into a smile that expressed ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... why he felt that we needed an energetic policy, and it was on this account that he distrusted the President's renewed effort for peace. The course of the opposition, as he saw it, threatened not merely the existence of the Union, but wittingly or unwittingly struck at the very foundations of society. His anxiety did not make him violent, as was the case with lesser men, but it convinced him of the necessity of strong measures, and he was not a man to shrink from vigorous action. He was quite prepared to do all that could be done to maintain ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... others prefer the meadows that are dotted with them. In a frost if you see a thrush on a molehill it is very likely to thaw shortly. Moles seem to feel the least change in the temperature of the earth; if it slackens they begin to labour, and cast up, unwittingly, food ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... with other compatriots, we were being hurried through a famous castle, the guide unwittingly ushered us into a drawing-room where the owner and several guests were seated about a tea-table. I shall never forget the stares they gave us before we had time precipitately to retreat, nor the feeling of disgust and rebellion ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... environs of Basey the Ignatius bean grows in remarkable abundance, as it also does in the south of Samar and in some other of the Bisayan islands. It is not met with in Luzon, but it is very likely that I have introduced it there unwittingly. Its sphere of propagation is very limited; and my attempts to transplant it to the Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg were fruitless. Some large plants intended for that purpose, which during my absence arrived for me at Daraga, were incorporated by one of my patrons into his own garden; ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... said I, 'he has done it unwittingly; I never heard before that he was a favourer ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... ....the daughter of.... ....But an eagle caught up Ganymede for Zeus because he vied with the immortals in beauty........rich-tressed Diomede; and she bare Hyacinthus, the blameless one and strong........whom, on a time Phoebus himself slew unwittingly with a ruthless disk.... ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... reference to the 'perfect numbers' of the Greeks. But here again he was uncertain whether the 'perfect number' was ten or six. After which, and having, in his reference to the human figure as the canon of proportion, unwittingly set a trap for the scholars and artists of the Renaissance, he drops the subject and digresses into a general classification of temples, with formal rules for the placing and dimensions of columns, which have formed the staple of treatises on classical architecture ever since. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the Professor furnished unwittingly some additional evidence against himself. On the Monday evening after his arrest he wrote from prison to one of his daughters the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... her friends the previous year against placing themselves in a position liable to put them at a disadvantage with Eleanor, Grace had unwittingly divined the former's intentions. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... that it merits mention. Her temporary estrangement from Madame d'Ancre had been a source of great discomfort as well as sorrow to the Queen; and her ladies, hoping still further to disgust her with the favourite, had unwittingly compelled her to feel her dependence upon the disgraced mistress of the robes. To every petty requirement she was answered that it was not within their province, and that reference must be made ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... where their infants can be so secure from all possible or probable danger as in their own arms; yet we should astound our readers if we told them the statistical number of infants who, in despite of their motherly solicitude and love, are annually killed, unwittingly, by such parents themselves, and this from the persistency in the practice we are so strenuously condemning. The mother frequently, on awaking, discovers the baby's face closely impacted between her bosom and her arm, and its body rigid and lifeless; or else so enveloped ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... continued, "you have very kindly followed me in the fulfilment of certain duties which devolved upon me upon opening that packet. You have followed me without question, as became a gentleman, taking an old man's word that all was well. In keeping that silence of delicacy, Anstruther, you have unwittingly done me a great service; you have left me unhampered to fulfil that which I ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... conserving her strength and exerting the utmost power of her will in the endeavor, that she lay down when her berth was prepared. But the seclusion, the darkness within the curtains, oppressed her, for unwittingly the sights and sounds of the outer world had an influence to make her quit of herself, in a measure, and to focus her mind on some trivial object of the immediate present. She drew the blind at the window that she might see the scurrying landscape—the ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... crisis. About midnight, five hundred Germans, true to their vow, landed at various points, and crept forward through the darkness, carrying their bombs. As they reached a circle a thousand yards from the huge hangar shed they passed unwittingly two hundred youthful riflemen who had dug themselves in under snow and branches and were waiting, thrilling for the word that would show what American boys can do for their country. Two hundred American boys on the thousand yard circle! A hundred American soldiers ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... possible so as to minimize the effects of minute but necessary errors of observation. When Uranus was found old records of stellar observations were ransacked with the object of discovering whether it had ever been unwittingly seen before. If seen, it had been thought, of course, to be a star—for it shines like a star of the sixth magnitude, and can therefore be just seen without a telescope if one knows precisely where to look for it and if one has good sight—but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... her glory. If she had repented in that room, if she had betrayed fear even, a single emotion of mental agony, he would not have felt so sure of himself. But she had laughed. She was, like Tavish, a devil. He thought of her beauty now as that of a poisonous flower. He had unwittingly touched such a flower once, a flower of wonderful waxen loveliness, and it had produced a pustular eruption on his hand. She was like that. Poisonous. Treacherous. A creature with as little soul as that flower had perfume. It was this change in him, ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... had infected me, too. It was as if unwittingly I had intruded on her private affairs, had seen that morning an incident not meant for the eyes of a stranger. We avoided the common interest between us, though both of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... theology, the Major answered with a "Pooh! pooh!" which disturbed the son,—possibly weighed with him,—more than the longest opposing argument could have done. The manner of the father had conveyed, unwittingly enough, a notion of absurdity as attaching to the lad's engaging in such sacred studies, which overwhelmed him with a sense of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... change of moon before Easter," the traveller said, and, flying off at a tangent, I asked when Easter was, unwittingly setting the homestead ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... whenever he mentioned the name of his betrothed. The easiest way out of the business was to take it as a joke. Wyant had played the wall to this new Pyramus and Thisbe, and was philosophic enough to laugh at the part he had unwittingly performed. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... elderly gentleman, Mr. Peter Magnus, between whom and Mr. Pickwick, as we learn from his faithful servant, there had for many years been a cloud or misunderstanding on account of some lady whose marriage with Mr. Magnus Mr. Pickwick had unwittingly frustrated. This injury, if injury there was, Mr. Magnus had buried in the grave, and had rushed to Dulwich to lend his heartfelt sympathy. Such things go far to reconcile one to human nature, if such reconcilement be incumbent. ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... once nearly lost his life through unwittingly trampling upon the susceptibilities of the people, in the following manner. It appears that the peasantry in the suburbs of Ferrara bore ill-will toward the citizens of that town and called them "asses." ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... father must have hurt your feelings unwittingly; for he is very good. I have asked him, and he did not seem to understand what I meant. But my questions drew his attention to you. He thinks highly of you and would like to see you filling a position more in harmony with your merit. You know that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the folding-doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it) and that the one presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest possible particular. The singular being who had so disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... will be the result of our studies. We cannot, therefore, be too earnest in trying to catch the general features and prevalent spirit of the New Testament institutions and arrangements. For to what conclusions must we come, if we unwittingly pursue our inquiries under the bias of the prejudice, that the general maxims of social life which now prevail in this country, were current, on the authority of the Savior, among the primitive Christians! That, for instance, wealth, station, talents, are the standard by ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Unwittingly Stephen chose words which were as daggers in the breast of the Arab. Although made without knowledge of the secret work to which the marabout had vowed himself and all that was his, the young man's threat sounded ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all. It is the result of competition. A great many men are hungering and yearning for wives, and there are very few girls for them to choose among. So matches are made without very extensive preliminaries. The ladies appear to like this celerity. Perhaps they are unwittingly philosophic, and reflect that, with months of courting, they can really know little more of a man than they did the first hour they met him, because he is naturally on his best behaviour then. Marriage is a lottery any way you can work it. It is only afterwards ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... fearing she had unwittingly wounded him in some way, she hastened to change the conversation. She had instinctively come to know that beneath his brusque exterior he concealed a curious sensitiveness, and, remembering all that Cara had told her of the man's history she regretted her insouciant speech ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... town, she found that there would be no need to appear in the case at all, for the Kilroys' old butler Roberts had seen the name of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce in the papers, and had unwittingly frustrated his manoeuvre by going to the coroner's court himself and volunteering to give evidence. He was accompanied by the footman who had been out with the carriage on the night in question, and the two together had no difficulty in proving an alibi. Thus, in an ordinary commonplace ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... promote the general happiness of mankind. If men be induced to marry from the mere prospect of parish provision, they are not only unjustly tempted to bring unhappiness and dependence upon themselves and their children, but they are tempted unwittingly to injure all in the same class as themselves. Further, the poor laws discourage frugality, and diminish the power and the will of the common people to save, and they live from hand to mouth without thought of the future. A man who might ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... the will of God by performing the duties of a priest and was told he should lose his kingdom on account of it. At the close of the campaign he lost his temper and proposed to kill Jonathan, his son, the hero of the day because he had unwittingly disobeyed a foolish command. (3) Against Moab, Ammon, Edom and Zobah (I Sam. 14:47) of which there are no particulars given. (4) Against the Amalekites (I Sam. 15) in which, though he defeated Amalek, he ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... with having purposely introduced the edible snail (Helix pomatia) into England, and the common garden snail and slugs (Helix aspersa, Limax agrestis and Arion hortensis) have been unwittingly established in New Zealand. In that country, also, the earthworms of Europe are noticed to replace native forms as ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... result. Later on they found a blanket of copper between those two levels, from which six million dollars were taken. Even in old established mines there is something of a chance, and there are often unwittingly false standards of values. Which is no argument for making all gamble that which ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... gentleman out of the way, the lady came rubbing her treacherous nose against Bertha's, and called her "My friend, my treasure, my star of beauty"; trying every way to be agreeable to her, to make her vengeance more certain on the poor child who, all unwittingly, had caused her lover's heart to be faithless, which, for women ambitious in love, is the worst of infidelities. After a little conversation, the plotting lady suspected that poor Bertha was a maiden in matters of love, when she saw her eyes full of limpid water, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... me; I always grow impatient when our sovereignty is discussed," he replied. "I trust I haven't unwittingly offended you by trespassing on your personal opinions? I ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... extreme interest as naming four out of Marco's six kingdoms, and in positions quite accordant with his indications. As noticed by Mr. Braddell, from whose abstract I take the passage, the circumstance of the party having passed Samudra unwittingly is especially consistent with the site we have assigned to it near the head of the Bay of Pasei, as a glance at the map ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Gard now descended unwittingly into one of the darkest regions of German life, and one which foreign publics had persistently missed or voluntarily overlooked in their chorus of approbation ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... it is the Xanthe Desert. Whatever else he might unwittingly be, S. Nuwell Eli considered himself a practical, rational man, and it was across the bumpy sands of the Xanthe Desert that he guided his groundcar westward with that somewhat cautious proficiency that mistrusts its own mastery of the machine. Maya Cara Nome, his colleague in this mission ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... heroine, who softens the hard heart of her rich uncle, and thus unwittingly restores the family fortunes, we have a fine ideal ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... they heard. Still less should we be surprised if the same site is sometimes mentioned under various names. Every Pueblo language has its own geographical vocabulary, and when, as sometimes happened, several tribes met in council with the whites, the latter heard and unwittingly recorded several names for one and the same locality, thus apparently increasing the number of villages. Moreover, interpreters were not always at hand, and when they could be had both their competency and their sincerity were open ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... have unwittingly made myself guilty of an offense; for I greeted as a servant one whom I did not recognize. I bend my neck to ask ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... horror-stricken, at this picture of sudden, swift destruction, it drifted astern and was quickly lost to view; but I had seen enough to know exactly what had happened. We had unwittingly run down one of the proas that had essayed ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... spring from the heart! The first seem always forced; the latter, alas! are granted without thinking, like those pure and limpid streams which spontaneously flow from their native sources. Though the feelings of pity I showed for Don Silvio moved the Prince, yet I unwittingly betrayed their shallowness, whilst my very looks, during this torture, always told him more than I desired ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... work allow me, my dear sir, to beg you to let Mr. Ferdinand David and Monsieur Moscheles see it before it is printed. The minute familiarity they have acquired with the Symphonies of Beethoven will show them in a moment any errors, oversights, faults and misdeeds of which I, very unwittingly, may have been guilty. Will you please assure them that any information from them in these respects will be most valuable to me, and that I shall not fail to profit by it for the honor of your edition. In particular ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... those actually fighting in far off-lands was after all so small in proportion to the vast population, that the keen edge of interest in its progress was gradually blunted, and political speculations as to the position of India after the war were unwittingly encouraged by the failure of Government to keep Indian opinion concentrated on the magnitude of the struggle which still threatened the very existence of the Empire. Circumstances, for which the British lack of imagination as well as the ponderous machinery ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... to secure an advantageous introduction; after that he had no immediate need of her company. He was of the opinion that she was entirely ignorant of the man's character and motives, although she was unwittingly an important instrument in his hands. Stephen longed to reveal the truth of the situation to her, but dared not; at any rate, thought he, not until the proper time came. Then she would be enabled to appreciate for herself the trend ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... Scriptures and long "prophesying" lengthened out the already too long service. Judge Sewall recorded that once when he addressed or expounded at the Plymouth Church, "being afraid to look at the glass, ignorantly and unwittingly I stood two hours and a half," which was doing pretty ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... reflected with a sinking heart that she had, just before leaving, written a hasty note to her mother telling her not to expect anything for several days, perhaps even as much as two weeks, as she was going out of civilization for a little while. How had she unwittingly sealed her fate by that! For now not even by way of her alarmed home could help come ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... distraction he overacts the painful part to which he had tasked himself; he is like that judge of the Areopagus, who being occupied with graver matters, flung from him the little bird which had sought refuge in his bosom, and with such angry violence, that unwittingly ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that I had the honour, unwittingly, of travelling from Dublin to Maryborough with Mr. Gilhooly, M.P., who appears to have been arrested in London on Friday, brought over yesterday by the day train, and sent on at once from ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... we see the respect for truth carried to such an extreme, that even a promise, unwittingly made, is considered ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... during the winter and spring they must subsist on a mere fraction of that amount. I have no doubt that a crow or hawk, when in his fall condition, would live two weeks without a morsel of food passing his beak; a domestic fowl will do as much. One January I unwittingly shut a hen under the door of an outbuilding, where not a particle of food could be obtained, and where she was entirely unprotected from the severe cold. When the luckless Dominick was discovered, about eighteen days afterward, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... call them, your suspicions as I call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more; except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... shoulder and answered me in Yankee fashion by asking how far I thought it was. Estimating the distance as in a prairie country I replied, "Oh, about a mile." He laughed and said that the mountain was fully five miles distant by actual measurement. I had unwittingly taken my first lesson in plainscraft and prudently refrained thereafter from making ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... realized by him until about the end of June. As a rule many farm tenancies expire at the end of the half-year, so that in June, 1913, not knowing that it was impracticable to make fresh contracts, some Natives unwittingly went to search for new places of abode, which some farmers, ignorant of the law, quite as unwittingly accorded them. It was only when they went to register the new tenancies that the law officers of the Crown laid bare the cruel fact that to provide ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Warren, the heroine, who softens the hard heart of her rich uncle and thus unwittingly restores the family fortunes, we have a fine ideal of real ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... here by an artifice. One day that the king was gone to the chase, I called him into the house, when, after the way of mothers, I took him in my arms and kissed him. This reached the king's ears, and he unwittingly gave it another construction, and cut off the head of that innocent boy, and withdrew from me his own heart. Alike is my son lost to me and the king angry." When the king heard these words he kissed her and exclaimed: "O my life, what an error is this thou ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... quiet was interrupted in an unexpected manner. Being restless and unhappy Bug wandered up toward the mill, and unwittingly strayed into a patch ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon |
