"Erroneous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Englishmen hear of a Parliament at Vienna and of a Diet in Hungary, of Austrian ministers and of Hungarian ministers, and they fancy that Francis Joseph is a constitutional king after the type of Queen Victoria of England, or King Humbert of Italy. No idea is more erroneous. He is the actual head of the State; he is the real commander of the army. In the Austrian Empire he exercises a predominant influence on the Government, and observers who look at the past exertions of Imperial prerogative, and who weigh ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... directions: "A great poet who appears in illiterate times absorbs into his sphere all the light which is anywhere radiating." Homer, Chaucer, Saadi, felt that all wit was their wit. "Chaucer is a huge borrower." Emerson gives a list of authors from whom he drew. This list is in many particulars erroneous, as I have learned from a letter of Professor Lounsbury's which I have had the privilege of reading, but this is a detail which need not ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... is, at best, but half-blown cynicism; which participle and noun you can translate, if you happen to remember the derivation of the last of them, by a single familiar word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but—it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"—one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so eminently skilled as Rappaccini; but, on the other hand, I should answer it but scantily to my conscience were I to permit a worthy youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance to hold your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Dr. Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty—with perhaps one single exception—in ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of "The Prose Edda," formed a part of them, and that Snorre—who may be regarded as the Scandinavian Euhemerus—merely added a few chapters, in order to render the mythology more conformable to the erroneous notions he appears to have entertained respecting its signification. Be this as it may, the Prose Edda, in its present form, dates from the thirteenth century, and consists of—1. Formali (Fore discourse); or the ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... revision. Every medical graduate has been taught that there are two kinds of tracheotomy, high and low, the low operation being very difficult, the high operation very easy. When he is suddenly called upon to do an emergency tracheotomy, this erroneous teaching is about all that remains in the dim recesses of his memory; consequently he makes sure of doing the operation high enough, and goes in through the larynx, usually dividing the cricoid cartilage, the only complete ring ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... was observed moored to the wharf near the slave-station which they had passed on the way up. At first it was supposed to be one of the boats of the Red Eric, but on a nearer approach this proved to be an erroneous opinion. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the child he originally was—and he himself retained a great deal of that primitive simplicity—it was buried within the depths of his heart—not visible externally. On the contrary, on one occasion when he corrected an erroneous reference to an event as being a century old, by saying that he recollected its occurrence, one felt almost a surprise at the necessary limitation in his age, so old did he appear, with his arched brow loaded with thought, and the countless little wrinkles which engrained his skin, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... of the crank and crosshead pins will be neither circular nor straight, but an elongated curve. This inference is so far correct, but the very common impression that the middle point of the rod always describes an ellipse is quite erroneous. The variation from that curve, while not conspicuous in all cases, is nevertheless quite sufficient to prevent the use of this movement for an elliptograph. To this there is, abstractly, one exception. Referring to Fig. 22 in the preceding article, it will be seen that if the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... an erroneous and imperfect account of this important transaction, the particulars of which are related by Lord Brougham in his 'Memoirs,' cap. xvi. vol. ii. p. 352, and still more fully by Mr. Yonge in his 'Life of Lord Liverpool,' vol. iii. p. 52. Mr. Brougham had sent his brother ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... typical purification of baptism on account of its limpid waters, named it Lac du Saint Sacrement. This perversion of history originated in the extraordinary declaration of Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, in his novel entitled "The Last of the Mohicans," in which these two erroneous statements are given as veritable history. This new discovery by Cooper was heralded by the public journals, scholars were deceived, and the bold imposition was so successful that it was even introduced into a meritorious poem in which ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... Silhet were known, the plants brought from those hills by native collectors were sent to the Calcutta garden (and thence to Europe) as from Pundua. Hence Silhet mountains and Pundua mountains, both very erroneous terms, are constantly met with in botanical works, and generally refer to plants growing in the Khasia mountains.] where there is a dilapidated bungalow: the inhabitants are employed in the debarkation of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... out. In that we found little difficulty. For what was the professed object of this Address? It was to meet and to overthrow two notions here represented as great popular errors. But why at this time? Wherefore all this heat at the present moment? Grant that the propositions denounced as erroneous were so in very deed, why should criminals standing under the shadow of public vengeance ready to descend, so childishly misuse the interval, mercifully allowed for their own defence, in reading lectures upon abstract ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... struck in: "And when I say that the entire concatenation is based on an erroneous observation of facts, and an erroneous deduction from that erroneous observation!—? No, no. Have confidence in me. I propose it to you in this instance, purely to save you from deception. You are cold, my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Shakespeare," p. 121.) In the second lecture of the "English Comic Writers," Hazlitt recurs to this opinion of Johnson's with the following comment: "For my own part, I so far consider this preference given to the comic genius of the poet as erroneous and unfounded, that I should say that he is the only tragic poet in the world in the highest sense, as being on a par with, and the same as Nature, in her greatest heights and depths of action and suffering. There is but one ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the Scotch race-combination is Celt and Saxon, and only that, is of course erroneous. There is a very marked Scandinavian element both in the east and the west of the country. In the year 1600 A.D., the Norse tongue was spoken all over the Long Island from the Butt of Lewis to Barra. Certainly, in Lewis and Skye, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Cla. Erroneous Vassals, the great King of Kings Hath in the Table of his Law commanded That thou shalt do no murther. Will you then Spurne at his Edict, and fulfill a Mans? Take heed: for he holds Vengeance in his hand, To hurle vpon their heads that ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Chevalier La Corne," replied the Acadian, whom no eloquence could soften. "Bigot sold Louisbourg!" This was a common but erroneous opinion in Acadia. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was but for a single night. It is true that marriages were early, and probably the courtships were short, but we all know enough of New England sparking to know that a single night was cutting it rather short; and yet it is easy to see how Anbury should get his erroneous idea. True, if the lover was so unlucky as to get his final dismissal the first night, there was an end of the matter, and well might they fail to meet again; but, in that case, it is not likely that the favors of which he could boast would be such as to seriously affect the reputation of the ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... then, while it involves the same intellectual presuppositions, the same confusions, the same erroneous arguments, the same short-sighted ambitions, as the imperialism of other countries, exhibits them all in an extreme degree. All peoples admire themselves. But the self-adoration of Germans is so naive, so frank, so unqualified, as to seem sheerly ridiculous to more experienced nations.[1] ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... nevertheless the conclusion to which they point is of the highest importance, and bears, with overwhelming force, on the theory of free trade as between an old and a young community. They demonstrate that that theory is not only practically pernicious, but on principle erroneous. It involves an oblivion of the fundamental law of nature as to the difference between the effect of wealth and civilization on the production of food and the raising of manufactures. It proceeds on insensibility to the difference in the age and advancement of nations, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... to feel how it is that other men go wrong. At that moment I felt vividly how men might go wrong, even unto dynamite. If one of those huddled men under the trees had stood up and asked for rivers of blood, it would have been erroneous—but not irrelevant. It would have been appropriate and in the picture; that lurid grey picture of insolence on one side and impotence on the other. It may be true (on the whole it is) that this social machine we have made is better than anarchy. Still, it is a machine; and we have made ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... most of the time, and the result of the erroneous influence over Bob was always noticeable after a short visit from Mrs. Maynard. She only visited her daughters twice in the eight months, but it was generally so unpleasant a time for every one, that we were relieved that she had too many social ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... idea of ghosts affected Madame de Stall: "Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains." This belief is one which it is infinitely desirable to the human race should be shown to be possibly, probably, or certainly erroneous. It is, therefore, desirable in the interest of humanity that any force the argument in its favor may derive from Edwards's authority should be weakened by showing that he was capable of writing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at once: 'A telegram, very laconic.' Speedily the wires were flashing the following very important missive: 'Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next train.—Forsyth.' And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow expressive of dispatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended not long after ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a metrical dialogue an important progress has been made toward the poetical Tragedy. A few lyrical dramas have been successful on the stage, and Poetry, by its own living energy, has triumphed over prevailing prejudices. But so long as these erroneous views are entertained little has been done—for it is not enough barely to tolerate as a poetic license that which is, in truth, the essence of all poetry. The introduction of the Chorus would be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... in all the world; and believed, that if he should neglect to purchase it, he should never meet with an equally wonderful curiosity. He said to the crier, "I am very sorry that I have entertained so erroneous an opinion of you, but hope to make amends by buying the tube, for I should be sorry if any body else had it; so tell me the lowest price the owner has fixed; and do not give yourself any farther trouble to hawk it about, but go with me and I will pay you ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... field, in the field may be regained. An arrangement of peace in its nature is a permanent settlement; it is the effect of counsel and deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations, which the all-wise but mysterious Governor of the world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from ruin. It would not be pious error, but mad and impious presumption, for any one to trust in ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... the old identification of the Manda power, which ultimately overthrew Assyria, with the Medes, in spite of high authorities who nowadays assume that the latter played no part in that overthrow, but have been introduced into this chapter of history by an erroneous identification made by Greeks. I cannot believe that both Greek and Hebrew authorities of very little later date both fell ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... Only the previous week, at a station down the line, an interceptor had been launched at an unannounced satellite. Had the pilot not realized what he was chasing and held his fire, the international complications could have been serious. It was hard to imagine World War III being started by an erroneous interceptor launching, but the State Department would be hard put to soothe the feelings of some intensely nationalistic country whose expensive new satellite had been shot down. Such mistakes were bound to occur, but the Launch Control Officer ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... It is altogether erroneous to suppose that polytheism maintained its ground as a living force until the period of Constantine and Julian. Its downfall commenced at the time of the opening of the Egyptian ports. Nearly a thousand ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Positive laws can certainly transfer property. It is by another original instinct, that we recognize the authority of kings and senates, and mark all the boundaries of their jurisdiction? Judges too, even though their sentence be erroneous and illegal, must be allowed, for the sake of peace and order, to have decisive authority, and ultimately to determine property. Have we original innate ideas of praetors and chancellors and juries? Who sees not, that all these ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... two modes, viz. the essential but incomplete Definition, and the accidental, or Description, are imperfect; but the Realists' distinction between definition of names and of things is quite erroneous. Their doctrine is now exploded; but many propositions consistent with it alone (e.g. that the science of geometry is deduced from definitions) have been retained by Nominalists, such as Hobbes. Really a definition, as ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... manner in which Johnson compiled his Dictionary is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he himself expressly described to me), by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... to indulge. But even these little attentions were looked upon with jealousy by the king; so that the marquis was sent into honourable exile from court as governor of Valencia. It was hoped that absence would wean the prince of his affection for the kind chamberlain. The calculation was erroneous. No sooner were the eyes of Philip II. closed in death than the new king made haste to send for Denia, who was at once created Duke of Lerma, declared of the privy council, and appointed master of the horse and first ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which the public has imperfect knowledge, public opinion is as likely to be erroneous as is the opinion of an individual equally uninformed. To hold otherwise is to hold that wisdom can be got by combining many ignorances. A man who knows nothing of algebra can not be assisted in the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... advert to a remark of Mr. Howitt's which appears to be erroneous. He says 'that part of Australia which I have indicated as the habitat of that belief' (namely, in an All Father),' is also the area where there has been the advance from group marriage to individual marriage; from descent in the female line to that in the male line; where the primitive organisation ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... well be considered as the best testimony that could be given as to the real sentiments of the Italian people. They were not ignorant of the nature of that liberty for which O'Connell had so long and successfully contended. Nor were they under any erroneous impression as to what the gifted preacher meant when he extolled in such glowing terms that true liberty which is the glory, at once, and the best security of nations. If, a little later, they pursued the phantom instead of the reality, it must be considered that, as yet, they had no political ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... son-in-law, Richard Burton. As he was slow and very prolix, he would never have sat down again, and God only knows what he would have said." The combined efforts of the Arundell family however, prevented so terrible a denouement, Burton easily proved his enemies' statements to be erroneous, and the order was ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... affair into a casual collision with some poor maniac escaping from his keepers, and of no future moment, having passed by without present consequences. But had she, instead of thus reporting her own erroneous impression, reported the entire circumstances of the case, I should have given them a very different interpretation. Affection for me, and fear to throw me needlessly into a quarrel with a man of apparently ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... other. This sign has remained unknown; and nothing, even in the deeds of the Vehmic archives, leads one even to guess what it was, and every hypothesis on this subject must be looked upon as uncertain or erroneous. By one of the fundamental statutes of the Terre Rouge, a member convicted of betraying the secrets of the order was condemned to the most cruel punishment; but we have every reason for asserting that this sentence was never carried out, or even ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... the investigation of the causes of physical phenomena. Erroneous views of the character of natural forces arising from an imperfect mode of observation or of induction. The crude accumulation of physical dogmas transmitted from one country to another. Their ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... as Mills says, a case of complex and beautiful adaptation. Therefore, the term coup de glotte imperfectly expresses what the modern physiologist of voice means by attack. For coup de glotte conveys the idea of shock, hence creates an erroneous impression upon the mind of the singer. It is spontaneous adjustment, and neither shock nor even attack, ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... several of them to the master at Vienna. Beethoven read, but his anger was stirred. He sent for Schindler, and dictated a letter to Dr. Mueller. It was a friendly but energetic protest against such treatment of his or anyone else's music. He drew attention to the erroneous opinions to which it would give birth. If explanations were needed, he declared, let them be limited to the general characteristics of the compositions,[99] which it would not be difficult for cultured musicians to furnish. Thus relates Schindler, and there ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... utterly separate departments. The world considers it reasonable for a country to defend its material possessions by the sword, but intolerant and unreasonable for the Church to condemn, resisting even unto blood, principles which she considers erroneous or false. The Church, on the other hand, urges her children again and again to yield rather than to fight when merely material possessions are at stake, since Charity permits and sometimes even commands men to be content with less than their own rights, and yet again, when a Divine truth or right ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... company, which preceded that of Davenant by several months, if not by a year; and therefore the common statement in theatrical books that the first woman that ever appeared on the English stage was Mrs. Sanderson, of Davenant's company, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, is erroneous: and indeed the name of the first English actress is as much unknown as the name of the first Portia. When Macklin restored Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice to the stage it is not likely that the character of Portia was dwarfed, for its representative ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... instances, it is even doubtful whether they are describing the same disease. No notice is taken of this affection in any of our common books; with the exception of the last edition of COOPER'S Surgical Dictionary,[1] and of UNDERWOOD'S work on diseases of children. It is there described under the erroneous title of cancrum oris. A reference is given to PEARSON'S Surgery; and the article in the Dictionary is taken exclusively from that work. As this is the only authority with which I am acquainted, that gives a tolerably ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... to which the young in particular are exposed: Lot's erroneous choice: sin brings punishment: advantages of Lot's wife: her remarkable deliverance: her guilt: general causes of apostacy traced, fear, love of the world, levity of mind, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... on the subject:—"In the evidence taken before the Select Committee during the last season of Parliament, and appearing in the report, there are several statements of a somewhat imposing kind, which, as they appear to me to be erroneous and apt to mislead, I shall here take the liberty of opposing." He then enumerates several opinions expressed before the Select Committee, one of which is, that Salmon enter and leave rivers for other purposes than ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... corn-laws upon the manufactures and commerce of the country. Sir Francis Burdett objected to the course proposed; but, at the same time, he stated that it was his conviction that the landed interest, in which he was himself concerned, was under erroneous impressions on the subject. The debate which followed brought out speeches from many of the men who afterwards took so prominent a part in promoting or opposing the repeal of the corn-laws—such as Mr. Mark Philips ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the legislators themselves, there are two parts to be distinguished in the law, the one superior, eternal, inviolable, which is the self-evident principle, and the other inferior, temporary, and open to discussion, which comprehends more or less exact or erroneous applications of this principle. No application of the law is valid if it derogates from the principle. No institution or authority is entitled to obedience if it is opposed to the rights which it aims to guarantee. These sacred rights, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the time and expence of attending the council on their service; to establish custom-house officers at Beaufort; to grant six thousand acres of land to the three garrisons at Congarees, Savanna Town, and Apalachicola; and liberty of appealing from erroneous judgements in law, which at that time the people had not, the whole judicial power in all the provincial courts being lodged in the hands of one man." Then he delivered to them a letter from Governor Johnson, the articles of complaint against Chief Justice Trott, and the joint ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... the King of France adjudged the King of England to be deprived of all his land which he and his forefathers had hitherto held of the King of France," but there is reason to think that this statement is erroneous, and derived from a false report put forth by Philip Augustus for political purposes two or three years later. It is certain that after the date of this alleged sentence negotiations still went on; "great and excellent mediators" endeavored to arrange a pacification; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... the Doctor, peremptorily, "you must really excuse me. This is a professional point. If I allow erroneous explanations of the muscular system to pass unchecked in ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of saying that the impression we received, from our first journey on the hills among the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive dirtiness of the Manganja, was erroneous. This trait was confined to the cool highlands. Here crowds of men and women were observed to perform their ablutions daily in the stream that ran past their villages; and this we have observed elsewhere to be a common custom ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... them to stand neutral. To this the Roman legate answered: "As for that which has been said, that it is better and more advantageous for your state not to interfere in our war, nothing can be more erroneous; because by not interfering you will be left, without favour or consideration, the guerdon of the conqueror." Thus it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to declare ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... ten chapters are introductory in their nature. We felt that they were necessary to a history of the Colored race in the United States. We desired to explain and explode two erroneous ideas,—the curse of Canaan, and the theory that the Negro is a distinct species,—that were educated into our white countrymen during the long and starless night of the bondage of the Negro. It must appear patent to every honest student of God's word, that the slavery interpretation ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... is one which brings out the meanness and magnetism of Cassius, and emphasizes the mistaken patriotism of Brutus. It is full of pathos, duplicity, assassination, treachery, erroneous loyalty, suicide, hypocrisy, and all the intrigue, jealousy, cowardice and deviltry which characterized the politics of fifty years B. C., but which now, thanks to the enlightenment and refinement which twenty ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... but his perception of their theoretical relations was entirely inadequate and, as we now think, quite erroneous.... In theory he had no instinct for guessing right ... he may almost be said to have had a predilection for the ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... Mr. Larry Cawdor is deeply incensed by the widespread prevalence of the erroneous impression that he still appears in the music-halls. For many years he has been replaced by an imitator who bears the same name and has modelled himself, both vocally and histrionically, on his illustrious namesake. But the real Larry Cawdor never sets foot inside a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... please himself) sometimes with a short lesson on the violin, when my mother was either in good humor or out of the way. Though I have often felt myself exceedingly at a loss for the want of those few accomplishments of which I was thus, by an erroneous though well-meant opinion of my mother, deprived, I could not help thinking but that she had cause for wishing me not to know more than was necessary for being useful in the family; for it was her certain belief that ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... herewith. Its explanation is certainly not obvious; and Bigmore and Wyman's suggestion that it is a punning device is not a correct one, whilst the statement that the cabbage is of the "Savoy" variety is also erroneous, for this variety has scarcely any stalks; for "Brasica" we should read "Brassica." In 1534, "M.Iwan Antonio de Nicolini de Sabio" printed "Alas espesas de M.Zuan Batista Pedrean," arare and beautiful edition with woodcuts, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... animosities. Everywhere in the world the devotees of each local faith abhor the devotees of every other, and abstain from murder only so long as they dare not commit it. And the strangest thing about it is that all religions are erroneous and mischievous excepting mine. Mine, thank God, is true ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... made a very erroneous guess at the expense of building the obelisk, even at that time; now, instead of three or four hundred pounds, double as many thousands would scarcely build it. Although erected by Mrs. Conolly, it stands on the Duke of Leinster's ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... many arguments. Anything could bring them on, instructions for Max that she chose to consider erroneous, a biting statement from him that she was deliberately making herself physically unattractive. More and more Rhoda took to going into the city while he killed time making crude, tentative adjustments on ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... erroneous assertions at the meeting of the British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious necessity, and without adducing a single new fact or new argument, or being able in any way to meet the crushing ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... all, might be that where the fixed stars are, that is, the eighth sphere, and that beyond it there could be no other. Again, he believed that the Heaven of the Sun might be immediate with that of the Moon, that is, second to us. And this opinion of his, so erroneous, he who wishes can see in the second book on Heaven and the World, which is in the second of the Books on Natural History. In fact, he excuses himself for this in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, where he clearly proves himself to ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... Saints' Lives, abounding in supernatural incidents. Such persons are, indeed, not numerous; and their number is rapidly diminishing. Still it can scarcely be doubted that conscientious Catholics are to be found who take the view I am speaking of, from ideas which, though erroneous (as I believe), are yet so truly founded in sincerity, as to demand respect and explanation from those who ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... Pickards, who on all sides are infecting with virulent contagion certain races in Germany and Bohemia, to hatred of the clergy and enervation of the ecclesiastical power'. In 1501 the volume appeared at Olmutz, with an enumeration of thirty-six erroneous articles in which the Pickards denied the authority of the Church; followed of course by a vigorous refutation. At the same time one of their own countrymen, Augustine Kasenbrot of Olmutz was writing a series of open letters on the ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... 'tis not for the quotation, but the manner, and you cannot but see yourself how erroneous an idea was taken up in consequence; how often does papa say people can never be too plain and simple, too downright and unequivocal, in their explanations to children, otherwise they plant words rather than ideas in their minds, and ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... Motion to Reconsider.—The intention of this is to enable an assembly to revise a decision found to be erroneous. The time within which a motion to reconsider may be entertained is generally fixed by a special rule; and the general rule is, that it must emanate from some member who voted with the majority. In Congress, a motion to reconsider takes ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... so many enthusiastic peace advocates, that the world is ready for peace if we but had institutional facilities adequate to carry out the will of the people, is erroneous. In all democratic states political institutions are but a concrete expression of the social mind, the media created by the people, through which society executes its will. "With a given phase of human character ... there must go an adapted class of institutions."[1] ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... her in vain through the ways of this life, he will but turn with the more hope to that better world where all is simple, true and everlasting: for there is no parallax at the zenith;—it is only near our troubled horizon that objects deceive us into vague and erroneous calculations. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... read yours of the nineteenth, addressed to myself through the New York 'Tribune.' If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... is not there. And that is becoming more and more the situation of modern England. Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion. Every man makes his contribution negative under the erroneous impression that the next man's contribution is positive. Every man surrenders his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender. And over all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new and wearisome and platitudinous press, incapable of invention, ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the Home Rule Bill foresee the possibility of such an erroneous decision. They have carefully provided that such an error shall have no legal effect. Clause 9, sub-clause (4), 'Compliance with the provisions of this section shall not be questioned otherwise than in each House in manner provided ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... but had no objection, if necessary, to have my name brought forward, and, above all things, he must understand and convey to Peel that I had no authority for what I had said, that nobody must be in the slightest degree committed, that my impressions might be mistaken and erroneous, and the event might not correspond with them; but that, such as they were, I had frankly communicated them to him in hopes that the communication might ...
— 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
... Chap. 25, of this Parvan, ante). There following the commentators, particularly Sreedhara, I have rendered Aparyaptam and Paryaptam as less than sufficient and sufficient. It would seem, however, that that is erroneous. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his very valuable edition of Shakspeare, has fully vindicated Dr. Johnson from the idle censures which the first of these notes has given rise to. The interpretation of the other passage, which Dr. Johnson allows to be disputable, he has clearly shown to be erroneous. BOSWELL. The first note is on the line in Hamlet, act v. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... country as wretchedly sterile as it now is? As so many of the co-embedded shells are the same with those now living in the bay, I was at first inclined to think that the former vegetation was probably similar to the existing one; but this would have been an erroneous inference for some of these same shells live on the luxuriant coast of Brazil; and generally, the character of the inhabitants of the sea are useless as guides to judge of those on the land. Nevertheless, from the following considerations, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... antiseptic properties; and while the peptic ferment works in a slightly acid solution, the tryptic ferment requires an alkaline solution. To secrete the necessary amount and quality of digestive fluids, the organs must be in a healthy condition. Many erroneous ideas regarding the digestion of foods are based upon misinterpretation of facts by persons suffering from impaired digestion, and attempts are frequently made to apply to normal digestion generalizations applicable only to ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress on the resurrection rather than on the crucifixion. Oh! never can I remember those days with either shame or regret, for I was most sincere! most disinterested! My opinions were, indeed, in many and most important points erroneous, but my heart was single! Wealth, rank, life itself then seemed cheap to me, compared with the interests of (what I believe to be) the truth and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by vanity; for, in the expansion of my ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... Strafford, makes the reply that the Parliament has been dissolved, the King has cast Strafford off forever, and henceforth Strafford will be on their side,—a conclusion not warranted by history, and, of course, found out to be erroneous by Pym and his followers in the next scene. Again there is the dramatic need to emphasize the human side of life even in an essentially political play, by showing that Pym's friendship and loyalty to Wentworth ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... who planned it, and in no way attaches to Nelson and his coadjutors, whose naval and also shore exploits could not be excelled. First, it was a blink-eyed policy that plunged us into the war at all; and secondly, it was the height of human folly to waste our resources in the erroneous belief that the highly trained military men of France could be permanently subjugated in the Mediterranean by the cowardly, treacherous villains of which the Roman States armies and Governments were composed. History is not altogether faithful to the truth in its honeyed records of the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the aid of comparisons and statistical tables. That minute investigation of facts is desirable at a moment when, on the one hand enthusiasm exciting to benevolent credulity, and on the other animosities menacing the security of the new republics, have given rise to the most vague and erroneous statements. I have as far as possible abstained from all reasoning on future chances, and on the probability of the changes which external politics may produce in the situation of the West Indies. I have merely examined what regards the organization of human society; ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sun is condemned on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still. The Scriptures not being capable of lying or erring, it followeth that the position of those is erroneous and heretical who maintain that the sun is fixed and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the commencement of the pestilence, it may be incidentally remarked, was afterwards found to be entirely erroneous; some persons being known to have the distemper three or ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to this day, the noblest of their monuments bear an enduring testimony. With all this, it is not surprising to find a growth in the knowledge of practical medicine; but Egyptian civilization illustrates how crude and primitive may remain a knowledge of disease when conditioned by erroneous views of its nature. At first, the priest and physician were identified, and medicine never became fully dissociated from religion. Only in the later periods did a special group of physicians arise who were not members of priestly colleges.(6) Maspero states that the ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... go into False Bay; unless we should get previous information that it had been quitted by the squadron. At noon, the extremes of the land bore N. by W. 1/2 W. and E. 1/2 N. The Cape Point bore north, three leagues; and our observed latitude being 34 deg. 32', showed the Requisite Tables to be erroneous in the position of this point; but that 34 deg. 23', as assigned to it by captain ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... it urged that these palliative measures tend to retard the great radical reformative movements, which are now taking hold of the public mind. This view, however comfortable to those who prefer theorizing and agitation to putting their shoulder to the wheel in a practical way, is, nevertheless, erroneous. There is no way in which people can be so thoroughly aroused to the urgent necessity of radical economic changes as by bringing them into such intimate relations with the submerged millions that they hear the throbbing of misery's heart. The lethargy of the moral instincts of the people ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observation with erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that, neighbor Tulliver; Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any business. Wakem 'ull make a gentleman of ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... that subject and the knowledge or interest in it displayed by what we call the general reading public. I am surprised to find how many well-informed people there are whose knowledge of Columbus is comprised within two beliefs, one of them erroneous and the other doubtful: that he discovered America, and performed a trick with an egg. Americans, I think, are a little better informed on the subject than the English; perhaps because the greater part of modern critical research on the subject of Columbus ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... or practice, or principle which does not recognize all men as brethren. And I also perceive that many things have been wrested from their original meaning to subserve the purposes of oppression and tyranny. I now so read that good book, that I discriminate between the erroneous ideas and practices of the Jews and the divine law—between historical facts and traditional inferences—between man's misconceptions and the true principles of religion. I now can and do see from the Bible itself that slavery is all wrong; and being so, I am obliged to be an Abolitionist; for I ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... from Prof. Petrie 's excavations. Prof. Petrie was the discoverer of Naukratis, and his diggings told us what Naukratis was like in the first instance, but Mr. Hogarth has shown that several of his identifications were erroneous and that the map of the place must be redrawn. The chief error was in the placing of the Hellenion (the great meeting-place of the Greeks), which is now known to be in quite a different position from that assigned to it by Prof. Petrie. The "Great Temenos" of Prof. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... arguments of Dr. Edward Westermarck have satisfied me that the solar theory of the European fire-festivals, which I accepted from W. Mannhardt, is very slightly, if at all, supported by the evidence and is probably erroneous. The true explanation of the festivals I now believe to be the one advocated by Dr. Westermarck himself, namely that they are purificatory in intention, the fire being designed not, as I formerly held, to reinforce the sun's light and heat by sympathetic magic, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... with a very sorrowful countenance, "Do you know, my child, that they teach very erroneous doctrines there, in regard to a future life? They teach that all will be eventually holy and happy, both the ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... capitals put together. From not reading in our newspapers, as we do in yours, of the robberies, murders, and frauds discovered and punished, you may, perhaps, be inclined to suppose my assertion erroneous or exaggerated; but it is the policy of our present Government to labour as much as possible in the dark; that is to say, to prevent, where it can be done, all publicity of anything directly or indirectly ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all; productions appeared which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy apostles" (Ibid, p. 31). "Another erroneous practice was adopted by them, which, though it was not so universal as the other, was yet extremely pernicious, and proved a source of numberless evils to the Christian Church. The Platonists and Pythagoreans held it as a maxim, that it was not ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... unreliable, and some wilfully distort. Not only are the opinions sometimes expressed entirely unwarranted by the facts, but often statements of mere fact, such as those of statistics, may be grossly perverted, sometimes intentionally. Erroneous conclusions or opinions which are the result of illogical reasoning from correct facts may be discovered by the student who himself knows how to reason, but perversions of fact may escape detection, if not traced back to original authorities or observations, which the student may not have time ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... is, perhaps, unnecessary to state, that the opinion expressed in this section, as to there being no straits between New Holland and Diemen's Land, is erroneous. The reader must have previously ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... prolonging those attentions into exclusive intimacy. And it was intimated, that; while his political principles were endangered by communicating with laymen of this description, he might also receive erroneous impressions in religion from the prelatic clergy, who so perversely laboured to set up the royal ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Church, but he is not its absolute sovereign; on the contrary, facts prove that he is subject to the jurisdiction of the Church; for well-known instances are on record of popes being deposed on the score of erroneous doctrine and immoral life, whereas no pope has ever attempted to condemn or excommunicate the Church. Both the pope and the Church have received authority to bind and loose; but the Church has practically exerted that authority against the pope, whereas the latter has never ventured ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... presents from actual suitors; but no suitor could obtain a hearing from any one of them, until he had paid into court certain fees, of which the fattest was a sum of money for the judge's personal use. At one time many persons labored under an erroneous impression, that as judges were forbidden to accept presents from actual suitors, the honest judge of past times had no revenue besides his specified salary and allowance. Like the king's judges, the king's counsellors frequently ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... itself he held to be infallible in the hands of a master. He confessed that he had made some erroneous predictions; but he said that these mistakes had been entirely due to his own miscomprehension of certain texts or diagrams. To do him justice I must mention that in my own case—(he told my fortune four times),—his predictions were fulfilled in such wise that I became afraid of them. You may ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... a believer in the absolute retorting at this point that he at any rate is not dealing with mere probabilities, but that the nature of things logically requires the multitudinous erroneous copies, and that therefore the universe cannot be the absolute's book alone. For, he will ask, is not the absolute defined as the total consciousness of everything that is? Must not its field of view consist ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Stamp Act (must) be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. That a reason be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms of legislation whatsoever. That we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... imbibed a notion that the debtors in the prison were generally a set of swindlers, and I was, therefore, anxious to avoid their society, or having anything to do with them; which feeling, however erroneous, increased my desire to become acquainted with Mr. Waddington. The chief temptation, however, undoubtedly was his being a man who had become celebrated for the spirit which he had several times evinced before the court, in defending himself against ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... appeared to be formed by rising currents. The shadow of the peak was seen projected against the sky at sunset. The idea of a southwest current flowing directly over the northeast trade was found to be erroneous. There was always a regular vertical succession of air currents in intermediate directions at different levels from the surface upward, so that the air was always circulating on a complicated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... presence of these chapters in Jerome's copy cannot be satisfactorily proved, but is probable just from this allusion in Hegesippus—in regard to which De Wette simply follows the traditional, but, as we have seen, erroneous assumption that Hegesippus used only the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Schwegler [Endnote 141:3] gives no reasons, but refers to the passages quoted from Jerome in Credner. Credner, after examining these passages, comes to the conclusion that 'the Gospel of the Nazarenes ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... The most erroneous conceptions prevail as yet concerning them, and the most rude or absurd ideas are entertained in our country of their objects and nature. As in modern Greece, every ruin is now a Paleo-castro or old castle for the vulgar peasant or herdsman, thus all our ruins of the West ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... leucorrhea, or "whites," may occur in girls as well as in married women. It can also result from catching cold during the menstrual period. Another mistaken idea is that girls should not take douches for fear of injuring the hymen. This is erroneous, and while they are entirely unnecessary in a vast majority of cases it is sometimes absolutely essential to douche in order to cure leucorrhea. When they are given, it is advisable to use the small nozzle that comes with every douche ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... termed matter, or relates to its so-called attributes, is a self-destroying error. When a so-called material sense is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense,—on the basis that all consciousness is Mind and eternal,—the former position, that sense is organic and material, is proven erroneous. ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... long time thought by some, that, although the Chasseurs, like the Zouaves, had been successful in the skirmishing engagements of Algeria, they would not be found so useful in European warfare. This opinion was proved to be erroneous at the siege of Rome, in 1849, where the Chasseurs, armed with their new and terrible weapon, the carabine a tige, in the management of which they had been thoroughly drilled, rendered the most important service; and from what was seen of them there it became evident that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... unison, contain the true basis of physical life and a means of long living. Old age is simply the petrifaction of the body through lime, and the incorporating of erroneous ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... presently the shock of baffled endeavour brought home its exasperating futility, the Intellectuals of the Fatherland distinguished themselves above all other classes and conditions of men in the exuberance of their patriotic abandon. Such a view would doubtless be almost wholly erroneous. It is not that the Intellectuals reached a substantially superior pitch of exaltation, but only that, being trained in the use of language, they were able to express their emotions with great facility. There seems ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... which was so great that a prominent musical house in London offered to send him to Leipsic for a year. He went there, and soon won his way to the friendship of Schumann and Mendelssohn. With the latter he was on very intimate terms, which has led to the erroneous statement that he was his pupil. In 1840 he made a second visit to Leipsic, where he composed his Caprice in E, and "The Wood Nymphs" overture. In 1842 he returned to England, and for several years was busily engaged with chamber concerts. In 1849 he ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... again it is necessary to insist upon the necessity of thorough cooking. The error has long prevailed that raw meats are wholesome, but within recent years it has been clearly demonstrated that this old view is erroneous. The muscle-fibers that constitute the bulk of the nourishment of meats are separated from each other by a substance which cannot be acted upon by the juices of the stomach until it has been heated to a temperature which results ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... towards Federal control of schools involves the denial and the eventual suppression of the minority-principle in our system of Education. This nationalization of Education, we claim, is erroneous in its principle, anti-constitutional in its operation, and dangerous in its consequences. Uniformity in education, as a source of efficiency, is one of the fallacies of our materialistic age. Schools to be successful have not to be submitted to the same laws of a commercial or industrial combine. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... been the cause of intense mental anguish to one of the opposite sex ever do quite realise this. They, not unnaturally, measure the trouble by the depth of their own, and are therefore very apt to come to erroneous conclusions. Of course this is said of cases where all the real passion is on one side, and indifference or comparative indifference on the other; for where it is mutual, the grief will in natures of equal depth be ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... assumed by our European enemies is a sound one, and therefore we hold that the conclusion to which they have come, and from which they hope to effect so much for the cause of oppression, is entirely erroneous. Whether we have failed or not, the democratic principle remains unaffected. As we never have believed that our example was fairly quotable by European democrats, even when we appeared to be, and in most respects were, the most successful of constitutionally governed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tempering); with like safety guided down Return me to my native element; Lest from this flying steed unreined (as once Bellerophon, though from a lower sphere), Dismounted on the Aleian field I fall, Erroneous there to wander ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... body of highly accomplished and gallant seamen should have accepted, apparently without a murmur, so inferior a role for their noble profession. It carries also a warning, if these criticisms are correct, that current opinions and plausible impressions should always be thoroughly tested; for if erroneous they work sure ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... upon the basis of your prejudice; it lies mainly upon the assertion of Laxton, from your own experience has proved to be a scoundrel. The fact is, your estimate of Mason's character is entirely erroneous. Laxton hates him, because he has circumvented him more than a dozen times in his schemes of iniquity, and will circumvent him again, if I do not greatly err, provided you give him the opportunity ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... patriot whom we have just spoken of, than the traitor Arnold, from whom there is a brief note, dated, "Crown Point, January 19, 1775," addressed to an officer under his command. The three lines of which it consists can prove bad spelling, erroneous grammar, and misplaced and superfluous punctuation; but, with all this complication of iniquity, the ruffian General contrives to express his meaning as briefly and clearly as if the rules of correct composition had been ever so scrupulously observed. This autograph, impressed with the ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'Congratulations,' I say, 'what a delightful talent! Really, that was most charming.' And I am not far from clapping him on the shoulder. But is benevolence the feeling that one should have toward a lieutenant? ... His own fault! There he stood and in great embarrassment atoned for the erroneous idea that one may pluck a leaf, just one, from the bay-tree of art, without paying for it with one's life. No, there I agree with my colleague, the criminal banker. But tell me, Lisaveta, don't you think I am endowed with the eloquence of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... unemployed in the hands of the clergy: William Sautre, rector of St. Osithes in London, had been condemned by the convocation of Canterbury; his sentence was ratified by the house of peers; the king issued his writ for the execution; [**] and the unhappy man atoned for his erroneous opinions by the penalty of fire. This is the first instance of that kind in England; and thus one horror more was added to those dismal scenes which at that time were already but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... without even having been quizzed by any of the students regarding that fateful evening puzzled them. True, they suspected Marjorie's four chums and Leila and Vera as having been among those who broke up the hazing party. They cherished an erroneous belief, however, that there were at least fifteen or ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... leafy bough of a tree, some water round him as he entered, from a vessel beside the door. This convinced me that some of the emissaries of the Scarlet Woman had already been busy among the benighted people, a conjecture, however, which proved to be erroneous. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... or not, the public will concern itself. So at home is he on every subject that each appears to be his specialty. One asserts that he follows Galen: witness his mania on medicine. Certainly not, another replies; are not his principles erroneous, and second-hand at that? Does he not dredge the science with ridicule? No practitioner would gravely assert the feasibility of transfusion, an operation never yet performed with success, since the red globules ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... public opinion is, under God, the prime source of security to our laws and to our morals; and that men may be induced, by an ample and liberal discussion, and by the voice of conscience and of reason, to abandon any course that is erroneous. We are to presume that we may approach any class of American citizens with the conviction that if they are convinced that they are wrong, and that their course of life leads to sap the foundation of morals and the liberties of their country, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... reasons for this supposition have been urged; viz. the presence of rivers necessary to account for the large masses of fresh-water ice found in high southern latitudes; and the existence of firm and immoveable points of land round which these masses might form. The first of these is glaringly erroneous in point of principle and fact. In the first place, it is most certain, that the waters of the ocean admit of being frozen, and that when so, they either do or do not contain the salts they held in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... sight they rose. The members, far As he was bird, were golden; white the rest With vermeil intervein'd. So beautiful A car in Rome ne'er grac'd Augustus pomp, Or Africanus': e'en the sun's itself Were poor to this, that chariot of the sun Erroneous, which in blazing ruin fell At Tellus' pray'r devout, by the just doom Mysterious of all-seeing Jove. Three nymphs ,k the right wheel, came circling in smooth dance; The one so ruddy, that her form had scarce Been known within a furnace of clear flame: The next did look, as if the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... his awful crime, and now shrieking to me to save his life! I did try to save it. I did everything to save it, except that which is imputed to me, but that I did not, and I will prove it. I have since pondered much upon this subject, and I am satisfied that my original impression was erroneous. I had no right to throw up my brief, and turn traitor to the wretch, wretch though he was, who had confided in me. The counsel for a prisoner has no option. The moment he accepts his brief, every faculty he possesses becomes his client's ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... of the individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of Science, or Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action. Not only, however, is the current conception of progress more or less vague, but it is in great measure erroneous. It takes in not so much the reality of progress as its accompaniments—not so much the substance as the shadow. That progress in intelligence seen during the growth of the child into the man, or the savage into the philosopher, is commonly ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... impression was evidently erroneous. Even after they had cordially shaken hands, the Prefect of Police seemed in no hurry to ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... never once laid aside the sword, nor tasted the blessings of peace as long as his hand swayed the imperial sceptre. Endowed with the qualities of a good sovereign, adorned with many of those virtues which ensure the happiness of a people, and by nature gentle and humane, we see him, from erroneous ideas of the monarch's duty, become at once the instrument and the victim of the evil passions of others; his benevolent intentions frustrated, and the friend of justice converted into the oppressor of mankind, the enemy of peace, and the scourge of his people. Amiable in domestic life, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... and the spectacles revealed to him in succession through its agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses; that they were the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... found. Thee, too, enamoured of the life I loved, Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit Determined, and possessing it at last With transports such as favoured lovers feel, I studied, prized, and wished that I had known, Ingenious Cowley: and though now, reclaimed By modern lights from an erroneous taste, I cannot but lament thy splendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. I still revere thee, courtly though retired, Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers, Not unemployed, and finding rich amends For a lost world in solitude and verse. 'Tis ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... As in some quarters erroneous ideas prevail regarding both the historical and intellectual relation between James and Bergson, it may be useful to call attention to some of the facts here. As early as 1880 James contributed an article in French to the periodical La Critique philosophique, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... unjust burdens which are new and have been received contrary to the custom of the Church Catholic. It may be that in the beginning there were plausible reasons for some of these ordinances; and yet they are not adapted to later times. It is also evident that some were adopted through erroneous conceptions. Therefore it would be befitting the clemency of the Pontiffs to mitigate them now, because such a modification does not shake the unity of the Church. For many human traditions have been changed in process of time, ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various
... fact as this—and numberless facts just as significant all pointing to the same conclusion, might be adduced—shows at once how utterly erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds possess an instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear him not at all; simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear no living thing, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... dolorous journey by all the Peelites and not a few of the Whigs. "There begins to prevail in the House of Commons," wrote Grey to Elgin in 1849, "and I am sorry to say in the highest quarters, an opinion (which I believe to be utterly erroneous) that we have no interest in preserving our colonies and ought therefore to make no sacrifice for that purpose. Peel, Graham, and Gladstone, if they do not avow this opinion as openly as Cobden and his friends, yet betray very clearly that they {267} ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... Sir Alexander. I did love that woman, though she was old enough then to have been my mother. It was a boy's rash, blind love; but I was too proud to make her my wife, and she was too cunning and avaricious to be mine on any other terms. Your suspicions, on that head at least, are erroneous." ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... will confess, my lord, that I struggled very hard against the feelings which I found growing up in my own bosom. At that time I struggled the more and with the firmer determination, because I had always entertained an erroneous impression with regard to my own birth, an impression which, had it continued, would have prevented my dreaming it possible that Lady Laura could ever ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... own hats with sprays of oak leaves on the 29th of May, and 99 out of the 100 would tell you they did so to commemorate Charles II. hiding in the oak tree near to Boscobel House. It is curious to note how long an erroneous idea will last. The hunted King would not have found much shelter in his historical oak in the month of May, as the trees would hardly have been sufficiently in leaf to have screened him, and, as it happened, it was the 4th of September and not the 29th of May when ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Penmarin, now Penryn; and the spot on which Falmouth stands appears to have been known as Pen-y-cwm, the "head of the valley," to which the syllable quic was added, thus forming the familiar Penny-come-quick, for which it has been easy to find a plausible but erroneous derivation. If this quic is merely a corruption of wick, meaning dwelling or village, it would be obvious that Saxon influence had been at work here, as in the other old name for Falmouth, Smithic or Smethic, interpreted as Smith-wick. But we know very little with certainty about the ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Yet here he was, exciting mistrust by his secrecy, and leading a hole-and-corner sort of life when, as I have said, there was not the slightest necessity for it. Little by little I was beginning to derive the impression that the first notion of Mr. Hayle was an erroneous one, and that there was more in him than I supposed. This sentiment was destined to be strengthened and in the very near future, by ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... steadiness and uniformity does not proceed from an opinion that particular combinations of letters have much influence on human happiness; or that truth may not be successfully taught by modes of spelling fanciful and erroneous; I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that 'words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.' Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... which classifies them as belonging to science, history, or geography, respectively. The pigeon-hole classification which is so prevalent at present (fostered by introducing the pupil at the outset into a number of different studies contained in different text-books) gives an utterly erroneous idea of the relations of studies to one another and to the intellectual whole to which all belong. In fact, these subjects have to do with the same ultimate reality, namely, the conscious experience of man. It is only because we have different interests, or ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... and subsequently worshipped as gods, this view was correct. Fractional portions of earth, fire and water, when severed from the remainder, retained their original nature and constitution, and afforded some support to his generally erroneous belief. And since he had observed that an injury done to any part of the body was an injury to the whole, it followed that if one got possession of any part of the body, such as the severed hair, teeth or nails, one could through them injure that body of which they ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... and concerning the manner of performing them, come forward, and as one body in this unite. Unity of existence is necessary to the body confederated in the social covenant. Those who hold the truth cannot enter into it with the infidel, the unbeliever, the erroneous or profane. All who unite in it must have the same motives, and contemplate the same ultimate end. All must have the same sentiments of a Covenant God, and harmonize in their views of the means to be employed in order to the attainment of that end. There is no church ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... possible let your children be encouraged to read, and see that they are provided with books and papers adapted to their capacity of mind. Some parents, be it said to their shame, consider money spent in this way as unnecessary or even wasted. A more erroneous idea of economy never existed. Books are great educators. A mother should be more careful to provide her children with good books than fine clothes; should spend more time in teaching and training them than in decking their bodies for show and display. Mothers, ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 8, February 22, 1914 • Various
... "Aussage'' experiment, Test VI, out of 15 details given as remembered from the picture just seen two were imaginary, and of 9 more items given on cross-examination two were erroneous. Her account as given was functional, not at all enumerative as in the usual childish fashion. Out of 6 suggestions proffered she accepted 4. This was a poor result for a person of her age. Her range of information ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... chapter which I have been examining, Mr Godwin professes to consider the objection to his system of equality from the principle of population. It has appeared, I think clearly, that he is greatly erroneous in his statement of the distance of this difficulty, and that instead of myriads of centuries, it is really not thirty years, or even thirty days, distant from us. The supposition of the approach of man to ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... indifference or of mystic idealism in the soul of Tchekoff. This everlasting habit, not to say this mania, of analyzing the mind or soul of an author in order to get at his conception, his personal doctrine of life, often leads to partial and erroneous conclusions, especially when, as in most cases, the critic has only a very vague idea of the main current of thought which formed the genesis of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... upon the subject of manures, are so applicable to this point that I cannot refrain from quoting them. "It has," he says, "become almost a regular custom to determine the value of manures by the quantity of nitrogen they yield by ultimate analysis. This method is entirely erroneous; for it is based upon the false principle, that by putrefaction all nitrogeneous substances are immediately converted into ammonia, carbonic acid, and water! But these changes sometimes require a number of years. Morphine, for example, is prepared ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... his presentation of them, they make out a stronger case against Bacon than is warranted by their fair interpretation. Indeed, leaving out the facts which Macaulay suppresses or is ignorant of, and taking into account only those which he includes, his judgment of Bacon is still erroneous. Long before we read Mr. Dixon's book, we had reversed Macaulay's opinion merely by scrutinizing, and restoring to their natural ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... word. Of many a various shade and modification of sectarianism he had heard, but the Malthusian heresy was new to his ears, and awful to his conscience, and he begged Mr. Snodgrass to tell him in what it chiefly consisted, protesting his innocence of that, and of every erroneous doctrine. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt |
