"Mistake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... truly improvements, and touched upon points overlooked by Cuvier. Blainville, especially, took up the element of form among animals,—whether divided on two sides, whether radiated, whether irregular, etc. He, however, made the mistake of giving very elaborate names to animals already known under simpler ones. Why, for instance, call all animals with parts radiating in every direction Actinomorpha or Actinozoaria, when they had received the significant name ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... husband referred to her remark about the Bible, and not to her judgment of the scientific men. And he did not correct her mistake. ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... a mistake. Moreover, it was quite out of accord with the usual custom of Mr. Champa. When he made up his mind to increase by one the number of permanent residents upon Boot Hill he bided his time, waited till the suspicions of his victim were lulled, and shot down his man without warning. The one ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... doubt, however, that this technical position cloaked the doughty warrior's real sympathies. Colonel Baker and Volney Howard were instructed to wait on him. After a somewhat lengthy conversation, they made the mistake of threatening him with a report to Washington for refusing ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... the time of impression, you intend to retain only until the time of recall, the material tends to slip away after that time. If, however, you impress with the intention to retain permanently the material stays by you better. Students make a great mistake when they study for the purpose merely of retaining until after examination time. Intend to retain facts permanently, and there will be ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... been granted recklessly, often in general laws, by states keen in their rivalry for railroad extension. When thus great public privileges had been granted without reserve to private corporations, it was realized, too late in many cases, that a mistake had been made and that an ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... "fighting rum," "Jersey lightning," or "torchlight procession." It was then impressed upon me that half-drunken assassins, specially imported from a distant part of the county to shoot a landlord or agent, might easily mistake a stranger for the obnoxious person and shoot him accordingly, just as the unlucky driver was hit in Kerry the other day instead of the land agent. Furthermore, I was taken to a gunsmith's in Dawson-street, where I was assured that the sale of firearms had been and was remarkably brisk, the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... "for God's sake come and see what you can make of the woman downstairs. I can't get the discomfort out of my mind. I admit that things look as if we had made a mistake. But these gentlemen won't ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... seeds of this nature; so that we frequently dig up, and disturb the beds where they have been sown, in despair, before they have gone their full time; which is also the reason of a very popular mistake in other seeds; especially, that of the holly, concerning which there goes a tradition, that they will not sprout till they be pass'd through the maw of a thrush; whence the saying, turdus exitium suum cacat (alluding to ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Cos joined Santa Anna with five hundred and forty men, and for a moment I thought we had made a mistake in not attacking the enemy before his reinforcements came up. But the knowledge that Cos was present, raised enthusiasm to the highest pitch. Our troops remembered his parole at the Alamo, and the shameful manner in which he had broken it; and there was not a man who did not ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... set poor Dreyfus free, the due amends to make, Regain the public confidence by owning their mistake, And cease for popularity by sordid means to bid? These are the things they might have done; but this ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... this? The word pounds is not a mistake for ounces?—although even that would represent ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... our country-places, a plain, shrewd townsman fell into chance conversation with him, and entertained him with some account of a neighbor who had been seized with a mania for high Art, and had let loose his frenzy upon canvas in a deluge of oil-colors. If I mistake not, Percival was invited to inspect these productions of untaught and perhaps unteachable genius. They were vast attempts at historical scenes, in which the heads and legs of heroes were visible, but played a very secondary part in the interest, compared with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... come to our camp last night, who did?" asked Dick Bush. He was commencing to realize that a mistake had been made. ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... a jest that promised very well at the beginning, only the teller has forgotten the point. Or else,' Vida added, looking at the face of one of the women up there—'or else the mistake was in thinking it a jest at all!' She turned away impatiently and devoted her attention to such scraps of comment as she could overhear in the crowd—or such, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... they wouldent eat a thing; they just died all along the way. We didn't make more than five miles a day on the march, and my company didn't do much but dig graves and bury Injuns all the way to Tuscumbia. They died of grief and broken hearts, and no mistake. An Injun's heart is tender, and his love is strong; it's his nature. I'd rather risk an Injun for a true friend than a white man. He is the best friend in the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... brain-cracks?(93) If the good knight did not call out to the people sleeping in church, and say "Amen" with such a delightful pomposity: if he did not make a speech in the assize-court a propos de bottes, and merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator:(94) if he did not mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden: if he were wiser than he is: if he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but a mere English gentleman and game-preserver—of what worth were he to us? We love him for his vanities as much as his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the examination the General, on behalf of Madame Decaen, sent Flinders an invitation to dine, dinner being then served. At this point, one cannot help feeling, he made a tactical mistake. It is easily understood, and allowance can be made for it, but the consequences of it were serious. He was angry on account of his detention, irritated by the treatment to which he had been subjected, and unable in his present frame of mind to appreciate the Governor's point ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... judgment day, if I mistake not, we shall see a great deal of our conduct in a different light from what we ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... came to his feet and grinned while extending his hand to be shaken. He said, "Good to see you again, Mauser. Hope you're in this one with us." His grin turned rueful. "That trick of yours with the glider cost me a pretty penny. I'd made the mistake of wagering heavily on Hovercraft. But the marshal is waiting. Right through that ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... swans were doubly marked, and had what were called two nicks, or notches. The term, in process of time, not being understood, a double animal was invented, with the name of "The Swan with Two Necks." But this is not the only ludicrous mistake that has arisen on the subject, since "swan-upping," or the taking up of swans, performed annually by the swan companies, with the Lord Mayor at their head, for the purpose of marking them, has been changed, by an unlucky ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... the exception of the small "set" that surrounds the Prince of Wales, who are dressed in the Parisian fashion, all English women seem to be overwhelmed with regret at not being born men, and to have spent their time and ingenuity since, in trying to make up for nature's mistake. Every masculine garment is twisted by them to fit the female figure; their conversation, like that of their brothers, is about horses and dogs; their hats and gloves are the same as the men's; and when with their fine, large feet in ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... Congress. This victory may have made him believe that he would be able to kill with his veto all legislation unpalatable to him, and that, therefore, he was actually master of the situation. He made the grave mistake of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... a mistake, however, to think of Theodore only as a controversalist and defier of the civil authority. He was a deeply religious man, a pastor of souls, and he revived the religious and moral life of men, far and wide, not only in ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... message he brought was in point of fact a confirmation of the information which we had gleaned already from our prisoners of the preceding evening. "De Wet, and with him the President," ran the message, "crossed the Orange River at Botha's Drift at three o'clock to-day (yesterday). By mistake gap in circle let him through. Crossed without transport and with smallest following. Presumedly will go north. Plumer cannot leave Springfontein until early day after to-morrow (to-morrow). Must leave you to act exactly as you think right. ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... by natural methods and mix work and study, and make both play, was his theme. Pestalozzi believed in teaching out of doors, because children are both barbaric and nomadic—they want to go somewhere. His was the Aristotle method, as opposed to those of the closet and the cloister. But he made the mistake of saying that teaching should be taken out of the hands and homes of the clergy, and then the clergy said a few things ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... carriest, though thou seemest so familiar with mine—If I remember, thou didst not dimly resemble the man Daniels, whom at first I took thee for—a care-worn, mortified, economical, commercio-political countenance, with an agreeable limp in thy gait, if Elia mistake thee not. I think I sh'd shake hands with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... He may get a better. He doesn't look at it very closely until he is well on his way. Then, "Dear me! I've taken the wrong umbrella," he says, with an air of surprise, for he likes really to feel that he has made a mistake. "Ah, well, it's no use going back now. He'd be gone. And ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... knowledge is intuition, and man's function is not so much to reason as to lead a life of piety and contemplate the Divine work in the hope of being blessed with inspiration. It would be a mistake, however, to take Philo's words quite literally. He does not deny the need of human effort and striving for knowledge; for the Divine influence is not vouchsafed till we have prepared for it and consecrated all our faculties to God. But, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... much laughter over this mistake, especially when the raiders came in sight, some bearing quarters of meat spitted on the ends of their bayonets, others with half-picked fowls or hams which made the mouth water. I was standing outside the tent, and shall never forget the first movement of the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... had revived, being still very sick, the druggist gave her some medicine and then Linda took her home in the cab. Pearl knew, however, who had saved her from the fire. Bess Harley saw to it that there was no mistake about that. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... memory, the following legend, for which I cannot produce any better authority. A young nobleman, of high hopes and fortune, chanced to lose his way in the town which he inhabited, the capital, if I mistake not, of a German province. He had accidentally involved himself among the narrow and winding streets of a suburb, inhabited by the lowest order of the people, and an approaching thunder-shower determined him ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... to storm the city the next day. It seemed no great undertaking. Each warrior would but have to pick up as much mortar from the wall as is needed to seal a letter and the whole city would disappear. But Sennacherib made the mistake of not proceeding directly to the attack upon the city. If he had made the assault at once, it would have been successful, for the sin of Saul against the priest at Nob had not yet been wholly expiated; on that very day it was fully atoned for. (53) In the following night, which was the Passover ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... Britain there were people who thought this Stamp Act was a mistake. The great Pitt had been ill when it was passed into law, but when he returned to Parliament he spoke ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... affect to be very angry and not give him any peace until he goes to the king and complains against you. Then will the king send for you in great wrath and inquire into this matter. In reply you may say it is all a mistake, for you regard me as your own mother, and in proof of this you will beg the king to summon me into his presence, that I may corroborate what you say. Then I will declare that you are really my own sons, and beseech the king to free me from the merchant and allow me to live with you in any place ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... respect. Situation, orientation, outline, altitudes, levels, hydrography, climatology, lines of communication, all these were easily to be verified in advance. People were not buying a pig in a poke, and most undoubtedly there could be no mistake as to the nature of the goods on sale. Moreover, the innumerable journals of the United States, especially those of California, with their dailies, bi-weeklies, weeklies, bi-monthlies, monthlies, their reviews, magazines, bulletins, &c., had been for several months ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... store, or a hotel clerk, or a train dispatcher, or a broker, or a treasurer of something. There are thousands of things he might be—ought to be—except our librarian. He has an odd, displaced look behind the great desk. He looks as if he had gotten in by mistake and was trying to make the most of it. He has a business-like, worldly-minded, foreign air about him—a kind of off-hand, pert, familiar way with books. He does not know how to bend over—like a librarian—and ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... The laborious author of the Hist. de Languedoc, v. 290, makes a singular mistake in saying "that this bull is dated March 15th, of the year 1568, which proves that the project had been formed several months before its execution." The date of the bull is, indeed, given as stated at the close of the document; but the addition, "pontificatus nostri anno quarto," furnishes the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... want the brig navigated to Guam" (one of the Ladrone Islands), said Mancillo to Loftgreen; "I am captain now, and you must do as I bid you. Beware of a mistake. If you take the ship out of her course we will serve you as we ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... passion; "I tell you that you are a dishonourable man and a villain. I tell you that you murdered the Hottentot Jantje's father, mother, and uncle in cold blood when you were yet a lad. I tell you that the other day you tried to murder John Niel, pretending to mistake him for a buck! And now you, who petitioned for this country to be taken over by the Queen, and have gone round singing out your loyalty at the top of your voice, come and tell me that you are ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... much decay'd) in Kent. Though the account of her life before her Works pretends otherwise; some Persons now alive Do testify upon their Knowledge that to be her Original.' It is a pity that whilst the one error concerning Aphra's birthplace is thus remedied, the mistake as to the nature of her father's calling should ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... and with what dexterity this matchless author had fallen into the whole art and cant of them. To transcribe here and there three or four detached lines of least weight in a discourse, and by a foolish comment mistake every syllable of the meaning, is what I have known many of a superior class, to this formidable adversary, entitle an "Answer."[8] This is what he has exactly done in about thrice as many words as my whole discourse; which is so mighty ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... it! You needn't buy it— The last New Patent—and nothing comes nigh it For affording the Deaf, at a little expense, The sense of hearing, and hearing of sense! A Real Blessing—and no mistake, Invented for poor Humanity's sake; For what can be a greater privation Than playing Dummy to all creation, And only looking at conversation— Great Philosophers talking like Platos, And Members of Parliament moral as Catos, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... donkey, waving its left ear reflectively. "I'm sorry we made such a mistake, and had all our work and ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... print is a little slurred, and it was a very natural mistake. After all, the paper may be wrong. Oh don't, Maude, please don't! It's not worth it—all the gold on the earth is not worth it. There's a sweet girlie! Now, are you better? Oh, damn those ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... off; indeed, captain; for there's a cruiser, if I mistake not. A gun here is the same to the cruiser, as a splash in the water is to the ground sharks at Antigua; up they all come to see what's to be had. We shall have a dozen of them above the horizon before two hours are ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and eluded her suspicion that he was already acquainted with the exiles, ("the persons he had thought of were," he said, "quite different from her description;" and he even presented to her an old singing-master, and a sallow-faced daughter, as the Italians who had caused his mistake), it was necessary for Beatrice to prove the sincerity of the aid she had promised to her brother, and to introduce Randal to the Count. It was no less desirable to Randal to know, and even win the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the Due de Chartres (afterward the infamous Egalite), whom she describes as "a young man, very obstinate, and who hopes to play a great part by putting himself at the head of a faction." The princes, however, in the view of the shrewd old lady, had made the mistake of greatly overrating their own importance. "These great princes, since their protest, have been just citizens of the Rue St. Denis. No one at court ever perceived their absence, and no one in the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... tragic, thus evoked, Juve had rarely seen; but each time that figure in hooded black had appeared, it was in circumstances so serious, under conditions so tragic, that it was graven on his memory—graven beyond mistake—graven ineffaceably! ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... by her lips, and many of the young ladies with their eyes, assured him there was no mistake in the matter; that he was really the gifted person whom the nymphs had summoned to their presence, and that they were well acquainted with his talents as a poet and a painter. Tyrrel disclaimed, with earnestness and gravity, the charge of poetry, and professed, that, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... those of his acquaintances with whom he wishes to continue on visiting terms. Those who receive a card should call on the bride, within ten days after she has taken possession of her home. Some persons have received such a card as an intimation that the card was to end the acquaintance. This mistake shows the necessity of a better understanding of ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the same mistake your pleasant lady did," explained Mickey. "She thought I was the boy who had been sent to visit you, so she gave me the glad hand too. I wish I was in his shoes! But I'm not your boy. Gee, your lady ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... apartments are lofty, spacious, and very handsome—and there is a room of one hundred mats. [3] A very nice little repast, with abundance of good wine, is served up to us-and I shall always remember one curious dish, which I at first mistake for spinach. It is seaweed, deliciously prepared—not the common edible seaweed, but a rare sort, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... Should we not all live on the highest level possible? Level up instead of leveling down. Ignorance, dirt, and sickness do not attract me ... and now here among the hills the terrible city seems like a fading nightmare. It would be better if people lived in the country. I feel that the city is a mistake. But of one thing I am sure. I understand that you cannot help doing what you are doing, and I know that it would have been a wrong if I had interfered with your life. I would have been a drag on you and defeated your purposes, and in the end we would both have been very unhappy. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... no less unique than it was interesting, has become the source of interminable debate. It has been contended that because of the ignorance of the blacks, in letters, in manners, in business, and in the affairs of State, it was a serious mistake to enfranchise them, thus making possible for a period however brief their virtual direction of the political affairs of some of the Southern States. Consistent in principle, historians of this conviction have viewed with abhorrence the seating of black men ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... taken that simply as encouragement. He had already let her know that his wife was a vixen who troubled his life. Lizzie had given him her sympathy, and had almost given him a tear. "But I am not a man to be broken-hearted because I have made a mistake," said Lopez. "Marriage vows are very well, but they shall never bind me to misery." "Marriage vows are not very well. They may be very ill," Lizzie had replied, remembering certain passages in her ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... she had made a mistake in showing her temper to the dog; it would have given her pleasure then ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... man's character is determined by his motives, if it is not the other way about; in any case, a man's motives are for the most part inscrutable and can only be deduced from conduct, while the world usually makes the mistake of explaining conduct by attributing its own motives. Tried, then, by the standard of conduct, the only one available, the Emperor, as a man, shows us a high type of humanity. It may not, probably does not, appeal to Englishmen wholly, but there are ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... time I played against Eustace at Hillton I tackled the referee in mistake for the man with the ball! And threw him, too! And sat on ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... time, and leaving me free to follow the programme agreed on in the family council. It was in effect a frank apology that I wanted, but I knew him too well to suppose he would ever consent to make an apology in words, or to admit to me that he had made a mistake; and I left the solution in my mother's hands, with the understanding that the definite promise should be made to her, and I knew too that this would hold him as completely as if made to a public authority. Nothing ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... he says! Ah, a brigand you are and no mistake! a storm is sent as a chastisement to make us feel our sins, and you want with rods and tackle of one sort and another, God forgive you, to ward it off! What, are you a Tartar or what? Are you a Tartar? ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... walked softly down the slanting board and ate gravel. The next morning he felt better than he had in a long time, so when there was nobody around he ate some more. He didn't want anyone else to know that he had found out his mistake. Every morning he looked at his shadow, and it grew fatter and fatter. Still he was not happy, and he knew it was because he had not told his patient old mother. He wanted to tell her, too. One day he heard her telling ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... Son of God! Set Him free! It is the Son of God who hangs on the cross!" The cry rolled through the crowd like the dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made since the world began. He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of God. Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner. He struggles up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the cross with rolling eyes. ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... day I continued my observations as are above stated. An interesting question was now to be determined; which of these rivers was the Missouri, or that river which the Minnetares call Amahte Arz zha or Missouri, and which they had discribed to us as approaching very near to the Columbia river. to mistake the stream at this period of the season, two months of the traveling season having now elapsed, and to ascend such stream to the rocky Mountain or perhaps much further before we could inform ourselves ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... goodly hair, touching the fine Claudio even with its disgraceful associations. As in Orcagna's fresco at Pisa, it comes capriciously, giving many and long reprieves to Barnardine, who has been waiting for it nine years in prison, taking another thence by fever, another by mistake of judgment, embracing others in the midst of their music and song. The little mirror of existence, which reflects to each for a moment the stage on which he plays, is broken at last by a capricious ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... have reached us, that I could wish there were some warrant for supposing that this tragedy was composed in the age, indeed, and in the school of Sophocles, perhaps by his son Iophon, and that it was by mistake attributed to the father. There is much both in the structure and plan, and in the style of the piece, calculated to excite suspicion; and many critics have remarked that the introductory soliloquy of Dejanira, which is wholly ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... instance—gentlemen, whose ladies take Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman, And break the—Which commandment is 't they break? (I have forgot the number, and think no man Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.) I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous, They make some blunder, which their ladies ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got and the blow he missed, he tripped and "went to grass," so far as the back-yard of our boarding-house was provided with that vegetable. It was a signal illustration of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and ardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pectorals, that they can settle most little quarrels on the spot by "knocking the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... over his attachment to me, but—but he had been a good deal alone, had found time to think, and, in short, it had come on again; and he hoped he was now able to offer me not only a very agreeable home, but a husband more worthy of me. That's a mistake, for I behaved ill to him, and he well, and always well, to me. In short, he begged me to come over to New York in September: he is obliged to be there on business himself at that time. He said, taking the chances, and in the hope ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... coin, and after supper Jimmy went to town. Then Dannie saw his mistake. He had purchased peace for himself, but what ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... his pocket a paper folded up. It was several typewritten sheets. "Peter Gudge," he said, "I been looking up your record, and I've found out what you did in this case. You'll see when you read how perfectly I've got it. You won't find a single mistake in it." Guffey meant this for wit, but poor Peter was too far gone with terror to have any idea that there was such a thing as ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... to substitute the lamp for the drop in a magneto switchboard in order to give the general appearance of common-battery operations. There has also been a tendency to employ the common-battery system of operation in many places where magneto service should have been used, a mistake which has now been realized and corrected. In places where the simple magneto switchboard is the thing to use, the simpler it is the better, and the employment of locking relays and lamp signals and the complications which they carry with them, is ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... the house-surgeon made a mistake, and she straightway lost all confidence in him. It further happened that one day, in the full consciousness of her superior wisdom, she prescribed for a patient herself, in the doctor's absence. The patient had the prescription made up, took ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... only kept still. (Laughter). If these papers, to which I have referred, were all in the hands of women, and so destitute of editorial pith and point as they now are, I should counsel against any further efforts for the elevation of the sex, believing the case to be hopeless. (Applause). If I mistake not, women have a peculiar fitness for trade. Mrs. Dall says, in her second lecture, that on the Island of Nantucket, women have engaged in commerce very successfully. They did it in the war, and afterward, when destitution drove the men to the whale fisheries, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... resemblance to the old Roman theatres, was appropriated for that purpose by the Giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock, called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen, which, it is said, were shot off by a vessel belonging to the Spanish Armada, in mistake for the towers of Dunluce Castle. The vessel was afterwards wrecked in the bay below, which has ever since been called Spanish Bay, and in calm weather the wreck may be still seen. Many of the columns of the Causeway ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... first the rules of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to follow it,—an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... be some mistake," insisted Mr. Foger. "Sam Snedecker was not riding with us this evening. We have been over to Waterfield—my ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... the President curtly, "you have made a mistake. This is a private house, and you must ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of having abandoned my Sovereign under such distressing circumstances. I have, indeed, the misfortune of differing from many noble Lords, but I cannot regret the steps I have taken. If I have made a mistake, I regret it; but I am not aware that I have made any mistake. It was impossible that I could shrink from his Majesty in the distressing circumstances under which he was placed. I will not detain your Lordships longer with a detail ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... absorbed him. Now he saw that she had been too proud and strong to subject herself to repeated insinuations of inferiority of understanding, as she had been too loving and dutiful to prolong the contest. And so—he groaned aloud as his mistake revealed itself to him in those long, unhappy hours—he had lost the dear opportunity of leading her aright; for he contemplated but one possible issue of such an attempt on his part; he had scorned her entreaty when ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... uncle, as he disposed himself on his back, and tilted his hat over his nose; 'you do surprise me! What a mistake for a man to make, who has come down for perfect quiet! Whom shall ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... the Moravian missions, says, the Delawares and Iroquois never marry near relatives. According to their own account, the Indian nations were divided into tribes for the sole purpose, that no one might, either through temptation or mistake, marry a near relation, which is now scarcely possible, for whoever intends to marry must take a person of a different totem. Another reason for the institution of these totems, may be found in their influence ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... in the similarity of sound between despatch and batch, Will Summers mistaking, or pretending to mistake, in consequence. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... come. I've learnt not to care. I go and have a bit of a splash at the Races when I'm pretty flush with money, and I have a glass or two of port with the boys sometimes, and get a laugh out of it. You've got to learn these things yet, poor little devil. But don't you make the mistake I made and be ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... day, he heard again the wonderful sound, seemingly more distant, but rising imperiously above the nearer war-drums in the bush. Right there was where he had made his mistake. Thinking that he had passed beyond it and that, therefore, it was between him and the beach of Ringmanu, he had worked back toward it when in reality he was penetrating deeper and deeper into the mysterious heart of the unexplored island. ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... to the Morgue,'" read on Mr. Brake with agitated voice. "'It was not until midnight that the mistake was discovered. A messenger was dispatched at twenty minutes after twelve o'clock to the elegant residence of the popular doctor, in Delight Street. The news was broken to the widow as agreeably as possible. Mrs. Thorne ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession, and every man worthy of the name will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, "I'm baffled!" and submit to be floated passively ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... mistake to assume, as has been assumed only too often, that, after the great epoch of Classicism and Romanticism in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Germany produced but little of universal significance, or that, after Goethe ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... our flag pursued by Mexico previous to that time were scarcely suspended for even a brief period, although the treaty so clearly defines the rights and duties of the respective parties that it is impossible to misunderstand or mistake them. In less than seven years after the conclusion of that treaty our grievances had become so intolerable that in the opinion of President Jackson they should no longer be endured. In his message to Congress in February, 1837, he presented ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it. It was a dispensary ticket. He explained the mistake, and told the applicant where she should go to obtain ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... the more frequent case is the opposite one. Just because the teacher and the pastor have small chance to save anything, they give their fullest thought to the question how to multiply their earnings, and their mistake springs rather from their ignorance of the actual conditions. They think that they can figure it out by mere logic and overlook the hard realities. They resemble another group of victims who can be found in the midst of commercial life, the over-clever ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit which he made at Patna, and while the transaction was recent or nearly recent, must be a mistake: that he believed (what is amazing indeed for any belief) that not Mr. Hastings, but he himself, interpreted. Mr. Lushington completely loses his own memory, and he accepts an offered, a given memory, a memory supplied to him by a party in the transaction. By this operation ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Clarendon text-books. These illustrative words can be fully or partially verified by those who happen to possess all or some of the works cited, or they can safely be taken on trust, as really occurring there, any mistake being due to ...
— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
... mistake of hesitating. For a fraction of a moment he had acted as if he were embarrassed, and was only going to nod and ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... "My love may have been sudden; but, for weeks, for months, it has taken possession of me. But, pardon me, madam," he added, in a calmer tone. "Do not mistake me. I know too well that I dare not hope; but an humble offering may be laid upon a lofty shrine. All I ask is your compassion; say only you pity me, and I shall embalm the words in my memory ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... meddled with, an Alencon or an Armagnac was sure to find Charles reappear from private life, and do his best to get him pardoned. He knew them quite well. He had made rondels with them. They were charming people in every way. There must certainly be some mistake. Had not he himself made anti-national treaties almost before he was out of his nonage? And for the matter of that, had not every one else done the like? Such are some of the thoughts by which he might explain ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the district, and the witnesses have declared that the first shots were fired by intoxicated German infantry soldiers at their own officers. This fact appears not to be exceptional. It is, indeed, notorious that at Maestricht, either by mistake or in consequence of a mutiny, Germans about this same time killed one another during the night at a cavalry camp which they had established at Mesch, close to the Dutch frontier ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... are difficult slokas. But for Nilakantha I could never have understood their sense. The reading Jalaughena, occuring in both the Bengal and the Bombay editions, is a mistake for Janaughena. The construction of 5 is this: Dakshina Bhuyasirdadat: tena hetuna Janaughena akaranta. The story of the salvation of Bhagiratha's ancestors is a beautiful myth. King Sagara (whence Sagara or the Ocean) had sixty thousand ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... midsummer spirit. Romeo and Juliet were very much in love; although they tell me some German critics are of a different opinion, probably the same who would have us think Mercutio a dull fellow. Poor Antony was in love, and no mistake. That lay figure, Marius, in "Les Miserables," is also a genuine case in his own way, and worth observation. A good many of George Sand's people are thoroughly in love; and so are a good many of George Meredith's. Altogether, there is plenty to read on the subject. If the root of the matter be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the monarch by his sister, his only legal {72} wife, or Coya—the irrevocable Peruvian method of providing for the Inca succession—was named Huascar. Huayna on his deathbed, after a glorious reign of forty years, made the fatal mistake of dividing his dominion between Huascar, to whom was given ancient Peru, and Atahualpa, who took Quito to the north. World-history, of which Huayna could have known nothing, has shown conclusively enough that ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the log and carefully deposited the baby beside the egg. When he came back, he said: "I made a big mistake not to be bringing the egg out with the baby, but I was fearing to touch it. It's shaped like a hen's egg, and it's big as a turkey's, and the beautifulest blue—just splattered with big brown splotches, like me book said, precise. Bet you never saw such a sight as it ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... seem to possess the advantages usually following such position, the climate being scorchingly hot in summer and piercingly cold in winter. So that one comes to the conclusion that in point of climate, as well as in location, the Spanish capital is a mistake. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... she doesn't make a mistake in cooking once in a while herself," I said. "Then maybe she wouldn't think she knew so much more than ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... no mistake about the directions? I told Frank to go home with your boy to bear him company, and to wait until I came. Oh, I see. The foolish fellow! He must have misunderstood me, and taken Ned home with him. They are waiting for ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... solving all appearances they please, We soon shall see them to their ancient methods fall, And straight deny you to be men, or anything at all. I laugh at the grave answer they will make, Which they have always ready, general, and cheap: 'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet, And by a fond mistake Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit, And think, alas! to be by mortals writ, Is but a crowd of atoms justling in a heap: Which, from eternal seeds begun, Justling some thousand years, till ripen'd by the sun: They're now, just now, as naturally born, As from the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... faithfulness, incentives to admiration. But a solitary soul dragging a log must make the log a God to rejoice in the burden." The demigod that poor, blind Susanna married had vanished, and she could drag the log no longer, but she made one mistake in judging her husband, in that she regarded him, at thirty-two, as a finished product, a man who was finally this and that, and behaved thus and so, and would ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Washington," and congratulates him on his escape; but soon grows formal, and asks: "Pray, sir, with the number of them remaining, is there no possibility of doing something on the other side of the mountains before the winter months? Surely you must mistake. Colonel Dunbar will not march to winter-quarters in the middle of summer, and leave the frontiers exposed to the invasions of the enemy! No; he is a better officer, and I have a different opinion of him. I sincerely wish you health and happiness, and ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... look surprised, seemed rather to affect it in politeness; but his eye rested on each of the three white men in succession with a sudden weight of curiosity that was almost savage. "Ah, then!" said he, "there is some small mistake, no doubt, and I must ask you to what I am indebted for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his character by self examination and determination not to make the same mistake again seems to have induced similar effects and methods for their attainment in the case of his intellectual development. Whatever the connection, both regenerations proceeded apace. Lincoln at first was a shallow thinker, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... she works until two in the morning, during the quieter hours, with her correspondence and books (the police descend at frequent and irregular intervals to examine the books of all oeuvres, and one mistake means being haled to court), and she had not up to that time taken a day's rest. I have seen her so tired she could hardly go on, and she said once quite pathetically, "I am not even well-groomed any more." I frequently straightened her dress in the back, for her maids work almost as hard ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mistake from the artistic point of view came in. To ask for twice your stipulated fee in a voice that Lazarus might have used when he rose from the dead, is absurd. Janoo, who is really a woman of masculine intellect, saw this ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... violence. He's got a perfect right under the law to organize this here new drill company you speak about. I sometimes think that ef all the young men in this country had been required to do a little more drillin' in years gone by we'd be feelin' somewhat safer to-day. Anyway, it's a mighty great mistake sometimes to make a martyr out of a rascal. Puttin' him in jail, unless you're absolutely certain that a jail is where he properly belongs, gives him a chance to raise the cry of persecution and gives his followers an excuse to cut ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts to do what they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty 'sumus omnes ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... mistake to suppose that the present generation frowns upon the literary achievements of the descriptive reporter who chronicles the great deeds of athletes, oarsmen, pugilists, and sportsmen generally. ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... keep petrol," said the Administrator shortly. "You've come here by mistake, no doubt. There's no petrol for sale in the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... "A mistake cannot be serious," said the Prince to himself, at the end of the review. "I will proceed upon the theory that the young ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own. This error was not discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing, when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat believed to be his was really Curtis's. Curtis told his story in a clear ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... cannot possibly improve our affairs, and will only unfit us for the performance of our duty, and increase our misery. Come, wipe away those glistening tears, my children, or they will freeze on your cheeks; for, if I mistake not, we are supposed to be somewhere about the sixtieth parallel of south latitude, and the thermometer somewhat below Zero. Come, see who will find the situation first. George, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... those of the Capitol—are thus trained every year in Le Morvan, without any one giving them a thought, and may be purchased, education included, for two shillings a piece. When these winged students are so thoroughly qualified for their duties, that they can go through their exercise without a mistake, and are considered worthy of taking the field, the peasant puts them into his bag, and setting off very early in the morning to one of the great ponds I have mentioned, conceals himself behind a thick tufty curtain of flags, from whence he can ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle |
