"Misread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before had excuse to believe his lordship possessed the diplomatic temperament. I reflected that I must always have misread him. He was deep, after all. Not until the two left did I learn that Belknap-Jackson awaited them with his car. He loitered about in adjacent doorways, quite like a hired fellow. He was passionately smoking more cigarettes than were good ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... shone over the rock when they approached it, they must have sailed fast to reach Prevesa, some thirty miles to the north, by seven o'clock. But de minimis, the Muse is as disregardful as the Law. And, perhaps, after all, it was Hobhouse who misread his log-book. (Travels in Albania, i. 4, 5; Murray's Handbook for Greece, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... be a mite surprised, Billy Louise," said her mother, with a flash of amused comprehension, "if you kinda misread Ward sometimes. Them eyes of his are pretty keen, and they see a whole lot; but they ain't easy to read, for all that. I guess Ward don't think it's anything surprising that you're getting along so well, Billy Louise. I surmise ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... at Boston I had not the courage to test the fact. I would not have liked to try a joke with one of them as I would at Queenstown, or as I would at Boston with an American. Their faces did not arraign me, but they forbade me. It was very curious, and I may have misread them." ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... until he learned to use that stubbornness in the right way it bade fair to plunge him into more difficulties than he could extricate himself from with profit. Even Agnes, reading that note, indignantly agreed with Bobby that he was being unjustly misread. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... fool!" Peter said to himself, and he felt an emotion like shame, a little real compunction that he could so utterly misread her innocence. He felt it not only wrong in him, but somehow ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... which D'Iberville gives in his Journal, is dated "Du Village des Quinipissas, le 20 Avril, 1685." Iberville identifies the Quinipissas with the Bayagoulas. The date of the letter was evidently misread, as Tonty's journey was in 1686. See "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West," 455, note. Iberville's lieutenant, Sugeres, commanding the "Marin," gives the date correctly. Journal de la Fregate le Marin, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... conversation would have any other effect than to stimulate the curiosity of his guests and confirm them in their determination to carry out their plans in their entirety, he very greatly over-estimated his persuasive powers, and completely misread the characters of those to whom he had been talking. For both Grosvenor and Maitland were of a highly adventurous disposition, and what Mitchell had told them had simply whetted their curiosity to a keen edge, and had strongly ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... a relief at Helen's absence from the office. He had never wanted her there and he was determined not to have her back. Last night she had entirely misread the reason back of his desire for an interview with Hilmer, and he had been moved to a nasty rancor. But now he felt tolerant, rather than displeased. Women were often like that, a bit unethical regarding money. In wheedling a check out of Hilmer she had used the easiest weapons a ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... "No, you haven't misread it; you've read every word as it was intended to be read. But it is a very different thing from what you suppose it ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... jurisdiction; for when Sin-magir complained to Hammurabi that Inuh-samar had impressed some of his servants for military service contrary to a bond given him by the king, Hammurabi referred the matter to Sin-iddinam, ordering the servant to be given up.(818) It was this name Inuh-samar that Scheil misread as Kudur-nuh-gamar. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... sergeant said. "I have learned that I have misread you. Had it not been so, I should have brought the child to you long ago—should never have taken her away, indeed. Perhaps we ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... and Arnold glanced from one to the other of them, first with a start then with a smile, at the recollection of Hilda's conception of their relations. If this were a type and instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... goodness; he had sneered at love in an essay, and his cold heart never rebelled against the doctrine of his clever brain; he wooed his notorious cousin for the sake of power, and then married Alice Barnham for money. Such was the theory, the most solid foundation of which was a humorous treatise,[4] misread and misapplied. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... 17 Previous editors have misread "Trevor" as "Treasurer." Thomas Trevor, Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, was created Baron Trevor, of Bromham, in January 1712. By commission of March 9, 1713, he occupied the woolsack during the illness of the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... him, "So far you are doing exactly what appears to me right," [Footnote: Id., p. 177.] and this was written after the receipt of Dana and Wilson's full dispatches of the 13th and 14th, as well as Burnside's of the 13th. [Footnote: Id., p. 138.] Yet so strangely was the same information misread by Halleck, that on the 16th he was telegraphing Grant that Burnside was hesitating whether to fight or retreat out of East Tennessee. "I fear he will not fight," he added, "although strongly urged to do so. Unless you can give him immediate assistance, he will ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the time a matter-duplicator receiver misread OCH{3}CH{3}OH, to turn out a magnificently busted blonde sphygmomano-raiser with an HOCH{3}OH replacement, putting a strain on the loyalty of a billion teen-age girls dedicated to Doyle Oglevie worship. Doyle-she insisted ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban
... whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even denied the crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed the accusing priest with something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but to Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart, which he twice misread! ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... misread the Act—as usual. He thinks it's retrospective, and that he needn't pay past debts. They may make trouble, but I fancy your Bank will ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... words fill me with rapture, showing me that I have not misread your noble mind; but speak a little lower—there are echoes in this hole. Now for the plans, for time is short, and you may be missed. When I am about to sail I will invite Mistress Margaret and yourself to come aboard ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... few days it had been too fine to last. The winds blew upon that swarm of boats, as if to clear the sea of them; and they began to disperse and flee, like an army put to rout, before the warning written in the air, beyond possibility to misread. Harder and harder it blew, making ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... in what licht ye stan' wi' ither fowk. It hauds ye ohn lippent ower muckle, an' sae dune things or made remarks 'at wad be misread till ye. Ye maun haud an open ro'd, 'at the trowth whan it comes oot may have free course. The ae thing 'at spites me is, 'at the verra fowk 'at was the first to spread yer ill report, 'ill be the first to wuss ye ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... She misread his meaning, of course, frowned charmingly and said, "I do hope you're right, Banny. Nellie Maynard had a few of us for tea this afternoon and Margot Henson, she's tremendously chic and her husband ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... that has been drawn upon both sides of the Senate. I am no alarmist; nor, I thank God, at the advanced age at which His providence has been pleased to allow me to reach, am I very easily alarmed by any human event; but I totally misread the signs of the times, if there be that state of profound peace and quiet, that absence of all just cause of apprehension of future danger to this confederacy, which appears to be entertained by some other senators. Mr. President, all the tendencies ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... step forward, his eyes gleaming, a faint flush glowing through the tan of his cheeks. Then he checked. Fool! How could he so have misread her meaning even for a moment? Were not its exact limits abundantly plain, even without the words which she added a ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... ask you first," said he, "to copy in order upon a fresh sheet each reference which you find marked with a red cross, so that the references may be all together. Be very exact, please, and very legible. German and French words are easily misread by the typist who will put this work finally into copy ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... brought the stellar science to its present state of disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically {FN16-1} and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect world. One should not dismiss the wisdom with ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... movement for a change of masters. To regard this struggle of the classes as one of revenge, of exploited masses ready to overturn the social structure that they may become exploiters instead of exploited, is to misread the whole movement. The political and economic conquest of society by the working class means the end of class divisions once and forever. A social democracy, a society in which all things essential ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... wounded boy dragged himself home, to suffer the suspicion and neglect of his guardian till death attested his good faith beyond cavil. He said this was the hardest thing to bear in all his story, and that he would like to have a look into the soul of the dull, unkind wretch who had so misread his charge. He was going on with an inquiry that pleased him much, when his wife pulled him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... hold of her again; he misread that smile, and said that he would come that night. 'What hour?' she asked, and he answered that he would come at midnight. She put her hand to her bosom and drew out the little crucifix they wear on a string. 'Swear on this that you will come to me at midnight,' she said, and he took it in his ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... everything she did seemed to have its source in feeling. An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he could hardly keep up with her; and her sensitiveness on some points was such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was with heart-sickness he perceived that, while her sentiments towards him were those of the frankest friendliness only, he loved her more than before becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk home lay not in the night overhead, but in the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a free woman; indeed, poor soul, she has always been. Marry her—take her away—and get to some quiet place where you will be unknown. You will be happy with her, or I have strangely misread her." ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... incongruity between the reader and what he read. His surprise changed to amusement as he noticed Drake's face betray his perplexity and observed him turn now and again to the title upon the cover as though doubtful whether he had not misread it. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... times." Insensibly he dropped into the tone of one pressing for payment. The Rector regarded him with brows drawn down and the angry light half-veiled, but awake in his eyes now and growing. Mr. Wright, looking up, read danger and misread it as threatening him. "Indeed, sir," he broke out, courageously enough, "I feel for you: I do, indeed. It seems strange enough to me to be standing here and asking you for such a thing. But when a man feels as I do t'ards Miss Hetty he don't know himself: he'll go and do that for ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... who had come to understand some of his moods, looked forward to an hour or two of continuous work on Brotherson's part and of dreary and impatient waiting on his own. But, as so many times before, he misread the man. Earlier than common—much earlier, in fact, Mr. Brotherson laid down his tools and gave himself up to a restless pacing of the floor. This was not usual with him. Nor did he often indulge himself in playing ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... committed errors of judgment or accidental errors. Errors of judgment when half-educated and not wholly intelligent copyists have thought it their duty to correct passages and words in the original which they could not understand.[71] Accidental errors when they misread while copying, or misheard while writing from dictation, or when they involuntarily made ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... lexicon out of the glossary to Speght's Chaucer, and such words as were marked with a capital O, standing for 'obsolete' in the Dictionaries of Kersey and Bailey. Now even had his authorities been well informed, which they were not by any means, and had Chatterton never misread or misunderstood them, which he very frequently did, it was impossible that his work should have been anything better than a mosaic of curious old words of every period and any dialect. Old English, Middle English, and Elizabethan English, South of England folk-words or Scots phrases taken ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... only natural for that young man to misread the situation and conceive that Mrs. Elvira Burton had succeeded in her object of arresting his friend. So he ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... words my heart beat and passion flamed up in me. Stretching out my hand I drew hers away and in the dying light gazed at the face beneath. Lo! on its loveliness there was a look which could not be misread. ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... amusement. It even gave her no feeling of remorse to think she was going to do what would be so painful to the good Colonel. He was dear to her—but it did not matter. She was past all that. Nothing mattered—nothing in the world! It amused her to believe that her Uncle and Aunt misread her last night's walk in the dark garden, misread her languor and serenity. And at the first moment possible she flew out, and slipped away under cover of the yew-trees towards the river. Passing the spot where her husband had dragged ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... brother-in-law; and last, as a friend with many interests in common. In the Speculative he spoke frequently, and read some papers. We recognised his brilliancy, and we delighted in his vivacity; but we misread the horoscope of his future. We voted him a light horseman, lacking two essentials for success—diligence and health. We wondered where he had got the deftness and rhythm of his style, not knowing that the labour out ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... sure," Betty hastened to say. A miracle had happened. She could read now in his eyes the appeal that she had always misread before. "But now I shall always be sure—always. And I'm going to be such a good daughter to you—you'll see—if you'll only forgive me. And you will forgive me. Oh, you don't know how I ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... at all hurt by Ethel's impassioned taunt, but rather amused, indulgently amused, that the girl should have so misread her. She felt more maternal, protective, and tender towards Ethel than she had ever felt since the first year of Ethel's existence. She seemed perfectly to comprehend, and she nobly excused, the sudden outbreak of violence and disrespect on the part of her languid, soft-eyed daughter. She thought ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... an hour too early, as I had misread the time of commencement, I found at the portal Mr. Burns, of the Progressive Library, and a gentleman with a diamond brooch in his shirt-front, whom I guessed at once, from that adornment, to be the proprietor of the indescribable phenomenon, and I was, in fact, immediately ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... mutely held out his hand for the paper, which he studied long and carefully, for even to his experienced eyes, the hastily scribbled words were hard to decipher. But when he had finished, all he said was, "You have misread the lines, Peace. Wait and I will get you the book from the library. Then you will ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the demands Bismarck finally made on German character were not in vain. For years, however, he was looked upon as an ogre in the eyes of the masses, who misread his patriotism for jingoism in behalf of the King ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... "You have somewhat misread me, sweetheart, in regard to your demeanour toward our host. 'Tis surely needless for you to put yourself to the pain of conversing ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... or rightly, I was still determined to put off opening it; and I raised my hands with the intention of making a last appeal to him. He misread the gesture, and retreating a step, with the greatest suddenness whipped out his sword, and in a moment had the point at my breast, and his ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Perhaps his union should have been emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for granted. But as the term passed ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... her, an angry light coming into his eyes. He misread her feelings. He had made love to married women before and had not ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... he longed mightily to admit that he was, but he lacked the courage to do so. He smiled feebly and shrugged, whereupon the former speaker misread his apparent indifference and ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... made him throw his horse back on his tracks. A sheer precipice fell away a thousand feet below him, and beetling cliffs cut off the sky above. Across the path trickled a little stream. And there in the stream, so clear they could not be misread, were the marks cut by a horse's ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... her own. Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew it to have been pride—pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for some strange sense of shame—some ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... vain the hopes of those who looked to the Revolution to develop public control of all natural resources! Already the State lands are parcelled out amongst the wealthy peasants, who as a result of this robbery will establish a great landed aristocracy, and, if I do not misread the signs, a similar fate is about to overtake the great State industries with the creation of ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... somewhat imperfectly; and the whole occurrence impressed Mr. Muller as an indication that God was once more leading him in the direction of Germany, for another season of labour in his native land. Much prayer deepened his persuasion that he had not misread God's signal, and that His time had now fully come. He records some of the motives ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... city],(87) nor diminished from the bushel. I have neither added to nor filched away land. I have not encroached upon the fields [of others]. I have not added to the weights of the scales [to cheat the seller]. I have not misread the pointer of the scales [to cheat the buyer]. I have not carried away the milk from the mouths of children. I have not driven away the cattle which were upon their pastures. I have not snared the feathered fowl of the preserves of the gods. I have not caught fish [with bait made of] ...
— Egyptian Literature
... emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order of the "high commandment,"—now against this enemy, now against that one,—first hate of English, then hate of Italians, now hate of Americans—it is natural that a high government functionary should despise all popular effervescence and misread its manifestations as merely the meretricious, bought noise of the mob, quickly roused in the Southern temperament and badly controlled by a weak, and probably corrupt, government. The elements in ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... which it places the foundation and secret of human life. Its limitations are that it still claims not only to persuade but to rule—a useful function toward some classes, but impossible toward other classes; that its pretension to infallibility obliges it to misread history; and that its foundation of dogma admits no frank and full reconciliation with ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... freedom in 1579. Neither is there any trace of him in the registers of St. Bridget's or St. Bride's, nor in the Subsidy Rolls, but in both places appear Gilbert Shepherd. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion that Halliwell-Phillipps misread "Shepherd" as "Shakespeare." See my article in the Athenaeum, Dec. 22, 1900, "John Shakespeare, of Ingon, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Clare continued his contributions, consisting, in this instance, of several pastorals and sonnets, among them some verses dedicated to Mrs. Emmerson. But, owing to Clare's rather illegible handwriting, Mr. Cunningham misread the address of these lines, which so much affected the poet that he wrote a long and curious note of explanation to Mrs. Emmerson, 'My dear Eliza,' the note ran: 'I got a letter from friend Cunningham yesterday, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin |
