"Astray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men, not one of us can be saved." We all wept for his weeping and I said to him, "O captain, tell us what it is the look-out saw." "O my lord," answered he, "know that we lost our way on the night of the storm and since then we have gone astray one-and-twenty days and there is no wind to bring us back to our true course. To-morrow, by the end of the day, we shall come to a mountain of black stone, called loadstone, for thither the currents bear us perforce. As soon as we come within a certain distance, all the nails in the ships ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... each winter suffer unto death for want of fuel; and here is this wealth of forest debris, the useless plaything of the river. But not only wreckage of this character is borne upon the flood. The thievish river has picked up valuable saw-logs that have run astray, lumber of many sorts, boxes, barrels—and now and then the body of a cow or horse that has tumbled to its death from some treacherous clay-cliff or rocky terrace. The beaches have been swept clean by the rushing flood, of whatever lay upon ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... confined great works to the Latin, and the faithless prejudices which, in the language of society, could see powers fitted for no higher task than that of expressing, in curiously diversified forms, its most ordinary feelings. But he did much more. Literature was going astray in its tone, while growing in importance; the Commedia checked it. The Provencal and Italian poetry was, with the exception of some pieces of political satire, almost exclusively amatory, in the most fantastic and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... on to deeds, the bare recital of which makes the blood run cold. Skilled in all the rules of human evidence, and versed in all the arts of cross-examination, these men, nevertheless, went systematically astray, and committed the deadliest wrongs against humanity. And why? Because they could not put Nature into the witness-box, and question her—of her voiceless 'testimony' they knew nothing. In all cases between man and man, their judgment was to be relied on; but in all cases between man ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... from Asia might defeat the de Tott's Battery attack and that the "Y" party might not scale the cliffs. The Turks are stronger down here than at Gaba Tepe. Still, I should doubt if they are in any great force; quite clearly the bulk of them have been led astray by our feints, and false rumours. Otherwise, had they even a regiment in close reserve, they must have eaten up the S.W.B. as they ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... continually imagined a spacious, quiet, and dimly lit room, very calm, very elegant, faintly scented with flowers; she continually visualized two figures near together, talking quietly, earnestly, confidentially. Why had she allowed Jennings to lead her astray? She might have been in that spacious room, too, if she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... better judge of military defences than Pennant; but he evidently forms his notions of defence with imperfect knowledge of the forts, which would have amply sufficed for the warfare of the ancient Britons; and moreover, he was one of those led astray by Bryant's crotchets as to "High places," etc. What appears most probable is, that the place was both carn and fort; that the strength of the place, and the convenience of stones, suggested the surrounding the narrow area of the central sepulchre ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit with virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been lead astray by ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... them. [Sidenote: Their abstinence] There are neither theeues nor robbers of great riches to be found, and therefore the tabernacles and cartes of them that haue any treasures are not strengthened with lockes or barres. If any beast goe astray, the finder thereof either lets it goe, or driueth it to them that are put in office for the same purpose, at whose handes the owner of the said beast demaundeth it, and without any difficultie receiueth it againe. [Sidenote: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... received from a chemist, would be as useless and unintelligible as though it were written in Chinese; while, if a chemist who knew nothing of farming, were to give him advice concerning the application of manures, he would be led equally astray, and his course would be any thing but practical. It is necessary that chemical and practical knowledge should be combined, and then the value of analysis will be fully demonstrated. The amount of knowledge required ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... sanctuary. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, No stranger uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into my sanctuary; none, of all that are among the children of Israel. But the Levites who went away far from me when Israel went astray from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity, and they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, officers at the gates of the house and ministers of the house; they shall slay for the people the burnt-offering and the thank-offering, and they shall stand before them to minister unto ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... says, last Tuesday? Believe me, my dear sir, when I say that I cannot express my deep gratitude in words sufficiently for your kindness to me on that fearful and appalling day. Will you tell me what I can do for you, and will you write me a consoling letter to prevent my mind from going astray? ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... wind came on them with it, and the noise of the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm came sweeping down; the way the children of Lir were scattered over the great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and when she took notice that her brothers ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... find it necessary to rid themselves of an inconvenient agent who is in the enemy's territory. The 'service' itself denounces him, voluntarily making a stupid move in order that some documents may go astray, sending a compromising card with a false address in order that it may fall into the hands of the authorities of the country. What shall I do if you do not aid me?... Where can ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... wounded in the hand, otherwise it comes to nothing. And you have searched, and have found something else. It's dangerous, very dangerous, Monsieur Fred, to go from a preconceived idea to find the proofs to fit it. That method may lead you far astray Beware of judicial error, Monsieur Fred, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... brother, with gross transgressions of plain moralities; I know nothing about that. I know this: 'As face answereth to face in a glass,' so doth the heart of man to man, and I bring this message, verified to me by my own consciousness, that we have all gone astray, and 'wounds and bruises and putrefying sores' mark us all. If the best of us could see himself for once, in the light of God, as the worst of us will see himself one day, the cry would come from the purest lips, 'Oh! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... tore the curtains yesterday, And scratched the paper on the wall; Ma's rubbers, too, have gone astray— She says she left them in the hall; He tugged the table cloth and broke A fancy saucer and a cup; Though Bud and I think it a joke Ma scolds ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... between one brother who meant no unkindness, and another who was all affection and goodwill, this undoubting woman created difference, distrust, dislike, which might one day possibly lead to open rupture. The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fall upon us, or a little breeze spring up, or we would find the land descending to the bed of a stream. At length our miner, who had been for the last part of the way looking and listening with the closest attention, struck almost directly to the spot, hardly a step astray. It was all below the surface of the earth, so that hardly any sound rose above; and there was no sign of any path to it, not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass near, but an amphitheatre of rock, and the beautiful white river, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... stand Alfie," said Susan to Billy in strong disgust. "But it does make me sick to have Auntie blaming his employers for firing him, and calling him a dear unfortunate boy! She said to me to-day that the other clerks were always jealous of Alfie, and tried to lead him astray! Did you ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... great friend of mine," declared Cora. "I feel we would all have gone astray but for him. We girls ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... thrice sailed to Ch'u; Four times through Ch'in my lean horse has passed. I have walked in the morning with hunger in my face; I have lain at night with a soul that could not rest. East and West I have wandered without pause, Hither and thither like a cloud astray in the sky. In the civil-war my old home was destroyed; Of my flesh and blood many are scattered and lost. North of the River, and South of the River— In both lands are the friends of all my life; Life-friends whom I never see at all,— Whose deaths I hear of only after the lapse of years. Sad ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... neighbours kind; Averse to vanity, revenge, and pride; In all the methods of deceit untried; So faithful to her friend, and good to all, No censure might upon her actions fall: Then would e'en envy be compelled to say She goes the least of womankind astray. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Hence, when the crisis came I was not unprepared to decide for myself, without prejudice or passion, where the path of duty lay, yet not without some feeling of indulgence toward my brother officers of the army who, as I believed, were led by the influence of others so far astray. I took an early occasion to inform General Scott of my readiness to relinquish my leave of absence and return to duty whenever my services might be required, and I had the high honor of not being requested to ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... le Diable,' but carried away with me no real impression beyond that of being stunned. This took place just at the time when I abandoned a path which had been contrary to my truer nature, and had led me astray, and on which I now emphatically turned my back in silent bitterness. I was therefore in no fitting mood for a just appreciation of this prodigy, who at that time was shining in the blazing light of day, but from whom I had turned my face to ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... in the woods, who have such a fancy for little boys that, should they find one astray too close to their den, they would hug him, and hug him, till there would not be enough breath left in his body to carry him home. So he stays just there; and when he is found, if ever he is found at all, the grass and the weeds and the dead ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... seem, they succeeded in giving such efficacy to the idea, that no less a person than Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was led astray by it, so that she set her cool, wise head to work and invented a costume, which she believed would emancipate woman from thraldom. Her invention was adopted by her friend Mrs. Bloomer, editor and proprietor of the Lily, a small paper then in infancy in ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... prophecies and to the royal power), and straightway without any hesitation he assented, and bade his child arrange that on the following day he himself should come to confer with Antonina and give pledges. When Antonina learned the mind of John, she wished to lead him as far as possible astray from the understanding of the truth, so she said that for the present it was inadvisable that he should meet her, for fear lest some suspicion should arise strong enough to prevent proceedings; but she was intending straightway to depart for the East to join Belisarius. ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... it not be unreasonable to assume that vital phenomena on other planets must be subject to exactly the same limitations that we find circumscribing them in our world? That kind of assumption has more than once led us far astray even in dealing with ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... opinions more correct. They have all the authors on these subjects, united with much experience, which no European country can have had. This has enabled our statesmen to correct many of the theories which lead astray European writers. ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... century, when everybody ceremoniously took a bushel-basket to bring a wren's egg to market in, is only too sadly familiar. It is clear that his natural taste led Dryden to prefer directness and simplicity of style. If he was too often tempted astray by Artifice, his love of Nature betrays itself in many an almost passionate outbreak of angry remorse. Addison tells us that he took particular delight in the reading of our old English ballads. What he valued above all things was Force, though in his haste he is willing to make a shift ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... The golden-haired lady Does not want to sing, But the old man will have it. The lady is singing A song low and tender, 510 It sounds like the breeze On a soft summer evening In velvety grasses Astray, like spring raindrops That kiss the young leaves, And it soothes the Pomyeshchick. The feeble old man: He is falling asleep now.... And gently they carry him Down to the water, 520 And into the boat, And he lies there, still sleeping. Above him stands, holding A big green umbrella, The faithful ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Instead of going into the woods, where Mollie had pursued her will-o'-the-wisp, he turned in the opposite direction. It did not dawn on him that she had been led astray by a forgotten ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... three more, the clue of my labyrinth: nobody else should be conscious of its entrance. Full of such agreeable dreams, I rambled about the meads, scarcely knowing which way I was going; sometimes a spangled fly led me astray, and, oftener, my own strange fancies. Between both, I was perfectly bewildered, and should never have found my boat again, had not an old German naturalist, who was collecting fossils on the cliffs, directed me ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... while battues were in progress, and guns were sounding daily at no very great distance, he walked me about the park, declaring that modern castles which stood for nothing but the slaughter of half-tame birds were examples of a civilization completely gone astray. In order that I might see what, shorn of its earlier eccentricities, was his personal ideal of a reasonably ordered life, he asked me to stay with him for a week at his own home, Ashley Arnewood, in Hampshire, on the borders of New Forest. In due time I went. His ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... and hung so low down upon the water that at last the boats had to proceed very slowly, a rope being paid out from one to the other, so that there should be no mistake, otherwise it was quite within the range of possibility that one or the other would go astray, and be wanting at some critical time. A similar plan was carried out with the sampan, during the latter part of the journey, for it was often invisible; and so at last they felt their way onward in silence, till the Malay allowed his sampan to drift alongside the bows ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... looking on the barren ocean, shedding tears."—Dr. Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang., Vol. ii, p. 162. Compounds of this kind, in most instances, follow verbs, and are consequently reckoned adverbs; as, To go astray,—To turn aside,—To soar aloft,—To fall asleep. But sometimes the antecedent term is a noun or a pronoun, and then they are as clearly adjectives; as, "Imagination is like to work better upon sleeping men, than ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... carracas. Poner a monte is not given in the Spanish dictionaries, and is apparently a sea phrase identical with the Portuguese "por um navio a monte," to beach or ground a vessel. The translator went entirely astray in this passage. See Thacher's Columbus, II. 388. The figure here given and the use of word pasos, normally, a land measure of length, instead of braza, "fathom," would seem to indicate that the 65 paces refers to the extent of ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... words. "Thou hast kept thy promise! Thou hast watched over me in the fight with Tandakora, and thou hast given me the victory! Thou hast sent all his arrows astray and thou hast sent mine aright! I thank thee, ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... attendance at my classes and lectures, fairly regular in my letter- writing home. I acquired no vices, though there were plenty to be got, was not a wine-bibber, a spendthrift, nor a rake. I was too snug in the Casa Lanfranchi to be tempted astray, and any truantry of mine from the round of my tasks led me back to Aurelia and love. To beat up the low quarters of the town, to ruffle in the taverns and chocolate houses with sham gentlemen, half frocked abbes and rips; to brawl and haggle with vile persons and their bullies, set ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... and feared the powers of evil, as did the Greeks and all other early races. Very much of their primitive belief has been kept, so that to Scotch, Irish, and Welsh peasantry brooks, hills, dales, and rocks abound in tiny supernatural beings, who may work them good or evil, lead them astray by flickering lights, or charm them into seven years' servitude unless they are ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... heads of the State. That at the time of the Luxemburg question, during the crisis of 1875, invented by Gortchakoff and France, and even down to the most recent times, the staff and its leaders have allowed themselves to be led astray and to endanger peace, lies in the very spirit of the institution, which I would not forego. It only becomes dangerous under a monarch whose policy lacks sense of proportion and power to resist ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the Inca religion a "sun worship" have been led astray by superficial resemblances. One of the best early authorities, Christoval de Molina, repeats with emphasis the statement, "They did not recognize the Sun as their Creator, but as created by the Creator," and this creator was "not born of woman, but was unchangeable and eternal."[1] ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... specially affected by the rebellion—St Laurent, Batoche, and Duck Lake—in a collective letter dated March 12, 1885, denounced in the strongest language 'the miscreant Louis David Riel' who had led astray their people. The venerable bishop of St Albert, while pleading for Riel's dupes, had no word of pity for the 'miserable individual' himself. Under date July 11, 1885, the bishop writes thus ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... he cried aloud. "This Grand Constable is the devil himself! My lord, I was led astray; my lord, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... needle of his nature urged him forward, straight along a narrow valley lane that ambled between mildewed fences and their inclosed fields; between untouched walls of wild-grape, red-bud and blossoming dog-wood; and he knew that his intuition was not sending him astray. This sweet-smelling road was now making another turn which ushered him directly upon a frame schoolhouse, set slightly back in a grove of trees. Quickly, he brought the old mare ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... my estimate, and you know it. I think you so much a man that your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has led you very far astray." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... flourishing. It was like those men with a smiling face, a calm and cold icy exterior, but who nurse violent passions and bitter animosities. The police at that time was under the control of a minister who was young and active, but who was often led astray; just as greyhounds, who, when almost overrunning their quarry, catch a glimpse of other prey. The multiplied and contradictory devices of the factions, therefore, led the police and its agents into difficulties ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... (new style). And these were Milton's. Their unlikeness to other work of his lies in their likeness to a form of literature which was but fashion of the day, and having travelled out of sight of its old starting-point and forgotten where its true goal lay, had gone astray, and often by idolatry ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... events of his life be of a varied character, and worth communicating to others, or to the world, the hero's later connexions are usually totally separated from those with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual has outsailed, or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage. This hackneyed comparison holds good in another point. The numerous vessels of so many different sorts, and destined for such different purposes, which are launched in the same mighty ocean, although each endeavours to pursue its own course, are in every ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth. Whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray among our mists and vapours, and was seeking his way back again. It was very pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud, and be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth from the other side. Or, in a sullen rain storm, when there ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... O friend of mine Let us walk our little way, Knowing by each beckoning sign That we are not quite astray. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... court were enraged at this failure of their effort. Even their own police officers had proved untrue. "Are ye also deceived or led astray?" they cry in anger. Then they ask, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this multitude which knoweth not the law, are accursed." They would have it that only the ignorant masses had been led away by this delusion; none of the great men, the wise men, had ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... excellent sport." "You heard," said Oberon, "that Demetrius and Lysander are gone to seek a convenient place to fight in. I command you to overhang the night with a thick fog, and lead these quarrelsome lovers so astray in the dark, that they shall not be able to find each other. Counterfeit each of their voices to the other, and with bitter taunts provoke them to follow you, while they think it is their rival's tongue they hear. See you do this, till they are so weary they can go no ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "does the soul light on the truth? for, when it attempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plain that it is then led astray by it." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... this time—but will speak low. I wish to ask my honourable friend [Mr. Hazen] if, after the administration changed in 1837, the government had the cordial cooperation of the heads of departments? No! There has been a counter-working going on—a constant endeavour to lead the government astray and place them in a wrong position, and my generous-hearted friend [Mr. Hazen] has to come down to this House and defend them. It is a political fact, that previous to 1841 the heads of departments in this province were in ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... popularity increased she turned to him more frequently for advice, for success only rendered her cautious; and day by day she weighed more carefully all that fell from her pen, dreading lest some error should creep into her writings and lead others astray. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... other people; only, he is a clever baby who exaggerates his own helplessness in order to appeal to women. He has a taste for women. And women naturally like him, for he impresses them as an irresponsible child astray in an artful and designing world. They want to protect him. Even I do, at times. It is really maternal, you know; we would infinitely prefer for him to be soft and little, so that we could pick him up, and cuddle him. But as ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... would not correct or discipline them, and would do nothing but love them. But this love has proved the great magnet which has held the family together in a marvelous way. Not one of those children has gone astray. They have all grown up manly and womanly, and love has been wonderfully developed in their natures. Their own affection responded to the mother's love and has become their strongest motive. To-day all her children look upon "Mother" as the grandest figure in the world. She has brought ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 'and he was the more easy to be led astray because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the difference? You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... old woman, her two hands on him, "will ye not be stopping in this night, this devil's night? It's nae hogs that's taking ye trakin' weary miles this very night, and fine ye ken the hogs are weel, but ye're just leadin' the young lad astray efter some quean that'll be stickin' tae him like the buttons ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... on Christian behaviour called Pedagogus, and eight books of Stromata, or collections, which he wrote to describe the perfect Christian or Gnostic, to furnish the believer with a model for his imitation, and to save him from being led astray by the sects of Gnostics "falsely so called." By his advice, and by the imitation of Christ, the Christian is to step forward from faith, through love, to knowledge; from being a slave, he is to become a faithful servant and then ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... "translated 'Don Quixote' without understanding Spanish." He has been also charged with borrowing from Shelton, whom he disparaged. It is true that in a few difficult or obscure passages he has followed Shelton, and gone astray with him; but for one case of this sort, there are fifty where he is right and Shelton wrong. As for Pope's dictum, anyone who examines Jervas's version carefully, side by side with the original, will see that he was a sound Spanish scholar, incomparably a better one ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nothing certain yet. Think, I beg you, how many chances God scatters in this world, and how to turn a corner, to pause a moment, may change the face of destiny. A breath, a wind, the escape of a jet of steam, a valve astray, a jagged rock in the ocean, the murmur of a voice, a handshake—anything the least in this world may cause the greatest revolution in this world. No, you ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... none but a mother can tell you, sir, how a mother's heart will ache With the sorrow that comes of a sinning child, with grief for a lost one's sake, When she knows the feet she trained to walk have gone so far astray, And the lips grown bold with curses that she taught to sing and pray! A child may fear, a wife may weep, but of all sad things none other Seems half so sorrowful to me ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... carry out the purpose of his will.... If you are determined to hold the estate, I think you ought to make it profitable. As to the means of doing so, you must decide for yourself. I am unable to do it for you, and might lead you astray. Therefore, while always willing to give you any advice in my power, in whatever you do you must feel that the whole responsibility rests with you.... I wish, my dear son, I could be of some advantage to you, but I can only give you my love and earnest prayers, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... knowing him neither as Dick Benham, nor as the successful composer (because his authorship of the musical comedy has been kept a secret from her), but only as a poor struggling musician. Poor Dick's affections are temporarily led astray by the mercenary seductions of the leading lady in his opera, who has learned the secret of his true identity and vast wealth, and means to marry him under the cloak of disinterested affection. He gets bad advice ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... well as in Great Britain and other foreign countries. Every home, especially of the poor and uneducated is to be visited. It would therefore be the part of wisdom to give a timely word of warning. This is a time to cry aloud and spare not, lest many be led astray by these pernicious teachings.'" ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... said Larry. 'It would not be so was he PRISINT. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour's a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whisky, more than the quality, or the judge ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... hours ago my cousin was killed by one of his own men. I am sending back to you a boy who had been led astray by him, and it would be a great service to me if you would give him something to do till I return. His name is Hugh Rogers. I think if you trust him he will prove worthy ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... not a bad fellow at all. He's always with Silverbridge. When Silverbridge does what Tregear tells him, he goes along pretty straight. But unfortunately there's another man called Tifto, and when Tifto is in the ascendant then Silverbridge is apt to get a little astray." ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... was steep, and there were dangerous places in the rugged wall of rock; but he knew a good path, and the goats were so sensible and did not easily go astray. He began to climb and all his goats gayly clambered after him, some in front, some behind him, little Maggerli always quite close to him; occasionally he held her fast and pulled her along with him, when he came to a very ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... my clumsy speech so fall astray, To uncouth jargon of the every-day Turn each fit word and phrase I treasured for ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... the great grief of hearing that in consequence of her son's recent insubordination, his removal from the college at Rennes had become inevitable. One of his aunts accordingly brought him back to Tours, where removed from the influence which had led him astray, he quickly reformed. To complete his mother's obligations to Father de la Haye, that good religious charged himself with the boy's future education, and with that object took him to Orleans, where under his own immediate direction the child continued ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... is the only course left to thee—thou wert led astray, but thou art not hardened. Thy heart is right still, as ever it was when, in thy most ambitious hopes thou wert never ashamed of thy ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was lying abed in the Crawford House when the voice of Zonotrichia albicollis sent my thoughts thus astray, from Moosilauke to Delphi. That day and the two following were passed in roaming about the woods near the hotel. The pretty painted trillium was in blossom, as was also the dark purple species, and the hobble-bush ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the sorry men that make The wise books of our day! They cannot smile athwart a cloud, When black thoughts lead astray; They cannot add a simple sum, But talk like drunken men, And shut their eyes to keep out God When spring comes ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... full of trial. Those who do such things are fainthearted, and fail in trust in Him who fixed their station, and finds room for them to deny themselves in the trivial round and common task. It is pleasure involving no duty that should be given up, if we find it liable to lead us astray.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... requires that sinless obedience begin at the beginning of his existence, and never be interrupted. But no man thus begins, and no man thus continues. "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies" (Ps. lviii. 3). Man comes into the world a sinful and alienated creature. He is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. ii. 3). Instead of beginning life with holiness, he begins it with sin. His heart at birth ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Discovery Made Too Late in 1794. Could anybody, not knowing the dates, have believed that these three poems last-named, if not written before the Joan of Arc, were contemporaneous with it? In the Joan of Arc Coleridge is immature and led astray by politics, religion, and philosophy, but in the three little poems where he has subjects akin to him he is perfect, and could have done nothing better ten years later. Still more remarkable, Lewti, in its earliest form, cannot have been written later than 1794, for it was ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... "there's a second letter astray; I'm certain they put my letters astray on purpose. There's a plot in the post-office against me; by this and that, I'll have an inquiry. I wish all the post-offices in the world were blown up; and all the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... to cheer. Oh, stay! sweet Love's companion, ever stay! And let us hope with love upon our way! We reck not if a phantom thou hast been, And we repent that we have ever seen Thy light on earth to lead us far astray; Forever stay! ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... at his best—that of a noble spirit brooding over a world which in spite of many condemnations he deeply, somberly loves. Something peasantlike in his genius may blind him a little to the finer shades of character and set him astray in his reports of cultivated society. His conscience about telling the plain truth may suffer at times from a dogmatic tolerance which refuses to draw lines between good and evil or between beautiful and ugly or between wise and foolish. But he gains, on the whole, ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... well-to-do man. I do not think he was a very reputable man, though he was my father's great friend and boon companion. My mother, usually so hard on men who drank ever so little, and, as she said, led my father astray, would never blame Dick Stanton. It was for my sake he did it, she said, and I don't know now whether she was right or not; he sold out and went to England thirty years ago, and I have never heard of him since. But I ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... whirled me away To a Limbo, lying—I wist not where— Above or below, in earth or air; For it glimmered o'er with a doubtful light, One couldn't say whether 'twas day or night; And 'twas crost by many a mazy track, One didn't know how to get on or back; And I felt like a needle that's going astray (With its one eye out) thro' a bundle of hay; When the Spirit he grinned, and whispered me, "Thou'rt now in the Court ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and He has said, in His word, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." On the other hand, there is the "Father of lies." He who tempted the first woman, and led her astray, and taught her to lead the man wrong. This evil one is whispering in your ear—"There is no hope." "It is too late." "Better have a short life and a ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chantress, oft the woods among I woo to hear thy even-song; And missing thee I walk unseen, On the dry, smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that has been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... later, Dick took his departure, moving straight for the town they had seen earlier in the night. He knew nothing of the trails, but trusted to luck not to go astray. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... were at his side in a moment, and, sure enough, Harry had found a nest in the bottom of the hedge worth finding, for it was the nest of one of the hens, which had been laying astray till there were fifteen eggs collected together, from which the old truant no doubt meant to have a fine brood of chickens; and perhaps would have done ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... same light as an engagement to walk or dine, namely, as being subject to the weather or to a prior obligation of the same sort. Bernie was too much a gentleman to urge her into any step for which she was not ready, so he merely sighed when he saw his plans go astray, albeit confessing to moments of dismay as he foresaw himself growing old in the second-hand business. But a change had occurred lately, and although no word had passed between brother and sister, the melancholy little bachelor had been highly gratified at certain indications he had marked. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... new experience for the Honourable Hilary to go into a business meeting with his faculties astray. Absently he rang the stable bell, surrendered his horse, and followed a footman to the retired part of the house occupied by the railroad president. Entering the oak-bound sanctum, he crossed it and took a seat by the window, merely nodding to Mr. Flint, who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... when we enter at noon into a grotto too gloomy and too cold.... And since,—since, on account of all that, I have often no longer understood thee.... I observed thee, thou went there, listless perhaps, but with the strange, astray look of one awaiting ever a great trouble, in the sunlight, in a beautiful garden.... I cannot explain.... But I was sad to see thee so; for thou art too young and too beautiful to live already day and night under the breath of death.... But now all that will change. ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... roads which few are called upon to tread—dark roads with mud and stones and many turnings, and each has a separate road to tread and must find the way alone. But if Fate is kind they may meet at the end without having gone astray, or, which is rarer, without being spattered by the mud. For those mud-stains will never rub off and never be forgotten. Which is a hard saying, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... France keeps up the farce by sending out Baron Dieskau with three thousand soldiers and Admiral La Motte with eighteen ships. Coasting off Newfoundland, the English encounter three of the French ships that have gone astray in the fog. "Is it peace or war?" shout the French across decks. "Peace," answers a voice from the English deck; and instantaneously a hurricane cannonade rakes the decks of the French, killing eighty. Two of the French ships surrendered. The other escaped through ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... for pattern take, Then leave wife, wealth, home, all for His dear sake!' Alas, that love of thine, now weak and poor, Glows yet within my breast—and shall endure; Ah, must the dawn of this my perfect day Find thy full light beclouded, dimmed, astray? ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... "Testament of Cressid" (and in a sense even with Shakespere's drama on the theme of Chaucer's poem), may be said to belong to the second cycle of modern versions of the tale of Troy divine. Already their earlier predecessors had gone far astray from Homer, of whom they only know by hearsay, relying for their facts on late Latin epitomes, which freely mutilated and perverted the Homeric narrative in favour of the Trojans—the supposed ancestors of half the nations of Europe. Accordingly, Chaucer, in a well-known passage in ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... wandering in eccentric and contradictory courses, accelerated his fate, by rendering the work of the tracking party so much more tedious and difficult. Had he, on finding how absolutely he was astray, remained at the first water he reached, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Warren Lockwood led me astray," he smiled. He dried his face and came toward her. She dropped to the floor beside him as he sat down and pressed her cheeks against his knees. His hands moved tenderly ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... a piece of flannel dipped in spirit, which he first held in front of the stove to warm; Maitre Antoine, meanwhile, attending to the navigation of the lugger and guarding lest she should run upon the Casquettes, or get led astray out of her course by Alderney Race, a current of these regions which, like the Saint Malo stream, is not to be played with when the ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... two years before approved of their separation from Lord Shelburne, which many Whig critics have censured, so he now equally approved of their coalition with their old adversary, Lord North, which Whig critics have censured more severely still. But his sanguine forecast was far astray. Burke never again returned to office, and the whole conversation reads strangely in the light of subsequent events. Only a few years more and Burke had himself shaken off his friends—from no view to power, it is true—and the young nobleman to whom he gave the advice in jest was to take ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... get from moths or beetles. Yet now that it is too late I wish that I had asked the lady Merapi what her will was in this matter. You should have thought of that, Ana, instead of suffering your mind to be led astray by an insect sitting on his hand, which is just what he meant that you should do. Well, in punishment, day by day it shall be your lot to look upon a man with a ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... myself to you I had been engaged by Professor Beecher through a friend to guide him into the Copan valley, where he wants to make some explorations, for what I know not, save maybe that it is for gold. I agreed, in case any rival expeditions came to lead them astray if I could. ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... too much, even from a man whose wits were astray. I began to lose patience, and was preparing to rid myself somewhat roughly of the madman's grasp, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... long digression, My pen has carried me astray; These schoolboy days make an impression From which ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... money. Whatever I had felt in the few days of the sea-passage was all forgotten now. I did not even worry about not knowing the language. It would keep me from loitering to chatter. My schoolboy French would probably be enough for all purposes if I vent astray. I was "to avoid chance acquaintances, particularly if they spoke English." That was my last order. Repeating it to myself I ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... the mode of bringing them up is strange: they are not sufficiently guarded from temptation. Girls are protected as if they were something very frail or silly indeed, while boys are turned loose on the world, as if they, of all beings in existence, were the wisest and least liable to be led astray. I am glad you like Broomsgrove, though, I dare say, there are few places you would not like, with Mrs. M. for a companion. I always feel a peculiar satisfaction when I hear of your enjoying yourself, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... beautiful, so that the Court bowed deeper than ever. And the King chose her for his bride, although the archbishop shook his head and whispered that the beauteous fresh maid was certainly a witch, who blinded the eyes and led astray ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... heritable Kurfurst of Brandenburg as well as King of Bohemia, was as yet only seventeen, who nevertheless got to be Kaiser, [1378, on his Father's death.]—and went widely astray, poor soul. The Nephew was no other than Margrave Jobst of Moravia (son of Maultasche's late Nullity there), now in the vigor of his years and a stirring man: to him, for a time, the chief management in Brandenburg fell, in these circumstances. Wenzel, still a minor, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... woodsmen themselves are not free from this panic when some accident has thrown them out of their reckoning. Fright unsettles the judgment: the oppressive silence of the woods is a vacuum in which the mind goes astray. It's a hollow sham, this pantheism, I said; being "one with Nature" is all humbug: I should like to see somebody. Man, to be sure, is of very little account, and soon gets beyond his depth; but the society of the least human being is better than this gigantic indifference. The "rapture ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to say, "I want you every day," but he merely held out his hand for the letter, and looked at it as if he could not account for its having gone astray. ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged. If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... who started out very well, but went badly astray after the vote on the Railroad Regulation bills. Like Burnett, Hurd showed signs toward the end of the session of feeling himself in uncongenial company. There is reason to believe that Hurd at the next session will be found voting with the ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... semblaunt he did beare, 100 The true Saint George, was wandred far away, Still flying from his thoughts and gealous feare; Will was his guide, and griefe led him astray. At last him chaunst to meete upon the way A faithless Sarazin[*] all arm'd to point, 105 In whose great shield was writ with letters gay Sans foy: full large of limbe and every joint He was, and cared not for God or ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser |
