"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... above were much larger than they had seemed from the sub. Twice, as he climbed over them, Dave's foot slipped and each time his heart was in his mouth. One stumbling misstep and all might be over for him. But he had the clear, cool head of a clean boy who had lived right, and an appreciation of the joy of living, which would take him far and keep him safe through many an adventure. So, safely, they reached the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... vanities and strove to please all parties; and—what is far more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives and ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... of the thigh bone which enters into the socket of the pelvic bone and forms the hip joint. It occurs most commonly in aged people as a result of so slight an accident as tripping on a rug, or in falling on the floor from the standing position, making a misstep, or while attempting to avoid a fall. When the accident has occurred the patient is unable to rise or walk, and suffers pain in the hip joint. When he has been helped to bed it will be seen that the foot of the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... over the rail again, watching and listening, he began to realize that the work was indeed hard, that there was some excuse for Tankred's ill-temper. Most men, he acknowledged, would feel the strain, where one misstep or one small mistake might undo the work of months. Beyond that, however, Blake found little about which to concern himself. Whether it was legal or illegal did not enter his mind. That a few thousand tin-sworded soldiers should go armed ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... on!"—burst from all sides. Three solitary ones, among them Ellen Williams, turned back, and the others formed into file and moved onward. Down Mount Franklin and over the narrow path cut in the cragged side of Monroe, where a single misstep would hurl the horse and rider down a fathomless abyss, into whose depths the eye dares hardly for a moment gaze. Then appeared a crystal lakelet, and a little plain covered with a seedy-looking grass, where the horses rested and refreshed themselves ere the last desperate trial of their ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the palace of Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it with his tongue,—it was salt! And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... were not—very serious," she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... country town, and clattered through its one street to the jail. To the negro, at least, it was a welcome moment, for, with his feet tied under the horse, his hands tied behind his back, and a rope with a slip-knot round his neck, he had not found the ride a pleasant one. A misstep of his horse would surely have precipitated his hanging, and he knew well that such an accident would have given much satisfaction to his captors. So he uttered a fervent "Teng Gawd!" as he was hustled into the jail gate and ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... I swore aloud; but what I meant by it was more like praying. Over me was the blue winter sky and the gold sun; under me the treacherous spread of the lake that was no lake, that one misstep might send me through, to God knew what hideous depth of unfrozen water, or bare, bone-shattering stone; behind me were Macartney and Macartney's men; and close up to me, nearer every second, my Paulette, my dream girl who had never been ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... to climb the Matterhorn many paths lead up the lower slopes, and a stumble here may cost you only a sprain. And I suppose that several paths lead to the base of the cone. But thence to the summit there is but one path, and a misstep means death. Pardon these quotations and illustrations. They are my only means of at all adequately presenting to you a scientific man's conception of the meaning of the struggle for life. The laws of evolution are written in blood and bear the ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... dim path, winding between stones and boulders, over which the walking was quite difficult, especially as the path led up hills that were small mountains, and then down steep and abrupt slopes where any misstep might mean a broken leg. Therefore it was the second day of their journey before they climbed halfway up a rugged mountain and found themselves at the entrance of the ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... veritable mare's nest. Making the most of his opportunity, he gathered one of the pumpkins in his arms and went on his way. A pumpkin is an exceedingly awkward thing to carry, and the Irishman had not gone far before he made a misstep, and stumbled. The pumpkin fell to the ground, rolled down the hill into a "brush—heap," and, striking against a stump, was broken. The story continues in the dialect: "W'en de punkin roll in de bresh—heap, out jump a rabbit; en soon's de I'shmuns see dat, he take ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... holding the two eagles tied and balanced across the saddle, allowed Keno to pick his own way along the trail. The sagacious animal seemed to know every foot of the path; even in the gloom of night he made no misstep. Sherwood and Tom followed close, the latter carrying ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... followed her as she moved but she waved a limp forbiddal, prattling on: "This doesn't mean he's dead, you know. Oh, not at all! It means just the contrary! Why, I saw him alive last night, in a dream, and I can't believe anything else, and I won't! No, no, not yet!" At that word she made a misstep and as she started sharply to recover it the things she carried fell breaking and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... say. She got better lookin' all the time, but she was as steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly didn't seem to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... been subjected, and from loss of the blood which flowed from his wounds; yet he was slowly mastering the foaming brutes, who themselves were torn and bleeding and exhausted. Weaker and weaker became the struggles of them all, when a sudden misstep sent Bulan stumbling headforemost against the stem of a tree, where, stunned, he sank unconscious, at the mercy of ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the spine is not always fatal, and notwithstanding the lay-idea that a broken back means certain death, patients with well-authenticated cases of vertebral fracture have recovered. Warren records the case of a woman of sixty who, while carrying a clothes-basket, made a misstep and fell 14 feet, the basket of wet clothes striking the right shoulder, chest, and neck. There was fracture of the 4th dorsal vertebra at the transverse processes. By seizing the spinous process it could be bent backward ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... journey was not done, by any means. The road grew worse still, as if the rain here had been harder. Making a misstep, down slipped Charley's horse from the trail, over the edge of a clay bank, and landed on his side twenty feet below. Charley sprawled on his face in ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... weeks after the 19th of October, 1846, the forlorn band moved slowly on their course through those terrible mountains. Sometimes climbing steeps which the foot of white man had never before scaled, sometimes descending yawning caons, where a single misstep would have plunged them into the abyss hundreds of feet below. The winter fairly commenced in October. The snow was piled up by the winds into drifts in some places forty feet deep, through which they had to burrow ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... left Italy in the fifth year to make a campaign against Greece, not long afterward met his death in Argos. A woman, as the story runs, being eager to catch a sight of him from the roof as he passed by, made a misstep and falling upon him killed him. The same year Fabricius and Pappus became censors; and among others whose names they erased from the lists of the knights and the senators was Rufinus, though he had served as dictator and had twice been consul. The reason was that he had in his possession silver ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women—Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy—The Place Love Occupies in Woman's ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases which extended around the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... he had never done before, with the howling mob at his heels, and foremost among them was Sam. Two men were in advance of the escaping prisoner; but by an apparent misstep while he ran alongside the second, the rioter was overturned, and but one remained; the others being so far in the rear as not to count in ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... that was but a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their work had warmed them again. All of the skidways had to be placed on the edges of the islands themselves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain meant a mired horse. Three times heavy snows obliterated the roads, so that they had to be ploughed out before the men could go to work again. It was ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... silence of the fog the prisoner of El Diablo crept warily on. Deep ravines laced his path and yawned close about the trail. A misstep would hurl him to the bottom of the rock-lined gorge which was swallowed up in the mists at his feet. Suddenly he stopped and threw himself to full length on the ground. Far above him the solid whiteness of the fog wall was broken by irregular flashes of blue. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... aware who had her; for the man gave out his characteristic grunt with every misstep, and there was no one else in the world likely to do her ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... was quite a different matter, however, and was as good sport as I have ever had. The rocks and open meadow slopes were so precipitous that there was very real danger every moment, for one misstep would send a man rolling hundreds of feet to the bottom where ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... of disappointment came into her face, and she turned away. The boy was embarrassed. He had taken a misstep. She turned impatiently and gave him a glance from head ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... coating of ice, which I had to hammer off with stones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; not that I was given ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... is not so harsh as thou: An older man's misstep is sin and crime; The youth's, a misstep only, which he may Retrace, and mend his error. All thy deeds In Colchis, when thou went a hot-head boy, Will be forgot, if thou wilt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... his foot on a rounded stone and set down a little ungracefully in spite of his effort to be fully himself. He saw at once his misstep and hastened to apologize. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... perils of war and of the courage necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of duty, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, now become almost impenetrable, till she got one foot upon ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... doubt that it was the missing Muller, and it was altogether likely that in the storm he had made a misstep, and had fallen into the ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... adventures, Robin met on a narrow bridge a stranger who refused to make way for him. Irritated by what he considered the man's insolence, Robin seized his quarter-staff, only to find that his antagonist more than matched him in the skilful use of this weapon. Then a misstep suddenly toppled Robin over into the stream, where he might have perished had not some of his men leaped out of the thicket to his rescue. Vexed at being beaten at quarter-staff, Robin now proposed a shooting-match, and, his good humor entirely restored by winning a victory in this ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... caught his footing again. My mental agony had been so great that I had not a bodily sensation. I took my blanket, rolled up in it and went to sleep by some trees under some branches and a log. We came over the rocks where one misstep would have sent the horses to the bottom. No place even to spread his four feet before the next step. My heart was in my mouth most of the time. I don't know what impression you might get from my letter. I have seen the most beautiful sunsets, but there are more essential elements ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... urged by a great purpose. His head was bent in reflection. His hand held his claw behind him, and his shoulders stooped. He knew his goal, but the way was hard and uncertain, and he realized the peril of a strategic misstep at the outset. Heavily he mounted the steps to the hall, entered, and took a seat in the rear. He sat with his head bowed and his gaze on the floor. He was aware that Judge Van Dorn was speaking; but what the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... last change in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... never feel anything but sorry for him. You can not live with a man as I did, for ten years, and not regret his misstep." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... proper solution, unfortunately an impracticable one, and being there, to turn back was inadmissible. So I took myself in hand and started. For the first few steps I was far too much given up to considering possibilities. I thought how a single misstep would end. I could see my footing slip, feel the consciousness that I was gone, the dull thuds from point to point as what remained of me bounded beyond the visible edge down, down. . . And after that what! How long before the porters missed me and came ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... vindicated himself in their estimation, he yet lacked that which the ordeal of a battle would give him at home, and more than all, in Rachel's eyes. He heard nothing from or of her, but he consoled himself with the hope that the same means by which she had been so promptly informed of his misstep, would convey to her an intimation of how well he was deserving her. When he gained his laurels he would himself lay them at her feet. Until then he could only hope and strive, cherishing all the while the love for her that daily grew stronger in ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... in a long row, cripples, the blind, the young, the aged, it was a company of mendicants which eccentric painters would have given five years of life to have seen. Except for consumptive coughs, the misstep of a wooden leg of which the clumsy ferule slipped on a cobblestone, and the querulous whimper of a child, half-starved and imperfectly swaddled in a tattered shawl, on a flaccid bosom, the mob were silent in an expectation as intense as the lookers-on. The wind brought the whistle of the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... figures. She is the very embodiment of youthful womanhood, filled with the joy of life, and bringing sunshine wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life," says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There is nothing here of ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... he at length found himself close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a few minutes he ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... old age by tumbling aimlessly into the mouth of a crater on the island of Japat, somewhere in the mysterious South Seas. The volcano was not a large one and the crater, though somewhat threatening at times, was correspondingly minute, which explains—in apology—to some extent, his unfortunate misstep. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... unerringly when they were bearing the Viaticum, and it was plain that he felt the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to the saddle, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... any cause which either destroys the life of the child in the womb or brings on morbid or premature contractions in that organ may induce miscarriage. Coughing severely, or vomiting, a blow or fall, or a misstep leading to an effort to prevent falling, may, and does frequently, result in miscarriage; and this having once occurred, it is, without proper care, exceedingly liable to be the case again at the same period of a subsequent pregnancy. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... logical advance along the lines already mapped out for itself, and in part already traversed, will enable men to avoid the pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life; we shall all see what terrible consequences await on a single misstep, and we shall not make the misstep. Can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to do ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... Master whom he had long served, and who kept him on very short commons, happened one day in his old age to be oppressed with a more than ordinary burden of earthenware. His strength being much impaired, and the road steep and uneven, he unfortunately made a misstep, and, unable to recover himself, fell down and broke all the vessels to pieces. His Master, transported with rage, began to beat him most unmercifully, against whom the poor Ass, lifting up his head as he lay on the ground, thus ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... no inclination in that direction. I am willing to encounter risks, if there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and watchfulness for his own ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... very man to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its truth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing to live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege of giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent in a prolonged ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in the warm sunshine. A knot of kids—the reckless little creatures—were sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a few days before: a lad playing about the steep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reflected. "All Jack has to do to get everything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry him; whereas I have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and advance, as if I were going through an intricate dance, where one misstep would throw me hopelessly out ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... certain death, but he never faltered. His heart beat steadily and strong. It was an old risk to him, and he had the advantage of great natural aptitude, fortified by long training in a school of practice where a single misstep meant death. ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... they can be avoided. Reaching the top after a tedious and slippery climb, there was a long view of icy billows, as if the sea had suddenly congealed amid a wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... curve, and Constans's heart bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the crossing of the Swiftwater. Now the rotting and worm-eaten timbers of the open trestle-work were under his feet; mechanically, he avoided the numerous gaps, where a misstep meant destruction, and so at last gained the farther bank and sank down panting on the short, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... unseated us both. Faster and faster we flew, like a swallow on the wing, Fatima's dainty feet as surely placed among the rocks and holes of the rough road as if she had been pacing in Rotten Row. Well she knew that a misstep of hers now might mean death to all three of us, and well she knew that her master ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... other boy, to send him forward, before we accepted the necessity. Half asleep, he got up, courteously declined my effort to help him by me as he crossed the boat, stepped round on the gunwale behind me as I sat, and then, either in a lurch or in some misstep, caught his foot in the tiller as his father held it firm, and pitched down directly behind Battista himself, and, as I thought, into the sea. I sprang to leeward to throw something after him, and found him in the sea indeed, but hanging by both ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... her breath was short. This crisis had come upon them swiftly, unexpectedly, unwanted by either. Now it loomed over them in a terrible, because unknown, portent. Each realized that a misstep might mean irreparable consequences, but each felt constrained to go on. The situation must now be developed. Keith, faced with this new problem, lost his heat, and became cool, careful, wary, as when in court his faculties marshalled themselves. Nan, on the other ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... up, as if moved by a spring. "Well, yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you have correctly guessed. But how can we obtain this double result? A single misstep at this moment might lose all. Ah, if I only knew your father's real situation; if I could only see him and speak to him! In one word he might, perhaps, place in my hands a sure weapon,—the weapon that I have as yet been ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... feeling his way through the darkness, dreading every moment that he would take a misstep, that would bring down the anger of the Indian in a more dangerous form than before. He was enveloped in gloom, so that he kept both hands extended in ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... trotting, to which the victim has been compelled by the torture of whip and spur while in use as a gambling implement by a sporting owner, under the pretext of "improving his breed"; the extra exertion of starting an inordinately heavy load, or an effort to recover his balance from a misstep, slipping upon an icy surface, or sliding with worn shoes upon a bad pavement, and other kindred causes. We can repeat here what we have before said concerning bones, in respect to heredity as a cause. From our own experience we know of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... exertion I had ever known, I did not feel the slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule below. ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... great fright. But the water was not deep, and the side of the "cave" kept her from falling entirely down. Hence, a thorough fright and wet feet and dress were the only evil results of her misstep. ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... your own country, and I believe it. The very first day you arrived you began by wounding the vanity of a priest who is regarded by the people as a saint, and as a sage among his fellows. God grant that such a misstep may not have already determined your future! Because the Dominicans and Augustinians look with disdain on the guingon habit, the rope girdle, and the immodest foot-wear, because a learned doctor in Santo Tomas [75] may have once recalled that Pope Innocent III described the statutes of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... know there's been several unpleasant, not to say sensational, occurrences in this town of late. I don't suppose you're to blame for everything that has happened. I have insisted that you could not be blamed for the unfortunate misstep of Brother Hewett, who was tempted to take a little more hard cider than was really good for him. Your detractors have insisted that the deacon was led into this action through his exuberance over the arrival of your friends. Some of them have tried ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... whatever she had supposed to be oblique was horizontal, and nothing as she had been accustomed to find it. It made her head swim. It was literally true that she was afraid to move lest she should make a misstep through an error ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the connection of the hypnotist with this strange case, he was far too clever to betray himself by any such misstep as seeming to avoid inquiry. We found him easily at his studio apartment, nor did we have any difficulty in gaining admittance. He knew that he was watched and that frankness was his ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... and wrenched rode on. With dust and sweat the Black was now a dappled brown, but still he stepped the same. Young Carrington, who followed, bad hurt his steed by pushing at the very start, and spurred and urged him now to cut across a gulch at which the Pacer shied. Just one misstep ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... us where he had stopped the cart and half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bag out, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lantern down. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back with it, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft—the old Granite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him in the sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deep shaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses long enough to hook it onto a poor little ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... are never sure of their balance in a tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... by the searching wisdom of this remark, was silenced for the moment. In the interval of thought she reflected that she would do well to take counsel of herself alone in proceeding to break this engagement. "You are on the verge of making a terrible misstep, child," said she with a gentleness she had rarely shown even to her favorite grandchild. "I shall think it over, and you will think it over. At least, promise me you will not see Craig for ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... whose daily work compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters, plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally, to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots," grew ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... accounts they brought back were most gloomy: the Princess de la Leyen had died from her injuries; General Touzart was in a desperate condition, as well as his wife and daughter, who, in fact, died the same day. Prince Kourakine, the Russian Ambassador, was seriously injured; he had made a misstep on the staircase leading to the garden, and had fallen senseless into the flames, which, fortunately, had been unable to get through his coat of cloth of gold and the decorations which covered him like a cuirass; nevertheless, it was many months before he recovered. "Prince ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... was drawn from him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through the dusk, misshapen ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... hers, there was time and to spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And the more I learned of Margaret Henan ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... recalled to wisdom at once—he could not afford to make a misstep on the very day of his return. He emptied the pan, followed Clorinda into the kitchen, making a sign of farewell to Vic which the old maid did not observe. Once in Clorinda's own dominion, the darkey so improved the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... the feeling rather than the sight; for the black waters of the great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters of ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of his trousers was ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... around, and she smilingly nodded her head. He began picking his way along the ledge, carefully feeling his way, for a misstep or a treacherous support was liable to precipitate him to the fathomless depths below with the inevitable ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... moment's awkwardness—Nell was on difficult ground. She feared lest she might make a misstep which would reveal her identity. The Duchess grew impatient. Finally, Nell mustered courage and made a bold play for it, as ever ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, he hoped it might be done quickly. The phantom figure which ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... unfrequently we became involved in a labyrinth of fearful sinks, where the upper stratum had given way and fallen into the yawning depths below. Between these terrible traps the trail was often not over a few feet wide. It was no pleasant thing to contemplate the results of a probable slip or a misstep. The whole country bore the aspect of baffled rage—as if imbued with a demoniac spirit, it had received a crushing stroke from the Almighty hand that blasted and shivered ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... restless island! It is full of interest. I have been there." Breitmann smiled pleasantly at the girl, but his thought was unsmiling. Versed as he was in reading at a glance expression, whether it lay in the eyes, in the lips, or the hands, he realized with chagrin that he had made a misstep somewhere. For some reason he would have given much to know, Fitzgerald was ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries with vicious women are scattered along the ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, Plain Facts on ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... rather than hope, the forlorn lady recollected that her uncle, who had some spiritual supervision over the Roman convents, though he was sure to be more outraged by her misstep than any one else, had (besides the motive of shielding a family name from disgrace) perhaps some remaining affection for his favorite niece. At any rate, if she were to die, she thought it would be a satisfaction to die humanely, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... falling, gazed round him and up and down, in dazed wonder. He had seen many others fall. He had seen just where and just why they missed their footing. And he had been confident that with him no such misstep was possible. He could not believe; a little while, and luck would turn, and up he would go again—higher than before. Many a lawyer—to look no farther than his own profession—had through recklessness or pride or inadvertence got the big men down on him. But after a time they had ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips |
