"Mistaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There, far away, showing up against the dark peat-coloured soil, rode a gaily-dressed cavalier, followed by a knot of attendants, galloping as fast as his horse would carry him from the field of battle. There was no mistaking the fugitive. It ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had never been: at the same time his eye is dry, his features unmoved, not a sigh does he utter, and yet he is truly sorry. It is important to bear these facts in mind: else we shall be continually mistaking for passions what are pure acts of will, or vice versa, misled by the identity ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... circuit so as not to be observed, and then slowly to follow the enemy as they moved along, and as soon as he perceived the battle begun, to charge them on the rear. Whether Nero was prevented from executing these orders by mistaking the route, or from the shortness of the time, is doubtful. Though he was absent when the battle was fought, the Romans had unquestionably the advantage; but as the cavalry did not come up in time, the plan of the battle which had been agreed upon was disconcerted ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... no mistaking Sunny's anger. He forgot his usual lazy indifference. For once he was stirred to a rage that was as active and volcanic as one of Wild ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... quieter, but there was no mistaking the expression of deep satisfaction which hovered on her sweet face. The fact that Inza was happy was enough to give ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... just the way with me," said Peterkin, with a deep sigh. "I never could keep in my mind for half-an-hour the few descriptions I ever attempted to remember. The very first voyage I ever made was caused by my mistaking a description, or forgetting it, which is the same thing. And a horrible voyage it was. I had to fight with the captain the whole way out, and made the homeward voyage ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was a pale, hollow-eyed young man, in a snuff-colored surtout, who looked worn with much watching, or much toil, or too little food. His features were good, his whole air was respectable, and there was no mistaking the fact, that he was strongly in earnest in what he ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... return. We must not forget that the orthodoxy of the seventeenth century was only the extreme elaboration of an error, the beginning of which we find as far back as Luther's time, and which became more and more a power in the Church through the influence of Melanchthon. It was this: Mistaking the faith by which we believe for the faith which is believed. The principle of the Reformation was justification by faith, not the doctrine of faith and justification. In reply to the Catholics it was deemed sufficient to show that this was the true doctrine which points out the way of salvation ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... might soon have neglected to look up at all, had I not observed one day, after my glances had grown very careless, and almost involuntary, a rich lace veil hanging against the same little window where had hung the placard. There was no mistaking it—the veil was of the richest Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbe) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... least imagine; but, after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree: looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... lighted with the triple ray of Faith, Hope, and Love. They have no sympathies with the saints and heroes who have been great through self-abnegation, for such lives are a constant reproach to their own sybaritical tendencies. Constantly mistaking the effervescence of passion for the fire of genius; viewing the sublime realities of religion only as fantastic dreams; seeing nothing but the gloom of the grave beyond the fleeting shadows of the present life; granting reality to nothing but that which is essentially variable, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... power that the popular notion scoffs at the idea of science modestly disclaiming its ability to separate the one group of living beings from the other. Is there any danger of confusing a bird with the tree amid the foliage of which it builds its nest, or of mistaking a cow for the grass it eats? These queries are, of course, answerable in one way only. Unfortunately (for the querists), however, they do not include or comprehend the whole difficulty. They merely assert, what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... Fitzurse, William Tracy, Hugh de Moreville, and Richard Brito. They had been present in Normandy when the King, irritated by the representations of the three bishops, had exclaimed, "Of the cowards who eat my bread, is there not one who will free me from this turbulent priest?" and mistaking this passionate expression for the royal license, had bound themselves by oath to return to England and either carry off or murder the Primate. They assembled at Saltwood, the residence of the Brocs, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... signal in various quarters of the town; that, from windows and basements and roofs, bullets rained on them; and that the fighting continued until they had smoked the last of the inhabitants from their houses with fire and put them to death as they fled. The Belgians proclaimed just as stoutly that, mistaking an on marching regiment for enemies, the Germans fired on their own people; and then, in rage at having committed such an error and to cover it up, they turned on the townspeople and mixed massacre with pillaging and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... meals Our moral is a good un. We hope he feels that it reveals The danger he is stood in Who steals a high explosive bomb, Mistaking ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... breaks down. Every art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. And so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass, who puts his nose to the flute, and, finding that he elicits some sound, exclaims, "Moi, aussi, je joue de la flute;"—a fable which we commend, at parting, to the consideration ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... certificates for skill and capacity? Would they, like Miss Nightingale, go through a seven years' probation, to try at once the steadiness of their motives and the steadiness of their nerves? Such a trial is absolutely necessary; for hundreds of women will fall into the common error of mistaking an impulse for a vocation. But I do believe that there are also hundreds who are fitted, or would gladly, at any self-sacrifice, fit themselves for the work, if the means of doing so were allowed ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... as the first industrial nation of continental Europe. One-third of Germany's population lives in towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants, an industrial concentration which is only possible on a foundation of coal and iron. In striking, therefore, at her coal supply, the French politicians were not mistaking their target. It is only the extreme immoderation, and indeed technical impossibility, of the Treaty's demands which may save ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... shooting forward like a deer. He was in the bushes now, bursting through everything, dodging and twisting up the hill. Right and left ran his pursuers, mistaking each other for the robber in the semi-gloom, yelling frantically, mad with the excitement of a man-hunt. And in the midst of it all I lay in a pool of mud and water, with a sprained wrist and a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen. Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the gods or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superstition for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might think Nature as mad as themselves, ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... quite see what Mr. Pine Finch was about. It was he, beyond a doubt. There could be no more mistaking his odd voice than his plump, black-streaked back, with its splashes of yellow at the base of his tail, and his yellow-edged wings. Dickie had a good view of Mr. Pine-Finch's back, because its owner hung upside down from the tips of the branches of the ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... you are the very Hogarth of Ridicule, there is no mistaking the— Original [apart] see, see poor Miss Dy. how She Miffs. the strapping Irishman ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... mother with a pair of twins pendant,—rollicking chaps. The younger Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak dropped on the floor her lord's boot which she had been dutifully biting into shape and jumped up to greet her visitor. There was no mistaking that smile of hospitality. Snatching from the visitor one of her baby boys, the young hostess kissed and cried out to it with an abandon of maternal joy, the culminating point of which was feeding it from her own ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... received by this half battalion at 9 a.m. on November 2nd to retire on to Ladysmith. The defenders of Ladysmith being unaware of the fact that any of their own troops were in front of them, and mistaking friend for foe, got down on their knees to fire as the companies of the Devons ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... though he could not see her face; of the others there was no doubt. The refraction of the foot-lights shewed him Agnes Waring, with her father in the next seat; on the other side sat Jack. There was no mistaking him; a white circle, the size of a florin, revealed the mark of his scalp ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... now due in ten minutes. A few students had boarded the Chicago train, but a greater number still waited on the farther platform. The girl in gray was surrounded by half a dozen students, all talking animatedly. As I walked toward them I could not justify my stupidity in mistaking a grown woman for a school-girl of fifteen or sixteen; but is was the tam-o’-shanter, the short skirt, the youthful joy in the outdoor world that had disguised her as effectually as Rosalind to the eyes of Orlando in the forest of Arden. She was probably a teacher,—quite likely the teacher of music, ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... and declared loudly that if her children knew it they would soon come to her relief. Remusat thereupon asked her if she had any children, when she responded, "My children, sir, are the children of France! I was their gouvernante!" There was no mistaking the allusion, and her astonished hearer replied, "But the dauphin is dead." "Not so," was the answer; "he lives; and, if I mistake not, was removed from the Temple in a basket of linen." "Then," added the witness, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... respectful of his own hopes, and concealing them under an affectation of gravity, very envious of successful men, making sententiousness do the duty of witty rejoinders—the gems of the French language—with a high sense of importance, and mistaking arrogance for dignity. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... up and downstairs for ten minutes, looking in vain for Grim. Here and there a servant snored on a mat in a corner, and once a big dog came and sniffed at us without making any further comment. Jeremy kicked one man awake, who, mistaking him for an Arab, cursed him in three languages, in the name of three separate gods, and promptly went to sleep again. The sensation was like being turned loose in the strong-room of a national treasury with nobody watching if you should choose to help yourself. There are acres of floor in ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... laughed a little, but his face was intent. "Oh, yes, that's quite plain; but if I know the writing it's a letter with something in it from Torrance to the Sheriff. There's no mistaking the way he makes the 'g.' Turn it over ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... rubbed my eyes, wondered what it all meant. Ah, yes; there was no mistaking the room and Mrs M'Donnell's good-natured Scotch voice. It was all a dream, and my imagination had magnified the thumping at the door into the 'sweet music of popular applause.' I fell back in bed, hid my face in the pillow, sighed over my short-lived glory, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... woman worthy of him, who will love him as he deserves to be loved, before I climb the peaks of Paradise and find my beloved in the dawning." Isabel's voice sank. She pressed Dinah close against her heart. "It will not be long," she whispered. "I have had a message that there is no mistaking, I know it will not be long. But oh, darling, I do want ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... must have followed me, or have seen the bundle of papers, and, mistaking me for you, they followed, attacked me in a lonely spot and, bundling me and my wrecked wheel into an auto, carried me off. They first demanded that I gave up the 'plans,' and when I wouldn't they choked off my cries for help and ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... is merely a conjecture, a conjecture, however, which has a practical bearing. It suggests caution in the comparison of vocabularies; since, by mistaking an inflexion or an affix for a part of the root, we ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... on both sides of the paper, was in his hand. It was her writing; there was no mistaking that, but every word, every line bore evidence of frantic haste. Even that customary formula, "dear philanthropic crook," that had prefaced every line she had ever written him before, had been omitted. His eyes traversed the first few lines with that strange indifference that had settled ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... dissented altogether from the doctrine of the Senator from Illinois, that by non-action, or unfriendly legislation a Territory could annul a decision of the Supreme Court and exclude slavery. That was mistaking power for right. "What I want to know is, whether you will interpose against power and in favor of right.... If the Territorial Legislature refuses to act, will you act?... If it pass laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them, and substitute laws favoring slavery in their ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... He may have hastened a patient to his account by a trifling over-dose; but he has not hurried men into villainous litigation, that will eventuate in their ruin. His worst offense against the community shall be a mistaking of toothache for tic-douloureux, and lumbago for gout—oh, d——n the gout!"—for at that portion of his speech the poor colonel had sustained an ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... me; or if they wore none, as is not unfrequent when at labor, they would catch their forelocks with their finger and thumb, and bob down their heads in the act of veneration. This attention of my brethren more than compensated for the mirth of all other sects; in fact, their mistaking me for a priest began to give me a good opinion of myself, and perfectly reconciled me to the fatiguing severity ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... him at once; and more, as she met the frank, steadfast eyes that she had known and trusted so long ago, she trusted them at once again and perfectly. There was no mistaking either their truth or their kindness. In spite of his new connections and alienated life, her old friend had not forgotten her. She extended her hand, with a flash of surprise and pleasure in her face, which was not a flash but a dawn, for it grew and ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... hurried on and reached the summit first, quite some way in advance of her companions. As she stood waiting for them she heard the sound of voices and footsteps, and round the corner came a girl, wheeling a long perambulator with a child in it. There was no mistaking the couple, they were the nursemaid and the little boy whom Dona and Marjorie had met on the cliffs last autumn. Lizzie looked just the same—rosy, good-natured, and untidy as ever—but it was a very etherealized Eric who lay in the perambulator. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... man in the overcoat was not carrying a rifle on his shoulder. He was carrying a bag of cement, and from the hull of the barge others appeared, each with a bag upon his shoulder. There was no mistaking them. Nor their little round caps, high boots, and ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... pupil, advocated the same rigid tenets in a more open and dogmatic form,[149] the Academy at length took the alarm, and a reaction ensued. Arcesilas, who had succeeded Polemo and Crates, determined on reverting to the principles of the elder schools;[150] but mistaking the profession of ignorance, which Socrates had used against the Sophists on physical questions, for an actual scepticism on points connected with morals, he fell into the opposite extreme, and declared, first, that nothing could be known, and ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... praise-house, I heard the children spell, and then distributed toys among them, with candy to the babies and grown people! and gave to each of the girls who have been married since I left a Bible with her name in it. All seemed honestly glad to see me there—there was no mistaking their shining faces. I was there two hours and then went to Fripp Point, where I gave candy to all the grown people and children, and a toy to each child. I do not know all names and faces anywhere ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... still the captive balloons, straining at their leashes probably, but too far away to show anything but the general outline of their odd sausage shapes. Ahead, too, was the boom of the guns. No mistaking that. Their aeroplanes were to be the eyes of those very guns. They knew that well. The front line was up there, somewhere. Their own soldiers, their comrades, were in that line. Perhaps some of them were being shelled by the Boche guns ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... have told you, bears a Child in her Arms; but whether maternally Black, or of the Mulatto Kind, I protest I did not mind) the Priest, in great Civility, offers you her Arm to salute; at which Juncture, I, like a true blue Protestant, mistaking my Word of Command, fell foul on the fair Lady's Face. The Displeasure in his Countenance (for he took more Notice of the Rudeness than the good Lady her self) soon convinc'd me of my Error; However, as a greater Token of his Civility, having admitted no Spaniards along with ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... long way, then, breathless and exhausted, found that she had missed a turning and gone much too far. Afraid lest she should lose herself by mistaking even the main direction in which she wanted to go, and that while out of reach of any respectable house she might again be assailed by members of the mob, she came back, walking with more caution. She had no hope now of being the means of bringing help. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... a large wave. The word "wave" is used too generally of ripples and breakers, and bendings in light drapery or grass: it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word "mound" is heavy, large, dark, definite; there is no mistaking the kind of wave meant, nor missing the sight of it. Then the term "changing" has a peculiar force also. Most people think of waves as rising and falling. But if they look at the sea carefully, they will perceive that the waves do not rise and fall. They change. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... destined, in a single moment, to become ludicrous as well as disappointing. Our guide, Jack Robertson, (so named by an English man-of-war's crew that had, as he said, kidnapped him during the war,) quite mistaking the nature of our disappointment, said, consolingly, "You come dis way, sir; down here I show you more gals' feet, wash more clothes;" on which intimation we certainly followed him down a few steps, when, pushing back a wooden door, we entered at once into a large roofed washing-house, along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... to promise me that you won't spring anything without giving me twenty-four hours' notice. It's an unusual request, I know; but I ask it in your own interests." There was no mistaking the earnestness with which he spoke, ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... thing that broke on me concerning Paul, was, that his moral sobriety of mind was no guarantee against his mistaking extravagances for miracle. This was manifest to me in his treatment ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... what the writers might be proud of having written. They would then know the worst at once, instead of having to endure the long-drawn, vain hope that is worse than despair. Even if his body were not washed ashore there could be no mistaking his fate. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... part of the little district attorney the heavy man entered the room a moment before Gordon left. They came face to face just within the portieres. There was no mistaking the hostility, the open hate, between the two men. Both Kennedy and I caught ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... hopeless to dislodge the one from the Highland as the other from the Lowland heart. The true way to learn to appreciate Ossian's poetry is not to hurry, as Macaulay seems to have done, in a steamer from Glasgow to Oban, and thence to Ballachulish, and thence through Glencoe, (mistaking a fine lake for a 'sullen pool' on his way, and ignoring altogether its peculiar features of grandeur,) and thence to Inverness or Edinburgh; but it is to live for years—as Macpherson did while writing ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the rounds, and when it reached London it had been amended thus: Charles Fox was taking a ramble at Bath, ran across William Herschel at work, and mistaking him for an itinerant, the great statesman stopped, peeped through the aperture, and then passing out a tuppence moved along blissfully unaware of his error, for Herschel being a perfect gentleman would not embarrass the great ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... ideal of grace and gentleness; but weak; enduring too mildly, and forgiving too easily. But the piece is rather a pantomime than play, and it is impossible to judge of the feelings of St. Columba, when she must leave the stage in half a minute after mistaking the headless clown ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the ridiculous go hand in hand. On one of my dog trips the first winter which I spent at St. Anthony, the bench on which I slept was the top of the box used for hens. This would have made little difference to me, but unfortunately it contained a youthful and vigorous rooster, which, mistaking the arrival of so many visitors for some strange herald of morning, proceeded every half-hour to salute it with premature and misdirected zeal, utterly incompatible with unbroken repose just above his head. It was possible, without moving one's limbs much, to reach through ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... delivered with urgency. There was no mistaking its sincerity. He seemed to have risen above his antipathy for this man. He seemed only concerned to save another from a disaster similar to that which had ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken The night before; but being sick of shaking, He first inclined to think he had been mistaken; And then to be ashamed of such mistaking; His own internal ghost began to awaken Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking— Hinting that Soul and Body on the whole Were odds ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... made his blunder. Never divining Joan's fluttering wildness, her blind hatred of restraint and compulsion, her abhorrence of mastery by another, and mistaking the warmth and enthusiasm in her eyes (aroused by his latest tale) for something tender and acquiescent, he drew her to him, laid a forcible detaining arm about her waist, and misapprehended her frantic revolt for an exhibition of maidenly reluctance. It occurred on the veranda, after breakfast, ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... trees a bird I knew to be one of Dykeman's operatives. Watching his carefully careless progress on past the Gilbert lawn, then the Vandeman grounds, my eye was led to a pair who approached across the green from the direction of the bungalow. No mistaking the woman; even at this distance, height and the clean sweep of her walk, told me that this was the bride, Ina Vandeman. And the man strolling beside her—had he come with her from the house, or joined her on the cross-cut path?—could that be ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness of the Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had not supposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloud but level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses of sky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crest caught through shredded rents in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sneaked over after dark to get me to teach him his geography, and while I was doing it I put my arm around his poor, little, wasted neck and hugged him. He looked up and begun to cry and kissed me. Alfred, there ain't no mistaking the article when you run across it. It is real love I have for that boy—the love of a mother for her child that is suffering. I went as far with him as the fence, and as me and him stood together in the starlight I felt, somehow, that there ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... episodes and touches. In the matter of effective and ironically turned situations few novels can compare with this; indeed, it almost seems as if Daudet made an inordinate use of them. Think of the poor Nabob reading the announcement of the cross bestowed on Jenkins, and of the absurd populace mistaking him for the ungrateful Bey! As for great dramatic moments, there is at least one that no reader can forget—the moment when Jansoulet, in the midst of the speech on which his fate depends, catches sight of his old mother's face and forbears to clear himself of calumny at the expense of his ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... babe, has it occurred to you that we are practically strangers?" She patted his hand tolerantly, causing the uniformed official to heave a tender sigh. "I see what has happened," she said. "You're mistaking me for some other girl, some girl you know really well, and were properly introduced to. Take a good look at ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... to death, I should have said. I gave him at the most another year to live. Yet to my amazement the first person I saw as I stepped on board the boat that brought me to England last week was this fellow. There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in fact; we recognized ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... good lessons be learned. But this accusation is not a new one, and the only effectual way to meet it is to point to what the Church has accomplished. Over eighteen hundred years ago, when John the Baptist was in danger of mistaking our Lord, he sent to him, saying: "Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" and the answer was: "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... preparations could have been perfected, the Eastern question was forced upon the attention of Europe, and the two nations which were expected to engage in war as foes united their immense armaments to thwart the plans of Russia. Blinded by his feelings, and altogether mistaking the character of the English people, the Czar treated Napoleon III. contemptuously, and sought to bring about the partition of Turkey by the aid of England alone. It will always furnish material for the ingenious writers of the history of things that might have been, whether the French Emperor would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... shores of old Spain." Had it not now received its interpretation? The tossed voyager, failing to make the continent of truth, but beating hither and thither amid the reefs and breakers of dangerous coasts, mistaking many islands for the main, and drifting on unknown seas, had at last steered straight to the old Catholic shores, from which the great discoverers had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... word "child," reminding her of her short mistaking and of the long retrieval. Her nineteen years and the forever and ever contrasted themselves before her suddenly, in the ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the fatal blunder of mistaking the enchantment of desire for that of love. Angelique was so happy in reconciling the voice of her heart with that of duty, by giving way to a liking that had grown up with her from childhood, that the deluded man could ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... determine as the anxious detective might wish. Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... insanity in Eldredge's blood, accounting for much that is wild and absurd, at the same time that it must be subtile, in his conduct; one of those perplexing mad people, whose lunacy you are continually mistaking for wickedness or vice versa. This shall be the priest's explanation and apology for him, after his death. I wish I could get hold of the Newgate Calendar, the older volumes, or any other book of murders—the Causes Celebres, for instance. The ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the world, Mary,' said James. 'People think they are laughing at the mistaking a flock of sheep for the army of Pentapolin of the naked arm, when they are really sneering at the lofty spirit taking the weaker side. They involve the sublime temper in the ridiculous accident, and laugh ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... line of battle was formed and Kershaw awaiting orders from McLaws to advance, a line of support came up in our rear, and mistaking us for the enemy, commenced firing upon us. Handkerchiefs went up, calls of "friends," "friends," but still the firing continued. One Colonel seeing the danger—the enemy just in front, and our friends ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... shoulders with a sneering smile. Von Holzen slowly moistened his lips, and Cornish, meeting his glance, felt his heart leap upward to his throat. His way had been the way of peace. He had never seen that look in a man's eyes before, but there was no mistaking it. There are two things that none can mistake—an earthquake, and murder shining in a man's eyes. But there was good blood in Cornish's veins, and good blood never fails. His muscles tightened, and he smiled in ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... end: the instrument of interpretation for the object; and thus symbols come to usurp an independent character as truths and persons. Though perhaps a necessary path, they were a dangerous one by which to approach the Deity; in which "many," says Plutarch, "mistaking the sign for the thing signified, fell into a ridiculous superstition; while others, in avoiding one extreme, plunged into the no less hideous gulf of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... now in motley clad, Wore such a visage, woeful, wan and sad, That some condoled with him as with a brother Who, having lost a wife, had got another. Others, mistaking his profession, often Approached him to be measured for a coffin. For years this highborn jester never broke The silence—he was pondering a joke. At last, one day, in cap-and-bells arrayed, He strode into the Council and displayed A long, bright ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... only did he ask Stella for a dance, but she excused herself with a decision there was no mistaking. Something within her revolted at the bare idea. He went away smiling, but ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... had the inspiration to quote the word he preferred to the one I had written, so that there was no merciful possibility of mistaking it for a misprint, and my blood froze in my veins at sight of it. Mr. Fields had given me the sheets to read while he looked over some letters, and he either felt the chill of my horror, or I made some sign or sound of dismay that caught his notice, for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... same establishment, who for a time required or wished to spend more than they received; or they employed it at a higher rate of profit for great commercial and manufacturing establishments scattered over India, or spread over the ocean. Their great error was in mistaking nominal for real profits. Calculating their dividend on the nominal profits, and never supposing that there could be any such things as losses in commercial speculation, or bad debts from misfortunes and bad faith, they squandered them in lavish hospitality and ostentatious ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the heated air. Just within the gate stood the orderly trumpeter holding two horses by the reins, one of them Marshall Dean's, and a sudden idea occurred to Folsom as he glanced at the open windows of the office building. There was no mistaking the speaker within. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... it a figure stood bound to a stake, and a smoky fire burned at its feet.... There was no mistaking that figure. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... there comes an inexplicable subsidence of mortality in mid-epidemic. No competent hygienist is deceived into mistaking this phenomenon for an indication of the end. Not being a ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... am well aware what a paragon of goodness you are. If you could have your way I should be admitted into heaven again; shouldn't I? Only with this proviso, that if a stray angel should ever whisper to me with bated breath, mistaking me, perchance, for one of his own class, I should be bound to close my ears to his whispering, and remind him humbly that I was only a poor mortal. You would trust me ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the reporter, mistaking the apostrophe for an answer, and he drew a note-book from his ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... close to her, meets his outstretched hand and shakes it cordially. Then follows pleasantry about mistaking the mother for the daughter, with assumption of imperfect or dim vision only to account for it, and a declaration from Adrian that he had been cautioned not to confuse the one with the other. There is a likeness, as a matter of fact, and Irene has talked to him of it. The whole thing is slighter ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... mention his desertion at the critical moment, (though Mr. Dodge never forgave those who witnessed it,) for they looked upon his conduct as the result of a natural and unconquerable infirmity, that rendered him as much the subject of compassion as of reproach. Encouraged by this forbearance, and mistaking its motives, he had begun to hope his absence had not been detected in the confusion of the fight, and he had even carried his audacity so far, as to make an attempt to persuade Mr. Sharp that he had actually been one of those who went in the launch of the Dane, to bring down the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a large, imposing door—closed. Beside this door stood a slim, erect figure in the red, blue and gold uniform of an officer of the Castle guard. As Mr. Blithers approached this rigid figure, he recognised a friend and a warm glow pervaded his heart. There could be no mistaking the smart moustache and supercilious eye-brows. It ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... cable, even, had fate cast me such! You boys don't know how many times men fail Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large, Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey, Collect the whole power for the final pounce. My fault was the mistaking man's main prize For intermediate boy's diversion; clap Of boyish hands here frightened game away Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first I took the anger easily, nor much Minded the anguish—having learned that storms Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin. Time would ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... There was no mistaking the meaning of these words and proceedings. All doubt was removed as to the abduction of Fred Greenwood. Motoza was the agent in the outrage, though whether Tozer had taken an active part in the same was yet uncertain. He scanned the ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... it, Luther. I'll go to-morrow, sure, no matter what happens," the girl promised, her words coming so slowly that there was no mistaking her reluctance. "I just can't bear to, but ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... she backed away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed, good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those eager, beautiful eyes—the very same that Norah had watched not half an hour ago, till sleep stole softly ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... while to double the risk. I did it rather clumsily, I suppose, and my greeting was a shot fired at random in the darkness—the senator mistaking me for a burglar, as he afterward explained. There was no harm done, and the pistol welcome effectually broke the ice in what might otherwise have been a rather difficult interview. We had it out in an upper room, with the gas turned low and the window curtains ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... to the shore was made quickly. It seemed almost no time at all before they made out the string of lights that marked the pier and the radiance of the brilliantly lit hotel behind them. But as they were landing an unforeseen accident occurred. Mistaking his distance in the darkness, the captain neglected to shut off power soon enough, and the nose of the Skipjack bumped into the pier with great force. At the same time a splintering of wood ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... friend here, the office is open. Let’s come along and speak to him as turned us back from the Degumber State,” said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... the blunder of the Greeks, who saw in the hand placed connected with the mouth in the hieroglyph of Horus (the) son, "Hor-(p)-chrot," the gesture familiar to themselves of a finger on the lips to express "silence," and so, mistaking both the name and the characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates. A careful examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion (Dictionnaire Egyptien) shows that the finger or the hand to the mouth of an adult (whose posture ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... has preserved some of the splendours and "humours" of the coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three. As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid came to dress me she said ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... to his feet and holding out his hand, unable in his excitement to be as guarded as he had intended to be. A glance had convinced him that this was Ellen Lee, indeed. The woman, tall, dark-eyed, stately, very genteel in spite of evident poverty, was about thirty-five years of age. There was no mistaking the sudden joy in her care-worn face. She seized his hand, without a word; then, as if recollecting herself, and feeling that she must be more cautious, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... posterity. And the only means by which we can wholly avoid this fallacy is to give up altogether an attempt to prove our case by citing instances in which the mother was alcoholic. If this is not done, there will always be liability of mistaking an effect of prenatal nutrition for a direct injury ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... don't you? With dogs, most of the time, I hear." There was no mistaking the bitterness in his ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... exhibition of his Milton Gallery, a visitor accosted him, mistaking him for the keeper—"Those paintings, sir, are from Paradise Lost I hear, and Paradise Lost was written by Milton. I have never read the poem, but I shall do it now." "I would not advise you, sir," ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... had time to form an exact idea of the situation, there was no mistaking the agitation of which he instantly became the object, and this soon enabled him to pluck up courage, although the adventure of Kazah did come back ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the pig. "I confess I am not proud of you, but there is no mistaking the members of our family. Come along, and have a good roll in the barnyard! There is some lovely black ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... not go there seeking Harry Ashton. His object was entirely self-centred. His purpose was to drink to himself and to the lights of London. But as though by appointment, the man he had promised to find was waiting for him. As Ford entered the room, at a table facing the door sat Ashton. There was no mistaking him. He wore a mustache, but it was disguise. He was the same good-natured, good-looking youth who, in the photograph from under a Panama hat, had smiled upon the world. With a glad cry Ford ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... within hailing distance I called out and made signs that they were not to advance unless their intentions were peaceful. By way of reply, they merely brandished their bows and arrows at us. There was no mistaking their mission. ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... girl, and is natural to us all, for it is woman's destiny to cling to a man. Unhappily, pretty one, there is but one man in the world for a woman! And sometimes this man, whom fate has marked out for us, is not the one whom we, mistaking a passing fancy for love, choose as husband. Strange as what I say may appear to you, it is worth noting. If we cannot love the man we have chosen, the fault is not exclusively ours, it lies with both, or sometimes with circumstances over which we have no control. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... they heard a strange noise in the other part of the cabin. Some one was moaning and crying for help. There was no mistaking the sound, and both men were wide awake ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... herself, yet as far apart as in another continent. It was six months since they had last met. It might be six years before they met again. But he had seemed pleased to see her. Short as had been that passing glance, there was no mistaking its interest. He was surprised, but pleasure had overridden surprise. If he had been alone, he would have hurried forward with outstretched hand. In imagination she could see him coming, his grave face lightened with joy. Oh, if only, only he had been alone! But he was with friends; ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gap strode now an enormous man with an inflamed moon face and a great nose, decently dressed after the fashion of a solid bourgeois. There was no mistaking his anger, but the expression that it found ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... what he did, or failed to do," said the girl, and this time there was no mistaking the fact that she emphasized her voice with contempt and made sure that it would carry to Carlsen. "He said it ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... just announced by soft-toned Larcom, is the daughter (there is no mistaking the jolly smile and lumpy odd little features, and radiance of amiability) of the good doctor and Mrs. Chubley, so curiously blended in her loving face. And last comes in old Major Jackson, smiling largely, squaring himself, and doing ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was no mistaking the look that brightened like the dawn in the depths of his clear eyes. My breath went ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... mistaking the menace in his tone, but the girl made no comment. She knew that there had been trouble. She knew that her father had for days been locked in his study and had scarcely spoken a ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... she was the girl of the Little Dipper; there was no mistaking her. At this point the old gentleman afforded diversion by rising and bowing first to ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... was a rough-looking man, with a shabby overcoat and a still more disreputable muffler around his throat and the lower part of his face. Considerably annoyed at his intrusion, I turned upon him rather sharply, when, with a mumbled, growling apology for mistaking the room, he shuffled out again and closed the door. I followed him quickly to the landing and saw that he disappeared down the stairs. With my mind full of the robbery, the incident made a singular impression upon me. I knew ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... lad of about sixteen, who tried to cover his invincible shyness by a grin, and to keep his foolish eyes from the row of farm boys in the aisle, whose critical glances he felt in every pore. He was so like both father and mother, that there was no mistaking his parentage; but when Mrs Gray took off the shepherd's-plaid shawl in which the baby was wrapped, such a little dark head and swarthy face were exposed to view as might have made intelligent spectators (if ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... is no mistaking the dignified effect of this edict, and only the best in various lines gained admission ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... I have either expressed myself very badly, or you are purposely mistaking me. Once for all, it is a settled thing between your son and myself that we remain, for the rest of our lives, cousins and nothing ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the final speech. My sister Kate was playing Titania that night as understudy to Carlotta Leclercq. Up I came—but not quite up, for the man shut the trapdoor too soon and caught my toe. I screamed. Kate rushed to me and banged her foot on the stage, but the man only closed the trap tighter, mistaking ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... singular negligence in translating, Mr Pinkerton, in the passage quoted in the preceding note, has ridiculously called this country the plain of Formosa, mistaking the mere epithet, descriptive of its beauty in the Italian language, for its name. The district was obviously a distinct small kingdom, named Ormus from its capital city; which, from its insular situation, and great trade ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... Shortly afterwards, mistaking the object of a message from Mr. Cottle for an application for "copy" for the press, Coleridge wrote the following letter with reference ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... night after. Nay—bear a hand with this hamper, Maester Shaw, if you please—if it's all t' same to you, Mr. Proprietor, I think we shall have to trouble you to step up to t' Town Hall by-and-by, and see if we can't get shut of them mistaking friends o' yours for three months ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... to Elaine's secret amazement, it was Priscilla's arm that went about her waist, and Priscilla's voice that cried, with a thrill of sincerity there was no mistaking: ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn't hear it, I was immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the recollection of that thin, perpetual, shrill sound of a voice has echoed in my ears sinsyne. I am bound to say she was younger than Tibbie, but there is no mistaking that and the indescribable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... majority of 157. 'The division was curious,' wrote Greville. 'Some seventy or eighty Whigs, ordinary supporters of Government, voted against them, and all the Tories except about six or seven.' There was no mistaking the mandate either of Parliament or of the people. Lord Aberdeen on the following day went down to Windsor and laid his resignation before the Queen, and in this sorry fashion the Coalition Government ignominiously collapsed, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... take his attention from what he was doing, but answered as readily as ever. "I do not blame you for mistaking this for a city. The fact is, however, that we have ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... guide who led him astray, but this statement was entirely incorrect. The military authorities thoroughly sifted the case of the sergeant of the Cape Police who acted as guide on the occasion, and it was allowed that he erred genuinely in mistaking the enemy's position. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... it falls to the lot of more abstruse reasoners to make their suppositions, and then account for them—to imagine things, and then treat of them as realities. We are content with the knowledge of things as they do exist, and think there is little danger of mistaking a potato for an apple, or a squash for a pear. Tho in the dark we may lay hold of the Frenchman's pomme de terre—apple of the earth, the first bite will satisfy us of our mistake if we are not ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch |
