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More "Misinterpret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that," said Mr. Smith, still sobbing; "you misinterpret my grief. This party was in no way akin to me except under that common descent from the old Adam which makes all humanity brothers and sisters. I did not know deceased, nor did ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short Miss all that is good, that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... understood that differently from her meaning; perhaps he chose to misinterpret it; at all events he stooped forward and kissed her. It brought a flash of colour into Eleanor's face, and she went up stairs much more angry with her suitor than her last words had spoke her. The angry mood faded fast when she reached her own room and could be alone and be still. She sat ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. Sir Hugo's hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition might have neglected; but that Gwendolen's reliance on him was unvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her was as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his sense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing incompatible claim on him in her mind. There was a foreshadowing of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the emperor; "but all this is very sad. I have meant well by my subjects, but they misinterpret my actions, and accuse me of tyranny. I go to them with a heart full of love, and they turn upon the as though I were an enemy. But I will not relent! I must be free to act as seems best to myself. The Joyeuse Entree is in my way. 'Tis a gordian knot which must be unloosed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... have to undo it, if possible, and then only to regret that. I am this way about the most trifling things and about the most serious. I can't perform any duty well. In business and in social affairs, it is always with me. It has me in its clutches, a horrible monster dragging me down. My friends misinterpret me and wonder what I mean by doing so when all the time I want to do what is for the best and cannot for this tyrant who is ever present with me. I will plod for hours and hours at a time, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... monseigneur, no one does know of it out of the circle of her own devoted friends, who can never misinterpret it." ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... ought to have told you that she knew me," complained Crowley. "It would have saved all that trouble between you and me." He rubbed his ear reminiscently. "But perhaps she did," he pursued, affecting to misinterpret the hardness which had come into Latisan's face. "But how she could say anything against me, as far as she and I are ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... cannot accept that there is a power over them, they deny it, and in the process they misinterpret the various things of life as physical things, not the spiritual things that they represent. For instance, love: men in many "advanced," that is to say, self-obsessed, civilizations, view it only in its physical materializations, but ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... her. It was a solid satisfaction to have him tabulated and pigeonholed at last and for all time. Michael Daragh was her best friend. That was settled. And she had been a vain, light-minded goose to fancy for an instant that he would misinterpret that foolish little postscript on her last letter,—that he would want to misinterpret it. Michael Daragh had clearly obeyed the command to come apart and be separate, and she should never worry for an ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... carriage, a car or a taxi, a lady must never sit on a gentleman's left; because according to European etiquette, a lady "on the left" is not a "lady." Although this etiquette is not strictly observed in America, no gentleman should risk allowing even a single foreigner to misinterpret a lady's position. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... found a favourite repast. I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such expression as it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull at it with all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly tamed; the shyness of his nature was done away, and on the whole it was ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... openly to reject it, though it be against him; and the bulk of men are inconsistent, and have some good feelings left, even amid their sins and vices, which keep them from going all lengths. But, while they still profess to honour, at least they try to pervert and misinterpret Scripture, and that comes to the same thing. They try to persuade themselves that Christ will save them, though they continue in sin; or they wish to believe that future punishment will not last for ever; or they conceive that their good deeds or habits, few and miserable as they are at ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Geoffrey now inspired in her, when she had declared, in her letter to Arnold, that, even if he offered her marriage, in atonement for the past, she would rather be what she was than be his wife. It had never occurred to her, until this moment, that others would misinterpret the sensitive pride which had prompted the abandonment of her claim on the man who had ruined her. It had never been brought home to her until now, that if she left him contemptuously to go his own way, and sell himself to the first woman who had money enough to buy him, her ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... easiest impression for a woman to create upon a man—or a man upon a woman—is the impression of being in love. We are so conscious of our own merits, we are so eager to have them appreciated, that we will exaggerate or misinterpret any word or look, especially from a person of the opposite sex, into a tribute to them. When Craig pleaded for Grant and Margaret, moved by his eloquent sincerity, dropped her eyes and colored in shame for her plans about him, in ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... add, for the sake of the reader who may be prone to misinterpret, that our behaviour was quite innocent, as we lay about ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... grotesque overstatements, which, while they amused his hearers, conveyed his exact meaning to every one who followed the mercurial movement of his mind. It will readily be seen how a person with neither insight into his nature nor apprehension of his meaning should, without intending it, misinterpret his life and caricature his opinions,—blundering only the more deeply when trying to be literally exact in reporting ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... was the very morning Clarence Hervey paid his visit. The imprudence of Lady Delacour, joined perhaps to his own consciousness that he had a secret fault, which ought to lower him in the esteem of his mistress, made him misinterpret every thing that passed—his jealousy was excited in the most sudden and violent manner. He flew from Lady Delacour's to Mrs. Luttridge's—he was soothed and flattered by the apparent kindness with which he was received by Annabella and her aunt; but after dinner, when one of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe And ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... misinterpreted; but I defy a heart like yours to think ill of mine. Others would perhaps speak better of me if I resembled them more. God preserve me from gaining their approbation! Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and misinterpret my actions, Rousseau is not a man to be afraid of them, nor is Diderot to be prevailed upon to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... fact that very few people are able to be idle successfully. I think it is not so much because we misuse idleness as because we misinterpret it that the long days become increasingly demoralizing. I would ask no one to accept a forced idleness without objection or regret. Such an acceptance would imply a lack of spirit, to say the least. But idleness and rest are not incompatible; neither are idleness and service, nor idleness and ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... to me such a sacred thing that I felt that any reference to it on my part would be like a profane touch; but I was sure you would not misinterpret my silence or my absence, and would know that you were never long absent from ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... "your clemency will excuse my answer, and you will not misinterpret the apparent discourtesy of my conduct. I am compelled, most unwillingly, to slight your charms, and to select the Extreme Rigour of the Law. Executioner, lead on! Do your duty; for me, Prigio est pret;"—for this was his motto, and meant that ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... one slight motive for delay succeeded another, till at last a more serious project introduced sufficient ground of detention. He seemed possessed by a strange buoyancy—an almost feverish joy in life, which blunted all sensations of physical distress, or helped him to misinterpret them. When warned against the imprudence of remaining where he knew he suffered from cold, and believed, rightly or wrongly, that his asthmatic tendencies were increased, he would reply that he was growing acclimatized—that he was quite well. And, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... maintained an air of immovable coolness and composure. Twenty times did he detect the piercing looks of Katherine fastened on him, with an intentness that a less deliberative man might have had the vanity to misinterpret; but even this flattering testimonial of his power to attract failed to disturb his self-possession. It was in vain that Katherine endeavored to read his countenance, where everything was fixed in military rigidity, though his deportment appeared more than usually ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... power to create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems impossible to ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... the more friendly told them that the fruitful land they sought was but a few days' journey down the river, and they went wearily on, day by day, as the promised land still fled before their feet. Doubtless they were led by their own desires to misinterpret the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... feasibility. China will bitterly oppose any Conference plan to offer China international aid." He adds: "International control will not do. China must be given time and opportunity to find herself. The world should not misinterpret or exaggerate the meaning of the convulsion which China is now passing through." These are wise words, with which every true friend of China must agree. In the same issue of the Japan Weekly Chronicle—which, by the ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... and made me, as much as possible, the recipient of her sentimental outpourings. I was not bold enough to repel her,—indeed, I had none of that tact which is so useful in such emergencies,—and she seemed to misinterpret my submission. Not only was her conversation pointedly directed to me, but she looked at me, when singing, (especially, 'Thou, thou, reign'st in this bosom!') in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable. What if Eunice should suspect an attachment towards her, on my part? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... one came to David, there by that lowly grave. He saw, as in the light of eternity, the grandeur and beauty of that character which the story of her sin and suffering had made him in his immaturity, misinterpret and despise! He did not comprehend that tragic story when she told it; it was impossible that he should, for he had no knowledge or experience adequate to furnish him the clew. Nothing is more inconceivable and impossible to a child than the possibility of his parents dying or doing ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... returned from France, and I have no proofs on which to rest such serious allegations; nothing at present but bare assertions, which her father, in the heat and fury of his ambition, might not only disbelieve, but misinterpret. Be it so; I shall at least warn him, take it as he will; and if all else should fail, I will disclose to him my name and family, in order that he may know, at all events, that I am no impostor. My present ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... was not till I had exhausted every means of conciliation that I assumed the tone and language of the first magistrate. I dismissed him with a strong injunction to live retired—to be peaceable and obedient—not to misinterpret the motives of my conduct towards himself—nor attribute to weakness what was merely the result of moderation and strength. 'Rest assured,' I added, 'and repeat to your associates, that while I hold the reins of authority there will be neither chance nor salvation for those ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... misinterpret her edict. She emancipates from the lower only to call to the higher. She does not bid the world go and play while she does the work. She emancipates the muscles only to employ the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... the joy of watching their minds develop, and of feeling that it is due in some measure to him that they are growing into makers of happiness for themselves and the world. And when in his work he is met by the opposition of those who misinterpret or misunderstand, he will have an almost fierce satisfaction in the faith that the future may be all on his side, and that many years hence a little of him will live in men who have realised not his, but their, individuality, and that potentiality for goodness which, as well as he was able, he fostered ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... assurance, as to the alumni of its Agricultural College. Educated at public expense and in an institution of higher learning that stands specifically for all-round rural improvement and rural patriotism, the students that go out from this college cannot misinterpret their duties nor fail to understand the responsibilities they assume as graduates of the North Dakota Agricultural College. Nor is their field of labor an unenviable one. It may at times seem irksome, even discouraging, but nevertheless it ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... Further, with but one, or at most two exceptions, all the newspapers which she had patronized declared against her, and were throughout the struggle the bitterest and most abusive of her opponents. The Voluntaries, too, joined with redoubled vehemence in the cry raised to drown her voice, and misinterpret and misrepresent her claims. The general current of opinion ran strongly against her. My minister, warmly interested in the success of the Non-Intrusion principle, has told me, that for many months past I was the only man in his parish that seemed ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... A. Hinckley of the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once married to live together. But I can not dispute the proposition, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... wonder," cried Eleanor. "Such a profile!" Then, at the thought how Kate might misinterpret this purely artistic enthusiasm, she dropped her ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... this young creature adored)—and she, listening, would take her place next at the piano, and reproduce the music morsel by morsel, by ear. A professor was appointed to pronounce sentence on me, and declare if I could be trusted not to misinterpret Mozart, Beethoven, and the other masters who have written for the piano. Through this ordeal I passed with success. As for my references, they spoke for themselves. Not even the lawyer (though he tried hard) could pick holes in them. It was arranged ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... how will it announce its coming? No one can answer these questions. The future is hidden. But those who watch and think do not misinterpret the signs: workers and exploiters, Revolutionists and Conservatives, thinkers and men of action, all feel that a revolution ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Intellectually they show no defect. They are keen and alert to every opportunity which presents itself to them and are very shrewd in the execution of their criminal acts. Finding themselves under a regime which exacts from them a certain submission to rules, to regulations, they begin to misinterpret ordinary occurrences in their environment in a sort of delusional manner: They are persecuted by the warden because the latter insists upon making them behave themselves; the keepers are a bunch of anarchists, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... Dick, 'I think you misinterpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy in her own imagination. I know positively nothing ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is not weakened in itself by the errours of those who misinterpret or misapply it; the encroachment of the appetites upon the understanding is hourly perceived; and the state of those, whom sensuality has enslaved, is known to be in the highest degree ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... blushed, as she thought of what she had said. Could it be that he would think that she was speaking for her own sake;—because she looked forward to reigning some day as mistress of Newton Priory? Ah, no, Ralph would never misinterpret her thoughts in a manner ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... granted that no hearer of mine will misinterpret what I have to say as the language of cynicism. The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. The practice of it, ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... fearful and most irrevocable malediction is presented by thee in a perpetual sleep. I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunk, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake.[230] I must therefore, O my God, look farther than into the very act of sleeping before I misinterpret my waking; for since I find thy whole hand light, shall any finger of that hand seem heavy? Since the whole sickness is thy physic, shall any accident in it be my poison by my murmuring? The name of watchmen belongs to our profession; thy prophets ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... black hair tumbled down upon the youth's shoulders. Even then Piers Minor, being of masculine slow wit, might not have guessed the truth but for a bright blush that overspread brow and cheek, a confession that even his dull senses could not misinterpret. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... wondering what the disturbance is all about. A group of horsemen are visible in the bright moonlight outside, and one of them has dismounted, and under the guidance of a shepherd, is about entering the tent; seeing me spring up, and being afraid lest perchance I might misinterpret their intentions and act accordingly, he sings out in a soothing voice, "Kardash, Hamsherri; Kardash, Kardash." thus assuring me of their peaceful intentions. These midnight visitors turn out to be a party of Persian travellers from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... But misinterpret not my speech, I pray; All this of men, not women, do I say; For men it is, that come and spoil the lives Of such, as but for them, would make good wives. They leave their own wives, be they never so fair, Never so ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... looks and folded arms, he followed the hasty stride of Neville towards the tent of Queen Berengaria—"I stand undoubtedly discovered and unfolded to King Richard; yet I cannot perceive that his resentment is hot against me. If I understand his words—and surely it is impossible to misinterpret them—he gives me a noble chance of redeeming my honour upon the crest of this false Marquis, whose guilt I read in his craven eye and quivering lip when the charge was made against him.—Roswal, faithfully hast thou served thy master, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the few left to hear him, because Mendel, the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of God within man, I should have been proud to take off ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hours before, this would have conveyed to my suspicious mind deep and mysterious meanings; but I was seeing everything now in a different light, and I found myself no longer inclined either to exaggerate or to misinterpret these little marks of filial solicitude. Trying to rejoice over the present condition of my mind, I was searching in the hidden depths of my nature for the patience of which I stood in such need, when every thought and feeling were again thrown into confusion by the ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... contact with a company of people and at once feel a strange something that we can not analyze; but we can not always trust our feelings. There are many things that influence us, and it is very easy to misinterpret them. Nor should we conclude that there is something very badly wrong with anyone merely because we have peculiar feelings when in his presence. There may be something wrong, however, and it behooves us ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... noncommittal fashion, not caring at the moment to take issue with Miss Primleigh. Arguments I detest. If she chose to misinterpret my sentiments, so be it then. I shall, however, add here that while my own opinion of the matter was not absolutely in accord with the burden of Miss Primleigh's criticisms, there was one point brought out by her in her remarks upon which I could ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... There had been speeches and congratulations, and the scene was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult," whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision, only needed time to unite races, and ultimately to extend around the globe. To her ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... thought. She had been much pleased with Morton, and it did not occur to her that her daughter might have been so likewise, in a far greater degree, or that he might misinterpret ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... leave me, daughter," he reiterated, half petulantly, "I fear that you do not appreciate, or rather that you misinterpret my motive in sending you on so grand a journey. How many girls there are who vainly wish, from day to day, for such advantages as I ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... What callest thou such a step? A wicked step Ne'er will he take; but thou mightest easily, Yea, thou hast done it, misinterpret him. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... endeavored, from the start, to keep my sympathies out of the investigation, lest they should lead me to misinterpret the broken evidence, and thus defeat my object. It must have been the Countess' letter, and the brief, almost stenographic, signs of anxiety and unhappiness on the leaf of the journal, that first beguiled me into a commiseration, which the simple ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... chooses some lives, and laying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and infirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of spirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable barriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is impossible to misinterpret, "Serve Me in darkness and in silence; and let it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of men." Sometimes a command like this finds a ready echo in a timid and sensitive spirit, to which it is a deliverance ...
— Beside the Still Waters - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... see that if he spoke roughly it was only an expression of the smothered pain of his mental crucifixion. He could not tell her he loved her for fear she might misinterpret her own sentiments. Besides, her present mood was not inductive to any declaration on his part; a confession might serve only to widen the breach. Who could say that it wasn't Cunningham's game to take Jane along with him in the end? There ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... husband's face, and sees a determination that she is to misinterpret many times before she can read it aright. She is not exactly happy. All this state and attention render her nervous, it is so unlike her ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the statement that any one particular farm is exceptionally fertile. Because the people of a country are suffering from famine, it does not follow that one particular person is thus afflicted. Again, it would be fallacious to say: It is admitted that the judges of the court of appeal cannot misinterpret the law; Richard Rowe is a judge of the court of appeal; therefore ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... whether it would be well to say anything on the scaffold for the edification of the people. But the bishop discouraged him, saying that he would be imperfectly heard, and that the people, in their present excitement, would be apt to misinterpret what he said ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... conception of its inner spirit only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect symptoms are so striking that even an outsider, if at all observant, need not fear to misinterpret them. Taken externally, Protestantism is, of course, a form of Christianity; it retains the Bible and a more or less copious selection of patristic doctrines. But in its spirit and inward inspiration it is something quite as independent of Judea as of ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... he repeated. There was no mistaking it—what could be clearer. Latin, inter, between; venio, I come. Marion may have translated it differently, but she had served in the capacity of buffer too often to misinterpret its meaning. ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... friendly with the Shippen family," he went on. "Now, do not misinterpret me. I shall require no betrayal of confidence. But it is generally known that the Shippens are Tories, not avowedly so, yet in heart and in thought. It is also generally known that their house was the center ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... fencing and quibbling be brought to an end. I quite agree with you that it is desirable. I spoke as I did before you left upon an impulse that I shall never cease to regret. I do not wish you to misunderstand me, nor to misinterpret my attitude in any way. You asked me to be your wife, and, very foolishly and wrongly, I gave you—intentionally—an answer which might easily be construed into an encouragement. Understand now that I do not wish you to try to make me love you. I would ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinized with jealous, mistrustful eyes, taxes ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... and me lowering and stowing the big mainsail while they surlily slouched about the deck, letting go halliards, clewing up and hauling down; and perhaps, more than all, the aspect of the heavens, conveying a message that no man could misinterpret, caused them somewhat to modify their attitude, and by four bells the ship was as nearly ready for what might come as ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... here and there; we pluck an herb fresh from the hand of the Creator. We look, so to speak, from Nature to Nature's God.' Yes, my young friend, we should be the first to repel the foul calumny that could misinterpret our most ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... youth," said Mirth, with a kindness which made me love her dearly, though I was no such coxcomb as to misinterpret her motives. "I have espied much promise in him. True, a shadow sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is sure to follow in a moment. He is never guilty of a sad thought but a merry one is twin-born with it. We will take ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her fan. The dull, slow rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... signification, import, purport. Meet, encounter, collide, confront, converge. Meeting, assembly, assemblage, congregation, convention, conference, concourse, gathering, mustering. Melt, thaw, fuse, dissolve, liquefy. Memory, remembrance, recollection, reminiscence, retrospection. Misrepresent, misinterpret, falsify, distort, warp. Mix, compound, amalgamate, weld, combine, blend, concoct. Model, pattern, prototype, criterion, standard, exemplar, paragon, archetype, ideal. Motive, incentive, inducement, desire, purpose. Move, actuate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... sometimes talks, and the words of a man in his position are repeated in the smoking-rooms of clubs, round tea tables and elsewhere. Unfortunately gossip of this kind is most unreliable. The tendency is to exaggerate the picturesque parts of the story and to misinterpret motives. It is slanderous, for instance, to suggest that Sir Bartholomew was in any way attracted by the lady who bore the title of Queen of Salissa. He never spoke to her or even saw her. His interest in the Salissa affair was that of a patriotic statesman. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... mind is quite subject to illusions, either due to a faulty sense organ, or to a preconceived state of mind which so strongly expects or presages something else than reality as to misinterpret what ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... and candy. One arm was quite as full of toys as he could pack it—the other had begun the day's conveyance of food from hand to mouth, but he was regarding a very small, warm suit of clothes and substantial boots with dangerously quivering lips. Nor could one misinterpret his disapproval. For a moment the startled Doctor fancied he heard Mike hiss the astonishing words "Mom Murphy!" but by the time he had wheeled about, Muggs, with circular eyes of terror, ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... volume. With reference to certain expressions on religious subjects in Mr. Gladstone's Letter, it will be remembered that it here appears as a biographical and historical document, and therefore without omissions—a remark which I feel assured that the illustrious writer will not misinterpret, and that both will accept the gratitude and admiration due from all surviving friends of Mr. Hope-Scott, for the splendid tribute which each of them has given to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... 'You strangely misinterpret my confidence,' was my reply; 'and if you had at all appreciated my character, you would understand that I can take no money ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the issuance by this government on May 29 of a statement regarding the nationalist aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of this statement, the Secretary of State to-day further announces the position of the United States Government to ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... abandoned to her trouble. "I beseech you, Madonna," he was beginning, when she suddenly bared her face, her woe, and her beauty to his astonished eyes, looking passionately at him in a way which even he could not misinterpret. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a representative ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... drapery of the curtain, the forms of the Baron Savitch and Miss Ward of Portland. They did not observe his entrance. Miss Ward's hand was in the Baron's hand, and she was looking up into his handsome face with an expression which Fisher could not misinterpret. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... I called after him as he hobbled off to take his bath, "only if you are wise, you won't speak to Maqueda, for she might misinterpret your motives if you go on staring at her as ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... coarsely. No one is called upon to make an elaborate declaration of faith as often as such subjects are spoken of. Sylvia thinks so differently from you about almost everything that, when she happens to agree with you, you are misled and misinterpret her whole position.' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... naught I would not forgive Elizabeth," returned he with earnestness. "Had I known I would have delayed seeking an audience but methought it was your wish that I should come to you upon my first arrival. Forgive me that I did misinterpret your desire." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... quite the contrary," said Madame apologetically, "don't misinterpret our present departures to prove how much we all think of that beneficial public life which you are leading. I shall whisper one word to you, which will convince you of our most sincere respect ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... shrinking not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, my ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at least my question) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret prophecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether, after assuming to be an oracular teacher, he can teach some fanatical precepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, without impairing our sense ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... yielded only after Esther had pointed out to them that the events on which the holiday was based, were perpetuated in the annals of the kings of Persia and Media, and thus the outside world would not be able to misinterpret the joy of ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... was the reply, "the glass has been as steady as a rock for the past three days," and then, to my intense anger, he added an insinuation that my fears had led me to deliberately misinterpret what the natives had said. The retort I made was of so practical a nature that the mate had to assist the skipper to ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... isn't that," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Don't misinterpret my coming here to say that I will go. It isn't because—no, it ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... wouldn't," she interrupted, quietly. "To the end of time he would judge me by the past. He would label me 'woman to beware of' and my most innocent actions, my most impulsive attempts to show forth my true and better self he would entirely misinterpret, brilliant man though he is. Nigel, believe ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... drawn legal document, intended to bind the god as well as the State."[418] He is no exception to the rule that those who have not habitually occupied themselves with the Roman religion are liable to misinterpret its details. This is not an address to Jupiter, nor is there any sign in it that the god was considered as bound to perform his part as in a contract; the covenant is a one-sided one, the people undertaking an act of self-renunciation if the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... physician," she said quietly, "and physicians are sometimes obliged to do difficult things in the interest of their profession. It is dreadfully difficult for me to speak to you in this way. But"—she looked fearlessly at him—"I am confident you will not misinterpret ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... position.) just come out in last "North British," by some great mathematician, which is admirably done; he has a severe fling at you (229/4. The author of the "North British" article appears to us, at page 408, to misunderstand or misinterpret Sir J.D. Hooker's parable on "underpinning." See "Life and Letters," III., page 101 (note). Sir Joseph is attacked with quite unnecessary vehemence on another point at page 413.), but the article is directed against Huxley and for Thomson. This review ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... single electoral vote. This showed a marvelous anti-slavery progress, considering the age of the movement, the elements it forced into combination, and the difficulties under which it struggled into life; and no one could misinterpret its significance. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... masters (whom this young creature adored)—and she, listening, would take her place next at the piano, and reproduce the music morsel by morsel, by ear. A professor was appointed to pronounce sentence on me, and declare if I could be trusted not to misinterpret Mozart, Beethoven, and the other masters who have written for the piano. Through this ordeal I passed with success. As for my references, they spoke for themselves. Not even the lawyer (though he tried hard) could pick holes in them. It was arranged on both ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Sister Agnes that she would like to see me in her room. When I entered she was standing by a square oak table, resting one hand on it while the other was pressed to her heart. Her face was very pale, but her dark eyes beamed on me with a veiled tenderness that I could not misinterpret. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... received not merely with coldness and unconcern, but with hostile carping and even derision. The critics and Borrow pronounced themselves mutually disillusioned. It was natural that a man like Borrow should magnify and should misinterpret ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... weeping girl, all abandoned to her trouble. "I beseech you, Madonna," he was beginning, when she suddenly bared her face, her woe, and her beauty to his astonished eyes, looking passionately at him in a way which even he could not misinterpret. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... himself the night before, and that she, in her blind self-absorption, had noticed nothing. Remorse pricked her heart and gave additional warmth to her manner,—a fact which he was quick to perceive, and to misinterpret. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Bluffwood, including a tale that seemed to have gained currency that Verplanck and Mrs. Hollingsworth were too friendly to please Mrs. Verplanck. I set the whole thing down to the hostility and jealousy of the towns people who misinterpret everything possible in the smart set, although I could not help recalling how quickly she had spoken when we had visited the Hollingsworth house in the Streamline the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and night, he spent in devising some means of introducing himself to her notice: but love, where it is deep and pure, is also timid—delicate—and reverential. Captain Nicholas, moreover, was aware of Miss Walladmor's rank and expectations: these, on many accounts, as they tended to misinterpret his motives, made him shy of intruding himself upon her notice. But at length chance did for him what he could never have done for himself. In the woods of Tre Mawr ridings are cut in all directions, and for many miles: ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... Dick, "I think you misinterpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy in her own imagination. I know positively nothing of his private affairs, and do not care to know. I met him casually ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fall is judged from this, which is a great mistake. Let this serve to explain or modify any statements or representations in the sequel, which may appear to be expressed too strongly, and which those who do not understand the experience might be liable to misinterpret. Observe, also, that when I speak of corruption, of decay, &c., I mean the destruction of the old man by the central conviction, and by an intimate experience of the depth of impurity and selfishness ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... hut on the brink of a cliff, curiously watching my movements on the plain. Thankful, now, that the postmaster's cow had gone dry, and that these observant mountaineers had not had an opportunity to misinterpret my conduct, I at once hurried toward the hill, hopeful that at the top some bovine might be housed, whose product could lawfully be acquired. But after a long and laborious climb, over shifting ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... made, nor had the countess thought as she wrote the words what had been the sacrifice to which she had thus alluded, though her heart was ever conscious of it, unconsciously. And the countess sent her love to them all at Castle Richmond. "She did not fear," she said, "that they would misinterpret her. Lady Fitzgerald, she was sure, would perfectly understand that she had endeavoured to do her duty by her child." It was by no means a bad letter, and, which was better, was in the main a true letter. According to her ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... material lines is often more rapid than in matters of the intellect. Or, on the contrary, intellectual progress may be in advance of manners. Such discrepancies are frequently commented upon by foreign travelers in the United States, who almost invariably misinterpret them in the same way. Can we blame them, when we make the same mistake ourselves? M. Jules Huret, in his recent interesting book "En Amerique," notes frequently the lapses in manners and taste of educated persons among ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... this specious pretence, being anxious for a son, he was induced to comply. We are easily persuaded, when our own inclinations already concur with a proposal; and even good men are very liable to misinterpret the intimations of Providence, whenever they consult their own feelings rather ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... trivial moral in the Horatian maxim of carpe diem, is one thrillingly charged with exhilaration and sounding a solemn and yet seductive challenge to us to make the most indeed, but also to make the best, of our little day. To make the most, and to make the best of life! Those who misinterpret or misapply Pater forget his constant insistence on the second half of that precept. We are to get "as many pulsations as possible into the given time," but we are to be very careful that our use of those pulsations shall be the finest. ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... But do not misinterpret her edict. She emancipates from the lower only to call to the higher. She does not bid the world go and play while she does the work. She emancipates the muscles only to employ ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... inner spirit only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect symptoms are so striking that even an outsider, if at all observant, need not fear to misinterpret them. Taken externally, Protestantism is, of course, a form of Christianity; it retains the Bible and a more or less copious selection of patristic doctrines. But in its spirit and inward inspiration it is something quite ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... begirt with the Urim and Thum- mim of priestly office, yet should deny the validity or permanence of Christ's command to heal in all ages, this denial would dishonor that office and misinterpret [10] evangelical religion. Divine Science is not an interpo- lation of the Scriptures, but is redolent with love, health, and holiness, for the whole human race. It only needs the prism of this Science to divide ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... not wise and prudent to laugh in the midst of such a spectacle as this. The Hindus are very exclusive until you get acquainted with them, and have a great many prejudices which we cannot comprehend. They are very sensitive, and are very likely to misinterpret the expression and the actions of a stranger; your laugh might be offensive, leading them to believe you were sneering, or making fun of them, as ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... frenzy about every second day by surreptitiously sacrificing poultry in his honor; but he did not dare to make any very violent stand against this overstepping of the rubric, lest (as was hinted to him) they should misinterpret his motive, and substitute a plump nigger baby for the more harmless spring chicken. It is by no means easy to follow the workings of the black man's brain in ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... another, till at last a more serious project introduced sufficient ground of detention. He seemed possessed by a strange buoyancy—an almost feverish joy in life, which blunted all sensations of physical distress, or helped him to misinterpret them. When warned against the imprudence of remaining where he knew he suffered from cold, and believed, rightly or wrongly, that his asthmatic tendencies were increased, he would reply that he was growing acclimatized—that he was quite well. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... else than read novels since parting with the two men who were metaphorically at her feet. Since the telegram she had not received a word from her father or any one, and was inwardly chafing at the dead calm that had followed her exciting experiences. She did not misinterpret the deceptive peace, however, and knew that on the morrow she must decide what even she regarded as the most momentous question of life. Persons under the dominion of pure selfishness escape many perplexities, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... brave, true, magnanimous nature that was leaning so tenderly upon Mr. Belcher's arm! And he felt that no woman who was not either shabbily perverse, or a fool, could misinterpret her. He knew that his wife had been annoyed at finding Mrs. Dillingham in the house. He dimly comprehended, too, that her presence was an indelicate intrusion, but ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Valjean will not live with Marius and Cossette, being too sensitive therefor, perceiving himself distrusted by Marius, but comes to warm his hands and heart at the hearth of Cossette's presence; and he is stung when he sees no fire in the reception-room. The omission he can not misinterpret. He goes again, and the chairs are removed. Marius may have honor, but his honor is cruel, like an inquisitor with rack and thumbscrew; and then Jean Valjean goes no more, but day by day suns his ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... me such a sacred thing that I felt that any reference to it on my part would be like a profane touch; but I was sure you would not misinterpret my silence or my absence, and would know that you were never long absent ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... to misinterpret Nature if we start with the assumption that her methods are at all like our methods. We pick out our favorites among plants and animals, those that best suit our purposes. If we want wool from the sheep, we select the best-fleeced animals to breed from. If we want mutton, we act accordingly. ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Commission in Lunacy can only be granted when a man's actions are devoid of reason; but in this case, the remittances made to you have a reason based on the most sacred and most honorable motives. Hence you may keep it all without remorse, and leave the world to misinterpret a noble action. In Paris, the highest virtue is the object of the foulest calumny. It is, unfortunately, the present condition of society that makes the Marquis' actions sublime. For the honor of my country, I would that such deeds were regarded as a matter of course; but, ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... be used, and warning them against neglecting his instructions. For some years all goes well, the will is studied and followed, and the brothers, Peter (the Church of Rome), Martin (the Church of England), and Jack (the Calvinist), live in unity. How by degrees they misinterpret their father's will, how Peter begins by adding topknots to his coat, and afterwards grows so scandalous that his brothers resolve to leave him, and then fall out between themselves, is told with abundant wit. A great part of the volume consists of digressions ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... fashion, not caring at the moment to take issue with Miss Primleigh. Arguments I detest. If she chose to misinterpret my sentiments, so be it then. I shall, however, add here that while my own opinion of the matter was not absolutely in accord with the burden of Miss Primleigh's criticisms, there was one point brought ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... a "Defence of Zululand and its Kings," Lady Florence Dixie gibbets Mr. Henrique Shepstone, and points him out to be execrated by a Cetywayo-worshipping public, because the ex-king is to be sent to England in his charge; when, according to Lady Dixie, he will certainly be scoundrel enough to misinterpret all that Cetywayo says for his own ends, and will thereby inflict a "cruel wrong" upon him, and render his visit to England "perfectly meaningless." Perhaps it has never occurred to Lady Dixie that this is a very serious charge to bring against an honourable man, whose ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... warmly. He could not misinterpret her meaning. She spoke slowly, deliberately. It was ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... always now the last to leave. He sat usually in the shadow of the vine, and though his-face was unseen, Clayton could feel his eyes fixed upon him with an intensity that sometimes made him nervous. The mountaineer had evidently begun to misinterpret his visits to the cabin. Clayton was regarded as a rival. In what other light, indeed, could he appear to Raines? Friendly calls between young people of opposite sex were rare in the mountains. When a young ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... live on the best terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you will not listen to them, but to those who misinterpret ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every other citizen his equal civil and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... what the disturbance is all about. A group of horsemen are visible in the bright moonlight outside, and one of them has dismounted, and under the guidance of a shepherd, is about entering the tent; seeing me spring up, and being afraid lest perchance I might misinterpret their intentions and act accordingly, he sings out in a soothing voice, "Kardash, Hamsherri; Kardash, Kardash." thus assuring me of their peaceful intentions. These midnight visitors turn out to be a party of Persian travellers from Miana, from which it would ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... avoid giving him a chance to misunderstand me. But now it was too late; if the error could be wiped out at all, the only way to erase it was by telling him everything and giving him his chance to misinterpret me if he ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... the curtain, the forms of the Baron Savitch and Miss Ward of Portland. They did not observe his entrance. Miss Ward's hand was in the Baron's hand, and she was looking up into his handsome face with an expression which Fisher could not misinterpret. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... fun of me," said the old maid, "and that is not kind when all the town will probably misinterpret ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... to hear him, because Mendel, the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of God within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but still glossy ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but when a man has ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... quite unjust to yourself," he said unwillingly. "Of course, if any man chooses to misinterpret a confidence—" ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is danger that the Southern whites will, as a rule, misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to underrate its importance, and those who appreciate its significance are apt to look for temporary and superficial remedies. The vague promises made at the Vicksburg convention, which was controlled ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping. I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. The legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction from his ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... or the "Night Thoughts." Their religion is that of revelation—it acknowledges no other source but the word of God. To that word, in all difficulty, distress, and dismay, these poets appeal; and though they may sometimes, or often, misinterpret its judgment, that is an evil incident to finite intelligence; and the very consciousness that it is so, inspires a perpetual humility that is itself a virtue found to accompany only a ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... with so much assurance, as to the alumni of its Agricultural College. Educated at public expense and in an institution of higher learning that stands specifically for all-round rural improvement and rural patriotism, the students that go out from this college cannot misinterpret their duties nor fail to understand the responsibilities they assume as graduates of the North Dakota Agricultural College. Nor is their field of labor an unenviable one. It may at times seem irksome, even discouraging, ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... said Mr. Smith, still sobbing; "you misinterpret my grief. This party was in no way akin to me except under that common descent from the old Adam which makes all humanity brothers and sisters. I did not know deceased, nor did I ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... drew again near, the doctor said, "I will leave you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because you misinterpret my purpose ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... that the fruitful land they sought was but a few days' journey down the river, and they went wearily on, day by day, as the promised land still fled before their feet. Doubtless they were led by their own desires to misinterpret the words of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the most sacred friendship may harbor secrets, but you ought not to misinterpret the secret of a friend because you can not ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... offices of affection and respect had been performed, Mr. Brock felt it his duty, as executor to the deceased lady, to write to her brothers, and to give them information of her death. Believing that he had to deal with two men who would probably misinterpret his motives if he left Allan's position unexplained, he was careful to remind them that Mrs. Armadale's son was well provided for, and that the object of his letter was simply to communicate the news of their sister's decease. The two letters were dispatched toward the middle of January, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... source of hope and inspiration; he will have the joy of watching their minds develop, and of feeling that it is due in some measure to him that they are growing into makers of happiness for themselves and the world. And when in his work he is met by the opposition of those who misinterpret or misunderstand, he will have an almost fierce satisfaction in the faith that the future may be all on his side, and that many years hence a little of him will live in men who have realised not his, but their, individuality, and that potentiality ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... conduct should be misinterpreted; but I defy a heart like yours to think ill of mine. Others would perhaps speak better of me if I resembled them more. God preserve me from gaining their approbation! Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and misinterpret my actions, Rousseau is not a man to be afraid of them, nor is Diderot to be prevailed upon to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... then only to regret that. I am this way about the most trifling things and about the most serious. I can't perform any duty well. In business and in social affairs, it is always with me. It has me in its clutches, a horrible monster dragging me down. My friends misinterpret me and wonder what I mean by doing so when all the time I want to do what is for the best and cannot for this tyrant who is ever present with me. I will plod for hours and hours at a time, and at every ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... superposed, it would not be evolved. Neither is the disclosure, to the soul, of God as love, evolved from the conception of Him as the being from whom men may seek the fulfilment of their desires. To interpret the process of religious evolution in this way would be to misinterpret it, in exactly the same way as if we were to suppose that, only when the evolution of vegetable life had been carried out to the full in all its forms, did the evolution of animal life begin. Animals are not vegetables carried to a rather ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... the irony of fate that Sonya, looking at him with the clear brown eyes that were so much softer than Bangs's, and so much less beautiful than Doris's, should misinterpret his appearance, his emotion, and his reaction from the high spirits of the morning. He was again going the pace, she decided; and, mingled with her pity for him, rose the scorn of a strong soul that was the absolute master of the body in which ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... differently from her meaning; perhaps he chose to misinterpret it; at all events he stooped forward and kissed her. It brought a flash of colour into Eleanor's face, and she went up stairs much more angry with her suitor than her last words had spoke her. The angry ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Well, you see it is sometimes necessary to tell white lies, and I think that after to-night I am entitled to a prize for general proficiency in this respect. Of course," she added, dropping her sarcastic tone, "you will not misinterpret anything that I was forced to say to Olfan with reference to yourself, because you know that those statements were the biggest fibs of all. Just then, had it been needful, I should have been prepared to swear that I was married to Otter and deeply attached to him, or even to the king ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... when some native can and will lend you a slave to help you or when you can buy one—which, under ordinary circumstances is a very doubtful practice, as, though in buying the person you are literally freeing him, the natives are apt to misinterpret the motive, and unless you are very fortunate in your purchase, the slave may bring you into conflict with the powers that be, owing to their law which recognises no freedom except that conferred by birth. After all this is seen to day by day, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... that its very sensitiveness may change to a tender power, and the fountain of sweet waters refresh many a desert place. But who is sufficient for even this? Handle the little soul carelessly, harden rather than brace, misinterpret the broken expression, misunderstand the signs—and the sweet waters turn to bitterness. God save us from ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... it is a truth which Protestantism is apt to misinterpret, and which Catholicism finds it expedient to ignore—that religion is not a branch or department of human life, but a way of looking at life as a whole. Indeed, it is of the essence of religion (as has been already suggested) that it should look at life as a whole, and so be able ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... he reiterated, half petulantly, "I fear that you do not appreciate, or rather that you misinterpret my motive in sending you on so grand a journey. How many girls there are who vainly wish, from day to day, for such advantages as I ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... if I write to you on this matter? I say nothing but in the most friendly spirit, and I have some confidence that you will not misinterpret what I am doing. Lord Derby has only about one-third of the House of Commons with him—and it is impossible by any management, or by any dissolution, to convert this minority into a majority. His minority in the House is greater and more powerful than it is in the country—and any ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... her clear blue eyes on him with a look the meaning of which he could not misinterpret, for it showed the scorn his proposal had inspired. He might have seen that his cause was hopeless, yet he could not even now abandon her, and was again about to speak when Berthold and Albert came up with an independent air, ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... right," sighed the emperor; "but all this is very sad. I have meant well by my subjects, but they misinterpret my actions, and accuse me of tyranny. I go to them with a heart full of love, and they turn upon the as though I were an enemy. But I will not relent! I must be free to act as seems best to myself. The Joyeuse Entree is in my way. 'Tis a gordian ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... "Yes, I do mean Miss Howes. She and I had been—friends, and I feared she might misinterpret my reasons. It was not until yesterday afternoon, when I learned of the—of the engagement, that I felt certain neither you nor she could misunderstand. Then I felt perfectly free to send you ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but saying that her mind had long since been made up. She was an only child of a mother whom her father had loved above everything in life, and she could never leave him nor suffer any affection to interfere with that which she felt for him and which he felt for her. I might well misinterpret him, and think it strange that he should be so much bound up in her. Few people knew him as ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... he had done nothing to offend even the most particular of deities. Yet, the implications of Ladro's glances and his conversation with the ship's officer were too obvious for even the dullest to misinterpret. Musa ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... and patrols from Forrest's column had gone north of Mount Carmel during the day. The adventures of the march had emphasized the danger that a preconceived opinion of probabilities may make an officer misinterpret such real facts as he may learn, or let very slight evidence take the place of thorough knowledge got by bold contact with the enemy. The experience also teaches how sure mischiefs are to follow the forgetfulness of the principle that, in such operations, it is the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... esteem, and might provoke him to take ample vengeance for his sordid behaviour, by exposing him, in his native colours, to the resentment of those whom he had so long deceived. These considerations kept him some time in a most rancorous state of suspense, which Peregrine affected to misinterpret, by bidding him freely declare his suspicion, if he did not think it safe to comply with his request, and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... your adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe And ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... wrote in reply, "we had better stop this letter-writing before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear that you will fail to understand why I ask ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... that if he spoke at all his voice would be hoarse and uncertain and his poise threatened by the paralyzing sense of apology which welled strangely up within him in Jimsy's presence, tied his tongue. The minutes ticked loudly on and the shavings flew.... And Jimsy would misinterpret whatever he said in terms of sentimentality. He always did.... The clock ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... noble lady brings an attendant with her," he said as he returned it, with a bow. "The gossips of Zimboe are censorious, and might misinterpret this moonlight meeting, as indeed would Sakon and Issachar. Well, doves will coo and maids will woo, and unless I can make money out of it the affair ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... of the Theban royal house. Imagining that the further he was fleeing from Corinth the more certain he was to make his doom impossible of fulfilment, he inevitably drew nearer to it. This is our human lot; we cannot see and we misinterpret warnings; how shall not weaker men tremble for themselves when Oedipus' wisdom could not save him ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... We cull a flower here and there; we pluck an herb fresh from the hand of the Creator. We look, so to speak, from Nature to Nature's God.' Yes, my young friend, we should be the first to repel the foul calumny that could misinterpret our most innocent actions." ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... narrative poem like Evangeline, it is almost equally important that the young reader should learn to hold it as such in his mind. To treat a poem as a mere quarry out of which a particularly smooth stone can be chipped is to misinterpret poetry. A poem is a statue, not ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... in you' senses at last!" Northwick did not speak, but his look conveyed a question which the other could not misinterpret. He smiled. "You want you' belt?" He disappeared, and then reappeared, this time full length, and brought the belt to Northwick. "You think you are among some Yankee defalcator?" he asked, for sole resentment of the suspicion ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... commanding the Vendeans. It was not till I had exhausted every means of conciliation that I assumed the tone and language of the first magistrate. I dismissed him with a strong injunction to live retired—to be peaceable and obedient—not to misinterpret the motives of my conduct towards himself—nor attribute to weakness what was merely the result of moderation and strength. 'Rest assured,' I added, 'and repeat to your associates, that while I hold the reins of authority ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... your thoughts, Mademoiselle," replied Lewis, with a continental bow, and an air of pretended respect, "induces me to suppose that your words misinterpret them." ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... an abbey of Saint-Martial of Limoges, is the only chronicler during the reigns of Henry II. and Richard Coeur de Lion who mentions Bertran's name. The razos prefixed to some of his poems by way of explanation are the work of an anonymous troubadour (possibly Uc de Saint-Cire); they constantly misinterpret the poems they attempt to explain, confuse names and events, and rather exaggerate the part played by Bertran himself. Besides these sources we have the cartulary of Dalon, or rather the extracts made ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... sympathy. He read through every smile to the tears lying behind it. He noted the change in the tone of the laugh. He missed nothing of the painful abstraction at odd moments when Nan believed she was wholly unobserved. Nor did he misinterpret the language these things expressed. But for all his heart bled for the girl—and in his moments of solitude he bitterly cursed the woman who had robbed him of a son, and heaped every scathing epithet of his rough vocabulary upon the head of the man himself—he gave no sign that the fair ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... Hinckley of the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... played with her fan. The dull, slow rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. She was like ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... possess the intellectual power to create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems impossible ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... birthday. There had been speeches and congratulations, and the scene was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult," whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision, only needed time to unite ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... generous countenance; but the recruiting officer maintained an air of immovable coolness and composure. Twenty times did he detect the piercing looks of Katherine fastened on him, with an intentness that a less deliberative man might have had the vanity to misinterpret; but even this flattering testimonial of his power to attract failed to disturb his self-possession. It was in vain that Katherine endeavored to read his countenance, where everything was fixed in military rigidity, though his deportment ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... thou such a step? A wicked step Ne'er will he take; but thou mightest easily, Yea, thou hast done it, misinterpret him. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... text. You will remember that I said that the most useful thing that we can teach the child is to attack strenuously and resolutely any problem that confronts him whether it pleases him or not, and I wanted to be certain that you did not misinterpret me to mean that we should, for this reason, make our school tasks unnecessarily difficult and laborious. After all, while our attitude should always be one of interesting our pupils, their attitude should always be one of effortful attention,—of ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... critical days of the Hannibalic war is a wary and cleverly drawn legal document, intended to bind the god as well as the State."[418] He is no exception to the rule that those who have not habitually occupied themselves with the Roman religion are liable to misinterpret its details. This is not an address to Jupiter, nor is there any sign in it that the god was considered as bound to perform his part as in a contract; the covenant is a one-sided one, the people undertaking an act of self-renunciation if the god be gracious to them, and thereby ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... We have come to a time when men seek to limit his knowledge, and occasionally they are saying that he did not know concerning the things of which he spake. Such blasphemy makes us shudder. There is a disposition to misinterpret his teaching. They did it in Paul's day and he spoke by inspiration when he said, "If any man present another gospel than that which I have presented let him be accursed." There is a disposition to rob him of his deity. "Is Jesus divine?" was the question asked not long ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... universe there is no soul meaner, more contemptible, more cowardly, and utterly lost to every sense of decent manhood than the man who, for the sake of entangling a good man in his speech, asks him questions in public, before an audience ready at every turn to misquote and misinterpret his slightest utterance; and that is what they did. They came to him, not with the desire to know the truth, but to confound him, cast him down and destroy his prestige with the people. To every question he gave an answer having in it spiritual truth, but bearing the unmistakable ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... cried, shrinking not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Misdeem and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short Miss all that is good, that ye miss not ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... shoulders. Even then Piers Minor, being of masculine slow wit, might not have guessed the truth but for a bright blush that overspread brow and cheek, a confession that even his dull senses could not misinterpret. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... humble, reigned in the glowing words that he read, ruled his failing voice, swayed his reeling figure. She could not question the identity of the Blessed One whose beauty made the singer sacrilegious in the white-heat of his devotion. She could not misinterpret the significance of the abandoned parchment lying discarded where it had fallen on the floor while the reciter, with his sad eyes fixed upon her face, repeated so familiarly the words which he was supposed never to have seen. For Beatrice, Dante of the Alighieri was the author ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... revealed from the nape of the neck to the shoulder. A beautiful back is the delight of the sculptor. No lady who understands the fine-art of dress would ever have her gown cut too low: it is ugly, besides being immodest. The persons who bring discredit on fashion are those who misinterpret it. The truly artistic modiste cuts a low-necked dress to reveal the fine lines of the back, but it is never in France cut too low in front. The excessive heat of an American dining-room makes this dress very much more comfortable than the high dresses ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
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