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More "Misunderstand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gospel) that a man rescued from the sea will prove the bane of his deliverer. It might be thought that my grandfather, coming there unknown, and upon an employment so hateful to the inhabitants, must have run the hazard of his life. But this were to misunderstand. He came franked by the laird and the clergyman; he was the King's officer; the work was 'opened with prayer by the Rev. Walter Trail, minister of the parish'; God and the King had decided it, and the people of these pious islands ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He's one of the best fellows in the world. Don't think that I misunderstand him or fail to appreciate his worth because I love to run him so. Perhaps you'll wake him up and get him out of his ruts. But I foresee that I'm the medicine you most need. Come to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "Do not misunderstand me, Rabbi; I have not spoken one word of love to . . . Miss Carnegie, nor she to me; but I love her, and I thought that perhaps she saw that I loved her. But now it looks as if . . . what I hoped is never to be," and Carmichael told the ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... is rather for other things," Basterga continued, affecting to misunderstand the act. "This illuminated manuscript, now, may interest you? It is in characters which ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... "Don't misunderstand, Comrade," Kardelj told him with amused compassion. "You are but an experiment. If it works out, we will seek others who are also deemed potential expediters to do similar work. Now, are ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... try and misunderstand him, and at last, after two more feints, I felt that there was nothing else to be done but to allow myself ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... When I was returning from the first Woman's Rights Meeting at Worcester, a friend said to me, "I intend getting up a Man's Rights Society; you misunderstand the matter; all the efforts of society are for the elevation of woman, and man has to perform the drudgery. The consequence is, the women are far better educated than the men." The answer was obvious. "If women ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... her cheeks, and sobs choked her utterance. Fearful that he might misunderstand these evidences, she cried: "I not cry for sorry. I ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... admit him alone. That could not be. If friends would only be simple and straightforward and kind,—one could afford to be straightforward too;—but as it was she must not do what she longed to do and they would be sure to misunderstand. There was indeed the morning of the day following left her if Mr. Olmney did not take it into his head to stay. And it might issue in her not seeing Mr. Carleton at all, to bid good-bye and thank him? He would not think her ungrateful, he knew better than that, but still—Well! ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... misunderstand me, sir," said Alison. "I have not found the thief—I have not the faintest idea who stole that money; I only know that I did not, and that nothing will induce me to set foot again in this shop as one of the staff until I ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... demanded this war will demand the complete fulfillment of its purpose. It will demand, in tones which none can misunderstand and which no power or party can be strong enough to disregard, that the United States' flag shall never be furled in any Spanish province where it has been planted by the heroism ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... of languages rather accentuates than removes limitations, multiplies mistakes and embitters them. With a half-knowledge we misunderstand each other's ideals, we lose the point of the best things that are said, we fail to catch the aroma of the spices and the spirit of the living word; in fact, we are mere tourists in each other's mental world, and what word could better express the attitude of mind of one who is ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... "This is to purposely misunderstand me, Blanchard. I never, never, meant any such thing. Am I one to gratuitously insult or offend another? Typical this! Your cursed temper it is that keeps you back in the world and makes a failure of you," answered the student of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... be? or what?). As I got down near the beach a poor woman, oldish, and seemingly, lately at least, respectable, followed me and made signs. She was drenched to the skin, and looked wretched below wretchedness. You know, I did not like to look back at her; it seemed as if she might misunderstand and be terribly hurt and slighted; so I stood at the end of the street - there was no one else within sight in the wet - and lifted up my hand very high with some money in it. I heard her steps ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the people may misunderstand you," observed Mrs Lerew, who reflected that her husband had made an acknowledgment which some of his parishioners might take up, and perhaps cause him annoyance; but the vicar was not a man to be withheld from expressing his opinion by any such fears. ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these inevitable conditions of a commander in chief's actions describe to us, for instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the commander in chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... recommended these cuts after consultation with the joint chiefs of staff. And I make them with confidence. But do not misunderstand me: The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office. These cuts are deep, and you must know my resolve: this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... God-Consciousness, as with the Brahmans, and then with the much-praised apostles of annihilation, the Buddhists. You are quite right; it is a pity that I could not let the work appear all at once, for even you misunderstand me. When I say "we cannot pray with the Vedas and Homer and their heroes, not even with Pindar," I mean, we as worshippers, as a community; and that you will surely allow. Of course the thoughtful ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... in all our churches leaves too little time for the Bible lesson. Do not misunderstand me. I do love music that impresses the meaning of words. But no one climbs ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... think I've tried to make it easy for myself you are mistaken. Is it easy to pull out of the rut and habit of years? Easy to know my friends will jeer and say I've sold out? Easy to have you misunderstand? (Goes to her.) Hilda, I'm doing this for their good. I'm doing it—just as Wallace is—because I feel ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... attribute to a sudden fit of anger on Herr Casper's part. She was far too dear to all the members of the family for them to give her up so easily. What had occurred—she must admit that herself—might have induced even her best friend to misunderstand it. For one brief moment he, too, had been tempted to doubt her innocence. If she knew old Eysvogel's terrible situation she would certainly do everything in her power to persuade her father to receive him that morning, or—which would be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unless sustained and backed up by the sentiment of the people who are parties to it. [Cheers.] Before nations can quarrel, their inhabitants must first become hostile. Then a cause of quarrel is not far to seek. The men of our race are not likely to become hostile until they begin to misunderstand each other. [Cheers.] There are no dragon's teeth so prolific as mutual misunderstandings. It is in the great and constantly increasing intercourse between England and America, in its reciprocities, and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... "Oh, you misunderstand me. I didn't mean that forty dollars was too high a rent. It isn't, it is a very low one. I meant that it was more than I ought to think of paying. You see, Mr. Winslow, I have been thinking that we might ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... straightened himself up, and he looked at Woodward with a steadiness which the other did not misunderstand. It was a look which said, "If you've got that warrant in your pocket, it won't be safe to pull it out ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... "Now, don't misunderstand my position, Mr. Melroy," the other man hastened to say. "I sympathize with your attitude, entirely. But these people are going to ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper
... exalt one element at the expense of the other. Those who undervalue the human nature of Christ are disposed to undervalue the outward sign in the sacraments. Not appreciating the hypostatic union of divine with human, they misunderstand the sacramental union of the same elements. Blind to the significance of Christ's humanity in the economy of redemption, they fail to see how matter can be the channel of sacramental grace. Yet the discipline of faith is the same in both cases. ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... "You misunderstand me, mademoiselle, entirely!" cried Ivan, horrified at her interpretation of his words. "What I mean is this. Your father is in debt, on your account, to a man who has proved himself dishonorable. I propose to free you from persecution by transferring that debt to one who will take nothing but ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... I was a free woman. I don't pretend to misunderstand why you asked me. I am not a beautiful woman, I never was. But there must be something about me, there is in some women, "essential femininity" perhaps, that appeals to all men. What I read in your eyes I have seen in many men's before, but before God I never tried to rouse it. ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... eternal punishment? Christ says, "These shall go away into eternal punishment."(55) What is this "eternal punishment"? It is commonly supposed to mean the same thing as punishment which shall never end, or punishment continued through all time. But this is to misunderstand both the philosophical and scriptural meaning of the word "eternal." Eternal punishments are the opposite of temporal punishments: they have nothing to do with time at all; they are punishments outside of time. To attempt to realize eternity by adding up ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... silence, at least, which he hoped would pass as sympathetic. In reality, he was struggling to suppress any betrayal of the exultation that was beginning to take hold of him. Premature this might prove to be, but it seemed impossible to misunderstand the emotion under which the chief engineer was labouring or to underestimate its potential value to Lanyard. Surely it would seem that his faith in his star had been well-placed: was it not now—or all signs failed—delivering into his hand ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... before their affrighted visions. Well, sir, I say to them, this is your policy, not mine. You have prepared the cup, and I will press it to your lips till the very dregs shall be drained. Let no one misunderstand me. Let no one say I desire a slave insurrection; but, sir, I doubt not that hundreds of thousands of honest and patriotic hearts will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. No, sir; should a servile ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... "No. You misunderstand me. I didn't fall in love with her. I say that I might have loved her. Perhaps upon becoming acquainted with her, I might have smiled at my foolish belief—might ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... quietly, "do not let us misunderstand each other. Your daughter is safe from your control—if you molest her, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Do not misunderstand me. Carefully weigh, probe, and examine, before God, your impressions and desires. Go into your closet, spread them there before the Lord. Lay them out, examine your own heart. Be sure there is no self-interest, no vain glory, no desire to be great, or to do some ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... course, that sort of thing ended five years ago—there never was much of it—but there couldn't be closer friends than we have been, right through. We have kept each other's respect, we couldn't get along without it; and we expect a good deal of each other, too. I just don't want you to misunderstand." ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Consider that, if his gigantic powers had been directed by antipathies instead of sympathies, he would have left few classes of human character untouched by his terrible scorn. Even if his antipathies had been those of taste and morals, he would have done so much to make men hate and misunderstand each other,—so much to destroy the very sentiment of humanity,—that he would have earned the distinction of being the greatest satirist and the worst man that ever lived. But instead, how humanely he clings to the most unpromising ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... of discomfort—an ungoverned school; and the most severe and arbitrary household rule is better by far than that. And—forgive me once more—but do not speak as if you would deal one measure with the left hand and another with the right. Surely you do not so misunderstand me as to think I counselled you to treat myself differently from others? 'Just rule only can be gentle.' If you show favouritism at first, you will find yourself driven step by step to do what you will feel to be cruel; what will pain ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the sadness of science. I had been prone to ascribe my feelings to the passion of science. But it does not matter in the least—only, somehow, I would rather you did not misunderstand me so dreadfully. I do not raise the wail of Ecclesiastes. I am not sad, but glad. I discover romance has a history, and in history I am quicker to read the romance. I accept the thesis of a common origin, not to regret ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... "No! No! You misunderstand! Those deficiencies, as you term them, are delightful; they are what give the charm to the American woman. I hope you would not believe me capable of speaking in ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... do not affect to misunderstand your words; neither do I place them to the account of a general gallantry. I am vain enough to believe you imagine you speak truly when you say you ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... don't misunderstand me, dear. I'm not flinching, I'm not even regretting, as I said to you before. Perhaps it may seem to you brutal—which is worse than Casaubonish—to ask you such a question. Still, we're husband and wife, and on an anniversary like this why isn't it sensible to look matters ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... very valuable, don't misunderstand me. After the first ten years you may find a seedling orchard is going to produce a very good crop, tree by tree. We have had a lot of experience, similar to that reported in New York, with grafted trees dying. We get seedling trees ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... associates this impulse with the idea of the Last Supper: "Your remarks about the Lord's Supper in 'Whitman' make it natural to me to tell you my thoughts about that 'central sacrament of Christianity.' I cannot tell many people because they misunderstand, and a clergyman, a very great friend of mine, when I once told what I thought and felt, said I was carnal. He did not understand the divinity and intensity of human love as I understand it. Well, when one loves anyone very much,—a child, a woman, or a man,—one loves everything ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... be so full of brightness, the scenes around you are so lovely, it is no wonder if they follow you into your dreams. But—but, Mr. Owen, I will not pretend to misunderstand you." ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... will take all blame upon myself; and you are sure that Miss Broadhurst does not misunderstand you, and you esteem her, and admire her, and all that; and all I ask is, that you'll go on as you are, and see more of her; and how do you know but you may fall in love with her, ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... for not doing so," replied Mr. Clapp. "Had our client not been received so coldly, and every effort employed to misunderstand him, we should have produced them earlier; although it would have been impossible to have shown them at that meeting, since they were not then in ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... said with a dignity equal, if not greater, than his own; "do not, I pray you, misunderstand me. I am ready to do you service. But if you will deign to explain how I am to break open an iron safe inside a crowded building and extract therefrom a trinket, without being caught in the act and locked up for house-breaking and theft, I shall ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... this time. I meant what I said; I could do what I promised. There wasn't any way to misunderstand the language of that challenge. Even the dullest of the chivalry perceived that this was a plain case of "put up, or shut up." They were wise and did the latter. In all the next three years they gave ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I paid him, I might have been a graven image. He misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, the cause ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... talking to you just as I would to myself, do you? Very well. If I were in your position, I should ask myself, as a man of honour, whether I really loved her as much as she loved me, or whether I had only been taken off my feet by her beauty. Don't misunderstand me, my boy! I should feel that if I were not quite sure of that, I ought not to marry her, because it would be much worse for her in the end than if we parted. Have you ever asked yourself that ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... hopes of a peaceful occupation of the city, but during the day and along towards nightfall, the threatening attitude of the soldiers, their ominous words, threats of vengeance, were too pretentious for the people to misunderstand or to expect mercy. These signs, threats, and mutterings were but the prelude to that which ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... think she was afraid; he had tactfully pretended to misunderstand her glance, and she fixed her eyes ahead. The shadows were deeper and the forest was indistinct, but it was not dark. Besides, the moon was getting bright and threw a glittering beam across the river. She could see for some ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... which were in different parts of the room, she hobbled out crying bitterly. As soon as she was gone, the major pointed to the blood, and said, "If we did not see that sometimes, there would be no living with the brutes;" to which I replied in terms he could not misunderstand, and at once left the house, determined never again to enter it—a resolution I religiously kept. I afterwards heard that this miserable creature was pregnant at the time, a circumstance that would have induced at least some regard to leniency in ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... pronounces none of them imperfect. But with this array of texts before him he proceeds to say: "Now, I do not see that the scope of these passages can be misunderstood." Nor can we. It would seem, indeed, impossible for the ingenuity of man to misunderstand the words, quoted by Dr. Wayland himself, "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." Dr. Wayland does not misunderstand them. For he has said, in his Moral Science: "The duty of ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... altogether to be blamed for occasional lapses; but this verdict he should not know. A moderately intelligent General will waste six months in mastering the craft of the particular war that he may be waging; a Colonel may utterly misunderstand the capacity of his regiment for three months after it has taken the field, and even a Company Commander may err and be deceived as to the temper and temperament of his own handful: wherefore the soldier, and the soldier ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... mother while she lives; if you will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her; at least, it will rent for something. Her dower in the other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me. Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away all your time. Your thousand pretenses deceive ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... laid his first hold on the world to redeem it; and now at length I began to understand it. What a divine way of saving us it was,—to let her bear him, carry him in her bosom, wash him and dress him and nurse him and sing him to sleep,—offer him the adoration of mother's love, misunderstand him, chide him, forgive him even for fancied wrong! Such a love might well save a world in which were mothers enough. It was as if he had said, "Ye shall no more offer vain sacrifices to one who needs them not, and cannot use them. I will need ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... had taught herself to call him Oliver—would never misunderstand her so! Why, it was a misunderstanding that went down, down, almost to the roots. Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder . . . but here was cleavage, and from within. Say rather of such sundering. What man could remedy it? Those ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... out, eager to get it over, and even as he spoke he caught the pale gleam of Jennie's face through the window. He felt a shame he was glad she could not see. Did she remember that she had promised not to misunderstand any action of his? What did she think of him, seeing him out there in the dusk with this bold woman in his arms? Somehow that dim sight of Jennie's pale face, the big dark eyes, thrilled him, inspired him to his ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... report musen't misunderstand me, and undertake to crawl head first through their garments, for I assure him or her, that I refer to the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... or did she misunderstand me?" he asked himself; and, in the hope that she might return for the basil, he put it in water in his ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... there, a tremor on the sad lips, and a shadow of soul-hunger in her eyes. Shefford did not misunderstand her. She did not mean love, although it was a yearning for real love ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... looking out at the stretch of water before him as he spoke, but at his last words his eyes sought Katherine's with a look she could not misunderstand. She shivered slightly, an odd passing sense of fear chilling her for a moment as she turned to lay her hat upon the table near, saying, in a ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... conscience. Prudentius views his past years in the light of that new spiritual truth to which he has opened his soul. We gather that he received a liberal education and was called to the bar. We need not misunderstand the allusion to the deceitfulness of the barrister life, seeing that the ordinary arts of rhetoric stand condemned by his recently adopted ethical standard. He held two important judicial posts and was promoted to a high position, probably in the civil service and not outside the limits ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... said he, "how yon misunderstand me, and how unwelcome I must be; but I had to come, so as to assure you that I hope to find this man who is missing. I—I hope to do so before the—the trial. I have been searching all along, but without success—thus far. I wish to assure ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... say at once, lest some of you misunderstand me, that I have extremely little to report. The question of how the present condition of organic nature came about, resolves itself into two questions. The first is: How has organic or living matter commenced its existence? And the second is: How has it been perpetuated? On the second ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... staring, unable to speak. Mary, desirous that Mr. Crusoe should not misunderstand their flight, explained the affair to Mr. Hunter, a little more ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... cigarette case with the genuine simplicity and grace of a child offering sweetmeats, their subjugation is complete. Though they are strangers in a strange land—they have only dropped in to find out an address of a friend who lives in the Village—they never misunderstand the situation, their hostess nor the atmosphere for a moment. No one misunderstands the charming, picturesque camaraderie of the Village—unless they have been reading Village novelists, that breed held in contempt by Harry Kemp and all the Greenwichers. Anyone who goes there with an open mind ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... own people will not misunderstand, nor will the world misconstrue. We have no thought to impede the paths to closer relationship. We wish to promote understanding. We want to do our part in making offensive warfare so hateful that Governments and peoples who resort to it must prove the righteousness of their cause or ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us. The revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul. Thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all. The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... long, argumentative, and learned speech against the general principles of the whole plan of reform. He was followed by the chancellor of the exchequer, who declared that he was quite sure that the amendment was put with a view of destroying the bill. It was impossible to misunderstand it: it was the first of that series of motions by which it was intended to interfere with the progress of the committee, and which, if agreed to, would be fatal to the bill. The debate was adjourned till the next day. On that occasion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mustn't misunderstand." A note of wistfulness sounded in the high voice. "You won't misunderstand, will you, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... once through, she did not wait for him before reading it again and again. She did this with bewilderment, intershot with flashes of conviction, and then doubts of this conviction. When she could misunderstand no longer, she rose quietly and folded the letter, and put it carefully back into its envelope and into her writing desk, where she sat down and wrote, in her clearest and firmest ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... painful to us, her father and mother, whether it is before or after the election. We are not accustomed to associate with any one who has not first-class credentials—and now we have to endure seeing doubt cast upon our own son-in-law's. Do not misunderstand me; to my mind, for credentials to be first-class they must not only actually be so, but must also be considered to be so by people in general. (HARALD begins to walk up and down again.) The second thing I do in the morning is to open my letters. Amongst to-day's were ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... were going to Sweden to lay their grievances before their old compatriots. It is quite possible that this was true. I heard complaints made when I was in Helsingfors that there was quite a difference of opinion on the subject. But it is a marvel how they could misunderstand their right under the Constitution, when there is a strong military force stationed at the principal cities of Finland to make it intelligible. So thought the emperor or his subordinates, and put them in jail to give them light. The point in the transaction which strikes ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... which he happened to be. Fearing that the Mexicans—already restless, owing to the attitude of the United States at Vera Cruz and other places, and to the arrival of reinforcements along the Rio Grande—might misunderstand, and work some mad, irreparable mischief, Major Vandyke and his orderly had made a dash across the river. In spite of the white flag used to protect the car and its occupants, the sentinels on guard upon the Mexican side had fired at the sight of men in uniform, and ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of Simpsonism, ... that you, who know everything, or at least make awful guesses at everything in one's feelings and motives, and profess to be able to pin them down in a book of classified inscriptions, ... should have been able to understand better, or misunderstand less, in a matter like this—Yes! I think so. I think you should have made out the case in some such way as it was in nature—viz. that you had lashed yourself up to an exorbitant wishing to see me, ... (you who ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... be the Consops story! Rip thought quickly, then held up his hand in a shocked gesture that would have done credit to the Frenchman. "Oh, no, Commander! You misunderstand. We had no way of communicating by radio, so I did the only thing we could do. I fired rockets as a warning. We didn't want your boats to get caught in a nuclear explosion." He shrugged. "It was very ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... pretend to misunderstand you, Grey. Your manner puts that out of the question. You are unwarrantably accusing me of a most ungentlemanly proceeding. Such an accusation being made by any one—what shall I say?—more responsible than you, I should take considerable ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... She could no longer misunderstand. So far from his devotion having abated, it was stronger than she had ever imagined, and the discovery made her sorrier for him than ever. "Girofle!" she cried remorsefully, "I never knew you felt it like that—I thought you understood, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... now fell a trembling as if he had been shaken with the fit of an ague. Sophia, who was in a situation not very different from his, answered in these words: "Mr Jones, I will not affect to misunderstand you; indeed, I understand you too well; but, for Heaven's sake, if you have any affection for me, let me make the best of my way into the house. I wish I may be ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... greater the danger for the latter. For among many people the belief obtains that when a man dies he will endeavour to steal the "soul-substance" of those who are dearest to him so that they may accompany him to the other world. But as stealing the "soul-substance"[109] means death, it is easy to misunderstand such a display of affection. Hence most people who long for life and hate death do their utmost to evade such embarrassing tokens of love; and most ethnologists, misjudging such actions, write about "appeasing the dead". It was those whom the gods ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... dear old Pasteur, and clergymen generally, are so apt to misunderstand. They think that there is only one way of learning things beyond, and that every other must be wrong. Also I am sure that your friend, Isobel Blake, would laugh ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... blue-eyed idiots that don't know a lamb stew from a soup bone when they see it. Well, Mr. Man didn't show up, and I started in to clerk at six per. I'm earning as much as you are now. More. Now, don't misunderstand me, Gabe. I'm not throwing bouquets at myself. I'm not that kind of a girl. But I could sell a style 743 Slimshape to the Venus de Milo herself. The Lord knows she needed one, with those hips of hers. I worked my way up, alone. I'm used to it. I ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... he ill-used me and took to drinking; I returned to my old service to escape from him—for I was with child, and my life was in danger from his violence. He died suddenly, and in debt. And then, afterwards, a gentleman—a rich gentleman—to whom I rendered a service (do not misunderstand me, sir, if I say the service was one of which I repent), gave me money, and made me rich enough to marry my first lover; and William and I went to America. We lived many years in New York upon our little fortune comfortably; and I was a long while happy, for ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attain to fruitfulness in the future. Although this echo often sounded so discordant as to confuse him, still the tremendous power of his voice repeatedly crying out into the world must in the end call forth reverberations, and it will soon be impossible to be deaf to him or to misunderstand him. It is this reflected sound which even now causes the art-institutions of modern men to shake: every time the breath of his spirit blew into these coverts, all that was overripe or withered fell to the ground; but the general increase of scepticism in ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... it is with yourself?" Freule Menela murmured, with a girlish laugh that betrayed suppressed excitement. "Well, Mr. Starr, I think it would be foolish to pretend to misunderstand. I have heard much about you—perhaps you have heard a little of me?—yet you have taken me by storm. The thing I love best is art. You are a great artist—and you are a man of the world. You have all the fire of genius—and geniuses have a right ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the rush and excitement that caused every one to be so irritable and to so misunderstand things. Certainly Tavia had some worry, and Ned did not act like himself, while Nat looked miserable. It would be a queer holiday unless things ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... d'Italie, where a friend of Serizier's (known as Bobeche) was instructed what to do with them. During the morning, however, Bobeche went to a drinking saloon, and while there the man he left in charge received orders to send the priests to work on a barricade. He affected to misunderstand the order, and sent, instead, fifteen National Guards imprisoned for insubordination. When Bobeche came back, half-drunk, he was furious. "What! was the blood of priests to be spared, and that of patriots imperilled at a post of danger?" Before long the order was repeated. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... you misunderstand, sir," ventured Harley. "This Simms is arrested by the Boston sheriff for stabbing a man; and the Southerners have got the federal commissioner to refuse to ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... I saw, the troubles in the future which have burst upon us; but having undergone those troubles, having spent all this blood and this treasure, I do not mean to go back again and be cheek by jole, as I was before, with South Carolina, if I can help it. Mark me now; let no man misunderstand me; and I repeat, lest I may be misunderstood (for there are none so difficult to understand as those who do not wish to)—mark me again,—I say, I do not mean to give up a single inch of the soil of South Carolina If I had been living at that time, and had the position, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... retrograde party was to misunderstand everything. The plainest things were found to need a world of debate; the simplest things became entangled; the noble assemblies played solemnly a ludicrous game of cross-purposes. Straightway came a notice from the Emperor which, stripped of official ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Terauchi administration had made up their minds that the northern Christians were inimical to the progress of the Japanese scheme of assimilation, they set their spies to work. Now the rank and file of spies are very much alike in all parts of the world. They are ignorant and often misunderstand things. When they cannot find the evidence they require, they ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside, at least as much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and much more than he admires the virtues of the Middle Ages. He need not set himself to develop equality, but he need not set himself to misunderstand it. He may at least understand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... care for his wealth, and there were many things about his achievements that he felt she might misunderstand; her attitude often puzzled him. So he sat a moment on her chair arm, and said, "Well, mother, I have done my best." It was a question ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... that you will not misunderstand me when I say I share somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility that must animate your soul at the present time because of the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful or vainglorious, but, ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... or concrete probability, and still less literal faithfulness to recorded fact, is what the dramatist is bound to aim at. To understand this as a belittling of his art is to misunderstand the nature of art in general. The plausibility of bad art is doubtless contemptible and may be harmful. But to say that good art must be plausible is only to say that not every sort of truth, or every aspect of truth, is equally suitable for artistic representation—or, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... ground for them. They have been steadily migrating eastward along the Churchill River, then by way of Cross Lake, Fort Hope, to Abitibi, thence north-easterly clean across the country to Labrador, where few were to be found twenty-five years ago. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that beaver were not found in those parts years ago, but what I mean is that the source of the greatest harvest of beaver skins has moved steadily eastward during the last forty years. Strange to say, the finest marten skins secured in Canada ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... not trouble myself to go far in search of a friend such as you describe," said Tyrrel, who could not affect to misunderstand the senior's drift, "when I was near Mr. Peregrine Touchwood; but the truth is, my affairs are at present so much complicated with those of others, whose secrets I have no right to communicate, that I cannot have the advantage of consulting you, or any other friend. It ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Blanche; "but not a bit like you, is she?" And then, somewhat confused lest Marjory should misunderstand her, she continued, "I don't mean that you're not pretty, because you are; only it's so funny that you are so dark and your mother ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... drift slowly over him. "I might pretend to misunderstand you. But I won't. You may have your answer now. I am not afraid of you, for since you are a bully you must be a coward. I saw a rattlesnake last week in the hills. It reminded me of some one I have seen. I'll leave you to ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... be minister in the most unsettled and revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of the age, but the character and circumstances of the American colonies. George III., with singular obstinacy and blindness, sustained the minister against all opposition; and under his administration the American war was carried on, which ended so disastrously ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... these commands are so clear that none could misunderstand them, but not so these under consideration; perhaps if we were to analyze a little deeper our hearts, we should find that the one owes its clearness to our freedom from any consequent burden on finding them clear; the other its indistinctness from the reverse, not having ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... Severance, copying Mr. Piper finished his drink and rose. "And now, I do not wish you to misunderstand me," he said. "I have not come to my age without realizing that there are certain services that cannot be paid for. But you have done me a very great service, Oliver—a service for which I should have been glad to give nearly everything material that I possess. I merely wish you to know that in case ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... a matter of fact, people will misunderstand anything; for on the day the advertisement appeared quite a number of men called at "The Gables," all leading horses of every size and colour. Kink was kept busy in getting rid of them, but one man succeeded in finding Robert unattended, and did all he could ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... the ropes of the ring of combat most satisfactorily and fairly by using the distinction of the reviewer (if I do not misunderstand him), that I have neglected the interval between "to copy" and "to re-create." I accept this dependence, which may perhaps be illustrated further from that (in itself) foolish and vulgar boast of Edmond de ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... to me a moment," she said, pleadingly. "No; I must speak to your father," as Dick, much alarmed, tried to silence her. "He must not think hard things of us, and misunderstand us." ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... fear that you regard the weak instrument more than Him who threw me in your way," she replied, with a faint smile. "But let us not misunderstand each other, Erlon. I joyfully accept the mission which has been appointed me. I see so much in you that is excellent, so much that is noble, that to me it will be a delightful task to assist you in overcoming the evil which is naturally foreign to your soul. The day will arrive when I can ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... had not loved him the less because she must beat down such little barriers herself; perhaps she had loved him the more for it—he was the man to whom she belonged heart and soul: but the barriers were a fact. She had an absolute conviction that she could do nothing that Eugene Larue would misunderstand, any more than she misunderstood her involuntary attraction for him. Above all things, he reverenced her as his ideal of what a wife and mother should be. He would have given all he possessed to have the kind of love which Justin took as a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... not pretend," he said, "to misunderstand you. I have met an old friend, and I hope soon to have the pleasure of introducing her to you all. Not with any mystery about her, as our American friend seems determined to suppose, but simply as the Princess Zairoff—of whom you ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... trick. Molly, who had a pretty good idea by this time of how her stepmother had passed the last year of her life, listened with no small bewilderment to this conversation; but at length decided that she must misunderstand what they were saying, as she could not gather up the missing links for the necessity of replying to Roger's questions and remarks. Osborne was not the same Osborne he was when with his mother at the hall. Roger saw her glancing ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "Please don't misunderstand me, Mr. Pollock. But you simply cannot imagine the trouble that a fine write-up in a home paper may make for a cadet. If I were a plebe, now, the upper classman would get hold of the write-up, somehow, and they'd make me read it aloud, at least a hundred times, while upper ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... timidly, puzzled by the effect he had produced. "I fear you misunderstand me. I am very awkward. Perhaps I had better say no more." Gertrude, by turning away to put up her cue, signified that that was a point for him to consider; she not intending to trouble herself about it. When she faced ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... tried to save you, and came to see you before I thought that you might—and, indeed, you are quite unlike the people whom you call your relations. You must not misunderstand me; but it would be horrible to me to believe that you, who are so beautiful, and as white as a lily, have any part in the hideous curse. You charm every one, even my mistress, Bent-Anat, and it seems ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you won't misunderstand me if I say something else. Anne, I was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would have done it. But your sorrow has brought us closer together. Your perfect happiness isn't ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "I think you misunderstand me, daughter," he said kindly; "I do not mean that I fear you would fail in obedience to my commands or my wishes; but that I must keep you under my protection. Besides, I cannot possibly spare all my treasures—wife, son, and ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... dear Jack, you misunderstand me—it's not me—it's my precious jewels. I've left them lying in their room, their sobs were distressing to hear, they ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... attention. In the Lecture it is called a token, but generally called the pass-grip. It is an undeniable fact that Masons express themselves so differently, when they mean the same thing, that they frequently wholly misunderstand ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... I could show you Does anybody believe that Do you dream that Do not entertain so weak an imagination Do not misunderstand me. ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... Nay, come no nearer. The words I utter are its sign and token. Misunderstand me not! Be not deceived! The love wherewith I love you is not such As you would offer me. For you come here To take from me the only thing I have, My honor. You are wealthy, you have friends And kindred, and a thousand pleasant hopes That fill your heart with happiness; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that still small voice—so sweet and yet so keen, "Understand those who misunderstand thee. Be fair to those who are unfair to thee. Be just and merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thou shalt be forgiven." He comes to us surely, when we are selfish and luxurious, in every sufferer who ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... You know, I came out to this bally country on false pretences, as it were. Oh,—the country's all right! Don't misunderstand me. It's a regular ripper, but, damme, I ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... the art-work of the folk-soul in the religious sphere. Here man's inveterate creative faculty seizes on the raw material given him by religious-intuition, and constructs from it significant shapes. We misunderstand, then, the whole character of religious symbolism if we either demand rationality from it, or try to adapt its imagery to the lucid and probably mistaken conclusions of the ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... me, "you misunderstand and calumniate us. We do not, indeed, choose to have Dives and Lazarus on our windows; but that is not because we are moderns, but because we are Protestants, and do not like religious imagery." Pardon me: that ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... He said there was. He was afraid you'd misunderstand it. He said he was bending over her when you ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... young man returned brusquely, but Betty did not this time misunderstand his manner. "I did not do anything. I ought to have gotten to you sooner. I have been hating myself ever since for the time I took to reach you. After all you had done for me ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... at me fixedly before speaking—a long, purposeful, loving look which no man born of woman could misunderstand. Then she spoke slowly, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... which sympathy effects we cannot escape; it itself appears when we know that we are protected from the criticism of another by the complete privacy of our own doings. It alone can keep us upright when all about us misunderstand us and judge us falsely. For the actual judgments of another about us form, so to speak, a first court whose findings are continually being corrected by that completely unpartisan and well informed witness who grows up with ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... answered Harriet impulsively. "We will see that the other girls do not misunderstand you altogether, if we can make them see you as you ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... much of one another since we met in Cape Town. The passion and purpose of my life you have been able to judge. Of those interludes which are necessary to a human being, unless his system is to fall to pieces as dry dust, you have also seen something. I trust you will not misunderstand me when I say that apart from the necessities of my work, I am a ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mercy, Sir Aymer," returned the governor, "if the commission be in any degree beneath your dignity; but it is our misfortune to misunderstand each other, when we ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... upon earth. But, from what I saw of their neighbours, with whom the Russians have no connection, I doubt whether this was their original disposition, and rather think that it has been the consequence of their present state of subjection. Indeed, if some of our gentlemen did not misunderstand the Russians, they had been obliged to make some severe examples, before they could bring the islanders into any order. If there were severities inflicted at first, the best apology for them is, that they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... professional; she has never posed. In asking me to engage her she proffered barely the explanation which she seemed to feel due herself. I turn this explanation over to you because she wished, I think, that you also should not misunderstand her. It is the fee, then, that is needed, the model's wage; she has felt the common lash of the poor. Plainly here is some one who has stepped down from her place in life, who has descended far below her inclinations, to raise a ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... these cuts after consultation with the joint chiefs of staff. And I make them with confidence. But do not misunderstand me: The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office. These cuts are deep, and you must know my resolve: this deep, and no deeper. To do less ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... think you were a little baby again," said her papa, pretending to misunderstand her. "They would say, 'Why, Ruby Harper wore long dresses when she was six months old, and now she has them on again. She ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... spite on my part, which it is not; and perhaps I may mention to you that I have special reasons for wishing that Miss Atherton, at least, should not think worse of me than I deserve. She would certainly misunderstand it if my name were mentioned. I feel I have only done my duty, and I assure you it will be a great relief to me to know that you are rid of one who cannot fail to exercise a fatal influence on the pure and honest mind ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... and get out into the river. Go right to it, if you want to save your skin. Let me see if there's gold or not there." He turned to the rest and told them: "You'll all have a chance. The man who brings me dust is free. The others—" he finished with a suggestive gesture that they could not misunderstand. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Prophet's eye to the Messiah. The name points back to Solomon who typified Christ's dominion of peace, and who himself, in the Song of Solomon, transfers his name to Christ (comp. my Comment. S. 1 ff.); then to the Shiloh, Gen. xlix. 10 (comp. vol. i, 84, 85). We should misunderstand the name were we to infer from it that, in the Messianic time, all war should cease. Were such to be the case, why is it that, immediately before, the Redeemer is designated as God-Hero? Peace is ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... subject than others to this infirmity. I am far from wishing them to be neglected, however. On the contrary, we ought to anticipate their wants, and not wait to be notified of these by the children's crying. Yet I would not have them misunderstand the cares we bestow on them. Why should they consider crying a fault, when they find that it avails so much? Knowing the value of their silence, they will be careful not to be lavish of it. They will, at last, make it so costly that we can no longer pay for it; and then it is that by crying ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... mouth, before reproach, sneer, or argument should be used to bring thee pain, after I once felt that thou leanedst on me for support. All that I have said has come from the wish that thou would'st not misunderstand me in a matter that I know thou ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... take it all in good part, but it was harder to be misunderstood than it was to give up her chance to Ellen. But her sister did not misunderstand her. "I'll come home soon and do the work and let you have your turn, Christine," she whispered tremulously, as she said good-bye. "And oh, oh, Christine, I can't ever, ever tell you how good ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... go," she said, when the Chief of Police had backed and bowed himself out; but again the Baron pretended to misunderstand her. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... the great drawback of the country. Mrs. Camp thinks the savings-bank did her a real injury in taking a mortgage on her place, and Reuben seems to have seen just enough of the outside world to get it all wrong. But they are the best-hearted creatures in the world, and I know you won't misunderstand them. That unsparing country bluntness—don't you think it's perfectly delightful? I do like to stir poor Reuben up, and get him talking. He is a good boy, if he is so wrong-headed, and he's the most devoted son and brother in the world. Very ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... man will often have to wrestle with his God—but not for growth. The Christian life is a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the most anxious people in the world are Christians—Christians who misunderstand the nature of growth. Life is a perpetual self-condemning because they are not growing. Natural Law, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... Kotzebue.—You misunderstand me. Our conduct must fall in with our circumstances. We may be patriotic, yet not puritanical in our patriotism, not harsh, nor intolerant, nor contracted. The philosophical mind should consider the whole world ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... "You quite misunderstand me," said Mary, with increasing vexation. "I did not mean to say anything against Colonel Lennox. I did not wish—I never once thought whether he ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... not let us misunderstand each other, or the Apostle's teaching. Do not suppose that I am forgetting, or wishing you to account as of small importance, the awful sense in which Christ's suffering stands as a thing by itself and unapproachable, a solitary pillar rising up, above the waste ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... dropped dead in the ranks; the long columns dragged wearily through the dust, and the Federal cavalry was not easily pushed back. Guns and infantry had to be brought up before Bayard's dismounted squadrons were dislodged. But the real cause of delay is to be found elsewhere. Not only did General Hill misunderstand his orders, but, apparently offended by Jackson's reticence, he showed but little zeal. The orders were certainly incomplete. Nothing had been said about the supply trains, and they were permitted to follow their divisions, instead of moving in rear of the whole force. Ewell's route, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... became hostile; and the inconvenience always created by a change, and which it was the direct interest of so many to aggravate, afforded too favourable opportunities for the prejudiced to misrepresent, and the candid to misunderstand him. In abolishing the practice of building line-of-battle ships in private yards, he took a step of which all subsequent experience has proved the wisdom; but it united against him an extensive and ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... fingers' end, only by the force or weakness of that very sensation." So, then, let us consider that, to the blind, fingers are eyes, and remember that they have ten instead of two. As I have been blind since early infancy, my own case offers an illustration in point, so I hope you will not misunderstand the predominance of the ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... gentleman," broke in Peter in a decided tone. None should misunderstand the boy if he ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... man in trouble has been on my mind—" She paused, her glance having caught the peculiar light which her words had caused to appear in Rance's eyes, and lest he should misunderstand her meaning, she hastened to add: "Sid, o' course,—an' I fell to thinkin' o' the Prodigal Son. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... for the contempt of them; reasonably, if affected. Good men may differ widely from me, and wiser ones misunderstand me; for, their wisdom having raised up to them schools of their own, they have not found leisure to converse with me; and from others they have received a partial and inexact report. My opinion is, that certain things are indifferent and unworthy of pursuit or attention, as lying ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the image of God? The Kingdom of Heaven—that whole whirling activity of the commonwealth of God—the citizenship towards which you might be pointing Baxter Court—you have not even imagined it. I am not being sentimental. Don't misunderstand. Don't fancy, for instance, that I am exhorting you to go slumming. Deliberately or not, you took a wrong impression from my first letter. You can't mistake this. Reach after a few of the realities. Why not shut your questioning mind a while and open your soul? Live a little—begin ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... opera the Saturday after you left us, but both the opera and the ballet were indifferent performances.... Do you not know that to misunderstand and be misunderstood is one of the inevitable conditions, and, I think, one of the especial purposes, of our existence? The principal use of the affection of human beings for each other is to supply the want of perfect comprehension, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... lamp, we begin already to discard these figments. We begin to return to nature's order, to what I might call, if I were to borrow from the language of therapeutics, the expectant treatment of abuses. You will not misunderstand me," he continued: "a country in the condition in which we find Gruenewald, a prince such as your Prince Otto, we must explicitly condemn; they are behind the age. But I would look for a remedy not to brute convulsions, but to the natural supervenience of a more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were present in Messer Folco's house that night it was little less than impossible to misunderstand the meaning of those latest rhymes that Messer Dante had read. Even if none had taken into account the agitation that had come over my friend, and which at least identified him in spirit with the substance of what he read, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... men the sailing of an airship should be, and is, freer from risk of accident than the running of a railway train. There are no rails to spread or break, no bridges to collapse, no crossings at which collisions may occur, no chance for some sleepy or overworked employee to misunderstand the dispatcher's ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... very strange to me that the soldier could misunderstand his orders, when he saw me sitting there in company with them, for it is one of the regulations of the Academy which forbids any cadet to associate with a servant, and if I had been seen doing such a thing I would have been court-martialled for 'conduct ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... his teaspoon. 'I am bound to say,' he answered slowly, 'that I think not. But you must not misunderstand the woman, Trent. No power on earth would have persuaded her to admit that to any one—even to herself, perhaps—so long as she considered herself bound to him. And I gather that, apart from this mysterious sulking of late, he had always been ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... the question of vital imports and exports. Year after year passes, and politicians in Great Britain grow more and more voracious and, if possible, less and less veracious on the subject of what they misunderstand by imports and exports. The subject is really one for knowledge, not for politicians. With great ceremony at intervals, they go through the highly superfluous performance of calling each other liars, as who should say that Queen Anne is dead: and while this tragical farce continues the question ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... army and get greenbacks, as he desired to move to Illinois, where his brother-in-law resided, and his Confederate notes would not be worth a dime there. "How is that, Parson," said Davis, affecting to misunderstand him; "not worth a damn there?" "No, sir, no, sir; not worth a dime, sir. You misunderstood me, sir. I said not worth a dime there." "I beg your pardon, Parson," responded Davis; "I thought you said not worth a damn there, and was surprised ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... ... well, that their worldliness is repugnant to me—fashionable friends, confidences, meddling in family affairs, dining out, letters from ladies who need consolation.... I don't mean anything wrong; pray don't misunderstand me. I merely mean to say that I hate their meddling in family affairs. Their confessional is a kind of marriage bureau; they have always got some plan on for marrying this person to that, and I must say I hate all that sort of thing.... If I were a priest ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... I prayed more passionately. I lived in prayer like a sea-plant in the depths of the ocean. Prayer was about me like a fluid. But Dom Andre Herceline died, and a new Abbe was appointed, he who, I suppose, rules now at El-Largani. He was a good man, but, I think, apt to misunderstand men. The Abbe of a Trappist monastery has complete power over his community. He can order what he will. Soon after he came to El-Largani—for some reason that I cannot divine—he—removed the Pere Michel, who had been for years in charge ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... threw back her head proudly. She could not altogether misunderstand his meaning or the expression of his eyes, but she strove to turn the conversation with a laugh. "You ask too many questions, Mr. Ware," she said coldly. "I think Daisy is one of the sweetest of girls, and I envy her. To have a happy home, a kind guardian as Mr. Morley is, and a——" She was about ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... in the goodness of her heart, and because of some sad and bitter circumstances, came here to-day to ask me to talk with you. I do this for her sake. You must not misunderstand me." He laid his hand a moment on her arm, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... nice people,' said Louise, with a little sigh. 'And I like your sister so much. I'm glad she asked me to go and see her. Is Mr. Bilton often at her house?—Don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Mumford. It's only that I do like men's society; there's no harm, is there? And people like Mr. Bilton are very different from those I've known; and I want to see more of ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... "Refuse to deliver! You don't know that kind. He won't refuse to deliver. There'll just be a lot of inevitable delays, and his foreman will misunderstand, and all that. You ought to know more about that than ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... I spoke I looked straight into his eyes with a meaning he could not misunderstand. His glance fell, and a deep red slowly mounted from beneath the artificial pink of his cheeks and spread over his face. He recovered himself in a moment, however, and answered ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... in, "Don't misunderstand. It wasn't until the past couple of decades that this underground which had sprung up independently on both ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... softly. It was impossible that she should misunderstand; McNulty and Hill and the rest of them had just been in her own thoughts, on her own tongue. "I shall be responsible, after all," she said within herself. Then she gave Virgilia a slight frown of disapproval: it was ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... anything? Something that will tax all my energy of mind and body. That is what I want. I hope you do not misunderstand me, sir. I do not wish to seem ungrateful for ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... almost wailed, putting out her hands as though to prevent his approach. "No—no—never in life, Colonel Sahib. You quite dreadfully misunderstand." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... endeavouring to seduce his friend's wife! O colonel, colonel, don't talk of honour or your friend, for Heaven's sake! Col. Town. [Aside.] 'Sdeath! how came she to suspect this!—[Aloud.] Really, madam, I don't understand you. Ber. Nay, nay, you saw I did not pretend to misunderstand you.—But here comes the lady; perhaps you would be glad to be left with her for an explanation. Col. Town. O madam, this recrimination is a poor resource; and to convince you how much you are mistaken, I beg leave to decline the happiness you propose me.—Madam, your ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... know how, in these overcrowded days, I could support myself and family if I am to trust God to feed me and them like the birds of the air, and only think about religion." But is not this wholly to misunderstand our Lord's teaching? How does God feed the birds of the air? Is it not by incessant and untiring effort on their part? Those who have watched a pair of birds flying backwards and forwards to the nest under the eave may well question whether industry can go further. But in the unconscious ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger that was not unmixed with shame. "Why will you wilfully misunderstand me? Put it on, Deb—put it on, and don't be ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... little fool." She stopped with a little catch of the breath, flamed red, and plunged on. Her level eyes never flinched from his. "I've got to out with it, Clay. You won't misunderstand, I know. I was jealous. I wanted to keep your friendship to myself—didn't want to share it with another girl. That's ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... dear girl, don't misunderstand me," replied he, quickly; "nothing was farther from my thoughts. I truly meant all that I said. I believe you to be ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... laughed silently. But she presently recovered herself, although with the same expression of fatigue. "Don't be alarmed, my poor Jim! If you mean your friend, Mr. Woodridge, I know him. It was he, himself, who suggested my coming here. And don't misunderstand him—nor me either. He's only a good friend of Sylvester's; they had some speculation together. He's coming here to see me after Louis arrives. He's waiting in San Francisco for his wife and daughter, who come on the same steamer. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... jestingly—yet the jest was mainly pretence; the real passion was there and ready the instant he let it control. As for Mrs. Clephane, Harleston did not know. Nor did she herself know—more than that she was quite content to be with him, and let him do for her, assured that he would not misunderstand, nor misinterpret, nor presume. So, across the chair's back, she held out her hand to him; and he took it, pressed it lightly, ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... absence could make little difference; moreover, previous statements had made it plain that he had originally intended to stay for some considerable time in town. Plain, therefore, as print, and impossible to misunderstand was the fact that he did not want to accompany his friends on their holiday; that in addition he did not for the moment desire more ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... very question!" cried Piers excitedly. "Who knows how far she has gone? It may be the merest conjecture on your part, and her father's. People are so ready to misunderstand a girl who respects herself enough to be free and frank in her association with men. Let me shame myself by making a confession. Five years ago, when I all but went mad about her, I was contemptible enough to think she had treated ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... 'Please don't misunderstand me,' said Selwyn wearily. 'It is only the feeling that I have no right here. This cot should be for a soldier, and I'm a civilian. I'm an American, and—and ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... "Oh, don't misunderstand me," he said. "It only popped into my head, I don't know why. And Wolfe, you know, was a braggart who made good. He died on the 'Plains of Abraham' after distributing Montcalm's army of Frenchmen all ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... and not utterly condemnable, which withholds strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... than they, though we talk so much more slowly. We think fast, and yet we talk as deliberately as if we were speaking a foreign language. They toss off their sentences with an air of easy familiarity with the tongue, and yet they misunderstand two-thirds of what people say to them. Perhaps, after all, it is only OUR thoughts they think slowly; they think their own often to a lively tune enough. Mr. Antrobus arrived here at eight o'clock in the morning; I don't know ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... we at present misunderstand, may probably become intelligible in the course of future experience, and a great variety of interesting truths now unknown will certainly be revealed in another world. The woman of Samaria could not for ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... Italian, "if I am so dull as to misunderstand you. One may well lose one's head, at least, in such a neighborhood as this." He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank's shoulder to examine some views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish, would have been an attention truly delicate) ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... beg the reader not to misunderstand me; most of the baronet's letters to me were of a public nature, and those that were private, were not about my business, but his own. Thank God! he has no letters from me, about any money transactions; for I hereby most distinctly state, that the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... the insults to our flag pursued by Mexico previous to that time were scarcely suspended for even a brief period, although the treaty so clearly defines the rights and duties of the respective parties that it is impossible to misunderstand or mistake them. In less than seven years after the conclusion of that treaty our grievances had become so intolerable that in the opinion of President Jackson they should no longer be endured. In his message to Congress in February, 1837, he presented them to the consideration of that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... thus affected, or in confessing that every long October evening was doubly pleasant when it brought him down to see us? Indeed, I had insensibly begun to expect him. There was an indescribable something in his manner, especially when we happened to be alone, that I thought it impossible to misunderstand. Once, when strolling round the garden, I directed his attention to a group of charming autumn flowers. But, instead of noticing them, he looked at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... know that you will not misunderstand me when I say I share somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility that must animate your soul at the present time because of the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful or vainglorious, but, ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... absolute, which exists between politics and morals. His Discourses upon Livius are full of sense, penetration, and profundity; his light works show a singular dexterity of thought united to a fundamental grossness which it would be impossible to misunderstand or excuse. ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... from the sadness of science. I had been prone to ascribe my feelings to the passion of science. But it does not matter in the least—only, somehow, I would rather you did not misunderstand me so dreadfully. I do not raise the wail of Ecclesiastes. I am not sad, but glad. I discover romance has a history, and in history I am quicker to read the romance. I accept the thesis of a common origin, not to regret it, but to make the best of it. That is the key to my life—to make the best ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... to be minister in the most unsettled and revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of the age, but the character and circumstances of the American colonies. George III., with singular obstinacy and blindness, sustained the minister against all opposition; and under his administration the American war was carried ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... don't you misunderstand me! [Forcibly] Listen to this. A time will come when people will be as ashamed of having made women work as they are ashamed now of having kept ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... harshly they may have struck upon Gallic sensitiveness, at least left no room for any one to misunderstand him. "I know that officers, going to America for employment, will probably be disappointed," he wrote; "that our armies are full; that there are a number of expectants unemployed and starving for want of subsistence; that ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... transcendental or metaphysical, properly speaking, pro-physical method,—were divorced, and the one emphasized, favored, and further developed at the expense of the other. The empiricists hold to the result, while they either weaken or completely misunderstand the rationalism of the method: the a priori factor, says Fries, was not reached by a priori, but by a posteriori, means, and there is no other way by which it could have been reached. The constructive thinkers, Fichte and his successors, adopt and continue the metaphysical ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... have said them. They are sufficiently explicit. You need not misunderstand them. What, I ask, are your pretensions to the hand of my daughter, and how is it that you have so far forgotten yourself as thus to abuse my confidence, stealing into the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... produced an immense sensation throughout the country. No one could for a moment misunderstand the suggestion that the nobles of other provinces MIGHT POSSIBLY express a desire to liberate their serfs. Such vague words, when spoken by an autocrat, have a very definite and unmistakable meaning, which prudent loyal subjects have no difficulty in understanding. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Elisha, soothing her, stroking her hair, and murmuring words of love and tenderness, realized that his labor and sacrifice had not been in vain, that here was his recompense; she would never misunderstand him again; ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cry at the sight of Pastor Lahmann rang in her ears. She blushed to the soles of her feet.... How could Mademoiselle misunderstand her insane remark? What did she mean? What did she really think of her? Just kind old Lahmann—walking along there in the outside world.... She did not want to stop him.... He was a sort of kinsman for Mademoiselle... that was what she had meant. Oh, why ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... say what he has to say correctly, clearly, and simply. He must say just what he means. He must say it definitely and distinctly. He must say it, so far as the subject matter will permit, in words that people of ordinary intelligence and ordinary education cannot misunderstand. "The right word in the right place" should be the motto of every man who speaks or writes, and this rule should apply to his everyday talk as well as to more ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... last; for I am not learned enough, nor yet dull enough, to make my comment much longer than my text. I told you then, in my former letter, that, with your leave (which I will suppose granted), I would add fifty pounds to your draught for that sum; now, lest you should misunderstand this, and wait for the remittance of that additional fifty from hence, know then my meaning was, that you should likewise draw upon me for it when you please; which I presume, will ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... directly to her brougham, and set foot on the step. Pausing here, she looked about her, right and left, then over her shoulder straight back at Selwyn; and as she stood in silence evidently awaiting him, it became impossible for him any longer to misunderstand without a public ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... it was the only consideration involved, we shall misunderstand all that followed, and be quite unprepared for the sweeping victory of a purely doctrinal political creed which brought about the huge domestic revolution of which the breaking of the ties with England was but an aspect. The colonists did feel it unjust that they should be taxed by an authority ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, where his "greater monster" still abounds, with the name of the ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... rightly—is both impossible and undesirable. Throughout the preceding chapters I have striven, wherever feasible, to counter this misunderstanding—but I have little hope of success. The DETERMINATION of the world to misunderstand or misinterpret anything a little new or unfamiliar is a thing which perhaps only an author can duly appreciate. But while it is clear that self-consciousness originally came into being through a process ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... man to do as Champney Googe has done, may God forgive me; I could never forgive myself. If you, in asking this, have erred in freeing from his punishment a man who deserves every bit he can get, you will have to reckon with your own conscience.—Don't misunderstand me. No spirit of philanthropy influences me in my act. Don't credit me with any 'love-to-man' attitude. I am going to advance the sum necessary to avoid prosecution if you find him; but I do it solely on that ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... thus to you because I am sure you will not misunderstand me. And because I know you, the British, to be a race of the world-wide spirit, I dare to make this appeal ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... earnestly, "you won't misunderstand this, will you? We meet in this way on my father's account. He is—you see, he is not very well, and rather prejudiced and—and stubborn, I'm afraid. Please don't ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... preserving the exact words. Moreover, the first copies were made rather for private than for public use." Not a few were found in sarcophagi; they had been buried with their owners. "Copyists were careless, often wrote from dictation, and were liable to misunderstand. Attempted improvements of the text in grammar and style; efforts to harmonize the quotations in the New Testament with the Greek of the Septuagint, but especially to harmonize the Gospels; the writing out of abbreviations; ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... experience of the world at large was not perhaps extensive. Nevertheless she knew what one woman might offer to another, and what one woman might receive from another. "You would be better over with me, my dear, than you could be elsewhere. You will not misunderstand me if I say that, under such circumstances, it would do your husband good that you and your children should be under our protection during his period of temporary seclusion. We stand well in the county. Perhaps I ought not to say so, but I do not know how otherwise to explain myself; ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... misrepresentation of which I complained is not confined to the rather metaphysical words of within and without, as to which the most candid friends may differ, and may misunderstand one another;—as to which also I may be truly open to correction;—but he assumes the right to tell his readers that my doctrine undervalues Truth, and Intellect, and Traditional teaching, and External suggestion, and Historical influences, and counts the Bible an impertinence. When he fancies ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... out," continued the vicar; "you must not misunderstand me. I'm not opposed to the principles of missions; but, to their being promoted to the disregard of all other considerations. Saint Paul says that we should do good to all, and especially to such as are 'of the household of faith.' Our missionary societies never seem to ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... do you so often misunderstand me, you who ought to know me well? First you think that I desire to marry that girl—as if it were possible that I should. Then you fear that I will talk business. Am I one that talks business ever, to any one, ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
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