"Blunderer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a blunderer? if so, why does the Senate employ me? the girl is out of hearing, and there let her stay. As long as the noble dames are willing to breathe the night air, they shall have none ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... simplicity. So, so. Here it comes out at last! It is not the Methodists; no; it is all and each of all Europe, Infidels and Socinians excepted! O impudence! And then the exquisite self-conceit of the blunderer! ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... continuation, should be seriously considered as regards all Rommany words which resemble in sound others of the same meaning, either in Hindustani or in English. It should also be observed that the Gipsy, while he is to the last degree inaccurate and a blunderer as regards English words (a fact pointed out long ago by the Rev. Mr Crabb), has, however, retained with great persistence hundreds of Hindu terms. Not being very familiar with peasant English, I have generally found Gipsies ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... luck had turned. Charles might well conceive himself happy. Upon his sword sat laurel victory. Smooth success was strewn before his feet. The blundering and bewildered Cope actually allowed Charles and his army to get past him. Cope was neither a coward nor a traitor, but he was a terrible blunderer, and while the English general was marching upon Inverness Charles was triumphantly entering Perth. From Perth the young prince, with hopeless, helpless Cope still in his ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... now and then of the possible cause of the disaster: whereof Dixon, as they passed him, had bluntly declined to say a word till his task was done. George, with the characteristic contempt of intelligence for the blunderer, threw out a few caustic remarks as to the obstinate disobedience or carelessness of a certain type of miner—disobedience which, in his own experience even, had already led to a score of fatal accidents. Burrows, irritated apparently by his tone, took up a provoking line of reply. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when incest and adultery were defended in its pages, had, however openly at war with religion, kept at least upon decent terms with the cause of morality. It was indeed a fatal day for Mr. Jeffrey, when he degraded both himself and his original coadjutors, by taking into pay such an unprincipled blunderer as Hazlitt. He is not a coadjutor, he is an accomplice. The day is perhaps not far distant, when the Charlatan shall be stripped to the naked skin, and made to swallow his own vile prescriptions. He and Leigh ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... deal of pains with that part of her subject, for she was determined to do justice to it. She was aware that it was open to her to take the ordinary practical view of Rickman as a culpable blunderer, who, by holding his tongue when he should have spoken, had involved her in the loss of much valuable property. To an ordinary practical woman the fact that this blunder had entailed such serious consequences ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... magnanimous in after modesty, does not forget it either. Although he had been credited (to his ingenuous delight) by reviewers of "The Greater Glory" with uncanny knowledge of the complexities of a woman's nature, I have never met a more dunder-headed blunderer in his dealings with women. He perceived the symptoms of this unforgetfulness on Liosha's part, but seems to have been ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Salisbury, the translator informs his lordship that "ce livre est la premiere traduction de l'Anglois jamais imprimee en aucun vulgaire"—the first translation from the English ever printed in any modern language! Whether the translator is a bold liar, or an ignorant blunderer, remains to be ascertained; at all events it is a humiliating demonstration of the small progress which our home literature had made abroad ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... near soldiers; but soldiers commonly think more of their dinner at a halt than of their wisdom and danger. No, no; let the boy pile on his logs, and smoke them well too; it will all be laid to the stupidity of some Scotch or Irish blunderer, who is thinking more of his oatmeal or his potatoes than of Indian sarcumventions ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a traveled man to be able to display. But ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... satisfaction from that statement. Garratt Skinner and his friend would make many expeditions from which both men would return in safety. Garratt Skinner was no blunderer. And when at the last he returned alone with some flawless story of an accident in which his friend had lost his life, no one would believe but that here was another mishap, and another name to be added to ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... us the "rules of the road," and these rules contribute greatly to our convenience and safety. Such rules are the result of the common sense of man working upon his everyday problems. To violate one of these practical rules is to be a blunderer, and blundering is a subject for jest rather than bitter denouncement. Hence the humorous and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... to stand next to the queen, catched up one of the dead children, and perceiving it was a boy, ran down to the [4] king and wished him joy of the birth of a son and heir. The king, who had now recovered his sweet temper, called him a fool and blunderer, upon which Mr. Phelim O'Torture, a zealous courtier, started up with great presence of mind and accused the earl of Bullaboo of high treason, for having asserted that his late majesty had had any other heir than their present most lawful and most religious ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... response. Then the discomfited experimenter told herself that she was a blunderer. How could the poor fellow be expected to know what she meant? Why had she not asked the service from him? She would ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... promised balls and crowds. Consequently in a trice he would be there—quarrelling, and creating disturbances over the gaming-table (like all men of his type, he had a perfect passion for cards) yet playing neither a faultless nor an over-clean game, since he was both a blunderer and able to indulge in a large number of illicit cuts and other devices. The result was that the game often ended in another kind of sport altogether. That is to say, either he received a good kicking, or he had his thick and very handsome whiskers pulled; with the result that on certain ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... which we were clambering, were in many places fearful spots enough—places where a stumble or a divagation of the foot but six or eight inches from the narrow path would have precipitated the blunderer to assured and inevitable destruction. "Here," said I to my wife, as we stood side by side on one such ledge, "would be the place for a husband, who wanted to get rid of his wife, to accomplish his purpose. Done in ten seconds! With absolute ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Latham's English Language "unquestionably the most valuable work on English philology and grammar—which has yet appeared," (p. xxx., note,) and refers to the first edition of 1841. If Mr. Bartlett must allude at all to Dr. Latham, (who is reckoned a great blunderer among English philologers,) he should at least have referred to the second edition of his work, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... present. But when relations have been definitely and permanently smoothed over between the United States and Mexico, it won't so much matter except for March himself. In any case, I shan't let the cat out of the bag. I'm not such a blunderer! But I tell you frankly, I can influence others to keep the secret after the time limit's up—or I can refrain from using influence. Which shall it be? Is it peace or war ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in Yale's possession, and Harvard's big glimmer of hope immediately vanished. Broadhurst, who but a second before had been credited with putting the driving force into Harvard's great attack, was now roundly censured as the blunderer who had blown the golden opportunity. The quarterback was a sophomore, Davies learned from the talk of some of the more recent Harvard graduates ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... "What sort of blunderer do you take me to be? I sent her a note two hours ago saying I should go after her, and she sent me for reply, a note saying she would be more than glad to come. But you mustn't grow conceited over that. I didn't tell her you were to be here, or ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... and of ships receiving the fire of their friends as well as their foes." It is obvious to every comprehension, that a night action must preclude all manoeuvring, and prevent the greater skill of the tactician from having any advantage over the blunderer who turns his ships into mere batteries. The only officer who coincided with Jervis was Admiral Barrington, who gave as an additional and a just argument for the attack by day, that it would give an opportunity of ascertaining the conduct of the respective captains ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... right. To speak plainly, I wish he had given us both a sound cudgelling. What was the good of showing yourself, and, like a Blunderer, coming and giving the lie to all that I had ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... knows. He is the one man able to discriminate between truth and falsity, yet he must not reveal the cruel stab of fact or the harmless buffet of fiction by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. He surveys the honest blunderer and the perjured ruffian—I mean the counsel for the defense and the prosecution respectively—with impartial scrutiny. If he is a sublime villain, he will call on Heaven to testify that he is innocent with a solemnity not surpassed by the judge who sentences ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... fellow-creatures. Yet, human nature has not changed in the least, and where man has full sway, he is as much a tyrant to-day as he was five hundred years ago. Nations have been emancipated, but the kingdom of which the small boy is a subject remains what it always was. Nature, who is a well-meaning blunderer, has tried to set things right, first by planting some natural affection for his small boy into the stony heart of the parent, and, second, by making the small boy himself an optimist. Happily, there ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he said. "Why, little one, what can a child like you know of sin? 'Tis only some blunderer like myself who should ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... delicacy of feeling he had sometimes suspected he possessed in rare, exalted moments, were now shown vain ideas born from his own conceit; and the event had proved him no more subtle, clever, or far-seeing than other men. Indeed, he rated himself as an abject blunderer and thought he saw how a great overwhelming fear, at the bottom of his worship of Chris, had been the only true note in all that past war of emotions. But he had refused to listen and pushed forward; and now he stood thus. Looking back in the light of his defeat, his previous temerity ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... for Milligan and went for him pretty rough for having a mailing clerk so no-account as to be writing personal letters in office hours, and such a blunderer as to mix them up with the firm's correspondence. Milligan just stood there like a dumb Irishman and let me get through and go back and cuss him out all over again, with some trimmings that I had forgotten the first time, before he told me that you were the fellow who had made the bull. ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... good Domenico," said Macchiavelli, smiling, and laying his hand on the elder's shoulder. "Satan was a blunderer, an introducer of novita, who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... proper view of it is from the court within - is one of the masterpieces of Francois Mansard, whom. a kind pro- vidence did not allow to make over the whole palace in the superior manner of his superior age. This had been a part of Gaston's plan, - he was a blunderer born, and this precious project was worthy of him. This execution of it would surely have been one of the great misdeeds of history. Partially performed, the misdeed is not altogether to be regretted; for as one stands ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Confronted him with self-comparisons] [Theobald interpreted "him" as Cawdor; Johnson, in 1745, accused Shakespeare of forgetfulness on the basis of Theobald's error; and Warburton here speaks of "blunder upon blunder."] The second blunderer was ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... that the devotional instinct implanted in the heart of the entire human race has its correlative that the longing for immortal life which burns in the breast of man was not a brutal mistake, else concede Nature a poor blunderer and all this prattle anent her "immutable laws" ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... these in Esmond's heart always created a sort of rage of pity, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the young blunderer sank down on his knees, and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such a speech, he who had caused her malady; and Doctor Tusher told him that a bear he was indeed, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... fashion, and, with an active interest that hovered between jeering and applause, his neighbours followed him up and down the dam. As I might not go on, I wandered up and down the bank too, and occasionally joined in a murmured cheer when he deftly evaded some intentional blunderer, or cut a figure at the request of his particular friends. I got tired at last, and went down to the pond, where I ploughed about for a time on my skates in solitude, for the pond was empty. Then I ran up to the house to see if Jem ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nature's chiaroscuro—if it means the perception that blackness and sublimity are not synonymous, and that space and light may possibly be coadjutors—then no man, who ever advocated or dreamed of such a principle, is anything more than a novice, blunderer and trickster in chiaroscuro. And my firm belief is, that though color is inveighed against by all artists, as the great Circe of art—the great transformer of mind into sensuality—no fondness for it, no study of it, is half so great a peril and stumbling-block to the young ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... blunderer. When I got to the street the two men had disappeared. I should have shadowed ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Robert Andrews from drawings made by Humphrey Wanley, and were given to the printer by Lord Chief-Justice Parker. But these types were very indifferently cut. Wanley himself said 'when the alphabet came into the hands of the workman (who was but a blunderer) he could not imitate the fine and regular stroke of the pen; so that the letters are not only clumsy, but ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... either case. The difference is that if the business man makes a mistake, he commonly has to suffer for it, whereas it is rarely that scientific blundering, so long as it is confined to theory, entails loss on the blunderer. On the contrary it very often brings him fame, money and a pension. Hence the business man, if he is a good one, will take greater care not to overdo or underdo things than the scientific man can reasonably ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... day an unexpected event threw out his calculations. Summoned to town by the arrival in England of her husband's mother, she left without giving Darrow the chance he had counted on, and he cursed himself for a dilatory blunderer. Still, his disappointment was tempered by the certainty of being with her again before she left for France; and they did in fact see each other in London. There, however, the atmosphere had changed with the conditions. He could not say ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... like to know, if you wouldn't mind telling me, what you detect of the blunderer in him. I am ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the midst of the excitement, one of the fishermen struck his killing-spike into the head of a boy. Everybody knew that it was a pure accident; but accidents involving danger to life are rudely dealt with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked senseless by the men nearest him,—then dragged out of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover himself as best he might. No word was said about the matter; and the killing went on as before. Young fishermen, I am told, are roughly handled by their fellows ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... mentioned these two letters to M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me. "Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit, might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... For a blunderer, the souvenir he had evoked was a very skillfully-contrived piece of baseness; for by the remembrance of his own fete he, for the first time, perceived its inferiority compared with that of Fouquet. Colbert received ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... control of himself; the shock, the readjustment, had been so sudden that sensation returned slowly—"to think, dear blunderer, of your coming among us all, striking your blow, and then rushing to your In-Place! But love is mightier than thou; ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... eyes had seen half so quickly as Hannah and Little Sister's who the blunderer was. In the whole drill there had been but one figure for them, and that was Bud, Bud, and it was he who had dropped his bayonet. Anxious, nervous with the desire to please them, perhaps with a shade too ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... stared me in the face. It is easy enough to be contrite with the policeman at your heels. But I was yet to discover that real repentance is made of sterner stuff, and needs a hand that is stronger to save and steadier to direct than any which I, poor blunderer that I was, had as ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... standards, have either ignored technique or have failed to understand it. What an error to suppose that the finest foreign novels show a better sense of form than the finest English novels! Balzac was a prodigious blunderer. He could not even manage a sentence, not to speak of the general form of a book. And as for a greater than Balzac—Stendhal—his scorn of technique was notorious. Stendhal was capable of writing, in ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... 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 notice of; as it is, it is hardly worth my consideration. You are at best a blunderer. I should pause before I replied had I the misfortune to be you, and try to recollect where you are. If you wish to quarrel there is time and ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... is that, speaking generally, the fathers are neither more nor less uncritical on questions which involve the historical sense, than other writers of their age. Now and then we meet with an exceptional blunderer; but for the most part Christian writers will compare not unfavourably with their heathen contemporaries. If Clement of Rome believes in the story of the phoenix, so do several classical writers of repute. If Justin Martyr affirms ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... It is the simplicity of the thirteenth-century glass—so refined and complicated that sensible people are mostly satisfied to feel, and not to understand. Any blunderer in verse, who will merely look at the rhymes of these three stanzas, will see that simplicity is about as much concerned there as it is with the windows of Chartres; the verses are as perfect as the colours, and the versification ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... arms and currents ultimately meet in the main stream. What an idea, Raphael, I form of the Great Artist, who, differently travestied in a thousand copies, still retains identical features in all this diversity, from which even the depreciating hand of a blunderer cannot remove admiration. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... is a blunderer and a bully. He has the art of making himself unpleasant. And he seems to enjoy doing so. It is significant that the Germans are the only people who have coined a special word to express the pleasure felt by inflicting pain. The curious and expressive German word Schadenfreude cannot be translated ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... N. bungler; blunderer, blunderhead^; marplot, fumbler, lubber, duffer, dauber, stick; bad hand, poor hand, poor shot; butterfingers^. no conjurer, flat, muff, slow coach, looby^, lubber, swab; clod, yokel, awkward squad, blanc-bec; galoot^. land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair weather ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... view of it is from the court within—is one of the masterpieces of Francois Mansard, whom a kind providence did not allow to make over the whole palace in the superior manner of his superior age. That had been a part of Gaston's plan—he was a blunderer born, and this precious project was worthy of him. This execution of it would surely have been one of the great misdeeds of history. Partially performed, the misdeed is not altogether to be regretted; ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... might not be impossible, without either using or threatening violence, to make so weak a man uneasy about his personal safety. He would soon be eager to fly. All facilities for flight must then be placed within his reach; and care must be taken that he should not again be stopped by any officious blunderer. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... So saying, the well-meaning blunderer released her victim, with the view of allowing Nelly a chance to express her gratitude, and, for the first time, caught sight of ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... thoughtless conduct, and general imbecility. All this is developed at enormous length, and it ends in a general massacre, Louise's uncle being killed in a duel which Daniel ought to have fought (he is no coward, but a hopeless blunderer), the girl herself dying of aneurism, and Daniel putting an end to himself in her grave, much more messily and to quite infinitely less tragic effect than Romeo. There is one scene in which he is represented as gathering ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... is just, Palmer. I am rather a blunderer, I admit. I see you are traveling under ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... horror of slipping into shyness and so retrograding from her usual vantage ground. She expected him to speak. It was his turn. But he said nothing. She felt sure that he had seen through her last lie, and that he was secretly resenting it as a heavy-footed approach to sacred ground. What a blunderer she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the least how it is that I am here, in this chair, with you beside me? You have told me much ancient history!—but all that truly concerns me this morning lies in the dark. The last time I saw you, you were standing at the garden-door, with a look which made me say to myself that I was the same blunderer I had always been, and had far best keep away. Bridge me the gap, please, between that hell ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feeling that he was a blunderer. The fact was that he was a neophyte and, it was true, did not possess the qualities which make a successful lobbyist. Mr. Stamps had wheedled or forced his way into the great man's apartment and had persisted in remaining to press his claim until he was figuratively turned out ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... only makes men wretched; And happiness is still the lot of fools. Why should a wise man wish to think, when thought Still hurts his pride; in spite of all his art, Malicious fortune, by a lucky train Of accidents, shall still defeat his schemes, And set the greatest blunderer ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... insinuate, but a barefaced putting into words outraged his feelings. His eyes sent out flashes of lightning at the innocent little blunderer, but Marie's eyes shone; her face was one beam ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Seneschal," said he in calmer tones, putting his anger from him, "at the best you are a blunderer and an ass, at the worst a traitor. I will inquire no further at present; I'll not seek to discriminate ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... (as I have said) for describing this lady, arises out of her relation to the tragic events which followed. She, by her criminal levity, was the cause of all. And I must here warn the moralizing blunderer of two errors that he is too likely to make: 1st, That he is invited to read some extract from a licentious amour, as if for its own interest; 2d, Or on account of Donna Catalina's memoirs, with a view to relieve their too ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... blunderer who has taken up a contract that's too big for him," Grant said gravely. "I have never told anyone else, Hetty, but there are times now and then when, knowing the kind of man I am, I get 'most sick with fear. All the poor men in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... blunderer a grave, brief, now-you-have-done-it glance and looked down. "Well, I know," she measuredly said, "that a man who can tell a woman that, isn't capable of loving her half enough." She turned to go back, with a quickness ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... in that extraordinary garment,—it's worse than nakedness, yes, worse than nakedness! For that alone I could have you punished, and I will!—and try to play the fool? Do you think I am a boy to be bamboozled by every bogey a blunderer may try to conjure up? If so, you're wrong, as whoever sent you might have had sense enough to let you know. If you tell me who you are, and who sent you here, and what it is you want, I will be merciful; if not, the police ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... him! And you had him in your power—to play with as you would. And you struck him! Oh, Ducaine, you are very, very young. I am your friend, boy, or rather I would be if you would let me. But I am afraid that you are a blunderer." ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... court as reluctant witnesses of the truth of Christianity, as their further attendance can be no longer necessary: and I would leave him to consider whether the liberal appellation of "dogmatical blunderer," which he has bestowed upon me, p. 114 of his work, relative to my arguments upon this prophecy, may not better apply to ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... Happily for the blunderer, Mrs. Jabe's rage was so unbridled that she really tried to hit the object of it. Therefore, she missed. The pot went crashing through the leg of a table and shivered to atoms against the log wall, contributing its full share ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... blunderer. He was little versed in the manners and tones of that high society in which, somehow, he still seemed and intruder. But for his great wealth, no doubt, he never would have been admitted within the intimate circle of aristocratic France. His ancestry was somewhat doubtful and his coat-of-arms ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... two hundred pounds: I reckon he got it by my means; and I must thank the Duke of Ormond, who I dare swear will say he did it on my account. Are they golden pippins, those seven apples? We have had much rain every day as well as you. 7 pounds, 17 shillings, 8 pence, old blunderer, not 18 shillings: I have reckoned it eighteen times. Hawkshaw's eight pounds is not reckoned and if it be secure, it may lie where it is, unless they desire to pay it: so Parvisol may let it drop till further orders; for I have put Mrs. Wesley's money into the Bank, and will ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... determination, but Grant had pure "grit" in the most concentrated form. He could not be moved from his base; he was self-centred, immovable. "If you try to wheedle out of him his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the presidency, it does not disturb the equanimity ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... thing that the organist of San Roman—that squint-eye, who is always slandering other organists—that great blunderer, who seems more like a butcher than a master of sol fa—is going to play this Christmas Eve in Maese Perez's old place. Of course, you know, for everybody knows it, and it is a public matter in ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... such matters I was generally a blunderer; yet something warned me that my answer would displease her. I could, however, see no way of avoiding it, and when I said as unconcernedly as I could, "Yes, and talked to her about Canada!" Alice for no particular reason stooped and dropped a thread into the fire. Then lifting her head ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... Godfather,—What a blunderer I am! What deplorable want of tact! If I wanted your opinion on classical education or my scheme I surely might have found a better opportunity for requesting it. It is always the way with me. I get a thing into my head, and out it comes at the most unseasonable moment. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... times," said Milton, "I've told you chaps to load the grub half and half between the boats? Somebody blundered. I'm not going to ask who because I'm the chief blunderer myself, for neglecting to check you over, at every loading. With care, we've about two days' very scanty rations here, and only beans and coffee, at that. With the best of luck and no stops for Survey work we're five days from ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... between a fool and a blunderer," he said contritely, "is that the blunderer is always sorry for his mistakes. I will go. None has a right to refuse another ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... blunderer is said to have declared Moore's Life of Sheridan to be the best piece of Autobiography he had ever read; and with little more propriety can the concluding volume of Vidocq's Memoirs be said to belong to that species of literature ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various |
