"Inadvertency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Testament and other books—immense number of copies—ordinary causes of error—Doctrinal causes. Sec. 2. Elimination of weakly attested readings—nature of inquiry. Sec. 3. Smaller blemishes in MSS. unimportant except when constant. Sec. 4. Most mistakes arose from inadvertency: many from unfortunate ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... grieved at his inadvertency in disturbing the household at this late hour of the night, begged pardon, and told Mrs. McNab he would not be guilty of a ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... rushing streamlets, &c., &c., that we decided she was an angel forthwith. But one or two ramblings quite finished her—for she complained terribly of dust, sun, and fatigue; moreover, we quite neglected to notice or admire her picturesque rambling dress, which inadvertency provoked her into telling us that the gentlemen at Ballston, or some other fashionable watering-place, had declared she looked in it quite like Robin Hood's maid Marian. The gorgeous summer sunsets and clear moonlight nights, soon wearied her—for we were too much occupied with the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... "My dear Son.... Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. His care and attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write ... but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon line and precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the joint efforts of both parents, will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear as you ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... By some strange inadvertency, however, Mr. Chaplin's eccentric person was missing from the screen. In spite of that, though, Han managed to enjoy the evening. Afterwards Perry suggested light refreshments and they set out in search of a lunch counter. But anyone who knows Plymouth will realise ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... considered the glorious moment once more at hand, when he should obtain not merely the major lunaria, but likewise the tinctura solaris, the means of multiplying gold, and of prolonging existence. He remained, therefore, continually shut up in his laboratory, watching his furnace; for a moment's inadvertency might once more defeat all ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... that Sir Allan had known of some capital crime that the fellow had committed, which he could discover, and so get him condemned; and said, 'How so?' 'Why,' said Sir Allan, 'are they not all my people?' Sensible in my inadvertency, and most willing to contribute what I could towards the continuation of feudal authority, 'Very true,' said I. Sir Allan went on: 'Refuse to send rum to me, you rascal! Don't you know that, if I order you to go and cut a man's throat, you are to do it?' 'Yes, an't please your honour! ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... accident; never was he impelled by hunger or improvidence to fight a battle unprepared. His means were always neatly fitted to their end, as is proved by the truth that, throughout his career, he was arrested but once, and then not by his own inadvertence but by ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... histories on the misunderstanding. Both thus rest the immense mass of human religious customs and beliefs, which form so large a part of human history, on the precarious foundation of passing fancy and inadvertence, and they must be put into the same category with the naive theory, once popular, that religion is the invention of priests who sought to control men ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... "it is true that by mishap, nay, if you will have it so, by a child's inadvertence, I caused this evil chance to befall your daughter, but I deny, and my father denies likewise, that there was any troth plight between the maid and me. She will own the same if you ask her. As I spake before, there was talk of the like kind between you, sir, and ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ostracism (when she became aware of it) as an insult to him; and now, evidently she had found the clue to the mysterious scandal in her knowledge of his conduct. Before she could do that, in her own mind she must have accused him gravely. And yet, but for this characteristic little inadvertence, he would never have known it. How much ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... the girl's eyes filled with tears, that this must have been the child at whose birth, he had heard, the mother had died. "But I suppose we mustn't talk about Bloombury in San Marco," he blamed his inadvertence, "though that doesn't seem to want talking about either. When you said that just now about its being a picture-book, I was thinking how like it was to one of those places I used to go to in my youth—you know ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... library at Vercelli in Italy a good many years ago. It contains twenty-two sermons in Anglo-Saxon, and six poems, among which is our beautiful "Dream of the Holy Rood." Perhaps some English pilgrim or pilgrims, on the way to Rome, left this book as a gift, or through inadvertence, at the hospice where hospitality had been received. Or perhaps Cardinal Guala, who was over here in the days of John and of Henry III, bought the book for his library at Vercelli. Or perhaps it was one of the books of which John Bale tells us whole ships-full went abroad. We have to be very grateful ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... chairman, addressing a smart, keen-looking young priest who sat at the end of the table, "you have just come back to us from Australia; of course, everything is perfect there. What do you think—are the particles in a ciborium, left by inadvertence, outside the corporal during consecration consecrated? Now, just reflect for a moment, for it ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... wrote in the margin the following note, which is very just and timely; and as such I insert it, in order to counteract the statement which has given occasion for it, and which I wrote in the heat of composition, simply through heedlessness and inadvertence. "In no way can the cura make use of what he learns in the confessional for the exterior government. By its means one may better understand the character of the Indian, but the cura can never make use of it for the investigations that the government exacts. 1 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... mistake, if it be one, might have arisen. Even in Shakespeare, the speeches in the early editions are in many instances wrongly divided, and assigned to the wrong persons. It might have arisen from inadvertence; it might have arisen from the foolishness of some Jewish transcriber, who resolved, at all costs, to drag the book into harmony with Judaism, and make Job unsay his heresy. This view has the merit of fully clearing up the obscurity. Another, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... widow's second husband is often the most sincere mourner of her first. As time goes on, he realises keenly what a doleful day it was for him when that other died. "Death loves a shining mark," and that first husband was always such a paragon of perfection that it seems like an inadvertence because he was permitted to glorify this sodden sphere at all. She keeps, in heart at least, and often by outward observance, the anniversaries of her former engagement and marriage. The love letters of the dead are put away with her jewels and ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... sank to the lowest deeps of discouragement before this confession of her husband's inadvertence to that which she regarded as of vital import in the scheme ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... sterile cells, without provisions fit to use; she can establish several in the same cell, though this cell contains nourishment for one only. Whether they proceed from a single individual returning several times, by inadvertence, to the same place, or are the work of different individuals unaware of the previous borings, those multiple layings are very frequent, almost as much so as the normal layings. The largest which I have noticed consisted of five eggs, but we have ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Saints may not clearly appear. Indeed, let us cheerfully confess, in passing, that, by a strange forgetfulness, this same Commandment is not reestablished in its place even in the catechism for older persons,—of course through inadvertence. However, it is of no consequence, as the real number of Ten Commandments is made up by the division of the last into two; so that there really are ten. And in a country where so many pictures are painted and statues made, perhaps ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... take my mind off an inadvertence, he could scarcely have manoeuvred better, but why the inadvertence (if it had been one) could concern me, it ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... endeavour, even while defending ourselves against his reproaches, to speak with the respect to which his venerable age, his genius, and his public services entitle him. If any harsh expression should escape us, we trust that he will attribute it to inadvertence, to the momentary warmth of controversy,—to anything, in short, rather than to a design of affronting him. Though we have nothing in common with the crew of Hurds and Boswells, who, either from interested motives, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were forthwith sung by professed vocalists in the principal towns. Much speculation arose respecting the authorship, and various conjectures were supported, each with plausible arguments, by the public journalists. In these circumstances, Lady Nairn experienced painful alarm, lest, by any inadvertence on the part of her friends, the origin of her songs should be traced. While the publication of the "Minstrel" was proceeding, her correspondents received repeated injunctions to adopt every caution in preserving her incognita; she was even desirous that her sex might not be made known. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... dollars, and both were paid for out of the fund. The grants were both entered of record by the Alcalde, George Hyde. The grant made to George was signed by the Alcalde, but that made to Mary was, through inadvertence, not signed. A successor of Hyde, as Alcalde, regranted the lot of Mary Donner to one Ward, who discovered the omission of the Alcalde's name to her grant. This omission caused her to lose the lot. In 1851, a number ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... God's Laws, and yet in Time of Temptation and Weakness fall into some Evil, will, God therefore consider and punish us as those who live in the daily Breach and Contempt of all his Laws? No! For, on the contrary, God ever waits to be gracious to all such, as through Inadvertence fall into Sin, and are willing to forsake it. The View and Intent of our Apostle, in these Words, seems to be of very easy and plain Signification: There was in those early Times, as appears from our Saviour's frequently reproving ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... and sword, wandered alone, While thus employed, O Partha, he inadvertently slew, without witting it, the Homa cow of a certain utterer of Brahma who daily performed his Agnihotra rite. Knowing that he had perpetrated that act from inadvertence, he informed the Brahmana of it. Indeed Karna, for the object of gratifying the owner, repeatedly said, 'O holy one, I have killed this thy cow without willing it. Forgive me the act!' Filled with wrath, the Brahmana, rebuking him, said these words, 'O thou of wicked conduct, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... latter with a coarse sneer which further distorted his inflamed visage. Blaine, with an expression of sharp inquiry, had whirled around in his swivel chair to face his excited visitor, and as he did so, his hand, with seeming inadvertence, had for an instant come in contact with the under ledge of ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... uttered through inadvertence what is wrong, may the intelligent, observing it, correct all the errors; the feet of the traveller do sometimes stumble, and sometimes the speaker speaks through bewilderment ...
— The Tattva-Muktavali • Purnananda Chakravartin
... somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this extraordinary party, I should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who is the supposed head of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor inadvertence. I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At best, they have a tendency ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... The ceremonious costume impressed the President himself, for at this period of ancient history Felons dined in frock-coats or cutaways; it proved that the wearers were so accustomed to wearing evening-dress of a night that they put it on by sheer habit and inadvertence even for electioneering. The candidate only desired to shake hands with a few supporters and to assure the President that nothing but hard necessity had kept him away from the dinner. Amid inspiriting bravos and hurrahs he fled, followed by his friends, and it became known ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of the best St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as I said before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The mere inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's within three doors of us, though we had just passed it without the thought once occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me the affections of my Cleora. From that time ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reasonably expect however, that immediately after having explained your plan, it will, at once, go into full and complete operation. Even those who are firmly determined to keep the rule, will, from inadvertence, for a day or two, make communication with each other. They must be trained, not by threatening and punishment, but by your good-humored assistance, to their new duties. When I first adopted this plan in my school, something like the following proceedings ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... necessary, said I to myself, to guard against a critic, when I was writing to so dear a friend. But then recollecting myself, is there not more in it, said I, than the result of a vein so naturally lively? Surely I must have been guilty of an inadvertence. Let me enter into the close examination of myself ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal. This fashion, however, foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the opinions of her husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge with redoubled vigour ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... into measures which itself, on maturer reflexion, would condemn. The primary inducement to conferring the power in question upon the Executive is, to enable him to defend himself; the secondary one is to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design. The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which ...
— The Federalist Papers
... It might perhaps have happened that, on a day of great solemnity, when many honorary degrees were conferred, a person who had not taken the oaths might have passed in the crowd. But such an irregularity, the effect of mere haste and inadvertence, could not be cited as a precedent. Foreign ambassadors of various religions, and in particular one Mussulman, had been admitted without the oaths. But it might well be doubted whether such cases fell within the reason and spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It was not ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... our scientific technology so destitute of definitional accuracy that they cannot use half a dozen scientific terms without committing half that number of down-right scientific blunders? "New-born specks of living matter" is language that a vitalist might possibly use by sheer inadvertence; but no avowed materialist, like Professor Bastian, should ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... afterward proved that the omission was the result of inadvertence, for it was supposed that he had a commission from the general in command of the Colonials at Boston, and the order was made ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... maintained a decorous silence upon local affairs, and if, by any inadvertence, it was betrayed into its natural play of wit, so that, for a moment, it might seem to hinge upon the absorbing topic of public interest, and to favor any one side in particular, it was immediately observed to lean heavily the other way, to draw off the attention of its numerous ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... little toward the rear and, in a moment, creeping along, he came upon it. His hands felt over it. It was shut, fastened by a padlock on the outside. Jimmie Dale's lips thinned a little, as he took a small steel instrument from his pocket. Either through inadvertence or by intention, Connie Myers had passed up an almost childishly simple means of entrance into the house! One side of the trapdoor was lifted up silently—and silently closed. Jimmie Dale was in the cellar. The hammering, much ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... offering a personal affront to her escort, and if the parties wore swords, as was then customary, the first salutation to the offender was usually "Draw, sir!" However, such affairs mostly ended in an apology to the lady for inadvertence. But if a man ventured to intrude into the boxes of the theatre in his surtout or boots or with his hat on, it was regarded as a general insult to every lady present, and he had little chance of escaping without a shot or a thrust before the following night. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... wonder how you are, and whether that harassing cough is better. Be scrupulously cautious about undue exposure. Just now, dear Ellen, an hour's inadvertence might cause you to be really ill. So once again, take care. Since I came home I have been very busy stitching. The little new room is got into order, and the green and white curtains are up; they exactly suit the papering, and look neat and clean ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... what you call it, all dressed but his coat, rubbing his chin between his finger and thumb, and gazing with despairing perplexity at his feet. It seems that my sister had got past all the other dilemmas, but in a moment of inadvertence had left the shoe question to him, with the result that he had put on one russet shoe and one black one, and had laced them ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... very happy with us all now. The Voivode is, I think, like a man in a dream. Teuta is ideally happy, and the real affection which sprang up between them when she and Aunt Janet met is a joy to think of. I had posted Teuta about her, so that when they should meet my wife might not, by any inadvertence, receive or cause any pain. But the moment Teuta saw her she ran straight over to her and lifted her in her strong young arms, and, raising her up as one would lift a child, kissed her. Then, when she had put her sitting in the chair from ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... light matter; for Sunday is the more to be had in honour because on that day our Lord rose from the dead." Then said the holy friar:—"Now is there aught else that thou hast done?" "Yes, master friar," replied Ser Ciappelletto, "once by inadvertence I spat in the church of God." At this the friar began to smile, and said:—"My son, this is not a matter to trouble about; we, who are religious, spit there all day long." "And great impiety it is when you so do," replied Ser Ciappelletto, "for there is nothing that is so worthy ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... he sat disarming his accusers until they began to lunch upon the copious remnants of the barbecue. He did not join them at this meal. In telling you that Mrs. Dow was the only lady absent upon this historic morning, I was guilty of an inadvertence. There was one other. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... are trying to live with a "divided allegiance," straddling between the iniquities of force, profit, and inhumanity, and the fraternal righteousness of the Gospel we profess to believe. Jesus at least was no time-server, no Mr. Facing-both-ways, no hypocrite; and whenever we touch his elbow by inadvertence, a shiver of reality ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... purpose or through inadvertence articles have appeared in Egyptian Press openly discussing arrival of French and British troops and naming Gallipoli as their destination. Is there any political objection to my cautiously spreading rumour that our true objective ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information regarding himself, his travels, his adventures, and the fortune ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... of the injustice a man may thus unintentionally do, through inadvertence, is afforded by Nelson's accounts of St. Vincent. There were two drawn up on board the "Captain,"—one by himself in his own hand; the second simply signed by him, Miller, and Berry. It is quite evident that the latter is based ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of good milk. Boil this till at least half be consumed, and that it become as thick as hasty pudding, which will require at least two hours; and it must be carefully stirred all the while, least it burn too: which if by some little inadvertence it should do, and that some black burned substance sticketh to the bottom of the skillet, pour all the good matter from it into a fresh skillet (or into a basin whiles you scoure this) and renew boiling ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... pale, thin face had not been shaved for some days. His hollow eyes were bloodshot and restless, and had in them something wild and haggard. He was wrapped in a large cloak, and his black cravat was tied loosely about his neck. In withdrawing from the apartment, Rodin had (as if by inadvertence) double-locked the door on the outside. When he was alone with the Jesuit, the marshal threw back his cloak from his shoulders, and Father d'Aigrigny could see two naked swords, stuck through a silk handkerchief which served him as ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... what these women do (not theorizing about man's and woman's "missions"), have stated that they preferred the service of women to that of men, as being more exact, more careful, and incurring fewer mistakes of inadvertence. ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... the thyrsus of his wit every leaf that could render it less light and portable. One instance out of many will show the improving effect of these operations. [Footnote: In one or two sentences he has left a degree of stiffness in the style, not so much from inadvertence as from the sacrifice of ease to point. Thus, in the following example, he has been tempted by an antithesis into an inversion of phrase by no means idiomatic. "The plain state of the matter is this—I am an extravagant young fellow who ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... watchful lest any trivial occurrence should take place which his wife must regard as a breach of their marriage contract. She told him that her affection for him was unabated, and warned him to be careful lest through inadvertence he might give the last and only blow which, by an unalterable destiny, over which she had no control, would ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... to Reform, voted for hearing counsel in defence of the borough, on which there was a meeting of his ward, or of certain of his constituents, to consider his conduct. He was obliged to appear before them, and, after receiving a severe lecture, to confess that he had been guilty of inadvertence, to make many submissive apologies, and promise to vote no more but in obedience to the Minister. It is always an agreeable pastime to indulge one's virtuous indignation, and wish to have been in the place of such an one for the sake of doing what he ought to have done but did not do, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... might become putrid, and that the tides were made to bring our ships into port (The Abbe Pluche in "The Spectacle of Nature"), were somewhat ashamed when the reply was made to them that the Mediterranean has ports and no ebb. Musschenbroeck himself fell into this inadvertence. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... saga seems to mean that he was called Autumn-belly, which is a name of little, if of any, sense at all. We suppose that haus-moegottr, p. 169, and haust-magi, p. 184, is one and the same thing, the t having spuriously crept into the text from a scribe's inadvertence. ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... notwithstanding his audacity and the blindness of his dupe, the doctor was not quite tranquil as to the result of his machinations. The critical moment approached, and the least suspicion roused in the mind of Adrienne by any inadvertence on his part, might ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... they did not contemplate the effect, these appeals are now to the civil jurisdiction acting through purely civil courts. It is an aggravation of this, when the change which seems so formidable has become firmly established, to be told that it was, after all, the result of accident and inadvertence, and a "careless use of terms in drafting an Act of Parliament"; and that difficult and perilous theological questions have come, by "a haphazard chance," before a court which was never meant to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... believed that I was the only one who could positively identify him as 'Clarke,' and that, therefore, as long as I lived he could not resume his own identity and personal freedom of action for fear that I might, even if only through inadvertence, recognise him. He could take no chances. But I believe I have beaten Clarke. I have discovered that 'Clarke' is in reality Peter Marre, the shyster lawyer, better known among his clientele as Wizard Marre. But Marre, too, has disappeared—you understand, Jimmie? And now, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... morning. Within an hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul! was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to operate fatally between ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... for having so nearly shot the "Favourite of the Glen" through inadvertence! I explain that I came out deerstalking, and did not expect, of course, to come across a perfectly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... soon made out. They had nothing, save the clothes which they were wearing at the time of the catastrophe. We must mention, however, a note-book and a watch which Gideon Spilett had kept, doubtless by inadvertence, not a weapon, not a tool, not even a pocket-knife; for while in the car they had thrown out everything to lighten the balloon. The imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe or of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Raynal shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez and on ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... Andre-Louis stood rigid listening and wondering. So, too, the others. Then M. le Marquis resumed, on a note of less assurance. "In the matter of Mlle. Binet I was unfortunate. I wronged you through inadvertence. I had no knowledge ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... horses' backs and the troopers' legs, by a judicious interchange of riding and of marching. Wherein consists the golden mean, will not be hard to find; since "every man a standard to himself," (1) applies, and your sensations are an index to prevent your fellows being overdone through inadvertence. ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... inadvertence, therefore, Plato commenced the tradition of Utopias without machinery, a tradition we find Morris still loyally following, except for certain mechanical barges and such-like toys, in his News from Nowhere. There are some foreshadowings of mechanical possibilities in the New Atlantis, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the fact that these men are here rather complicates matters. At Musky Bay, the name of the little settlement where I am stopping, they think I am just a city man up for the fishing. I do not use my right name there. By an inadvertence, I suppose it was habit, I wrote it on the hotel register to-night. That was a sad blunder, for it is practically certain that these men will not rest till they have found ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract—Let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... deduced consequences from character. Underneath a Paisley shawl she discovered a lost treasure of clean handkerchiefs. One, two, three, four—there were eleven! And among them was one of her own, appropriated by her mother through sheer inexcusable inadvertence. They had probably been lying under the shawl for ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... fo. 256. By some inadvertence two copies of the agreement were sealed, one of which was returned to the mayor to ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... him officiating at Mount Carmel, c. v. This is so incompatible with his being a Roman freedman, that commentators concur in supposing that the word "libertus." although found in all the copies now extant, has crept into the text by some inadvertence of an early transcriber. Basilides appears, like Philo Judaeus, who lived about the same period, to have been half-Greek, half-Jew, and to have belonged to the celebrated Platonic ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... made no such distinction. Its provision, probably the result of inadvertence, was so palpably a contradiction, that it was never acted upon in Van Diemen's Land, and was earnestly deprecated by all classes. To grant a prisoner liberty to seek subsistence, and yet suffer any fraudulent person to deprive him of his just wages, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... I think it would be a wicked deed that tens of thousands should be massacred for the reason that a few fools waylaid a man who chanced to be of royal blood, because by inadvertence, he ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... what is possible with due care, but, obviously, a forger might, through inadvertence, fail to produce an absolute facsimile and then detection would be possible. That is what has happened in the present case. The forged print is not an absolute facsimile of the true print. There is a slight discrepancy. But, in addition to this, the paper bears intrinsic ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... This statement has been made before at the close of chapter 21, and is probably repeated here through inadvertence.] ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... patient, discovers a ringbone, and convincing himself that he has encountered the cause of the disordered action suspends his investigation without subjecting the foot to a close scrutiny, at a later day when regrets will avail nothing, may deeply regret his neglect and inadvertence. As in human pathological experience, however, there are instances when inscrutable diseases will deliver their fatal messages, while leaving no mark and making no sign by which they might be identified and classified, so it will happen that in the humbler animals the onset and progress of mysterious ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... be ascribed to the impressionist. His productions have many attractions and many merits—merits and attractions that the traditional painting has not. But they are really only by a kind of automatic inadvertence, pictures. ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... Alice Bridgenorth; the care for whose safety diverted him in the beginning of the onset from that which he ought to have exclusively bestowed on the defence of his own life. A slight flesh-wound in the side at once punished, and warned him of, his inadvertence; when, turning his whole thoughts on the business in which he was engaged, and animated with anger against his impertinent intruder, the rencontre speedily began to assume another face, amidst cries of "Well ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and positive trial could happen, and might not again by accident or inadvertence happen again ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... always follow her quite so well as in her earlier efforts. It seemed as if she must have fits of absence. In one instance her heroine began as a blonde and finished as a brunette; not in consequence of the use of any cosmetic, but through simple inadvertence. At last it happened in one of her stories that a prominent character who had been killed in an early page, not equivocally, but mortally, definitively killed, done for, and disposed of, reappeared as if nothing had happened towards the close of her narrative. Her mind was on something else, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Fixed idea Guileless snobbery of youth How much better than men women play a waiting game I've got it in the neck, only the feeling is really lower down Inoculated against the germs of love by small doses Lest by some dreadful inadvertence they might drop into a tune Life's awful like a lot of monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts Like a man uninsured, with his ships at sea Lunch was the sort a man dreams of but seldom gets Malaise of one who contemplates himself as seen by another Men were judged in this world rather by ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... though so momentous are the consequences of the mismanagement of our foreign relations, no one thinks of them till the mischief occurs and then it is found how the most vital consequences have been occasioned by mere inadvertence. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... minister, banished at Napoleon's instance, was near by. The King pleaded in vain that he might still serve as mentor in the coming negotiation; the Emperor scornfully refused. There were no others available, rejoined the King. Napoleon named several: among them, and probably not by inadvertence, Stein. This great name is welded to the regeneration of Prussia, but its bearer was a liberal in the measures he enforced. Hardenberg, great and adroit as he was, stood for the passing conservatism, and while he was indefatigable ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the individuality of the you was so carelessly denoted that both Dick and Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to the door; both seized ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... never, even by inadvertence, spoken of as a gentleman—always as a Christian. Three-score years of wise choice in the perpetually-recurring alternatives of life, had made the Golden Rule his spontaneous impulse; and now, though ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Partly through mere inadvertence, but partly also through crafty design, the wave of generous sympathy for the suffering little island of Porto Rico which has been sweeping over the country has come very near being perverted into ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... [ante, i. 90], which he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns, books ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... only by inadvertence that I have omitted the information that the vessel in which I was now a pervading influence was the Bonnyclabber (Troutbeck, master), of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... smile was as necessary as the light of the sun; and unfortunately for her, she was sometimes disappointed in her efforts to attract it. Her wounded vanity often beheld an insult in what was probably no more than an inadvertence. In a word she ere long fervently regretted the court in which the great captains had occupied the first rank, and their families shared the almost exclusive favour of the sovereign. She complained to her husband; and he, with a calm smile, advised her never again to expose herself to such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... was brought to me by Mr. Brough himself at the office, who apologised to me for having broken the seal by inadvertence; for the letter had been mingled with some more of his own, and he opened it without looking at the superscription. Of course he had not read it, and I was glad of that; for I should not have liked him to see my aunt's opinion of ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his humble duty to your Majesty, and has many apologies to make for not having attended your Majesty's Council to-day, and the more so as his absence arose from an inadvertence which he is almost ashamed to mention. But having got on horseback to ride to the station, with his thoughts occupied with some matters which he was thinking of, he rode mechanically and in a fit of absence to the Nine Elms Station,[20] and did not recollect his mistake till he had ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... pleaded and whose testimony is of the greatest weight when we remember that Otis was his political opponent, has said that he never knew fairer or more noble conduct in a pleader than in Otis; that he always disdained to take advantage of any clerical error or similar inadvertence, but passed over minor points, and defended his causes solely on their broad and substantial foundations. In this regard Otis seems to satisfy Emerson's definition of a great man, when in his essay on the "Uses of Great Men" the latter ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... proprietors of the Field, (now the Field Press, Limited), to Baily's Magazine, the Windsor Magazine, and many others who kindly gave permission to select what was required for my purpose. I hereby thank them one and all, with apologies to others not mentioned through inadvertence. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... languages,—may not only be expected to occur, but which must occur, unless there be a perpetual series of most minute and ludicrous miracles—certainly never promised, and as certainly never performed—to counteract all the effects of negligence and inadvertence, to guide the pen of every transcriber to infallible accuracy, and to prevent his ever deviating into any casual error! Such miraculous intervention, we need not say, has never been pleaded for by any apologist of Christianity; has certainly never been promised; ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... seen by Julius Schmidt at Athens on the 24th November, 1876, when it was between the third and fourth magnitudes, and he maintains that it cannot have been conspicuous four days earlier, when he was looking at the same constellation. By some inadvertence the news of the discovery was not properly circulated, and the star was not observed elsewhere for about ten days, when it had already become considerably fainter. The decrease of brightness went on very slowly; in October, 1877, the star was only ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... invalid animals in every town and village, but their priests always wear a muslin muzzle, (I trust they will pardon the disrespectful expression!) in order to avoid destroying even the smallest animalcule, by inadvertence in the act of breathing. The same fear impels them to drink only filtered water. There are a few millions of Jainas in Gujerat, Bombay, Konkan, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... inconsideration; inconsiderateness &c adj.; oversight; inadvertence, inadvertency, nonobservance, disregard. supineness &c (inactivity) 683; etourderie [Fr.], want of thought; heedlessness &c (neglect) 460; insouciance &c (indifference) 866. abstraction; absence of mind, absorption of mind; preoccupation, distraction, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... inadvertently spoils a ballot paper he may return it to the returning officer, who shall, if satisfied of such inadvertence, give him another paper and retain the spoiled paper, and this spoiled paper shall be immediately cancelled, and the fact of such cancellation shall be ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... above described stick, and secretly carried off the same, he (or she) is hereby earnestly admonished to conquer a passion, the continuance of which must prove fatal to his (or her) honesty. And if the said stick has slipped into such gentleman's (or lady's) hand through inadvertence, he (or she) is required to rectify the mistake with all convenient ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Sprot forged Letter IV, he knew where he dated it from; {221} if the Government had it forged, they knew, from Sprot's confession, that it should have been dated from Fastcastle. Perhaps we should not bear too heavily on this point. A man may mention the wrong name by inadvertence, or the clerk, by inadvertence, may write the wrong name. Mr. Mark Napier in his essay on this matter twice or thrice prints 'Logan' for 'Sprot,' or 'Sprot' for 'Logan.' {222} 'Fastcastle,' in Sprot's confession, may be a slip of tongue ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... interest, when, by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming as his invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, the original patent is inoperative or invalid, provided the error has arisen from inadvertence, accident or mistake and without any fraudulent ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... taken to a good hotel, where I can remain a day or two, until I have time to communicate with my friends. My being out of money is owing to an inadvertence. I will receive a supply immediately on ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur |
