"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are right. If you are watching a person, and know he has something concealed, arrest him and search his person; otherwise, no matter how strong your suspicions, do not act upon them, as a single misstep of this sort may lose the case, and is certain to put the parties on their guard, and in a few minutes to overthrow the labor ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... Sex Knowledge is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women—Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy—The Place Love Occupies ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep. But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... change in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned them ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... to be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a dependency of the great British Empire, a king only ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... impracticable one, and being there, to turn back was inadmissible. So I took myself in hand and started. For the first few steps I was far too much given up to considering possibilities. I thought how a single misstep would end. I could see my footing slip, feel the consciousness that I was gone, the dull thuds from point to point as what remained of me bounded beyond the visible edge down, down. . . And after that what! How long before the porters missed ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... reached a section of the long bridge which was far from completed. Here there was practically no flooring, and Ward Porton had to jump from one piece of steel work to another, while Dave and Roger, of course, had to do the same. Once those in the rear saw the rascal ahead make a misstep and plunge downward. But he saved himself, and, scrambling to his feet, dashed forward as ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... next misstep was one of precipitation. General Jackson, after a three years' war upon the Bank, was alarmed at the outcry of its friends, and sincerely desired to make peace with it. We know, from the avowals of the men who stood ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... had long served, and who kept him on very short commons, happened one day in his old age to be oppressed with a more than ordinary burden of earthenware. His strength being much impaired, and the road steep and uneven, he unfortunately made a misstep, and, unable to recover himself, fell down and broke all the vessels to pieces. His Master, transported with rage, began to beat him most unmercifully, against whom the poor Ass, lifting up his head as he lay on ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... from loss of the blood which flowed from his wounds; yet he was slowly mastering the foaming brutes, who themselves were torn and bleeding and exhausted. Weaker and weaker became the struggles of them all, when a sudden misstep sent Bulan stumbling headforemost against the stem of a tree, where, stunned, he sank unconscious, at the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... reins on our horses' necks and passed on to the north, the horses nose to nose, and my stirrup leather brushing the giant's knee at every jump of El Mahdi. The huge Cardinal galloped in the moonlight like some splendid machine of bronze, never a misstep, never a false estimate, never the difference of a finger's length in the long, even jumps. It might have been the one-eyed Agib riding his mighty horse of brass, except that no son of a decadent Sultan ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... battle would give him at home, and more than all, in Rachel's eyes. He heard nothing from or of her, but he consoled himself with the hope that the same means by which she had been so promptly informed of his misstep, would convey to her an intimation of how well he was deserving her. When he gained his laurels he would himself lay them at her feet. Until then he could only hope and strive, cherishing all the while the love for her that daily ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... she could not bear to think of the life she had once desired—a peaceful one in the shadow of the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep had shattered that dream. ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bag out, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lantern down. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back with it, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft—the old Granite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him in the sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deep shaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... he looked around, and she smilingly nodded her head. He began picking his way along the ledge, carefully feeling his way, for a misstep or a treacherous support was liable to precipitate him to the fathomless depths below with the inevitable certainty of ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... unseated us both. Faster and faster we flew, like a swallow on the wing, Fatima's dainty feet as surely placed among the rocks and holes of the rough road as if she had been pacing in Rotten Row. Well she knew that a misstep of hers now might mean death to all three of us, and well she knew that her master ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... any odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't Sidney Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a false quantity uttered in early life? Our public men are in little danger of this fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of introducing Latin into their speeches,—for good and sufficient reasons. But they are bound to speak decent English,—unless, indeed, they are rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or General Taylor; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... so they can be avoided. Reaching the top after a tedious and slippery climb, there was a long view of icy billows, as if the sea had suddenly congealed amid a wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way to the sea, fills one with ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... know there's been several unpleasant, not to say sensational, occurrences in this town of late. I don't suppose you're to blame for everything that has happened. I have insisted that you could not be blamed for the unfortunate misstep of Brother Hewett, who was tempted to take a little more hard cider than was really good for him. Your detractors have insisted that the deacon was led into this action through his exuberance over the arrival of your friends. Some of them have tried to hold you responsible for Brother ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... journey. Now their road ran along the fertile valley, and again passing through a sharp defile in the mountains, and finally winding its way along a narrow ledge of rock, where the slightest turn to left or right, a single misstep of the sure-footed animals, or an awkward move of their driver, would have hurled them into an abyss hundreds of feet below, where instant and horrible ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... bone which enters into the socket of the pelvic bone and forms the hip joint. It occurs most commonly in aged people as a result of so slight an accident as tripping on a rug, or in falling on the floor from the standing position, making a misstep, or while attempting to avoid a fall. When the accident has occurred the patient is unable to rise or walk, and suffers pain in the hip joint. When he has been helped to bed it will be seen that the foot of the injured side is turned ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... receiver. He had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely. That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth. The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... embodiment of youthful womanhood, filled with the joy of life, and bringing sunshine wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life," says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There is nothing here ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries with vicious women are scattered along the route. A beautiful stream ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... known, I did not feel the slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule below. Moreover, though not a vestige ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... the negro, at least, it was a welcome moment, for, with his feet tied under the horse, his hands tied behind his back, and a rope with a slip-knot round his neck, he had not found the ride a pleasant one. A misstep of his horse would surely have precipitated his hanging, and he knew well that such an accident would have given much satisfaction to his captors. So he uttered a fervent "Teng Gawd!" as he was hustled into the jail gate and heard it ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... upon their shoulders. Then began a triumphal march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... advance, making it very cautious, owing to the extremely rough nature of the country, and all their caution was needed, as they had to cross several ravines, and the ground was so broken that a misstep at any time might have proved serious. In this manner they made several miles and the general trend of the ground was a rapid ascent. Toward dawn they came to a brook flowing very fast, and they found its waters almost as cold as ice. Will judged it to be a glacial stream issuing ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... such times flows with terrific force. Men attempting to cross the gutters, who make a misstep, are lifted off their feet and are instantly swept down by the current, and in case they should be carried under one of the crossings they are liable to ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... there was time and to spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And the more I learned of Margaret Henan in the weeks that followed ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... until Pierre urged his horse upon a narrow ledge that ran around the base of the cliff. Antoine followed after the pack-horse, and Frank came next. Roderick pricked up his ears, looked over into the gorge, and snorted loudly. He moved very slowly and carefully, and well he might: for a single misstep on his part would have sent both him and his rider to destruction. The path was so narrow that, although Roderick walked on the extreme outer edge, Frank's feet now and then brushed against the rock on the opposite side. Our hero felt his sombrero rise on his head, whenever he ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... follow her, but she flew down the long stairs like a wild thing. The least misstep might have precipitated her to the bottom; but ere Carteret, with a remonstrance on his lips, had scarcely reached the uppermost step, she had thrown open the front door and fled ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and was forgiven, we trust," said Mrs. Wynn, gently, thinking of one at home who had wrung her aged heart by a similar misstep. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... while Ralph, with one hand on the bridle, the other holding the two eagles tied and balanced across the saddle, allowed Keno to pick his own way along the trail. The sagacious animal seemed to know every foot of the path; even in the gloom of night he made no misstep. Sherwood and Tom followed close, the latter ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... phantom. Strangely enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the sad little whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it fought ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, "but ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... against my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases which extended around the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... as any cause which either destroys the life of the child in the womb or brings on morbid or premature contractions in that organ may induce miscarriage. Coughing severely, or vomiting, a blow or fall, or a misstep leading to an effort to prevent falling, may, and does frequently, result in miscarriage; and this having once occurred, it is, without proper care, exceedingly liable to be the case again at the same period of a subsequent pregnancy. The same result may follow any vivid moral impression; for ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... his way along the treacherous trail, I after him. It was ticklish work. A misstep, and there would be ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the look of a tossing sea whose turbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violent motion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river with cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the victim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down on of these and met his death. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they did not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not go straight down; one can seldom ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... occurs to me—how she dances blindfolded between eggs. My love is adroit; you can rely thoroughly on its instinct; it will also dance on blindly, and will make no misstep. * * * ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the child's arm if she was startled. A little misstep would send the blind girl over the edge of the wharf. But it was Janice who ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... never feel anything but sorry for him. You can not live with a man as I did, for ten years, and not regret his misstep." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... roughest and the most perilous they had ever essayed. The ponies were obliged to pick their way over rocks, around sharp, narrow corners, where the slightest misstep would send horse and rider crashing to the rocks hundreds of feet below. But to the credit of the Pony Rider Boys it may be said that not one of them lost his head ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... journey. Landless was no novice at such work. When a boy, he had often rounded the face of frowning white cliffs with the sea breaking in thunder a hundred feet below. Then a bird's nest had been the prize of high daring, death the penalty of dizziness or a misstep. Now, although not two yards below him was the solid earth, a misstep would send him crashing down to a more fearful doom—but the prize! A light was in his eyes as he crept nearer and nearer to the shed built against ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... mouth of a crater on the island of Japat, somewhere in the mysterious South Seas. The volcano was not a large one and the crater, though somewhat threatening at times, was correspondingly minute, which explains—in apology—to some extent, his unfortunate misstep. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... he was saying as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have led ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching thirst of this dying enemy whose words had changed frailty to strength, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... was not done, by any means. The road grew worse still, as if the rain here had been harder. Making a misstep, down slipped Charley's horse from the trail, over the edge of a clay bank, and landed on his side twenty feet below. Charley sprawled on his face in ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... I wish you might have seen those two Southerners meet! They didn't leave us any feeling of superiority then; at least he didn't. Except that they're both so Southern, they're not alike. She moved right in among us without the smallest misstep. He made a dozen delicious blunders. It was lovely to see how sweetly she and Henry helped him up and brushed him off, and the boyish manfulness with which he always took it. I couldn't tell, sometimes, which of ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... hurry down the steep, rocky trail. The horses were tired, and a misstep or a stumble would be dangerous. Pedro, sure of himself on any trail, led the way, and Vivian and Carver followed, weaving right and left down the mountain side. More than once Carver glanced apprehensively at his watch. It was growing late—nearly five already!—and Virginia ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... the spine is not always fatal, and notwithstanding the lay-idea that a broken back means certain death, patients with well-authenticated cases of vertebral fracture have recovered. Warren records the case of a woman of sixty who, while carrying a clothes-basket, made a misstep and fell 14 feet, the basket of wet clothes striking the right shoulder, chest, and neck. There was fracture of the 4th dorsal vertebra at the transverse processes. By seizing the spinous process it could ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... which was to take me on board the tug which had the connecting cable on board. In stepping from one to the other of the small boats, the water being very rough and the boats having a good deal of motion, I made a misstep, my right leg being on board the outer boat, and my left leg went down between the two boats scraping the skin from the upper part of the leg near the knee for some two or three inches. It pained me a little, but not much, still I knew from experience that, however slight and comparatively ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... plane. In fact, Peter began to suspect that he was no leader at all. He saw now that his initial success with the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence had been effected merely by the aura of his college training. After his first misstep he had never rehabilitated himself. He perhaps had a dash of the artistic in him, and the power to mold ideas often confuses itself subjectively with the power to mold human beings. In reality he did not even understand the people he assumed to mold. A suspicion came to him that under the ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... forced to conclude that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep, and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all through. Nevertheless, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... again. My mental agony had been so great that I had not a bodily sensation. I took my blanket, rolled up in it and went to sleep by some trees under some branches and a log. We came over the rocks where one misstep would have sent the horses to the bottom. No place even to spread his four feet before the next step. My heart was in my mouth most of the time. I don't know what impression you might get from my letter. I have seen the most beautiful sunsets, but there are more essential ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... tried to eat with benumbed fingers before a fire that was but a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their work had warmed them again. All of the skidways had to be placed on the edges of the islands themselves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain meant a mired horse. Three times heavy snows obliterated the roads, so that they had to be ploughed out before the men could go to work again. It ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the black waters of the great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters of the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... weeks after the 19th of October, 1846, the forlorn band moved slowly on their course through those terrible mountains. Sometimes climbing steeps which the foot of white man had never before scaled, sometimes descending yawning caons, where a single misstep would have plunged them into the abyss hundreds of feet below. The winter fairly commenced in October. The snow was piled up by the winds into drifts in some places forty feet deep, through which they had to burrow or dig their way. A sudden rise in the temperature converted ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... approached; but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the depths ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... runs, on one of the cabins. This was not entirely comfortable for him, but the river was smooth and easy as far as the Paria, so there was no danger of spilling him off, and he got on fairly well. At the Paria, Jones, who had made a misstep in one of the boats at the Junction and injured one leg, developed inflammatory rheumatism in it, and also in the other. Andy at Millecrag Bend had put on his shoe with an unseen scorpion in it, the sting of which caused him to grow thin and pale. Bishop's old wound troubled him; Beaman and W. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... not along the outside. She let herself down cautiously as the footway was crumbling and rotten and slippery with grass. At the lower end of the cleft she peered out. Trees and bushes—plenty of them, a thick shield between her and the valleys. She moved slowly downward; a misstep might send her through the boughs to the hillside forty feet below. She had gone up and down several times before her hunger-sharpened eyes caught the gleam of white through the ferns growing thickly out of the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... your health my worthy colleagues! Thus drinks trumpet-blower Rassmann.' Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, wherefore didst ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must stay all night. The ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... judicial mind—a mind to establish, out of confusion, something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be fatal—turn ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... but he never faltered. His heart beat steadily and strong. It was an old risk to him, and he had the advantage of great natural aptitude, fortified by long training in a school of practice where a single misstep ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... misstep.... but if I had not held you by the arm.... Well, this is the stagnant water that I spoke of to you.... Do you perceive the smell of death that rises?—Let us go to the end of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. It will strike you ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered—never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... in July, 1883, while the deceased was on his way from Buffalo, where he had been in a hospital, to the soldiers' home in Ohio, he attempted to step on a slowly moving freight train, and making a misstep a wheel of the car passed over his foot, injuring it so badly that it was deemed necessary by two physicians who were called to amputate the foot. An anaesthetic was administered preparatory to the operation, but before it was ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; not that I was given to fear, but rather because my instincts, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... hope, the forlorn lady recollected that her uncle, who had some spiritual supervision over the Roman convents, though he was sure to be more outraged by her misstep than any one else, had (besides the motive of shielding a family name from disgrace) perhaps some remaining affection for his favorite niece. At any rate, if she were to die, she thought it would be a satisfaction to die humanely, by the speedy stroke ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be seen. Little Golden Daughter was standing at the front of the ship, thinking no evil, when a hand suddenly thrust her into the water. Then Mosu pretended to be frightened, and began to call out: "My wife made a misstep and has ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... others and was looking at your picture. They started up a lion and he came straight at me from behind. If he hadn't made a misstep in his hurry and loosened a stone, I guess he would have got me. As it was, ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... cold water struck him directly in the chest. Polly's aim was accurate, the force of the water great, so a few seconds had drenched the boy from his neck to his shoes. How long it might have lasted was uncertain, but a hasty misstep sent Polly head foremost to the ground, where she lay for an instant, stunned by her fall. Unmindful of his wetting, Alan ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... said you were not—very serious," she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation she would ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters, plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally, to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots," grew to seem part of the uniform, one of the marks ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... right. I turned with all the speed left in me, for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... on they went, mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, he hoped it might be done quickly. The phantom figure which had accompanied them after ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... women's diseases, a large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... of his retainers to carry him to the top of the slope on his shoulders. It was a toilsome climb, the day was hot, hence it is no wonder that just before he gained the summit the man staggered, fell, and sent his dignified and indignant lord sprawling on the rocks. This was a fatal misstep, for the chief ran the poor fellow through with his spear. And the ghost possibly laments because it did not drop its burden ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... haste he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time he had lost ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... by the bridle. In many places, too, where some huge crag or eminence overhung the road, this was driven to the very verge of the precipice; and the traveller was compelled to wind along the narrow ledge of rock, scarcely wide enough for his single steed, where a misstep would precipitate him hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet into the dreadful abyss! The wild passes of the sierra, practicable for the half-naked Indian, and even for the sure and circumspect mule,—an animal that seems to have been created for the roads of the Cordilleras,—were ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... I was going on horseback to the visitas of that district. The road was so close to the edge of the river that it could not be followed without risk. The rest of the country was so rough that it could not be penetrated. I was going carefully, but the horse knew little of the reins, and made a misstep and fell into the river—from so high a precipice that surely, had there not been much water in the river at that time, we had broken all our bones. But it was deep and had a strong current, so that when we fell into it we sank. The horse reached the shore ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... twisted around the mountain, and in places they had to use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over a precipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent, inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessary that as little noise as possible should be made while they were making their way past the buildings of the camp below, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the relative conditions of his mass and the earth's. If the world he happens to inhabit were not its present size, but the size of one of the tinier asteroids, no such disastrous results would follow a chance misstep. He could there walk off precipices when too closely pursued by bears—if I remember rightly the usual childish cause of the same—with perfect impunity. The bear could do likewise, unfortunately. We should have arrived at our conclusion even quicker had we decreased the size both ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the crossing of the Swiftwater. Now the rotting and worm-eaten timbers of the open trestle-work were under his feet; mechanically, he avoided the numerous gaps, where a misstep meant destruction, and so at last gained the farther bank and sank down panting ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... sloped before them to a deep gully in the mountainside, which again dropped into the canyon below. The trail they had lost, they now remembered, must be near this edge. But it was still hidden, and in seeking it there was danger of some fatal misstep in the treacherous snow. Nevertheless, they sallied out bravely, although they would fain have stopped to skin the bear, but Julian's mandate was peremptory. They spread themselves along the ridge, at times scraping the loose snow away in their ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... and when the soldiers lined up to look down an involuntary murmur of astonishment ran through the ranks. Dismounting and going in single file, each man leading his horse, we took the dizzy trail—a narrow footpath, in many parts of which a misstep would have been destruction to man or beast. The way zigzagged at first for some distance, on the 'switchback' principle by which railroads sometimes make grades otherwise impracticable; the face of the precipice was so steep that, as we filed along, those of us at the head ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... enough now, young man," said Gramps, but he made the change. And, from there, he went without a misstep through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... he had never done before, with the howling mob at his heels, and foremost among them was Sam. Two men were in advance of the escaping prisoner; but by an apparent misstep while he ran alongside the second, the rioter was overturned, and but one remained; the others being so far in the rear as not ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... we have been surprised at the charity of our people. They are always willing to forgive, and be it man or woman who takes a misstep in our town—which is the counterpart of hundreds of American towns—if the offender shows that he wishes to walk straight, a thousand hands are stretched out to help him and guide him. It is not true that a man or woman who makes a mistake is eternally damned by his fellows. If one persists ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... clear enough now. He realized his good fortune. He had never been so happy in his life. He called the pups and romped with them until an unlucky misstep sent Mrs Gummidge, with a shriek, to the top of the wardrobe, whence she glared at Gethryn and spit ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the men were never convinced and never forgot this misstep, bringing it up at the National Labor Union Congress in Philadelphia in 1869, which Susan attended as a delegate of the New York Workingwomen's Association. Here she found herself facing an unfriendly group without the support of William H. Sylvis, who ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... but made no reply. Before John could tease him any further, the party reached Four Mile Blaze. Mike tolled off the riders, and warned each one to give strictest attention to the going as one misstep meant a crippled horse or ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... on the roof of a building one day when one made a misstep and fell to the ground. The other ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... came again to a more open space among the trees, free from underbrush, but strewn at intervals with great bowlders. He picked his way cautiously, mindful of crevices where a broken leg or worse might be the penalty of a misstep in the darkness. The humor seized him to sit on a great rock which dropped down twenty feet to the creek bed, and listen to the quieting music of its night song. His eyes, grown somewhat accustomed to ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... stood up, as if moved by a spring. "Well, yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you have correctly guessed. But how can we obtain this double result? A single misstep at this moment might lose all. Ah, if I only knew your father's real situation; if I could only see him and speak to him! In one word he might, perhaps, place in my hands a sure weapon,—the weapon that I have as yet been ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... I. "Well; suppose you've been climbing a mountain late in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of it. It is a mountain of big boulders, loose little stones, thorny bushes. The slightest misstep would send pebbles rattling, brush rustling; but you have gone all the way without making that misstep. This is quite a feat. It means that you've known all about every footstep you've taken. That would be business enough for most people, wouldn't it? But in addition you've managed to see EVERYTHING ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... and whatever she had supposed to be oblique was horizontal, and nothing as she had been accustomed to find it. It made her head swim. It was literally true that she was afraid to move lest she should make a misstep through an error in ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... occurred Merry was certain, but whether a human being had fallen from the mountain by some misstep or had been hurled to his doom he could ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... far more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives and disposed to help them, gracious to all,—in ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... twice she stopped, and blew the whistle and hallooed, and each time the weird silence closed in again like an impenetrable veil. Sometimes she became impatient of her slow progress, but she knew too well the dangers of a misstep to risk the chance of success by any lack of caution. Even in her anxiety and distress of mind, she marked the intelligence with which Sunbeam picked his way, testing the firmness of each spot on which he trod, as if ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... we ventured with him, outside the usual track of tourists, and went where all the money of the Rothschilds would not have tempted us to go alone. The crust beneath our feet was hot, and often quivered as we walked. A single misstep to the right or left would have been followed by appalling consequences. Thus, a careless soldier, only a few days before, had broken through, and was then lying in the hospital with both legs badly ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... Williamson five days of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troops showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition not a man was laid up for any length of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... cautious passage came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, now become almost impenetrable, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... made him think they were not so nearly perpendicular as was the fact. While the thought was in his mind, he made a misstep and, unable to check himself, went bumping all the way ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly didn't seem to think that she had done anything wrong; and when she brought ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the utmost. Still, in order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he resigned his place as our 'boss,' and left post-haste for the main-land. Here, as was revealed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... must have made a misstep, for suddenly Thad saw him stumble and vanish over the side into the boiling waters ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... out into business life again. Our investigation showed that you had been living for years as an honest man. The rest of us on the board are men—-or think we are—-and we voted, informally, not to allow one misstep of yours to outweigh years of the ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... within thirty feet of the ground when I made ever so slight a misstep and brought Peter up short. The next moment he'd caught me up bodily in his right arm, and to steady myself I let my arms slip about his neck. I held on there, tight, even after I knew what I was doing, and let my cheek rest against the bristly side of his head as we went slowly ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... praise of your teachers; and worse even than this, you wished to awaken the envy of your companions. Such a gift, however large, could never be acceptable to the just God, who knows all hearts, and bids us to do good in secret and He will reward us openly. You see, my little girl, how one misstep makes the way for another,—how this pride begat envy, and envy covetousness, and then how quickly did deceit and dishonesty and disobedience come after. Do not think me harsh, my dear child, from my heart I forgive you; your punishment has been severe, but I trust ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various |
