"Mistaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... persons who commend his line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained by the providers of the comedians, they ought on the other to have seen the salaries lost by the providers of the taxpayers: for want of this, they have exposed themselves to ridicule by mistaking a displacement for a gain. If they were true to their doctrine, there would be no limits to their demands for government aid; for that which is true of one franc and of 60,000 is true, under parallel circumstances, of a hundred ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... same tough material. The sword instantly attracted our attention; it was practically identical with the one in the possession of Mr Mackenzie which he had obtained from the ill-starred wanderer. There was no mistaking the gold-lined fretwork cut in the thickness of the blade. So the man had told the truth after all. Our guide instantly gave a password, which the soldier acknowledged by letting the iron shaft of ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... yet he went on at his old rate, even by himself; for a few nights after, he broke open the shop and house of Mr. Beezely, a great distiller near Clare Market, and took away from thence notes to a great value, with a quantity of plate, which mistaking for white metal he threw away. One Benjamin Jones picked it up and was thereupon hanged, being one of the number under sentence when the Condemned Hold was shut up, and the criminals refused to submit to the keepers. Burnworth was particularly ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... of death, Ilse threw back her blond head and laughed. And there was no mistaking the genuineness of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the water and made half-a-dozen mud-heaps well within gunshot, which when the artificial heads and necks were attached to them, formed such exact counterparts of geese that the wild birds might well be excused for mistaking them for friends. Indeed tyros at this work have been known to fire at such decoys believing them to be ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... retreat now approached, and with a dexterity that an old surgeon might have envied, made an examination of the gaping wound which the young man had received in the back of the neck. "It is nothing," declared the police agent, but as he spoke there was no mistaking the movement of his lower lip. It was evident that he considered the wound ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... was no mistaking "Happy Tom's" pallor. "I tell you I feel great," he declared in a shaking voice. "I—haven't felt ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... is wiser to keep servants in their proper place as they do in Europe? One is not in danger there of mistaking maid for mistress." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... his gait and astonished me and all New Jersey with the vigour, frankness, and lucidity of his speeches of exposition and appeal. No campaign in years in New Jersey had roused such universal interest. There was no mistaking the character and enthusiasm of the greeting the candidate received every place he spoke, nor the response his thrilling speeches evoked all over the state. Those who had gathered the idea that the head of the great university would appear pedantic ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the evening, reckoning as above ground, where there is day and night, we are not more than two leagues from the mighty beast. Its long, black, enormous, mountainous body, lies on the top of the water like an island. But then sailors have been said to have gone ashore on sleeping whales, mistaking them for land. Is it illusion, or is it fear? Its length cannot be less than a thousand fathoms. What, then, is this cetaceous monster of which ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Honesty, friendliness, and grave concern were disclosed to her scrutiny. There was no mistaking him: he was a good man. Her mouth opened, and her eyelids flickered as from a too sudden invasion of light—the look of one perceiving the close approach of a vital crisis. But there was no surprise ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... called, won the day; and the great reform which they effected was of incalculable service to mankind. But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and the reformers of education, like those of religion, fell into the profound, however common, error of mistaking the beginning for the end of the work ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... poor friend Charlie had a beautiful 'hand.' You, madame, I perceive, own the same advantage; therefore I am convinced you must be a near connection of my old comrade. You may think me impertinent, but there is no mistaking 'the Horsingham hand.'" ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... dominant thrust with which the matador received the charging bull; my eyes were following the figure now bounding up the steps to the balcony, where with an exaggerated salutation he laid the drawing in Miss Mannersley's lap and vanished. There was no mistaking that thin lithe form, the narrow black mustache, and gravely dancing eyes. The audacity of conception, the extravagance of execution, the quaint irony of the sequel, could belong to no one ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes apparent—such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed, and so on—mistaking these for the real significance of the factor, and if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being the greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then, expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... direction indicated. Was that fashionable little lady conversing completely at her ease with one of the highest in the land indeed Marie Gourdon, the daughter of the fisherman at Father Point? Yes; there was no mistaking her, and he wondered a little whether Marie had changed mentally as much as her outward ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... head, curiosity in her expression, and then understanding came. There was no mistaking the warmth and welcome that came into her eyes. She ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... sincerely regrets it before God: his will is heartily turned away, and wishes that that sin had never been: at the same time his eye is dry, his features unmoved, not a sigh does he utter, and yet he is truly sorry. It is important to bear these facts in mind: else we shall be continually mistaking for passions what are pure acts of will, or vice versa, misled by the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... it would not be dangerous to open the piece with a song that must be totally incomprehensible to at least almost all the audience. It is safer to engage their prejudices by something captivating. I have the same objection to Julia's mistaking deposit for posset, which may give an ill turn: besides, those mistakes have been too often produced on the stage: so has the character of Mrs. Winter, a romantic old maid; nor does she contribute to the plot or catastrophe. I am afraid ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... proclaiming the annual festival of Irish Ireland hanging ovei the door of the Rotunda. The city had grown more Irish since he left it. There was no possibility now, even in the early morning, with few people but scavengers and milkmen in the streets, of mistaking ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... that 'William Murray [Lord Mansfield] was sixteen years of age when he came out of Scotland, and spoke such broad Scotch that he stands entered in the University books at Oxford as born as Bath, the Vice-Chancellor mistaking Bath for Perth.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... no mistaking this hint. "Well, well!" said Bartley, humbly, "I'll go. But I'd rather stay and watch with him,—I sha'n't eat or sleep till he's on foot again. And I can't leave till you tell me that you forgive me, Mrs. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the memory of this go quite, Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe! For many look again to find that face, Beloved John's to whom I ministered, {655} Somewhere in life about the world; they err: Either mistaking what was darkly spoke At ending of his book, as he relates, Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. {660} Believe ye will not see him any more About the world with his divine regard! For all was as I say, and now the man Lies ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... had told me his story, and I ventured to refer to it Her Majesty knew it quite well, and there was no mistaking the grief in her Voice as she commented on it, especially on that part of it which showed discrimination against the British prisoners. Major V—— had especially emphasised the lack of food for the private ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... these things are called coincidences. But to the story. The day I went out skating there was a shooting-party in Derrinrush, and at the close of day, in the dusk, a bird got up from the sedge, and one of the shooters, mistaking it for a woodcock, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... of grace and gentleness; but weak; enduring too mildly, and forgiving too easily. But the piece is rather a pantomime than play, and it is impossible to judge of the feelings of St. Columba, when she must leave the stage in half a minute after mistaking the headless clown ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... been observed by writers on this subject, and some have asserted that strategy is the science, and tactics the art of war. This is evidently mistaking the general distinction between science, which investigates principles, and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... late valiant burgomasters, who had demolished the whole British empire in their harangues, peeping ruefully out of their hiding-places; crawling cautiously forth; dodging through narrow lanes and alleys; starting at every little dog that barked; mistaking lamp-posts for British grenadiers; and, in the excess of their panic, metamorphosing pumps into formidable soldiers, levelling blunderbusses at their bosoms! Having, however, in despite of numerous perils and difficulties ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... mistaking the dejected air of Captain Weston. The others shared his feelings, but though they all felt like voicing their disappointment, not a word could be spoken. Mr. Sharp, by vigorous motions, indicated to his companions ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... think he fell; or was pushed over by Blowitz. There was no mistaking that call for help. Blowitz says it was he who called to us, but I know better. That was ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... song—"Fire and brim-stone! What's the matter with me?" Shoulders, feet, wrists, loins, all seemed paralyzed. Down went mattock and spade, pickaxe and shovel, and just at that moment the lights at the convent windows burst forth, and the cock, mistaking the blaze for daybreak, began to crow most lustily. Off flew the devil, and never again returned to complete his work. The small digging he effected still remains in witness of the truth of this legend of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... them, and as their eyes met, he recognised her. Even in that flickering light, and through her veil, there was no mistaking those wonderful eyes. As a rule, he was possessed of as much savoir faire as most men of his class, but at that moment it had deserted him. He stood there on the edge of the pavement, without moving or saying anything, simply looking at ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she will pledge herself no longer to annoy me by her jealousy and violence, and to meet me in the same spirit; but I have little hope of such a result: she is perfectly unable to exercise the necessary self-command, and is perpetually mistaking the impulse of temper for that of reason. Her intolerance and rancour forbid all prospect of sincere harmony between us. She is perpetually threatening with her vengeance every woman upon whom I chance to turn my eyes; and even the children of Gabrielle, who were in being before ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Astrologers predicted that the Duke must die by having his throat cut. One of them is said to have named Lorenzo de' Medici as the assassin; and another described him so accurately that there was no mistaking the man. Moreover, Madonna Lucrezia Salviati wrote to the Duke from Rome that he should beware of a certain person, indicating Lorenzino; and her daughter, Madonna Maria, told him to his face she hated the young man, 'because I know he means to murder you, and murder you he will.' Nor was this all. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... yellow lamps. Several people saw them and wondered what the boys and girls were coming to nowadays, and one eye-witness even subsequently described their carriage as "brazen." Mr. Lewisham was wearing his mortarboard cap of office—there was no mistaking him. They passed the Proprietary School and saw a yellow picture framed and glazed, of Mr. Bonover taking duty for his aberrant assistant master. And outside the Frobisher house at last ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... the King below, mistaking the giant's moan for a thunderclap, but before his question was answered Ned and his friend appeared at the head of ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... now an enormous man with an inflamed moon face and a great nose, decently dressed after the fashion of a solid bourgeois. There was no mistaking his anger, but the expression that it found was ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... mistaking the first "portrait." All eyes were focused upon Carmen, and blushing and shrinking she went forward ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... of the few words in the vocabulary of Might. Without Might there would be no such word, and the weak have ever been the prey of both. But it is a plain word. As plain as are the conditions under which we are now living. There is no mistaking its meaning. And having the same momentous work ahead of us - of gaining our freedom, and throwing off the yoke of our latest master - as that which confronted the founders of the Republic, we cannot go to a nursery rhyme for a word ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... he repeated. There was no mistaking it—what could be clearer. Latin, inter, between; venio, I come. Marion may have translated it differently, but she had served in the capacity of buffer too often to misinterpret ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... secures to them any one advantage. In consequence of the imprudence of some nations, or of the craft, cunning, and violence of those to whom they have confided the power of making laws, and carrying them into execution, their sovereigns have rendered themselves absolute masters of society. These, mistaking the true source of their power, pretended to hold it from heaven, to be accountable for their actions to God alone, to owe nothing, not to have any obligation to society, in a word, to be gods upon earth, to possess the right ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... knowledge have proved to us what generations of experience appear to have proved, that, with that organisation which constitutes the German, goes an unique aptitude for music. There is always the possibility of mistaking the result of training and external circumstance for inherent tendency, but when we consider the passion for music which the German has shown, and when we consider that the greatest musicians the world has seen, from Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart to Wagner, have been of ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... founded upon the sudden discovery of an unsuspected relation existing between two ideas. Humor deals with things out of relation—with the incongruous. It was wit in Douglass Jerrold to retort upon the scowl of a stranger whose shoulder he had familiarly slapped, mistaking him for a friend: 'I beg your pardon, I thought I knew you—but I'm glad I don't.' It was humor in the Southern orator, John Wise, to liken the pleasure of spending an evening with a Puritan girl to that of sitting on a block of ice in winter, cracking hailstones between ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... earnestly admonished all persons to desist from unlawful combinations to obstruct the operations of the laws, and charged all courts, magistrates, and officers with their enforcement. There was no mistaking Hamilton's intention to enforce the law. Prosecutions in the Circuit Court, held at Yorktown in October, were ordered against the Pittsburgh offenders, but no proof could be had to ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... and went subsequently to India with his regiment, the 14th Foot, where, years after, just as he had obtained a sick leave to return home, he was shot at Dinapoor, whilst reposing on his sofa, thinking probably, or dreaming of home and its affections, by a drunken Sepoy, mistaking him (in his mad excitement) for his servant, who had just previously refused him drink; the occurrence caused, necessarily, great excitement and much conversation at the time, the man was caught and hanged—a satisfaction to justice, but a wretched consolation ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... hall, he ran, and back into the conservatory where he picked up a heavy chair and threw it through the glass, dropping himself behind a convenient hiding-place near-by. Del Mar's man, close after him, mistaking the crash of glass for the escape of the man he was pursuing, went on through the broken exit. Then the little old man doubled on his tracks and made for the front ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... eyes and wholly mistaking her meaning, John replied, "I aint no great of a physiognomer, but when a thing is as plain as day I can discern it as well as the next one, and if that ar' chap haint pitied you, and done a heap more'n that, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... that a short time after, he thought he perceived the glimmering of the watch-lights on board the vessel, which he feared, by its having approached so near the coast, had steered between the main land and the little island of Amber, mistaking it for the point of Endeavour, near which the vessels pass in order to gain Port Louis. If this was the case, which, however, he could not affirm, the ship he apprehended was in great danger. Another ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... in winding down the hill toward the Moors, found himself on much lower ground than the enemy: he ordered in all haste that his standard should be taken back, so as to gain the vantage-ground. The Moors, mistaking this for a retreat, rushed impetuously toward the Christians. The latter, having gained the height proposed, charged upon them at the same moment with the battle-cry of "Santiago!" and, dealing the first blows, laid many of the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... entrance to the tunnel had been timbered to prevent its caving. There was nothing in its appearance to tell how long it had been abandoned. Beside the dump was a small selected pile of ore. This I gloated over happily, mistaking mingled stains and colors for pure sold. But if it was a gold mine, why had the owners departed—and why had they left rich ore? These and, other questions unanswered, left me with an uneasy feeling. I wondered if a tragedy had happened here, so many miles from civilization. With ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... There was no mistaking the kindliness in his eyes, or the look of rather wan beseeching in his thin, pinched face. In his golfing suit of Harris tweed he was not an unattractive figure, even if ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... Paris, through the agency of the police, to whom you will be very guarded in your communications. It is most unfortunate that I have no miniature of Louise, and that any description of her must be so vague that it may not serve to discover her; but such as it is, it may prevent your mistaking for her some other of her name. Louise was above the common height, and looked taller than she was, with the peculiar combination of very dark hair, very fair complexion, and light-gray eyes. She would now be somewhat ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... duty, and the captain did what he asked. After that he grew very morose and unhappy, and was as cross and disagreeable as he could be; so that the other men said they would like to thrash him just once. But when there was a fire he acted like another man, and was so reckless that the captain, mistaking foolhardiness for bravery, handed in his name for promotion, and as his political backing was very strong, he was given the white helmet and became foreman of another engine-house. But he did not seem to enjoy ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... language with the prince, and tried to put myself mentally on a level with him. He noticed these attempts of mine, but evidently mistaking them for an acknowledgment on my part of his superiority, adopted a still more patronizing tone in talking to me. I suffered, as the conviction came home to me, that all my arguments were shattered against the stone wall of his conception ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... minutes later, two people, walking slowly and evidently talking earnestly, passed down the vista of one of the garden alleys, and were lost to sight behind a tall, clipped hedge. Even at that distance there was no mistaking the figure and bearing of Clare; neither was there another woman who walked with that free, stately grace in a riding-habit which Eleanor Milbourne possessed. "If she is engaged to Marston Brent, he might certainly put an end to such open flirtation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... himself to death, I should have said. I gave him at the most another year to live. Yet to my amazement the first person I saw as I stepped on board the boat that brought me to England last week was this fellow. There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... to say so, but it is. Forgive me—it's beastly impertinence I know, but you speak like a man who has been at a public school. There's no mistaking the tone.' ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... modern times is the mistaking erudition for education. I call it the leading error, for I believe that, with little difficulty, nearly every other might be shown to have root in it; and, most assuredly, the worst that are fallen into on ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... love of his troops for him made the tragedy of his death the more deplorable. Mistaking him for the enemy as he was returning from the front, in the gathering darkness at Chancellorsville, May, 1863, his own men shot him,—shot him down with victory ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... terrible change came over the quiet face; there was no mistaking the sudden, heart-shaking summons. And now Charlotte sank; always nervous and highly strung, the mere dread of what might be to come, laid her prostrate. They led her away, and for a week she kept her ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... fully, so that there cannot by any possibility be the least chance of any one mistaking my meaning, I should illustrate the position in this way, that it has always been the invariable custom for owls to marry owls; for crows to marry crows; for rooks to fall in love with rooks; for wood-pigeons to woo wood-pigeons; ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... she exclaimed, in great excitement, evidently mistaking the words. Then regaining her husband, she again grasped his arm, and the mass at the same time opening its ranks, the two hastened on to a couple of those little black one-horse vehicles, chancing there to stand, which run to St. Cloud. In one of these already ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... a very simple question—which I will confess to you was put in rather an irritable manner on my part ... for I had been annoyed by their labours for more than the last hour. "What are you about, there?" I exclaimed—"Ha, is it you Sir?" replied a little arch boy—mistaking me for some one else. "Yes, (resumed I) tell me what you are about there?" "in truth, we are making Reposoirs for the FETE-DIEU: the Host will pass this way by and bye. Is it not a pretty thing, Sir?" exclaimed a sweetly modulated female voice. All my irritability was softened ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... question reminds us of 'Wilt Thou that we command fire... from heaven, and consume them?' It is cast in such a form as to put emphasis on the householder's will. His answer forbidding the gathering up of the tares is based, not upon any chance of mistaking wheat for them, nor upon any hope that, by forbearance, tares may change into wheat, but simply on what is best for the good crop. There was a danger of destroying some of it, not because of its likeness to the other, but because the roots of both were so interlaced ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... I'm sure she will!" cried the Colonel. "But what I don't understand is—Geof. To be taken with a child like Polly, when,—" He turned sharp about, and looked into her face, and there was no mistaking his meaning. It was almost as if he had spoken the words she had so ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... the opposite sex, he is admitted into the ranks of the Good Sorts; and as such, provided that he keeps his head, has an extremely pleasant time of it. If, however, any obtuse and amorous youth persists in mistaking what Nanki-Poo once described as "customary expressions of affability" for an indication that his infatuation is reciprocated, the Twins act promptly. They have "no use" for such creatures, they once explained to me; and they ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... orders. At the first streak of dawn the Indians and Canadians were in position to protect the engineers and working parties. Only one accident marred the success of the opening day. One of the French engineers was returning to camp through the woods at dusk, when an Indian, mistaking him for an enemy, shot him dead. It is said that this Indian felt so sorry for what he had done that he vowed to avenge the engineer's loss on the British, and did not stop scalp-hunting during the rest ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... and so on, run the piteous appeals which every successful author receives from the great unknown world of discouraged and perplexed young people who are mistaking the stir of youth or vanity, or the ennui of idleness, or the sting of poverty, for the solemn ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... There was no mistaking the tone. It meant business in spite of the aggressive cheerfulness. He turned moodily and stamped out of the room. As the door closed, he found an outlet for the disappointment ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... knights were all, with the exception only of Ralph Harcourt, between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, and their young faces, free in most cases even from the suspicion of a moustache, looked almost those of boys. But there was no mistaking the ardour and enthusiasm in their faces, and the lack of breadth and weight, that years alone would give to them, was compensated by skill in their weapons, acquired by long and severe training, and by the activity and tireless energy ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... among critics, and no doubt there is every reason why it should be so. The art of Flaubert gives at any rate a perfectly definite standard; there is no mistaking or mis-reading it. He is not of those who present many aspects, offering the support of one or other to different critical doctrines; Flaubert has only one word to say, and it is impossible to find more than a ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... far smaller number who were pressed or hired into the military service of the Empire, the still smaller number which entered the Empire as marauders, during the weakness of the Central Government towards its end, were not of the sort which this anti-Catholic theory, mistaking ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... words in Spanish which he did not understand, and then a phrase at which he could guess, then words which there was no mistaking, and which were not for him or any other man ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... at that gin mill on the wharf by a lot of crimps, who, mistaking me for a better man, shoved me, blind drunk and helpless, down the steps into a boat, and out to a short-handed brig in the stream. When I came to I was outside the Heads, pointed for Guayaquil. When they found they'd captured, not a poor Jack, but ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... discouraged. But this bear in particular had learned that when men started out to be disagreeable to bears, they succeeded only too well. He had realized clearly that Mrs. Gammit had intended to be disagreeable to him. There was no mistaking her intentions. But she had not succeeded. Ergo, she was not, as he had almost feared, a man, but really and truly a woman. He came back the next night fully determined that no squeals, or brooms, or flying petticoats, or ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ill-defined, and nearly the whole surface of the egg is freckled over with smudgy streaks. Sometimes the markings are most numerous at the large end, sometimes at the small; no two eggs are exactly alike, and yet they have so strong a family resemblance that there is no possibility of mistaking them. Generally the markings as a whole are less bold, and the general colour of a large body of them laid together is bluer and brighter than that of a similar drawer-full of Ravens' eggs. As a whole, too, they are more glossy. I have one egg before ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... belief that their power can almost control fate itself. Accordingly, the visit of the butterfly did not produce much permanent inquietude. The poets-laureate and literati of the court turned it into numerous sentimental conceits; amongst others, that the insect had fastened on the princess's cheek mistaking it for a rose. This idea branched out into a hundred elegies, a thousand madrigals, and fifteen hundred songs, which were sung in all the principal families, and adapted to airs, some already known, and others composed ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... along the river's verge, when she thought she heard her name sound faintly through the storm. She stopped Nelly and sat in sudden stiffness, straining her ears. Again the voice sounded, this time nearer, and there was no mistaking her name. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... position, and when this force was at grips with the Army of the Potomac, to assault the centre with a bayonet charge. About 5 p.m. the sound of cheering was heard near the right of the position, and mistaking this for the signal, General D. H. Hill launched the attack on the centre. The first line of defence was carried, but the Northern Army was unoccupied in the other parts of the line, and reinforcements quickly {26} ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... from the Lowland heart. The true way to learn to appreciate Ossian's poetry is not to hurry, as Macaulay seems to have done, in a steamer from Glasgow to Oban, and thence to Ballachulish, and thence through Glencoe, (mistaking a fine lake for a 'sullen pool' on his way, and ignoring altogether its peculiar features of grandeur,) and thence to Inverness or Edinburgh; but it is to live for years—as Macpherson did while writing Ossian, and Wilson also did to some extent—under the shadow of the mountains,—to ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... hesitated. Then the full import of Eleanor's words flashed upon her. There was no mistaking their sincerity. She knew at last that she did "really mean something" to somebody. Ethel Hale had been wrong. Eleanor had not forgotten her old friends—and Betty would go to New York. With a happy little cry she stretched out her arms and ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... the bar was the only safe place in the Settlement, availed himself of its sanctuary in times of danger. On the third day he learned that the law of averages is a weak reed to lean on; for on slipping round a corner, and mistaking a warning signal from the Wag, he whisked into the bar to whisk out again with a clatter of hobnailed boots, for I was in there examining some native curios. "She's in THERE next," he gasped as he passed the Wag on his way to the cover of the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... two to literary men from her friends in the country who had some appreciation, more or less vague, of her intellectual powers. Though courageous and determined, she was far from self-confident; she asked herself if she might not be mistaking a mere fancy for a faculty, and her first step was to seek the opinion of some experienced authority as to her ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... seemed as if the old, heroic West had spoken through this fearless giant of other days. There was no mistaking the meaning that ran through that quietly worded message. It brought the crowd up with a thrill of apprehension, followed by honest shame. There was even a ripple of applause. The crowd started once more to file out, but in different mood. Some of the more impetuous, who had rushed ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... the thought occupied my mind, that it was not she, but some fresh mystery of the house. Then, as I caught a glimpse of her old petticoat, the thought passed as quickly as it had come, and I half laughed. There could be no mistaking that ancient garment. Yet, I wondered what she was doing; and, remembering her condition of mind, on the previous day, I felt that it might be best to follow, quietly—taking care not to alarm her—and see what she was going to do. If she behaved rationally, well and good; if ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... th' number five or nine. Probably Herrick is mistaking the references in Greek and Latin poets to the mixing of their wine and water (e.g., Hor. Od. III. xix. 11-17) for the drinking of ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Ethie looked up so inquiringly that Mrs. Pry, mistaking the nature of her sudden interest, went on more flippantly. "Yes, and a splendid looking man, too, if he wasn't sick. I saw him in the chapel this morning—the only time he has been there—and sat where I had a good view of his face. They ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... upset her again. He could not have been her son, for if he was, he'd never have run away. Besides, he did not resemble the little lad with black curls she used to talk to me about. But he ran up to her, doubtless mistaking her for someone else, and called her his mother, and said he ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... Theo must have had—and often in the evening, too—to note the difference between Harry's yellow hair and George's dark locks—and between their figures, though they were so like that people continually were mistaking one for the other brother. Now it is certain that Theo never mistook one or t'other; and that Hetty, for her part, was not in the least excited, or rude, or pert, when she found the black-haired gentleman ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stages,] and therefore that the most successful exorcist is Science, albeit Science works not by faith in the theory, but by rejection of it. Observe, the diseases are so well described by the record, that there is no possibility of mistaking them. Hence you must suppose that they were due to devils in A.D. 30, and to nervous disorders in A.D. 1894. On the other hand, if you choose the other horn, you must accept either the hypothesis of the ignorance or that of the ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... question at issue, which concerned the amount of similarity. The dogmatists maintained that the similarity between two phenomena could never be great enough to render it impossible to guard against mistaking the one for the other, the sceptics argued that it could. Quod rerum natura non patitur: again Lucullus confounds essential with phenomenal difference, and so misses his mark; cf. n. on 50. Nulla re differens: cf. the nihil differens of 99, the substitution of which here would ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that will run fast enough as soon as they smell you, though they are nine feet high. Joe told us of some hunters who a year or two before had shot down several oxen by night, somewhere in the Maine woods, mistaking them for moose. And so might any of the hunters; and what is the difference in the sport, but the name? In the former case, having killed one of God's and your own oxen, you strip off its hide,—because that is the common trophy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... pitch dark, and the animal could be heard munching beneath. I fired at a black object twice with no result, for we still heard the beast going on with his dinner. I found later I had fired at a bush, mistaking it for a panther in the darkness. The animal was either too hungry to notice the shot, or had mistaken the sound for thunder. Later on the moon rose, and at half-past three in the morning a third shot took effect, for the animal ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... honesty, in his secret heart he believed in his similitude to Christ. 'Je ne puis pas souffrir les tiedes,' he wrote to Madame Latour in 1762, 'quiconque ne se passionne pas pour moi n'est pas digne de moi.' There is no mistaking the accent, and it sounds more plainly still in the Dialogues. He, too, was persecuted for righteousness' sake, because he, too, proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven was ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... in reality was probably ten minutes, when, losing all patience at the non-appearance of the priest, whose house he had so coolly taken possession of, he told the boys to put something to eat on the table, and they, apparently mistaking his meaning, in a trice served up the good priest's half-cooked dinner, which, without the delay of asking any questions, he proceeded to devour. In a very short space of time he had cleared away the best part of it, and was beginning to relax in his exertions, ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing? Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter; In sleep a king, but, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... were ever at work to counteract the decisions of his council, and to balance the advantage of a few sycophants against a nation's weal. The faction of whom I speak were incapable of judicious conduct either in prosperity or in adversity, mistaking a few successful enterprises for the former, and thereupon becoming insolent and sanguine, talking of unconditional submission from the rebels, and an intire reinstatement of themselves in the luxurious ease of their former ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... a villain as that?" said Jack, indignantly. "No —of course I didn't. Louie—I'd die first. No. I told her some story about my mistaking her for a friend, whose name I didn't mention. I told her that I took the widow's hand by mistake—just in fun, you know—thinking it was my friend, and all that; and before I knew it the widow ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... in time. We were still a hundred paces from the door when a man sprang out from it, and gazed about him, his head whisking this way and that. There could be no mistaking the huge bristling beard, the broad chest, and the rounded shoulders of Toussac. A glance showed him that we would ride him down before he could get away, and he sprang back into the mill, closing the heavy door with a ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the shore was made quickly. It seemed almost no time at all before they made out the string of lights that marked the pier and the radiance of the brilliantly lit hotel behind them. But as they were landing an unforeseen accident occurred. Mistaking his distance in the darkness, the captain neglected to shut off power soon enough, and the nose of the Skipjack bumped into the pier with great force. At the same time a splintering of ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... following us as we went off at an angle to the old course. Then we began to draw ahead steadily, and they hailed us with threats which made Gerda pale somewhat, for if we were still too far for the words to be heard there was no mistaking them. But her faith in the boat was justified, for she sailed wonderfully well with the beam wind. The big rowing boat astern began to go somewhat to leeward also, with the set of wind and wave and the tide together ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... been unyoked I looked about me, and saw that we were in a place that, although I had approached it from a somewhat different direction, I recognised at once as the mouth of the Black Kloof, in which, over a year before, I had interviewed Zikali the Little and Wise. There was no mistaking the spot; that blasted valley, with the piled-up columns of boulders and the overhanging cliff at the end of it, have, so far as I am aware, no exact counterparts ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... the doctors, who attended him in his first attack, mistaking the haemorrhage from the stomach for haemorrhage from the lungs, he wrote: "It would have been but poor consolation to have had ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... a low sound came to our ears—a kind of drone of misery and despair which was indescribably melancholy. Holmes paused irresolute, and then he glanced back at the road which he had just traversed. A brougham was coming down it, and there could be no mistaking those gray horses. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... work. He feels, too, that he is gaining something more than knowledge. He is gaining power. He is growing in strength. He grapples successfully to-day with a difficulty that would have staggered him yesterday. There is no mistaking this process; and no matter what the subject of study, the intellectual development what it gives, is worth infinitely more than all that vague, floating kind of knowledge sometimes sought after, which seems to be imbibed somehow from the atmosphere of the school-room, as it certainly evaporates ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... there was no mistaking their import; he was evidently in high glee, and that, I felt, could only mean one thing—the discovery and making prisoner of poor Dost, whose fate ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... is still currently told in the neighborhood. A young peasant was prevented from joining in the attack by his sweet-heart, to whom he was to be married the next day. She, learning that the wife of Colonel Sinclair was among the party, sent her lover to offer his assistance; but the Scotch lady, mistaking his purpose, shot him dead. Such is the tragic history that casts over this wild region a mingled interest of horror ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... he minded, you see. I think he had been hurt in his pride, even more than in his affection for... for her. I hadn't suspected that he was so sensitive over what he considered his honour—dense of me, perhaps—but there was no mistaking that this sensitiveness now tied the extra lash on to the whip of his tongue. When he had finished talking, when he had said all that he wanted to say, and all without once losing his temper or his damned insolent dexterity, ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West |
