"Overshot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear Seigneur!" he said, on the Sunday before the playing was to end, "we have overshot ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mrs. Ware had overshot the mark, but she retorted, gallantly reckless: "That's what yer Aunt Malviny useter declar' fur gospel sure, when she war a gal. An' she hev got ten chil'ren, an' hev buried two husbands; an' ef all they say air true, she's tollin' in the third man now. She's a mighty ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... thought struck me that my brother could not possibly overtake the elephant at the pace at which we were going, and I immediately doubled short to my left into the open plain, and back towards the guns. The rogue overshot me. I met my brother close to his tail, which position he had with difficulty maintained; but he could not get a shot, and the elephant turned into the jungle, and disappeared just as I escaped him by a sharp turn. This was a close shave; had not ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... West and the Diantha newly emerged from the chrysalis stage, she had but one end in view; to show the young man the essential absurdity of any sentimental acquaintance between himself and the mother of this blooming maid. With a vague uneasiness she realized the possibility that she had overshot the mark. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... that the brutality of Alva had already overshot the mark. Too politic, however, openly to reprove so powerful a functionary, he continued to speak of him and of his administration to Philip in terms of exalted eulogy. He was a "sage seignior," a prudent governor, one on whom his Majesty could entirely repose. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... liege, in aiming at your love, It may be sometimes I have overshot My duties to our Holy Mother Church, Tho' all the world allows I fall no inch Behind this Becket, rather go beyond In scourgings, macerations, mortifyings, Fasts, disciplines that clear the spiritual eye, And break the soul from earth. Let all that be. I boast ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and ten sous. Wheat bread, three sous the pound. Vin ordinaire, good, and of a strong body, two or three sous the bottle. Oranges, one sous apiece. They are nearly finishing at Nismes a great mill, worked by a steam-engine, which pumps water from a lower into an upper cistern, from whence two overshot wheels are supplied, each of which turns two pair of stones. The upper cistern being once filled with water, it passes through the wheels into the lower one, from whence it is returned to the upper by the pumps. A stream of water of one quarter or one ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... blue proved more alarming than anything we had dared to imagine. The shock was so unexpected that certain journals, losing their composure, seemed to regard the Vienna Cabinet's arraignment as having overshot the mark. "Austria-Hungary," said the Vossische Zeitung, "will have to justify the grave charges that she makes against the Serbian Government and people by publishing the results of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... that he was in a dilemma. He had commenced making love to Miss Dunstable partly because he liked the amusement, and partly from a satirical propensity to quiz his aunt by appearing to fall into her scheme. But he had overshot the mark, and did not know what answer to give when he was thus called upon to make a downright proposal. And then, although he did not care two rushes about Miss Dunstable in the way of love, he nevertheless experienced a sort of jealousy ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... who would have died for him,—this same woman, according to Miss Stisted, deliberately behind her husband's back ran counter to his wishes, fanned the flame of fanaticism, and brought about the crash which ruined his career! Was there ever a more improbable charge? But the accusation has overshot the mark, and, like the boomerang, it returns and injures no ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... distance of 30 steps from me and I shot him through the belly, he fell to his knees and on his wright elbow from which position he partly raised himself up and fired at me, and turning himself about crawled in behind a rock which was a few feet from him. he overshot me, being bearheaded I felt the wind of his bullet very distinctly. not having my shotpouch I could not reload my peice and as there were two of them behind good shelters from me I did not think it prudent to rush on them with my pistol which ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... the notion of putting them beside the fireplace," said Jack. "When they are both running, it would be like hitching a pair of horses before an ox-team or a steam engine attachment to an overshot water-wheel. It means business. Uncle Harry improves. ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... best way out. All he had wanted or intended was to discourage the others from claiming the blue roan; he wanted him in his own string. Afterwards, when they had pestered him about the roan's record, he admitted to himself that he had, maybe, overshot the mark and told it a bit too scarey, and too convincingly. Under the spell of fancy he had done more than make the roan unpopular as a roundup horse; he had made him a celebrity in the way of outlaw horses. And they wanted him in the rough-riding contest! Andy, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... first instance. The analogy between electricity and a liquid like water will now be recognized. So long as the water is at rest, it is inert. If we pump it up to a height, we confer on it the equivalent of potential. We can let the water fall into the buckets of an overshot wheel. Its velocity leaving the tail race may be identical with that at which it left the supply trough to descend on the wheel. Its quantity will be the same. It will be in all respects unchanged, just as the current of electricity passing through a lamp is unchanged; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... When Galors overshot his mark in Thornyhold he flew very wide. It is well known there are no roads. Thornyhold is but the beginning of the densest patch of timber in all the forest. Malbank is your nearest habitation; Spenshaw, Heckaby, Dunsholt Thicket, Hartshold, Deerleap are forest names, not names of the ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... contrast, the Aryan folk of India, whether in their pure type as found in the Punjab and Rajputana Desert, or mingled with the earlier Dravidian races belong to the hot belt but scarcely reach the Tropic of Cancer,[198] though their language has far overshot this line both in the Deccan and the Ganges Delta. One spore of Aryan stock, in about 450 B.C., moved by sea from the Bay of Cambay to Ceylon; mingling there with the Tamil natives, they became the progenitors of the Singhalese, forming a hybrid ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... to be paralyzed. They stood and watched us. When they finally did fire, in their excitement, they overshot us. The next instant we burst upon them. Our bayonets came down to a charge. They couldn't stand before us, comrades. Corbleu! the white snow was red with blood that day! A squadron of cavalry, the Emperor's escort, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... most Christian Majesty has been faithfully served by these missionaries, in all points, except that political injunction of not giving a handle for just complaints, which they overshot in the ardor of their zeal; since it is undoubted matter of fact, that the missionaries openly employed all their arts, and all the influence of religion, to invenom the savages against us. Thence, besides a number of horrid cruelties, the most treacherous ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... in the middle of the boulevard signalled with his little white wand; the stream of east-bound vehicles checked and began to close up to the right of the crossing, upon which they encroached jealously; and a taxi on the outside, next the island, overshot the mark, pulled up sharply, and began to back into place. Before Lanyard could stir, its window was opposite him, and he was ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... of which effected an instant cure. It was impossible to decide which of these presents was the most valuable; so the sultan said he should have her who shot an arrow to the greatest distance. The eldest (Houssian) shot first; Ali overshot the arrow of his eldest brother; but that of the youngest brother (Ahmed) could nowhere be found. So the award was given to Ahmed.—Arabian Nights ("Ahmed ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... it was not likely that this would be done in any way at the duke's instance. Mr. Fothergill declared indignantly that this insinuation made him very angry; but he was too prudent a man to be very angry at anything, and he knew how to make capital on his own side of charges such as these which overshot their own mark. Mr. Sowerby came down very quietly to Chaldicotes, and there he remained for a couple of days, quite alone. The place bore a very different aspect now to that which we noticed when Mark Robarts drove up to it, in the early pages of this little narrative. There were no lights in ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Eastward. Bell had overshot the mark the night before. Before he had located himself he was quite fifty miles beyond the spot Paula had suggested as a hiding place. Now he retraced his way. A peak jutting up from far beyond the horizon was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... principle may be seen running alike through machinery and through life. The history of man is traced in water-wheels. The overshot wheel belonged to a period when everything else—religion, literature, and art—was overshot. When, as time passed on, common men began to think, began to think under a little, the Reformation came in—and the undershot wheel, as a matter of course. There is no denying that the overshot ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... sixteen points, [1] and in about two minutes heard a series of reports right astern of us. It was evident that our ruse had succeeded and that he had overshot the mark. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... continue to be making in all the ports of England and France, and, as we expect next month accounts of great attempts made by our colonies, we think war unavoidable, notwithstanding both nations are averse to it. The French have certainly overshot themselves; we took it upon a higher style than they expected, or than has been our custom. The spirit and expedition with which we have equipped so magnificent a navy has surprised them, and does exceeding honour to my Lord Anson, who has breathed new life into our affairs. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... coming on, the "Esperanza" was separated from the consorts. Ward-huus—a little harbour to the east of the North Cape-had been appointed as the place of rendezvous in case of such an event, but unfortunately, Sir Hugh overshot the mark, and wasted all the precious autumn time in blundering amid the ice to the eastward. At last, winter set in, and they were obliged to run for a port in Lapland. Here, removed from all human aid, they were frozen to death. A year afterwards, the ill-fated ships were discovered ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... could feel the tang of the salt wind upon his face. He slowed down. The fog was as thick as ever, but the scrub oak had given place to more open country. In a minute or two he ought to sight some landmark. Yes, he had overshot his mark, for suddenly, through a gap in the mists, he saw the line of breakers forming a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... the stern of a pleasure-yacht at anchor, his eye is caught by a black spot rising on a wave, and he makes for it. Not too fast at the last, though, but cautiously, so as to grasp the man with the life-belt and hold him firm till help shall come to get him on board. He might easily have overshot him; but he has him now, and the four-oar sights him as she swings round between the last-moored boat and the pier; and comes apace, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... him it could attract no love, to him it could bring no happiness. Probably it caused him to play the piano better; if this justifies Nature, she is welcome to the plea. For my part, I felt that it was monstrously bad taste in him to come and be miserable here and now in Forstadt. But he overshot his mark. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... trembling violently. She thought that she had misjudged the man, and that he was really very deeply moved by the story of his daughter's death. Doubtless, his emotion had made him wish to control himself, and he had overshot the mark and spoken cruelly only in order to seem calm. No one had ever spoken to him of his wife, and even now he could hardly bear to hear her name. It was long before he looked up. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... A pugnacious red overshot Sissy's face. Crosby was her property, to browbeat and maltreat as seemed best to her. She felt that Irene's interference in a matter that was purely personal was ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... he replied, "it is still the study of Nosology; but in hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark. You have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none. You are damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to the size of his proboscis—but, good heavens! there is no competing with a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... To demonstrate that that was practicable I made with my own hands a chain two miles long, and placed posts 200 feet apart in the East River from Bellevue dock down town about a mile. These posts supported grooved wheels to lay the chain in, forming an endless chain. The whole was moved by an overshot waterwheel placed at the Bellevue dock. A reservoir twelve feet square and three deep held the ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... more to educate harmonic perception than is commonly supposed. All the devices of counterpoint, as we have them to-day, were invented by the various schools of this period, and brought to a high degree of perfection. But the learning had somewhat overshot its mark. The multiplicity of parts in the compositions of Willaert, and the other masters of the polyphonic schools, served for the cultivation of chord perception just as surely as if they had intentionally written chord successions without troubling themselves with imitative ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... doing away with the miscellaneous assaults and batteries, kickings, fisticuffings, ropes'-endings, marline-spikings, which the inferior officers continually perpetrate, as the only mode of keeping up anything like discipline. As in many other instances, philanthropy has overshot itself by the prohibition of flogging, causing the captain to avoid the responsibility of solemn punishment, and leave his mates to make devils of themselves, by habitual and hardly avoidable ill ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for the year as a whole, the worst decline in Turkey's post-war history. At the same time, the government missed key 1994 targets stipulated in the IMF agreement: the budget deficit is estimated to have overshot the government's goal by 47%; the total public sector borrowing requirement likely reached 10%-12% of GDP, rather than 8.5% called for in the program; and the Turkish lira's value fell 5% to 7% more than expected. The unprecedented effort ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... of the seven miles he had not overtaken it, nor was there any appearance of it on the road before him, a level stretch of two miles. However, he ran on another five miles, and there was no sign of it, nor had anyone he passed or met, seen it. Plainly he had overshot it. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... illuminated in the yellow glare of flames. And now it started to rain. Down it came, hard and fast. We huddled together on the cold field and prepared ourselves to expect anything that might come along now. Shells and rain were both falling in the field. I think a few shells, meant for Ypres, had rather overshot the mark and had come into our ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... match for Sir Murtagh; the people in the country thought he demeaned himself greatly [See GLOSSARY 5], but I said nothing; I knew how it was. Sir Murtagh was a great lawyer, and looked to the great Skinflint estate; there, however, he overshot himself; for though one of the co-heiresses, he was never the better for her, for she outlived him many's the long day—he could not see that to be sure when he married her. I must say for her, she made him the best of wives, being a very notable, stirring woman, and looking ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... the other side from that taken by the fox, and kept about the same distance from it, being thus separated several yards from his track, with the fence between her and it. At the point where the fox turned sharply to the left, the hound overshot a few yards, then wheeled, and, feeling the air a moment with her nose, took up the scent again and was off on his trail as unerringly as Fate. It seemed as if the fox must have sowed himself broadcast as he went along, and that his scent was ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the bank of vapour, he found that he had overshot the mark, so he turned quickly and sped backwards. At the same time he discovered that he had been preceded by Commander Briggs, who was bombarding the shed furiously, and who himself was the object of a concentrated fire. Swooping down ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... protracted contest followed. Nineteen ballots were taken. Douglas's chief competitor proved to be, not Young, but Breese, who finally secured the nomination of the caucus by a majority of five votes.[147] The ambition of Judge Douglas had overshot the mark. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... his lip, for he instantly felt that he had overshot himself by almost anticipating the charge, as if it were about to be made against himself;—"What I think improbable in it," said Hycy, "is that she should, if in possession of the facts, keep ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Herring, was a sharp-witted lad. He understood the case, (partly at least), in a moment, and proceeded to appropriate action. Being intimately acquainted with that part of London, he took a short cut, overshot Mr Sparks, and was first to give the alarm at the fire-station. When, therefore, Mr Sparks ran in, panting and shouting "fire!" great was his surprise to find the men already roused, and the horses ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... surprise in her face and went on quickly, "I swear, Princess, that I will not return to you again without his head." He took a quick step in the direction of the castle and found himself soaring over it; turned eleven miles off and stepped back a pace; overshot it again, and arrived at the very feet ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... most ambitious of country churches. Mrs. Allen hoped to make a profound impression on the country people, and by this one dress parade to secure standing and cordial recognition among the foremost families. But she overshot the mark. The failure of Mr. Allen was known. The costly mourning suits and the little house did not accord, the solid, sensible people were unfavorably impressed, and those of fashionable and aristocratic tendencies ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... stopped to listen to the drowsy fall of the miniature Niagara, or watch the incessant turning—turning of the great water-wheel. Little we thought he should ever own it, or that John would be pointing it out to his own boys, lecturing them on "undershot," and "overshot," as he used ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... work to one who was effervescing with eagerness to reach Dunroe and obtain help, and over and over again, as the distance seemed so long, Max shivered with dread lest he should have overshot the mark and ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... in the chase, hid himself beneath the large leaves of a Vine. The huntsmen, in their haste, overshot the place of his concealment. Supposing all danger to have passed, the Hart began to nibble the tendrils of the Vine. One of the huntsmen, attracted by the rustling of the leaves, looked back, and ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... more than two yards behind, and for the first time I twisted so that they overshot me, which gave me another start. Three times they came up and three times I wrenched or twisted. The wood was not so far away now, but I was ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... of the Parisians have been instances of, by using this sort of water out of the River Seine. And of this Nature is another at Rowel in Northamptonshire, which in no great distance of time so clogs the Wheel of an overshot Mill there, that they are forced with, convenient Instruments to cut way for its Motion; and what makes it still more evident, is the sight of those incrusted Sides of the Tea-kettles, that the hard Well-waters ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... ray's fast!" exclaimed the pilot, ruefully. "I overshot about a thousand light years. We'll try again, with considerably less power," and he rearranged and reset the dials and meters before him. Adjustment after adjustment and many reductions in power had to be made before the projection ceased leaping millions of miles ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... But I had so grossly overshot the mark that I suppose it took me two good miles of road and half an hour of elocution to persuade him I had been in earnest. In the course of which I became so interested in demonstrating my present danger that I forgot all about my future ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to mark him out for better things. He is careful to remark at the outset that this poem is not intended for the virtuous. The frivolous gallants, whose sole end in life is dissipation, with the objects of their licentious passion, are the readers for whom he caters. But he had overshot his mark; The Amores had been tolerated, for they had followed precedent. But even they had raised him enemies. The Art of Love produced a storm of indignation, and without doubt laid the foundations of that severe displeasure on the part of Augustus, which found vent ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... known, without knowing also the appearance of Staten Land; and that some navigators have been deceived by three hills on Staten Land, which have been mistaken for the Three Brothers on Terra del Fuego, and so overshot the streight. But no ship can possibly miss the streight that coasts Terra del Fuego within sight of land, for it will then, of itself, be sufficiently conspicuous; and Staten Land, which forms the east side, will be still more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... that no faintest slave-rising had been created by the proclamation began to veer in favour of the emancipation edict[942]. By the end of the year it appeared that the Press, in holding up horrified hands and prophesying a servile war had "overshot the mark[943]." ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... gaunt, rawboned figures, their long, matted hair and wild faces. One wounded tory, as he lay watching them, noticed their deadly accuracy of aim, and saw also that the loyalists, firing from the summit, continually overshot their foes. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... we shouted unitedly, but no reply, and presently we saw a blue light was being burnt on the starboard side—they were looking for us in the wrong quarter. For some minutes our suspense was horrible, for, if the captain thought he had overshot our boat (knowing nothing of the second disaster), he would, we feared, go off on the other tack. Again they hailed, and again we answered, though we were now feeling pretty well done up, and the Portuguese was alternately praying to the saints and ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... them into pocket pistols," interrupted Mr. C., "and not have overshot the mark, my dear—ha, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... full. Four thousand pounds of fresh pork having been cured, the lieutenant-governor had forty tons of salt provisions to spare, which he offered to this colony. The wharf and crane at Cascade were rather improved than simply repaired, and an overshot water-mill had been erected at the trifling expence of three ewe sheep to the constructor, which ground and dressed eighteen bushels of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... parapet, and I have seen to-day fifty houses that you have rendered uninhabitable because they stood in the way of your forts and men. You defended Atlanta on a line so close to town that every cannon-shot and many musket-shots from our line of investment, that overshot their mark, went into the habitations of women and children. General Hardee did the same at Jonesboro, and General Johnston did the same, last summer, at Jackson, Mississippi. I have not accused you of heartless cruelty, but merely instance ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... having been discovered on Christmas day, and named, in this account of De Gamas voyage, the Land of Good People, De Gama missed Cape Corientes, forming the S.W. point of the channel of Mozambique, or Inner Passage, as it is now called, and overshot Sofala, the southern extremity of Covilhams discoveries, at which he was probably directed to touch, as Covilhams chart might have been of some use to direct his farther progress to Aden, and thence to Calicut or Cananor, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... these two sentences are selected by memory—a critic you may always trust to—is admirable; except in one or two places where Thomson seems to have striven to be strongly pathetic, and where he seems to us to have overshot his mark, and to have ceased to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... a courageous heart to fare through the maze of it; and like a curious child I peered about upon this strange habitation. Near by there was a gray, weathered stone in the moss: I reached to possess it—and was amazed to find that my hand neither overshot nor fell short, but accurately performed its service. I cast the stone towards heaven: 'twas a surprise to see it fall earthward in obedience to some law I could not in my daze define—some law I had with impatient labor, long, long ago, made sure I understood and ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... at the box to the minute so as not to keep Mrs. Gurley waiting. And her promptness was rewarded; the stern face seemed to relax. At the mere hint of this, Laura grew warm through and through; and as she could neither control her feelings nor keep them to herself, she rushed to an extreme and overshot the mark. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... speaker believes that the author has put himself in the class with most iconoclasts, in that he has overshot his mark. There seems to be a very important point, however, on which he has touched, namely, the lack of care exercised by most designers with regard to those items which most nearly correspond with the so-called "details" of ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c., to be supplied; and what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so far as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper share; except, indeed, Eustace and myself. In our first eagerness to conform to custom, we both overshot the mark, and grabbed at disproportionate helpings. The waiters politely observed that we were taking what was meant for two; and as the courses followed in interminable sequence, we soon acquired the tact of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... much-frequented part. It is amusing to see a black rook perched on a red tile chimney, with the smoke coming up around him, and darkening with soot his dingy plumage. They take every scrap thrown out, like sparrows, and peck bones if they find them. The builders in Brighton appear to have somewhat overshot the mark, to judge from the number of empty houses, and, indeed, it is currently reported that it will be five years before the building speculation recovers itself. Upon these empty houses, the hoardings, and scaffold-poles, the rooks perch exactly as if they were trees in a hedgerow, waiting ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... in a soiled dressing gown of purple flannel, with several of the buttons off. In the clear light of a window at the woman's back, her hair, with a groundwork of crimson, was overshot with iridescent lights. On a small table at her side a tray had been left, with the remains of dejeuner; a jug stained brown with streaks of coffee; a crumbled crescent roll; some balls of silver paper which had contained ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... Kenneth strove hard during the days that followed to right himself in her eyes. But so headlong was he in the attempt, and so misguided, that presently he overshot his mark by dropping an unflattering word concerning Crispin, whereby he attributed to the Tavern Knight's influence and example the degenerate change that had of late ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose morning glories were here and there overshot by ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... more a great musician than Offenbach, for he also wrote badly. The essential difference between the two was the care, not only in his prosody but also in his declamation, which Gretry tried to reproduce musically with all possible exactness. He overshot the mark in this for he did not see that in singing the expression of a note is modified by the harmonic scheme which accompanies it. It must be recognized, in addition, that many times Gretry was carried away ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... no reason for raising his salary—and there you have the explanation. In revenge he has made this attack. But he overshot his mark. In causing us temporary embarrassment he has brought about his own downfall. I have already asked ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... came through, and it's a pity to have missed it, but lately I have felt that we have overshot our mark. No one is to blame and I hope no attempt will be made to suggest that we ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... know if he meant Hyde Park Corner. "Yes," said Pocket, hastily, because his heart was in his mouth and the policeman looked as though he had seen it there. And he overshot the mark in the motor omnibus through being ashamed to ask again, only alighting at Albert Gate; but here there was quite a little stream of decent people to follow without further tremors into the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... "a bird of very fine plumage resembling the peacock; it is very solitary, and feeds on the seeds of the ash;" its colour, moreover, is of purple overshot with gold; and because it is said to rise again from its ashes, it is always typical ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... so Mrs. Scudder and I, we were thinking 'twould do just as well, when in come Jim Marvyn, bringing the sweetest thing you ever saw, that he had got in China, and I think I never did see anything lovelier. It was a white silk, as thick as a board, and so stiff that it would stand alone, and overshot with little fine dots of silver, so that it shone, when you moved it, just like frostwork; and when I saw it, I just clapped my hands, and jumped up from the floor, and says I, 'If I have to sit up all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... over him. Creeping along quickly on his hands and knees, he found the entrance to a covered drain, into which he crept. He was scarcely concealed when he heard the horsemen, who perceived they had overshot their mark, ride back. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had overshot his mark, and that there was a point at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven into decision. But he said, with ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... no, he could go quite as fast as I could. I was unable to gain an inch, and away we went, with just about three feet between our separate extremities. We were at the other side now, and a glance served to show me that I had miscalculated and overshot the opening. To reach it now was hopeless; I should have blundered straight into the elephant. So I did the only thing I could do: I swerved like a course hare, and started off round the edge of the glade, seeking for some opening into which I could plunge. This gave me a moment's start, ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... transcribed it, occurs one of those efforts of which we have spoken, to obliterate the traces of this early attachment. "Him" was originally written "her," but the r has been lengthened to an m, and the e dotted, both with a care which overshot their mark by an almost imperceptible hair's-breadth. If the nature of this attachment were not so evident from other sources, we should have left such passages unquoted; fearing lest they might be misunderstood. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... corner, as if to get away from the wind; the changed livery of the shops—the golden tissues of summer, the delicately-tinted shawls, and gossamer ribbons, and flaunting muslins, woven of nobody knows what—whether of "mist and moonlight mingling fitfully," or of sunset shadows overshot with gold, giving way to gorgeous velvet, and fur, and sumptuous drapery glowing and burning with the tints of autumn, and, like distant fires seen through a fall of snow in mid-winter, full of comfort ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... bicuspids, grinders, tusks, wisdom teeth, eye teeth, canine teeth, fangs. Associated Words: odontology, dentist, dentistry, dental, odontography, dentiloquy, denture, cement, tartar, pyorrhea, gnash, alveoli, corona, dentifrice, dentilave, pulp, dentiform, dentilation, cusp, overshot. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... was intended to call in at Yamada on the way down, but by some unaccountable reason we overshot the mark and found ourselves in Kama-ichi instead. The mistake was, of course, speedily discovered; the squadron hove around and ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... judicial office, and he made out a good case for himself as far as industry and despatch are concerned. Nobody ever denied him the merit of the former quality. The virulent attacks of the Tory press (that is, of the 'Morning Post,' by Praed, for the 'Standard' rather defends him) have overshot their mark, and, though the general opinion of the Bar seems to condemn him as a bad Chancellor, he is probably not near so bad as they endeavour to make him out. A mind so vigorous as his will master difficulties in a short time at which an inferior ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... twists in the air as he threw a somersault at that moment. In his enthusiasm he overshot the mat, and had there not been a performer handy to catch him, the lad ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... in the end overshot itself. His zeal fatigued the King, and in 1677 he was recalled to England. As Governor of Virginia he had been long popular at first but in his old age detested. He had great personal courage, fidelity, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... for that. Their leader introduced himself and the others. They were the astrogators of the ship Dara had built to try to bring food from Orede. They were not, said their self-appointed leader, good enough. They'd overshot their destination. They came out of overdrive too far off line. They ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... Abraham felt there-was something wrong. This amiable readiness to oblige thoroughly perplexed him. If the Lord had haggled over the thirty, he would have known that there was about that number of righteous men in the place; but in the actual condition of affairs, he felt that he had considerably overshot the mark. The-game was very dangerous, but he decided to renew it. "My Lord," he began, "I'm a dreadful bore, but I'm not quite satisfied with our contract and should like to re-open it. I don't wish to be importunate, but will you knock off another ten?" "With all my heart," replied the Lord, ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... respecting the usher of Mullaglass. Christian charity would lead us to hope they were unfounded, but Christian verity compels us to state that we believe every word of them." And though Jack and his editor sometimes overshot their mark, and got soused in damages at the instance of those whom they had libelled, yet Jack, who found that it answered his ends, persevered, and so kept the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... provisions had been excited, and the determination to secure the liberties it embodied had grown rapidly, so that now the king quickly found, by the opposition it aroused, that in this peculiar demand he had overshot the mark, and he was obliged to recall his orders. Naturally John turned at once to the pope, who was now under obligation to protect him from his enemies, but his envoy was followed by Eustace de Vescy, who argued strongly for the barons' side. The pope's letters ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... his later than of his earlier works. That imperishable little classic "Daisy Miller" is a very exquisite and typical specimen of the American suggestiveness of style; indeed, as I have hinted (Chapter IV.), its suggestiveness almost overshot the mark and required the explanation of a dramatic key. His dislike of the obvious and the commonplace sometimes leads Mr. James to become artificial and even obscure,[21] but at its best his style is as perspicuous as it is distinguished, dainty, and subtle; there is, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... near our camp was an old, unused grist-mill, with a huge, decaying overshot oaken water-wheel. We all perched on the wheel ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... and Miquelon without seeing them, and, continuing on a westerly course, hit Cape Breton at its most easterly point. An apt illustration occurs in a voyage made by the ship Bonaventure in 1591, recorded in Hakluyt. She overshot Cape Race without knowing it and came to the soundings on the bank south of St. Peter's, where they found twenty fathoms, and then the course was set northwest by north for Cape Ray. The course was sharply altered toward a definite ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... was to sail to Sligo Bay, and there land his men and arms; and if he found it impracticable to land them there, he was to proceed to some other place in Ireland. Some days after this, they came in sight of the coast of the county of Limerick, and then they sailed towards Sligo; but they overshot the mark, and arrived off the coast of Donegal. They then turned back, and arrived at Sligo Bay on the 20th ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... say, preaching from a cathedral pulpit, that chanting should be abandoned in cathedral services. By such an assertion he would have overshot his mark and rendered himself absurd, to the delight of his hearers. He could, however, and did, allude with heavy denunciations to the practice of intoning in parish churches, although the practice was all but unknown in the diocese; and from thence he came round to the undue preponderance ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Benjamin), of Cropley Castle, Cornwall. A little, peaking, puling creature, desperately hen-pecked by a second wife; but madam overshot the mark, and the knight was roused to assert ...
— 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.
... a meagre and evasive creed, much like the confession of Arius and Euzoius, prefacing it with a declaration that they were not followers of Arius, but his independent adherents. They overshot their mark, for the conservatives were not willing to go so far as this, and, moreover, had older standards of their own. Instead, therefore, of drawing up a new creed, they put forward a work of the venerated martyr Lucian of ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... way the opposite of what that word means to-day. He was as egalitarian as St. Francis, and as independent as Robin Hood. Like that other yeoman in the ballad, he bore in hand a mighty bow; what some of his enemies would have called a long bow. But though he sometimes overshot the mark of truth, he never shot away from it, like Froude. His account of that sixteenth century in which the mediaeval civilisation ended, is not more and not less picturesque than Froude's: the difference is in the dull detail of truth. That crisis ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... commerce of that restless enterprising enemy. In the beginning of February, a series of stormy weather obliged the admiral to return from the bay of Quiberon to Plymouth, where he arrived with much difficulty: but the Ramillies overshot the entrance to the sound; and, being embayed near a point called the Bolthead, about four leagues higher up the channel, was dashed in pieces among the rocks, after all her anchors and cables had given way. All her officers and men, amounting to seven hundred, perished on this occasion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... over the country. Suddenly in the midst of the plain, just our side of the camp near "Wesse's Plantation," a great cloud of smoke and dust arose, and slowly drifted away. Beyond doubt, it was the bursting of a British shell. Aimed at the camp it overshot the mark, and landed on the empty plain. As a messenger of hope to us all it was not lost. The distance was only fourteen miles from where I stood—a morning's walk—less than an hour and a half's ride. Yet ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... left until the last, when we all sallied out to make the final kill. There were two rifles, and had the chance come to my father, I think he would have killed him easily; but the opportunity came to a neighbor, who overshot, merely causing a slight wound. The next instant the stag charged at me from the cover of the thickety fence corner. Not having sense enough to take to the nearest protection, I turned and ran like a scared wolf across the field, the hog following me like ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... well have convinced Englishmen that no land was more difficult to hold than the stubborn and impenetrable northern kingdom, with its strenuous population, ever willing to cry a truce between local feuds when there was an opportunity of uniting against the southerners. Edward overshot his mark in grasping too eagerly the fairest portions of Balliol's realm. He needed for his policy a Scottish king, strong enough to maintain himself against his subjects, and loyal enough to remain true to ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... all-fours, groping about in the darkness for the weapon that had rolled away and out of immediate reach. Oxenford, drawing his knife, struck downward, aiming for the angle of neck and collar-bone. But in his eagerness he overshot the mark, the blade making only a trifling flesh wound, and the next instant Dom Gillian had him in his clutch. The two ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... and die on purpose. But the individuals do not seem to have calculated very reasonably: nobody can explain why a parrot should live ten times as long as a dog, and a turtle be almost immortal. In the case of man, the operation has overshot its mark: men do not live long enough: they are, for all the purposes of high civilization, mere children when they die; and our Prime Ministers, though rated as mature, divide their time between the golf course and the Treasury Bench ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... deed, A thorough flatterer by breed. He praised the prince's wrath and claws, He praised the odour and its cause. Judged by the fragrance of that cave, The amber of the Baltic wave, The rose, the pink, the hawthorn bank, Might with the vulgar garlic rank. The mark his flattery overshot, And made him share poor Bruin's lot; This lion playing in his way, The part of Don Caligula. The fox approach'd. 'Now,' said the king, 'Apply your nostrils to this thing, And let me hear, without disguise, The judgment of a beast so wise.' The fox replied, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... power, which is often utilized in water wheels and turbines. These supply power to run a pump; the water to be raised may come from any source, and the pump may be placed at some distance from the water wheel. Where sufficient fall is available—at least three feet—the overshot wheel is used. In California and some other Western States an impulse water wheel is much used, which is especially adapted ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... ways. Repentance claimed him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark. He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers, and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed—for conversion, when it comes, is a furious thing—the swing of his soul's pendulum threatened ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... pure mischief, and were generally atoned for when it was possible. He excelled in all out-of-door sports. And indeed, if his prudence had at all kept pace with his ability, he might have done remarkable things in almost any direction; but he constantly overshot the mark, and people looked to him for the dazzling brilliancy and uncertainty of a meteor, but never for the steady glow of a ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... what I was looking for, or attempt to give any description; for such would have defeated my purpose. But I had in my own mind at the start a vague idea of what I must find. In process of time this grew more and more clear; till at last I almost overshot my mark by searching for something which ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... only tidings of the outer world. By the sound of his paces Laputa was riding the Schimmel, and if any one thinks it easy to go blindfold by a horse's side I hope he will soon have the experience. In the darkness I could not tell the speed of the beast. When I ran I overshot it and was tugged back; when I walked my wrist was dislocated ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... rocks. There they were, about three hundred yards below, and on the alert, for they had seen Tom's hunter, who had carelessly exposed himself on the crest of the ridge. Tom fired hurriedly, neglecting to remember that he was shooting down hill, and, consequently, overshot the big ram. They rushed off, two shots of mine falling short at nearly four hundred yards as they disappeared behind ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... burst from the men in the boat, and was re-echoed vehemently from the ship. They had overshot the spot only by a few yards. Instantly they pulled round: two strokes brought them to the spot where Will was swimming, and in another moment our hero and the rescued man were hauled into the boat. The men gave vent to another loud and ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... to strike us now, however, that we had almost overshot the mark in this matter of sanctity. We had made ourselves quite too holy. The monks, who were eager at first to cut our throats, thought so much of us now that we grew a little anxious as to whether they would not wish to keep such devout souls in their midst for ever. As a matter of fact, we spent ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen |
