"Overshot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... overshot his mark, and that there was a point at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven into decision. But he said, with an air ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... quality most required to control the gigantic machinery of a modern army. Nevertheless, the criticisms that were levelled against the ineptitude and mental inelasticity of the generals and the staff of the old army overshot the mark. No one ventured to bring such a charge against the staff-work of the French, and yet the French had been no more successful in Champagne than we had been in Artois. The truth was that no generalship ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the scenes of my lost milcher), I saw the rump of a cow, over a grassy knoll, that looked familiar. Coming nearer, the beast lifted up her head; and, behold! it was she! only a few squares from home, where doubtless she had been most of the time. I had overshot the mark in my search. I had ransacked the far-off, and had neglected the near-at-hand, as we are so apt to do. But she was ruined as a milcher, and her history thenceforward was brief ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... not exactly 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
... 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, 'Your Majesty will ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... could not go full speed; but wounded or 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 ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... martial array of armed gentlemen and retainers with which the mansion-house was filled, and her first words expressed her disapprobation. "Is this a royal garrison, my Lord of Sussex, that it holds so many pikes and calivers? or have we by accident overshot Sayes Court, and landed ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... giddy little Lady Jane fired a simple Greek phrase at Tom. The Princess Elizabeth's quick eye saw by the serene blankness of the target's front that the shaft was overshot; so she tranquilly delivered a return volley of sounding Greek on Tom's behalf, and then straightway changed the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bombard us; wait till to-morrow, we will make them rue it." This, and expressions of a similar nature, was the tone of the small talk. My own impression is, that the Prussians were firing at the ramparts, and that, as often occurs, their projectiles overshot the mark. I did not see anyone either killed or wounded, and it seems to me that the most astonishing thing in a bombardment is the little damage it does to life and limb. I saw a bit of iron cut away a branch from one of the trees, and one shell I saw burst on the road by the river. In 15 ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Berlioz to widen the domain of his art. He strove to attain a more intimate connection between instrumental music and poetry in the portrayal of intense passions, and the suggestion of well-defined dramatic situations. In spite of the fact that he frequently overshot his mark, it does not make his works one whit less astonishing. An uncompromising champion of what has been dubbed "programme" music, he thought it legitimate to force the imagination of the hearer to dwell on exterior scenes ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... particularly mentioned middle-aged; and though she was aware that her brains and fingers and feet couldn't possibly be described as coming under that heading, she said her hair, on the other hand, might well be regarded as having overshot the mark. But its turning white had nothing to do with age. It had done that when Mr. Bilton passed over. No hair could have stood such grief as hers when Mr. Bilton took that final step. She had been considering ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... upon more ordinary principles, and reduce the enigma to a case merely of literary monomania. Mr Carlyle, they would say, has been striving to understand these Puritans till he has grown, for the time, to resemble them. In the effort to project his mind into their mind, he has overshot the mark; he has not been able yet to get his own mind back again. It is a case, they would say, of mere imagination. Could you bring Mr Carlyle into contact with a live Puritan, the charm would be instantly dispelled. If one of Harrison's troopers would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... 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 leaden tints. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... Holmness and the land. You've overshot everything. Why, man, are ye all mazed aboard? Never a vessel comes hereabouts, and 'tis the Lord's mercy ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... one of the gorgeous temples of Fifth Avenue than for even the 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 felt that ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... 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 these cases of very recent occurrence, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... overshot herself; she had not calculated well on the nature of the mind she wished ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Scotland after the Union. Fortunately the loyalty of the Scotch Jacobites was not put to the test. As in the case of the Spanish Armada, accident fought on our side. The French fleet succeeded in reaching the coast of Scotland before the ships of the defenders; but it overshot its arranged landing-point, and had no hope but to sail back ingloriously to Dunkirk. Meantime, Defoe had satisfactorily discharged himself of his mission. Godolphin showed his appreciation of his services by recalling him as soon as ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... 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 and warmth; and all the other preparations of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... wanted to 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 Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... 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, struck them ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... from Lady Emily made her fear she had overshot her mark; she therefore, as if from delicacy, changed the conversation to her own affairs. She soon contrived to let it be known that her son was going to be married to a Scotch Earl's daughter; that she was to reside with them; and that she had merely come to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... were just beginning to blossom—they were her old and fast friends—mountain, shadow, the wet earth and its pure breath, and tree, plant and flower; she had not forgotten them, and it was good to come back to them. Once she saw an overshot water-wheel on the bank of the rushing little stream and she thought of Uncle Billy; she smiled and the smile stopped short—she was going back to other things as well. The train had creaked by a log-cabin set ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... were not slow in joining her, and in a moment Eleanor was left alone in the middle of the hall, with the unpleasant realization that for once she had overshot the mark. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... however, overshot his mark, and mistook the character of the man he was treating with. Thorn was a plain, straightforward sailor, who never had two minds nor two prices in his dealings, was deficient in patience and pliancy, and totally wanting in the chicanery of traffic. He had a vast deal of ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... so-called "Barrundia incident" occurring in 1890 Americanism overshot itself. The Gautemalan refugee, General Barrundia, boarded the Pacific Mail steamer Acapulco for Salvador upon assurance that he would not be delivered to the authorities of his native land. At San Jose de Gautemala the Gautemala authorities ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... another crafty person, Betsey Malcolm had fairly overshot the mark. In seeking to separate Humphreys from Julia, she had given him the clue he desired, and he was not slow to use it, for he was almost the only person that Mrs. Anderson trusted alone ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... 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 capacity would in vain hammer away for years; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... combinations: The Sketching of Machinery. Drilling Machines; Motive Machines; Water-wheels. Construction and Setting up of water wheels, Delineation of water wheels, Design of a water wheel, Sketch of a water wheel; Overshot Water wheels, Water Pumps; Steam Motors; High-pressure expansive steam engine. Details of Construction; Movements of the Distribution and Expansion ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... attention, appearing much interested and agitated by the contents. The packet had been despatched very soon after their leaving Edinburgh, but the messenger had missed the travellers by passing through Mid-Calder in the night, and overshot his errand by getting to Roseneath before them. He was now on his return, after having waited more than four-and-twenty hours. Sir George Staunton instantly wrote back an answer, and rewarding the messenger liberally, desired him not to sleep ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... man of business, plunged at once into his subject, presenting the matter so eloquently and using so much more persuasion than was necessary that he overshot the mark. Mrs. Gusty was not without business sagacity herself, and when Mr. Opp met a possible objection before it had ever occurred to her, she promptly ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... [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
... 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
... "hurrah!" 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 prolonged ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the final hand-to-hand fight, however, there was shelling. There was much shelling. Shells from the German guns that fell short or overshot the mark descended in the fields, and for a mile round these fields were plowed as though hundreds of plowshares had sheared the sod this way and that, until hardly a blade of grass was left to grow ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 and base murder ...
— 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
... their gunners, we were annoyed almost as much as when under their direct fire. On the right there was severe infantry fighting. Of this we could hear little, on account of the terrible cannonading going on around us. The losses of the regiment were slight, owing to the fact that the rebels overshot us. A few were wounded, but I think none were killed. The loss of the corps was about 350. The rebel loss was reported at 1,000, including General Brown, ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... wigwams. A great hubbub ensued; and Indians, old and young, squaws, children, and warriors, all sallied out with loud screams, to save their property from the greedy spoilers. Kenton and his friends saw that they had overshot their mark, and that they must ride for their lives. Even in this extremity, however, they could not reconcile their minds to the surrender of a single horse which they had haltered; and while two of them rode in front and led a great number of horses, the other ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... 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 ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... like the form of an egg. Behind the furnace are placed two high pair of bellows, whose noses meet at a little hole near the bottom: these are compressed together by certain buttons placed on the axis of a very large wheel, which is turned round by water, in the manner of an overshot mill. As soon as these buttons are slid off, the bellows are raised again by a counterpoise of weights, whereby they are made to play alternately, the one giving its blast whilst ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... you have overshot your mark, my fine fellow," thought I; butjit was all right, and that forenoon the cutter was hoisted out with the guns in her, and the others dismounted and sent back in exchange; and in fine, after three days' hard work, I took the command of H.B.M. schooner, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... advent of a tall youth whose cadaverous features were shown up by the street lamp overhead. He gave his directions clearly enough, but although I followed them carefully right up the hill past the cathedral, I began to think that I had overshot the mark, when another passer-by appeared in the silent street. I found that I was within a few yards of the hotel; but on hurrying forward, I found to my astonishment, that the whole building was completely shut up and no light appeared even within the courtyard. As I had passed the cathedral eleven ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... 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 ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... over in the pathway. He accordingly went to look for it, and I stood still because so tired that I did not like to waste any labor. Soon he called to me that he had found it, and I followed in the direction where he seemed to be. But I mistook, overshot it, and saw him no more. In about ten minutes I became alarmed, and called him many times. It seems he on his side did the same, but the brow of some hill was between us, and we neither saw nor ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... used his blade, and cut into glassiness. We crept noiselessly along by the lake-edge, within the shadows of the pines. With never a plash we slid. Rare drops fell from the cautious paddle and tinkled on the surface, overshot, not parted by, our imponderable passage. Sometimes from far within the forest would come sounds of rustling branches or crackling twigs. Somebody of life approaches with stealthy tread. Gentlier, even gentlier, my steersman! Take up no pearly drop from the lake, mother of pearliness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... 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 ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... 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 ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... was a reason 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 ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... princess's chamber; and the third brother gave her an apple to smell 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 ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... my comrade, Speed," I said, "I should be in one of Mornac's fortress cells. He overshot the mark when he left us together and stepped into his cabinet to spread my dossier before you. He counted on an innocent man going through hell itself to prove his innocence; he counted on me, and left Speed out of his calculations. He had ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of the old man's eye on her in the darkness. "'Deed, we were; but people forget things. We had to borrow to buy our big overshot wheel; we had, though. And when ould Parson Harrison sent us the first boll of oats, we couldn't grind ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... words on poultry breeding, announcing as my topic "Mothers, Stepmothers, Foster-Mothers, and Incubators." Protected by the consciousness that no one in the assemblage could possibly know me, I made a distinct success in my maiden speech; indeed, I somewhat overshot the mark, for the Countess in the chair sent me a note asking me to dine with her that evening. I suppressed the note and took Phoebe away before the proceedings were finished, vanishing from the scene of my triumphs ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... those afternoons when they are free of social obligations, a gown to walk in or to lounge in. The skirt, which barely reached to the top of her low shoes, was of some blue stuff (stuff, because to a man's mind the word covers feminine dress- goods generally, liberally, and handily), overshot with gray. Above this she had put on a white golfing-sweater, a garment which at that time was just beginning to find vogue among women who loved the fields and the road. Only men who own to stylish sisters appreciate these things, and Warburton ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... 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 cream chocolates; ends of cigarettes, and a scattered ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... passed it, and 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 ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... under 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, the quicker ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... relapsed into silence, and his thoughts flew on apace. The unwashed face grew meaner and more brooding, the fair brows drew closer over the large blue eyes, the jaws were shut as tight as they well could be, for he was painfully overshot, and his chin was almost hidden, so far receding was it under the long, drooping, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... 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 ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... 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 what was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... things have come clearer to me. I have tried to do too much. I have always loved you, Code, but I can see now that you were not meant for me. I tried to win you because of that love, not considering you or others—only myself. And I defeated my own end. I overshot ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... several times to look at the section-posts, it was quite an excitement to mark every new number we came to. Our road took us pretty straight to the Mouse Mountain trail; but at a shanty being advised to leave the track and go straight over the prairie, we overshot the tents we were in search ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... great object of the universe, wherein God, as it were in a glass, shows Himself to mankind. But some (I mean, the philosophers) were bewildered in their own thoughts. Everything with them turned into vanity. By their subtle reasonings some of them overshot and lost a truth which a man finds naturally and simply in himself without the help ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... 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
... who turned arround and stoped at the 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 had I discharged I had not the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Kekwick has not returned. I begin to feel very uneasy about him. I must be off and follow up his tracks. Sent Ben for the horses. He was a long time in finding them, as is generally the case when one wants a thing in a hurry. 9.30: Kekwick has arrived before the horses; he overshot his mark last night, and got beyond the camp. I am very glad he is all safe. He informs me that he came upon plenty of water a few miles from here, which compensates for the anxiety he caused me during ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... begun a general interest in its 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 to England in reply ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... loyalty had 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, and generosity for those things that ran with the current of a deep and ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... 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 half inch diameter, supplies the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Knox, encouraged by their cowardice, preached openly in the capital, and even went so far as to address a letter to the regent calling upon her to open her mind for the reception of the truth.[13] By this public challenge, however, he overshot the mark, and not being gifted with any particular desire to suffer martyrdom for the faith, he left Scotland suddenly and retired to the Continent (1556). For years he was the leading spirit in many of the fierce and unseemly disputes between the English Protestant exiles in Geneva and ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... 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
... head of the muscular beast at the instant he was calling into play his prodigious strength intensified that strength to a sudden and astonishing degree. The consequence was that the tiger, instead of making the leap he intended, made one twice as great and overshot the mark. From out the gloom the beautiful sinewy body, of which only a glimpse could be caught, emerged as if fired from the throat of a Columbiad and, curving over the shoulders of the man and the boat, dropped into the stream with a splash that sent ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... California any way they could. The capitalists were holding off, satisfied that in the end all the valuable mines would fall into their hands, and caring nothing how fared the brave but unlucky discoverers. In fact, they overshot themselves, and made hard times for their own mills, the miners having ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Every barn was 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
... boats and all things filled again, we put off from Hatorask, being the number of nineteen persons in both boats; but before we could get to the place where our planters were left, it was so exceeding dark, that we overshot the place a quarter of a mile, where we espied towards the North end of the island the light of a great fire through the woods to the which we presently rowed: when we came right over against it we let fall our grapnel ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... 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 one but ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... Concord, which, intending to pass through the Straits of Le Maire, were deceived by three hills on Staten Land, and some creeks, resembling the Three Brothers and coves of Terra del Fuego, so that they overshot ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... large water! as far as I could see! to the N.W." How this water came there? what was beyond it? were questions which naturally arose; but it was not until the following year that the mystery was explained, and we learned, what was only then suspected, that we had overshot ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... the family of the Skinflints, and a widow; it was a strange 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 close to everything. ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... gravitation to conduct the water to levels as high as is possible, and when it is desired to raise it higher than it will naturally flow, chain-pumps and enormous undershot water-wheels of bamboo are freely employed. Water-power is used for driving mills through the medium of wheels, undershot or overshot, or turbines, as the local circumstances may demand." (R. Logan JACK, Back ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of detected guilt, the consciousness that in this iniquitous lecture he had overshot the mark, and made a grievous miscalculation in pushing his detestable argument too far—but, above all, the startling suspicions so boldly and energetically expressed by Lucy, the truth of which, as well ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... horsemen passed 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
... 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 ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... del Fuego be well 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... electricity in the 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... now perceived, when too late, that she had overshot her mark, while, at the same time, she wondered at the reason of a result so strange from such well-digested and well-conducted plans. She determined, however, never again to interfere between her daughter and the baronet's ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... in behalf of his love. He swore, with many imprecations, that although her heart was surrendered to him at discretion, there was a principle within him, which would never allow him to injure such innocence and beauty; and the transports of his passion had, upon this occasion so far overshot his purpose, that if she had demanded an explanation while he was thus agitated, he would have engaged himself to her wish by such ties as he could not break with any regard to his reputation. But from such expostulation she was deterred, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... with a drawn hunting-knife. Had I with more reflection listened awhile, I might perhaps have been fortunate enough to hear and overtake the thieves running off by some side-path. But in my blind rage I had far overshot the place where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my over-haste when I found myself in the open field. Inconsolable for my loss, I turned back. While my fellow-traveller looked for the inn, I hastened ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... policeman 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 ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... yourself, Wheeler; overshot yourself, by all that's awkward. And yet, till now, I always took you for ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... 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, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... noticeably. All these things the two men observed at a distance. When he came closer, they were forgotten in the look upon his small face. The odd trick the boy had of throwing his lower jaw forward was now emphasized until the lower teeth fairly overshot the upper. In sympathy, the eyes had tightened, not morosely or cruelly, but with a fixed determination which was all but uncanny. Scotty ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... 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 English connexion. Any faint chance of ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... 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 ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... so cleverly casual that no one could have guessed the girl's consuming interest in the answer. But its cleverness had overshot the mark, for so colourless was the tone in which it was asked that Mary did not notice it at all. Instead she retreated steadily ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... 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 now to carry ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... have converted them into pocket pistols," interrupted Mr. C., "and not have overshot the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have the phoenix, "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 of the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... funny 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 might have been ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... The old-fashioned undershot, overshot, and breast wheels were not very efficient; they wasted about 75 per cent of the power applied to them. A modern impulse wheel, on the other hand, operates at an efficiency of 80 per cent and over. The loss is mainly through friction and leakage, and cannot be eliminated altogether. ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... abatement, and with caps pulled down to shield the eyes and handkerchiefs tied over nose and mouth we struggled on. The day seemed a thousand years long; and when at last we did come to a halt, it was found that we had overshot the watering-place by some miles! Back we trailed wearily to the right place and there made the pleasing discovery that the water had to be pumped up by hand, with the aid of the cumbersome old "shadouf." We felt then that the gods had no more ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... in all this that, as it were, overshot the mark. Ravenswood could not disguise from himself that his noble kinsman had more reasons for taking offence at the reception of his suit than regarded his interest and honour, yet he could neither complain nor be surprised ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... trip turns out to have been wisely planned," remarked Dick, a wistful look coming into his eyes. "Of course, I may have overshot the mark." ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... kind of Julienne soup; not bad, but rather maigre, served to us by charming young ladies, who presented on their knees the trays with the little dishes upon them. The repast finished, we set out on our return (for we had overshot our mark), and visited the gardens, which were the object of our expedition. They had the appearance of nursery gardens, with rows of pots containing dwarf-trees and all manner of quaint products; all this, moreover, in a prettily accidente country, abounding in forest trees and luxuriant ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... words, while Adrian threw himself on the rock, sobbing and screaming, while Fergus sat still, hugging his bag. Anna could have screamed with her brother, for the boat seemed to have overshot the mark, and to be going quite aloof, when all depended upon a few minutes. She could hardly hear the words of the Preventive woman, who had found a second glass: "Never you fear, miss, the boat ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tigers is far from inexhaustible. It is less reprehensible that twenty similes should be drawn from storms, which have a more cogent interest and greater picturesque value. But even here Statius has overshot the mark. This lack of variety testifies to a real dearth of poetic imagination, and this failing is noticeable also in the execution. There is rarely a simile containing anything that awakens either imagination, emotion, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... fleet—three vessels in all—had come up abreast of the Loffoden islands, but a gale 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)
... in hand and rifle grenades he was first class. Routine he hated like poison. Mac is perhaps the only officer who was witty once—and only once—in his trench report. I don't know if H.Q. see the point of his remarks to this day. He it was, who, having overshot the mark, and lost his way in Palestine, was shown back to our lines ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... need of a friend then, and I thought now was the time to secure one. So I began and told him the moving tale I have told you. But I soon perceived that I had kept by the naked truth too unvarnishedly, and thereby quite overshot my mark. When he learned that he was sitting in a wretched corner of an irregular house, with a felon, who had so lately been scourged and banished as a swindler and impostor, his modest nature ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Case of the banish'd King, how impolitick these high Solunarian Church-men acted in all their Proceedings, for had they contented themselves by little and little to ha' done their Work, they had done it effectually; but pushing at Extremities they overshot themselves, and ruin'd all. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... eyes and he went on—"Hadst thou not smote me dumb, I who watched could have warned thee that they would so befall; but, great mistress, it pleased thee to smite me dumb. And so it seems, O Hes, that thou hast overshot thyself and liest broken at the foot of that pinnacle which step by step thou hast climbed for more than two thousand weary years. See what thou hast bought at the price of countless lives that ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... and terror-stricken, Dom Gillian dropped on 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
... description from which 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 be ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... day, in their morning editions. This bolt from the 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 the preliminary ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... on a New Zealand species (E. Pottsii), by Dr. Julius Haast, he gives the difference as fifteen times the size of the right aperture; the mouth is also peculiar from its position and small size, being very much overshot by the snout. It may, as Dr. Haast supposes, be a ground feeder, existing on the smaller hydroid zoophytes, otherwise it must, I think, turn on its side ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... object in view he ordered a fresh advance of the police upon the people, and in this third affair matters assumed a more serious aspect; sticks and stones were used with more effect, and the two parties being nearer to each other, the missiles meant only for the police overshot their mark and struck the soldiers, who bore their painful situation ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Talb. Overshot yourself, Wheeler; overshot yourself, by all that's awkward. And yet, till now, I always took you for "a dead-shot ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... delay pursuit; but he has overshot the mark. There is no other road within ten miles, and he must have taken to this one again beyond here. He's lost twenty minutes by this manoeuvre. Come, Sandy, call in the dog, we'll push ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... arrives for his vindication. The language used by Lady Shelley and Mr. Garnett justify us in expecting that that vindication will be as startling as complete. If it is not, they, as pleading for him, will have overshot the mark ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... head so that Francesca could not see his face, but she saw that his hands were 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
... 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 ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... climbed the tree and explored it thoroughly, looking especially in the forks of the branches, as the authorities say these birds build in a fork. But no nest could I find. Indeed, how can one by searching find a bird's nest? I overshot the mark; the nest was much nearer me, almost under my very nose, and I discovered it, not by searching but by a casual glance of the eye, while thinking of other matters. The bird was just settling upon it as I looked up from my book and caught her in the act. The nest was built near the ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... overshot Scilly?—and is the next land we are likely to see Ushant or Finisterre? Nobody knows. The faces of the Brothers Dobbs darken; and they recall to each other how they deprecated from the first this rash venturing into unknown waters. We hail two ships piteously, to ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... declared to have not exceeded nine. So much pretends to be historic, in opposition to the poetic version. They would, we may be sure, have made it a point of honour to meet and greet their invading guests in precisely similar numbers a larger would have overshot the mark of courtesy; and doubtless a smaller have fallen deplorably short of it. Therefore, an acquaintance with her chivalrous, if less impulsive, countrymen compels to the dismissing of the Dame's ballad authorities. She has every right to quote them for her own good ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stood second, receiving only nine votes less than Young. A 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 ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... labor, but even then these machines needed more persons to operate them. As a result of their complexity the speed of these intricate machines was less, and in consequence the price of making the goods was increased. Nevertheless there was a vast improvement over past conditions, when all overshot and embroidered effects had to be worked out on hand-looms. It enabled Americans to turn now to home manufacture for their ribbons. It was nevertheless true, Mr. Gautier explained, that much of the home market was created by the high ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... subterranean canal, which was followed for about 20 meters. The extraction of sand was effected here by an inclined plane moved by a Gramme machine. The generatrix had to make 1,500 revolutions, and be set in motion by an overshot wheel. As time was wanting, it became necessary to diminish to as great a degree as possible the number of parts to be employed in the transmission of motion, and since there was an abundance of water, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... about this speaker's conduct, and, before a word could be spoken, rushed to his defence. "He couldn't help himself. He was at the mercy of that shouting audience—a most unmannerly mob!" And then, feeling that he had rather overshot the mark, he added in a parenthetic murmur, "Excellent Christian people they ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns |
