"Misunderstood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some of these witnesses is not as strong as many think, and we have misunderstood several of them, they are too numerous and their stories hang too well together not to impress an intelligent and impartial jury. But what if it is all true? What if, as some think, our millionth cousin, the tiger or cat, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... very cruelly, nor altogether scornfully, but as a man might laugh who was misunderstood, and to whom, asking for his sword, a servant should ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... seem, the old man's remarks had no other effect on Dr. Lacey than to cause him to pity Julia, who he fancied was misunderstood and misused. He believed her reformation to be sincere, and could not help feeling that Mr. Middleton was mistaken in his opinion of both ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... only be appreciated when it is known in entirety. I misunderstood the meaning of Madame de Lamotte's letter. She asked me to send her her son, I thought to oblige her by accompanying him, and not leaving him to go alone. So we travelled together, and arrived at Versailles about midday. As I got down from the coach I saw Madame de Lamotte at ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... refused that pardon, he reminded me of the horrors of an ignominious fate, in order, if possible, to change my determination. Is a paper not used against me when, on account of its contents being misunderstood, I am thus assailed with the tender of a badge of infamy? Is life, in Mr. Jefferson's opinion, all; and character and reputation, which alone can render it desirable, nothing? The great inquest of the nation, after hearing ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... that astute politician, "I have old England set against me already, and do you think I will have New England likewise?" But Grenville and his successors, in attempting to carry out a new colonial policy, entirely misunderstood the conditions and feelings of the colonial communities affected and raised a storm of indignation which eventually led to independence. The stamp act was in itself an equitable measure, the proceeds of which were ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Those minions who during his lifetime came between the heart of the mother and the heart of the husband and father, those minions tremble now. It remains to be seen how the misunderstood son will dispose of them. The father's deeds will remain the foundation of this state. But a milder spirit will reign in the land; the arts and sciences will outdistance the fame of cannon and bullet. And the soaring eagle of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... misunderstood you just now. I thought you said that, had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a woman's love for the needle and a fool's ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... is perhaps this: "A suppressed or perverted good quality—a good tendency, only repressed, misunderstood, or misguided—lies originally at the bottom of every shortcoming in man. Hence the only and infallible remedy for counteracting any shortcoming and even wickedness is to find the originally good source, the originally good side of the human being that has been repressed, ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the thought that it ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... love is indeed a stranger to most people. Misunderstood and shunned, it rarely takes root; or if it does, it soon withers and dies. Its delicate fiber can not endure the stress and strain of the daily grind. Its soul is too complex to adjust itself to the slimy woof of our social fabric. ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... compliment him—the distinguished editor of the Post—though he did not know him, nor that such a paper as the Post was printed. That editor, like many others whose prejudices overbalance their reason, had misunderstood him. The speaker then indulged in a critique on the editorial, principally upon the ground which he had taken—that a man has a right to do with his own things what he pleases, provided, in so doing, he does not infringe ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... at. It was the revolt of those who had this in common with the pietists, that they hated and despised the outworn rationalism. They thought they wanted no religion. It is open to us to say that they misunderstood religion. It was this misunderstanding which Schleiermacher sought to bring home to them. What religion they understood, ecclesiasticism, Roman or Lutheran, or again, the banalities and fanaticisms of middle-class pietism, they despised. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... inter-church movement. For, as Lord Morley said, "in the heat of the battle it often happens that men manifest towards the heretic feeling which should be exclusively reserved for the heresy." Yet we believe that the explanation of our attitude, so much misunderstood and misinterpreted, cannot but help to hasten the day of the true and everlasting union, when in accord with the great desire of the Master, there will be but "One Fold and One Pastor." Gladstone said: "Any man who advances one step the cause of Christian unity ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... seemed like an Assyrian Prince; through life he retained his somewhat Asiatic appearance. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his black hair curled lightly over an extremely broad forehead. He spoke little and often in brusque phrase. For this reason he was frequently misunderstood, as the irony and sarcasm with which he sometimes spoke did not tend to make friends. But this attitude was only turned toward those who did not comprehend him and his ideals, or who endeavored to falsify what he ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... I shall be misunderstood and perhaps ridiculed by my colleagues when I attempt to discuss religion in any way. Theology is a field in which I have had no training, but that is the very reason why I dare write of it. I do not even assume that there is a God in the traditional sense. The idea is too ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... tonight, though my passion were to rend the roof. For it is deep, deep under the earth that the persecuted are permitted to assemble, as the Christians assembled in the Catacombs. But if, by some incredible accident, there were here tonight a man who all his life had thus immensely misunderstood us, I would put this question to him: 'When those Christians met in those Catacombs, what sort of moral reputation had they in the streets above? What tales were told of their atrocities by one educated Roman to another? ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... long nose at it on the sly; and don't say, 'Ah, old-fashioned, stupid! Ah, it's inconsistent with Scripture!' but look it straight in the face, recognise its rational lawfulness, and when, for instance, it wants to destroy a rotten, scrofulous, corrupt race, don't hinder it with your pilules and misunderstood quotations from the Gospel. Leskov has a story of a conscientious Danila who found a leper outside the town, and fed and warmed him in the name of love and of Christ. If that Danila had really loved humanity, he would have dragged the leper as far as possible from the town, and would have flung ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... grasp the fact that the parent is of importance. Then he will change his tactics, and address the Children, and we shall have our time. He will impress on them how necessary it is for their own sakes that they should be careful of us. We shall have books written about misunderstood fathers who were worried into ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... guessed that she had meant to please him, to make up for telling Miss Davis that they two had played her a trick. He did not ask about her now she was ill, or notice that she was keeping silence and allowing herself to be misunderstood in order that he might not be blamed. If all were told he could not be much blamed, it was true, for what was a mere piece of forgetfulness. But that carelessness of his was a fault of which his father was very impatient, and which always brought ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... perish on the mainland,—indeed, wherever the Spaniards went,—unless they could be made free. His enemies fought against his plan and against him, accusing him of everything, even of desiring to get the grant of territory for his own profit. Even his friends sometimes misunderstood him. One of them, a young lawyer, when he heard of rents to be paid to the King and of honors to be given to the Knights of the Golden Spur, said that this "scandalized" him, for it showed a desire for temporal ...
— Las Casas - 'The Apostle of the Indies' • Alice J. Knight
... you being a stranger, you would get all the worst of it. I just thought I'd tell you; I'd hate to see you misunderstood by folks around here. I—I feel kinda responsible for you; I'm ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... nutshell;' and then he went below for his pistols. I called my right-hand man of the crew, and told him my situation; I also informed him that I wanted the main topsail filled. He answered with a clear 'Ay, ay, sir!' in a manner which was not to be misunderstood, and my confidence was perfectly restored. From that moment I became master of the vessel, and immediately gave all necessary orders for making sail, notifying the captain not to come on deck with his pistols unless he wished to go overboard; for I would really have had very little trouble in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... drama, the story of slender interest, because the characters do not particularly interest—the misunderstood humbug of a woman—but in an original setting, a little island on the east coast of Germany, called Fischmeisters Oye, the scenic side is very effective. The piece plays in five acts, one act too many, and is ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... out the plan on paper, or at a distance—that is one thing. For a white man to work it out—that too, is an easy thing. For a coloured man to work it out in the South, where, in its constructive period, he was necessarily misunderstood by his own people as well as by the whites, and where he had to adjust it at every step to the strained race relations—that is so very different and more difficult a thing that the man who did it put the country under lasting ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... bit his lip, got up, and threw his cigarette out of the window, and looked at her reproachfully, and felt vaguely that he was misunderstood and most unjustly placed ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... medical attention, post-offices, a Panama Canal, agricultural information, fire protection—is a use of government totally different from the ideal of Jefferson. To furnish these opportunities is to add to the resources of life, and only a doctrinaire adherence to a misunderstood ideal will raise ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... of Jesus was the very opposite of his 53:9 character. Why? Because the divine Principle and practice of Jesus were misunderstood. He was at work in divine Science. His words 53:12 and works were unknown to the world because above and contrary to the world's religious sense. Mortals be- lieved in God as humanly mighty, rather than ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... I ever displayed was in sneering at my friends, and the only spirit, in quarrelling with my twin brother; so said or so thought all who saw us in our childhood; and it follows, therefore, that I was either very unamiable or very much misunderstood. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Stop fussing over little things, over useless people, and fill your mind with new ideals and fresh purpose. Stop wailing over flowers that will never blossom on the north side of your house; go around to the south side and make a new garden. You have a temperament that is likely to be misunderstood; that's fine. So did Sarvonarola, Columbus, Galileo, Luther, Whitfield, Emerson, Lincoln and Christ. "Seven cities fought for Homer, dead, thru whose streets the living Homer begged his bread." The reputation of ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... part in winning the great slice of territory that the United States took away from Mexico. He has always been on the skirmish line of civilization. Restless, fearless, chivalric, elemental, he lived hard, shot quick and true, and died with his face to his foe. Still much misunderstood, he is often slandered, nearly always caricatured, both by the press and by the stage. Perhaps these songs, coming direct from the cowboy's experience, giving vent to his careless and his tender emotions, will afford future generations ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... answer I passed over, at the moment, thinking I had misunderstood him; and we arranged that he would come some day to my office instead, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Marie, the soft and gentle woman, who spoke with such passionate vehemence and boldly braved his anger? How could he have so misunderstood her? He forgot all his anger in his admiration. She seemed to him to have undergone a complete change. There was an unearthly style of beauty around her—her eyes blazed and shone with the lurid light of a far-distant ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... sank as if crushed into an armchair and began to lament. He was very unhappy at being misunderstood. His aunt allowed him three thousand francs a month on condition that he would not make use of his ten fingers. Was it moral? Then he with such exuberant vigor had to waste it on pleasure and seeing life to the utmost. He passed his time in theatres, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... struck out for the shore, he found that he could not move from the spot. He had been caught in the current. The singer on the pier did not realise his danger, but merely thought he was fooling, and therefore she laughed. But the conductor, who saw death staring him in the face, misunderstood her laughter; a bitter pang shot through his heart, and then his ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... But there are, perhaps, only a hundred in the school, and of these a large part understand already the point to be explained, and another large part are too young to attend to it. I wish the object of these remarks not to be misunderstood. I do not recommend the attempt to teach on so extensive a scale; I admit that it is impracticable; I only mean to show in what the impracticability consists, namely, in the difficulty of making such arrangements as to derive the full benefit from the instructions rendered. They are, in the nature ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... told me in Johannesburg that he had in his possession a printed document proclaiming a new government and naming its president—one of the Reform leaders. He said that this proclamation had been ready for issue, but was suppressed when the raid collapsed. Perhaps I misunderstood him. Indeed, I must have misunderstood him, for I have not seen mention of this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... beginning to talk about them," Honor ventured, with reference to their frequency, shy of being misunderstood and afraid of being considered interfering; but she had not forgotten Ray Meredith's parting words spoken with wistful meaning—"Take care of my wife, she is such ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... else," he said. "You may always command me. But I have not misunderstood you, Daisy? You meant to tell me that - some one has been more fortunate than I, and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... general current of human faith and action. His position will be singular. His principle will be tried. Interest will direct him another way; his strictness will be ridiculed, his motives questioned, his sincerity misunderstood and aspersed. Alone must he endure all this,—along cling to the majestic ideal of right as it rises to his own soul. And thus he must wage a bitter conflict with fear and with seduction,—with sophistries of the heart, and reluctance of ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... both in the pulpit and elsewhere, when much in earnest, and in after life a great lecturer and platform speaker, I am ready to acknowledge; but he wanted ease of manner—the readiness and quiet self-possession of a high-bred man, who cannot be taken by surprise, and is neither afraid of being misunderstood nor afraid of letting himself down—till after he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... flame, darting from the grate, sparkled on the polished steel, and from the steel it shot into the watchful eyes. A quarter of an hour passed; still Maurice remained on the defensive. At first Beauvais misunderstood the reason, and thought Maurice did not dare run the risk of passing from defensive to offensive. But by and by the froth of impatience crept into his veins. He could not penetrate above or below that defense. The man before ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... considered the second F minor sonata of Beethoven the highest peak of execution and confined themselves to teaching Mozart and Field, Cramer and Mendelssohn, with an occasional fantasia by Thalberg—the latter to please the proud papa after dessert. Schumann was not understood; Chopin was misunderstood; and Liszt was anathema. Yet we often heard a sweet, singing tone, even if the mechanism was not above the normal. I am sure those who had the pleasure of listening to William Mason will recall the exquisite purity of his tone, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... say something on the subject of canting nonsense, of which there is a great deal in England. There are various cants in England, amongst which is the religious cant. He is not going to discuss the subject of religious cant: lest, however, he should be misunderstood, he begs leave to repeat that he is a sincere member of the old-fashioned Church of England, in which he believes there is more religion, and consequently less cant, than in any other church in the world; nor is he going to discuss ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... embodied the sentiments of our excellent middle-class education. His great American contemporary, Whitman, in some respects the most commanding spirit of this generation, gained only a few disciples, and was entirely misunderstood and neglected by contemporary criticism. Another prosperous writer, to whom I have already alluded, George Eliot, enjoyed enormous popularity in her lifetime, while the most strenuous and passionate novelist of her period, Charles ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gratitude to the Government for the measure of last session. I said he had expressed gratitude, but we had not claimed it, because we only did our duty. In the lobby during the debate Lord Jersey told me he was afraid Lord Grey might have misunderstood the meaning of what I said about gratitude, and begged me to set him right immediately if it ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... to be misunderstood. Robinson stooped, removed the rug, and unfastened the rope, after noting carefully how it was tied, a point which he called on the others to observe as well. Then he and the villagers went away with their sad burden, the rug being requisitioned once ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... stationed along the course, Bill Glutts felt that his chances of winning the race were diminishing. He had thought that he could crowd Jack as he had done before, but now Walt Baxter laid down the law in such a manner that it could not be misunderstood. ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And straightway hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono?—a question that tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible crime upon the young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me to digress for one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and misconceived. "Cui bono?" in all the crack novels and elsewhere,—in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... yours. The poetic compliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither of them so particular as to point you out to the world at large; and the circle of your acquaintances will allow all I have said. Besides, I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. Shall I be plain with you? I will; so look to it. Personal attractions, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... synagogue refrain quavered on his lips, his soul turned yearningly towards these ascetics and mystics, whose life was a voluntary martyrdom to a misunderstood righteousness, a passionate sacrifice to a naive conception of the cosmos. The infinite pathos of their lives touched him to forgetfulness of his own futility. His soul went out to them, but his brain denied him the comfort ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... them admitted that they ran principally to whiskers and lost jobs and were misunderstood by the world, but all of 'em were sure that they were so chock full of affection and manly qualities that the widow would be making the bargain of her ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... his mission to Antioch, so important at this moment, he would not have misunderstood. Turks, Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Armenians, and Kurds, and Yesedees-yes, brethren, Yesedees! inhabit this part of Assyria, which opens up an extensive field of missionary labor, even yet. Much had been done by the ancient Greeks for the people who roamed ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... these tests. This rule of exclusion has been recognised as a fundamental principle of the law of evidence ever since the time of Charles II. To this he adds a note, with all due gravity: "The rule excluding heresay evidence, or rather the mode in which that rule is frequently misunderstood in Courts of Justice, is amusingly caricatured by Mr. Dickens in his report of the case of Bardell v. Pickwick, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... hilarity. Its very gladness and pomp is impregnated with sadness, but sadness of a grand and aspiring order. Let, for instance, (since without individual illustrations there is the greatest risk of being misunderstood,) any person of musical sensibility listen to the exquisite music composed by Beethoven, as an opening for Burger's "Lenore," the running idea of which is the triumphal return of a crusading host, decorated with laurels and with ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... primarily by the physical constitution of the parents, as measured by their longevity. In the light of these facts, the nature of the extraordinarily low child mortality shown in the 340 families from the Genealogical Record Office, with which we began the study of this point, can hardly be misunderstood. These families have the best inherited constitution possible and the other studies cited would make us certain of finding a low child mortality among them, even if we had not directly investigated ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... of her breath, the little happy laugh, the extra polish he knew she put on her boots just for his sake; and, above all, that perfect sense of virgin woman which emanated from her, allied to the promise of a passion which most inhabitants of a northern clime would have utterly misconstrued and misunderstood. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... was standing in the doorway between the two rooms. He was astounded at his chief's remark, and thought he had perhaps misunderstood him. ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... another, with which he had no graceful associations, to the same liabilities. We have seen, however, that the practice of carrying negroes to Hayti was already established, seven years before Las Casas suggests his policy. The passage from Herrera has been misunderstood, as Llorente, Schoelcher, the Abb Grgoire, and others, conclusively show. That historian says that Las Casa, disheartened by the difficulties which he met from the colonists and their political and ecclesiastical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Wavering light and wavering shade followed fast over the Roman profile, followed and flowed fitfully—fitfully as his thoughts. Now his thought followed out architectural dreams, and now he thought of himself, of his unhappy youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of his solitary life; a bitter, unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wanting in an ideal—a glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had always met with failure, with disapproval, above all failure ... and yet, and ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... another soul, and rarely ever a woman. I wouldn't act so free in town, but these men see people so seldom that they are awkward and embarrassed. I like to put them at ease, and it is to be done only by being kind of hail-fellow-well-met with them. So far not one has ever misunderstood me and I have been treated with every courtesy and kindness, so I am powerfully glad you understand. They really enjoy doing these little things like fixing our dinner, and if my poor company can add to any one's pleasure ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... to be alone to think. He realized, however, with sickening force, that men do not propose and run away—if they are accepted. And he was accepted; he realized that, too, overwhelmingly. Then he tried to think how it had happened, what he had said; how she could so have misunderstood his meaning. This line of thought he abandoned quickly, however; it could do no good. But what could do good, he asked himself. ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... to our boats much piqued at our disappointment; and when I got on board I found that no such person had been there. It afterward appeared, that in this affair we had laboured under some gross mistakes, and that our interpreter Omai had either been misinformed, or, which is more likely, had misunderstood what was told him about the great man, on whose account we had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... of casual, friendly conversation, it is certainly not unreasonable that I may, as any other man, be misunderstood. I cannot think any of my fellow-citizens capable of misrepresenting me purposely. But certain it is I am misunderstood if any man believes me to favor the policy that wrongs and impoverishes my country. ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... behoveth a belle, she began to be disconcerted with the directness of the compliments of Aristabulus, who was disposed to 'make hay while the sun shines;' and she turned, in a little confusion, to the captain, by way of relief; we say confusion, for the young lady, although so liable to be misunderstood, was not actually impudent, but merely deceived in the relations of things; or, in other words, by some confusion in usages, she had hitherto permitted herself to do that in society, which female performers sometimes do on the stage; enact the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... their meal, they set off together towards the bay, leaving us still busy on board. When they were gone, we were not quite satisfied that we had done wisely in giving them the things. They might, knowing them to be ours, carry them off; or they might have misunderstood our signs, and fancy that we had given them to them. However, the thing was done, and we must abide ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... hours, the minutes, the moments, each in itself a different living, and peopled, and haunted world. One life is a thousand lives, and each individual, as he fully renews the past, reappears in a thousand characters; yet all of them bearing a mysterious identity not to be misunderstood, and all of them, while every passion has been shifting and ceasing, and reascending into power, still under the dominion of the same Conscience, that feels and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... warnings of the squire as to the "awful wretches in the big pine woods," I kept a sharp lookout for the old women who were to give me so much trouble, but the raftsmen on the river explained that though Jim Gore had told me the truth, I had misunderstood his pronunciation of the word reaches, or river bends, which are called in this vicinity wretches. The reaches referred to by Mr. Gore were so long and straight as to afford open passages for wind to blow up them, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... couldn't be true. Blair couldn't have been murdered, and he must have misunderstood that last word. But his arm seemed paralyzed when he tried again to take hold ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... "germs" in the earth, but not to the extent of accounting for all life-manifestations therein, as the doctrine is conclusively taught in the Bible Genesis. The language of this genesis is too clear and explicit to be misunderstood, in its proper renderings. It especially emphasizes the remarkable and most extraordinary statement, at least for the period in which it was written, that all life comes primordially from the waters and the earth. ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Ookooma's great satisfaction; and soon afterwards the whole party went on shore, saying, before they left the ship, that in the morning the Bodzes would come on board in order to perform some sacrifice. As they never came, it is probable that the interpreter misunderstood them, particularly as Isaacha Sandoo said to Mr. Clifford, "Acha hoonee nittee Doochoo mang hoonee oocooyoong." "To-morrow the ships will go, and all the Loo-choo people will pray for them, or wish them well;" which was probably what was meant when the interpreter ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... chair, and took out his watch. The other misunderstood his movement, and each of the three men ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... certain disagreements. The domestic relations of great writers and poets have not always been of the rosiest. Swift did not make an ideal marriage—at least, not on conventional lines. Milton had a wife who utterly misunderstood that her husband was a genius. Dickens was not blessed with matrimonial bliss. Shelley found ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... misunderstood his glance. "Don't you think I'm giving a man away, Mr. Trent," he said. "Marlowe isn't that kind. Celestine just took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite unlike ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... best quality, like your sheets, but so cold that it takes all the vitality you have to get them warmed up to the talking-point. You think, the first hour after your arrival, that they must have heard some report to your disadvantage, or that you misunderstood your letter of invitation, or that you came on the wrong day; but no, you find in due course that you were invited, you were expected, and they were doing for you the best they know how, and treating you as they suppose a guest ought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... our hatred of Protection in every shape and form, so that we shall not be misunderstood when we say that we cordially endorse our correspondent's complaint. If the present Government, which in general has our hearty support, devoted as much energy to the cultivation of British Genius as it now devotes to the spoon-feeding of British Industry, we should have less reason ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... ever hope for forgiveness?" he faltered at last. "I misunderstood you. I am your slave. I—I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... died, and the vision of the death of Rupert of Hentzau dances often before my eyes. It may be that some day the whole story shall be told, and men shall judge of it for themselves. To me it seems now as though all had ended well. I must not be misunderstood: my heart is still sore for the loss of him. But we saved the queen's fair fame, and to Rudolf himself the fatal stroke came as a relief from a choice too difficult: on the one side lay what impaired ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. "I am delicate in such things," said he, and ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... station next the river if they had been left to themselves, and with their stealthy habits and daring, would have been no mean enemy on the boundaries of location. The character and spirit of these people is entirely misunderstood and undervalued by the learned in England, and the degraded position in the scale of the human species into which they have been put, has, I feel assured, been in consequence of the little intercourse that had taken place between the first navigators ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... may not be misunderstood; I have great respect for missionaries, and all whom I have known were honourable men, and good fathers; I am also convinced that there are many learned men among them, who make valuable contributions to history and philosophy, but whether they thus fulfil their proper object ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... and keen from suffering, saw through it all and shrank, not from fear or cowardice, but unselfish love, away from the stir and excitement and his mother's sigh of humiliation. He lived his life much alone; misunderstood, but silently brave. His chance would come. Andy never once doubted that, and the chance would find ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... The other misunderstood him. "Yeah, and even better. We're going in big for TV time, full-page ads in the newspapers and magazines. That sort of thing. The average man's getting tired of the same old talk from the Republicans and Democrats. ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... hasn't. I've been making this row. This gentleman was peaceably looking for his wife, and I misunderstood him. You want to say anything ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... Greek eschatological scheme, it is suggested by S. Reinach[174] that the descriptions of punishments in Tartarus (as in the cases of Tantalus and others) arose from misunderstood representations of the condition of the dead in the other world, they being represented either as engaged in the occupations of this life, or as they were at the moment of death. The great punishments, in fact, are assigned only to heroic mythical ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... superficial kind, as was indeed quite natural in a man to whom every day the most divergent impressions claimed access. My repeated expression of this feeling was afterwards reported to Liszt, just at the time when my "Rienzi" at Dresden attracted general attention. He was surprised to find himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am still touched at recollecting the repeated and eager attempts he made to change my opinion of him, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... back a step in his amazement at having been so thoroughly misunderstood. Then he drew away from the table. He looked at her as he would speak, but checked on the thought. He turned, and so, without another word, departed, and left us ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... may both of them at times be necessary, but in that case they are necessary evils; and, as a class of motives, they should never be the rule, but invariably the exception.—We must not, however, be misunderstood. We are no more for abandoning secular rewards, than we are for giving up corporal punishments. We speak not here of their abandonment, but of their enlightened regulation;—both of them may be of service. But what we wish ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... great responsibility rests upon us in regard to the use of a right language. We must take care that we think and speak in a way so clear that there may be no misapprehension or danger of conveying wrong impressions by vague and misty ideas enunciated in terms which are liable to be misunderstood by those whom we address. Words give a body or form to our ideas, without which they are apt to be so foggy that we do not see where they are weak or false. We must make the endeavor to employ such words as will put the idea we have in our own mind into the mind ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... It is no less to the honor of the great triumvir, that a strength of coloring should survive in his character, capable of baffling the wrongs and ravages of time. Neither is it to be thought strange that a character should have been misunderstood and falsely appreciated for nearly two thousand years. It happens not uncommonly, especially amongst an unimaginative people like the Romans, that the characters of men are ciphers and enigmas to their own age, and are first read and interpreted by a far ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Apostle of that name. Its date is much disputed, but may be safely placed within the first century. The author attempts to show the contrast between Judaism and Christianity by proving that the Jews wholly misunderstood the Mosaic law and had long since lost any claims supposed to be derived from the Mosaic covenant. The epistle is everywhere marked by hostility to Judaism, of which the writer has but imperfect knowledge. The book was regarded as Holy Scripture by Clement ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... indignity they frettingly rebelled. Father snarled, "Good Lord! I'm not much older than your precious dumpling of a Harris." It was the snarl of a caged animal. Lulu had them; she merely felt misunderstood when ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... have misunderstood my note, Mr. Trent," he stammered. But Trent, remembering all that he had gone through to raise the money, stopped ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the galley for coffee and had a talk about moss with Kroger. He said there was a good chance of lichen on Mars, and I misunderstood and said, "A good chance of liking what on Mars?" and Kroger finished his coffee and went ...
— The Dope on Mars • John Michael Sharkey
... has been devoted of late by ardent biographers to shedding light on misunderstood characters in history, especially British rulers. We cannot let injustice any longer be done to King Wiglaf, the much-maligned monarch of central Britain in the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... its conclusion, we next asked: "When young trees failed to grow with you, what percentage of these failures was due to ..." (various causes enumerated below)? The question was misunderstood. Many evidently gave percentages of all trees planted. Others, correctly, gave percentages merely of the trees which failed to grow. As nearly as could be arrived at, about 30 percent of losses were among ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... deserve no gratitude," making no effort to draw away, yet looking into my face frankly. "Perhaps you have misunderstood. Is it not possible for the women of these Colonies to sacrifice as well as the men in the cause of patriotism? You must not believe that I have done this merely ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... misunderstood me. Red hasn't a thing against you. And neither he nor anybody else could put ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Antony's horse, "a tried and valiant soldier." It is perhaps natural that the two deepest and subtlest of all Shakespeare's intellectual studies in good and evil should be the two most painfully misused and misunderstood alike by his commentators and his fellows of the stage: it is certainly undeniable that no third figure of his creation has ever been on both sides as persistently misconceived and misrepresented with such desperate ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... relate, was completely misunderstood by the critics of the two first centuries. Not only did they identify the incident recorded in St. John xx. 11, 12 with St. Mark xv. 5 and St. Luke xxiv. 3, 4, from which, as we have seen, the first-named Evangelist is careful to distinguish it;—not only did they further identify ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... out a steady, sober man, and Dick, who had got him promoted, wondered what he was doing there, though he reflected that his own presence in the disreputable locality was liable to be misunderstood. Kemp, however, looked at ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss |
