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More "Blunder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deeply and reverently studied Scripture in our own times. To appeal to the views held by such men as decisive of the burning questions of the day, is like referring matters of grave import to the judgment of little children, instead of consulting men of ripe experience. We know what followed a similar blunder on the part of King Rehoboam. Yet how often is it repeated! It would seem that not only is "no prophet accepted in his own country," but ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... element of national power; and from this he argues that the more "credit" a nation has—that is, the deeper it is in debt—the more powerful it becomes. In short, he confuses credit as opposed to discredit with credit as opposed to cash—a grievous blunder, surely. A nation's credit is like a merchant's; it becomes greater only as his debts become smaller; and people trust a government for the same reason as they trust an individual, mainly because every previous ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... with expectation. As soon as the fly had stopped at the little gate she heard his voice, and heard at once that it was quick, joyful, and telling much of inward satisfaction. He had a good-natured word for Janet, and called Thomas an old blunder-head in a manner that made ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... It's a work after my own heart. Your arrangement of the matter, I think, however, might be improved, and many of your notions remind me of Aristotle. That philosopher was one of my most intimate acquaintances. I liked him as much for his terrible ill temper, as for his happy knack at making a blunder. There is only one solid truth in all that he has written, and for that I gave him the hint out of pure compassion for his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you very well know to what divine moral truth I ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... very nearly. And, what is a wiser and better thing, Can keep the living from ever needing Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, By showing conclusively and clearly That death is a stupid blunder merely, And not a necessity of our lives. My being here is accidental; The storm, that against your casement drives, In the little village below waylaid me. And there I heard, with a secret delight, Of your maladies physical and mental, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... with such breathless interest to the narration of the escapes of the elder warriors, and, in short, was so well schooled in the theory of his calling, that it was almost as impossible for him to make any gross blunder on such an occasion, as it was for a well grounded scholar, who had commenced correctly, to fail in solving his problem in mathematics. Relinquishing the momentary intention to land, the chief slowly pursued his course round the palisades. As he approached the moccasin, having now nearly ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... about the country boy that Merriwell liked. Frank quickly decided that Joe was a big-hearted, honest fellow, such a blunder-heels that he was certain to provoke ridicule, and yet thoroughly ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Savinien de Portenduere," cried Rastignac, "and has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... definite task, fanatically followed to the exclusion of all minor considerations, breaks down. When the work is good, when we are sure we are all right, then we may carry off things with a high hand. But the work isn't always good, we aren't always sure. We blunder, we make a muddle, we are fatigued. Then the sacrificed affections come in as accusers. Then it is that we want ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... did change it, though, often afterward, men of clerkly attainments took me aside and kindly pointed out what they conceived to be a blunder. I have dwelt, perhaps tediously, upon this swap; my excuses are—first, that, having made few such good bargains during the days of my vanity, the memory is a pleasant one; and, second, that the horse will necessarily play a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... an unnecessary suffering!" rather impatiently asserted Malcom. "If either had died, then the other might have borne it patiently and been just as noble. But such a blunder! I threw the book aside in disgust, for the author had absorbed me with interest, and I ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... The stranger detached a charm from a hidden chain and held it in his palm so that the clearer light fell upon it. "I command you to learn its peculiarities well. There must be no blunder." ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... of the Richard, seeing the mass of prisoners delirious with sudden liberty and fright, pricked them with his sword to the pumps, thus keeping the ship afloat by the very blunder which had promised to have been fatal. The vessels now blazed so in the rigging that both parties desisted from hostilities ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... glass—it sent a shudder through every one, and mingled with the general gaiety an ill-omened foreboding. Disturbed and alarmed, the hearers wondered whether the instrument might not be out of tune, or the musician be making a blunder. Such a master had not blundered! He purposely kept touching that traitorous string and breaking up the melody, striking louder and louder that angry chord, confederated against the harmony of the tones; at last the Warden understood the master, covered his face in his hands, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... modern progress, and let them avoid what are the mere non-essentials of the present-day civilization, and, above all, the vices of modern civilized nations. Let these men keep open minds. It would be a capital blunder to refuse to copy, and thereafter to adapt to your own needs, what has raised the Occident in the scale of power and justice and clean living. But it would be a no less capital blunder to copy what is cheap or trivial or vicious, or even what is merely ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... following up his advantage by promptly attacking the main army of the Imperialists, the French king dispatched a part of his force to Naples, and with the other turned aside to blockade the city of Pavia. This blunder enabled the Imperialists to reform their ranks and to march towards Pavia in order to join the besieged. Here on 24 February, 1525,—the emperor's twenty-fifth birthday,—the army of Charles won an overwhelming victory. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... is governed by influence. It is governed by the ambitions and the enterprises which control votes. The young woman that thinks she is going to vote for the sake of holding an office is making an awful blunder. ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... but not until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President for his indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... You know I never meant that! You must have known that never could be! I never imagined you could make such a fantastic blunder! But then how should you know how we think about things! I must remember that, and not ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... by thunder! Be 't prudence or blunder, Gov's fondness for Tithe, or bad weather, or what, You're kept in the stable, though fit, ay, and able To lead the whole field and to win by a lot. A hunter I never bestrode half as clever! Tithe? Pooh! He's not in it, my beauty, with you. You've breed, style, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... of his death, but I was prepared for it, and heard it from Lord Huntingdon. I am still more obliged to you for the trouble you have given yourself about King Richard. You have convinced me of Crescimbeni's blunder as to Rome. For Florence, I must intreat you to send me 'another copy, for your copyist or his original have made undecipherable mistakes; particularly in the last line; La Mere Louis is impossible to be sense: I should wish, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... bed-sunning ceremony had been first observed? Just how were the ability to speak French in the most exclusive circles of Parisian society and a cultivated knowledge of every picture-gallery in the world going to keep me from making a blunder that would put me down in Mrs. Pennie Addcock's mind ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... cabinet; Sandwich at the Admiralty was grossly inefficient. There was not a single member of the Cabinet fitted to carry on war, or able to influence George III. For such a body of men to undertake to direct the operations in America {78} at the distance of 3,000 miles was a worse blunder than it would have been to commit the conduct of the war to any one of the generals in the field, however commonplace ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... battles, but all the solid advantages were with their opponents. A Union victory was so much achieved toward final and complete success; a Confederate victory only operated to postpone the subjugation of the Rebels for a few days, or perhaps weeks. We could afford to blunder, while they could not; and the prospect of the gallows made the brains of Davis and Lee uncommonly clear, and caused them to plan skilfully and to strike boldly, in order that they might get out and keep out of the road that leads ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the rear elevations of Frognall Street houses, and the mist was heavy besides; otherwise he had made shift to locate Number 9 by ticking off the dwellings from the corner. If he went on, hit or miss, the odds were anything-you-please to one that he would blunder into the servant's quarters of some inhabited house, and—be promptly and righteously sat upon by the service-staff, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... nutritious food to be found anywhere. He was so anxious to do what was right, and so ready to believe that every one knew better than himself, that he never ventured to admit to himself that he might be all the while on a hopelessly wrong tack. It did not occur to him that there might be a blunder anywhere, much less did it occur to him to try and find out where the blunder was. Nevertheless he became daily more full of malaise, and daily, only he knew it not, more ripe for an explosion should ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and the laborers in A will be thrown out of employment." The answer is, of course, that the state of things here contemplated is a permanent and normal one wherein production is correctly adapted to human desires. If A is found not to be wanted, after the production of it, an industrial blunder has been committed, and wealth is wasted just as when burned up. It is ill-assorted production. The trouble is not in a lack of demand for what A may produce (of something else), but with the producers of A in not making that for which there were desires, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... soldiers, he let fall a word which was thought very ominous in the army; for "I am going," he said, "to break down the bridge, that none of you may return;" and whereas he ought, when he had perceived his blunder, to have corrected himself, and explained his meaning, seeing the men alarmed at the expression, he would not do it out of mere stubbornness. And when at the last general sacrifice the priest gave him the entrails, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... she asked gently. And again, although she did not often blunder, she saw him wince. "I don't mean ambitious for yourself. But surely you have made a remarkable beginning at St. John's. Everybody admires and respects you, has confidence in you. You are so sure of yourself," she hesitated a moment, for she had never ventured to discuss religion with him, "of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you with inquiring eyes, with a mixture of phlegmatic coolness and curiosity, and partly as an exclamation, partly as an interrogation, utter the monosyllable "So!"? He would not be so much occupied in trying to parry the blunder gracefully as in thinking of its cause, with that love of sifting which involuntarily exhibits itself even in little things, or with that tendency to take even jokes gravely which originated the fable of Pope Joan, and led a learned commentator, in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... is a shy man, and, no doubt, proud after his fashion. It must have taken a great effort—premature, therefore mistaken, according to my judgment—for him to screw himself up to the pitch of proposing for a girl of whose answering regard he was uncertain. Having made the blunder and paid the penalty, he is not at all likely to put his fate to the touch again, so far as Dora is concerned. He is not the style of pertinacious, overbearing fellow who would persecute a woman with his attentions ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... and tongue of the serpent. Not, God knows, that the great Eve was any great shakes, for she left the world in a nice plight by falling in love with a serpent; but upon my credit she was not the first woman, excuse the blunder, who fell in love with a serpent, and suffered accordingly. I appeal ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... dear to the Madigans. They seized upon each blunder she made, and held it up, shrinking and bare, under the light of their laughter-loving eyes. They ridiculed it interminably, and were unflaggingly entertained by it, repeating it for the edification of each new-comer so often and so faithfully ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... when he's not talking to the rest and bid him look where I'm sitting. There's a shilling ready for you if you don't blunder." ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... was a man of business, and very forgetful, or he could not have made such a blunder as this. And there was Flaxie's new and elegant doll, Christie Gretchen, all packed in cotton, in a box by itself, on purpose to show ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... decided upon a fixed policy, and he was not a man to flinch from consequences. Miss Deane must be taught to despise him, else, God help them both, she might learn to love him as he now loved her. So, blundering towards his goal as men always blunder where a woman's heart is concerned, he blindly persisted in allowing her to make such false deductions as she chose ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... intense suffering, she had an irresistible claim upon his compassion, her husband did not feel certain that even were Eva herself again Toni's tragic blunder would be repaired; and although he was fully determined to do all in his power to bring Eva's restless spirit peace, there was a possibility that she would return to life as callous, as ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... say next; and not seeing his way clearly, puts you off with circumstantial phrases, and tries to gain time for fear of making a false step. This gentleman has heard some one admired for precision and copiousness of language; and goes away, congratulating himself that he has not made a blunder in grammar or in rhetoric the whole evening. He is a theoretical Quidnunc—is tenacious in argument, though wary; carries his point thus and thus, bandies objections and answers with uneasy pleasantry, and when he has the worst of the dispute, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Generals singing the Word of Command, and Ladies delivering Messages in Musick. Our Country-men could not forbear laughing when they heard a Lover chanting out a Billet-doux, and even the Superscription of a Letter set to a Tune. The Famous Blunder in an old Play of Enter a King and two Fidlers Solus, was now no longer an Absurdity, when it was impossible for a Hero in a Desart, or a Princess in her Closet, to speak anything unaccompanied ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... familiar signal, smiled again. Then leaning forward in his chair he said: "Jeff, I have been keeping my eye on you ever since those days when our line was building into Rubio City and you handled the right-of- way for us. I have never caught you in a blunder yet. When it comes to sizing up a proposition all around I don't believe you have an equal. Now look here." With a quick movement he took a paper from a pigeon-hole in his desk and laid it before the other. The paper ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... her trials of the same character. Nothing ever annoyed her so much as a little blunder she made, the week after the opening of the session. I have not yet mentioned that there was already a universal dissatisfaction among the women, on account of their being liable to military service. The war seemed ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... sometimes blunder on a lucky idee," answered Mr. Marble to one of my earnest representations, "and I've known chaps among 'em that were almost as knowing as dullish whites; but everything out of the common way with 'em is pretty ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever. Why on earth should the doctor want a photograph of the Dane Oxbye to show the friends of Lord Harry? Could he have made a blunder as stupid as it was uncalled for? No one could possibly mistake the dead face of that poor Dane for the dead face of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... to convince Caroline that she is mistaken and that you are indifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is a blunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Prince Ivan was running and bounding behind the carriage. He knew well enough by this time what a blunder he had made, but there was no turning back for him. When the Princess Anna the Fair arrived in her kingdom, she set Prince Ivan to take care of the cows. Every day he went afield with the herd at early morn, and in the evening he drove them back ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Beautrelet, and especially the idea that he would reach the castle at almost the same time as Massiban, for he feared some blunder on the part of that inexperienced man. He went back to his friend and spent the rest of the day with him. In the evening, he took the Brittany express and got out at Velines as ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Carleton was there. Fleda sat a little apart from the rest, industriously bending over a complicated piece of embroidery belonging to Constance, and in which that young lady had made a great blunder, which she declared her patience unequal to the task of rectifying. The conversation went gaily forward among the others, Fleda taking no part in it beyond an involuntary one. Mr. Carleton's part was rather reserved and grave, according to his ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... again: what had destiny done if she had, by some blunder, lured Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus Pius into the snares that she laid around Oedipus? I will even assume that she might have compelled Antoninus, for instance, to murder his father, and, all unwittingly, ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... a fatal blunder, the blunder of a people who had been so blinded by materialism that they do not seem to have so much as the consciousness that there is such a thing as moral strength on earth. No one who had followed with intelligent understanding the career of President Wilson could ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... British cause was well served by Germany's initial blunder; by the huge mistake which cost her four-fifths of her naval strength at a blow. This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly traceable to one cause: the national arrogance which, since the invasion, had approached near to madness; which had now ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... whole it may not be the wiser plan to write about the Origins of Religion in the style which might suit a study of the life of ballet dancers; the two MM. Halevy, the learned and the popular, would make a blunder if they exchanged styles. Yet Gibbon never denies himself a jest, and Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois was called L'Esprit sur les Lois. M. Renan's Histoire d'Israel may almost be called skittish. The French are more tolerant of those excesses than the English. It is a digression, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... ten deer carcasses, and perhaps an elk or a mountain sheep as well. I never became more than a fair hunter, and at times I had most exasperating experiences, either failing to see game which I ought to have seen, or committing some blunder in the stalk, or failing to kill when I fired. Looking back, I am inclined to say that if I had any good quality as a hunter it was that of perseverance. "It is dogged that does it" in hunting as in many other things. Unless in wholly exceptional cases, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... on his part spoke, and told his version of the story, whereof Arthur and little Fan were the hero and heroine; how they had met by no contrivance of the former, but by a blunder of the old Irishman, now in bed with a broken shin—how Pen had acted with manliness and self-control in the business—how Mrs. Bolton was an idiot; and he related the conversation which he, Bows, had had with Pen, and the sentiments ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... absinthe, fantastic ideas beat stupidly upon his brain, like bats that blunder against a lamp and extinguish it with foolish, flapping wings. He thought that somehow the enemy must have stolen a march upon the defenders: that the hated Arabs had got into the tower, from a ladder raised outside the wall, and that soon they would be pouring down in a swarm. Before he knew ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the surrender was a great blunder, and was caused by a misunderstanding. Major Adye was much put out. The white flag was not hoisted by ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... blunder and bitterness comes wisdom. Men are taught through reaction, and all experience that does ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... great charms of Livingstone's character, and one of the secrets of his power—his personal interest in each individual, however humble—appeared in connection with Shobo, the Bushman guide, who misled them and took the blunder so coolly. "What a wonderful people," he says in his Journal, "the Bushmen are! always merry and laughing, and never telling lies wantonly like the Bechuana. They have more of the appearance of worship than any of the Bechuana. When will these dwellers in the wilderness bow ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Louise, perfectly composed and in no wise distracted by her surroundings or the music of the orchestra and the perpetual buzz of conversation in the crowded rooms, impressed each individual upon her memory clearly, and was not likely to blunder in regard to names or individuality in the future. This is a rare talent, indeed, and scores, largely in one's favor; for no one likes to think himself so unimportant as to be ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... is raised by authority above what it will yield with a profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. If a second blundering interposition be used to correct the blunder of the first, and an attempt is made to force the purchase of the commodity (of labour for instance), the one of these two things must happen, either that the forced buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... affirmed Mr. Croyden. "It is a matter of equality. In fact, it would be hard to tell which of the two is the more indebted to the other—the employer or the employee. It is in this spirit that I try to run this great plant. I blunder, it is true; I suppose we all do that. But I sincerely believe labor should have an honored place, and so far as I am concerned I give it one. If I had a boy," Mr. Croyden's voice faltered, "If I had a boy," he repeated more firmly, "he should be brought ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... first consideration of them, be imagined. The Veterinary Surgeon has a long list of them, suited to the wants and dangers, imaginary or real, of his patients; and he who is not scientifically acquainted with them, will occasionally blunder in the choice of remedies, or the application of the means of cure which he adopts. Little attention may, perhaps, be paid to the medical treatment of the dog; yet it requires not a little study and experience. I will endeavour to give a short account of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to Sylvia, save that he admitted being tired or having a headache, when she sought to enliven him, to draw him up to her own plane of merriment. He was reminding himself every hour of the night and day that he must make no irretrievable blunder, that he must do nothing to injure his wife needlessly. Appearances were against her, but possibly ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... meticulous exactness (Rabelais' geography is irreproachable, and he carefully avoids the cheap expedient of making Spadassin and Merdaille blunder) and the sagest citations of Festina lente, they take him through Asia Minor to the Euphrates and Arabia, while the other army (that which has annihilated Grandgousier) comes round by the northern route, sweeping all Europe from Brittany and the British ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... young man, "you see, you were very ill when you came from Naples, but your condition was not, I warrant, by any means so dangerous but that a few simple remedies would soon have set you, with your strong constitution, on your legs again, had you not through Carlos's well-intentioned blunder in running off for the nearest physician fallen into the hands of the redoubtable Pyramid Doctor, who was making all preparations for bringing ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "O our god, Kihanuilulumoku, see to this lawless one, this mischief-maker, this rogue of the sea; if they send a force here, slaughter them all, let no messenger escape, keep on until the last one is taken, and beware of Kalahumoku, Aiwohikupua's great strong dog;[52] if you blunder, there is an end of us, we shall not escape; exert your strength, all your godlike might over Aiwohikupua. Amen, it is finished, flown away." This was Kahalaomapuana's charge ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... I don't mean that we should repeat the blunder of last night. You may be sure he won't keep it in his ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... man, when he realized the appalling effects of his blunder, gave free play to his emotion. Such sensitiveness is rare indeed in a German, and redounds entirely to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... was very fine indeed; and its performance, like that of the principal singers, proceeded without a flaw or blunder ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... in besieging Sebastopol, and Omar Pasha's Transcaucasian campaign was undertaken too late for any effective result. Mr. Baddeley considers that in neglecting their opportunity of backing Shamil the Allies made a strategic blunder; yet we agree with him that this is not to be regretted. For the credit of civilisation it is well that they did not let loose the savage Mohammedan fanatics upon Christian Georgia and the peaceful Russian settlements beyond the frontier, to ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... is, my dear sir," he said, becomin again affable, to reconcile me, I suppose, to the unfortunate blunder, an' speakin wi' great volubility, "my name is Smith, which, I suppose, is yours too, sir. I'm from London. Now, you see, my dear sir, my brother Bob, who lives in Ireland, and whom I haven't seen for some years, was to have met me here last night, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... seems to blunder still worse. She takes an egg which we suppose is going to turn into a frog, and she brings out of it a tadpole—neither fish, flesh nor fowl nor anything else. After a while the tadpole gets legs and has a long tail; it must lose that tail in order to become ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... nothing for any phase of the public good. But a word further concerning the expedition in general. The sending of troops to Utah was part of a foul scheme to weaken the government in its impending struggle with the secessionists. The movement has been called not inaptly "Buchanan's blunder," but the best and wisest men may make blunders, and whatever may be said of President Buchanan's short-sightedness in taking this step, even his enemies do not question his integrity in the matter. He was unjustly charged with favoring secession; ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... since the days of Henry II. As Henry II lived in the twelfth century, and as neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth ever refer to the language of Henry II as their standard, the statement in the text may probably be considered as a blunder ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... enthusiastic over him. The Duc d'Orleans asked the price of the picture. The clergy told Madame la Dauphine that the subject was suggestive of good thoughts; and there was, in truth, a most satisfying religious tone about it. Monseigneur the Dauphin admired the dust on the stone-floor,—a huge blunder, by the way, for Fougeres had painted greenish tones suggestive of mildew along the base of the walls. "Madame" finally bought the picture for a thousand francs, and the Dauphin ordered another like ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... men are eternally inventing new systems of education, and yet persevering in the old. How many years ago is it since Fichte predicted in the system of Pestalozzi the regeneration of the German people? What has it done? We admire, we praise, and we blunder on in the very course Pestalozzi proves to be erroneous. Certainly," continued the student, "there must be some radical defect in a system of culture in which genius is an exception, and dulness the result. Yet here, in ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... general testimonials as to ability which recommend a man almost equally for any grade or position. Of special aptitude or scientific training he possessed no pretension, and his selection was a fatal blunder. In saying this, there is no reflection on the private character of the mistaken leader; he paid for the wrong estimation he held of his own fitness with his life, and the fault rests with those who placed him in a position where he also was responsible for ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Mary was absent nearly a week. When she returned she had much to tell. She had visited Mr. Green at his office on Commercial Street. His surprise and embarrassment were all that she had prophesied. He offered profuse apologies for his blunder ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... unattractive deceptive features, it has no individual comeliness—not an atom of grace, no style of its own. Every feature, attitude and movement is subordinate to the part it plays. Death being the penalty, it may not blunder. Behold, among acres of similar growth, a trivial collection of rough, short weeds of the sea—grey, green and mud-coloured. This microcosm glides and stops. The movement is barely perceptible; the intervals of rest long and frequent. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdroeckh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Master of Appeals, with an appointment as Royal Commissioner to a commercial association established in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs, an absolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was supposed to have committed a financial blunder, had, in fact, done very good business in the choice of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... grin because one's fingers blunder with eagerness," hiccoughed Margot, thinking his laughter was for the trouble she had in getting the fastenings of her bodice undone. "Peste, monsieur! may not a lady well be modestly careful when—— Name ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... looks toward the house. Yes, it is handsome, grand. Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy, art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has found his life-work. He hopes that he may make the world a little ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to see Dick's mother and sister rise, also, and turn to Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized some blunder he had made. Nell's white, appealing face gave him a pang. What had he done? Surely this family of Dick's ought to know his relation to Nell. There was a silence that positively ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Shakspeare, who towers above them all. We have yet to discover an editor capable of doing him full justice. Some of Johnson's notes are very amusing, and those of recent editors occasionally provoke a smile. If once a blunder has been made it is persisted in. Take, for instance, a glaring one in the 2nd part of Henry IV., where, in the apostrophe to sleep, "clouds" is substituted ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... feelings upon one part, where you have tickled with a feather when you should have branded with a red-hot iron. You will guess I mean the Convention of Cintra. My detestation, I may say abhorrence, of that event is not at all diminished by your account of it. Buonaparte had committed a capital blunder in supposing that when he had intimidated the Sovereigns of Europe he had conquered the several Nations. Yet it was natural for a wiser than he was to have fallen into this mistake; for the old despotisms had deprived the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... you are acquainted, for the sake of acknowledging my great fault and of assuring you that I did not go unpunished. It would be useless for me now to attempt to explain to you the circumstances which led me into that difficulty which ended in so great a blunder; but I will ask you to believe that my folly was greater ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... agreeable feeling when he thought that the priests had blundered. He determined to keep them in that blunder for the future; hence he amused ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... impudence to spoon on my sister Zoe. That was my fault, not hers. He was an old college acquaintance, and I gave him opportunities—I deserve to be horsewhipped. However, I am not going to commit the same blunder twice. My sister is in your neighborhood ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... about to polish a period, you may be certain of some gross defect in propriety or meaning: So the lines just quoted seem to run easily over the tongue: and, upon examination, they are perfect nonsense and blunder: To speak in his own borrowed phrase, what is contained in the idea of established? Surely, not existence. Doth establishment give being to a thing? He might have said the same thing of Christianity in general, or the existence of God, since both are confirmed by acts of parliament. But, the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... however, the career of treason once commenced, its authors can never recede. Their only safety lies in complete success. They must conquer or die. They may in secret confess to themselves that they have been guilty of a stupendous blunder, but that they clearly comprehend and sternly accept their position is abundantly evident. For, if anything is proved in the history of this war, it is, that the chiefs in the Rebellion believe in no middle ground between peace on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... by sending for d'Arthez's books, of which she had never, as yet, read a single word, although she had managed to maintain a twenty minutes' eulogism and discussion of them without a blunder. She now read them all. Then she wanted to compare these books with the best that contemporary literature had produced. By the time d'Arthez came to see her she was having an indigestion of mind. Expecting this visit, she had daily made a toilet of what may be called the ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... to her; and though she probably told the General, he never afterwards alluded to the episode. Indeed, Cecil's labours at Scutari were rather a tabooed subject, as Harry speedily discovered when one day he attempted to blunder out his gratitude ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... to talk to me of an oath, which, under all possible circumstances, is to prevent the relaxation of the Catholic laws! for such a solemn appeal to God sets all conditions and contingencies at defiance. Suppose Bonaparte was to retrieve the only very great blunder he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an impression upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any thing of the impediment of a coronation oath? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of nonsense, if the most distant ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Socrates under the rule by a minor proposition—viz. Socrates is a man—we are able mediately to connect him with the predicate of that rule, viz, ergo, Socrates is mortal.[Footnote: The ludicrous blunder of Reid (as first published by Lord Kames in his Sketches), and of countless others, through the last seventy or eighty years, in their critiques on the logic of Aristotle, has been to imagine that such illustrations of syllogism as these were ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... concerned in a Bourbon plot to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon; was seized in the neutral territory of Baden, brought to Vincennes, and, after an inconclusive and illegal trial, shot by Napoleon's orders, a proceeding which gave rise to Fouche's remark, "It is worse than a crime—it is a blunder" (1772-1804). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to Exon, By special direction, Came down the world's wonder, Sir Salathiel Blunder, With a quoif on his head As heavy as lead; And thus opened ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the price of any progress made in her gardening, for the moment her eyes were taken off the workmen they committed some provoking blunder that often undid the work of weeks. "As all the men were off with the cart," she writes, "I thought I might as well let Ben plant corn, which he assured me he understood perfectly, for had he not planted all the first lot which had failed through the depredations of the rats? At about ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... marauding bee Made desperate by hungry fears, From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps I blunder down the ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... divided at the fess point by something like an inverted chevron, from the arms of Clare Hall, which thus occupy the upper half of the shield. The date is 1713. Is this way of dividing the arms a blunder of the painter's, or can any of your readers point out a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... we hear them shouting; every time we blunder against their limits or stretch out to any ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... women. As soon as we meet a Russian, an Italian, a Swede, a Spaniard, or an Englishwoman with a pretty face, we immediately fall in love with her. We enthuse over everything which comes from outside—clothes, hats, gloves, guns and—women. But what a blunder! ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "And let us blunder on in our official stupidity and blindness?" interrupted the commissioner, a faint smile breaking the gravity of his face. "We certainly ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... not play pieces that are away beyond your grasp. This is the greatest fault in our American musical educational systems of to-day. Pupils are permitted to play works that are technically impossible for them to hope to execute without years of preparation. What a huge blunder this is! ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... anything better than this Old world in the way it began; And though some matters have gone amiss From the great original plan, And however dark the skies may appear, And however souls may blunder, I tell you it all will work out clear, For good lies ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... misunderstood our Lord's warning 'against the leaven of the Pharisees,' which they supposed to have been occasioned by their neglect to bring with them bread. Their blunder was like many others which they committed, but it seems to have singularly moved our Lord, who was usually so patient with His slow scholars. The swift rain of questions, like bullets rattling against a cuirass, of which my text is one, shows how much He was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... render it all the more alarming. This is the ordinary form of punishment for a grave offence against custom: violence is rare, and when resorted to is intended (except in [96] some extraordinary cases presently to be noticed) as a mere correction, the punishment of a blunder. In certain rough communities, blunders endangering life are immediately punished by physical chastisement,—not in anger, but on traditional principle. Once I witnessed at a fishing-settlement, a chastisement ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... me with any message you may have to send," replied Hsiao Hung with a laugh. "I'll readily go and deliver it. Should I not do so faithfully, and blunder in fulfilling your business, my lady, you may visit me with any punishment your ladyship may please, and I'll ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Laura in the church of St. Clair on a Good Friday, 6th April, 1327, it has been recently attempted to be shown is a forgery. By calculation, it appears that the 6th April, 1327, fell on a Monday! The Good Friday seems to have been a blunder of the manufacturer of the note. He was entrapped by reading the second sonnet, as it appears ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wars, shall be the least glorious; it is manifestly being decided not by victories but by blunders. It is indeed a history of colossal stupidities. Among the most decisive of these blunders, second only perhaps of the blunder of the Verdun attack and far outshining the wild raid of the British towards Bagdad, was the blunder of the Trentino offensive. It does not need the equipment of a military expert, it demands only quite ordinary knowledge and average intelligence, to realise the folly of that Austrian adventure. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... hands of the whole affair," he stated in accents of finality. "I refuse. I shall go, and you can do as you will,— blunder on," scornfully, "with your nitroglycerin, your rags, and drills and—and rouse the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... would be to admit that the decision of last week was wrong. I, of course, refused to go. I should have had to defend any policy that Spencer chose to adopt without having a voice in it. Acceptance would not have been only a personal mistake; it would have been a political blunder. Outside the Cabinet I should not have had the public confidence, and rightly so, because I could not have had a strong hand. I should have inherited accumulated blunders, and I was under no kind of obligation to do so, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I judged others were hid—sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her—the young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... should be, The tongue of the people in the mouth of the scholar. We intend here no assent to the early theory, or, at any rate, practice, of Wordsworth, who confounded plebeian modes of thought with rustic forms of phrase, and then atoned for his blunder by absconding into a diction more Latinized than that of any poet of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... tolerably well established both in school and at Mrs. Crane's. Julia was perfectly delighted with her new quarters, for she said "everything was in style, just as it should be," and she readily adopted all the "city notions." But poor Fanny was continually committing some blunder. She would forget to use her napkin, or persist in using her knife instead of her four-tined silver fork. These little things annoyed Julia excessively, and numerous were the lectures given in secret to Fanny, who would laugh merrily ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... Napoleonic Wars; the war of 1812 between the United States and England; and the general revolt of the Spanish colonies. The world was learning new lessons, adopting new policies, in which the Spanish colonial system was a blunder the folly of which Spain did not even then fully realize. Yet from it all, by one means and another, Cuba benefited. Spain was fortunate in its selection of Governors-General sent out at this time. Luis de Las Casas, who arrived in ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... Pierce undertook to explain matters. Minor presumed that the artilleryman had made an actual blunder and was only enabled to correct it by a countermarch, and so rode back to his position in front of the centre of the reforming line, convinced that at last he had caught ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... not. Applegate had a posse out there right away. You know Applegate. He'd blunder if he had a chance. His boys have milled all over the place and destroyed any trail ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... dogs as fought with Nelson at Trafalgar and the Nile. Foreigners largely man the merchant ships, though Englishmen still continue to officer them and to prefer foreigners for'ard. In South Africa the colonial teaches the islander how to shoot, and the officers muddle and blunder; while at home the street people play hysterically at mafficking, and the War Office lowers the ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... "and quite worthy of your closest observation. You see that on the under part of each step is a sentence quite perfectly spelt; but this, of course, cannot be seen when the ladder is placed by a wall. On the upper part appears the same sentence, but with many a blunder in it to try your powers of recollection. You must study the ladder well before you attempt to mount it, and get the right spelling fixed in your mind, so as to make no mistakes. Then, before putting your foot ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... born healthy, he had been born rich—and during the whole course of his long life he had remained rich and healthy; he had never committed a single crime; he had never stumbled into any blunder; he had not made a single slip of ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... occurrence. If, on the contrary, it be caused by an event, that which has been occasioned by anything human, by the co-operation of human circumstances, can be, and invariably is, removed by the same means. Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life. Mix in the world, and in a month's time you will speak to me very differently. A young man, you meet with disappointment; in spite of all your exalted notions of your own powers, you immediately sink under it. If your belief of your powers were sincere, you should have ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... out her hand to him across the counter, and he took and held it tight; he had never seen her looking sweeter, nor felt that she was half so dear to him. After all, his blunder had brought them together again, and he ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... of campaign material in the testimony collected by the Joint Committee, in the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in the bloody race riots which had occurred in Memphis and New Orleans. The greatest blunder of the Administration was Johnson's speechmaking tour to the West which he called "Swinging Around the Circle." Every time he made a speech he was heckled by persons in the crowd, lost his temper, denounced Congress and the radical leaders, and conducted himself in an undignified ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... imperative duty. For if he gets some vulgar and transient titillation of appetite, or satisfaction of desire, he gets along with it something that takes all the gilt off the gingerbread, and all the sweetness out of the satisfaction. So that it is always a blunder to be bad, and every arrow that is drawn by a sinful hand misses the target to which all our arrows should be pointed, and misses even the poor mark that we think we are aiming at. Take these two thoughts with you—I will not dwell on them, but I desire to lay ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... division to reinforce Longstreet. He also started another division a day later, but our attack having commenced before it reached Knoxville Bragg ordered it back. It had got so far, however, that it could not return to Chattanooga in time to be of service there. It is possible this latter blunder may have been made by Bragg having become confused as to what was going on on our side. Sherman had, as already stated, crossed to the north side of the Tennessee River at Brown's Ferry, in full view of Bragg's troops ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Monday night. It was wonderful how interesting everything was, how they passed from subject to subject. They had so much to say that the shadows were rising in the distant end of the room before Mark came to the real matter of moment. It was proof of the change in him that he did not grope and blunder to it but brought it forward ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... us, one-fourth of his soldiers had shown the same bravery as he did, the fortunes of the day would have been vastly different; but though personally brave, he was no genius in war, and his fatal determination to fight the battle on foot was a gross blunder in military tactics. Even when he and his division were being charged by the Prince of Wales at full gallop, at the head of two thousand lances, the men all flushed with victory, John made his own men dismount, and himself did the same, fighting with his axe like a common soldier; ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... knows that I am as anxious to push on as you, but we have already made one blunder and we can't afford another; when the time comes that it is safe to trot you shall ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Red Thornton's life when he came near making matters worse with a terrible blunder. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of waiting, he arose and stepped over to the gully and considered making a dash through the woods and striking into the road. Perhaps he would have done this; I cannot say. But happening just at that moment to glance down the hill ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... recounted Courthorne's Canadian history so far as her brother's agents had been able to trace it, not omitting, dainty in thought and speech as she was, one or two incidents which a mother might have kept back from her daughter's ears. Still, it was very seldom that Miss Barrington made a blunder. There was a faint pinkness in her face when she concluded, but she was not surprised when, with a slow, sinuous movement, the girl rose to her feet. Her cheeks were very slightly flushed, but there was a significant ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... another sad blunder— What can be come over me lately, I wonder? The Prince was as cheerful as if all his life He had never been troubled with Friends or a Wife— "Fine weather," says he—to which I, who must prate, Answered, "Yes, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... for Peggy to begin at the beginning, and in the course of twenty minutes or so, the good man began to understand. As the extent of his blunder gradually dawned upon him, he threw back his head and broke into a hearty guffaw whose enjoyment was contagious. Peggy joined him, and then there was an exultant note in her laughter. Observation had taught her that when ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Tecumseh, the master-mind of the fast-growing confederacy, was absent, the Prophet committed a capital blunder. When reproached by his warriors, he declared that all would have gone well but for the fact that on the night before the battle his squaw had profanely touched the pot in which his magic charms were brewed, so that the spell had been broken! The ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... it was uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After a short trial, ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... be superior to those who know next to nothing of it. They know enough to have pedestals of their own; to be on their guard; to have a reputation to maintain; to conceal the "dram of folly;" to be, to that extent, artificial in their relations with men. They dare not betray the "laughable blunder," which, said Charles Lamb, is the test your neighbour giveth you "that he will ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... the name given to the large sheet of water at the back of Melcombe, formed by the mouth of the Wey before it becomes Weymouth Harbour. The name is actually "Reedy Pool," so that "lake" is a tautology reminding one of a similar blunder, often made by folks who should know better, in speaking of "Lake" Windermere. Radipole is spoilt by an ugly railway bridge and some sidings belonging to the joint railways that lie along the eastern bank for some distance. ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... him that we were too far away to know what was happening, and that it was more than probable that Lord Lee had already apologised; that it was a deplorable blunder as the desire of the French to increase their submarines was understood by the average Englishman to be a menace against Great Britain, as presumably his country would never fight Germany ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... former French government when assailed with difficulty? It was at once as if struck motionless, or, the little animation that was left was just sufficient to enable it to go from one blunder to another. How different has England been on every emergency? In place of the arm of government seeming to slacken in the day of danger, it has risen superior to it. We have never seen the same scenes happen here, that ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... in fact. You must give me time to become accustomed to a whole heap of things: if we were to do anything suddenly now, we might blunder into some great mistake, perhaps irretrievable. I must train myself by degrees for another kind of life altogether; and I am going to surprise you, Keith—I am indeed. If papa takes me to the Highlands next year, you won't recognize ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... father and I were about to sally forth with it upon a wrathful visit to the erring Shears, when a breathless messenger from him arrived with another parcel, and a note of explanation and apology, to the effect that by some unfortunate blunder the wrong suit had been sent home, and Mr Shears would feel greatly obliged if we would ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... for peace. He gave them his terms, and the messenger was returning to the Hillabees when General White, of Cocke's command, ignorant of what was going on, marched upon a Hillabee town, killed many of the warriors, and captured the women and children. Jackson, grieved and enraged at a blunder which probably prolonged the war and certainly made it fiercer, was easily persuaded that Cocke, his inferior officer, was trying to win laurels for himself, and in the end his anger led him to do grave injustice to a man who appears to ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... me," said Quarles. "I could only find one answer. It was such an obvious blunder that it must have been intentional. The lumps of lead endorsed this idea. Whilst the large piece was flat and difficult to move, the small piece was like a ball and meant to roll and strike the side the moment the coffin was ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... he stood before the Abbot in the cottage where he had taken up his quarters, having contrived to blunder among his people and be captured. To him at first Jonathan would say nothing, but when at length they threatened to take him out and hang him, to save his life, as he said, he found ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... almost too late, that he had made a bad blunder. For without the slightest warning Grumpy Weasel leaped at him. And had not Paddy been a wonderful swimmer and able to dive like a flash, he would never have dashed, panting, into his ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... certain one of his subjects was a patriot by saying: "I don't care if he's patriotic for the country, but is he patriotic for me?" Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies in ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the one hand, there is a not unnatural disinclination for the trouble necessary to re-open a case already heard and judged: on the other, is a most natural inclination to take every fresh fact discovered, or every old blunder detected, as of paramount importance. The explorer in strange lands is too apt to take every mole-hill for a mountain. And when the verdict is one that has been endorsed by Macaulay, he must be a bold man indeed who thinks to upset it. Nevertheless, something has, I hope, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... darling. We can hold each other very tight and try to walk straight. We shall blunder horribly, but it will be better than stumbling apart. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... out for Aix-la-Chapelle alone. He still wore the workman's clothes in which he had masqueraded for so long, and, with his excellent knowledge of the German tongue, he had little to fear so long as he took care not to blunder into a military patrol. Without misadventure he reached Aix, and purchased a dozen spanners similar to those used by plate-layers, except that the handles were short and lacked the great leverage necessary for their work. This difficulty would, however, ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... plowing land, his gun and powder horn leaning against a newly cut stump, a mounted Indian, surprised at the sight of the plow, lance in hand, fleeing toward the setting sun, with the Latin motto, "Quae sursum volo videre," ("I wish to see what is above"). A blunder was made by the engraver, in substituting the word "Quo" for "Quae," in the motto, which destroyed its meaning. Some time after, it was changed to the French motto, "L'Etoile du Nord" ("Star of the North"), and thus remains until the ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... matter were made public, so the father bought back the letters at the scoundrel's price, and the affair was hushed up. The girl was cured of her folly, and will never again commit so thoughtless and foolish a blunder. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Blunder would be committed in the Education of such a Family, if, with this different Turn of Mind in the Children, there should be no difference made in the Management of them, or their Disposal in the World. If all should be put into one Way of Life, or brought up to one ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... with any message you may have to send," replied Hsiao Hung with a laugh. "I'll readily go and deliver it. Should I not do so faithfully, and blunder in fulfilling your business, my lady, you may visit me with any punishment your ladyship may please, and I'll have nothing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to his side. "Fool that I was not to allow for that earlier train! It's abduction, Watson—abduction! Murder! Heaven knows what! Block the road! Stop the horse! That's right. Now, jump in, and let us see if I can repair the consequences of my own blunder." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the treaty, though it contained clauses to which he would not have assented under other circumstances. The document was immediately signed. Louis, for the first moment since learning of his almost fatal blunder, breathed at ease. As for the second part of his promise, that of helping Charles to punish the townsmen whom he had himself stirred to rebellion, it little troubled his conscience—if he possessed any sentiment that could properly be ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... Hay, being over-confident because of his superior numbers, blundered at the outset. Instead of attacking first with his infantry, he placed his horsemen in front, and ordered an assault. Cavalier was quick to take advantage of this blunder. He ordered only a few of his men to fire, and this drew a volley from the advancing horsemen, which did little damage to the sheltered troops, but emptied the horsemen's weapons. Instantly Cavalier ordered a charge and a volley, and the ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... realized that it was his position on the Texas question, as defined in the Raleigh letter, which was endangering his prestige in Kentucky. This fact, added to the pressure upon him from every other slave-holding State, precipitated him into the blunder which probably cost him his election. A few weeks after the nomination of Mr. Polk, on the first day of July, 1844, Mr. Clay, while resting quietly at Ashland, wrote to Stephen Miller of Tuscaloosa what has since been known as his Alabama letter. It was written to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... they come! But lo their blunder! When our lads start up anon, Breaking out like unchained lions, With a roar, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... undertook to explain matters. Minor presumed that the artilleryman had made an actual blunder and was only enabled to correct it by a countermarch, and so rode back to his position in front of the centre of the reforming line, convinced that at last he had ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... is given in the old copies, sarua voulra boungrace, but surely Mercatore was not intended to blunder in his own language.] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... by an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the level of the audience. Ah, fatal blunder! He stammered, but with an effort raised his eyes ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... followed by a counsel on the same side. The Master of the Rolls then inquired who opposed the petition? Mr. A. having by this time discovered his mistake, rose in much confusion, and said, that he felt really much ashamed for a blunder into which he had fallen, for that, instead of supporting the petition, it was his business to have opposed it. The Master of the Rolls, with great good humour, desired him to proceed now on the other side, observing, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... do so much mischief as the man who turns the criminal into a hero. Frederic Graham did a weak, wicked, mean, and cowardly deed, not being in his general nature weak, wicked, mean, or cowardly, and was allowed to blunder on to a tolerable sort of something like happiness in the end. No one has a right to complain, for all of us get a great deal more and better than we deserve. We have no right to complain of Providence, but we have a right to complain of the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Cooley's translations, paraphrases, and imitations, are much worthier than his original work. I hold that no poet can be a true poet unless he is at the same time somewhat of a naturalist. If Judge Cooley had been anything of a naturalist he would never have made such a serious blunder as he has made in his poem entitled "Lines to a Blue Jay." The idea of putting a blue jay into a plum-tree is simply shocking! I don't know when I've had anything grate so harshly upon my feelings as did this mistake when I discovered it this morning. It is as awful as the blunder ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... But the palpable blunder, in materialistic science, consists in its overlooking the necessary outgrowth of theological ideas in the human mind—as conclusively a phenomenal fact of nature as the invariable uniformity of astronomical movements, the ebb and flow of the tides, or the electro-magnetic ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... as she finished, and Hayden saw more in that smile than she intended or desired he should. It was in itself a full period, definitely closing the subject. It also held resentment, annoyance that she had permitted herself to fall into so egregious a blunder as an explanation. ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... again. I surely should not do this thing without consulting you as to the selection but that I had no choice. If I waited, the bookseller would have done it himself, and carried off the profit. I sent you (to Kennet) a copy of the French Revolution. I regret exceedingly the printer's blunder about the numbering the Books in the volumes, but he had warranted me in a literal, punctual reprint of the copy without its leaving his office, and I trusted him. I am told there are many errors. I am going to see for myself. I have filled my paper, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... landlady's daughter was once more in his dining-room before him, the paraphernalia of her algebra spread over half the Turkey-red cloth. Fifi looked up, plainly terrified at his entrance and his forbidding expression. It was her second dreadful blunder, poor luckless little wight! She had faithfully waited a whole half-hour, and Mr. Queed had shown no signs of coming down. Never had he waited so long as this when he meant to claim the dining-room. Mrs. Paynter's room, nominally heated by a flume from the Latrobe heater in the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... bombardment of the Venetian churches is a blunder for which the Austrians will pay dearly in loss of international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... case with praiseworthy frankness. He would even have extended his sympathy, except that his first efforts in this direction had not been received in the spirit he thought they should have been. If Buckner's statement was correct, there had been a cruel blunder on the part of Eleanor's counsel; yet unless he was certain of his ground, Gorham could not comprehend his daring to place himself in so dangerous a position. Already the machinery was in motion to settle this point, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... sure where he is going to get his catch, so he picks out the place, or run-way, where the game has been in the habit of coming. He hides his traps about that place, and trusts to luck that the animal will blunder into one of them." ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... if you look at it that way, of course you'll be suspicious. But I don't believe anything of the sort. It was just a blunder of someone who didn't know how, trying to write ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... himself with the social instinct[4101]; thus preserving and humoring it; find room for it and its usefulness; let it have full play; getting all the service it is capable of rendering, and especially not twist or release it.—In this respect, any blunder might prove disastrous; and in every statute for each society, for each of the human vessels which gather together and serve as a retinue of individual vessels, there are two capital errors. On the one hand, if the statute, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... third. As the time for appearance was previous to the day of service and to the date of the order, no attention was paid to it. The Judge, however, proceeded, and on the eleventh of the month made another order of expulsion. After the adjournment of the court, he discovered his blunder, and at once issued another direction to the sheriff to notify us that the last order of expulsion was suspended until the twenty-eighth of October, and to show cause on that day why we should not be again ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... tactical blunder this afternoon. In a speech rising to violence, he declared that we were playing false; we aimed at annexations, and were simply trying to cover them with the cloak of self-determination. He would never ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... students in architecture have made a strange blunder here, when they imagine that Josephus affirms the entire foundations of the temple or holy house sunk down into the rocky mountain on which it stood no less than twenty cubits, whereas he is clear that they were the foundations of the additional twenty ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... benefit mankind has been to injure the Dinkmans. Meditation in place of infatuation would have shown me both the immediate and ultimate wrongs. I doubt if youd been gone an hour yesterday when I knew I'd made a blunder in permitting you to go out with danger in ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing really important without the advice of Dragut. They found themselves without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their blunder was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... the course they ought to steer. The last was for hauling up higher, and passing to the southward of Bermuda; while the first contended for standing nearly due east, and going to the northward of those islands. Gardiner felt impatient to repair his blunder, and make the shortest cut he could; whereas Daggett reasoned more coolly, and took the winds into the account, keeping in view the main results of the voyage. Perhaps the last wished to keep his consort away from all the keys, until he was compelled ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... change it, though, often afterward, men of clerkly attainments took me aside and kindly pointed out what they conceived to be a blunder. I have dwelt, perhaps tediously, upon this swap; my excuses are—first, that, having made few such good bargains during the days of my vanity, the memory is a pleasant one; and, second, that the horse will necessarily play a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... which you are acquainted, for the sake of acknowledging my great fault and of assuring you that I did not go unpunished. It would be useless for me now to attempt to explain to you the circumstances which led me into that difficulty which ended in so great a blunder; but I will ask you to believe that my folly was ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... it is in writing that the scholar is liable to slip; in oral speech he seldom makes a blunder. In fact, there are many people who are perfect masters of speech,—who never make a blunder in conversation, yet who are ignorant of the very principles of grammar and would not know how to write a sentence correctly on paper. Such persons have been accustomed ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... which, under all possible circumstances, is to prevent the relaxation of the Catholic laws! for such a solemn appeal to God sets all conditions and contingencies at defiance. Suppose Bonaparte was to retrieve the only very great blunder he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an impression upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any thing of the impediment of a coronation oath? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of nonsense, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... 3. This blunder of Mr. Disraeli (from which, greatly to his credit, Sir John Pakington took an opportunity soon after of separating himself) is a speaking instance, among many, how little the Conservative leaders understand Conservative principles. Without ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... his poor old ulcers,'" he muttered, remembering his Henly. "'Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame.' It is—a ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... am of the revolutionists. My father was killed. My brothers were killed. My sisters were made captive. But still the struggle goes on. The best of our men must fight and die. Poor Mexico must struggle and blunder on from one disaster to another, until at last she rises triumphant and free among the nations of the world. It is those in power in her own land from whom Mexico has most to fear—those who would sell her, body and soul, land and loyalty, ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... render an account of his words. I will not urge that all speakers would reasonably be called upon to render such an account, if any of their words were spoken for money; I only say this. If Aeschines in his private capacity has spoken wildly on some occasion or committed some blunder, do not be over-strict with him, but let it pass and grant him pardon: but if as your ambassador he has deliberately deceived you for money, then do not let him go, or tolerate the plea that he ought not to be called to account for what he said. {183} Why, for ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... veldt at random, and the greatest confusion ensued. British mules were "pro-Boer" throughout the War. The ground, however, was not favourable for our operations, and we failed to avail ourselves of the general chaos. Towards the evening of the second day General Tobias Smuts made an unpardonable blunder in falling back with his commandos. There was no necessity for the retreat; but it served to show the British that there was a weak point in our armoury. Indeed, the following day the attack in force was made upon this point. The British had meantime continued pouring in reinforcements, men ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... the genial chuckle which preceded an invitation to inspect some candidate's egregious blunder; Irving would read and smile quietly, unaware that Barclay was watching him and wondering how appreciative he might be of ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... self-comparisons] [Theobald interpreted "him" as Cawdor; Johnson, in 1745, accused Shakespeare of forgetfulness on the basis of Theobald's error; and Warburton here speaks of "blunder upon blunder."] The second blunderer ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... sings; Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. "The world's a stage,"—as Shakespeare said, one day; The stage a world—was what he meant to say. The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; The real world that Nature meant is here. Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; One after one ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Aaron and Miriam had received a portion of the prophetic genius that distinguished Moses, and they naturally thought that they should have some share in the government, at least to make a few suggestions, when they thought Moses made a blunder. Miriam was older than Moses, and had at this time the experience of 120 years. When Moses was an infant on the River Nile, Miriam was intrusted by his parents to watch the fate of the infant in the bulrushes and the daughter of Pharaoh in her ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... in dealing with a mob,—"First fire grape-shot into them; after that, over their heads as much as you like." The position of Mr. Lincoln was already embarrassed when he entered upon office, by what we believe to have been a political blunder in the leaders of the Republican Party. Instead of keeping closely to the real point, and the only point, at issue, namely, the claim of a minority to a right of rebellion when displeased with the result of an election, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... what you might call a heretic. Heretics are wicked, but they're mighty int'resting. It's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under the impression that He's hard to find—which He ain't never. Most of 'em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess. I don't think listening to Mr. Howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm. Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of bother—and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Howard ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Absalom's blunder was fatal. He tried to land on his father's throne by treachery; he landed in a tree, caught by his head. He thought to win a crown; he got three hot darts between the ribs from Joab. He planned to have a pile of wealth quickly gained, but by the end of the week his handsome form was buried deep ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... child is born; and if you go to a christening party you will find that the stork has come too: in sugar on a cake, perhaps, or to be handed round in the form of ice cream. Most of the kindly intimate little jests about babies have a stork in them, and a stranger might easily blunder by presenting an emblem of the bird where it would not be welcome. The house on which storks build is a lucky one, and people regret the disappearance of their nests ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... accomplishment in this matter will be accepted by the country as the final test of your leadership and will be of incalculable psychological importance to the party; and, therefore, in the carrying out of this programme we cannot afford to hesitate or to blunder, because as election day approaches trivial mistakes will be magnified and exaggerated by the opposition, to the hurt and injury of our party and ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... occasion to go and study both sets, with a view to finding a flaw in Somerset's which might have been passed over unnoticed by the committee of architects, owing to their absence from the actual site. But not a blunder could he find. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... unbelief in all he had heard. Clark, it struck him, did not know what he was talking about, and who was Clark anyway? Had a single man in the room ever heard of Clark before that afternoon? The town had made one blunder, and it would be wise to keep ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... depended on the particular crib the examiner swore by. Redwood, to whom I confided some of my answers, thought rather more hopefully of my case, and told me to keep my spirits up. Tempest said that if he were to cuff me for every discreditable blunder I had made, I should have ear-ache for a month. Dicky, on the other hand, confessed that he wished he could believe he had done as well ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the mistake in stanza 132, I take the opportunity to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is possible that in addressing the Deity a blunder may become a blasphemy: and I do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions of my words or of my intentions. I saw the canto ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... thoughtless. The best of us often do very foolish things, and cause much mischief; but thee'll find it isn't best to grieve over these mistakes. Why, my dear little Susan, I have lived eight years to thy one, and if I should sit down now and drop a tear for every blunder I have made, I don't know but I could almost make a fountain of myself, like that woman thee tells ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... did I give myself superior airs; I made allowance for defective sight; "The bandage which impartial Justice wears Leaves you," I said, "a stranger to the light; Habituated to the sword and scales, If you commit some pardonable blunder, If" (I remarked) "your nerve at moments fails With grosser ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... where our river comes in, and very shallow, and the steamer-channel's right at the further bank. If they'd another Englishman in their service up here, I'd not say; but don't you tell me that the half-baked Dutchmen and Dagos who skipper their launches would risk hunting out a new channel, and blunder ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Devil!" shouted Bazalgette, in double ire at his own blunder and at being taken to task by his own Telemachus; he added, but in a very different tone, "You are too good for ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... deputation appointed by a committee to wait on Sir George Clarke, at Bloemfontein, to prevent, if possible, his handing over the sovereignty, now the Free State, to the emigrant Boers. Every effort failed to prevent the blunder. Long experience had led many to foresee that such a course would entail on the native tribes conterminous oppression, slavery, alias apprenticeship, etc. Many a tale of woe could be told arising, as they express it, from the English allowing their subjects ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... corrections have been ventured upon in the French and Latin scraps, as the speaker does not appear to have been intended to blunder.] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... own letters. She never did it a second time. On the contrary, she begged pardon in real regret at having given such deep offence to her brother and his wife, and in astonishment that so simple an action could offend. She had made an equally distressing blunder in the early days of her life with the Gresleys by taking up the daily paper on its arrival in ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... head with a quick blush, and the terrified wish that he should not, at the cost of all his notions of correctness, lapse into the blunder of becoming "personal." ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... policy, and he was not a man to flinch from consequences. Miss Deane must be taught to despise him, else, God help them both, she might learn to love him as he now loved her. So, blundering towards his goal as men always blunder where a woman's heart is concerned, he blindly persisted in allowing her to make such false deductions as she chose from ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Commissioner to a commercial association established in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs, an absolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was supposed to have committed a financial blunder, had, in fact, done very good business in ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... and the Archbishop of Canterbury now,—is worthy of being noted. In two sermons, "Christianity without Judaism," written by this clergyman of the Church of England, to show that all days of the week are alike, and the Christian Sabbath a mere blunder, I find the following passage:—"Some divines have consistently rejected all geology and all science as profane and carnal; and some even, when pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy, of tampering with the truth, investing the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... surrender was a great blunder, and was caused by a misunderstanding. Major Adye was much put out. The white flag was not hoisted ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Mademoiselle Madeleine's fault," cried M. de Bois, coming to the rescue. "It was my folly,—another blunder of mine! I was dolt enough to think that you had only to see her for all to be well; and, instead of warning Mademoiselle Madeleine that you were in Washington, I kept from her a knowledge which would have prevented your encountering each other. It was all my imprudence, my ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... a blunder like that again, and you'll be sorry for it," he bullied, shaking an angry fist at Phil, who turned a pair of surprised eyes ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... confabulated with her cousin, and put him up to this last dodge. She saw your advertisement in the paper, and understood it as well as you did, and Doctor Oleander was there in waiting. You committed one unaccountable blunder. You appointed ten for the nocturnal interview, and were at the place of the tryst at half past nine. How do you ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... woman!" He bent over her and kissed her, apparently unconscious that she instinctively drew back from his caress. "If you really will help me, no doubt I shall build things up again in no time, and this one blunder won't count for much. You are a ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... was anxious to make amends for his blunder of a moment before. "Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on each floor in turn and ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... practical politics. But their power to-day is wholly irresponsible and hence dangerous. Lay on them the responsibility of legislating, with all the criticism and odium of a constituency and a party, in case they make some blunder, and you render them wiser in judgment and more deliberate in action. To secure this large disfranchised class as allies to one of the leading parties would be a wise measure for that party and bring a new element of morality and intelligence into the body politic. Women are now taking a more active ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... her," exclaimed Publius annoyed. "But you might—it seems to me—be rather more zealous in helping me to preserve her from the misfortune which threatens her through your own blunder. We cannot bring her here, but I think that I have thought of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a New York paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the censorship. He said that the loss of Pozieres was a blunder. I liked his frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an excuse, which, personally, I ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... influenced for good or bad. As a revolutioniser of his species he was predestined to failure, for years would certainly show him the error of his ways. Old age seemed to be his proper state, and youth in him was altogether a blunder and a mistake. I found myself vainly speculating what on earth could have led ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... said to have occurred. By some mistake of General Mack's, in directing the operations of a feigned fight, it so happened that his own troops were completely surrounded by those of the enemy; when Lord Nelson, vexed at the unfortunate and inauspicious blunder, immediately exclaimed, to his surrounding friends—"This fellow ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... absolute. He makes a pact with the giants—the Titan forces of the earth—that be will give them Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down his foes. This is his primary, essential, fatal blunder; for unless the gods eat of Freia's apples every day they must wither and their powers decay. But Wotan means to cheat the giants, and Loge, the deceitful god of fire, who is ultimately to destroy the whole of the present regime, has been sent ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... a peep at his ears, growing up out of the grass like to mullein-tops?" cried the bee-hunter. "They would stick him as full of arrows, as a woman's cushion is full of pins, and then believe they had done the job for the father of all rabbits! My word for it out they would find out their blunder at the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had wondrous ill-luck with their children; the Freiherrinn Kunigunde has had a dozen at least, and only two are alive, my young Freiherr and my young Lady Ermentrude; and no wonder, you would say, if you could see the gracious Freiherrinn, for surely Dame Holda made a blunder when she fished her out of the fountain woman instead of man. She is Adlerstein herself by birth, married her cousin, and is prouder and more dour than our old Freiherr himself—fitter far to handle shield than swaddled babe. And now our Jungfrau has fallen into a pining waste, that 'tis ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with rough, and, but for one frightful blunder, with merciful swiftness. The crowd fell back when it came to the square, and the condemned man, the priests and the firing squad of six young volunteers passed in and the line closed ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... are you talking of, my lord? He has done nothing to be pardoned for. He should be, and shall be, rewarded." Mary spoke impetuously, but caught herself and tried to remedy her blunder. "That is, if I have heard the straight of it. I have been told that the killing was done in the defense of two—women." Think of this poor unconscious girl, so full of grief and trouble, talking thus to Buckingham, who knew so much more about the affair than even she, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... nearly went crazy trying to figure out what SC meant! And, if it weren't so late, I'd start right out now to find my mine! If it weren't for that a. b. part I could ride right to it, and snap my fingers at the prowler. But, it may take me a long time to blunder onto the meaning of these letters, and anyway, I want to know 'who's who,' as Mr. Christie says." She continued her work, and a half-hour later examined the result critically. "SC 1 NW 1 N [up arrow] to [union ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... constituencies—that it is well you should have patience enough to listen to a speech about India; because it is no secret to anybody who understands, that if the Government were to make a certain kind of bad blunder in India—which I do not at all expect them to make—there would be short work for a long time to come, with many of those schemes, upon which you have set your heart. Do not dream, if any mishap of a certain kind were to come to pass in India that you can go on with that programme ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... turned red with confusion at his own blunder, turned redder at the question, then went gray again. "That's Lieutenant ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the instrument of your fortune without scruple; for she would never have perverted your heart, she would have left you free.—To love a prostitute of the lowest class when you have not, like kings, the power to give her high rank, is a monstrous blunder." ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the outside, city police, State guards, or even Consolidated States regulars, would be taking a hand shortly. The air attack and 'copter-landing on the roof had been excellent tactics, but it had been a serious policy-blunder. As long as the disturbance had been confined to the interior of the store, the city police could shrug it off as another minor riot on property supposed to be protected by private police, and do nothing about it. The rocket-attack on the top landing stage ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Mahometanism is entitled to the preference. Lord Ellenborough is of a different opinion. He takes away the gates from a Mahometan mosque, and solemnly offers them as a gift to a Pagan temple. Morally, this is a crime. Politically, it is a blunder. Nobody who knows anything of the Mahometans of India can doubt that this affront to their faith will excite their fiercest indignation. Their susceptibility on such points is extreme. Some of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... coercion of Ireland, and who at times have almost had their way. But to do this, of course, would be a surrender to the German contentions, an acknowledgment of the wisdom of the German methods against which she is protesting with all her might. Democracy, apparently, must blunder on until that question too, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... repented afterwards," he said, "but at the moment, I could not but think of you; how you suit it out here." Now she coloured and drew back. Then she heard close by her: "You must not be angry, it always happens that when we wish to repair a blunder, we make another." ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... made any such gigantic blunder as that," returned Tom firmly, "then we'd deserve to be run out. We wouldn't have the nerve to put in another ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... end in view, I found the undertaking even a more serious task than my fears had led me to imagine. On each side of the narrow passage arose a complete wall of various heavy lumber, which the least blunder on my part might be the means of bringing down upon my head; or, if this accident did not occur, the path might be effectually blocked up against my return by the descending mass, as it was in front by the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the purpose to get around the enemy's right flank during the operations that were to succeed the mine explosion, but when I reached General Meade's headquarters I found that lamentable failure had attended the assault made when the enemy's works were blown up in the morning. Blunder after blunder had rendered the assault abortive, and all the opportunities opened by our expedition to the north side were irretrievably lost, so General Meade at once arrested ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... forced himself into the Siowitha, ever came to commit so gross a blunder as to dragoon, or even permit, the club to acquire the acreage, the exploiting of which had threatened their existence, is not ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... He asked the Secretary to obtain from the Deputy Grey his confirmation in the post. He accused Ormond of compelling so long a delay before Ralegh could enter, that Barry had been able to dismantle the castle. He imputed the blunder either to covetousness, or to unwillingness that any Englishman should have anything. He contrasted the multiplication of traitors in Munster by a thousand in the two years of Ormond's rule with Gilbert's suppression of a previous rising in two months. 'Would God Sir Humphrey Gilbert's behaviour ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... him! hear him! hear him!—Well, I'm point blank mad with myself for making this blunder; but how could I help it? As sure as ever I am meaning to do the best thing on earth, it ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... with absinthe, fantastic ideas beat stupidly upon his brain, like bats that blunder against a lamp and extinguish it with foolish, flapping wings. He thought that somehow the enemy must have stolen a march upon the defenders: that the hated Arabs had got into the tower, from a ladder raised ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you must wed, and make no blunder, And either would love you, and let you win her — Which of the two would you choose, I wonder, The stolid saint ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... appeared and took his seat just behind the conductor, where he could see the score, and notice every mistake, either instrumental or vocal. A royal caning often repaid any unlucky artist who made a blunder, much to the gratification of the audience. Such a patron as this, however generous, could not be considered highly desirable; and Mme. Mara, whose reputation had become world-wide, longed more and ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... are living their lives as we are living ours, in the shimmer of a globule in space, it is not enough that we should lift our faces to the sky and blunder and guess at a God there, because there is so much room between the stars, and murmur faintly, "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." By the infinite bones of our bodies, by the seeds of the million years that flow in our veins, material things are spiritually discerned. ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... orator of such set trash of phrase Ineffably—legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile,— Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... created a difficulty. What's a thousand-guinea carpet to a man who likes this sort of thing? Nothing. Yet as amici curiae, we would have thought that that Tottenham Road carpet might have been kept out of Court. Wasn't that a Blunder, MAPLE? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... "Wretched blunder of a wretched woman, I say now. But at that time I could not suspect what a terrible doom I had brought down in that hour upon ourselves, my children, perhaps the whole world; so I remained under the thrall of these petty fears and thoughts ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I never said a word; I hardly moved, but simply allowed her to depart. I could not help realising that this was henceforth to be the intolerable character of the conjugal relations I had resumed eight years before. I told her peremptorily to keep quiet and not be guilty of any blunder either in judgment or in act, and tried to make her realise to what a serious state of affairs this foolish occurrence had brought us. She really seemed to understand what I meant, and promised to keep quiet and not to give way to her absurd jealousy. Unfortunately the poor creature ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... V., iv. 1, Pistol accosts the king with "Che vous la?" according to the first folio. Modern editors correct the intentional blunder. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... the inhabitants will not appear much less so. Ascend, then, with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my Lord and his visitants. But have a care how you proceed; be mindful to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. For, should you make any blunder,—should you go to the right of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear; and should you go to the left, your case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf!—Nor, when you have attained the door, is your danger over; for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... I had once more settled down in my solitude, and came to think over what had happened, I felt the self-condemnation of a criminal without being able to accuse myself of a crime. I believe with Miss Arbour that it is madness for a young man who finds out he has made a blunder, not to set it right; no matter what the wrench may be. But that Ellen was a victim I do not deny. If any sin, however, was committed against her, it was committed long before our separation. It was nine-tenths mistake ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... for Dickens; and the amusing blunder which he perpetrated in "The Battle of Life," in allowing the lady to elope with the wrong man, and the "horror and agony" of the author in consequence thereof, have been set forth in Forster's "Life." The mistake was discovered ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... good one," replied his mother, "but I could not swear all that Shanks would have had me, John—No, I could not swear that, for Dr. Paulding had nothing to do with it, and if he were to repeat it all over to me a thousand times, I am sure that I should make a blunder, even if I consented to tell such a falsehood. My father and good Mrs. Danby used always to say that the mutual consent made a marriage, and a good one too. Now your father's own letter shows that he consented to it, and God knows I did. But these lawyers will not let well alone, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... then he loses his darts to Ganymede; then Jupiter sends him a summons by Mercury. Then Chloe goes a-hunting, with an ivory quiver graceful at her side; Diana mistakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the blunder. All this is, surely, despicable; and even when he tries to act the lover, without the help of gods or goddesses, his thoughts are unaffecting or remote. He talks not "like a man of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... right, Watson,' said he. 'We have got our case—one of the most remarkable in our collection. But, dear me, how slow-witted I have been, and how nearly I have committed the blunder of my lifetime! Now, I think that, with a few missing links, my chain is ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... humour with yourself for a blunder that might happen to any man—it was as much my good luck as a good hand would have been, and so ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... that the Duke of Albany would succeed in changing this decision of the king of France who, willing as he was to buy the support of the Medici in Italy, would only grant them his second son, the Duc d'Orleans. This petty blunder lost Italy to France, and did not prevent ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Bolkonski. "I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fact. You must give me time to become accustomed to a whole heap of things: if we were to do anything suddenly now, we might blunder into some great mistake, perhaps irretrievable. I must train myself by degrees for another kind of life altogether; and I am going to surprise you, Keith—I am indeed. If papa takes me to the Highlands next year, you won't recognize me at all. I am ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... poet can blunder so flagrantly in his diagnosis of love, we cannot wonder that minor writers should often be erratic. For instance, in The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... not so much an accomplishment as a state or condition of the mind in which it seeks earnestly for the highest and purest truth.... If we often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom and clear light, have we not the inward assurance that our aspiration has not been all in vain, that it has brought us a little nearer to the Supreme Intellect whose effulgence draws us while it dazzles?"—The ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... appeared on Bogle's face told Brick he had done a foolish thing. His dread of consequences led him to commit another blunder. He turned and dashed at full ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... it is tastefully done in a quiet color. While it would not be acceptable for formal social correspondence, it does very well on more intimate letters and saves the necessity of writing each time the home address. It is best to use printed letterheads, rather than commit the blunder now so common, among those who do not habitually use engraved paper, of omitting the address from the letter. This, in case the letter is misdirected, and travels to the Dead-Letter Office, prevents effectually its restoration ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... antagonists, the belligerent fellow did not think of looking upon the ground. He made the blunder of Captain John Smith, of the Jamestown Colony, who, in retreating from Powhatan's warriors, became mired, with the eventual result of making Pocahontas famous, and securing an infinite number of namesakes of the ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... once taken off by the agent's clerk to the bank to bring back pound-notes for it, while the agent quietly proceeded to fill out the regular form of receipt for a full year's rent, eighteen pounds. Denis noted what he supposed of course to be the agent's blunder, but like an astute person held his peace. The clerk came back with the notes. Denis took up his receipt, and the agent quietly began handing him note ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... me well enough, only you like to make me blunder where you can talk," said my wife, putting her hand in mine. "But I will try. Sometimes, after thinking about something for a long time, you come to a conclusion about it, and you think you have settled it plain and clear to yourself, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... merriment being shared by Nellie and Mrs Gilmour, the latter not sorry for the old sailor's "putting his foot in it" by a very similar blunder to that for which he had laughed at her shortly before; while, as for Dick, the struggles he made to hide the broad grin which would show on his face were quite comical and ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... quarters, and ventures on a remark on Sanskrit grammar. It is the only passage in all his writings, as far as I remember, where, instead of indulging in mere sheet lightning, he comes down upon me with a crashing thunderbolt, and points out a real grammatical blunder. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... snow-balling; Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, "O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!" With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, Following along the white deserted way, A country company long dispersed asunder: When now already the sun, in pale display Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... and looks toward the house. Yes, it is handsome, grand. Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy, art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has found his ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... an unpardonable blunder," he replied. "What? Give you a letter of introduction? and when the police come, I suppose, I must forget the circumstance? No, indeed. Talk ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all objected to its cost, "Cela mangera beaucoup d'argent," was the invariable reply. And in this point of view the government has committed what it would think much worse than any crime,—a very damaging blunder. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... held the mastery of the sea. But the advance from such a union to the formation of the European alliance against France on which he was bent was a step that still had to be made. Already indeed his action in England had told decisively on the contest. The blunder of Lewis in choosing Germany instead of Holland for his point of attack had been all but atoned for by the brilliant successes with which he opened the war. The whole country west of the Rhine fell at once into his hands; his armies ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... but whether it's so or not I like our straightforward English and American way best. We may blunder along for a while and lose at first, but to be open and honest is ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... intimated that another career than the army had better be sought. I have met many officers, and the impression made upon me is an exceedingly favorable one. I do not believe that in case of war now the blunder of those in command would have to be atoned for by the superior fighting qualities of the rank and file, as was notoriously the case during the Crimean War. The promotion of General Wolseley means business. The Duke of Cambridge, because he is a royal duke, is ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... officer seems to notice them. Abbot's thoughts are evidently far away, and he makes no reply. The surgeon who sanctions his return to field duty yet a while would, to all appearances, be guilty of a professional blunder. The lieutenant's face is pale and thin; his hand looks very fragile and fearfully white in contrast with the bronze of his cheek. He leans his head upon his hand as he gazes away into the distance, and the colonel stands attentively regarding him. He recalls ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... above everything else, my friend. And try to grasp the fact, also, that the system we are now trying to change was a natural outgrowth of other conditions. It was not a wicked invention, nor was it a foolish blunder. It was a necessary and a right step in human evolution. But now it has in turn become unsuitable to the needs of the people and it must give place to something else. When a man suffers from such a disease as appendicitis, he does not talk about the "wickedness" of the vermiform appendix. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... can rest on no other or sounder basis than which is presented to us in the psychology of primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the proceeding stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose in a huge blunder, I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can convert this unmistakable blunder into ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... peculations, but called him his "bed of down." His knowledge of human nature was however derived from a contemplation mainly of its weaknesses, and was therefore one-sided. He was often deceived, and made many a fatal blunder, shrewd politician though he was. He involved himself often in enterprises which could not be honorable or profitable, and which inflicted damage on his greatest interests. He often offended men who might have been useful friends, and converted ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... purpose of eliciting the very best patronage of their respective cities. The Brooklyn Club have excelled in this respect in the American Association by constructing their grounds for a similar class of patrons. But all of the clubs have not followed this example, the majority committing the blunder of considering only the tastes and requirements of the hoodlum class apparently in catering for patronage. This is a great financial mistake. Experience has shown conclusively that it pays best to cater solely for the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... like Aunt Agatha to blunder into the wrong camp. And surely it was like Philip to win her favor ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... professed loyalty to their sovereign, and one of whom, Egmont, had performed distinguished services for his country and king, was profound. A wave of mingled rage and sorrow swept over the land. It was not only an act of cruel injustice, but even as an act of policy a blunder of the first magnitude, which was sure to bring, as it did bring, retribution ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... more embarrassed, until overcome with the apprehension that she had failed in her object, and that the lives of her father and Hurry would be the forfeit of some blunder of her own, she burst into tears. From that moment the manner of Hist lost all its irony and cool indifference, and she became the fond caressing friend again. Throwing her arms around the afflicted girl, she attempted to soothe her ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and down with agitated steps.) Is it for this that I have sacrificed my nights—that I have mowed down mountains and filled up chasms? For this that I have turned rebel against all the instincts of humanity? To have this vagabond outcast blunder in at last, and destroy all my cunningly devised fabric. But gently! gently! What remains to be done is but child's play. Have I not already waded up to my very ears in mortal sin? Seeing how far the shore lies behind me, it would ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... acre. A mistake is often made in mentioning this plant. The newspapers, in quoting prices from Mark Lane, call it Cinquefoil, a very different plant, (Potentilla) of rather a noxious quality. See Gleanings on Works of Agriculture and Gardening, p. 88, where a curious blunder occurs of this kind. ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... B.C. After a while the enemies of Socrates accused him of being a wicked man who persuaded young men to be wicked. He was tried by an Athenian court, which made the terrible blunder of finding him guilty and condemning him to death. According to the Athenian custom he was obliged to drink a cup of poisonous hemlock. This he did, after talking to his friends cheerily about how a good man ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... with long lashes, the haunts of tender shadows; her mouth of gracious lips unsmiling, a little triste. Compunctions smote him; with his crude and clumsy banter he had contrived to tune her thoughts to sadness. He would have given worlds to undo that blunder; to show her that he had meant neither a rudeness nor a wish to desecrate her reticence, but only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and willingness to serve her within ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... continued the count, "ought to practise discretion, shrewdness, caution from the start; he should be incapable of such a blunder as taking a peer of France for ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... hats or chapeaux, as large as coach-wheels. 'Thinks I to myself,' the continental wars are over, England has recalled her fleets, and the streets of London are swarming with admirals of the white and blue, off duty. What a blunder! They were a pack of fat, lazy footmen! My respect for what I supposed were the heroes of 'England's wooden walls' was turned into contempt for men who could debase themselves by strutting about in the livery of those whom ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the wall by the elevator at the hotel, when whom should we meet but "Auntie," the patrician relative of the Gilded Youth. She recognized us in our civilian clothes, and it fell to me to make the fool blunder of complicating our formal greetings with gaiety. Auntie's troubled face would have caught Henry's quick sensitive eyes. But Auntie's voice brushed aside the levity of ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... indeed. What a blunder it was to let them slip through their fingers, when they might have seized them with two or three hundred ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... night, and was repulsed by the soldiers quartered in his village. The alarm was given, and the Spaniards were all put on the alert. The cacique fled to Guarionex for protection, but the chieftain, enraged at his fatal blunder, put him ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... military examination, he was shot, and buried in a grave that had been dug for him before the sentence was pronounced. Of this act of Napoleon, it was said by Fouche, "It was worse than a crime: it was a blunder." The young prince was really innocent. He was a victim of the natural, but violent, wrath of Napoleon, who wanted to strike a blow that his enemies would feel. The event opened the way for him—as it was perhaps intended that it should—to the object of his ambition, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a time of inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew who had been in bad blood with the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a judicial blunder! "But no," thought Morris, "they cannot, they dare not, make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man, I don't see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don't seem somehow to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respectable man, and wished ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... They lead me about and show me the things they are interested in. Of course the little ones cannot spell on their fingers; but I manage to read their lips. If I do not succeed they resort to dumb show. Sometimes I make a mistake and do the wrong thing. A burst of childish laughter greets my blunder, and the pantomime begins all over again. I often tell them stories or teach them a game, and the winged hours depart and leave ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He is on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is going to be disappointed—at least while I am ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... that Bows on his part spoke, and told his version of the story, whereof Arthur and little Fan were the hero and heroine; how they had met by no contrivance of the former, but by a blunder of the old Irishman, now in bed with a broken shin—how Pen had acted with manliness and self-control in the business—how Mrs. Bolton was an idiot; and he related the conversation which he, Bows, had had with Pen, and the sentiments uttered by the young man. Perhaps Bows's story caused some ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I must steadily caution you. All kinds of colour are equally illegitimate, if you think they will allow you to alter at your pleasure, or blunder at your ease. There is no vehicle or method of colour which admits of alteration or repentance; you must be right at once, or never; and you might as well hope to catch a rifle bullet in your hand, and put it straight, when it was going wrong, as to recover a tint once ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... exclaimed, hastening to make the best of his blunder, "I owe you every apology. It arose from some talk I heard passing around in the prison. Be assured, I neither did nor ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... nearly. And, what is a wiser and better thing, Can keep the living from ever needing Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, By showing conclusively and clearly That death is a stupid blunder merely, And not a necessity of our lives. My being here is accidental; The storm, that against your casement drives, In the little village below waylaid me. And there I heard, with a secret delight, Of your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... been patiently watching me ever since. I never saw the kill, for I was accustomed to the mare's fretting, and I never marked her absence, for my consciousness of her was only of something tawny, and the lion filled that part. If I could blunder thus, gentlemen, in a land where men's senses are keen, why should we busy preoccupied ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... "You mean it's for him you most suffer?" And then as the Princess, after a look, but turned away, moving about the room—which made the question somehow seem a blunder—"I ask," she continued, "because I think everything, everything we now speak of, may be for him, really may be MADE for him, quite as if ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... invective were twenty new enemies whom Napoleon sent into the provinces, and who would bring a new hostile army—public opinion—into the field against him. Many hoped that the emperor, perceiving his blunder, would call back the deputies by some pleasant word, in order to bring about a reconciliation between him and those who, whatever the emperor might say, represented in the throne-hall the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... amused at Joan's naive way of referring to her advice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was saved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission, and then he went on to admire how ingeniously she had deceived that man and yet had not told him anything that was not the truth. This ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... BLUNDER.—Don't shrink from contact with anything but bad morals. Men who affect your unhealthy minds with antipathy, will prove themselves very frequently to be your best friends and most delightful companions. Because a man seems uncongenial to you, who are squeamish and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... terrible blunder. Instead of keeping to the simple duty allotted to him, he went off after five large vessels, which he saw standing apart, and gave them chase for some distance. Finding them innocent Easterlings, or merchantmen of the Hanse Towns, he ran hastily back, to discover that ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... or victory Was his device, "and there was no mistake," Except his last; and then he did but die, A blunder which the wisest men will make. Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break, To stand, the target of the thousand eyes, And down into the coil and water-quake, To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies— For ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... wisdom and modesty which did her credit, discovered that there would have been great indelicacy in the Duchess of Angouleme granting a private interview to a man. A female messenger ought to have been sent; and she soon found one to repair the first blunder. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... and can do things that transcend Man's boasted powers. We all know that—or should do so—for the moment may arrive when we find ourselves dependent on the judgment of a dog. To fail to recognise it then is to create difficulties and to blunder badly, causing the most tractable of our friends to look up with a puzzled expression in their eyes, and the more head-strong and outspoken to go ahead, with this sentence, flung back over the shoulder—"You fools, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... it!" ejaculated Diego. "Hombre! But I have been too close to matters religious and political in this country all my life not to know that Don Wenceslas has this time committed the blunder of being a bit too eager. Had he waited a few months longer, and then pulled the string—Dios y diablo! there would have been such a fracas as to turn the Cordilleras bottom up! Now all that is set back ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realised the enormity of his blunder in coming to the Council House. He turned towards the curtains that separated the hall from the ante-chamber. The clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... making a blunder was unendurable to Mrs. Perkin, and she was most unwilling to believe she had done so; but, even if she had, to show that she knew it would only be to render it the more difficult to recover her pride of place. An involuntary twinkle about the corners of Mary's mouth made ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... it, though, often afterward, men of clerkly attainments took me aside and kindly pointed out what they conceived to be a blunder. I have dwelt, perhaps tediously, upon this swap; my excuses are—first, that, having made few such good bargains during the days of my vanity, the memory is a pleasant one; and, second, that the horse will necessarily play a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Brandon, is the worst," Richter answered with keen bitterness. "We knew he was against us, but thought this something of a joke. Well, it seems we were mistaken. These English are obstinate; often without imagination or forethought, they blunder on, and chance, that favors simpletons, is sometimes with them. But remember, that if your father meets with misfortunes, you ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... I blunder. I have been taking for granted all this while that of course we could not write to you till you had written to us! Else how several times I could have written! could have sent you some Lines of Hafiz or Jami or Nizami that I thought wanted Comment of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... being publicly shown. Then, amid tense silence, he gave the word of command—Quick, March!—while every officer felt his trigger. To the immense relief of all concerned the men stepped off, marched straight between the flags and back to quarters, tamed. The criminal War Office blunder was rectified and peace was restored in ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... services, no doubt," said Brigitte; "but it seems to me that we have not been ungrateful to him. Besides, it was he who made the blunder, and I think it rather odd he should now wish to leave ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the station that Venice finally surrendered, but not until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President for his indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was not firm in his seat. He was but a temporary chief of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... talking now, but look alive, and I'll keep his sister off if need be. Mind, don't make a blunder! Get hold of the money and bring it here, and ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... the gentle, persistent tone of one who is patient with the unreasonableness of a frightened child. His determination to win success never faltered, rather it hardened with opposition into adamant; but he was beginning to realize his blunder. He had overwhelmed her; had brought about an upheaval of her world so violent that, in her bewilderment, her dread of chaos, she instinctively laid hold on the old supports and clung to them with desperation. She must have time to think, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... something was amiss, Mr. Kenby made a pretext to accompany Bagley a part of his way, with the design of leaving him in a better humor. In magnifying his newly discovered Bagley, Mr. Kenby committed the blunder of taking too little account of Turl; and thus Turl found himself suddenly alone ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... can learn as well as you, and a good deal better, for I like business, and you don't. You forget that I was always father's right-hand man after I was a dozen years old, and that you have let me invest my money and some of your own, and I haven't made a blunder yet." ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 'em, and I shan't hurt much; and as for him, he must take his chance with the rest on us. He's got his wits back again, and don't zeem like to go wool-gathering again; and, if he's sharp, he'll speak up and make that t'other man understand it's all a blunder about him being sent off along o' we. But there, he wants to go his own fashion, zo he must. But if I was him I should kick up a dust before we start, and have myself zent back ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... recounting of these cold wanderings, of days and nights with nothing but snow and rain, and always the hounds of fear on every hand, that I had forgotten to exercise my mind upon the blunder and the shame of Argile's defeat at Inverlochy. So far is this from the fact that M'Iver and I on many available occasions disputed—as old men at the trade of arms will do—the reasons of a reverse so much unexpected, so little to be condoned, considering the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... ordinary form of punishment for a grave offence against custom: violence is rare, and when resorted to is intended (except in [96] some extraordinary cases presently to be noticed) as a mere correction, the punishment of a blunder. In certain rough communities, blunders endangering life are immediately punished by physical chastisement,—not in anger, but on traditional principle. Once I witnessed at a fishing-settlement, a chastisement of this kind. Men were killing tunny in the surf; the work was bloody ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... possibly her own inclination might set in the same direction; or, again, she might wish to renew her early engagement with the emperor himself. The same uncertainty had been felt at Brussels; the Bishop of Arras, therefore, had charged Renard to feel his way carefully and make no blunder. If the queen inclined to the emperor, he might speak of Philip as more eligible; if she fancied Courtenay, it would be useless to interfere—she would only resent his opposition.[87] Renard obeyed his instructions, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... thought they had picked the winning side, such as the man who candidly wrote from New Brunswick in 1788, 'I have made one great mistake in politics, for which reason I never intend to make so great a blunder again.' Many espoused the cause because they were natives of the British Isles, and had not become thoroughly saturated with American ideas: of the claimants for compensation before the Royal Commissioners after the war almost two-thirds were persons who had been ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... Bob. At this point Betty and Nita joined it, and they had the exquisite pleasure of seeing Bob blush so red that there was no need for a candle this time, then turn very white, and clinging to the chairman's arm insist that there must be some blunder—it couldn't be she that they wanted. Finally, assured that the honor had indeed fallen to her, she broke into a war- whoop which shook the house to its foundation and brought the matron on the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... there was a colonel, a very brave man, and a capital soldier, who, on one occasion, had made some slight military slip or blunder. This drew on him the king's displeasure, and was never forgotten. So his pension or half-pay allowance was made the very lowest his rank would permit; for these allowances were regulated ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the American novelist and artist, F. Hopkinson Smith, in his book, Dickens's London, fell into a similar blunder. Indeed, his book contains some glaring mistakes, owing, no doubt, to the fact, which he admits, that he gathered his information from any Tom, Dick or Harry he came in contact with during his wanderings. ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... not run by votes. Do you think it is? It is governed by influence. It is governed by the ambitions and the enterprises which control votes. The young woman that thinks she is going to vote for the sake of holding an office is making an awful blunder. ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... in a heap;" she had heard many a love-tale, but never one with so manly a note. Shrewd, sensitive Mistress Betty was bewildered and confounded, and in her hurry she made a capital blunder. She dismissed him summarily, saw how white he grew, and heard how he stopped to ask if there were no possible alternative, no period of probation to endure, no achievement to be performed by him. She waved him off the faster because she became affrighted ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... would be but the delaying of their final enslavement to The Master, whose apparent impersonality made him the more terrible as he remained mysterious. So far they seemed like struggling flies in some colossal web, freeing themselves from one snaring spot to blunder helplessly into another. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... told me. 'He looked close down at the shawls, as if he were short-sighted, though he could see as far as any man. "I beg your pardon, ladies," said he, "you're right. I am quite wrong. What a stupid blunder to make! And yet they did deceive me. Here, Johnson, take these shawls away. How could you be so stupid? I will fetch the thing you want myself, ladies." So I went with him. He chose out three or four shawls, of the nicest patterns, from the very same lot, marked in the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... to herself, "I have made a grievous blunder; it may be I have ruined Cornelius, the tulip, and myself. I have given the alarm, and perhaps awakened suspicion. I am but a woman; these men may league themselves against me, and then I shall be lost. If I am lost that matters nothing,—but ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... temporary measures adopted to stem the tide of invasion and to crush revolts; but they were regarded as signs of a permanently terrorist policy, and their removal greatly strengthened the new consular rule. The blunder of nearly all the revolutionary governments had been in continuing severe laws after the need for them had ceased to be pressing. Bonaparte, with infinite tact, discerned this truth, and, as will shortly appear, set himself to found his government on the support of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... fatal blunder, the blunder of a people who had been so blinded by materialism that they do not seem to have so much as the consciousness that there is such a thing as moral strength on earth. No one who had followed with intelligent understanding the career of President Wilson could have doubted ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... act agreeably to circumstances, but avoid drawing ourselves into a false movement, which, if cavalry had command of the rivers, would give the enemy the advantage of us. His lordship plays so well, that no blunder can be hoped from him to recover a ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Sir Edward's mind about his Minister to Mexico as far as I could. Now that the other matter is settled and while Carden is behaving, I go at it. Two years ago Mr. Knox made a bad blunder in protesting against Carden's "anti-Americanism" in Cuba. Mr. Knox sent Mr. Reid no definite facts nor even accusations to base a protest on. The result was a failure—a bad failure. I have again asked Mr. Bryan for all the definite reports he has heard about Carden. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... all the papers in the case with praiseworthy frankness. He would even have extended his sympathy, except that his first efforts in this direction had not been received in the spirit he thought they should have been. If Buckner's statement was correct, there had been a cruel blunder on the part of Eleanor's counsel; yet unless he was certain of his ground, Gorham could not comprehend his daring to place himself in so dangerous a position. Already the machinery was in motion to settle ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the spirit of unionism then prevailing in the General Synod. Indeed, several years later (1852, 1856), H. I. Schmidt, who had signed the letter, expressed his belief in the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and Dr. Morris declared the letter "the greatest blunder" ever committed by the General Synod. The General Synod as such, however, has never criticized, renounced, or withdrawn the letter. Moreover, in 1848, at New York, the letter, in a way, received official recognition by the General Synod. (19. 20. 50.) ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... in the simplest form—Has the movement of alliterative verse got the initial or the final beat? In the middle of the 18th century Bishop Percy decided this question with sufficient accuracy, though he mixed up his statement with a blunder which it is not easy to account for. He points out how the poets began to introduce rhyme into alliterative verse, until at length rhyme came to predominate over alliteration, and "thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Jimmy Kinsella, came towards them from the boat He was bent on being particularly polite to Miss Rutherford, feeling that he ought to atone for his unfortunate blunder with the boat He took off ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... its interest after the battle of Leutzen, when the Swedish hero laid down his life in defense of his Protestant brethren, so the Theban contest with Sparta has no great significance after the battle of Mantinea. The only great blunder which Epaminondas made was to encourage his countrymen to compete with Athens for the sovereignty of the seas. That sovereignty was the natural empire of Athens, even as the empire of the land was the glory of Sparta. If these two powers had been contented with their own peculiar sphere, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... of which he considered himself the victim. But the moment was not favourable for putting his projects in train. The murder of Capelan, which its perpetrator intended for a mere crime, proved a huge blunder. The numerous enemies of Tepeleni, silent under the administration of the late pacha, whose resentment they had cause to fear, soon made common cause under the new one, for whose support they had hopes. Ali saw the danger, sought and found the means to obviate it. He succeeded in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... rush high in the gully under, And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees, Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder As the fires drive by on the summer breeze. Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders To the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb, And with hanging head by the bow he ponders Where the whim boy's gone — why the shifts ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... doubt—a blunder that—And yet Perchance a blunder that may work as well As better forethought. Having no suspicion So will he carry none where his not going Were of itself suspicious. But of those Within, who side ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... happened the French expected a flotilla of provision boats, and after a little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely deceived the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the darkness. The tiny cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up without a blunder, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his boat below. Suddenly ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... too deeply compromised to recede, had put himself at the head of the revolution, and enraged against the Creoles, who had, for the most part, managed to draw their heads out of the noose, commenced with his Indians a war of extermination that spared neither Spaniards nor Creoles. This terrible blunder on the part of the soldier-priest, of itself decided the fate of the outbreak. The Creoles were compelled to unite with the very Spaniards whose downfall they had been plotting; and it was mainly through their co-operation that the three ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... How the boldness of many a metaphor would be transformed into sheer impudence! How the profundities would clear up, leaving only darkness behind! They were so mysterious—and now, throw all the light of heaven upon them, and there is nothing there but a blunder or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... mysterious about Fogg's actions, yet Ralph accepted the theory of the conductor that the station man had made a careless blunder or ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... next to bring ourselves to realize vividly and keenly that the conceptions, thus disentangled and framed, are in fact, whether they be true or false, at the very heart of the social philosophy of the world; we have in the third place to detect the fundamental character of the blunder involved in them—to see clearly and coldly wherein they are wrong and why they are ruinous; we have, finally, to trace, if we can, their deadly effects both in the course of human history and in the present status of our ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... was merry: I was reckless, and my companions were full of glee. Even the ennuye skipped up and down the room like a school-boy: I never shall forget Richard's happy and relieved expression, when I laughed aloud at somebody's amusing blunder. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?] The reading of the quarto was right, but in some other copy the harshness of the transposition was softened, and the passage stood thus: Since no man knows aught of what he leaves. For knows was printed in the later copies has, by a slight blunder ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred. Even had they not, differences of opinion between the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict performance of his duties, and writers and debaters must have arisen. It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit, but it seems to me oftener in the selections made of the assistants appointed to aid in carrying out ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... appanage of slavery. It is now a part of admitted history, that this dull but determined Missouri senator approached Judge Douglas, then chairman of the Committee on Territories, and, by some incomprehensible influence, induced that distinguished senator to commit the flagrant and terrible blunder of reporting the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with a clause repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thus throwing open Kansas to the occupation of slavery. That error was grievously atoned for in the subsequent hard fate of Judge Douglas, who was cast off and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... reply, of the mere laconic No which was all that, in his heart of hearts, he had ever expected, that rankled in him longest; but even that mortification had passed, as far as he knew, into the limbo of extinct regrets. For her present superb air of having no recollection of his blunder he had nothing but commendation. It was as becoming to the spirited grace of its wearer as a royal mantle to a queen. Carrying it as she did, with an easy, preoccupied affability that enabled her to look round him and over him and through him, to greet him ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... right flank during the operations that were to succeed the mine explosion, but when I reached General Meade's headquarters I found that lamentable failure had attended the assault made when the enemy's works were blown up in the morning. Blunder after blunder had rendered the assault abortive, and all the opportunities opened by our expedition to the north side were irretrievably lost, so General Meade at once arrested ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... so much interest to her; and though she probably told the General, he never afterwards alluded to the episode. Indeed, Cecil's labours at Scutari were rather a tabooed subject, as Harry speedily discovered when one day he attempted to blunder out ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... be more instructive than vague generalities. About seven years ago a gentleman was engaged by one of our colleges to take charge of a new department until a permanent appointee might be found. The resident faculty committed one blunder after another. It added the new study outright without adjusting it to the previous studies. It also fixed upon Saturday as the day for beginning. Thus, the students were prejudiced against their new instructor before they had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... his 3rd volume of Antiquitica, for in his copy of Aga's plan, he placed a large keep tower just at the foot of an artificial mount—an anomaly in fortification. The same punster who described fortification as two twenty fications, would call this a Grose blunder. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... this classical blunder of so many eminent annotators is, that these words are not to be found in the usual college and school editions of Euripides. The edition from which the above correct extract is made is in ten volumes, published at Padua in 1743-53, with an Italian translation ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... not have turned them out of hand fast enough. The enlightened few, in these countries, were as a drop in the bucket to the unenlightened many; and although no doubt there were numbers of the former who were well—meaning men, yet they were one and all guilty of that prime political blunder, in common with our Whig friends at home, of expecting a set of semi—barbarians to see the beauty of, and to conform to, their newfangled codes of free institutions, for which they were as ready as I am to die at this present ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... startled. What was wrong? He saw the Eagles and the Foxes carrying their loads slowly, with precious care. All at once he understood. Oh, what a blunder he ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... other acquaintances; and Levin heard and uttered various criticisms on the meeting, on the new fantasia, and on a public trial. But, probably from the mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he made a blunder in speaking of the trial, and this blunder he recalled several times with vexation. Speaking of the sentence upon a foreigner who had been condemned in Russia, and of how unfair it would be to punish him by exile abroad, Levin repeated ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... hell— Blow the bugle, draw the sword— 'Fore I see him 'live an' well— 'Im the best beside the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under, By the ford o' Kabul ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... I am as anxious to push on as you, but we have already made one blunder and we can't afford another; when the time comes that it is safe to trot you shall do ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... stifled with laughter, "do you know the blunder I fell into? it is really too good. Could you only guess who I took you ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... to lay on the hounds and cast down the blinks which hinder the stricken deer in its flight. But above all I pray you, Nigel, to have a care in the use of the terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table, so that those who are wiser may have the laugh of you, and we who love you may ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one, many of the bulkheads having been blown down, and nineteen officers and men seriously injured, of whom fourteen died. It came near leading to a still more serious blunder; for, when the flames broke out, the quartermaster was ordered to hoist the signal, "A fire on board." In his trepidation he mistook the signal, and announced, "A mutiny on board." Seeing this, Capt. Rodgers of the "John Adams" beat his crew to quarters, and with shotted guns and open ports took ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... almost in his dotage. He was shedding tears of joy, and we all maintained the pious and serious aspect suited to the occasion, until the time arrived for the novice to step forward, when, lo! Father Panizzoni advanced with open arms toward the place where I stood, mistaking me for my brother; a blunder which for a moment imperiled ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... she was come to ask for its fulfilment. What would he think of her? How interpret a precipitancy so foreign to the cool assurance of her bearing in the garden? She frowned; the instinct that urges a woman to any folly short of the supreme blunder of unveiling herself to masculine eyes took possession of her. But only for a moment, for again the imminence of the peril in which she stood broke over her like a wave. There was but one thing to do; the signal ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... might set in the same direction; or, again, she might wish to renew her early engagement with the emperor himself. The same uncertainty had been felt at Brussels; the Bishop of Arras, therefore, had charged Renard to feel his way carefully and make no blunder. If the queen inclined to the emperor, he might speak of Philip as more eligible; if she fancied Courtenay, it would be useless to interfere—she would only resent his opposition.[87] Renard obeyed his ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... always gave her. Dr. Knapp points out that 'carreta' means a Spanish dray-cart, and that 'carita,' 'my dear,' was probably meant. But, careless as was the famous word-master over the spelling of words in the tongues that he never really mastered scientifically, he could scarcely have made so obvious a blunder as this, and there must have been some particular experience in the lives of husband and wife that led to the playful designation.[142] Here ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may bring me a little good of you all. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... tank-deck with a piece of bell-cord, one end of which was fixed to the fellow's left foot and the other to the whistle lever, Yank set his fireman, with a white light and the robber's gun, on the rear car and flagged back to the rescue. The robbers, seeing the blunder they had made, took a few parting shots at the trainmen on the top of the train, mounted their horses, and ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... arising; and knowing that dawn was near at hand, the boys had pushed the sleepy ones off their beds and started them feeding. The incident had little effect on the irrepressible Parent, who seemed born to blunder, yet gifted with a sunny disposition which atoned ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Germany was guilty of another and a still more capital blunder in relation to ourselves. ["Hear, hear!"] I am not referring for the moment to the grotesque understanding upon which I dwelt a week ago at Edinburgh, their carefully fostered belief that we here were so rent with civil distraction, [laughter,] so paralyzed by luke-warmness ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... scarcely more heartless, who countenance this inhuman logic. The average mercantile sentiment of this and other great Northern cities runs thus: 'True, Slavery is unjust and barbarous—it is at once a wrong and a mistake—but it is not our blunder. Its perils are braved and its evils endured by those who cherish it, hundreds of miles away; while to us it is a positive advantage. By obstructing the mechanical and manufacturing development of the South, it dooms her products, her commerce, her navigation, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... but how could one guess, from the mere sight of that fellow's big carcass, that things would turn out as they have? The turn of events is enough to make one giddy! I took the colonel for one of those fire-eaters who haven't two ideas in their head; that was the blunder I made. As I didn't have the sense to double like a hare in the beginning, I'll not be such a coward as to back down before him. He has lowered me in the estimation of this town, and I cannot get back what I have lost ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... think I would, Frank," whispered Roberts sadly. "I'm so weak and helpless I don't know what to do, and we're just as likely to blunder against the enemy as they are to come upon us. If I could only have ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... replied, "Sir, I have given the whole right of publication to Mr. Trubner, and I would not take it from him for ten thousand pounds." Hotten at once published an edition which was a curiosity of ignorance and folly. There was a blunder on an average to every page. He had annotated it! He explained that Knasterbart meant "a nasty fellow," and that the French garce was gare, "a railway station!" Trubner had sold 5,000 copies before ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... can do right. You would think that now and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense. But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education. As a matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... mean but wish to hide from ourselves or others; when we forget an appointment which part of us really wishes to avoid, or forget a name with which we are perfectly familiar; when we lose the pen so that we cannot write or the desk key so that we cannot work; when we blunder and drop things and do what we did not mean to do; then we may know—the normal as well as the nervous person—that our subconscious minds with their repressed desires are trying to get the reins and ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... through the ceremony of guard mounting without a single blunder, I was not at all at ease. I inspected the front rank, while my junior inspected the rear. I was sorely displeased to observe some of the cadets change color as they tossed up their pieces for my inspection, and that they watched me as I went through that operation. Some of them were ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... glosses, collections of Sumerian formulas translated into Semitic speech—a child's guide, in fact, which the savants of those times consulted with as much advantage as those of our own day have done, and which must have saved them from many a blunder. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... but pardonable blunder," said Mr. Witham, "that I died, and reached the Paradise of Poets. I had, indeed, published volumes of verse, but with the most blameless motives. Other poets were continually sending me theirs, and, as I could not admire them, and did not like to reply by critical ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... continued Billy, "the parson's showed some sense. He might's well do the 'Harbor,' 'cause that's only one place an' he can't blunder much—seems if. You take the streets, same's he said; and I—if you'll put a needle an' thread through me, bime-by, after he's found, I'll go find him an' call it square. I'll begin to the lowest ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... but when the morrow came it was found that, through some one's blunder, the sloop containing the fish had been burned, and an empty one towed to sea with us. The joke, if it might be so termed, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... now that she has become an establishment, she begins to perceive that she made a blunder in trusting herself to the ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... Sousa has spent a long season at the Exposition. A blunder was somewhere made in dating the arrival of the March King and his splendid instrumentalists, who came while yet the Boston Symphonists were playing in Festival Hall. As a result the finest of bands was placed in competition with the finest of orchestras. But nothing disastrous ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... comfort in proving that my own blunder had led me into such a mess. I threw the pencil down and sat on the edge of the lower berth. My anger was giving way to alarm. I began to realize that perhaps being a prisoner was the safest for me while on the steamer, for if Meeker had brought ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... one whose talents and virtues merited a nobler arena than that on which they were displayed, and who would have indeed distinguished himself in any age and country. Profiting by experience, the successful Minister did not repeat the former blunder of retiring to Agra, where, moreover, his presence was no longer required; but continued for the brief remainder of his life to reside in the metropolis, and enjoy the fruit of his laborious career in the administration of the Empire, to which he had restored something of its old importance. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... not safe"—broke in Danton, stepping forward. Then, conscious of the blunder, he turned away, and took ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... in the old copies, sarua voulra boungrace, but surely Mercatore was not intended to blunder in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... reasonably be called upon to render such an account, if any of their words were spoken for money; I only say this. If Aeschines in his private capacity has spoken wildly on some occasion or committed some blunder, do not be over-strict with him, but let it pass and grant him pardon: but if as your ambassador he has deliberately deceived you for money, then do not let him go, or tolerate the plea that he ought not to be called to account for what he said. {183} Why, for what, if not for his words, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... changed his tone, becoming very apologetic. He probably knew by experience that for a blunder such as this evidently, was, he, rather than his superior, would have to bear the brunt. But Rhodes was implacable; the world, he said, would ring with the outrage. As soon as the British Government learned of the disgraceful manner in which one of its subjects ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder perpetrated by the reformers everything has been going from bad to worse. When it was retorted that the census proved the population to be growing, he replied that the census was a lie. Were the facts truly stated, he declares, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... another blunder. Lord Abinger, it seems, is too Conservative to resign. After all the editorial boasting about "exclusive information," "official intelligence," &c. it is very evident that the "Morning Twaddler" must not be looked upon as a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... told,—and would have been cut down by a British sergeant, but for his wearing a uniform that resembled that of a British colonel. He was helped to a horse at a most fortunate moment. He did not know, in consequence of the blunder of Clarke, that the dragoons whom he had fought and beaten, were only an advanced guard of a body of infantry. Horses and men were in his hands, and, dividing his force, he sent off one party of his men in charge of the prisoners and trophies. A sudden attack of the British infantry ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... handling men and women told him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to redden at his blunder. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Deventer was anxious to make amends for his blunder of a moment before. "Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on each floor in turn and ask everybody ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... to be executed on this date. Yet surprise indubitably was the first and most overpowering emotion; for, in truth, no one up to that hour had really credited that England would take the lives of those three men on a verdict already publicly admitted and proclaimed to have been a blunder. Now, however, came the news that all was over—that the deed was done—and soon there was seen such an upheaving of national emotion as had not been witnessed in Ireland for a century. The public conscience, utterly shocked, revolted against the dreadful act perpetrated in the ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... instrument can be used skilfully; and to the novice there is some danger of one of the balls hitting him a crack on the head, and knocking over himself instead of the game. But there was no danger of Guapo's friend the vaquero committing this blunder. He had been swinging the bolas around his head ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... of the Great and Little Parks. Several villages of little note stand upon it. Of these Wokingham has the distinction of an ancient hostelry yclept the Rose; and the celebrity of the Rose is a beautiful daughter of the landlord of a century and a half ago. This lady missed her proper fame by the blunder of a merry party of poets who one evening encircled the mahogany of her papa. It was as "fast" a festivity as such names as Gay and Swift could make it. Their combined efforts resulted in the burlesque of Molly Mog. These two and some others contributed each a verse in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... done. 13. Or president of the public games, chosen yearly by the common-council of Asia. 14. Dr. Middleton ridicules the mention of a dove issuing out of the wound of the side; but this is only found in some modern MSS. by the blunder of a transcriber: it is not in Eusebius, Rufinus, Nicephorus, or the Greek Menaea; though the last two would have magnified a prodigy if they had found the least authority for any. According to Le Moyen, (Proleg. ad varia sacra.) Ceillier, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and—his father has a hold upon him. But I said to myself at the outset, 'No, whatever happens, I will not usurp the place of God. I will not be the Priest-Patriarch of my children. They shall grow and I will grow beside them, helping but not cramping or overshadowing.' They grow more. But they blunder more. Life ceases to be a discipline and becomes ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... summer's morning grows drowsy with the heat. The crimson and creamy-gold of the opening honeysuckle swings heavy with its own sweetness. The hart's-tongue ferns, matted all over the steep banks, hang down like the tongues of thirsty dogs. The bees blunder sleepily from flower to flower. The black and crimson butterflies take short flights and long panting rests. Even the late wild roses seem less saucily cheerful than usual, and the branching ferns on the hillsides look as though they were ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... If that be not so, we have neither a flag nor a country,—we can neither contract a debt nor make a treaty,—we have neither honor abroad nor strength at home,—our experiment of free government is a blunder and a failure, and for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... other Eastern experiences on me; five weeks on the Nile; Brugsch Bey's account of his discovery of the royal mummies; my visit to Artin Pasha and the great Technical School of Cairo. Dinner with the Khedive; my curious blunder. American and English missionaries in Cairo and Alexandria; Dr. Grant's lecture on the Egyptian Trinities. Mr. Nimr; bis scientific and other activities in Egypt. My enjoyment of Saracenic architecture. Revelation to me of the connection between Egyptian and Greek ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... on this question of the fortification of Paris the staff of "Le National" are not agreed. This would prove, if proof were needed, that a journal may blunder and falsify, without entitling any one to accuse its editors. A journal is a metaphysical being, for which no one is really responsible, and which owes its existence solely to mutual concessions. This idea ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... suggestion is eminently plain and practical, if not an all too obvious one. It is this: if all your preparation and confidence fails you at the crucial moment, and memory plays the part of traitor in some particular,—if, in short, you blunder on a detail of the story, never admit it. If it was an unimportant detail which you misstated, pass right on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link in the chain, put it in, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... are both ministers and reside in Boston, were confused in this comment. The one, who had recently been South, but who did not preach the sermon, was read a severe lecture, because after partaking of the hospitality of the Southern people, he had spoken in so severe terms of them. It was an amusing blunder, but illustrates the fact that more and more even the Southern editor is coming to feel the importance of Northern criticism. It is a very hopeful sign. It is sometimes said that time will settle these monstrous inequalities that prevail in the South, but time never settles ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... you gentlemen here, but to all British constituencies—that it is well you should have patience enough to listen to a speech about India; because it is no secret to anybody who understands, that if the Government were to make a certain kind of bad blunder in India—which I do not at all expect them to make—there would be short work for a long time to come, with many of those schemes, upon which you have set your heart. Do not dream, if any mishap of a certain kind ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Perhaps the greatest blunder of the present day, upon the part of scientists, is their attempt to bring into disrepute the cosmogony given in the Bible by a scientific cosmogony, which leaves off as "unknown" the only active world-forming force. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... roads which were not needed nor desired, and one million was diverted from the wages fund to purchase land for this experiment. The aid which the stronger country proposed to give to the weaker, from the Treasury to which both contributed, was the remission of one-third of this debt. A blunder in foreign policy, the escapade of an ambitious minister in India or Africa, has cost the British taxpayer more in a month than he spent to save millions of fellow-subjects ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... chiefly, or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I write politics for my own sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, with perhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my readers. In this way I think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainly a blunder to take him from Ireland—into which I was led by the circumstance that I created the scheme of the book during a visit to Ireland. There was nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, and there was an added ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... to the first, it was a blunder rather than a fault. Peter the Great caused his heir to be tried and sentenced to death, because he was a sot, a liar, and a fool. He dared not intrust the interests of his Empire to so unworthy a son; the welfare of Russia was more to him than the interest of his family. In that respect ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... proper concomitants and antecedents, not yet relegated to his private mind, nor explained by his personal endowment and situation. To take these private feelings for the substance of other beings is evidently a gross blunder; yet this blunder, without ceasing to be one in point of method, ceases to be one in point of fact when the other being happens to be similar in nature and situation to the mythologist himself and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not, I warrant, by any means so dangerous but that a few simple remedies would soon have set you, with your strong constitution, on your legs again, had you not through Carlos's well-intentioned blunder in running off for the nearest physician fallen into the hands of the redoubtable Pyramid Doctor, who was making all preparations for bringing you ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is a good officer, and he will make his way, if he was guilty of a blunder in letting the Bellevite ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... gravely, yet very coldly, "perhaps it would be as well for you to know that you made quite a blunder yesterday, when you said I told you wrong; I hadn't the slightest notion of telling you, right or wrong. But I know how you came to think so. I was looking out a word in Mr. Burrows' dictionary, and stood just behind you, when Mr. Bailey leaned ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... survivors, were prisoners, and were on their way to the frontier—in fact, we had no certain news until three days ago, when we heard of the battle, his death, and the embarkation of the army, and its sailing for England. The last was a terrible blunder." ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... which lay within the power of the officers of this club. Very well, then, far as it was from my original intention, I present my personal grievance and I claim redress. The vote of censure which the committee has passed upon me I regard as merely a stupid and offensive blunder; the implication conveyed by listening to a servant in relation to a charge against a member is an insult to him as a gentleman, which, to me personally, seems too intolerable to be endured. I came into this club as to a body of gentlemen, and I have a ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... is the one Dickens work of which the date is essential. It is really an important part of the criticism of this book to say that it is his first book. Certain elements of clumsiness, of obviousness, of evident blunder, actually require the chronological explanation. It is biographically important that this is his first book, almost exactly in the same way that it is biographically important that The Mystery of Edwin Drood was his last book. Change or no change, Edwin Drood has this plain point of a last story ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... of the word "bull," for a verbal blunder, involving a contradiction in terms, is of doubtful origin. In this sense it is used with a possible punning reference to papal bulls in Milton's True Religion, "and whereas the Papist boasts himself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the scientific correctness of the expressions used. Metal, I know, will burn in vivid-coloured flame, exposed to galvanic action, but whether it is consumed, I am not sure. Perhaps you or Mr. Taylor can tell me whether there is any blunder in the term employed—if not, it might ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... temporary skipper of the Chih' Yuen, during which he ascertained that the vessel had fortunately struck only very lightly; and, as she had been considerably sheltered from the seas by the part of the reef through which she had somehow managed to blunder before striking, she had not bumped to any extent, and was making but little water. It was therefore to be hoped that her bottom was not so badly injured as Wong-lih had at first anticipated, and that, at the rising of the tide, it might be possible, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... movements, by means of the confederate who awaited his arrival at the station. As it happened, they simply hit upon the wrong person. It might have paid them much better to follow me. The outcome of the blunder is that I am in a fair way towards ascertaining all I want to know about them, whereas, up to the present, they do not even suspect my existence as an active agent ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... would have made some comment; but Hamilton, who now perceived his blunder, which might have a disastrous effect on the attitude of these men toward him, hastened to make a ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... has all been a strange blunder, but it is perfectly clear how it happened. That man Beaton evidently had never seen Frederick Cavendish. He was simply informed that he would leave New York on that train. He met this Cavendish on board, perhaps even saw his signature on the ticket, and cultivated his ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... who could succeed in anything you tried—yes, anything. Perhaps you know the Marquis thought so too, and even today I believe we were nearly right. We saw you in Brussels later, and in Holland, and then at Blanzy this year. I have known of a dozen commissions you have performed without a single blunder. Indeed, I know of only one thing in which you have ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... credit to Massilia, and to revile the "cowardly flight" of the Punic leader. Thus the Romans had for the third time through pure negligence abandoned their allies and an important line of defence; and not only so, but by passing after this first blunder from mistaken slackness to mistaken haste, and by still attempting without any prospect of success to do what might have been done with so much certainty a few days before, they let the real means ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... for my stupidity in speaking her name. Such a blunder! Why, it might have been overheard by anybody on the line. No wonder she left me. Doubtless I had driven her ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... to, the brows of the French officers clouded, and they denounced in angry terms the fatal blunder of the marshal of weakening his centre to strengthen the left against a feigned attack. But the subject soon changed again, for, as the marquis said, "It would be quite time to talk it over tomorrow, when they would know who had fallen, and what were the losses;" for from their position on the left, ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... a jump when an open gate or gap is handy, unless the hounds are going fast. Don't attempt to show in front, unless you feel you can keep there. Beginners, who try to make a display, even if lucky at first, are sure to make some horrid blunder. Go slowly at your fences, except water and wide ditches, and don't pull at the curb when your horse is rising. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the horse will be better without your assistance than with it. Don't wear spurs until you are quite sure that you won't spur at the wrong ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... given us a little more room," he muttered. "However, it will be all right unless we get fog. We might blunder into one another then." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do, for a fact. Perhaps it would be safer to wait. I've made enough trouble for one day by my blunder-headed thoughtlessness." ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... companions it seemed that the expedition had already failed. Through some blunder its plans had evidently become known, and all was ruined. That was the worst of these Cubans; they couldn't keep a secret. Branch stalked the hotel lobby like a restless wraith. O'Reilly was furious. Of the entire party Ramos alone maintained an unruffled pleasantry; he spent ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... a man of business, and very forgetful, or he could not have made such a blunder as this. And there was Flaxie's new and elegant doll, Christie Gretchen, all packed in cotton, in a box by itself, on purpose to ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... thought them, and at sea as to the direction from which they came; so they hid away in a dense new growth of Engelmann spruce. When I rode in sight with rifle ready across my saddle, they lay low, no doubt fearing to blunder into an ambush if ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... to my salon and sat down to reflect on the consequences of my mishap. Of course, it was easy to set the matter right, but what a muddle! I must make haste in the morning to correct my blunder. ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... off the reef, light winds and calms delayed the voyage to the Victoria River; but as the Tom Tough worked along the coast better than the Monarch, I went on with the schooner to examine the entrance of the river. Ascending the Victoria to Blunder Bay, found that the locality was not suited for landing horses, and therefore returned to Treachery Bay, near which Mr. H.C. Gregory had discovered abundance of grass and water under Providence Hill of Captain Stokes; commenced landing the horses on the ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that they were wondering how they could get him to blunder—apparently closed their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He never knew whether he was ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... marching with the purpose to get around the enemy's right flank during the operations that were to succeed the mine explosion, but when I reached General Meade's headquarters I found that lamentable failure had attended the assault made when the enemy's works were blown up in the morning. Blunder after blunder had rendered the assault abortive, and all the opportunities opened by our expedition to the north side were irretrievably lost, so General Meade at once arrested ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with great contempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely when I tell them I have no order to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours."[16] And this scrupulous observance of his orders, at a time when a little excess of zeal was unlikely to be regarded as a very serious blunder, is yet more strikingly illustrated in his next letter, written a week later from Dumfries. In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over the Nith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately set up a large meeting-house. The clergy, as wild against the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... and presently Herbert passed a bent nail to the young detective, and instructed him how to operate on the lock, which speedily yielded to the boy's efforts. In another instant the trap door was thrown up, and, by a most unfortunate blunder, it fell ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... of superstition hugged their chains Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... can't do anything but blunder to-night. I'm all broken up, distracted by conflicting duties and feelings. I picked up important information this evening. The Yankee column, halting in the rich valley to the northwest, have been ranging the country far and near, loading their wagons and resting their horses. They ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... such a minority will not obey parliamentary rules, and, rather than yield to the majority that it will introduce into the debate boos and hisses, insults, threats, and scuffles with daggers, pistols, sabers and even the "blunder busses" of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... am going to let you off so," said he; "you must give me half-a-dozen kisses at least to prove that you have forgiven me for making so great a blunder." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... to think it was time for him to go to bed, when I heard somebody else blunder into my sitter, and in a moment Lambert appeared at the door. Now Lambert, who was only gorgeous by day, frequently became aggressive at night, and I told him to clear out jolly quickly. But instead of doing what he was wanted to he lit a huge cigar, and began smoking the thing ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... from the piratical invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. It includes anger, awe, baffle, bang, bark, bawl, blunder, boulder, box, club, crash, dairy, dazzle, fellow, gable, gain, ill, jam, kidnap, kill, kidney, kneel, limber, litter, log, lull, lump, mast, mistake, nag, nasty, niggard, horse, plough, rug, rump, sale, scald, shriek, skin, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... plain as the nose on your face," said Bates. "That story will come out to-morrow morning, and everybody will say it was the blunder of a newspaper reporter; and then Waterman will come forward and do the rescue act. It'll ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... pachydermatous material and will daily make himself such a nuisance that they'll give him an order, and possibly a long contract, to get rid of him. By a proper system of book-keeping he will also save me from the occasional blunder of sending the same article to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... his subjects was a patriot by saying: "I don't care if he's patriotic for the country, but is he patriotic for me?" Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... King's being a good man. After the unjust assault upon him, and considering the just claims of Tazewell County, as indicated in the letters I inclose you, it would in my opinion be injustice, and withal a blunder, not to appoint him, at least as soon as any one is appointed to either ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... an armed party to the spot. He was exceedingly chagrined by the cruel blunder perpetrated by his envoy. Though he could not blame the Indians, he knew full well that, their vengeance being thus aroused, they would, if they could, doom all to indiscriminate slaughter. It was necessary for him therefore to take the most decisive action in self-defence. The dead were buried. ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... a dryness in the tone of this reply which warned Barrant that he had made a blunder in allowing his irritation to get the better of him. But his private opinion was that the letter was the outcome of some secret of the dead man's which he had imparted to his lawyer. He changed his mood with supple swiftness, in order to extract ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... hurt in his professional pride by the signal failure of his Museum of Marvels in Rabbit township. In the first place, the great impresario had been guilty of a grievous blunder in selecting Rabbit for a two-night's pitch, but things had been going so remarkably well of late, due mainly to the eccentric adventures of the Missing Link, that the boss was getting proud, and was beginning ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... of this good cheer, and my lady's little pearl necklace, there was the family basket-hilt sword, the great Turkish cimiter, the old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... David. Notwithstanding the Hurons were necessarily ignorant of the little channels among the eddies and rapids of the stream, they knew the common signs of such a navigation too well to commit any material blunder. When the pilot chosen for the task of guiding the canoe had taken his station, the whole band plunged again into the river, the vessel glided down the current, and in a few moments the captives found themselves on the south bank of the stream, nearly opposite to the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... would have made an excellent short story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr. PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain it he was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style . . . . The greatest blunder in the printing that I have met with is in page 220, v. 3, where two speeches are made into one. There might as well be no suppers at Longbourn; but I suppose it was the remains of ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... Wellington, the dedication of his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales, all of which are of great excellence. His Charge of the Light Brigade, at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military blunder, must rank as one of the finest ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... through the post, opened it, and, as she expected, found its contents were not of a kind to give her much satisfaction. In fact, in her emotion of anger and indignation she made a false step in her state-craft of a nature one can hardly imagine a person so astute as the Princess making. This blunder ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... should not wonder at his exerting himself for a great reform in the process of inquiry, preaching the method of Induction, and, if he fancied that theologians were indirectly or in any respect the occasion of the blunder, getting provoked for a time, however ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... was, I suppose, a clerical corruption out of Canjus or Cianjus. In the chronicle of St. Antonino, however, we have him called "Chinghiscan rectius Tamgius Cam" (XIX. c. 8). If this is not merely the usual blunder of t for c, it presents a curious analogy to the form Tankiz Khan always used by Ibn Batuta. I do not know the origin of the latter, unless it was suggested by tankis (Ar.) "Turning upside down." (See Pereg. Quat., p. 119; I. B. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... thus kill two birds with one stone), and the Chouan's threats, piqued her curiosity. She left the dirty window from which she could see the formless heap which she knew to be Marche-a-Terre, and returned to the landlord, who was still standing in the attitude of a man who feels he has made a blunder, and does not know how to get out of it. The Chouan's gesture had petrified the poor fellow. No one in the West was ignorant of the cruel refinements of torture with which the "Chasseurs du Roi" punished those who were even suspected of indiscretion; ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... to witness. He was not usually wanting in courage, but the events of the evening had shaken his confidence and his composure. The hope of gain and the fear of loss had deprived him of his wonted clearness of mind. Feeling that he had just committed a terrible blunder, he racked his brain to find some way of repairing it, and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was grossly inefficient. There was not a single member of the Cabinet fitted to carry on war, or able to influence George III. For such a body of men to undertake to direct the operations in America {78} at the distance of 3,000 miles was a worse blunder than it would have been to commit the conduct of the war to any one of the generals in the ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... or sending to you. When you were brought here I was still in durance vile, and Higgins was in his strait-jacket. On being released, my hands were full, as you can suppose. Moreover, I did not learn at once of your detention. The saddle and the valise caused me to suspect that a blunder had been committed. I cannot adequately express my regrets. In ten minutes," continued Dr. Pendegrast, turning a fat gold watch over on its back in the palm of his hand, where it looked like a little yellow turtle, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... still debating this knotty point when a knock at the door apprised him that his expected guests had arrived. Alas! blunder number two trod hard on the heels of number one! He had no tea or coffee, not even a box of biscuits, to take off the edge of the interview and offer a retreat for his own inevitable embarrassment ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... he said. "Stokes was on the right track, but made a bad blunder. You see, his appearance ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... seem to blunder," Gifford said, his face stinging from the cut about friendship. "I never seem to know how to tell the truth without giving offense—but—but, Lois, you know I think you are the best ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... share the spoil. At the appointed hour Bonaparte's agent arrived, and was completely the dupe of these adventurers, who plundered him of twelve hundred thousand livres. Though not many days passed before he discovered the imposition, prudence prevented him from denouncing the impostors; and this blunder would have remained a secret between himself, Bonaparte, and Talleyrand, had not the unusual expenses of Caumartin excited the suspicion of the Russian Police Minister, who soon discovered the source from which they had flowed. De Gausac had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... American correspondent in the paper attacked these attacks on the ground that they were inspired by British Imperialism! Chesterton felt it a little hard to be at this date confused with Kipling. He replied that his correspondent committed "the blunder of an extravagant and excessive admiration for England." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The stranger had uttered words of apology, but his tone had been insolent, and his apology was more offensive than his original blunder. Had it not been for Ben's reluctance to make a disturbance, he would have struck the offender in the mouth. If he had had a pistol, he could have shot him; his great uncle Ralph, for instance, would not have let him ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "Never tell people how you are! They don't want to know." Up to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. One does undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely minimising them. But there is a significance in suffering too. It is not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. It is a deliberate part of the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... case waiting which promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even in the thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff had fired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... been occasioned by anything human, by the co-operation of human circumstances, can be, and invariably is, removed by the same means. Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life. Mix in the world, and in a month's time you will speak to me very differently. A young man, you meet with disappointment; in spite of all your exalted notions of your own powers, you immediately sink under it. If your belief of your powers ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... For instance, he tells us that the cow sheds her horns every two years; a most palpable errour, which Goldsmith has faithfully transferred into his book. It is wonderful that Buffon, who lived so much in the country, at his noble seat, should have fallen into such a blunder. I suppose he has confounded the cow with the deer. BOSWELL. Goldsmith says:—'At three years old the cow sheds its horns and new ones arise in their place, which continue as long as it lives.' Animated Nature, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... in turn handing the pile to her mother, while the others watched, counting each for himself in silence, ready to check any blunder that might be made. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... and distinguished persons and to the youngest student was exactly the same: and to all he showed the same winning courtesy. He would receive with interest the most trifling observation in any branch of natural history; and however absurd a blunder one might make, he pointed it out so clearly and kindly, that one left him no way disheartened, but only determined to be more accurate the next time. In short, no man could be better formed to win the entire confidence of the young, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... I am sorry!" said Penuel, in a tone of great distress. "Mother will be sore troubled. Everybody loves Mistress Benden, and few loveth her master. There's some sorry blunder, be ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... is the fault? Tis not my arrogance, But candor, Lord, that puts the blame on Thee. What right hadst Thou to make these people free And let all nature prompt them to advance?— Oh, no such blunder, Lord, hadst Thou called me, Instead of ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... enough, only you like to make me blunder where you can talk," said my wife, putting her hand in mine. "But I will try. Sometimes, after thinking about something for a long time, you come to a conclusion about it, and you think you have settled it plain and clear ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... those who know next to nothing of it. They know enough to have pedestals of their own; to be on their guard; to have a reputation to maintain; to conceal the "dram of folly;" to be, to that extent, artificial in their relations with men. They dare not betray the "laughable blunder," which, said Charles Lamb, is the test your neighbour giveth you "that he will not betray or ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... what a lovable married lady you would be, who growls at her husband because she has made a blunder. ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... looked on aghast. He knew the danger better than any one. If Alan was spent, Bandmaster might blunder and there would be a nasty spill. He hoped for the best as he watched with his feelings ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... bandages untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or useless, and all wearing that disheartened look which proclaimed defeat more plainly than any telegram, of the Burnside blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them. I yearned to serve the dreariest of ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... it may be urged that those exercises which quicken the action of the thoracic viscera, to any considerable degree, are simply exhaustive. This is another blunder of the "big-muscle" men. They seem to think you can determine every man's constitution and health by the tape-line; and that all exercises whose results are not determinable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of extreme danger would confuse the perceptions, and cloud the intellect of the practitioner, at the very crisis which most called for self-possession, and how strong his temptation would be, if he found that he had committed a blunder, to escape the consequences of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and terrible thought of what sin is, lies in that final word for it, which means 'missing an aim.' How strikingly that puts a truth which siren voices are constantly trying to sing us out of believing! Every sin is a blunder as well as a crime. And that for two reasons, because, first, God has made us for Himself, and to take anything besides for our life's end or our heart's portion is to divert ourselves from our true destiny; and because, second, that being so, every attempt to win satisfaction ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... made some comment; but Hamilton, who now perceived his blunder, which might have a disastrous effect on the attitude of these men toward him, hastened to make a diversion on his ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... who held her mouth open wide, as desired, resolved not to satisfy his curiosity, but to let him blunder on. "Be that as it may, General Clarendon's come to town—fine teeth he has too—and a fine kettle of fish—not very elegant, but expressive still—he and his ward have made, of that marriage announced. Fine ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... See how it can err! Was there ever such a boundless, unlimited blunder in the whole annals of penny fiction? Probably not. I remember nothing like it in all the learned pages of the London Journal and the Family Herald. Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Braddon never dreamed of aught like this. Philippa ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... Reading, "and quite worthy of your closest observation. You see that on the under part of each step is a sentence quite perfectly spelt; but this, of course, cannot be seen when the ladder is placed by a wall. On the upper part appears the same sentence, but with many a blunder in it to try your powers of recollection. You must study the ladder well before you attempt to mount it, and get the right spelling fixed in your mind, so as to make no mistakes. Then, before putting your foot upon any step, you must spell the sentence upon it; if you correct every ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... alarm first. He had been furtively repairing the viewscreen and thinking dark thoughts the while. There was sick dread for him in the contemplation of the future, for after this last unfortunate blunder DeCastros would be certain to keep his promise and have him examined. This might very well be his last voyage, and Mr. Wordsley had known for quite a long time that he could not live anywhere except ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... polite a husband, but I suppose they are all so the first fortnight, especially when married in so interesting and romantic a manner; I am very fond of the fancy of being thus married as it were; but I have a notion I shall blunder it out very soon: we were married on a party to Three Rivers, nobody with us but papa and Madame Villiers, who have not yet published the mystery. I hear some misses at Quebec are scandalous about Fitzgerald's being so much here; I will leave them in doubt a little, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... was there. Fleda sat a little apart from the rest, industriously bending over a complicated piece of embroidery belonging to Constance and in which that young lady had made a great blunder which she declared her patience unequal to the task of rectifying. The conversation went gayly forward among the others; Fleda taking no part in it beyond an involuntary one. Mr. Carleton's part was rather reserved and grave; according to his manner ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... requirements of practical politics. But their power to-day is wholly irresponsible and hence dangerous. Lay on them the responsibility of legislating, with all the criticism and odium of a constituency and a party, in case they make some blunder, and you render them wiser in judgment and more deliberate in action. To secure this large disfranchised class as allies to one of the leading parties would be a wise measure for that party and bring a new element ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... furiously, and Ruth, turning to him, saw it. She flushed too, fearing to have made she knew not what blunder, but she went on seriously, not pausing ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... prosecution of his northern tour, and had thus the mortification of ascertaining that he had been in his neighbourhood, without having formed his personal acquaintance. To Mr Skinner's son, whom he accidentally met in Aberdeen on his return, he expressed a deep regret for the blunder, as "he would have gone twenty miles out of his way to visit the author ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... seems no reason to question the accuracy of these dates; although Spotiswood marks Wishart's execution as having taken place on the 2d of March 1546; and Mr. Tytler says the 28th, adopting an evident blunder in the "Diurnal of Occurrents," where the 28th of March, instead of the 28th of February, is given as the day when the Council was held for Wishart's trial and condemnation. His execution took place on the following day. I observe that at ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... indissoluble is essential to our national existence. If that be not so, we have neither a flag nor a country,—we can neither contract a debt nor make a treaty,—we have neither honor abroad nor strength at home,—our experiment of free government is a blunder and a failure, and for us, "Chaos has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... solemn gossip with some neighbor that lived on the opposite shore of the lake. And once a raven, roosting on the dry bough of a lightning-blasted pine, dreamed that the white moonlight was the light of dawn, and began to stir his sable wings, and croak a harsh welcome; but awakened by his blunder, and ashamed of his mistake, he broke off in the very midst of his discordant call, and again settled gloomily down amid his black plumes to his interrupted repose, making by his sudden silence the surrounding ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... is a clever man. He would not have made such a blunder as our friend Drake, and Spencer Smith. I hear, the last is coming, via Trieste, to Malta. Perhaps, he wants to get to Constantinople; and, if the Spencers get in, the Smiths ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... darkness in his head Thinks Wit the devil, and curses books unread. For twice ten winters has he blunder'd on, Thro' heavy comments, yet ne'er lost nor won: Much may be done in twenty winters more, And let him then learn English at threescore. No sacred Maro glitters on his shelf, He wants the mighty Stagyrite ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... cried Mr Temple; "but what I want is less sorrow and more care. You blunder on at everything instead of making a bit of a calculation first so as to see what you are ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... individuals cannot do for themselves. That is the very end of government. Why else have we a government? Can individuals make a currency? Can individuals regulate money? The distinction is as broad and plain as the Pennsylvania Avenue. No man can mistake it, or well blunder out of it. The gentleman asks if government must furnish for the people ships, and boats, and wagons. Certainly not. The gentleman here only recites the President's message of September. These things, and all such things, the people can furnish for themselves; but they ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... want to make demands upon the usual sources for help until he had exhausted all other means of redeeming his folly in not learning Carmencita's full name and address before he left her. Was a man's whole life to be changed, to be made or unmade, by whimsical chance or by stupid blunder? In the gray dawn of a new day he reached his home and went to bed for a few ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... I myself made a stupid blunder in thinking that Indians could do service in Tibet, I am justified in claiming that Lord Charles Beresford made ten times as stupid a blunder when he expressed the hope of seeing "Indian lances roaming the streets of Berlin and the little brown Gurkas making themselves ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... June," replied the girl with eager promptness, that must have come from shame from the blunder she had made. Lemuel was twenty, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... army tone; he meant to be punctiliously polite; perhaps he was a little stiff in his politeness. But he was young, had had small practice in society, was somewhat hampered by modesty, and so sometimes made a blunder. Such things annoyed him excessively; a breach of etiquette seemed something like a breach of orders; hadn't meant to charge Coronado with drawing the long bow; couldn't help coloring about it. Didn't think much of Coronado, but stood somewhat in awe of him, as being four ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... he's not talking to the rest and bid him look where I'm sitting. There's a shilling ready for you if you don't blunder." ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... it happened—his mind might have been running on an illustrated edition of the cash accounts of Messrs. Pigott & Co.—but at last Ted made an arithmetical blunder so unprecedented, so astounding, that a commercial career was closed to him for ever. "Stupidity is excusable," said Uncle James. "If you had been stupid, I would have forgiven you; but you have ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... aloud before such a woman as Mrs. Ready. Who will venture to excuse such an eccentric proceeding? Would not the whole world blame you for your incorrigible blunder? It had, however, one good effect. It quickly cleared the room of your intrusive guest; who swept out of the apartment with a haughty "Good morning." And well she might be offended; she had accidentally heard ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby will be highly gratified. In fact, Miss Ponsonby, I must confess that was a most unfortunate blunder of mine last August. I should not have fallen into the error had I not been so long absent at Guayaquil that I had had no opportunity of judging of the amiable lady; and I will own to much natural surprise and some indignation, before I had had the pleasure of ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... incredible mare's-nest Goethe finds in looking for the origin of Byron's Manfred,—these are things from which no deliberate care or reflection can save a man; only an instinct can save him from them, an instinct that they are absurd; who can imagine Charles Lamb making Herr Gervinus's blunder, or Shakspeare making Goethe's? but from the sheer German nature this intuitive tact seems something so alien, that even genius fails to give it. And yet just what constitutes special power and genius in a man seems often to be his blending ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... frequently to our regret, that nut growing is a slow and at times a discouraging business. If we are honest with ourselves we have to admit failures again and again; yet the work is creative and fascinating. We always plan to eliminate some blunder, to perfect some method, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... life in general there is but one decree. Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret. Do not suppose,' he added, smiling, 'that I hold that youth is genius; all that I say is, that genius, when young, is divine. Why, the greatest captains of ancient and modern times both conquered Italy at five-and-twenty! Youth, extreme youth, overthrew ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... asked Libby, in quite a different tone. If she recognized the difference, she was meekly far from resenting it; he, however, must have wished to repair his blunder. "I think you need n't have given up the case to him. I think you're too ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thought for a moment that the rabble would have attacked the Tower. We supposed, of course, that the drawbridge would be raised as soon as we had passed over it, but whether the order was not given for it or whether it was misunderstood I know not, but the blunder has cost the lives of the archbishop, the lord treasurer, and others, the insult to the princess, and the disgrace of the Tower having been in the hands of this rascaldom. Well, I must be off there and see what ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... you have quite finished?" he said. "If so, listen to me. I am moving in the dark. Is it my fault that I blunder? By the merest accident I have already committed a hideous faux pas. You ought to ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if I didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of another's failure, is the only one to live. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... of this classical blunder of so many eminent annotators is, that these words are not to be found in the usual college and school editions of Euripides. The edition from which the above correct extract is made is in ten volumes, published at Padua in 1743-53, with an Italian translation in verse by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... executing a new turn, he dove aside and came up fairly behind the nearest Boche. Without hesitation he began to spray the enemy with a shower of their own bullets. It was indeed lucky the new cartridges fitted. It was merely one blunder committed by the extra efficient Germans in converting British weapons to ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... pipe, which never had seemed so sweet. But, for all of its solace, he was disturbed by the thought that perhaps he had made a blunder which had placed him in a false light with Miss Horton—only he thought of her as Agnes, just as if he had the right. For there were only occasions on which Dr. Slavens admitted himself to be a fizzle in the big fireworks of the world. That was a charge which he sometimes laid to himself ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... crime does not do so much mischief as the man who turns the criminal into a hero. Frederic Graham did a weak, wicked, mean, and cowardly deed, not being in his general nature weak, wicked, mean, or cowardly, and was allowed to blunder on to a tolerable sort of something like happiness in the end. No one has a right to complain, for all of us get a great deal more and better than we deserve. We have no right to complain of Providence, but we have a right to complain ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... words. I will not urge that all speakers would reasonably be called upon to render such an account, if any of their words were spoken for money; I only say this. If Aeschines in his private capacity has spoken wildly on some occasion or committed some blunder, do not be over-strict with him, but let it pass and grant him pardon: but if as your ambassador he has deliberately deceived you for money, then do not let him go, or tolerate the plea that he ought not to be called to account for what ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... became pale and faint, I thought you must have meditated the death of your wife, and with such design had given her a double dose which you intended should be fatal. I put the vial in my pocket, so that my servant's blunder might not be brought up against him or me. But Mauer," cried Jonathan, in a voice of frenzy, "when I stood by Don Manuel's death-bed and discovered your guilty love for Inez, while your wife stood in your way, everything ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I felt certain your superior English would tell in the long run in such a miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that delicious blunder about the 'university' of the Exodus instead of the 'anniversary,' and I went about laughing over it in all the best circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... replied slowly, with contracted brow, "you are giving me much to think about. I fear I have been as stupid as I have been bad. My whole life seems one wretched blunder." ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... dissemble his startled expression in a grin that revealed his white teeth. "Ye can't forgive me that blunder, Mr. Caryll," said he. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... quarrel with the old man, so I listened politely to all he said. But this did not propitiate him, and I soon found him so jealous as to be a nuisance. He was Colonial-born and was always airing the fact. He rejoiced in my rawness, and when I made a blunder would crow over it for hours. 'It's no good, Mr Crawfurd; you new chums from England may think yourselves mighty clever, but we men from the Old Colony can get ahead of you every time. In fifty years you'll maybe learn a little about the country, but we know all about it before we start.' He roared ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... was given as the heroine of the story. How could I do otherwise, not having the original text in front of me? How could I suspect that an entomologist of Lacordaire's standing should be capable of such a blunder as to substitute a Sphex for a Common Wasp? Great was my perplexity, in the face of this evidence! A Sphex capturing a Fly was an impossibility; and I blamed the British scientist accordingly. But what insect was it that Erasmus Darwin saw? Calling logic to my aid, I declared ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... enclosure. Yet one has also the feeling that such magnificence is right: to so lovely a word as Arundel, to the Premier Duke and Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, should fittingly fall this far-spreading and comely pleasaunce. Had Arundel Park been small and empty of deer what a blunder it ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... never been seriously assailed in India, and they therefore rushed to the conclusion that, if the pax Britannica had been so rudely and suddenly shaken, the only possible explanation lay in some novel wave of sentiment or some grievous administrative blunder which had abruptly disturbed the harmonious relations between the rulers and the ruled. People had forgotten that disaffection in varying forms and degrees of intensity has existed at all times amongst certain sections of the population, and under the conditions of our ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... "Stoke Church, east end, with tablet to Gray," when, in fact, it represents the tomb-stone at the end of the church, under which Gray and his mother are interred. The tablet to Gray is quite another thing, that was lately inserted in the wall of the church; but by some extraordinary blunder it records his death as having taken place on the 1st of August, while on the sarcophagus it is stated to have occurred on the 30th of July. Neither the one nor the other is correct. The Gentleman's Magazine for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... My blunder was this, I travelled to Bayreuth with an ideal in my breast, and was thus doomed to experience the bitterest disappointment. The preponderance of ugliness, grotesqueness and ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... Aunt Agatha to blunder into the wrong camp. And surely it was like Philip to win her favor ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... had her trials of the same character. Nothing ever annoyed her so much as a little blunder she made, the week after the opening of the session. I have not yet mentioned that there was already a universal dissatisfaction among the women, on account of their being liable to military service. The war seemed to have ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... tears of joy, and we all maintained the pious and serious aspect suited to the occasion, until the time arrived for the novice to step forward, when, lo! Father Panizzoni advanced with open arms toward the place where I stood, mistaking me for my brother; a blunder which for a moment imperiled ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... I was in trade, and had a good business. That's what you should have said. That's what you would have said had you been worth your salt. But it's blunder, blunder, outside and in (upstairs, down-stairs, and in my lady's chamber). You women! Did ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was a political blunder. It stirred up the embers of Napoleonism. Ten years later they blazed ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... hoof-beats, but neither the colonel nor his junior officer seems to notice them. Abbot's thoughts are evidently far away, and he makes no reply. The surgeon who sanctions his return to field duty yet a while would, to all appearances, be guilty of a professional blunder. The lieutenant's face is pale and thin; his hand looks very fragile and fearfully white in contrast with the bronze of his cheek. He leans his head upon his hand as he gazes away into the distance, and the colonel stands attentively regarding ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... am afraid, Captain, that I have made a blunder. Mrs. Dillon came to me—most kindly of course—and made an offer to take care of a booth at the bazaar, and I refused her. You know my feeling against giving these ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... second time. On the contrary, she begged pardon in real regret at having given such deep offence to her brother and his wife, and in astonishment that so simple an action could offend. She had made an equally distressing blunder in the early days of her life with the Gresleys by taking up the daily paper on its arrival in ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... thing, however, I must steadily caution you. All kinds of colour are equally illegitimate, if you think they will allow you to alter at your pleasure, or blunder at your ease. There is no vehicle or method of colour which admits of alteration or repentance; you must be right at once, or never; and you might as well hope to catch a rifle bullet in your hand, and put it straight, when it was going wrong, as to recover a tint once spoiled. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... shoulder, and gently shook him to and fro; "Well, it surprises me," he said; then, after a pause, "I have been accustomed to think both celibacy and marriage good in their way. In the Church of Rome great good, I see, comes of celibacy; but depend on it, my dear Reding, you are making a great blunder if you are for introducing ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... modern to be of much interest. Crimean heroes were veterans when they, as guests at my father's table, fought their battles o'er again. The Great Eastern steamship was quite an old white elephant of the sea when I, held up in my nurse's arms, saw Brunel's blunder pass Greenore Point. I was hardly eligible for "Etons" when our present King was married. When first taken to church I was most interested, as standing on tiptoe on the seat in our square family pew, and peering ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. "Pedro," he said, "was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of the ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... Had to shoot a man—got us all in wrong, you simps! Nobody home!" He waggled his head and flapped his hands in drunken self-righteousness, because he had not possessed a gun and therefore could not have committed the blunder of shooting ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... ridiculous!" Joe blurted out. "Yetmore isn't over-scrupulous, I dare say, but he's a long way from being a fool, and he'd never make such a blunder as to steal the ore and then use his own horse and cart to carry ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... it was to see Dick's mother and sister rise, also, and turn to Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized some blunder he had made. Nell's white, appealing face gave him a pang. What had he done? Surely this family of Dick's ought to know his relation to Nell. There was a silence that ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... loss not to be confirmed at school, which for the time is the centre of their energies, their hopes, their disappointments and their temptations; but the loss to the masters who share their preparation would be irreparable. They may sometimes blunder from want of knowledge and experience, but their will to help is strong, and perhaps not least persuasive when ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... the scullery door suddenly flashed upon the cobbles again. It was too late now to do anything but escape. He heard the ostler shout behind him, and came into the road. She was up and dim already. He got into the saddle without a blunder. In a moment the ostler was in the gateway with a full-throated "HI! sir! That ain't allowed;" and Hoopdriver was overtaking the Young Lady in Grey. For some moments the earth seemed alive with shouts of, "Stop 'em!" and the shadows with ambuscades ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... spoke, the eyes of the king rested unequivocally upon an object which he perceived just behind the chair of the duchess. She understood, and hastened to repair her blunder. "Sire," said she "may I ask of your majesty a favor? My new lady of the bedchamber has just arrived in Paris, where she is a perfect stranger. Will you be so gracious as to give her this proof of your royal favor? She is not ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... monument to the insight and generous enthusiasm of the gentleman whose name is rightly connected with its own in its official title—"The Zetter-Madonna of Solothurn." And it smiles with Holbein's own undebased handiwork throughout. Pace Woltmann's blunder,—its network of fine cracks, even over the Virgin's face, attests that it has suffered no over-painting. The work has been mounted on a solid back, the greatest fissures and the holes filled up to match their surroundings, the stains and defacements of neglect ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... already worked upon Sir Edward's mind about his Minister to Mexico as far as I could. Now that the other matter is settled and while Carden is behaving, I go at it. Two years ago Mr. Knox made a bad blunder in protesting against Carden's "anti-Americanism" in Cuba. Mr. Knox sent Mr. Reid no definite facts nor even accusations to base a protest on. The result was a failure—a bad failure. I have again asked Mr. Bryan for all the definite reports he has heard about ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Rome, but privately advised him not to do so, and, in consequence, was put to death by Mithridates (Plut. Luc. 22). The word Scepsii ([Greek: Skepsiou]) was introduced by Gronovius for the unintelligible word Syrpie found in the MSS., which so often blunder in Greek names.] ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the custom on such occasions, were committing adultery with their eyes, some with their hands, others making assignations for the same purpose, and doing various other things profitable to your kingdom, made his appearance to play his own part; by which blunder, he drove every one from taking his pleasure to praying. In like manner did this numskull act; for, whilst journeying over the world, on hearing two wenches talking of walking round the church at night, in order to see their sweethearts, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... of Audela is my kingdom, and very often, just for the sport's sake, do I and my servitors go secretly among you. As human beings we blunder about your darkened shadow world, bound by the laws of sight and sense, but keeping always in our hearts the secrets of Audela and the secret of our manner of returning thither. Sometimes, too, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... window sills with his jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful loneliness and level of the Divide. Milton made a sad blunder when he put mountains in hell. Mountains postulate faith and aspiration. All mountain peoples are religious. It was the cities of the plains that, because of their utter lack of spirituality and the mad caprice of their ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... the heights which with anointed eyes they saw. To us, their children, belongs the work to build up the living reality of what they conceived and uttered. It is not our mission to criticise the past. Nations, like individuals, must blunder and repent. It is not wise to waste our energy in vain regret, but from each failure we should rise up with renewed conscience and courage for nobler action. The follies and faults of yesterday ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Volunteers with a force for the defence of Ireland," this scheme was immediately rejected by the War Office authorities who, in their efforts to gain Irish recruits—and I write with perfect knowledge of the facts—were guilty of every imaginable blunder and every possible insult to ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... was a big thing. I fail to see why you should admire Blake just because he happened to blunder on the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... have altered to Martin, as you prescribed; the blunder was my own, as well as a more considerable one, that of Lord Sandwich's death—which was occasioned by my supposing, at first, that the translation of Barba was made by the second Earl, whose death I had marked in the list, and forgot to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... ordinary merchantman, even with a strong crew, undoubtedly death and destruction, while even with our well-armed men and guns I began to have doubts. A slip in the manoeuvres, ever so slight a mistake on Captain Thwaites' part, or a blunder in the carrying out of his orders, might give one vessel the chance to make fast, and while we were arresting their onslaught there would be time for the others to get close in and throw their scores of ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... and swollen from the tightness of the cord that bound them. Catherine maintained her attitude of artless simplicity, which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. He stood pensively in the middle of the salon, his hand on the hilt of his sabre, his eye on the two Parisians. The Durieus, also stupefied, and the other servants of the chateau ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... more pachydermatous material and will daily make himself such a nuisance that they'll give him an order, and possibly a long contract, to get rid of him. By a proper system of book-keeping he will also save me from the occasional blunder of sending the same article ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... and it was touching to see how Sylvia treated him. She had, it appeared, conceived the idea that the calamity must be due to some blunder on his part, and then she had reflected that he was young, and that chance had thrown upon him a responsibility for which he had not bargained. He must be reproaching himself bitterly, so she had to persuade him that it was really not ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... judged because of the mere quantity he can take, for a quart of ale to him is really no more than a glass of wine to the 'City' gentleman who lives delicately. He is to be pitied rather than condemned, and aided out of the blunder rather than chastised. Punishment, indeed, waits upon him only too doggedly, and overtakes him too quickly in the shape of sorrows and privations at home. The evil lies not in the ale, but in the character of the man that sold him the ale, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Charles saw it all, ridiculed his peculations, but called him his "bed of down." His knowledge of human nature was however derived from a contemplation mainly of its weaknesses, and was therefore one-sided. He was often deceived, and made many a fatal blunder, shrewd politician though he was. He involved himself often in enterprises which could not be honorable or profitable, and which inflicted damage on his greatest interests. He often offended men who might have been useful friends, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... desirous that one of the race, so long distinguished in the cause of freedom for her intellectual worth as Mrs. Harper has had the honor of being, should not at this late date in life make a blunder which might detract from her own good name, I naturally proposed to await developments before deciding too quickly in favor of giving encouragement ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... endeavoured to show that Lord Mansfield was its foster-parent; and a scene of mutual recrimination took place between them, in which other noble lords took an active part. Each one strove to lay the blame upon the shoulders of their opponents—all feeling that a blunder had been committed, which was likely to lead to the most disastrous consequences. This stormy altercation, however, terminated by the house agreeing to the address of the commons by a majority of nearly four to one. The king's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... By some unaccountable blunder he had made her cry. What was it he had said? Only a minute ago she had been so radiant and smiling. His first thought was of Porter; she must not know. This crying must be stopped before she heard it. Any moment she might ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... feared I should be taken for a Turk and shot at, or that my neck would be broken in the difficult passes of the mountains; but in this case the excellent animal I rode served me most faithfully and never made a blunder. Oh Maria [Footnote: His stepsister.]! and ye lovers of horseflesh, how you would have praised and petted this animal had you ridden him; pitch dark on my return, nearly perpendicular flights of stone and not a false step! ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... the better of her for a minute or two. She was very angry with herself, would never forgive herself, she said, if by her own trivial fault she had thrown away this favor of kind Fortune. What must she do, what could she do, to retrieve her blunder? Where seek for him? How find him? She quivered, grew hot and cold again with excitement. Should she go to the Green Square?—he was sure to visit that quarter. Then she remembered a high window in the canon's house that commanded the open spaces round the cathedral; she would ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Rose had drawn the hood of her waterproof over her head, and her face gleamed an indistinct whiteness from its shelter. Oh this leaping pulse—this bright glow of expectation! How had she made this stupid blunder about his going? Oh, it was Catherine's mistake, of course, at the beginning. But what matter? Here they were in the dark, side by side, friends now, friends always. Catherine should not spoil their ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Eunice Plympton, and Maria Moorehouse, whose eyes he thought so bright, and whom he always saw home from meeting on Sunday nights; and so it never occurred to him that this was his offense. But Melinda knew, and her red cheeks burned scarlet as she tried to cover her brother's blunder by modestly urging Ethelyn to favor ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Parliament, which met again in February 1677 after a prorogation of fifteen months. The Country party stood in the way of such a reconciliation, but Danby resolved to break its strength by measures of unscrupulous vigour for which a blunder of Shaftesbury's gave an opportunity. Shaftesbury despaired of bringing the House of Commons, elected as it had been fifteen years before in a moment of religious and political reaction, to any steady opposition ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... indicate homely tastes, an affectionate disposition, great perspicuity of perception, much force of character; and Franceska's, scarcely yet formed, showed that she was affectionate, romantic, and, of all things in the world, fond of horses and of boating. Emilia's was held as a great blunder, for she was said to have an eye devoted to temporal advantages, also volatile, yet of great determination, triumphing over every obstacle, and in ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
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