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More "Misinterpret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admits is never dangerous, consisting, usually, in pressing the truth too far. It is quite easy, for instance, to take an accidental irregularity in a piece of architecture, which less careful examination would never have detected at all, for an intentional irregularity; quite possible to misinterpret an obscure passage in a picture, which a less earnest observer would never have tried to interpret. But mistakes of this kind—honest, enthusiastic mistakes—are never harmful; because they are always made in a true direction,—falls forward on the road, not into the ditch beside it; and they ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... in reply, "we had better stop this letter-writing before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear that you will fail to understand why I ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "You misinterpret me, Gaston. This is not a jest. I had always intended to marry as soon as I could spare the time, and now that this treaty is disposed of, my opportunity has beyond doubt arrived. I am practically at leisure until the autumn. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... said Mr. Smith, still sobbing; "you misinterpret my grief. This party was in no way akin to me except under that common descent from the old Adam which makes all humanity brothers and sisters. I did not know deceased, nor ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... I would not forgive Elizabeth," returned he with earnestness. "Had I known I would have delayed seeking an audience but methought it was your wish that I should come to you upon my first arrival. Forgive me that I did misinterpret ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... direct our attention to the reality which he believes we all actually know already, but misinterpret and disregard because we are biassed by preconceived ideas. To do this Bergson has to offer some description of what this reality is, and this description will be intelligible only if we are willing and able to make a profound change in our attitude, to lay aside the old assumptions ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen
... But misinterpret not my speech, I pray; All this of men, not women, do I say; For men it is, that come and spoil the lives Of such, as but for them, would make good wives. They leave their own wives, be they never so fair, Never so true, never so debonair, And take the lowest they ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... a rude log hut on the brink of a cliff, curiously watching my movements on the plain. Thankful, now, that the postmaster's cow had gone dry, and that these observant mountaineers had not had an opportunity to misinterpret my conduct, I at once hurried toward the hill, hopeful that at the top some bovine might be housed, whose product could lawfully be acquired. But after a long and laborious climb, over shifting stones and ragged ledges, I was met with the discouraging ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... that if he spoke roughly it was only an expression of the smothered pain of his mental crucifixion. He could not tell her he loved her for fear she might misinterpret her own sentiments. Besides, her present mood was not inductive to any declaration on his part; a confession might serve only to widen the breach. Who could say that it wasn't Cunningham's game to take Jane ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... me if I write to you on this matter? I say nothing but in the most friendly spirit, and I have some confidence that you will not misinterpret what I am doing. Lord Derby has only about one-third of the House of Commons with him—and it is impossible by any management, or by any dissolution, to convert this minority into a majority. His minority in the House is greater and more powerful than it is in the country—and any ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... contrary, steal over his open, generous countenance; but the recruiting officer maintained an air of immovable coolness and composure. Twenty times did he detect the piercing looks of Katherine fastened on him, with an intentness that a less deliberative man might have had the vanity to misinterpret; but even this flattering testimonial of his power to attract failed to disturb his self-possession. It was in vain that Katherine endeavored to read his countenance, where everything was fixed in military rigidity, though his deportment appeared more than usually easy and natural. Tired at ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... misinterpret a very inoffensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, to—pick up my hat, which you are in the act of stepping on." Miss Galbraith hastily turns, and strikes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... differently from her meaning; perhaps he chose to misinterpret it; at all events he stooped forward and kissed her. It brought a flash of colour into Eleanor's face, and she went up stairs much more angry with her suitor than her last words had spoke her. The angry mood faded ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... assurance, as to the alumni of its Agricultural College. Educated at public expense and in an institution of higher learning that stands specifically for all-round rural improvement and rural patriotism, the students that go out from this college cannot misinterpret their duties nor fail to understand the responsibilities they assume as graduates of the North Dakota Agricultural College. Nor is their field of labor an unenviable one. It may at times seem irksome, even discouraging, but nevertheless it ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... precipitate, guileless indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. Sir Hugo's hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition might have neglected; but that Gwendolen's reliance on him was unvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her was as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his sense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing incompatible claim on him in her mind. There was a foreshadowing ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... thoughts, Mademoiselle," replied Lewis, with a continental bow, and an air of pretended respect, "induces me to suppose that your words misinterpret them." ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... some native can and will lend you a slave to help you or when you can buy one—which, under ordinary circumstances is a very doubtful practice, as, though in buying the person you are literally freeing him, the natives are apt to misinterpret the motive, and unless you are very fortunate in your purchase, the slave may bring you into conflict with the powers that be, owing to their law which recognises no freedom except that conferred by birth. After all this is seen to day by day, where is the time and ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... hath been thought somewhat too bold upon courtiers. And although it is highly probable, he meant only the courtiers of former times, yet he acted unwarily, by not considering that the malignity of some people might misinterpret what he said to the disadvantage of present persons, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he said, "I think you'd better walk, if ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... remained next day, when connection with the army had again been made. Nothing more than scouting parties and patrols from Forrest's column had gone north of Mount Carmel during the day. The adventures of the march had emphasized the danger that a preconceived opinion of probabilities may make an officer misinterpret such real facts as he may learn, or let very slight evidence take the place of thorough knowledge got by bold contact with the enemy. The experience also teaches how sure mischiefs are to follow the forgetfulness of the principle that, in such operations, it is the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... add, for the sake of the reader who may be prone to misinterpret, that our behaviour was quite innocent, as we lay about ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... played with her fan. The dull, slow rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. She ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... she cried. And then eagerly, as though she feared he might misinterpret, "Still, I ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... But do not misinterpret her edict. She emancipates from the lower only to call to the higher. She does not bid the world go and play while she does the work. She emancipates the muscles only to employ the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... it occurred to her that he must have been unlike himself the night before, and that she, in her blind self-absorption, had noticed nothing. Remorse pricked her heart and gave additional warmth to her manner,—a fact which he was quick to perceive, and to misinterpret. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Lunacy can only be granted when a man's actions are devoid of reason; but in this case, the remittances made to you have a reason based on the most sacred and most honorable motives. Hence you may keep it all without remorse, and leave the world to misinterpret a noble action. In Paris, the highest virtue is the object of the foulest calumny. It is, unfortunately, the present condition of society that makes the Marquis' actions sublime. For the honor of my ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... conditions of a Christian People, like "The Task" or the "Night Thoughts." Their religion is that of revelation—it acknowledges no other source but the word of God. To that word, in all difficulty, distress, and dismay, these poets appeal; and though they may sometimes, or often, misinterpret its judgment, that is an evil incident to finite intelligence; and the very consciousness that it is so, inspires a perpetual humility that is itself a virtue found to accompany only a ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... 'your own fault,' viz. in having to read sentences which, but for your commands, would have been blotted out. You could not very well take that for serious blame! from me too, who have so much reason and provocation for blaming the archangel Gabriel.—No—you could not misinterpret so,—and if you could not, and if you are not displeased with me, you must be unwell, I think. I took for granted yesterday that you had gone out as before—but to-night it is different—and so I come to ask you to be kind enough to ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... in which the woman said this left no doubt in the man's mind of her meaning. She was not trifling with him now, he knew. In her low-voiced words he found no trace of banter, of sophistry, nor of aught that he might in any wise misinterpret. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a representative ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... in fact. We cull a flower here and there; we pluck an herb fresh from the hand of the Creator. We look, so to speak, from Nature to Nature's God.' Yes, my young friend, we should be the first to repel the foul calumny that could misinterpret ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... since parting with the two men who were metaphorically at her feet. Since the telegram she had not received a word from her father or any one, and was inwardly chafing at the dead calm that had followed her exciting experiences. She did not misinterpret the deceptive peace, however, and knew that on the morrow she must decide what even she regarded as the most momentous question of life. Persons under the dominion of pure selfishness escape many perplexities, however, and she ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Henrietta. 'Dearest Digby,' she continued, after a moment's hesitation, 'do not misinterpret me; my heart, if such a heart be worth possessing, is yours. I can never forget who solaced me in my misery; I can never forget all your delicate tenderness, Digby. Would that I could make a return to you more worthy of all your goodness; ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... thou such a step? A wicked step Ne'er will he take; but thou mightest easily, Yea, thou hast done it, misinterpret him. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... speeches and congratulations, and the scene was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult," whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision, only needed time to unite races, and ultimately to extend around the globe. To her it signified ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... passion stirs in their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain bodies ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... juncture, and, bowing to the trio, left the room. After his departure, the eyes of the first comers turned to Jackson, as one who had just felt the mettle of Carter's steel. The half smile which had been on Carter's face Jackson was perfectly willing to misinterpret. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it, according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; but when he finds himself ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... sacred friendship may harbor secrets, but you ought not to misinterpret the secret of a friend because you can not ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... sincere speech—an indirect expression of deep concern that reflected no little credit upon the speaker's generosity. Tom was exasperated, therefore, when Jerry, by some characteristic process of crooked reasoning, managed to misinterpret it. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... wouldn't," she interrupted, quietly. "To the end of time he would judge me by the past. He would label me 'woman to beware of' and my most innocent actions, my most impulsive attempts to show forth my true and better self he would entirely misinterpret, brilliant man though he is. Nigel, believe ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... sure to interpret indecision as cowardice, if not as an unwilling tribute to that superiority of which men who really possess it are the last to boast. They have learned nothing from the war but to hate the men who subdued them, and to misinterpret and misrepresent the causes of their subduing; and even now, when a feeling has been steadily growing in the rest of the country for the last nine months deeper and more intense than any during the war, because mixed with an angry sense ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems impossible to evade it longer. To discover the nature of Man and the laws ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... would excite but little, if any, tragic interest if it were not the condition of a nature distinguished by that speculative genius on which the Schlegel-Coleridge type of theory lays stress. Such theories misinterpret the connection between that genius and Hamlet's failure, but still it is this connection which gives to his story its peculiar fascination and makes it appear (if the phrase may be allowed) as the symbol of a tragic mystery inherent in human nature. Wherever this mystery touches us, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... object, or thing that will reflect rays of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has already secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes. Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor boon; which will waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... by the rules of his art, and the character to be sustained, to put a run of bold sentiments in the mouth of one of his persons, the people instantly took fire, charging the poet with the imputed villainy, as though it had been his own. Now if such an audience could so easily misinterpret an attention to the truth of character into the real doctrine of the poet, and this too, when a Chorus was at hand to correct and disabuse their judgments, what must be the case, when the whole ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... 'You strangely misinterpret my confidence,' was my reply; 'and if you had at all appreciated my character, you would understand that I can take no money ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... acquaintances and continnad anoyances. now if you think you could accept my services, they are honorably tendered and would be kindly and heartily given. Pleas to inform me at the earliest conveniance. Pleas to not misinterpret my intentions. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... this government on May 29 of a statement regarding the nationalist aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of this statement, the Secretary of State to-day further announces the position of the United States ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... speak it not as touching this poor person; 50 But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... hand of God struck it, it would have learned that from God alone could come healing and health. The unrest which betrays the presence in our souls of a deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger. We terribly misinterpret the true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away from our Assyria. The true issue of Ephraim's sickness would have been the penitent ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... it is a truth which Protestantism is apt to misinterpret, and which Catholicism finds it expedient to ignore—that religion is not a branch or department of human life, but a way of looking at life as a whole. Indeed, it is of the essence of religion (as has been already suggested) that it should look at life as a whole, and so be ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... feeling that caressing arm about her, and fired by it in her hapless passion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to translate his attitude into one of a kindness far beyond his dreams. She nestled closer to him; at his bidding her weeping died ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... ceremony is to be strictly private, and you are so to arrange our affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives, if we stay in our own country, in a manner which would be unendurable to a woman ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... evidently regarded us both as mere acquaintances, inevitably, perhaps even tenderly, bound up with this time; and as such, claiming a more than ordinary place in her regard and remembrance. No man with common sense or common feeling could for a moment dare to misinterpret the emotion she showed. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... me such a sacred thing that I felt that any reference to it on my part would be like a profane touch; but I was sure you would not misinterpret my silence or my absence, and would know that you were never long ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... that the Southern whites will, as a rule, misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to underrate its importance, and those who appreciate its significance are apt to look for temporary and superficial remedies. The vague promises made at the Vicksburg ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... again near, the doctor said, "I will leave you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because you misinterpret ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... my mind; I shall send him an answer. These Bourbons are so blind that this one would misinterpret my silence." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... cousin," said he, "your clemency will excuse my answer, and you will not misinterpret the apparent discourtesy of my conduct. I am compelled, most unwillingly, to slight your charms, and to select the Extreme Rigour of the Law. Executioner, lead on! Do your duty; for me, Prigio est pret;"—for this was his motto, and meant that he ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... misinterpreted; but I defy a heart like yours to think ill of mine. Others would perhaps speak better of me if I resembled them more. God preserve me from gaining their approbation! Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and misinterpret my actions, Rousseau is not a man to be afraid of them, nor is Diderot to be prevailed upon to hearken to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... observing the young man through the sticks of her fan; "I was telling Don Ramon that I feared Dona Ursula had frightened you away. I told him that your experience of American society might have caused you to misinterpret the habitual reserve of the Castilian," she continued with the air of being already an alien of her own country, "and I should be only too happy to undertake the chaperoning of both these young ladies in their social relations with our friends. And how is dear Mr. Banks? and Mr. Crosby? ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... him. She did not know at this moment what to think—still she thought she must mistake him, and she should be excessively ashamed of such a mistake, and now more strongly felt the dread that he should see and misinterpret or interpret too rightly her emotion; she walked on quicker, and her breath grew short, and her colour heightened. He saw her agitation—a delightful hope arose in his mind. It was plain she was not indifferent—he looked at her, but dared not look long enough—feared that he was mistaken. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... blushed, as she thought of what she had said. Could it be that he would think that she was speaking for her own sake;—because she looked forward to reigning some day as mistress of Newton Priory? Ah, no, Ralph would never misinterpret her thoughts in a ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... be friends again,' she said, 'when you have had time to read my actions and motives in a true light, and not so horribly to misinterpret them. Time may give you the right key to all. Then, perhaps, you will comprehend me, and then we ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... for every event, in case you should misinterpret the interest we take in you, we had all your answers reported by a man who was concealed behind a curtain in the next room; and really, one day, in a calmer state of mind, when you come to read over quietly the particulars ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of my patronage he upon the counter, pompous, spread his hands, as if the mahogany was all his. This seeming indifference rather touched my dignity, which was of tender quality, so I cast upon him a look he could not misinterpret, inquiring if he could tie a body up for the night in a spare corner. 'You may bet on that! got a spare pin we can hook ye on somehow, I reckon;' he ejaculates, sprawling his elbows, and making a support of his fleshy hands, from between which ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the ladder, his heart thudding painfully. Surely, he thought, he had done nothing to offend even the most particular of deities. Yet, the implications of Ladro's glances and his conversation with the ship's officer were too obvious for even the dullest to misinterpret. Musa took a long, ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... effort to alleviate their hunger. It was not of course from any real difficulty how else to supply them with nutriment that he left it to them to provide themselves by this crafty method. Nor can I conceive that any one will so misinterpret the custom. Clearly its explanation lies in the fact that he who would live the life of a robber must forgo sleep by night, and in the daytime he must employ shifts and lie in ambuscade; he must prepare and make ready his ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... obedience to show her goodwill and to mollify the new wife, and to break down that wall of prejudice and misunderstanding that she knew generally stood between step-parents and their step-children. But she soon found that her efforts were in vain. The step-mother never trusted her, and seemed to misinterpret all her actions, and the poor child knew very well that she often carried unkind and untrue tales to her father. She could not help comparing her present unhappy condition with the time when her own mother was alive only a ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... a noncommittal fashion, not caring at the moment to take issue with Miss Primleigh. Arguments I detest. If she chose to misinterpret my sentiments, so be it then. I shall, however, add here that while my own opinion of the matter was not absolutely in accord with the burden of Miss Primleigh's criticisms, there was one point brought ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... accept that there is a power over them, they deny it, and in the process they misinterpret the various things of life as physical things, not the spiritual things that they represent. For instance, love: men in many "advanced," that is to say, self-obsessed, civilizations, view it only in its physical materializations, ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... chaos has imposed on them the necessity of more outspokenness. Certainly they have discarded, or have not assumed, the reticence of the modern English of England; and much of this freedom of utterance Europeans misinterpret, much (because the fashion of it is strange to themselves) they believe to be insincere. In which judgments they are quite wrong. The American people are profoundly sincere and intensely ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... perspiration from the three folds on the back of his neck, said he spoke with great diffidence for fear of being misunderstood. The formerly existent country had twice defeated, or apparently defeated, his own in a war and his distinguished colleagues might misinterpret the spirit which moved him. Nevertheless, he could not refrain from remarking that it appeared to him that a Just Providence had wiped out the United States and therefore it would be illogical if not blasphemous for this august body to admit a ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... isn't that," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Don't misinterpret my coming here to say that I will go. It isn't because—no, it ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... and was prepared, but these long entanglements which I have to submit to have caused me much trouble and have jeopardised my pecuniary position, so that at present I am unable to assist a friend. This I feel very much, and prefer to say nothing further about it. You will understand me and not misinterpret my silence. When the time comes, I shall explain my affairs to you by word of mouth; they are not rose-coloured, and another man might have perished, which other men might not have ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... looked upon as slightly dudish. A "forty," for instance, may induce a more artistic opening in an adversary, but the general effect and mortality is impaired. The plug of tobacco is still worn in the pocket on the opposite side from the shooter, so when reaching for the former, friends will not misinterpret the move and subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no longer considered necessary to wait for introductions before proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough for the mere outward formalities ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... of man is great upon him,' because, having these desires, he misreads so many of them, and stifles, ignores, atrophies to so large an extent the noblest of them. I know of no sadder tragedy than the way in which we misinterpret the meaning of these inarticulate cries that rise from the depths of our hearts, and misunderstand what it is that we are groping after, when we put out empty, and, alas! too often unclean, hands, to lay ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... that no hearer of mine will misinterpret what I have to say as the language of cynicism. The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. The practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens and good men. When ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... must it, then, necessarily exist for me? Does not the Son of God himself say that they are his whom the Father has given to him? Have I been given to him? What if the Father will retain me for himself, as my heart sometimes suggests? I pray you, do not misinterpret this. Do not extract derision from my harmless words. I pour out my whole soul before you. Silence were otherwise preferable to me, but I need not shrink from a subject of which few know more than I do myself. What is the destiny of man, but to fill ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... indulge the poor youth," said Mirth, with a kindness which made me love her dearly, though I was no such coxcomb as to misinterpret her motives. "I have espied much promise in him. True, a shadow sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is sure to follow in a moment. He is never guilty of a sad thought, but a merry one ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... saw her with unusual pleasure, and this was the very morning Clarence Hervey paid his visit. The imprudence of Lady Delacour, joined perhaps to his own consciousness that he had a secret fault, which ought to lower him in the esteem of his mistress, made him misinterpret every thing that passed—his jealousy was excited in the most sudden and violent manner. He flew from Lady Delacour's to Mrs. Luttridge's—he was soothed and flattered by the apparent kindness with which he was received by Annabella and her aunt; but after dinner, when one of the servants whispered ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... on with her eyes fastened on the long, magnificent green pastures, her most cherished creation, the priest and the mayor did not take their eyes from the groups below, whose expression it was impossible to misinterpret; pain, sadness, and regret, mingled with hope, were plainly on all those faces. No one in Montegnac or its neighborhood was ignorant that Monsieur Roubaud had gone to Paris to bring the best physician science afforded, or that the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... is not weakened in itself by the errours of those who misinterpret or misapply it; the encroachment of the appetites upon the understanding is hourly perceived; and the state of those, whom sensuality has enslaved, is known to be in the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... brothers or sisters, in order that their consent may be easily and naturally obtained. Thus, when I cast my artistic eye upon the pretty Perpetua, I have to proceed with extreme caution, lest her parents should misinterpret the nature of my demand. For Perpetua belongs to the octoroon 'species' of mulatto. Her father is a white man, and her mother is a free-born quadroon-woman, and they reside with their daughter in an humble dwelling near our studio. Don Ramon being ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... by you. I did not mean that. I did not expect that you should misinterpret them." Then she laughed hysterically,—a little low, gurgling, hysterical laugh; and after that she wiped her eyes, and then she smiled, and then she put her hand very gently upon his shoulder. "Thank God, Conway, we are quite safe there,—are ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... either ark of shelter or rest for the sole of their foot, sometimes, alas! over strange ocean-wastes, into gulfs of error—too sad to speak of here— and will wander more and more till teachers begin boldly to face reality, and interpret to them both the old and the new, lest they misinterpret them for themselves. The educators of the present generation must meet the cravings of the young spirit with the bread of life, or they will gorge themselves with poison. Telling them that they ought not to be hungry, will not stop their ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... am very glad to tell you this, so that you may not misinterpret things, and imagine that I said that it was I ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... In all the universe there is no soul meaner, more contemptible, more cowardly, and utterly lost to every sense of decent manhood than the man who, for the sake of entangling a good man in his speech, asks him questions in public, before an audience ready at every turn to misquote and misinterpret his slightest utterance; and that is what they did. They came to him, not with the desire to know the truth, but to confound him, cast him down and destroy his prestige with the people. To every question he gave an answer having in it spiritual truth, but bearing the unmistakable ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... send you some good things to your chamber, together with the bride's favour, and there you may drink our health, if it may stand with your good liking. My friend, quoth Hippothadee, take my words in the sense wherein I meant them, and do not misinterpret me. When I tell you,—If it please God,—do I to you any wrong therein? Is it an ill expression? Is it a blaspheming clause or reserve any way scandalous unto the world? Do not we thereby honour the Lord God Almighty, Creator, Protector, and Conserver of all things? ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... you see it is sometimes necessary to tell white lies, and I think that after to-night I am entitled to a prize for general proficiency in this respect. Of course," she added, dropping her sarcastic tone, "you will not misinterpret anything that I was forced to say to Olfan with reference to yourself, because you know that those statements were the biggest fibs of all. Just then, had it been needful, I should have been prepared to swear that I ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... guardianship of ourselves and our Peloponnesian allies. Therefore I say, bear with me in this double design; chide me not if my haughty manner disperse these subtle Ionians. If I bore with them to-day it was less from respect than, shall I say it, my fear lest you should misinterpret me. Beware how you detail to Sparta whatever might rouse the jealousy of her government. Trust to me, and I will extend the dominion of Sparta till it grasp the whole of Greece. We will depose everywhere the revolutionary Demos, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... act and deliver what he has to say. But it must be remembered that the mind of the medium is not to be left out of the question entirely. He is often called upon to aid in the interpretation of the speeches the spirit delivers, and these he may misinterpret and lend to them color of his own mentality, without his conscious intention to ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... "and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shade before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... position of concealing anything, yet I distrusted him and wished to avoid giving him a chance to misunderstand me. But now it was too late; if the error could be wiped out at all, the only way to erase it was by telling him everything and giving him his chance to misinterpret me if he ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... insists on immediate expression.[46] True it is that Goethe, like all other poets, frequently wrote under no immediate pressure of inspiration, but to affirm this of the highest efforts of his genius is at once to contradict his own testimony and to misinterpret the conditions under which genius produces ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... obliged to do difficult things in the interest of their profession. It is dreadfully difficult for me to speak to you in this way. But"—she looked fearlessly at him—"I am confident you will not misinterpret what I have done." ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... to find out that phrases which seem intended to guide the reader aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which seem intended to throw light are there to throw darkness; that phrases which seem intended to interpret a fact are there to misinterpret it; that phrases which seem intended to forestall prejudice are there to create it; that phrases which seem antidotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts arrayed in the book establish Shelley's guilt in that one episode which disfigures ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their fall is judged from this, which is a great mistake. Let this serve to explain or modify any statements or representations in the sequel, which may appear to be expressed too strongly, and which those who do not understand the experience might be liable to misinterpret. Observe, also, that when I speak of corruption, of decay, &c., I mean the destruction of the old man by the central conviction, and by an intimate experience of the depth of impurity and selfishness which there is in the heart of man, which, bringing him ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... sensitive therefor, perceiving himself distrusted by Marius, but comes to warm his hands and heart at the hearth of Cossette's presence; and he is stung when he sees no fire in the reception-room. The omission he can not misinterpret. He goes again, and the chairs are removed. Marius may have honor, but his honor is cruel, like an inquisitor with rack and thumbscrew; and then Jean Valjean goes no more, but day by day suns his heart by going far enough to look at the house where Cossette is—no more; then ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... an edge to Lady Gertrude's voice which it was impossible to misinterpret. "Professional musicians are very lax—I suppose you would call it Bohemian—in their ideas. That I can quite believe. But you have someone else to consider now. Roger would hardly wish his future wife to be stopping alone at a ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Plume had no objection, and see Wren in person and at once. "You see, Plume, the general thinks highly of the old Scot. He has known him ever since First Bull Run and, in fact, I am instructed to hear what Wren may have to say. I hope you will not misinterpret the motive." ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... mind is quite subject to illusions, either due to a faulty sense organ, or to a preconceived state of mind which so strongly expects or presages something else than reality as to misinterpret what the senses bring. ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... same instant, and a mass of long, black hair tumbled down upon the youth's shoulders. Even then Piers Minor, being of masculine slow wit, might not have guessed the truth but for a bright blush that overspread brow and cheek, a confession that even his dull senses could not misinterpret. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Ans. "Uttereth unto day." Ques. What unto night? Ans. "Showeth unto night" For the meaning is—"Day uttereth speech unto day, and night showeth knowledge unto night." To parse rightly, is, to understand rightly; and what is well expressed, it is a shame to misunderstand or misinterpret. But sometimes the position of the two nouns is such, that it may require some reflection to find ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... said Madame apologetically, "don't misinterpret our present departures to prove how much we all think of that beneficial public life which you are leading. I shall whisper one word to you, which will convince you of our most sincere respect ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once married to live together. But I can not dispute the proposition, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... to suspect of having broached this proposition at London; to prevent any confirmation of this suspicion, we have not in any manner quoted Comte Stahremberg in our conferences; and as I believe you are satisfied with him, I hope I misinterpret the word or two which Thugut dropped ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... only by studying its tendency and laws of change or its incidental expression in literature and custom. Yet these indirect symptoms are so striking that even an outsider, if at all observant, need not fear to misinterpret them. Taken externally, Protestantism is, of course, a form of Christianity; it retains the Bible and a more or less copious selection of patristic doctrines. But in its spirit and inward inspiration it is something ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... have the joy of watching their minds develop, and of feeling that it is due in some measure to him that they are growing into makers of happiness for themselves and the world. And when in his work he is met by the opposition of those who misinterpret or misunderstand, he will have an almost fierce satisfaction in the faith that the future may be all on his side, and that many years hence a little of him will live in men who have realised not his, but their, individuality, and that potentiality for goodness ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... You misinterpret each stray word, you for each inch take an ell. Lightly all laws and ties trammel me, I ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... maintenance. And to Ardworth, rather than to his fellow-sectarian, this double trust was given, because the latter feared scandal and misrepresentation if he should be ostensibly mixed up in so equivocal a charge. Poor and embarrassed as Walter Ardworth was, Braddell did not for once misinterpret character when he placed the money in his hands; and this because the characters we have known in transparent boyhood we have known forever. Ardworth was reckless, and his whole life had been wrecked, his whole nature materially degraded, by the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mystery which ever accompanies events produced more from a concurrence of awkward circumstances than from fixed design. While the characters of men are forming, as is always the case in revolutions, there is a reciprocal suspicion, and a disposition to misinterpret each other; and even parties directly opposite in principle will sometimes concur in pushing forward the same movement with very different views, and with the hopes of its producing very different consequences. A great deal of this may be discovered ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... splendid and fierce and humble, reigned in the glowing words that he read, ruled his failing voice, swayed his reeling figure. She could not question the identity of the Blessed One whose beauty made the singer sacrilegious in the white-heat of his devotion. She could not misinterpret the significance of the abandoned parchment lying discarded where it had fallen on the floor while the reciter, with his sad eyes fixed upon her face, repeated so familiarly the words which he was supposed never to have seen. ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... expected, these things compelled their incredulity to every proof of the Messiahship of the contemned and murdered Nazarene. For, if they admitted the facts on which such proof was based, they would misinterpret them and deny the inferences justly drawn from them. This was plainly the case. It may be affirmed that the Jews believed the resurrection, because they took no fair measures to disprove it, but threatened those who declared it. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... to that theory, to these colours, I see no proof (in the evidence given) that Mannhardt had returned. But 'the scalded child dreads cold water,' and Mullenhoff apparently dreaded even real solar myths. Mr. Max Muller, on the other hand (if I do not misinterpret him), supposes that Mannhardt had returned to the philological method, partly because he was interested in real solar myths and in the natural poetry of ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... was a brave, true, magnanimous nature that was leaning so tenderly upon Mr. Belcher's arm! And he felt that no woman who was not either shabbily perverse, or a fool, could misinterpret her. He knew that his wife had been annoyed at finding Mrs. Dillingham in the house. He dimly comprehended, too, that her presence was an indelicate intrusion, but ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to which she had thus alluded, though her heart was ever conscious of it, unconsciously. And the countess sent her love to them all at Castle Richmond. "She did not fear," she said, "that they would misinterpret her. Lady Fitzgerald, she was sure, would perfectly understand that she had endeavoured to do her duty by her child." It was by no means a bad letter, and, which was better, was in the main a true letter. According to her ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... "Stanley Martin" when the time had come for him to return in order to give the Nipe data that he would be sure to misinterpret. A special series of code phrases in the message had released "Stanley Martin" from the hypnotic suggestions that had held him for so long. He knew now ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sigh. "You didn't realise how very easily people misinterpret her being here with you; it seems to them a kind—a kind of challenge. They were bound, I think, to feel that; and I'm afraid, in consequence—" He stopped, moved by the fact that Pierson had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... (15) this thing or that in the effort to alleviate their hunger. It was not of course from any real difficulty how else to supply them with nutriment that he left it to them to provide themselves by this crafty method. Nor can I conceive that any one will so misinterpret the custom. Clearly its explanation lies in the fact that he who would live the life of a robber must forgo sleep by night, and in the daytime he must employ shifts and lie in ambuscade; he must prepare and make ready his scouts, ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh—I, who never repeat poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... when connection with the army had again been made. Nothing more than scouting parties and patrols from Forrest's column had gone north of Mount Carmel during the day. The adventures of the march had emphasized the danger that a preconceived opinion of probabilities may make an officer misinterpret such real facts as he may learn, or let very slight evidence take the place of thorough knowledge got by bold contact with the enemy. The experience also teaches how sure mischiefs are to follow the forgetfulness of the principle that, in such operations, it is the primary ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... promised a reward[9]; he hath been thought somewhat too bold upon courtiers. And although it is highly probable, he meant only the courtiers of former times, yet he acted unwarily, by not considering that the malignity of some people might misinterpret what he said to the disadvantage ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... quite the contrary," said Madame apologetically, "don't misinterpret our present departures to prove how much we all think of that beneficial public life which you are leading. I shall whisper one word to you, which will convince you of our most sincere respect ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Sister Agnes that she would like to see me in her room. When I entered she was standing by a square oak table, resting one hand on it while the other was pressed to her heart. Her face was very pale, but her dark eyes beamed on me with a veiled tenderness that I could not misinterpret. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... unfortunate fact that very few people are able to be idle successfully. I think it is not so much because we misuse idleness as because we misinterpret it that the long days become increasingly demoralizing. I would ask no one to accept a forced idleness without objection or regret. Such an acceptance would imply a lack of spirit, to say the least. But idleness and rest are not incompatible; neither ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... himself the night before, and that she, in her blind self-absorption, had noticed nothing. Remorse pricked her heart and gave additional warmth to her manner,—a fact which he was quick to perceive, and to misinterpret. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... was not in the least a sceptic. He quite acquiesces in the authority of the Bible, especially in all matters concerning faith and conduct; as to its statements in scientific matters, he argues that we are so liable to misinterpret their meaning that it is really easier to examine Nature for truth in scientific matters, and that when direct observation and Scripture seem to clash, it is because of our fallacious interpretation of one or both of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... candy. One arm was quite as full of toys as he could pack it—the other had begun the day's conveyance of food from hand to mouth, but he was regarding a very small, warm suit of clothes and substantial boots with dangerously quivering lips. Nor could one misinterpret his disapproval. For a moment the startled Doctor fancied he heard Mike hiss the astonishing words "Mom Murphy!" but by the time he had wheeled about, Muggs, with circular eyes of terror, had ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... impression for a woman to create upon a man—or a man upon a woman—is the impression of being in love. We are so conscious of our own merits, we are so eager to have them appreciated, that we will exaggerate or misinterpret any word or look, especially from a person of the opposite sex, into a tribute to them. When Craig pleaded for Grant and Margaret, moved by his eloquent sincerity, dropped her eyes and colored in shame for her plans about him, in such black contrast with ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... for a moment, trying to absorb the shock. Then, fearing Zezdon Afthen might misinterpret his silence, he plunged on. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize you were polygamous—most people on Earth aren't, but some groups are. It's probably a good way to improve the race. But ... Blast it, what bothers me is that Zezdon Fentes seemed to recover from the blow so quickly! From ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... the gentle nature so that its very sensitiveness may change to a tender power, and the fountain of sweet waters refresh many a desert place. But who is sufficient for even this? Handle the little soul carelessly, harden rather than brace, misinterpret the broken expression, misunderstand the signs—and the sweet waters turn to bitterness. God save us ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... facts are, the Entente nations, and in particular the British people, either ignore them wholly or misinterpret their purport. Hence we continue absorbed in the pursuit of interests, parochial and parliamentary, which though quite human, are utterly off the line of racial and imperial progress. We obstinately ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley of the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... should misinterpret these remarks, I will add that there must be grace at heart. Kind Feelings, or the most accomplished manners are but ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... thing were needed to show us the untrustworthiness of artistic historical compositions, our personal experience would furnish it. How often do our most intimate friends fail to perceive the real motives of our every-day actions; how frequently they misinterpret our intentions! If this be the case in what is passing before our eyes, may we not be satisfied that it is impossible to comprehend justly the doings of persons who lived many years ago, and whom we have ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... noble lady brings an attendant with her," he said as he returned it, with a bow. "The gossips of Zimboe are censorious, and might misinterpret this moonlight meeting, as indeed would Sakon and Issachar. Well, doves will coo and maids will woo, and unless I can make money out of it the affair is none ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but when ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... dearest life, misinterpret every thing I do. Can you think me so mean and unworthy as to employ a servant to constrain you?—I call him to send to the public-houses, or inns in this town, to inquire after Captain Tomlinson, who may have alighted at some one of them, and be now, perhaps, needlessly adjusting his ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... assembly, assemblage, congregation, convention, conference, concourse, gathering, mustering. Melt, thaw, fuse, dissolve, liquefy. Memory, remembrance, recollection, reminiscence, retrospection. Misrepresent, misinterpret, falsify, distort, warp. Mix, compound, amalgamate, weld, combine, blend, concoct. Model, pattern, prototype, criterion, standard, exemplar, paragon, archetype, ideal. Motive, incentive, inducement, desire, purpose. Move, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... have no information that he has only a grammar school education and that in using other than commonplace words you run a double danger—first, that he will not know what you are talking about or will misinterpret it; and second, that he will think you are trying to be highfalutin and will resent your possibly ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... we thoroughly doubt its feasibility. China will bitterly oppose any Conference plan to offer China international aid." He adds: "International control will not do. China must be given time and opportunity to find herself. The world should not misinterpret or exaggerate the meaning of the convulsion which China is now passing through." These are wise words, with which every true friend of China must agree. In the same issue of the Japan Weekly Chronicle—which, by the way, I consider the best weekly paper in the world—I find the following ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... "'You misinterpret my needs, O friend of the town,' I said. 'I do not look to the stars to find a woman. My yearnings are not towards a woman of this earth. Well do I know that you have offered me the most deadly delusion in this woman, perfectly wrought ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... more smartly than became a gentleman of his benevolent character. She had detected Miss Rachel, apparently engaged in appeasing Mrs. Threadgall by showing her some photographs, and really occupied in stealing looks at Mr. Franklin, which no intelligent lady's maid could misinterpret for a single instant. Finally, she had missed Mr. Candy, the doctor, who had mysteriously disappeared from the drawing-room, and had then mysteriously returned, and entered into conversation with Mr. Godfrey. Upon the whole, things were prospering better than the experience ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... did Cott van Cott misinterpret the gesture and heaved himself upward, the violin and the bow clicking and rattling at every stride. He was fleeing to the leads to save his life and his violin from death by fire—fire in the basement—and the crowd ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... thought as she wrote the words what had been the sacrifice to which she had thus alluded, though her heart was ever conscious of it, unconsciously. And the countess sent her love to them all at Castle Richmond. "She did not fear," she said, "that they would misinterpret her. Lady Fitzgerald, she was sure, would perfectly understand that she had endeavoured to do her duty by her child." It was by no means a bad letter, and, which was better, was in the main a true letter. According to her light she had ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... sometimes, alas! over strange ocean-wastes, into gulfs of error—too sad to speak of here— and will wander more and more till teachers begin boldly to face reality, and interpret to them both the old and the new, lest they misinterpret them for themselves. The educators of the present generation must meet the cravings of the young spirit with the bread of life, or they will gorge themselves with poison. Telling them that they ought not to be hungry, will not stop their hunger; shutting ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the heathen be excited against the Jews. They yielded only after Esther had pointed out to them that the events on which the holiday was based, were perpetuated in the annals of the kings of Persia and Media, and thus the outside world would not be able to misinterpret the joy ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... their half-silken flaps, that dangle about them; But I discovered, betimes, they made ever a laughing-stock of me. And I was vexed when I saw it,—it wounded my pride; but more deeply Felt I aggrieved that they the good-will should so far misinterpret That in my heart I bore them,—especially Minna the youngest. It was on Easter-day that last I went over to see them; Wearing my best new coat, that is now hanging up in the closet, And having frizzled my hair, like that of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... youth," said Mirth, with a kindness which made me love her dearly, though I was no such coxcomb as to misinterpret her motives. "I have espied much promise in him. True, a shadow sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is sure to follow in a moment. He is never guilty of a sad thought, but a merry one is twin born with it. We will take him with us; ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Guildhall that my heart was set upon peace and that it was one of my dearest wishes to live on the best terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you will not listen to them, but to those who misinterpret ...
— 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
... prepared for every event, in case you should misinterpret the interest we take in you, we had all your answers reported by a man who was concealed behind a curtain in the next room; and really, one day, in a calmer state of mind, when you come to read over quietly the particulars ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... worded, "you asked me to-night that our fencing and quibbling be brought to an end. I quite agree with you that it is desirable. I spoke as I did before you left upon an impulse that I shall never cease to regret. I do not wish you to misunderstand me, nor to misinterpret my attitude in any way. You asked me to be your wife, and, very foolishly and wrongly, I gave you—intentionally—an answer which might easily be construed into an encouragement. Understand now that I do not wish you to try to make me love you. I would find it extremely distasteful. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... lady," said Dick, "I think you misinterpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy in her own imagination. I know positively nothing of his private affairs, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to certain expressions on religious subjects in Mr. Gladstone's Letter, it will be remembered that it here appears as a biographical and historical document, and therefore without omissions—a remark which I feel assured that the illustrious writer will not misinterpret, and that both will accept the gratitude and admiration due from all surviving friends of Mr. Hope-Scott, for the splendid tribute which each of them has given to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe And ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... of his pudgy little person, and Laverick was left with another puzzle to solve. He was not in the least conceited, and he did not for a moment misinterpret this woman's interest in him. Her invitation, he knew very well, was one which half London would have coveted. Yet it meant nothing personal, he was sure of that. It simply meant that for some mysterious reason, the same reason which ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was obliged, by the rules of his art, and the character to be sustained, to put a run of bold sentiments in the mouth of one of his persons, the people instantly took fire, charging the poet with the imputed villainy, as though it had been his own. Now if such an audience could so easily misinterpret an attention to the truth of character into the real doctrine of the poet, and this too, when a Chorus was at hand to correct and disabuse their judgments, what must be the case, when the whole is left to ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... of concealing anything, yet I distrusted him and wished to avoid giving him a chance to misunderstand me. But now it was too late; if the error could be wiped out at all, the only way to erase it was by telling him everything and giving him his chance to misinterpret me ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... your thoughts, Mademoiselle," replied Lewis, with a continental bow, and an air of pretended respect, "induces me to suppose that your words misinterpret them." ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... brave, true, magnanimous nature that was leaning so tenderly upon Mr. Belcher's arm! And he felt that no woman who was not either shabbily perverse, or a fool, could misinterpret her. He knew that his wife had been annoyed at finding Mrs. Dillingham in the house. He dimly comprehended, too, that her presence was an indelicate intrusion, but her ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... child, true to the law of apperception, had interpreted, or rather misinterpreted, the words of the teacher, by means of the only ideas in his possession which seemed to fit the uttered sounds. It is evident, therefore, that too often in this method the pupils will either thus misinterpret the meaning of the teacher's words, or else fail to interpret them at all, because they are not able to call up any definite images from what the teacher ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the Colonists. Except among a few ambitious magnates of the Church of England, we never hear a contrary sentiment breathed. Equal rights upon equal conditions is the general cry. And although several Assemblymen of the present House have chosen to misinterpret the public voice, and to advocate a different principle, we doubt not that on their next appearance before their constituents, they will be taught that this is not the age, nor this the country, in which the grand principle ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... nothing of this, and in her ignorance could not but misinterpret the young man's demeanor. She felt it to be brusque; she imagined it to imply a purposed oblivion of things in the past. Taken together with Mrs. Lashmar's way of receiving her at the vicarage, it stirred in her heart and mind (already prone ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... with whom they kept up a steady skirmish. Some of the more friendly told them that the fruitful land they sought was but a few days' journey down the river, and they went wearily on, day by day, as the promised land still fled before their feet. Doubtless they were led by their own desires to misinterpret the words ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... is unnecessary to say, as mother and son. The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private, and you are so to arrange our affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives, if we stay in our own country, in a manner which would be unendurable to a woman ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... power; his whole wishes seemed to centre in commanding the Vendeans. It was not till I had exhausted every means of conciliation that I assumed the tone and language of the first magistrate. I dismissed him with a strong injunction to live retired—to be peaceable and obedient—not to misinterpret the motives of my conduct towards himself—nor attribute to weakness what was merely the result of moderation and strength. 'Rest assured,' I added, 'and repeat to your associates, that while I hold the reins of authority ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But for the divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image of God within man, I should have been proud ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... vision rendered doubly acute by perfect sympathy. He read through every smile to the tears lying behind it. He noted the change in the tone of the laugh. He missed nothing of the painful abstraction at odd moments when Nan believed she was wholly unobserved. Nor did he misinterpret the language these things expressed. But for all his heart bled for the girl—and in his moments of solitude he bitterly cursed the woman who had robbed him of a son, and heaped every scathing epithet of his rough vocabulary upon the head of the man himself—he gave no sign that the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... including myself, spring up, wondering what the disturbance is all about. A group of horsemen are visible in the bright moonlight outside, and one of them has dismounted, and under the guidance of a shepherd, is about entering the tent; seeing me spring up, and being afraid lest perchance I might misinterpret their intentions and act accordingly, he sings out in a soothing voice, "Kardash, Hamsherri; Kardash, Kardash." thus assuring me of their peaceful intentions. These midnight visitors turn out to be a party of Persian travellers from Miana, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Let this serve to explain or modify any statements or representations in the sequel, which may appear to be expressed too strongly, and which those who do not understand the experience might be liable to misinterpret. Observe, also, that when I speak of corruption, of decay, &c., I mean the destruction of the old man by the central conviction, and by an intimate experience of the depth of impurity and selfishness which there is in the heart of man, which, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... abandoned to her trouble. "I beseech you, Madonna," he was beginning, when she suddenly bared her face, her woe, and her beauty to his astonished eyes, looking passionately at him in a way which even he could not misinterpret. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... sudden and unexpected disclosures of the hidden meaning of life. Such an one came to David, there by that lowly grave. He saw, as in the light of eternity, the grandeur and beauty of that character which the story of her sin and suffering had made him in his immaturity, misinterpret and despise! He did not comprehend that tragic story when she told it; it was impossible that he should, for he had no knowledge or experience adequate to furnish him the clew. Nothing is more inconceivable and impossible to a child than the possibility of his parents dying or doing ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... getting along, I misinterpret a gleam of illusory sunshine at noon on the third day of the rain-storm and pull out, taking a cursory glance at the Memorial Church as I go. A drenching shower overtakes me in the native military lines, compelling me to seek shelter for an hour beneath ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... we may turn our attention to the poem itself, to see, if I do not misinterpret it, the evidences of that ethic creed, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the moral law, which we acknowledge as the only rightful ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... matter, except when some native can and will lend you a slave to help you or when you can buy one—which, under ordinary circumstances is a very doubtful practice, as, though in buying the person you are literally freeing him, the natives are apt to misinterpret the motive, and unless you are very fortunate in your purchase, the slave may bring you into conflict with the powers that be, owing to their law which recognises no freedom except that conferred by birth. After all this ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... to misinterpret it. We may even completely classify experiences, and yet completely misunderstand experience. To understand life at all we must get beyond the incidental and the alternating. Life is not a series of events charged with elements of contrast, contradiction, or surprise. It is a deep, coherent, ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... to assign with certainty responsibility for this serious misunderstanding. Possibly Howe's optimism and oratorical vagueness led him to misinterpret the promises made, but his reports immediately after the interviews were explicit, and in dispatches and speeches sent to the Colonial Office and acknowledged with high compliments, his version of the agreement had been set forth clearly and for months ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... presented by thee in a perpetual sleep. I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunk, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake.[230] I must therefore, O my God, look farther than into the very act of sleeping before I misinterpret my waking; for since I find thy whole hand light, shall any finger of that hand seem heavy? Since the whole sickness is thy physic, shall any accident in it be my poison by my murmuring? The name of watchmen belongs ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... Beelzebub in the casting out of devils; it will find its God of flies in every alabaster box of precious ointment; in faith and zeal toward God it will not believe; charity it will regard as lust; compassion as pride; every virtue it will misinterpret, every faithfulness malign. But the mind of the devout artist will find its own image wherever it exists; it will seek for what it loves, and draw it out of dens and caves; it will believe in its being, often where it cannot see it, and always turn away its eyes from beholding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... prevented it, for the mountaineer was there always, and always now the last to leave. He sat usually in the shadow of the vine, and though his-face was unseen, Clayton could feel his eyes fixed upon him with an intensity that sometimes made him nervous. The mountaineer had evidently begun to misinterpret his visits to the cabin. Clayton was regarded as a rival. In what other light, indeed, could he appear to Raines? Friendly calls between young people of opposite sex were rare in the mountains. When a young man visited a young woman, his intentions were supposed ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... perhaps, misinterpret the meaning of charity as the master misinterpreted the Scriptural text. This master, a pillar of a western church, entered ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... her husband's face, and sees a determination that she is to misinterpret many times before she can read it aright. She is not exactly happy. All this state and attention render her nervous, it is so unlike ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... what foolish children love makes of us!—rendering us sensitive, jealous, exacting, in the superlative degree. I am sure, we were both amiable and forbearing towards all the world besides; but, for the powerful reason that we loved, we were bound to misinterpret words, looks, and actions, and wound each other on every convenient occasion. I was pained by her attentions to others, or perhaps by an apparent preference of a book or a bouquet to me. Retaliation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... quietly. "To the end of time he would judge me by the past. He would label me 'woman to beware of' and my most innocent actions, my most impulsive attempts to show forth my true and better self he would entirely misinterpret, brilliant man though he is. Nigel, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... same fearless simplicity into her love. Caponsacchi falters and recoils in his adorations of her, with the compunction of the voluptuary turned ascetic; he hardly dares to call his passion by a name which the vulgar will mumble and misinterpret: she, utterly unconscious of such peril, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... little more than one hundred and fifty-seven thousand, and not a single electoral vote. This showed a marvelous anti-slavery progress, considering the age of the movement, the elements it forced into combination, and the difficulties under which it struggled into life; and no one could misinterpret its significance. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... more serious project introduced sufficient ground of detention. He seemed possessed by a strange buoyancy—an almost feverish joy in life, which blunted all sensations of physical distress, or helped him to misinterpret them. When warned against the imprudence of remaining where he knew he suffered from cold, and believed, rightly or wrongly, that his asthmatic tendencies were increased, he would reply that he was growing acclimatized—that he was quite well. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... and balm. If it had realised that Assyria was but the battle-axe wherewith the hand of God struck it, it would have learned that from God alone could come healing and health. The unrest which betrays the presence in our souls of a deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger. We terribly misinterpret the true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... found him. Her friend. Her best friend ... best for her. It was a solid satisfaction to have him tabulated and pigeonholed at last and for all time. Michael Daragh was her best friend. That was settled. And she had been a vain, light-minded goose to fancy for an instant that he would misinterpret that foolish little postscript on her last letter,—that he would want to misinterpret it. Michael Daragh had clearly obeyed the command to come apart and be separate, and she should never worry for an instant about ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... cried, shrinking not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... possess the intellectual power to create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... wonder," cried Eleanor. "Such a profile!" Then, at the thought how Kate might misinterpret this purely artistic enthusiasm, she dropped her ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... subject to illusions, either due to a faulty sense organ, or to a preconceived state of mind which so strongly expects or presages something else than reality as to misinterpret what the ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... when a man's actions are devoid of reason; but in this case, the remittances made to you have a reason based on the most sacred and most honorable motives. Hence you may keep it all without remorse, and leave the world to misinterpret a noble action. In Paris, the highest virtue is the object of the foulest calumny. It is, unfortunately, the present condition of society that makes the Marquis' actions sublime. For the honor of my country, I would that such deeds were regarded as a matter of course; but, as things ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... volumes, in February, 1851, and was received not merely with coldness and unconcern, but with hostile carping and even derision. The critics and Borrow pronounced themselves mutually disillusioned. It was natural that a man like Borrow should magnify and should misinterpret this unexpected blow. ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which affords a partial pretense for the imposing title bestowed on it by Cicero—commune Graeciae concilium; but we should completely misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a federal council habitually directed or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such "commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... I understand. You don't need to understand. This world is full of cheap fellows who misinterpret actions." ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... understand what to answer, to which he secretly reserves an advantage to reply by interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it, according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... laying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and infirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of spirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable barriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is impossible to misinterpret, "Serve Me in darkness and in silence; and let it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of men." Sometimes a command like this finds a ready echo in a timid and sensitive spirit, to which it is a deliverance ...
— Beside the Still Waters - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... man's actions. Love, splendid and fierce and humble, reigned in the glowing words that he read, ruled his failing voice, swayed his reeling figure. She could not question the identity of the Blessed One whose beauty made the singer sacrilegious in the white-heat of his devotion. She could not misinterpret the significance of the abandoned parchment lying discarded where it had fallen on the floor while the reciter, with his sad eyes fixed upon her face, repeated so familiarly the words which he was supposed never to have seen. For Beatrice, Dante of the Alighieri was the author of the ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a little retail scandal of Westport and Bluffwood, including a tale that seemed to have gained currency that Verplanck and Mrs. Hollingsworth were too friendly to please Mrs. Verplanck. I set the whole thing down to the hostility and jealousy of the towns people who misinterpret everything possible in the smart set, although I could not help recalling how quickly she had spoken when we had visited the Hollingsworth house in the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... "you are in you' senses at last!" Northwick did not speak, but his look conveyed a question which the other could not misinterpret. He smiled. "You want you' belt?" He disappeared, and then reappeared, this time full length, and brought the belt to Northwick. "You think you are among some Yankee defalcator?" he asked, for sole resentment of the suspicion which Northwick's anguished look must have imparted. "Count it. I think ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Smith, still sobbing; "you misinterpret my grief. This party was in no way akin to me except under that common descent from the old Adam which makes all humanity brothers and sisters. I did not know deceased, nor ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... grossly misinterpret the intensity of a stimulus under certain circumstances. Thus, when a man crunches a biscuit, he has an uncomfortable feeling that the noise as of all the structures of his head being violently smashed is the same to other ears, and he may even act on his illusory perception, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... the delight of the sculptor. No lady who understands the fine-art of dress would ever have her gown cut too low: it is ugly, besides being immodest. The persons who bring discredit on fashion are those who misinterpret it. The truly artistic modiste cuts a low-necked dress to reveal the fine lines of the back, but it is never in France cut too low in front. The excessive heat of an American dining-room makes this dress very much more comfortable than the high dresses which were brought in several years ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... opening in an adversary, but the general effect and mortality is impaired. The plug of tobacco is still worn in the pocket on the opposite side from the shooter, so when reaching for the former, friends will not misinterpret the move and subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no longer considered necessary to wait for introductions before proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough for the mere outward formalities of politeness at the inquest. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... alumni of its Agricultural College. Educated at public expense and in an institution of higher learning that stands specifically for all-round rural improvement and rural patriotism, the students that go out from this college cannot misinterpret their duties nor fail to understand the responsibilities they assume as graduates of the North Dakota Agricultural College. Nor is their field of labor an unenviable one. It may at times seem irksome, even discouraging, but nevertheless it is the most exalted and dignified ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... "Don't misinterpret me, Mary. I mean out of reach of helping her in any way. I was of little use to her before. I could not save little Armine from those brutal bullies, and never suspected the abuse that engulphed Bobus. I am not fit ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say again," was the reply, "the glass has been as steady as a rock for the past three days," and then, to my intense anger, he added an insinuation that my fears had led me to deliberately misinterpret what the natives had said. The retort I made was of so practical a nature that the mate had to assist the ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... call the nurse? But that would only add to Kitty's embarrassment, and the nurse would naturally misinterpret the situation. He couldn't kneel and put his arms round her; and yet it was a situation that called for arms and endearments. He had sense enough to recognize that. Molly's girl crying like that, and he able to do nothing! It was intolerable. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... friendship may harbor secrets, but you ought not to misinterpret the secret of a friend because you can not ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... dislike to-day to Comte Stahremberg, whom he appears to suspect of having broached this proposition at London; to prevent any confirmation of this suspicion, we have not in any manner quoted Comte Stahremberg in our conferences; and as I believe you are satisfied with him, I hope I misinterpret the word or two which Thugut dropped ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... and a look of terror, bewilderment, and passionate repudiation, lightened in her eyes. How dared he—how could he, say that? how so falsely misrepresent her actions, and misinterpret her purposes? Her mind went staggering back over the past, seeking for means of self-justification and defense. She had only meant to benefit him—to amplify and soften his character—to inspire him with more ideal views and aims; and to do this she had—what? Sophie paused, and shuddered. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... even though we may be at a loss to know what it is. Sometimes we come in contact with a company of people and at once feel a strange something that we can not analyze; but we can not always trust our feelings. There are many things that influence us, and it is very easy to misinterpret them. Nor should we conclude that there is something very badly wrong with anyone merely because we have peculiar feelings when in his presence. There may be something wrong, however, and it behooves us to be on our guard. Sometimes it happens that such feelings arise when we are in the ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... how the coats are to be used, and warning them against neglecting his instructions. For some years all goes well, the will is studied and followed, and the brothers, Peter (the Church of Rome), Martin (the Church of England), and Jack (the Calvinist), live in unity. How by degrees they misinterpret their father's will, how Peter begins by adding topknots to his coat, and afterwards grows so scandalous that his brothers resolve to leave him, and then fall out between themselves, is told with abundant wit. A great part of the volume consists ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... upon to make an elaborate declaration of faith as often as such subjects are spoken of. Sylvia thinks so differently from you about almost everything that, when she happens to agree with you, you are misled and misinterpret her whole position.' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... was no mistaking it—what could be clearer. Latin, inter, between; venio, I come. Marion may have translated it differently, but she had served in the capacity of buffer too often to misinterpret ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... little time to find out that phrases which seem intended to guide the reader aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which seem intended to throw light are there to throw darkness; that phrases which seem intended to interpret a fact are there to misinterpret it; that phrases which seem intended to forestall prejudice are there to create it; that phrases which seem antidotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts arrayed in the book establish Shelley's guilt in that one episode which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very low standard of intoxication to apply to them," said the Lambeth magistrate last week. On the other hand the police should be careful not to misinterpret the air of light-hearted devilry that endeared the "growler" to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... else than read novels since parting with the two men who were metaphorically at her feet. Since the telegram she had not received a word from her father or any one, and was inwardly chafing at the dead calm that had followed her exciting experiences. She did not misinterpret the deceptive peace, however, and knew that on the morrow she must decide what even she regarded as the most momentous question of life. Persons under the dominion of pure selfishness escape many perplexities, however, and she was prone to take short cuts to desired ends. Ready ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... ladder, his heart thudding painfully. Surely, he thought, he had done nothing to offend even the most particular of deities. Yet, the implications of Ladro's glances and his conversation with the ship's officer were too obvious for even the dullest to misinterpret. Musa ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... the modern socialist movement has terrified the powers of industrial and political tyranny. To them it is an incomparable menace, and superhuman efforts have been made to turn it from its path. They have endeavored to divide it, to misinterpret it, to divert it, to corrupt it, and the greatest of all their efforts has been made toward forcing it to become a movement of terrorists, in order ultimately to discredit and destroy it. "We have always been of the opinion," declared an unknown opponent of socialism, "that ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... that I have learned from yourself. And now that you have done your part so well," added Hugh, rising to leave, "I assure you that we shall do ours; we shall give you the best service we can. No one shall misinterpret your action or try ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... commands, would have been blotted out. You could not very well take that for serious blame! from me too, who have so much reason and provocation for blaming the archangel Gabriel.—No—you could not misinterpret so,—and if you could not, and if you are not displeased with me, you must be unwell, I think. I took for granted yesterday that you had gone out as before—but to-night it is different—and so I come to ask you to be kind enough ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... him as he hobbled off to take his bath, "only if you are wise, you won't speak to Maqueda, for she might misinterpret your motives if you go on staring at her as ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... he said softly, "that I am speaking out of a long sea experience. Times have changed. The old driving days are gone. And I trust, Mr. Pathurst, that you will not misunderstand me in the matter, nor misinterpret ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the progress along the more material lines is often more rapid than in matters of the intellect. Or, on the contrary, intellectual progress may be in advance of manners. Such discrepancies are frequently commented upon by foreign travelers in the United States, who almost invariably misinterpret them in the same way. Can we blame them, when we make the same mistake ourselves? M. Jules Huret, in his recent interesting book "En Amerique," notes frequently the lapses in manners and taste of educated persons among us. He describes, for instance, the bad table-manners of a certain clergyman. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... hut on the brink of a cliff, curiously watching my movements on the plain. Thankful, now, that the postmaster's cow had gone dry, and that these observant mountaineers had not had an opportunity to misinterpret my conduct, I at once hurried toward the hill, hopeful that at the top some bovine might be housed, whose product could lawfully be acquired. But after a long and laborious climb, over shifting stones and ragged ledges, I was met with the discouraging ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... she continued, after a moment's hesitation, 'do not misinterpret me; my heart, if such a heart be worth possessing, is yours. I can never forget who solaced me in my misery; I can never forget all your delicate tenderness, Digby. Would that I could make a return to you more worthy of all your goodness; but if the grateful ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... said Dick, 'I think you misinterpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy in her own imagination. I know positively nothing of his private ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the angel of the church in Thyatira: "But that which ye have, hold fast till I come." And in the last of the book of Revelation there are awful warnings given against adding to or taking from what God has spoken. The temptation to skip over, misquote, and misinterpret the Scriptures must be very great, as it is to these three sources that nearly or quite all the denominational differences among professing Christians ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... which, for family reasons and indeed from other motives; she is forbidden to explain; and to which she is obliged to submit. She confides in the goodness and friendship of Miss Wilmot, who she is well assured will not misinterpret that which is unavoidable; and, cherishing the hope of a more favourable opportunity, wishes her all possible happiness: requesting that, if by any means in her power it can be increased, Miss Wilmot will acquaint her with those means: that she may have the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... cannot accept that there is a power over them, they deny it, and in the process they misinterpret the various things of life as physical things, not the spiritual things that they represent. For instance, love: men in many "advanced," that is to say, self-obsessed, civilizations, view it only in its physical materializations, but not in its spiritual ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and trustfulness), ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to me such a sacred thing that I felt that any reference to it on my part would be like a profane touch; but I was sure you would not misinterpret my silence or my absence, and would know that you were never long ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... arm about her, and fired by it in her hapless passion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to translate his attitude into one of a kindness far beyond his dreams. She nestled closer to him; at his bidding her ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the works of the great masters (whom this young creature adored)—and she, listening, would take her place next at the piano, and reproduce the music morsel by morsel, by ear. A professor was appointed to pronounce sentence on me, and declare if I could be trusted not to misinterpret Mozart, Beethoven, and the other masters who have written for the piano. Through this ordeal I passed with success. As for my references, they spoke for themselves. Not even the lawyer (though he tried hard) could pick holes in them. It was ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... belief in God, the reply is that is exactly the position of the Atheist. And there was no need whatever to coin a new word, if all that was wanted was to express the atheistic position. Still less justifiable was it to proceed to misinterpret Atheism in order to justify a departure that need never have ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... those who endorse his mistranslation, or, as it ought to be called, his false exposition of the title to this book, do totally misapprehend and misinterpret the mind of the Holy Spirit, is further evident from the obvious import of the plain words in the first verse;—this "Revelation of Jesus Christ, God gave unto him."—Christ. Did God the Father "unvail" Christ to Christ himself? ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... too great a favour," continued my lady. (I never could tell how far it was simplicity, or how far a kind of innocent malice, that made her misinterpret Mr. Smithson's words and looks as she did.) "But he is not a post-captain, only a commander, and his pension will be but small. I may be able, by offering him country air and a healthy occupation, to ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that only he is an unbeliever who deliberately and knowingly contradicts the Bible. A person who believes in the Bible but is led mistakenly to misinterpret it, and denies real principles because he thinks the Bible does not require us to believe them as principles, or does not require us to believe them at all, is guilty of error and in need of forgiveness, but is not ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Hellas under the sole guardianship of ourselves and our Peloponnesian allies. Therefore I say, bear with me in this double design; chide me not if my haughty manner disperse these subtle Ionians. If I bore with them to-day it was less from respect than, shall I say it, my fear lest you should misinterpret me. Beware how you detail to Sparta whatever might rouse the jealousy of her government. Trust to me, and I will extend the dominion of Sparta till it grasp the whole of Greece. We will depose everywhere the revolutionary Demos, and establish ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... frenzy about every second day by surreptitiously sacrificing poultry in his honor; but he did not dare to make any very violent stand against this overstepping of the rubric, lest (as was hinted to him) they should misinterpret his motive, and substitute a plump nigger baby for the more harmless spring chicken. It is by no means easy to follow the workings of the black man's brain in ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
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