"Misconception" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed that he would leave the house that moment—that she could not have thought of such an expression herself; she must have been taught it by us. This was an entire misconception on his part; but he would not be convinced that he was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called after him, "Malcolm, as I am sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the man shall take in your trunk." He was too angry even to turn and bid us good-bye; but we had ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... great body of valuable thoughts so admirably presented in this work, no rational objection would seem to be fairly adducible. But there are some very striking passages liable to a very different criticism—passages which, if not founded on actual misconception of facts, are, at least, so exaggerated in statement as to require very material modifications, both as to the existence of the evil they allege and the remedy they propose. Mr. Mill complains of the despotism ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... It was a slight infraction of the articles of war; a little breach of the rules and regulations of the service; a trifling misconception of the mess code,—they caught me one evening leaving the mess with—What do you think in my pocket? But you'll never tell! No, no, I know you'll not; eight forks and a gravy-spoon,—silver forks every one of them. There now,' said I, grasping his hand, 'you have my secret; my fame and character ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... difficulties which operated to augment the charge in their establishment, and diminish its funds; and with every deference to the benevolent undertakers, whose motives merit the highest approbation of every enlightened mind, I would observe, they have likewise to regret their misconception of the eligible grounds upon which so beneficent a plan is to be productive of operative influence; but as at a future stage of my narrative, I shall be enabled from more minute investigation ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... imagined that, in consequence, the sacred elements imparted to the material frame of the believer the germ of immortality. [489:1] Irenaeus declares that "our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possessed of the hope of eternal life." [489:2] This misconception of the ordinance was the fruitful source of superstition. The mere elements began to be regarded with awful reverence; the loss of a particle of the bread, or of a drop of the wine, was considered a tremendous desecration; and it was probably the growth ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... our country is founded on a misconception, I mean on the confusion between knowledge and competence. We search conscientiously for competence or efficiency, and we believe that we have found it when we find knowledge, but that is an error. An examination requires from a candidate ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... only be deemed to respect those officers in whose appointment that body has a concurrent agency with the President. But last, the first and second clauses of the third section of the first article, not only obviate all possibility of doubt, but destroy the pretext of misconception. The former provides, that "the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen BY THE LEGISLATURE THEREOF for six years"; and the latter directs, that, "if vacancies in that ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... compliment to the firm. If you really wish to be of assistance to Miss Neelie," he went on, more seriously, "I have shown you the way. You can do nothing to quiet her anxiety which I have not done already. As soon as I had assured her that no misconception of her conduct existed in your mind, she went away satisfied. Her governess's parting threat doesn't seem to have dwelt on her memory. I can tell you, Mr. Armadale, it dwells on mine! You know my opinion of Miss Gwilt; and you know what Miss Gwilt herself has done ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... without delay, to anticipate misconception, that her little scheme of independence did not definitely involve the assistance of another person, of the opposite sex; she was not saving up virtue to cover the expenses of a flirtation. For this there were various reasons. To ...
— The American • Henry James
... seen, the first access of churchlike ideas to my mind by no means sufficed to expel my inherited and bigoted misconception, though in the event they did it as I hope effectively. But I long retained in my recollection an observation made to me in (I think) the year 1829, by Mrs. Benjamin Gaskell of Thornes, near Wakefield, a seed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... chances were that he could get away with it. A Controller never did anything directly; their dirty work was done by someone else—a puppet under their mental control. At least, so ran the popular misconception. If Lasser were the man, he stood a good chance of getting away with it, even if he were caught, provided he played his ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
... thus urged against the propriety of giving most thanks to him who had, from misconception or misrepresentation, been induced rather to prevent than promote those operations by which thanks were obtained; and not particularly directing the smallest attention, otherwise than by indemnifying his law expences, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... flat earth, fixed and anchored, immovable, around which the sun moved? Why, there was no old, flat and anchored, stationary earth to take away. There never had been. All Magellan did was to demonstrate a new, higher, grander truth. He took away a misconception from the minds of ignorant and uneducated people, and helped put one of God's grand, luminous truths in the place of it. That is ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... her sex, but the chief lyrist of all lyrists. Every one who reads acknowledges her fame, concedes her supremacy; but to all except poets and Hellenists her name is a vague and uncomprehended splendour, rising secure above a persistent mist of misconception. In spite of all that is in these days being written about Sappho, it is perhaps not out of place now to inquire, in a few words, into the substance of this supremacy which towers so unassailably secure from what appear to ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... fact, however, connected with the question of spiritual appearances, which is worthy of some consideration. It is a fixed rule in the history of opinions that beliefs founded on imagination or misconception have declined with the advance of enlightenment, and many conceptions, once strongly entertained, have faded and vanished in the light of new thought, or where retained have been so only by the ignorant and unreasoning. It is of interest to find that this has not been the case with the belief ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... Coleridge's service lay in asserting and reasserting such fundamental principles as that a critical standard is something quite distinct from a set of external rules; that the traditional opposition between genius and laws was based on a misconception as to the function of the critic; that all great genius necessarily worked in accordance with certain laws which it was the function of the critic to determine by a study of each particular work of art; that art, being vital ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... answered that question often enough and plain enough. I do not know why you wish to put me to the unpleasant necessity of repeating that answer. But if I have, by any misconception of the use of words, and the meaning of language, failed to be sufficiently definite in my speech, please now, once for all, understand me distinctly. I cannot bid you hope for any change in my feelings ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... however, guard ourselves against a misconception which has imposed itself upon many in forming their estimate of Hyde's new position. It would be utterly wrong to fancy that he entered upon these heavy responsibilities with any sense of triumph or elation, and inspired by any pride ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... is certain, however, that if the letter upon which the claim is founded, be spurious and fictitious, as for the reasons assigned, it is considered to be, any extraneous evidence, must either partake of the same character, or have originated in some misconception or error. What exists upon the subject consists principally of two pieces, which have only recently been regarded of any importance for this purpose, and in connection with which the others ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out in the short period ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... escape the thought that he might one day ask her to be his wife: it would be painful then to know that she had made progress in his regard by being imagined his superior, when she knew she was not! Incapable of laying a snare, was she not submitting to the advantage of an ignorance? The misconception she was thus risking in the future, had already often prevented her from going to Mortgrange. Richard, she was certain, knew her better than ever to misjudge her, but she shrank from the suspicion of any one that she had hidden what she knew for the sake of securing Richard's ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... whatever institutions might be found desirable. Such a university would never be chartered; no building could ever house it; no royal personage or president of the United States would ever be asked to inaugurate it; the very attempt to found it would imply misconception of its essential character. It would be no more than a floating aggregation of voluntary associations; like the companies of which a nation's commerce is made up such associations would not be organized, ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... said, gained him many admirers. In them he for the first time touched somewhat upon the tendencies of the current epoch, and took an entirely independent stand among the philosophers of New England. Yet, for a while, there was the oddest misconception of his attitude by those at a distance. A Whig magazine, pleased by his manly and open conservatism, felt convinced that he must be a Whig, though he was, at the moment of the announcement, taking office under a Democratic President. On the other hand, a writer in "The Church Review" ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... examine the facts. Are the most religious peoples the most moral? It needs no prolonged investigation to convince us that they are not. If proof of the want of a bond were required, the matter of truth-telling might be adduced in point. As this is a subject upon which a slight misconception exists in the minds of some evangelically persuaded persons, and because, what is more generally relevant, the presence of this quality, honesty in word and deed, has more than almost any other one characteristic ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... offered; and, though they have differed widely, they agree in one respect—they have had a common fate—the fate of being false. What has been the trouble? The trouble has been, in every instance, a radical misconception of what a human being really is. The problem is to discover the natural laws of the human class of life. All the "solutions" offered in the course of history and those which are current to-day are of two and only two kinds—zoological and mythological. The zoological solutions are those which ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... I am afraid I don't understand," said Don Ippolito meekly; whereupon Mr. Ferris enlightened him in a formula (of which he was beginning to be weary) against European misconception of the American situation. Don Ippolito nodded his head contritely, and when Mr. Ferris had ended, he was so much abashed that he made no motion to show his invention till the other added, "But no matter; I suppose the contrivance would work as well against the Southerners as the South Americans. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... and her remorse warned her very clearly that it was the way which she ought to have taken. But she could rise to the heights. She did not seek to justify herself in her own eyes, nor would she allow Willoughby to continue in his misconception. She recognised that here she had failed in charity and justice, and she was glad that she had failed, since her failure had been the opportunity of greatness to ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... brandishing peas; his offended napkin chokes him; with the yell and spring of a corpulent hyena, he rises and rushes to the windows. The timid pensionnaire and her shrinking sisterhood follow him, under the misconception that he is summoning them to admire the sunset; the sunset is their evening excitement, and DONNERWITZ can be sentimental in his calmer moments; but no "Wie wunder, wunderschoen!" escapes him; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of the natural desire entertained by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... woman whom he loved? If not, if his voice and features had betrayed him, what could her behaviour mean, except distinct encouragement? 'You have interested me very much.' But could she have used such words if his meaning had been plain to her? Far more likely that her frank kindness came of misconception. She imagined him the lover of some girl of his own 'station'—a toiling governess, or some such person; it could not enter into her mind that he 'dared' so recklessly as the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... letter, and actions which are commonly called sinful: with murder, theft, adultery, and so forth. Much the same connexion that there is between the A, B, C and fine literature. But I believe that the misconception—it is all but universal—arises in great measure from our looking at the matter through social spectacles. We think that a man who does evil to us and to his neighbours must be very evil. So he is, from a social standpoint; but ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... faintest sigh. The habitual look of abstraction returned to her eyes as if she had once more taken refuge in her own ideal world. Unfortunately the change did not escape either the sensitive observation or the fatuous misconception of the sagacious parent. "Ye'll be mountin' a few furbelows and fixins, Rosey, I reckon, ez only natural. Mabbee ye'll have to prink up a little now that we've got a gentleman contractor in the ship. I'll see what I kin pick up in Montgomery Street." And indeed he succeeded a few hours ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... you clearly and plainly what Theosophy means, and what is the function of the Theosophical Society. For we notice very often, especially with regard to the Society, that there is a good deal of misconception touching it, and that people do not realise the object with which it exists, the work that it is intended to perform. It is very often looked upon as the expression of some new religion, as though people in becoming Theosophists must leave the religious community to which he or she ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... charm, the charm of voice, of aspect, of language, above all by the intellectual charm of new, moving, luminous ideas. Perhaps the chief offence in Coleridge is an excess of seriousness, a seriousness arising not from any moral principle, but from a misconception of the perfect manner. There is a certain shade of unconcern, the perfect manner of the eighteenth century, which may be thought to mark complete culture in the handling of abstract questions. The humanist, the possessor of that complete culture, does not "weep" over the failure ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... aristocracy or a clergy, they must be overthrown. Revolt is simply just defense; in withdrawing ourselves from their hands we only recover what is wrongfully held and which legitimately belongs to us.—In the second place, this social code, as just set forth, once promulgated, is applicable without misconception or resistance; for it is a species of moral geometry, simpler than any other, reduced to first principles, founded on the clearest and most popular notions, and, in four steps, leading to capital truths. The comprehension and application of these truths demand no preparatory study ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cried, and on the words grew cold and calm again with very scorn. "I thank God it is beyond your power to hurt me. And I thank you for correcting my foolish misconception of you, my belief in your pitiful pretence that it was your aim to save me. I would not accept salvation at your murderer's hands. Though, indeed, I shall not be put to it. Rather," she pursued, a little wildly now in her deep mortification, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... familiarity on the part of some of the framers of the Confession with a somewhat unusual rendering of one of the most explicit Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, but also as showing that they had perceived the true significance of an expression which last century gave rise to no little discussion and misconception. So far as I can remember, this remarkable expression does not appear in any other of the Protestant Confessions ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... do away with this misconception, I need not here show the measure of truth in the proverb, "What comes quickly, goes quickly," nor discuss whether, from the point of view of universal nature, all things are equally easy, or otherwise: ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... "You have a misconception. The process of revival was perfected that long ago. But it has been used only immediately after a wreck or disaster. Men or women in the old space-cemeteries have not ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... however, of the immorality of poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce the moral improvement of man. Ethical science arranges the elements which poetry has created, and propounds schemes and proposes examples of civil and domestic life: nor is it for want of admirable doctrines ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... request to a desire for some mark of honour, whereas my idea had been that that was the only possible way in which I, a political outlaw, could venture to visit Karlsruhe, though my object was a purely professional one. I could not help smiling at this strange misconception, but I was also startled at this proof of shallowness in my old friend, and began to wonder what ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... that colour; and the attention is kept suspended until that object is known. If, then, by the precedence of the adjective, the idea is conveyed without liability to error, whereas the precedence of the substantive is apt to produce a misconception, it follows that the one gives the mind less trouble than the other, and is ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper, "hath no new authority given hereby that he is ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... itself of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. It is the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government and its true character. It is, Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... them as friends; for in the light of Arden had we not seen their harsh masks removed, and behind them the benignant faces of those who patiently serve and minister, and receive no reward save fear and avoidance and misconception? In fact, having lived in Arden, and with the consciousness that we might seek shelter there as in another and securer home, the world barely touched us, save to awaken our sympathies and to evoke our help. It had little to give us; we had much to give it. There was within ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... saw that a change would presently take place in her person as the result of her obstinate celibacy. She wanted to retain her youth and beauty, to which at that time she clung. Science warned her of the sentence pronounced by Nature upon all her creations, which perish as much by the misconception of her laws as by the abuse of them. The macerated face of her aunt returned to her memory and made her shudder. Placed between marriage and love, her desire was to keep her freedom; but she was now no ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... however, guard strictly, at this point, against a possible misconception. It is not to be understood that these one hundred thousand citizens are simply "office-seekers," using the ordinary and offensive sense of the term. The activity in affairs which we describe is distinct from a sordid desire to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... "this is all a dreadful misconception; and if you will go with me to Sir Thomas Vandeleur's in Eaton Place, I can promise that all will be made plain. The most upright person, as I now perceive, can be led ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... that "big business" had any share in influencing our Government's decision to enter the war is an insult to the President and Congress, a libel on American citizenship, and a malicious perversion or ignorant misconception of the facts. Those who continue to circulate that insinuation lay themselves open to just suspicion of their motives and should ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... such a misconception could ever have arisen and coloured English literature to so great an extent, for if we turn to the pages of the contemporaneous historians, such as Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester, Ordericus Vitalis—born within the century of the Conquest—we ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... against itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind that attacks a normal and real condition of man, is profanely tampering with the realities of God and His laws. Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this misconception of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive, and it certainly would contradict the Science ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... telescope to Uranus only eleven days earlier than he did, this discovery would have escaped him, since at that time (March 2, 1781) the planet was at its station, and had no motion relative to the star. This is an entire misconception, since the new planet was detected by its physical appearance, and not by its motion. Does any one suppose that "a new and singular star" like this would have been once viewed and ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... with regard to the works and to the principles of Art of this school. The name by which it is known has in part occasioned this misconception. It was not happily chosen; for these Pre-Raphaelites, instead of being three centuries behind their times, are fully up with the day in which they live. Pre-Raphaelitism was not intended to mean, as it might seem to imply, the going back to worn-out and obsolete ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... misconception insisted on in a document much later than Lowell's essay: a leaflet by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, contributed to a Good Citizenship Series especially designed for the enlightenment of the more ignorant class of American ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... to offer; better still, he would take just so much and no more. With some people certain possibilities were moral miracles; and her instinct told her that this man's mind was incapable of vulgar misconception. She was safe with him. These things she pondered during that brief time when Rickman lingered in the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... curious misconception, this. Some of the founders of Marietta acquired in 1788 a large tract west and north of their own, and as a private speculation organized the Scioto Company. Joel Barlow, the poet, was sent to Paris to negotiate the sale of the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... which may be obtained from a perusal of this little book, will show that, so far from such being the case, this branch of science is of venerable antiquity. And, further, if in the place of this misconception a desire is aroused in the reader for a fuller acquaintance with the writings of the early anatomists the chief aim of the author will ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... a misconception akin to some of the foregoing mistakes respecting the feelings. In addressing men with a view to spur their activity, there is usually a too low estimate of what is implied in great and energetic efforts of will. Here, exactly as in ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... prospects, had now thought it more honourable to break off their intercourse, and carry her child away, lest he should feel bound to what was now an unequal connection. This idea of Lady Dighton's arose simply from a misconception of Maurice's evident reserve in certain parts of his confidence. He thought only of concealing all Mrs. Costello would wish concealed; and she dreamt of no other reason for the change of which ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... a glorious old fellow, full of hospitable plans and pleasant projects; but terribly distressed to think that this unlucky incident should prejudice you against Ireland. Indeed, he gave me to understand that there must have been some mistake or misconception in the matter, for the castle had never been attacked before; and he insists on saying that if you will stop here—I think he said ten years—you'll not see another ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... murder! Madness and misconception! Any one of the subjects—not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... after this, Mr. Smith did not appear at all like himself. He seemed abstracted and puzzled. Miss Maggie, who still felt self-conscious and embarrassed over her misconception of his attentions to Mellicent, was more talkative than usual in her nervous attempt to appear perfectly natural. The fact that she often found his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon her, and felt them following her as she moved about the room, ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... service, and it is for that reason that I have decided to make known the substance of a lengthy conversation which it was my recent privilege to have with his Majesty the German Emperor. I do so in the hope that it may help to remove that obstinate misconception of the character of the Kaiser's feelings towards England which, I fear, is deeply rooted in the ordinary Englishman's breast. It is the Emperor's sincere wish that it should be eradicated. He has given repeated proofs of his ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... snow and those other things. But this is a conception which followed, not preceded, those judgments, and therefore can not be given as an explanation of them. Instead of explaining the effect by the cause, this doctrine explains the cause by the effect, and is, I conceive, founded on a latent misconception of the nature ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... in unweaving the maze, has its source in a misconception of the original machinery by which Christianity moved, and of the initial principle which constituted its differential power. In books, at least, I have observed one capital blunder upon the relations which Christianity bears to ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... with the general complex of Aryan tongues, and were conceived to be anterior to them and apart from them, as it were the strayed vanguard of European colonisation or conquest from the East. The reason of this misconception was, that their records lay wholly uninvestigated as far as all historical study of the language was concerned, and that nobody troubled himself about the relative age and the development of forms, so that the philologists ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... through the Tory Press;—perhaps a greater quantity of baseless, persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living writer has undergone. Which long course of hostility (nearly the cruellest conceivable, had it not been carried on in half, or almost total misconception) may be regarded as the beginning of his other worst distresses, and a main cause of them, down ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... labor. I believe indeed that the outlook is encouraging for manufacturing in the Mikado's empire, but I do not believe that this development is to be regarded as a menace to English or American industry. Any view to the contrary, it seems to me, must be based upon a radical misconception of conditions as ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... could trust himself and his tell-tale countenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomed seclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold, though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come to a different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelled when he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for his natural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love, dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... displeasure in the voice in which the last sentence was spoken, and Agatha, the tenderhearted, was quick to note it, and to explain away the misconception. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... list with Society. We can, however, fly at higher game than this, for some twenty years ago a writer in the Times fell into the mistake of describing the entrance of one of the German states into the Zollverein in terms that proved him to be labouring under the misconception that the great Customs- Union was a new organisation. Another source of error in the papers is the hurry with which bits of news are printed before they have been authenticated. Each editor wishes to get the start of his neighbour, and the ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... will not have him.' And she was shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... names, which are, in order of priority: Chalicodoma pyrenaica, LEP. (Megachile); Chalicodoma pyrrhopeza, GERSTACKER; Chalicodoma rufitarsis, GIRAUD. It is a pity that the name occupying the first place should lend itself to misconception. I hesitate to apply the epithet of Pyrenean to an insect which is much less common in the Pyrenees than in my own district. I shall call it the Chalicodoma, or Mason-bee, of the Sheds. There is no objection to the use of this name in a book where the reader prefers lucidity to the tyranny ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... to which they will be regulated. The political economist justly deems this his proper business: and, as an abstract or hypothetical science, political economy can not be required to do, and indeed can not do, anything more. But it would be a great misconception of the actual course of human affairs to suppose that competition exercises in fact this unlimited sway. I am not speaking of monopolies, either natural or artificial, or of any interferences of authority with the liberty of production or exchange. Such disturbing causes ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... converts are the poor and insignificant Corinthians, its eloquence the unpolished speaking of the apostle himself. And as to their personal preferences for receiving spiritual benefits from one Christian teacher rather than another, this shows a complete misconception as to the source of the benefit and the position of the teacher. This is explained in iii. 1-iv. 5. All spiritual {138} increase comes from God. Christ is the Foundation. Human teachers are not figure-heads ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... the justice of it: of that vote I have always said, and God knows, always truly said, that I made in it no personal attack, felt in it nothing hostile to you, and regretted in it only the misrepresentation and misconception of others. I have said more, and still say, that the misunderstanding of that vote is so grievous to me, that, blameless as my motives were, I would not have given it, if I had thought it liable to the ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... except in the Oriental sections. In painting the primary aim has been to make a representative display of contemporary work. Most of the galleries contain only canvases painted within the last ten years. But in order to correct the common misconception that American art is entirely a thing of today, without historical background, a few rooms are given up to historic works of the various early American schools, and to works of the foreign schools that have influenced the development ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find Jesus himself to set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed an oracular ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... they possess. Gard saw there existed among them little virtue in the way of religion to offer the youth of other lands. To send an American son or daughter to Deutschland for such influence and benefit was but another example of the prevailing misconception ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the standard which society prescribes for us, and to which we ordinarily conform ourselves, instead of being too severe and lofty, is far too secular and grovelling. But I apprehend the limitations of this kind which are imposed upon us are themselves exceedingly secular, betokening an entire misconception of the nature of our work, proceeding from maxims and habits which tend to make it utterly insignificant and abortive. If a man confines himself to the utterance of his own experiences, those experiences are likely to become every day more narrow and less real. If he confines himself to ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original supernatural revelation, darkened by all peoples but the Jews. We shall not, however, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... General Gordon was under a misconception as to the parentage of Mr. Hall. As a matter of fact this missionary is descended from a very old family in the county of Hampshire, and was no more related to that ancient race than the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... "Note.—To prevent misconception, it is here expressly stated that Membership of the Society does not imply the acceptance of any particular explanation of the phenomena investigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical world, of forces other than those ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... human character and life was not reached by them, and could not be reached by them, until their own spirit was corrected by another, the spirit exemplified in the Hebrews. You will, I am sure, allow me to say whatever I feel to be just. And that there may be no misconception, let me add that, whenever I speak of the Hebraic spirit, I shall mean, not the spirit which an individual contemporary Hebrew may happen to display, but the spirit which was characteristic of Israel as a nation before the dispersion. In the same way the Hellenic spirit will mean the spirit which ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... probably what helped her not only to recognize the false position of her sex, but to understand the real cause of the trouble. She referred it, not to individual cases of masculine tyranny or feminine incompetency, but to the fundamental misconception of the relations of the sexes. Therefore, what she had to do was to awaken mankind to the knowledge that women are human beings, and then to insist that they should be given the opportunity to assert themselves as such, and that their sex should become a secondary consideration. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... born—but was only intended to prevent certain kinds of physical violence and lawlessness—murder, highway robbery, assault, and so on. The church was supposed to take care of sin, and there was an elaborate system of ecclesiastical courts. In point of fact, though there is a great deal of misconception on the subject, the criminal law does not deal with sin as sin at all, or even with wrongs merely as wrongs. It has a precise and limited purpose—namely, to prevent certain kinds of acts and to compel the ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in each; and that thus misconception and prejudice may disappear like mists of an ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... confirmed; "for at ten o'clock in the inn, there arose such a roaring and singing that my hair stood on end, and my former prejudices were so heightened that I resolved to lose the journey and carry back my son again, presuming that no noise in Oxford could be made but scholars must do it,"—a hoary misconception still cherished, or until recently, by the Metropolitan Police and the Oxford City Bench. In this instance a proctor intervened, and quelled the disturbance by sending 'two young pert townsmen' to prison; "and quickly came ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... demoralizing? An affirmative answer to this question implies so much that no rational man can accept it. It is equivalent to the assertion that barbarism is a better condition than civilization, and that the progress of modern times has proceeded upon a misconception of the true ideal perfection of the human race. As no one can be found who will admit that his happiness has been marred, his powers limited, or his life degraded, by education, so there is no process of logic that can commend to the human understanding ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... walking, "not to speak of trying to climb." Such a short and easy method of dealing with Roman Catholic dogma and ritual cannot be commended for its intelligence; it is quite possible to be on the same side as Browning without being as crude as he in misconception. He does not seriously consider the Catholic idea which regards things of sense as made luminous by the spirit of which they are the envoys and the ministers. It is enough for him to declare his own creed which treats any intermediary between the human soul and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... said, dejectedly. "I regret that—that my misconception was so complete. I ask your pardon, ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... Wallis and Wood, but it has not been possible until now for one, with due knowledge of the main events in the lives of these two men, each equally great in his own sphere, to satisfactorily clear away any considerable portion of the misconception and misstatements of biographers and historians concerning them and their achievements. The dawn however is coming, when these new materials now first printed by the Hercules Club, but not worked up, may attract the ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... some sensible observations on this subject. When all that has been said about it is carefully examined, it is clear that various circumstances have given rise to the misconception. Much of it is applicable to the whale;[6] much is referable to thick, low, fog-banks, which even experienced seamen have mistaken for land,[7] an opinion coinciding with what has been said of this same Kraken, by a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... ascendency which it soon lost, and which it never regained.' This sentence forms the theme for Lord Macaulay's survey of the Catholic Revival. Dazzling and fascinating as that survey is, it fails through misconception of one all-important point. Lord Macaulay takes for granted that conflict in Europe, since the publication of Luther's manifesto against Rome, has been between Catholicism and Protestantism. Even after describing the cataclysm of the French Revolution, he winds up his argument with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... 1835 was marked by the public agitation for the abolition of that African servitude which existed in the South, which antedated the Union, and had existed in every one of the States that formed the Confederation. By a great misconception of the powers belonging to the General Government, and the responsibilities of citizens of the Northern States, many of those citizens were, little by little, brought to the conclusion that slavery was a sin for which they ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... pinioned, but his feet were bound by a rope fastened to each ankle and passed under the nag's belly. It was clear to Lynde that he himself, the old clergyman, and the girl were the victims of some dreadful misconception, possibly brought about by the wretch who ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... put to flight thou 'rt tempted to turn upon thy friends! Doubtless the Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of reason for ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation," he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali's administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... would be expressive of the process in English would be a boon to writers on cooking).—The process generally meant by "frying" is really sauteing; yet so general has been the misconception among all but professed cooks, that one has to take the precaution in giving directions for frying to say, "Fry in deep fat." It ought to be understood that to fry is to immerse in hot fat. If some term suitable for kitchen ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... case of Mr. Van der Pant matters were complicated by the difficulty of the language, which made anything but the crudest statements subject to incalculable misconception. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... publishers and editors enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven. But then, you see, they don't care so much about that; they are much more interested in the next election at certain fashionable clubs. It is really a little hard on them that they should suffer from the ignorant misconception of the literary amateur. It is only those who have had no dealings with them who would be unfair enough to expect publishers or editors to be literary men. They are business men—business men par excellence—and ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... received the Red Ribbon, his leader was overlooked. The tens of thousands of pounds collected by Sir John Robinson which may be said to have kept alive starving people and vivified deserts, were gratefully acknowledged by the French Government. By some unaccountable misconception, the decoration here only gratified ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... one very peculiar reason, which will be noticed presently, for supposing that this phantom was really intended to represent the late Rev. Mother Frances Helen, and that its inaccuracy was owing to the stupid, and rather melodramatic misconception in the mind which originally imagined it and transferred it to the ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... the reader by the use of mysterious phraseology I consider that the parts of a machine should be given their technical names wherever possible. To prevent misconception, many of the diagrams accompanying the letterpress have words as well as letters written on them. This course also obviates the wearisome reference from text to diagram necessitated by the use of solitary ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... simulating true disarticulation of the patella obtains. Also, some practictioners report cases of patellar luxation and refer to pseudo-luxations, without clearly defining the conditions which constitute pseudo-luxation. This has contributed to the extant cause of misconception as to actual differences between luxation ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... to inculcate what he supposed to be moral truth—the poet of the "Ancient Mariner" to infuse the Poetic Sentiment through channels suggested by analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception; the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the "metaphysical ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... coincidence of my objections with his own 'striking:' and thus (though unintentionally, I dare say) throws the reader's attention upon it as a very surprising case. Now in this there is a misconception which, apart from any personal question between Mr. Hazlitt and myself, is worth a few words on its own account for the sake of placing it in a proper light. I affirm then that, considering its nature, the coincidence is not a striking ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Cicero with a want of originality as a philosopher, and on that score to depreciate his works. The charge is true, but still absurd, for it rests on a misconception, not merely of Cicero's purpose in writing, but of the whole spirit of the later Greek speculation. The conclusion drawn from the charge is also quite unwarranted. If the later philosophy of the Greeks is of any value, Cicero's works ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and Anecdotes of D'AVENANT—attempts a new vein of invention—the Critics marshalled against each other on the "Gondibert"—D'AVENANT'S sublime feelings of Literary Fame—attacked by a Club of Wits in two books of Verses—the strange misconception hitherto given respecting the Second Part—various specimens of the Satires on Gondibert, the Poet, and his Panegyrist HOBBES—the Poet's silence; and his neglect of the unfinished Epic, while the Philosopher keenly retorts ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... having been proved to Mr. Behnke that the use of the term "abdominal" instead of "diaphragmatic" breathing led to misconception and misrepresentation of his views on this important subject, he discarded the words "abdominal breathing" and used only the term "diaphragmatic breathing" in his teaching and writing. Will readers kindly bear this ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... This is his solitary proof, nor does it appear that he was not himself the informant of the minister. But the positive proofs at the other side are numerous and incontestable. I select a few. On the 13th of July Mr. O'Gorman, in presence of Mr. O'Connell, said: "In order that there shall be no misconception on the subject, as far as I am concerned, I say, at once, I am no advocate for physical force. As a member of the Association I am bound by its laws. One of these is, that its object is not to be attained by the use of physical force, but by moral means only." Mr. Mitchel, on that occasion, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... other side—but if we go by experience, as it is now the fashion to do, our initial elementary experience would certainly lead us to consider will the great or only cause. To guard against a possible misconception let me here say that I must not be supposed to adopt Mr. Wallace's view in its entirety or precisely as stated by him. Of course, the analogy between the human will and the Divine Will is imperfect, and Mr. Mill appears to me to be well founded in denying that our ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... now in the family, though it could scarce be pretended they went well. There was now at least no misconception; there was kindness upon all sides; and I believe my patron and his wife might again have drawn together if he could but have pocketed his pride, and she forgot (what was the ground of all) her brooding on another man. It is wonderful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... issue prevents my being too sanguine as to the efficiency of the most explicit avowal of one's purpose, but the duty of taking precautions nevertheless remains. And in elaborating an unfamiliar view of the nature of much of the world's so-called religious phenomena, the possibility of misconception is multiplied enormously. Still, a writer must do what he can to guard against misunderstanding, and in the most emphatic manner it must be said that it is not my purpose to prove, nor is it my belief, that religion springs from perverted sexuality, nor that ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no: nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to, except two ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... inferred. I think the whole difficulty arises from a confusion of terms, and by this I mean a want of care to explain the unknown strictly in terms of the known; and I think underlying this error is a misconception as to what an animal is, and what animal strength is, only of course with reference to this particular discussion, i.e., in so far only as they may be considered physical organisms having no reference to the intellectual or moral development, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... a garment for the poor; though she had also by her some satin stitch ready to take up in case of the appearance of company. The nature of the work will help to contradict an extraordinary misconception—namely, that she was indifferent to the needs and claims of the poor: an idea probably based on the fact that she never used them as 'copy.' Nothing could be further from the truth. She was of course quite ignorant of the conditions of life in the great ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... that army demands that I seek a reason other than Hooker's alleged lack of heart of his subordinate officers. And this reason is only to be found in Hooker's inability to handle so many men. All the resolutions in the world, passed under a furore of misstatement and misconception, even by such a noble body of men as Third-Corps veterans, will not re-habilitate Joseph Hooker's military character during these five days, nor make him other than a morally and intellectually impotent man from May 1 to May 5, 1863. Loyalty to Hooker, so-called, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Porteous had loaded their muskets, received the unexpected reply, "Ou, juist sic as ane shutes dukes and sic like fules wi'." The answer was considered as a contempt of the House of Lords, and the poor provost would have suffered from misconception of his patois, had not the Duke of Argyle (who must have been exceedingly amused) explained that the worthy magistrate's expression, when rendered into English, did not apply to Peers and Idiots but to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... this conclusion doubted on the ground that a bricklayer or domestic servant in a province of the Roman Empire would not have known how to read and write. This doubt really rests on a misconception of the Empire. It is, indeed, akin to the surprise which tourists often exhibit when confronted with Roman remains in an excavation or a museum—a surprise that 'the Romans' had boots, or beds, or waterpipes, or fireplaces, or roofs over their heads. There are, in truth, abundant evidences ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... alert mind. There is a popular notion that good motives are sufficient in themselves and that when one has the desire to attain spiritual illumination, plus the will to achieve, nothing more is needed but purity of purpose. But this is a misconception. It is true that the mystic makes devotion the vital thing in his spiritual growth; and it is also true that the three paths of action, knowledge and devotion blend and become one at a higher stage. But while there are methods of development in which intellect is not at ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... Leibnitz confused his philosophy by the term sufficient reason: for every existence, for every event, and for every truth there must be a sufficient reason. This vagueness of language produced a perpetual misconception, and Leibnitz was proud of his equivocal triumphs in always affording a new interpretation! It is conjectured that he only employed his term of sufficient reason for the plain simple word of cause. Even Locke, who ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... TEMPO andante (going or walking) andantino (diminutive of andante and therefore meaning literally "going less," but because of a misconception of meaning now often understood as ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... Peter. "I was quite willing to take the money, but I was afraid you might have sent it under a misconception." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... been glad to have been taken by the young men, and most probably assisted them, in a surely not unnatural desire to escape from their tyrant fathers. I really cannot credit such continued sexual subjection on the part of the group-daughters, an opinion which arises, I am certain, from the curious misconception of the passivity of the human ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... of acquittal on both counts—as to the charge relating to Imperial unity and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, by proving that the accusation is absolutely unfounded, and based partly on a misconception of the nature of Imperial ties, and partly on a misapprehension of the effect of the provisions of the Home Rule Bill as bearing on Imperial questions; and as to the inutility of the Home Rule Bill in view of the necessity of Land ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... in the duel to which Byron alludes were Wellesley-Pole and Lord Kilworth. The occasion of the quarrel was a misconception of some expression of Pole's at an assembly at Lady Hawarden's (August 6, 1811). A meeting took place on Wimbledon Common (August 9), at which the seconds intervened, and everything was "amicably adjusted." ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... is at Hunters' Hall," he said. "He thought it would be unwise to make a public appearance just now." Oh, brother, what an understatement! "There seems to be a lot of public feeling against him, due to some misconception that he was responsible for what happened to Captain Kivelson's ship. Of course, that is absolutely false. Mr. Ravick had absolutely nothing to do with that. He wasn't anywhere ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... soon becomes apparent that, in order to make such a valuation equitable as between properties, it is necessary to use all of the factors of the ad valorem method for each of the properties. The wide appeal of arguments for a flat tonnage tax is based partly on popular misconception of the complexity of elements entering into ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... rest. He says,—"There are the same witnesses, and the incidents themselves are still more clear and precise. It is not so much of cures that there is question in this case, as of apparent and external facts, in regard to which there can be no misconception." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... for M. d'Arblay but acquiescence and despatch,— while his best consolation is in the assurance he has universally received, that this expedition has the good wishes and sanction of England. And, to avert any misconception or misrepresentation, he has this day delivered to M. Otto(167) a letter, addressed immediately to the first Consul, acknowledging the flattering manner in which he has been called forth, but decidedly and clearly repeating what he had already declared to the war ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... characteristic in each is made known to all; it is through them that embittered, long-seated, and deeply-rooted national prejudices must be dissipated; through them that the fusion of minds, violently hostile to each other only because of their mutual ignorance and misconception of character, must eventually be effected. Before the means of constant intercommunication, daily becoming more rapid and perfect, shall have compassed the whole earth with their lines of lightning, before all nations shall be known to one another as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... friendly Sylla, take care that you do not in your goodwill and affection to me rest under any misconception of my real condition. For it is possible that Eros, not being able always himself to keep his temper in its place in the obedience that Homer speaks of,[678] but sometimes carried away by his hatred ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the appearance of the "Origin of Species;" the reason of this is, that Mr. Darwin was at no pains to correct us. Where, in any one of his many later books, is there a passage which sets the matter in its true light, and enters a protest against the misconception of which Professor Ray Lankester complains so bitterly? The only inference from this is, that Mr. Darwin was not displeased at our thinking him to be the originator of the theory of descent with modification, and did not want us to know more about Lamarck than he could help. If we wanted to ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... to the middle of March, 1861, both public and official British opinion discounted armed conflict, or at least any determined Northern effort to recover the South. Early British attitude was, therefore, based on a misconception. As this became clear, public opinion began to break from a united humanitarian pro-Northern sentiment and to show, in some quarters, quite another face. Even as early as January the Economist expressed wonder that the Northern States had ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... prayer in the evolution of religion proceeds upon a misconception of the process of evolution. At one time it was assumed and accepted without question that the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and all their various species, were successive stages of one process of evolution; and that the process proceeded on one line ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... you mean? Saviour for what? In good faith, my friend, you labour under some misconception. I am used to rely on myself for all the saving that I need. And, generally speaking, if you except the sea, and those cursed north-east winds, I know ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Fergus a little apart, and spoke to him very earnestly for two or three minutes, and then returning to Waverley, said—'I believe I have satisfied Colonel Mac-Ivor that his resentment was founded upon a misconception, to which, indeed, I myself gave rise; and I trust Mr. Waverley is too generous to harbour any recollection of what is past, when I assure him that such is the case.—You must state this matter properly to your clan, Vich Iain Vohr, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... in the course of 600 years, become so firmly established among the Greek thinkers as to seem almost axiomatic. We shall see later on how the Western world made a curious recession from this seemingly secure position under stimulus of an Oriental misconception. As to the size of the globe, Strabo is disposed to accept without particular comment the measurements of Eratosthenes. He speaks, however, of "more recent measurements," referring in particular to that adopted ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... however, be no misconception on this subject. The question now is not whether Lloyd was right in wishing to add a fourth rank, armed with pikes, to the infantry formation, with the expectation of producing more effect by the shock when attacking, or opposing a greater resistance when attacked. Every officer of experience ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... election I thought it right to abandon that privilege, and notified to those about me my intention. But that which a man has the power of doing he cannot always do without the interference of those around him. There was a misconception, and among my,—my adherents,—there were some who injudiciously advised Mr. Lopez to stand on my interest. But he did not get my interest, and was beaten;—and therefore when he asked me for the money which he had spent, I paid it to him. That is all. I think the House can hardly avoid to see ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... various childish iniquities before the question of character-building, it has only been done in order to clear the mind of some current misconceptions. In the statements of Froebel's simple and positive philosophy of child culture, misconception on the part of the reader must be guarded against, and these misconceptions generally arise from a feeling that, beautiful as his optimistic philosophy may be, there are some children too bad to profit ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... said, "not even if there is only the slightest chance that I do. I want to say something to you, if you will let me, though naturally I remember you once asked me never to speak to you again. It is only that I have thought you did that under a misconception, or else I should still ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... much more calmly and firmly than Mr. Parkinson had spoken. "I called accordingly, early yesterday morning, on Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap—they are a very well—but not enviably—known firm in the profession; and in a few minutes my misconception of the nature of the business which I had called to arrange, was set right. In short"—— he paused, as if distressed at the intelligence which ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... It is only that I think we have reason—almost a right—to expect that you should yield a little more thoroughly to our wishes. Both Garrett"—this with emphasis—"and myself are sure that your failing to do so is only due to a misconception on your part, and it is because we are sure that you have only to realise them to give way a little to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... and a presumed suitor of her adopted daughter Susy. High natures are more apt to forgive wrong done to themselves than any abstract injustice. And her capricious tyranny over her dependents and servants, or an unreasoning enmity to a neighbor or friend, outraged his finer sense more than her own misconception of himself. Nor did he dream that this was a thing most women seldom understand, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... then, word for word," resumed Almos. "Understand all I say, for in the error of a second, the misconception of a word, the hesitancy of ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... only to call to mind the critical situation of Blanche—and to see her purpose before her plainly. Assuming that she could open the coming interview by peaceably proving that her claim on Geoffrey was beyond dispute, she might then, without fear of misconception, take the tone of a friend instead of an enemy, and might, with the best grace, assure Mrs. Glenarm that she had no rivalry to dread, on the one easy condition that she engaged to make Geoffrey repair the evil that he had done. "Marry him without ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the misconception of the ignorant or superstitious, it has been thought somewhat profane to speak in favour of spontaneous vital production, as if it contradicted holy writ; which says, that God created animals and vegetables. They do not recollect ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... summoned at once to the Admiralty, and in the interview which ensued, as shown by the minutes endorsed on his own letter, his misconception as to the quarter in which Howe was to act afforded standing ground for a compromise. Hawke having committed himself officially, and upon a mistaken premise, the Admiralty had him technically at their mercy; but such a triumph as they could ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... white,—but that is at intervals only,— Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's!— That must be doing some work. And so we watch and conjecture. Shortly, an Englishman comes, who says he has been to St. Peter's, Seen the Piazza and troops, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... the words of those who knew him most intimately. If I have erred in placing undue emphasis on the early part of his career, it was intentional, for that is the part of his life about which least is known. I have intentionally emphasized his relation to the South, in order to avoid a misconception that he was a detached figure. The bibliographies prepared by Mr. Wills for the "Southern History Association" and by Mr. Callaway for his "Select Poems of Lanier" make ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... her own literary work mentioned to her was so well known by her friends, that even those who wished to express to her their gratitude for the good they had received from her books were constrained to be silent. "While," says her publisher, "she was very sensitive to any criticism based on a misconception or a perversion of her purpose, never, in all my intercourse with her, did I discover the slightest evidence of a spirit of literary ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... attacked. It is perfectly true that this is an ancient and reciprocal obligation. It is perfectly true that Portugal has often been in jeopardy; and equally true that England has never failed to fly to her assistance. But much misconception has been exhibited during the last two nights, with respect to the real nature of the engagements between Portugal and this country: a misconception which has undoubtedly been, in part, created by the publication of some detached portions of diplomatic ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... and self-respect revolted at this idea. He did not intend to be an incumbrance on any one, and became offended in his turn at the mute reproach which he imagined he could read in his cousin's troubled countenance. This misconception, confirmed by the obstinate silence of both parties, and aggravated by its own continuance, at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Lest the slightest misconception should arise from anything thrown out in this chapter, or indeed in any other part of the volume, let me here observe that against the cause of missions in, the abstract no Christian can possibly be opposed: it is in truth ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the great work before us, we are not unmindful that in its prosecution we may be called to test our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The proud and pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, may combine to crush us. So they treated the Messiah whose example ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member for Newark has written in defence of the Church ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... usual principle, opposition acted upon theirs, and rather generally supported the measure. As to myself, I expressed a disapprobation at the practice of bringing imperfect and indigested projects into the House, before means were used to quiet the clamors which a misconception of what we were doing might occasion at home, and before measures were settled with men of weight and authority in Ireland, in order to render our acts useful and acceptable to that country. I said, that the only thing which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we may mark as an epoch in the Girondin destinies; the rage so exasperated itself, the misconception so darkened itself. Many desert the sittings; many come to them armed. (Meillan, Memoires, pp. 85, 24.) An honourable Deputy, setting out after breakfast, must now, besides taking his Notes, see whether his Priming is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... all very well for you to talk of peace now!" I hear him say. "Now that the world is pretty well divided up and you have grabbed the greater part of it. You haven't talked much of peace in the past." And here we are confronted at once with the fundamental misconception of the British Empire and the British character which has worked deplorable harm in the American national sentiment ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson |
