"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went, mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time he ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... whatever she had supposed to be perpendicular was oblique, and whatever she had supposed to be oblique was horizontal, and nothing as she had been accustomed to find it. It made her head swim. It was literally true that she was afraid to move lest she should make a misstep through an error in her ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... and your conduct since—-well, ever since you left the past behind and came out into business life again. Our investigation showed that you had been living for years as an honest man. The rest of us on the board are men—-or think we are—-and we voted, informally, not to allow one misstep of yours to outweigh years of the most upright ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... spirit at the plodding pace of dull mediocrity. His work is drudgery and wearies him body and soul. Those who once smiled upon him pass him by. Men of far inferior capabilities distance him in the race. Perhaps too he has made another misstep, and has a wife who sympathizes neither with his tastes nor his trials: who has no comprehension of him whatever, save that he is a being whose business it is to love her and furnish her with spending money. The beauty which fascinated him has grown faded and insipid. The pretty coquetries ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... moment's awkwardness—Nell was on difficult ground. She feared lest she might make a misstep which would reveal her identity. The Duchess grew impatient. Finally, Nell mustered courage and made a bold play for it, as ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... perils of war and of the courage necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of duty, in this ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... sinks, where the upper stratum had given way and fallen into the yawning depths below. Between these terrible traps the trail was often not over a few feet wide. It was no pleasant thing to contemplate the results of a probable slip or a misstep. The whole country bore the aspect of baffled rage—as if imbued with a demoniac spirit, it had received a crushing stroke from the Almighty hand that blasted and shivered it ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... weeks after the 19th of October, 1846, the forlorn band moved slowly on their course through those terrible mountains. Sometimes climbing steeps which the foot of white man had never before scaled, sometimes descending yawning caons, where a single misstep would have plunged them into the abyss hundreds of feet below. The winter fairly commenced in October. The snow was piled up by the winds into drifts in some places forty feet deep, through which they had to burrow or dig their way. A sudden rise in the temperature ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Segestan, and, working diligently, soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it with his tongue,—it was salt! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered—never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the Remington, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... moved closer. The water was up to her hips, and no river in the Rockies has a swifter current than the Gunnison. The bottom too is covered with smooth slippery stones and bowlders, so that a misstep might send her plunging down. Deprived of the use of her landing pole, she could make less resistance to the tug of the stream, and the four or five pounds of dynamic energy at the end of her line would give her all she could do to take care of for the next few minutes. Her ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... last change in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... I swore aloud; but what I meant by it was more like praying. Over me was the blue winter sky and the gold sun; under me the treacherous spread of the lake that was no lake, that one misstep might send me through, to God knew what hideous depth of unfrozen water, or bare, bone-shattering stone; behind me were Macartney and Macartney's men; and close up to me, nearer every second, my Paulette, my ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... the receiver. He had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely. That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth. The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed to complete the circle was ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... mountain side, leaping logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought up ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... above both in the matter of legislation and in the matter of administration. The enactment of such a law would be quite within the power of Congress without constitutional amendment, and it has such possibilities of usefulness that we might well make the experiment, and if we are disappointed the misstep can be easily retraced by a repeal of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... been several unpleasant, not to say sensational, occurrences in this town of late. I don't suppose you're to blame for everything that has happened. I have insisted that you could not be blamed for the unfortunate misstep of Brother Hewett, who was tempted to take a little more hard cider than was really good for him. Your detractors have insisted that the deacon was led into this action through his exuberance over the arrival of your friends. Some ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... work, as Charley realized. A single misstep might result in a broken leg, and even worse injury, and Charley held his breath in expectation that some such catastrophe would surely happen before they reached ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... negro, at least, it was a welcome moment, for, with his feet tied under the horse, his hands tied behind his back, and a rope with a slip-knot round his neck, he had not found the ride a pleasant one. A misstep of his horse would surely have precipitated his hanging, and he knew well that such an accident would have given much satisfaction to his captors. So he uttered a fervent "Teng Gawd!" as he was hustled into the jail gate and heard ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... shall never feel anything but sorry for him. You can not live with a man as I did, for ten years, and not regret his misstep." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... pressing it against my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases which extended around the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... from him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... to conclude that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep, and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all through. Nevertheless, I ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... her duties, if mechanically yet with a sense of pleasure and serenity. At this moment she was as one pushed unexpectedly to the brink of a precipice, over which the slightest misstep would topple her. The world was out of joint. Shockingly bad wishes flitted through her head. Each wish aimed at the disposal, imaginary of course, of Warrington: by falling overboard, by being seized with one of the numerous plagues, by having a deadly fracas with one of ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... My orders were clear on this point—never make a decisive move unless you are positive you are right. If you are watching a person, and know he has something concealed, arrest him and search his person; otherwise, no matter how strong your suspicions, do not act upon them, as a single misstep of this sort may lose the case, and is certain to put the parties on their guard, and in a few minutes to overthrow the labor ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... bridge, I think we might have been called brave boys, for the bridge was very high above the water, and a timid person would have been very likely to have been frightened when he looked down at his feet, and saw how easy it would be for him to make a misstep and go tumbling ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... Mr. Clay's next misstep was one of precipitation. General Jackson, after a three years' war upon the Bank, was alarmed at the outcry of its friends, and sincerely desired to make peace with it. We know, from the avowals of the men who ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... ran a deeper trench or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must stay all night. The ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... man to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its truth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing to live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege of giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... honest-to-God faces and warm living flesh, were seated on the conveyor-benches as they flashed by. Hilary could have wept with delight. It was two years since he had seen his own kind; two years since Hurley's tragic misstep through the breach in the air-lock made by a meteor as they ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... peccadilloes that go to make this life a sinful one. Science, by a purely logical advance along the lines already mapped out for itself, and in part already traversed, will enable men to avoid the pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life; we shall all see what terrible consequences await on a single misstep, and we shall not make the misstep. Can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to do with ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... his suit your chief shall hear Perhaps may win the prize; Tell him the way is hedged with fear,— One misstep and he dies. Nor will I pledge him safe retreat From out yon guarded tower; My watchful warders all to cheat May be ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... did not feel the slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... stairs made him think they were not so nearly perpendicular as was the fact. While the thought was in his mind, he made a misstep and, unable to check himself, went bumping all the way to ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... people to a loftier plane. In fact, Peter began to suspect that he was no leader at all. He saw now that his initial success with the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence had been effected merely by the aura of his college training. After his first misstep he had never rehabilitated himself. He perhaps had a dash of the artistic in him, and the power to mold ideas often confuses itself subjectively with the power to mold human beings. In reality he did not even understand the people ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... that he would play in good fortune if the loss in horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even the sturdy mustangs were not bred for traversing the trails of Clearwater. There were steep hills where a single misstep meant death, there were narrow trails and dangerous fords, and here and there were inoffensive-looking pools where the body of a horse may sink out of sight in less time than it takes to tell it. These were not the immense-chested ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... luggage, that the mosquitos would make up for lost time with impunity. The river, before reaching Manas, was so swift and deep as to necessitate the use of regular government carts. A team of three horses, on making a misstep, were shifted away from the ford into deep water and carried far down the stream. A caravan of Chinese traveling-vans, loaded with goods from India, were crossing at the time, on their way to the outlying provinces and the Russian border. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep. But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... cliff. Antoine followed after the pack-horse, and Frank came next. Roderick pricked up his ears, looked over into the gorge, and snorted loudly. He moved very slowly and carefully, and well he might: for a single misstep on his part would have sent both him and his rider to destruction. The path was so narrow that, although Roderick walked on the extreme outer edge, Frank's feet now and then brushed against the rock on the opposite ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... Rassmann.' Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, wherefore ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... been comparatively safe. Now, we had need of caution at each step; scrambling along ledges of lofty rocks, with deep ravines beneath; then crossing mountain torrents where a single misstep would have been fatal. Before night we passed the remains of an avalanche, an enormous mass of snow crushing as it fell everything in its path. We were now in the valley of Chamouni. At the sight of the first ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... drop of the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the parching thirst of this ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... not find. Florentin had had charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... centre, by which the victim suspended it when he walked, with one hand, and with the other carried his burden. Whenever he lifted, the fetter rested on his bare ankles. If he lost his balance and made a misstep, which must very often occur in lifting and rolling logs, the torture of his fetter was severe. Thus he was doomed to work while wearing the torturing iron, day after day, and at night he was confined in the runaways' jail. Some time after this, I saw the same dejected, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... picture is in the act of springing upon a timid hare. Although he can measure twenty paces in a jump, I think for once he has made a misstep, and the dear little creature with one more bound will be safe. One very remarkable fact about these animals is this: if there are several together, and one starts over the snow in pursuit of booty, all the others will follow in exactly the same tracks, so that it ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... of goats skipping about, or ruminating in the warm sunshine. A knot of kids—the reckless little creatures—were sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a few days before: a lad playing about the steep fell into the sea, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... goes out walking at midnight, does she?" continued the agent. Sahwah felt that she had made a misstep somewhere, and was harming Veronica's cause instead of helping it, but the eyes of the agent seemed to be drawing all her knowledge from her like a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the Viaticum, and it was plain that he felt the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to the saddle, and his ragged leggins were heavy and clumsy ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... saurian mien shuffled ponderously along in the loose harness. From time to time, one or the other would stumble over a turn in his rut and emit a menacing rumble as if he suspected his team mate of causing the misstep. ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... was only a momentary seduction, a boy's misstep through ignorance, which will never be repeated; Eugen has given me his word of honor ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... But I have no inclination in that direction. I am willing to encounter risks, if there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... frozen hard in the instant of their most violent motion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river with cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the victim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down on of these and met his death. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they did not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... length in a long row, cripples, the blind, the young, the aged, it was a company of mendicants which eccentric painters would have given five years of life to have seen. Except for consumptive coughs, the misstep of a wooden leg of which the clumsy ferule slipped on a cobblestone, and the querulous whimper of a child, half-starved and imperfectly swaddled in a tattered shawl, on a flaccid bosom, the mob were silent in an expectation as intense as the lookers-on. The ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... feeling rather than the sight; for the black waters of the great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters of the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... we shall hit a trail that will lead us down into the gulch. But we'll have to leave the ponies and go down on foot. Not being experienced, I'm afraid to trust them. Only the most sure-footed ponies could pick their way where one misstep would send them ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... this period, as any cause which either destroys the life of the child in the womb or brings on morbid or premature contractions in that organ may induce miscarriage. Coughing severely, or vomiting, a blow or fall, or a misstep leading to an effort to prevent falling, may, and does frequently, result in miscarriage; and this having once occurred, it is, without proper care, exceedingly liable to be the case again at the same period of a subsequent pregnancy. The same result may follow any vivid ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... You're in deep enough now, young man," said Gramps, but he made the change. And, from there, he went without a misstep through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for which ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... his way along, he at length found himself close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a few minutes he was buried to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... before he reached the valley towns. The troops showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition not a man was laid up for any length of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... feet of the ground when I made ever so slight a misstep and brought Peter up short. The next moment he'd caught me up bodily in his right arm, and to steady myself I let my arms slip about his neck. I held on there, tight, even after I knew what I was doing, and let my cheek rest against the bristly ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... task, in which discovery was certain death, but he never faltered. His heart beat steadily and strong. It was an old risk to him, and he had the advantage of great natural aptitude, fortified by long training in a school of practice where a single misstep ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... few could blame him for that misstep; I cannot think the distressing necessity will ever arise again. Should Heaven spare his life he will become your staff, upon which you can soon lean your ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... because we shall join him shortly. We never go off on any of our trips without him. He is a great help sometimes when we get into trouble just because he has so many sides. If we fall into a pit through some misstep the Poker comes along and pries us out of it. If we fall into the hands of some horrible creature that wants to hurt us, the Poker talks to that creature as stupid as he knows how, which makes the other ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... better lookin' all the time, but she was as steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly didn't seem to think that she had done anything wrong; and when she brought ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... said you were not—very serious," she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey |
