"Misplaced" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for six months, and a severe flogging once a month for twelve. I was surprised to see that no part of the fine was to be paid to the poor woman whose money had been embezzled, but on inquiry I learned that she would have been prosecuted in the Misplaced Confidence Court, if she had not escaped its clutches by dying shortly after ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... first streak of dawn, stirred a little in his blanket, but did not rise yet. He saw the buffaloes all around him and realized that his faith in them had not been misplaced. The great bull, like a black mountain, still barred the ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... injured by the English in 1322 and 1384. Richard II. made it a grant in 1389, as some compensation for the injuries it had sustained in the retreat of his army. It was also greatly defaced during the reformation. A stronger proof of their infatuated and (partly) misplaced zeal cannot be adduced, than the destruction of religious edifices by the reformers. There were one hundred monks, without including the abbot and dignitaries. The last abbot was James Stuart, natural son of James V., who died in 1559. The privileges and possessions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... when kindness was most needed—for sympathy and affection—yea, love itself—for grief and pity not misplaced, though bestowed in a mistaken belief of our condition, forlorn indeed, but not wholly forlorn—for solace and encouragement sent to us from afar, from cities and solitudes, and from beyond seas and oceans, from brethren who never saw our face, and never may see ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... able to estimate the change of manner than Miss Lucas was, who did not know how little this Sawny was afflicted with misplaced dignity, looked wistfully and distressed at her. Lady Cicely smiled kindly in reply, rose, without seeming to hurry,—catch her condescending to be rude to Charlotte Lucas,—and took her departure, with a profound and most gracious ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... not only helped and permitted me to use the unpublished letters, [21] but have generously given me a free hand. I am deeply indebted to them, and I can only trust that these pages will prove that their confidence in my judgment has not been misplaced. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... determined—as one of the men observed—"to finish this —— mobile in clean fatigue." The other half of our live stock, the pack mules, who are impervious to fear, but possessed of seventy devils of contrariance and misplaced humour, on the excuse of the near proximity of their bete noire, the camel, indulged in their most violent antics, kicked, jibbed or bolted, blocking the track and causing a halt which had to be followed by a wild sprint to regain touch. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... time, I have felt that you suffered for my poor father's fault—how agonizing that conviction was—how thankful I am that tardy justice was done you. May God return you fourfold for your generous though misplaced confidence in him, and for all ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... from your Hands' and is far more appropriate at the latter juncture. There can be no doubt that the stage direction '[Kneels' should also be inserted at line 19—'Thus low I fall'—and it has been misplaced by the printer in the old copies. I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... in her dark eyes made her look yet handsomer, proving itself not a mean, though it might be a misplaced anger. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... could possibly have made with regard to me, that Colonel Carden should speak of "my plans" and proffer assistance in them was a perfect riddle; and the only solution, one so ridiculously flattering that I dared not think of it. I read and re-read the note; misplaced the stops; canvassed every expression; did all to detect a meaning different from the obvious one, fearful of a self-deception where so much was at stake. Yet there it stood forth, a plain straightforward proffer of services, for some object evidently known to the writer; and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... girls inherit their vicious tendency; others fall because of misplaced affections; many sin through a love of dress, which is fostered by society and {382} by the surroundings amidst which they may be placed; many, very many, embrace a life of shame to escape poverty. While each of these different phases ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... a stripe of nether sky, Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, 95 Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, A silver circle like an inland pond— Slips seaward silently through marshes ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the solace and satisfaction of the one than of the other party. Then, Catella, deeming it high time to vent her harboured resentment, burst forth in a blaze of wrath on this wise:—"Alas! how wretched is the lot of women, how misplaced of not a few the love they bear their husbands! Ah, woe is me! for eight years have I loved thee more dearly than my life; and now I find that thou, base miscreant that thou art, dost nought but burn and languish for love of another woman! Here thou hast been—with whom, thinkest thou? Even with ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... this confidence was not misplaced. Both the ice cream and cake were all that heart could wish, and moreover were served in generous quantities. At the end of the feast they all expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied with Jimmy's selections, and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... made abnormal by alcohol is simply the screw out of water, the misplaced machine belt. The brain is no longer connected with the working realities of life. It has lost its balance and its function. It works rapidly and aimlessly. It moves with wonderful swiftness, ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... of a more important character, no longer exist in the memory of man—they died with them who were contemporaneous with the happening of them.[10] On one occasion however, such was the extent of savage duplicity, and such, and so full of horror, the catastrophe resulting from misplaced confidence, that the events which marked it, still live in the recollection of the descendants of some of those, who suffered on the theatre of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... for their being in the Holy Land, than men of marching regiments can explain why they are in “stupid quarters.” I believe that these monks are for the most part well conducted men, punctual in their ceremonial duties, and altogether humble-minded Christians. Their humility is not at all misplaced, for you see at a glance (poor fellows!) that they belong to the lag remove of the human race. If the taking of the cowl does not imply a complete renouncement of the world, it is at least (in these days) a thorough farewell to every kind of useful ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... interested and diverged from routine, he was choked off because such things would not 'tell.' If the 'coach' had any enthusiasm it was for mathematics, and thitherwards Terry's brain was undeveloped. With misplaced ingenuity, he argued that sums came right by chance and that Euclid was best learnt by heart, for 'the pictures' simply confused him; and when Julius, amazed at finding so clever a boy in the novel position of dunce, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... shapely, elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she has been merged within these two months? In good faith she was very pretty. You and I, my dear madam, would have been quick to see that those charming dimples were misplaced for true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for honest mirthfulness; that the delicate lines around these aquiline nostrils were cruel and selfish; that the sweet virginal surprise of these lovely eyes were as apt to be opened on her plate ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... we can place but little reliance on our dog teams and reflect ruefully on the misplaced confidence with which I regarded the provision of our transport. Well, one must ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... uproariously. "It is most amusing," he declared. "I have had supper with you—you are to breakfast with me, and I have not yet told you my name!" He was searching for a card-case, which seemingly he had misplaced. "I cannot find a card. No matter, my name is ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... by his imprudent and misplaced caution, was thus wasting time in the west, the king employed himself in making preparations to oppose him. Six regiments of British troops were called over from Holland: the army was considerably augmented: and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Police merely, as I said, as a crude example of, doubtless, well-meant, but entirely misplaced energy. Actually, however, it is scarcely more absurd than many similar, if more distinguished, bulls gaily crashing about ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... you, my friends, for your generous confidence in my innocence," returned the old man with emotion; "and, thank God, your confidence is not misplaced. I was formerly guilty of much, which has cost me many bitter tears of repentance; but there is no blood on my hands, and I will now return to my hermit hut, from which they dragged me, there to pray for the success of the good cause in which ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... listen to their talk with ears stretched, not to miss a word, and she did not think her companions as beautiful as princesses. It was she who might have been a princess for another child, but she did not think of that. She looked with amusement and with misplaced pity at the other two. It was a September afternoon and they were very gaily dressed, and again Caroline had a feather drooping over her hair, while Sophia, more girlish, wore a wide hat with a blue bow, and both their parasols were tilted as before against the sun. It seemed to Rose that even ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... men went out and walked round the chapel, and, finding it open, walked into it. Of course there were remarks made by both of them. It was acknowledged that it was ugly, misplaced, uncomfortable, detestable to the eye, and ear, and general feeling,—except in so far as it might suit the wants of people who were not sufficiently educated to enjoy the higher tone, and more elaborate language of the Church of England services. It was ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... banquet was held by the lawyers to celebrate the event, and although Judge Willson was a strong political partizan, the leading lawyers of all parties vied with each other in testifying their entire confidence in the ability and impartiality of the new judge. Nor was their confidence misplaced. In becoming a judge he ceased to be a politician, and no purely political, or personal, motives swayed his decisions. He was admitted by all to have been ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... presence of the king, when we were dismissed, and then he turned us over to a little man who was a grand chambermaid, I understood the fellow to say. The door opened, and we went in, and dad's misplaced calf was wobbling as ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... Winnie, advancing toward the prim lady by the grate, "I fear I have misplaced some of your toilet articles, for I could not find one half of mine. The chamber-maid had given them new places, and I took the liberty to apply to yours, but I'll put them all right ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the daughter of Pharaoh, will soon satisfy himself that, with the exception of a little weight which may possibly be due to the prominence which the Spanish Peninsula takes in the several legends, the whole mass is so utterly barren in historical results, that criticism would be misplaced. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... occasionally, as if in an unguarded moment, condescending to relate some piece of popular gossip. None ventured to inquire the source of my information—not one dared to impugn its veracity. Whatever their misgivings in secret, to myself they displayed the most credulous faith. Nor was their trust so much misplaced, for I had, in reality, become a perfect chronicle of all that went forward in Paris—never missing a debate in the Convention, where my retentive memory could carry away almost verbally all that I heard—ever present at every ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... southern Germany and by the bootless haggling over the transference of Hanover, and goaded on by his patriotic and high-spirited wife, the beautiful Queen Louise, timid Frederick William III at length ventured in 1806 to declare war against France. Then, with a ridiculously misplaced confidence in the old-time reputation of Frederick the Great, without waiting for assistance from the Russians who were coming up, the Prussian army—some 110,000 strong, under the old-fashioned duke of Brunswick—advanced ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... and gracious," is charmingly painted per se, but of this otherwise thoroughly beautiful description I must venture to doubt, whether living eyes of any sort, instead of those in the peacock's feathers, are in good taste. The imagination revolts from life misplaced.] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... like a child, Marie. You perhaps may never have a warmer love for each other than you now have, but that is not the question. You must see how great would be the advantage to us all of our union being at once completed You should not now allow a phantasy of misplaced generosity to stand in the way of an ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... wooing, And that unless the sex would mend, The race of lovers soon must end); "She was at Lord knows what expense, To form a nymph of wit and sense; A model for her sex designed, Who never could one lover find, She saw her favour was misplaced; The follows had a wretched taste; She needs must tell them to their face, They were a senseless, stupid race; And were she to begin again, She'd study to reform the men; Or add some grains of folly more To women than they had before. To put them on an equal foot; And ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... proceed. Though we may not know what THAT is—the fact that It must exist—that It IS, is a sufficient guarantee that the LAW is in constant operation on all planes, from the lowest to the highest, and that THE COSMOS IS GOVERNED BY LAW! And this being so, not even an atom may be destroyed, nor misplaced, nor suffer Injustice; and all will attain the End rightly, and know the "Sat-chit-ananda" of the Hindus—the Being-Wisdom-Bliss Absolute that all philosophies and religions agree upon is the Final State of the ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... Governor answered. "For the military we cannot, however, answer. They are ruled by unscrupulous place-seekers, who may defend the Naya, expecting to reap rich rewards; but such will assuredly discover that their confidence was misplaced. If the Naya seriously threateneth thee and thy friends, then assuredly she shall be overthrown and thou shalt ascend the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... 'Every finite verb must agree with its subject or nominative, in person and number.' Because the meaning is—Bless thou the Lord." This is the whole story. But, in the form above, several things are false; many, superfluous; some, deficient; several, misplaced; nothing, right. Not much better are the models furnished by Kirkham, Smith, Lennie, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... be cheaper to erect a structure where the size of the windows bears no rational relation to the size of the front? Is there any profit in a misplaced chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy builder gain more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be omitted, and green timber employed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I reached Dinapore, a large military station, sufficiently insalubrious, particularly for European troops, the barracks being so misplaced that the inmates are suffocated: the buildings run east and west instead of north and south, and therefore lose all the breeze in the hottest weather. From this place I sent the boat down to Patna, and proceeded thither by land to the house of Dr. Irvine, an old acquaintance and botanist, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of the great Southern Confederacy to secure recognition in Europe will doubtless provoke sad strains from the bards of that unfortunate 'empire.' Nor less to be pitied are those who have put their trust in contracts and become the 'victims of misplaced confidence.' The following brace of parodies sets forth the sorrows of either side with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... even then he hated to think that people were so low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of the old Encyclopaedia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes. All at once he came upon the long article "Obstetrics," profusely illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... of Mexico is mutiny. They scarcely want a leader to move their madness. They rebel on any weak pretence. They bluster when they are courted; they crouch when they are oppressed. They are fools to all the world but themselves. I beg the Almighty to consider in my favor, that some over-hasty angel misplaced my lot. I should have been ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... glance into his eyes, aglow with pride and resolution, convinced me that whatever hope I might have cherished regarding Mapela's supposed desire for my escape from the ordeal to which I was about to be subjected had been utterly misplaced. His cupidity in respect of possible gifts, if indeed he had been animated by any such feeling, had evidently been swamped by his sense of duty to his king, and he had as evidently picked a warrior well calculated, in his opinion, to uphold ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... strong, Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong; Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek; Scoffing aside at party's nod Order of nature and law of God; For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, Reverence folly, and awe misplaced; Justice of whom 't were vain to seek As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik! Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins; Let him rot in the web of lies he spins! To the saintly soul of the early day, To the Christian judge, let us turn and say "Praise and thanks for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... to save himself murdered them! What, I ask you, of a man who so openly studied the art of self-seeking, deaf alike to the pleas of honour and to the claims of friendship? Would not leniency towards such a creature be misplaced? Can it be our duty at all to spare him? Ought we not rather, when we know the doublings of his nature, to guard against them, lest we enable him presently to practise on ourselves? The case is clear. We therefore ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... and we feel exactly as though it were nil. Despite its name, the disease neurasthenia does not signify a real asthenia or weakness. Rather, it is a disorder in which there is plenty of energy that has somehow been temporarily misplaced. Then, too, we must remember that under the depressing influence of chronic fear, not quite so much energy is stored away as would otherwise be. All the bodily functions are slowed down; food is not so completely assimilated, the heart-beat is weakened, the breathing is more ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... as the Heavenly said, 'Thou art The blessedest of women!'—blessedest, Not holiest, not noblest,—no high name, Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame, When I sit ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... contains a "Scherzo alla Tarantella," which is full of reckless wit. But the abandon is so happy as to seem misplaced in a tarantella, that dance whose traditional origin is the maniacal frenzy produced by the bite of the tarantula. An earlier Tarantella (op. 34) is far truer to the meaning of the dance, and fairly raves with ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... to our condition we should learn from authority so high the duty of fortifying the points in it which time proves to be exposed rather than be deterred from approaching them by the suggestions of fear or the dictates of misplaced reverence. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... from mutual injuries) can never die. The person injured should never trust his foes, thinking, "O, I have been soothed with assurances of goodwill." In this world, men frequently meet with destruction in consequence of (misplaced) confidence. For this reason it is necessary that we should no longer meet each other. They who cannot be reduced to subjection by the application of even force and sharp weapons, can be conquered by (insincere) conciliation like (wild) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... easily she may be surpriz'd] This line in the first edition is given not to Charuian, but to Proculeius; and to him it certainly belongs, though perhaps misplaced. I would put it at the end of ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... to visit, and a class of children to hear—children who were no longer ragged, for Lucy's money had been poured out like water, till even Arthur had remonstrated with her and read her a long lecture on the subject of misplaced charity. Then, there was Widow Hobbs, waiting for the jelly Lucy had promised, and for the chapter which Lucy read to her, sitting where she could watch the road and see just who turned the corner, her voice always sounding a little more serious and good when ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... hurrying back to an inside anchorage, when we made a bad mistake; did, in fact, what we had never done before, ran aground on the very top of high water, and are now sitting hard and fast on the edge of the Rute Flat, south of the east spit of Langeoog. The light was bad, and a misplaced boom tricked us; kedging-off failed, and at 8 p.m. we were left on a perfect Ararat of sand, and only a yard or two from that accursed boom, which is perched on the very summit, as a lure to the unwary. It is going to blow hard too, though that is no great ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... enough money with me to pay for it, but with that delightful confidence in an Englishman—often unfortunately misplaced—one finds in some distant countries, the shopman insisted on my taking it, and said he would send to the hotel in ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... the best one in which to consider the various effects—good or bad—which have been secured by growing certain plants in juxta-position with others. All incongruities or extremes arising from misplaced judgment or uncertain taste should be at once noted in a pocket-book reserved exclusively for gardening notes, comments, &c. It is ever so much easier to determine the proper positions of various colours, and situations of certain plants, when they are at ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Mrs. Carlyle's letters—letters which come not within our terms of reference and from which, therefore, we cannot decently quote—is remarkable: only, even here, his intolerable virtue and vanity, his callous self-content, his miserable, misplaced self-pity and his nauseous sentimentality parade themselves on almost every page. For all his "Oh heavenses," "courageous little souls," and "ay de mis," he never once guessed the nature of his offence, never realized the beastliness of that moral and religious humbug ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... this talk of Mrs. Spruce's, reached Bainton's ears from time to time in a disjointed and desultory manner and moved him to profound cogitation. He was not quite sure now whether, after all, his liking for Miss Vancourt had not been greatly misplaced. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and quips, it is true, are directed against "wicked" women, but if Zabara really wrote them, it would be difficult to acquit him of woman-hatred, unless the stories have been misplaced, and should appear, as part of the "Book of Delight," within the Leopard section, which rounds off a series of unfriendly tales with a moral friendly to woman. In general, Oriental satire directed against women must not be taken too ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... honour oh Mary Anne Kepp by offering her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him. He made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with himself. He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... be sent to England, in order that he might arrange to be exchanged for a French naval officer, after swearing that in case this could not be managed, he would return as a prisoner to Brest. It was a great trial of any man's good faith, but it was not misplaced, and happily the exchange was easily made. No sooner were his own affairs settled than Howard set about freeing his countrymen, and very shortly some English ships were sent to Brest with a cargo of French prisoners and came back with ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... are as gods looking before and after. Sitting in the theatre, we taste, for a moment, the glory of omniscience. With vision unsealed, we watch the gropings of purblind mortals after happiness, and smile at their stumblings, their blunders, their futile quests, their misplaced exultations, their groundless panics. To keep a secret from us is to reduce us to their level, and deprive us of our clairvoyant aloofness. There may be a pleasure in that too; we may join with zest ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the dome of the Invalids is handsomely painted; but the exterior exhibits what I must consider as a very misplaced species of decoration for a place of this nature, being completely gilt, pursuant to an order of Buonaparte, dated, as I have been informed by good authority, from Moscow. This decoration has, as can well ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... leading embodiment of this mocking spirit was Punch founded in 1841. A'Beckett's Comic History of England, which ran through many numbers, seems to this generation a dreary and deleterious specimen of misplaced farce; though historically it is not quite such bad work as Dickens's Child's History of England, which he meant to be serious. Among Thackeray's very numerous contributions to Punch are Miss ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... he frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he might give for entering it." And the Doctor, who had an abiding and very misplaced confidence in the fellow, adds plaintively: "Savage was at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother that it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several hours ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... already a twofold reason why he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he shouldn't unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundred at a time. Why should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, he has a sense of honor, granted that it's misplaced, granted it's often mistaken, yet it exists and amounts to a passion, and he has ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in a fatherhood more omniscient than his own had not been misplaced. Loving hands had borne his darling safely through the waves to a home where, in an atmosphere of devotion, the beauty that had been in her from the beginning had perfected in its maturity. Even the homely surroundings ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... not distinguished by an unlovely ducking, so much the worse. The ducking must come. Caution must be learnt by catastrophe. No one can ever know how unstable a thing is a birch canoe, unless he has felt it slide away from under his misplaced feet. Novices should take nude practice in empty birches, lest they spill themselves and the load of full ones,—a wondrous easy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... me to say," replied Captain Wilson, biting his lips, "that I think that your zeal has in this instance been very much misplaced, and I trust you will not show so ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to answer wi' your life for your misplaced faith in her," said the King; "but I tell you naething—naething wicked, at all events—is impossible to witches, and the haill case, even by your own showin', is very suspicious. I have heard somewhat of the story of Alice Nutter, but not the haill truth—but there are folk ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... strange tale of misplaced loyalty and gratitude, but it was peculiarly oriental. And when they learned that Umballa was hidden in his own house and the king in a hut outside the city, they knew that God was just, whatever His prophet's name might be. Before ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... driving down it so much," she continued, confidentially, yet with a shy little look as if trying to learn whether her confidence was misplaced. "Aunt Lydia and I go shopping almost ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... passed like a long, bright dream. It was a pretty romance, but sadly misplaced—a pretty summer idyll. They were but boy and girl. Dora met Ronald in the park, by the brook-side, and in the green meadows where the white hawthorn grew. They talked of but one thing, their love. Ronald never tired of watching Dora's fair face and pretty ways; she never wearied of telling ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... your decision," said Mrs. Ross, to her husband. "In my opinion, mercy would be misplaced in such a case as this. The boy who is degraded enough to steal is likely to continue in his criminal course, and the sooner he is punished ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have been fixed. The letter after the page number indicates the Tract (see the Table of Contents). Corrections [in brackets] in ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... you say proves true, father," she murmured, in an altered voice, "I may, perhaps, die of sorrow; but I cannot fail to realize that my confidence and my love has been misplaced." ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... and superiority which had invested his affection for a girl of meaner condition. His self-respect was humiliated with his love. The soil and dirt of those wretched cabbages had clung to him, but not to her. It was she who had gone higher; it was he who was left in the vulgar ruins of his misplaced passion. ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... say whether patriotism or superstition was the animating principle of an Irish leader, and whether political rapacity or bigoted zeal against bigotry was the motive of an oppressor. Yet in no country was this more misplaced in our day than in Ireland. Our upper classes were mostly Episcopalians—masters not merely of the institutions, but the education and moral force of the country. The middle ranks and much of the peasantry of one of our greatest provinces were Presbyterians, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... untiring energies to the affairs of his kingdom, Frederick wasted his time in amusements; instead of filling his treasury by a wise economy, he squandered his revenues by a needless theatrical pomp, and a misplaced munificence. With a light-minded carelessness, he did but gaze at himself in his new dignity, and in the ill-timed desire to enjoy his crown, he forgot the more pressing duty of securing it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... circumstances as the court could not properly consider. In our country it is too often improperly used to enable the worst criminals to escape due punishment, just because it is a disagreeable duty to hang them. Such misplaced clemency is pleasant for the murderers, but it makes life less secure for honest men and women, and in the less civilized regions of our country it encourages lynch law. 4. In all the states except Rhode Island, Delaware, Ohio, and North Carolina, ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... too. It had always been a cheaply constructed article, with one missing caster that had to be supplied by a folded wedge of paper. Still, in a consignment with other things, it would add something to the total. Martie put her hand upon it, and rocked it. As usual, the steadying wedge of paper was misplaced. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second volume. The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 1758. In the third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter was misplaced as if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as I have shewn (ante, p. 247), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 7, 1757. He must have come into residence, as Johnson did (ante, p. 58), some little while ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... to learn that while they listen to "the speaking hundreds and units," who make the world ring with the pretended triumphs they have witnessed, the "dumb millions" of deluded and injured victims are paying the daily forfeit of their misplaced confidence! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... supersensitive people who in humble life find that their superiors never do them fitting honor, whom the best and most kindly do not succeed in satisfying, and who go about their duties with the air of a martyr. At bottom these disaffected minds have too much misplaced self-respect. They do not know how to fill their place simply, but complicate their life and that of others by unreasonable demands ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... before. This we could do, each one for ourselves, or more advantageously by cooperating with one another. We are too wasteful, too indolent, too ignorant. Tempted by the invisible sewers we imprison these misplaced and inharmonious elements for a time in lead or iron pipes, while they grow more hostile, occasionally escaping by violence or stealth into our chambers, and then with many nice contrivances and much perishable machinery we try to wash them away ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... in the Emperor's honour and loyalty was complete. Lord Clarendon dwelt particularly upon the feelings of your Majesty and of the Prince on this subject, and the pleasure it gave the Emperor was evident; and he desired Lord Clarendon to say that your Majesty should never find such confidence misplaced. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere the same look of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, and premature decay; most of the furniture was mismatched and misplaced; many of the rooms had changed their original functions or doubled them; a smell of cooking came from the library, on whose shelves, mingled with books, were dresses and household linen, and through the door of a room into which Mrs. Delatour retired to remove her ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... dish, and treated with a just recognition of its merits. The answer to this was decidedly in the negative. Mr. Romayne and Miss Eyrecourt had declined to taste it. My lord had tried it, and had left it on his plate. My lady alone had really eaten her share of the misplaced dish. Having stated this apparently trivial circumstance, the head servant was surprised by the effect which it produced on the housekeeper. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, with an appearance of unutterable enjoyment. That night there was one supremely happy woman in ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... porch and waved a fat arm to the girl. The visitor wore a dark-green turban and a Cashmere shawl, while the expanse of her skirts was nothing short of magnificent: some cathedral-dome seemed to have been misplaced and the lady dropped into it. Her outstretched hand terrified Betty: how was she to approach near ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... prodigal with vine leaves in his hair, careering outrageously to hell amid the popping of champagne corks and the ribald laughter of sirens! Could misunderstanding be more complete, or sympathy worse misplaced? ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... the gate for her. She was pleased to observe that the raw morning had reddened her friend's nose; and she presented her own nose to notice as exhibiting perfect sympathy in this respect. Feeling a misplaced confidence in Mr. Sarrazin's knowledge and experience as an angler, she handed the fishing-rods to him. "My fingers are cold," she said; "you bait the hooks." He looked at his young friend in silent perplexity; she pointed to the tin box. "Plenty of bait ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... head, and it was then cut up. It measured 13 feet across the wings, but many are larger than this. The beak was about 6 inches long, curved, and of great power. Sailors have no "ancient mariner" sentiment as to killing the albatross—in fact, it would be misplaced. The captain told us of a case he knew of where a man had fallen overboard, when the albatrosses swooped down upon him, and pecked out his eyes and brains. The sailors begged the captain to shoot him and so end his sufferings. The quills of the albatross make excellent ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... is alluded to in a subsequent letter from Lord Grenville. It was felt that his lenity in treating with the rebels was misplaced, and that the Government ought to have adopted a more decided course in extinguishing the dying embers ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... italics: I wish that reflection on POVERTY had been spared.' How amiable! how pretty! Could Joseph Surface have more dexterously improved the occasion: 'The man that disparages poverty, is a man that—' &c. It is manifest, however, at a glance, that this virtuous indignation is altogether misplaced; for 'poor' in the quotation from Theobald has no reference whatever to poverty as the antithesis to wealth. What a pity that a whole phial of such excellent scenical morality should thus have been uncorked and poured out upon the wrong man ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... in the form of debating has received favor among educators. It seems to serve the ends of practice in speaking and it gives also good mental discipline. The high regard for debating is not misplaced. We can hardly overestimate the good that debating has done to the subject of speaking in the schools and colleges. The rigid intellectual discipline involved in debating has helped to establish public speaking in the regular curriculum, thus ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... to the, purpose; impertinent, inapposite, beside the mark, a propos de bottes [Fr.]; aside from the purpose, away from the purpose, foreign to the purpose, beside the purpose, beside the question, beside the transaction, beside the point; misplaced &c (intrusive) 24; traveling out of the record. remote, far-fetched, out of the way, forced, neither here nor there, quite another thing; detached, segregate; disquiparant^. multifarious; discordant &c 24. incidental, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... without being moved by the faintest surprise that her toilet had produced such an overpowering sensation. Bertha's emotion did not appear to her in the least misplaced or exaggerated. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... not even very pleasant. It is their job to make beauty out of it, beauty of a new kind probably, because it will accompany new truth; but they must have time. Surprise, shock, experiment, come first. The new literature deserves criticism, but it also deserves respect. Contempt for it is misplaced, aversion is dangerous since it leads to ignorance, wholesale condemnation such as one hears from professional platforms and reads in newspaper editorials is as futile as the undiscriminating praise of those who welcome novelty just because ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... adjustment to his crude surroundings with the utmost difficulty. Poor he had been in London, but his work had been among musicians, and even cheap musicians have in them something better, finer, higher than the majority of human cattle in the steerage of this ship could show. He felt uncomfortably misplaced. ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... for though adorned with a crook secundum artem, he looked more rawboned and ugly than Holofernes, and more villainous than the wandering Jew: fully justifying the scorn with which the stiff-skirted Henriette seemed to treat him. It is almost misplaced however to enumerate such follies in a place, which on a fine day presents perhaps one of the most varied and magnificent views in the world: and which a person who had only an hour to spare in Lyons, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... libraries, and retired chambers of the devout, as an excitement to religious feeling, and a memorial of the mystery of the Incarnation, where large or grander subjects, or more expensive pictures, would be misplaced. Though unimportant in comparison with the comprehensive and magnificent church altar-pieces already described, there is no class of pictures so popular and so attractive, none on which the character of the time and the painter is stamped ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... few instants remarkably happened, but there glimmered on him an induction that still made him keep his own manner. Newton himself might now resort to any manner he liked. His eyes had raked the floor to recover the position of something dropped or misplaced, and something, above all, awkward or compromising; and he had wanted his companion not to command this scene from the hearth-rug, the hearthrug where he had been just before holding him, hypnotising him to blindness, because the object in question ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James |
