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verb
Mistook  v.  Imp. & obs. p. p. of Mistake.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mistook" Quotes from Famous Books



... conviviality and the watch would be less strict than usual. Douglas and his followers, supplied with scaling ladders, crept on all fours towards the walls. The night was still and they could hear the sentries' conversation. They had noticed the objects advancing, but in the darkness mistook them for the cattle of a neighbouring farmer. Silently the ladders were fixed and mounted, and with the dreaded war cry, "A Douglas! A Douglas!" the assailants burst into the castle, slaying the sentries and pouring down upon the startled revellers. Fienne and his men fought gallantly ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... he felt, as in The New Age, the pleasure of the coming life of the world, but he was too weary to share in it, and he claimed quiet. But chiefly he saw the disturbance, the unregulated life; and, unable to realise that it was the trouble and wildness of youth, he mistook it for the trouble of decay. He painted it as such. But it was really young, and out of it broke all kinds of experiments in social, religious, philosophical and political thought, such as we have seen and read of for the last ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... cord, her fine form bending toward him, and her face expressing deep anxiety in every one of its beautiful features. The enormous knees of the physician struck each other with a noise that was audible; for, in the absent state of his mind, he mistook her for a general officer, perforated with bullets, hastening from the field of battle to implore assistance. The delusion, however, was but momentary, and his eye glanced rapidly from the daughter to the earnest dignity of the fathers countenance; thence to the busy ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... even in London they are said to have one. They say, for example, "it a'nt" instead of "it is not;" "I don't know," for "I do not know;" "I don't know him," for "I do not know him;" the latter of which phrases has often deceived me, as I mistook a negative ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... could be seen moving along the starboard side slowly. Trask caught a foreign sound, a gurgle which he at first mistook for rain water running from the scuppers. But the deck was scarcely wet and, besides, the sound was to starboard. Water running off would go to port, for the schooner was heeled a little ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... of depending on my eyes to handle the reins. This brought me up against a disastrous optical illusion. The bight of the off head-line, being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line, hung lower. In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook the two lines. Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in order to straighten the team, I would see the leaders swing abruptly around into a jack-pole. Now for sensations of sheer impotence, nothing can compare with a jack-pole, when the horrified driver beholds his leaders prancing gaily up ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... Resolution; but at length they put on shore in a little creek, and seating themselves abreast the English vessel, entered into familiar conversation with several of the officers and seamen; in which they paid a much greater regard to some, whom they probably mistook for females, than to others. So well indeed, were they now reconciled to our voyagers, that they took up their quarters nearly within the distance of a hundred yards from the ship's watering place. Captain Cook, in his interview with them, had caused the bagpipes and fife to play, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... the hedgehog appeared. 'I beg your pardon,' he said in softer tones, 'but I mistook you for the rates and taxes, or I shouldn't have spoke so short. I wasn't expecting customers so early. A Flamp compass? Why, I don't think I have one in stock. You see, since the Flamps died off, the ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas

... A young woman who mistook Vine-street police station for a tavern, and was fined ten shillings for drunkenness, is reported to have expressed the opinion that there is room for improvement in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... and a dog in the house. Would it be credited, if I was telling it to the world instead of telling it to my Journal, that I actually mistook one for the other to-day?—after seeing so well, too, as I do now, and being able to write with so few false strokes in making my letters! It is nevertheless true that I did mistake the two animals; having trusted to nothing but my memory to inform my eyes which was which, ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... this, there has been a constant enmity. Don Silvio refused all my offers of assistance, and followed me with a pertinacity which often endangered my life. At last he fell by the hands of his own agents, who mistook him for me. Don Silvio died without leaving any provision for his family; his widow I pensioned, and his son I have had carefully brought up, and have indeed treated most liberally, but he appears to have imbibed ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... was in quest of sidereal wonders—such as double stars and nebulae—and he happened to alight upon the new planet in a purely chance way. He had no expectation of finding such a remarkable object, and indeed, when he had found it, wholly mistook its character. There could be no doubt that it was a body wholly dissimilar to the fixed stars, and it was equally certain that it could not be a nebula. It had a perceptible disk, for when it had first come under the critical eye of its discoverer he had noticed immediately that its appearance differed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... purpose of gratifying my revenge for the ill-treatment I had received from the lord high treasurer, and of conciliating his good graces; for it had a double meaning all through: what he in his ignorance mistook for praise, was in fact satire; and as he thought that the high-sounding words in which it abounded (which, being mostly Arabic, he did not understand) must contain an eulogium, he did not in the least suspect that they ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... the most anxious excitement, and her question offended Galenus. He mistook their purport, and his voice was wrathful as he replied, "Long enough yet ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... near the center of the column, surrounded by troopers. For a time they were both silent. Barney was wondering if he had accidentally tumbled into the private grounds of Lutha's largest madhouse, or if, in reality, these people mistook him for the young king—it ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... heard of thim, too!" he said. "But 'tis of insects they be professors, and not of one kind of insects alone, Mrs. Muldoon, mam. Ye have mistook th' understandin' of what ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler

... that at worthy M. Gardere's hotel at Biarritz (he has seen service in England, and knows our English ways), you may have at dinner, day after day, salmon, louvine, shad, sardine, dorado, tunny. The first is unknown to the Mediterranean; for Fluellen mistook when he said that there were salmons in Macedon, as well as Monmouth; the louvine is none other than the nasty bass, or sea-perch of the Atlantic; the shad (extinct in these islands, save in the Severn) ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... their arms, and the vast machines that seemed to move upon the waters with wings, which they supposed had, during the night, risen out of the sea, or come down from the clouds; the sound and flash of the guns, which they mistook for thunder and lightning: all these things appeared to them strange and surprising; they considered the Spaniards as children of the sun, and paid homage to them ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... knew thou didst not brook Half-hearted worship, and a love that wavers; Haho! there is the wisdom I mistook, Therefore I seek with desperate endeavours; That fault dissevers ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... nights Comes a skeleton in tights, Walks once more the giddy heights He mistook; And unseen to mortal eyes, Purged of grosser earthly ties, Now at last in ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... sometimes difficult to determine, at first, when the bird is out of sight, whether we are listening to the one or the other; but after a few seconds, we detect one of those quaint turns that distinguish the notes of the Cat-Bird. I never yet mistook the note of the Cat-Bird for that of any species except the Red Thrush. The truth is, that the Thrushes, though delightful songsters, possess inferior powers of execution, and cannot equal the Finches in their capacity of learning and performing the notes of other birds. Even the Mocking-Bird, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... against the vine, and through half-closed eyes watched in delicious rest the preparations for dinner. My prairie-horse mistook my comfort for his own. I found his length of liberty included my chair-cushion, and I gave him tuft after tuft, until something like justice seemed to penetrate into his soul,—for he heroically refused the last morsel, and wandered away into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... That she mistook what really was in his eyes was not material, though he was thinking of days when he believed he had discovered the secret of life—a woman whose life was beautiful; diffusing beauty, contentment, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... late in the afternoon, she having been sent in quest of the Jonah of the fleet. Upon approach of the ship there were prolonged cheers from all of Uncle Sam's defenders. The only explanation that I have ever heard for this unpardonable blunder on the part of the ship's crew was that they mistook a ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... and domestic life, Moses was one of that very common class who had more desire to be loved than power of loving. His cravings and dreams were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for somebody who should be devoted to him. And, like most people who possess this characteristic, he mistook it for an ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... angelic translation of its sanctities: on Christmas morning, it was devoutly believed by all Christendom, that this holy thorn put forth its annual blossoms. And with respect to the aspen tree, which Mrs. Hemans very naturally mistook for a Welsh legend, having first heard it in Denbighshire, the popular faith is universal—that it shivers mystically in sympathy with the horror of that mother tree in Palestine which was compelled to furnish materials for the cross. Neither would it in this case be any objection, if a passage ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... the vale to its own solitude. Dugald, after waiting a long time to ascertain they were quite gone, crawled from the bushes, and, ascending the cliffs, he was speeding to the mountains, when, encountering our armed shepherds, they mistook him for an English soldier, and seized him. The chief of ruined Ellerslie recognized his servant; and, with redoubled indignation, his followers heard the history of the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... present Czar, at Moscow, I mistook the Duke of Edinburgh, brother of the late King Edward, for a policeman attached to the British Ambassador, so exceedingly commonplace a person in appearance, speech and manner he seemed; Louise has a telling chapter on the mean looks of royalty, but fails ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... some ferocious countenances amongst them, but yet they were all feasting. The monotonous sound of a drum, mingled with the howling of two dogs tied under the table, accompanied the strange songs, which I mistook for a funeral psalm. The smoke of tobacco and wood which filled this den, scarcely allowed me to perceive in the midst of the room a woman, who, adorned with a scarlet turban, was performing a wild dance with the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... his memory by the incident of the little black dog, who always went before the horses in pulling up hill, and pretended to assist them. I put him in mind of his own wit, 'that he wondered if the doggie mistook himself for a horse;' at which he laughed, and added, 'Yes, and thought it very hard that he was not rubbed down at the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... was nothing but a follower of his, and on all fit occasions fell down to the ground in his presence and respectfully kissed his hand. Abouna Salama for a time believed that his influence over Theodore was unbounded, as it had been over Ras Ali and Oubie; mistook Theodore's show of humility for sincere admiration and devotion; and the more humble Theodore seemed disposed to be, the more arrogant did the Bishop, publicly show himself. But he had not quite understood the character of the Emperor he had anointed; and ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... and sweeter than ever. I mistook you for Aunty Boone at first," I chimed in, kissing her on each cheek. And we all bundled away in an old-fashioned, low-swung carriage, happy as children again, with no barrier between us and the dear ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... this?" "O, madam," says Slipslop, "I don't know what hath happened, I have been so terrified. Here may have been a dozen men in the room." "To whom belongs this laced shirt and jewels?" says the lady. "Undoubtedly," cries the parson, "to the young gentleman whom I mistook for a woman on coming into the room, whence proceeded all the subsequent mistakes; for if I had suspected him for a man, I would have seized him, had he been another Hercules, though, indeed, he seems rather to resemble Hylas." He then gave an account of the reason of his rising from bed, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... said that Burns ought not to be believed, because he mistook the color of the dagger, and because he has varied in his description of it. These are slight circumstances, if his general character be good. To my mind they are of no importance. It is for you to make what deduction you may think proper, on this account, from the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Hospital. But this time I'm flourishing. No more wooden barracks, but a farmhouse right in the fields. I have a room all to myself. Quite correct: I downed three Fritzes, one ablaze, and the next day again great sport: mistook four Boches for Frenchmen. At first fought three of them, then one alone at 3200 to 800 meters. He took fire. They will have to wait till the earth dries so they can dig him out. An hour later a two-seater turned up at 5500. He blundered, and fell straight down on ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... intentioned buck An' is standin' broken hearted an' as gentle as a pup A reflectin' on the rottenness o' luck. Puts your sympathetic feelin's, as you might say, in a stew, Though you're lame as if a-sufferin' from the gout, When you're lightin' off a broncho that has had it in fur you An' mistook the proper time to have it out. James ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... speech was as bland as ever. His trials were not yet over: at some very silly remark of mine the joyous widow pressed some half-dozen rapid kisses on the cheek that was glowing so near her own. Either this act emboldened Riprapton, or he egregiously mistook her character, and judged that a mere voluptuary stood before him, for he immediately went on the vacant side and endeavoured to possess himself ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... during the dinner-time, had its origin in one of the aisles of St. Paul's, which was called Duke Humphrey's Walk: not that there ever was in reality a cenotaph there to the Duke's memory, who, as everyone knows, was buried at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, but because, says Stow, ignorant people mistook the fair monument of Sir John Beauchamp, who died in 1358, and which was in the south side of the body of the church, for that of Humphrey, Duke ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... thereby robbing the lawyers and jailors of their fees. The benchers, it seems, had sworn the peace against him before Sir John Fielding, because he had made a friendly call upon a member of the society. They mistook a card of introduction for a challenge. Jackson signs himself 'with the profoundest sense of your Masterships' demerits, your Masterships' inflexible detestor,' and probably did not ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... still water at the mouth of the Riviere Mistook, just above the Rapide aux Cedres, we went ashore on a level wooded bank to make our first camp and cook our dinner. Let me try to sketch our men as they ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... he mistook Andre-Louis' quality, which is not surprising, for despite his sadly reduced fortunes, his exterior was irreproachable, and M. des Amis was not to guess that he carried upon his back the whole ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... administered in his ignorance, a hale pint o' castor oil in ain dose to a lad on board, which took the puir fallow aff his legs completely. Anither specimen o' his medical skill was gie'n are o' his crew, a heapen spun-fu' o' calomel, which he mistook for magnesia. I varilie believe that he canna' spell weel eneugh to read the directions in the buik. An' is it to sic a dunderheid that the lives of eighty-five human beings are to ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... garrisoned, with half-a-dozen tall watchmen and constables, without seeing himself watched by a Papist in disguise, with a drawn sword under his cloak. It was even whispered, that, in the agonies of his fears, the worshipful Master Maulstatute mistook the kitchen-wench with a tinderbox, for a Jesuit with a pistol; but if any one dared to laugh at such an error, he would have done well to conceal his mirth, lest he fell under the heavy inculpation of being ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... they were so low, They knew not where nor what they were about; Some fancied they saw land, and some said "No!" The frequent fog-banks gave them cause to doubt— Some swore that they heard breakers, others guns,[140] And all mistook about the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... main position of Caesar's Camp was much the same in plan and result. At 3 a.m. the Manchester pickets along the extremity's left edge (i.e., north-east) were surprised by the appearance of Boers in their very midst. Lieutenant Hunt-Grubbe, who was visiting the pickets, mistook them for volunteers. "Hullo! Boers!" he cried out. They laughed and answered, "Yes, burghers!" He was a prisoner in their hands for some hours. The whole of one section was shot dead at their post. The alarm was given, but the outlying sentries and ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... Episcopalian. I am of the church of Archbishop Laud and King Charles of blessed memory. I like good, thick Christmas pie, 'reeking with sapid juices,' full-ripe and zealous for good or ill. But my 'Separatist' ancestors all mistook gastric difficulties for spiritual graces, and, living in me, they all revolt and want to sail in the Mayflower, or hold town-meetings ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... the contrary to that of Narcissus, because he mistook a shadow for a substance, I ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... "He mistook me for some one else—he called me Jim. I couldn't abuse his drunken mistake and show him that I was not his friend Jim. It would have been cruel. And when he recognized me he threw himself on my mercy and begged me not to leave ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... of utter stupefaction or not, I do not know; but as she turned and recognised Valentine there was a tremor in her voice which the audience mistook for art, though I knew it to be but too real. I tried to smile and to applaud, but neither eyes nor hand would obey my will; and so even Claire's acting became a reproach and an appeal to me, pleading forgiveness ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... which has been considered a sea-eagle. Mr. Dewar states that it remains almost motionless at a great height in the air for long periods; and it is easy to understand how in these circumstances primitive people mistook it for the spirit of the sky, or the vehicle of the sun-god. It is propitious for a Hindu to see a Brahminy kite, especially on Sunday, the sun's day, for it is believed that the bird is then returning from Vishnu, whom it has gone to see on the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... camp at 8.30 a.m., proceeding down the creek, mistook a tributary for the main creek; following it south for two hours, when it spread into small gullies, and we had to return to the creek, which had now a northerly course, and at 4.25 camped about three miles from our starting point in the morning. The country passed over was of a very poor character, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... of collar (you know "Sissy Williams says, 'the feeling is for low ones this year'!") and mustard-coloured boots. All that sounds hideous, I know, yet it wasn't. At first sight it was rather attractive, but it lost its attractiveness in a flash when it mistook the ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... you, then, that appeared?" said Aasta. "Alas, my lord, I mistook you for one of the Norsemen of Earl Roderic's ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... one invaluable gift—that of perceiving and admiring more than a little, certain forms of the beautiful; but it was rendered merely ridiculous by being conjoined with the miserable ambition—poor as that of any mountebank emperor—to be himself admired for that admiration. He mistook also sensibility for faculty, nor perceived that it was at best but a probable sign that he might be able to do something or other with pleasure, perhaps with success. If any one judge it hard that men should be made with ambitions to whose objects they can never attain, I answer, ambition ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... and is what Dugald Stewart mistook for imagination, in the kingdom of which noble faculty it has ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... are to be had corbillards on a more elegant plan. These are carriages hung on springs, and bearing much resemblance to our most fashionable sociables with a standing awning; so much so, that the first of them I saw I mistook for a mourning sociable. Some are ornamented with black feathers. Caparisons, hangings, every thing is in black, as well as the coachman. This speculator also lets out mourning coaches, black without and within, like those in use in London. At a few funerals, these are hired for the mourners, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... leaving me to ponder with wonder and amaze at what I had listened to, and with keen admiration for the part Mr. Livingston had taken in the matter. I had always been led to believe that no man could hold his own against the shrewd and unfathomable Abbe; but, if I mistook not, this time Mr. Livingston had not only held his own, but got much the better ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... roosts in response to the coming day, looked unconcernedly at all that was human that they had ever seen. Finally, wakened by the resounding cries of these birds, Bearwarden and Cortlandt arose, and meeting Ayrault, who had already risen, mistook the snowy form before them for the spirit, and thinking the dead bishop had revisited them, they were preparing to welcome him, and to propound the questions they had formulated, when Ayrault's familiar voice showed them ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... thousands of natives were to precipitate themselves on the caras blancas (pale faces), and murder them. The failure of the conspiracy was, it appears, only attributable to a fortunate accident—to the circumstance, namely, that a body of the rebels mistook some rocket fired upon the occasion of a Church festival for the agreed signal, and commenced the attack ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... Agricola's master, Mother Bunch could not suppress a movement of surprise, and also blushed slightly. The superior naturally mistook this surprise and confusion for a proof of the modest susceptibility of the young sempstress, and added: "I have told you all this, my dear daughter, that you might be on your guard. I have even mentioned reports ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... I examined the head of a cow, on the right facial region of which there existed an enormous tumor, extending from the eye to the lips, and which I mistook during life for a periosteal enlargement. On cutting into it, my mistake was evident. There was scarcely a trace of the original bones beneath the mass; even those forming the nasal sinuses on that side ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... the improbability involved in it, that Essex should have applied to the wife of one of his enemies, by making Essex give the ring to a boy passing by, who was to give it, not to the Countess of Nottingham, but to her sister, and then mistook ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... of Eleu'th[)e]rae, who carved a cow so true to nature that even bulls mistook it for a living animal. (See ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... so strangely as this unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any sense of fear. I remember—and tell it here because, singularly enough, I recollected it then—that once in looking carelessly out of an open window I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail seemed out of harmony with ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... might have been about a mile in advance of the rest of the party, when we saw a sort of semi-clearing before us, that we mistook at first for our resting-place. A few acres had been chopped over, letting in the light of the day upon the gloom of the forest, but the second growth was already shooting up, covering the area with high bushes. As we drew nearer, we saw it ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... Yet long'd to taste of something new. It chanced in this disastrous case, One morn betimes he join'd the chase: Swift o'er the plain the hunters fly, Each echoing out a joyous cry; A forest next before them lay; He, left behind, mistook his way, And long alone bewildered rode, He found a peasant's poor abode; But fasting kept, from six to four, Felt hunger, long unfelt before; The friendly swain this want supplied, And Joan some eggs and bacon fried. Not dainty now, the squire in haste Fell to, and praised ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... for him possessed her; an unexpected throb of her being startled and robbed her of words. He mistook her continued silence. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a boulder in the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... remained in the hermitage. And it came to pass that one day, desirous of seeing his wife, Paravasu returned home alone. And he met his father in the wood, wrapped in the skin of a black antelope. And the night was far advanced and dark; and Paravasu, blinded by drowsiness in that deep wood, mistook his father for a straggling deer. And mistaking him for a deer, Paravasu, for the sake of personal safety, unintentionally killed his father. Then, O son of Bharata, after performing the funeral rites (of his father), ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... wouldn't head a duck. He didn't go as fast as a Chinaman could trot with two baskets of stones. I want to have three of 'em in to have another look at 'em." Here he looked surreptitiously at his cuff, saw a note "No. II.", mistook it for "Number Eleven", and said: "I want Number Eleven to ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... fire, Alessandro waited. In a few moments Mrs. Hartsel came hurrying back to her work. It was no uncommon experience to find an Indian quietly sitting by her fire. In the dim light she did not recognize Alessandro, but mistook him, as he sat bowed over, his head in his hands, for old Ramon, who was a sort of recognized hanger-on of the place, earning his living there by odd jobs of fetching and carrying, and anything else ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... in you!' she went on. 'I trusted you! I loved you—but I have loved a villain and believed a liar, and I am a prisoner under a coward's roof!' Beseeching, he tried to lay his hand upon her sleeve; she mistook his meaning. 'Take care!' she cried, and suddenly the revolver was in her hand. 'Take care, I say! A nun is only ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... inspiration from the days of the conquistadors. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of El Dorado is a dramatic representation of the Aztec myth of The Gilded One, which the followers of Cortez, in their greed for gold, mistook for a fact instead of a fable. (p. 54.) The Fountain of Youth by Edith Woodman Burroughs finds its justification as a part of the historical significance of the Tower in the legend of that Fountain of Eternal Youth sought by Ponce de Leon. (p. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... by Jack's passiveness, followed, with more abuse of the same sort. If he had been wiser, he would have seen a storm gathering in the flash of Jack's eye; but he mistook the ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... went out hunting with his uncle, he hung a coat and hat on an alpine staff, and the chamois mistook it for a man, as they generally do. The mountain path was narrow here; indeed it was scarcely a path at all, only a kind of shelf, close to the yawning abyss. The snow that lay upon it was partially thawed, and the stones ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... a thousand thunderbolts had fallen on my head. Oh my dear queen! Never even in a dream did I think that such a misfortune would befall you. You mistook a poisonous tree for a sandal-tree. Oh, how hard is my heart! It does not melt at the sight of my wife sold away as a slave. Even iron is melted by fire. Oh Providence! I can no longer bear up my sorrows. Oh Indra I break my head ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... He mistook the solid rock of ethical resolution he was trying to disturb with so frail an engine. The fulcrum itself would yield far sooner to the pressure than the weight of Herminia's uncompromising rectitude. Passionate as she was,—and with that opulent form she could ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... only idea was to do the best they could for the cause, to fight with courage and perseverance, and to trust to God for the result: it was not, therefore, wondering that, in the present instance, they so completely mistook their duty. ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... do anything that he could for me, but that the order was positive to bombard the house. I reported his answer to Gounsovski, who told me: 'Tell him then to turn the muzzle of the cannon the other way and bombard the building of the chemist across the way, then he can always say that he mistook which house was intended.' I did that, and he had them turn the cannon. They bombarded the chemist's place, and I got out of the whole thing for the hundred roubles. Gounsovski, the good fellow, may be a great lump of fat and be like an umbrella ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... appears, were successively despatched for me, but all of them mistook the number and ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... had told his love to Hermione. This was the scene which he wished most to forget, yet loved most to remember; and of this he was now dreaming, with his hands clasped upon his book, and that kind of music in his thoughts, which you, Lady, mistook for rhyme. ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... from Wilmington. As our train ran through a cut near the junction a darky stood by the track gazing at us curiously. When the train had nearly passed him he started to run up the bank. In the imperfect light the guards mistook him for one of us who had jumped from the train. They all fired, and the unlucky negro fell, pierced by a ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... not my vocation. Nature intended me for something better, I trust, and I mistook a boyish inclination for a taste. A little experience taught me better, and I am now where I feel I ought to be. I wish, Miles, you had come to the study of the law, at the time you went to sea. You would have been, by this ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... arrayed in the faded point-lace and elevated toupee of the ancient English school, and not in the flowing and graceful robes of Grecian simplicity. But his malice and ill-nature were frightful; and withal his love of scurrility and abuse quite intolerable. He mistook, in too many instances, the manner for the matter; the shadow for the substance. He passed his criticisms, and dealt out his invectives, with so little ceremony, and so much venom, that he seemed born with a scalping knife in his hand to commit murder as long as he ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... the vain observation of dreams, which, from a superstitious credulity, they mistook for salutary warnings from Heaven; those obscure and equivocal answers of oracles, beneath whose veil the spirits of darkness concealed their ignorance; and, by a studied ambiguity, reserved to themselves an evasion or subterfuge, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... the mountains and basted the prairies with wire, until the lonely places were brought together and made sociable. They drove off the Indians, who wanted the bright wire for ear-rings and bracelets; and the bears, which mistook the humming of the wires for the buzzing of bees, and persisted in gnawing the poles down. With the most heroic optimism, this Rocky Mountain Company persevered until, in 1906, it had created a seventy-thousand-mile ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... the inevitable struggle between these two. Fremont had been flattered to the skies. He conceived himself a genius. He was persuaded that the party of the new temper, the men who may fairly be called the Vindictives, were lords of the ascendent. He mistook their volubility for the voice of the nation. He determined to defy Lincoln. He issued a proclamation freeing the slaves of all who had "taken an active part" with the enemies of the United States in the field. He set ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... posted at Farnham in December, 1905, has just been delivered at Ivychurch. The theory is that the postal authorities mistook it for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various

... not know what a Goliath I was, nor what stogies I wore; but I thank you all the same," John said, and with burning blushes Ethelyn turned next to her beautiful Schiller—the exquisite little bust—which Andy, in his simplicity mistook for a big doll, feeling a little affronted that Ethelyn should suppose him childish enough to care ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... predicted expressly that the famous comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (fracas) on May 19, 1719; he assured us that in truth its perruque would signify nothing mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible sign of the wrath of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after all, but a matter of fifty-four years and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... therefore, we made our way, falling in with a number of Forrest's men who had been on a brief visit to their homes in Alabama and were now returning to their command. As we shortly discovered, the Union commanders in Tennessee mistook General Forrest's movement to the neighborhood of Chattanooga for a retreat; for, shortly after he moved in that direction, an ambitious Federal officer asked and received permission to enter Northern Alabama with a force large enough to worry the Confederate leader if he ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... would come to her better self soon," the German said joyously. "Tant Sannie is not wholly bad, far from it, far." Then seeing his companion cast a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one of surprise, he added quickly, "Ah, yes, yes; we are all a primitive people here—not very lofty. We deal not in titles. Every one is Tante and Oom—aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... intelligent girl, about nineteen years of age. She was not beautiful, but had you asked for the finest-looking girl in all Glenwood, Mag would surely have been pointed out. She was rather above the medium height, and in her whole bearing there was a quiet dignity, which many mistook for hauteur. Naturally frank, affectionate, and kind-hearted, she was, perhaps, a little strong in her prejudices, which, when once satisfactorily formed, could not easily ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... natural formation of the clouds, which Constantine by an optical illusion mistook for a supernatural sign of the cross, besides smacking of the exploded rationalistic explanation of the New Testament miracles, and deriving an important event from a mere accident, leaves the figure of Christ and the Greek or Latin inscription, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and bland. The reason seems obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as inseparable as peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... he had no Stick, and when he was shot, the Witness then testified, as is mentiond in a former paper, that he had no Stick & his Arms were folded in his bosom; so that it is probable the young Witness mistook the person. Mr Attucks, it is said was at his Lodgings & at Supper when the bells rang; Witnesses indeed swore that they afterwards saw him with a Club, & great pains were taken to make it appear that he attackd the Soldiers, but the proof faild; even Andrew, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... eye-glass tin times, th' las' time almost swallowin' it, while ye'er faithful corryspondint was rindered deaf be th' explosions. Another Irish rig'mint has disappearded, th' Twelve Thousandth an' Eighth, Dublin Fusiliers. Brave fellows, 'tis suspicted they mistook th' explosion of lyddite f'r a Pathrick's Day procession an' wint acrost to take ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... he knew what he was doing, and after he had been married twelvemonths, he found he did not care for his wife. When they became engaged, he was in the pride of youth, but curbed by his religion. He mistook passion for love; reason was dumb, and had nothing to do with his choice; he made the one, irretrievable false step and was ruined. No strong antipathy developed itself; there were no quarrels, but ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... man—and I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too, like a taut rope—"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it; and you've money, too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? not you! As sure as God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aware of the use of the boat, intimating that it was turned upside down, and pointed to the N.W. as the quarter in which we should use her. He mistook the sheep net for a fishing net, and gave them to understand that there were fish in those waters so large that they would not get through the meshes. Being anxious to hear what he had to say I sent for him to my tent, and with Mr. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... he wished; for in all she had said there was no trace of the anger and resentment for his desertion of her, which he had expected would be a prominent feature—the greatest obstacle he had to encounter. The deep sense of penitence she expressed, he mistook for earthly shame; which he imagined he could soon ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... subject under discussion between us, "Very true, we do pronounce many words differently, and I can always recognize your countrymen by the British accent they use when speaking our language." I laughed, and remarked that unless I mistook, we had spoken it before Americans existed. He did not answer; it seemed to strike him as a new view of the subject, and ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... element. [Footnote: It is remarkable that Pulisay, to whose great merits as an acute observer I am happy to have frequent occasion to bear testimony, had noticed that vegetation was necessary to maintain the purity of water in artificial reservoirs, though he mistook the rationale of its influence, which he ascribed to the elemental "salt" supposed by him to play an important part in all the operations of nature. In his treatise upon Waters and Fountains, p. 174, of the reprint of 1844, he says: "And in special, thou shalt ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... and furnished. The drawing-rooms were crowded with bric-a-brac and monuments of the upholsterer's ingenuity. It was a work of art and peril to dust them every day. He developed a taste for entertaining as time went on and honors thickened upon him, and he mistook, like most of his guild, ostentation for hospitality. Every dish at the banquets for which he became famous was a show piece. He swelled with honest pride in the perusal of a popular personal paragraph estimating the value of his silver and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... sir, I beg you a thousand pardons, and am delighted to welcome a person of whom I have heard Frank say so much. Frank!" (to Berry, who soon entered in very glossy boots and a white waistcoat), "do you know, darling, I mistook Mr. Fitz-Boodle for Mr. Fitz-Simons—that horrid Irish horse-dealing person; and I never, never, never can pardon myself for being so rude ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... clearly perceived." (St. L. 16, 882.) The Emperor's optimism was, no doubt, due to the fact that, unlike his theologians, he did not perceive and realize the impassable gulf fixed between Lutheranism and the Papacy, as appeared also from the Augustana, in which, however, the Emperor mistook moderation of tone for surrender ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... not critical, than any other work of its author; and it is remarkable that it traverses humbler ground, as respects both its subject, its characters, and its scenery. From this, and other indications of the same kind, we are disposed to infer that Goethe mistook his destination; that his aspiring nature misled him; and that his success would have been greater had he confined himself to the real in domestic life, without raising his eyes ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... do not deny that the entrails of Captain Cook were eaten; but they insist that it was done by children, who mistook them for the viscera of a hog, an error easily explained when it is known that the body had been opened and stripped of as much flesh as possible, to be burned to ashes, as was due the body of a god. The officers of the distinguished navigator demanded his bones, but as they were ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... only one door, and James mistook it, running his head, for lack of knowledge, into the open closet, just as the minister lifted the outer-door sneck. We were all now sitting on nettles, for we were frighted that James would be seized with a cough, for he was a wee asthmatic; or that some, knowing there was ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had turned instinctively, and I had seen that for which I had risked this daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologised. "I mistook you for another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I saw that her mind was bent ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... Turnbull, rallying a hearty laugh, "the fancies have really got hold of you. You mistook some other poor ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... politics. Their correspondence shows one of the most pitiful, pathetic, and lamentable love tales in the history of society. He looked upon her friendship as a most valuable acquisition by which he was kept in touch with all the scandals and stories of society, of which he was so fond, and she mistook that friendship for love. He felt himself flattered in being the one preferred by such a distinguished old ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... comic effusions. It has, comparatively speaking, this high claim to commendation, that, although the intrigue is licentious, according to the invariable licence of the age, the language is, in general, free from the extreme and disgusting coarseness, which our author too frequently mistook for wit, or was contented to substitute in its stead. The liveliness and even brilliancy of the dialogue, shows that Dryden, from the stores of his imagination, could, when he pleased, command that essential requisite of comedy; and that, if he has seldom succeeded, it ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... slowly toward them the three waifs paid no attention to her, beyond giving a warning growl or two, which Snowball—not understanding that she could be unwelcome—mistook for their usual way of speaking. With a friendly "P-r-r-r-rh!" of greeting she drew near, and lapped daintily at the strongly flavoured milk. Was it hunger, or the feeling of liberty and comradeship that made it taste so good and made her for ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall

... Cunningham, who visited the spot (1862), found a pillar, evidently of the age of Asoka, with a well-carved elephant on the top, which, however, was minus trunk and tail. He supposes this to be the pillar seen by Fa-hien, who mistook the top of it for a lion. It is possible such a mistake may have been made, as in the account of one of the pillars at Sravasti, Fa-hien says an ox formed the capital, whilst Hsuan-chwang calls it an elephant (P. ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... ladies of the establishment appearing in the early part of the day in the most extreme deshabille. Indeed, on one occasion when I was first introduced into the family of a respectable citizen, and shown into my bedroom, I mistook one of two females who were making the bed for the servant, and was surprised to see her hand a little douceur I gave her as an earnest of attention on her part, to the other with a smile. She soon afterwards ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant

... on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herself brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not, was the very same garment as the one that had adorned the chair of his room. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of the back with neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its colour, the spots being distinctly ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... go back to our stone, and talk about how it was made, and how the stalked star-fish, which you mistook for a flower, ever ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... turning the last page to show the sheet where she must sign her name, underneath those of "the other leading citizens of this town." There was something wrong, but she was not quite sure what it was. She glanced back at the eager face of Eliph' Hewlitt, and mistook the glow of "Affection, How to Hold it When Won," for the intense glance ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler



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