In such a case the literary adventurer is censured, not for having missed the mark at which he himself
aimed, but for not having shot off his shaft in a direction he never thought of.
However, an unlucky school-boy
aimed a hazel nut directly at my head, which very narrowly missed me; otherwise it came with so much violence, that it would have infallibly knocked out my brains, for it was almost as large as a small pumpkin, but I had the satisfaction to see the young rogue well beaten, and turned out of the room.
The fact is I was born to be an example of misfortune, and the target and mark at which the arrows of adversity are
aimed and directed.
Plato was not, like Xenophon, a chronicler of facts; he does not appear in any of his writings to have
aimed at literal accuracy.
Not only many of the officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, or the undue influence of former attachments, or whose ambition
aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good, were indefatigable in their efforts to pursuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic Congress.
