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Pen   Listen
noun
Pen  n.  
1.
A small inclosure; as, a pen for sheep or for pigs. "My father stole two geese out of a pen."
2.
A penitentiary(6); a prison. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pen" Quotes from Famous Books



... color, so it was considered best and politest to await a properer season. It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make a "life-size" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, to show the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords is about three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during the course of the duels or at their close, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... our proceedings on our first cruise cannot but be acceptable to you, I take up my pen to communicate them. We anchored in this road on Sunday morning, the day after we had sailed from Spithead. The independent companies and invalids for this island were immediately disembarked. The wind being too much to the southward for the transports to proceed to Jersey, they ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... removed. Failing in this, he wrote to the Oneida chiefs, urging them to remain loyal to the king. A letter that an Oneida runner let fall at this time on an Indian path is the earliest bit of handwriting that we have from Joseph Brant's pen. In it he warns the Oneidas against the subtle work which the colonists were carrying on. 'Guy Johnson is in great fear of being taken prisoner by the Bostonians,' he says. 'We Mohawks are obliged to watch him constantly. Guy Johnson assures himself, and ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... Heyss, my host, the King's Goldsmith; Mr. Nicolaus Kratzer, the King's Astronomer, a man who is brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies; and Mr. Hans, the Royal Painter, the Apelles of our time. I wish them from my heart all joy and happiness." This little pen-picture of Holbein's intimate circle is a beautiful break in the mists of centuries—and shows us what manner of men they were among whom he had made for himself an honoured place. We could ill spare it from the few and meagre ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... Day we went out with the General into the Savannah, where we had near 100 Men making of a large Pen to drive the Cattle into. For that is the manner of their Hunting, having no Dogs. But I saw not above 8 or 10 Cows, and those as wild as Deer so that we got none this Day: yet the next Day some of his Men brought in 3 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... been a slip of the pen; the following is his own calculation, made in 1823, and which from his great degree of exaggeration falls short of half the actual amount. "If from my age of 20 to 80 years I have walked 5 miles a day, which is a moderate ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... of air; yes, I am determined on that. The stately physician who came in his carriage the other day, and who looked at your tongue, and said 'Ah!' and then felt your pulse and said 'Ah!' again, and then called for pen-and-ink and wrote a little prescription, is not the doctor we want for you. We want Dr. Yorkshire; we want the breezes from the Yorkshire moors, and the smell of the farmyard, and our dear Aunt Dorothy's sillabubs, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... clarification that must render his work welcome to thinking men and women wherever it be introduced. And as he is still in the flower of his manhood, it seems reasonable to expect that still greater things may be forthcoming from his pen. ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... large apartment to the right of the hall—evidently a room of general assembly. Near the window was a desk with a great book on it. As I stood before this desk and she handed me a pen, her face was in the full light of the window, and glancing at it, the thought struck me that I now knew why Miss Putney did not wish me to stop at the Holly Sprig Inn. I almost laughed as I turned away my head to write my name. I was amused, and at the same time ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... Stories from the pen of a writer who possesses a thorough knowledge of his subject. In addition to the stories there is an addenda in which useful boy scout nature lore is given, all illustrated. There are the following ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... he shone like the summit of Meru. Himself shedding such effulgence, and bearing that circular bow in his hand, he looked like a second sun in autumn. That bull among men, possessing the shoulders and the tread and eyes of a bull, looked in the midst of thy troops, like a bull in a cow-pen. Thy warriors approached him from desire of slaughter like a tiger approaching the leader, with rent temples, of an elephant-herd, standing proudly in the midst of his herd, resembling as he did and possessed as he was of the tread of an infuriated elephant. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to FONS LACHRYMARUM, &c. by John Quarles, 1648, 8vo., and are subscribed, as will be seen, R. L.; they may be from the pen of Lovelace; but, if so, it is strange that they were not admitted, with other productions of a similar character, into the volume published by the poet himself in 1649, or into that edited ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... the walls allowed no word which could betray the object of this long conference to reach her ears. Monsieur Desmarets, the notary, went away at last. The stillness of the night, and the singular activity of the senses given by powerful emotion, enabled Clemence to distinguish the scratching of a pen and the involuntary movements of a person engaged in writing. Those who are habitually up at night, and who observe the different acoustic effects produced in absolute silence, know that a slight echo can be ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... in a confiding mood, he told the secret to one of the courtiers of Ferrara, whom he believed to be his devoted friend. But what was thus whispered in the closet was proclaimed upon the house-top; and a duel was the result, in which Tasso, as expert in the use of the sword as of the pen, put to flight the cowardly traitor and his two brothers, whom he had brought with him to attack the poet. This adventure, and the cause of it, reached the ears of the duke, whose resentment was kindled by the audacity of a poor poet and dependant of his court in falling in love with ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... from her instantly, without replying. "May I write a note here?" he said, and went towards the writing-table. "My pen has ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... up his mustachios fiercely, "does the captain-general set this man of the pen to practice confusions upon me? I'll let him see that an old soldier is not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... art THOU here too? thou, whose pen, Can blast the fancied rights of men: Pray, by what logick are those rights 95 ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell

... Blackwood's Magazine); and beneath, F. JEFFREY (late editor of the Edinburgh Review), who took his seat in Parliament not many days since.—"These are two names which stand at the head of the periodical literature of Scotland. The periodical writer must have a ready command of his pen and a versatile genius; he must be able to pass quickly from one subject to another; and instead of devoting himself to one continuous train of thought, he must have a mind whose quick perception and comprehensive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various

... asked me if I wouldn't like to change places with Jones who sits nearer the fire," he said once to Cicely, his eyes humid with gratification. "He'd noticed how cold my hands were when I passed him a pen. They shake, you know; I can't stop them. It's something to be noticed like this by him, Cicely! I shall ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... it is enough. There is literature proper, for which only two or three men and women in a generation have the true gift. This cannot be too good. But besides this there is a mass of honest and needful work to be done with the pen, to which literary form is only accidental, and in which consummate literary finish or depth is a sheer work of supererogation. If Miss Martineau had given twice as many years as she gave months to the condensation of Comte, the book would not have been ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley

... leddies are dressed; but everybody is in deep mourning. Howsomever I have seen but little, and that only in a manner from the window; but I could not miss the opportunity of a frank that Andrew has got, and as he's waiting for the pen, you must excuse haste. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: women themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I begin to be ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do so with pen ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... returned from lunch, and for about the fifth time that day was arranging his white hair and short, neatly pointed beard in a small looking-glass. Over the top of it he glanced at Hardy, who, leaning back in his chair, bit his pen and stared hard ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... PEN. Do not bring your hand toward me; but departing, play the Bacchanal, and wipe not off your folly on me; but I will follow up with punishment this teacher of your madness; let some one go as quickly as possible, and going to his seat where he watches the birds, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... the most authentic, is decidedly the most pleasing version; it is from Mackay's collection, perhaps from his pen. ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... was dressed in the simple habit of the Capuchins, and who wore his cowl over his head so that only his shining black eyes could be seen, put down his pen when he heard himself ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... the lawyer was determined to be upsides with Mr. Rawdon. He asked his roomfellow if he had any writing materials, and was at once provided with paper, envelopes, and a fountain pen. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... a step near the top where her little writing tablet was. She arranged her paper and took up her pen, only to discover that in her haste she had ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... however, as of old, the man or woman who has a special gift of voice or pen or brush or sculptor's tool or command of instrument or ability to compose music or to write literature fit to live forever, or build temples that command wonder and admiration, or who in some form of creative activity makes his mark ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... up a pen, but put it down when he found his hand shook, and told the clerk to charge the goods. When the latter had gone, he sat still for some minutes and then opened a book of accounts. He had had another warning, sharper than the last, and had better put things straight while he could. With this object ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... is hard to me to think of what passed so close to me while I was helpless. But I saw nought of the battle that was at Pen-Selwood, and even as I heard thereof from men who had left the levy, the greatest battle of all was being fought within a morning's ride of us, ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... spirit constituted the reward of our great investigators. Led on by the whisperings of natural truth, through pain and self-denial, they often pursued their work. With the ruling passion strong in death, some of them, when no longer able to hold a pen, dictated to their friends the last results of their labours, and then rested from ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... great corrals and came to one which was bounded by a fence of extraordinary height. It was a small corral, but all the posts were of great size, and the rails were as large as ordinary posts. I inquired what strange beasts could be kept in such a pen, and the man-of-all-work of whom I ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... the story, all memory of whom he left or whence he came had been swept away. It was a house of riddles where Allen dwelt—a rude thing of logs and ladders and a low roof and two rooms. Yet one ladder led high to glories no pen may describe. The Allens, with this rude shelter, found delight in dreams of an eternal home whose splendour and luxury would have made them miserable here below. What a riddle was this! And then, as to the boy Sid, there was the riddle of his coming, and again that of his ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... Vivie? I suppose you expect the time-worn trick of the weary novelist, anxious to put his pen down and go to his tea: "Then she seemed swallowed up in a cloud of blackness and knew no more"—till it was convenient to the narrator to begin a fresh chapter. But with me it must be the relentless truth and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... year at the trading," said the factor. "For a fortnight has the ox waited in the pen, the bread of the feast been set. So do we love our brothers of the forest. What is the word of the west? What tribes come in to the factory with peltry? We ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... fortune but my own talent, and even that I was beginning to doubt, because it brought no money. For a year I had worked and hoped, with a brave spirit; had written my life into poems and tales; tried a play; turned critic and reviewed books; offered my pen and time to any one who would employ them, and now was ready for the hardest literary work, and the poorest pay, for starvation ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... It would also appear that about 150 of these guerrillas were the attacking party, and thirty of them were killed and wounded before they relinquished the idea of taking the boats, as we have since learned. The attempt to pen in the boats, by felling trees across the river, was thwarted by the rapid ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe

... a reference to the Governor, who instructed Sir John Gorst to withdraw. Had it been otherwise; or had the order lagged, Sir John would most likely have shared the fate of 'The Lonely Sparrow on the House Top!' The sword proved mightier than the pen in that duel. ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... one of the original carpenter's tools. The difference between compass and dividers is that compasses have adjustable pen or pencil points, whereas dividers are without adjustable points. Modern work has brought refinements in the character of the compass and dividers, so that we now have the bow-compass, which is, usually, ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... Mr. Morrice being present as a third party, Monk had received Greenville at St. James's, acknowledged his Majesty's gracious messages, and given certain messages for his Majesty in return. He would not pen a line; Greenville was to convey the messages verbally. They included such recommendations to his Majesty as that he should smooth the way for his return by proclaiming a pardon and indemnity in as wide terms as possible, a guarantee of all sales and conveyances ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... awakened by the noise, appeared at the door of the tomb. The pen shrinks from the picture she presented. In the half-clad apparition, patched with scales, lividly seamed, nearly blind, its limbs and extremities swollen to grotesque largeness, familiar eyes however sharpened by love could not have recognized the creature of childish grace and purity we first ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... proper Circumstances and Colours to the whole, especially when the History it self is but succinctly Related, and the Heads of things only left us. And this some great Man have thought was the Method of the Holy Pen-man himself, whoever he were, in that lovely antient Poem of Job; which, that 't was at the bottom a real History, few but Atheists deny; and yet 'tis thought some Circumstances might be amplified in the account we have left us, particularly the long Speeches between ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley

... words all came to me of themselves in beautiful flowing Latin, just right, as if it was anybody but myself doing it, and they ran off my pen in red and blue and gold, and all sorts of colours; and fine branching zig-zagging stars, like what the book described, only stranger, came dancing and radiating round my pen and the candle. I could hardly believe the verses would scan by daylight, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... region is crammed with the paraphernalia of a typical water-front: curious little shops where sailors' supplies are sold; airy lofts where sails are cut and stitched and repaired; fish stores of all descriptions; sailors' haunts, awaiting the pen of an American Thomas Burke. The old Custom House where Hawthorne unwillingly plodded through his enforced routine is here, and near it the new Custom House rears its tower four hundred and ninety-eight feet above the sidewalk, a beacon from ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... seemed to have the insidious power of recalling something in the past that was too wonderful ever to have happened, and of suggesting vague hopes of the most improbable joys. Sylvia seemed to the young man the incarnation of April. He put down his pen, and shaded his eyes with his hand. Then the inner door from the hall opened, and a pompous but genial ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... Tonnelier a great dignitary! It makes me long for the pen of Tacitus, on my word. When I was retired in 'forty-eight, under a mean and cruel injustice they did me, I had not reached the age of exemption. I was still capable of good and loyal service; but probably I could have waited until an amendment. I found it at least in the ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... I am allowed more elbow-room, I will tell you why it is that I myself love this Kate. Now, at this moment, when it is necessary for me to close, if I allow you one question before laying down my pen—if I say, 'Come now, be quick, ask anything you have to ask, for, in one minute, I am going to write Finis, after which (unless the Queen wished it) I could not add a syllable'—twenty to one, I guess what your question will be. You will ask me, What became ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... loss of her speech. It was the arranging of flowers so as to make them speak the language of her heart to another, a means of communication in which the women of the East excel. Indeed it is the only mode in which they can hold silent converse, since they know not the cunning of the pen. Engaged in this gentle and pleasing occupation, the Circassian passed hours and days in the study and practice of the sweet language ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... besieging him for work. They came to his desk, spoke, and passed with a rapidity that was ominous. As I drew nearer, I watched him anxiously, and saw the incessant, nervous, querulous activity of eyes, lips, hands, as he dismissed each with a word or a scratch of the pen, and looked up sharply ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... 1874, and others; but they have also given to teleology entire treatises. Besides a more popular treatise of the astronomer Maedler in "Westermann's Monatshefte," October, 1872, there belong to them the frequently mentioned work of Wigand, and especially three essays of great importance from the pen of a man who in questions of development and its extent has among all contemporaries the first right to speak, namely, Karl Ernst von Baer. They are the essays on the conformity to the end in view in general, on the conformity to the end ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... went off, the boatswain came to me and told me the boat was going off, and that he went in it himself, and asked me if my letter was ready he would take care of it. I had prepared myself, you may be sure, pen, ink, and paper beforehand, and I had gotten a letter ready directed to my governess, and enclosed another for my fellow-prisoner, which, however, I did not let her know was my husband, not to the last. In that to my governess, I let her know where the ship lay, and pressed her earnestly ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... man' on his face," said a friend to Jerrold, speaking of a person in whom Jerrold's faith was not altogether blind. "Humph!" Jerrold replied, "then the pen must have been ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... with a degree of anxiety, consulting the calendar, on which, every evening, he scratched out the day that was past. At the moment when Planchet, according to his daily custom, with the back of his pen, erased another day, D'Artagnan kicked the door with his foot, and the blow made his steel spur jingle. "Oh! good Lord!" cried Planchet. The worthy grocer could say no more; he had just perceived his partner. D'Artagnan entered with a bent back and a dull eye: the Gascon had ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is with the utmost reluctance that I take up my pen to communicate tidings which, I well know, will occasion you great distress. This morning's post brought me the mournful intelligence of my brother Algernon's death, which melancholy event took place on the morning of the 4th of August last, at the house of a friend in Calcutta. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... work, and the spirit of it is as beautiful as the make of it. I have held him in admiration and affection so many years that I know by the number of those years that he is old now; but his heart isn't, nor his pen; and years do not count. Let him have plenty of them; there is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... am well. The cough has ceased and the pain. But deep below, it beats. Aurora's eyes are veiled. Only when I play will they glow. They fill the world with light. I sit and play softly—her pen moves fast. She can write with music—music—over her—around—Chopin's music, whispered low—but clear as love. They said once George Sand was clever. It is Chopin's touch that makes her great. It eats the soul. For thee, Aurora, I could crawl upon the ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee

... Hercules, give ear and deign, Thou that this age's grace and splendour art, Hippolitus, to smile upon his pain Who tenders what he has with humble heart. For though all hope to quit the score were vain, My pen and pages may pay the debt in part; Then, with no jealous eye my offering scan, Nor scorn my gifts who ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... had been sitting a long time with my pen in my hand, thinking what this chapter ought to be about,—that is, what part of my own history, or of that of my neighbors interwoven therewith, I ought to take up next,—when my third child, my little Cecilia, aged five, came into the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... to undertake a journey to Yedo, for the following reasons:—Our present lord of the soil has increased the land-tax, in rice and the other imposts, more than tenfold, so that pen and paper would fail to convey an idea of the poverty to which the people are reduced, and the peasants are undergoing the tortures of hell upon earth. Seeing this, the chiefs of the various villages have presented petitions, but with what result ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... felt like, that froze his heart. Don Andres sat looking at the writing articles on the marble table: a letter-case of wrinkled oil-cloth, and a grimy ink-well. He began to rap upon them with the holder of the public pen—rusty and with the points bent—an instrument of torture well fitted for a ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... stoker, even though writ from the fiery bowels of amidships and with a pen reeking with his own sweat, could find no holiday sale; nor the story of the waiter who serves the wine he dares only smell, and weary stands attendant into the joyous dawn. Such social sores—the drayman, ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... wait till their betters, the ladies, is looked to.' I will write again some day soon, and take the chance of meeting a ship; you may be amused by a little scrawl, though it will probably be very stupid and ill-written, for it is not easy to see or to guide a pen while I hold on to the table with both legs and one arm, and am first on my back and then on my nose. Adieu, till next time. I have had a good taste of the humours of ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... Wendy, pointing upwards, '"there is the window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime faith in a mother's love." So up they flew to their mummy and daddy; and pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant Norwegian writer, Laura Marholm, called "Woman, a Character Study." She was one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of the existing conception of woman's emancipation and its tragic effect upon ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... favor this conclusion. The main thing in this direction is the deep interest they have always felt, and the active part they have always taken in the things of man's salvation. Paul covers this whole ground by a single sweep of his pen. "Are they not all," says he, "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Of course he means by the heirs of salvation those still tabernacling in the flesh, and still exposed to the ups and downs of ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... trouble, suggested that for his own safety he should add the letter "o" to the word "Re." This would make it that he had condemned "Il Reo dei Giudei," the Criminal of the Jews. Pilate was persuaded and agreed to add the letter. He went away and fetched his pen, which looked like a feather from the tail of a hawk, and Annas held the paper; but Pilate's pen refused to write, it was wafted from his hand by a power stronger than his, it hung in the air before their eyes and fluttered away ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... necessity to live by his pen, with no immediate or extraordinary temptation to use it for gain, and as yet, it would seem, with no overmastering inducement from his genius to do so, while he at no time of his life felt any stimulus from vanity, it is not surprising that it was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... owing to this thinness of color, or on purpose, that the horizontal clouds shine through the crimson flag in the distance; though I should think the latter, for the effect is most beautiful. The passionate action of the Scribe in lifting his hand to dip the pen into the ink-horn is, however, affected and overstrained, and the Pilate is very mean; perhaps intentionally, that no reverence might be withdrawn from the person of Christ. In work of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the figures of Pilate and Herod are ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... tak your little pen-knife, And frae my sark ye shear a gare; Row that about your lovely head, And the pain ye'll ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... Richards, in the clauses just cited, in connection with what I have said in this article, page 16. Cotton Mather was in possession of a book on this subject. "It comes to speak English," he says, "by the acute pen of the excellent and renowned Dr. Horneck." Who so likely as Mather to have brought the case to the notice of Phips, pp. 14. It was urged upon Richards at about the same time that it was upon Phips; and as ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... The temptation of the pen against the blue slip of paper was lost to Drennen. While Madden was talking there had again crept into his eyes that look which tells that a man's mind is wandering to other thoughts. Again, with a start, he brought his gaze back ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... them?" I asked, stabbing my sheet of music paper with the pen, while I tried in vain to think how many eighth notes would ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... described their sad condition: more than twenty-five thousand prisoners confined in a stockade designed for only ten thousand; debarred the privilege of gathering wood out of which to make huts; deprived of sufficient healthy food, and the little stream that ran through their prison pen poisoned and polluted by the offal from their cooking and butchering houses above. On the 22d of September I wrote to General Hood, describing the condition of our men at Andersonville, purposely refraining from casting ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... strong paternal feeling in behalf of this book, placing it very high in the estimate of its merits, as compared with other books from the same pen: a species of commendation that need wound no man. Perhaps some knowledge of Italian character is necessary to enjoy the vice-governatore (veechy-gov-er-na-to-re), and the podesta; but we confess they ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... than by him. If "In Memoriam" represents the mind of yesterday it represents no less the mind of to-morrow. It is true that pessimism and insurrection in their ignobler forms—nay, in the ignoblest form of a fashion—have, or had but yesterday, the control of the popular pen. Trivial pessimism or trivial optimism, it matters little which prevails. For those who follow the one habit to-day would have followed the other in a past generation. Fleeting as they are, it cannot be within their competence to neglect or reject ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... to the table supporting the hotel register, and, producing an ornate fountain pen, forthwith prepared to scratch a receipt, which was rarely enough demanded by his customers amongst the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... I am old," said the Doctor, pushing his straight-backed wooden chair from the table, and turning from his books to look out of his small window. "Yes, I am certainly very old," he said again, rapping absently on the arm of the chair with the pen he held. But the fingers that held the instrument were neither thin nor withered, and there was no trembling in the careless motion of the hand. The flaxen hair, long and tangled, was thick on the massive head, and the broad shoulders ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... anything secret or mysterious, from pacani to hide. The names represent an ancient myth of some kind, but it is not possible, at this distance of time, to ascertain more than the names. Tonapa looks like a slip of the pen, and is probably Tarapa for Tarapaca. Don Samuel A. Lapone Quevedo published a mythological essay entitled El Culto de Tonapa with reference to the notice in the work of Yamqui Pachacuti; but he is given to speculations about phallic and solar worship, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... had put down the pen, and was sprinkling the writing with sand from a pepper-castor, when Brother Peter came in with candles in his hand and a letter under his abridged arm. "Laal Tom o' Dint gave me this for thee," he said ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... green gravel, your grass is so green, The fairest young damsel that ever was seen. I'll wash you in new milk and dress you in silk, And write down your name with a gold pen and ink. Oh! (Mary) Oh! (Mary) your true love is dead; He's sent you a letter to ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... Philosophical Discourse, though upon a Sacred Theme, may certainly claim a place among Philosophical Transactions. Not here to mention the many other learned Notes, this Worthy Author gives upon that Hieroglyphical Description of Old Age, made by that Royal Pen-man of Ecclesiastes, cap. 12. We shall onely take notice of that surprizingly Ingenious one, there to be met with, concerning the Antiquity of the Doctrine of the Blood's Circulation: King Salomon, who lived neer 2700 ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... box, lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on Christmas for his collars and cuffs. He felt, vaguely, that it was not the right place for the lizard, but there seemed to be nothing else in reach,—except the flitter-work pen-box, and Rose Ellen had made that for him. Ah! if Rose Ellen were here now, how much she could help him! it was so much easier for two to analyze than one. He at the microscope, and Rose Ellen corroborating, correcting from the textbook,—it ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... it with as becoming and grave a gaiety, as any had ever before or since his time. For "he had acquired great learning, and was blessed with a high fancy, a civil and sharp wit; and with a natural elegance, both in his behaviour, his tongue, and his pen." Of all which there might be very many particular evidences; but I will limit myself to the ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times, as I was pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow on the desk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say, there came in unexpectedly ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... yet all lay too deep in her heart for speech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was too strong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentle words that she forced out through her pen seemed to proceed ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... The Monk came back from the Hague to be received as a young lion in London society. When he came of age he entered Parliament for Hindon, in Wiltshire, but seldom went to the House, never spoke in it, and retired after a few sessions. His delight was in the use of the pen; his father, although disappointed by his failure as a statesman, allowed him a thousand a year, and he took a cottage at Barnes, that he might there escape from the world to his ink-bottle. He was a frequent visitor at Inverary Castle, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... not for me, for what delights me in my old age is independent of the place which I inhabit. When I do not sleep I dream, and when I am tired of dreaming I blacken paper, then I read, and most often reject all that my pen has vomited.' Here we see him blackening paper, on every occasion, and for every purpose. In one bundle I found an unfinished story about Roland, and some adventure with women in a cave; then a 'Meditation on arising from sleep, 19th May 1789'; then a 'Short Reflection ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... Vol. III., No 43, contains an able and interesting notice of this work from the pen of the Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge: "The Uttarakanda," Mr. Cowell remarks, "bears the same relation to the Ramayana as the Cyclic poems to the Iliad. Just as the Cypria of Stasinus, the AEthiopis of Arctinus, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... stuck my hands in an' when they bumped into 'em I'd throw 'em out. I got so I never missed after a couple of years. They run in schools, an' it got so I knew when they was up the river, an' when they was down. I'd scoop one or two out, an' carry 'em to the spring, an' I made a sort of pen out of rocks in the boilin' water, an' I'd throw 'em in, an' a half-hour or so later, they'd be done. But they stunk of sulphur, an' tasted rotten, an' at first I couldn't go 'em—but I got used to ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... the masterpiece. Obviously, it must be a novel about a man and a woman, and something as splendid as we can conceive of in that way. We look about us. We do not go far for perfection. One of the brace holds the pen and the other is inside his or her head; and so Off! to the willing pen. Only a few years ago we went slashing among the poppies with a walking-stick, and were, we said boldly and openly, Harolds and Hectors slaying ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... the boundless injustice. To live with the world was her real element; her entire nature was attuned to a kindly understanding with people. She asked for paper and pen, and wrote a letter to ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... propriety take no part in it. But after his quarrel with Jackson he resigned his office and threw in his lot with his State. The ablest and most lucid statements of the case for Nullification are from his pen, and when he took his seat in the Senate he was able to add to his contribution the weight of ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... placed in the coffin, was removed to the hall of the college, and the pall, spread over the coffin, was stuck over by copies of verses, English or Latin, the composition of the students of St. John's. My uncle seemed mortified when upon inquiry he learnt that none of these verses were from my pen, 'because,' said he, 'it would have been a fair opportunity for distinguishing yourself.' I did not, however, regret that I had been silent on this occasion, as I felt no interest in the deceased person, with whom I had had no intercourse, and whom I had never seen but during his walks ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... impossible to describe. He showed me," continued Mr. Miller, "a considerable sum of money, in proof of his assertion, and of course I have no reason to doubt his word. He further informed me that his trunks were in Chicago and that he was desirous of obtaining them. I provided him with pen and paper, and he wrote a letter which purported to be written in St. Louis and addressed to myself, stating that he was in that city, without a dollar, and requesting me to send for his trunks at Chicago, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... the rough trail back to Cobble, John Westley demanded: "Honestly, Pen Allan, doesn't it strike you that there is a ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... little coterie—nearly all engaged in the company's employ, mill hands, fishermen, lime-burners, laborers, while in a corner James White pores over his ledger posting his accounts by the light of his candle and now and again mending his goose-quill pen. But even at the store the cheerful company soon disperses; the early-closing system evidently prevails, the men seek their several abodes and one by one the lights in the little windows vanish. There is only one thing to prevent the entire population from being in good time for church on ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... examine it carefully you will see that both the pen and the ink have given the writer trouble. The pen has spluttered twice in a single word and has run dry three times in a short address, showing that there was very little ink in the bottle. Now, a private pen or ink-bottle is seldom ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... if y' took a pig out o' a pen an' putt it in a parlor, 'twould feel lonesome for its hogwash," exclaimed the old frontiersman running a puzzled hand through his mop of white hair. Matthews also was twice interrupted in his testimony. He was explaining that he anticipated trouble about the mine from what ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... He would not like me to do that. He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard. But, then, he does not love me, and he does Maude; but he must see me graduate. I'll write and tell him so. That, surely, will not be "throwing myself at his head;"' and seizing her pen, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... he sit with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes chewing the butt of his pen and smiling to himself at the memory of the enthusiasm of which he had been the centre a half-hour ago. Here, indeed, was something that a man might live for, something that a man might take pride in, and something ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... striving to subdue the exhortations of a desire which was seducing him into signing an untruthful statement. Finally, however, passion, as is always the way, got the upper hand; suddenly demanding pen and paper, he made out in hot haste, now and then casting furtive glances at the amphora, a direct statement to the effect that he, after frequent examinations of it, recognized and declared the sword in the Oberhof as one formerly belonging to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... captured his vessel. Active occupation, indeed, was essential to his comfort, and he found a life on shore most irksome. At length, in 1786, he commissioned the Winchelsea, for the Newfoundland station. Among her midshipmen was the late gallant Sir Christopher Cole,[2] to whose pen the reader is indebted for the following animated sketch of ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... with certain dishes in a particular part of the room. A book was left lying upon the sofa cushion, the large doll was put into a chair near the sofa, with a smaller doll in its arms, on the small writing desk a letter, which Judith found in a drawer—a half-written letter—was laid, the pen was left in the ink. It was a strange game to play, but somehow Judith felt it was very pretty. When it was all done—and there were many curious things to do—the Closed Room looked quite different from the cold, ...
— In the Closed Room • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a bell round the village announcing, 'Punch, and Judy in front of the Christmas booth beside the church'; and for three-quarters of an hour I shrieked and sweated in that awful little pen. But it was almost worth it to hear the shouts of approval and laughter that greeted my performance. It was cold work standing about, so that the crowd was quite ready to respond when Punch, after being duly hanged, came forward and invited all into the booth for the ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor



Words linked to "Pen" :   draw, cite, write up, penitentiary, lyric, Magic Marker, pigsty, fold, ballpen, fountain pen, sea pen, footnote, ballpoint pen, create verbally, pigpen, dramatise, authorship, felt-tipped pen, profile, light pen, spell, pen-tail, holding paddock, outline, quill pen, sheepcote, sheepfold, write on, write of, dramatize, pen-friend, corral, pen-and-ink, kraal, adopt, pen pal, reference, sty, pen name, writing implement, draft, knock off, fling off, toss off, felt-tip pen, paddock, write, scratch off, penning, pinfold, felt tip, holding pen, poetise, swan



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