"Illegible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women in the ancient dress of their times. The first of which we give a sketch, appears particularly "en bon point," and is represented kneeling on a cushion, in the act of prayer. The following inscription, now almost illegible, ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... described clamp, consisting of the head, C, upon one arm of the body, [Transcribers note: illegible letter], the opposite arm, provided with a corresponding foot, and the said head having arranged therein levers, D, and combined with a screw, B, so as to operate to clamp between the screw and the foot, ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... in a high room in Beck Hall—a slim dark boy of medium height with a shy sensitive mouth. His allowance was more than liberal. He laid the foundations for a library by purchasing from a wandering bibliophile first editions of Swinburne, Meredith, and Hardy, and a yellowed illegible autograph letter of Keats's, finding later that he had been amazingly overcharged. He became an exquisite dandy, amassed a rather pathetic collection of silk pajamas, brocaded dressing-gowns, and neckties too flamboyant to wear; in this secret finery he would parade before a mirror in ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that land. For this service there was a sailor who had been to Guinea, and some of the Indians of Guanahani wished to go with him, and afterwards to return to their homes. The Admiral calculated that he was forty-two degrees to the north of the equinoctial line (but the handwriting is here illegible).[134-3] He says that he must attempt to reach the Gran Can, who he thought was here or at the city of Cathay,[134-4] which belongs to him, and is very grand, as he was informed before leaving Spain. All this land, he adds, is low and beautiful, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... hand of Spain. Also founded on the old Roman cursive. It becomes an established hand in the eighth century, and lasts until the twelfth. Examples occur in Ewald and Loewe, Exempla Scriptur Visigotic, Heidelberg, 1883. It was at first very rude and illegible, but afterwards became even handsome. A fine example exists in the British Museum (Palograph. Soc., pl. 48). Its characteristic letters ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... eyes the date written upon the arch, which the moisture that had sweated out from the lime had rendered illegible. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Dormer, written Domr in the MS.—a common abbreviation—may be the name of the Oxford bookseller, and Henno Rusticus may be Homo rusticus, "the country gentleman." The hand-writing of this MS. is so small and illegible in some places, that it requires an Oedipus to decipher it; and the public will have much reason to thank those lynx-eyed antiquaries who have taken great pains to render it intelligible. "The Sige of the End," is of course properly explained to be "the Signe ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... the depths her patience gave out, and with a vow to be a slave no longer to her treacherous memory, she tumbled every thing in, performed a solemn jig on the lid till it locked, then pasted large, but illegible placards in every available spot, and rested from her labours with every nerve in a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... achieved. The truth was that Franklin's duty was to get from France just as much aid, direct and indirect, as could be either begged or filched from her. Such orders could not be written down in plain words in his instructions, but none the less they lurked there not illegible to him among the lines. He obeyed them diligently. France was willing to go fully as far as she could with safety; his function was to push, to pull, to entice, even to mislead, in order to make her go farther. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... peuple de la cite que sunt apeles Tauriz"), with the Latin, and with Ramusio. All that he means to say is that the people are called Tabrizis. Not recondite information, but 'tis his way. Just so he tells us in ch[*illegible*]u that the people of Hermenia are called Hermins, and elsewhere that the people of Tebet are called Tebet. So Hayton thinks it not inappropriate to say that the people of Catay are called Cataini, that the people of Corasmia are called Corasmins, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of veterans conscious of their strength, deftly, almost delicately, in fact, silenced the minority. Only once, when the reader of the resolutions hesitated over an illegible word, did the dramatic happen. At that moment a thin voice in the gallery exclaimed, "Hurrah for Blaine!" Instantly the audience was on fire. The burst of applause brought out by Smith's opening reference to the "never vanquished hero of Appomattox" had been disappointing because it lacked spontaneity ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... while its walls rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it, and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the pass through which the armies of ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... spoiled, I severed from his country, and gave to the kings of Ascalon, Ekron, and Gaza, so as to make his country small. In addition to the former tribute imposed upon their countries, I added a tribute, the nature of which I fixed.' The next passage is somewhat illegible, but the substance of it appears to be, that he took from Hezekiah the treasure he had collected in Jerusalem, thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, the treasures of his palace, besides his sons ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... to think that all the true things had been said, and one could do no better than hunt them up again for new uses. Our business was, like Old Mortality, to clear out and cut afresh inscriptions that had been made illegible by time and storm. At least this delivered him from the senseless vanity of originality and personal appropriation. We feel sure that if he found that a thought which he had believed to be new had been expressed in literature before, he would have been pleased and not mortified. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... making a direct appeal for money, suggested that, through her hospital connections, she should help him to establish a New York practice. His tone was half-whining, half-peremptory, his once precise writing smeared and illegible; and these indications, combined with her former suspicions, convinced her that, for the moment, he was unfit for medical work. At any rate, she could not assume the responsibility of recommending him; and in answering she advised him to apply to some of the physicians ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... she, "is an opportunity of using some of this elaborately monogrammed paper which poor darling papa got for me, because I wanted to see how they could work my unpromising 'Z' into a respectable cipher. They have made it utterly illegible, and I believe that is the great point ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... unintelligible, unaccountable, undecipherable, undiscoverable, unknowable, unfathomable; incognizable[obs3], inexplicable, inscrutable; inapprehensible[obs3], incomprehensible; insolvable[obs3], insoluble; impenetrable. illegible, as Greek to one, unexplained, paradoxical; enigmatic, enigmatical, puzzling (secret) 533; indecipherable. obscure, dark, muddy, clear as mud, seen through a mist, dim, nebulous, shrouded in mystery; ; opaque, dense; undiscernible &c. (invisible) 447[obs3]; misty &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... wishes. "It's not banking etiquette, Miss Fraser, but that doesn't matter in North Queensland. We do many things that we ought not to do, and if Smith draws a cheque you may be sure that I will refuse to pay it as 'signature illegible'—as it is sure to be. But I'll lend him a few pounds if he breaks out again, and is laid up in this abode of sin, so that he may get home again ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... SPECIAL INSTRUCTION [illegible] Room, place date of shipment and registry number; Shipping Room, above date of this invoice; then return it to person whose name is checked in column at right. After this checked name has been initialled, invoice should be placed in ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... of the happiest of lives. In the last letter of his which I have seen, written, indeed, when writing had become difficult for him, he says that he is 'as happy as any man can be,' and had nothing to complain of—except, indeed, his illegible handwriting. This is only a repetition of previous statements at every period of his life. When he speaks of the twenty-five years of long struggle, which had enabled him to rise from the bar to the bench, he ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... may, if you please, at your convenience, return me the suggestions I sent you, as I may have occasion to weave some parts of them into letters that I am frequently obliged to write; the rough draft was made with a pencil & is now illegible. Be assured that your not using them occasioned me no mortification, as I before told you it would not. You had a nearer & could take a safer view of things than myself. Don't trouble yourself to answer this letter ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... help him find the pieces in the baggage-room, curiously estranged in a mountain of alien boxes. One official weighed them; another obliged him to pay as much in freight as for a third passenger, and gave him an illegible scrap of paper which recorded their number and destination. The interpreter and the porters took their fees with a professional effect of dissatisfaction, and he went to wait with his wife amidst the smoking and eating and drinking in the restaurant. They burst through with the rest when ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... look. Their minds reverted to the calendar that hung low beneath the window, on which was written—in so fine a hand as to be almost illegible: ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... this period, including a whole letterpress copy-book, are missing, many of the letters in other copy-books are quite illegible through the fading of the ink, and others have been torn out (by whom I do not know) and have entirely disappeared. It will, therefore, be necessary to summarize the events of the remainder of the year 1858, and of some ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Testaments at the lowest value by the direction of the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers for the tyme being. Provided alwaye that Mr. Barker do reteyn some small number of these for diverse services in her Ma^{ties} Courtes or ... [MS. illegible] and lastlye that nothing that he yeildeth unto by meanes aforesaide be preiudiciall to her Ma^{ties} highe prerogative, or to any that shall succeed in the office of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... first edition they forgot the preface, which is very strange. You have wise friends who would not be sorry to have this book in their secret cabinet. It is excellent to form youthful minds. The book, which was sold in manuscript form for eight Louis-d'or, is illegible. This little abstract is very edifying. Let us thank the good souls who give it gratuitously, and let us pray God to extend His benedictions ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... be a copy of the Crozier record found by Lieutenant Hobson, of McClintock's expedition, and was in the handwriting of Sir Leopold McClintock. The document was written with a lead pencil on note-paper, and was partially illegible from exposure. It was literally ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... comprehension and was a ready debater," Coxe says, although without grace or style. "He wrote with uncommon facility and great variety of expression, and in his most confidential letters, written so quickly as to be almost illegible, there is scarcely a single alteration or erasure." But certainly Newcastle was not a man likely to keep to himself the knowledge of such a fact as the family compact, or even the knowledge that some people believed in the existence of such an arrangement. For ourselves, we are quite ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... matters, will fully inform your Majesty. With that relief a present was also sent to the king of Macazar in your Majesty's name, in recognition of the friendly reception and entertainment found in his country by your Majesty's [word illegible in MS.] vassals, and for the great importance of preserving his friendship, as I have stated in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... are those who pass the venerable site of the first colony in Virginia, Jamestown, without paying a tribute of a sigh, and perchance a tear, to that solitary tower which is still standing a mute watcher amid the few almost illegible tombs,—all that are left of a busy population long departed;—the germ, however, of a great nation, whose name is even now "a watchword to ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of the Withers family had counted a martyr to their faith before they were known as Puritans. The record was obscure in some points; but the portrait, marked "Ann Holyoake, burned by ye bloudy Papists, ano 15.." (figures illegible), was still hanging against the panel over the fireplace in the west parlor at The Poplars. The following words were yet legible on the canvas: "Thou hast made a covenant O Lord with mee and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... falling on the ever more inadequate shoulders of the Average Woman, both Motherhood and the home are imperilled. We are horribly frightened when we see our poor Average Woman shrink from maternity, and [illegible] at housework. We preach at her and scold her and flatter her and woo her, and, if we could, we would force her back into her old place, child-bearer and burden-hearer, the helpless servant of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... propitious to me, had dried up his ink-bottle; the expense of replenishing it would have broken his heart of itself; and the attorney's announcement to me was, that the will, after blinding the solicitor to the treasury and three of his clerks, was pronounced to be altogether illegible. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... the subject of compelling persons to confess themselves guilty of an offense, of which they said, "if not absolutely, yet next to impossible to convict them," was acted upon, and some relaxation made in the rule before adopted; but a part of the record is so worn as to be illegible. ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... said so, sir; but I am sure I can't [illegible words] be like her a bit. Mother is so pretty, and I am sure I am not the least bit in the world; and I don't think it's nice for a boy ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... asked Hamilton, handing the letter across to his sister and indicating an illegible line. "It looks like 'a bad girl's leg' ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... came up to me and said, "I can show you finer monuments than that." I told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. "Oh," said he, "I will show it you;" and, conducting me to the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall with an illegible inscription[373]. He said that it had been in a convent adjoining, but was removed after the French came, and placed in its present situation; that he had seen the tomb opened at its removal; there were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... compass or a watch at night is increased by looking nearly at it through a magnifying-glass. Thus, young people who can focus their vision through a wide range may be observed poring with their eyes close to their books when the light wanes. So again, at night-time, a placard, even in large type, is illegible at a short distance, but easily read on approaching it. It seems, in order that a faint image on the retina should be appreciated by the nerves of sight, that image must ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... was fighting in the splendid (illegible) affair, and he was buried twice, then caught by the stifling gases, his mask having been torn off. He insisted upon remaining at his post, in spite of the fact that he was spitting blood. Fortunately a lieutenant passed by and saw him. He gave orders to have him ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... letters, like S and C, were found hard to recognize in themselves, and certain groups of letters, such as O, Q, G, and C, were constantly confused with one another. Said Dr. Cattell, "If I should give the probable time wasted each day through a single letter, as E, being needlessly illegible, it would seem almost incredible; and, if we could calculate the necessary strain put upon eye and brain, it would be ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... badly, as most of us know. All the morning through, things seemed to go wrong. Katy missed twice in her grammar lesson, and lost her place in the class. Her hand shook so when she copied her composition, that the writing, not good at best, turned out almost illegible, so that Mrs. Knight said it must all be done over again. This made Katy crosser than ever; and almost before she thought, she had whispered to Clover, "How hateful!" And then, when just before recess all who had "communicated" were requested to stand up, her conscience ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... the message from the lord of Ringstetten that Bertalda was his guest, returned answer in some lines almost too illegible to be deciphered, but still the best his advanced life and long disuse of writing permitted him ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... missing from this index. For completeness they have been added and marked with an asterisk. Some parts of the Table of Contents were illegible, and a few missing page numbers have ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... the Man in High Park at the Turpentine Micky'—some illegible name—'knew and that is Michael in the corner larfing at the Spolice. The Man has got out of sprizzing and the Spolice will not cop him.' There was no room for Michael Somebody, and he hasn't worked out well," ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and bathrobes at the head of the stairs, dreading we scarcely knew what, for the members of the family not in the house. Within a few minutes Billy dashed up-stairs again, considerately holding high, so that we all could see it, a special-delivery letter, the very same illegible, bleared envelope which had before annoyed us so extremely. It was addressed in washed-out characters to Miss — Talbert. The word Peggy, very clear and black, had been lately inserted in the same handwriting; and below, the street and number had ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... would be always considered as the deity of the north. Nevertheless this happens only once, namely in the picture at the end of Codex Cort., pp. 41 and 42. Elsewhere, on the other hand, this god is connected with other cardinal points, thus Dr. 14a with the west or east (the hieroglyph is illegible, but it can be only west or east), and in Dr. 27c with the west. It is interesting to note that once, however, in a series of cardinal points, the hieroglyph of the death-god connected with the numeral 10 stands just in the place of the sign ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... this day, Mr. Lacy received the following note. It seemed written at once with difficulty and with rapidity, and in parts was somewhat illegible. ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... determined whether they belonged to the same race as do the ordinary Neolithic graves, the maj[u]r being a cheap substitute for the wooden roof of the earlier time, or whether they belonged to some other element in the population, as the presence with them of the two illegible black ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... kiln-baked bricks cemented together by clay. On the summit, above a broad band with ornamentations and a much worn inscription can be seen the fragments of two smaller structures, also cylindrical, which may have been the supports of the dome of the minaret. There is said to be another illegible inscription about thirty ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... happy spirit. That gray hair, and those furrows,—with their record of infinite sorrow so deeply written across his brow, and so compressed, as with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that the whole inscription was made illegible,—these, for the moment, vanished. An eye at once tender and acute might have beheld in the man some shadow of what he was meant to be. Anon, as age came stealing, like a sad twilight, back over his figure, you would have felt tempted to hold an argument with Destiny, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... often seen in taverns, it was over the teacups, even more than over the wine glasses, that Boswell made his notes. I have seen Boswell's signature after wine—on the minutes of a meeting of The Club—and he was in no condition then for the taking of notes. Even the signature is almost illegible.) But it is fitting that Gilbert, who loved all sorts of men so much, should be kept alive for the future by all sorts of men. From the focussing of many views from many angles this picture has been composed, but they ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... her sex's sphere. She was neither uncertain, coy nor hard to please, and altogether too stimulating and aggressive for any gentleman's hours of ease. Her cookery would have been about as sketchy as her handwriting, which was generally quite illegible, and she would have made, I feel sure, a shocking bad nurse. Yet you mustn't imagine she was an inelegant or unbeautiful woman, and she is inconceivable to me in high collars or any sort of masculine garment. But her soul was bony, and at the base of her was a vanity gaunt and greedy! ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... urns and count the votes, the secretary drawing up a proces-verbal the while. If there are more or fewer votes than there were voters registered during the day as voting, this fact is stated and affirmed. Blank or illegible votes, votes which do not accurately give the name of the candidate voted for, or on which the voters have put their own names, are not counted as valid, but they are annexed to the proces-verbal. Votes not written on white paper, or which ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... reigned as Bryda read the rather illegible writing of the old Squire. When she had finished she looked up, and, with a deep ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... interest to remark that, apart from armorial or fanciful initials, the standing of a house may be gauged by the handwriting, the titles of the larger monasteries being given in bold letters, while those of the smaller form an almost illegible scrawl. The greater houses would have been in a position to support a competent scribe—not so the lesser; and this is believed to have been the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... improbus annis, Atque mero fervens, cavet hunc, quem coccina lae [Transcriber's note: remainder of word illegible] Vitari jubet, et comitum longissimus ordo, Multum praeterca ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... there in the bleak field exposed to the suns of summer and the storms of winter for more than one hundred and thirty years. The day of August on which she died and the number of years she had lived have become illegible by exposure,—impossible to be deciphered. The stone has lately been removed to Williams College, and with its companion relic, a stick of one of the timbers of Fort Shirley, and a few other memorials of the well and fort, are safe in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... displayed in deciphering King Joseph's portfolio, and the immense mass of correspondence taken at Vittoria, he at first would hardly believe it, adding—"I would have given 20,000L. to any person who could have done this for me in the Peninsula." Sir William Napier's handwriting being almost illegible, Lady Napier made out his rough interlined manuscript, which he himself could scarcely read, and wrote out a full fair copy for the printer; and all this vast labour she undertook and accomplished, according to the testimony ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... I regret very much that your affairs are in such a bad state. Anne says that there are six of your children, all girls; but that can't be true—she always loved to exaggerate miseries; it must be that her writing is so illegible that—" ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... been added on the last page; but they had been so carefully erased as to be illegible. These words of explanation ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... letter with the illegible postmark, was amused at the "Esq.," and stepped to the window that he ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... justice and right that be fitting; and that the witnesses received shall declare the truth in all matters, under oath, and under penalty of major excommunication, late sententia, ipso facto, incurring [word illegible in MS.] canonical admonition and [word illegible]—as only this said penalty and oath will secure secrecy so that they will not tell that they were cited for this purpose, or what they declared, or any part thereof, or that this investigation is being made, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... difficulty, high up on one of the walls, the faint but still distinguishable outline of a pencil caricature he had made there thirty years before. If the wall had been whitewashed in the meantime, the lime had scaled down to the original plaster. Only the name, which had been written underneath, was illegible, though he could reconstruct with his mind's eye and the aid of a few shadowy strokes—"Bill Fetters, Sneak"—in angular letters ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the stone, and on the opposite spandril are two goats, disposed back to back, also cut in the rock. On one of the piers is an inscription graven regarding the dedication of the church, but unfortunately the date is illegible. The exterior of the church is adorned with a noble portal, richly sculptured, of much later date than ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... "One thing tho' I must beg of you—that is not to call me Atheist in your letters—for though it may be mere raillery in you, and not meant as a serious imputation on my Faith, yet, if the Catholic or any other intolerant religion should [illegible] and become established in England, (which [illegible] if the Bishop of R——r may be the case) and if the post-people should happen to open and read your letters, (which, considering the sometimes quaintness of their form, they may possibly be incited to do) such names ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... wine on June 14th, and if Mr. Grew couldn't trace the party which signed for one hundred bottles tchampanyer wine on June 14th, y'understand, what chance does he have of finding out who is responsible for each and every one of the hundreds of checks with illegible signatures which is bound to show up in the final accounting for such articles as scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, which any Peace Conferencers might have signed for, whether his home town was in a dry state or ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... the disfigured poster. "I will clean it at once," she said obligingly. She got out soap and a brush immediately, and when she had finished, her work had been so thoroughly done that not a spot of mud was left, but unfortunately the center of the poster was rubbed through and quite illegible, and the rest of it was all streaked and stained! "Will that do?" she asked the officer, looking at him with round, innocent eyes and so evident a desire to please that, in spite of an uneasy suspicion, he merely grunted and ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... correspondents, examined the post-mark and handwriting of the superscription, that he might return it unopened, and save poor Barney from the beating which he had volunteered to receive for his sake, but the hand was unknown to him, and the post-mark was so faint and illegible that he could not decipher it. He looked into the sides of the letter, and the few words which he could read ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the question,—so the paper was put back into the bottle, and then both were put away in a large cupboard of one of the great houses of the town. Whenever any strangers arrived, the paper was taken out and turned over and over, so that the address, which was only written in pencil, became almost illegible, and at last no one could distinguish any letters on it at all. For a whole year the bottle remained standing in the cupboard, and then it was taken up to the loft, where it soon became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah! how often then it thought of those ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... wages were offset by the various deceptions open to an ingenious management; prices were higher here than elsewhere; the coat-rooms were robbers' dens infested by Italian mafiosi; tips were extravagant and amounted in effect to ransom; and each meal-check was headed by an illegible scrawl which masked an item termed "service." The figure opposite would have covered the cost of a repast at Childs's. But New York dearly loves to be pillaged; it cherishes a reputation for princely carelessness of expenditure. It follows that freedom ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... by the following words which were almost illegible: "Clemence, Murphy will finish this letter: I have no longer any mind—I am distracted. Oh, the thirteenth ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... out some illegible stuff and Colonel Cresswell signed it to get rid of her. We are not going to question the legality of the form—that's neither here nor there. The point is, Mr. Cresswell never intended—never dreamed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... writing was almost obliterated from having been so long wet with sea water, she passed it to Miss Vyvyan, who sat a little farther off, desiring to spare him the pain of seeing that his composition was destroyed. The many pages of music were entirely illegible, with the exception of part of the refrain of the song, the ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... many obscurities in the text, and he has also read the proofs. I am indebted also to Mr. E. Gwynn, who has collated at Trinity College, Dublin, a number of passages in the Yellow Book of Lecan, which are illegible or incorrect in the facsimile; and to Dr. Whitley Stokes for notes and ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... many ballads did escape, and still remain scattered up and down the country side, existing probably in the recollection of many a sun-browned shepherd, or the weather-beaten brains of ancient hinds, or 'eldern' women: or in the well-thumbed and nearly illegible leaves of some old book or pamphlet of songs, snugly resting on the 'pot-head,' or sharing their rest with the 'Great Ha' Bible,' Scott's Worthies, or Blind Harry's lines. The parish dominie or pastor of some obscure village, amid the many nooks ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... then one of the works I had asked for, 'the Maid of Orleans,' by Schiller, but it was mutilated and disfigured like all books that are given to us. Whole pages had been cut out, and on those remaining were to be found black spots rendering whole lines and words illegible—a liberty which the mistress of ceremonies is in the habit of indulging in, in reference to all ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... world of matter. So that the curses of the sacristans at their work, the prayers of penitents at the altar, the wailing of breaking hearts bowed on the pavement through many years, are all recorded mysteriously, in these rocky walls. This church is the illegible history of the parish. But of all its ringing of bells, and swinging of censers, and droning of psalms, and putting on and off of goodly raiment, the only show that consecrates it for the world's pilgrimage is that humble procession that came on the 9th day of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... he did, he always took a great deal of notice of her, and said something she could not help remembering. Perhaps it was the peculiar glance of his eye that fixed the impression, as the characters written in indelible ink are pale and illegible till exposed to a slow and ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... best scholars speak of these vessels as the bottles usually called lachrymatories, &c. It would be curious to discover when the name was first used, and by whom first this absurd use was imagined. It [illegible] that their proper use was to contain perfumes, scents, and unguents, as sweet odours to rest ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... bowed profoundly, and left the room in order to give the necessary orders for his immediate departure; while his royal guest seized a pen, and with a trembling hand, and in almost illegible characters, wrote the following ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... he replied, guiltily conscious of possessing two or three illegible letters from his daughter which he had not yet had the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... them a setting worthy of their beauty. The diary continues with moral reflections upon the servility of our taste before anything European, and the handwriting is clear and deliberate. It abruptly becomes hurried, and at length well-nigh illegible. It is best, I think, that you should have this portion as it comes, unpolished, unamended, unarranged—hot, so to speak, from my immediate pencil, instead of cold from my subsequent pen. I shall disguise certain names, but ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5 degrees 3' S. and longitude 101 degrees W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha. He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.—GOETHE. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... Pickwick recoiled upon the head of its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy to the littleness ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... she could not come herself, I would send her under proper protection. She agreed; but one day having given Josfita permission to spend the night at her mother's, I received next morning a very dirty note, nearly illegible, which, after calling down the protection of the Virgin upon me, concluded-"but with much sorrow I must take my child from the most illustrious protection of your excellency, for she needs to rest her-self, (es preciso que descanse,) and is tired for the present of working." The woman then returned ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... palace garden, authentic to the last detail of historical accuracy, were my La Valliere and my Louis, and that this rich and coloured music which I heard was the same that Diaz had sketched for me on the piano, from illegible scraps of ruled paper, on the edge of the forest. The full miracle of operatic art was revealed to me ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... our hands on the others, and too, by and by, on those I am looking for. These can go into it, meantime. It will be a good riddance, at any rate, a fine clearance, yes, indeed! To the fire, to the fire with them all, even to the smallest scrap of paper, even to the most illegible scrawl, if we wish to be certain of destroying the ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... thought of. Here are two forms of will. They are written so small as to be almost illegible. This one we must get signed if we can; but, failing that, the other will do. You see the difference. In this one the pin is from left to right; in that, from right to left. I will wait here while ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... buy me a quarter of a yard of green wax-cloth, green on both sides. It seems incredible that I have not been able to get anything of the kind from these green people here. It is far.... [illegible]. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... manuscripts remained for nearly a century and a half, exposed to injury from damp and worms. At length they were sold to Apellicon, a resident at Athens, who was attached to the Peripatetic sect. Many of the manuscripts were imperfect, having become worm-eaten or illegible. These defects Apellicon attempted to remedy; but, being a lover of books rather than a philosopher, he performed the work somewhat unskilfully. When Athens was taken by Sylla, 86 B.C., the library of Apellicon was transported to ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... hand. He explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped and he didn't notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed "Adonis" [word illegible] acted very much. We reached home about 1/2 past eleven o'clock and went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had breakfast about 1/2 past nine o'clock. After breakfast mamma went out shopping ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... glanced over it as quickly as Mrs. Vane's illegible writing allowed him, and drew in his lips in a peculiar manner when he came to the signature. Perhaps at the same thought ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and were supposed to contain in a highly condensed form all the texts that were necessary for salvation. At a still later period even more abbreviated texts came into use, and the Book of the Dead ended its existence in the form of a series of almost illegible scrawls traced upon scraps of papyrus only a few ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... was unable to decipher this word. He remarks in a note that the pencillings are much rubbed and almost illegible. We think, however, that the word should be Plumstone, a lofty hill which Borrow would see just before he ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... her victims, had obtained (and perhaps some famous hand had contributed to the mutilation) that the passages expressing my obedience and respect should be destroyed. Certain poetic touches which might have furnished an explanation of, and an excuse for, my wild ramblings, were illegible. What showed plain to every eye, and carried conviction to every mind, were the lines that remained intact, the lines that bore witness to the violence of my passion and the vehemence of my frenzy. They were such phrases as these: "Sometimes I feel inclined to rise in the middle ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... in the confessions of the prisoners which tended to implicate him was diligently suppressed. In one examination, the original words ran, "Being demanded what other persons were privy [to the plot] beside the Lord Mounteagle, Catesby," etcetera. The three words in italics have been rendered illegible, by a slip of paper being pasted over them, and a memorandum in red ink made on the back. Time, however, has faded the red ink, and the words are again visible. (Criminal Trials, page 67.) Garnet, too, confessed that "Catesby showed the [Pope's] breves to my Lord Mounteagle at ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... is hard to read—especially if it is a palimpsest. Indeed, many are illegible to their owners. Nevertheless, That the woman should not know her own heart (as so often happens) terrifies the woman as much as it exasperates the ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... manners of the times, than to construe the story by newly-invented allegories. It is very singular that that is the plan which every writer on the early chronicles of France and England would adopt,—and yet which so few writers agree to*****[three illegible words in the print copy]***** the obscure records of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... observation that all words describing moral excellence tend to deteriorate and to contract their meaning, just as bright metal rusts by exposure, or coins become light and illegible by use. So it comes to pass that any decently respectable man, especially if he has an easy temper and a dash of frankness and good humour, is christened with this title 'good.' The Bible, which is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren |
