"Legible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tablet of stone, on tablet of wood, on tablet of steel,—the first giving the law to everything; the second true Athenian, like Athena's first statue in olive-wood, making the law legible and homely; and the third true Vulcanian, having the splendor ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... definite reasons why real progress in the supreme tasks of civilisation can best be made by a more or less stationary population, whether the population is large or small, and it need scarcely be added that, so far as the history of mankind is yet legible, the great advances in civilisation have been made by small, even very small populations. Where the population is rapidly growing, even if it is growing under the favourable conditions that hardly ever accompany such growth, all its energy is absorbed in adjusting ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... we as yet understand, but apparently the same sort of pre-arrangement that determined whether the stone from the cliff should fall on point A or point B—the same sort of process that guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... year (1794) he was secretary of the Board of Professors of the Museum.[43] The records of the meetings from 4 vendemiaire, l'an III., until 4 vendemiaire, l'an IV., are each written in his bold, legible handwriting or signed by him. He signed his name Lamarck, this period being that of the first republic. Afterwards, in the records, his name is written De Lamarck. He was succeeded by E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... wicket, and a number of loungers still hung about the place. The officers stopped and said they would wait until he got his letters, and, as he took his place near the window, Mrs. Griffin was just handing a little packet to the colored girl. The light fell on the topmost letter, addressed in bold, legible hand to Miss Fanny Forrest; and Holmes could plainly see the post-mark and device on the upper corner, showing that it came from the Red Cloud Agency, and old Camp Robinson. "Halloo!" thought he to himself, "I had forgotten that we were as good as ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... that were yet legible, intimately, and pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the reflections with which I began this paper, by considering what an awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... us, too, of the origin of another of her accomplishments. She was an exquisite caligraphist. Not only did she write the most beautiful and legible of handwritings, but, long before illuminating was "fashionable," she illuminated on vellum; not by filling up printed texts or copying ornamental letters from handbooks of the art, but in valiant emulation of ancient ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and sat thinking anxiously, thinking long, before he touched the paper. Slowly, with many patient pauses to think and think again, and with more than ordinary care to make his writing legible, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... I half suspect that the prospect before me might have cured me of my passion. A round bullet-head, papillote, with the "Cork Observer," where still-born babes and maids-of-all-work were descanted upon in very legible type, was now the substitute for the classic front and Italian ringlets of la belle Matilda; while the chaste Fanny herself, whose feet had been a fortune for a statuary, was, in the most slatternly ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses—kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit. The one is clear and firm. The other hardly legible." ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the situation thus created there is much difficulty in determining. The sentiment of pity evoked by his tragic fate has been projected too strongly upon the pages of his annals to leave them quite legible. He had seen his elder brother and two of the latter's three sons done to death. He had seen the "removal" of several of his father's most trusted lieutenants. He had seen the gradual upbuilding ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... famous Bible with 42 lines to a page, and a Donatus (Latin grammar) of 32 lines. The printer of the Bible with 36 lines to a page, that is the next oldest surviving monument, was apparently a helper of Gutenberg, who set up an independent press in 1454. Legible, clean-cut, comparatively cheap, these books demonstrated once for all the success of the new art, even though, for illuminated initials, they were still dependent on the hand of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... every thing for leaving the depot, that I have been obliged to put off my writing until night; and I am now acribbling in the tent, on my bed, with my young friend, Mr. Scott, fast asleep, and a cold bleak wind whistling through the place, so that I fear my writing will be scarcely legible. I send down the letters to the cutter in the morning, and intend to move on my party on the 24th. With kind remembrance to his Excellency, Mrs. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... instances, the increased circulation in the brain attendant on high mental excitement reveals itself by its effects when least expected, and leaves traces after death which are but too legible. Many are the instances in which public men have been suddenly arrested in their career by the inordinate action of the brain induced by incessant toil, and more numerous still are those whose mental power has been forever impaired by ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... and my admiration by equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely carried on by literature. We are subject to physical passions and contortions; the voice breaks and changes, and speaks by unconscious and winning inflections; we have legible countenances, like an open book; things that cannot be said look eloquently through the eyes; and the soul, not locked into the body as a dungeon, dwells ever on the threshold with appealing signals. Groans and tears, looks and gestures, a flush or a paleness, are ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of it, glowing with inner light, and legible to the very owls! Arms now piled useless; Pax, with her Appurtenances; Mars resting (in that canvas) on trophies of laurel honorably won: and there is an Inscription, done in lamplets, every letter taller than a man, were you close upon ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... the grass after adjusting some harness (a fatal loss, poor fellow, to him) it is seldom that any article so dropped escapes the quick-sighted natives, to whom the surface of the earth is, in fact, as legible as a newspaper, so accustomed are they to read in any traces left thereon the events of the day. For the lost pistol, Burnett, who had charge of the arms, carefully sought, as he felt a commendable and soldier-like desire to carry back to Sydney, in good order, our full ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... impossible to procure enough for the purpose. Anxious, however, to preserve a diary of each day's proceedings, he persevered to the best of his power, and the result was this scroll, now discoloured by age, and some of the leaves a good deal torn, but the hand is clear and legible throughout. I think you will like to have me read you a short extract, giving an account of a very dangerous part of his expedition. But, in the first place, I should mention that, when travelling into the interior, he was obliged to walk in Indian rackets, or snow-shoes, a very difficult matter ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... the meaning from the mere tone of the question, as well as from Guy's instinctive and graphic imitation of the act of writing, pulled out from his waistband the last relics of a very brown and tattered fragment of paper, on which were still legible in pencil the half-obliterated words: "My dear Granville,—I find there is no chance of conveying you to the coast through the territory of the next tribe in ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... delighted by art which does not touch him; and for the writer to imply that he furnishes arguments, but does not pretend to furnish brains to understand the arguments, is arrogance. What Goethe says about the most legible handwriting being illegible in the twilight, is doubtless true; and should be oftener borne in mind by frivolous objectors, who declare they do not understand this or do not admire that, as if their want of taste and ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... same unexceptional style I wrote to four other clients, after very careful perusal of their letters, combined with reflections upon Mr. John's running commentaries. As I wrote what my father had called 'an almost painfully legible and blameless hand,' and gave the closest care to these particular letters, their appearance was tolerably business-like when finished. Carrying these letters, and those they answered, I now began to reconnoitre passages ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... well-instructed young ladies of that period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a celebrated teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a white marble obelisk, which an inscription, in legible India ink letters, stated to be "Sacred to the memory of Theophilus Sewell," etc. This obelisk stood in the midst of a ground made very green by an embroidery of different shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed by an ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... head of the insect. This is inserted into a base of gold in the shape of a tablet. * * * The legs of the insect are * * * of gold and carved in relief * * * The hieroglyphs are incised in outline, are coarse, and not very legible."[O] ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... Co. He gazed at his uncle's signature intently, studying every line, every dot—so intently that it seemed as if his eyes would burn it. Then putting down the candle and spreading the name before him, he drew a sheet of tissue paper from a drawer and placed it over it. The writing was perfectly legible—the finest stroke showed through the thin tissue. He filled a pen and carefully drew the lines of the signature upon the tissue paper—then raised it—the fac-simile ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... time showed me kindness and good-will. It was through her that I was introduced to the Colbj/rnsen family, and thus known and received in all those circles of which the one leads into the other. She paid some one to prepare a legible copy of my piece, and undertook to present it for perusal. After an interval of six weeks, I received it back, accompanied by a letter which said the people did not frequently wish to retain works which betrayed, in so great a degree, a ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... wrapper of discolored brief-paper; a pretty little document of sixty-eight small pages in a feminine hand, perfect in its slightly archaic grammar, gracefully composed, and, in spite of its flimsy yellowed paper, as legible as print: "Histoire d'Alix de Morainville ecrite a la Louisiane ce 22 Aout 1795. Pour mes cheres amies, Suzanne ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... two on a piece of loose paper I found in the copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they were so exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr's memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... sacred history legible only in the same light by which it was written: we are referred by it, therefore, to sources of interpretation above itself. God was hidden in the sky; the book in another sky; who shall reveal God hidden in the book? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... drawer for writing-materials, he had come upon a sheet of paper yellow with age, and written upon in ink now much faded. The document proved to be a promissory note, but the signature was so heavily scored through and through as to be hardly legible. Benjamin Vajdar started violently as he took up the faded sheet and saw that the man whom he had so feared and hated had, by his own voluntary act, disarmed himself and put it out of his power to punish the fraud practised upon ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... an agitation that I ascribe to the intense earnestness now dominating me I encountered some slight difficulty in framing the message in intelligible language and a legible chirography. I had torn up the first half-completed draft and was engaged on the opening paragraph of the second when the clamour of a fresh altercation fell on my ear, causing me to glance up from my task. The porter, it appeared, had laid hands on Zeno the Great's black ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... half-eras'd, and not over-legible when made, memoranda of things wanted by one patient or another, will convey quite a fair idea. D. S. G., bed 52, wants a good book; has a sore, weak throat; would like some horehound candy; is from New Jersey, 28th regiment. C. H. L., 145th Pennsylvania, lies in bed 6, with jaundice and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... seen, although that revealing moonlight made even Alfy's written words quite legible. What could have become of them? Who had taken them? And why? Supposing somebody had stolen in and stolen them? Supposing that was why he was sleeping in the library? Yet, if there had been thievery there, wouldn't he have kept awake, to watch? Supposing—here a horrible thought crept ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... offered her with such disdainful contempt for any objection on her part or her husband's, with such easy assurance that there could be no objections on their part, was another gratuitous aggravation of the offence. In that noble insolence Calvert read a sign of the times more legible than the clearest writing in the pamphlets flooding the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... ministers sent over from Sweden. The baptismal font is the original one brought from Sweden, and the communion service has been in use since 1773. In the adjoining churchyard the oldest tombstone bearing a legible epitaph is dated 1708. Here Alexander Wilson, the celebrated naturalist, was buried at his own request, saying that the "birds would be apt to come and sing over ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... however, at my next trust; but scarce was this completed,-as to design and scenery I mean, for the whole is in its first rough state, and legible only to herself,- scarce, however, had this done with imagination, to be consigned over to correction, when imagination seized upon another subject for another ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... praise thee, that I have seldom received a stripe but I had with it a token of love. Sin was imbittered, a Saviour endeared, and grace given to kiss the rod, and cleave to him that had appointed it. And now I can read in legible characters where, in many instances, thy check met my wandering steps, stopt me short of huge precipices, and preserved me from destroying even my worldly comfort. In some instances—I thank thee they have not been ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... cist of William de Warenne measures 2 feet 11 inches long, by 12-1/2 inches broad, and is 8 inches deep, all the angles being squared, and the flat loose cover lapping an inch over. On the upper surface at one end is inscribed in very legible characters 'WillelMus.' The cist of the princess his wife is 2 inches shorter and 1 inch deeper, and the word 'Gvndrada' is very distinctly inscribed on the cover. It is worth remarking that her father, the Conqueror, in his charter, ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... form using black ink pen or type.* You may photocopy blank application forms. *However*, photocopied forms submitted to the Copyright Office must be clear, legible, on a good grade of 8-1/2 inch by 11-inch white paper suitable for automatic feeding through a photocopier. The forms should be printed, preferably in black ink, head-to-head so that when you turn ...
— Copyright Basics • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... said by a connoisseur to be 'very well painted for a gentleman!' a species of {324} negative praise which gave but little satisfaction to the artist. Should the amateur printer, however, meet with as much, he will be very well contented. All he can himself say for his work is 'that it is legible;' and his type being of a pretty tolerable rotundity, he does not think it will need an additional pair of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... hue of the others, which silently indicated the blighted hopes of protracted litigation. Two massive iron chests occupied the walls on each side of the fireplace; and round the whole area of the room were piled one upon another large tin boxes, on which, in legible Roman characters, were written the names of the parties whose property was thus immured. There they stood like so many sepulchres of happiness, mausoleums raised over departed competence; while the names of the parties inscribed appeared as so many registers ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... this note! no name to it, no conclusion, the characters indistinct, the writing crooked, the words so few, and those few scarce legible! ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... peculiarities of Cicero's character are nowhere so clearly legible as in his dealings with and words about his daughter. There is an effusion of love, and then of sorrow when she dies, which is un-Roman, almost feminine, but ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... feel merry enough to send you a sad song.[72] You once asked me for some words which you would set. Now you may set or not, as you like,—but there they are, in a legible hand[73], and not in mine, but of my own scribbling; so you may say of them what you please. Why don't you write to me? I shall make you 'a speech'[74] if ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... respect. The practical education of the Auscultator began with keeping the minutes of the Criminal Courts, and to this post I was promoted out of my proper turn by the Rath, Herr von Brauchitsch, under whom I worked, because in those days I wrote a more than usually quick and legible hand. On the examinations, as criminal proceedings in the inquisitorial method of that day were called, the one that has made the most lasting impression upon me related to a widely ramifying association ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, tho' they never reach the wish'd-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... of the fisher-boat was Nicholas Tattersall, whose grave, covered with a slab of black marble, is still to be seen in Brighton church-yard, with a long poetical inscription, now scarcely legible. On the Restoration, he applied for his reward, and was made a commander in the royal navy, with an annuity to him and his heirs for ever of 100. The family have recently become extinct. His fisher-boat was moored for a considerable time in the Thames, opposite ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a plain. Thence I perceived a low flat, and a line of trees beyond it, very much resembling those of a river, and towards this I hastened, and found the river we had followed so far, unchanged in character. The scattered ponds, and nearly northerly course, were legible proofs of its identity. We watered our horses and took some breakfast, after which, while engaged laying down our route, one of the men observed some natives looking at us from a point of the opposite bank. I held up a green bough to one ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... to mention here, in reference to the minuteness attainable by paper negatives, that a railway notice of six lines is perfectly legible, and even the erasure for a new secretary's name is discernible in the accompanying specimen, which was obtained with one of Ross's landscape lenses, without any stop whatever being used, and after an exposure of five minutes during ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... their commission, Captain Sawkins replied that "we would ... bring our Commissions on the muzzles of our Guns, at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of Gunpowder could make them." Ringrose, p. 38. Legible, no doubt, but ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... long job, and he had bitten his tongue until it was sore in his efforts to make the printing legible, while his fingers ached from clutching the pencil so firmly; but he finished his task before the curtain was completed, and was able to give his advice as to the embellishment ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... of the task I had assumed, I chose a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hands. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted down, in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself, what was read from the chair or spoken by the members, and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... on humanity. The stranger, slowly turning round, and disclosing a countenance which—(Here the manuscript was illegible for a few lines), said in English—(A long hiatus followed here, and the next passage that was legible, though it proved to be a continuation of the narrative, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... of Schwarz's classes in different years, a framed concert programme, yellow with age, and a silhouette of Schumann. Over one of the doors hung a withered laurelwreath of imposing dimensions, and with faded silken ends, on which the inscription was still legible: DEM GROSSEN KUNSTLER, JOHANNES SCHWARZ!—Open on a chair, with an embroidered book-marker between its pages, lay ATTA TROLL; and by the stove, a battered wooden doll sat against the wall, in a relaxed attitude, with a set leer on its ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of the first Sabbath at the close of the creation, and were made of a sapphire-like stone. On each of the two tables are the Ten Commandments, four times repeated, and in such wise were they engraved that the letters were legible on both sides, for, like the tables, the writing and the pencils for inscription, too, were of heavenly origin. Between the separate commandments were noted down all the precepts of the Torah in all their particulars, although the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and blue. Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old scrap of paper, on which in a large rugged hand there had been written long ago a speech, but it had been worn away until but three words were legible—"conceived and dedicated—" ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... his room, and glanced at the door. The half-painted sign on the frosted glass was legible, reversed, as the artist had ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... silver ere he can redeem his family from destruction; the storm is only stilled by Jonah's being cast out into the deep; Samson triumphs over the enemy by the sacrifice of his own life! All these historical facts seem to me as types, dim and shadowy indeed, yet legible to the eye of faith, and Sacrifice is the word ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... hand was weary. She sometimes found a resource in that simple game, when unable, from weakness in her eyes, to read or write long together. A specimen of her clear strong handwriting is here given. Happy would the compositors for the press be if they had always so legible a manuscript to work from. But the writing was not the only part of her letters which showed superior handiwork. In those days there was an art in folding and sealing. No adhesive envelopes made all easy. Some people's letters always looked ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... on Indian Bibliography, says: "Of this scarce book, very few copies are complete or in good condition. Having been issued in a remote corner of North-Western Virginia, and designed principally for a local circulation, almost every copy was read by a country fireside until scarcely legible. Most of the copies lack the table of contents. The author took much pains to be authentic, and his chronicles are considered by Western antiquarians, to form the best collection of frontier life and Indian warfare, that has ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... precious an edition should be instantly rebound. Here is the Dante of 1478, with the Commentary of Guido Terzago, printed at Milan in 1478, folio. The text of the poet is in a fine, round, and legible roman type—that of the commentator, in a small and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... intelligence. When he grew to be a man, he wore no beard, not even the slightest apology for a whisker, and this perhaps added to the apparent heaviness of his face; but he probably best understood his own appearance, for in those days no face bore on it more legible marks of an ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... frequently judged by handwriting. Write a good, clear, legible hand, without any flourishes, and always use the best and the blackest of ink. The typewriter is employed only for ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... pistols, and a piece of his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places—when folded in a particular way the following words become legible, "Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell" which carried him to France, and numerous little things which gave the history ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... in her hand and began, as best she could, for the twentieth time to endeavour to decipher the address. It was very much blotted and besmeared, and presented a very remarkable specimen of caligraphy. The most legible ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... be doing injustice to my friend's memory, were I to publish other extracts even nearer to insanity than this, front the scarcely legible papers before me. I gather from them—for I do not remember that he ever related to me the circumstances—that he once made a journey, chiefly on foot, to Niagara. Some conduct of the friends among whom he resided in his native village was constructed by him into oppression. ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin—when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St. Sepulchre's, so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jeweled—when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... artless, unencumbered plan, No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clay the pile. From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give, Stand the ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... was legible in her face, a countenance still pretty and pleasing in its unruffled placidity. She talked very little, but what she did say was sensible, and proved how attentively she understood how to listen. So she was welcome among ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the secretary's room by the hall door, and looked at the manuscript which had been left on the table. It was written in an excellent hand, not too large, very legible, and correctly punctuated. Everything had been done properly, except that after the first three pages she had forgotten to number the leaves at the top; but as every sheet was placed in its proper order, this was an omission which could be ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... bulls forming the center entrance was one continuous inscription, injured in parts, but still so far preserved as to be legible almost throughout. It contained 152 lines. On the four bulls of the facade were two inscriptions, one inscription being carried over each pair, and the two being precisely of the same import. These two ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... is curious: concise, square, not flowing,—very legible, however, exactly suited to its purpose. People who profess to read character in chirography would decipher but little from these cramped, quiet lines. Only this, probably: that the woman, whoever she was, had not the usual ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... and dressed, he was sitting at his desk looking at a small piece of paper he had taken out of his wallet. It was scrawled with semi-legible memoranda: "See Mr. Howland at five. Get hair-cut. See about ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... When spring returned, notwithstanding the infinite delights of the society of a clever woman, wonderfully well informed, young and lovely, the lover went through cruel sufferings, endured indeed with courage, but which were sometimes legible in his countenance, and betrayed themselves in his manners or speech, perhaps because he believed that Francesca shared them. Now and again it annoyed him to admire her calmness. Like an Englishwoman, ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... time, the books have been found difficult to read. The present writer's knowledge of Spanish is too sketchy to enable him to read them in the original with full comfort. Amadis and Palmerin are legible enough in Southey's translations, made, as one would expect from him, with all due effort to preserve the language of the old English versions where possible. But Herberay's sixteenth-century French is a very attractive and perfectly easy language, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... a letter, at any rate an envelope, and it had fallen face up, full in the light of the open window. The envelope bore an address, in faded ink, but written in a bold legible hand. Not to save his soul could Queed have avoided ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... they may add to the amount of thought, distract the mind, and confuse its observation of the main idea, the essence or life of the book or paper, must be diligently refused. In the manuscript of Comus there exists, cancelled but legible, a passage of which I have the best authority for saying that it would have made the poetic fame of any writer. But the grand old self-denier struck it out of the opening speech because that would be more polished without it—because the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... can never pass. From the height of his eternal throne, his eye pervades all his works; from the tall archangel, that "adores and burns," down to the very hairs of our heads, which are all numbered, his wise, benevolent, and powerful supervision may be traced in legible lines, which may be seen and read of all men. And from effects, the most diminutive in character, may be traced back, from cause to cause, upward in the ascending scale of being, to the same unrivalled Source of all power, splendor, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... that there has never been in Europe a fluent script so beautiful and legible as that of our very best English writers of to-day. But their aesthetic mastery has come from loving study of the forms that conscious artistry had perfected, and through a constant practice in their ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... girl's voice was so pronounced that every eye in that hall turned to her in astonishment. There was consternation, too, most legible in her widely-opened eyes. Her cheeks had lost their colour. She stood for a fleeting moment before them all, an image of terror. Then she ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... with the conscious pleasure of having fairly purchased, by the performance of the service required. The soldier turned his eyes to the subject of the note. It was written on a piece of torn and soiled paper, and in a hand barely legible, but after some little labor, he was able to make out ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... it cannot be denied that reading and writing men, of moderate industry, who act on this rule for any considerable length of time, will accumulate a good deal of matter in various forms, shapes, and sizes—some more, some less legible and intelligible—some unposted in old pocket books—some on whole or half sheets, or mere scraps of paper, and backs of letters—some lost sight of and forgotten, stuffing out old portfolios, or getting smoky edges in bundles tied up with faded tape. There are, ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... registers of many Latin books at this period mention the first leaf of A as quite blank. The copy of the public library at Cambridge is at least so worn or mutilated at the bottom of some pages that the bottom lines are not legible." [This copy is now in the matchless ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... retained not only to save space but to give the printed page as nearly as possible the appearance of a fine manuscript. It was not at first the ambition of the printers and type-founders to make their books more legible or less taxing on the eyes than manuscript; their readers were accustomed to manuscript and felt no need of such improvements. The mechanical advance in the art of writing brought about by printing was at first regarded as consisting in the greater rapidity and lower ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... rescriptus, Dublin palimpsest manuscript, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, designated by the letter Z. It contains with other writings thirty-two leaves of the gospel by Matthew. They were edited, as far as legible, in 1801, by Dr. John Barrett, Fellow of Trinity College. In 1853 Dr. Tregelles made a new and thorough examination of the manuscript, and, by the aid of a chemical process, brought all that exists of the gospel text to a legible condition. This manuscript is assigned ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... last, about half after six o'clock in the evening, the following note was brought to me. It had been written with such a trembling hand that it was scarcely legible; but I knew the writing ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the pall, a plain leaden coffin, with no appearance of ever having been enclosed in wood, and bearing an inscription, 'King Charles, 1648,' in large, legible characters, on a scroll of lead encircling it, immediately presented itself to the view. A square opening was then made in the upper part of the lid, of such dimensions as to admit a clear insight into ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... which are ever aching while uncured; with the desire to satisfy those few friends, which I have tried by the fire of adversity, the former enforcing, the latter persuading; have caused me to make my thoughts legible, and myself the subject of every ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... of them, to meet the mighty guest, the grandeur of the scene had been somewhat screened by unpleasant sensations. If Messer Luca Corsini could have had a brief Latin welcome depending from his mouth in legible characters, it would have been less confusing when the rain came on, and created an impatience in men and horses that broke off the delivery of his well-studied periods, and reduced the representatives of the scholarly ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... learning; and, indeed, so remarkable was his aversion to the useful arts of reading and writing, that his greatest improvement amounted only to an indifferent knowledge of the alphabet, and the poor accomplishment of being just able to scrawl his own name in characters which were scarcely legible. He was equally distinguished for his speed and fidelity when his parents sent him on an errand; for he could hardly make shift to saunter a mile in an hour, and when he arrived at the place of his destination, he usually forgot three fourths ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... he turned over several times before he opened it. It did not look much like a letter. It was torn and ragged at the edges, and was so soiled and water-stained that the address on it was only partly legible. It had been to Fond du Lac, and from there it had followed him to Fort Chippewyan. He opened it and found that the writing inside was scarcely more legible than the inscription on the envelope. The last words were quite plain, and he gave a low cry when ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... twisted, and part of it unrolled, and for a second lay open and smooth of creases, lit up by the flame and as yet untouched; so that two or three words sprang, as it were, out of a yellow glare of fire and were legible. Then the flame seized upon that smooth part too, and in a moment shrivelled it into black tatters. But Captain Trench was all this while staring into ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... key to the records of the analysis and complete heat treatment of that particular gear. Should a question at any time arise regarding the treatment of a certain gear, all the necessary information is available if the number on the gear is legible. For instance, date of treatment, furnace, carburizing material, position of the pot in the furnace, position of gear in pot, temperature of furnace and duration of treatment are all tabulated ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... its tone. If Mr. Sadrock did not make use of the words that I attribute to him how could I have set them down? Because I was writing unobserved all the time he was talking, and I could produce the notes if they were, to others, legible enough for it to be worth while; surreptitious writing must necessarily be indistinct at times. As for the question of time and place, that is a mere quibble. Mr. Sadrock was alive when we had our talk, and I am sorry if I have misdated it. The talk remains. May I add that it is very astonishing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... ancient characters, and so faded and mouldered away as to be almost illegible. It was apparently an old Norman drinking song, that might have been brought over by one of William the Conqueror's carousing followers. The writing was just legible enough to keep a keen antiquity-hunter on a doubtful chase; here and there he would be completely thrown out, and then there would be a few words so plainly written as to put him on the scent again. In this way he had been led on for a whole day, until he had ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... and by the popular traditions; and each story forms an episode in the history of the hero or spirit. The stones and rocks thus come to constitute a book chronicling the history of the tribe and the deeds of its great men—a book quite legible to the man who has been taught the stories. These grow with every generation, receiving such additions as fancy and reflection dictate, and gradually taking on literary form. In the territory of the Australian Arunta every stone is connected with some incident in the careers of the mythical ancestors, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... made man at the beginning is not an image that it is in the power of men to cast away, and in the worst of his corruptions and the widest of his departures he still bears upon him the signs of likeness 'to Him that created him.' The coin is rusty, battered, defaced; but still legible are the head and the writing. 'Whose image and superscription hath it?' Render unto God the things that are declared to be God's, because they bear His likeness and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... simple language, to their companions. Was a building burnt by lightning in the neighborhood? Let those who saw the scene, describe it; their productions to be read by the teacher aloud; and let them see that clear descriptions please, and that good legible writing can be read fluently, and that correct spelling, and punctuation, and grammar, make the article go smoothly and pleasantly, and enable it to produce its full effect. Is a public building going forward in the neighborhood ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... of some who are still amongst us, there has sprung up and been cultivated—and cultivated most successfully too—a science which has no written documents or legible inscriptions to guide it on its path, and whose researches are far more ancient in their object than the researches of Archaeology. Its subject is an antiquity greatly older than human antiquity. It deals with the state of the earth and of the inhabitants of the earth in times immeasurably ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... as I thought of my note. Was it possible that I had spelt "advertisement" wrongly, and yet I had the paper before me; my handwriting was neat and legible, but evidently Mrs. Morton was drawing some comparison between my letter and appearance, and I did not doubt that the former had not ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... had not ripened into that state of almost entire unanimity which characterized it, and the State generally, four years later. John Phifer filled an early grave, and lies buried at the "Red Hill," on the Salisbury road, where a decaying headstone, scarcely legible, marks the last resting-place ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... in secret; and that the marriage itself should take place in August, as Luttrel expected to be ordered back into service in the autumn. At about this moment Gertrude was surprised to receive a short note from Richard, so feebly scrawled in pencil as to be barely legible. "Dear Gertrude," it ran, "don't come to see me just yet. I'm not fit. You would hurt me, and vice versa. God bless you! R. CLARE." Miss Whittaker explained his request, by the supposition that a report had come to him of Major Luttrel's late assiduities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... public sentiment inscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of reform, which will require particularly the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... of the room, whose red colour once set off the famous portraits of the Club, that hung around it. Their marks and sizes were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guidance of the hanger! Thus was I, as it were, by these still legible names, brought into personal contact with Addison, and Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, and Dryden, and with many hereditary nobles, remembered, only because they were patrons of those natural nobles!—I read their names aloud!—I invoked their departed ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... constructed, long-neglected building of a type common to those old river towns that in their many years of uselessness have lost all civic pride, and in their own resultant squalor and filth have buried their self-respect. A dingy, scarcely legible sign over the treacherous board walk, in front, by the sickly light of a smoke-grimed kerosene lantern, announced that the place was ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... down "full many a fathom deep," is every soul on board to perish? Ho! a sail! a sail! The weather-beaten, but staunch ship Abolition, commanded by the Genius of Liberty, is bearing toward the wreck, with the cheering motto, inscribed in legible capitals, "WE WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU!" Let us hope, even against hope, that rescue ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... and miserable weeks, with now and again a message from Bet, or a few lines hastily scrawled, and often scarcely legible. The Squire was alive, but light in his head, and seemed to know nothing, nor heed nothing. There seemed no comfort anywhere. Jack was, it is true, out of reach and safe whatever happened; but, as is often the case, the faithful lover of her youth was, by separation, raised to a very ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... curious and detailed histories founded only on the figures on medals; the early history of Greece, and that of the lower empire of Rome, have scarcely a better foundation. Now, why may not the same use be made of architecture? Is not the religion of our ancestors legible in the very ornaments of their house? Are not their excessive ignorance and credulity equally visible in the griffins, sphinxes, dragons, mermaids, and chimeras, which are so frequently carved in Gothic roofs, and which are so absurdly mistaken for angels and devils? ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... artistically, as well as accurately, set up; with their different ages, their nests, their young, their eggs, and their skeletons side by side; and in accordance with the admirable plan which is pursued in this museum, a tablet, telling the spectator in legible characters what they are and what they mean. For the instruction and recreation of the public such a typical collection would be of far greater value than any ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... propose for changing the denominations of land into legible and audible syllables, is by employing some gentlemen in the University; who, by the knowledge of the Latin tongue, and their judgment in sounds, might imitate the Roman way, by translating those hideous words into their English meanings, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... is the bronze table, A.D. 48, in the second room left hand, with inscribed portions of the harangue of Claudius before he became emperor, imploring the senate to grant to Lyons, his native city, the title of a Roman colony. The letters are beautifully cut and easily legible. This table was discovered in 1528 on the heights of Saint Sbastien. Germanicus, and the Emperors Claudius, Marcus Aurelius, and Caracalla, were also born in Lyons. The father of St. Ambrose was for some time prefect ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... in her confusion, being unable to find her proper habiliments, laid hold of one of these scrolls, and wrapping it around her, hastily rushed into the street, and presented to the astonished spectators an extensive back view, with the words, "BOMBARD THE CITADEL," inscribed in legible characters upon her ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... clutching her husband's arm, and hissing in his ear). See! [She points to the white lettering on the bag, where the name "Willis Campbell, San Francisco," is distinctly legible.] But it can't be; it must be some other Campbell. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... delay and hamper our inquiry for twelve hours— twenty-four in reality. I can't make you out, Mr. Theydon. You would never have said a word about your very accurate acquaintance with this mysterious stranger's appearance had not last night's rainstorm left its legible record on your clothes. Do you now vouch for it that the man was completely unknown ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Macklin, "If God writes a legible hand, that fellow is a villain." At another time, Quin had the hardihood to say to Macklin himself, "Mr. Macklin, by the lines—I beg your pardon, sir—by the cordage of your face, you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... Military Cockney.—Lieutenant Blazer (of the Plungers).—"Gwood gwacious! Here's a howible go! The ifan [? word not legible] v's going to gwow a moustache! Cornet Huffey (whose face is whiskerless). "Yaw don't mean that! Wall! there's only one alternative for us. We ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... letter to Mrs. Aders it appears that Coleridge did not contemplate the epitaph being inscribed on his tombstone, but that he intended it to be printed 'in letters of a distinctly visible and legible size' on the outline of a tomb-stone to be engraved as a vignette to be published in a magazine, or to illustrate the last page of his 'Miscellaneous Poems' in the second volume of his Poetical Works. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... repository of classical books is a single room in the buried city of Herculaneum, which contained several hundred manuscripts, mostly in a charred condition, a considerable number of which, however, have been unrolled and found more or less legible. This library in the buried city was chiefly made up of philosophical works, some of which were quite unknown to the modern world until ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... soluble that if you seep a book made of cotton paper in water for fifteen minutes, it turns to a pulp, while an old book left in water for a couple of hours is not spoilt. You could dry the old book, and the pages, though yellow and faded, would still be legible, the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... if unwilling to take my last half-dollar; but self soon got the better of him. He pocketed the shin-plaster, and said nothing; but "Poor gentleman! I's sorry for you! Libin' at do Spotswood, and no money about you!" was legible all over his face. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... to create hallucinations of rooms he has never seen, landscapes which never existed, people whose names cannot be found in the directory. He sits at his writing table in mortal anguish. His thoughts must be clear, pregnant and picturesque, his writing legible, the story dramatic; the interest must never abate, the metaphors must be striking, the dialogue brilliant. The faces of those automata, the public, whose brains he is to wind up, are grinning at him; the critics whose good-will he must ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... dates, at least approximately. As is to be expected, there is a notable difference in the specimens of different periods. While on some bricks bearing the name of a king who lived about 3000 B.C. the inscription is uncouth and scarcely legible, and even their shape is rude and the material very inferior, those of the later Babylonian period (600 B.C.) are handsome and neatly made. As to the quality, all explorers agree in saying it is fully equal to that of the best modern English bricks. The excellence ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... years before the rebellion of the Southern States, Daniel Boone cut on a beech tree near Jonesboro, Tenn., the following words, which are still legible: ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... between myself and ——; of course, the intimacy cannot be so great. But no matter; it will enable me to answer your notes, and you will interest my imagination much more than if I knew you better. But I am exceeding legitimate note-writing limits. With a hope that this epistle may be legible to your undiscerning eyes, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... immediately go along with him. "Whither?" said the king. "To the army," replied Joyce. "By what warrant?" asked the king. Joyce pointed to the soldiers whom he brought along; tall, handsome, and well accoutred. "Your warrant," said Charles, smiling, "is writ in fair characters, legible without spelling."[*] The parliamentary commissioners came into the room: they asked Joyce whether he had any orders from the parliament? he said, "No;" from the general? "No;" by what authority he came? he made the same reply as to the king. "They would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... S., Pussy K., and Robbie V. R. are very youthful correspondents who favor us with letters printed with remarkable neatness. May R. also writes a very legible "Wiggle." When you learn to print, little ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nature are legible, it is true; but they are not plain enough to enable those who run, to read them. We must make use of a cautious, I had almost said, a timorous method of proceeding. We must not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely pretend to creep. In considering any complex matter, we ought ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
