"Scribble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He had a book in his hand, and he began to scribble a little sketch of Lydia's pose, on a fly-leaf. She looked round and saw it. "You've detected me," he said; "I haven't any right to keep your likeness, now. I must make you a present of this work of art, Miss Blood." He finished the sketch with some ironical flourishes, and made as if to tear ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Darwin confessed: "There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... ourselves, and growing defaced and cornerless, and liable at any moment to fall a prey to some antiquary and be patched in the legs, and "restored" with an unseemly nose, and labeled wrong and dated wrong, and set up in the Vatican for poets to drivel about and vandals to scribble their names on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wanted, so I followed the person who had so kindly interested himself in my scribble. He proved to be Mr. Mowbray, the manager of the theatre. The picture behind the scenes that night was a perfect Elysium to me. I think Mowbray must have noticed the impression it made upon me, for he asked if I would like ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... passage of time the actuating causes were somewhat blurred in perspective. The main facts stood forth clear enough, but the underlying details were misty and uncertain, like some half-obliterated scribble on a badly rubbed slate upon which a more important sum has been overlaid. One rendition had it that the firm of Stackpole Brothers sued the two Tatums—Harve and Jess—for an account long overdue, and won judgment in the courts, but won with it the murderous enmity ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... on her, with something of the admiration which we might conceive in an Esquimaux for a fixed star, or in an Italian highwayman for some Parian statue which he had stumbled on in his thickets. But the admiration was soon absorbed in the job in hand, and he turned away—to scribble to the Minister. Of the younger portion of the family I shall say but little. Children are happiest in the nursery, and there I leave them. I had two sisters, sweet little creatures, one with black eyes and the other with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... hate you. You are a wicked creature, very inconsistent, very stupid, very silly. You do not write to me. You do not love your husband. You know how much pleasure your letters would afford, and you do not write to him even six lines, which you can readily scribble out." ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... had shaken down in Aurora's mind, Gerald's letter, which she from time to time re-read, impressed her as a most gentle and reasonable production of his pen, while her own letter, preserved in the original scribble, appeared to her horrid, cutting, and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... have for some time been convinced that I have done wrong to scribble to thee so freely as I have done (and the more so, if I make the lady legally mine); for has not every letter I have written to thee been a bill of indictment against myself? I may partly curse my vanity for it; and I think I will refrain for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... us! needs must live A profitable life: some glance along Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air. And they were butterflies to wheel about Long as their summer lasted; some, as wise, Upon the forehead of a jutting crag Sit perch'd with book and pencil on their knee, And look and scribble, scribble on and look, Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn. But, for that moping son of Idleness Why can he tarry yonder?—In our church-yard Is neither epitaph nor monument, ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... fytte of Harold's pilgrimage. Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page, If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. Is this too much? Stern critic, say not so: Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doomed to go: Lands that contain the monuments of eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... to the old story, scribble till two, then walk for exercise till four. Deil hae it else, for company eats up the afternoon, so nothing can be done that is not achieved in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... she. "I went to get your M. Gaudissart out of a fix. He wants some music for a ballet, and you are hardly fit to scribble on sheets of paper and do your work, dearie.—So I understood, things being so, that a M. Garangeot was to be asked to set the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... admit that I am not raving. Think of his seeing that spotless image, not for a moment, for a day, in a happy dream, or a restless fever-fit; not as a poet in a five minutes' frenzy—time to snatch his phrase and scribble his immortal stanza; but for days together, while the slow labour of the brush went on, while the foul vapours of life interposed, and the fancy ached with tension, fixed, radiant, distinct, as we see it now! What a master, certainly! But ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... sign your name always so that people can read it. Some, out of pure affectation, conceal what they call themselves under a scribble which none can read—"a hopeless puzzle of intemperate scratches." How is a stranger, getting a letter signed in this way, to know to whom to send a reply, unless, as is sometimes done, he cuts out the signature, pastes it on the envelope, and adds the address? ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... I mean—a plan that will at least give you an occasional sight of your 'Frank,' that no doubt you think more of than a Congressman of his, and wouldn't lend it to anybody. Scribble him a little note at once, tell him who I am and what I am going to do. Put in this card of mine, so that he can know where to find me. Then tell him to get a soldier's uniform—(say a Captain's) a crutch, a cane, and a green patch for one ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... but wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless, and hasty authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their eyes, use this style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in it. It consists in—it is advisable to give rule and example together, wherever it is possible—breaking up one phrase in order to glue in another. Nor is it merely out of ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... enjoying the confusion into which the mention of this phantom beast threw her persecutor, she continued to scribble on scraps of paper which the concierge was told to take to the lawyer, who never ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... suffered this needless affront. Pardon this parenthesis, but when one talks from behind a curtain the parenthesis is the only available thing.) There was silence. I saw Steinbock poise the pen, then scribble on the parchment. It ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... here were of some kind of slate, very hard, but scaly: and finding two pieces, a large and a small, he handed them to me, bawling that I was to write therewith. So giving him my pistol, I made shift to scribble a few words. Seeing his eyes twinkle as he ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... shouldn'. I'd say, 'You rate me too high, my dear. Still,' I'd say, 'if you insist upon it, you just scribble down the main points on a sheet o' paper, and I'll take a walk and think it over.' Then I'd carry it off to Benny." 'Bias, who so far had held the better of the argument by keeping his temper, clinched his triumph with a ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Morley, in her deplorable tone, "I am continually ordering Sir Gerald not to scribble in books, but he never ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and heart to work and composed a rhyme. Now, the most unfit sphere on earth for an inexperienced mind to exercise the poetic faculty is in epitaphiology. It does very well in copy-books, but it is most unfair to blot the resting-place of the dead with unskilled poetic scribble. It seems to me that the owners of cemeteries and graveyards should keep in their own hand the right to refuse inappropriate ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... there says, referring to the French Revolution of July 1830, that "unless God send us some miraculous help, we have to look forward to a period of destruction similar to that which the Roman world experienced about the middle of the third century." Now, when I see a man scribble such abject nonsense about events which are passing under our eyes, what confidence can I put in his judgment as to the connection of causes and effects in times very imperfectly ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... must," said she. We had no opportunity of speaking before, for her husband or some one was always in the way. To make sure I next day slipped an envelope into her hand, in which was one addressed to myself, and a scribble asking her to say where I was to meet her. It came back by post containing in execrable writing the words, "My dear, same time, and place, if he be out, on Saturday night." I did not comprehend, but waited ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... went disgusted, to toil on at my hack-writing, only praying that I might be let alone to scribble in peace, and often thinking, sadly, how little my friends in Harley-street could guess at the painful experience, the doubts, the struggles, the bitter cares, which went to the making of the poetry which ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of Fortune, the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine. One of the Princess's ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a line for the Freiherr von Gondremark. It proved to be a pencil billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor. For Greisengesang had but one influential motive: fear. The note ran thus: "At the first council, procuration to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moving through the streets gave Erik Dorn a picture. It was morning. Above the heads of the people the great spatula-topped buildings spread a zigzag of windows, a scribble of rooftops against the sky. A din as monotonous as a silence tumbled through the streets—an unvarying noise of which the towering rectangles of buildings tilted like great reeds out of a narrow ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... was worse, instead of better. He could hardly hear and he was too weak to write much. But he did manage to scribble a note: ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... But look here, whoever sent you that cowardly bit of scribble thought that because you lived out here in this lonely place you would be easily frightened. Look here," he continued, taking a scrap of dirty paper out of his old pocket-book; "that bit of rubbish was stuck on one of the tines of a hay-fork, and the shaft driven into the ground in front ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... a moment to scribble a line on my card. Our father is dangerously ill—his lawyer has been sent for. Come with me to London by the first train. Meet at ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... SIR,—I just now received your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... starboard horizon. To Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock this meant nothing, and my father might have left them to their ignorance had he not in the course of the forenoon caught them engaged upon a silly piece of mischief, which was, to scribble on small sheets of paper various affecting narratives—as that the Gauntlet was sinking, or desperately attacked by pirates, in such and such a latitude and longitude—insert them in empty bottles, and commit them to the chances of the deep. The object (as Mr. Fett explained ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... somewhat curtly. He crossed over to his father's desk where he sat down to scribble a few words, while Mr. Bagley, who had followed him in scowling, was making ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... are built for idiots, and there is much joy when after many years of persevering effort some devoted person succeeds in teaching these beings, whose mentality is far inferior to that of a monkey, to repeat a few words like a parrot, to scribble some words on paper, or to repeat a prayer mechanically with their eyes ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... love-letter, a most elaborate affair, the pure overflowing of la belle passion, all about Venus, Cupids, bows and arrows, hearts, darts, and them things, which, having copied neatly over on a handsome sheet of foolscap, turned up with gilt, (for, though I say it myself, I scribble a smart fist,) I made a blotch of red wax on the back as large as a dollar, that thereon I might the more indelibly impress a seal, with a couple of pigeons cooing upon it, and 'toujours wotre' for the motto. This I popped into the post-office, and waited ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... good counsel of that learned and pious Prelate: And having, by long experience, found the truth and benefit of it, I conceive, I could not without ingratitude to him, and want of charity to others, conceal it.—Pray pardon this rude, and, I fear impertinent scribble, which, if nothing else, may signify thus much, that I am willing to obey your desires, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... could read it away, but I do not read in that violent measure, with which, having no Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my head and eyesight in by-gone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure; I let it come to me. I am like ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... pair of shoes in a shop six feet by eight in size and with walls three feet thick, I noticed a mangy leopard skin on the floor. I had no Spanish. The shop-keeper had no English. But I was an adept at sign language. I wanted to know where I should go to buy leopard skins. On my scribble- pad I drew the interesting streets of a city. Then I drew a small shop, which, after much effort, I persuaded the proprietor into recognising as his shop. Next, I indicated in my drawing that on the many streets ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... were bestowed in the amphitheatre. Each desk received its man. He was to scribble on it by day, and sleep under it by night. When the desks were all taken, the companies overflowed into the corners and into the lobbies. The staff took committee-rooms. The Colonel reigned in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... necessary to close it against all horses and carriages. All the rank and fashion of Paris flung itself into this game of speculation. Every one has heard the story of the hunchback who made a little fortune by the letting of his hump as a desk on which impatient speculators might scribble their applications for shares. A French novelist, M. Paul Feval, has made good use of {185} this story, and London still remembers to what a brilliant dramatic account it was turned by Mr. Fechter. Law was the most powerful ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... nothing but piloting as a science so far, and I doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject. And I don't care to. Any Muggins can write about old days on the Mississippi of five hundred different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble about the piloting of that day, and no man has ever tried to scribble about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time, and it is about the only ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... way on, amusing his friends in private, and entertaining the world of letters by his genial humor. It welled up as from a hidden fountain, and that fountain never failed but with life. So easily and spontaneously did it flow, that if he wanted an order to see the play, for some friends, he would scribble something like ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercury—an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares—what nothing else can. [Compare ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... This is, in my opinion, a rule of profound sense, and ought never to depart from the mind of an honest reformer. I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases. A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a ride of two hours yesterday on Calvert's pony, and he is improving fast in horsemanship. The school appears to answer very well. We shall have the Governess in a day or two, which will be a great satisfaction. Will you send my Mother this scribble with my ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside made itself heard. He looked ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... October delivery at $1.43 7/8 per bushel. It's that fellow down there with the blazing red tie half way up his collar. He hits out with both hands at the air as he yells. A surge of buyers overwhelms him. They scribble notes upon their sales cards and go at ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... being arrested. When they met in prison they had so little time to discuss such details, in face of the one awful fact that he was there, and was in all probability going to die in two days. But from this incomplete, tear-stained scribble that he left behind and from the answers he gave to her few questions, she gathered that the story of his quest ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... had a taste for poetry, and taught the lad to scribble rhymes. Very proud was the boy's mother, and very carefully did she preserve ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... but happy man was thus pleasantly engaged, his entertainer opened his writing portfolio and began to scribble off note after note, with such rapidity that the amazed pauper at his elbow fairly lost his appetite, and, after a vain attempt to recover it, suggested that it might be as well for him to retire to one of ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand reaching for the knob he halted, made an impatient gesture, plumped himself down at the long table—at its distant opposite end. With a sweep of the arm he cleared a space wherein he proceeded to spread papers from his pocket and to scribble upon them furiously. When Susan happened to glance at him, his head was bent so low and his straw hat was tilted so far forward that she could not see his face. She observed that he was dressed attractively in an extremely light summer ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of the army of the Potomac having capitulated. My good dear wife and self are come to wish for peace at any price. Good night, my good friend. I will scribble on no more. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Canzonet' is brief enough for your Majesty's immediate consideration," replied Teresa;—"It is just such a thing as a man might scribble in his note-book after a bout of champagne, when he is in love for ten minutes! He would not mean a word of it,—but it might sound pretty by moonlight!" Whereupon she ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... this way, and smooth as much as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began 'Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sense, And then turn critics in their own defence: Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write, 30 Or with a rival's, or an eunuch's spite. All fools have still an itching to deride, And fain would be upon the laughing side; If Maevius scribble in Apollo's spite, There are who judge still worse than ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Gibbon brought him the second volume of the Decline and Fall, 'received him with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, "Another d——d thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... I scribble this diary with a vile pen, and ink like blacking, on the corner of my breakfast-table. I have packed my knapsack, and in a few minutes I shall set ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... England Mr. Balfour occupies a leading place. He possesses the gift of never saying a word too much, a habit which might be copied to advantage by many public speakers. His habit during a debate is to scribble a few words on an envelop, and then to speak with rare facility ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle; Men whose historical superiority Is always greatest at a miracle. But Saint Augustine has the great priority, Who bids all men believe the impossible, Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he Quiets at once ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... love the Christmas holidays at college. It was a perfect time of peace after the excitement and hurry of her life—a time when she could steal into the big library and read the hours away without being disturbed, or scribble things on paper that she would like to expand into something, some day, when her diffidence ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... to scribble away— Soa's them 'at's a fancy con read; An tho' aw turn neet into day, If aw'm suitin an odd ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... enough about myself. I want to suggest something to you. You may laugh, old boy—but I'm in earnest. I remember you're telling me once that, when you were up at the 'Varsity, you used to scribble a bit. I didn't pay much attention; in those days one didn't pay attention—ever. But now your words have come back to me once or twice, during the night, when I've been seeing dream pictures in my reading lamp and the ward has been asleep. Have you thought that possibly that is the line along ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Might she not scribble down a few of the sentences which had puzzled her, but were now quite clear? Of course her aunt would not like it, but then she need never know. It could not be any worse to write than to lie in bed and think, she argued, and it would ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... such a disadvantage in case of a surprise. The High Lama explained the different images to me, and threw handfuls of rice over them as he called them by their respective names, all of which I tried hard to remember, but, alas! before I could get back to the serai and scribble them down on paper, they had all escaped my memory. A separate entrance led from ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... Father Caboccini looked at him with angry astonishment; when Rodin, growing still more imperious and haughty, and with an air of more sovereign disdain than ever, pushed aside the paper with the back of his dirty hand and said: "What is the date of that scribble?" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... It's coming up to you." It had its choice Of the door to the cellar or the hall. It took the hall door for the novelty, And set off briskly for so slow a thing, Still going every which way in the joints, though, So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, From the slap I had just now given its hand. I listened till it almost climbed the stairs From the hall to the only finished bedroom, Before I got up to do anything; Then ran and shouted, "Shut the bedroom door, Toffile, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... sun was bright, and a breeze fluttered the leaves of the young lime-tree beneath which he lay; but his heart ached. Such darkness seemed gathered round his happiness. He heard Big Ben chime "Three" above the traffic. The sound moved something in him, and, taking out a piece of paper, he began to scribble on it with a pencil. He had jotted a stanza, and was searching the grass for another verse, when something hard touched his shoulder-a green parasol. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... It was Mrs. Packard who spoke. She was pointing at the scribble he was making on ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... a shopping-bag she was embellishing. And when, in due course, a funny-looking, canary-colored envelope carried this fragment to the desk of some bored phlegmatic editor, he would, as like as not, grin and scribble an order to the cashier for two dollars (or some such munificent sum) and pin it to the stamped "return" canary envelope, which would presently reach Number 98 ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... work with your foot, and the other way you work with your fingers, but I rather guess there's more headache in the stories than there is in the stitches, because you don't have to think quite so hard while your foot's going as you do when your fingers is at work, scratch, scratch, scratch, scribble, scribble, scribble. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... mischief to religion, is to strew his bed with roses; he will reply in triumph, that this was his design; and I am loth to mortify him, by asserting he hath done none at all. For I never yet saw so poor an atheistical scribble, which would not serve as a twig for sinking libertines to catch at. It must be allowed in their behalf, that the faith of Christians is not as a grain of mustard seed in comparison of theirs, which can remove such mountains of absurdities, and submit with so entire ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the ship still remaining in her unusual position, and heard the uproar going on overhead, began to entertain some very disagreeable doubts as to the possibility of the event to which he was alluding actually occurring, and looked very blue about the gills; whereat little Scribble, the clerk, laughed heartily at him, and seated himself on the table, with his feet on the side of the ship, affirming that he was not afraid, and was as contented and happy as ever—the truth being, not that the young donkey was a bit more brave than the other two, but that ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... the Laureate's wine, and the Laureate's pay, And no deductions at quarter-day? Oh, that would be the post for me! With plenty to get and nothing to do, But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue, And whistle a tune to the Queen's cockatoo, And scribble of verses remarkably few, And empty at evening a bottle ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... standing all day on the summits of roofs, in front of ovens, among machines, and in the water, and underground, with nothing to eat but a little bread; and I feel almost ashamed, I, who in all that time have accomplished nothing but scribble four small pages, and that reluctantly. Ah, I am discontented, discontented! I see plainly that my father is out of humor, and would like to tell me so; but he is sorry, and he is still waiting. My dear father, who works so hard! all is ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... read it to the end, to the last scribble on the margin: "You should have married a girl like Winny Dymond." "It was a lie what I told you once about her." "You needn't be afraid of being fond of Baby." There was nothing evocative, nothing significant for him in these phrases, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... offer from Chicago that you've been thinking about! It's a big thing—designing for that firm. It will make you independent, leave you time to scribble, and give you a change. Pat, ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... Peronne to-morrow, and I have availed myself of the hour between cards and supper, which is usually employed by the French in undressing, to scribble my remarks. In some families, I suppose, supping in dishabille is an arrangement of oeconomy, in others of ease; but I always think it has the air of preparation for a very solid meal; and, in ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... just the one thing that I can do for you all, now that I am away, and I am not so selfish that I grudge an hour in the day. I know how disappointed one face looks when there is no letter from Bessie in the morning, and so I lay down my book and scribble away ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... believe, is getting restive. Through the roof of what we call Fatherland social currents begin to filter. There remains only one ideal in presence of which the most hardened sceptic raises his hat,—the People. But on the base of this statue mischievous spirits are beginning already to scribble more or less ribald jokes, and, what is still more strange, the mist of unbelief is rising from the heads of those who, in the nature of things, ought to bow down reverently. Finally there will come a gifted sceptic, a second Heine, to spit and ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... writes so very slowly, and as father does not think he should scribble at all, he has desired me to inform you of everything that has passed since you left us. And first I must acquaint you with a sad accident which will render one of your commissions useless. Poor Hector, the day after you went away, was lost for several hours. We went to every house in the village, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... classes. To the labor of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Egbert; "well, let's collaborate on this letter of thanks and get it done. I'll dictate, and you can scribble it down. 'Dear Mrs. Froplinson—thank you and your husband so much for the very pretty calendar you sent us. It was very good of ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... obscurity more obscure, and who assume that in a multitude of words, as in a multitude of counsellors, there is wisdom! O ye critics, who vote yourselves the Areopagites of Intellect, whose decrees confer immortality in the Universe of Letters! O all ye that write or scribble,—all ye tribes, both great and small, of pen-drivers and paper-scrapers!—know ye, that, while ye are listening in your imaginative ambition to the praise of the elect or the applause of nations, your wives are often counting the coppers ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... I scribble these hasty lines in all the bustle of preparation, and interrupted by the babies and by Armand, who keeps saying, "Godmother, godmother! I want to see her," till I am almost jealous. He might be ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the Signoria, cajoled the clergy, bamboozled the popolani, descended even to the ragamuffins in the gutters, and taught them how to shout "Duca! Duca!" when his master went proudly a-horseback, or to scribble his effigy in great chalk circles on the city walls. Though it may be true that Molly's graces brought Amilcare the crown of Nona, it must be added that neither Molly nor her Duke could have got in at all if Grifone had not been there to oil the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... library; and, like them, we do mischief. And that is just what we are: children that have not learnt to read let loose upon the library of the universe; and all that we can do is to pull the books about and play games with them and scribble on their pages. Everywhere the earth is defaced with our meaningless scribbling, and we tell ourselves that it means something because we want to scribble. Or sometimes we tell ourselves that there is no meaning in anything, no more in the books than ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... he looked on his watch, 'this rigor, you see, will soon pass away, and you're doing everything we could wish, and (for he found he had time to scribble a prescription), we'll just order him a trifle. Good-day, Sir. Your most ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... name with, why, you must keep up the position you've made—and you shall too! You're quite right to drop the schoolmastering, since you make more money with your scribbling. Your time's valuable now. Set to and scribble away while you're the fashion; make your 'ay while the sun shines, my boy. I'll see yer through it. I want you to do me credit. I want everyone to know that you're not like some of these poor ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... ages were qualified for this work. A certain degree of literary proficiency was required for the task. The centuries during which the papacy rose to the zenith of its power are notorious for the illiteracy of the masses. It was considered a remarkable achievement even for a nobleman to be able to scribble his name. Among those who possessed the ability few had the inclination and persistency necessary for the effort to transcribe the Bible. The cloisters of those days were the chief seats of learning and centers of lower ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... thinking; used to get mad at him. He worked for me in 1829, pulling fodder. I say Abe was awful lazy, he would laugh and talk, and crack jokes all the time, didn't love work, but did dearly love his pay." He liked to lie under a shade tree, or up in the loft of the cabin and read, cipher, or scribble. At night he ciphered by the light of the fire on the wooden fire shovel. He practised stump oratory by repeating the sermons, and sometimes by preaching himself to his brothers and sister. His gifts in the rhetorical line were high; when it was announced in the harvest field ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... ground-floor, and a window adjoining the street lets in upon me the light and air through a heavy crimson curtain, near which I sit and scribble. I was just enlarging upon the necessity of resignation, while the frown yet lingered on my brow, and was writing myself into a more calm and complacent mood, when—another knock at the door. As I opened it, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... he continued, apparently in answer to an assent from his colleague. "Sir Percy, will you be so kind as to scribble the necessary ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... note from the House of Commons—which, if your Lordship can read, I do not think I now could, such was the haste of scribble—Sheridan threw out the menace which the papers state, with Pitt's answer; the comment on which is, in the mouth of Opposition: "Pray, for God's sake, don't put a question, and urge it to a division, which will ruin our pretensions as ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... story or a horrid dream. Every day I try to overcome the feeling, but I can't succeed. This afternoon I made up my mind to return to our villa and write my diary. The day was lovely, and I meant to enjoy a rest and a scribble, but so strong was the horrid influence of the place that I couldn't settle to anything. I can't describe it, but it seemed to stifle me, and I can only compare it to some second sight in which one sees death. I sat as long as I could doing my writing, but I had to give in at last, and I tucked ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... much; she explained that she could only scribble a line or two while mommie slept. Mommie was about the same. She did not think there was anything Ward could do, and she thanked him for offering to help. There was nothing, she said pathetically, that anybody ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... signified to me his approbation of my journals, from whence I infer, that he either never reads them, or does not give himself the trouble to remember any of their contents, tho' some part has been address'd to him, so, for the future, I shall trouble only you with this part of my scribble—Last thursday I din'd at Unkle Storer's & spent the afternoon in that neighborhood. I met with some adventures in my way viz. As I was going, I was overtaken by a lady who was quite a stranger to me. She accosted me with "how do you do miss?" ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... there was Colles' signature. But the pencilling was in a different hand. My deduction from this was that some one wished to send me a message, and that Colles had given that some one a sheet of signed paper to serve as a kind of introduction. I might take it, therefore, that the scribble was ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... the 1,000 Nights advertised at the same time, not to speak of the bastard. [363] I return you nine sheets [of proofs] by parcels post registered. You have done your work very well, and my part is confined to a very small amount of scribble which you ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... His father had never himself thought to draw, but he had always taken an interest in sculpture and painting, and he had said before Rodney was born that he would like to have a son a sculptor. And he waited for the little boy to show some signs of artistic aptitude. He pondered every scribble the boy made, and scribbles that any child at the same age could have done filled him with admiration. But when Rodney was fourteen he remodelled some leaves that had failed to please an important customer; and his father ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... at 'em 'n' we wanged 'em best we could. 'Twas either bed 'n' breakfast or a scribble and a wreath. Haynes bust a Prussian's almond, took the bay'net where he stood, Then heaved his last 'arf-Brunswick, split the demon's grinnin' teeth, And Son went down in glory, with ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... near. The post is going out, and to-morrow we shall begin to mount the cliffs of the Tyrol; but don't be afraid of any long-winded epistles from their summits: I shall be too well employed in ascending them. Just now, as I have lain by a long while, I grow sleek, and scribble on in mere wantonness of spirit. What excesses such a correspondence is capable of, you will soon be able ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... very well now. They were sort of blurred to him, but I described them and he told me who they were. "That's a girl o' mine," he said, with reference to one—a jolly, good-looking bush girl. "I got a letter from her yesterday. I managed to scribble something, but I'll get you, if you don't mind, to write something more I want to put in on another piece of paper, and address an ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... plague and starve the city; Let them stare, and storm, and frown, When they see a clergy gown; Let them, ere they crack a louse, Call for th'orders of the house; Let them, with their gosling quills, Scribble senseless heads of bills; We may, while they strain their throats, Wipe our a—s with their votes. Let Sir Tom,[4] that rampant ass, Stuff his guts with flax and grass; But before the priest he fleeces, Tear ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... hung, An eagle waiting for the lightning now To swoop upon his prey. One iron hand Gripped a rough tree-root like a bunch of snakes; And, as the rain rushed round him, far away He saw to northward yet another flash, A scribble of God's finger in the sky Over a waste of white stampeding waves. His eye flashed like a falchion as he saw it, And from his lips there burst the sea-king's laugh; For there, with a fierce joy he knew, he knew ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... a good deal to have witnessed his subsequent movements, but she would have been considerably disappointed had she done so, for Hone's methods were disconcertingly direct. All he did when he found himself alone was to sit down and scribble ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... DEAREST: Here I am sitting at the old desk again, in the old office of the Banner. I could only scribble you a little note on the train last night to tell you that my heart still was with you, and I did not have the time to explain why I was coming. It is a dead secret, little woman, and perhaps I shouldn't tell even you, but I feel that I must bring ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... really nothing to do but to scribble. "Barkis is willing." Captain Blunt brought me word this morning that his daughter smiles propitious. I am to report this evening; but I shall send my slender baggage in an hour ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... when Gibbon had published the second and third volumes of his "Decline and Fall," the Duke of Cumberland met him one day, and accosted him with, "How do you do, Mr. Gibbon? I see you are always at it in the old way—scribble, scribble, scribble!" The duke probably intended to pay the author a compliment, but did not know how better to do it than in this blunt and apparently ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... were especially grievous when they occurred in the evening, so that the two friends had to spend the night in disunion, which meant that both of them were morally upset. Christophe would get up and scribble a note and slip it under Olivier's door: and next day as soon as he woke up he would beg his pardon. Sometimes, even, he would knock at his door in the middle of the night: he could not bear to wait for the day to come before he humbled himself. As a rule, Olivier would be ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... cause, I have given up to what seemed the inevitable, and have thought little of it since. Perhaps I have done wrong, and if so, I trust I shall see it and repent it. I do not intend to make any promises, because I may have reason to regret them, but I do not know that I shall scribble any more on the objectionable ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... inspect his armament and stores, don his harness, get into his heavy boots, scribble a couple of words to confide Baya to the prince, and slip a few bank-notes sprinkled with tears into the envelope, and then the dauntless Tarasconian rolled away in the stage-coach on the Blidah ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... when Hollyhock's task was finished, and she passed her scribble to her father to see—'I wonder whether there is a similar mistake in the names of our cousins—or brothers, as they ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... asked Maurice," Drall confided to me, "to scribble a testimonial to Lemonbeer. It will kind of break the spell, and it wouldn't be Maurice if he didn't turn out a perfect gem of literary composition. I know my Lemonbeer is really good and I know that Maurice is extremely appreciative. Maurice is under ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... After lunch we scribble letters, for the post leaves at five. As we write the peaceful afternoon is disturbed by the roar of five engines. B Flight is starting up in readiness for an offensive patrol. Ten minutes later more engines break into song, as three machines ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... which followed the usual custom (for the coroner seemed singularly devoid of originality) the bodies were uncovered, and a murmur of excited expectancy ran through the crowd. With morbid curiosity they pressed forward. The reporters started to scribble in their note-books, a little pale and perturbed, for all their experience of such affairs. One or two of the crowd gasped, and then shut their eyes. Brellier exclaimed aloud in French, and for a moment covered ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... not sending you any address, for I don't want you to know where I am, dear. I shan't write to you again unless I scribble things and tear them up without posting. This is final. When a woman makes such a break she must do it once and for all. Oh, Simon, when you kissed me two days ago you thought you loved me; but I know what the senses are and how they deceive people, and I ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Mr. Copley, whose pen did not cease to scribble. "I can hear. No time for anything like the present minute. I've got this case by heart, and don't need to think about it. Go on, Lawrence. Has your father ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... makes his mark is understood To write his name, and 'tis in law as good, So he, that can not write one word of sense Believes he has as legal a pretense To scribble what he does not understand, As idiots have a title ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... volumes of his diary these notes of sympathetic love for his fellow-men are mingled with yearnings for solitude. "This book," he writes on the last page of one of them, "has answered some little purpose; for when I wanted to speak to some one and yet was alone, it cost me no labor to scribble in it. It would give me great pleasure if I had a friend who would exchange such thoughts with me." He was soon to enter into that spiritual heritage which among its other treasures bestows the beatitude of the sage, "Blessed is the man who hath ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... blottings, as confused and unsatisfactory as his verbal statements had been. An officer was then summoned into the royal presence, and commanded to take the cardinal into custody and conduct him to the Bastile. He was, however, permitted to visit his home. The cardinal contrived, by the way, to scribble a line upon a scrap of paper, and, catching the eye of a trusty servant, he, unobserved, slipped it into his hand. It was a direction to the servant to hasten to the palace, with the utmost possible speed, and commit to the flames all of ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the mysteries of hold stowage, in order to keep him under his immediate eye. But Hamilton bluntly confessed to loathing anything that was at all useful, and so he perforce had to be left to pick his own position under the awnings, there to doze, and smoke cigarettes, and scribble on paper as the moods so ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... to start early that afternoon for Knollsea, to spend the few opening days of their married life there, and as the hour for departure was drawing near Raye asked his wife if she would go to the writing-desk in the next room and scribble a little note to his sister, who had been unable to attend through indisposition, informing her that the ceremony was over, thanking her for her little present, and hoping to know her well now that she was the writer's ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... in my epistle, when a torrent of ill news rushed in upon us, and compelled me to delay my scribble. I am sorry to say, that in addition to the account which I have already given of the depressed state of the markets, I must add some dismal intelligence. The markets are in a deplorable state, and so is the mercantile community in general. Every day there ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... apostilles, could heal a bleeding country, here were the physicians to furnish those drugs in unlimited profusion. If reams of paper, scrawled over with barbarous technicalities, could smother and bury a quarrel which had its origin in the mutual antagonism of human elements, here were the men to scribble unflinchingly, till the reams were piled to a pyramid. If the same idea presented in many aspects could acquire additional life, here were the word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought in a hundred thousand garments, till it attained all the majesty which decoration ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this, he said to Mrs. Cliff that he was not sure but what the parsons were quite correct, and although everybody was sorry to lose two members of the party, it could not be helped, and all who had letters to send to New York went to work to scribble them as fast as they could. Mrs. Cliff also wrote a note to Captain Horn, informing him of the state of affairs, and of their reasons for not waiting for him, and this the departing clergymen undertook to leave ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... visited on Christmas-Eve and thought of the Judgment. And Common-sense said: "You have done your best; do not be dismayed; you will only be surprised, and when the shock is over you will smile at your fear." And as he thought thus the whole sky became a sea of fire. A fierce and vindictive scribble of red quick flame ran across it, and the universe was burned away. "And I knew," thought Browning, "now that Judgment had come, that I had chosen this world, its beauty, its knowledge, its good—that, though I often looked above, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... carriage is getting ready I may as well scribble the last day at Rome. And this morning went at eight to the Palazzo Accoramboni, to see the procession of the Corpus Domini, and was disappointed. This Palazzo Accoramboni, in which we were accommodated, belonged to a very rich old ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... more quietly; I'll wait here." Katherine sank down on the lowest stair, while Betty flew back to scribble a note which she laid on Rachel's pillow. Then ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... silent. Talk of making love to a young miss closely watched by governess or guardian—a ward in Chancery—an heiress of expectant thousands! It is but "child's play" to break through the entourage that surrounds one of such. To scribble sonnets and scale walls is but an easy task, compared with the bold effrontery that challenges the passions and prejudices ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... ancestors whose memory I cherish, and I have torn up their work as if it were a scrap of paper covered with a child's meaningless scribble." ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... approaches to the "mark for the prize," if we have a clearer and more desirous view of the yet far-distant goal. "Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty, they shall behold the land that is very far off," must have been addressed to one still "very far" from the promised land. Thus I scribble to thee the musings with which, in my now shady allotment, I try to encourage myself to hope; and which perhaps are as incorrect as the lament which the beautiful spring will sometimes prompt, "With the year seasons ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... the writing tables covered with blue cloth, was empty, as it usually is, and I flung myself down to scribble a note—an apology for not keeping ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... Reason before you let your good friends slip from you. I'll give you a chance to consider what you are doing, (turns up to bureau —aloud) Squire, I want to scribble a few words to you. (pointing to bureau) May ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... I said I would scribble a few remarks on the subject, and would give them to him in a day or two. I remarked that Mr. Newman had treated these great subjects very briefly, but that I could not be quite so concise ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Walpole, it is natural to allude to the transactions which took place between him and the unfortunate Chatterton; a text upon which so much calumny and misrepresentation have been embroidered. The periodicals of the day, and the tribe of those "who daily scribble for their daily bread," and for whom Walpole had, perhaps unwisely, frequently expressed his contempt, attacked him bitterly for his inhumanity to genius, and even accused him as the author of the subsequent misfortunes and untimely death of that ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Before I had finished breakfast the next day a telegram arrived, ordering me to go to Falmouth by the earliest possible train on an urgent matter. This necessitated my leaving Plymouth almost before my breakfast was finished. All I could do, therefore, was to scribble him a hasty line, explaining the situation, and urging him to communicate with me at an address I gave him in Falmouth. I also told him that on my return to Plymouth I would look him up, and do all ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... sword of Mars. As for me, I look forward to a quiet life: a quiet little home, a quiet little library full of books, and a little Some one dulce ridentem, dulce loquentem, on t'other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my papers. I am so pleased with this prospect, so utterly contented and happy, that I feel afraid as I think of it, lest it should escape me; and, even to my dearest Hal, am shy of speaking of my happiness. What is ambition to me, with ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sculpture? The Princess Beatrice, has she not done something in the way of designing? The Duke of Edinburgh, he is a musician. And it is in these little excursions into art that the family most truly manifests its bourgeois nature. The sincerest bourgeois are those who scribble little poems and smudge little canvases in the intervals between an afternoon reception and a dinner-party. The amateur artist is always the most inaccessible to ideas; he is always the most fervid admirer of the commonplace. A staid German ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... and watching Thorne scribble his name in several places on her card. "It is Berkeley. The Byrd girls and I always saved a waltz for him to prevent his feeling left out. He don't like to ask girls generally; his one arm makes it look ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... reply, Dan chimed in. "I've just been telling her," he said, "that little heads like hers can't contain books. It's all very well to scribble a little for pastime, and all that, but she mustn't seriously imagine she can do that sort of work. She'll only do herself harm. Literature ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... And Tabby, whom you have absolutely fascinated, talks a great deal more nonsense about your ladyship than I care to repeat. It is now so dark that, notwithstanding the singular property of seeing in the night-time, which the young ladies at Roe Head used to attribute to me, I can scribble ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... open. His eyes blazed, but his hands were steady. The soldier held out a receipt book and a pencil, and Kirby took time to scribble his initials in the proper place. Warrington, humming to himself, began to squeeze the rain out of his tunic to hide impatience. The soldier saluted, faced about and hurried to the waiting car. Then Kirby read the telegram. He nodded to Warrington. Warrington, his finger-ends pressed tight into ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... of Orleans, And when I was dawdling and dreaming Over the ways and means Of answering, the power was denied me, Fate frowned and took her stand; I have your unanswered letter Here in my hand. This—in your famous scribble, It was ever a cryptic fist, Cuneiform or Chaldaic Meanings ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... commonplace as the rest of us. Vain of trivial things all the first half of her life, and still vain of them at seventy and recording them with naive satisfaction—even rescuing some early rhymes of hers of the sort that we all scribble in the innocent days of our youth—rescuing them and printing them without pity or apology, just as the weakest and commonest of us do in our gray age. More—she still frankly admires them; and in her introduction of them profanely confers upon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... away were the rifle that would have put him out of his misery, and the water-bottle that would have alleviated his pain—to the extent, at any rate, of enabling him to think clearly and perhaps scribble a few words in blood or something, somehow, for Lucille ... Lucille! Would the All-Merciful let him see her once again for a moment in return for an extra thousand years of Hell or whatever it was that unhappy mortals ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... may get. And, although it is the very key to prosperity and success in common life, but few know any thing about it. Unfortunately for our people, so soon as their children learn to read a Chapter in the New Testament, and scribble a miserable hand, they are pronounced to have "Learning enough"; and taken away from School, no use to themselves, nor community. This is apparent in our Public Meetings, and Official Church Meetings; of the great number of men present, there ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... letter to her father It was now near the close of the short winter day. Her interview with the detective had occupied her so long that she had barely time to scribble and send off the few urgent lines with which the reader is already acquainted. Then she dined and resigned herself to repose for the remainder of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had given birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who would or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's, we are well convinced—for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... more than 6 copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional expence, by printing with you. I have no thought of the kind, and in that case, must reimburse you. My epistle is a model of unconnectedness, but I have no partic: subject to write on, and must proportion my scribble in some degree to the increase of postage. It is not quite fair, considering how burdensome your correspondence from different quarters must be, to add to it with so little shew of reason. I will make an end for this evening. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... books, and when he actually gave up his share of the water we used to take together, that his contribution to the rent might go for rare editions and bindings. After this deplorable change of character we naturally saw each other less, but we were still friendly. I went up to town to scribble; Allen stayed on at Oxford. One day I chanced to go into Blocksby's rooms; it was a Friday, I remember—there was to be a great sale on the Monday. There I met Allen in ecstasies over one of the books displayed in the ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... people were governed much as they are now, and since A.D. 67 have published a daily Peking Gazette, of which (thanks to our intelligent "host of the Garter," Mr. Janssen) we have secured a copy. We are all but of yesterday compared to the Heathen Chinee, and it is impossible to sit down and scribble glibly of such a people. In Japan there is no record. It is a new race appearing almost for the first time among civilized nations. It has given the world nothing, but how widely different here! It is to China the world owes the compass, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... with his associate, Poe would continue to scribble away with his pencil, as if writing, and when his visitor jestingly remonstrated with him on his want of politeness, he replied that he had been all attention, and proved that he had by suitable comment, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... professions; but he could not give up his mind to anything but drawing,—as annoying to his father as Galileo's experiments were to his parent; as unmeaning to him as Gibbon's History was to George III.,—"Scribble, scribble, scribble; Mr. Gibbon, I perceive, sir, you are always a-scribbling." No perception of a new power, no sympathy with the abandonment to a specialty not indorsed by fashions and traditions, but without which abandonment genius ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... into doggerel, and desecrated the spot by the following impromptu, which, as he had the delicacy not to scribble on Camoen's Cave, I transcribe for ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... that I should be sitting at that desk with a Cabinet Minister, a Field-Marshal, two high Government officials, and a French General watching me, while from the scribble of a dead man I was trying to drag a secret which meant life or death ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... grow short-breathed or accuse us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest provocation, out-Fletcher Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. And we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, and dream over its ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... you each a copy, bound in the handsomest manner. It does not become a man of my rank to scribble, but I do it only to serve the publishers, who are ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere |
