"Amanuensis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that new world as well as I could. I had no men of the law, no legal assistance, to supply my deficiencies." At Sphingem habebas domi. Had he not the chief-justice, the tamed and domesticated chief-justice, who waited on him like a familiar spirit, whom he takes from province to province, his amanuensis at home, his postilion and ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to London, to be an amanuensis to Dr. Owen, or some of the English divines who were writing books for the press; he had a letter of commendation to one Mr. Blackie a Scots minister, who, appointing him to speak with him at a certain season, had several ministers convened unknown to him, and did press ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... temptation to an editor. I also request that you will hand over him all those scraps roughly divided into eight or ten brown paper portfolios. The scraps, with copied quotations from various works, are those which may aid my editor. I also request that you, or some amanuensis, will aid in deciphering any of the scraps which the editor may think possibly of use. I leave to the editor's judgment whether to interpolate these facts in the text, or as notes, or under appendices. As the looking over the references ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... him to the station. On the way they discussed ways and means, the household arrangements when Io should have to leave, the finding of a companion, who should be at once nurse, secretary, and amanuensis ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... other proofs of moral courage. He offered to assist M. Lacheneur in making up his accounts; and once—it happened about the middle of February—seeing Chanlouineau worrying over the composition of a letter, he actually offered to act as his amanuensis. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... life settled quietly and evenly to its grooves a routine began to develop. About an hour after breakfast Lloyd and Bennett shut themselves in Bennett's "workroom," as he called it, Lloyd taking her place at the desk. She had become his amanuensis, had insisted upon writing ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Bentley, though admiring the blind old poet in the highest degree, still observed, smilingly, that after all he was blind; he, therefore, slashing Dick, could have wished that the great man had always been surrounded by honest people; but, as that was not to be, he could have wished that his amanuensis has been hanged; but, as that also had become impossible, he could wish to do execution upon him in effigy, by sinking, burning, and destroying his handywork—upon which basis of posthumous justice, he proceeded to amputate all the finest passages in the poem. Slashing ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... great author, and put into the mouth of his chosen hero?" Others again have supposed—which is also far more improbable—that much of the obscurity of the above passage has its origin from simple mis-spelling on the part of the poet's amanuensis—he taking the literal dictation, forgetting the sublime author was suffering from a cold in the head, which rendered the words ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Wordsworth whom he so heartily reverenced quite another. We recognize two voices in him, as Stephano did in Caliban. There are Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch. If the prophet cease from dictating, the amanuensis, rather than be idle, employs his pen in jotting down some anecdotes of his master, how he one day went out and saw an old woman, and the next day did not, and so came home and dictated some verses ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... from rheumatism in the fingers of his right hand; and his niece, who is an orphan, and lives with him, acts as his amanuensis. Well——" ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... go further; you shall travel with me. I need an amanuensis and secretary. I am overworked, dear. Say you will, and I will make all ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... relatives and friends before that of the public. One of his greatest errors in this respect was the removal of Amrou ben-el-Ass from the government of Egypt, and the appointment of his own foster-brother, Abdallah Ibn Saad, in his place. This was the same Abdallah who, in acting as amanuensis to Mahomet, and writing down his revelations, had interpolated passages of his own, sometimes of a ludicrous nature. For this and for his apostasy he had been pardoned by Mahomet at the solicitation of Othman, and had ever since acted with apparent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Romilly's Life. Parr's Works, i. and viii., contains some letters. See also R. Dale Owen's Threading my Way pp. 175-78. A little book called Utilitarianism Unmasked, by the Rev. J. F. Colls, D.D. (1844), gives some reminiscences by Colls, who had been Bentham's amanuensis for fourteen years. Colls, who took orders, disliked Bentham's religious levity, and denounces his vanity, but admits his early kindness. Voluminous collections of the papers used by Bowring are at University College, and at ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... happened that the list of promotions agreed on was surreptitiously increased by the addition of new names. This was the crafty handiwork of the accomplished dame; the duke having employed her as his amanuensis, and being accustomed to sign her autograph ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... Hilary's dismissal of the little model, being disappointed of his amanuensis, Mr. Stone had waited for an hour, reading his pages over and over to himself. He had then done his exercises. At the usual time for tea he had sat down, and, with his cup and brown bread-and-butter alternately at his lips, had looked long ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a copyist might well be added to the estimate of the costs, and the question would be whether one could find, at this moment, a small number of shareholders who would advance the necessary funds. I should have to engage my amanuensis for exactly three years, and pay him an annual salary of eight hundred francs. The only awkward part would be that I should have to bind myself to furnish the compositions in this given time. I might, however, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... desirous of meeting with a Situation as AMANUENSIS, or Reader to a Gentleman; or as Secretary, or Librarian, either to a Society, or a Private Gentleman: or any other situation where Literary Tastes and Knowledge are required. Unexceptionable reference given. Address Mr. D. STEVENS, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... Wroote, as his father and grandfather lived in it, when I took him from among the scholars of a charity school, founded by one Mr. Travers, an attorney, brought him to my house, and educated him there, where he was my amanuensis for four years in transcribing my Dissertations on the Book of Job, now well advanced in the press; and drawing my maps and figures for it, as well as we could by the light of nature. After this I sent him to Oxford, to my son John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, under ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... who had entered St Mary's Hall the year Hariot graduated, and who during his travels abroad had served two years as private secretary or amanuensis to Francis Vieta, the great French Mathematician, but who had since become a disciple of the greater English Mathematician, thus admiringly speaks of his ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... sprang from the Latin manus, meaning "hand." Here are some of them: manual, manoeuver, mandate, manacle, manicure, manciple, emancipate, manage, manner, manipulate, manufacture, manumission, manuscript, amanuensis. These too are children of the same father; they are brothers and sisters to each other. But what shall we say of legerdemain (light, or sleight, of hand), maintain, coup de main, and the like? They bear a resemblance to ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... palace of mist and cloud. When at last her dress was finished and she started, after three unsuccessful attempts, to walk to Algonquin Avenue, she was in no condition to do herself simple justice. She hardly knew whether she wanted a place in the library, a clerkship at Washington, or the post of amanuensis to the young millionaire. She was confused by his reception of her; his good-natured irony made her feel ill at ease; she was nervous and flurried; and she felt, as she walked away, that the battle had gone ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... to Sir James Steuart from Padua, July 19, 1759), "I have dictated for the first time of my life, and perhaps it will be the last, for my amanuensis is not to be hired, and I despair of ever meeting with another. He is the first that could write as fast as I talk, and yet you see there are so many mistakes, it wants a comment longer than my letter to explain my insignificant meaning, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... as well, a woman could carry him in her arms. Though his body was thus a perfect wreck, his mental powers were as brilliant and keen as ever; and when his hands proved useless to him, he engaged the services of an amanuensis and went on dictating until almost the very hour of his death. In fact, the last thing he spoke about was a direction for his writer to read to him the passages where he had broken off in Der Feind; ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... riverside, and the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and if the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch them nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I have thus concluded my despatch, like St. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Act on Saturday morning. He went home and completed his task by the middle of the day on Monday. The Act (3 & 4 William IV. c. 73) contains sixty-six sections, fills twenty-six pages in the octavo edition of the Statute-book, and creates a whole scheme of the most intricate and elaborate kind. The amanuensis to whom it was dictated used to tell the story as an illustration of his own physical powers. At that time, as another clerk in the office tells my brother, 'it was no unusual thing for your father to dictate before breakfast as much as would fill thirty sides of office folio paper,' ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... researches to the popular poetry of Scandinavia, "which we cannot help thinking is the real source of many of the tales of our minstrels."[95] It seems probable that Scott's acquaintance with northern literatures came partly through his ill-fated amanuensis, Henry Weber.[96] His acknowledgement in the introduction to Sir Tristrem would indicate this, taken together with other references by Scott ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... the Church of England, were born. But in 1559 wife and mother-in-law accompanied or followed him from the Continent to Edinburgh. During the anxious and critical winter which followed, Mrs Knox seems to have acted as her husband's amanuensis, but 'the rest of my wife hath been so unrestful since her arriving here, that scarcely could she tell upon the morrow what she wrote at night.'[36] Next year brought victory and peace, but too late for her; for in December ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... a sane being," said the demon. "If you send that manuscript to Currier he'll know in a minute it isn't yours. He knows you haven't an amanuensis, and that ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... (Richard, no doubt, but it cannot be proved) who published Selden's[400] Table Talk, which he had collected while serving as amanuensis, makes Selden say, "A subsidy was counted the fifth part of a man's estate; and so fifty subsidies is five and forty times more than a man is worth." For times read subsidies, which seems part ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... appeared as a lecturer on sacred music. The manuscript of his story of the Gospel Hymns was destroyed by accident, but, undismayed by the ruin of his work, and the loss of his eye-sight, like Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Carlyle, he began his task again. With the help of an amanuensis the book was restored and, in 1905, given to the public. (See ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... for somehow it was very charming to talk to Miss Lark; and by degrees St. Cleeve informed Tabitha of his great undertaking, and of the voluminous notes he had amassed, which would require so much rearrangement and recopying by an amanuensis as to absolutely appal him. He greatly feared he should not get one careful enough for such scientific matter; whereupon Tabitha said she would be delighted to do it for him. Then blushing, and declaring suddenly that ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... do not imagine I am giving myself airs of a numerous household of officers. I shall be glad to see the letter of Mr. Baker you mentioned. You will perceive two or three notes in my manuscript in a different hand from mine, or that of my amanuensis (still the same officer;) they were added by a person I lent it to, and I have effaced ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... shape. He would talk like a book on any subject for hours together if he could only find listeners, but could with difficulty be brought to put pen to paper. Most of his books were written from his ideas by his younger brother Augustus, or were dictated directly to his wife, who acted as his amanuensis. Although he made considerable sums by his writings, he never seemed to have a shilling; and most of the letters he received were from dunning creditors. These missives, however, never troubled him, for he never broke the envelopes of one of them, but ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... intimates, that he had never heard of the fate of Chatterton, who had poisoned himself just ten years before. A Journal which he wrote for Mira is published in his Life, and gives an account of his feelings during three months of his cruel probation. He applies for a situation as amanuensis offered in an advertisement, and comforts himself on failing with the reflection that the advertiser was probably a sharper. He writes piteous letters to publishers, and gets, of course, the stereotyped reply with which the most ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... there. Ask Eliza Cliffe to lend you the May number of the 'Wesleyan Magazine;' and if you have an opportunity of procuring last December's number, do procure that. There are some translations in each of them, which I think you will like. The December translation is my favourite, though I was amanuensis only in the May one. Henrietta and Arabel have a drawing master, and are meditating soon beginning to sketch out of doors—that is, if before the meditation is at an end we do not leave Sidmouth. Our plans are quite uncertain; and papa has not, I believe, made up his mind whether ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Dryden lived with his kinsman, or to what line of life circumstances seemed to destine the future poet, we are left at liberty to conjecture. Shadwell, the virulent antagonist of our author, has called him Sir Gilbert Pickering's clerk; and it is indeed highly probable that he was employed as his amanuensis, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... commanding, as one who was about to claim the attention of the company, the Princess inclined her head gently around to the audience, and taking a roll of parchment from the fair amanuensis, which she had, in a most beautiful handwriting, engrossed to her mistress's dictation, Anna Comnena prepared ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... from my father's friend, James Hall, the judge, you know. In every company being called upon to give this history, which none could better do, the judge at last fell into a style so methodic, you would have thought he spoke less to mere auditors than to an invisible amanuensis; seemed talking for the press; very impressive way with him indeed. And I, having an equally impressible memory, think that, upon a pinch, I can render you the judge upon the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... secretary, no amanuensis to send, who could give you an account, word for word, of this session, when in all probability this session will dispose of the fate of France! Ah, citizen Fouche, you are either a very deep, or a very shallow ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... are in the handwriting of an amanuensis, Mr. Orton, the clerk. No autograph journal is, so far as is known, in existence, but some rough original must have been kept, as both copies bear internal evidence of having been written up after the lapse of an interval after the ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... and lying in his journey at my house, had one of them in his bag, which he had made some marginal notes upon. For that good man, like Julius Caesar, willing to improve all parts of his time, did usually, even in his travels, dictate to his amanuensis what he would have committed to writing. I knew not that he had this book with him, for he had not said anything to me of it, till going in the morning into his chamber while he was dressing himself, I found it lying on the table by him; and ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... the period of which it treats. His literary activity was extraordinary, and he produced many other works. He was born near Durham in 672, and died in 735. His devotion to literary work was such that even during his last illness he was dictating to an amanuensis a translation of the Gospel of St. John into Anglo-Saxon, and upon completing the last sentence requested the assistant to place him on the floor of his cell, where he said a short prayer, and expired as ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the same hand.[4] It has the signatures of three of the Superintendents, Erskine of Dun, John Spottiswood, and John Wynram, as well as that of John Knox. As this was a public document, and was no doubt written by the Clerk of the General Assembly, we may infer that Knox's amanuensis, in 1566, was either John Gray, who was Scribe or Clerk to the Assembly from 1560 till his death in 1574, or one of the other Scribes whom Knox mentions, in his interview with Queen Mary, in 1563, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... friend. He complimented him on his courage, and felicitated him on his excellent health. "There were certain expressions," he said, "in the letter that he had received, which he was sure did not speak his friend's real feelings. The amanuensis had evidently drunk more wine than he ought, and, being half asleep when he wrote, had put down things that were foolish and indeed monstrous. But he was not disturbed by them. He must decline, however, to send back to their prisons those whom he had released, since favors ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it fell from the lips of the narrator. He has, however, as closely as possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language. THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF. Acting merely as his amanuensis, he has carefully abstained ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Lady Mary of England needed a preceptor, an amanuensis, an aid for her studies in the learned language.' For the King's Highness' daughter had a great learning and was agate of writing a commentary of Plautus his plays. But the Lady Mary hated also virulently—and with what cause all men know—the King her father. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... called the Dominie, and is supposed, by his mixture of learning, simplicity, and amiable eccentricity, to have furnished many traits for the character of Dominie Sampson. I believe he often acted as Scott's amanuensis, when composing his novels. With him the young people were occupied in general during the early part of the day, after which they took all kinds of healthful recreations in the open air; for Scott was as solicitous to strengthen their bodies as ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... will. What do you say to a secretaryship? I have one in my mind that I think would suit you. It is a friend of my own who is wanting someone as a sort of general amanuensis and secretary. He is a literary man and extremely wealthy, an old bachelor and somewhat of an oddity; but in his own way I don't know a ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... humor, he contributed two papers to the collection, entitled "Scenes in Washington," of a humorous and satirical character. He disliked the manual labor of writing and was fond of dictating while another held the pen. I was the third contributor to the "Talisman," and sometimes acted as his amanuensis. In estimating Verplanck's literary character, these compositions, some of which are marked by great beauty of style and others by a rich humor, should not be over-looked. The first volume of the "Talisman" was put in type by a young Englishman named Cox, who, while working at ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... hospital practice; but it is vehemently condemned by others, and in her case, at least, I believe it was wrong. Whether she will ever recover her thumb, I am not sure; for I fear it is still dislocated at the base. She necessarily gives us a great deal to do; I have to act as her amanuensis, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... vigorous and active. Sister Christophine had grown into a strong and self-reliant young woman, the mainstay of the household. She took an interest in literature, loved her brother devotedly, had a sister's boundless faith in his genius, and now became his confidante and amanuensis. Another sister, Louise, had reached the age of fourteen, two others had died, and the youngest of all, Nanette, was now three years old. It was a happy, sensible, affectionate family-circle, in which the long-lost son and brother found sweet relief ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Deering had known in his old life before he fell victim to the prevailing May madness. She was in servitude and evidently trying to make the best of it. She had been the jolliest, the most high-spirited of girls, and to find her now meekly acting as amanuensis to a lady whose very name he didn't know sent his imagination stumbling through ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... replied, that he wanted to know whether there was any such post to be had, as secretary or amanuensis to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... for me to tell you how gratified I am by your extraordinarily kind letter.... The truth is that success was easy. It has been my immense good fortune to know most of those who played in the drama. The story simply wanted a straightforward amanuensis to tell itself. But it is a real pleasure to me to know that I have met with ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... he had encountered from first to last. The caliph was astonished, and said, "The substance of these adventures must not be lost or concealed, but shall be recorded in writing." He then commanded an amanuensis to attend, and seated Mazin of Bussorah by him, until he had taken down his adventures from beginning ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of the Chair in Oxford, and print them for the good of posterity:—and this Dr. Sanderson did in the year 1659.—And the promise was, that he would pay him that, or a greater sum if desired, during his life, to enable him to pay an amanuensis, to ease him from the trouble of writing what he should conceive or dictate. For the more particular account of which, I refer my Reader to a letter writ by the said Dr. Barlow, which I have annexed to the end of ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Stuart, Lord Mar, and General Dillon (an Irish Catholic soldier, who after the capitulation of Limerick, had entered the French service), through the instrumentality of Kelly, who acted as his secretary and amanuensis for that purpose. It was a case of circumstantial evidence altogether. The impartial reader of history now will feel well satisfied on two points: first, that Atterbury was engaged in the plot; and second, that the evidence brought against him was not nearly strong enough ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... . . . I am pleased that you cannot quite decide whether I am an attorney's clerk or a novel- reading dress-maker. I will not help you at all in the discovery; and as to my handwriting, or the ladylike touches in my style and imagery, you must not draw any conclusion from that—I may employ an amanuensis. Seriously, sir, I am very much obliged to you for your kind and candid letter. I almost wonder you took the trouble to read and notice the novelette of an anonymous scribe, who had not even the manners to tell you whether he was a man or a woman, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The Diatribe was published, and received with shouts of merriment and applause by all who could read the French language. The King stormed. Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, asserted his innocence, and made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The King was not to be so imposed upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the common hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire, couched in the most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his cross, his key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... read it, or only seen extracts from it, the compilation appears far from being contemptible, but Joseph still keeps the copy, though he has made the author a present of one hundred napoleons d'or, and procured him a place of an amanuensis in the chancellory of the Senate, having resolved never to accept any dedication, but wishing also not to hurt the feelings of the author ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... showmen kept the libretto secret, and could not be induced to lend it. Dr. Hamm, however, followed the play round, listening and committing much of it to memory, and his version was finally completed when his amanuensis obtained for a day or two the original manuscript after plying one of the assistants with much beer and wine. It was a battered book, thumb-marked and soaked with lamp oil, but it has passed on to posterity one of the most remarkable pieces of dramatic work which have ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... the letter I write to my brother. My amanuensis is a gentleman who acted as my aide-de-camp, and I beg you will acquaint his good father that he acquitted himself highly to my satisfaction, and showed himself deserving the stock from which he sprung. I truly hope in due time ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Mamma Vi, of your husband having an amanuensis?" he continued, affectionately squeezing Lulu's hand, which he had taken in his. "My correspondence was disposed of to-day with most unusual and unexpected ease. I would read a letter, tell my amanuensis the reply I wished to make, and she would ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... her history, she had not sufficient strength of mind to tell him how ignorant she really was, and that she could not even read and write with accuracy. Her letters to her husband had been written by her nursery-governess, engaged ostensibly to instruct the children; but in reality to act as amanuensis for the lady of the house. The young lady thus engaged was at first rather averse to signing her mistress' name to her letters without adding her own initials, but the present of a handsome broach and earrings soon quieted her sensitive conscience and she soon fell into the plan, not being unwilling ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... AMANUENSIS (a Latin word, derived from the phrase servus a manu, slave of the hand, a secretary), one who writes, from dictation or otherwise, on behalf ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... (Life, p. 176) likewise says that the manuscript passed through Whitehead and 'other hands' before it reached Chesterfield. Mr. Croker had seen 'a draft of the prospectus carefully written by an amanuensis, but signed in great form by Johnson's own hand. It was evidently that which was laid before Lord Chesterfield. Some useful remarks are made in his lordship's hand, and some in another. Johnson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wanted an amanuensis. "Salary," said "Anon," who seemed to be a humourist, "salary large but uncertain." He added with equal candour: "Drudgery great, but to an intelligent man the pickings may be considerable." Pickings! Is there a finer word in the language? ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... first is compilation; and consists in collecting and stating all that is already known of any question in the best possible manner, for the benefit of the uninformed reader. An author of this class is a very learned amanuensis of other people's thoughts. The second sort proceeds on an entirely different principle: instead of bringing down the account of knowledge to the point at which it has already arrived, it professes to start from that point on the strength of the writer's individual ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Rose in Mr. Agnew's small Studdy, where she mostlie sitteth with him, oft acting as his Amanuensis, was avised to take up a printed Sheet of Paper that lay on the Table; but finding it to be of Latin Versing, was about to laye it downe agayn, when Rose came in. She changed Colour, and in a faltering Voice sayd, "Ah, Cousin, do you know what that is? One of your Husband's Proofe Sheets. ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... February looking out for a house in the Lake District; hoping, no doubt, to see him settled there as a sort of successor to Wordsworth and Christopher North. In March, John Ruskin betook himself to the Salutation at Ambleside, with his constant attendant and amanuensis George, for quiet after a tiring winter in London society, and for his new labour of reviewing. But he did not find himself so fond of the Lakes as of old. He wrote to his mother (Sunday, March ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... Blue. Big and breezy. Spelling entirely phonetic. Spent most of his time smoking in the drawing-room, and laboured under the delusion that, as my amanuensis, he was at liberty to forge my signature to all documents, including cheques. He used my official note-paper to back horses on, and was finally requested to leave, after an unseemly brawl with a ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... very many which may never have been thought worth preserving. The secret lay in his wonderful energy and activity. We find him writing letters before day-break, during the service of his meals, on his journeys, and dictating them to an amanuensis as he walked up and down to take ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... presently popped into a tavern, and I re-entered the fonda. Hardly had I set foot over the threshold when I was stupefied by a welcome in a familiar voice, none other than that of Mr. William O'Donovan, who had been my comrade and amanuensis throughout the irksome beleaguerment of Paris.[F] We did not throw our arms round our respective necks, hug and kiss each other—I reserve my kisses for pretty girls, newly-washed babes, and dead male ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... fostered error, it was because at the moment it was his conception of truth. Very little remained to do to the manuscript. Mrs. Borrow had performed her share of the work in making a fair copy for the printer. Borrow's subsequent remark that the manuscript "was written by a country amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," was scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have comprehended so well the first principle of wifely duty to an illustrious and, it must be admitted, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... which Titian painted there were transferred at that date to S.M. della Salute. I cannot help inferring that either Bibboni's memory failed him, or that his words were wrongly understood by printer or amanuensis. If for S. Spirito we substitute S. Stefano, the account ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... good lady would act as amanuensis for some poor fellow who had an armless sleeve, and write down for loving eyes and heavy hearts in some distant village the same old soldier's story, told a thousand times by a thousand firesides, but always more charming than any ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... alone. But she carried on, in addition, an animated correspondence with numberless frauds—antique dealers, charities, professional poor relations, social workers, and others of that ilk—which proved tremendously diverting to her amanuensis, especially when it transpired that Mrs. Gosnold had a mind and temper of her own, together with a vocabulary amply adequate to her powers of ironic observation. This last gift came out strongly in her diary, a daily record of her various interests and activities which she dictated, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... father. I had no sooner made this discovery than it began to stick in my thoughts that you could draw no other conclusion from the course of our life together than that I have, with entire selfishness, used you throughout as my mere amanuensis and clerk, and that you are under no more obligation to me for your attainments than a slave is to his master for the strength which enforced labor has given to his muscles. Lest I should leave you suffering from so mischievous and oppressive ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... you have heard that authorities now agree that said Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of an amanuensis of, so ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... bearing of refinement, but it early became obvious that nature had well endowed her with brains. From the nursery her talk was of books, and at the age of twelve she was already able to give her father some assistance as an amanuensis. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... murmur sadly, "Ah, my friend, I gave you a leg-up indeed!" Then he, saying that I him insulted have, my remaining arm with his sword off cuts. I respect our Emperor, but I love not his soldiers now. Must hire an amanuensis. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... places; the letter-writers wrote on calmly. On the starboard side of the ship, a grizzled man dictated a long letter to another grizzled man in an immense fur cap: which letter was of so profound a quality, that it became necessary for the amanuensis at intervals to take off his fur cap in both his hands, for the ventilation of his brain, and stare at him who dictated, as a man of many mysteries who was worth looking at. On the lar-board side, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Recorder. — N. recorder, notary, clerk; registrar, registrary[obs3], register; prothonotary[Law]; amanuensis, secretary, scribe, babu[obs3], remembrancer[obs3], bookkeeper, custos rotulorum[Lat], Master of the Rolls. annalist; historian, historiographer; chronicler, journalist; biographer &c. (narrator) 594; antiquary &c. (antiquity) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... see the fun was more than satisfied, as was also Hannah's, and after the receipt of Maude's letter the latter determined to write herself, "and let Miss De Vere know just how things was managed." In order to do this, it was necessary to employ an amanuensis, and she enlisted the services of the gardener, who wrote her exact language, a mixture of negro, Southern, and Yankee. A portion of this letter we give to ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... Library, probably the finest in existence after that of Berlin. I am an enthusiast about Berners' Froissart, and though I could not undertake the drudgery of preparing the whole for the press, yet Weber [Footnote: Henry Weber, Scott's amanuensis.] would do it under my eye upon the most reasonable terms. I would revise every part relating to ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... took occasion, at another time, to bring together such of his Friends as were addicted to a foolish habitual Custom of Swearing. In order to shew the Absurdity of the Practice, he had recourse to the Invention above mentioned, having placed an Amanuensis in a private part of the Room. After the second Bottle, when Men open their Minds without Reserve, my honest Friend began to take notice of the many sonorous but unnecessary Words that had passed in his House since their sitting down at Table, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Jarvis is one; he is a man of much information and great integrity. I heartily wish there may be an epistolary correspondence between him and you. I should have written this Letter before, had not my faithfull friend and amanuensis John Avery, who is your friend as well as mine, been occupied in the business of his office of Secretary of this Commonwealth, which he attends with great punctuality and integrity. It is not in my power my dear friend, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... aptitude for learning, and gave him the use of his library. But the poet's connexion with Blackhouse was especially valuable in enabling him to form the intimacy of Mr William Laidlaw, his master's son, the future factor and amanuensis of Sir Walter Scott. Though ten years his junior, and consequently a mere youth at the period of his coming to Blackhouse, young Laidlaw began early to sympathise with the Shepherd's predilections, and afterwards devoted a large portion of time to his society. The friendship which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his return to the Castle, he saw lying on his study-table a letter, in the round, firm, rather boyish hand, familiar to him as that of his faithful amanuensis of ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... " ; yet as a girl we find her acquainted with the works of Richardson and Sterne, of Marivaux and Pr6vost, with "Rasselas" and the "Vicar of Wakefield." in history and poetry, moreover, she appears to have been fairly well read, and she found constant literary employment as her father's amanuensis. As to Voltaire, she notes, on her twenty-first birthday, that she has just finished the "Heoriade"; but her remarks upon the book prove how little she was acquainted with the author. She thinks he "has made too free with religion in giving words to the Almighty. But M. Voltaire, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... in interesting one Harris to act as his amanuensis in his interpretation of these books of Mormon. The future prophet sat behind a screen with the supposed gold plates in his hat. He dictated through the stones Urim and Thummim. With a keen imagination and natural aptitude ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... Devonshire home to the great city of London, we are interested to know something of her after life. She grew to be as dear as a daughter to her uncle. In the dreary days when he could not use his eyes she was his reader and amanuensis. The many distinguished guests who enjoyed his hospitality were charmed with her sweet manners. In the course of time she married Richard Lovell Gwatkin, a Cornish gentleman in every way worthy of her. "Her happiness was as great as her uncle could wish. She lived to be ninety, to ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... The name of the person to whom this letter was addressed does not appear on the manuscript; nor has the letter been found to which it was written as an answer. And as the gentleman whom he employed as an amanuensis is not now living, no discovery of it can be made, unless this publication of the letter should produce some information respecting it, that may enable us in a future volume to gratify, on this point, the curiosity of the reader. The letter was dictated, as he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... she said, in a deliberate high voice, as if she were dictating to an amanuensis, 'it is a most admirable selection of works for popular reading, this that our excellent Mr. Tryan has made. I do not know whether, if the task had been confided to me, I could have made a selection, combining ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... appreciate—the clear, terse, and vigorous style of Mr. Stephenson's dictation. There was nothing superfluous in it; but it was close, direct, and to the point,—in short, thoroughly businesslike. And if, in passing through the pen of the amanuensis, his meaning happened in any way to be distorted or modified, it did not fail to escape his detection, though he was always tolerant of any liberties taken with his own form of expression, so long as the words written ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... all other ways of acting, and leaving only that open which he had determined to be done." We might, with vastly more plausibility, deny that Paul was the author of his Epistles, because he employed an amanuensis, or, for the same reason, deny that Milton was the author of Paradise Lost. It is useless here to speculate upon the reasons which induced God to ordain and bring sin to pass. We are now concerned with the fact merely, and we hence conclude ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... authorities, this is to say that, supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept the office of H.B.M.'s consul with parts, pendicles and appurtenances. There is a very little work to do except some little entertaining, to which I am bound to say my family and in particular the amanuensis who now guides the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation. The real reasons for the step would be three: 1st, possibility of being able to do some good, or at least certainty of not being obliged to stand always looking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... due to Dr. Hose, at whose invitation we went to Sarawak, and without whose zeal, knowledge of the country, and wonderful influence over the natives this work could not have been accomplished. Mr. S. H. Ray also assisted us as amanuensis. Most of the figures were tabulated for me by Miss Barbara Friere-Marreco and the remainder by Miss Lilian Whitehouse, who also has greatly assisted me in drawing up ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... married and discharged, and wrote verses and plays, and took a small office in Seville, and moved with the Court to Valladolid; and kept his accounts badly, and was too honest to steal, and so got into jail, and grew every year poorer and wittier and better; he was a public amanuensis, a business agent, a sub-tax-gatherer,—anything to keep his lean larder garnished with scant ammunition against the wolf hunger. In these few lines you have the pitiful story of the life of the greatest of Spaniards, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... "Companion, amanuensis, governess—anything that," with a laugh and a blush, "'respectable young females' may do to earn a living when they come down in the world. You may possibly have heard that my uncle, Sir Horace, has married again. I think you must have ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the answer to this young London man's letter, she felt bound to accede, to keep alive his attachment to the girl if possible; though in other circumstances she might have suggested the cook as an amanuensis. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes." Its author, Samuel Richardson, was a middle-aged London printer, a vegetarian and water-drinker, a worthy, domesticated, fussy, and highly-nervous little man. Delighting in female society, and accustomed to act as confidant and amanuensis for the young women of his acquaintance, it had been suggested to him by some bookseller friends that he should prepare a "little volume of Letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers, who were unable to indite ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... the record on the plates; how Joseph, seated behind a curtain and looking through the Urim and Thummim at the characters on the plates, had seen their English equivalents over them, and dictated these to his amanuensis on the other ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... six different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before Jerome had quite done with them, in coming years, 'And to confess the honest truth to you,' continues Jerome, 'I read all that, and after having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent for my amanuensis, and dictated to him, now my own thoughts, now those of others, without much recollecting the order, nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense'! In another place, (in the book itself further on[38]) he says, 'I do not myself write; I have an amanuensis, and I dictate to ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... help thinking of Bacon. Milton's mulberry tree is yet standing, and puts forth a few fresh leaves every spring in the garden of Christ's College. His manuscript of 'Comus,' partly in his own writing, partly in that of his amanuensis—of one of his daughters, it is probable—is in the library of Trinity College, and may be seen by the curious. The spirits of these venerable men still haunt the scenes of their studious youth, and with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... own delay over Lavengro. The whole book was laboriously copied out by Mrs. Borrow. When this copy was sent to Mr. Murray, it was submitted to his 'reader,' who reported 'numerous faults in spelling and some in grammar,' to which criticism Borrow retorted that the copy was the work of 'a country amanuensis.' The book was published in December 1842, but has the date 1843 on its title-page.[160] In its three-volumed form 4750 copies of the book were issued by July 1843, after which countless copies were sold in cheaper one-volumed form. Success had at last come to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... was alone in the library. He sat before the box, opened it and searched, merely to quiet his annoyance for having left those sheets of the fair amanuensis unexamined. They were not discoverable. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... valuable Ecclesiastical History, he composed various pieces of Latin poetry. His works in all were forty-four in number: and it is said that on the very day of his death (it took place in 735) he was dictating to his amanuensis, and had just completed a book. His works are wonderful for his time, and not the less interesting for a fine cobweb of fable which is woven over parts of them, and which seems in keeping with their venerable character. Thus, in speaking of the Magi who visited the infant ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Faithful, the fair amanuensis and confidential friend of Queen Victoria, while visiting America in an official capacity, spent a day in socially visiting and carefully inspecting the Soldiers' Home of Milwaukee. Astonished and ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of a doctor of the civil law for this production, which it absurdly called "Optimi regis, optimo defensori" "Amenities of Literature,"—this work he wrote when blind, his daughter acting as his amanuensis; he notices eloquently and feelingly her devoted services. Mr. Disraeli was the friend, of literary merit in the obscure and unfortunate, in which he was the rival of Sir Robert Peel, as his son Benjamin became in the career of parliamentary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... those who waited so anxiously to welcome again their beloved physician. Blind, some said he was, but the few lines sent to Helen announcing the day of his arrival contradicted that report. His eyes were very much diseased, his amanuensis wrote, but he trusted that the pure air of his native hills and the influence of old scenes and associations would soon effect a cure. If not too much trouble, he added, please see that the house is made comfortable, and have John meet ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... had appointed you my amanuensis, and had transferred my pencil to you simply for the purposes of your labor in my behalf, when I choose to dismiss you, I should expect the return of my property. The States made no gifts to the Federal Government for the sake of giving, but only delegated certain powers for specific ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... Hamden' (says an author, who writes in those 'next ages' in which so many traditions of this time are still rife) 'a little before the civil wars was at the charge of transcribing three thousand four hundred and fifty-two sheets of Sir Walter Raleigh's MSS., as the amanuensis himself told me, who had his close chamber, his fire and candle, with an attendant to deliver him the originals and take his copies as fast as he could write them.' That of itself is a pretty little glimpse of the kind of machinery which the Elizabethan literature required for its ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... bedroom-study the fire had gone out. No matter; he would write in the cold. It was mere amanuensis work, penning at the dictation of his sarcastic demon. Was he a sybarite? Many a poor scribbler has earned bed and breakfast with numb fingers. The fire in his body would serve him ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing |
