"Penmanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soldier, a German, who was the post baker, were put in charge of it. This Frenchman had been selected from the ranks of Captain Sully's company and made quartermaster's clerk on account of his superior education, his excellent penmanship and his good character. I always have thought he was some unfortunate young gentleman, serving under an assumed name. The money was all in stout wooden mint boxes, holding each $1,000 in silver, and in gold about ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... stands out so prominently in the Declaration of Independence. As seen in the engraving of that instrument, the signature looks precisely what we should expect and desire in the handwriting of a princely merchant, whose penmanship had been practised in the ledger which he is represented as holding, in Copley's brilliant picture, but to whom his native ability, and the circumstances and customs of his country, had given a place among its rulers. ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... House. Glancing over the letter, Mr. Brandling said, "George, this will never do." "It is all true, sir," was the reply. "That may be; but it is badly written." Robert blushed, for he thought the penmanship was called in question, and he had written his best. Mr. Brandling, however, revised the letter, which was shortly after published in the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... before reading. Not she herself, meek and yielding by nature, but some peculiar quality of her mind, obstinately refused in reading to harness a vowel alongside of a consonant, or vice versa; in writing, however, she would manage this. For penmanship along slanted rulings she, despite the general wont of beginners, felt a great inclination; she wrote bending low over the paper; blew on the paper from exertion, as though blowing off imaginary dust; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... many of the farmers who come, for countrymen have the greatest dislike to literary effort of any kind, and can hardly be persuaded to write a letter. Even when they have written the letter they get the daughter to address the envelope, lest the Post Office should smile at their rude penmanship. The business of preparing the advertisement is not quickly concluded, for just as it is put down to their fancy, they recollect another item which has to be added. Then they stand and gossip about the family at the mansion and the affairs of the parish generally, totally ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... a distinct sexual character; they should, therefore, be generally distinguished thus—Hepistle and Shepistle. And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... are given in a document still in existence and copied by the New England Historical and Genalogical Register for 1859. To it is appended the full signature of Anne Bradstreet, in a clear, upright hand, of singular distinctness and beauty when compared with much of the penmanship of that period. But one other autograph is in existence. It is evident from the nature of the document, that village life had its infelicities in 1670, quite as fully as to-day, and that a poem might have grown out of it, had daily life been ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... GOOD POSITION by studying Architecture, Engineering, Electricity, Drafting, Mathematics, Shorthand, Typewriting, English, Penmanship, Bookkeeping, Business, Telegraphy, Plumbing. Best teachers. Thorough individual instruction. Rates lower than any other school. Instruction also by mail in any desired study. Steam engineering ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... call," says Susan, "it's etiquette and it's likely to bring business." She always sees I have plenty of cards in my pocket, but I mostly forget to give them. (Looking at card.) Bosco Blithers, professor of penmanship and author of "Pot-hooks and Hangers." I had better drop a few about. (He places cards on table, mantelpiece, etc., etc., then comes down and sits on edge of chair.) This Mr. Selwyn must be pretty well off to judge by his place here and his hat. He left it at Mr. Dobbinson's while I was giving ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... bad!" said he as he read. "Its style is eloquent, the penmanship is admirable too. It involuntarily suggests to me the tie of your cravat. Both are so ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... fac-simile of the inscription in the Bodleian volume of the prose pamphlets, and also a fac-simile of a considerable portion of the Latin Ode to Rous from the MS. copy in the other Bodleian volume. The "inscription" is indubitably Milton's autograph; Mr. Sotheby thinks the "ode" also to be in his penmanship, though not in his usual hand, but in a "beautiful secretary hand" which he assumed for the special purpose. Judging from the fac-simile, I doubt this, and think the transcript may have been by some professional scribe.—According to Warton's account, it is by ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... damned cramp piece of penmanship, as ever I saw in my life. I can read your print hand very well. But here are such handles, and shanks, and dashes, that one can scarce tell the head from the tail.—"To Anthony Lumpkin, Esquire." It's very odd, I can read the outside of my letters, where my own name is, well enough; ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... exchange, and for others looking forward to such employment. At this stage there grew up also private schools, usually conducted by teachers especially proficient in particular lines of service. Thus inventors of shorthand systems, devisers of systems of penmanship, and authors of methods of bookkeeping and accounting set up schools in these specialties. Here we have training outside the business house itself to prepare for participation in business, and the enterprises flourish because there is a demand for the people they train. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... received from Mrs. Lewis was from the North of Scotland, where the party of three, increased to one much larger, were making the tour of the Hebrides. I cannot say much for either the penmanship or the orthography of the letter, which was incorrect as usual; but the abundant beauty of her descriptions, and the fine sense she seemed to have of lofty and wild scenery, made her journey a living picture. All her keen sense of external life was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... careless in other matters. It helps the memory. A person who keeps a journal naturally tries during the day to remember things he sees, until he can write them down. Then the act of writing helps to still further fix the facts in his memory. The journal is a first-class teacher of penmanship. All boys and girls should take pride in having the pages of their journals as neat and handsome as possible. Compare one day's writing with that of the one before, and try to improve every day. Keeping a journal ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... body of this communication, it is worth remark, is in the handwriting of Arthur Massinger (whose penmanship was not unlike that of his son), and the signature only that of the Earl, in whose family he was entertained. I have not been able to ascertain whether the application was successful; and it is possible that some of the records of the court may exist, showing either the death of Sherar, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... tasted somewhat better than Eve thought the apple was going to taste. But how absurdly inadequate this sounds! I suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms have become too utterly congealed in our blase minds when at last these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of penmanship. So that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of extreme youth is probably all ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... priests, on condition that they employed themselves in sweeping the mosque at Mecca. This document, which is very long, is beautifully written on gold, and is altogether a very splendid specimen of Oriental penmanship. I also bought some Turkish spelling-books, very tastefully painted and ornamented, such as are used in ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... writing was so illegible, and the cause of so much worry in mere decipherment, that I was constrained to give up epistolary correspondence with him altogether. There can be little doubt that many a would-be author fails of success because of the illegibility of his penmanship, for it is impossible that an editor or publisher can form a fair estimate of the character or value of a manuscript which he has much difficulty ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... saying a for an, the for thu, not pausing for a comma, leaving out a word, putting in a word, etc. When fairy tales are related, slight omissions, mistakes in grammar, too frequent use of and, etc. are to be expected. In the pupil's board work, penmanship, and written composition minor errors are innumerable. What is to be done with all these? Certainly many of them must be entirely passed over, or more important things will never ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... the Public School practised the new Oval Penmanship by filling their Copy-Books with the following popular Catch-Line: "When you have a Chance to Soak ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... literary Dead-Sea-apple. Then I remembered the official letter I had received on the previous day. I had merely glanced over it before acting on the orders it contained; now I re-opened the document, and pharisaically contemplated the child-like penmanship and Chaucer-like orthography of my ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... autograph. But there is almost always a surprise or disappointment felt when for the first time we come upon the handwriting of persons of whom we have heard or read much. We often find that the bold, dashing nature sometimes wields a trembling pen, and that some man eminent for weakness has a defiant penmanship that looks as if he wrote with a ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... legs will attempt, but he cannot realize all the possibilities of life that a sound body would vouchsafe to him. The man without hands may learn to write with his toes, but he is not employed as a teacher of penmanship. His life is a restricted one and, therefore, less than complete. We marvel at the exhibitions of skill displayed by the maimed, but we feel no envy. We may not be able to duplicate their achievements, but we feel that we have ample compensation ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... KECKLEY:—I very easily read your handwriting. With practice you will not only write legibly but elegantly; so no more apologies for bad writing. Penmanship has always been one of my own deficiencies, and I know how ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... a country church-yard much the same as Kiltartan. But Napoleon the First was a great man; it was given out of him there never would be so great a man again. But he hadn't much education, and his penmanship was bad. Every great man gave in to superstition. He gave into it when he went to ask the gipsy woman to divine, and she told him his fate. Through fire and a rock she said that he would fall. I suppose the rock was St. Helena, and the fire was the fire of Waterloo. Napoleon ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... concluded another term at the University, in the Fall of 1857, young McDermott came to Cleveland and took a course of writing lessons at a Commercial College. He attained considerable proficiency in penmanship, and in the winter of 1857-8 taught writing classes at Loweville and Youngstown, Mahoning county, and at the Female College at Poland, Ohio, meeting with good success and giving entire satisfaction. In February, 1858, Mr. McDermott got his first introduction to the grindstone business, having ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... herself scanning the pile with a curious sense of anticipation. She wondered what Waldron's handwriting was like. She recalled his workmanlike little figures upon the blackboard, and made up her mind that his penmanship would be of a similar character, compact and regular. Another man would have sent her flowers before he sailed. Instinctively she knew that Waldron would not do this; she did not expect nor wish it. But he would write—unquestionably. How would ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... sat down on the bed and opened the other letter. His hand shook as he unfolded it. He was so scared and excited that he could scarcely decipher the angular, girlish penmanship: ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... name was Prince As'ad by Queen Hayat al-Nufus; and this one was comelier than his brother. They were reared in splendour and tender affection, in respectful bearing and in the perfection of training; and they were instructed in penmanship and science and the arts of government and horsemanship, till they attained the extreme accomplishments and the utmost limit of beauty and loveliness; both men and women being ravished by their charms. They grew up side by side till they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... I was much struck with the beautiful penmanship of a work, in three folio volumes, of the middle of the sixteenth century, entitled; Divertissemens touchant le faict de la guerre, extraits des livres de Polybe, Frontin, Vegece, Cornazzan, Machiavel, et autres bons autheurs." It has no illuminations, but the scription is beautiful. A Breviary ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... who had thus so narrowly escaped, had had enough; but forgery, like opium-eating, is one of those charming vices which is never abandoned, when once adopted. The forger enjoys not only the pleasure of obtaining money so easily, but the triumph of befooling sharp men of the world. Dexterous penmanship is a source of the same sort of pride as that which animates the skilful rifleman, the practised duellist, or well-trained billiard-player. With a clean Gillott he fetches down a capitalist, at three or six months, for a cool hundred or a round thousand; just as a Scrope ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... as the steward knows the nature of a field, and the scribe knows penmanship, and as both of them seek, in their respective sciences, not mere amusement only, but practical utility, so this statesman of ours should have studied the science of jurisprudence and legislation; he should ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... prevent his reception of advices more or less regular from the heart of the Belden household. "What's that absurd girl up to this time?" he asked one morning, as an envelope, directed in a hand already too familiar, came to the door. He recognized readily enough the sprawling, half-masculine penmanship of Gladys McKenna, as readily as he divined the role which she must imagine herself to be playing. She was pretending herself to be a prisoner in some hostile camp—a hostage in some dismal dungeon; and, despite the close and suspicious watchfulness of those ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... began, "I received in my morning mail a letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of a young lady friend of mine, and somewhat startled at the thought that this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread document—a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note of this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out in larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother could ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... as I have said, Mr. Crayshaw's ruling passion, but it was not his only vice. There was a whispered tradition that he had once been in jail for a misuse of his acquirements in the art of penmanship; and if you heard his name cropping up in the confidential conversation of such neighbours as small farmers, the postman, the parish overseer, and the like, it was sure to be linked with unpleasingly ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with Mrs. Boyd's list of misfortunes after her few years of happiness and her resolve to go out to her brother's. At times he stumbled over the poor penmanship and halted. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I may call them) drawn up from such well-like depths of feeling, and expressed with such fervor and simplicity of language, there was another testimony to their being the productions of him who owned the penmanship; which was, that some of the papers exhibited the whole process of creation and growth, such as erasures, substitutions, doubts expressed as to this and that form of expression, together with references backwards and forwards. Now, that the handwriting ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... by a Practical Printer, who is competent to take charge of any department in a printing and publishing house. Would accept a professorship in any of the academies. Has no objection to teach ornamental painting and penmanship, geometry, trigonometry, and many other sciences. Has had some experience as a lay preacher. Would have no objection to form a small class of young ladies and gentlemen to instruct them in the higher branches. To a dentist ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... sympathetic nature, and accept this tribute to your genius? Could I look for a line,—just a word,—in response to this, saying that you are glad of my appreciation? Never before have I written to a stranger. That is why I dare not use my own penmanship. Please do not seek to find out who I am, but send just a line that I may know you do not scorn my praise. Address Miss Belle Harcourt, Maple ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... brother handed to her with his free hand, and, with the fountain-pen, sat down to compose some messages. After a few seconds' thought, she began to write busily. Card after card was covered with her neat penmanship. All this time Roy had kept the Golden Butterfly hovering above the liner, from time to time taking swoops and dives around it ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... hand, for editors and publishers won't care to be bothered with you if you don't, and maybe the time will come when you won't be able to make out your own writing. I've known men of that stamp, whose penmanship suggested the idea that a drunk fly had dipped its legs in the ink-pud ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... outline be thin or thick; but it matters greatly that it should be equal, not heavier in one place than in another. The power to be obtained is that of drawing an even line slowly and in any direction; all dashing lines, or approximations to penmanship, are bad. The pen should, as it were, walk slowly over the ground, and you should be able at any moment to stop it, or to turn it in any other direction, like a ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Nova Scotia to Boston, the birthplace of her parents, to be "finished" at Boston schools by Boston teachers. She wrote, with evident eagerness and loving care, for the edification of her parents and her own practice in penmanship, this interesting and quaint diary, which forms a most sprightly record, not only of the life of a young girl at that time, but of the prim and narrow round of daily occurrences in provincial Boston. It thus assumes a positive value as an historical ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... younger brother, Yorinaga, who held the post of sa-daijin, there existed acute rivalry. The kwampaku had the knack of composing a deft couplet and tracing a graceful ideograph. The sa-daijin, a profound scholar and an able economist, ridiculed penmanship and poetry as mere ornament. Their father's sympathies were wholly with Yorinaga, and he ultimately went so far as to depose Tadamichi from his hereditary position as o-uji of the Fujiwara. Thus, the enmity between Tadamichi and Yorinaga needed only an opportunity to burst ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... they could not and would not attend. Mrs. Stanton usually headed the list of the objectors, for she hated everything connected with a convention. On the back of one of these vehement protests, carefully filed away, is written in Miss Anthony's penmanship, "Mrs. Stanton's chronic letter before each annual meeting." She never paid the slightest heed to any of these appeals, but went straight ahead, wheeled all of them into line, engaged the speakers, raised the money and carried ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... move with willing feet And skilful hands to make things neat And ready for some welcome one, She toiled until her tasks were done. Then, seated at her desk, she wrote, With painful care, a tear-wet note. The childish penmanship was rude, Ill spelled the words, the phrasing crude; Yet thought and feeling both were there, And mighty love and great despair. "Dear heart," it ran, "you did not know How, from the first, I loved you so, That sin grew hateful in my sight; And so I ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the government at home, was in many instances the place of trial, and even the sentence of the transports; to save the labour of penmanship, "ditto," was sometimes the sentence found under another name, in the line of which 7, or 14, was written; not at full length, but in numerals. Some "indents" exhibited erasures: in one, a sentence of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... the pupils. Some compositions were read, and part of a little operetta was sung quite charmingly by the girls. Then there was a large table spread out with specimens of needlework that were really fine; drawing, painting, and penmanship that elicited much ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... this time sufficiently mastered the art of penmanship to enter the events of the day in my journal with facility, which I seldom failed to do. My notes are, however, far too numerous to be copied. I therefore write out only such as I deem most likely to ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... flitting,' and were now wondering why 'Gerry' did not wire them. He had written that his plans 'were near completion,' and that he should telegraph them in two or three days at the latest, at the time of writing. The three days were just about to expire, hence the excitement visible in the penmanship of Miss O'Neil. Betwixt impatience and anxiety she confessed herself 'growing really fidgety,' especially as 'Gerry' was always so prompt, 'and then—don't think me silly, dear—but, really, Chicago is such a wicked, dangerous ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... that much talent should be shown in the rest of his work, by the sculptor of this base and senseless lie. The whole monument is one wearisome aggregation of that species of ornamental flourish, which, when it is done with a pen, is called penmanship, and when done with a chisel, should be called chiselmanship; the subject of it being chiefly fat-limbed boys sprawling on dolphins, dolphins incapable of swimming, and dragged along the sea by ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... a fanciful distinctive monogram which each Notary adopted. Marco's Will is unfortunately written in a very cramp hand with many contractions. The other two Wills (of Marco the Elder and Maffeo) are in beautiful and clear Gothic penmanship. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... this injunction as well as we were able, although many of us, unaccustomed to rapid penmanship, found the latter part of the order rather difficult of accomplishment. It was all very well to say, "Sit down and write quickly!" but, what, if we had nothing to say, and didn't know how to ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he was lecturing in America, he would send off little notes exquisitely written in point of penmanship, and sometimes embellished with characteristic pen-drawings. Having attended an extemporaneous supper festival at "Porter's," he was never tired of "going again." Here is a scrap of paper holding these few words, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and envelopes and plain, jet-black ink (no other tint should ever be used), the penmanship must next be considered. It is very well for Madame Bernhardt to write an elegant, graceful hand that is absolutely impossible to decipher, and for General Bourbaki to indite his epistles in a microscopically minute script, but less important people will do well to render their ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... in perspective, were not so plentiful in Queen Victoria's young days as to leave any doubt of their hands and hearts proving in great request when the proper time came. Therefore there was no necessity to hold before the little girl, as an incentive to good penmanship, the example of her excellent grandmother, Queen Charlotte, who wrote so fair a letter, expressed with such correctness and judiciousness, at the early age of fifteen, that when the said letter fell, by an extraordinary train of circumstances, into the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... was no under-clerk who, in his labored penmanship, inscribed names on a piece of parchment, that did not imagine his own name appearing some day on a senatorial or ministerial diploma. At this time the youthful corporal who dons his first stripes of gold braid already fancies that he hears the beating of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... tantalizing letter from my pocket, and proceeded to read and re-read it again and again. A very few perusals sufficed to fix its contents in my memory, so that I could repeat every word with my eyes shut. Still I continued to scrutinize the paper, the penmanship, and even the tint of the ink. For what purpose, do you ask? For no purpose, except that I hoped, in some mysterious manner, to obtain more light on the subject. No light came, however. The more I scrutinized and pondered, the greater was my mystification. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... old parchment or pigskin deed, yellowed and brown spotted with age, Mary could faintly decipher the writing wherein, beautifully written, old-fashioned penmanship of two hundred years ago stated that a certain piece of land in Bucks County, Beginning at a Chestnut Oak, North to a post; then East to a large rock, and on the South unsettled land, which in later years was conveyed ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... accompanied the Buccaneer on one or two piratical cruises; and though it cannot be denied that Hugh was a better sailor than scholar, yet he generously sought to secure for little Robin the advantages he did not himself possess; Robin, accordingly, received daily instruction in penmanship from a run-away merchant's clerk, the clerk and bookkeeper, the lubber and idler of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... was his home work for the day, twelve sums, four pages of penmanship, and the fable of "The Dog and the Rabbit" to learn by heart. He began with the fable, reciting it in a loud voice, like the hero in the play: "'A dog was roaming about the fields, when from behind a little hill jumped a rabbit, which ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... go cheerfully. She had never been selfish in her life, and of course she spoke no word to dissuade him; but, though she had but few letters from him, and those of the briefest possible kind,—for Sir Harry was not fond of penmanship,—those six weeks were far from being unhappy. How could they be, when they were all so good to her, Mattie thought?—when her opinion was deferred to even by her mother, and when her brothers and sisters treated her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... in learning was singularly tardy. He was, by a persevering course of reading, sufficiently familiar with the more esteemed writers in English literature, ere he attempted penmanship. He acquired the art upon the hill-side by copying the Italian alphabet, using his knees as his desk, and having his ink-bottle suspended from his button. In his twenty-sixth year he first essayed to write verses,—an effort attended, in the manual department, with amusing difficulty, for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... administered by subordinates, proclaimed every day the narrowness of his mind. His diligence in reading, writing, and commenting upon despatches may excite admiration only where there has been no opportunity of judging of his labours by personal inspection. Those familiar with the dreary displays of his penmanship must admit that such work could have been at least as well done by a copying clerk of average capacity. His ministers were men of respectable ability, but he imagined himself, as he advanced in life, far superior to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... page printed here without having to lie so much that the thought of it is disagreeable to one reared as I have been. And yet the title of the play must be printed—the rest of the application for copyright is allowable in penmanship. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is a thing remote from immediate interests, and not less so from immediate perceptions and reasonings—a thing that, to all eyes capable of seeing in it something more than so many days devoted to spelling, penmanship, and arithmetic, begins at once to recede from the vision, and to lie in the hazy distance, obscure and incomprehensible—granting all this, and yet any one who realizes what education is, a formative and determining process, that for so many years is ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... King, that the cause of Miriam the Girdle-girl leaving her father and mother was a wondrous and thereby hangeth a marvellous tale. She was reared with her father and mother in honour and indulgence and learnt rhetoric and penmanship and arithmetic and cavalarice and all manner crafts, such as broidery and sewing and weaving and girdle-making and silk-cord making and damascening gold on silver and silver on gold, brief all the arts both of men and women, till she became the union-pearl of her time and the unique gem of her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... records of the day the death of any townsman of especial note. Such an entry as this is the last record of the great pilot. In the margins of certain documents of September 1, 1557, there is written in the quaint, almost unreadable penmanship of the time: 'This said Wednesday about five in ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... near the close of his fourteenth, or in his fifteenth, year. It is entitled "Forms of Writing," has thirty folio pages, and the contents, all in his boyish handwriting, are sufficiently curious. Amid copied forms of exchange, bonds, receipts, sales, and similar exercises, occasionally, in ornate penmanship, there are poetic selections, among them lines of a religious tone on "True Happiness." But the great interest of the book centres in the pages headed: "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation." The book had been ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... three letters in the year—painful, serious events—like an interview with some important person with whom your speech must decorously flow. No matter to whom he was writing, it froze all nature stiff in each word he achieved; and his bald business diction and wild archaic penmanship made documents that I value among my choicest ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... excuse that it was more than enough for me to live through my life, without transcribing it to paper. If I were married I could certainly dictate somewhat of it to my wife now and then. But I am glad to keep out of the bothers of penmanship, which I dislike. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... its deliberate penmanship did not last long. Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically beseeching them for "H. M'y's hono." and their own, and, if not, for "post'r'ty," ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... not quite so easy a thing for Tim to sign; at least, to perform the mechanical part of the act, for he had been to school but little, and good penmanship was not one of his accomplishments. However, he succeeded in getting over the form, though it would have puzzled the secretary to read it, if he had not ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... under the first clause of Rule VI for admission to the service shall be limited to the following subjects: (1) Orthography, penmanship, and copying; (2) arithmetic—fundamental rules, fractions, and percentage; (3) interest, discount, and elements of bookkeeping and of accounts; (4) elements of the English language, letter writing, and the proper construction of sentences; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... ink to? I be setting out the things against Will comes in. He axed for 'em to be ready, 'cause theer's a deal o' penmanship afore him to-night. An' wheer's that li'l dictionary what I gived un years ago? I lay ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... not the cause, while 't will kill her if they hang him." Again he set pen to the paper, and wrote a postscript of four lines below Washington's name. "'T is the devil's work, or her good angel's, that I had the writing of the letters, so the penmanship agrees," he muttered, as he folded and sealed it. Gathering up the batch, he gave a reckless laugh. "I said I'd not lift finger to save him from the rope, and here I am taking his place on the gallows. Well, 't is everything to do it for her, scorn and insult me as they may, and to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... law, natural theology, mental philosophy, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, natural philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, geology, natural history, and technology, besides drawing, penmanship, etcetera, etcetera. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Holliday's Hill, with the glint of the river and the purple distance beyond, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster spelling-book and a cross teacher was more than human nature could bear. There still exists a yellow slip of paper upon which, in neat, old-fashioned penmanship is written: ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... paleographer, when studying the handwriting of Christopher Columbus, is the boldness of the penmanship. You can see at a glance that he was a very rapid caligrapher, and one accustomed to write a great deal. This certainly was his reputation. The numberless memoirs, petitions, and letters which flew from his pen gave even rise to jokes and ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... without friends to secure the openings, they were compelled to give them the go-by, for the present at least. Another occupation seemed peculiarly attractive to them; that was one where each could make use of his skill in penmanship, something in the way of clerical work. In the pursuit of this phantom they learned the rather mournful fact that every such situation in the United States has from ten ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... way I wish it and need it." The student here gathered full courage; and not without internal self-complacence in the certainty of highly gratifying Archivarius Lindhorst through his extraordinary talents, pulled out his drawings and specimens of penmanship from his pocket. But no sooner had the Archivarius cast his eye on the first leaf, a piece of writing in the finest English style, than he smiled very oddly, and shook his head. These motions he repeated at every following leaf, so that the student Anselmus ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate bark, stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big letters, by some instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:— ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... he taught himself to read, choosing as his text-books Henry the Minstrel's Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace and the Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay. Not until his twenty-sixth year did he acquire the art of penmanship, which he learned "upon the hillside by copying the Italian alphabet, using his knee as his desk, and having the ink-bottle suspended from his button." During the next fourteen years he followed his shepherd's ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd times set some type.... The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert, who was chief compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at the syntax and orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set another line of the type. There were ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... there was so much individuality in the British Army," the orderly officer dolefully exclaimed as he contemplated a pile of letters waiting to be franked and betraying marked originality in their penmanship. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Fitsgosling, Hawmsfield Park, Northwold.' Rather too personal, as he observed, he must tell his correspondent that it hurt his feelings. The correspondent was Tom Madison, whose orthography lagged behind his other attainments, if his account might be trusted of 'they lectures on Kemistry.' His penmanship was much improved, and he was prospering, with hopes of promotion and higher wages, when he should have learnt to keep accounts. He liked Mr. Dobbs and the chaplain, and wished to know how to send a crown per post to 'old granfer up ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... barely missed marrying a wealthy heiress on the West Coast, and in his despondence he tried his hand at a little forgery. But he picked the wrong outfit to practice penmanship on. He forged a United States Treasury check and when the federal men got after him he fled to Chicago. He was picked up and on November 29, 1929, he found himself before a U.S. Commissioner who ordered his return to San Francisco. On December 19 of the same year he pleaded guilty before Federal ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... by your teacher, write a short composition on "Our School." Be careful as to spelling, capitals, punctuation, paragraphs, margin, penmanship, neatness and ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... surprising inventions and marvelous machinery. As a natural sequence, ours is an age of delegation. The habit of doing nothing by hand that can be as well done by a machine begets the desire to seek out new and presumably better methods of performing every duty appointed to each of us. Fine penmanship is no longer a necessity for the clerk or business man; skill with her needle is not demanded of the wife and mother. Our kitchens bristle with labor-saving implements warranted to reduce the scullion's and cook's work to a minimum ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you mustn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out!—and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... lived on until nearly thirty a bachelor. Such opportunities as were afforded the common farmers' boys of New England in the eighteenth century young Joshua diligently improved, and became a close student, and well qualified as a teacher of common schools of his day. His specialties were mathematics, penmanship, bookkeeping, business science and forms, and navigation. And he continued to do more or less in this profession until fifty years of age. He was converted among the first fruits of Methodist labors in ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... son apart and distinct, destined for the Church. The monks taught him penmanship, and continued to teach him, until one day, in the middle of a lesson, they discovered he was teaching them. Then Gerard took to illuminating on vellum, and in this he was helped by an old lady, Margaret Van Eyck, sister of the famous brothers ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... school-boys who had got out, declared that Paaker, the king's pioneer, had been brought into the temple by force to be made to learn to write better. As the subject of the joke had formerly been a pupil of the House of Seti, and many delectable stories of his errors in penmanship still survived in the memory of the later generation of scholars, this information was received with joyful applause; and it seemed to have a glimmer of probability, in spite of the apparent contradiction that Paaker filled one of the highest offices near the king, when a grave young priest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... invitation is requisite, yet the engraved card is a needless expense. In such cases one may have cards written in due form. But, for written invitations of this formal character, it is imperative that the paper shall be of superior quality, and the penmanship neat, and thoroughly stylish ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... shewn some curiosities; a Hebrew manuscript of exquisite penmanship, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's Politicks by Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman character with nicety and beauty, which, as the art of printing has made them no longer necessary, are not now to be ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... his desk and examined the sheets of upright penmanship; it could be read as easily ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... of the cloistered student. I admire his snow-white vellum missals, emblazoned with gold, and sparkling with carmine and ultramarine blue. By the help of the microscopic glass, I peruse his diminutive penmanship, executed with the most astonishing neatness and regularity; and often wish in my heart that our typographers printed with ink as glossy black as that which they sometimes used in their writing. I admire all this; and now and then, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... acquire skill and honor. After lunch, he shall come to school at eleven o'clock, except on festival days, and then at twelve, to give lessons and instruction till four, if that be the usual hour of leaving off work for the day. In the evenings he shall teach them Latin and penmanship faithfully and modestly, and keep them as busy as possible, so that they may get a good and gentle training and be preserved from idle talk, quarrels, and brawls. He shall charge them to talk little and use few words, and when in ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... or well-spelt was its address; and, above all, a yellow, dingy wafer filled up the place of the green wax we had expected, and the true lover's motto, "Though lost to sight, to memory dear," was supplied by the impression of a thimble. We opened it. Horror and amazement! never was such penmanship beheld. The lines were complete exemplifications of the line of beauty, so far as their waving, and twisting, and twining was concerned; and the orthography it was past all human comprehension ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... was penmanship, just as his son's was literature. Among Japanese it is considered the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... also attended the school, Wad and Link as pupils, and Rufe partly as a pupil and partly as an assistant. Vinnie could teach him penmanship and grammar, but she was glad to turn over to him the classes in arithmetic, for which study he ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... perverted chemical change, so much loss of muscular power. Not only the strength but the fine delicacy of muscular action is lost, the power of nice control of the hand and fingers, as in neat penmanship, or the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... nights, by the long-continued strain on her of agitation and suspense, has evidently justified the worst of those unacknowledged forebodings which Grosse felt when he saw her. The last lines of the Journal are, as writing, actually inferior to her worst penmanship when ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... I said stiffly. "I didnt think youd have any difficulty in reading my handwriting." And in fact the whole business was absurd, for if there's anything I pride myself on it's the gracefulness and legibility of my penmanship. Typewriters might well be mandatory for the ephemeral news item, but I had been hired as a special correspondent and someday my manuscript ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... to listen to his reminiscences. He wrote as well as he talked. His pointed and lucid style gave to his printed performances a semblance of cogency which they did not really possess; and his letters—even his shortest notes—were as exquisite in wording as in penmanship. As he grew older, he became increasingly sensible of the charms of "Auld Lang Syne," and he delighted to renew his acquaintance with the scenes ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... was imbedded in solid masonry. It is too rude to be the work of an engraver. Could it have been designed by Surgeon Gifart, the Laird of Beauport and cut on the lead-plate by the scribe and savant of the settlement, Jean Guion (Dion?) whose penmanship in the wording of two marriage contracts, dating from 1636, has been brought to light by an indefatigable searcher of the past—the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... astonishing what a large, round penmanship the pony possessed. There was no possibility of mistaking ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... them, thus, "J. U. S." The handwriting was fair, even, and delicate. I laid my hand on it, and thought his hand also had passed over the paper which he has made living with his thoughts. Melanchthon, of whom a far more delicate penmanship might have been expected, wrote a coarse, rugged hand, quite like Dr. Bishop's. It somehow touched my heart to see this writing of Luther's, so fair, and clean, and flowing; and to think of his vive and ever-surging spirits, his conflicts and ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... unceremoniously hustled back into the drawer, for Miss Thorne was at odds with herself and the world. She was angry with Hepsey, she hated Winfield, and despised herself. She picked up a scrap of paper which lay on a glove, and caught a glimpse of unfamiliar penmanship. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... "in haste"! Disappointed and surprised withal, inasmuch as he finds time to say, hastily enough, "Give me of your best; describe, toujours, describe!" To which I can only reply, "Humph!" Mon ami, I do not write for the sake of showing off my penmanship, nor my authorship. When I have time, I lie down, on my stuffed-seaweed bed, and write my thoughts leisurely and enjoyably. A letter is something which would not be set down if the two persons concerned were within speaking distance. The mere fact that I endeavour to give my jottings ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... thousand a year, or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and was full of compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty of giving lessons in penmanship,—an honorable career, he said, which would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he promised him a situation in a young ladies' boarding-school. But Vimeux's head was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent him from having faith ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... and the similarity of the handwriting to that of {74} Sir George Buc. Now it must be remembered that the MS. dedication was written in 1605, and the history after 1660! Surely an interval of fifty-five years must have made some difference in the penmanship of the worthy Master of the Revels. I think we must receive the comparison of handwritings with considerable caution; and, unless some of your readers can produce "new evidence" in favour of one or other of the claimants, I much fear that your reverend correspondent will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... recognised Arthur Stuart's penmanship. She sat down, holding the unopened letter ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... carried upon the very day of the capitulation a letter written by Montcalm only a few hours before his death, the feeble penmanship of which showed well how difficult it had been to him to indite it. In effect it was the last thing he ever wrote, and the signature was nothing but a faint initial, as though the failing fingers ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... skilled labor taught under the auspices of the Association, she decided to choose the highest—that of stenography—if her father thought he could support the family without much help for a few months. She was already very rapid and correct in her penmanship, and if she could become expert in taking shorthand notes she was assured that she could find abundant and highly remunerative scope for her skill, and under circumstances, too, that would not involve unpleasant publicity. She thought very favorably, also, of ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... got twenty years in prison for his penmanship," said Maude. "Father thought you were the bad man until Aunt Ella sent the message that led father to investigate and find out who deposited the check. I was awful glad that you got out of it ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a tantalizing art. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... learned little at school, save Latin and good penmanship, but his very life was divided into halves—Sundays and week days—and he reflects at some length upon the immense dangers of the early teens; the physiological and yet subtler psychic penalties of error; callousness to fine pleasures; hardening ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... citizens who are united in support of a particular candidate, or a particular platform. But there was enough common purpose to insure cooperation and persistence and effort from every single child in proportion to his ability. The learning of stupid sums and the practice in penmanship are no more attractive to these children than they are to ordinary children in ordinary schools in all parts of the country. But they overcame all internal obstacles, went through with all of the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... French exercise-book, certainly containing anything but elegant specimens of penmanship. Ethel's best writing was an upright, disjointed niggle, looking more like Greek than anything else, except where here and there it made insane efforts to become running-hand, and thereby lost its sole previous good quality of legibility, while the lines ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... that I should come to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand," as we used to call our office in those days, from its site in St. Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further reference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at my beautiful penmanship. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... in praise of Miss Wharton's penmanship, in addition to her other endowments, that I am almost tempted to break the seal of her letter to you; but I forbear. Wishing you much happiness in the perusal of it, and more in the possession of its writer, I subscribe ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... marriage at a very early age, the proverbial "millstone" weighed but lightly upon the neck of young Guenzburg. He never discontinued the habit of secluding himself in his study for hours, sometimes for days, at a time, and there writing down his thoughts in painstaking penmanship. These productions, with all their crudity, promised, according to a keen critic, the flowers which would one day "ripen into delicious fruit, not only pleasant to the sight but also delicious to the taste." In fact, even ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... about discouraged when I commenced taking Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. I took six bottles and it completely restored me to health. The discharge stopped from my side, and the cough has ceased. I am now able to follow my profession, which is a teacher of penmanship. I can walk ten miles any day without the least worry. If any one doubts this statement they can write me and I ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... The law of probabilities points to a common authorship for both writings, for it is asking too much to expect one to believe that there should exist two different persons, probably strangers, who possess precisely the same peculiarities in penmanship. ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... in the crabbed disguised penmanship it was part of my business to effect, I folded, sealed and addressed it, and summoning Vincenzo, bade him post it immediately. As soon as he had gone on this errand, I sat down to my as yet untasted breakfast and made some effort to eat as usual. But ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... have received a letter from your daughter, which, I presume, was forwarded as a specimen of her penmanship; otherwise it was your duty to have addressed me yourself. I said to you, when I met you at Greenwich, that you were educating your daughter above her condition in life, and I now repeat it. My patronage is extended only to those who are not above their situations, which, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... point to any proof that it is forged?' said Lord Walwyn, aware that handwriting was too difficult an art, and far too crabbed, among persons of Osbert's class, for there to be any individuality of penmanship. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Penmanship being, of course, the only medium between author and readers in those days, it follows that calligraphy was held in high esteem, and among famous calligraphers was Kabus Ibn Wushmaghir, who, although "the greatest of princes, the star of the age, and the source of justice and beneficence," thought ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... each day, year in and year out, characters are laboriously copied by means of a little brush filled with ink, which in the form of a cake or stick similar to Indian ink is moistened and ground on to a stone slab or "ink-stone," until the penmanship is frequently of a firmness and beauty surpassing that of copper-plate. In such veneration is the written character held that it is accounted wrong to debase in any way paper on which writing may be inscribed, wherefore conscientious ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... who are not in the habit of devoting themselves practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very easy task; it being always considered necessary in such cases for the writer to recline his head on his left arm, so as to place his eyes as nearly as possible on a level with the paper, and, while glancing sideways at ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to him that to be shut up with a Webster's spelling-book and a cross old maid was more than human nature could bear. Among the records preserved from that far-off day there remains a yellow slip, whereon in neat old-fashioned penmanship ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... as—whether it is better to go to the Bank through Holborn or through the Strand: the particular case being given, it may then be possible to answer the question; previously it is impossible.——Three chapters therefore remain, viz.—Chap. IV. on Languages; Chap. V. on Elocution; and Chap. VI. on Penmanship. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... voice rebelled. She could read aloud adverse opinions upon her common sense, her judgment, or her pride, but to impugn her penmanship ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Watts's Hymns—poor child!—and when seven or eight he had shown a propensity to absorb languages much as other children absorb nursery tattle and Mother Goose rhymes. When he was fourteen, a young lady visiting the household of his tutor patronized the pretty boy by asking to see a specimen of his penmanship. The pretty boy complied readily enough, and mildly rebuked his interrogator by rapidly writing some sentences for her in fourteen languages, including such as, Arabian, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... shelves. A lithographed portrait of Miss Fotheringay, as Mrs. Haller, with the actress's sprawling signature at the corner, hung faithfully over the old gentleman's bed. Lady Mirabel wrote much better than Miss Fotheringay had been able to do. Her ladyship had labored assiduously to acquire the art of penmanship since her marriage; and, in a common note of invitation or acceptance, acquitted herself very genteelly. Bows loved the old handwriting best, though; the fair artist's earlier manner. He had but one specimen of the new style, a note ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believe, Marquis of Queensberry) was remarkable for the worst penmanship in the school, and the economy of last moments; till then he seldom thought of an exercise. His favourite exercise was in Tothill-fields; from whence returning once very late, he instantly conceived and executed some verses, that were the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... letters and post them. We may—if we be great men—indite despatches and give them into the hands of trusty messengers, and a little twirl of Fortune's wheel will send all our penmanship to ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed, may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic penmanship, the beautiful verse:—"God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of a ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... line of conduct that brings into strong relief a high aim and the consciousness of abundant intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an uphill path, a stern struggle with adversity. The leisure hours which he was able to devote to his reading, his penmanship, and his arithmetic were by no means overabundant. Writing of his father's removal from Kentucky ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... added Tom, in a lower voice. "Take it from me, Jim Ferrers, that claim on the ridge yonder is worth all kinds of fight. Here, get the horses saddled again, while Harry and I write our notice in record-breaking time for legible penmanship." ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking at the sacred images and prints, the tableau over the mantelpiece, which told, with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent pupils in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... was stubborn; more, he insisted on writing the inscription himself, his orthography quite as quaint as his penmanship, and so the card went to be read by the wonderful gray ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... to a sheet of paper, with his left hand clenched on the table, and his teeth grinding together, as he ransacked his vocabulary for befitting terms; but alas, his right hand shook so that his penmanship would not do, in fact, it half frightened him. 'By my soul! I believe something bad has happened me,' he muttered, and popped up his window, and looked out, half dreaming over the church-yard on the park beyond, and the dewy overhanging hill, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... letters, this knowledge cannot fail of being serviceable to you, even if you are destined to pass through the humblest walks of life. I think it is clear, that, in one point of view, grammatical knowledge possesses a decisive advantage over every other branch of learning. Penmanship, arithmetic, geography, astronomy, botany, chemistry, and so on, are highly useful in their respective places; but not one of them is so universally applicable to practical purposes, as this. In every situation, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... herself deficient. Now she would go into the family of Rev. Edward Hitchcock, afterward president of Amherst College, and study natural science of him, meantime taking lessons, of his wife in drawing and painting. Now she would study penmanship, following the copy as closely as a child. Once when a teacher, in deference to her reputation, wrote the copy in Latin, she handed it back and asked him to write in English, lest when the books were examined, she might be thought wiser than she really ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... anxiety to read what was written therein, and all that evening I pored over the manuscript, on which she had bestowed great pains, and crossed all the t's without missing one. But it is never an easy task to decipher a woman's meaning, particularly when not addicted to penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's instructions, and had acquired the reputation, in her native place, of being an accomplished clerk, still, since her marriage, she had applied her genius to the making of tarts and other confections, rather ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... fire-light, smoking his brier-wood, he noticed that the man next him spent a great deal of time poring over a letter, holding it close to the blaze, now at arm's-length, which was hardly surprising, considering the penmanship of the more common variety of billet-doux. The man was plainly disappointed that Peter would not notice or comment. Finally he folded it up, and with sentimental significance returned it ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... across my copy distracts my attention and imperils the neatness of my penmanship. Even when she is disposed to be affable, turns the light of her countenance upon me, watches with attentive curiosity every stroke I make, and softly, with curved paw, pats my pen as it travels over the paper, even in these ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... bounding deer and floating swans with scrolls in their beaks, all without lifting pen from paper. Some of us learned to do it almost as well as the accomplished Mr. Gaskell himself, and almost all of us showed marked improvement in penmanship. Doubtless Truman Baird did not, he being engrossed with oratory, striving to reproduce, "Hate—the right foot advanced, the face turned to the sky, the gaze directed upward with a fierce expression, the eyes full of a baleful ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... were both sentenced to death. The sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for life. At Sydney, being of a very different class from the ordinary convict, they prospered greatly, and their letters were very interesting. They were wonderful feats of penmanship, for postage from Australia was ruinously expensive, and they filled sheets of paper with writing that could hardly be read without a microscope. If we had those letters now they would be curious records of the early days of the ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is easy to understand that with matter received at a rate of forty words per minute and worked off at twenty-five words per minute a serious congestion or delay would result, and the newspapers were more anxious for the news than they were for fine penmanship. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... decorated with the work of the Indian pupils in penmanship, literary composition, arithmetic, sewing, lace work, bead work, and basketry. Every school in the service was represented in this display, except Carlisle, Phoenix, and Riverside. The exhibit was remarkable for its beauty and extent. In ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission |
