"Dabbled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he crawled close enough to touch the Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... other industrious spirits had begun to plait osierwithes into baskets that were destined for blackberry picking in the autumn. The house itself was roomy enough to allow hobbies to overflow. Miss Beasley, who dabbled rather successfully in photography, had a conveniently equipped dark-room, which she lent by special favour to seniors only, on the understanding that they left it as they found it. Miss Gibbs had ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... happened to damp her spirits, some attack upon her movement, or upon herself. She spoke of Balzac, whom she had seen but once, of Alfred de Musset, whom she had known well enough to dislike for his morbidity, and of George Sand whom she had known so well that they had dabbled in magic together of which 'neither knew anything at all' in those days; and she ran on, as if there was nobody there to overhear her, 'I used to wonder at and pity the people who sell their souls to the devil, but now I only pity them. They ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... it. Yesterday we went to Pool-a-Phooka, the Leap of the Goblin Horse. What is that, do you suppose? Why, a cleft in the mountains down and through which the river Liffey (not very long born from the earth) comes leaping and roaring. Cold veal pies, champagne, etc., make up the enchantment. We dabbled in the water, splashed each other, forded the river, climbed the rocks, laughed, sang, eat, drank, and were roasted, and returned home, the sun ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... balcony pillars and balustrades. Roses drooped in heavy-headed cascades from second-story railings; the wide purple flowers of the clematis climbed aloft. On one wall a heliotrope broke in lavender foam and the creamy froth of the Banksia rose dabbled railings and pillars and dripped over on to the ground. It was a big, cool, friendly looking house with a front door that in summer was always open, giving the approaching visitor a hospitable glimpse of ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... father and son quarreled again, for of a sudden a perfect avalanche of lawsuits was released, the mysterious origin and purpose of which completely mystified Old Bell. The Nelsons, like everybody else, had unsuccessfully dabbled in oil stocks and drilling companies for some time before the boom started, also during its early stages, and most of those failures had been forgotten. They were painfully brought to mind, however, when Henry was served with a dozen or more citations, and when inquiry elicited the reluctant admission ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Mantegna, and they shared the patronage of his powerful employers. The striking historical compositions of Gentile were at once in demand by the great confraternities. Bartolommeo had never been very successful in his dealing with oil-painting, though he had dabbled in it for some years before Antonello da Messina came his way, but the perception with which the Bellini at once grasped the new technique gave them the victory. We have only to compare the formless contours of much of Bartolommeo Vivarini's work, the bladder-like flesh-painting of the Holy Child, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... discussions on morals, aesthetics, politics, and theology, were now silent and deserted. Many of those who had been wont to lead the causeries had been removed to the cells of the fortress, and those who had not been arrested trembled for themselves or their friends; for nearly all had of late dabbled more or less in the theory and practice of revolution. The announcement that five of the conspirators had been condemned to the gallows and the others sentenced to transportation did not tend to calm the consternation. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... what I receive. And I have never received any very serious attention from anybody. I'm only Duane Mallett, identified with the wealthy section of society you inhabit, the son of a wealthy man, who went abroad and dabbled in colour and who paints pictures of pretty women. Everybody and the newspapers know me. What I see of women is a polished coquetry that mirrors my fixed smirk; what I see ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... society, and spent his time either alone with books and wine, or in occasional excursions into the artist world, where his eccentricities excited little remark, and where he met men who secretly sympathized with the Italian revolutionary movement, and dabbled in conspiracies which rather amused ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... nobody to attend on her husband but herself. Night and day this estimable woman was at his bedside. In her brief intervals of repose, her brother watched the sick man in her place. This brother was, I must say, very good company, in the intervals when we had time for a little talk. He dabbled in chemistry, down in the horrid under-water vaults of the palace; and he wanted to show me some of his experiments. I have enough of chemistry in writing prescriptions—and I declined. He took it ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... and pressing hard with stalwart hand Drove through the yielding neck the pond'rous spear: Thund'ring he fell, and loud his armour rang. Those locks, that with the Graces' hair might vie, Those tresses bright, with gold and silver bound, Were dabbled all with blood. As when a man Hath rear'd a fair and vig'rous olive plant, In some lone spot, by copious-gushing springs, And seen expanding, nurs'd by ev'ry breeze, Its whit'ning blossoms; till with sudden gust A sweeping hurricane of wind and rain Uproots it from its bed, and prostrate lays; ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... agrees with the facts of Coleman's surrender. 'He came in voluntarily.' He did not appreciate the resources of civilisation at the service of the English law of treason: he had dabbled in intrigue without taking counsel's advice, and knowing for certain that Oates was an inconsistent liar, Coleman took his chance with a light heart. However, not only did some of his letters bring him (though he could not understand the fact) within the elastic law of treason; but Oates's evidence ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... at Arden had been dabbled at, or bolted with a rush which did scant justice to the cuisine of that hospitable establishment; for a restiveness obsessed the household which would not be denied. The Colonel was wishing for the return of Doctor Stone—and this ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... indelicate; but these two were not of the common sort. Harlson pulled off his stocking as carefully as he would have done a glove, and spread it on the sand where it might dry, and, laughing at his disaster, he dabbled with ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... child!" cried the judge, laughing. He cocked his head on one side and surveyed Hannibal Wayne Hazard with a glance of comic seriousness. "A small child and in God's name what do you call yourself now? To hear you talk one would think you had dabbled your feet ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... de Marville," to whom we owe some picturesque impressions of La Bruyere at this time of social obscurity, was one of the pseudonyms of Bonaventure d'Argonne, whose real name appears to have been Noel Argonne. He was a Carthusian who dabbled in literature, and who towards the close of his career compiled a volume of "Melanges," containing anecdotes which are often spiteful, but sometimes useful to the historian of literature. He seems to have visited La Bruyere in the days of his comparative poverty, when his mother kept ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... into the wan water, hoping that very swiftly it might bear her grief-worn soul down to the shades. But the river bore her up and carried her to its shallows in a fair meadow where Pan himself sat on the bank and merrily dabbled his feet in the flowing water. And when Psyche, shamed and wet, looked at him with sad eyes, the god spoke to her gently and chid her for her folly. She was too young and much too fair to try to end her life so rudely, he said. The river gods would never be so unkind ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... enemies attack. Bunyan's famed Pilgrim rests that shelf upon; A genius rare but rude was honest John; Not one who, early by the Muse beguiled, Drank from her well the waters undefiled; Not one who slowly gained the hill sublime, Then often sipp'd and little at a time; But one who dabbled in the sacred springs, And drank them muddy, mix'd with baser things. Here to interpret dreams we read the rules, Science our own! and never taught in schools; In moles and specks we Fortune's gifts discern, And Fate's fix'd ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... some unseen hamlet struck the hour. The distant sound, coming from the world of men and every-day affairs, seemed to break the spell. An ousel fluttered across the stream and dabbled in a puddle among some stones. Rabbits began to show themselves and frisk with lengthened shadows in the clear spaces. Maynard looked at his watch, half-mindful of a train to be caught somewhere miles away, and then, held by the peace ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... declared, the skies haven't fallen and oysters taste just the same. I never would have dreamed that so big a step would be accepted with so much equanimity. It is due to two causes, I think. First, because we have trembled on the verge so long and sort of dabbled our toes in the water, that our minds have grown gradually accustomed to what under other circumstances would be a violent shock. Second, because the individual units of the Navy are so well prepared that there is little to do. We made a few minor changes ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain." [1] Olaus relates also in c. xlvii. the story of a certain nobleman who was travelling through a large forest with some peasants in his retinue who dabbled in the black art. They found no house where they could lodge for the night, and were well-nigh famished. Then one of the peasants offered, if all the rest would hold their tongues as to what he should do, that he would bring them a ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... practised speaking early in the Irish Parliament. Indeed, this turn is his whole fund, for though he is between thirty and forty, he knows nothing of the world, and is always unpleasantly dragging the conversation to political dissertations. When very young, as he has told me himself, he dabbled in writing Craftsmen and penny-papers; but the first event that made him known, was his carrying the Westminster election at the end of my father's ministry,-which he amply described in the history of his own family, a genealogical work called "The History of the House of Yvery,"(2) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... left by the dead woman show plainly that in her grief over the death of Lovecraft she had dabbled in Spiritualism, and had finally reached the conclusion that her only chance of happiness lay in joining her lover in ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... main stream of his energy in the direction of sculpture. I believe that the literary art was the only one in which he did not claim proficiency, and that was a pity, because Powers's autobiography would have been a book of books. He was a Swedenborgian by faith, but he also dabbled somewhat in spiritualism, which was having a vogue at that time, owing partly to the exploits of the American medium Home. Marvellous, indeed, were the ghostly yarns Powers used to spin, and they lost ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... earthen floor and a smell of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio ordered coffee with rum—and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh head-dress, dabbled the little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped the cup over with rum. Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar, to add to the pool in the saucer, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just after ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... been master in my own estate, and intend to remain so. As for the new-fangled ideas of a landowner's duty, with which your mind seems to be full'—the scornful irritation of the tone was unmistakable—'I have never dabbled in them, nor do I intend to begin now. I am like the rest of my kind; I have no money to chuck away in building schemes, in order that the rector of the parish may pose as the apostle of the agricultural labourer. That, however, is neither here nor there. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St. Ogg's, instead ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... dabbled in music, literature, law, everything—always with semi-success and brilliant promise; he had even tried the stage, playing the Provinces for an entire season; then, ultimately sinking into mediocrity in all these occupations, he returned to London, a hopelessly ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... notable a man among them, and to be impressed not only by his reputation, but by his charm of manner and brilliancy of intellect. Moreover they were quite ready to talk vaguely of all kinds of dubious plans for increasing the importance of the West. Very many, perhaps most, of them had dabbled at one time or another in the various separatist schemes of the preceding two decades; and they felt strongly that much of the Spanish domain would and should ultimately fall into their hands—and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... have a sort of recollection of having heard something about the 'inventions rare,' and Coleridge is certain to have dabbled, at one time or other, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... urge you to fight, by the galling memories of British wrong! Walton—I might tell you of your father butchered in the silence of midnight on the plains of Trenton; I might picture his grey hairs dabbled in blood; I might ring his death-shriek in your ears. Shelmire—I might tell you of a mother butchered, and a sister outraged—the lonely farm-house, the night assault, the roof in flames, the shouts of the troopers, as they ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... chance, She past my way. Up started from my side The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold even to her, she sighed; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 'He saved my life: my brother slew him for it.' No more: at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, And ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... sufficient to cut him down. When this was seen, the casualty was so far beyond what had ever taken place before, that both parties fled different ways, leaving poor Green-breeks, with his bright hair plentifully dabbled in blood, to the care of the watchman, who (honest man) took care not to know who had done the mischief. The bloody hanger was thrown into one of the Meadow ditches, and solemn secrecy was sworn on all hands; but the remorse and terror of the actor were beyond all bounds, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... never had a grandfather,—at least a grandfather worth knowing,—whose father's hands had dabbled in trade,—actually trade,—such a one might be a very worthy man, an excellent citizen, an exemplary husband and father, but it behooved a woman in her position not to descend too freely to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Christian rather fiend than man: his raven hair and beard, clotted with blood, hung like snakes about a countenance whose features, naturally formed to give expression to the darkest passions, were distorted with the madness of despairing rage. Wounded in many places, the blood dabbled his mail; while, over his head, he waved the banner wrought with mystic characters, which Ferdinand had already been taught to believe ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a mighty figure, his yellow hair dabbled in blood, and his breath labouring like wind in a threshing-floor. He lay down by Jehan's side, and with a last effort kissed ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... 1812 and died in 1889. His father, though a clerk in the Bank of England, was a fine classical scholar and had dabbled in verse. His mother was an accomplished musician. Browning had every early advantage, and while still a lad he came under the spell of Byron and had his poetical faculty greatly stimulated by the "Napoleon of rhyme." Then came Shelley and Keats, and their influence set him upon the course ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... the "Biographia Dramatica," when young "dabbled in dramatic poetry; but with no great success." The first of her plays, a tragedy entitled "The Fair Captive," was acted the traditional three times at Lincoln's Inn Fields, beginning 4 March, 1721.[8] Aaron ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... a huge silent room, blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door. A little dry sob came from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt unbuttoned at the neck, pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled her fork in the thin leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded on the shallows, and the swallows flitting over them. And that long dance, with the feel of his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories so sweet and sharp that she almost cried ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stone fountain, out of which a jet of water rose playfully, falling with a splash of water-drops into the sculptured basin. While the furnace was raging in the village this fountain played and reflected the glare of crimson light in its bubbling jet. The children of many generations had dabbled their hands in its basin. Pretty girls had peeped into their own bright eyes mirrored there. On summer days the village folk had sauntered about this symbol of grace and beauty. Now it was as though I had discovered a white Venus in the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Solon dabbled, like many others, in reforms of the calendar. The common year of the Greeks originally had 360 days—twelve months of thirty days. Solon's year was 354 days. It is obvious that these erroneous years would, before long, remove ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand: And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy name, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... be valueless if he were a teetotaller. It is melancholy to have to record this fact in the pages of a respectable volume like the present; but facts—as the orator who deals in fiction is ever ready to announce—facts cannot be ignored. And any man who has lived in Russia, has dabbled in Russian humanity, and noted the singular unattractiveness of Russian life—any such man can scarcely deny the fact that if one deprives the moujik of his privilege of getting gloriously and frequently ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... me to bathe in the loff, which was holy water; and so I went in the morning to a private place along with the house-maid, and we bathed in our birth-day soot, after the fashion of the country; and behold whilst we dabbled in the loff, sir George Coon started up with a gun; but we clapt our hands to our faces, and passed by him to the place where we had left our smocks — A civil gentleman would have turned his head another way. — My comfit is, he new not which was which; and, as the saying ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... ago, before that thar steamer hev in sight. Why, boys, I've knowed the time when this humane pulse bet like all possessed. You see, I've lived a life of adventoor, in spite of my meek and quiet natoor, an hev dabbled at odd times in the smugglin business. But they don't catch me this time—I've retired from that thar, an the Antelope lets the ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... wept to the willows And Padie called out for a hymn: He dabbled his boots on the pillows And the minister ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... voice of the preacher drew out interminably through the sultry, golden hour. Women sniffed sharply, dabbled with toil-hardened hands at their eyes; the men, standing in the grass, shuffled their feet uneasily. "Let us pray," the speaker dropped upon his knees, and his voice rose, grew more insistent, shrill with a touch of hysteria. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... began to trend downwards in a horizontal direction, with about two inches of fall in every furlong. The murmuring stream flowed quietly at our feet. I could not but compare it to some familiar spirit, guiding us through the earth, and I dabbled my fingers in its tepid water, which sang like a naiad as we progressed. My good humor began to assume ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the age on popular, or political, or "literary" topics; but philosophers they most assuredly were not, nor men tremendous in spiritual truth. And yet it was precisely as philosophers and thaumaturgists and revealers of occulta that they posed—especially Emerson. And they dabbled or trifled with free thought and "immorality," crying Goethe up as the Light of Lights, while all their inner souls were bound in the most Puritanical and petty goody-goodyism. Though there were traces of grim Scotch humour in Carlyle, my ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of Reason was swelling the philosopher's breast. Unconsciously his step quickened. He encouraged his companion to chatter more about his daughter, how van Ter Borch had made of her one of his masterpieces in white satin, how she herself dabbled daintily in all the fine arts, but the old man diverged irrevocably into politics, breathed fire and fury against the French, spoke of his near visit to Paris on a diplomatic errand, and, growing more confidential, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... remember it he showed no sign when Peterkin at last pressed up to him, claiming his attention, as Captain Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann, the fastest boat on the canal, and by George, the all-tiredest meanest, too, I guess, he said: 'but them days is past, and the old captain is past with them. I dabbled a little in ile, and if I do say it, I could about buy up the whole canal if I wanted to; but I ain't an atom proud, and I don't forget the old boatin' days, and I've got the old 'Liza Ann hauled up inter my back yard as a relict. The children use it for a play-house, but to me it is a—a—what ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... include the whole of his popular songs, were written to please his friends, or gratify the members of his family, and without the most distant view to publication. In 1787, he writes to Burns, on the subject of Scottish song:—"While I was young, I dabbled a good deal in these things; but on getting the black gown, I gave it pretty much over, till my daughters grew up, who, being all tolerably good singers, plagued me for words to some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted those effusions which have made a public appearance, beyond my expectations, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... babe, lord Duke?' and, speaking, Sir Benedict drew aside his cloak and showed the babe asleep beneath. But, looking upon its innocence, the Duke cried out and hid his face, for the babe's golden curls were dabbled with the blood from Sir Benedict's wound and looked even as had the face of the dead Johan. Yet, in a while, the Duke reached out and took the child and setting it against his breast, turned his horse. Said Sir Benedict: 'Whither do we ride, lord Duke?' Then spake the Duke ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... and Judy through the different rooms: he was an art connoisseur himself, and even dabbled in paint in a dilettante sort of fashion. He drew Judy on to make remarks, laughed and quizzed her for some ideas which he considered in advance of the times, for others which were altogether too antiquated for him ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... meanest tropes of adulation, To have and hold on to their station. E'en such a ministry among Are found amidst the waiting throng. Where'er are misdeeds, there are bevies; And wanting never at the levees, Men who have trimmed the stocks, been rabbled, In South Seas and in gold mines dabbled, Where sycophants applauded schemes Madder ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Street, Russell Square, son of the junior partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the little baker. But the chances of war were unfavourable this time, and the little baker whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little nose. He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no means authentic, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... chap," he said kindly. "Look. Nice cool water for Patch." And, with that, he stooped and dabbled his ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Ashdod beat across a dusty mile; Hot Hazor's bowmen toiled from spire to spire, And Gath sprang upwards, like a gust of fire; On either side did Libnah's lords appear, And brass-clad Timnath thundered in the rear. "Mark, Achish, mark!"—South-west and south there sped A dabbled hireling from the dreadful dead. "Mark, Achish, mark!"—The mighty front of Saul, Great in his life and god-like in his fall! This was the arm that broke Philistia's pride, Where Kishon chafes his seaward-going ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... an agitating dream of setting the barn afire, and beheld Mother sitting up amid the hay—an amazing, a quite incredible situation for Mrs. Seth Appleby. She mildly dabbled at her gray hair, which was still neat, and looked across in bewilderment. Like a jack-in-the-box, Father came up out of the hay ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Having dabbled in literary work a little at odd times I had obtained a slight recognition as a writer. My vivid imagination had impressed two or three magazine editors favorably. One of these in particular called for more of my short stories, ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... of the terrible trap which lay grinning under the bait he dabbled with—he continued to take opium at short intervals for several years. When by the physician's orders he abandoned "M'Munn," on the subsidence of the eye-difficulty, his symptoms were uneasy rather than distressing, and disappeared after ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... on artistic matters was considered worth having. He dabbled in all the arts—writing, music, acting, and sketching, and went to every good concert and play in Sydney. Though he was clever at law, it was whispered by some that he would wind up on the stage, as he had a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a boot, France to a coffee-pot, and the European domain of the Sultan to a ruffling turkey. In this pleasant scheme the state of New York was made to figure as a couchant lion, his massy head thrust high in the North Country, his forepaws dabbled in the confluence of the Hudson and the Sound, his middle and hinder parts stretched lazily westward to Lake Erie and the Niagara. Roughly speaking, in this noble animal's rounding haunch, which Ontario cools, lies the Demijohn Congressional ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... to Sylvia; he was much more interested in the way she dabbled the tips of her hands in the cool water of her finger bowl than in what Hermann was saying. Her fingers had an extraordinary life of their own; just now they were like a group of maidens by a fountain. . . . But Hermann repeated the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... little cabinet of curiosities Scott drew forth a manuscript picked up on the field of Waterloo, containing copies of several songs popular at the time in France. The paper was dabbled with blood—"the very life-blood, very possibly," said Scott, "of some gay young officer, who had cherished these songs as a keepsake from some ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... "quirks" echoed on all sides. In almost every cage there was a fierce manikin thrusting his sword or dagger vigorously into the body of some unhappy bird. It recalled the antique legend of the battles of the Pygmies and the Cranes. The poor love-birds lay with their emerald feathers dabbled in their hearts' blood, shoulder to shoulder in death as in life. Canaries gasped at the bottom of their cages, while the water in their little glass fountains ran red. The bullfinches wore an unnatural crimson on their breasts. The mocking-bird lay on his back, kicking spasmodically, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Woolfe Lawrence was not preparing to follow in his father's steps. He had graduated with honors, and taken a prize essay, and was now a fully-fledged modern young man. He was fond of discoursing on abstruse subjects, he dabbled a little into art, wrote some mystical poems, tied a cravat beyond criticism, and wore faultless gloves and boots. His mother and Mrs. Eastman were extremely proud of him. His father wondered a little what the young ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... uncommon with Johnson, passes into something which would be cynical if it were not half-humorous. In this case it implies also the contempt of the professional for the amateur. Johnson despised gentlemen who dabbled in his craft, as a man whose life is devoted to music or painting despises the ladies and gentlemen who treat those arts as fashionable accomplishments. An author was, according to him, a man who turned out books as a bricklayer turns out houses ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Dwelling one summer on the New Jersey shore, I used to loiter, day after day, upon a deserted wharf, at the end of which was ever to be seen a broad-beamed fisherman, sitting upon an uncomfortably wooden chair, from which he dabbled perpetually with his whip-cord line in the shallow water that washed the slimy face-timbers of the wharf. There he sat, day after day, and all day, and, for aught I know, all through the summer-night, a big-timbered, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... ever dabbled in trade or trickery? Coal merchants, coal heavers, and coal whippers may defile our fields with coal dust and smoke, but they can not defile ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. To my horror I perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson. On the path, too, and among the heather were ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the turtle devourers were stretched on the floor— Each cheek changed to purple—so crimson before! Their dewlaps all dabbled with red wine and ale, And extremities cold as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... at table together. BINNS, the butler, who himself dabbled in aphorism, and had sucked wisdom from the privy perusal of Sir JOHN's note-book, had laid before them a dish on which reposed a small but well-boiled leg of one that had trod the Southdowns but a week before in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... the sense of its showing for her own occasion, her very own, with every one else extravagantly rallying and falling in, absolutely conspiring to make her its heroine. It was as if her father himself, always with more initiative as a guest than as a host, had dabbled too in the conspiracy; and the impression was not diminished by the presence of the Assinghams, likewise very much caught-up, now, after something of a lull, by the side-wind of all the rest of the motion, and giving our young woman, so far at least as Fanny ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... fortunes—the latter equal to her own—and also two titles unaccompanied by fortunes, with hearts as doubtful collateral. She kept her own bachelor establishment in Chicago, gave to charity with discretion, took a quiet part in the social life of her set, dabbled in art and literature, had a few good friends, and was generally considered a very lucky, amiable, and handsome ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... and mother, relations, and neighbours sought for aught that might alleviate their daughter's sufferings, they met with an old Cordelier monk, who was blind of one eye, and who in his time had seen many things, and had dabbled much in medicine, therefore his presence was agreeable to the relations of the patient, and he having gazed at the diseased part at his leisure, boasted much that he ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... have done a good deal of exploring, have reached many of the glaciers, have dabbled in natural history, meteorology, magnetism, &c., &c., besides making many photographs and geographical surveys, and have sent home to various societies and museums many curiosities and much information. My name, as you know, stands well enough among the dons of science. But apart from this, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... as were able resumed their seats amid great laughter and confusion, when the Sieur Deschenaux, a reckless young gallant, ablaze with wine and excitement, stood up, leaning against the table. His fingers dabbled in his wine-cup as he addressed them, but he did ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... an instant, with another cry, he was up and clutched Levi with a clutch of despair by the throat and by the arm. Then followed a struggle, short, terrible, silent. Not a sound was heard but the deep, panting breath and the scuffling of feet in the sand, upon which there now poured and dabbled a dark-purple stream. But it was a one-sided struggle and lasted only for a second or two. Levi wrenched his arm loose from the wounded man's grasp, tearing his shirt sleeve from the wrist to the shoulder as he did so. Again and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... speculative character. Some critics have even gone so far as to affect to perceive a latent spirit of Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renee, the "Protestant" Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... altars to the scattered kneelers on the floor,—the foul old women and the young girls of the poor, the old-fashioned old gentlemen and devout ladies of the better class, and that singular race of poverty-stricken old men proper to Italian churches, who, having dabbled themselves with holy water, wander forlornly and aimlessly about, and seem to consort with the foreigners looking at the objects of interest. Lounging young fellows of low degree appear with their caps in their hands, long enough to tap themselves upon the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the request, and he carefully concealed from her the fact that at the moment of receiving the money, he laid in Mr. Watson's hands, by way of pawn, the only article of any value which he possessed—the watch his father had always worn, and which the coroner took from the vest pocket of the dead, dabbled with blood. The gold chain had been sold long before, and the son wore it attached to a simple black ribbon. His employer received the watch, locked it in the iron safe, and Russell fastened a small weight to the ribbon, and kept it around his neck that his mother ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... your heart of hearts, as I have: These hairs of mine are grey, and so are theirs, The elders of the Council: I remember When all our locks were like the raven's wing, As we went forth to take our prey around The isles wrung from the false Mahometan; 470 And can I see them dabbled o'er with blood? Each stab to them will ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... dabbled in pretty things of that sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a man who set up—in Bond Street—to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I suppose you have heaps ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as their envy is ill concealed; and, as to the ladies, in those days the character of a successful duellist was a sure passport to their favour. The raw provincial, so lately unheeded, has but to throw his handkerchief, now that he has dabbled it in blood. But the only one of these sanguinary sultanas on whom Mergy bestows a thought, is not to be found. In vain does he seek, in the crowd of beauties who court his gaze, the pale cheek, blue eyes, and raven hair of Madame de Turgis. Soon after the duel, she had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... servants. He had coachmen, footmen, cooks, messengers, a bodyguard, musicians, poets and artists who hastened to do his bidding. He patronized all the arts, made a pet of science, offered a reward for the transmutation of metals, dabbled in astrology and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... might perhaps adorn the walls of the parlor where Daisy's picture hung, and where, Richard had said, was also an oil-painting of Niagara, omitting to add that it was the handiwork of Melinda Jones, that young lady having dabbled in paints as well as music during her two terms schooling at Camden. Tucked away in various parts of the box were also sundry presents, which, at Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's suggestion, Ethelyn had bought for her husband's family. For James, who, she had heard Richard say, was an inveterate ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... force dragging me on, the cloud and insanity vanished and the constraint was over in one moment, when that hellish enterprise was completed. It was the sight of an old woman, lying where she had been struck down, the fire of the blazing house lighting her wide-open glassy eyes and white hair dabbled in blood, which suddenly, as by a miracle, wrought this change in my brain. For they were all dead at last, old and young, all who had lighted the fire round that great green tree in which Rima had taken refuge, who had danced round the blaze, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... of rank who dabbled in painting for his amusement, having one day shown Poussin one of his performances, and asked his opinion of its merits, the latter replied, "You only want a little poverty, sir, to ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... were several books on poisons; his glance fell from those books to various bottles and phials on the table, fashioned of dark-coloured glass and three-cornered in shape, which he supposed to contain poisonous solutions. So Joseph dabbled in toxicology, did he? thought Neale—in that case, perhaps, there was something in the theory which had been gaining ground during the last twenty-four hours—that Hollis had been poisoned first and thrown into the old lead-mine later on. And—what of the somebody, Horbury or whoever ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... difficulty his knees from knocking together, went down-stairs and found Cashel leaning upon the balustrade, panting, and looking perplexedly about him as he wiped his dabbled brow. Bashville approached him with the firmness of a martyr, halted on the third ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... surrounded by her ministers, when a large wooden trough was brought in and filled with pomba. The queen put her head in and drank like a pig from it, her ministers following her example. If any was spilled by her, they dabbled their noses in the ground, or grabbed it up with their hands, that not a particle might be lost, as everything that comes from royalty must be adored. Musicians and dancers were then introduced, exhibiting their long, shaggy, goat-skin jackets, sometimes dancing upright, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... had broken open the pots, and uncovered the jars, lapped the gallipots, and unpacked the stores. The mustard was strewn over the place, the hams were mangled and the corn scattered. Everything was rolling, tumbling, and falling about the floor, and the little rats dabbled in puddles of green sauce, the mice navigated oceans of sweetmeats, and the old folks carried off the pasties. There were mice astride salt tongues. Field-mice were swimming in the pots, and the most cunning of them were ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... the false priest. But he was in heavy armour, the cordelier's bare legs were doubtless the nimbler, and the physician, crossing himself, could only gape and stare on the paper in his hand. As he gazed with his mouth open his eyes fell on me, white as my sheets, that were dabbled with the blood from ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Baskerville passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.' So the drunken squires cursed the shepherd and rode onward. But soon their skins turned cold, for there came a galloping across the moor, and the black mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing bridle and empty saddle. Then the revellers rode close together, for a great fear was on them, but they still followed over the moor, though each, had he been alone, would have been right glad to have turned his horse's head. Riding slowly ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... glossy black hair, and, plucking a red lotus, placed it in it, and dabbled her feet in the water, and amused herself by putting round her neck a string of pearls that had been her sister's necklace. Then, as the sun was rising, she threw away the lotus, and covering her face and arms ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... I have been in almost every corner of the habitable world, and that I am intimately acquainted with the history of mankind.—(Sir Walter Scott's Novels I have listened to with the greatest attention!)—I have eat opium in Constantinople—garlic in Italy—potatoes in Ireland. I have dabbled my whiskers in Guava jelly—have drunk rack at Delhi, and at New South Wales I have enjoyed the luxuries of Kangaroo soup and Opossum gravy. I have been at the Highland-moors with young Englishmen—at Melton with young Scotsmen, and at bathing-quarters ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... I had dabbled a little in the Universal History—the ancient part of it—and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import—but I heard ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Who the holy features of Truth distorts,— Ruling as right the will of the strong, Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong; Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek; Scoffing aside at party's nod, Order of nature and law of God; For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, Reverence folly, and awe misplaced; Justice of whom 't were vain to seek As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik! O, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins; Let him rot in the web of lies he spins! To the saintly soul of the early day, To the Christian ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... with alien lips, the meat they ate was dabbled with blood, their eyes were filled with tears and their hearts boded lamentation. Among them spake Theoclymenus; 'Wretched men, what is this evil that is come upon you? Your heads and faces and the knees beneath you are shrouded in night, mourning is kindled among you, your ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... celebrated by Shakespeare. Like most men in their twenties, he had the character of a chameleon, and adapted himself to his surroundings with almost uncanny facility. At college he had been an ardent member of a dozen cliques, even falling under the egotism of the men who dabbled in Spiritualism, but a clarity of thought and a strain of Dutch ancestry kept his feet on the earth when the rest of him showed signs ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... caused when the coarse, ill-fitting boots you wore were removed, and the officials perceived your trim, clean feet, which are as well kept as your hands. Accordingly, what did you do? You poured some of the water that was in the pitcher in your cell on to the ground and then dabbled your feet in the mud that ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... fearless in acting. But in finance there is always the element of luck, which, however one may eliminate it, still remains, like the blank at roulette, a constantly present handicap upon the operator. And so it was that Worlington Dodds had come to grief. On the best advices he had dabbled in the funds of a South American Republic in the days before South American Republics had been found out. The Republic defaulted, and Dodds lost his money. He had bulled the shares of a Scotch railway, and a four ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... horror! The light had lasted but an instant, yet it had been long enough to show him that the ribbon was stained with blood, while near it the stones and leaves shone crimson! Even the gnarled roots of a fallen tree were dabbled with a fearful stain. He could see it all distinctly. With upraised arms, he knelt and ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Rabelais' work—his predilection for excrement. This also, though few would admit it, is a symbolic secret. This also is a path of initiation. In this peculiarity Rabelais is completely alone among the writers of the earth. Others have, for various reasons, dabbled in this sort of thing—but none have ever piled it up—manure-heap upon manure-heap, until the animal refuse of the whole earth seems to reek to the stars! There is not the slightest reason to regret this thing or to expurgate it. Rabelais is not Rabelais, just as life is ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... before, but with his head crushed in and surrounded by a pool of coagulated blood! The face was marble white; the eyes were open and stony, the jaws had dropped and stiffened into death. Across the body lay the swooning form of his daughter, with her bridal vail and robes all dabbled in ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... infantine faces, wreathed about with grave-worms that hung round them like locks of filthy hair; aged faces, dabbled with gore and slashed with wounds; youthful faces, seamed with livid channels, along which ran unceasing tears; lovely faces, distorted into fixed expressions of raging pain, wild malignity, and despairing gloom. Not one ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... my will While the bright days glow, While the sleepy flowers Quicken as I go. When the pretty ones Look to me no more, Dead, beneath your feet, Crushed and dabbled o'er; In my narrow cell I will fold my wing; Sink in dark and chill, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... I had, like literally millions of others, dabbled a bit in "radio" as we called it then; the science of the Hans was simply the superdevelopment of ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... keynotes of colour and of desolation struck; the lips of the hollow "dabbled with blood-red heath," the "red-ribb'd ledges," and "the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands"; and the contrast in the picture of the child ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... has dabbled, or still dabbles, in journalism is under the painful necessity of bowing to men he despises, of smiling at his dearest foe, of compounding the foulest meanness, of soiling his fingers to pay his aggressors in their own coin. He becomes used to seeing evil done, and passing it over; he ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... not in vain that I dabbled with chemistry all these years," said the guttural voice of the Prince de Gatinais, "Yes, the child is dead by this. Let us recognize the fact we are de Soyecourts, you ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... he does intelligently what you dabbled in, and you wouldn't be standing where you are had you not ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... well known in the neighbourhood as being about one of the best local singers of his day. Many townsfolk will remember Edwin, together with William Haggas, another old musician, teaching a singing-class. Ogden was a shoemaker by trade but he dabbled more in music than in wax and leather. For many years he held the position of leading chorister at St. Anne's Roman Catholic Church. He also "gave of his talents" on frequent occasions at local concerts, and was in great favour with the public. He made as many ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... the town, where gulls flitted and screamed overhead, and salt meadow-grass grew under foot. On the edge of the water there was a deep bed of clay, in which the boys were forced to stand, while they caught their fish. Here they dabbled in mud and mire like ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... from his youth upwards been a firm believer in the public press. He had dabbled in it himself ever since he had taken his degree, and he regarded it as the great arranger and distributor of all future British terrestrial affairs whatever. He had not yet arrived at the age, an age which sooner ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Esmond dabbled in letters, and wrote a deal of prose and verse at this time of leisure. When displeased with the conduct of Miss Beatrix, he would compose a satire, in which he relieved his mind. When smarting under the faithlessness of women, he dashed off ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... value? What could she do? She looked back at her life, and saw that she had dabbled. She had a little of most things—enough of nothing. She could sketch a little, play a little, sing a little, write a little. Also—and, as she remembered it, she felt for the first time a tremor of hope—she could use ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... leisure. He was a tolerable actor in private theatricals, and was particularly successful in the part of Lothario. A handsome leg, to which both painters and satirists took care to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "institution," and so he soon terminated his connection with the press of Virginia, and returned to the land of churches, free schools and free speech. In 1830, he married Miss Pomeroy, of Cooperstown, New York, and removing to Keene, New Hampshire, engaged in mercantile business; but he who has once dabbled in journalism imbibes a taste which it is difficult afterwards to eradicate. Mr. Woolson was not at home in a mercantile store, and before long he purchased the New England Palladium, a Boston daily newspaper, and conducted it for two years, when he bade a final ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... of a career was a curious one. He was the youngest of twenty-one children, and, through a family mischance, was thrown entirely on the limited resources of an elderly sister at a very early age. As a boy he had always dabbled in colors for his own amusement, and had been given to poring over the ordinary boys' books upon natural history. It occurred to him to try to turn his infant talents to account; and he painted upon ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... capitalist like me is doomed beforehand." Then he told her that there was a crossing-sweeper near the Exchange who came from his native place, and had started as a speculator, and come down to that. Only he called it rising, and used to speak with a shudder of when he dabbled in the funds, and often told him to look sharp, and get a crossing. And lo! one day when he was cleaned out, and desperate, and hovering with the other ghosts of little capitalists about the tomb of their money, he saw his countryman fall flat, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... had never dabbled in this new stuff—you know—complexes and fixed ideas and images. But he was a very wise man, and he did know to what an extent these two were possessed by ambition for that which ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... did not try to tag along or sulk because they were left behind. First they dabbled about and helped themselves, for dessert, to some plant growing under water, gulping down rather large mouthfuls of it. Then they grew drowsy; and what could have been pleasanter than going to sleep floating, with the whole cove for ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... old Henry Mitton came up. He had partially recovered from the stunning effects of the blow dealt him by James Device, but his head was cut open, and his white locks were dabbled in blood. Pushing his way through the assemblage, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... novel; and a year later, encouraged by her practical mother, she had plunged into the movement for woman suffrage, and had marched, in a white dress and carrying a purple banner, through an admiring crowd in Fifth Avenue. To-day, after a variable period, when she had dabbled in kindergarten, wood engraving, the tango, and settlement work, she was studying for the stage, and had fallen in love with a matine idol. Gabriella, who had welcomed the wood engraving and the kindergartening and had been sympathetically, though impersonally, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... of the connections, and a growing fringe of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing frightful had happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about her heart at the perturbed expression that overtook the ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... at daybreak the girls would go down with their brothers to the river, and watch the waterfowl on its surface; they were so amusing as they dabbled and played in the water, unsuspicious of danger. Their favourites, though, were the beautiful scarlet flamingoes, with their slender legs, and their long, graceful necks, and whose great employment seemed to be to stand quiet in the ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... McMahon McNutt, familiarly known as "Peggy" McNutt—because he had once lost a foot in a mowing machine—and who was alleged to be a real estate agent, horse doctor, fancy poultry breeder and palmist, and who also dabbled in the sale of subscription books, life insurance, liniment and watermelons, quickly slid off his front porch across the way and sauntered into Cotting's to participate in the excitement. Seth Davis, the blacksmith, dropped his tools and hurried to the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... of the Rocky Mountains up into Canada's Yukon Province. It was wildest at its point of origin, covering Southern California and Nevada, Arizona and part of New Mexico, and it was narrowest in the north where it dabbled with delicate fingers at the mouth of the Mackenzie River. It had spared practically all of Alaska, nearly all of British Columbia, most of Washington, western Oregon and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... they arrived at Parker's, and there found all those whom Bertram had named, and many others. Mr. Parker was, it is believed, a pastrycook by trade; but he very commonly dabbled in more piquant luxuries than jam tarts or Bath buns. Men who knew what was what, and who were willing to pay—or to promise to pay—for their knowledge, were in the habit of breakfasting there, and lunching. Now a breakfast or a lunch at Parker's ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... made coin out of the notes which her late husband, so inquisitive of mind, had left on matters much more occult than the manufacture of yellow starch and skin lotions. "It was also rumoured,'' says Mr Sabatini, "that she amassed gold in another and less licit manner: that she dabbled in fortune-telling and the arts of divination.'' We shall see, as the story develops, that the rumour had some foundation. The inquiring mind of the late Dr Turner had led him into strange company, and his legacy to Anne included connexions more sombre than those in the extravagantly luxurious ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... above the Allier. A more unsightly prospect at this season of the year it would be hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and fields, there rising to peaks alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour throughout was black or ashen, and came to a point in the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all degrees. Casting my eyes round the circle, I was struck with the singular prevalence of the cacoethes scribendi, among so many men of different educations, antecedents, and pursuits. There was a soldier present who had written on taste, a politician on the art of war, a diplomate who had dabbled in poetry, and a jurist who pretended to enlighten the world in ethics, it was the drollest assemblage in the world, and suggested many queer associations, for, I believe, the only man at table, who had not dealt in ink, was an old Lieutenant-General, who sat by me, and who, when I alluded ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... amazed at the threshold, for on Torpenhow's sofa lay a girl asleep and breathing heavily. The little cheap sailor-hat, the blue-and-white dress, fitter for June than for February, dabbled with mud at the skirts, the jacket trimmed with imitation Astrakhan and ripped at the shoulder-seams, the one-and-elevenpenny umbrella, and, above all, the disgraceful condition of the kid-topped boots, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Samson, even though he was hopelessly daubing, and knew it, was sincere, and the painter at his elbow caught his breath, and looked on with the absorption of a prophet, who, listening to childish prattle, yet recognizes the gift of prophecy. The boy dabbled for a perplexed moment among the pigments, then lightened up his color with a trace of ultramarine. Unconsciously, the master heaved a sigh of satisfaction. The boy "laid in" ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... Mr Slum. 'Will you believe me when I say it's the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way—any orders? Is there any little thing I can do ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... are partners, but I don't believe you know him clean to the bottom as well as I do. You wouldn't be in business with him if you did, for you are a straight man—a body can tell that by your eye and voice—and I've never heard of any shady, wildcat scheme that you ever dabbled in." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... thing is conveyed with more Gallantry in a Billet-doux that should be understood at the Bank, than in gross Money; But as to stubborn People, who are so surly as to accept of neither Note or Cash, having formerly dabbled in Chymistry, I can only say that one part of Matter asks one thing, and another another, to make it fluent; but there is nothing but may be dissolved by a proper Mean: Thus the Virtue which is too obdurate for Gold ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... being first damped slightly with canvasine medium; the colours are laid on freely with decisive strokes, and sponged off, the washes being continued until the tint is dark enough. Skies may be represented with blue tinged with green, and when dry, some light clouds may be dabbled in with Chinese white. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... have made a hash of my life—and then I wonder what is the foul poison that has got into things, and what is the dismal ugliness that seems smeared all over life, so that the soul seems like a beautiful bird caught in a slime-pit, and trying to struggle out, with its pinions fouled and dabbled, wondering miserably what it has done ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would be more easily avoided, while they could better take precautions to repair any bridges broken by the Mexicans. On the other hand, it was known that the Indians will seldom attack an enemy after sunset, but what really decided Cortes in favour of a nocturnal retreat was, that a soldier who dabbled in astrology had declared to his comrades that success was certain if they acted in ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Australia or forced to fly to America. Glasgow and Manchester weavers starved and rioted. The press was gagged and the Habeas Corpus Act constantly suspended. A second rebellion in Ireland, when Castlereagh "dabbled his sleek young hands in Erin's gore," was suppressed with unusual ferocity. In England in 1812 famine drove bands of poor people to wander and pillage. Under the criminal law, still of medieval cruelty, death was the punishment for the theft of a ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... cause. On opening the door a ghastly scene presented itself, for the bridegroom was discovered lying on the floor, dreadfully wounded, and streaming with blood. The bride was seen sitting in the corner of the large chimney, dabbled in gore—grinning—in short, absolutely insane, and the only words she uttered were; "Take up your bonny bridegroom." She survived this tragic event little over a fortnight, having been married on the 24th August, and dying on ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... hand over his face, as though to dissipate a bewildering dream; and just then the little girl, all flushed and dabbled, flew rushing up from the stream, but came to a sudden standstill at sight of the stranger, who at length addressed her. "Little lady," he said, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She was young and pretty when the war ended, and has had many offers of marriage; but a vision of a cold white face, with its fair hair dabbled in blood, is ever in her heart. So Diddie lives for her boy. Their home is in Natchez now; for of course they could never live in the old place any more. When the slaves were free, they had no money to rebuild the ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... opened to his real calling. I have groped about in the darkness for a long time, and have very nearly committed suicide, that is, let my talent perish. You discovered talent in my pictures, but instead of devoting myself solely to my brush I have dabbled in music, in literature—have dissipated my energies. I meant to write a novel, and neither you nor anybody else prevented me and told me that I am a sculptor, a classical artist. A Venus of living marble is born of my imagination. Is it then my cue to introduce psychology into ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... me. I heard him cry that he would try to love me, - not that he did, - and then I saw him running back towards the house. The next I saw was my own sword naked in my hand, and he lying at my feet stark dead, - dabbled here and there with blood, but otherwise no different from what I had seen him in his sleep - in the same attitude too, with his cheek ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... brought up in a Bohemian set, without money, or morals, or the steadying factor of position, he had early acquired all the tricks of the artist, the parasite, and the adventurer. He could play the guitar quite prettily, could sing a song, dabbled with pen and brush, and talked with considerable facility ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant |
