"Illegible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, nor delighted by art which does not touch him; and for the writer to imply that he furnishes arguments, but does not pretend to furnish brains to understand the arguments, is arrogance. What Goethe says about the most legible handwriting being illegible in the twilight, is doubtless true; and should be oftener borne in mind by frivolous objectors, who declare they do not understand this or do not admire that, as if their want of taste and understanding were rather creditable than otherwise, and ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... almost touching the ground at the end of its long, limp neck. She seated herself on a stool, somewhere about the middle of the large space, and proceeded to pluck, and otherwise prepare it for the fire. Having, last of all, split it open from end to end, turning it into something like an illegible heraldic crest, she approached the fire, the fowl in one hand, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... letter was written in a much clearer chirography than the latter, where it grew fainter and more irregular as it proceeded, until at last, in the signature, it was so nearly illegible as to baffle the ingenuity of the reader to decipher it; as if, in the course of her task, the strength of the dying writer had grown weaker and weaker, until at the end the pen must have fallen from her ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... photograph-books, little candlesticks, choice little services of china, shell salt-cellars in a case lined with maroon velvet; a Bible, superb in binding and clasps, and everything but the text—that was illegible; a silk scarf from Benares; a gold chain from Delhi, six feet long or nearly; a Maltese necklace, a ditto in exquisite filagree from Genoa; English brooches, a trifle too big and brainless; apostle spoons; a treble-lined parasol with ivory stick and handle; an ivory ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... once," she said obligingly. She got out soap and a brush immediately, and when she had finished, her work had been so thoroughly done that not a spot of mud was left, but unfortunately the center of the poster was rubbed through and quite illegible, and the rest of it was all streaked and stained! "Will that do?" she asked the officer, looking at him with round, innocent eyes and so evident a desire to please that, in spite of an uneasy suspicion, he merely grunted and went ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... we turned to the left towards Wick. The first part of our walk was through the Parish of Canisbay, in the ancient records of which some reference is made to the more recent representatives of the Groat family, but as these were made two hundred years ago, they were now almost illegible. Our road lay through a wild moorland district with a few farms and cottages here and there, mainly occupied by fishermen. There were no fences to the fields or roads, and no bushes or trees, and the cattle were either ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the coffin diverted his thought. It came forward to within a foot of his face, growing visibly larger as it approached. The rusted metallic plate, with an inscription illegible in the moonlight, looked him steadily in the eye. Determined not to shrink, he tried to brace his shoulders more firmly against the end of the excavation, and nearly fell backward in the attempt. There was nothing to support him; he had unconsciously moved upon his enemy, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... states that the transparency in the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words 'Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property,' but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared, together with the announcement, for the articles of stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... himself, and asked for paper and pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When, however, I found Mr. ——(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge) declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had scarcely signed his name when he fell back,—the exertion, as I had feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died at six o'clock ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... frowned slightly, as with mental effort; then a flash of comprehension lightened her blue eyes. Immediately her brows mutely circumflexed a question. A look of profound but illegible significance passed between the two. Mr. Savage nodded. Mrs. Standish pursed speculatively her thin, well-made-up lips and visibly took thought, according to the habit of her sex, by means of a series of intuitive ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... The following footnote (6) is illegible in many places. Illegible areas are marked with ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... lost to her, had given it to him in her first joy. 'I will reclaim it,' she had said, smiling, 'the first time you make me weep!' It was all that was brought back to her—all except a scrawled paper found in his pocket, containing some hurried and almost illegible words, written perhaps beside his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... talk for a minute. Here you are, one of the gold magnates of Alaska, and a lot of the correspondence that comes in you've got to handle yourself. You know your spelling and Mr. Webster's don't always agree, and your handwriting is almost illegible in ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... said that his plans had changed, that he was going to take the train with a friend he had seen on board, and asked to have his money back. It was given to him, at his request, in twenty-five bank notes of the thousand dollar denomination. He signed for them, writing your name, excusing an almost illegible signature by the need of haste and by a finger tied up as though it were badly hurt. So much for what the cashier of the Merchants' and Citizens' Bank of Reno knows ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... as much, yes! For the anxiety I have . . . [word illegible] [? suffered] these two years about your eleven lives is but ill compensated by all these squalls between us two; which I declare I excuse myself of raising. If, in this last case, you really had not time to post me a line or two to say you were all ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... and too, by and by, on those I am looking for. These can go into it, meantime. It will be a good riddance, at any rate, a fine clearance, yes, indeed! To the fire, to the fire with them all, even to the smallest scrap of paper, even to the most illegible scrawl, if we wish to be certain of ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence with learned and illegible Germans—in one word, the vast scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with a biography of Tonti—birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... contrived, however, to combine these into what I believe to be a substantially correct representation of the author's meaning. The Latin is of a monastic—sometimes almost canine—quality, with many words which are not Latin at all. For the rest, though here and there pages are illegible, and though some symbols, especially those representing numbers or chemical compounds, are absolutely undecipherable, it has been possible to effect what I hope will be found a clear and coherent translation. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... what I have written is almost as illegible as that famous one of yours: in which however only [paper] was in fault: {88b} and now I shall scarce mend the matter by taking a steel pen instead of that old quill, which certainly did fight ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... it, "Deficit, 1,705!" His writing was small, compressed, irregular and often far from easy to read; when he suppressed a passage, he used a form of pothook erasure which rendered the condemned phrase absolutely illegible. ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... ornamentations and a much worn inscription can be seen the fragments of two smaller structures, also cylindrical, which may have been the supports of the dome of the minaret. There is said to be another illegible inscription about thirty feet ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... unsuspiciously, and read the words that were uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another which had ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... I feared they would suspect me of eavesdropping, and taking out my penknife, I began diligently scraping the dead black moss from the letters on the stone, after which I made pretence of copying the illegible inscription in my notebook. They, however, took no notice of me, and began telling each other what their lives had been since they left Chitterne. Both had married working men and had lost their husbands ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... the book from the table and started to return to the counter. As I did so, a green slip of paper fluttered from between the pages. I glanced at it idly. There was an address on it, scrawled in almost illegible block letters. "432 West 28th Street." Being of a tidy nature, I slipped the bit of paper into my pocket and turned, only to find my way blocked by a rather large man wearing a trench coat with upturned collar. He tapped the book significantly ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... desire was to learn to read, but it was not encouraged by the hermit, nor was there any book available save the portuary, crookedly and contractedly written on vellum, so as to be illegible to anyone unfamiliar with writing, with Latin, or the service. However, the anchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the alphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred words ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him, was the letter-carrier to Heathbridge and the neighbourhood. I have often met him in the lanes thereabouts, and asked him for letters. Sometimes I have come upon him, sitting on the hedge-bank resting; and he has begged me to read him an address, too illegible for his spectacled eyes to decipher. When I used to inquire if he had anything for me, or for Holdsworth (he was not particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... thus gained, the end was achieved. The truth was that Franklin's duty was to get from France just as much aid, direct and indirect, as could be either begged or filched from her. Such orders could not be written down in plain words in his instructions, but none the less they lurked there not illegible to him among the lines. He obeyed them diligently. France was willing to go fully as far as she could with safety; his function was to push, to pull, to entice, even to mislead, in order to make her go farther. Perhaps it was a ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... March. Concession, apparently of some privilege in connection with the State Lake in San Basilio, to DONATO and HERMORAO ( Hermolaus or Almoro) Paulo (Document partially illegible).[2] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... scrap of newspaper, crumpled and spattered with blood, and, as Houston smoothed it out, he read on the margin, in characters wavering and almost illegible, written with a trembling hand, but still Morgan's writing, "Send to the camp for Houston, he's ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... later, the eminent arboricultural author, John Loudon, writing on the subject of the relative ages and sizes of trees, wrote to the Duke for permission to view his Waterloo beeches. The Duke had never heard of Loudon, and his writing being somewhat illegible he deciphered the signature "J. Loudon" as "J. London" (the Bishop of London), and the word "beeches" as "breeches." "For what on earth can the Bishop want to see the breeches I wore at Waterloo?" said the Duke; but taking a charitable view of the matter he decided that ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... which were based upon the Book of the Dead, and were supposed to contain in a highly condensed form all the texts that were necessary for salvation. At a still later period even more abbreviated texts came into use, and the Book of the Dead ended its existence in the form of a series of almost illegible scrawls traced upon scraps of papyrus ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... Worcester, he recorded a protest of forty-three royalist citizens against the resolutions of the patriotic majority. This record he was compelled in open town meeting to deface, and when he failed to render it sufficiently illegible with the pen, his tormentors dipped his fingers into the ink and used them to perfect the obliteration. He fled to Halifax, but after a few months returned, and was thrown into Worcester jail. The reply to his petition for release is in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and another whose name is now illegible, apparently take a higher rank than their neighbours. Nukhashi is often named in these tablets as well as in Egyptian inscriptions, and it must have been situated on the north-east slope of the Lebanon range. We have also letters ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... again, quite vividly, as last he had seen her: turning at the door of her bed-chamber to look back at him, a vision of perturbing charm in her rose-silk dressing-gown, with rich hair loosened, cheeks softly glowing, eyes brilliant with an emotion illegible to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... long enough ago;—and sometimes wishing I could, with the good luck of most editors of romantic narrative, light upon some hidden crypt or massive antique cabinet, which should yield to my researches an almost illegible manuscript, containing the authentic particulars of some of the strange deeds of those wild days of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... was so abominably defaced by blotting and blurring that it was entirely illegible. It must have come all the way by water. By the aid of chemicals and photography, however, I have made it out. But you forgot to inclose the sample ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... climbing fences, leaping streams, making my way across rock faces and through woods; halting now and then as some reenforcing argument occurred to me to write it into my draft at the proper place until the sheets were interlined and blurred and almost illegible. It was already three o'clock when I reached my room, and the mail left at four. I began to copy and revise my scrawl, glancing from time to time at my watch, which I had laid on the table. Hurriedly washing my face and brushing my hair, I arrived downstairs just ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... continued reminiscently. "I say that it was valuable, for on the blade were engraved some curious Inca characters. I wasn't able to take the time to decipher them, down there, for the age of the metal made them almost illegible. But now that I have all my stuff unpacked and arranged after my trip, I was just about to try—when along comes a thief and robs me. We can't have the University Museum broken into that way, ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... he, "'tis written in a most illegible and wretched hand which I can scarce decipher; neither bears it any date or superscription. I pray thee take and read aloud, that all may hear and pass opinion upon so strange ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... written when, after waiting in vain for Paula as she sat with little Mary, he had at last been obliged to depart and take leave of Amru. This wax-tablet, on which the writing was much defaced and partly illegible, could not fail to convince the judges of Orion's guilt, and the production of this piece of evidence enabled the old man to extort Obada's consent to his proposal as to the mode of Paula's death. When they finally ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... A balloon letter, dated November 30, giving, it is presumed, an account of the military operations on that day, suffered so much in transitu, that it is illegible.] ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... to observe her wishes. "It's not banking etiquette, Miss Fraser, but that doesn't matter in North Queensland. We do many things that we ought not to do, and if Smith draws a cheque you may be sure that I will refuse to pay it as 'signature illegible'—as it is sure to be. But I'll lend him a few pounds if he breaks out again, and is laid up in this abode of sin, so that he may get home again ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... we patiently turned down another street and saw King Ruggero dismissing the ambassadors: "Return at once to your Lord and tell him that we Sicilians are not—" something for which the artist had left so little room that it was illegible, but the noble attitude of King Ruggero conveyed the meaning: we saw Mazeppa bound to a white horse rushing through a rocky wood and frightening the lions and tigers; Etna was in eruption; banners were being blessed by the Pope; Musolino was tripping over that cursed wire and being taken by the ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... dirty, almost illegible scrawl through more carefully this time. It was a clumsy notification addressed to Mme. la Comtesse de Nole de St. Pris to the effect that her tou-tou was for the moment safe, and would be restored to the arms of his fond mistress provided the sum of ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... him to think that all the true things had been said, and one could do no better than hunt them up again for new uses. Our business was, like Old Mortality, to clear out and cut afresh inscriptions that had been made illegible by time and storm. At least this delivered him from the senseless vanity of originality and personal appropriation. We feel sure that if he found that a thought which he had believed to be new had been expressed in literature before, he would have been ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... from the previous books of this series, consists in burning some other mark over the legitimate brand on cattle, so that the original one can not be made out. Then the animal may be claimed by whoever has it. Blurring a brand, that is, making it illegible, or changing one brand into another, are two of the methods used by ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... seems she has been quite ill with weeping for Molly; and, indeed, her dear scrawl was so illegible that I could hardly read it. Rene says she was nearly as much upset by the joy as by the grief. Mr. Landale was not at home; he had ridden to meet Tanty at Liverpool, for the dear old lady has been summoned back in hot haste with the news of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... steadiness of veterans conscious of their strength, deftly, almost delicately, in fact, silenced the minority. Only once, when the reader of the resolutions hesitated over an illegible word, did the dramatic happen. At that moment a thin voice in the gallery exclaimed, "Hurrah for Blaine!" Instantly the audience was on fire. The burst of applause brought out by Smith's opening reference to the "never vanquished hero ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... HA-PARDES was printed at Constantinople in 1802 according to a defective copy. The editor Intercalated fragments of the Sefer ha-Orah, which he took from an often illegible manuscript. ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... these centuries! And, even as it is, the dispersion of old libraries, like those of Johnson of Spalding and Skene of Skene, encourages the waste-paper dealer to believe that the end is not yet reached. The frequenter of the auction-rooms of London alone has perpetually under his eyes a mountain of illegible printed matter sufficient to overload ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... of grass. Wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life. To gain the milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, blue-bells, and wild roses, would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may. So, all the tramps with carts or caravans—the Gipsy-tramp, the Show-tramp, the Cheap Jack—find it impossible to resist the temptations ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... read, 'I have been to school, and did strokes and prickings and marched round. I am like you now. A fat kiss and a hug, your loving—-' The signature was illegible, lost amid several scratchy lines in a blot that looked as if a beetle had expired after violent efforts in ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... heretofore received, or in exchange for something of a different, perhaps of a sentimental nature? ... Please pardon this typewritten note, but my own hand, unlike your copper-plate, is absolutely illegible. I have been ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... other side of the inky sheet were scrawled a few almost illegible lines, "My darlingest St. Elspeth, I have neerly squalled my heyes out because St. John says your Angle Baby has flewn back to Heaven and I wanted it to stay. But I am glad you have got another twin so the little crib St. John told us about won't ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... had merely reverted to his original type. Another grave—a long, robust mound—had been made beside the first, which seemed to shrink from the comparison; and in the shadow of a new headstone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illegible by accumulation of leaves and soil. In point of literary merit the new was inferior to the old— was even repulsive in its terse and ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... comprehension and was a ready debater," Coxe says, although without grace or style. "He wrote with uncommon facility and great variety of expression, and in his most confidential letters, written so quickly as to be almost illegible, there is scarcely a single alteration or erasure." But certainly Newcastle was not a man likely to keep to himself the knowledge of such a fact as the family compact, or even the knowledge that some people ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... have found his MS. illegible: Michelant's text has 'Fremius [? read Fremins] ses voisins Dist qu'el ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... Clarendon. But the delivery of the King up, besides the infamy of it, etc.—Swift. That infamy is in the scurvy nature of a Scot, and the best ... of their false hearts. [Written in pencil and rubbed out—one word is illegible.] ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... that weighed on it. To what question, on her father's part, had "I say No" been Miss Jethro's brief and stern reply? Neither letter nor envelope offered the slightest hint that might assist inquiry; even the postmark had been so carelessly impressed that it was illegible. ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... to the progress of "manifest destiny," few are those who pass the venerable site of the first colony in Virginia, Jamestown, without paying a tribute of a sigh, and perchance a tear, to that solitary tower which is still standing a mute watcher amid the few almost illegible tombs,—all that are left of a busy population long departed;—the germ, however, of a great nation, whose name is even now ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... with our volumes in 'original boards, uncut' when their paper backs become tattered, their labels illegible? Is there no other treatment for them than a visit to the binder's? That depends entirely upon one's energy, one's capacity for taking pains, one's neatness of finger, and the time at one's disposal. As I have said, the ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... ingenious management; prices were higher here than elsewhere; the coat-rooms were robbers' dens infested by Italian mafiosi; tips were extravagant and amounted in effect to ransom; and each meal-check was headed by an illegible scrawl which masked an item termed "service." The figure opposite would have covered the cost of a repast at Childs's. But New York dearly loves to be pillaged; it cherishes a reputation for princely carelessness of expenditure. It ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... young lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiet home in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from the absorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature—a book that we can most of us understand when it is translated into plain English; but of which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to decipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy's opinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentration and freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive student not to attribute ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... darkness began to deepen towards evening, the track became quite illegible, and when I found myself at this romantically situated cabin, I was thankful to find that they could give me shelter. The scene was a solemn one, and reminded me of a description in Whittier's Snow-Bound. All the stock ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... to the letter; it was all but a pulp, and in its present state illegible. Carefully smoothing it out, I slipped it inside the strap and turned to hide my prize; for such was my fear of the man who called himself Apollyon, that I could know no peace of mind whilst it ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... must likewise be sensible that although I am an American citizen that it is likewise believed there [in America] that I am become a citizen of France, and that in consequence this latter character has so far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy any claim you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot add any new arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of the subject. But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish you would ask the Committee, if it could possibly ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the pieces in the baggage-room, curiously estranged in a mountain of alien boxes. One official weighed them; another obliged him to pay as much in freight as for a third passenger, and gave him an illegible scrap of paper which recorded their number and destination. The interpreter and the porters took their fees with a professional effect of dissatisfaction, and he went to wait with his wife amidst the smoking and eating and drinking in the restaurant. They ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... These are taken from Dr. Garnett's Relics of Shelley, published in 1862. He says: 'Among Shelley's MSS. is a fair copy of the Defence of Poetry, apparently damaged by sea-water, and illegible in many places. Being prepared for the printer, it is written on one side of the paper only: on the blank pages, but frequently undecipherable for the reason just indicated, are many passages intended for, but eventually omitted ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... in good part. You may, if you please, at your convenience, return me the suggestions I sent you, as I may have occasion to weave some parts of them into letters that I am frequently obliged to write; the rough draft was made with a pencil & is now illegible. Be assured that your not using them occasioned me no mortification, as I before told you it would not. You had a nearer & could take a safer view of things than myself. Don't trouble yourself to answer this letter as it requires none; ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... an apologetic than an enthusiastic tone of mind. It may be a mere fancy of mine; but I have often thought that the extreme badness of the printing may have been partly owing to this cause; that the Poet may have left the manuscript in a more unfinished and illegible state, from a sense of something ungenial and unattractive in the subject-matter and action ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the surface of marble or freestone. Sculptured edges loose their sharpness in a year or two; yellow lichens overspread a beloved name, and obliterate it while it is yet fresh upon some survivor's heart. Time gnaws an English gravestone with wonderful appetite; and when the inscription is quite illegible, the sexton takes the useless slab away, and perhaps makes a hearthstone of it, and digs up the unripe bones which it ineffectually tried to memorialize, and gives the bed to another sleeper. In the Charter Street burial-ground at Salem, and in the old graveyard on ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... clerk's window; but he forbore to move until the cab had rattled away. Then he gathered up the spoiled blanks left behind by Hawk and smoothed them out. Two of them bore nothing but the date line, made illegible, it would seem, by the writer's haste and nervousness. But at the third attempt Hawk had got as far as the address: "To All ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... it appear to have attracted much attention outside Court circles even subsequently to that date, for the records show that, in the reign of the Emperor Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name Wang-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... waste land on either side of the road, where there were stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish-heaps, and a little doubtful grass. Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the middle of the street. What it had been in past ages I know not: probably a hold in time of war; but nowadays it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper parts, and near ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this name are illegible (worn away?) in the original text; from the remaining bits I have guessed all but the first two, which are not visible under any magnification. ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... money on bindings caused Sylvia to examine this volume with an attention she would not have given it in any other house. On the fly leaf was written in pencil, in Ware's rough, uneven hand, an inscription which covered the page, with the last words cramped in the lower corner. These were almost illegible, but Sylvia felt her way through them slowly, and then turned to the middle of the book quickly with an uncomfortable sense of having read a private memorandum of the minister's. The margins of his books she knew were frequently scribbled over with notes that meant nothing whatever to ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... writing the matter and style. Proverbs or utterances of wisdom were indited by him in a firm, bold hand with unadorned simplicity; love-songs with delicate, clear-cut lines, attractive capricious curves, enigmatical, almost illegible minuteness, designed to set forth the type of female character. The chirography of the songs to wine and earthly pleasure is full of fire and flourish—that of the songs of lamentation neat, legible and unadorned. To impart this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... proof, Monsieur le Prefet, which Inspector Verot himself has left of his presence here: these few, almost illegible letters which he scribbled on this memorandum pad, which your secretary did not see him write and which have just caught my eye. Look at them. Are they not a proof, a definite proof that ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... assemblages, but simply glance at a few points. The Romans used four different words to express these distinctions. When they spoke of a wood with reference to its timber, they used the word silva; sal[Transcriber's note: remainder of word illegible], was a collection of wild-wood in the mountains; nemus, a smaller collection, partaking of cultivation, and answering to our ideas of a grove; lucus was a wood, of any description, which was set apart for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... guardian, Major Talbot-Lowry, had found it hard to forgive him. The business had been arranged while Larry was in Paris, and the expostulations that might have prevailed if delivered viva voce, failed of their effect when presented on foreign paper, in Cousin Dick's illegible scrawl. It was all very fine for Larry, ran the illegible scrawl, to talk of selling at such a price, but he ought to see what a hole his doing so put his neighbours in! Larry hadn't a squad of incumbrances, and charges, and mortgages, hung round his neck like leeches (and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... is a sensitive creature, and Raggles soon shrivelled in the bleak embrace of the undecipherable. The chill, sphinx-like, ironical, illegible, unnatural, ruthless expression of the city left him downcast and bewildered. Had it no heart? Better the woodpile, the scolding of vinegar-faced housewives at back doors, the kindly spleen of bartenders behind provincial free-lunch counters, the amiable truculence of rural ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first, as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "Try American ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... missing from this index. For completeness they have been added and marked with an asterisk. Some parts of the Table of Contents were illegible, and a few missing page numbers have ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... he begins the pleasant task, is an old half-illegible map, or rather, fragment of a map. Near-by are three or four dull prints. They are of a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and tell of a New York when President Monroe was in the White House, and Governor De Witt Clinton in the State Capitol, at Albany, and Mayor Colden in the City Hall. To ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... out upon her quest. She had reached the first gate, passed it and was on the point of opening the second one, when she saw on the walk before her a small slip of brown paper. Lifting it, she perceived upon it an almost illegible scrawl which she made out ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... old Hebrews, do these men bear: yet with them too is a Covenant; they too preside at a new Era in the History of Men. The whole Future is there, and Destiny dim-brooding over it; in the hearts and unshaped thoughts of these men, it lies illegible, inevitable. Singular to think: they have it in them; yet not they, not mortal, only the Eye above can read it,—as it shall unfold itself, in fire and thunder, of siege, and field-artillery; in the rustling of battle-banners, the tramp of hosts, in the glow of burning cities, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... same hour, three softas awoke the Chief Mufti and Ispirizade, and laid before them a letter written on parchment which they had discovered lying in the middle of a mosque. The letter was apparently written with gunpowder and almost illegible. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... including a whole letterpress copy-book, are missing, many of the letters in other copy-books are quite illegible through the fading of the ink, and others have been torn out (by whom I do not know) and have entirely disappeared. It will, therefore, be necessary to summarize the events of the remainder of the year 1858, and of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... hankering wish of this sort is a weakness, although it may be an amiable and an excusable weakness. To wish at all for an impossibility, such as the recalling of time that is irretrievably gone by, must be a weakness. But, even if we could recall it, to assert that [—illegible—] is in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... few days Lawrence Croft received a note signed Candy & Co. "per" some illegible initials, which stated that Mr Junius Keswick had been traced to a boarding-house in the city, but as the establishment had been broken up for some time, endeavors were now being made to find the lady who had kept the house, and when this was ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... and I could help her in her pursuits. I have a whole packet of charming notes of hers about books, botany, drawings, little bits of antiquarianism, written with an arch grace and finish of expression peculiarly her own, and in a very pointed hand, yet too definite to be illegible. I owe her more than I can say for the windows of wholesome hope and ambition she opened to me, giving a fresh motive and zest even to such a life as mine. I can hardly tell which was the most delightful companion, she or her husband. In spite of ill health, she knew every ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of opinion exists among antiquaries respecting the site of vortigern's castle or city. Usher places it at Gwent, Monmouthshire, which name, he ways, was taken from Caer-Went, near Chepstow. This appears to agree with Geoffrey's account, {illegible} See Usher's Britan. Eccles. cap. v. p.23. According to others, supposed to be the city from the ruins of which arose the castle of Gurthrenion, in Radnorshire, Camden's Britannia, p.479. Whitaker, however, says that ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... the names of which are illegible. The scene as given in the Papyrus of Ani [Footnote: Brit. Mus., No. 10,470, Plate 35] gives some interesting variants and ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... influence during his day. They remained in manuscript until the art of printing was invented, when many of them were printed; others remain in manuscript in the various museums of England, where visitors look at them as curiosities, all worn and corroded as they are, and almost illegible by time. These books, though they exerted great influence at the time when they were written, are of little interest or value now. They express ideas in morals and philosophy, some of which have become so universally diffused as to be commonplace at ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... had been to Guinea, and some of the Indians of Guanahani wished to go with him, and afterwards to return to their homes. The Admiral calculated that he was forty-two degrees to the north of the equinoctial line (but the handwriting is here illegible).[134-3] He says that he must attempt to reach the Gran Can, who he thought was here or at the city of Cathay,[134-4] which belongs to him, and is very grand, as he was informed before leaving Spain. All this land, he adds, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... shelf of libraries, with Benedictine editions of the Fathers, [Greek: k.t.l.]. I write this to you to show how I can have pleasure in letters, and never think them too long, nor too frequent, nor too illegible from being written in little 'pet hands.' I can read any MS. except the writing on the pyramids. And if you will only promise to treat me en bon camarade, without reference to the conventionalities of 'ladies ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... brother gave his heart away To Mercandests[*illegible], when he met her, She married Mr. Ball one day— He's gone to Sweden to forget her I had a charmer, too—and sighed, And raved all day and night about her; She caught a cold, poor thing! and died, And I—am just as fat without her Never sigh when ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... too weak to travel any further, Valeria. Will you come to me and forgive me?" A few pencil-marks followed; but they were illegible. The writing of those two short sentences ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... readings is absurdly styled, so read the place: while D, with one copy of the Old Latin, stands alone in exhibiting,—[Greek: aneste de tis nomikos]. Four Codexes ([Symbol: Aleph]BL[Symbol: Xi]) with the Curetonian omit the second [Greek: kai] which is illegible in the Lewis. To read this place in its purity you have to take up ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... cabin and proceeded to write what was expected to be a draft for ten thousand dollars in favor of the owners of the ship on his agent in New York. He handed to the captain the result of his efforts. It was a piece of paper covered with writing that was totally illegible. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton |
