"Scribbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am. Daniel Whittle Harvey is speaking; the House is thin; the subject is dull; and I have stolen away to write to you. Lushington is scribbling at my side. No sound is heard but the scratching of our pens, and the ticking of the clock. We are in a far better atmosphere than in the smoking-room, whence I wrote to you last week; and the company is more decent, inasmuch as that ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... what those men on the deck are writing. They've been scribbling away ever since we came here. Probably, society journalists. We shall see in next week's papers: 'Among the second-class passengers, we noticed Mr. "Spike" Mullins, looking as cheery as ever.' It's a pity you're so set on going, Spike. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... cry went up that the Jews evaded their military duty, and that the Christians were forced to make up the shortage. The official pens in St. Petersburg and in the provincial chancelleries became busy scribbling. The Ministry of War demanded the adoption of Draconian measures to stop this "evasion," As a result, the whole Jewish youth of conscription age was registered in 1875. At the recruiting stations the age of the young Jews was determined by their external appearance, without ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... do you mean?" asks the poor professor, who should have sworn by the heathen gods, but in a weak moment falls back upon the good old formula. He sinks upon the table next him, and makes ruin of the notes he had been scribbling—the ink is still wet—even whilst Hardinge was with him. Could he only have known it, there are first proofs of them ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... from memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused before the age of fifteen. Since I left Harrow, I have become idle and conceited, from scribbling rhyme and making love to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... great universal work, or Ecclesiastical History. The other treatise, put upon him by his Majesty's special command, 'De Authoritate Regum et Officio Subditorum,' ['On the Authority of Kings and the Duty of Subjects'] will shortly come to light.——Thus, craving pardon for this prolixity of scribbling, I take humbly my leave; ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... etoile! You catch the sense admirably. Yes, I was born under an evil star; just that! But if I haven't pondered the mysteries unprofitably I shall emerge from the shadow in due season. When you see me scribbling I am calculating the potency of the dark fate that overhangs me and trying to estimate when if ever the cloud will pass. Don't trouble your head with those fancies; leave them to me. Hope is buoyed in me by the fact that never yet have my figures erred. The night before I picked you up in ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... again, measured, examined, and after half an hour's minute inspection, he returned silently to where he had left his horse, and pursued his way in deep reflection and at a foot-pace to Fontainebleau. Louis was waiting in his cabinet; he was alone, and with a pencil was scribbling on paper certain lines which D'Artagnan at the first glance recognized as being very unequal and very much scratched about. The conclusion he arrived at was, that they must be verses. The king raised his head and perceived D'Artagnan. "Well, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... masterly articles in the Edinburgh Review on Burns, Elliot the Corn-Law Rhymer, etc. Besides reading every book that came within my reach, I now commenced the still more objectionable practice of scribbling verses without stint or stay; some, I suppose, in very bad Italian, and some, I am sure, in most indifferent English; but the necessity was on me, and perhaps an eruption of such rubbish was a safer process than keeping it in the mental ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... dreary monotony of Lancashire succeeded this variety. Between nine and ten o'clock I reached the Tithebarn station in Liverpool. Ever since until now, May 17th, I have employed my leisure moments in scribbling off the journal of my tour; but it has greatly lost by not having been written daily, as the scenes and occurrences were fresh. The most picturesque points can be seized in no other way, and the hues of the affair fade as quickly as those of a dying dolphin; ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who is thoroughly convinced of her own superfluousness. Hannah Wrynche, with the conceit so completely taken out of her that she feels, say, like a deflated balloon; Hannah Wrynche, who believed herself born to be a War Correspondent, and has come down to scribbling gossipy paragraphs for a little siege newspaper printed in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... hand to her; then, hastily scribbling something in a note-book, he tore the page out, and evidently despatched it by one of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... one hand rested on her cheek, and the other held the pen with which she had been arranging the accounts of the former week, to submit them, as usual, to her father on the Monday evening. Of whom and what she was thinking was, however, soon manifested to McElvina; for she commenced scribbling and drawing with her pen on the blotting-paper before her, until she at last wrote several times, as if she were practising to see how it would look as ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... paper from the leathern stationery rack and fell to scribbling, while he furtively eyed the window and again put from him the ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... carriage the sublime Sir Richard Blackmore used to rhyme, And, if the wits don't do him wrong, 'Twixt death and epics passed his time, Scribbling and killing all day long; Like Phoebus in his car at ease, Now warbling forth a lofty song, Now ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Sloan was scribbling on a memorandum pad before Bannon had finished speaking. He made a false start or two, but presently got something that seemed to please him. He rang for his office boy, and told him to take it to ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... you were writing by the fire-light? I saw your pencil scribbling away at a furious rate over the paper, and you kept your hand up carefully between me and your face, but I could see it was something very interesting. Ha!" said Hugh, laughingly trying to get another view of Fleda's face ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... learnt to their cost, their experiences, three in a small room for several months, had revealed to them horrors of quite another kind, and their nerves had suffered according to the temperament of each. But, on this particular evening, as Blake sat scribbling by the only window that was not cracked, the Dane and the Frenchman, his companions in adversity, were in wonderful luck. They had both been asked out to a restaurant to dine with a friend who also held out to one of them a chance of work and remuneration. They ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to give you a mental prescription," he said, taking out a pencil and scribbling on an envelope. "Have you read this—LUDOVICI'S Who is to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... but a type of many thus encouraged to prey upon mankind; and Charles V, one of the most powerful monarchs the world has known, abdicating under fear of the comet of 1556, taking refuge in the monastery of San Yuste, and giving up the best of his vast realms to such a scribbling bigot as Philip II, furnishes an example even ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... imagine that he could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning Lord Chesterfield, upon this occasion, was, 'Sir, after making great professions, he had, for many years, taken no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling in The World about it. Upon which, I wrote him a letter expressed in civil terms, but such as might shew him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the East less his slave: Japan a mercantile nation, China and Turkey in his fiscal net. So, looking round the globe toward the middle of November, he could observe scarcely a nation which he could not, by scribbling a ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Rousseau's Confessions. As to the last of these he scarcely knew whether to read on or to throw it aside, and, in fact, he seems only to have persevered with that strange romance of a wandering soul for a day or two. Besides promiscuous reading, he performed some scribbling, including a sonnet, recorded in his diary with notes of wondering exclamation. His family were in London for most of May, his mother in bad health; no other engagement ever interrupted his sedulous attendance on her every day, reading ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand frantically shouting for paper and pencil. Somebody gave him both, and, scribbling a note, he corked it down in a bottle and threw it overboard, following it himself a moment later as a great wave came and swept him out ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... bewildered way at his sleeve. "Where on earth have I been?" he asked in wonder. "That's the worst of being an absent-minded fellow. I've been scribbling on my cuff ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... to impart considerable interesting information while working, and Owen, determined not to get all these facts twisted, was seen to be scribbling ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... skilful pilot. From time to time he consulted the compass on the board before him, and changed his course ever so slightly. Presently he released one hand from the driving wheel, and scribbling on a little block of paper which was inserted in a pocket at the side of the seat ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... stepped into the ranks of journalism and joined the staff of The Daily News. He had scribbled poems since he had been a boy at St. Paul's School. In the years following he had watched other people working at the Slade, while he had gone on scribbling. Then he had begun to do little odd jobs of art criticism and reviewing for The Bookman and put in occasional appearances in the statelier columns of The Speaker. Then came the Boer War, which made ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... book in question; examining it page by page, comparing and balancing their opinions, and when they have united in a conscientious verdict, publishing it for the benefit of the world: whereas the criticism is generally the crude and hasty production of an individual, scribbling to while away an idle hour, to oblige a book-seller, or to defray current expenses. How often is it the passing notion of the hour, affected by accidental circumstances; by indisposition, by peevishness, by vapors or indigestion; by personal prejudice, or party feeling. Sometimes ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... farther, I may safely urge, that all this is no more than the same with what is done by several seemingly great and wise men, who with a new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet, whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character, that shall consist of mere lies and shams; and yet the persons thus extolled shall bristle up, and, peacock-like, bespread their plumes, while the impudent parasite magnifies ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... allusion contained in the first act, after the apparition of the Ghost, when Hamlet calls for his 'tablets.' They knew that the much-scribbling Montaigne was meant, who, as he avows, had so bad a memory that he could not receive any commission without writing it down in his 'tablets' (tablettes). This defect of his, Montaigne mentions over and over again, and may have been the cause of his many most ludicrous ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... James bowed in polite agreement, Ashton, who had been scribbling on one of his cards, held it out. "Pardon me, your lordship. Here's a list of my favorite clubs. Look me up. I'll steer you to all the gay spots in little ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... a scattering for paper and ink, after which every one settled down for an hour's scribbling, some using the broad rail of the veranda as a table, others repairing to desks in the house. Blue Bonnet doubled up jack-knife fashion on one of the front steps, using her knees for a pad; while Sarah, complaining that she could not think with so ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... a materialist; she never rated literary efforts very high; she often seemed to think that Father should do the work of the hired man and then do his writing nights and holidays. She could see no sense in taking the best hours of the day for "scribbling," and it was only in the later years when Father had a steady income from his writings that her point of view softened. She was what they called in those days a "good housekeeper" and she kept it so well that Father had to move out for his working hours, ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... a gentleman called at the "Tribune" office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley, with his head close down to his paper, sat scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the editor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate visitor then ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... shameless youth," were the "King's" unuttered thoughts, "I could beat him at anything, except, perhaps, scribbling. I could live and prosper where he would starve to death." And surging upon the "King" came the memories of his long, triumphant, and joyous struggle with wild nature. Then he approached the couple, and greeted Harley with the good-nature ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Colonel Cowles's office, scribbling rapidly, with his eye on his watch, writing one of those unanswerable articles which were so much dead space to a people's newspaper. It was a late afternoon in early February, soon after the opening of the legislature; ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... negligence with which they are treated that produces a quality, both in the writing and in the illustrations of the German newspapers, which is unknown in America. Many of the illustrated papers indulge in pictorial flings which may be compared only to the scribbling and coarse drawings, in out-of-the-way places, of dirty-minded boys. With the exception of the well-known Fliegende Blaetter, Kladderadatsch, and one or two less representative, there is nothing to compare with the artistic excellence and ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... his suggestive "Talks about Art,'' demands that the child shall be encouraged — or rather permitted, for the natural child needs little encouragement — to draw when- and whereon-soever he can; for, says he, the child's scribbling on the margin of his school-books is really worth more to him than all he gets out of them, and indeed, "to him the margin is the best part of all books, and he finds in it the soothing influence of a clear sky in a landscape.'' Doubtless Sir Benjamin Backbite, ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... could only be found. She followed now post haste, and adopting the tactics of a scout, waited till Netta was safely inside the Fifth Form room, then peeped cautiously round the door. What she saw did not particularly enlighten her. Netta was busily tearing sheets of notepaper in half, was scribbling something on them, blotting them and putting them into envelopes. No one else was in the room, and there was nothing to suggest an explanation of this rather ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... Cobbett published it in the "Register" in 1833, remarking editorially, "One of the most valuable communications ever published in the 'Register' upon the subject, is that of our esteemed friend and correspondent in Scotland, Thomas Morrison, which appears in this issue." So it seems I come by my scribbling propensities by inheritance—from both sides, for the Carnegies were also ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... novel-sized volumes from the prolific pen of Mr. Grattan, whose Highways and Byeways have probably started off hundreds of scribbling tourists to the Continent, much to the annoyance of the keepers of old castles and other necromantic haunts. These Legends, however, have little to do with the Rhine, which is perhaps fortunate for their success, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... Praetor usually sat, remain entire. There is a large building and court yard near one of the gates of the city supposed to have been a barrack for soldiers; three skeletons were found here with their legs in a machine similar to our stocks. The scribbling and caricatures on the walls of this barrack are perfectly visible and legible. When one wanders thro' the streets of this singularly interesting city, one is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out. What a dreadful lingering death must have befallen these inhabitants ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... up in the garret bedroom, scribbling as fast as pen could fly over paper. He had been guilty of a mistake—so ran the epistle; having decided to leave Whitelaw, he ought never to have requested a continuance of the pension. He begged Lady Whitelaw would forgive this ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... to find a girl of twenty-three scribbling over several pages about the analogy existing between the natural and the spiritual world, or discussing with herself the question: "Are seasons of darkness always occasioned by sin?" or giving a long list of reasons why she differs from commentators upon certain ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... of course, at the British Museum, but that was not at all the same thing as having and holding them, my own property, on my own shelf. Now and then I have bought a volume of the raggedest and wretchedest aspect, dishonoured with foolish scribbling, torn, blotted—no matter, I liked better to read out of that than out of a copy that was not mine. But I was guilty at times of mere self-indulgence; a book tempted me, a book which was not one of those for which I really craved, a luxury which prudence might bid me forego. ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... behind the times is a peculiarly unfortunate trait in a man, who, like myself, is condemned to earn his bread in the sweat of his fountain-pen. In what other profession must a man be so emphatically up to the minute as in this scribbling profession of ours? Only yesterday I walked into an editor's office and suggested a three-thousand word review of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," which I told him was one of the greatest novels in any language. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... man, fiercely scribbling, looked up. "Wait a minute, can't you?" he said. "I ain't through 'Kenneth' yet." He wrote ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... David! It is early days to call you by a dearer name, but the sweet word is on the tip of my pen, and I can hardly help myself from scribbling it. You wished me to tell you what is happening in Rome, and here I am beginning to write already, though when and how and where this letter is to reach you, I must leave it to Fate and to yourself to determine. Fancy! Only eighteen hours since we parted! ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... fresh horses to be got ready I amused myself at every station studying the curious inscriptions and ornamentations by scribbling travellers on the caravanserai and post-house walls. Laboriously engraved quotations from the Koran were the most numerous, then the respective names of travellers, in characters more or less elaborate according to the education of the writer, and generally ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of San Jose, Commonly known as "our friend J.J." Weary of scribbling for daily bread, Weary of writing what nobody read, Slept one day at his desk and dreamed That an angel before him stood and beamed With compassionate eyes upon ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the party had Hamilton permitted other attentions. But she gave him all the dances he demanded, and although her bright manner did not lapse toward sentiment for a moment, he went home so elated that he sat scribbling poetry until Laurens pelted him with ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... rascal, and will prove it in ink—or in his blood, if I did not believe him to be too much of a poet to risk it! If he has forty reviews at his back, as he has the Quarterly, I would have at him in his scribbling capacity now that he has begun with me; but I will do nothing underhand; tell him what I say from me and every ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... manager stood with his back to him, scribbling on a piece of paper. His shadow lay at the foot of ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... signs of sounds. These can not be at once combined into syllables, and even after the combination has been achieved and the written word can be made from the syllables it is not yet understood. Yet the child could see, even before the first instruction in writing or the first attempt at scribbling, every individual letter in the dimensions in which he writes it later. So, too, the speechless child hears every sound before he understands syllables and words, and he understands them before he can speak ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... best of the sporting journalists are clever and cultured gentlemen, who give refinement, to every subject that they touch. But a certain kind of writing is done by pariahs, who are not much of a credit to our society, and I was interested by the style in which these scribbling vermin spoke of the dead man. Their gush was a trifle nauseating; their mean worship of money gave one a shiver, and the relish with which they described their hero's exploits would have been comic were it ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... sacred wit, Who does i' th' darkness of his glory sit; And as the moon who first receives the light, With which she makes these nether regions bright, So does he shine, reflecting from afar The rays he borrowed from a better star; For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow, Admired by all the scribbling herd below, From French tradition while he does dispense Unerring truths, 't is schism, a damned offense, To question his, or trust ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Go—Get thee hence to Paternoster Row, Thy patrons wave a duodecimo! (Best form for letters from a distant land, It fits the pocket, nor fatigues the hand.) Then go, once more the joyous work commence[14] With stores of anecdote, and grains of sense, Oh may Mammas relent, and Sires forgive! And scribbling Sons grow dutiful ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... 1 I commenced two excellent customs. The first was that I always had upon my table a quire of large-sized scribbling-paper sewn together: and upon this paper everything was entered: translations into Latin and out of Greek, mathematical problems, memoranda of every kind (the latter transferred when necessary to the subsequent pages), and generally with the date of the day. This is a ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... 19. I have been scribbling this morning, and I believe shall hardly fill this side to-day, but send it as it is; and it is good enough for naughty girls that won't write to a body, and to a good boy like Presto. I thought to have sent this to-night, but was kept by company, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Being off the road at Possum Gully, you escape them.) For the love of life, next time you write, fire into the news at once and don't half-fill your letter telling me about the pen and your bad writing. I am scribbling at the rate Of 365 miles an hour, and don't care a jot whether it is good ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... DEAR SISTER MARY: At lunch the captain said, "I'll soon show you land! It will be Mizzenhead, the farthest southwest point of Ireland." This is the first pen put to paper since I wrote you at the Delaware breakwater, eleven days ago. Think of it, oh, ye scribbling fairies, almost two weeks and not a letter written ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... even than it was before. She did not know what Vandeloup was going to say, but a great dread seized her, and with dry lips and clenched hands she sat staring at him as if paralysed. Kilsip stole a look at her and then rubbed his hands together, while Calton sat absolutely still, scribbling figures ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, or money without scribbling.... I am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you would tell me his name,"—Letters and Works (Lord Wharncliffe's ed.), vol. iii, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with the coroner, had said little but had listened to all. Occasionally he would dart from the room, and return a few moments later, scribbling in his notebook. He was an alert little man, with beady black eyes ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Lincoln would frequently make political and other speeches; he was calm, logical and clear always. He attended trials, went to court always, read the Revised Statutes of Indiana, dated 1824, heard law speeches, and listened to law trials. Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry, and the like.... In Gentryville, about one mile west of Thomas Lincoln's farm, Lincoln would go and tell his jokes and stories, &c., and was so odd, original and humorous and witty, that all the people in town would gather around him. He would ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... it said that "Cervantes sneered Spain's chivalry away?" I know not; and the author of such a line scarcely deserves to be remembered. How the rage for scribbling tempts people at the present day to write about lands and nations of which they know nothing, or worse than nothing. Vaya! It is not from having seen a bull-fight at Seville or Madrid, or having spent a handful of ounces at a posada in either of those places, kept perhaps ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... all of the Regulars, they are most entertaining, though their statements usually require a few grains of salt before swallowing. One of these bold Border men, known to us as "Nobby," is awfully disgusted at my bad habit of letter writing. As a rule I am scribbling when he strolls up, and get greeted with the jeering remark, "At it again." Some days back, after reflectively expectorating, he delivered himself thus on letter writing: "I don't often write. When I do, I sez 'I'm all right; 'ow's yerself?' A soldier's ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... murmured Irais aside to Minora—unnecessary advice, for her pencil was scribbling as ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... him at the next as too intelligent to be false. They were both high and lame, and, whims for whims, he preferred them to any he had met in a like relation. It was probable enough she would leave them behind—exchange them for politics or "smartness" or mere prolific maternity, as was the custom of scribbling daubing educated flattered girls in an age of luxury and a society of leisure. He noted that the water-colours on the walls of the room she sat in had mainly the quality of being naives, and reflected that naivete in art is like a zero ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... and clearer consciences, than they have had since they left Eton at seventeen? Would Smith have been a happier man as a briefless barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... groves Was scribbling wit or sipping "Massic," Or singing those delicious loves Which after ages reckon classic, He wrote one day—'twas no vagary— These ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... some of the others, but the contractors declared we were a lot of criminals farmed out by the State. And, as a lot of their workers really are convicts, I had no show. I don't know what to do—help me if you can. I don't know where they're taking us, but if I get a chance I'll send word. I'm scribbling this under my hat in the train, and I'm going to toss it out the window. I hope you ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... and successful exponent of the new revolutionary ideas—making Corinne and her prototype seem dim and ineffectual—was undoubtedly George Sand. The badly-dressed woman who earned her living by scribbling novels, and said to M. du Camp, as she sat before him in silence rolling her cigarette, "Je ne dis rien parceque je suis bete," has exercised a profound influence throughout Europe, an influence which, in the Sclavonic countries especially, has helped to give impetus to the resolution ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... know almost nothing of his early years except that he was left an orphan before he was eleven, under the guardianship of an uncle. Perhaps we should mention that Murillo early showed his inclination to make pictures by scribbling the margin of his school books with designs that in no wise illustrated the text therein. With this as a guide his guardian early apprenticed him to Juan del Castillo, another uncle, and an artist of ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... and paper. He took up the pen. But after scrawling and scribbling for ten minutes, the sheet was filled with circles and arabesques, and the one ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... focused on the range rider. As he moved forward and took the oath the scribbling reporters found in his movements a pantherish lightness, in his compact figure rippling muscles perfectly under control. There was an appearance of sunburnt competency about him, a crisp confidence born of the rough-and-tumble life of the outdoor West. He did not look like a cold-blooded ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... the platform was the entrance, and on either side benches arranged in rows followed the curve of the wall. There was a long table on the platform, at which sat the lieutenant who had summoned us, with a sergeant seated on either hand. The sergeants were acting as court clerks, scribbling busily on sheets of blue ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... clattered away with him in the direction of Cromwell Road. Stopping at a particular house in a side street leading from thence, he bade the cabman wait,—and, ascending the steps, busied himself for some moments in scribbling something rapidly in pencil on a leaf of his note-book by the light of the hanging-lamp in the doorway. He then gave a loud knock, and inquired of the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... am sorry that our journal has fallen so into neglect; but I see no chance of amendment. All my scribbling propensities will be far more than gratified in writing nonsense for the press; so that any gratuitous labor of the pen becomes peculiarly distasteful. Since the last date, we have paid a visit of nine days to Boston and Salem, whence we returned a week ago yesterday. Thus we lost above ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'chiefly negative,' and 'founded on the accident of their colloquial necessities.' They are amply compensated, too, by 'the prodigious defects of the French in all the higher qualities of prose composition.' Even their handwriting is the 'very vilest form of scribbling which exists in Europe,' and they and the Germans are 'the two most gormandising races in Europe.' They display a brutal selfishness in satisfying their appetites, whereas Englishmen at all public meals are remarkably conspicuous ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... swords, are seated on benches at the prison entrance. Passing them, we are hurried into a white-washed chamber, where a frowning functionary, in brown-holland and silver lace, with a panama on his head, and a long cigar in his mouth, sits at a desk scribbling something on stamped paper. He pauses to examine and peruse a large letter which our sergeant hands him, and which contains a statement of our arrest, with full particulars of our misdeeds. The document is folded in ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... probably the absence at the moment of a larger lion. The bigger beast would come and the smaller would then incontinently vanish. It was at all events characteristic, and what was of the essence of it was grist to his scribbling mill, matter for his journalising hand. That hand already, in intention, played over it, the "motive," as a sign of the season, a feature of the time, of the purely expeditious and rough-and-tumble ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... at Jenny's this evening. Amelia had a bad headache and could not come. Jenny idled over her lessons, and at last took a book and began to read. I studied awhile with Mr. Underhill. At last he said, scribbling something on a bit ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... and art that it would be strange if he did not betray an occasional soupcon of partisanship. His treatment of Chateaubriand, Benjamin Constant, Madame de Stael, Oberman, Madame de Kruedener, and all the queer saints and scribbling sinners of that period is as entertaining as it is instructive. It gives one the spiritual complexion of the period in clear lines and vivid colors, which can never be forgotten. Nearly all that makes France France is to be found in these volumes—its wit, its ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... class eloquence high amongst the fine arts. But by eloquence I mean something more than Dr. Johnson defines it to be, "the art of speaking with fluency and elegance." This is an art which is now possessed to a certain degree by every boarding-school miss. Every scribbling young lady can now string sentences and sentiments together, and can turn a period harmoniously. Upon the strength of these accomplishments they commence heroines, and claim the privileges of the order; privileges which go to an indefinite and most alarming extent. Every heroine ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... jewel. Forgive me, dear Johnnie, for complaining so much to you; but my heart grows lighter when I speak to you thus. To you I have indeed always told all that affected me. Did you receive my little note the day before yesterday? Perhaps you don't care much for my scribbling, for you are at home; but I read and read your letters again ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... poor," Lady Throckmorton explained; "because Denis was only a poor young journalist, scribbling night and day, and scarcely earning his ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mademoiselle Inez—" confound it, that's too intimate; well, here goes: "Monsieur O'Malley presente ses respects—" that will never do; and then, after twenty other abortive attempts, I began thoughtlessly sketching heads upon the paper, and scribbling with wonderful facility in fifty different ways: "Ma charmante amie—Ma plus chere Inez," etc., and in this most useful and profitable occupation did ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... necessarily for publication like her father—nor as a guarantee that the scribbling genius was within her, like Dot—but for the love of ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... his scribbling, he [i.e., Cochlaeus] has never yet, so far as I know, disclosed what are his own opinions about Christian doctrine; and therefore his empty and scurrilous treatises miss their mark, and are justly held in derision by learned men.... But I, renowned monarch, that ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... and be certain that any little event or observation concerning you, however trifling it may appear, will have my warmest attention and interest. Adieu, my dear general, I cannot lay down the pen, and I enjoy the greatest pleasure in scribbling you this long letter. Don't forget me, my dear general; be ever as affectionate to me as you have been; these sentiments I deserve from the ardent ones which fill my heart. With the highest respect, with the most sincere and tender friendship that ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... to hand this to Mrs. Shadd the very first thing upon her return to-morrow evening," she said, hastily scribbling off a note and putting it in an envelope, which by chance she left unsealed, so that on my way back below-stairs I was able to read it. What it said was that she would be only too happy to oblige Mrs. Shadd, and was very sorry ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... open one of the end shutters of the room, drawn a small table towards the window, opened upon it her portable writing-desk (an article of use without which she never travelled), and was hastily scribbling, though with a hand that shook a little at ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... This, he said, could not be done without permission of the admiral, but, if granted, he would willingly do as he was requested. No sooner had the interpreter translated the captain's reply than the great man, taking out writing materials from a box, seated himself on the floor, and began scribbling away on a scroll of paper, in wonderfully large characters, a note to the envoy. As line after line was finished he rolled it up, and then, with due formality, handed it to the captain, who had the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... into his waistcoat, and in his most didactic of tones.—"From a remote period, the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping,' (Labia Dormientium)—what book do you suppose that title to designate?—A ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the groundlessness of her fears, Sara hastened away to Selwyn's study, and found him, seated at his desk, scribbling some hurried motes concerning various cases among his patients for the enlightenment of the medical man who was taking charge of the practice ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... to hand out this cup and it goes to St. Nicholas Vernon because he sprawled the nice clean sky all up with scribbling and all that kind of stuff. Nobody read the message but that makes no difference, because the proof of the message is in the sending just the same as the proof of the pudding is in the eating. ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... time finished his scribbling and rummaging, and he now beckoned Karpathy to the table, and counted out before him a bundle of hundred-florin notes in six lots, together with four florins in twenty-kreutzer pieces, and thirty red copper ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... sent abroad. These flags he used to move about as he heard from time to time where the lads were. We need not be surprised that among these boys were some who ardently loved him, and that they used to give expression to their feelings by scribbling on the wall with a piece of chalk, as boys will do, "God bless the Kernel," "C. G. is a jolly good fellow," or "Long life to our dear teacher, Gordon." The ragged school at Gravesend still retains the Chinese flags which he presented to the boys, flags which he had himself captured from ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Larry again had no time to plan. Rather, there was nothing he could plan, for only one way was open to him. He dashed into the pawnshop and into the back room. At the Duchess's desk Hunt was scribbling at ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... of the stories that got into print and traveled far. Perhaps, as the old pilot suggests, he wrote some of them himself, for Horace Bixby remembers that "Sam was always scribbling ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the door and was running for all he was worth down the valley. Three quarters of an hour later he startled a quiet and peaceful telegraphist by darting, breathless and dirty, into a sleepy country post office, snatching a telegraph form and scribbling down a ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... "doctors," moving to carry away their ruler. I saw the sleek body of Carna on a table but a dozen feet away. Three of the tall white-robed insects bent over her, one moving a control in a great lamp device, another scribbling on a pad, and the third was speaking. Evidently the Zoorph was getting the third degree, too. I lay back weakly. I felt as if I had been through a washing machine and some of my buttons ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... difficulty occurred to dispose of "busie Mr. Pryn," as Whitelocke calls him. It is said he wished to be one of the Barons of the Exchequer, but he was made the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, "purposely to employ his head from scribbling against the state and bishops;" where they put him to clear the Augean stable of our national antiquities, and see whether they could weary out his restless vigour. Prynne had, indeed, written till he found no antagonist would reply; and now he rioted ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... make one unjust to oneself, suspicious, and morbidly sensitive. And as I realize now I have always had plenty of such causes. All my friends and relatives have always taken a condescending tone to my writing, and never ceased urging me in a friendly way not to give up real work for the sake of scribbling. I have hundreds of friends in Moscow, and among them a dozen or two writers, but I cannot recall a single one who reads me or considers me an artist. In Moscow there is a so-called Literary Circle: talented people ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... weeks. She had considered me worth looking at, in spite of my unfashionable garments; and I blessed her for the amiable condescension, and thought her in return as beautiful as an angel. I never saw her again—but I caught myself scribbling her name on my desk, and I covered many sheets of waste paper with ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... should say, John Phillips had entirely given up his uncle's political principles, and was known among his tavern-comrades as an Anti-Oliverian. We have no express publications in his name of this date, but he seems to have been scribbling anonymously. Of the literary industry of his more sedate and likeable elder brother, Edward, there is authentic evidence. A New World of Words, or a General Dictionary, containing the Terms, Etymologies, Definitions, and Perfect Interpretations, of the proper Significations ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... made up, of course, of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such books—though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper, upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists, poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... carried out and laid in the sun every day, with the forecast that it may be demolished at any moment. The confinement is dreadful. To sit and listen as if waiting for death in a horrible manner would drive me insane. I don't know what others do, but we read when I am not scribbling in this. H. borrowed somewhere a lot of Dickens's novels, and we reread them by the dim light in the cellar. When the shelling abates H. goes to walk about a little or get the "Daily Citizen," which is still issuing a tiny sheet at twenty-five and fifty cents a copy. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Populi'; he was 'Aesop.' The unsigned articles were also mostly his. Having at last, after many adventures and false starts, found his vocation, Paine stuck to it. He spent the rest of his days with a pen in his hand, scribbling his advice and obtruding his counsel on men and nations. Both were ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... hurried eclipse and the sudden tranquillity of night—the transmutation which produced all this was to Thor hopeful and in its way inspiriting. In the last rays of light he drew out his fountain-pen and the scribbling-book he kept for notes by the way, writing quickly ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What are you doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here half your ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... virtues as only the greatest writers of fiction possess. Probably all Scott's faults spring from one fundamental weakness: he never had a high ideal of his own art. He wrote to make money, and was inclined to regard his day's labor as "so much scribbling." Hence his style is frequently slovenly, lacking vigor and concentration; his characters talk too much, apparently to fill space; he caters to the romantic fashion (and at the same time indulges his Tory prejudice) ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... romance is somewhat stale. Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale, Wampum and calumets and forests dreary, Once so attractive, now begins to weary. Uncas and Magawisca please us still, Unreal, yet idealized with skill; But every poetaster, scribbling witling, From the majestic oak his stylus whittling, Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear The monotone in which so much we hear Of "stoics of the wood," and "men without ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... favorite book, however, was "The Pilgrim's Progress;" and when he came to that part which treats of Doubting Castle and Giant Despair, I thought invariably of him and his desolate old country seat. So much did the idea amuse me, that I took to scribbling about it under the trees in the park; and in a few days had made some progress in a poem, in which I had given a description of the place, under the name of Doubting Castle, and personified my uncle ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... routes. There are certain tendencies of mind which, when a man has them, refuse to be suppressed. The journalistic instinct is one of them. Do what you will with the man in whom it is planted, he can never keep his fingers from the pen. Make him a doctor and you will find him scribbling columns for the press on hygiene in the house and the benefits of breathing through the nose. Send him into the army and he will fill his leisure by writing tales of tiger-shoots and essays on the art of pig-sticking. So with the artist. The man born with the gift to draw finds ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... birth. The Plain Dealer and the Country Wife, his chief performances, are conspicuous amongst the comedies of the Restoration dramatists for sheer brutality. During Pope's boyhood he was an elderly rake about town, having squandered his intellectual as well as his pecuniary resources, but still scribbling bad verses and maxims on the model of Rochefoucauld. Pope had a very excusable, perhaps we may say creditable, enthusiasm for the acknowledged representatives of literary glory. Before he was twelve years old he had persuaded some one to take him ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... your heart, for you?" said Corson as the noise fell away a little. "I tell you what—" he broke off with a chuckle, seeing that she had taken a pencil and a piece of paper from her purse and was scribbling hastily: "Taking notes on ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... sine linea, was his sole hope while he was accumulating masses of notes; and as Oldys never used his pen from the weak passion of scribbling, but from the urgency of preserving some substantial knowledge, or planning some future inquiry, he amassed nothing but what he wished to remember. Even the minuter pleasures of settling a date, or classifying a title-page, were enjoyments to his incessant pen. Everything was acquisition. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli |
