"Writing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time she unclosed her eyes Valerie sat cross-legged on the grass by the hammock, the writing case on her lap, scribbling away as though ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... again before me the letter from Count Oliva. Pardon my recalling it to your remembrance. Before all others, the aged count deserves a detailed reply. You proposed writing to him with your own hand. Doubtless, he loves you as ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... month—one never knew when he was going, or when he would return. He went, like his hero, Silas Simpkins, through the byways of New England, stopping at night at the farm-houses, or often sleeping out under the stars. And then, perhaps, he would write another book. He wrote only when he felt like writing. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... most authors, alphabetic writing is not only considered an artificial invention, but supposed to have been wholly unknown in the early ages of the world. Its antiquity, however, is great. Of this art, in which the science of grammar originated, we are not able to trace the commencement. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the Russian gentleman before named, writes to me in the idiom of a foreigner, from Peoria, on his progress through the western country. "I am anxious," he remarks, "to take advantage of the first opportunity of writing to you from this remote western world, where since seven days I did not meet with any other beings but wolves and money-getting Yankees. I must acknowledge that one must have a large lot of curiosity to visit ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... negotiation should fall to the ground and be considered null and void; we, reverting to our original and hopeless position of soi-disant strangers or "friends" at a distance, and looking upon the interlude of our letter-writing as if it had ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... In writing thus I do not necessarily disparage the practices of that generation. In the unconscious recesses of its being Society knew what it was about. The cake was really very small in proportion to the appetites of consumption, and no one, if it were ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Writing of the time of Romeo and Juliet SHAKSPEARE reports dialogue between two fighting men of the houses of Capulet and Montague. Meeting Sampson in a public place in Verona, Abram truculently asks, "Do you bite your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... cease writing?" said the reverend father, in amazement. Then, addressing the princess, who shared in his astonishment, he added, as he glanced contemptuously at the socius, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... would take them to her at once. Placing the two boys on his shoulders he walked along till he came to a river. He set down Nir and carried Sarwar safely across, but as he was going back for the other, behold, an alligator seized him. It was the will of God: what remedy is there against the writing of Fate? The two boys, separated by the river, sat down and wept in their sorrow. In the early morning a washerman was up and spreading his clothes. He heard the two boys weeping and came to see. He had pity on them and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... inscription bearing the recent date of 1870! Only twenty years or so "on sentry" at the grave, and already relieved from duty! There was likewise a miscellaneous heap of old crosses, etc., of iron and wood, the writing on which had disappeared, and they might reasonably have been condemned as of no further service; but that gravestones in perfect preservation should have been thought to have served their full purpose in a little over twenty years, and be cast aside as no longer ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... we must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed. Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, a la Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to day. There is other writing I should want to do,—but there is no paper, and I don't know how ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... short for Lois. But on reaching the hotel she went straight to her own room and stayed there. So also after dinner, which of course brought her to the company, she went back to her solitude and her work. She must write home, she said. Yet writing was not Lois's sole reason for shutting ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... indecorous, Miss Joliffe termed such witticisms, and had Bellevue House painted in gold upon the fanlight over the door. But the Cullerne painter wrote Bellevue too small, and had to fill up the space by writing House too large; and the organist sneered again at the disproportion, saying it should have been the other way, for everyone knew it was a house, but none knew ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... as I entered the house, my wife took me in her arms, and kissed me; at which, having not been used to the touch of that odious animal for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour. At the time I am writing, it is five years since my last return to England. During the first year, I could not endure my wife or children in my presence; the very smell of them was intolerable; much less could I suffer them to eat ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... I am writing as an old friend to urge you to get right in this matter of arresting the suffrage pickets. Of course the only way for you to get right is to resign. It has apparently become impossible for you to stay in office and do your duty. The ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and from that which he had just done. For he did not look her way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood once to snuff a candle, doing it with an absent face: and once to look, but still absently, and as if he read no word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink still wet, upon the table. After each of these interruptions he resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the direction ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... witchcraft gainful, and, while herself almost a child, had brought away children as offerings to the Devil, now betook herself, with another girl, Lisalda, of the same age, to denouncing all the rest. By word of mouth or in writing she revealed all; with the liveliness, the noise, the emphatic gestures of a Spaniard, entering truly or falsely into a hundred impure details. She frightened, amused, wheedled her judges, drawing them after her like fools. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... for the household and furnishing the royal table with game and every kind of delicacy. The settlement of his dispute with the Holy See was the only important business that remained to be transacted. Charles prevailed upon both Clement and Alfonso to state their cases in writing and to place them in the hands of jurisconsults, to report upon. There is little doubt that his own mind was already made up in favor of the duke; but he did not pass sentence until the following December, nor was the decision published before April in the year 1531. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... there was a curious feminine undertone in him which revealed itself in the quality of his voice, the delicate texture of his skin, the gentleness of his touch and ways, the attraction he had for children and the common people. A lady in the West, writing to me about him, spoke of his "great mother-nature." He was receptive, sympathetic, tender, and met you, not in a positive, aggressive manner, but more or less in a passive or neutral mood. He did not give his friends merely his mind, he gave them himself. It ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... the occasion for defending at great length his own policy of Reconstruction, and arraigned with unsparing severity the course of Congress in interposing a policy of its own. The most successful political humorist of the day(1), writing in pretended support of the President, described his tour as being undertaken "to arouse the people to the danger of concentrating power in the hands of Congress instead of diffusing it through one man." Wit and sarcasm were lavished at the expense of the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... packet bore the magic name of the Bon Marche, Paris, and contained patterns of material for the frock in which Lilias intended to array herself at the garden parties of the coming season; and the narrow envelope, with its bold, even writing, was a familiar object in the Rendell household, whose ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to writing fables. Here is one: Once upon a time a bird was caught in a snare. The more it struggled to free itself, the more it got entangled. Exhausted, it resolved to wait with the vain hope that the fowler, when he came, would set it at liberty. His appearance, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... highly interested, took down the young man's statement in writing, and, after getting a more accurate description of the house itself, allowed his ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... are two serious difficulties in our path; first, to make the plant itself consent to give its evidence; second, through plant and instrument combined, to induce it to give it in writing. It is comparatively easy to make a rebellious child obey: to extort answers from plants is indeed a problem! By many years of close contiguity, however, I have come to have some understanding of their ways. I take this opportunity to make public confession of various acts of cruelty which ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... contributions,' prompted half by the vanity of the donor and half by his indifference to the objects presented. We had not, indeed, the 'old pump' or the parish stocks, as at Little Pedlington, but there were things as interesting. Here were a few old pictures given by the Government, and labelled in writing; the car of Blanchard's balloon, and a cutting from a newspaper describing his arrival; portraits of the 'Citizen King' in his white trousers; ditto of Napoleon III., name pasted over; the flagstone, with an inscription, celebrating the landing of Louis XVIII., removed from the pier—in deference ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... hero always accompanied by his love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written his "Rasselas," and Beckford his "Vathek," and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Breakfast passed, and Aaron knew that he must leave. There was something in Lilly's bearing which just showed him the door. In some surprise and confusion, and in some anger, not unmingled with humorous irony, he put his things in his bag. He put on his hat and coat. Lilly was seated rather stiffly writing. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... all, Nina was everything, Nina was the first consideration. Something must be done at once. As soon as she could bear it, that ceremony must be gone through which should have been performed long ago. He was young, he was impatient, he would fain be at work without delay; so he turned to his writing-table, and began opening certain letters that had already followed him into France, but that he had laid aside without examination, in the excitement of ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... tried to do so, all thoughts of the Culm people and their life, and went to writing the note which Skipper Ben was to carry to Mr. Gray on his return to Hastings. When it was finished, he unlocked his trunk, took a look at the thumbed, worn little Bible which had been mamma's; at the familiar covers of his school-books, which brought up a hundred visions of pleasant, ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... established a contrast. And yet, how imperfect, how inadequate is the catalogue of facts I have furnished in the foregoing pages! I have said nothing of the spread of instruction by the diffusion of the arts of reading and writing, through public schools, and the consequent creation of a reading community; the modes of manufacturing public opinion by newspapers and reviews, the power of journalism, the diffusion of information public and private by the post-office and cheap mails, the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Scotch mathematician and engineer, who had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, that complained of the treatment which he received in a full and formal protest, which he addressed to Peter in writing, and which is still on record. He makes out a very strong case in respect to the injustice with which ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... I am describing a thing as if I were writing for some other people to see. I may as well go on that way. After all, a man never can quite stand off and look at himself as if he was the only person concerned. He must have an audience, or make believe to have one, even if it is only himself. Nor, on the whole, should I be unwilling, ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... door are found locked on the inside—the man dead in a pool of his own blood. The clearing up of this mystery leads the reader through many exciting adventures. "Something exceptional in the way of detective stories. It is such stories as these that dignify the art of fiction writing."—Boston Transcript. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... genealogical trees traced their line far back into the past; old servants, grown gray in the house, waited upon the child; and, in a corner of one of the great apartments, an old soldier, gray, too, and shattered in health, once the friend of Washington and Greene, was writing the history of the battles in which he had drawn his sword for his ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Writing about people when one is alone under an electric lamp, and thinking about people when one stands watching the rain in the dark streets, are two different diversions. When one writes under an electric lamp one pompously marshals ideas; one ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words quarante-deux, * which ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a long slip of parchment, all covered with writing, to Randal, and it went round among us, but few there were clerks, save myself. I looked on it, and the names, many of them attested by seals with coat armour, were plain ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... spiritually married for nigh on eleven years. These last fifteen years, I have lived a martyr's life. God sent me an angel in 1833. May this angel never quit me again till death! I have lived by my writing. Let me live a little by love! Take care of her rather than of me; for I would fain give her all, even my portion in heaven; and especially let us ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... writing so much. I wrote without noticing. A hundred pages would be too little and ten lines would be enough. Ten lines would be enough to ask you to be a nurse. Since I left Skvoreshniki I've been living ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... previously understood it. But the letter is a final illustration of the modesty and greatness of Turgenev's spirit; also of his true Russian patriotism, his desire to see his country advanced in the eyes of the world. When we reflect that at the moment of his writing this letter, he himself was still regarded in Europe as Russia's foremost author, there is true nobility in his remark, "How happy I am to have been your contemporary!" Edwin Booth said that a Christian was ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... a letter from each of his sisters awaiting him, and he tore them open more eagerly than was his wont. Ida, writing from her home in Northampton, invited him to come down for a week at some vague future date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... return from church I found Mr. Postmaster General Blair in my room, writing the above note, which he immediately suspended, and verbally communicated the President's invitation; and stated that the President's purpose was to have some conversation with the delegations of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, in explanation ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... forests and prairies, the reedy swamps of our southern shores, the cliffs that protect our eastern coasts, by the currents of the Mexican gulf and the tide streams of the Bay of Fundy, with his sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, making the drawings and writing the biographies of the Quadrupeds of America, a work in no respect inferior to that on our birds, which he began to publish about five years ago. The plates, on double imperial folio paper, engraved and colored by Mr. Bowen after the original ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... name. There is a man of letters at Florence, doubtless writing our annals from hearsay at this moment, called ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... or an all-fired racket, or more space than there is in the whole of England. I have been in this place, though, once before, and for more than a week. The old man was advertising for me then, and a chum I had with me had a notion of getting a couple quid out of him by writing a lot of silly nonsense in a letter. That lark did not come off, though. We had to clear out—and none too soon. But this time I've a chum waiting for me in London, ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... small lion passant, being a Mint mark. The reverse, is a human figure with an enormous pair of wings,[6] holding a book in its left hand, which book rests on an altar, and with its other is represented as if writing in it; the word Constitution is already seen there. The figure is naked, except a slight drapery on the left arm; behind the figure is a bundle of staves, like the Roman Fasces, surmounted by the cap of liberty, and behind the altar is a cock standing on one leg; the inscription ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... round began to titter, which called attention to the hat, and the inscription soon caught the eye of Parsons, who at once said: "May it please your honour, I crave the protection of the Court, Brother Sullivan has been stealing my hat and writing his ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... converse. I often have wanted a companion. As for an amanuensis that is only a nominal task, I write as fast as most people, and I cannot follow my ideas, let me scribble for life, as I may say; and as for my writing being illegible, that's the compositor's concern not mine. It's his business to make it out, and therefore I never have mine copied. But I wanted a beautiful companion and friend—I wouldn't have an ugly one ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... lieutenancy was offered, in order to separate him from his partizans, he at first refused it; subsequently, however, he accepted, on conditions dictated by himself, calculated to leave him wholly his own master. These conditions, reduced to writing in the form of an Indenture between the King and the Duke, extended his lieutenancy to a period of ten years; allowed him, besides the entire revenue of Ireland, an annual subsidy from England; full power to let the King's land, to levy and maintain soldiers, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Gilmour pensively. "I don't remember poor Ted writing me anything about it, but I've no doubt the man was our Mrs Craddock's husband, and, if so, that will make me take an additional interest in her. Run upstairs, Nell, and get ready at once, my dear. As soon as you come down we'll start, for ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sought Tyrrel, or whether it was, as in the former case, the circumstance of a light still burning where all around was dark, that attracted her; but her next apparition was close by the side of her unfortunate lover, then deeply engaged in writing, when something suddenly gleamed on a large, old-fashioned mirror, which hung on the wall opposite. He looked up, and saw the figure of Clara, holding a light (which she had taken from the passage) in her extended hand. He stood for ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... called within an hour of the return of Langholm, who repeated these stipulations upstairs, with his own undertaking in regard to Rachel. He would write that night and beg her to call the following day. No, he preferred writing to going to see her, and it took up far less time. But he would write at once. And, as he went downstairs to do so then and there, Langholm asked himself whether an honorable man could meet the Steels again without reading to their faces the notes that he had made ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... replenishment of the soil, the staple areas would, in any case, have declined in value. Even the corn and wheat lands were exhausted by unscientific farming. [Footnote: Gooch, Prize Essay on Agriculture in Va., in Lynchburg Virginian, July 4, 1833; Martin, Gazetteer of Va., 99, 100.] Writing in 1814 to Josiah Quincy, [Footnote: E Quincy, Josiah Quincy, 353.] John Randolph of Roanoke lamented the decline of the seaboard planters. He declared that the region was now sunk in obscurity: what ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... voices they began to discuss "the possession of human beings by occult forces." One spoke of astounding passages set down through automatic writing. Another mentioned psychometry. "But psychometrists got impressions only from the past!" Whereupon they stared at the Russian. Their eyes, which had been lightly touched with a black pencil, were no ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... that writing books was very important and had always noticed that people who wrote 'em were very apt to be late to things. Her only regret, she said, was that Carol and I hadn't had a little more time in which to form habits of promptness before we began on such ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... them eventually to become actual settlers, every man was allowed to take with him a wife; for the support of whom some additional pay and rations, were offered.[1] In reference to this, Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts, in writing to Lord Egmont, respecting the settlement of Georgia, has these remarks; "Plantations labor with great difficulties; and must expect to creep before they can go. I see great numbers of people who would be welcome in that ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the sexes, which we find proclaimed to-day by some writers, and by many talkers, the genius of women would have opened a road through these and all other difficulties much more frequently than it has yet done. At this very hour, instead of defending the intellect of women, just half our writing and talking would be required to defend the intellect of men. But, so long as woman, as a sex, has not provided for herself the same advanced intellectual education to the same extent as men, and so long as ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Craig was to instruct the youth of the country in reading and writing, and the principles of the Christian religion; the Dutch having printed versions of the New Testament, a catechism, and several other tracts, in the language of this and the neighbouring islands. Dr Solander, who was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Ned good-naturedly. "From the Board of Education," he murmured, as he looked at the printing in the upper left hand corner. "I wonder what they are writing to ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the story had been collected a year was required for the writing of it. It is an historical romance of the better sort, with stirring situations, good bits of character drawing and a satisfactory knowledge of the tone and atmosphere of the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of writing I became more and more convinced that no progress could be made towards a sounder view of the theory of descent until people came to understand what the late Mr. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it was that it ever came to be propounded. Until ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... canon on skis. He found the patient in bad condition, suffering from miner's paralysis in its worst form. Still, the old man rallied, affixed his mark in lieu of signature to a letter ordering medicines and other necessaries from Hintzen, and forbade the writing of alarming letters to his relatives. He hoped to weather the storm again as he had done under ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... get it out of my system," he explained half apologetically to himself as he began the writing of a novel. To this task, as to everything else he had undertaken, he brought the entire concentration of his mind and energy, until the book soon began to seem real to him—more real than anything he had done. ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... looked upon him as a very foolish fellow to give up a position in his shop, where he had such good opportunities of learning business ways, in order to go "galivanting off to the woods," where his good writing and correct figuring would be ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... and Minnie. They were all surprised to find how well it fitted to the hand, and how freely the fingers could be moved while it was on. The schloss-vogt said that a man could write with it; and Mr. George placed his hand, with the glove upon it, in the proper position for writing, and then moved his fingers to and fro, as if there had been ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... angel did forgive him, and with a spontaneity and generous forgetfulness which he will ever remember. Nay, more; Agnes—and this touched her husband deeply—even gave up her pleasant acquaintance with that writing fellow, Ferrier, because Ferrier, through no fault of his, was associated, in both their minds, with the terrible time each would have given so much to obliterate from the record of their otherwise cloudless ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the season of letter-writing. A lad in high health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young veins, and the world, and life, and nature bright and welcome to him, looks out, perforce, for some companion to whom he may impart his sense of the pleasure which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later Tom was interrupted in his studies by a knock on the door of his room, and on opening it was handed an unstamped envelope. Somewhat surprised, he drew forth a yellow slip of paper that proved to be a telegraph blank. Tom read the words scrawled across it, in careless, hasty writing. ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... artistic celebrities and craftsmen of Nuremberg, Johann Neudorfer, writing in 1549,[13] names Sigmund Schnitzer merely as Pfeifenmacher und Stadtpfeifer. Had he been also noted as an inventor of a new form of instrument, the fellow-citizen and contemporary chronicler would not have failed to note the fact. If Schnitzer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... a stub of a pencil out of his vest pocket and wrote with great labor on the margin of one of the papers. This writing he tore off and handed to Ditson. Then, without another word, he once more restored his feet to the top of the table and resumed reading as if there was no one ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... began]: I am writing this with my eyes open. The miracle I spoke of came to pass. Also a great many other things have come to pass. You'll realize how hard it is to write about them after that other letter, when I tell you I have learned ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... time to answer some questions of the writer in the interests of "Violin Mastery" which, representing the views and opinions of so eminent and distinctively American a violinist, cannot fail to interest every lover of the Art. Writing from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918), Lieutenant Spalding modestly said that his answers to the questions asked "will have to be simple and short, because my time is very limited, and then, too, having been out of music for more than a year, I feel it difficult to deal in ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... bears the following warning: "This is no place for idlers; go away, good-for-nothing." It is curious to read the names Sodom and Gomorrah, evidently scribbled by a Jew. Low down on the walls small schoolboys have practised writing the Greek alphabet, showing that Greek was included in their curriculum. And once were found written in charcoal, and only partly legible, the words, "Enjoy the fire, Christian," a scoff at the martyrs who, soaked in tar, were burned as ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... noble lawyer, Raoul de Tabarie, denied the prayer of King Amauri, (A.D. 1195-1205,) that he would commit his knowledged to writing, and frankly declared, que de ce qu'il savoit ne feroit-il ja nul borjois son pareill, ne null sage homme lettre, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... by the fall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls made by their upturning roots, would remain patent for thousands of years after the last vestige of the trunks that made them had vanished. Much of this ditch-writing would no doubt be quickly effaced by the flood-action of overflowing streams and rain-washing; but no inconsiderable portion would remain enduringly engraved on ridge-tops beyond such destructive action; for, where all ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... conflict with Von Moltke and Bismarck, and its dire result—the army to surrender as prisoners of war, the officers alone to retain their arms, and by way of mitigating the rigor of these conditions, full permission to return home would be given to any officer, provided he would engage in writing and on honor not to serve again during the war. The generals, save one or two, and these finally acquiesced, felt that the conditions could not be refused; but they were indignant at the clause suggesting that the officers might escape the captivity which ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... weakened by being shortened. What he has extended into a volume of nearly five hundred pages, might have been reduced to a pithy essay of one or two hundred, without sacrificing one essential fact, or injuring the strength of any one of his arguments. The art of writing in our times is the art of condensing; and those who cannot condense write only for readers who have more time at their disposal than they ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... said the Secretary, "is to do as much injury to the armed vessels of France and to make as many captures as possible." He closed saying, "It is scarcely necessary for me, in writing to a brave man who values his own country, its government and its laws, to suggest the usefulness of inculcating upon those under his command the propriety of preserving in their language and conduct the same respect which he himself feels ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... and self-control. He resolved upon doing so many things, which he never did, that people came to speak of him as Constant the Inconstant. He was a fluent and brilliant writer, and cherished the ambition of writing works, "which the world would not willingly let die." But whilst Constant affected the highest thinking, unhappily he practised the lowest living; nor did the transcendentalism of his books atone for the meanness of his life. He frequented the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Sir Lionel went to his desk, and taking out writing materials, began to write a letter. He wrote rapidly, and once or twice glanced furtively at Lady Dudleigh, as though he was fearful that she might overlook his writing. But there was no danger of that. Lady Dudleigh did not ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this book,—if you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago—of those glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is a triumph even with all its sadness,—and if you knew how I long to meet once more the few soldiers who survive of ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... spinning away; the only textile factory that existed at that epoch in New England. He distinguished the production of each of his ugly friends, and assigned peculiar qualities to each; and he had been for years engaged in writing a work on this new discovery, in reference to which he had already compiled a great deal of folio manuscript, and had unguessed at resources still to come. With this suggestive subject he interwove all imaginable learning, collected from his own library, rich ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... manner of folding suggested the office and hasty despatch, he discovered one smaller one, carefully sealed, and hidden so cunningly between the others that at first he did not notice it. He recognized instantly that long, fine, firm writing,—To Monsieur Risler—Personal. It was Sidonie's writing! When he saw it he felt the same sensation he had felt in the ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... the teaching of his Church, derived from the words of St. Paul writing on this subject to the citizens of Rome, 'Let every man be subject to higher powers, for there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God,' and the letter of St. Peter, the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... contrary, any harm was suffered by Lieutenant Hastings, every man taken would be at once hung. Sivajee did not appear put out about it. I do not think he expected any other answer, and imagine that his real object in writing was simply to let them know that I was a prisoner, and so enable him the better to paralyze the attack upon a position which he no ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... younger contemporaries, Eupolis and Aristophanes, were the leading representatives, and which was at high-water mark just before and during the course of the great struggle of the Peloponnesian War, and 'The New Comedy,' a comedy of manners, the two chief exponents of which were Philemon and Menander, writing after Athens had fallen under the Macedonian yoke, and politics were excluded altogether from the stage. Menander's plays in turn were the originals of those produced by Plautus and Terence at Rome, whose existing Comedies afford some faint idea of what the lost masterpieces ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... In writing that paper, so many long-forgotten men, places and incidents came back to memory that I thought my reminiscences might prove interesting to others. I may be occasionally incorrect in dates, or in the sequence of events, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... on the contrary he first procured a ream of vellum, and some sturdy quills: indispensable preliminaries, my worshipful lords, to the writing of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... intends faring farther, to the Geysers or to the springs in Lake County, must cross the spurs of the mountain by stage. Thus Mount Saint Helena is not only a summit, but a frontier; and up to the time of writing it has stayed the progress of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... during the writing of these reminiscences, I have become convinced that the task was undertaken all too soon. One's fiftieth year is indeed an impressive milestone at which one may well pause to take an accounting, but the people with whom I have so long journeyed ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... before. Just when this change began, or how it was effected, is unknown. But already, in March of 1520, the report had spread through Sweden that Gad had turned traitor to his native land, and we find him writing to the people of Stockholm to tell them that he and they had done Christiern wrong, and begging them to reconcile themselves to Christiern as he had done. Gad was a statesman,—a word synonymous ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... manuscript was sent along in parts, and Liszt was the first man to interpret it. On one such occasion we find Liszt writing: "Your 'Walkure' has arrived—and gladly would I sing to you with a thousand voices your 'Lohengrin Chorus'—a wonder, a wonder! Dearest Richard, you are surely a divine man, and my highest joy is to follow you in your flight and be one ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... in my doubt concerning the usefulness of his persistence in re-writing, by my regret that he destroyed so many of his romances, as not worthy of him. "King's chaff is better than other folk's corn" says our proverb. In his day, I bored him by pressing him to write ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... king freed himself from the tyranny of his councillors and established a new precedent for the guidance of his successors. However, the old custom seems to have revived and persisted until late in the nineteenth century, for a Catholic missionary, writing in 1884, speaks of the practice as if it were still in vogue. Another missionary, writing in 1881, thus describes the usage of the Egbas and the Yorubas of West Africa: "Among the customs of the country one of the most curious is unquestionably ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... will drive me mad with your Italian vivacity. I was going to say that our lovers here will be writing volumes to each other. But what are ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drawer he had shut a little while back, and took therefrom a sheet of writing-paper. And when, with the lens from his pocket, he began to examine that paper in comparison with the finger-marks on the board, Plummer and the rector could see that there were also two distinct finger-marks on the paper and one faint one—all red. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... From what do servile works derive their name? A. Servile works derive their name from the fact that such works were formerly done by slaves. Therefore, reading, writing, studying and, in general, all works that slaves did not perform are not considered ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... or the Two Nations" was published in 1845, a year after "Coningsby," and in it the novelist "considered the condition of the people." The author himself, writing in 1870 of this novel, said: "At that time the Chartist agitation was still fresh in the public memory, and its repetition was far from improbable. I had visited and observed with care all the localities introduced, and as an accurate and never exaggerated picture of a remarkable ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... every proposition of the 'Squire, who was ready almost to double on the purchase money; till at last the latter declared point blank that he meant to stick to the property himself; that the agreement was verbal merely, and he would have ownership in writing, in spite of what Major Davis or anybody else could do. It was in vain that the Major protested and threatened prosecution for swindling, and called witnesses to the transaction. Before sunset, Witherpee was the sole ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... must always be less satisfactory than a story that one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale out of your head. The story seems more complete when you are able either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural punishment ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... my case before Mr. Hamilton, whose opinion on the subject you will find here expressed in his own hand-writing." ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... burning words and eloquent speeches; they may write it out in books; they may preach it in sermons. I could not do that. I have as many thoughts as another, but, for want of education, I lack the power to express them in speech or writing. I have not been able to put even this short narrative on paper without obtaining the assistance of a friend. I could not talk, I could not write; but I could act. The humblest, the most uneducated man can do that. I did act; and, by my actions, I protested that I did ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... writing-case, smiling queerly to herself as she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a little ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... of his clothing and his place of residence for a season. He cannot endure the thought of missing a game of football; and as for striped clothes, though very comfortable, perhaps, he is sure they would not be becoming. Suppose this agreement to return a part should be put in writing, and after fulfilling it he should be sued by the bank for the remainder, and also prosecuted by the State for committing the theft. Very naturally he would present the writing in court to show that he had been discharged from the crime and also from ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... in prison and dying on Tower Hill, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was writing from abroad imperishable letters to her friends. We may turn away from politics for a moment to observe her and her career. Mr. Wortley Montagu had been appointed Ambassador to Constantinople, and had set out for his post, accompanied by the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... below shifted from one foot to the other, and chafed his gloved hands softly together to keep them warm. He had no time to write letters on unofficial writing-paper, nor to smoke cigars or read novels with his feet on a chair, with the choice of looking out at the queer stream of human life moving by below the window on the opposite side of the Bowery. He ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... crisply white, would make any further characterization superfluous. The couch made you think of a plump grandmother of bygone days, a beruffled white fichu across her ample, comfortable bosom. Then there was the writing desk; a substantial structure that bore no relation to the pindling rose-and-cream affairs that graced the guest rooms. It was the solid sort of desk at which an English novelist of the three-volume school might have written a whole row of books without losing his dignity or cramping ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... during the months of August, September and October, for the collection of a centenary offering, to be applied to the Superannuation Fund, Book Room, Parsonages, Missionary, and other objects. Dr. Ryerson, as one of a deputation, attended a large number of meetings. Writing from Brockville, he mentions ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson |
