"Scribbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons, and land-owners! having at the risk of all popularity, just given a coup de patte to certain sages extremely the fashion at present, I am not going to let you off without an admonitory flea in the ear. Don't suppose that any mere scribbling and typework will suffice to answer the scribbling and typework set at work to demolish you—write down that rubbish you can't—live it down you may. If you are rich, like Squire Hazeldean, do good with your money; if you are poor, like Signor Riccabocca, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... give up his mind to anything but drawing,—as annoying to his father as Galileo's experiments were to his parent; as unmeaning to him as Gibbon's History was to George III.,—"Scribble, scribble, scribble; Mr. Gibbon, I perceive, sir, you are always a-scribbling." No perception of a new power, no sympathy with the abandonment to a specialty not indorsed by fashions and traditions, but without which abandonment genius cannot easily be developed. At last the father yielded, and the son was apprenticed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... sentences—excited, alert, like a nervous horse dancing at a shadow, ready at the vaguest rumor to rush into a sensation, how quiet, prosaic, and even peaceful the court room seemed! That morning when we entered it was only partly filled, and in the space behind the railing the clerk of the court was scribbling, the lawyers were lolling, certain individuals looking like janitors were wandering idly about, and at his high desk the judge was writing steadily, his fine, white hand moving across the paper, his eyes now and then glancing aside as if he were thinking and paying no attention ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... 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 ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... always scribbling when not at the wheel," said Bixby, "but the best thing he ever did was the burlesque of old Isaiah Sellers. He didn't write it for print, but only for his own amusement and to show to a few of the boys. Bart Bowen, who was with him on ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... exercise. As soon as the first bustle of opening and shutting the desks was over, he looked around the room, and saw some ruling lines across their slates, others wiping them all over on both sides, with sponges, others scribbling, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... of this noble pair were the long lines of very pale and anxious faces (I really must except my own, for my face never looked anxious till I thought of marrying, or pale till I took to scribbling), the possessors of which were experiencing a little the torment of Tantalus. The palisades, those graves of sand, turned into a rich compost by the ever-recurring burial, were directly under the windows, and the land-breeze came over them, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... him! Here's a fuss! That I should such twaddle as this discuss. Was it for this that I left the school? That the scribbling desk, and the slavish rule, And the narrow walls, that our spirits cramp, Should be met with again in the midst of the camp? No! Idle and heedless, I'll take my way, Hunting for novelty every day; Trust to the moment with dauntless mind, And give not a glance or before or behind. For this to the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in vain to find A likeness for the scribbling kind; The modern scribbling kind, who write In wit, and sense, and nature's spite: Till reading, I forget what day on, 5 A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon, I think I met with something there, To suit my purpose to a hair; But let us not proceed too furious, First ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... in an all-concealing overcoat, the unshaven philosopher might be seen in a coffee-house or on an ale-house bench, scribbling at odd moments his profound essays on Transcendental Philosophy, the leaves flying about and losing themselves, and the thoughts as ill-arranged, for the Hebrew Talmudical manner still clung to his German writing as to his talking, so that the body ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... That letter is written and gone. It was to Dr. Parke Alden. I sent it to his hospital in Michigan. I made it short, because by nature I write just endless, having gotten in the habit from making up stories for the girls and scribbling them off when kept in, which in the past was frequent. ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... ready always to heed her father and her "Daddy Crisp," ready to obey her kindly stepmother, and try to exchange for practical occupations her pet pastime of scribbling. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... lady tingled in my ears for 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
... 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 ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... making burlesque speeches, or worse than that, comic sermons, from the top of some tempting stump, to the delight of the hired hands and the exasperation of the farmer. His budding talents as a writer were not always used discreetly. He was too much given to scribbling coarse satires and chronicles, in prose, and in something which had to him and his friends the air of verse. From this arose occasional heart- burnings and feuds, in which Abraham bore his part ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... library that is nearer to our hearts; that cosy chamber with which we are accustomed to associate warmth, comfort, soft chairs and footrests, a wide writing-table that we may pile high with books, with scribbling-paper, foolscap and marking-slips in plenty. In short, a room so far removed from earthly cares and noise, that the dim occasional sounds of the outside world serve but to accentuate our absolute possession of ease. Here we may labour undisturbed though surrounded ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... simple-minded domestic women. The former care only to please their lovers, the latter their husbands. Neither the one nor the other, however, have any ambition beyond indulging themselves in vanities and luxuries. They only employ their pens in scribbling billet-doux or love-confessions, neither one nor other bother their brains as to how the grain grows, whilst talking about business makes their heads ache. Our women, on the contrary, whether prudes or flirts, old or young, stupid or clever, will intermeddle with everything. No honest ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... most positive authority that the recent fire at the Army and Navy Club did not originate from a spark of Colonel Sibthorp's wit falling amongst some loose jokes which Captain Marryatt had been scribbling on the backs of some unedited ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... rather remarkable 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 ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... young landsmen running to record it in their journals; and what indignant glances he must have cast to right and left, as he worried about the deck, giving out his orders for the management of the ship, surrounded by singing, smoking, gossiping, scribbling groups, all, as he thought, intent upon the amusement of the passing hour, instead of the great purposes and interests of ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... lecture room and the examination hall to all women—learned or unlearned—a clique has outlawed a population, under the letter, not the spirit, of a badly written statute. But it is for the three estates of the British realm to leave off scribbling statutes, and learn to write them, and to bridle the egotism of cliques, and respect the nation. The present form of government exists on that understanding, and so must all forms of government in England. And it is so easy. It only wants a little singleness of mind ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... with all that terrible knowledge in him, sitting up in bed, driving that infernal pen of his as if his life depended on that. Scribbling verses, he was, working himself into such a state of excitement that his temperature had risen. He displayed, Brodrick said, an increasing nervous instability. When Brodrick told him that (if he wanted to know) his inspiration was ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... at an inn, without books, companions, or anything to beguile time and thought, but this pen, ink, and paper. You will see, therefore, a reason and an excuse for my scribbling on to you, till my two sheets are filled, and the hour of ten (one can't well go ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a pungent article, 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 began using his tongue, with no regard for the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Maxwell's manner—even, at times, Maxwell's voice! He had been rehearsing to her his coming speech in the House of Lords, and she was painfully repeating it! To his disgust, Tressady saw the reporters scribbling away—no doubt they knew their business! Aye, there was the secret. The wife's adoration showed through her very failure—through this strange conversion of all that was manly, solid, and effective in Maxwell, into a confused mass of facts and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... only to avoid that the Jews should drag this question into bare personality, I appear in a pseudonymous capacity. I felt a long-repressed hatred for this Jewry, and this hatred is as necessary to my nature as gall is to the blood. An opportunity arose when their damnable scribbling annoyed me most, and so I broke forth at last. It seems to have made a tremendous impression, and that pleases me, for I really wanted only to frighten them in this manner; that they will remain the masters is as certain as ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Was scribbling wit or sipping "Massic," Or singing those delicious loves Which after ages reckon classic, He wrote one day—'twas no vagary— ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... believe, have approached nearer to his 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.), ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... still empty house—empty, for the two servants were not yet able to return to work. Dunning's portfolio of papers was gathering dust on the writing-table. In it were the quires of small-sized scribbling paper which he used for his transcripts: and from one of these, as he took it up, there slipped and fluttered out into the room with uncanny quickness, a strip of thin light paper. The window was open, but Harrington slammed ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... deserves to be more generally introduced, and established. If once it was expected by the Public, that Authors should strictly define their Subjects, it would instantly checque an Inundation of Scribbling. The desultory Manner of Writing would be absolutely exploded; and Accuracy and Precision would be necessarily introduced ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... always crying out that Men are brutal and bloodthirsty, and that she and her sisters would introduce the elements of peace and goodwill to political relations. We may have a harmless laugh at the literary shrew so long as she confines herself to haphazard scribbling, because no one is forced to read; but it is no laughing matter when she transfers her literary powers to some public body, and inflicts essays on the members. Her life on a School Board may be summarised as consisting of a battle and a screech; she has the bliss of abusing individual ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... thanks in the most gracious manner, and sat wrapt in thought for the rest of the evening, gazing darkly around from time to time, and scribbling notes on ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... 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 ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... mildly, for taking such a month of Sundays to answer your letter; Of course I thought to myself as soon as I had finished it: Dash it! here goes. I'll write him a "jaw." But "dash it" here didn't go. I wrote to mother instead, and when I had finished that one I was so tired of scribbling that I "smucked a cegar" and turned in. I was then staying for the night at the Sherbrooke Hotel, on my way to Montreal, after having stuck Henry in the mud, which is the polite way of saying that I left ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... the door. It was a long time before he let the person in. He had to think what he would do with me first, and it took him a good while to put away the paper he had been scribbling on. "Why, John!" said the man, when he came in, "what makes you look so frightened? I should think you took me for a tiger, or some such animal." "I've got the toothache," said the thief, "and I have sent for the doctor to pull it out. I thought he had come when you ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... nor would do so, For we have not in view a superhuman kind, Such poison,[H] therefore, far from you be set, For here we see the one, the great Diana, Who is to you as sun amongst the stars. Wit, words, learning and art, And whatsoe'er is mine of scribbling faculty, I humbly place ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... 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, as most of the traditionary stories of the romantic river have been dished up in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... 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 curiosity to measure it, and what do you think was its length? Why, six feet at the very least. Official ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... the premises, with a view to possible alterations and improvements. He settled in his own mind where the directors' table should stand, and in which corner of the private room he should establish his own desk. He went to the length of designing a seal for the Corporation, and in scribbling, for his own amusement, the imaginary minutes of an imaginary meeting of the directors. How ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... in spirit, and with pinions clipped, Of all the means my father left me stripped, Want stared me in the face, so then and there I took to scribbling verse in sheer despair." ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... significant. His early devotion to Edward Young, the grandiose author of the Night Thoughts, is not to be wondered at; though the inspiration of the youthful Burke, either as poet or critic, may be questioned, when we find him rapturously scribbling in the ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... 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 ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... and dark and while he was talking he looked not at Mrs. Hilary but down at a paper whereon he drew or wrote something she tried to see and couldn't. She came to the conclusion after a time that he was merely scribbling ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... through this fury, as He hath through a heap of others; and in sooth hath been somewhat less cutting and stabbing among rival factions, and vindictive eating of their opposites' livers, minced and fried, since Scribbling came in. Why, I can tell you two. There is his eminence Cardinal Bassarion, and his holiness the Pope himself. There be a pair could keep a score such as thee a writing night and day. But I'll speak to Teresa; she hears the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposition to dabble in poetry, and this likewise was caught by his pupil. Before he was eight years old Goldsmith had contracted a habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of paper, which, in a little while, he would throw into the fire. A few of these sybilline leaves, however, were rescued from the flames and conveyed to his mother. The good woman read them with a mother's delight, and saw at once that her son ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling purposeless ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... pairs of shoes and rubbers, and the entire contents of the sliding table-cloth, down to every solitary pencil, needle, and crumb of cake, were ranged in a line on the carpet. To crown the whole, he pinned upon the image that paper placard upon which he had been scribbling. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... 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 murdering the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... 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 Bible ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... English literature as were floating about, in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sindbad;" at ten he was inspired by a translation of "Orlando Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages and travel; he could turn a neat verse, and his scribbling propensities were exercised in the composition of childish plays. The fact seems to be that the boy was a dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that he used to wander about the pier heads in fine weather, watch the ships departing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... passing Rochdale, however, the 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 ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... It was found that the letters were all written on a particular kind of paper affected by Mrs. Carstairs for scribbling unimportant notes—household orders and so on—not by any means an uncommon paper, but still she was the only person in the village who bought it regularly. Then the handwriting, though it was scratchy and common-looking, did bear, in some words, a faint, very faint resemblance ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Kielland found a weary-looking man behind a desk, scribbling furiously at a pile of reports. Everything in the shack was splattered with mud. The crude desk and furniture was smeared; the papers had black speckles all over them. Even the man's face was splattered, his clothing encrusted with gobs of still-damp mud. In a corner a young man was industriously ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... I would not willingly forfeit for a frolic or humour; and I believe no gentleman who reads this paper will look upon it to be of the same cast or mould with the common scribblers that are every day hawked about. My fortune has placed me above the little regard of scribbling for a few pence, which I neither value nor want; therefore, let no wise man too hastily condemn this essay, intended for a good design, to cultivate and improve an ancient art long in disgrace, by having ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... 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 one else ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... year's end to another, sat that prodigious bookworm, Cotton Mather, sometimes devouring a great book, and sometimes scribbling one as big. In Grandfather's younger days there used to be a wax figure of him in one of the Boston museums, representing a solemn, dark-visaged person, in a minister's black gown, and with a ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... splendid picture painted by Bierstadt was sent to our apartment for me. Never before had I received such appreciation for my amateur scribbling. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... of you, pilot," he said cynically. He was scribbling on a book of tickets and it was piling up deep. Speeding, reckless driving, violation of ordinance something-or-other by number. Driving a car without proper registration in the absence of the rightful owner (Check for stolen car records) ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... action of the heart. I have been a constant smoker for nearly forty years; but had I my life to live over again I would never touch tobacco in any shape or form. It is to the man who sits all day long at a desk, poring over books and scribbling 'copy,' that ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... spirits acted like a charm. Diana spent most of the rest of the day scribbling. She came down to tea looking quite elated. The others tried to question her, but she refused to be drawn. "Wait and see!" was all ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... crossed the hall and entered the morning-room. Felix was there and Raoul de Brouillac. The Duchess sat at her writing-table, scribbling a note. Lady Carey, in a wonderful white serge costume, and a huge bunch of Neapolitan violets at her bosom, was lounging in an easy-chair, swinging her foot backwards and forwards. The Duke, in a very old tweed coat, but immaculate as to linen and the details of his toilet, stood a little apart, ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... twenty-four hours are of some importance. I really am concerned to find that this, what many would deem trifling incident, has so much disturbed my mind. I fear I should not have slept in peace to-night if I had been deprived of this opportunity of relieving my mind by scribbling to you, and now I lament that you cannot possibly receive this till Monday. May I hope that there is now some intelligence on the way to me? or must my patience be tried till I see you on Wednesday? But what nonsense am I writing? ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Sisters,—Here I 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, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the winter at Saint-Sulpice, but, like Boufflers a little later, far from singing the Canticles, he employed his time in the more mundane occupation of scribbling love-songs. At the end of the winter he was appointed vicar in a little town of his native department. "Vicar!" said Joachim; "I'll not disturb myself for such a trifle." Shortly afterward he was nominated Abbe de Bernis; but not a step would he budge from the capital. In Paris then he remained, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... not weary you by scribbling my notions at this length. After writing last to you I began to think that the Malay Land might have existed through part of the Glacial epoch. Why I at first doubted was from the difference of existing mammals ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... had received a good education at the free grammar school of that place. On leaving school he had been apprenticed to a silk mercer in London. But he had polite tastes, and employed his leisure time in scribbling verses and in frequenting with his friend, Aaron Hill, the literary coffee-houses. In 1708 he published a vapid and stupid parody, suggested by John Philip's Splendid Shilling and Cider, entitled Wine. His next performance was the tract which is here printed, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... most checkered life. Alas! must we contrast thee with the weathercock of the rhyming folk, bowing to kings, protector, lords, and all that could pay golden coin for his poesy? Many there be among the scribbling tribe who emulate a Waller's practice, and amble in his ill-chosen path; how few have the redeeming gift ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... the widow; the Tremenheeres, the vicarage, and many other acquaintances had been sincere in their sympathy and goodwill, but somehow or other Mrs. Shafto would have none of them! She refused to see the vicar or his wife, and lay in bed most of the day bewailing her fate, scribbling answers to letters of condolence, and occasionally dipping into a novel. "Read she must," she declared, "as it diverted her mind from the too dreadful present. A good novel was the best ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... 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 lose his temper but find his soul. In 1900 The Daily ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... sheep, or the birds who haunted about the springs, drinking and shrilly piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning of its downward path. From this corner ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... just between the rim of his hat and the collar of his coat. Now, had my knowledge of stick-play been insufficient to enable me to accurately direct this cut (cut 5) to its destination, I might not now be scribbling these pages. As it turned out, this poor injured rough was placed hors de combat, and was afterwards conveyed to the hospital, and I only had to tackle his friend, a stubborn varlet, who, after knocking me about a good deal and also receiving some ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... Sam Chamberlain who used to pay me $500 a story, touched me on the shoulder as I was scribbling down notes, and said "Hearst says to take you back at $17 a week." I said "I'm worth $18 and I can't come for less." So he brought up the business manager and had a long wrangle with him as to whether I should get $18. The business ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... 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, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... haven't said it yet, remember. I'm only asking a question. Do you know I have an objection to sitting here in cold blood and writing that down in cold ink? If it were only a little dark now, and your shoulder—and I could hide my head—you can't get off for a minute? Ah, I am scribbling along light-heartedly, when all the time the sword of Damocles is hanging over us both, when my next letter may have to be good-by for always. If that fate comes you will find me steady to stand by you, to help you. I will say those three little words, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... we come to the principal actors in the drama. Crowded in Essex Trench, damp with mist, were the men of the South Loamshires. A few were scribbling notes, and an all-pervading smell of frying bacon permeated the air. One or two, wrapped in great-coats, with a mackintosh sheet over them, still slept peacefully—but the whole regiment was stirring into life. The morning of the day had come. To many it was a new experience; ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... easy," then seeing that his partner was in danger of falling, he moved nearer to him, and placed the boy's head gently against his own shoulder so that he might rest easily. Meanwhile the old gentleman's pen went scribbling on at quite a furious pace, and the black skull-cap seemed to nod complacently, as though its owner were pleased with ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... debut'—'How shall we thank you for such an artistic treat?'—'Oh, your divine rendering of,' &c.—'You have taken your place, at once and sans phrase, in the very front rank of violinists.' She smiled once more, and lost a little of her cadaverous hue. Felix Dymes, scribbling late, repeated things that he had heard since the afternoon. He added: 'I'm afraid you'll be awfully upset about your friends the Carnabys. It's very unfortunate this should have happened just now. But cheer up, and let me see you as soon as ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... exchanged it for beggary and reputation. Mr. Brown, impatient of a recluse life, quitted the school, and came again to London; and as he found his old companions more delighted with his wit, than ready to relieve his necessities, he had recourse to scribbling for bread, which he performed with various success. Dr. Drake, who has written a defence of our author's character, prefixed to his works, informs us, that the first piece which brought him into reputation, was an account ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... 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! ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... full length all the particulars which I must now abridge, for my silly servant has taken the three chapters for her own purposes. She pleaded as an excuse that the sheets of paper were old, written upon, covered with scribbling and erasures, and that she had taken them in preference to nice, clean paper, thinking that I would care much more for the last than for the first. I flew into a violent passion, but I was wrong, for the poor girl ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks she has a softy in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... third letter, threw herself back in her chair, and for a moment or two closed her eyes, as though about to rest. But she soon remembered that the activity of her life did not admit of such rest. She therefore seized her pen and began scribbling further notes. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... imposing room. A fat pasty-faced man sat behind a scarred neoplast desk, scribbling his signature on forms that he was taking from an immense stack. The room was lined with records of one sort or another, untidy, poorly ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... However, all too soon, the Major's fiendish temper returned, and he began to use the event of the day as a weapon against Derrick, continually taunting him with the contrast between his stay-at-home life of scribbling and Lawrence's life of heroic adventure. I could never make out whether he wanted to goad his son into leaving him, in order that he might drink himself to death in peace, or whether he merely indulged in his natural love ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... encompilation[obs3]. [collection of books] library, bibliotheca[obs3]. press &c. (publication) 531. [complete description] definitive work, treatise, comprehensive treatise (dissertation) 595. [person who writes a book] writer, author, litterateur[Fr], essayist, journalism; pen, scribbler, the scribbling race; literary hack, Grub-street writer; writer for the press, gentleman of the press, representative of the press; adjective jerker[obs3], diaskeaust[obs3], ghost, hack writer, ink slinger; publicist; reporter, penny a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... if you can find him, that is, for he is like a fish, always on the move. In his way of business, there is no writing, you see, it is setting others to write. That sort like gallivanting about with actresses better than scribbling on sheets of paper, it seems. Oh! they are queer customers, they are. Hope I may have the honor of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... total change of life and habits. En revanche, I have a provision for old age and for my family, and shall be almost as glad to be spared the necessity of writing for bread—for butter at least—as sorry to be tied out from scribbling when and where ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... SCRIBBLING-PAPER. A kind of writing-paper, rather inferior in quality, a trifle larger than foolscap, and used at the English universities by mathematicians and in the lecture-room.—Bristed. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... During my lonely weeks One person actually climbed the stairs To seek a cripple. It was Berlioz— But Berlioz always was original. Meissner was also here; he caught me unawares, Scribbling to my old mother. "What!" he cried, "Is the old lady of the Dammthor still alive? And do you write her still?" "Each month or so." "And is she not unhappy then, to find How wretched you must be?" "How can she know? You see," I laughed, "she thinks I am as well As ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... if you wait for me," he answered, seating himself. "You know how it is when you get to scribbling—you never know when to stop. And the scenery, up here, won't let you go. Positively fascinating, that view is! If the Plutes knew of it, they'd put a summer ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... slovenliness of manuscript I almost rival Mahomet, who, it is said, wrote his Coran on mutton spade bones." "His [Borrow's] biography will be passing strange if he tells the WHOLE truth," Ford writes to a friend (27th February 1843). "He is now writing it by my advice. I go on . . . scribbling away, though with a palpitating heart," Borrow informs John Murray (5th February 1844), "and have already plenty of scenes and dialogues connected with my life, quite equal to anything in The Bible in Spain. The great difficulty, however, is to blend them all into a symmetrical ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... each new set appeared, the pupils swayed to and fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and to me quite meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon the desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and scribbling briskly in note-books. I thought I had never beheld a scene more disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole traffic was illusory, and all the money then upon the market would scarce have ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the bedding has to be 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 ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... raised shocked and frightened eyes from the subjunctivisor to face van Manderpootz, who was scribbling on the edge of ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... me!" and in a moment she had transferred her burden to the chair. In another she had flung 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 its own boldness—the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse shot under him at Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate pish! and asked, "What was all this to me?" upon which she retired to her closet and fell a-scribbling for three hours together; in which time, as I afterwards found, she struck me out of her will, and left all that she had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... school, he began to study law in the office of a certain Henry Masterton. This was in the year 1800. He was admitted to the bar six years later; but he spent a great deal more of the intervening time in traveling and scribbling than in the study of law. His first published writing was a series of letters signed "Jonathan Oldstyle," printed in his brother's daily paper, "The Morning Chronicle," when the writer was ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... mechanical-minded, already had fished out an envelope, and on its back was scribbling the rough outlines of the aluminum pontoons, he had frequently made a mental resolve to attach to the aeroplane, so as to render it safe on the water as well as over the land. He had no intention then ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Fernandez! A large place he occupied in Rivera's visions. He had not understood at the time, but looking back he could understand. He could see him setting type in the little printery, or scribbling endless hasty, nervous lines on the much-cluttered desk. And he could see the strange evenings, when workmen, coming secretly in the dark like men who did ill deeds, met with his father and talked long hours ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... putting out the tip of his tongue when he thinks no one is looking at him, which is vulgar, even though it is father's birthday. What was I saying? I do get cramped and mixed, huddled up on the floor, scribbling. We're to go for a long drive, to Bee's Head, or somewhere, and the horses and the carriages and the servants and the ferrets and the children and father and all the food are to come too, and we are to have ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... us. He is seated at his desk. His head is bent over his writing, and his round shoulders are quite prominent. He is scribbling rapidly. A quire of foolscap, occupying the only clear space on his desk, is melting rapidly beneath his pen. The desk itself is a heap of confusion. Here is Mr. Greeley's straw hat; there is his handkerchief. In front of him is a peck of newspaper clippings, not neatly rolled up, but loosely ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that was what had been rending her heart, he knew. He stopped writing; he took up a pencil, and absently began scribbling on his blotter. ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... to you before half-past eight to-morrow morning, come straight to my house," said the Duke, scribbling the ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... round red face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... 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 indeed to hear that her son ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... illegible. At first they are small and regular, so that with a little care and the loss of very few words we have been able to disentangle Cavor's message; then they become broad and larger, then suddenly they are irregular, with an irregularity that gives the effect at last of some one scribbling through a line of writing. For a long time nothing can be made of this madly zigzagging trace; then quite abruptly the interruption ceases, leaves a few words clear, and then resumes and continues for the rest of ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... may worthily seeme strange unto your Lordship, out of what frenzy one of my meanenesse hath presumed to commit this Sacriledge, in the straightnesse of your Lordship's leisure, to present a peece, for matter and model so unworthy, and in this scribbling age, wherein great persons are so pestered dayly with Dedications. All I can alledge in extenuation of so many incongruities, is the bequest of a deceased Man; who (in his lifetime) having offered some translations of his unto your Lordship, ever wisht if these ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... pencils. Here you see one seated on a stump or fence, addressing his "sweet-heart" or somebody else; another writes standing up against a tree, while a third is lying flat on the ground. Thus either in the tents or in the open air, scribbling is going on, and the return mail will carry many sweet words to those who cannot be wholly forgotten. I suppose in this way we are not only making, but writing history. Camp-life then is ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... What 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 now upon ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford |
