"Dictation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was written from my dictation by my secretary, Mrs. Forth, to assure myself that her inexperience has been guilty of no error in matters of so much delicacy and importance. I have detected no mistake of moment, and begin to hope that the important step of matrimony to which I was ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... day a chapter of the Greek Testament and hearing his learned exposition upon the same (and how far this savoured of Atheism in him I leave to the courteous backbiter to judge); the next work after this was the writing from his own dictation some part, from time to time, of a Tractate which he thought fit to collect from the ablest of Divines who had written of that subject (AMESIUS, WOLLEBIUS, &c.)—viz. A Perfect System of Divinity; of which more hereafter." [Footnote: The books named in this extract from Phillips, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... to declare that our Constitution should be changed so as to permit the President in the White House or the Congress in the Capitol to dictate to our judges what their decisions should be. And yet it is seriously proposed that this power of dictation shall be given to the crowd on the street. That is what the recall means if applied to the judiciary; and it means the destruction of its independence as completely as if in set terms it were made subject to ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... adventures; and they are said to have prevailed upon him to send to Venice for the notes which he had drawn up during his peregrinations, by means of which the following relation is said to have been written in Latin from has dictation. From the original Latin, the account of his travels was afterwards translated into Italian; and from this again, abridgements were afterwards made in Latin and diffused ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the policy of courage looked all very well from a distance, but was quite another thing in the presence of the mistress of Rivenoak enraged. Lashmar must caution Constance, who seemingly (much to May's surprise) had submitted to his dictation at this juncture. For a time, nothing could be done beyond cloaking what had really happened, and soothing Lady ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... know how to spell and pronounce correctly all the words of the selection he is preparing to read. He should know their ordinary meanings and the special meanings they may have in the text. He should be able to write them correctly from dictation and to use them in sentences of his own. He should examine if they are primitive, derivative, or compound; he should be able to name the prefixes and suffixes and show how the meanings of the original words are modified by their use. He should ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... particular endowments of his for another kind of intellectual mastery, he could not be content with the pen—with the Poet's, or the Historian's, or the Philosopher's pen—as the instrument of his mental dictation. A Teacher thus furnished and ordained, seeks, indeed, naturally and instinctively, a more direct and living and effective medium of communication with the audience which his time is able to furnish him, whether 'few' or many, whether ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... ridiculously low, even for this season of low figures due to the fact that many overstocked ranches were throwing their beef-cattle and range horses on the market. So low, in fact, that Judith's first surmise when Hampton brought it to her was that the typist taking the company's dictation had ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... hautboys, assembled beneath his windows, should play their accustomed music as soon as he awoke, and that the twenty-four violins should play in the ante-chamber during his dinner. He worked afterwards with the Chancellor, who wrote, under his dictation, a codicil to his will, Madame de Maintenon being present. She and M. du Maine, who thought incessantly of themselves, did not consider the King had done enough for them by his will; they wished to remedy this by a codicil, which equally showed how enormously ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... good temper, so that when Jael wrote out a letter to the bank at Grim's dictation Ali Higg affixed the seal to it without a murmur and ordered food supplied at once to all Grim's men; and we had a feast up there on the ledge outside the cave—in sight of the very spot where Amaziah, King of Israel, once hurled ten thousand of his enemies into the ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... fraction of the ill effects of this foolish regulation would be felt within the guilty state. As a matter of fact many railroads had experiences of this kind with the Western states, and were obliged to defend themselves against legislative and administrative dictation, which if it did not amount to confiscation, always applied narrow and rigid restrictive methods to a delicate and complicated economic situation. Most of the large Eastern and some of the large Western companies purchased immunity from such "supervision," and were well ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of great tact and accomplished training, in taking the direction which she had thought it wise to assume over the affairs of her proteges, she had been careful to guard her influence from all appearance of meddlesome and imperious dictation. On the contrary, she flattered Brigitte's claim to be a model housekeeper; in her own household expenses she affected to ask the spinster's advice; so that by reserving to herself the department of luxurious expenses, she had more the air of giving information ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... their stenographers to correct. It should be a hard and fast rule that an ungrammatical letter must never be sent out under any circumstances. Some correspondents not only look to the stenographer to edit their "copy" but to come back for a new dictation if the meaning of a letter is not perfectly clear. The thought is that if the stenographer does not understand it, there is danger of its being misinterpreted by the one to ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... influence; for his ardent and variable genius infused itself entirely into all his desires, the least as well as the greatest: whatever he willed, all his energies and all his faculties united to effect: they appeared at his beck; they hastened forward; and, obedient to his dictation, simultaneously assumed the forms ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... attempt to defend herself, but, bursting into tears, assured her uncle that she would be guided by him. Under his absolute dictation she wrote the enclosed ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... establish a predominant influence in Spain; but moreover, in regard to this marriage question, Great Britain has disclaimed any right to interfere except by opinion and advice, while France has assumed an authority of dictation, and it is essential that your Majesty's Government should so shape the mode of co-operating with France as not to appear to sanction pretensions which are founded in no right and are inconsistent ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... book. But the dictation hardly had begun when the telephone rang and Enoch was summoned to the White House. It was noon when he left the President. Washington lay as if scorching under a burning glass. The dusty leaves drooped on the trees. Even the carefully cherished White House lawn seemed to have ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... import of English- dyed cloths), injured the trade of the West Riding manufacturers considerably. Their independence of character, their dislike of authority, and their strong powers of thought, predisposed them to rebellion against the religious dictation of such men as Laud, and the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts; and the injury done by James and Charles to the trade by which they gained their bread, made the great majority of them Commonwealth men. I shall have occasion afterwards to give one or two instances of the warm feelings and extensive ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... seem, however, that almost immediately after I left a change for the worse set in, of such a character that Jane felt within herself her last hour was at hand. Then it was that she ordered the nurse to write a telegram at her dictation. It was to Dr. Merchison, and ran: "Come and see me at once, do not delay as ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... argued that it were folly to attempt the suppression of quackery by statute; for, says he, the freeborn Anglo-Saxon considers that he has the inalienable right of going to the Devil in his own way. And he resents anything like dictation in the sphere of medicine, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... to my father's study, to write under his dictation. I don't complain of this; it flatters my pride to feel that I am helping so great a man. At the same time, I do notice that here again Eunice's little defects have relieved her of another responsibility. She can neither keep dictated ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... Slavery, so long as the 'mudsills' of the North, as they arrogantly called you, would obey the orders of their Southern masters, so long as you would be their slaves, they would permit the President to be inaugurated. But so soon as you elected a President against their dictation, then your suffrages should be nullified by the rebellion of a minority against the majority. What is this but to say, that the majority shall not elect a President, and thus render the right of suffrage an empty form, striking at the fundamental principle of free government, and substituting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... said, "I think there has been too much fault-finding and dictation from the very day of the child's birth till now, and if God takes it, as he may, I shall think it a judgment upon you. First you were half vexed with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to blame; then you did not like it because it was not more promising and fair; next it ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... had not been sacrificed to the violent sarcasms of the Chancellor after his reconciliation with William II; he seemed to be unassailable until, simply for having addressed a few improper lines, at the Emperor's dictation, to a minor prince, he is removed from the anonymous post which was one of the occult powers of Potsdam. The august Confederates may ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Douglas and Sir J. Wolfe-Murray in keeping a hand on the helm. The Secretary of State would no doubt have learnt to value their counsel before long, but he would no more have tolerated the slightest attempt at dictation in respect to the general conduct of the war until he knew his men, than he would have put up with dictation as to how the personnel which he was attracting into the ranks at the rate of tens of thousands per week were to be disposed of. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... excited that she called herself a silly little fool. She seized her untouched note-book, her pencils sharpened like lances, and tried to appear a very mouse of modesty as she marched down the office to take her first real dictation, to begin her triumphant career.... And to have Walter Babson, the ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... have been some cause outside of extortion in their case. There are candid native whites who do not deny, but justify, the violent methods which have been employed to disfranchise the negroes, or compel them to vote under white dictation, in many parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, on the ground that the men who pay the taxes should vote them and control the disbursement of the public moneys. The gentlemen who advance this argument seem to ignore the fact that the very ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... that "his [Madison's] ancestors, on both sides, were not among the most wealthy of the country, but in independent and comfortable circumstances." If this comment was added at the ex-President's own dictation, it was quite in accordance with his unpretentious character.[1] One might venture to say as much of a Northern or a Western farmer. But they did not farm in Virginia; they planted. Mr. Rives says that the elder James was "a large landed proprietor;" and ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... carry him upstairs. After dinner he sat before the fire, often shivering with cold. Then all on a sudden he would cross the room, seat himself at the piano, and play himself warm. He could bear neither dictation nor contradiction: if you told him to go to the fire, he would go to the other end of the room where the piano stood. Indeed, he was imperious. He once asked Mrs. Lyschinski to sing. She declined. At this he was astonished and quite angry. "Doctor, would you take ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... began to develop. About an hour after breakfast Lloyd and Bennett shut themselves in Bennett's "workroom," as he called it, Lloyd taking her place at the desk. She had become his amanuensis, had insisted upon writing to his dictation. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... able to sustain the continued exertion of talking, he requested one of the brothers on duty in the infirmary to write two letters at his dictation. The first was addressed to the colonel of his regiment, informing that officer of the long and severe illness of Captain de Volaski, and petitioning for the invalid an extended leave of absence. The other was to the Count de Volaski, apprising that nobleman of the condition ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... bishop have ever been great matrimonial matchmakers, and when "Love's young dream" is foiled or withered by parental tyranny, these velvet-handed philosophers find a way to tie the hymeneal knot, even in personal and legal defiance of cruel, social dictation. ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... paper:- 'Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the University of Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to hold examinations in the following subjects: (1) For boys in the fourth class of the Academy - Geometry and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson's school - Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively by their mothers - Arithmetic and Reading.' Prizes were given; but what prize would be so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons 'started a new fad' (as one ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... replied the secretary, "of rather striking appearance, dark complexioned, sallow, hasty and irascible of temper, has a very exalted opinion of his position and dignity, is very impatient of anything in the most remote degree approaching to dictation, and has a profound belief in his own judgment, and in his qualifications generally for the post which he occupies. He is of opinion, for example, that had he been Governor of Nombre, you and your followers would never have succeeded in ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... than his usual dignity. At first sight he suggested that anomalous creature—a footman with a beard; and the slow, deliberate enunciation marked him as one accustomed to speak in public. His manner of sitting at a table suggested letters and dictation of letters, his manner of moving his glasses on his nose accounts, and at no moment would it have been surprising to see him place his strong finger at the bottom of a line of ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... The dictation of it came in starts. Atone moment it seemed as if life's ending shook the curtains on our stage and were about to lift. An old friend in the reader of the letter would need no excuse for its jerky brevity. It said that his pet girl, Miss Kirby, was married to the Earl of Fleetwood in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Indiscreetly, because somewhat provoked by these repeated sacrifices, as much of my inclination as her own, I mentioned my purpose at our evening meal, and bade her name those who should accompany me. I was a little surprised when, carefully evading the dictation to which she was invited, she suggested that Eunane and Eive would probably most enjoy the opportunity. That she should be willing to get rid of the most wilful and petulant of the party seemed natural. The other selection confirmed the impression I had formed, but ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... head of all His disciples who are members of His body. Consequently, when they put into writing what He showed forth and said to them, by no means must we say that He wrote nothing: since His members put forth that which they knew under His dictation. For at His command they, being His hands, as it were, wrote whatever He wished us to read ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... in legible English. The little I had read with Mr. Fortescue made me keen to know more; but as the cryptographic narrative did not begin at the beginning, he proposed that I should write this, as also any other missing parts, to his dictation. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... the question came up in his mind, "Would it be effectual after all? Would Walker play him false? Would he throw the weight of his influence into somebody else's scale? Would the directors submit as tamely as he thought to his direction or dictation?" It would be hard on Tyrrel if, after his spending ten thousand pounds without security of any sort, Eustace were to miss the chance, and Cleer ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... marry—which I do not think an absolute necessity, unless I can not get rid otherwise of an inconvenient chaperon—and to do my stepmother justice, she knows well enough that I will not submit to too much of her dictation!" ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... learn stenography and take dictation in a stuffy office, dear," she pleaded. "I don't want to sit all day in a library where people whisper about books. I don't want to teach in a public school or read novels to invalids, or learn how to be a trained nurse and place thermometers ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... articulated the second sound of A. She followed him, making the sound softer or louder as he did. All the consonants were made distinctly, by placing her hand before his mouth. Their exercises in reading, speaking with one another, and writing from dictation, succeeded perfectly. He treated them all like his own children, and sought by jesting and playing, to make the exercise appear as sport. They call him father and appear to be much ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... imperial mantle, crown and sceptre, stands left of centre. An old man seated at his feet is writing from his dictation. Left of the Emperor are five desks; with five closed books lying on the top of each. These desks are very probably intended to represent those of the Vatican Library as arranged by Sixtus IV. Two men, crowned with laurel, are standing behind the last ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... she said at length, "I will wait a little—perhaps till to-morrow morning—before writing my answer. And now I will get ready to write replies to those letters at your dictation." ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... described. She could not only scribble down that Pitman stuff as fast as I could feed the dictation to her, but she could read it straight afterward and the letters she turns out are a joy to look over. From then on I picks her to do all my work, being careful not to let either Mr. Robert or Old Hickory know what an expert ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... and to such an extent did her influence over his character extend, according to his own belief, that there was not a single good trait of his nature she had not thwarted by ridicule, nor a single evil temptation to which he had yielded that had not come out of sheer opposition to that lady's dictation. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... can help feeling and thinking, Ellen. I am indignant, and I must express my feelings. What a poor substitute is birth, or family connexion, or standing in society for a mother to offer to her son, in the place of a pure heart that can love fervently. If I had yielded to dictation on this subject, I would long ago have been the unhappy husband of a vain, selfish, proud creature, whom I never could have loved. No—no—Ellen. I cannot help being angry, if I may so speak, at the thought of such unjust, such unwise assumption of the prerogative ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... apartment and recommence our studies. Madame makes us write, under her dictation, lines from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... creed, who built up a government which you called a model republic, and undertook to show mankind how to be free; you, the mighty nation of the West, that presumes to defy the world in arms, and to subject a hemisphere to its sovereign dictation; you, who boast of recoiling from no enterprise ever so great, and no problem ever so fearful—the spectral monster of Slavery stares you in the face, and now your blood runs cold, and all your courage fails you? For half ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... never urges to action, is, if his friend is supposed to procrastinate, accomplice in his delay. Hamlet detaches himself from the world and follows his own bent; he will admit no guidance, and be subject to no dictation. He is not the man to be hag-ridden like Macbeth, or humoured into remorseful deeds like Brutus. The strong dramatic feature of his character, the secret of his attraction on the stage, is his pure and independent personality. Who has a ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... legal letter, written by a clerk, probably from dictation, and signed by the old lawyer. But at the bottom there was a postscript in his own crabbed hand, ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... not retaliate, however, but on the contrary showed every disposition to appease his subordinate. It was understood at the time that he gave Worth authority to plan and execute the battle of Molino del Rey without dictation or interference from any one, for the very purpose of restoring their former relations. The effort failed, and the two generals remained ever after cold and indifferent towards each ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... might have been four or five years earlier. The inhabitants of the island were now almost entirely French, and with their companions on the coast of Hispaniola had no intention of submitting to English dictation. The buccaneers, who had become numerous and independent and made Tortuga one of their principal retreats, would throw all their strength in the balance against an expedition the avowed object of whose coming ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... others are rushing on, I should be trodden down. If I did as you wish me to do, I should be bankrupt in a month; and would my bankruptcy put bread into your hungry children's mouths? William Farren, neither to your dictation nor to that of any other will I submit. Talk to me no more about machinery. I will have my own way. I shall get new frames in to-morrow. If you broke these, I would still get more. I'll never ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... teachers' meeting must be the nursery of professional ideals. It must be a place where the real first-hand workers in education get that sanity of outlook, that professional point of view, which shall fortify them effectively against the rising tide of unprofessional interference and dictation which, as I have tried to indicate, constitutes the most serious menace to our ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... cowhide by Mark Sheffels, who is an attendant there, because the idiot did not understand enough to carry in wood, which the people have hired Mark Sheffels to carry in. Think of it," he added, quite forgetting the nature of his testimony and that he was now speaking for dictation and not for an audience to hear, and going off into a most scorching and brilliant arraignment of the entire system in which such brutality could occur, "a poor helpless idiot, unable to frame in his own disordered mind a single clear sentence, being ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... was transitional, and Jeffrey did not go so far as Scott in breaking away from the dictation of his predecessors. But his attitude was on the whole more modern than the reader would infer from the following sentence in one of his earliest reviews: "Poetry has this much at least in common with religion, that its standards were fixed long ago by certain inspired writers, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Second, and he alone; and he so entirely, that even his ministers are nothing more than his secretaries, to write at his dictation; and his generals are only subordinate engineers to draw the plans of battle which he has already fully determined upon; his composers are only the copyists of his melodies and his musical conceptions; the architects are carpenters to build according to the plan which he has ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... works which the king took it into his head to have so embellished. And, though it is to this that we owe the noble "Antigone," "Oedipus," "Athalie," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and other music, this work to dictation was very worrying, and one cannot think without impatience of the annoyances to which he was subjected. The king could not understand why he shrank from writing music to the choruses of AEschylus's "Eumenides." Other composers would do it by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... undertook that obstruction should cease if the Army bills were withdrawn. Despite the fact that the Austrian Army bill had been voted by the Reichsrath (February 19), the crown consented to withdraw the bills and thus compelled the Austrian parliament to repeal, at the dictation of the Hungarian obstructionists, what it regarded as a patriotic measure. Austrian feeling became embittered towards Hungary and the action of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... not relieved by leaving the people free to act; they are obliged to sanction their exactions by ordinances. They are taken out of the Hotel-de-Ville, led to the marketplace, and there forthwith, under the dictation of the uproar which establishes prices, they, like simple clerks, proclaim the reduction. When, moreover, the armed rabble of a village marches forth to tyrannize over a neighboring market, it carries its mayor along with it in spite of himself, as an official ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the most part in taking dictation from the editor of the periodical published weekly by the house—letters to contributors, editorials, and special articles. Also, when it was found that I had some intelligent, practical knowledge of grammar and English—and here was where my studies of the preceding year bore fruit—I was intrusted ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... importance would have attached to that doubt. All power was now effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. He was the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck sceptre: all measures of importance were submitted to his discretion; and nothing was finally resolved but under his dictation. This result he had brought about in a year or two by means sufficiently simple; first of all, by availing himself of the prejudice in his favor, so largely diffused amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... of the Polos, as written down at Marco's dictation, became one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages. In this book Europe read of far Cathay (China), with its wealth, its huge cities, and swarming population, of mysterious and secluded Tibet, of Burma, Siam, and Cochin- China, with their palaces ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... be pleaded for Arthur Miles that his spelling had been outstripped of late by his experience. His sentences were as Tilda had constructed them in dictation.] ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found himself at the famous convent of Iona, made welcome by an Irish monk Adamnan, who was deeply interested in Arculf's account of his wanderings, and wrote them down at his dictation, first on waxed tablets, copied later on to parchment. How tenderly the two monks dwell on all the glories of Jerusalem. "But in that beautiful place where once the Temple had been, the Saracens now frequent a four-sided ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... typewriter girls are apt to find that the young women are not so ready to submit to dictation ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... down at a table and wrote to my dictation. The gist of it was that if a man called Twisdon (I thought I had better stick to that name) turned up before June 15th he was to entreat him kindly. He said Twisdon would prove his bona fides by passing the word 'Black Stone' ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... foreign ministers, and mean to respect them. But you will give us leave to determine what communications we will receive, and how we will receive them; and you may be assured we are as little disposed to submit to dictation as to exercise it.' He then, in a louder and more passionate tone of voice, said: 'And am I to understand that I am to be refused henceforth any conference with you upon the subject of my mission?' 'Not at all, sir,' said I, 'my request is, that if you have anything further to say to ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... watch showed two o'clock, she refused to halt for lunch, declaring that the others might arrive at any moment; so down they went to the lower end of "No Creek" Lee's location, where Burrell blazed a smooth spot on the down-stream side of a tree and wrote thereon at Necia's dictation. When he had finished, she signed her name, and he witnessed it, then paced off four hundred and forty steps, where he squared a spruce-tree, which she marked: "Lower centre end stake of No. I below discovery. Necia Gale, locator." She was vastly ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... warmly, and as they follow its course in the heavens, draw from it the useful lesson to look always on the bright side of things." Humble beneficent soul! I never met another who had learned that lesson so thoroughly. Once she pointed out to me at the end of her dictation-book a publisher's colophon of a sundial with the word Finis above it, and, underneath, the words "Every Hour Shortens Life." "Now, I prefer to think that every hour lengthens it," said she, with one of her few smiles; for her cheerfulness was ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Companies is a prosperous mail-order department which we intend to continue, for a time at least. Your father's instructions are that all the mail shall be brought to you each morning by a stenographer, who will receive your dictation and bring the letters back to you in the afternoon for your approval and signature. For a time I will give you such advice as you need, and later you will have matters entirely in your own hands as long as you wish to remain manager of the ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the rooms of that house, or in the garden that stretched from the house into St. James's Park across part of what is now the ground of Wellington Barracks, the subject of the epic first took distinct shape in Milton's mind, and here he began the great dictation. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... She felt that she better served the cause of Christian Unity by admitting to her fellowship a wider range of Christians, so-called, than the National Board was at that time prepared to tolerate; and she was also more or less fearful of too much dictation. It was not until 1913, at the Fourth Biennial Convention of the Young Women's Christian Associations, held at Richmond, Virginia, that Wellesley was received into the National organization; and she came retaining her own pledge ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... have adopted of late years, in lecturing to students, is to condense the substance of the hour's discourse into a few dry propositions, which are read slowly and taken down from dictation; the reading of each being followed by a free commentary expanding and illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and removing any difficulties that may be attackable in that way, by diagrams made roughly, and seen to grow under the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved. Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often written between the dictation of the battle's plan, the dispatches to the Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful course ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... more acrid. This appears in all his letters and dispatches respecting blockade, privateering, the arrest of spies, and the detention of British subjects, or the seizure of prizes. It is especially offensive in the letter to Mr. Seward which drew forth a diplomatic rebuke upon a dictation by English law ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... action which became a disease. The references of Munro were always addressed to the petty gains; and the miserly nature, thus perpetually exhibiting itself, at the expense of all other emotions, was, in fact, the true influence which subjected him almost to the sole dictation of his accomplice, in whom a somewhat lofty distaste for such a peculiarity had occasioned a manner and habit of mind, the superiority of which was readily felt by the other. Still, we must do the landlord the justice to say that he had ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... But dictation was no part of Nina's intentions. The lines traced upon that sheet would contain a secret which Richard must not know; and with a merry laugh, as she thought how she would cheat him, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... lecturing, and my heart was burning itself out in indignation and anguish. Henry told me then that he meant to fight that battle in New York; that he would have a church that would stand by him to resist the tyrannic dictation of Southern slaveholders. I said: "I, too, have begun to do something; I have begun a story, trying to set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the slaves." "That's right, Hattie," he said; "finish it, and I will scatter it thick as the leaves of Vallambrosa," and so came "Uncle Tom," ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... whom the impostor had stated he received the formal declaration of Sir Hugh Smyth, was called, and declared that he had written the letter which was said to have accompanied the deed, from the prisoner's dictation; the deed was produced at the time, and the witness took a memorandum of the name of the attesting witnesses on the back of a copy of his letter. This copy, with the endorsement, was produced in court. The brown paper which the prisoner had sworn formed the ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... acting under their orders; while Maturanzio himself may have drawn his inspiration from a MS. Cicero in the Perugian Library, in whose miniatures the four cardinal virtues appear beside the heroes who displayed them in their lives. Such a dictation was quite in the traditions of the best Italian art. I have shown in an earlier work—"The Renaissance in Italian Art"—how this was probably the case in the famous frescoes of the Spanish chapel at Florence, where Ruskin had pictured the artist himself as giving his message of religious ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... me about the loss of her maid, although after three or four years of service it must have been galling to her to lose her maid so abruptly, and to get such a letter as that silly thing wrote at my dictation. She came on board, and seemed very much satisfied with all the arrangements. I had done every thing that I could think of to make it pleasant for her—on the same principle, I suppose," he added, dryly, "that they have in jails—where they are sure to give a good breakfast to a poor devil on ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Marchbanks, alone and idle, is trying to find out how the typewriter works. Hearing someone at the door, he steals guiltily away to the window and pretends to be absorbed in the view. Miss Garnett, carrying the notebook in which she takes down Morell's letters in shorthand from his dictation, sits down at the typewriter and sets to work transcribing them, much too busy to notice Eugene. Unfortunately the first key ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... an advertiser, you can be fairly certain either that the publisher sincerely shares the views of the advertiser, or that he thinks, perhaps mistakenly, he cannot count upon the support of his readers if he openly resists dictation. It is a question of whether the readers, who do not pay in cash for their news, will ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... revelation of Ad being, as thou knowest, so exceedingly ancient, doth of necessity require a commentary. This hath been supplied by one of my disciples, a young Syrian and natural son of Gregory, as I opine. This young man can not only write, but write to my dictation, an accomplishment in which thou hast been found lacking, O Sergius. In this gloss it is set forth how, since woman hath the ninth part of the soul of man, the prophet, in enjoining us Adites (as we now call ourselves) to ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... doctor, "Samuel has always been such a good, attentive fellow, and taken so much interest in his work, Landon, that I feel rather puzzled as to whether this is dictation ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... were not second to his Church allegiance, and the political manifesto simply made public the fact of such subservience, authoritatively. We Republicans welcomed it, with our eyes on the future freedom of politics in Utah; Thatcher and Roberts refused to accept the dictation of their quorums, and what was practically an "edict of apostasy" went out against them. They were defeated. The Republican candidates (Heber M. Wells, as governor, and Clarence B. Allen, as member ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... about a quarter of an hour, till at length he became tired and waddled into his dwelling. I now thought all secure, and once more put in my hand, when he jumped at least three or four yards out of the water. I must confess, I was a little confused with my friends' dictation, who feared I should lose him. Again housed, I made a kind of fort at one end of the hold, and this done, I again thrust in my arm, when he was as soon out again, and on getting up I found my hand covered with blood. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... dictation of his own nature, strengthened by his father's advice, Bert kept out of these squabbles so far as he possibly could, and as a natural consequence fell under suspicion of being a coward. Even Frank began to wonder if he were not afraid, and if it were not this ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... intestine contests, even in the pangs and throes of that labour in which it strove to bring forth a constitution, to repulse the forces of the allied nations, and prepare the way for future conquests, was a member of the all-powerful Committee, and we cannot suppose that he acted under the dictation of Robespierre; but if he did not do so, at any rate he did not interfere with him. The operations of a campaign, in which the untaught and ill-fed army of republican France had to meet the troops ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... their comforts may be diminished by the change. Free negroes won't serve, and the official must not employ a slave; thus, a gentleman sent out to look after the interest of his country, and in his own person to uphold its dignity, must either submit to the dictation and extortion of his white servant—if even then he can keep him—or he may be called upon suddenly, some fine morning, to do all the work of housemaid, John, cook, and knife and button boy, to the neglect of those duties ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... wrote the letter, not according to his dictation, which was all kindness, but stating that my father would never forgive him or my sister, and requested all correspondence might cease, as it would ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... The spelling-and-dictation champ was about three foot six in his squeaking shoes, with a pink face and sandy hair. Gussie patted his hair. He seemed to have taken an immediate fancy ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... other things which my better sense rejects; but no woman's logic—which is always half sentiment—could remain unshaken by the simple loyalty to you and to me of this friend of yours and of mine. And this letter would never have been written except, practically, at his dictation. Kindly refrain from showing it to him as my acknowledgment here of his influence in the matter would grieve him ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,—the lawyer, you know,—is ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... examination which we underwent; for, after being asked to spell a few easy words, tested as to our arithmetic with a sum in simple addition, and the multiplication table as far as six times six, besides being given a short sentence from some reader to write from dictation, the head schoolmaster filled up a form, which he attached to our papers, notifying that we were sufficiently educated to become Saint ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... from an angel's wing. That is the kind of nib of which I feel in need to-night. If I could but have it just for to-night only,—I would willingly bequeath it to the British Museum to-morrow. As a rule I am very well satisfied with the particular brand of gilt 'J' with which I write to the dictation of the Muse of Daily Bread; but to-night it is different. Though it come not, I must make ready to receive a loftier inspiration. Whitest paper, newest pen, ear sensitive, tremulous; heart pure and mind open, broad and clear as the blue air ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... after Harris was brought in dangerously wounded, the result of his daring effort to rescue an unfortunate woman from a fearful fate. The adjutant had gone so far as to hint to that much-loved lieutenant-colonel of infantry, Brevet Brigadier-General Archer, that he should be glad to write at his dictation a report setting Harris right, as surely as the other had set him wrong, and for the first time Strong found his commanding officer petulant and testy. It was exactly what Archer himself thought it his duty to do, yet he ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... destined to produce a spirit of crouching servility with the official corps, which, in order to uphold the hand which feeds them, would lead to direct and active interference in the elections, both State and Federal, thereby subjecting the course of State legislation to the dictation of the chief executive officer and making the will of that officer absolute and supreme. I will at a proper time invoke the action of Congress upon this subject, and shall readily acquiesce in the adoption of all proper measures which are calculated to arrest these evils, so full ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... themselves to securing a monopoly over private enterprises, and as long as the law permits them to exercise this autocratic power without control; but such a ring is far less capable of meeting the arbitrary dictation of an aristocratic body of landholders, such as the senate, or of encountering the resentful opposition of a nominally all-powerful body of consumers, such as the Comitia, than a corporation which has struck its roots deeply in society by the wide distribution ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the ever amiable and courteous tsar Alexius that he discovered so many great men (like Nikon, Orduin, Matvyeev, the best of Peter's precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man of superior strength of character, or he would never have submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on the other hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he would never have encouraged the great reforming boyarin Matvyeev. His education was necessarily narrow; yet he was learned ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... impressive quiet: "I never had any trouble but once. I had a porter in this store who wanted his pay raised. I simply said that I made it a rule to propose all advances of salary myself, and I should submit to no dictation from any one. He told me to go to—a place that I will not repeat, and I told him to walk out of my store. He was under the influence of liquor at the time, I suppose. I understand that he is drinking very hard. He does nothing to support his family whatever, and from all that ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... those religious houses which were dependencies on some English or foreign abbey; they do not apply to the Cistercian monasteries, all of which were practically equal and self-governing; each elected its own head and was not under foreign dictation. While the whole Cistercian Order formed an united body for purposes of monastic life and discipline, each abbey identified itself in a very remarkable way with the local or national aspirations of the people round, from whom its monks were drawn. Some of ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... and earnestly; their tones were of dictation on the part of the woman and subservience on the part of the man. Then the Spirit of the Moosefoot Indians moved away, and the White Squaw retraced her ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... general inspiration, there is that of special call and command, with actual dictation of the deeds to be done or words to be said. I will enter at present into no examination of the evidences of such separating influence; it is not claimed by the Fathers of the Church, either for themselves, or even ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... day she had pondered upon his high-handed way of taking charge of her affairs. Submitting to this further dictation, she spread her slicker before her place at table, as indicated by the bare spot of ground, and sat down. Mr. Brown took a bucket and disappeared in the gully. Evidently he had gone to get fresh water. Janet now put her feet out farther toward ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... his approach. It is not that women must be all things to all men, but that their simplicity must conform to time and circumstance. What I do not understand is that simplicity gets banished altogether, and that fashion, on a dictation that no one can trace the origin of, makes that lovely in the eyes of women today which will seem utterly abhorrent to them tomorrow. There appears to be no line of taste running through the changes. The only consolation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said his mother sent him to the store for some and he forgot it because he was thinking about me. Well, I just took his letter and wrote in all the words, spelled right, above the wrong ones, in red ink, just as Mr. Perkins makes us do with our dictation exercises, and sent it back to him. I thought maybe he'd feel insulted and ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Christians of this country (America) to think of constituting an Alliance on the basis which denies Christian character to all slaveholders. At a future time, when slavery has been discussed long enough, we shall do so. We cannot do it now,—least of all can we do it at the dictation of brethren beyond the sea, who do not ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... injunction, charge, behest, requisition, bidding, direction, dictation, precept; authority, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... la Barre was fain to agree. On his return to Quebec, he found, to his chagrin, that considerable re-enforcements had just arrived from France, which would have enabled him to dictate instead of submitting to dictation. The new detachment was commanded by MM. Monterlier and Desnos, captains of marine, who were commissioned by the king to proceed to the most advanced and important posts, and to act independently of ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... evening before he left the tiny office on the fifth floor of the Quintard Building where one of his former stenographers had set up in business for herself. Since five o'clock the young woman had been steadily driving the type-writer to Kent's dictation. When the final sheet came out with a whirring rasp of the ratchet, he suddenly remembered that he had promised Miss Van Brock to dine with her. It was too late for the dinner, but not too late to go and apologize, and he did the thing ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... not so strong as mine," I said, by way of apology for my apparent dictation, "and for that reason I must beg leave to assume the leadership in all that we have now to do, until I see the leaden coffin soldered down and safe in your possession. After that I shall resign all ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins |
