"Illegible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that the transparency in the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words 'Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property,' but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared, together with the announcement, for the articles of stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... letter, I say, and carefully examined the outside. It was written in the hand of an educated man. It was almost illegible, and had all the appearance of what an honest citizen of some culture might write to one hurriedly about some personal matter. I noticed that it had come from the eastern central district, but when you consider what an enormous ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... of this document furnished us from the Sevilla archives, this word is written teatinos ("Theatins")—apparently the copyist's conjecture for an illegible or badly-written word in the original MS. But the Theatins had no establishments in the Philippines; and the mention of Chirino in the second of these letters (next following this one) of Benavides proves that he referred to the Jesuits (Spanish iesuitas), ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... of this name are illegible (worn away?) in the original text; from the remaining bits I have guessed all but the first two, which are not visible ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... that follow the religion of Pravritti acquire heaven, etc., through their merits. Merits however, are exhaustible. They have, therefore, to fall down from heaven. The Creator Brahma casts his eye on [(illegible—JBH)] that follow Pravritti. The religion of Nivritti, however, leads to Emancipation. It is Narayana that looks upon men ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... just as if they had been mere blanks, the sermons of Ephraem being the only matter regarded in the book." Stowe, Hist. of the Books of the Bible, p. 75. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Allix first observed the older writing under the works of Ephraem. It was very illegible, but a chemical preparation applied in 1834-5 revivified it to a certain extent. It has been diligently collated by eminent scholars, and in 1842 Tischendorf printed an edition of it page for page and line for line. Of the two hundred and nine leaves ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... the only ones which much interested me were two from the hand of Napoleon. The earliest of these, when he was first consul, was a most illegible scrawl, and, as the tradition went, was written on horseback; but his writing improved greatly after he became an emperor, the subsequent signature being firmly and clearly written.—I ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... his caustic sketches,—this would be as exciting, one might suppose, as to sit through a play one knows by heart at Drury Lane or the Theatre Francais, and might furnish occupation enough to the curious idler who was only in search of entertainment. The mechanical obstacles of half-illegible manuscript, of antiquated forms of speech, to say nothing of the intentional obscurities of diplomatic correspondence, stand, however, in the way of all but the resolute and unwearied scholar. These difficulties, in ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Mr. Pickwick recoiled upon the head of its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy to the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... introduction and to say that the present paper is the first of a series on the structure of the vertebrate skull; that the second will be "On the development of the osseous cranium of the Common Fowl" (and here (if you are good), I will permit you to introduce the episode on cartilage and membrane [illegible]); the third will be "On the chief modifications of the cranium observed ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... not tell the time of day; and when it struck, it was with noticeably disproportionate deliberation, as if it wished to correct any mistake into which the family might have fallen by reason of its illegible dial. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the Gisbornes' house at Leghorn, July, 1820; published in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Sources of the text are (1) a draft in Shelley's hand, 'partly illegible' (Forman), amongst the Boscombe manuscripts; (2) a transcript by Mrs. Shelley; (3) the editio princeps, 1824; the text in "Poetical Works", 1839, let and 2nd editions. Our text is that of Mrs. Shelley's transcript, modified by the Boscombe manuscript. Here, as elsewhere ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his tickets, with a vocabulary of strictly railroad English, had to help him find the pieces in the baggage-room, curiously estranged in a mountain of alien boxes. One official weighed them; another obliged him to pay as much in freight as for a third passenger, and gave him an illegible scrap of paper which recorded their number and destination. The interpreter and the porters took their fees with a professional effect of dissatisfaction, and he went to wait with his wife amidst the smoking and eating and drinking in the restaurant. They ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... exclaimed; 'shall have them as soon as I get them back from Market-Deeping. And I can show you a few verses at once.' Which saying, he left the room, returning in a few minutes with a queer bundle of odd-sized scraps of paper, tied round with a thick rope, and scribbled over, in an almost illegible manner, in all directions. At the top of the bundle was a poem, beginning, 'My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,' which Mr. Drury had no sooner deciphered, than he shook Clare warmly ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... it, and a neatly stacked wood-pile. This was unexpected. We came to the bank, and on the stack of firewood found a flat piece of board with some faded pencil-writing on it. When deciphered it said: 'Wood for you. Hurry up. Approach cautiously.' There was a signature, but it was illegible—not Kurtz—a much longer word. 'Hurry up.' Where? Up the river? 'Approach cautiously.' We had not done so. But the warning could not have been meant for the place where it could be only found after approach. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... dealing with many obscurities in the text, and he has also read the proofs. I am indebted also to Mr. E. Gwynn, who has collated at Trinity College, Dublin, a number of passages in the Yellow Book of Lecan, which are illegible or incorrect in the facsimile; and to Dr. Whitley Stokes for notes and ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... the table. At his first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with, nowadays; but, on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin golden plates, in which all the wisdom of the book had grown illegible. He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness, although it burdened him a little with its weight. He drew out his handkerchief, which little Marygold had hemmed for him. That was likewise gold, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... concluding verse a hexameter of similar import. It is of some interest to remark that, apart from armorial or fanciful initials, the standing of a house may be gauged by the handwriting, the titles of the larger monasteries being given in bold letters, while those of the smaller form an almost illegible scrawl. The greater houses would have been in a position to support a competent scribe—not so the lesser; and this is believed to have been the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... the sitting-room, upon a cry from Minette, she found Netta in a swoon. The letter was tightly clasped in her hand, the envelope was on the floor. She ventured to look at the address and postmark. The former was to Mrs Mills, the latter some illegible place in America. She wanted no more information, and asked for none. She brought poor Netta to herself with difficulty, and let her put the letter in its envelope, and both in her bosom, without a question. Netta lay on the sofa, with her eyes closed, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... glanced over it as quickly as Mrs. Vane's illegible writing allowed him, and drew in his lips in a peculiar manner when he came to the signature. Perhaps at the same thought ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... cupboard of one of the great houses of the town. Whenever any strangers arrived, the paper was taken out and turned over and over, so that the address, which was only written in pencil, became almost illegible, and at last no one could distinguish any letters on it at all. For a whole year the bottle remained standing in the cupboard, and then it was taken up to the loft, where it soon became covered with dust ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... back from rehearsal at the theatre, where I found a letter from Emily, containing a bad account of her mother, and a most affectionate, cordial, illegible scrawl from poor dear old ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... grass. Wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life. To gain the milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, blue-bells, and wild roses, would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may. So, all the tramps with carts or caravans—the Gipsy-tramp, the Show-tramp, the Cheap Jack—find it impossible to resist the temptations of the place, and all turn the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus on a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian Pallas," said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced, bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... "It's not banking etiquette, Miss Fraser, but that doesn't matter in North Queensland. We do many things that we ought not to do, and if Smith draws a cheque you may be sure that I will refuse to pay it as 'signature illegible'—as it is sure to be. But I'll lend him a few pounds if he breaks out again, and is laid up in this abode of sin, so that he may get home again to your ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... honour by his friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected Rectors as the reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. Young. When he died, an epitaph was inscribed with some care by a friendly hand, and an unwilling admission is made of the opposition he had encountered. It is now illegible, and some of its lines appear to have been carefully erased—by some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy was made when the epitaph ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... that the Devil, to ruin the fruit of this work, employed two very malicious frauds: the first before it was printed, by drenching the MS. in a kennel, and having reduced it to a most pitiable state, rendered several parts illegible: the second, in obliging the printers to commit such numerous blunders, never yet equalled in so small a work. To combat this double machination of Satan he was obliged carefully to re-peruse the work, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... him to think that all the true things had been said, and one could do no better than hunt them up again for new uses. Our business was, like Old Mortality, to clear out and cut afresh inscriptions that had been made illegible by time and storm. At least this delivered him from the senseless vanity of originality and personal appropriation. We feel sure that if he found that a thought which he had believed to be new had been expressed in literature before, he would have ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... shake hands. He had not seen Cornish since the evening when he had offered to make malgamite before him, and the experiment had taken such a deadly turn. He looked at him now and found his glance returned by an illegible smile. The question flashed through his mind and showed itself on his face as to why Roden had made such a mistake as to introduce a man like this into the Malgamite scheme. Von Holzen invited the gentlemen ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... the left towards Wick. The first part of our walk was through the Parish of Canisbay, in the ancient records of which some reference is made to the more recent representatives of the Groat family, but as these were made two hundred years ago, they were now almost illegible. Our road lay through a wild moorland district with a few farms and cottages here and there, mainly occupied by fishermen. There were no fences to the fields or roads, and no bushes or trees, and the cattle were either herded ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... came the slip of paper was taken out, opened, and examined, so that the writing, which was only in pencil, became more and more illegible from the frequent folding and unfolding of the paper, till at length the letters could no longer be discerned. After the bottle had remained about a year in the press it was removed to the loft, and was soon covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah! then it thought of its better days, when ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... alabaster effigies of women in the ancient dress of their times. The first of which we give a sketch, appears particularly "en bon point," and is represented kneeling on a cushion, in the act of prayer. The following inscription, now almost illegible, ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... Bennett wrote with amazing rapidity and with ragged, vigorous strokes of the pen, not unfrequently driving the point through the paper itself; his script was pothooks, clumsy, slanting in all directions, all but illegible. In the end Lloyd had almost pushed him from his place at the desk, taking the pen from ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... interesting MS. was found 'hidden in a cupboard under the stairs which was not used for papers of any value but rather as an overflow of matters he did not wish to destroy[125].' By the pious care of his son, this interesting MS.—hurriedly written and sometimes almost illegible—has been given to the world, and it proves how completely Darwin had, at that early date, thought out the main lines of ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... black boards, as big as the church door almost, upon which are emblazoned, in gilt letters, the donations to the poor, to the school, to the repair of the fabric, &c. from the worshipful company of This and That, from the days of King James—the inscriptions of whose time are illegible through the smoke and damp of centuries—down to the days of Queen Victoria, and the donations of last Christmas, fresh and glittering from the hands of the gilder. Thus, the interesting old church of St Bartholomew the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... the Archives at the Hague—lasting through nearly two years—by the Chief Archivist, M. van den Berg, and the gentlemen connected with that institution, especially M. de Jonghe and M. Hingman, without whose aid it would have been difficult for me to decipher and to procure copies of the almost illegible ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... previous books of this series, consists in burning some other mark over the legitimate brand on cattle, so that the original one can not be made out. Then the animal may be claimed by whoever has it. Blurring a brand, that is, making it illegible, or changing one brand into another, are two of the methods used by unscrupulous ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... Canary Bombast Primrose Diamond Benedict Walnut Abominate Piazza Holiday Barbarous Disgust Heavy Kind Virtu Nightmare Devil Gospel Comfort Whist Mermaid Pearl Onion Enthusiasm Domino Book Fanatic Grotesque Cheat Auction Economy Illegible Quell Cheap Illegitimate Sheriff Excelsior Emasculate Danger Dunce Champion Shibboleth Calico Adieu Essay Pontiff Macadamize Wages Copy Stentorian Quarantine Puny Saturnine Buxom Caper Derrick Indifferent Boycott Mercurial Gaudy Countenance Poniard ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and a finger-print with illegible markings in the center meant a telegraph operator, so far as this particular incident was concerned. He so greatly admired Mr. Conne that as usual he ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... breathless. The girl, too, gazed with anxious eyes at the dim script, all but illegible with ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life. To gain the milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, bluebells and wild roses would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may. So, all the tramps with carts or caravans—the gipsy tramp, the show tramp, the Cheap Jack—find it impossible to resist the temptations of the place, and all turn the horse loose ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... was leaning over the table, completely puzzled, first by Milly's terrified expression, then by what she had written, illegibly enough, across the two sheets of foolscap. He made out: "You are only miserab ..."—the words were interspersed with really illegible scrawls—"... Go ... go ... Let me ... I want to live, I ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... diverted his thought. It came forward to within a foot of his face, growing visibly larger as it approached. The rusted metallic plate, with an inscription illegible in the moonlight, looked him steadily in the eye. Determined not to shrink, he tried to brace his shoulders more firmly against the end of the excavation, and nearly fell backward in the attempt. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... described clamp, consisting of the head, C, upon one arm of the body, [Transcribers note: illegible letter], the opposite arm, provided with a corresponding foot, and the said head having arranged therein levers, D, and combined with a screw, B, so as to operate to clamp between the screw and the foot, ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... to be a copy of the Crozier record found by Lieutenant Hobson, of McClintock's expedition, and was in the handwriting of Sir Leopold McClintock. The document was written with a lead pencil on note-paper, and was partially illegible from exposure. It was literally ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... bailies at the annual examination. It is said now that no school of any name in the land would condescend to teach writing, and that boys coming from such high places can compass their own signatures with difficulty, and are quite illegible after a gentlemanly fashion; but it was otherwise in one old grammar school. So famous was the caligraphy produced at the Seminary that Muirtown bankers, lawyers, and other great personages used to drop in of an afternoon, and having snuffed with the master, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... kind a remembrance of me. Do not forget to make enquiries about the origin, even if only traditionally known, of any varieties of domestic quadrupeds, birds, silkworms, etc. Are there domestic bees? if so hives ought to be brought home. Of all the facts you mention, that of the wild [illegible], when breeding with the domestic, producing offspring somewhat sterile, is the most surprising: surely they must be different species. Most zoologists would absolutely disbelieve such a statement, and consider the result as a proof that they were distinct species. I do not ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... fifteen pages! The author, a monk, in an advertisement prefixed to the errata states, that the devil, to ruin the fruit of his work, employed two very malicious frauds, by first drenching the manuscript in the kennel, reducing it to a most pitiable state, and rendering some parts altogether illegible, and then obliging the printers to commit such numerous blunders, never before equalled in so small a work. To combat this double machination of Satan, he was obliged carefully to reperuse the work, and ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... illegible, contained only these interrupted lines: "Raphael! Raphael! where are you? I have had strength to get out of bed.... I have told the nurse that I wished to be left alone to rest. I have dragged myself along to ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... through a magnifying-glass. Thus, young people who can focus their vision through a wide range may be observed poring with their eyes close to their books when the light wanes. So again, at night-time, a placard, even in large type, is illegible at a short distance, but easily read on approaching it. It seems, in order that a faint image on the retina should be appreciated by the nerves of sight, that ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... of man does not communicate life. It had remained fitted with its old furniture, was always for sale or to let, and the ten or a dozen people who passed through the Rue Plumet were warned of the fact by a yellow and illegible bit of writing which had hung on the garden wall ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... brother-in-law's outlines, which she had picked up and preserved—sketches of the children, in the oddest attitudes of children—of Dr Levitt, resting his book on the end of his nose, as he read in his study-chair—of Mrs Plumstead, exasperated by the arrival of an illegible letter—of almost every oddity in the place. Then out came the pencils, and the girls supplied omissions. They sketched Mr Hope himself; listening to an old woman's theory of her own case; they sketched each other. Mr Enderby was almost the only person omitted ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... weak to travel any further, Valeria. Will you come to me and forgive me?" A few pencil-marks followed; but they were illegible. The writing of those two short ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... and asked for paper and pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When, however, I found Mr. ——(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge) declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had scarcely signed his name when he fell back,—the exertion, as I had feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died at six ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Astor went into the cabin, and proceeded to write what was expected to be a draft for ten thousand dollars in favor of the owners of the ship on his agent in New York. He handed to the captain the result of his efforts. It was a paper covered with writing that was totally illegible. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... desperate circumstances probably under which she had written it, the message was on a torn piece of brown wrapping paper, and the words, in pencil, were scrawled in hurried, broken sentences. And standing there, fighting for a grip upon himself, Jimmie Dale read the message——almost illegible! in places—and then, as though a strange incredulity, a strange inability to grasp and understand its import fully, were prompting him, he read it again, murmuring snatches of ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... forgive a dying man. If you will come back and let all be as it used to be, I will make any apology you may require. If I go, she will be so very friendless; and I have looked to you to care for her ever since you first—" Then came some illegible and incoherent writing, ending with, "From my deathbed I adjure you to stand her friend; I will beg pardon on ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... said to be illegible, and the conclusion of the letter to be lost ('Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson', vol. i. p. 196). Only the latter statement is correct. The word is perfectly legible. Talapoin (Yule's 'Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words, sub voce') is the name used by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of Nukhashi and another whose name is now illegible, apparently take a higher rank than their neighbours. Nukhashi is often named in these tablets as well as in Egyptian inscriptions, and it must have been situated on the north-east slope of the Lebanon ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... had written letters to Commodore Preble, with postscripts written in lemon-juice, and illegible save when the sheet of paper was exposed to the heat. In these postscripts he urged the destruction of the "Philadelphia." Lieut. Stephen Decatur, in command of the "Enterprise," eagerly seconded these proposals, and proposed to cut into the port with the "Enterprise," and undertake the destruction ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... blotted by the rain and by the kindness of nature, was fortunately illegible, for it is possible that its philosophy concerning the inhalation of gold, at the same time both enigmatical and lucid, might not have been to the taste of the sheriffs, the provost-marshals, and other big-wigs of the law. English ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and inscribed carillon of thirty or forty bells. The reason of this is not far to seek. The fact is, it is no easy matter to get at the bells when once they are hung, and many an antiquarian who will haunt tombs and pore over illegible brasses with commendable patience will decline to risk his neck in the most interesting of belfries. The pursuit, too, is often a disappointing one. Perhaps it is possible to get half way around a bell and ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... springs of thought and conversation were quickly loosened. It is marvelous how far apart the two worlds are." She started on the ship Idaho for Portland, August 25. The sea was very rough, they were seven days making the trip and, judging from the almost illegible entries in the diary, it was not a ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... willing to write longhand, and to work as slowly and as irregularly as I pleased. I gave her a short trial, but her writing was so illegible that I could not discover whether or not she made mistakes in spelling. I had, however, my suspicions ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... I extract is cropped, so that the last line is illegible. Can the noble editor of Pepys' Diary, or any of your readers, inform me who and what was ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... still preserved, are illegible from the vast number of their corrections. I have given a fac-simile, as correct as it is possible to conceive, of one page of Pope's MS. Homer, as a specimen of his continual corrections and critical erasures. The celebrated Madame Dacier never could satisfy herself in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... above 13 packages and 4 cases of medicines are ship'd on Board the Sloop Called the Two Brothers Saml West Master. On Account and [illegible word] of Mr. Oliver Smith of Boston Apothecary and to him consigned. The cases are unmarked being ship'd at Night. Error Excepted ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... words are obliterated. Forster reads "MD MD, for we must always write to MD MD MD, awake or asleep;" but the passage is illegible. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... that we are not sufficiently alive to the influence of comparatively insignificant matters on success in life. Illegible handwriting, for instance, may go far to retard or arrest a youth's success. It sometimes interferes with friendly intercourse. I once had a friend whose writing was so illegible, and the cause of so much worry in mere decipherment, that I was ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... Confound it! He's illegible enough in French, but if he takes it into his head to go off in Italian, and that Corsican patois to boot! I thought I only ran the risk of going crazy, but then I should become stupid, too. Well, you've got it," and he read the whole sentence consecutively: "'The Nile, from ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Martin's Church, said to be the oldest church in England, and wandered around the churchyard, filled with glorious roses creeping everywhere over tombs so old that the lettering is illegible. When the sun set, we had the most beautiful view of Canterbury to be had anywhere, and one of the most beautiful in ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... can understand him. No one can read what he has written—it is just scrawls, scribbles, unintelligible. Day and night, for he never sleeps, he writes on that block of paper, and tears off the sheets and gives them to everyone who passes. And no one can understand, for it is just illegible, unintelligible scribbles. Once we took the paper away to see what he would do and then he wrote with his finger upon the wooden frame of the screen. The same thing, scribbles, but they made no mark on the screen, and he seemed so distressed because they ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... and looked at the collar. There was no name on it, except the maker's, scratched and illegible. I rose and followed the beast, which showed its eager delight by running ahead of me, turning round at times to bark, and then continuing on its way with a precision which showed me that it was ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... At this point the manuscript becomes absolutely illegible. I have conjectured Percy for the first name. It may be Richard, but I'll plunge on Percy. It's the surname that stumps me. Personally, I think it's MacCow, though I trust it isn't, for the kid's sake. I showed the letter to my brother, the one ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... pistols, and surmounted by a bear-skin cap, with a fiery animal that he bestrode rampant. All these particulars were easily to be seen by the aid of the moon, together with a row of somewhat illegible writing in black paint, but in which Elizabeth, to whom the whole was familiar, read ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... at your convenience, return me the suggestions I sent you, as I may have occasion to weave some parts of them into letters that I am frequently obliged to write; the rough draft was made with a pencil & is now illegible. Be assured that your not using them occasioned me no mortification, as I before told you it would not. You had a nearer & could take a safer view of things than myself. Don't trouble yourself to answer this letter as it requires ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... you did was through a Publick Spirit & n [torn] of interest; the reason the lots sold so high was River side ones being sett up first which were purchased at a very extravagant price by the prop [illegible] Your two, M^r Carlyles M^r Dortons M^r Ramseys [illegible] M^r Chapmans sold at different prices, as you may se by the Sale, but we agreed before the Sale to give any Price for them & to strike them upon an average ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... fire! We shall lay our hands on the others, and too, by and by, on those I am looking for. These can go into it, meantime. It will be a good riddance, at any rate, a fine clearance, yes, indeed! To the fire, to the fire with them all, even to the smallest scrap of paper, even to the most illegible scrawl, if we wish to be certain of ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... girdle of walls of the castle, with well-preserved battlemented towers, is the principal factor in the effect. The gateways are pointed: outside the walls, towards Castel Parentino, is the pedestal for the municipal standard; on the other side is an illegible inscription in which the date 1475 may be deciphered. The more important church, S. Sofia, still has its outside walls, the three apses, with traces of frescoes in the central one, and the walls of the sacristy. At the beginning of the fourteenth century it appears to have belonged to the Castropola, ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... large and strongly built, dressed in the uniform of an ensign of our navy. Surely a strange visitor to these shores! There was no mark of identification upon him except a cigarette case graven with an undecipherable monogram in Tiffany's most illegible style of arrow-headed inscription. This I buried with him, and staked the grave with a headboard. An officer and a gentleman, a youth of friendly ways and kindly living, if one may judge by the face of ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of mind. It may be a mere fancy of mine; but I have often thought that the extreme badness of the printing may have been partly owing to this cause; that the Poet may have left the manuscript in a more unfinished and illegible state, from a sense of something ungenial and unattractive in the subject-matter and action of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... in literature cannot begin too early to neglect his education, and to adopt every opportunity of not observing life and character. None of us is so young but that he may make himself perfect in writing an illegible hand. This method, I am bound to say, is too frequently overlooked. Most manuscripts by ardent literary volunteers are fairly legible. On the other hand there are novelists, especially ladies, who not only write a hand wholly declining to let itself be deciphered, but who fill up the ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... style, with portions of ornamental entablature, are lying near. Perhaps belonging to this, but at some distance, lies a ponderous piece of architrave, on which, between lines of moulding, is an inscription in Greek—illegible except the three letters—[Greek text]. These letters were ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... vigorously with his fore-paws at the unhappy cat's hiding-place. As he did so, he threw out a ball of paper rolled closely together, which the sharp-sighted Prieme instantly picked up and unfolded. It was a fragment of a written sheet, partly burned, and in several places quite illegible. ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... to young people as severity.—Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and prepare Lydia to receive your son's invocations;—and I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible. ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... learning. In 1513 he finished a translation, into Scottish verse, of Virgil's 'Aeneid,' which, considering the age, is an extraordinary performance. It occupied him only sixteen months. The multitude of obsolete terms, however, in which it abounds, renders it now, as a whole, illegible. After passing through various subordinate offices, such as the 'Provostship' of St Giles's, Edinburgh, and the 'Abbotship' of Arbroath, he was at length appointed Bishop of Dunkeld. Dunkeld was not then the paradise ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... been told that when I want it to be my countenance is illegible; assuredly, at this moment it was not my desire that she should glimpse the tumult of thought and emotion to which I was a prey; but I have reasons, numberless as the sands of the sea, for knowing that it ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... notice of this. He took from his pocket a little book covered with horny parchment, which he opened and presented to my dear teacher and myself. It contained an old Greek text, full of abbreviations and ligatures which at first gave me the effect of an illegible scrawl. But M. Coignard, having put on his barnacles and placed the book at the necessary distance, began to read the characters easily; they looked more like balls of thread that had been unrolled by a kitten than the simple and quiet letters of my St John Chrysostom, out of which I studied ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... to pieces with age, and almost illegible in places, is headed, "An ABSTRACT of the Pay due the Officers and Privates of the Company of Riflemen belonging to Captain Abraham Shepherd, being part of a Battalion raised by Colonel Hugh Stevenson, deceased, and afterwards commanded by Lieut ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... he replied, guiltily conscious of possessing two or three illegible letters from his daughter which he had not yet had the enterprise ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... 1800, when he died, broken in health and spirit, in his sixtieth year. He was buried in Hampstead Churchyard, where a stone marking the date of his death is still to be seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has recently been restored by ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down and read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted, but it was from Francis Strickland Morley. From "Little Frank!" I think my first and greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there really was a "Little Frank." Hephzy ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... With respect to other indications of locality, it must be noted that they are usually at the end of the first line at the right-hand top corner of the tablet, and have suffered defacement more often than any other detail, so that they are often illegible. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... electric lamp upon a note attached by means of a drawing-pin to the inside of the room door. I immediately divined that my friend must have pinned the note in its place earlier in the day; even at that distance I recognized Smith's neat, illegible writing. ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... can tell me about it—his hand's so illegible." He wandered to the other end of the room and then turned and stood before her. "I've been thinking of ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... say that "I must likewise be sensible that although I am an American citizen that it is likewise believed there [in America] that I am become a citizen of France, and that in consequence this latter character has so far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy any claim you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot add any new arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of the subject. But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... for a higher order of home falling on the ever more inadequate shoulders of the Average Woman, both Motherhood and the home are imperilled. We are horribly frightened when we see our poor Average Woman shrink from maternity, and [illegible] at housework. We preach at her and scold her and flatter her and woo her, and, if we could, we would force her back into her old place, child-bearer and burden-hearer, the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... fambly was goin' to be married the slaves was dress' in linen clothes to witness the ceremony. Only special slaves was chosen to be at the weddin'. Slaves was alway ax how they like' the one who was comin' in the [TN: two illegible words.] myself by sayin' nice things 'bout the person en hate' the ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... December 11, 32 shillings. A wooden image after the similitude of the Lord King Edward, deceased, 40 shillings. A crown of copper, gilt, 7 shillings, 4 pence. Vestments for the body, in which he was buried, a German coverchief, and three-quarters [here a word is illegible, probably linen]; item, one pillow to put under his head, 4 shillings [? the amount is nearly obliterated]. Gilt paint for the hearse, 1 shilling. Wages of the painter [a few words illegible] grey colour, 2 shillings, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... stored in an ice house which was built in the grove where the other buildings were. A large hole about ten feet deep was dug in the ground; the ice was put in that hole and covered. [TR: HW note in left margin is illegible.] ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... On Hadrian's Wall no excavations have been carried out. But at Chesterholm two inscribed altars were found in the summer. One was dedicated to Juppiter Optimus Maximus; the rest of the lettering was illegible. The other, dedicated to Vulcan on behalf of the Divinity of the Imperial House by the people of the locality, possesses much interest. The dedicators describe themselves as vicani Vindolandenses, and thus give proof that the civilians living outside the fort at Chesterholm ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... A square copper coin, inscription illegible. On the obverse is a woman holding a flower or a priest offering incense. It appears to be a ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... Hence they were regarded as demons, and were frequently entrusted with the carrying out of the strange curses, which have been found in their tombs, or in wells where a man had been drowned, or even in the sea, written on leaden tablets, often from right to left, or in queer characters, so as to be illegible, with another tablet fastened over them by means of a nail, symbolizing the binding effect it was hoped they would have—the "Defixiones," to give them their Latin name, which are very numerous among the inscriptions. So real was the belief in ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... three softas awoke the Chief Mufti and Ispirizade, and laid before them a letter written on parchment which they had discovered lying in the middle of a mosque. The letter was apparently written with gunpowder and almost illegible. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... it was over the teacups, even more than over the wine glasses, that Boswell made his notes. I have seen Boswell's signature after wine—on the minutes of a meeting of The Club—and he was in no condition then for the taking of notes. Even the signature is almost illegible.) But it is fitting that Gilbert, who loved all sorts of men so much, should be kept alive for the future by all sorts of men. From the focussing of many views from many angles this picture has been composed, but they are all views of one man, and the picture ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What shall I say to you? I have Romans, and Roman ladies [here occurs an illegible word], and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all off; this summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and the whole revarnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has also found in a corner of the attic two wooden pier-tables of ancient fashion. They ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... it and saw that it was of old-fashioned shape, made of heavy oaken boards that were already rotting. On its cover was a metal plate with an illegible inscription. The old wood was so brittle that it would have been very easy for me to open the coffin with any sort of a tool. I looked about me and saw a hatchet and a couple of spades lying near the ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the ablest editorial judgment and in this way I got it. My manuscripts were badly put together (I used cheap paper and could not afford a typist), hence I could not blame the readers who hurried my stories back at me. No doubt my illegible writing as well as the blunt, unrelenting truth of my pictures repelled them. One or two friendly souls wrote personal notes protesting against my "false interpretation ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... it was all but a pulp, and in its present state illegible. Carefully smoothing it out, I slipped it inside the strap and turned to hide my prize; for such was my fear of the man who called himself Apollyon, that I could know no peace of mind whilst it remained about ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... written out, but in spite of this precaution Mr. Rodney managed to turn over two sheets instead of one, to choose the wrong sentence where two were written together, and to discover his own handwriting suddenly illegible. When he found himself possessed of a coherent passage, he shook it at his audience almost aggressively, and then fumbled for another. After a distressing search a fresh discovery would be made, and produced in the same way, until, by means of repeated ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... I say, furnished me some time since with a bundle of those pens, wrapped up with great care and caution, in a very large sheet of paper full of characters, written as it seemed in a very bad hand. Now, I have a surprising curiosity to read everything which is almost illegible; partly perhaps from the sweet remembrance of the dear Scrawls, Skrawls, or Skrales (for the word is variously spelled), which I have in my youth received from that lovely part of the creation for which ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... high-arched entrance to an olden bridge that spanned a moat. Long ago had the feudal gates been overthrown by Francis; yet above the keystone appeared, not the salamander, the king's heraldic emblem, but the almost illegible device of the old constable. Beyond the great ditch outstretched a rolling country on which the jester gazed with eager eyes, while his companion swiftly led the way to a clump of willow and aspen on the other side of the moat. Beneath the spreading branches were tethered ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... he said. "Look at this." He laid a finger on a square of paper which bore in almost illegible writing this remarkable notice: "What Will You Give? Dirt Cheap! Terms Cash! One fine oak Morris chair, good as new. Three cushions, very pretty. One pair of skates. Eight phonograph records. Large assortment of bric-a-brac. Any ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... forgetting needfuls, which, of course, were always at the very bottom. At the fifth plunge into the depths her patience gave out, and with a vow to be a slave no longer to her treacherous memory, she tumbled every thing in, performed a solemn jig on the lid till it locked, then pasted large, but illegible placards in every available spot, and rested from her labours with every nerve in a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... paper was brought out, and turned over and over, so that the inscription, which was only written in pencil, became more and more illegible, so that at last no one could see that there were letters on it. And for a whole year more the bottle remained standing in the cupboard; and then it was put into the loft, where it became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah, how often it thought of the better days, the times ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... this experiment is when we use a coin from which the inscription has been either wholly obliterated, or obliterated in such a degree as to be illegible. When such a coin is laid upon the red hot iron, the letters and figures become oxidated, and the film of oxide radiating more powerfully than the rest of the coin will be more luminous than the rest of the coin, and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... packet held two letters only, one in Italian (which language I learned, after a fashion, in order to read it) the other in French. The Italian letter was not only scorched badly, but so blistered—one did not need to ask how—that parts were quite illegible. The writer, a man, evidently, a young man, probably, conveyed in satire so keen, a contempt so bitter, a hatred so remorseless, that it was difficult to believe it a letter from a brother to his sister. Beneath the polished, scornful sentences—vitriol to a tender ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... became a young woman of fashion when "Twelfth Night" was produced; and from this again to the modified chancery hand which was in such common use in the first half of the century 1600, and again to a cramped and contracted chirography almost illegible, which went out of general use in the last years of Elizabeth and the first of James I. All these varieties of handwriting, except the last, were in use from 1600 to the Restoration. They will be found in the second edition of Richard Gethinge's "Calligraphotechnia, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... [Sidenote K: The door is safely closed.] [Sidenote L: Since I have him in house that every one likes, I shall use my time well while it lasts.] [Sidenote M: Ye are welcome to my body.] [Sidenote N: I shall be your servant."] [Footnote 1: This word is illegible in the MS.] ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... Varro down, have not destroyed every thing, could not exhaust the rich deposit of Irish manuscripts there concealed. But the labor of striking the mine!-of' opening those musty pages falling to pieces between the fingers and leaving in the hand nothing but illegible fragments of half-blackened parchment; and the further labor of deciphering them, of discovering what they speak about, and if they are likely to ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... influence to refrain from voting, can such a function be valid under the Constitution of the United States? There is no question were of throwing out particular votes for vices inherent in themselves, such as that they were illegible, or were cast by disqualified persons, and the like; but the question is of rejecting the votes of a certain number—say a thousand voters—either because they were unduly influenced, or because another thousand, ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... dipped after date has been written on tag in pencil. A 60-watt lamp hung in the can may be used for heating the compound. In this way the tag is protected from the action of acid, and the writing on the tag cannot be rubbed off or made illegible. ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... that he had had a bad fall from his horse, and had been obliged to return to Croatia, and the Queen remained much alarmed at her plans being known to one so faint-hearted. However, a more courageous confidant was afterwards found in a Hungarian gentleman, whose name has become illegible ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... head, normal urine (phosphates 3.1), but anomalous reflex action and senses. Rigid, unequal pupils, tongue and lips inclined towards the right, shaky hand, astasia, aphasia, strong rotular reflex action, absence of cutaneous and cremasteric reflexes, illegible handwriting—a defect of long standing, since it was also found in writing dating back nine months before his arrest, uncertainty and errors of pronunciation (bradyphasia and dysarthria), complete insensibility to touch and the electric current, which gave ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... indignantly broke off his acquaintance, and published the letter in which he did it. Feuillet became more wary. His four later volumes are filled with matter of the utmost value; and his large collection of the illegible autographs of Napoleon were sold for L1250 and are now at ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... traditions of strenuous labour to the great Parliamentarian who was now the occupant of the house. He had absorbed those traditions and far outvied his predecessors, working day and night, bringing down from his bedroom almost illegible memoranda to be deciphered by ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... you have left illegible (is it Sea-gull?) never sent me any book on Christ's Hospit. by which I could dream that I was indebted to him for a dedication. Did G.D. send his penny tract to me to convert me to Unitarianism? Dear blundering soul! why I am as old a one-Goddite as himself. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... over Donogan's note-book, came upon this address, she saw also some almost illegible words, which implied that it was only to be employed as the last resort, or had been so used—a phrase she could not exactly determine what it meant. The present occasion—so emergent in every way—appeared to warrant both haste and security; and so, under cover to S. Maher, she ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... words stood out bold and clear; here and there, again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called Goodge for certain ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon |
