"Scrawl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poor scholar, and the handwriting was deplorable. Undotted "i's" travelled incognito through the scrawl, and uncrossed "t's" passed themselves off unblushingly as "l's." After half an hour's steady work, his imagination excited by one or two words which he had managed to decipher, he abandoned the task in despair, and stood ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... allowed me on account of the labour I have undergone. It has neither been of a slight nor an agreeable kind. I made it a rule to read everything that has been written respecting Napoleon, and I have had to decipher many of his autograph documents, though no longer so familiar with his scrawl as formerly. I say decipher, because a real cipher might often be much more readily understood than the handwriting of Napoleon. My own notes, too, which were often very hastily made, in the hand I wrote in my youth, have sometimes ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd, Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud— I often come to this quiet place, To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, And gaze upon thee in silent dream, For in thy lonely and lovely stream An image of that ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... sheet, and, by the light of a match read the scrawl upon it. The writing had evidently been done in haste, but its ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... me a pale blue envelope bearing in the upper left-hand corner the device of the Post-Dispatch. I laughed as I ripped it open; I had almost forgotten Terry's existence. It contained a characteristic pencil scrawl slanting across a sheet of yellow ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... back, she groped her way upstairs. Inside her room, when she had locked the door, she stood a moment upright with the letter in her hand,—the blotted incoherent scrawl, where Langham had for once forgotten to be literary, where every pitiable half-finished sentence pleaded with her—even in the first smart of her wrong—for pardon, for compassion, as towards something maimed and paralysed ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... practiced so supremely both exacted much and conferred much. He made a fine and potent figure as he stood, with his back to the bright street and the gutter-child standing beside him like a familiar companion, and read the smudged scrawl of Papa Musard. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... for the great field of performance, south and southwest. You shall hear of me, perhaps may wish to hear FROM me. Here is my address, meanwhile, in Alabama. I shall advise you of my further progress, and shall esteem highly a friendly scrawl from you. If you write, do not fail to tell me what you may hear of Mr. Latour Cleveland, and how he got down from the muck-heap. Write me all about it, Clifford, and whatever else you can about our fools and knaves, for though I leave them without a ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the pad, and watched him feebly scrawl a "T" and what might have been an "o"—and a haggling "m"; and then the pencil dropped. He looked so strange, he scarcely breathed; and frightened, Charley darted into the other room where his ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd, The maid and page renew'd their strife, The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... made; yet nothing can be found which clearly refers to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Just when it was first seen by a Spanish-speaking person is uncertain. When the Count de Sartiges was at Huadquina in 1834 he was looking for ruins; yet, although so near, he heard of none here. From a crude scrawl on the walls of one of the finest buildings, we learned that the ruins were visited in 1902 by Lizarraga, lessee of the lands immediately below the bridge of San Miguel. This is the earliest local record. Yet some one must have visited Machu Picchu long before that; because in 1875, as has been ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... tells us that his translations in verse from Horace and Virgil were often approved by Dr. Adam. One of these little pieces, written in a weak boyish scrawl, within pencilled marks still visible, had been carefully preserved by his mother; it was found folded up in a cover inscribed by the old lady—"My ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the scrawl was finished, and looking up from the writing table he saw Joan Devereux passing through the hall. He got up and hurried after her. "Would you mind addressing this for me?" He held out the envelope. "I've managed to spoil the paper inside, but I don't want to tax ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... accompanied with this assurance, that, though there may be inaccuracies in the letter, there is not a single defect in the friendship." Occasionally there was, as here, an apology: "I am persuaded you will excuse this scratch'd scrawl, when I assure you it is with difficulty I write at all," he ended a letter in 1777, and in 1792 of another said, "You must receive it blotted and scratched as you find it for I have not time to copy it. It is now ten o'clock ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... twelve o'clock. Hiram sat down, and taking up a torn piece of paper, scratched off a blurred and nearly unintelligible scrawl ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Dort tore the envelope apart, and soon made herself mistress of the contents of the letter. It was only a short scrawl which the sailor lad had written off hurriedly to take advantage of the opportunity of sending a message home by a passing ship, as his brother had surmised—Eric not expecting to have been able to forward any communication until the vessel reached the Cape; and, the stranger only lying-to for ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sentence had reached him on the reverse side of an invitation to take tea at Merrion—a vague some-day-when-you're-passing sort of invitation, in Neeld's eyes plainly and merely a pretext for writing and an opportunity of conveying the urgent little scrawl on the other side. It arrived at mid-day; in the afternoon Duplay had come and ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... of mine—very bad manners, to put any one—especially a Lady—to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging- house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don't answer till I write you something better: but believe me ever ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... drop; Even Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance. Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? (Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile;) But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great; These madmen never hurt the church or state: Sometimes the folly benefits mankind; And rarely avarice taints the tuneful mind. Allow him but his plaything of a pen, He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men: Flight of ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Arabic scrawl under a paperweight. He was a man who plumed himself on a gift of accurate divination. Such a belief is fatal. For the third time that day, he misunderstood ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... wrote Latin for all sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible that they should not have sometimes written in that language, as the Gauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date could scrawl his name and record, Sacrillos avot, 'Sacrillus potter', on the outside of a mould.[1] No such scrawl has ever been found in Britain. The Gauls, again, could invent a special letter Eth to denote a special Celtic sound and keep it in Roman times. ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... Having read the scrawl once I believed myself out of my wits. I could not credit my eyes. I could not gather my ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... He began to scrawl hastily with a dry pen that he had not time to dip in the well of ink. The shadow of the Lord Cromwell's silent return was cast upon them both, and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... dead—and upper earth with him has done; He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone For him, unless he left a German will:[508] But where's the proctor who will ask his son? In whom his qualities are reigning still,[gl] Except that household virtue, most uncommon, Of constancy to a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... from his brow, a quick smile stirred under his yellow moustache, and his eyes brightened, for a waiter handed him a letter. It lay, address uppermost, on the salver, and bore the Ballydoon postmark, and the handwriting was the disjointed scrawl which he had often ridiculed, but now welcomed ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... the hurried scrawl, she was conscious of a strong sense of dissatisfaction, but she would not reopen it. There was nothing more to ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... consisting of many words quite unintelligible to the Africans, whether Negroes or Moors, or others. The language of this document, although it has some Arabic words in it, is worse, if possible, than the scrawl in which it is written; neither is it a correct translation of the English which precedes it. But purporting to be a letter issued from the accredited servants of the King of the English, it is certainly a disgrace to ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... accept your offer, and be very grateful for it, for I do not bear this mountain traveling very well. If you find him, give him this scrawl and tell him where ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... sustained[1]; and I must thus dismiss the subject, for I dare not trust myself further with it for your sake, or for my own. I shall endeavour to see you as soon as it may not appear intrusive. Pray excuse the levity of my yesterday's scrawl—I little thought under what circumstances ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... me," cried the queen. "Here, you patrico, our eyes are bad. Read this scrawl, and ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... be so! May there be nothing worse than this! If the sick man—see, Arthur, how my hand trembles. Can you read this scrawl? What is always bad, my fears make ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... pool of water, near where my men had left him. His eyes were sunk in his head, his lips parched and cracked, his voice almost gone. A few hours more and he would have been beyond help. He had fainted, so they told me, after writing the scrawl, and only the efforts of my men and the morsel of food they could spare him brought him back to life. When I had poured a few drops of brandy down his throat and had made him a broth and warmed him up his strength began to come back. It is astonishing what a few ounces ...
— Homo - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... were quill-pens and curious old papers with seals on them, and on one I saw the date, June Sixteenth, Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight—the whole document written out in the hand of John Adams, beginning very prim and careful, then moving off into a hurried scrawl as spirit mastered the letter. There is a little hair-covered trunk in the corner, studded with brass nails, and boots and leggings and canes and a jackknife and a bootjack, and, on the window-sill, a friendly snuffbox. In the clothespress ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... agreement I made with Wendling, and I can send him the other pieces. It is not surprising that I have been unable to finish them, for I never have a single quiet hour here. I can only write at night, so I cannot rise early; besides, one is not always disposed to work. I could, to be sure, scrawl away all day, but a thing of this kind goes forth to the world, and I am resolved not to have cause to be ashamed of my name on the title-page. Moreover, you know that I become quite obtuse when obliged to write perpetually for an instrument that I cannot bear; ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... down the letter. "But what is this?" he cried, as his eye caught one he had overlooked before. 'Tis Arthur's hand!" With trembling hands he broke the seal (taking no note, in his agitation, of the fact that it had not been through the post), and read the almost unintelligible scrawl: ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... calmly. The fear in her heart had, as the brown man had anticipated, blinded her to the fact that this was not her father's characteristic blunt scrawl. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... but a scrawl," explained the secretary, "and it comes from the prisoner's child—Monckton's little girl—Monckton, the forger, you know. Of course there's nothing to it—a mere scrawl; for the child is only four years old. But the gentleman who sends it says the child brought it ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... her handwritin' lately," said Tad, "and I've got so I can scrawl jest like her. Old Scotch and Jenks ain't never run onto each other at our house, but ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... as she finished reading the hurried scrawl, 'she is pining to come and join us; she says she is much better, but so lonely and homesick that she feels it will be impossible for her to get well until she is safe ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... official scrawl, they made me write in French my name, Christian name, and profession. Then they gave me an extraordinary document on a sheet of rice-paper, which set forth the permission granted me by the civilian Authorities ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... who scarce know how to write. By the last Post in particular I receiv'd a Packet of Scandal that is not legible; and have a whole Bundle of Letters in Womens Hands that are full of Blots and Calumnies, insomuch that when I see the Name Caelia, Phillis, Pastora, or the like, at the Bottom of a Scrawl, I conclude on course that it brings me some Account of a fallen Virgin, a faithless Wife, or an amorous Widow. I must therefore inform these my Correspondents, that it is not my Design to be a Publisher of Intreagues and Cuckoldoms, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... been rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... paint and varnish. Have you tried, my dear sir—you who set up to be a connoisseur? Have you tried? I have—and many a day. And the end of the day's labor? O dismal conclusion! Is this puerile niggling, this feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can produce—you, who but now found Rubens commonplace and vulgar, and were pointing out the tricks of his mystery? Pardon, O great chief, magnificent master and poet! You can DO. We critics, who sneer and are wise, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters. Fanny is quite done up; she could not sleep last night, something it seemed like asthma - I trust not. I suppose Lloyd will be about, so you can give him the benefit of this long scrawl. Never say that I CAN'T write a letter, say that I don't. - Yours ever, my dearest fellow, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled her fury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I guess you do ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to the writer an old forgotten beginner's attempt by himself. Whence it came, who sent it, he knows not; he had forgotten its very existence. He read it with curiosity; it was written in a very much better hand than his present scrawl, and was perfectly legible. But readable it was not. There was a great deal of work in it, on an out of the way topic, and the ideas were, perhaps, not quite without novelty at the time of its composition. ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... scrawl improves! [more] O come, 'tis pretty plain. Hey! how's this? Dibble!—sure it cannot be! A poet's brief! a poet ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... the envelope slowly and clumsily with her stiff fingers, and held up the letter so the light struck it. She could not read strange writing easily, and this was a nearly illegible scrawl. However, after the first few words, she seemed to absorb it by some higher faculty than reading. In a short time she had the gist of the letter. It was from a lawyer who signed himself Daniel Tuxbury. He stated formally that Thomas ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a very dull letter for so great a subject; but I have only had time to scrawl these lines in order to catch the post. I have not a minute to read them over. I lost yesterday, and have been forced to work to-day. Half my article on Boswell went to Edinburgh the day before yesterday. I have, though I say it who should not say it, beaten Croker black and blue. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... visited, of trips to the moon and of buried races that live beneath the rivers and mountains. He writes of amazing crimes he has committed, of weird longings that will not let him sleep. And, too, he writes of strange gods which man should worship. He pours out his soul in a fantastic scrawl. He says: "One is all. God looked down and saw ants. The wheel of life turns seven times and you can see between. You will sometime understand this. But now you ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl Meant not for me," at length said I; "I glanced thereat, and let it lie: The words were three ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... in the act of writing to you," said she, "but now my scrawl may go into the basket;" and she raised the sheet of gilded note-paper from off her desk ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... despairing scrawl, one cherished miniature, one faded floweret, etc., etc.? I can't believe it, Cousin," and he shook ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... unworthy of him to whom it was to be sent. It was the first love letter she had ever written,—probably the first letter she had ever written to a man, except those short notes which she would occasionally scrawl to Father Marty in compliance with her mother's directions. The letter ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... resumed Bluewater, carefully tearing the signature from the bottom of the page, and burning it in a candle; "let this disgraceful part of the secret die, at least. The fellow who wrote this, has put 'confidential' at the top of his miserable scrawl: and a most confident scoundrel he is, for his pains. However, no man has a right to thrust himself, in this rude manner, between me and my oldest friend; and least of all will I consent to keep this piece of treachery from your knowledge. I do ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of your editorial: to say that I shall give my mind at once to the Murder. But I bethink me you can say so much and convey my sense of the liberality of our Cousins, without exhibiting this scrawl. So I may go on to tell you that I have at last found a publisher as eager to publish, as I am to write a Hazlitt. Bentley is the Boy; and very liberal, at least, as per last advices; certainly very friendly and eager, which makes work light, like whistling. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Branscome, and the look on his face told me—I cannot tell you how—that he knew what the letter had to tell, and had been expecting it. The handwriting was indeed Miss Plinlimmon's, although it ran across the paper in an agitated scrawl most unlike her usual neat ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... too. Into these he would put whatever he cared to keep— poetry, history, funny sayings, fine passages. He had a scrap-book for his arithmetic "sums," too, and one of these is still in existence with this boyish rhyme in a boyish scrawl, underneath one of his tables of weights ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... reached for her rifle and ran to the door. There was not a sound or sign that was unusual save that the horses had stopped eating and with ears thrown forward were looking down the gulch. She picked up the paper that lay on the floor, struck a match and read a scrawl by its flare: ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... country house with a very pleasant party of young and old, including persons whose education and versatility were certainly not below the social average. One evening we played at a round game, which consisted in each of us drawing as absurd a scrawl as he or she could, representing some historical event; the pictures were then shuffled and passed successively from hand to hand, every one writing down independently their interpretation of the picture, as to what the historical event was ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... on this letter, which I had quite forgotten, or, rather, had fancied I had sent off to you three weeks and more ago. My baggage has just come to hand, and the scrawl turned up in my paper cases. Well, I have plenty to tell you now, at any rate, if I have time to tell it. That 'assembly' which stopped me short sounded in consequence of the arrival of one of the commander-in-chief's aides in our camp with the news that the enemy was over the Sutlej. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... fearfully against him. But he contrived to escape the gallows; he had managed to conceal poison on his person, and he was found dead in his cell. Mary Simms I never saw again. I once received a little scrawl, "I am at peace now, Master John. God ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... thoughts were like whirling web. And in its very center was Peter Coleman. Everything that Susan did began and ended with the thought of him. She never entered the office without the hope that a fat envelope, covered with his dashing scrawl, lay on the desk. She never thought herself looking well without wishing that she might meet Peter that day, or looking ill that she did not fear it. She answered the telephone with a thrilling heart; it might be he! And she browsed over the social columns of the Sunday papers, longing and fearing ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... of Latin authors all! Nor think your verses sterling, Though with a golden pen you scrawl, And scribble in ...
— English Satires • Various
... work at this early period we possess probably nothing except a rough scrawl on the plaster of a wall at Settignano. Even this does not exist in its original state. The Satyr which is still shown there may, according to Mr. Heath Wilson's suggestion, be a rifacimento from the master's hand at a subsequent period of ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... our desolateness, just as we had let the daylight in again upon our diminished numbers round the table, came a letter from Hong-Kong, addressed to me in Lawrence Frith's writing, and the first thing I saw was a scrawl, as follows:- ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... held in his hand for several seconds unopened. The envelope was a large one and stiff, as if it contained cardboard. It was directed in an irregular, childish scrawl. Mordaunt, sitting at his writing-table, with his back to his guest, studied it gravely, thoughtfully. Finally very ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Let's Finis scrawl, And then Life's book put by; Turn each to each In all simplicity: Ere the last flame is gone To warm ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... into this office, you're reading the latest scrawl from your son. One would think Jock's letters were deathless masterpieces. I believe you read them at half-hour intervals all week, and on Sunday get 'em all out and play solitaire ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... a last attempt to save Bathsheba from, at any rate, immediate anguish, he looked again, as he had looked before, at the chalk writing upon the coffin-lid. The scrawl was this simple one, "FANNY ROBIN AND CHILD." Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully rubbed out the two latter words, leaving visible the inscription "FANNY ROBIN" only. He then left the room, and went out quietly by the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... budget, black-edged and bulky. Bettina's showed a faddish slender monogram. Following was Justin's—she knew that boyish scrawl; a business letter or two, a bill, an advertisement, and then—her heart leaped. On the flap of a great square envelope blazed the seal which Anthony had chosen for his house of healing—a lighthouse flashing its beacon over ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... handwriting than I am now. There was one family in particular, whom I had never seen, but with whose signatures I was perfectly familiar—clear, delicate, and educated, very unlike the miserable scrawl upon other letter-bills. One New Year's-eve, in a moment of sentiment, I tied a slip of paper among a bundle of letters for their office, upon which I had written, "A happy New Year to you all." The next evening brought me a return of my good wishes, signed, as I ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... the tenderest parts in your own little volume, at the end of such a slatternly scribble as this, but indeed they cost us some tears. I scrawl away because of interruptions every moment. You guess how it is in a busy office—papers thrust into your hand when your hand is busiest—and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... written in pencil, was scarcely discernible, and even when deciphered appeared to be incoherent and unfinished. The unknown correspondent had written "dear Mary," and then "Mrs. Mary Slinn," with an unintelligible scrawl following for the direction. If Don Caesar's mind had not been lately preoccupied with the name of the editor, he would hardly have guessed ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... door by Mrs Farthing, recalled her to the trivialities of everyday life. She picked them up, to see that one was in the well-known writing of the man she loved; the other, a strange, unfamiliar scrawl, which bore the Melkbridge postmark. Eager to open her lover's letter, yet resolved to delay its perusal, so that she could look forward to the delight of reading it (Mavis was already something of an epicure in emotion), she tore open ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... and took up his fountain pen. He signed with a rapid, illegible scrawl that toward the end of the pile became a mere hieroglyphic. Jonas put his black face in at the door just as ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... forgery to his other necessary arrangements. Paper and seal were easily accessible in the parlour, where the Duke often kept Eben waiting for hours. He was an expert in other people's penmanship, and the princely scrawl would not present the least difficulty to him. Still, in case of accident, it would be as well to keep back the document till the last possible moment. For his cousin was not a man to be easily hoodwinked, and he might take it into his head to ride over, document in hand, to require ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Little Poland was no longer to be counted in his column—he had thought and fought that out in the small hours; but he did need and pounced upon the statement that Little Poland's master would be out of town the greater part of election day. The scrawl ended with an appointment for a clandestine meeting at eleven o'clock, toward which he now bent his steps ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... so. It was a veritable scrawl, madam, running something like this: 'I return your daughter to you. She is here. Neither she nor you will ever see me again. Remember ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... thank'God, with the long yarns Of the most prosy of ApostlesPaul,1 And now advance, sweet heathen of Monkbarns, Step out, old quizz, as fast as I can scrawl. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... How good they were! And nobody writes them now; Never at all comes in the scrawl On the written pages which told us all The news of town and the folks we knew, And what they had done or were going to do. It seems we've forgotten how To spend an hour with our pen in hand To write ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... half-doubting kind of way, on the probability of a life to come, and ends by speaking of or rather apostrophizing Jesus Christ in a strain which would seem to savour of Socinianism. This letter he calls "a distracted scrawl which the writer dare scarcely read." And yet it appears to have been deliberately copied with some amplification from an entry in his last year's commonplace book. Even the few passages from his correspondence already given are enough to show that there was in Burns's letter-writing something ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... cut their names on doors or rock-heads, But leave the task to scribblers and to blockheads; Pert, trifling folks, who, bent on being witty, Scrawl on each post some fag-end of a ditty, Spinning, with spider's web, their shallow brains, O'er wainscots, borrowed books, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and worst of correspondents, Robert Narramore had as yet sent no reply to the letters in which Hilliard acquainted him with his adventures in London and abroad; but at the end of July he vouchsafed a perfunctory scrawl. "Too bad not to write before, but I've been floored every evening after business in this furious heat. You may like to hear that my uncle's property didn't make a bad show. I have come in for a round five thousand, and am putting it into brass bedsteads. Sha'n't be able to ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... softly and picked up the sheets. There are two communications, one in a large scrawl written by a woman—I believe, it is Penelope's mother. The other is in a small regular hand with quick powerful strokes, evidently a man's writing. There! You see the handwriting is quite different ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the outline of a gloomy shore. The thin paper, a leaf torn from a book, had print on the reverse side, and the letters showed through in grayish flecks and gave the curious impression as of clouds in the sky. And that little drawing, with less form than a school-boy's blackboard scrawl, was completely transfigured by those gray spots, and because of them it took on for me a deep and dreadful significance. Aided by the dim light in the room the pictured scene became a vision that faded away into the distance like the pale surface of the sea. I was terrified at my own ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... read. Well-worn the Bibles are, however, and we need not think that lack of learning prevented any of the Pilgrims from imbibing both the letter and spirit of the Book. Those who could write were masters of a fine, flowing script that shames our modern scrawl, as is well testified by the Patent of the Plymouth Colony—the oldest state document in New England—as well as by the final will and various deeds of Peregrine White, and many others. The small, stiff baby shoes which encased the infant feet of Josiah Winslow, the son of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... 'I wired to you—that chap was a spy.' It was the close association of these two ideas that hit me hardest at the moment. For a second I was back in the dreary splendour of the London club-room, spelling out that crabbed scrawl from Davies, and fastidiously criticizing its proposal in the light of a holiday. Holiday! What was to be its issue? Chilling and opaque as the fog that filtered through the skylight there flooded my imagination a mist of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... themselves in catching fish for supper, walking in the woods, swinging, singing, playing on some musical instrument, &c. I have often been on these parties, and never spent my time more to my satisfaction; which is more than you will be able to say of that spent in reading this scrawl from ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... me to think Saint Paul Such lengthy letters had to scrawl. And so to make his labor lighter I picture him with ...
— Confessions of a Caricaturist • Oliver Herford
... truly dreadful scrawl, but never mind, quantity wins the day, quality nowhere. You see I am taking the subjects of your letter and answering them as I go along. So far from having had to dip into my money for Henry, I left him with fifty odd clear ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... to reach the Niger on the 27th of June. You must excuse this hasty scrawl, as it is only meant to let you know that I am still alive and going forward in my journey. Please to let Mrs. Dickson know that I ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... mind was a very different one when I read this scrawl, from that which bewildered and oppressed me on that never-to-be-forgotten night of suffering and distress, both mental and physical. Formed of those elements which readily react, courage and calmness had returned to me before I read the oracle of our worthy shipmaster; for, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... minutes he was back with a pencilled scrawl from Kress to the effect that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was to be permitted to interview the prisoner Murray outside the guard-house, but sentries must ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Of course you'll make me your banker until your book's finished—and afterwards, too, if need be. Here's something to be going on with—but I'm coming to London in a day or two, as it happens, and will go into the matter—I'll call on you as soon as I arrive. Excuse this scrawl—post ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... secretary, clerk, penman, copyist, transcriber, quill driver; stenographer, typewriter, typist; writer for the press &c. (author) 593. V. write, pen; copy, engross; write out, write out fair; transcribe; scribble, scrawl, scrabble, scratch; interline; stain paper; write down &c. (record) 551; sign &c. (attest) 467; enface[obs3]. compose, indite, draw up, draft, formulate; dictate; inscribe, throw on paper, dash off; manifold. take up the pen, take pen in hand; shed ink, spill ink, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... long an article he should write, but he counted the words in a double-page article in the Sunday supplement of the San Francisco Examiner, and guided himself by that. Three days, at white heat, completed his narrative; but when he had copied it carefully, in a large scrawl that was easy to read, he learned from a rhetoric he picked up in the library that there were such things as paragraphs and quotation marks. He had never thought of such things before; and he promptly set to work writing the article over, referring continually to the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... for taking up your time in this very first letter by so wretched a scrawl, and such stupid nonsense; you must forgive a man spoilt by the Viennese. Now, however, I begin to accustom myself by degrees to country life, and yesterday I studied for the first time, and somewhat in the Haydn ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... the end be paid back to you, no doubt, when you are worn out, and what you do is as worthless as the rustling canes that blow together in autumn by dull river sides: then you scrawl your signature across your soulless work, and it fetches thrice ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... He read the innocent-looking scrawl a last time, and then burned it at a fluttering gas jet. The words seemed burned in upon his brain. His practiced glance ran over the bottles on the shelves ranged there like soldiers in their silent ranks. His eye gleamed vindictively as he murmured: ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... seemed to be no more than a piece of good luck that let me find him that night in a little room in one of the by-ways of Bloomsbury. He was sprawling angularly on a cane lounge, surrounded by whole rubbish heaps of manuscript, a grey scrawl in a foam of soiled paper. He peered up at me as I ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... calculated for the use of children under the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think it advisable to engage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it has talent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper it can get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due praise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in its efforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost as soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... This letter"—regarding, with a stricken conscience, the elegant scrawl in his hand—"is from Tedcastle George Luttrell (he is evidently proud of his name), declaring himself not only ready but fatally willing to accept my invitation to spend ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... 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
... dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper, who from that time forward determined to send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed—and he had received his ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... desperately in love. The image of Josephine is constantly soaring around him, and he pours forth ebullitions of frantic devotion at the cannon's mouth, in the Canton, anywhere, and everywhere. He is as rich in phrase as he is in courage and resource. He finds time to scrawl a few burning words of passion which indicate that his soul is at once aflame with thoughts of her and the grim military task ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... spells of witches to bring up their familiar spirits, or the enchantments "Fecana kageti", &c., which open locks whoever knocks. Poor Latin! it is worse handled than was Regulus by the Carthaginians. Forgive this scrawl: ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... cases of sickness, but the presence of the marabout himself is necessary, in order that the writing may suit the nature of the disorder. When the disease is dangerous, the writing is administered internally, for which purpose they scrawl some words in large characters, with thick streaks of ink round the inside of a cup, dissolve the ink with broth, and with many devout ceremonies pour the liquor down the sick man's throat. These impostors have always free access to the beys and other high dignitaries of the state; and with ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... not say what the matter might be, and he went away, only to return in a few moments bearing a scratchy note from his master, badly blotted and still wet; and Leila, with a shrug of resignation, took the blotched scrawl daintily between thumb and forefinger and unfolded it. Behind her, the maid, twisting up the masses of dark, fragrant hair, read the note very easily over her mistress' shoulder. It ran, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... of mind, Wherewith she strove to scrawl her name; But, like a mitcher, left behind No signature, no stroke, no claim, No hint ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... admitted Bluff. "Do you know what he said when he was showing that scrawl to us fellows? I was close enough to get part of it, and I'm dead sure the words 'entering wedge' formed the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... little town in Kentucky, wrote to a customer there acquainting him with the fact and requesting him to send "one hundred bushels per Simmons" (the wagoner usually sent). The correspondent, a plain, uneducated man, had considerable difficulty in deciphering the fashionable scrawl common with merchants' clerks of late years, and the most important word, "cranberries," he failed to make out, but he did plainly and clearly read—one hundred bushels persimmons. As the article was growing all around him, all the boys in the neighborhood were set to ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... his promise. Now Phoebus exalted, sits high on his throne, Dividing the heav'ns, dividing my crown, Into poems and business, my skull's split in two, One side for the lawyers, and t'other for you. With my left eye, I see you sit snug in your stall, With my right I'm attending the lawyers that scrawl With my left I behold your bellower a cur chase; With my right I'm a-reading my deeds for a purchase. My left ear's attending the hymns of the choir, My right ear is stunn'd with the noise of the crier. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... was the dirty scrap of paper Bennie had thrown from the tree, and which she had quite forgotten. What did it mean? Was there anything inside it? With a thrill of fear she darted to the window, untwisted the paper, and by the dim light could just make out the following scrawl: "Leeve the en roost oppen nex Munday nite." Mary gazed at it with horror, unable for the first few minutes to take in the sense, but when she did so she sank down on the ground and burst into tears. What wicked, wicked ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... with a slow, odd smile; Stretched in abandon at my feet, the while, He fanned me idly with his broad-brimmed hat. "Then all young ladies must be formed for that!" He laughed, and said. "Their letters read, and look, As like as twenty copies of one book. They're written in a dainty, spider scrawl, To 'darling, precious Kate,' or 'Fan,' or 'Moll.' The 'dearest, sweetest' friend they ever had. They say they 'want to see you, oh, so bad!' Vow they'll 'forget you, never, NEVER, oh!' And then they tell about a splendid beau - A lovely hat—a charming ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was dressed, and had an aversion for horse exercise, nay a terror of it; and Snaffle never read any printed works but the 'Racing Calendar' or 'Bell's Life,' or cared for any manuscript except his greasy little scrawl of a betting-book:—our Catholic-minded young friend occupied himself in every one of the branches of science or pleasure above-mentioned, and distinguished himself ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... think I ever heard precisely; though I made inquiries about him from some of our return passengers who, wandering about to "see the country" during the ship's stay in port, had come upon him here and there. At last we sailed, homeward bound, and still not one line was added to the careless scrawl of the many pages which poor Jacques had had the patience to read with the very shadows of Eternity gathering already in the hollows of his ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... up and read the latest, which was a scrawl in quavering characters over three telegraph forms. It was from Ladcock at Gilgit, saying that he was having a row of his own with the navvies there, and that he could send no reinforcements at present. If he quieted the trouble in time he would try and hold the Mazeno ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... and half women, with death-like faces, attenuated noses, and swollen lips. They thought all these things very ugly. The stone carvings of the present day were a great deal better. An inscription in Phoenician characters amazed them. No one could possibly have ever read that scrawl. But Monsieur Madinier, already up on the first landing with Madame Lorilleux, called to them, shouting beneath the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... new ones too, there are inscriptions and inscriptions. We are all familiar with the scrawl of the clown, who has handed down to us his unconsecrated name on the title-page or fly-leaf of some volume of ours otherwise irreproachable. Just a step above him is your fellow who writes some objurgatory caveat against the malappropriator, and brings the Almighty without scruple ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... I wish to send," she explained, glancing at the almost illegible scrawl with an expression of doubt. "Couldn't you stop the carriage a moment ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Court House was well filled indeed, but rather on account of the lawyers engaged than because of the matter's intrinsic interest. The British Merchants had retained Mr. Ludwell Cary. The side of the prisoner, mentioning that fact in a pitiful scrawl addressed to the law office of Messrs. Rand and Mocket, found to its somewhat pathetic surprise that Mr. Rand himself would take the case and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... did last night!" She handed him the slip of paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that which ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to scrawl the word "Barsanti;" then he wrapped the paper round a small pebble and approached the fountain. By putting one foot on the edge of the stone basin beneath he could reach over to the curved top, and there ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... with an oath, "if I don't see him this very night it will be a pity:" words which were afterwards thought to have been prophetic by the curious in such matters. So Bellaroba entrusted him with her scrawl to "My love Angilotto," and the Captain chewed and swallowed it when she was not looking. Then he lifted her to his horse and rode with her into the green-sheltered Borgo, just as it was settling into twilight. And Olimpia, from her shutter, saw ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... early muses who employed flint implements and arrow-heads for records, and neglected to clear away the remains of prehistoric meals in caverns. Others preferred to write their chronicles upon pots, urns and tombs or to scrawl placid monosyllables upon polygonal walls. But with all their industry the muses have never been able to keep pace with the material that has accumulated round the dwellings of men and women. They have ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... away that filthy scrawl from Phemy. How can you be so headstrong, child?" cried Diana, snatching the letter from her sister and throwing it from the window. "I declare you are sufficient to provoke ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... the note there and then. It was a mere hurried scrawl, saying that Allerdyke was just setting off for Hull, in obedience to a call from the police; as Gaffney had nothing to do, would Appleyard make use of ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... corporations. Those belong to ancient societies which have gradually joined the movement. Over all waves the standard of the millers, which is some hundreds of years old! It displays a curious-looking scrawl which is the monogram of the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... 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 reason of ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... man did not reply, but made the usual scrawl in his book, while the squatter hastened to agree with the fat man. "I like to see a bit of ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... and the scrawl was unfamiliar to Maurice. On opening it he was surprised to find a hurriedly written note from Fitzgerald. In all probability it had been brought by the midnight courier on his return from ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... never saw such a miserable scrawl as this. He must have written it on horseback and at ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the door. Claude lifted the model, moved on tiptoe, and placed it softly under the bed. As he rose and turned again with reddened face, a card was slipped under the door. He took it and read, in a pencil scrawl,— ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... herself time or space to lie for lying's sake. If she had lied, then, she had lied for a purpose. A purpose that he could very well conceive. But if she lied for that purpose she would have given importance and prominence to her lie. She wouldn't have hidden it away in an almost invisible scrawl on an ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... found only one small leaf, and but very few words on that; but these words, few though they were, seemed to take her breath away, and to overwhelm her with overpowering emotion. She sat staring at the miserable scrawl as though the letters were potent with some mighty spell, and then, throwing the paper on the table by her, gave way to ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... midnight." The great wood of stone pines on the Pisan Maremma was his favourite study. Trelawny tells us how he found him there alone one day, and in what state was the manuscript of that prettiest lyric, "Ariel, to Miranda take". "It was a frightful scrawl; words smeared out with his finger, and one upon the other, over and over in tiers, and all run together in most 'admired disorder;' it might have been taken for a sketch of a marsh overgrown with ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... epistle which conveyed to him the regrets of the new female college building committee, that his plans were too elaborate and costly, and must therefore be declined, really demanded no reply, and would probably never have one. It was the hurried scrawl from his friend Wilberforce which claimed of his sense of honor an answer by the next mail. The letter from Wilberforce was dated Philadelphia, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... more suitable for the work required. Scribbling Joachim in a war-galley, yard-arm and yard-arm with the Turkish capitan pacha, could have hardly felt less at ease than did the brilliant warrior thus condemned to scrawl and dissemble. While marching from concession to concession, he found the states conceiving daily more distrust, and making daily deeper encroachments. Moreover, his deeds up to the time when he seemed desirous to retrace his steps had certainly been, at the least, equivocal. Therefore, it ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reverently removed a pile of books and papers from a chair, dusted it, and placed it near an open window, and I amused myself by looking out upon the busy scene in the harbour, while the admiral proceeded to scrawl his signature ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... more or less in the face of a peasant woman matters little, or not at all, but it is quite different in a celebrated beauty. If you scrawl all over the face with which the coarse finger of the potter has decorated a water-jar, the injury to the wretched pot is but small, but if you scratch, only with a needle's point, that gem with the portraits of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the circumstance to Mr. Sumner, who replied: 'Mr. Frederick Douglass is a very noble, talented man, and I know of no one who writes a more beautiful letter.' I am sending you a long letter, Lizzie, but I rely a great deal on your indulgence. My fear is that you will not be able to decipher the scrawl written so hastily. ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley |
