"Dabbled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have dabbled in it while I slept, for I am always a restless sleeper," he had said to me in tones ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... I had dabbled a little in the Universal History—the ancient part of it—and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... will against the unholy fascination of those few thrilling hours. He looked impatiently towards the door, and longed for the return of his late companion that he might continue his half-laughing flirtation. Then he remembered the album still upon his knee, and opened it quickly. He had dabbled a little in photography; he would find something here to keep his thoughts from the forbidden place. And he did indeed find something—something which set his heart thumping, and drew all the colour, which the sun and vigorous exercise had brought, from his cheeks; something ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Dwelling one summer on the New Jersey shore, I used to loiter, day after day, upon a deserted wharf, at the end of which was ever to be seen a broad-beamed fisherman, sitting upon an uncomfortably wooden chair, from which he dabbled perpetually with his whip-cord line in the shallow water that washed the slimy face-timbers of the wharf. There he sat, day after day, and all day, and, for aught I know, all through the summer-night, a big-timbered, sea-worthy man, reading contentedly a daily paper ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... to be impressed not only by his reputation, but by his charm of manner and brilliancy of intellect. Moreover they were quite ready to talk vaguely of all kinds of dubious plans for increasing the importance of the West. Very many, perhaps most, of them had dabbled at one time or another in the various separatist schemes of the preceding two decades; and they felt strongly that much of the Spanish domain would and should ultimately fall into their hands—and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain." [1] Olaus relates also in c. xlvii. the story of a certain nobleman who was travelling through a large forest with some peasants in his retinue who dabbled in the black art. They found no house where they could lodge for the night, and were well-nigh famished. Then one of the peasants offered, if all the rest would hold their tongues as to what he should do, that he would bring them a lamb ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... born in 1812 and died in 1889. His father, though a clerk in the Bank of England, was a fine classical scholar and had dabbled in verse. His mother was an accomplished musician. Browning had every early advantage, and while still a lad he came under the spell of Byron and had his poetical faculty greatly stimulated by the "Napoleon of rhyme." Then came Shelley ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... come when they were called. And they would play in the gutter. They dabbled with their little yellow feet in the black mud, as often as ever ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... What could she do? She looked back at her life, and saw that she had dabbled. She had a little of most things—enough of nothing. She could sketch a little, play a little, sing a little, write a little. Also—and, as she remembered it, she felt for the first time a tremor of hope—she could use a typewriter reasonably ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... this was the very kind of crowd for my purpose. I knew of old its little ways, for with all its orthodoxy it dabbled a good deal in magic, and owed half its power to its atmosphere of the uncanny. The Companions could dance the heart out of the ordinary Turk. You saw a bit of one of our dances this afternoon, Dick—pretty ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... my own estate, and intend to remain so. As for the new-fangled ideas of a landowner's duty, with which your mind seems to be full'—the scornful irritation of the tone was unmistakable—'I have never dabbled in them, nor do I intend to begin now. I am like the rest of my kind; I have no money to chuck away in building schemes, in order that the rector of the parish may pose as the apostle of the agricultural labourer. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... away with the phaeton and its pair, and falling back, as he was a spare man, on an old pony which the children had ridden by turns. Though he was not a book fancier, he had entertained a fondness for art, and since he could not indulge in much picture buying, had dabbled in old prints, of which he had rather a fine collection. This all at once vanished along ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... to my will While the bright days glow, While the sleepy flowers Quicken as I go. When the pretty ones Look to me no more, Dead, beneath your feet, Crushed and dabbled o'er; In my narrow cell I will fold my wing; Sink in dark and chill, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the way, is said to have been introduced into worship in imitation of thunder, and was therefore supposed to be pleasing to the Almighty. After him followed the Emperor Ti K'u, B.C. 2436-2366, who dabbled in astronomy, and "came to a knowledge of spiritual beings, which he respectfully worshipped." The Emperor Yao, B.C. 2357-2255, built a temple for the worship of God, and also caused dances to be performed for the enjoyment of God on occasions of special sacrifice and communication with the spiritual ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... judge, laughing. He cocked his head on one side and surveyed Hannibal Wayne Hazard with a glance of comic seriousness. "A small child and in God's name what do you call yourself now? To hear you talk one would think you had dabbled your ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... chap," he said kindly. "Look. Nice cool water for Patch." And, with that, he stooped and dabbled ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... dabbled in the theatrical business almost before he was in his teens, naturally became his mentor. To Charles, Gustave was invested with a rare fascination because he had begun to sell books of the opera in the old Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street, the forerunner of the gilded Metropolitan ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... were able resumed their seats amid great laughter and confusion, when the Sieur Deschenaux, a reckless young gallant, ablaze with wine and excitement, stood up, leaning against the table. His fingers dabbled in his wine-cup as he addressed them, but he did ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... seems to have carried the Eastern world, even the official world, off its feet. But Byzantine officials were no fonder of swimming than others. The men who worked the imperial machine, studied the Alexandrine poets, and dabbled in classical archaeology were not the men to look forward. Only the people, led by the monks, were vaguely, and doubtless stupidly, on the side of emotion and the future. Soon after Justinian's death the Empire began to divide itself into two camps. Appropriately, religious art ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... time—totally ignorant of the terrible trap which lay grinning under the bait he dabbled with—he continued to take opium at short intervals for several years. When by the physician's orders he abandoned "M'Munn," on the subsidence of the eye-difficulty, his symptoms were uneasy rather than distressing, and disappeared ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... and her sweet lips' pure dyes[dw] Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er;[245] And her head drooped, as when the lily lies O'ercharged with rain: her summoned handmaids bore Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes; Of herbs and cordials they produced their store, But she defied all means they could employ, Like one Life could ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... precautions to repair any bridges broken by the Mexicans. On the other hand, it was known that the Indians will seldom attack an enemy after sunset, but what really decided Cortes in favour of a nocturnal retreat was, that a soldier who dabbled in astrology had declared to his comrades that success was certain if they acted in ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... snow, half sleet, dabbled against the window-pane, and I lifted the blind to watch the flakes stick and melt on ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... and her 'ologies' had been a perpetual joke in her family ever since. She had dabbled in a good many sciences—geology, astronomy, architecture, physiology, botany, natural history, and archaeology all had their turn, and she certainly seemed to get a good deal of interest and amusement out of them all. She announced to Clare, as a little ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... but as he touched the ground his hands dabbled in a thick, warm clay. He touched his breast and he also found it wet by something warm and thick, dripping ceaselessly in slender streams. He tried to contract his legs in order to kneel, but his legs ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... lacked altogether the solid foundation of learning; they could construe fluently but did not know a long syllable from a short one; they had vague notions of elemental algebra and no notion at all of arithmetic, but did very well in conic sections; they knew nothing of prosody, but dabbled perpetually in English blank verse; altogether they knew most of those things which they need not have known and they knew none of those things thoroughly which they ought to have known. After twenty years of experience Mr. Ambrose ascertained that it was easier to teach ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... on my helmet, I should use rhetorical expressions, spout monologues in public, organize wide cavalry charges at reviews, and move through life generally to the crashing of an orchestra. For by doing this even a vulgar, short, and diseased man, who dabbled in stocks and shares and was led by financiers, could become a hero, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... his face at last, with eyes dilated, Large as great stars in mist, and dim with dabbled lashes. Philip, with ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... separated and reached nothing in common. But he readily recognized the fact that McQuade was not a man such as one might heedlessly antagonize. What could the politician want of the literary man? McQuade dabbled in racing horses; perhaps he had a horse to sell. In that event, they would meet on common ground. But his belief in this possibility was only half-hearted. He filled his pockets with cigars, whistled for the dog, and departed. Both of the Bennington houses were ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... fearless in acting. But in finance there is always the element of luck, which, however one may eliminate it, still remains, like the blank at roulette, a constantly present handicap upon the operator. And so it was that Worlington Dodds had come to grief. On the best advices he had dabbled in the funds of a South American Republic in the days before South American Republics had been found out. The Republic defaulted, and Dodds lost his money. He had bulled the shares of a Scotch railway, and a four months' strike had hit him hard. He had helped ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... when he crawled close enough to touch the Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... last made friends with Bess, she found they had innumerable subjects of interest in common. They were both keen tennis players, dabbled a little in art, pursued Nature study, liked acting, when they had any opportunity of showing their talents in that line, and were enthusiastic over music. Bess was making as good progress on the violin as ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I saw it was Joanna indeed who stood there, clad in her male attire, hand on hip, all glowing, insolent beauty; but as I stared she changed, and I saw her as I had beheld her last, her gown and white bosom all dabbled with her blood, but on her lips was smile ineffably tender and in her eyes the radiance of a joy great beyond ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... Cicero's death, in the imagination of the greatest of Roman poets, Jupiter was once more brought before the Roman world, and now in a form comprehensible by all educated men, whether or no they had dabbled in philosophy. What are we to say of the Jupiter of the Aeneid? We do not need to read far in the first book of the poem to find him spoken of in terms which remind us of Varro: "O qui res hominumque deumque Aeternis regis imperiis," ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand: And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... to the "Biographia Dramatica," when young "dabbled in dramatic poetry; but with no great success." The first of her plays, a tragedy entitled "The Fair Captive," was acted the traditional three times at Lincoln's Inn Fields, beginning 4 March, 1721.[8] Aaron Hill contributed a friendly ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... that Jimmy poured out over me and Kendal recalled all the freshness and the vigour of his earliest inspirations; it was steeped, you might say, in all the colours of the sunset; it had flashes of tropic splendour; it was such a gorgeous specimen of an art in which Kendal dabbled, as he said modestly, a little himself, that it "fair took the shine out of him." The chauffeur was ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... death had curiously regained the appearance of reason as well as beauty; when I saw and knew that life had certainly gone till the Resurrection:—that was not all. The storm had not fully broken till I turned and saw, standing by the fire, George Manners, with his hands and coat dabbled with blood. I did not speak or scream; but a black horror seemed to settle down like mist upon me. Through it came Mr. Manners' voice (I had not looked again ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... on artistic matters was considered worth having. He dabbled in all the arts—writing, music, acting, and sketching, and went to every good concert and play in Sydney. Though he was clever at law, it was whispered by some that he would wind up on the stage, as he had a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... body. And with eyes starting from their sockets, and mouths agape with stupefying terror, they beheld on the ground near her a mangled, hideous mass—the rough semblance of a human form—all batter'd, and cut, and bloody. Attach'd to it was the fatal cord, dabbled over with gore. And as the mother gazed—for she could not withdraw her eyes—and the appalling truth came upon her mind, she sank down without shriek or utterance, into a deep, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... poor, or to go and visit Pamela in Hoxton and help her with some job or other—that kind of direct, immediate, human thing, which was a sop to uneasiness and pity such as the political work she dabbled in, however similar its ultimate aim, could ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... Sylvia; he was much more interested in the way she dabbled the tips of her hands in the cool water of her finger bowl than in what Hermann was saying. Her fingers had an extraordinary life of their own; just now they were like a group of maidens by a fountain. . . . But Hermann repeated the question to ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... thirty-six years of age began to learn drill near Boulogne.[312] This piece of burlesque was one day to prove infinitely regrettable. After the disaster of Vittoria, Napoleon doubtless wished that Joseph had for ever had free play in the tribune of the Senate rather than have dabbled in military affairs. But in the spring and summer of 1804 the Emperor noted his every word; so that, when he ventured to suggest that Josephine should not be crowned at the coming coronation, Napoleon's wrath blazed forth. Why should Joseph ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... aimed a shaft from his bended bow. A present deity suffered not his hand to stray, and the loud whistling reed came driven through his belly and flanks. But the wounded beast fled within the familiar roof and crept moaning to the courtyard, dabbled with blood, and filling all the house with moans as of one beseeching. Sister Silvia, smiting her arms with open hands, begins to call for aid, and gathers the hardy rustics with her cries. They, for a fell destroyer is hidden in the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... ever dabbled in trade or trickery? Coal merchants, coal heavers, and coal whippers may defile our fields with coal dust and smoke, but they can ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... his arrow drawn, As skulking from the covert of the night With serpent cunning and a fiend's delight, With murderous spirit, and a yell of hate The voice of Hell might tremble to translate: When the fond mother's tender lullaby Went quavering in shrieks all suddenly, And baby-lips were dabbled with the stain Of crimson at the bosom of the slain, And peaceful homes and fortunes ruined—lost In smoldering embers of the holocaust. Yet on and on, through years of gloom and strife, Our country struggled ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... sculpture. I believe that the literary art was the only one in which he did not claim proficiency, and that was a pity, because Powers's autobiography would have been a book of books. He was a Swedenborgian by faith, but he also dabbled somewhat in spiritualism, which was having a vogue at that time, owing partly to the exploits of the American medium Home. Marvellous, indeed, were the ghostly yarns Powers used to spin, and they lost nothing by the physical appearance of the narrator, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... "then 'tis time for your eye, dear!" And Bagshaw was compelled not only to suffer his damaged optics to be dabbled by his tormentingly affectionate wife, but to submit again to be hoodwinked, in spite of his entreaties to the contrary, and his pathetic assurances that he had not yet seen a bit of the prospect; a thing he had set ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... the raffines is as overpowering as their envy is ill concealed; and, as to the ladies, in those days the character of a successful duellist was a sure passport to their favour. The raw provincial, so lately unheeded, has but to throw his handkerchief, now that he has dabbled it in blood. But the only one of these sanguinary sultanas on whom Mergy bestows a thought, is not to be found. In vain does he seek, in the crowd of beauties who court his gaze, the pale cheek, blue eyes, and raven hair of Madame de ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... devourers were stretched on the floor— Each cheek changed to purple—so crimson before! Their dewlaps all dabbled with red wine and ale, And extremities cold ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... anywhere. You and him are partners, but I don't believe you know him clean to the bottom as well as I do. You wouldn't be in business with him if you did, for you are a straight man—a body can tell that by your eye and voice—and I've never heard of any shady, wildcat scheme that you ever dabbled in." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... characteristic of a modern Seneschal. He is a man of few words, off as well as on the stage; but his eyes flash fury if he hears his favourite Art derided by the scoffer. HORATIO SPUFFIL is also in the cast. He has dabbled in literature, but has lately abandoned such frivolity, and been elected a Member of the London County Council. A few rising Amateur Supers complete the male portion of the cast. The Ladies' parts are played by professional Actresses, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... military school in Paris when quite young, and soon after been sent with the French army to India, Antoine Devenant had never dabbled in matters of love. He viewed all women from the same stand-point—respected them for their virtues, and often spoke of the goodness of heart of the sex, but never dreamed of taking to himself a wife. The unequalled beauty of Clotelle had dazzled his eyes, and every look that she gave was a ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... also a combination of many things, or rather of attempts at many things—Burne-Jones' mystical colour—the rustic character of a Bastien-Lepage or a Millet—with the jewelled detail of a fourteenth-century Florentine, so wonderful were the harebells in the foreground, the lichened rocks, the dabbled fleece of the lamb: but they realised that it was a combination that only a ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... intelligent personage. On another occasion Speke, when introduced, found her surrounded by her ministers, when a large wooden trough was brought in and filled with pomba. The queen put her head in and drank like a pig from it, her ministers following her example. If any was spilled by her, they dabbled their noses in the ground, or grabbed it up with their hands, that not a particle might be lost, as everything that comes from royalty must be adored. Musicians and dancers were then introduced, exhibiting their long, shaggy, goat-skin jackets, sometimes dancing upright, at others bending or ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and, as she rolled toward it, curled in over her covering-board and poured in a heavy torrent across her deck, swirling round my raft and shifting it a foot or two nearer the side; and as it swept past I dabbled one of my hands in it, and was dully surprised that the contact did not cause the water to hiss and boil! Another mountain of water came brimming over the deck of the shuddering craft and shifted the raft so far ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... leaves will afford signal relief to corns when they shoot, and are painful. Good John Wesley, who dabbled in "domestic medicine," and with much sagacity of observation, taught that having bathed the feet, and cut the corns, and having mashed some fresh Ivy leaves, these are to be applied: then by repeating the remedial process for fifteen days ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... write for a livelihood get some queer propositions from those who have crude ideas about the operation of the literary machine. There is a prevailing idea among those who have never dabbled in literature very much, that the divine afflatus works a good deal like a corn sheller. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the wan water, hoping that very swiftly it might bear her grief-worn soul down to the shades. But the river bore her up and carried her to its shallows in a fair meadow where Pan himself sat on the bank and merrily dabbled his feet in the flowing water. And when Psyche, shamed and wet, looked at him with sad eyes, the god spoke to her gently and chid her for her folly. She was too young and much too fair to try to end her life so rudely, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... the babe I drew, With strength from him to stay my fears. I fought my fight the long days through; He laughed and dabbled in my tears. ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... in some unseen hamlet struck the hour. The distant sound, coming from the world of men and every-day affairs, seemed to break the spell. An ousel fluttered across the stream and dabbled in a puddle among some stones. Rabbits began to show themselves and frisk with lengthened shadows in the clear spaces. Maynard looked at his watch, half-mindful of a train to be caught somewhere miles away, and then, held by the peace of running water, stretched ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... hands that had so often fed him and made a clean soft bed for him at night, often stroking his great knotted neck, and never raised in unjust punishment, lying helpless and shattered now, and the fair locks hung across his face, all dabbled with blood. Elsie was now kneeling by his side, but he was quite unconscious of her presence, and heedless of her low wailing, as she looked wildly round to see if nobody was coming to help Geordie, who ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... Saturday night, and the boss laid twelve begrimed and begrudged dollars in his hand. Ikey dabbled discreetly in water, donned coat, hat and collar with its frazzled tie and chalcedony pin, and set forth in pursuit ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... was the oldest of the three, having been born in 1825, and was contemporary with some of the most arbitrary and hide-bound of the nature copyists. But he felt the weakness of the method and himself attained a much fuller and completer art. He seems to have dabbled with paint and brushes from his youth, but had little regular instruction, studying, for the most part, from prints of old pictures, and finally, in 1847, getting a chance to see the original when a friend offered to send him to Europe. He passed fifteen months ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... beautiful feet on the mountains, That yesterday stood; The white feet that came with glad tidings Are dabbled in blood. ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... afterwards I joined Camille at midday on the heights where he was pasturing his flocks. He had shifted his ground a little distance westwards, and I could not find him at once. At last I spied him, his back to a rock, his hand dabbled for coolness in a little runnel that trickled at his side. He looked up and greeted me with a smile. He had conceived an affection for ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... could explain a little of the trouble. I am no mechanic, and yet I have dabbled into scientific matters. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... earnest student of human nature, not one to be blundered over by boys who had still less reverence for humanity than they had for Scripture. It was a good thing that they were not the sacred fountains of the New Testament that were thus dabbled in—not, however, that the latter were considered at all more precious or worthy; as Saturday and the Shorter Catechism ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... shower your shooting corns presage, Old a-ches[2] throb, your hollow tooth will rage; Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings, That swill'd more liquor than it could contain, And, like a drunkard, gives it up again. Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope, While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the men who rest on the mountain-side. He dabbled in poetry, wrote book-reviews, collected rare editions, attended first nights, spoke mysteriously of "stuff" he was working on; and sometimes confidentially told his lady friends of his intention to bring it out ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... landed on these shores with an inspired idea—something magnificent, something worthy. You have substituted for it the time-worn methods of all the reformers since the days of Adam, who have parted with their principles and dabbled in sentimental altruism. Piecemeal legislation—what ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nor let them. What would they represent to us? Nothing. Failure—like the failure of everybody else. Do you know where the millions really are? You ought to know better than most people. They are in Casa Saracinesca and in a few other great houses which have not dabbled in all this business, and perhaps they are in the pockets of a few clever men who have got out of it all in time. They are certainly not in the firm of Andrea Contini and Company, which will assuredly be bankrupt before the ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the constraint was over in one moment, when that hellish enterprise was completed. It was the sight of an old woman, lying where she had been struck down, the fire of the blazing house lighting her wide-open glassy eyes and white hair dabbled in blood, which suddenly, as by a miracle, wrought this change in my brain. For they were all dead at last, old and young, all who had lighted the fire round that great green tree in which Rima had taken refuge, who had danced round the ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... man, impetuous and energetic. Fenwick liked him on sight. He was not a technical man; he was a farmer. But he was an educated farmer. He had a degree from the State Agricultural College. He dabbled in amateur radio and electronics as ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... over-head So hoarsely, with his pinion spread, Dabbled in blood, and dripping red? Croak! croak!—a raven's curse on him, The giver of this shattered limb! Albeit young, (a hundred years, When next the forest leaved appears,) Will Duskywing behold this breast Shot-riddled, or divide my nest With wearer of so tattered vest? ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... have a sort of recollection of having heard something about the 'inventions rare,' and Coleridge is certain to have dabbled, at one time or ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... hair and beard, clotted with blood, hung like snakes about a countenance whose features, naturally formed to give expression to the darkest passions, were distorted with the madness of despairing rage. Wounded in many places, the blood dabbled his mail; while, over his head, he waved the banner wrought with mystic characters, which Ferdinand had already been taught to ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... subsequently lost again) on the terms here drawn out. My Lord Shrewsbury rode about Derbyshire, directed the search for recusants and presided at their deaths; priests of all kinds came and went in disguise; Mr. Owen went about constructing hiding-holes; Mr. Bassett lived defiantly at Langleys, and dabbled a little (I am afraid) in occultism; Mr. Fenton was often to be found in Hathersage—all these things took place as nearly as I have had the power of relating them. Two localities only, I think, are disguised under their names—Booth's Edge and Matstead. Padley, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... PUNCHINELLO to descend from his perch on the church, (rhyme,) and roam waywardly and invisibly among the denizens who occupy the dens of The Street. He knows all the ins and outs of the place, and has long been disgustingly familiar with its ups and downs. Gently has he dabbled in stocks, and no modern operator is half so conversant an he is with the juggles of the Stock Exchange. PUNCHINELLO, though as fresh and frisky, in mind and body, as a kid on a June morning, is older than he chooses to let every body ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... shared the patronage of his powerful employers. The striking historical compositions of Gentile were at once in demand by the great confraternities. Bartolommeo had never been very successful in his dealing with oil-painting, though he had dabbled in it for some years before Antonello da Messina came his way, but the perception with which the Bellini at once grasped the new technique gave them the victory. We have only to compare the formless contours of ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... to be silent; but I was determined not to permit this if I could help it. I therefore persisted in talking to him, trying him with subject after subject, until I discovered him to be an enthusiast upon the arts of painting and music—in both of which I also dabbled, in an amateurish way. As soon as I spoke of these his brow cleared, he threw off his gloom, and spoke fluently and with evident knowledge of his subject, with the result that the meal which had begun so inauspiciously ended quite pleasantly. Nay, more than that, as soon as the cloth ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... them. You never saw any place more desolate from a distance, nor one that less belied its promise near at hand. Some crows and gulls flew away croaking as I scrambled in. The snow had drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled with snow, the white hills, the black sky, the sea marked in the coves with faint circular wrinkles, the whole world, as it looked from a loop-hole in Dunure, was cold, wretched, and out-at-elbows. If you had been a wicked baron and compelled to stay there all the afternoon, you would ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dead shot' Westerners call the slap-jacks—in silence. While the old man still pondered mazed and dumb, the Ranger dabbled the cups and plates in the River and recinched the pack saddle, the little mule blowing out his sides and groaning to ease the girth, the bronchos wisely eating to the process of reharnessing. The Britisher's reverence for law dies hard. Wayland saw the wrestle and kept silent. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they became one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were driving ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it ever since. Not far from this spot lay an old, leaky punt, drawn up on the oozy river-side, and generally half full of water. It served the angler to go in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... humbly conceive that such a thing is conveyed with more Gallantry in a Billet-doux that should be understood at the Bank, than in gross Money; But as to stubborn People, who are so surly as to accept of neither Note or Cash, having formerly dabbled in Chymistry, I can only say that one part of Matter asks one thing, and another another, to make it fluent; but there is nothing but may be dissolved by a proper Mean: Thus the Virtue which is too obdurate for Gold or Paper, shall melt away very kindly in a Liquid. The Island of Barbadoes ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... have: These hairs of mine are grey, and so are theirs, The elders of the Council: I remember When all our locks were like the raven's wing, As we went forth to take our prey around The isles wrung from the false Mahometan; 470 And can I see them dabbled o'er with blood? Each stab to them ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... had never dabbled in this new stuff—you know—complexes and fixed ideas and images. But he was a very wise man, and he did know to what an extent these two were possessed by ambition for ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... of interest in her. Like many intelligent young men, he had dabbled a little in Socialism, and at one time had wandered among the dispossessed; but since then, had caught up and held loosely the new doctrine—it is a good and fitting thing that woman also should earn her bread by the sweat of her brow. Always in reference ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... Marville," to whom we owe some picturesque impressions of La Bruyere at this time of social obscurity, was one of the pseudonyms of Bonaventure d'Argonne, whose real name appears to have been Noel Argonne. He was a Carthusian who dabbled in literature, and who towards the close of his career compiled a volume of "Melanges," containing anecdotes which are often spiteful, but sometimes useful to the historian of literature. He seems to have visited La Bruyere in the ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... treated; we must turn to another aspect of Rabelais' work—his predilection for excrement. This also, though few would admit it, is a symbolic secret. This also is a path of initiation. In this peculiarity Rabelais is completely alone among the writers of the earth. Others have, for various reasons, dabbled in this sort of thing—but none have ever piled it up—manure-heap upon manure-heap, until the animal refuse of the whole earth seems to reek to the stars! There is not the slightest reason to regret this thing or to expurgate it. Rabelais is not Rabelais, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... house. I went into the fort with my brother, and have not yett ben knowne a french. But a french souldier of the fort speaks to me in Iroquois language, & demanded if I was not a stranger, and did veryly believe I was french, for all that I was all dabbled over with painting and greased. I answered him in the same language, that no; and then he speaks in swearing, desiring me [to tell him] how I fell in the hands of those people. And hearing him speake french, amazed, I answered him, for which he rejoyced very much. As he embraces me, he cryes out ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... and prey on her heart. There was a pool that summer, deep and very black, lying between steep banks on which grew bushes and tall grass, and to this she came and sat by the edge of the water, and dabbled her long thin fingers in its coolness and let her thoughts surge ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... part of Lothario. A handsome leg, to which both painters and satirists took care to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our time, incorrect ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... playfellows, the farmers' children. There was Marie who tended the flock, Solange who collected leaves, and Liset and Plaisir who minded the pigs. She always knew in what meadow or in what place she would find them. She played with them amongst the hay, climbed the trees and dabbled in the water. She minded the flock with them, and in winter, when the herdsmen talked together, assembled round their fire, she listened to their wonderful stories. These credulous country children had "seen with their own eyes" Georgeon, the evil spirit ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... dream of setting the barn afire, and beheld Mother sitting up amid the hay—an amazing, a quite incredible situation for Mrs. Seth Appleby. She mildly dabbled at her gray hair, which was still neat, and looked across in bewilderment. Like a jack-in-the-box, Father came up out of the ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Having dabbled in literary work a little at odd times I had obtained a slight recognition as a writer. My vivid imagination had impressed two or three magazine editors favorably. One of these in particular called for more of my short stories, and in ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... of the sun when Sir John and Lord Denbeigh rode up to the door of Amhurste, and my lady, knowing naught, came out at the sound of the horses' feet, thinking only to greet her uncle. The red light from the west shone on her, and dabbled her white kirtle as with blood, and her face was like one of the red roses in her garden. So she put up her hand to shield it, and saw the stranger ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... dabbled the water, the sun flashed upon the drops, some of which jewelled the spreading ferns which drooped over the natural fount, and even reached as high as the delicate leafage of stunted overhanging birch, some of whose twigs kept waving in the soft summer breeze, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... little craft was run against the bank, and Mr. Balfour, seizing the torch, sprang on shore, and Jim followed him into the woods. They soon found track of the game by the blood that dabbled the bushes, and stumbled upon the beautiful creature stone dead—fallen prone, with his legs doubled under him. Jim swung him across his shoulders, and, tottering behind Mr. Balfour, bore him back to the boat. Placing him in the bottom, the two ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... beat a half hour ago, before that thar steamer hev in sight. Why, boys, I've knowed the time when this humane pulse bet like all possessed. You see, I've lived a life of adventoor, in spite of my meek and quiet natoor, an hev dabbled at odd times in the smugglin business. But they don't catch me this time—I've retired from that thar, an the Antelope lets the revenoo ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... chemistry, some to mechanics. He noticed that there were several books on poisons; his glance fell from those books to various bottles and phials on the table, fashioned of dark-coloured glass and three-cornered in shape, which he supposed to contain poisonous solutions. So Joseph dabbled in toxicology, did he? thought Neale—in that case, perhaps, there was something in the theory which had been gaining ground during the last twenty-four hours—that Hollis had been poisoned first and thrown ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... worthless. The Count is credited with a great part in the palace conspiracies of St. Petersburg; he lived at Berlin, and, under the name of Tzarogy, at the Court of the Margrave of Anspach. Thence he went, they say, to Italy, and then north to the Landgrave, Charles of Hesse, who dabbled in alchemy. Here he is said to have died about 1780-85, leaving his papers to the Landgrave; but all is very vague after he disappeared from Paris in 1760. When next I meet Saint-Germain he is again at Paris, again ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... breaking; the grey moist light shone with a naked coldness on land and water; wild- fowl came fluttering, voiceless, past; night was still drenched in sleep. Suddenly he saw the dead body, and his boots dabbled in wet! ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the snow, and, though it was so terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... all these amusements, she was watching the families of children who played together, happy creatures! The little sturdy boys, that dabbled about so merrily, and minded so little the "Now Masters" of their indignant nurses; the little girls in brown hats, with their baskets full; the big boys, that even took off shoes, and dabbled in the shallow water; the great ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was clutching the rim of the pulpit with both hands, his face had turned to a curious greenish colour, his eyes were rolled upwards till only the whites could be seen: he was no longer articulate; convulsive shudders tore at him, froth dabbled his chin. Suddenly he fell down inside the pulpit and was lost to view, all except those fearful hands, that clutched and beat at the rim. Then that too ceased, and they hung over motionless, like the hands of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African thicket or Hindustan ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... popular, or political, or "literary" topics; but philosophers they most assuredly were not, nor men tremendous in spiritual truth. And yet it was precisely as philosophers and thaumaturgists and revealers of occulta that they posed—especially Emerson. And they dabbled or trifled with free thought and "immorality," crying Goethe up as the Light of Lights, while all their inner souls were bound in the most Puritanical and petty goody-goodyism. Though there were traces of grim ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that vied with royalty itself. In his household were two hundred servants. He had coachmen, footmen, cooks, messengers, a bodyguard, musicians, poets and artists who hastened to do his bidding. He patronized all the arts, made a pet of science, offered a reward for the transmutation of metals, dabbled in astrology and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... and myself dabbled in these classical depths, but nearly the whole school took dancing lessons, which were given us by two masters, an old and young Mr. Guillet, father and son: the former, a little dapper, dried-up, wizen-faced, beak-nosed old man, with a brown wig that fitted his ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... wept to the willows And Padie called out for a hymn: He dabbled his boots on the pillows And the minister looked ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... English team than I did. Why, she'd visited at Hurlingham House during the practice matches. So I floundered about, trying to shift the subject, until we hit on antique vases—deuced if I know why. But my Governor dabbled in such junk a bit, you know, and I suppose I thought, from having heard him talk, that I was up on antiques. But, say, hanged if she couldn't name more kinds than I ever knew existed! Rippled on about Pompeian art, and Satsuma ware, and Egyptian tear jugs as readily as Ted Keefe, my ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... continuous residence of seven years in America, I found myself, for the first time, in the condition to carry out my intention of 1846. Several new motives had been added in the interval to those that had at first operated upon my mind. I had dabbled a little in farming in my native village, New Britain, Connecticut, and had labored to excite additional interest in agriculture among my neighbors. We had formed an Agricultural Club, and met weekly for several winters to compare notes, exchange opinions' and discuss matters connected ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... school of Plato (not regarding Aristotle as belonging entirely to that school) was continued by Speusippus, Polemo, Xenocrates, Crates, and Crantor. Owing to a retrograde movement, widely different from that of Aristotle, it dabbled in the Pythagorean ideas, with which Plato was acquainted and which he often appreciated, but not blindly, and to ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... food and made the Bears thirsty, so the old one led down to the river. After they had drunk as much as they wanted, and dabbled their feet, they walked down the bank to a pool, where the old one's keen eye caught sight of a number of Buffalo-fish basking on the bottom. The water was very low, mere pebbly rapids between these deep holes, so Mammy said ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... "opening day." Her vases should be precisely like that elegant pair of Copenhagen ware that cost fifty dollars. Then this ambitious, energetic, deluded woman went home, and proceeded to shut herself in her room, and dabbled in paint from morning till night. Her enthusiasm arose to such a pitch, that she neglected her sewing and her calls; and after she had produced a really creditable pair of vases, she was stimulated to go on. She painted lovely little bouquets ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... exquisite shades—purple and malachite and brown; the barnacles clung to them; the long sea-weeds, in half a dozen varieties, some in vivid colors, swept over them, flowing with the restless tide, like the long locks of a drowned woman's hair. King, who had dabbled a little in natural history, took great delight in pointing out to Irene this varied and beautiful life of the sea; and the girl felt a new interest in science, for it was all pure science, and she opened her heart to it, not knowing that love can go in by the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his knees, an arm overturning the bottle of beer; and, his sleeve dabbled in it, he pressed his head against the cold edge of the table, praying wordlessly for faith, incoherently ravished by the marvel of salvation, the knowledge of ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hour after the horrible meeting when—her mind having dabbled in crime as if with her fingers—she had determined to disfigure her rival with vitriol and had believed that she had done so, Germinie returned to Rue de Laval with a bottle of brandy ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... a sullen and malignant scowl always on his face, which at the best would be a very ugly one? Why should another walk with his nose in the air, and his eyes rolled up till they seem likely to roll out? And why should a third be always dabbled over with a clammy perspiration, and prolong all his vowels to twice the usual length? It is, indeed, a most woful thing, that people who evince a spirit in every respect the direct contrary of that of our Blessed Redeemer should fancy that they are Christians of singular attainments; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... ill-fitting boots you wore were removed, and the officials perceived your trim, clean feet, which are as well kept as your hands. Accordingly, what did you do? You poured some of the water that was in the pitcher in your cell on to the ground and then dabbled your feet in the mud that ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... and inserting it after the allusion to Europe; he had tried hard to include the fourth quarter of the globe; but, as he explained to some of his friends, it would have made the name too cumbrous for the advertisements. He was a director also of one or two minor railways, dabbled in mining shares, and, altogether, did a good deal of business in the private ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... from their awful errand. They hand a platter to Salome. What is that on the platter? A new tankard of wine to rekindle the mirth of the lords? No! It is redder than wine, and costlier. It is the ghastly, bleeding head of John the Baptist! Its locks dabbled in gore. Its eyes set in the death-stare. The distress of the last agony in the features. That fascinating form, that just now swayed so gracefully in the dance, bends over the horrid burden without a ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... of Lear's choice of a career was a curious one. He was the youngest of twenty-one children, and, through a family mischance, was thrown entirely on the limited resources of an elderly sister at a very early age. As a boy he had always dabbled in colors for his own amusement, and had been given to poring over the ordinary boys' books upon natural history. It occurred to him to try to turn his infant talents to account; and he painted upon cardboard a couple of birds in the style which the older ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.' So the drunken squires cursed the shepherd and rode onward. But soon their skins turned cold, for there came a galloping across the moor, and the black mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing bridle and empty saddle. Then the revellers rode close together, for a great fear was on them, but they still followed over the moor, though each, had he been alone, would have ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... stone fountain, out of which a jet of water rose playfully, falling with a splash of water-drops into the sculptured basin. While the furnace was raging in the village this fountain played and reflected the glare of crimson light in its bubbling jet. The children of many generations had dabbled their hands in its basin. Pretty girls had peeped into their own bright eyes mirrored there. On summer days the village folk had sauntered about this symbol of grace and beauty. Now it was as though I had discovered a white Venus in the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... cage there was a fierce manikin thrusting his sword or dagger vigorously into the body of some unhappy bird. It recalled the antique legend of the battles of the Pygmies and the Cranes. The poor love-birds lay with their emerald feathers dabbled in their hearts' blood, shoulder to shoulder in death as in life. Canaries gasped at the bottom of their cages, while the water in their little glass fountains ran red. The bullfinches wore an unnatural crimson on their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... in which fine gravel has been mixed, and then whirling the whole rapidly until the tin is rubbed quite clean. Never was prosaic task more delightful. They knelt side by side on the bank, under the dense leaves, and dabbled in the water happily. The ferns were fresh and cool. Once a redbird shot confidently down from above on half-closed wing, caught sight of these intruders, brought up with a swish of feathers, and eyed them gravely ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... woodcraft, arts, and superstitions; lengthening the legend till the little canoe was ready for another launch. With her fancy full of war-trails and wampum, Sylvia followed to the river-side, and as they floated back dabbled her stained fingers in the water, comforting their smart with its cool flow till they swept by the landing-place, when ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... I—" she faltered, swayed, and seemed to swoon as she sank toward the floor. Rainey darted forward, but Lund was quicker and swooped her up in his arms as if she had been a feather, took her to the table, set her in a chair, dabbled a napkin in some water and applied it to ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... foot of the hill, he began to carefully carry out Flynn's direction. The first dip of the pan in the running water carried off half the contents of the pan in liquid paint-like ooze. For a moment he gave way to boyish satisfaction in the sight and touch of this unctuous solution, and dabbled his fingers in it. A few moments more of rinsing and he came to the sediment of fine black sand that was beneath it. Another plunge and swilling of water in the pan, and—could he believe his eyes!—a few yellow tiny scales, scarcely larger than pins' heads, glittered among the sand. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... and Judy through the different rooms: he was an art connoisseur himself, and even dabbled in paint in a dilettante sort of fashion. He drew Judy on to make remarks, laughed and quizzed her for some ideas which he considered in advance of the times, for others which were altogether too antiquated ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... fresh water, which are emptied into two stone tanks in the courtyard. Then all fill their cooking and drinking vessels, but in such an untidy way that I felt not the slightest inclination to drink. One man was ladling out the water with a dirty pot, while another dabbled in the tank with his filthy hands; and some even put their dirty feet on the run and washed them, so that some of the water ran back into the tank. This receptacle is moreover never cleaned, so that dirt accumulates ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... red, A dripping mist that smelt like blood ... It choked my throat, it burnt my brain ... And through it peered one sallow star, And through it rang one shriek of pain ... And when it passed my hands were red, My soul was dabbled with her blood; And when it passed my love was dead And tossed upon ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... about with grave-worms that hung round them like locks of filthy hair; aged faces, dabbled with gore and slashed with wounds; youthful faces, seamed with livid channels, along which ran unceasing tears; lovely faces, distorted into fixed expressions of raging pain, wild malignity, and despairing gloom. Not one of these countenances exactly resembled ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... outstared me. I will dwell on none of my torments but this, which toward midday became intolerable. Certainly I had either died or gone mad under it, but that my hands were free to shield me; and these I turned in the blistering glare as a cook turns a steak on the gridiron. Now and again I dabbled them in the pannikin beside me, very carefully, ekeing out ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... letters and papers left by the dead woman show plainly that in her grief over the death of Lovecraft she had dabbled in Spiritualism, and had finally reached the conclusion that her only chance of happiness lay in joining her ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... and sits down in the chair we have left there, wringing her hands. Then, we notice that her clothes are wet. Our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and we can't speak; but, we observe her accurately. Her clothes are wet; her long hair is dabbled with moist mud; she is dressed in the fashion of two hundred years ago; and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well! there she sits, and we can't even faint, we are in such a state about it. Presently she gets up, and ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... and hooked it ashore. On examination it proved to be a large sheet, torn and tattered, with the initials J. C. in the corner. What gave it its sinister significance, however, was that from hem to hem it was all dabbled and discoloured. ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... our Politics found a fresh vent through the establishment of The Harrovian. I had dabbled in composition ever since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning, in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First School, one[9] ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... thing indelicate; but these two were not of the common sort. Harlson pulled off his stocking as carefully as he would have done a glove, and spread it on the sand where it might dry, and, laughing at his disaster, he dabbled with ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... that May began, I dabbled in the dew; And I wished for me a proper young man In coat-tails of ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... well before her, making as much of my small attainments as a hen with one chick. Like many of the West country Highlanders he was something of a scholar. French he could speak like a native, and he had dabbled in the humanities; but he would drag forth my smattering of learning with so much glee that one might have thought him ignorant of the plainest A B C of the matter. More than once I have known him blunder ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... give what I receive. And I have never received any very serious attention from anybody. I'm only Duane Mallett, identified with the wealthy section of society you inhabit, the son of a wealthy man, who went abroad and dabbled in colour and who paints pictures of pretty women. Everybody and the newspapers know me. What I see of women is a polished coquetry that mirrors my fixed smirk; what I see ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... I did sit there beside that warm stream, with my feet dabbled therein, I heard sudden, afar off, the voice of a mighty Night-Hound, baying in the night. And the sound came from the North-West of the Plain of Blue Fire. And there was afterward a quiet; and you shall see me sitting there upon the rock by the side of that smoking river, and the steam ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Mr. Esmond dabbled in letters, and wrote a deal of prose and verse at this time of leisure. When displeased with the conduct of Miss Beatrix, he would compose a satire, in which he relieved his mind. When smarting under the faithlessness ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rank who dabbled in painting for his amusement, having one day shown Poussin one of his performances, and asked his opinion of its merits, the latter replied, "You only want a little poverty, sir, to make ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Music? Your dear fool of a mother spent hundreds on lessons. You've dabbled and failed. You've never even earned a five-dollar piece by accompanying some one at a concert. Your songs?—rag-time rot that's never printed and that's sung only by a pack of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... startled and when he saw him lying motionless at his feet he bent over him—less from pity than from a wish to see what was the matter with him; for he had also dabbled in medicine. Just as he was lifting the fallen man's hand to feel his pulse Arsinoe rushed into the room. She had heard the last words of the antagonists with breathless anxiety and her father's fall and now threw herself on her knees by the side of the unhappy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... smattering of science is of the present day. Gentlemen tried to be poets, and poets gentlemen. The consequence was, that both made fools of themselves. Among the poetasters who belonged to the Kit-kat, we must mention Walsh, a country gentleman, member of Parliament, and very tolerable scholar. He dabbled in odes, elegies, epitaphs, and all that small fry of the muse which was then so plentiful. He wrote critical essays on Virgil, in which he tried to make out that the shepherds in the days of the Roman ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to herself, and as she leant back in her comfortable chair and dabbled her pretty bare feet in warm water; she reflected in a troubled and disjointed fashion over all that had occurred since that eventful morning when the beautiful "mystery" had appeared before her standing in that curtained archway, which indeed looked ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita) |
