"Dabbler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... historians as 'a little piece of wood, to which a string was fastened, and in the mysteries it is whirled round to make a roaring noise.' The performers in the 'mysteries' at which this implement was used daubed themselves all over with clay. Demosthenes describes the mother of Aeschines as a dabbler in mysteries, and tells how Aeschines used to assist her by helping to bedaub the initiate with clay and bran. Various explanations have been offered of these practices, but let us see how they tally with any prevailing customs. First, the bull-roarer is to be ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... to break the spirit of one commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an honest politician—a politician with scruples was as rare in those days as he is now—and a man of honour who could drink as much as his friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the conduct of him who leads it on with real abilities clears up, the appearing inconsistencies are reconciled, and when it is once consummated, the whole shows itself so uniform, so plain, and so natural, that every dabbler in politics will be apt to think he could have done the same. But on the other hand the man who proposes no such object, who substitutes artifice in the place of ability, who, instead of leading parties and governing accidents, is eternally agitated ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... received the kindest hospitality from his father and all his family, among whom was an old man of more than seventy, extremely pleasant in his conversation. He was Cesare's uncle, a surgeon by profession, and a dabbler in alchemy. This excellent person made me observe that the Bagni contained mines of gold and silver, and showed me many interesting objects in the neighbourhood; so that I enjoyed myself as much as I ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... sharply, "therefore we will be plain with you. You shall be lodged here with suitable means for your experiments until such time as your pretensions are justified—if they are. Should you prove yourself a wizard, a dabbler in the black art and a deceiver of the people, you shall be so punished that all men may know we share not in your guilt. Reflection hereupon may perchance quicken your understanding. Until you have news of importance ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... doubtless, it will be early enough to announce the capital when they have playfully pounced upon the deposits. But there is some candour in TWENTY-NINE provisional committees, and their accumulated nominal capital proves to be—how much, think you, gifted reader, and confident dabbler in new stock? Why, merely this—TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND POUNDS!!! Now—for we wish always to speak and write within the mark—let us calculate the eleven Harpocrates Companies and the Northern Schemes, (which are more than eleven,) at fourteen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... an ass, old fellow. You're not a poet, you know—you're a happy dabbler in prose; but you've got to wake up—you've got to have some vital experience before you can hope to reach the top. This vicarious loving isn't worth a tin whistle. You're like a soldier in the barracks compared to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... love her more and better than ever! Oh! if I knew but something I could do for her, some service which on the bended knees of my spirit I might offer her! I clomb the heights of my grief, and looked around, but alas! I was such a poor creature! A dabbler in the ways of the world, a writer of tales which even those who cared to read them counted fantastic and Utopian, who was I to weave a single silken thread into the web of her life? How could I bear her one poorest ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... and dreams, Mr. Lincoln had a philosophy of his own, which, strange as it may appear, was in perfect harmony with his character in all other respects. He was no dabbler in divination—astrology, horoscopy, prophecy, ghostly lore, or witcheries of ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure |
