"Dictation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you what would bring us fame and money," said Bauer with his usual slow manner and his friendly smile. "What the world needs is a letter writer that will take letters at dictation, ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... patience and practice I should be able to write out the story in legible English. The little I had read with Mr. Fortescue made me keen to know more; but as the cryptographic narrative did not begin at the beginning, he proposed that I should write this, as also any other missing parts, to his dictation. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... French, somewhat uncertain French, pronounced after the Italian fashion, and so slowly did he articulate each sentence that one could have written it down like so much dictation. And his voice, as Pierre had previously noticed, was strong and nasal, one of those full voices which people are surprised to hear coming from debile and apparently ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... got a kick out of the dictation. After the first day, he became very cautious. He would say, "Now don't write this," and he wouldn't let me take it down the way he said it. Instead, he would make a long statement and then we would work out ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... very unlikely: but if heat had been actually printed in the folios, without speculating as to the probability that the press-copy was written from dictation, I should have had no hesitation in altering it to cheek. To this I should have been directed by a parallel passage in Richard II., Act III. Sc. 3., which has been overlooked ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... that she called herself a silly little fool. She seized her untouched note-book, her pencils sharpened like lances, and tried to appear a very mouse of modesty as she marched down the office to take her first real dictation, to begin her triumphant career.... And to have Walter Babson, the beloved fool, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... these two personages, Namtar, the personification of disease, is a popular conception, whereas the addition of a scribe points again to the influence of the schools. Marduk, the chief god of the living, has a scribe who writes down, at the god's dictation, the fate decreed for individuals. Corresponding to this, the ruler of the lower world has a scribe who writes down on the tablets of wisdom the decrees of the goddess, and, at a later stage, the decrees of Nergal as well. Belit-seri, whose name signifies 'mistress of the field,' was ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... suffered as much as any one from their fury, candidly wrote after the siege: "These men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country,'' though he adds, "that does not always or necessarily mean political ability ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the master of millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... the dictation of Shnisky, the young prince became the ward of the no less excellent Gluisky, and was carefully taught that the only way in which he could effectually assert authority was by punishment. It was made clear to his budding intellect, too, that the shortest, simplest, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... and second clauses would have been of little import in Elizabeth's eye's, except as they implied her yielding to dictation; the real sting lay in the last. And the last was the one which Philip would be most loth to yield. With a touch of grim humour, His Catholic Majesty sent his ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... impossible. Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... was a natural growth of public opinion in the colonies tending to independence of action, and to indignant protest against foreign dictation. In the sixth decade of the eighteenth century many of the leading young men of America talked and wrote of independence as a thing ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... it is not to be denied that she was a good deal more at peace when they were not at the lodge. She tried devoutly to follow out the directions of my Lady Countess, and thought herself in fault when things went amiss, but she prospered far more when free from such dictation. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on the hearthrug, and prodded the fire vigorously to mark each point scored. Vie wrote from dictation at the centre table. Dan sat chuckling in his own particular chair, and allowed himself to be cast as hero with lamblike calm, and plain Hannah affected dire displeasure at being passed over for the part of ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a crook lacked but one thing," she had naively written, "and that one thing was that his crookedness required a leading string to guide it into channels that were worthy of his genius." In a word, SHE would plan the coups, and he would act at her dictation and execute them—or else how did twenty years in Sing Sing for that little Maiden Lane affair appeal to him? He was to answer by the next morning, a simple "yes" or "no" in the personal ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... have probably terminated my career as an author. Immediately after the completion of this work I was afflicted with a degree of blindness rendering it impossible for me to read any print whatever, and compelling me to write only by dictation. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... he knew his weakness, and had sent to offer terms the most advantageous, provided he and his impoverished bands might be permitted to go free; but, with victory in their hands, why should the insulted knights of France agree to his dictation? it were better to punish the haughty islanders as they deserved, and at once rid their country of a nest of hornets which allowed ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating "The Child's History of England," which he published in "Household Words," and which was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. But, as at Broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty of relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends. In September he finished "Bleak House," and in October he started with Mr. Wilkie Collins and Mr. Egg from Boulogne, on an excursion through parts of Switzerland and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... some to be an impossibility, and they would allege that if the words were affected by inspiration at all, there must have been dictation. But the must is a non sequitur. It is admitted that God works His purposes in the world through the ordinary actions of men, while yet no violence is done to their freedom. It is admitted, also, that God, through the gracious operations of His Holy Spirit, works in the hearts of ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... 'salamon,' or oath of our creed, after my dictation," said the patrico; and Turpin, signifying his assent by a nod, Balthazar propounded the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... been kept at my book and my dancing lessons. Mademoiselle told her ladyship that I was a monster of ignorance. I have been treated shamefully. I could not have come to-day had my lady been at home; but I would not brook a hireling's dictation. Voyons, p'tite tante, tu seras miladi Warner. Dis, dis, que je ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... could, and it's not his fault that he's dead wood now. I've given in, over and over again, in one way or another, sometimes against my convictions, and oftener against my will. But one thing I've stuck to, and that's my right to discharge a hand when I see fit, without dictation from the Union or anybody else. In the past, this has been comparatively easy sailing. One man, now and again, isn't a ripple on the surface of four thousand employees. Besides, there was always a good reason. The others saw that, and there was never a finger raised. They believed ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... too proud to write—too lazy, too enamoured of his dignity. He called a court official, and the man sat very humbly at his feet—listened meekly to the stern command to secrecy—and took the letter from dictation. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Miss Pettengill very exact in dictation," said Quincy to Rosa. "I took that long story there down in pencil, and I don't think I was obliged to change ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... confess that, for my part, I would much prefer having a son-in-law who was able to walk about, and who would not have to be carried to the altar. Here is a letter to you from him—that is to say, which has been written at his dictation, for of course the surgeons insist on his lying perfectly quiet, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... not speak. When my speech came again, I said: "How dare you, sir? How dare you take such a serious step without consulting me? Don't answer me, sir!—you will sit down immediately, and write a note at my dictation, withdrawing your resignation and amply apologising ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Hotel, which I was passing, and asked if there was a stenographer at liberty. There was. In the stenographer's office of the Windsor Hotel, with the life of a caravanserai buzzing around me, I dictated the last few pages of When Valmond Came to Pontiac. It was practically my only experience of dictation of fiction. I had never been able to do it, and have not been able to do it since, and I am glad that it is so, for I should have a fear of being led into mere rhetoric. It did not, however, seem to matter with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Democratic party, in season and out of season, now join hands with their deluded brethren for a grand all hands round. By their help a President of the United States has been elected, by their dictation his policy has been mapped out, and by their threatening attitude the entire administration is controlled. A similar condition of affairs was never before known in the history ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... imperial mantle, crown and sceptre, stands left of centre. An old man seated at his feet is writing from his dictation. Left of the Emperor are five desks; with five closed books lying on the top of each. These desks are very probably intended to represent those of the Vatican Library as arranged by Sixtus IV. Two men, ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... own. As bishop of Bordeaux, he owed his election to the pontificate to Philip's own intrigues, and had been easily induced to quit Rome and live in France, so as to be more completely under the dictation of the King. Moreover, the majority of the cardinals were also French and entirely devoted to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... king himself writes that he escaped of his own free will? what baseness, or what treason, in the Assembly to employ such language, when surrounded by three millions of bayonets.' 'The word carrying off is a mistake in dictation, that the Assembly will correct,' replied La Fayette; then he added, 'this conduct of the king is infamous.' La Fayette repeated this several times, and shook me heartily by the hand. I left him, reflecting ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of paper up against the wall, and wrote at his friend's dictation. The translation was not very accurate, but coming from the lips of a fellow in the Upper Fourth it was accepted without question by the juvenile, and in ten minutes the rough copy ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... history, prophecies that were never fulfilled, contradictions and inconsistencies between different books and chapters,—these are facts of observation which every Biblical student knows full well. Granting, for the sake of the argument, that the Bible was given originally by infallible divine dictation, yet the men who wrote down the message were fallible; the men who copied it were fallible; the men who translated it (some of it twice over, first from Hebrew to Greek, and then from Greek to English) were fallible; and the editors, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... dependence on local or temporary customs, on those changeable scenes of artificial life, which, by mingling original with accidental notions and crowding the mind with images which time effaces, produces ambiguity in dictation and obscurity in books. To this open display of unadulterated nature it must be ascribed that Homer has fewer passages of doubtful meaning than any other poet either in the learned or in modern languages. I have read of a man ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... government vainly endeavoured to resist this interference by sending agents with money and promises. In Germany the redistribution of territory necessitated by the peace of Luneville was carried out professedly under the joint mediation of France and Russia, but really at the dictation of Napoleon. The final project, which destroyed all except three of the spiritual principalities and all except six of the free cities, was proposed by France on February 23, 1803, and accepted by the Emperor ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... a man, as a man, endowed with will, control, wishes, and so on, ceases to exist, you may say, while he is writing. He becomes then the tool of that peculiar, mysterious power that is moving in his brain. He writes as a clerk writes from dictation. He is the clerk pro tem of the impulse stirring his being, which dictates to him what it pleases. There is no consideration in his mind—'I will write this or that' or 'I won't write the other.' He simply feels he must write a particular thing; it crowds ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... or tribe. The work of subjection has to be performed piecemeal among the hundreds of Dattos, each of whom, by established custom, can only act for himself and his own retainers, for every Datto would resent, at the risk of his life, any dictation from another. All this is extremely irritating to the white commander, who would prefer to bring matters to a definite crisis by one or more decisive contests, impossible of realization, however, in ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... was not all of our dictation, our companions interlarded it with their own indignant protests, and said some strong things in the Tette dialect about these "doctor things" keeping them back from seeing their father; when to their surprise Mochokotsa told them he knew every word they ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. He was the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck sceptre: all measures of importance were submitted to his discretion; and nothing was finally resolved but under his dictation. This result he had brought about in a year or two by means sufficiently simple; first of all, by availing himself of the prejudice in his favor, so largely diffused amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to the throne, in quality of great-grandson in ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... have succeeded to the prerogatives of the king, with the important difference, however, that they do not appear to have pretended to direct inspiration for each sentence. The connection of ideas which caused the judgments of the patriarchal chieftain to be attributed to superhuman dictation still shows itself here and there in the claim of a divine origin for the entire body of rules, or for certain parts of it, but the progress of thought no longer permits the solution of particular disputes to be explained by supposing an ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... compositions, they did him intellectual good at least, if it were only through the process of their construction. He wrote to David after his arrival, telling him all about his new situation; and received in return a letter from Margaret, written at her father's dictation. The mechanical part of letter-writing was rather laborious to David; but Margaret wrote well, in consequence of the number of papers, of one sort and another, which she had written for Hugh. Three or four letters more passed between them at lengthening intervals. Then they ceased—on ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... argued that it were folly to attempt the suppression of quackery by statute; for, says he, the freeborn Anglo-Saxon considers that he has the inalienable right of going to the Devil in his own way. And he resents anything like dictation in the sphere of medicine, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... hour of the morning at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matter of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of my hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under my dictation: she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I relied as usual on her help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, was simply a question of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative duty ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... in the boiler room results are not simply a matter of dictation of operating methods. The securing of perfect combustion, with the accompanying efficiency of heat transfer, while comparatively simple in theory, is difficult to obtain in practical operation. This fact is perhaps best exemplified by the difference between test results and those obtained ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... received an invitation to the duchess's ball, but that as it was coupled with an intimation that it was hoped the persons who had been at the Queen's great fancy ball, given a week before, would wear the same costumes at Stafford House, Mademoiselle d'Este chose to consider this an impertinent dictation, and said first "she would go in a plain white satin gown," then "in a white muslin petticoat," finally, that "she wouldn't go at all;" and working herself up by degrees into more fury as she talked, she abused the Duchess of Sutherland ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... contrary opinion on the subject among the ministers and members of the excluded persuasions. I wish I could share with you in your expressed confidence in Sir George Cartier, but I have no such confidence in him, and especially in the ecclesiastical influence under the dictation of which he acts. Wherein I may have been misinformed, and may not have stated matters correctly, I shall be prepared to correct any such errors, when I come to reply to the various attacks which have been made upon me, in vindication of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of his treatment. Under all these circumstances, Mrs. Marston's unhappiness and uneasiness greatly increased. Mademoiselle de Barras, too, upon several late occasions, had begun to assume a tone of authority and dictation, which justly offended the mistress of the establishment. Meanwhile Charles Marston had returned to Cambridge; and Rhoda, no longer enjoying happy walks with her brother, pursued her light and easy studies with Mademoiselle ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that we were no longer subject to janitorial dictation, or to the dumb-waiter complications which are often distressing to those who live at the top of the house and get the last choice of the meat and ice deliveries, but our landlady and the boarders we ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... restored, and suffers much from thick varnish and repainting, but nothing has spoilt the harmony of the colours, nor the tender beauty of the Virgin, whose features and expression are a repetition of those of Echo in the "Pan." The Saint, who writes at the dictation of the Child, is painted with earnestness, and the whole scene is treated with the ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... heart. One of the negro's shots, however, had penetrated the abdomen of Frank Jenison. He was mortally wounded. On being informed by the surgeons that he had but a few hours to live, the miserable wretch directed that his confession be written out at his dictation, that he might put his signature to it and thereby set his unhappy nephew straight in the eyes of a ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... one of Maggie's, I see," said Mrs. Rush, perceiving one in Maggie's handwriting. "Oh, no," glancing at the commencement and seeing that it was by no means in Maggie's style, "it is another effusion of Frankie's; she has only written it out from his dictation. I wonder if it will be ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... family ought to give us their side of it. I want more about Tolstoy by Mrs. Tolstoy. And a Life of Milton by his daughters. That picture of those unfortunate daughters, looking so sweet and devoted, taking the blind poet's dictation, is—must be—deceptive. They were probably wanting to go off upstairs, all the time, and try new ways of doing their hair; or go out and talk their heads off with other girls, or look in shop windows: anything but take down old Mr. Milton's poetry all day. They ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... of these volumes have been written down directly from my dictation, over a period of several years, by my friend and wife, who wished me to tell her the story of my life. It was the desire of both of us that these details of my life should be accessible to our family and to our sincere and trusted friends; and we decided ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... which are phonic the difficulties are minimised. Children in the ordinary Elementary Schools in Italy, though taught in large classes, can write long sentences to dictation in four or five months.[31] But in Italian each letter has its definite sound and every letter is sounded. It is true that these children appear to spend most of their ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... the tablets whereon the countess had, almost mechanically, written to his subtle dictation; and he said, coolly: "Fear not, lady—I must be reduced to a desperate strait indeed when my safety shall depend on the use I can make of this ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... have 'universal fame.' A Benthamite capable of so singular an eccentricity judiciously agreed to avoid discussions upon religious topics with his master. To Bowring we also owe the Deontology, which professes to represent Bentham's dictation. The Mills repudiated this version, certainly a very poor one, of their teacher's morality, and held that it represented less Bentham than such an impression of Bentham as could be ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... letters. One day Ward'engro of the K'allis's Gav, asked me to write him a letter to his daughter, in Rommany. So I began to write from his dictation. But being, like all his race, unused to literary labour, his lively imagination continually led him astray, and as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved to be an easy matter to induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy life, which, however edifying they might be to my reader, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Captain F. W. L. Thomas, who took it down from the dictation of an old woman ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... conflicts, the tumults of the fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved. Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often written between the dictation of the battle's plan, the dispatches to the Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful course ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... machine had been rattling on like a Maxim gun in action, the operator taking down dictation on to the machine so quickly that it was almost as good as short-hand. It stopped suddenly, and the fragile anaemic woman who was working it laid down her hands in her lap, saying she was afraid she could not continue. In reply to the question if she was ill ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... part of one of the concerns recently assimilated by the Consolidated Companies is a prosperous mail-order department which we intend to continue, for a time at least. Your father's instructions are that all the mail shall be brought to you each morning by a stenographer, who will receive your dictation and bring the letters back to you in the afternoon for your approval and signature. For a time I will give you such advice as you need, and later you will have matters entirely in your own hands as long as you ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... inevitable and increasing friction. It was a matter of life and death to England that no other great Western fleet should exist besides the French, and it was a matter of national existence to Germany once she had undertaken a policy not to give up that policy at the dictation of any other power—for, among other things, modern Germany lived on prestige; her whole internal structure depended upon it, and for Prussia to lose faith before Europe would be the end of the Germany that Prussia ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... swallow, proverbially, does not make a spring; and when Newman took refuge in flight, other leaders of the Oxford Movement refused to accept his logic and to follow his example. Englishmen have always resented anything in the shape of foreign dictation, and deep in the national heart there yet survives a rooted hostility to the claims of the Vatican. Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, which followed quickly on the heels of this dramatic act of Papal aggression, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... rising sun, and hinted even thus early that Elizabeth might marry her powerful Spanish brother-in-law. But she resented his patronage, and though she coquetted, as usual, with the proposal of marriage, she took care not to pledge herself or submit England to foreign dictation. To Spain it was vital that England should be at her bidding. If the queen could not marry Philip, surely she could only wed one of his Austrian cousins; or, if not, then England must be conquered by the sword. All that Elizabeth wanted was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... of mystic wonder in it, he battled so blindly for possession of her. He was in her way, and she could not advance without pushing him aside. Had he come to her and blustered, "You shall not leave me for any purpose whatsoever," she would have denied him the right of dictation; but there was ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... have actually carried the greater part of that amazing plan into execution! Look how things stand. Austria is at their mercy. It has acted, not upon its own initiative or upon the choice of its own people, but at Berlin's dictation, ever since the war began. Its people now desire peace, but cannot have it until leave is granted from Berlin. The so-called Central Powers are, in fact, but a single Power. Serbia is at its mercy, should its hand ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... some one who could write well. Junot stepped out of the ranks and presented himself. Bonaparte recognised him as the sergeant who had already fixed his attention. He expressed his satisfaction at seeing him, and desired him to place himself so as to write under his dictation. Hardly was the letter done, when a bomb, projected from the English batteries, fell at the distance of ten yards, and, exploding, covered all present with gravel and dust. "Well," said Junot, laughing, "we shall at least not require sand to dry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... request of the magistrate, entered into a minute detail of the circumstances which attended that unhappy affair. All the particulars, such as we have narrated, were taken minutely down by the clerk from Butler's dictation. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... eyebrows and looked at the little woman. She was sitting bolt upright, staring out over the vague fields; she seemed to have uttered the words unconsciously, as if at the dictation of some familiar spirit. "And yet I wish—no, I don't wish I knew. I know he must have had an awful time of it." She turned her face suddenly on Stanistreet. "What do you think he told me the other day? He said he had never known ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... The following is taken from a letter sent to the press by the Chairman of the Committee: "I am aware that many people are opposed to the principle of a ticket on the ground that it savours of 'dictation,' &c. &c. We are exceedingly anxious that every voter should be in a position to exercise his privilege of choice to the fullest extent.... It is not reasonable to expect him, without advice, to express an order of preference in the case of men he ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... to other and older codes. It contained fragments of old songs and the old lore of the common folk. It was seen to record indisputably long processes of moral growth and spiritual insight. Its prophets spoke out of their time and for their time. It was plainly enough no longer an infallible dictation to writers who were only the automatic pens of God, it was a growth rooted deep in the soil out of which it grew and the souls of those who created it. The fibres of its main roots went off into the darkness of a culture too long lost ever to ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... lame and the third is deaf! She laughed about it as though it were not sad at all. The deaf one has been quite ill recently, and Madam Kittredge is making the prettiest present for her. She says Mrs. Langdon writes regular letters to them both, but Madam Kittredge can reply only by dictation, or by sending little gifts, and she takes the greatest pleasure in doing that. She showed me what she was getting ready for 'Matty,' as she calls the one who lives in Milwaukee. It seemed so queer to hear her speak of Mrs. Langdon as 'Sue'! If you should see her once,—" turning to ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... knew the habits of Smith and his sons too well to expect them to save it. In fact, the letter before him, which he ended by giving me to read, had been written by the poor woman at her husband's dictation, in the belief that Harold was the heir, to demand their passage-money from him, and that there was a sad little postscript put in afterwards, unknown to her tyrant. "My boy, don't do it. It will be much better for you not;" and, brave woman as she was, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was despatched as deputy to Ireland with troops at his back. English officers, English judges were quietly sent over. The Lords of the Pale were scared by the seizure of their leader, the Earl of Kildare. The Parliament of the Pale was bridled by a statute passed at the Deputy's dictation; the famous Poynings Act, by which it was forbidden to treat of any matters save those first approved of by the English king and his Council. It was this new Ireland that the pretender found when he appeared off its coast. He withdrew in despair, and Henry at once set about finishing ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... she nearly collided with Hartmann who was entering from the offices. Seating himself at the desk, dictation pad in ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... order, and even dictation can be endured from you. The postman delivers too many letters on that block to concern himself with postmarks. Sorry to close ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... everyone—toward the Walters, even toward his wife, and above all toward the man who had deceived him, made use of him, and who dined twice a week at his house. Georges acted as his secretary, agent, mouthpiece, and when he wrote at his dictation, he felt a mad desire to strangle him. Laroche reigned supreme in the Du Roy household, having taken the place of Count de Vaudrec; he spoke to the servants as if he were their master. Georges submitted to it all, like a dog which wishes to ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets—and rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week.... 'My dear sir,' he cried, 'I write from dictation.' I demanded rivets. There was a way—for an intelligent man. He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer (I stuck to my salvage night ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... today of men with real editorial individuality—but editorial individuality is the last thing the capitalist proprietors want. It is just that they are determined to stamp out. Therefore, your real editor must either swallow his pride and submit to ignorant dictation, or make way for the little band of automatic sorters of manuscript, which, as nine tailors make a man, nowadays constitute a sort of composite editor under the direction ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... often followed his advice. It was a sore point with the Montenegrins, from the Prince down, that Jonine was so officious in his intervention even in military advice, where he had not the least competence; and in general the Montenegrins resented the dictation of the Russian staff, even where it had every reason to urge its own views of the operations. On the occasion of the next birthday of the Czar, which was as usual celebrated in Montenegro by a diplomatic and official dinner, the Prince refused to come to the table, sending Duby to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... written this work according to the dictation of Black Hawk, through the United States Interpreter, at the Sac and Fox Agency of Rock Island. He does not, therefore, consider himself responsible for any of the facts, or views, contained in it, and leaves the Old Chief and his story with the public, ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... me, James R. Chalott, this seventh day of March, 187-, at the dictation of the above-mentioned Maiden's Heart. He has requested me to add that he wants the speckles to be red, and as large as you can ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... unwarrantable and exceedingly trying to the temper of spirited men, but the savages were far too numerous for resistance, and they had to submit to their dictation. It is, however, worthy of remark, and a circumstance highly honourable to the character of those savages, that they have on all occasions scrupulously respected the persons and property of their white visitors, at the same ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... interests of the mother, he, no doubt, hoped to get both within his power: for who can tell what wild expectation might not have animated such a mind as Rohan's at the prospect of governing not only the Court of France but that of Austria?—the Court of France, through a secret influence of his own dictation thrown around the Dauphine by the mother's alarm; and that of Austria, through a way he pointed out, in which the object that was most longed for by the mother's ambition seemed most likely to be achieved! While he endeavoured ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sent for, and Mrs Pemberton secured the note, done up, as proposed, in his woolly head. She had written it at her husband's dictation, in a small, delicate hand, so that it occupied little more ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... sources, that the position of many of the great feudatories of India, who by their treaty rights are much more allies than subjects of His Majesty the King-Emperor, has been reduced to that of a mere figure-head, with no real authority except when they meekly obey the dictation of the ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... of girls that scattered at his approach. It is not that women must be all things to all men, but that their simplicity must conform to time and circumstance. What I do not understand is that simplicity gets banished altogether, and that fashion, on a dictation that no one can trace the origin of, makes that lovely in the eyes of women today which will seem utterly abhorrent to them tomorrow. There appears to be no line of taste running through the changes. The only consolation to you, the woman of the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... me to watch." A singular fate for this king-maker, that he should be forgotten and the holy oil alone remembered! Yet Louis probably used that mediaeval notion as a shield against his brother's dictation. The tough Bonaparte nature brooked not the idea of mere lieutenancy. He declined to obey orders from the brother whom he secretly detested. He flatly refused to be transferred from the Hague to Madrid, or to put in force the burdensome ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... note, which was written from my dictation by my secretary, Mrs. Forth, to assure myself that her inexperience has been guilty of no error in matters of so much delicacy and importance. I have detected no mistake of moment, and begin to hope that the important step of matrimony to which I was guided by your example may not have ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... employment leads me to my father's study, to write under his dictation. I don't complain of this; it flatters my pride to feel that I am helping so great a man. At the same time, I do notice that here again Eunice's little defects have relieved her of another responsibility. She can neither keep dictated words in her memory, nor has she ever been ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... you first brought him to me, he was not the enemy of our house. When he came here, day after day, season after season, he was not our enemy. When I wrote that letter, at Paul's dictation, I did not know he was our enemy. You told me that night that I was not for him. I promised you obedience. Did he come here to me and implore me to wed with him, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... to him and dipped his pen in the ink. He appeared to be writing under her dictation. Thin, flaky snow had begun to fall and settled in a smooth white carpet upon the frozen ground, and the footsteps of the passers-by sounded muffled as they hurried along. Only the lapping of the water of the sluggish river ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... He would rather have been alone in the castle. It seemed as if his uncle's old friend was inclined to take the place of master in the household. The young man's pride revolted against the general's love of dictation; and his fears—strange and terrible fears—made the presence of the general ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... another "Jumping off place." He explored. He found rubies, and he obtained a concession for a lead mine for others. He met there the Tichborne Claimant, and invented a Carbine pistol. He visited Argentina. All this time he was writing upon many things, or having his wife take his dictation. She went into the wilds, down into the mines, everywhere with him. Next he was transferred to Damascus, where his honesty got him into trouble, and his wife's Catholicity aroused great sentiment against him. He went into Syria, and he created consternation among the corrupt ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... snickered, but she would not divulge her plot. She was impatient to spring it. She wondered if in a week she could learn all she had to learn—if she worked hard. It would be rather pleasant to sit at his desk-leaf and take dictation from him—confidential letters that he would intrust to no one else, letters written in a whisper and full of dark references. She hoped she could learn stenographic velocity in a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... family paper written by a granddaughter of Colonel Noel Barton, at her mother's dictation, it is stated that Colonel Matthew married a relative of Sir Isaac Newton, and was Comptroller of the Mint; but this paper is not very correct in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... dear brother Walter asked me to assist him in writing his journal from his dictation, begging me to put in any remarks of my own. Little did I think at the time that the whole would be my work. I obey his wishes, though sick at heart and full of anxiety. Yesterday morning he and Ali went off in ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... hands. "Stenographer—where's the stenographer? Oh, Judas Priest, nobody helps me! Bless your sweet heart, my dear, here you are, aren't you? Yes, and I'll not forget you for it either. No, no, no! No notes. Just stick piece of paper in the typewriter—now then! Ready! Dictation direct to machine. Er—ah! Harumph-h-h! Oh, suffering sailor! What's the name of the French bank in Papeete? I don't know. I'm a director and vice president of this infernal bank—and I don't know I'm alive! ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... fright. The annulment of the sale would bring him face to face with ruin. Reluctantly, feeling that he was being imposed upon, he reduced the price by two hundred thousand livres, and even consented to write the Queen the following letter, whose epistolary grace suggests the Cardinal's dictation: ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the change. Free negroes won't serve, and the official must not employ a slave; thus, a gentleman sent out to look after the interest of his country, and in his own person to uphold its dignity, must either submit to the dictation and extortion of his white servant—if even then he can keep him—or he may be called upon suddenly, some fine morning, to do all the work of housemaid, John, cook, and knife and button boy, to the neglect of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Sometimes I stopped in the middle of a sentence, to look and to listen rather more intently than seemed absolutely necessary, and on each occasion I was obliged to begin the sentence all over again, because, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was I had set out to say in dictation. Poopendyke had an air of patient tolerance about him that irritated me intensely. More than once I thought I detected him in the act ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... given her consent to take part in what was probably one of the first falsehoods of her life. In ten minutes more, one of the boys who had already dressed himself for church, was on his way to the Crawford mansion, with a sealed note in the school-girl hand-writing of Susan, written under the dictation of Josephine, and reading ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... with the conduct of these workmen, and with the productive results of their labour. We thought it fair to them as well as to ourselves to resist the order to discharge them, and we consequently firmly refused to submit to the dictation of the Unionists. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Mexico and Central America for conquest and expansion. They had cultivated a bitter sectional enmity, amounting to contempt, for the people of the north, growing partly out of the subserviency of large portions of the north to the dictation of the south, but chiefly out of the wordy violence and disregard of constitutional obligation by the Abolitionists of the north. They believed in the doctrine of an irrepressible conflict long before it was announced ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... reasons of my own, to make a holograph will at your dictation, and to deposit it with my friend here. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... voters and a gross innovation of vested rights; we demand the abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, in order that the women may be thoroughly free to vote as they choose, without supervision or dictation, and that the chair appoint a committee of three persons, with power to add to their number, to memorialize congress, and otherwise to watch over the rights of the women of Utah in this regard during ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Thady, I'll have no dictation from you, as to whether I have one or fifty; or as to whether he'll be an ass or a Newton. I say that a dearth of larnin' is like a year of famine in Ireland. When the people are hard pushed, they bleed ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... whatever. These "rotten boroughs" as they were called, were usually in the hands of wealthy landowners; one great Peer literally carrying eleven boroughs in his pocket, so that eleven members went to the House of Commons at his dictation.—It would seem that a reform so obviously needed should have been easy to accomplish. But the House of Lords clung to the old system as if the life of the Kingdom depended upon it. And when the measure was finally carried the good old Duke of Wellington said sadly, "We must hope for the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... nothing, suspected nothing. Such deep and desperate wickedness as he was planning was beyond the wildest flight of my imagination. When he insisted upon sending for a complete set of clothing for me, and when at his dictation I wrote a list of the articles I wanted, I thought he was influenced by his wish as my husband to see me dressed in articles of his own buying. That it was all a plot to rob me of my identity could not strike such a mind as mine, and when ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green |
