"Scribbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... logical and clear always. He attended trials, went to court always, read the Revised Statutes of Indiana, dated 1824, heard law speeches, and listened to law trials. Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry, and the like.... In Gentryville, about one mile west of Thomas Lincoln's farm, Lincoln would go and tell his jokes and stories, &c., and was so odd, original and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... rather remarkable to find a girl of twenty-three scribbling over several pages about the analogy existing between the natural and the spiritual world, or discussing with herself the question: "Are seasons of darkness always occasioned by sin?" or giving a long list of reasons ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... moment she had transferred her burden to the chair. In another she had flung open one of the end shutters of the room, drawn a small table towards the window, opened upon it her portable writing-desk (an article of use without which she never travelled), and was hastily scribbling, though with a hand that shook a little at its own ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... from memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused before the age of fifteen. Since I left Harrow, I have become idle and conceited, from scribbling rhyme and making love to women. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... chair, from one year's end to another, sat that prodigious book-worm, Cotton Mather, sometimes devouring a great book, and sometimes scribbling one as big. In Grandfather's younger days, there used to be a wax figure of him in one of the Boston museums, representing a solemn, dark-visaged person, in a minister's black gown, and with a black-letter ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Spirit within his own children, to be a bosom pattern and example, and it is our duty to resign ourselves to his leading and direction. The Spirit brings the copy near hand us, and though we cannot attain, yet we should follow after. Though we cannot make out the lesson, yet we should be scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of ancient foundation afford, for most of us there is another library that is nearer to our hearts; that cosy chamber with which we are accustomed to associate warmth, comfort, soft chairs and footrests, a wide writing-table that we may pile high with books, with scribbling-paper, foolscap and marking-slips in plenty. In short, a room so far removed from earthly cares and noise, that the dim occasional sounds of the outside world serve but to accentuate our absolute possession of ease. Here we may labour undisturbed though surrounded by a thousand friends. ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... this noble pair were the long lines of very pale and anxious faces (I really must except my own, for my face never looked anxious till I thought of marrying, or pale till I took to scribbling), the possessors of which were experiencing a little the torment of Tantalus. The palisades, those graves of sand, turned into a rich compost by the ever-recurring burial, were directly under the windows, and the land-breeze came over them, chill and dank, in palpable currents, through ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... I look upon—and will say so publicly-to be a dirty, lying rascal, and will prove it in ink—or in his blood, if I did not believe him to be too much of a poet to risk it! If he has forty reviews at his back, as he has the Quarterly, I would have at him in his scribbling capacity now that he has begun with me; but I will do nothing underhand; tell him what I say from me and ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... clattered away with him in the direction of Cromwell Road. Stopping at a particular house in a side street leading from thence, he bade the cabman wait,—and, ascending the steps, busied himself for some moments in scribbling something rapidly in pencil on a leaf of his note-book by the light of the hanging-lamp in the doorway. He then gave a loud knock, and inquired of the servant who ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... high and low denomination, For what you speak, and what you write, Dread you at once, and bear you spite. Such freedoms in your works are shown They can't enjoy what's not their own; All dunces too, in church and state, In frothy nonsense show their hate; With all the petty scribbling crew, (And those pert sots are not a few,) 20 'Gainst you and Pope their envy spurt, The booksellers alone are hurt. Good gods! by what a powerful race (For blockheads may have power and place) Are scandals raised and libels writ! To prove your honesty and wit! ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... sways and moulds mankind. The India House was another of my reveries. I could not think of it as but a huge pile in a vulgar outlet of the city, as a place of porters and messengers loitering in gloomy corridors, of busy clerks for ever scribbling in nooks unvisited by the sun, or even of portly directors, congregating in halls encrusted with the cobwebs of centuries. To my eyes it was invested with the mystery and dignity of Orientalism. I thought of the powers by which rajahs were raised ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... person standing not far from the Masked Lady: a little man wearing large spectacles and thread-bare clothes. He was looking at nothing whatever save a note-book which he carried in his hand, and he was scribbling intently. Occasionally he lifted his hand high and touched the note-book with his pencil, and drew the pencil away with a precise movement. This was when ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... in the office, for they found that the papers on his table were covered with figures and writing relating to this work. These papers justified the subsequent verdict of the Coroner's jury that Hunter committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, for they were covered with a lot of meaningless scribbling, the words wrongly spelt and having no intelligible connection with each other. There was one sum that he had evidently tried repeatedly to do correctly, but which came wrong in a different way every time. The fact that he had the razor in his possession seemed to point ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... time finished his scribbling and rummaging, and he now beckoned Karpathy to the table, and counted out before him a bundle of hundred-florin notes in six lots, together with four florins in twenty-kreutzer pieces, and thirty ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Young Einstein, scribbling the single word "Emil" on a card, approached the parchment-faced German lad who sat in state, manipulating the bewildering keys of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... have been scribbling this morning, and I believe shall hardly fill this side to-day, but send it as it is; and it is good enough for naughty girls that won't write to a body, and to a good boy like Presto. I thought to have sent this to-night, but was kept ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... in a bewildered way at his sleeve. "Where on earth have I been?" he asked in wonder. "That's the worst of being an absent-minded fellow. I've been scribbling on my cuff with my ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... breakfast. She had to repeat her query three times, he was writing so busily, and then he answered her "no" as if his thoughts were elsewhere. The old woman hungrily eyed the paper upon which he was scribbling, and went away with lingering ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his eyes shining as he took the paper and perused quickly the few flashy lines which described the crowd outside the Cathedral that afternoon, and set him down as a crazy Socialist, and disturber of the peace, "And the 'rabble' as this scribbling fool calls it, is the greater part of this city's population. The King may intimidate his Court; but I, Sergius Thord, with my 'rabble' can ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... that some illustrators are successful in spite of their technique rather than because of it; and also that the apparently free and easy manner of some admirable technicians is in reality very much studied, very deliberate, and not at all to be confounded with the unsophisticated scribbling of the beginner. The student is apt to find it just about as easy to draw like Mr. Pennell as to write like Mr. Kipling. The best way to acquire such a superb freedom is to be very, very careful and painstaking. To appreciate ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... often finds; for in our scribbling times No fool can lack a fool to praise his rhymes; The flattest work has here within the court Met with some zealous ass for its support; And in all times a forward scribbling fop Has found some greater ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... out of themselves, into self-forgetful ecstasy. Even that arch-egoist, Byron, concedes this point. "To withdraw myself from myself—oh, that accursed selfishness," he writes, "has ever been my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all." [Footnote: Letters and Journals, ed, Rowland E. Prothero, November 26, 1813.] Surely we may complain that it is rather hard on us if the poet can escape from himself only by throwing ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... much like to know who has wilfully torn the last five or six weeks out of my diary. It is perfectly monstrous! Mine is a large scribbling diary, with plenty of space for the record of my everyday events, and in keeping up that record I take (with much pride) a ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... only be found. She followed now post haste, and adopting the tactics of a scout, waited till Netta was safely inside the Fifth Form room, then peeped cautiously round the door. What she saw did not particularly enlighten her. Netta was busily tearing sheets of notepaper in half, was scribbling something on them, blotting them and putting them into envelopes. No one else was in the room, and there was nothing to suggest an explanation ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... as I did so, I felt strongly that there was no exaggeration in them; but such details, though true, might be ill-natured, and I retained no more than were necessary to convey the general impressions received. While thus reviewing my notes, I discovered that many points, which all scribbling travellers are expected to notice, had been omitted; but a few pages of miscellaneous observations will, I think, supply all that can be expected from so ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... seldom contain anything from the hand of the master himself,—being made up, of course, of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such books—though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper, upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists, poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... nothing significant in the fact that Louise, dreamy and distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling "Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every time she wrote it; examined the erasure critically to see if anybody could guess at what the word had ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Pillbot was beside him, shaking him. He had suddenly grasped a fundamental law of spacial stresses, and he whipped out a pad and pencil, began scribbling down the mathematical formula of these laws. He began to see now why skyscrapers encountered the "stress-barrier" at a certain height. He understood it just as a person of innate musical ability, hearing ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... is toward us. He is seated at his desk. His head is bent over his writing, and his round shoulders are quite prominent. He is scribbling rapidly. A quire of foolscap, occupying the only clear space on his desk, is melting rapidly beneath his pen. The desk itself is a heap of confusion. Here is Mr. Greeley's straw hat; there is his handkerchief. In front ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a docile girl, ready always to heed her father and her "Daddy Crisp," ready to obey her kindly stepmother, and try to exchange for practical occupations her pet pastime of scribbling. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... was upstairs!" Clive resumes, looking up from his scribbling. "He was walking up and down on the landing in a dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching with the other. Like this" (and Clive draws a figure). "What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave of Harmony, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... (oh, that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... mouth of everybody who knew the town. The sober part of the community were as much puzzled by this unaccountable saying as the vulgar were delighted with it. The wise thought it very foolish, but the many thought it very funny, and the idle amused themselves by chalking it upon walls, or scribbling it upon monuments. But, "all that's bright must fade," even in slang. The people grew tired of their hobby, and "There he goes with his eye out!" was heard no more ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... But since the glorious present of to-day Is meant to grace alone the poet's lay, My claim I wave to every art beside, And rest my plea upon the Regicide. * * * * * But if, to crown the labours of my Muse, Thou, inauspicious, should'st the wreath refuse, Whoe'er attempts it in this scribbling age Shall feel the Scottish pow'rs of Crilic rage. Thus spurn'd, thus disappointed of my aim, I'll stand a bugbear in the road to Fame, Each future author's infant hopes undo, And blast the budding honours of his brow.' He said,—and, grown with future vengeance big, Grimly he shook his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... scribbling out the head, "that's not one of Siebe and Gorman's appliances, and yet I venture to prophesy that that head will have a good deal to do with the raising of the Seagull! However, don't let's waste more time. Here you ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... a mental prescription," he said, taking out a pencil and scribbling on an envelope. "Have you read this—LUDOVICI'S Who is to be ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... fools in verse, and yours in prose: For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood, 'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood. The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat; And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot: 10 For 'tis observed of every scribbling man, He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can; Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass, If pink and purple best become his face. For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays; Nor likes your wit, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... in such pieces of English literature as were floating about, in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sindbad;" at ten he was inspired by a translation of "Orlando Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages and travel; he could turn a neat verse, and his scribbling propensities were exercised in the composition of childish plays. The fact seems to be that the boy was a dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that he used to wander about the pier heads in fine weather, watch the ships departing on long voyages, and dream of going to the ends of the earth. His ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the cloakroom, she set out for her walk. As she passed the window of the waiting-room she could see the girl she had left there sitting at the table turning the leaves of a book with one hand and scribbling hurriedly ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... years been the custom among certain foreign nations, notably the great English-speaking mother and her rebellious offspring, to set forth, in various forms of print, many individual opinions of Russia, its people, and its government. Here all the scribbling of the quasi-authoritative, statistical variety has lately focussed itself, bursting forth in a very tornado of long-winded, vilificacious ignorance. Certain subjects may be suitable vehicles for the exploiting of this species of personal vanity. But of them the most incongruous, and ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... long experience of gambling places - Homburg, Wiesbaden, Baden- Baden, old Monaco, and new Monte Carlo - would make good magazine padding, if I got the stuff handled the right way. I never could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it has something to do with the making-up, has it not? I am scribbling a lot just now; if you are taken badly that way, apply to the South Seas. I could send you some, I believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly ripe. If kept back the volume of ballads, I'll soon make it a respectable size if this fit continue. By the next mail ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ODD! And he left town about then didn't he?" Mrs. Fairboalt was scribbling italicized notes on her memory—"hard, beautiful, empty, ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... designed it to be; but that I hate disingenuousness: to thee, especially: and as I cannot help writing in a more serious vein than usual, thou wouldst perhaps, had I not hinted the true cause, have imagined that I was sorry for the fact itself: and this would have given thee a good deal of trouble in scribbling dull persuasives to repair by matrimony; and me in reading thy cruel nonsense. Besides, one day or other, thou mightest, had I not confessed it, have heard of it in an aggravated manner; and I know thou hast such an high opinion of this ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... At lunch the captain said, "I'll soon show you land! It will be Mizzenhead, the farthest southwest point of Ireland." This is the first pen put to paper since I wrote you at the Delaware breakwater, eleven days ago. Think of it, oh, ye scribbling fairies, almost two weeks and not a letter written by S. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... he told him all, but said nothing, not even good-night, and turned away. Old John was crying; but he called after the captain to take care of the step at the gate: and as he shut the hall-door his eye caught, by the light of his candle, a scribbling in red chalk, on the white door-post, and he stooped to read it, and muttered, 'Them mischievous young blackguards!' and began rubbing it with the cuff of his coat, his cheek still wet with tears. For even our grief ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... idleness. I think I will at all events make the experiment. If we fail, as Lady Macbeth remarks, we fail. I find my entries have been longest when my life has been dullest. I doubt not, therefore, that, once launched into the monotony of village life, I shall sit scribbling from morning till night. If nothing happens—But my prophetic soul tells me that something will happen. I am determined that something shall,—if it be nothing else than that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... yet most of my acquaintances are thus, and they live. If in the case of some one individual I ask myself what reason he can have, in his own mind, for continuing to live, to toil, to fret, to intrigue, and to spy—verily I do not know. Do not conclude from this scribbling that I happen to be in a particularly black mood; on the contrary, I feel as when, on a beautiful September day, one contemplates the yellowing foliage; healthy and gay, but a little sadness, a little homesickness, a longing for woods, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... father. A horrid man behind, who, I suppose, was not holding on, flopped right on to us at the bump in the water, and then said, "Beg pardon, dears," and it made Uncle Geoffrey so cross he would not let us go down any more, and we had to go home and to bed. I am just scribbling this before breakfast. ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... Occasionally he wrote to his sister, and in his letters his big heart stood out so clearly that even her strict code of propriety could not stay the tears of sympathy which blotted his already bedaubed scribbling. When spring came, and the logs had been rafted down the river, leaving the timber men a few months of well-earned idleness, Tom's first action was to hasten out to the Monk Road to visit Sophia, and a very unconventional ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... paper and ink, after which every one settled down for an hour's scribbling, some using the broad rail of the veranda as a table, others repairing to desks in the house. Blue Bonnet doubled up jack-knife fashion on one of the front steps, using her knees for a pad; while Sarah, ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... hand this to Mrs. Shadd the very first thing upon her return to-morrow evening," she said, hastily scribbling off a note and putting it in an envelope, which by chance she left unsealed, so that on my way back below-stairs I was able to read it. What it said was that she would be only too happy to oblige Mrs. ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... beggary and reputation. Mr. Brown, impatient of a recluse life, quitted the school, and came again to London; and as he found his old companions more delighted with his wit, than ready to relieve his necessities, he had recourse to scribbling for bread, which he performed with various success. Dr. Drake, who has written a defence of our author's character, prefixed to his works, informs us, that the first piece which brought him into reputation, was an account of the conversion of Mr. Bays, in a Dialogue, which met with a reception ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... minute inspection, he returned silently to where he had left his horse, and pursued his way in deep reflection and at a foot-pace to Fontainebleau. Louis was waiting in his cabinet; he was alone, and with a pencil was scribbling on paper certain lines which D'Artagnan at the first glance recognized as being very unequal and very much scratched about. The conclusion he arrived at was, that they must be verses. The king raised his head and perceived D'Artagnan. "Well, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I had written romances; the occupation was to me a source of amusement; and as I had been successful, my husband saw no reason why he should discourage me. A scribbling fool, in or out of petticoats, should be forbidden the use of pen, ink, and paper; but my husband had too much sense to heed the vulgar cry of "blue stocking." After a busy month passed in London, we saw my new novel sent forth to the public, and then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... same scene on an afternoon a month later. DAVID is discovered at his desk, scribbling music in a fever of enthusiasm. MENDEL, dressed in his best, is playing softly on the piano, watching DAVID. After an instant or two of indecision, he puts down the piano-lid with a ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... nothing but a tradesman, and a poet only a money-maker; you care for nothing save flirtation! May you fall to the lot, not of an honest artist, but of an old Duke with a diamond-mine and beplastered with gold and silver foil! Out with the cursed note that you tried to hide from me! What have you been scribbling? From whom did it come, or to whom ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... come from a run in the Park, and here I am this shining white morning scribbling away in my own ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... in Venusian groves Was scribbling wit or sipping "Massic," Or singing those delicious loves Which after ages reckon classic, He wrote one day—'twas no vagary— These ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... question; examining it page by page, comparing and balancing their opinions, and when they have united in a conscientious verdict, publishing it for the benefit of the world: whereas the criticism is generally the crude and hasty production of an individual, scribbling to while away an idle hour, to oblige a book-seller, or to defray current expenses. How often is it the passing notion of the hour, affected by accidental circumstances; by indisposition, by peevishness, by ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... envoy. This, he said, could not be done without permission of the admiral, but, if granted, he would willingly do as he was requested. No sooner had the interpreter translated the captain's reply than the great man, taking out writing materials from a box, seated himself on the floor, and began scribbling away on a scroll of paper, in wonderfully large characters, a note to the envoy. As line after line was finished he rolled it up, and then, with due formality, handed it to the captain, who had the curiosity to measure it, and what do you think was its length? Why, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... platform. Facing the platform was the entrance, and on either side benches arranged in rows followed the curve of the wall. There was a long table on the platform, at which sat the lieutenant who had summoned us, with a sergeant seated on either hand. The sergeants were acting as court clerks, scribbling busily on sheets of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the screw of the pencil-case to extend the lead, and placing one of his huge feet upon a divan to steady himself, wrote rapidly with the paper on his knee, as a man used to scribbling notes ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Immediately the cry went up that the Jews evaded their military duty, and that the Christians were forced to make up the shortage. The official pens in St. Petersburg and in the provincial chancelleries became busy scribbling. The Ministry of War demanded the adoption of Draconian measures to stop this "evasion," As a result, the whole Jewish youth of conscription age was registered in 1875. At the recruiting stations the age of the young ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... that I did not, in this continued course of scribbling, consult either the interest of the public or my own. But the former had effectual means of defending themselves, and could, by their coldness, sufficiently check any approach to intrusion; and for myself, I had now for several years dedicated my hours so much to literary labour that ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... scribbling when not at the wheel," said Bixby, "but the best thing he ever did was the burlesque of old Isaiah Sellers. He didn't write it for print, but only for his own amusement and to show to a few of the boys. Bart Bowen, who was with him on the "Edward J. Gay" at the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... women, begin operations by forcing the guard of the Hotel-de-Ville, which is unwilling to make use of its bayonets. They spread through the rooms and try to burn all the written documents they can find, declaring that there has been nothing but scribbling since the Revolution began.[1433] A crowd of men follow after them, bursting open doors, and pillaging the magazine of arms. Two hundred thousand francs in Treasury notes are stolen or disappear; several of the ruffians ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... decided her. Hastily scribbling a note to be left with the woman in case Gertrude and Cecil turned ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and 'fall into a vortex', as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her 'scribbling suit' consisted of a black woolen ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... second piece, Sara took a pencil and small notebook from her satin bag and scribbling a line, stepped hastily down the hall to the third door. It was opened by the same little girl who ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... wand and a bent pin, hath caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they know nothing whatever ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... on one side, his elbows squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling there. He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is somewhat stale. Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale, Wampum and calumets and forests dreary, Once so attractive, now begins to weary. Uncas and Magawisca please us still, Unreal, yet idealized with skill; But every poetaster, scribbling witling, From the majestic oak his stylus whittling, Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear The monotone in which so much we hear Of "stoics of the wood," and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... if you wait for me," he answered, seating himself. "You know how it is when you get to scribbling—you never know when to stop. And the scenery, up here, won't let you go. Positively fascinating, that view is! If the Plutes knew of it, they'd put a summer resort here, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... elevated seat where the Praetor usually sat, remain entire. There is a large building and court yard near one of the gates of the city supposed to have been a barrack for soldiers; three skeletons were found here with their legs in a machine similar to our stocks. The scribbling and caricatures on the walls of this barrack are perfectly visible and legible. When one wanders thro' the streets of this singularly interesting city, one is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out. What a dreadful ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... let Mr. Hobhouse look to the Italian next time in the proofs: this time, while I am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in Romagna, and even the Marches, as far as Ancona, be the other who ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the substance of Don John's administration. Never was chivalrous crusader so out of place. It was not a soldier that was then required for Philip's exigency, but a scribe. Instead of the famous sword of Lepanto, the "barbarous pen" of Hopperus had been much more suitable for the work required. Scribbling Joachim in a war-galley, yard-arm and yard-arm with the Turkish capitan pacha, could have hardly felt less at ease than did the brilliant warrior thus condemned to scrawl and dissemble. While marching ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... would, I believe, have approached nearer to his excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, or money without scribbling.... I am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you would tell me his name,"—Letters and Works (Lord Wharncliffe's ed.), vol. iii, pp. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the room awkwardly, and does not hold herself upright, I ought to speak. I owe it to the child. I ought not to consult my own comfort. How I should have to reproach myself if she were to grow up untidy, rough-haired, inky, the sort of woman who thinks of nothing but scribbling. And I see signs of it. She might even come to write books! What she wants is a refining influence—the companionship of some nice, lady-like girls, like the Merridews, instead of romping about so much with her brothers and Nancy, ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... dropped. Tea was over, and in the short respite between the end of the meal and the commencement of "prep.," Jack was strolling down one of the passages, when his attention was attracted by a certain small boy who stood beneath a gas-jet scanning the contents of a small book, and occasionally scribbling something on a half-sheet of exercise-book paper. Suddenly the youngster flung down the book in a rage, and kicked it across the passage, whereupon ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... men of literary eminence to extol the man of deeds above the man of words. Scott was half ashamed of scribbling novels whilst Wellington was winning battles; and, if Carlyle be a true prophet, the most brilliant writer is scarcely worthy to unloose the shoe's latchet of the silent heroes of action. Perhaps it is graceful in masters of the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... eyes the differences between two white literary men seem slight indeed,—same clothes, same spectacles, same harmless disposition, same habit of scribbling on paper and poring over books, etc. "Just two white fellows," the Veddah will say, "with no perceptible difference." But what a difference to the literary men themselves! Think, Mr. Allen, of {259} confounding ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the other children. I can recall a rough cartoon in one of the local journals which was greeted with huge merriment in the family circle, because it represented Tom as "Ye Press of Newcastle"—a mere boy in a short jacket perched on a stool, scribbling for dear life at the foot of a platform on which some local orator was denouncing the tyranny of the existing Government. He must then have been about seventeen, certainly not more, and he was even at that time somewhat of a youthful prodigy. Then he developed a passion for the collection of autographs, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... taverns, with pipes in their mouths. A native witness of about the same date, Ned Ward, writes sneeringly in his "London Spy," 1699, of the interior of the coffee-house. He saw "some going, some coming, some scribbling, some talking, some drinking, some smoking, others jingling; and the whole room stinking of tobacco, like a Dutch scoot, or a boatswain's cabin.... We each of us stuck in our mouths a pipe of sotweed, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... apprehend, deserves to be more generally introduced, and established. If once it was expected by the Public, that Authors should strictly define their Subjects, it would instantly checque an Inundation of Scribbling. The desultory Manner of Writing would be absolutely exploded; and Accuracy and Precision would be necessarily introduced ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... "Joanna may be firing the ship as you sit scribbling there, or contriving some harm to my dear ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... mean?" asks the poor professor, who should have sworn by the heathen gods, but in a weak moment falls back upon the good old formula. He sinks upon the table next him, and makes ruin of the notes he had been scribbling—the ink is still wet—even whilst Hardinge was with him. Could he only have known it, there are first proofs of them now ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... chere Mademoiselle Inez—" confound it, that's too intimate; well, here goes: "Monsieur O'Malley presente ses respects—" that will never do; and then, after twenty other abortive attempts, I began thoughtlessly sketching heads upon the paper, and scribbling with wonderful facility in fifty different ways: "Ma charmante amie—Ma plus chere Inez," etc., and in this most useful and profitable occupation did ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... about the same, and scribbling three or four names on his shirt-cuff, he rushed off to ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... forces, Larry again had no time to plan. Rather, there was nothing he could plan, for only one way was open to him. He dashed into the pawnshop and into the back room. At the Duchess's desk Hunt was scribbling at furious speed. ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... ink and paper. He took up the pen. But after scrawling and scribbling for ten minutes, the sheet was filled with circles and arabesques, and the one single ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... was this fearful manuscript—this dreaded scribbling of the God-forsaken, poor, forlorn author? The emissaries of his serene highness had the blood, bones, and body of the wretched scribe, but where was that they feared more than all the warlike forces of a million of the best equipped forces of Europe—the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... write with pens, but the majority use pencils. Here you see one seated on a stump or fence, addressing his "sweet-heart" or somebody else; another writes standing up against a tree, while a third is lying flat on the ground. Thus either in the tents or in the open air, scribbling is going on, and the return mail will carry many sweet words to those who cannot be wholly forgotten. I suppose in this way we are not only making, but writing history. Camp-life ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... men on the deck are writing. They've been scribbling away ever since we came here. Probably, society journalists. We shall see in next week's papers: 'Among the second-class passengers, we noticed Mr. "Spike" Mullins, looking as cheery as ever.' It's a pity you're so set on going, Spike. Why not change ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... applied Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's description, when lamenting that her kinsman should have been "forced by necessity to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, and money without scribbling." Lady Mary's account moreover is reinforced by Murphy's classical periods: "Mr Fielding's case was generally the same with that of the poet described by Juvenal; with a great genius, he must have starved if he had not sold his performance to a favourite ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... ecstasy, in animal life. Would Floy——Well, God help them both! they needed help. Three hundred souls was a heavy weight for those thin little hands to hold sway over,—to lead to hell or heaven. Up North they could have worked for her, and gained only her money. So Lamar reasoned, like a Georgian: scribbling a letter to "My Baby" on the wrapper of a newspaper,—drawing the shapes of the snowflakes,—telling her he had reached their grandfather's plantation, but "have not seen our Cousin Ruth yet, of whom you may remember I have told you, Floy. When you grow up, I should like you to be just such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... elaborate books, and one has to remember all the magazines that exist and what sort of books they'd crack up. I used to think I hated responsibility: I am positively getting to enjoy it. (3) There is that confounded "Picture of Tuesday" which I have been scribbling at the whole evening, and have at last got it presentable. This sounds like mere amusement, but, now that I have tried other kinds of hurry and bustle, I solemnly pledge myself to the opinion that there is no work so ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the Brahman. "Here, take this," he continued, scribbling a few lines on some paper, and then handing it to her, "and give it to the king. You will see that he will give you a lac of rupees for it." Thus saying he dismissed her, and the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... but his great age began to tell, and presently it was plain he had a summons. The charm of his sailor's cheerfulness and ancient courtesy, as he lay dying, is not to be described. There he lay, singing his old sea-songs; watching the poultry from the window with a child's delight; scribbling on the slate little messages to his wife, who lay bedridden in another room; glad to have Psalms read aloud to him, if they were of a pious strain—checking, with an "I don't think we need read that, my dear," any that were gloomy or bloody. Fleeming's wife coming to the house and asking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... without hesitation. Considering the round of amusements in which I live, I flatter myself you will readily admit that it requires no small share of good-will and perseverance to devote so much time to scribbling for your entertainment. As for information, you will, on your arrival in Paris, know how much or how little you have derived from the perusal of my letters. You will then have it in your power to compare and judge. With the originals ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... he declared. "They settle arrearages in your accounts, Lana, for the two winters you have been away. And why not another?" He was scribbling with the pencil. "It will settle ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... him "Mr. Astrologer." Crab, who, although illiterate, was, as a peasant, cunning, all at once imagined that the servants must know about the ring, and this is the way his suspicions were confirmed. He had been shut up in his room turning over his big book and scribbling his paper for a month, when his wife came to visit him. He said to her: "Hide yourself under the bed, and when a servant enters, say: 'That is one;' when another comes, say: 'That is two;' and so on." The woman hid herself. The ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... Mrs. Ramsay had gone out on an errand that detained her some time, Mysie seized suddenly again in a more intense form by her desire to go home, feverishly dressed herself, and hastily scribbling a note of thanks to her good friend and nurse, she stole out on to the street, a poor, forlorn, weak girl, but thoroughly determined to go home to where her ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... already scribbling last words as fast as her pen would move, and her visitor waited for ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... into ditches, and he never arrived at his goal. There in that library window nook it is cool in summer, and warm in winter. So he sits and dreams, holding an open volume, unread, on his knees. Some times he writes, hunched up in his corner, feverishly scribbling at ridiculous plays, short stories, and novels which later he will insist on reading to the tittering schoolboys and girls who come into the library to do their courting and reference work. Presently, when it ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... ceased scribbling, he leaned forward with elbows on his knees and ran his eyes slowly and wonderingly over each line in turn, whispering the words destined to become so famous. Phoebe leaned a little away from her companion, resting one hand on the bench, while she watched his face with a smile that slowly melted ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... seven o'clock, dressed, and ready to go on with my scribbling. I assure you, my dear kind Aunt Mary, it is a great pleasure to me to write this letter at odd minutes while the horses are changing, or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that it is impossible that it ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... direction. By the year 1658, I should say, John Phillips had entirely given up his uncle's political principles, and was known among his tavern-comrades as an Anti-Oliverian. We have no express publications in his name of this date, but he seems to have been scribbling anonymously. Of the literary industry of his more sedate and likeable elder brother, Edward, there is authentic evidence. A New World of Words, or a General Dictionary, containing the Terms, Etymologies, Definitions, and Perfect Interpretations, of the proper Significations of hard English ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... liberty makes him! Here's a fuss! That I should such twaddle as this discuss. Was it for this that I left the school? That the scribbling desk, and the slavish rule, And the narrow walls, that our spirits cramp, Should be met with again in the midst of the camp? No! Idle and heedless, I'll take my way, Hunting for novelty every day; Trust to the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Guard thinned out in front of us as we pushed on, and we found twelve guns looking us in the face, but we were over them in a moment; and I saw our youngest subaltern, next to him who had been killed by the lancer, scribbling great 71's with a lump of chalk upon them, like the schoolboy that he was. It was at that moment that we heard a roar of cheering behind us, and saw the whole British army flood over the crest of the ridge, and come pouring down ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... distempered a dirty pink. Outside Mary's door they were adorned by the effusions of amateur artists, the children of the working women, messenger boys, casual urchins, with the desire of their kind for scribbling. It was all quite unlovely, yet it had made him happy to come there. It was a happiness that he had had no right to and now it must be relinquished. This was the last time he should come after ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... called public opinion been shaped by these scribbling purveyors of fables; and this public opinion has been taught to look upon Jay Gould's career as an exotic, "horrible example," having nothing in common with the careers of other founders of large fortunes. The same ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... kept shut up in this room! It was not pleasant to retire from drill, riding remounts, giving riding-lessons, and leading a line in driving exercises—all that had been so much after his own heart. And this eternal scribbling would ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... that place some wondrous monster breeds, And the wits' garden is o'errun with weeds. There, Farce is Comedy; bombast called strong; Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song. 10 'Tis hard to say they steal them now-a-days; For sure the ancients never wrote such plays. These scribbling insects have what they deserve, Not plenty, nor the glory for to starve. That Spenser knew, that Tasso felt before; And death found surly Ben exceeding poor. Heaven turn the omen from their image here! May he with joy the well-placed laurel wear! Great Virgil's happier fortune may he find, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... forgetting myself against the great ankle of the trunk. And then, as a rule, as a squirrel is stroked into its wickedness by the faceless magic of a tree, so am I usually stroked into forgetfulness, and into scribbling this book. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... interrupted Samuel, and leaving the editor still scribbling, he led the way down the bank with a determined trudge, his market-basket in one hand, his grip in the other, and his lips muttering that "a feller couldn't dew nuthin' in Shoreville without gittin' ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... the following passage in which the author is unquestionably thinking of Sterne, although he does not mention him: "Aheart ever full of kindly feeling is the greatest gift which Heaven can bestow; on the other hand, the itching to keep scribbling about it, and to fancy oneself great in this scribbling is one of the greatest punishments which can be inflicted upon one who writes."[13] He exposes the heartlessness of Sterne's pretended sympathy: "Athree groschen piece is ever better than a tear,"[14] and "sympathy is a poor ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... and our passions together; and the first letter is torn: 't is too severe; we write a second; we blot and interline till it is nearly illegible; we begin a third; till at last we are tired out with our own angry feelings, and throw our scribbling by with a "Pshaw! what's the use of it?" or, "It's not worth my notice;" or, still better, arrive at the conclusion, that we preserve our own dignity best by writing without temper, though we may be called upon ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... expression in his face which I could not interpret, but he wrote, as if carelessly scribbling on a scrap of paper that lay upon the table, the words, "Be careful," and I took the hint—we were watched. There is an unpleasant sensation when one feels that he is watched by unseen eyes, and after talking for awhile on common topics ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... face grew paler even than it was before. She did not know what Vandeloup was going to say, but a great dread seized her, and with dry lips and clenched hands she sat staring at him as if paralysed. Kilsip stole a look at her and then rubbed his hands together, while Calton sat absolutely still, scribbling ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... penmanship should be neat and legible. Not all persons can write elegantly; but all can write so that their work can be easily read, and all can make a clean page. Scribbling is due to carelessness. A scribbled page points to a scribbling mind; clean-cut handwriting, perhaps not Spencerian, but a clear, legible handwriting is not only an indication of clear-cut thinking but a means and promoter of accurate thought. Moreover, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... air the captain lectured Bob till he was blue in the face, and told him if he did not put himself in condition for the great battle of the morrow he would be stoned by the town enthusiasts. He remembered when a boy at school scribbling as best he could on his copybook, "Discretion is the better part of valour," and the sentence flashed across his heated brain with all the force of actual conviction. "What was he to do?" "Was it to be football first, and Mary afterwards?" Something whispered ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... illiterate patchwork of lifeless and uninteresting scribbling appeared under my byline day after day in the Intelligencer. Not a word, not a thought of my own was left. I was not restrained from protest by the absurd threats of Le ffacase, but prudence dictated not throwing away dirty water before ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... I put a difference between my brethren of the baptized way; I know some are more moderate than some. 2. When I plead for the unbaptized, I chiefly intend those that are not so baptized as my brethren judge right, according to the first pattern. 3. If any shall count my papers worth the scribbling against, let him deal with my arguments, and things immediately depending upon them, and not conclude that he hath confuted a book, when he hath only quarrelled at words. 4. I have done when I have told you, that I strive not for mastery, nor to shew myself singular; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Will see you as soon as I possibly can. I think it would be easier after you move; he won't watch so. The r—g fits the little finger. Many thanks and love to—Jennie (Peace's daughter Jane). I will tell you what I thought of when I see you about arranging matters. Excuse this scribbling." In answer to Mr. Clegg, Mrs. Dyson admitted that Peace had given her a ring, which she had worn for a short time ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... good-natured, peaceable, sociable man while here (in New York), but altogether unfit for a governor of Massachusetts. He will lose all the character he has acquired as a man, a gentleman, and a general, and dwindle down into a mere scribbling governor—a mere Bernard ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... up at least three sheets to start with—no Greek lines of punishment in his boyhood had ever appeared such a task as this. He found himself scribbling profiles on the paper, chiselled profiles with inky hair—but no ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... devious routes. There are certain tendencies of mind which, when a man has them, refuse to be suppressed. The journalistic instinct is one of them. Do what you will with the man in whom it is planted, he can never keep his fingers from the pen. Make him a doctor and you will find him scribbling columns for the press on hygiene in the house and the benefits of breathing through the nose. Send him into the army and he will fill his leisure by writing tales of tiger-shoots and essays on the art of pig-sticking. So with the artist. The man born with the gift to draw finds as irresistible ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... black mustache contrasting so oddly with his silver hair, frantically scribbling equations on his doodling-pad, as though his racing fingers could never keep pace with his brain, and explaining them, with obvious condescension, to the boyish-looking Japanese beside him. He was one of the greatest of living mathematicians ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... to The Revolution, and S.B.A., scribbling home, are thirty miles out of the wonderful valley of the Yosemite.... We shall have compassed the Calaveras Big Trees and the Yosemite Valley in twelve days out from Stockton, where we expect to arrive ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the youth, scribbling out the head, "that's not one of Siebe and Gorman's appliances, and yet I venture to prophesy that that head will have a good deal to do with the raising of the Seagull! However, don't let's waste more time. Here you are. The first method,—that ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... I commenced two excellent customs. The first was that I always had upon my table a quire of large-sized scribbling-paper sewn together: and upon this paper everything was entered: translations into Latin and out of Greek, mathematical problems, memoranda of every kind (the latter transferred when necessary to the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,—to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. He will thus record his best experiences, and these records will adorn the noble structures that must naturally arise for the public uses ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... running to record it in their journals; and what indignant glances he must have cast to right and left, as he worried about the deck, giving out his orders for the management of the ship, surrounded by singing, smoking, gossiping, scribbling groups, all, as he thought, intent upon the amusement of the passing hour, instead of the great purposes and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... that he was standing beside him. Wolfgang's chubby little hand held the pen awkwardly, but held it with firm determination while it travelled back and forth across a large sheet of paper on which he was scribbling a strange collection of hieroglyphics, with here and there a huge blot, testifying to his haste and inexperience in ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing uproar—of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... successful exponent of the new revolutionary ideas—making Corinne and her prototype seem dim and ineffectual—was undoubtedly George Sand. The badly-dressed woman who earned her living by scribbling novels, and said to M. du Camp, as she sat before him in silence rolling her cigarette, "Je ne dis rien parceque je suis bete," has exercised a profound influence throughout Europe, an influence which, in the Sclavonic countries ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... in our days to write down to an octavo; for correction, selection, and rejection were arts as yet unpractised. They went on with their work, sharply or bluntly, like witless mowers, without stopping to whet their scythes. They were inspired by the scribbling demon of that rabbin, who, in his oriental style and mania of volume, exclaimed that were "the heavens formed of paper, and were the trees of the earth pens, and if the entire sea run ink, these only could suffice" for the monstrous genius ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... make choice of a tenable bough and helpful partner, and set up a separate establishment before she dies. When that event occurs, I shall be, in effect, homeless—a boarder around upon my rebukeful relatives, who 'always thought how my trifling would end,' and who will be forever scribbling 'vanitas vanitatum,' upon the tombstone of my departed youth—my day of beaux and offers. You may shake your head and look heroic with all your might! You are no better off than I, should your brother see cause to refuse his ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... writing by the firelight? I saw your pencil scribbling away at a furious rate over the paper, and you kept your hand up carefully between me and your face, but I could see it was something very interesting. Ha?—" said Hugh, laughingly trying to get another view of Fleda's face which was again kept from him. "Send that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... doctor was little and dark and while he was talking he looked not at Mrs. Hilary but down at a paper whereon he drew or wrote something she tried to see and couldn't. She came to the conclusion after a time that he was merely scribbling for effect. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay |
