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noun
Scribble  n.  Hasty or careless writing; a writing of little value; a scrawl; as, a hasty scribble. "Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my scribble."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scribble" Quotes from Famous Books



... off across the lake to a sort of lodge of Lord Kenmare, where I have persuaded an old lady to take me into the family. I am going to live with them, and I am going to have her ladyship's own boudoir to scribble in. It is a wild place enough with porridge and potatoes to eat, varied with what fish I may provide for myself and arbutus berries if it comes to starving. The noble lord has been away for some years. They will put a deal table into the said boudoir for me, and if living under a noble roof ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... in prison they had so little time to discuss such details, in face of the one awful fact that he was there, and was in all probability going to die in two days. But from this incomplete, tear-stained scribble that he left behind and from the answers he gave to her few questions, she gathered that the story of his quest was ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,—even Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... short-breathed or accuse us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest provocation, out-Fletcher Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. And we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, and dream over its footnotes, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... thought of the Judgment. And Common-sense said: "You have done your best; do not be dismayed; you will only be surprised, and when the shock is over you will smile at your fear." And as he thought thus the whole sky became a sea of fire. A fierce and vindictive scribble of red quick flame ran across it, and the universe was burned away. "And I knew," thought Browning, "now that Judgment had come, that I had chosen this world, its beauty, its knowledge, its good—that, though I often looked ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... scribble on your books, How disgustable it looks! Here a word, and there a scrawl, Silly pictures over all! Take a paper, or a slate, If you want ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess

... make them out very well now. They were sort of blurred to him, but I described them and he told me who they were. "That's a girl o' mine," he said, with reference to one—a jolly, good-looking bush girl. "I got a letter from her yesterday. I managed to scribble something, but I'll get you, if you don't mind, to write something more I want to put in on another piece of paper, and ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... further strengthen my good resolutions, that I may not hereafter, from my bad conduct, have reason to condemn myself from my own hand as it were): For all these reasons, I say, I will write as I have time, and as matters happen, and send the scribble to you as I have opportunity; and if I don't every time, in form, subscribe as I ought, I am sure you will always believe, that it is not for want of duty. So I will begin where I left off, about the talk between Mrs. Jervis and me, for me to ask ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... now, at once, to Manchester Square, and inquire as to the little boy's condition? It was not really late, not yet midnight. He could go and leave a message, perhaps even scribble a line to Jim Bellair explaining that he had come round as soon as he had heard of the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... 'Tis yours—'tis mine—'tis public property. All common exhibitions open lie, For praise or censure, to the common eye. Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed; 190 Hence Monthly Critics earn their daily bread. This is a general tax which all must pay, From those who scribble, down to those who play. Actors, a venal crew, receive support From public bounty for the public sport. To clap or hiss all have an equal claim, The cobbler's and his lordship's right's the same. All join for their subsistence; all ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... I have enclosed Dr. Beddoes's late pamphlets; neither of them as yet published. The Doctor sent them to me.... My dutiful love to your excellent Mother, whom, believe me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection. God bless you. I'll try and contrive to scribble a line and half every time the man goes with "The Watchman" ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... seven years old now, and had actually learned how to scribble pretty fast. She was very proud of this, for Milly could do ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May

... is funny!" Allen glanced at Dan with frank admiration. "You write well—praise from Sir Hubert—I scribble verses myself! So our acquaintance really began a long time ago. It must have been last October that we ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... with his associate, Poe would continue to scribble away with his pencil, as if writing, and when his visitor jestingly remonstrated with him on his want of politeness, he replied that he had been all attention, and proved that he had by suitable comment, assigning as ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... the learned professions; but he could not give up his mind to anything but drawing,—as annoying to his father as Galileo's experiments were to his parent; as unmeaning to him as Gibbon's History was to George III.,—"Scribble, scribble, scribble; Mr. Gibbon, I perceive, sir, you are always a-scribbling." No perception of a new power, no sympathy with the abandonment to a specialty not indorsed by fashions and traditions, but without which abandonment genius cannot easily be developed. At last the father ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... this author for doing mischief to religion, is to strew his bed with roses; he will reply in triumph, that this was his design; and I am loth to mortify him, by asserting he hath done none at all. For I never yet saw so poor an atheistical scribble, which would not serve as a twig for sinking libertines to catch at. It must be allowed in their behalf, that the faith of Christians is not as a grain of mustard seed in comparison of theirs, which can remove such mountains of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... have probably had patience to follow these worthies to their retirement, and look over their shoulders at the memoirs which every mother's son and daughter of the set, from the prime minister to the cook, found—it is impossible to tell how—time to scribble down for the edification of posterity. In the volumes of Arsene Houssaye before us, these gay but unsubstantial shadows take flesh and blood, and become the Men and Women—the living realities of the Eighteenth Century. We ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... my note from the House of Commons—which, if your Lordship can read, I do not think I now could, such was the haste of scribble—Sheridan threw out the menace which the papers state, with Pitt's answer; the comment on which is, in the mouth of Opposition: "Pray, for God's sake, don't put a question, and urge it to a division, which will ruin our pretensions as Whigs if ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... to scribble rapidly on the sheet of paper before her. With a jolt Jock McChesney realized that she had forgotten all about him. He walked quietly to the door, opened it, shut it very quietly, then made for the nearest telephone. He knew one woman he could count on to be proud of ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... letter to her father It was now near the close of the short winter day. Her interview with the detective had occupied her so long that she had barely time to scribble and send off the few urgent lines with which the reader is already acquainted. Then she dined and resigned herself to repose for ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... of course, neighbour. But look here, whoever sent you that cowardly bit of scribble thought that because you lived out here in this lonely place you would be easily frightened. Look here," he continued, taking a scrap of dirty paper out of his old pocket-book; "that bit of rubbish was stuck on one of the tines of a hay-fork, and the shaft driven into the ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... in my epistle, when a torrent of ill news rushed in upon us, and compelled me to delay my scribble. I am sorry to say, that in addition to the account which I have already given of the depressed state of the markets, I must add some dismal intelligence. The markets are in a deplorable state, and so is the mercantile community in general. Every day there is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... died three years later, after receiving the birthday tribute, in his 82nd year, from English friends; and it is pleasant to remember that in this instance the disciple was to the end loyal to his master. To this period belong many other correspondences. "I am scribble scribbling," he says in a letter of 1832, and mere scribbling may fill many pages with few headaches; but Carlyle wrestled as he wrote, and not a page of those marvellous Miscellanies but is red with his life's blood. Under all his reviewing, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... you playing there?" It was Mrs. Packard who spoke. She was pointing at the scribble he was making ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... October the painter received Mrs. Vostrand's card at his studio in Boston, and learned from the scribble which covered it that she was with her daughter at the Hotel Vendome. He went at once to see them there, and was met, almost before the greetings were past, with a prayer ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... an air of prudence.] I tell you what I will do. [Pointing to the writing-table.] Scribble her a note— a line— and I'll give it to her. That won't attract attention. I've no objection to do that for you. Hurry up! [He sits at the writing-table and searches for writing materials.] In the drawer. [He opens a drawer and takes out a sheet of note-paper. Standing at the ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... unfastened his shirt a scrap of paper slipped from it and fluttered to the floor. It was Gemma's letter, which he had worn all day upon his neck. He picked it up, unfolded it, and kissed the dear scribble; then began folding the paper up again, with a dim consciousness of having done something very ridiculous, when he noticed on the back of the sheet a postscript which he had not read before. "Be sure and come as soon as possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla. ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... perception and it seems to me my concern—at least my musical concern—is enclosed by Canada and Mexico, the Pacific and Atlantic. So, rightly or wrongly, even if the miracle occur and I do finish in time, I cannot leave. A short distance, such a short distance from where I scribble these words, Vanzetti died. No more childish thought than atonement was ever conceived. It is a base and baseless gratification. Evil is not recalled. So I do not sentence myself for the murder of Vanzetti or for my manifold ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... pay, And no deductions at quarter-day? Oh, that would be the post for me! With plenty to get and nothing to do, But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue, And whistle a tune to the Queen's cockatoo, And scribble of verses remarkably few, And empty at evening a ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... offers 50,000 bushels of wheat for October delivery at $1.43 7/8 per bushel. It's that fellow down there with the blazing red tie half way up his collar. He hits out with both hands at the air as he yells. A surge of buyers overwhelms him. They scribble notes upon their sales cards ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... rather guess there's more headache in the stories than there is in the stitches, because you don't have to think quite so hard while your foot's going as you do when your fingers is at work, scratch, scratch, scratch, scribble, scribble, scribble. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... in immortality must rest on the gossip which departed spirits utter in dark rooms through the mouths of hypnotized business mediums, and our deepest personality comes to light when we scribble disconnected phrases in automatic writing. Is life then really ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... postmaster was not attending. His time was limited. So, taking out a fountain pen, he had begun to scribble on the blank. Filling in Link's name and address, he wrote, in the "breed and sex" spaces, the words, "Scotch ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune

... a healthy plant, and in his school-days this born song-writer would scribble verses on his copy-books and read Racine for his own amusement. Turning his back upon the mill-wheels of his native town and an assured future in a Parisian business house, like Gil Bias's friend, il s'est jet dans le bel esprit—in other words, he betook himself to ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... You will remember how; For I went away to Nantucket, And you to the Isle of Orleans, And when I was dawdling and dreaming Over the ways and means Of answering, the power was denied me, Fate frowned and took her stand; I have your unanswered letter Here in my hand. This—in your famous scribble, It was ever a cryptic fist, Cuneiform or Chaldaic Meanings ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... a good deal to have witnessed his subsequent movements, but she would have been considerably disappointed had she done so, for Hone's methods were disconcertingly direct. All he did when he found himself alone was to sit down and scribble a brief note. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... together. No other hands but ours have ever touched them, and now people to whom they mean nothing but so much business will fling them about, drop greasy crumbs upon them—I know their ways, the brutes!—scribble all over them. And he who always would have everything ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... his dear old granny. He breathed free again. At the bottom of the letter she even had placed her signature, learned by heart, but trembling like a school-girl's scribble: "Widow Moan." ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... long-winded Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the Grandfather of this favored Princess; a good-natured old gentleman, of the idle ornamental species, in whose head most things, it is likely, were reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a steady internal gravitation towards praise and pudding was traceable as very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or less by the immense advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the Hanoverian or YOUNGER ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... must," said she. We had no opportunity of speaking before, for her husband or some one was always in the way. To make sure I next day slipped an envelope into her hand, in which was one addressed to myself, and a scribble asking her to say where I was to meet her. It came back by post containing in execrable writing the words, "My dear, same time, and place, if he be out, on Saturday night." I did not comprehend, but waited outside ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... Betty Flanders's letter, having caught the second post, lay on the hall table—poor Betty Flanders writing her son's name, Jacob Alan Flanders, Esq., as mothers do, and the ink pale, profuse, suggesting how mothers down at Scarborough scribble over the fire with their feet on the fender, when tea's cleared away, and can never, never say, whatever it may be—probably this—Don't go with bad women, do be a good boy; wear your thick shirts; and come back, come back, come back ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... in a multitude of counsellors, there is wisdom! O ye critics, who vote yourselves the Areopagites of Intellect, whose decrees confer immortality in the Universe of Letters! O all ye that write or scribble,—all ye tribes, both great and small, of pen-drivers and paper-scrapers!—know ye, that, while ye are listening in your imaginative ambition to the praise of the elect or the applause of nations, your wives are often counting the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... can be at times. The Honorable Betty understood, but her Highness would not be convinced. Thus she suffered this needless affront. Pardon this parenthesis, but when one talks from behind a curtain the parenthesis is the only available thing.) There was silence. I saw Steinbock poise the pen, then scribble on the parchment. It was done. I ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside made itself heard. He looked up and ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... enough about myself. I want to suggest something to you. You may laugh, old boy—but I'm in earnest. I remember you're telling me once that, when you were up at the 'Varsity, you used to scribble a bit. I didn't pay much attention; in those days one didn't pay attention—ever. But now your words have come back to me once or twice, during the night, when I've been seeing dream pictures in my reading lamp and the ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... probable," said Egbert; "well, let's collaborate on this letter of thanks and get it done. I'll dictate, and you can scribble it down. 'Dear Mrs. Froplinson—thank you and your husband so much for the very pretty calendar you sent us. It was very good of you to think ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... thou shalt gain, Honour and right shalt value duly, In everything act simply, truly,— Virtue and godliness proclaim, And call all evil by its name, Nought soften down, attempt no quibble, Nought polish up, nought vainly scribble. The world shall stand before thee, then, As seen by Albert Durer's ken, In manliness and changeless life, In inward strength, with firmness rife. Fair Nature's Genius by the hand Shall lead thee on through every land, Teach thee each different life to scan, Show thee the wondrous ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had seemed uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to scribble a note between the bids. I imagined naturally enough that it would go to Captain Trent; but when it was done, and the writer turned and looked behind him in the crowd, to my unspeakable amazement, he did not seem ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the pair, who was the one in authority, "if you wish to scribble a note, here are paper and pencil." And he tore a leaf from his notebook and handed it ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... in my crude unhappy youth, I conceived the desire of writing a book. To scribble secretly and dream of authorship was one of my chief alleviations, and I read with a sympathetic envy every scrap I could get about the world of literature and the lives of literary people. It is something, even amidst this ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... well." An idea struck Barry, and without stopping to think he gave it utterance. "Look here, Mrs. Rose, you can help Owen no end! You must take it down for him. You could easily scribble it off and then type it ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... to the influences of Nature. Before his disease became serious he writes: "I wander about here with music-paper among the hills, and dales, and valleys, and scribble a good deal. No man on earth can love the country as I do." But one of Nature's most delightful modes of speech to man was soon to be utterly lost to him. At last he became so deaf that the most stunning crash of thunder ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... the boat at Pierre's Portage, fifty miles farther down the river. He had come direct from the creeks, and his impressions of the motley pioneer life at the gold-diggings were so vivid that he had found an isolated corner of the deck where he could scribble them in a notebook while ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... not a fashionable place, but Uncle stopped here years ago, and won't go anywhere else. However, we don't mean to stay long, so it's no great matter. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how I enjoy it all! I never can, so I'll only give you bits out of my notebook, for I've done nothing but sketch and scribble since I started. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... thou blot, A lively, trifling, pert, one knows not what! Form thy light Measures, nimbler than the Wind, Whilst heavy lingring Sense is left behind; With all thy Might pursue, and all thy Will, That unabating Thirst, to scribble still, Giv'n at thy Birth! the Poetaster's Gust, False and ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... closes like a darkness over the world but I enjoy myself walking amid insane houses, staring at windows that look like drunken octagons, observing lamp posts that simper with evil, promenading fan shaped streets that scribble themselves ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht

... really the grace to be a little ashamed of scribbling this, but I know I can scribble nothing my dear father will be more ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... given up to what seemed the inevitable, and have thought little of it since. Perhaps I have done wrong, and if so, I trust I shall see it and repent it. I do not intend to make any promises, because I may have reason to regret them, but I do not know that I shall scribble any more on the objectionable ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... to me his approbation of my journals, from whence I infer, that he either never reads them, or does not give himself the trouble to remember any of their contents, tho' some part has been address'd to him, so, for the future, I shall trouble only you with this part of my scribble—Last thursday I din'd at Unkle Storer's & spent the afternoon in that neighborhood. I met with some adventures in my way viz. As I was going, I was overtaken by a lady who was quite a stranger to me. She accosted me ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... I am blind. And so you would even have married her! You, the descendant of St. Louis, and she the Scarron widow, the poor drudge whom in charity I took into my household! Ah, how your courtiers will smile! how the little poets will scribble! how the wits will whisper! You do not hear of these things, of course, but they are a little painful ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... might conceive in an Esquimaux for a fixed star, or in an Italian highwayman for some Parian statue which he had stumbled on in his thickets. But the admiration was soon absorbed in the job in hand, and he turned away—to scribble to the Minister. Of the younger portion of the family I shall say but little. Children are happiest in the nursery, and there I leave them. I had two sisters, sweet little creatures, one with black eyes and the other with blue. This is enough for their description. My four brothers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... Sunday. He cannot post a letter, so he rings up the paper and dictates a letter by telephone. He leaves the title to his friends at the other end; he knows that they can spell "Gray," as no doubt they can: but the letter is put down by journalistic custom in a pencil scribble and the vowel may well be doubtful. The friend writes at the top of the letter "'G. K. C.' Explains," putting the initials in quotation marks. The next man passing it for press is bored with these initials (I am with him there) and crosses them out, substituting ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... pair of shoes, I decide beforehand what kind of shoes they are to be,—court pumps or strong walking shoes; and I don't ask the shoemaker to give me a preliminary lecture upon the different purposes of locomotion to which leather can be applied. If, Sir Peter, you want Kenelm to scribble lackadaisical poems, listen to Parson John; if you want to fill his head with pastoral rubbish about innocent love, which may end in marrying the miller's daughter, listen to Parson John; if you want him to enter life a soft-headed greenhorn, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... miles lie between us there is no alternative but the hastily written and imperfect scribble which will shortly be presented you, if the elements have ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... absolutely fascinated, talks a great deal more nonsense about your ladyship than I care to repeat. It is now so dark that, notwithstanding the singular property of seeing in the night-time, which the young ladies at Roe Head used to attribute to me, I can scribble no longer." ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Might she not scribble down a few of the sentences which had puzzled her, but were now quite clear? Of course her aunt would not like it, but then she need never know. It could not be any worse to write than to lie in bed and think, she ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley

... cue from this short, spasmodic dream I had one evening in a steamer chair, of what I imagined was to happen on our coming voyage, I started to scribble; and following the fantastic idea in the vision, I shall adopt the abbreviated name of The Cork, for our good ship—although some of the passengers preferred to call her The Corker, as she was big and fine, and justly ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... ground-floor, and a window adjoining the street lets in upon me the light and air through a heavy crimson curtain, near which I sit and scribble. I was just enlarging upon the necessity of resignation, while the frown yet lingered on my brow, and was writing myself into a more calm and complacent mood, when—another knock at the door. As I opened it, I heard Peter's voice ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... by many, and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learnt a little to scribble; another was, that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, and other publick business. He ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... settle down to the calm enjoyment of the honk. Drawing forth my cigar-case, I am soon wreathed in the fragrant clouds engendered by the incineration of a halfpenny cheroot, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, I spread out my writing or sketching materials and proceed to scribble or paint, calm in the knowledge that nothing on earth is in the least likely to disturb the flow of ideas, or interrupt the laying on of a broad flat wash. Now and again, lazily, I lean back to watch the witless hoverings of a big butterfly, or sleepily ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... my good Hauschka! As for myself, I wander about here with music paper, among the hills and dales and valleys, and scribble a great deal to get my daily bread; for I have brought things to such a pass in this mighty and ignominious land of the Goths and Vandals, that in order to gain time for a great composition, I must always previously scrawl away a good deal for the ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... She had meant to scribble a few notes of her impressions during the journey, for the benefit of Reverend Mother and the nuns, posting her letter in Paris; but as the Frenchman appeared surprised at her travelling alone, and everybody else seemed to be with friends, she decided not to write until Florence. There, when she ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... science so far, and I doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject. And I don't care to. Any Muggins can write about old days on the Mississippi of five hundred different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble about the piloting of that day, and no man has ever tried to scribble about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time, and it is about the only new ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... am I, perhaps. I don't think any better of the stuff that I scribble than you do. It's all an experiment with me. I'm trying my brushes—trying my brushes. Perhaps I may be able to do something stronger some day, and perhaps not. But at all events I sha'n't force my mood. I shall wait for my inspiration. One thing I've noticed, that ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... thus addressed the power: "Hail, wayward Queen! Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen: Parent of vapours and of female wit, Who give the hysteric, or poetic fit, On various tempers act by various ways, Make some take physic, others scribble plays; Who cause the proud their visits to delay, And send the godly in a pet to pray. A nymph there is, that all thy power disdains, And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. But oh! if e'er thy gnome could spoil a grace, Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, Like citron-waters matrons' ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... now. I got it out. But the tip of my finger is painful if I write. You've your pen in your hand, so just scribble a line for me. I can ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... the girls stood together in groups and superciliously regarded the ranks of humble wall-flowers. Suddenly a half-dozen would dash down upon a young man, beg him simultaneously for an eighth of a waltz, and scribble hieroglyphics on their fans. Alan Rush was the belle, and no girl was allowed to have more than a fourth of him at a time. Once the girls left the room in a body, returning, with mumbled excuses, after the music for the next dance had been ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... he said to Mrs. Cliff that he was not sure but what the parsons were quite correct, and although everybody was sorry to lose two members of the party, it could not be helped, and all who had letters to send to New York went to work to scribble them as fast as they could. Mrs. Cliff also wrote a note to Captain Horn, informing him of the state of affairs, and of their reasons for not waiting for him, and this the departing clergymen undertook to leave with Beaver & Hughes, where Captain Horn ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... letter. The "Night Piece," to which you refer me, I meant fully to have noticed; but the fact is, I come so fluttering and languid from business, tired with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that when I get a few minutes to sit down and scribble (an action of the hand now seldom natural to me,—I mean voluntary pen-work), I lose all presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I had meditated (by the way, I mast look out ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... number of a man! But this is too hard for me, although not so for the Lord! Jer. xxxii. 17.... And now a word: is ridicule the right thing in so solemn a matter as the discussion of Holy Writ? [Is food for ridicule the right thing? Did I discuss Holy Writ? I did not: I concussed profane scribble. Even the Doctor did not discuss; he only enunciated and denunciated out of the mass of inferences which a mystical head has found premises ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... my rhyming be at fault, If e'er I chance to scribble dope, If that my metre ever halt, I ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams

... the hours were passed during the first months of his captivity in writing books in English or Latin; but when pen and paper were taken from him, and he could only scribble a few words with the end of a charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his life and to recall the years that had been so happy. The harsh words that he had written about men whose religion was different from his own did not trouble him, ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... said Pell, as he looked on his watch, 'this rigor, you see, will soon pass away, and you're doing everything we could wish, and (for he found he had time to scribble a prescription), we'll just order him a trifle. Good-day, Sir. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... pious Prelate: And having, by long experience, found the truth and benefit of it, I conceive, I could not without ingratitude to him, and want of charity to others, conceal it.—Pray pardon this rude, and, I fear impertinent scribble, which, if nothing else, may signify thus much, that I am willing to obey your ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... the fellows had any money to spend. They couldn't get any either until shearing was over and they were paid off; but they'd get some one who could write to scribble a lot of I O U's, and they did ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... say, 'You rate me too high, my dear. Still,' I'd say, 'if you insist upon it, you just scribble down the main points on a sheet o' paper, and I'll take a walk and think it over.' Then I'd carry it off to Benny." 'Bias, who so far had held the better of the argument by keeping his temper, clinched his triumph with a ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... watched the other scribble a hasty note in weird-looking characters. Jack explained that his father could read the Cree writing-language invented by Bishop Grouard, but not English. The more Charlie saw of his new friend, the better he liked him, and the two boys soon fell into ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... Waves of the Sea and Waves of Love. I'm awfully fond of the theatre, but I never write anything about that. For anyhow the play is written by a poet and one can read it if one wants to, and one just sees the rest anyhow. I can't make out what Dora finds such a lot to scribble about always the day after we've been to the theatre. I expect she's in love with one of the actors and that's why she writes such a lot. Besides we in the second class did not get tickets for all the performances, but only the girls from the ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... somewhat faint he would refresh himself with crusts of bread soaked in cold water, thus imitating to a certain extent our William Ptynne, who would from time to time momentarily suspend his interminable scribble to recruit exhausted nature with a moistened crust; only the verbose author of "Histriomastix" used to dip his crusts in Strong ale. And the bitter old pamphleteer, for all that his ears had been cropped and his cheeks branded by the Star Chamber, lived to be nearly seventy. Jules ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... call Fatherland social currents begin to filter. There remains only one ideal in presence of which the most hardened sceptic raises his hat,—the People. But on the base of this statue mischievous spirits are beginning already to scribble more or less ribald jokes, and, what is still more strange, the mist of unbelief is rising from the heads of those who, in the nature of things, ought to bow down reverently. Finally there will come a gifted sceptic, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... unlimited profusion. If reams of paper, scrawled over with barbarous technicalities, could smother and bury a quarrel which had its origin in the mutual antagonism of human elements, here were the men to scribble unflinchingly, till the reams were piled to a pyramid. If the same idea presented in many aspects could acquire additional life, here were the word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought in a hundred thousand garments, till it ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... breakfast; yet, on second thoughts, your early departure was best. Perhaps it was so. You have made me very thoughtful to-day. What passed last night has left my mind at no liberty to read and to scribble as I used to do. How your omens ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... others,) abound in both these virtues, and both your poets are acknowledged to be very happy in paraphrasing them, it is my opinion, both of them, without giving the least preference to either, should be read alternately in your schools, as the tutor shall direct. Pardon, learned Sir, this scribble to my age and weakness, both which are very great, and command me wherein I may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... some other time." They were sitting near a table where a pencil and some loose leaves of paper lay. He pulled his chair a little closer, and, with the child still upon his knee, began to scribble and sketch at random. "Ah, there's San Miniato," he said, with a glance from the window. "Must get its outline in. You've heard how there came to be a church up there? No? Well, it shows the sort of man San Miniato really ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... I scribble to-day again so much nonsense, I do so only in order to remind you that you are as much locked in my heart as ever, and that I am the same Fred I was. You do not like to be kissed; but to-day you must permit ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... leave to visit the prisoners "para un momento." As the gates were thrown open Stuart advanced and met me, grasping my hand cordially, and slipping a letter up the sleeve of my coat. He had caught sight of me labouring up the hill, and had immediately hastened to scribble a few lines which he trusted to my sympathy with misfortune to smuggle to their destination for him. He was not mistaken, and in so doing I had no qualm of conscience. I accompanied him to his cell, and he told me the story of the capture of the San Margarita. It ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... this unpleasant scribble, I shall have done when I have farther shewed, how he joineth with papist, and quaker, against these ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... odd that I should be sitting at that desk with a Cabinet Minister, a Field-Marshal, two high Government officials, and a French General watching me, while from the scribble of a dead man I was trying to drag a secret which meant life ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... you finish your coffee," she said to Rob, "I'll scribble a line to mamma to let her know we've arrived safely. I've dropped notes all along the way, but this is the one she'll be waiting for most anxiously. It will take only ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... part of the character of Walpole, it is natural to allude to the transactions which took place between him and the unfortunate Chatterton; a text upon which so much calumny and misrepresentation have been embroidered. The periodicals of the day, and the tribe of those "who daily scribble for their daily bread," and for whom Walpole had, perhaps unwisely, frequently expressed his contempt, attacked him bitterly for his inhumanity to genius, and even accused him as the author of the subsequent misfortunes and untimely death of that misguided son of genius; nay, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... reddish purple, about the egg. The markings are nowhere as a rule crowded, and towards the small end are usually sparse and occasionally wholly wanting. In some eggs a bad pen seems to have been used to scribble the pattern, and every here and there instead of a fine hair-line there is ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of the army of the Potomac having capitulated. My good dear wife and self are come to wish for peace at any price. Good night, my good friend. I will scribble on no more. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... avoids and fears that satiety which lies in ambush for every narrative, and takes the hearer from one subject to another, and relieves by novelty the possibility of being surfeited. But the talkative worry one's ears to death with their tautologies, as people scribble the same things over ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Bulwer's from fair Lincoln bann'd, Doth threaten evil days; For, having much waste time on hand, Alas! he'll scribble plays. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... till they've learned to dance. Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? (Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile;) But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. Yet, Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great; These madmen never hurt the church or state: Sometimes the folly benefits mankind; And rarely avarice taints the tuneful mind. Allow him but his plaything of a pen, He ne'er rebels, or ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... Gentian when Hollyhock's task was finished, and she passed her scribble to her father to see—'I wonder whether there is a similar mistake in the names of our cousins—or brothers, as ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... see three editions of the 1,000 Nights advertised at the same time, not to speak of the bastard. [363] I return you nine sheets [of proofs] by parcels post registered. You have done your work very well, and my part is confined to a very small amount of scribble which you will rub out ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... reciprocated, must be secret and silent. Talk of making love to a young miss closely watched by governess or guardian—a ward in Chancery—an heiress of expectant thousands! It is but "child's play" to break through the entourage that surrounds one of such. To scribble sonnets and scale walls is but an easy task, compared with the bold effrontery that challenges the passions ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... I don't scrawl you a line of some sort I know you will begin to fancy that I neglect you, in spite of all I said last time we met. You can hardly fancy it possible, I dare say, that I cannot find a quarter of an hour to scribble a note in; but when a note is written it is to be carried a mile to the post, and consumes nearly an hour, which is a large portion of the day. Mr. and Mrs. White have been gone a week. I heard from them this morning; they are ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter



Words linked to "Scribble" :   handwriting, scrabble, doodle, hand, chicken scratch, scrawl, squiggle, script, cacography, scribbler, write, scratch



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