DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Penman' Quotes from Famous Books

... little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit— 50 His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink, As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us!) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Through one's after-supper musings, 60 Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavour And goodness ...

— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... the fancy confused, and the judgment inert, hath in all ages been noted, not only by the erudite of the earth, but even by many of the thick-witted Ofelli themselves; whether the rapid pace at which the fancy moveth in such exercitations, where the wish of the penman is to him like Prince Houssain's tapestry, in the Eastern fable, be the chief source of peril—or whether, without reference to this wearing speed of movement, and dwelling habitually in those realms of imagination, be as little suited ...

— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... abandon, a desperate guidance, a thoughtless ratiocination, a mechanical swaying of rhetoric, are the grounds of dissertation. A pause for a few days, a visit to the country, anything that would seem designed to restore the mind to its normal state, destroys the faculty. The weary penman, who wishes his chaotic head could be relieved by being transformed even as by Puck, knows that very whirling chaos is the condition of his multitudinous periods. It seems as if some special sluices of the soul must be opened to force the pen. One man, on returning to his desk ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... Staples, "seems to have been a favorite illustration of the sacred penman. 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount upward as on the wings ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... contradiction between the I Q and the child's performances in and out of school. We cannot deny the existence of "feeble-minded geniuses," but after a good deal of search we have not found one. Occasionally, of course, one finds a feeble-minded person who is an expert penman, who draws skillfully, who plays a musical instrument tolerably well, or who handles number combinations with unusual rapidity; but these are not geniuses; they are not ...

— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... was impressed by the character of the sentences he had given him for a copy. "It was considered at that time," said he, "that Abe was the best penman in the neighborhood. One day, while he was on a visit at my mother's, I asked him to write some copies for me. He very willingly consented. He wrote several of them, but one of them I have never forgotten, although a boy at ...

— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... seconds were entered on the ledger. At last the gray penman has made his footing. The great page turns. I have ...

— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... much, I am certainly fit for something. I have only a smattering of Latin and Greek, it is true, and a very slight knowledge of French, but, if I am to believe my teacher's reports, I am not a bad arithmetician, and I know a good deal of mathematics, besides being a pretty fair penman." ...

— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne

... old and respected citizen of our place, who knew my father and my father's father, and me as an unlucky dog from my cradle, 'Tom, did ever any idea of getting a permanent and profitable position—say, as you are an excellent penman—as clerk in one of the departments at Harrisburg or ...

— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... Hertfordshire. My father lived to see them both married; and enjoyed a firm health, until above eighty years of age. He was a handsome gentleman of great natural parts, a great accomptant, vast memory, an incomparable penman, of great integrity and service to his prince; had been a member of several Parliaments; a good husband and father, especially to me, who never can sufficiently praise God for him, nor acknowledge his ...

— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... his unwilling hand to its accustomed work, his peculiar J being plainly written and followed by characters meant for the remaining letters of his first name. To earlier documents he was wont to affix a simple neat signature, and although not a clerkly penman like his friends John Tinker, Master Joseph Rowlandson and Ralph Houghton, his writing is superior to that of Major ...

— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... evening I pored over the manuscript, on which she had bestowed great pains, and crossed all the t's without missing one. But it is never an easy task to decipher a woman's meaning, particularly when not addicted to penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's instructions, and had acquired the reputation, in her native place, of being an accomplished clerk, still, since her marriage, she had applied her genius to the making of tarts and other confections, rather than to the parts of scholarship, and it was difficult for me ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... was a good penman, and the lines that he wrote On that sad occasion was too fine for me to quote,— For I was there and heard it, and I ever will recall It brought the happy tears to the eyes ...

— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... (Vol. ix., p. 422.).—RUSTICUS is obliged to the Editor for so soon giving a reply to his Query; but seems convicted of being a bad penman, like many other rustics. For the strange word, respecting which he asked for information, having seen it used in a newspaper, was not lignites but liquites. RUSTICUS could have guessed that the ashes of lignites were but wood-ashes under a pedantic name; but a term which looks, ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... were now spent in the society of John Wigham, whose father occupied the Glebe Farm at Benton, close at hand. John was a fair penman and a sound arithmetician, and Stephenson sought his society chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and "figures." Under Andrew Robertson, he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three, and it was only when Wigham ...

— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... hours a day was not enough," said Cassiodorus. "We should copy the great works of literature so that every monastery shall have a library as good as that which we have at Monte Cassino." He himself was an expert penman, and he set himself the task of teaching the monks how to write as well as how to read. "To write beautifully is a great joy ...

— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... he reaches will always and inevitably misjudge him. Mais c'est mon homme, one may say, as La Fontaine said of Moliere. Of modern writers, putting Scott aside, he is to me the most friendly and sympathetic. Great genius as he was, he was also a penman, a journalist; and journalists and penmen will always look to him as their big brother, the man in their own line of whom they are proudest. As devout Catholics did not always worship the greatest saints, but the friendliest saints, their own, so we scribes burn our cheap incense to St. William ...

— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... domestic, ever made a greater name for himself than Daniel Webster, but he was not so good a penman as Noah; Noah was the ...

— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... crossed all the t's without missing one. But it is never an easy task to decipher a woman's meaning, particularly when not addicted to penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's instructions, and had acquired the reputation, in her native place, of being an accomplished clerk, still, since her marriage, she had applied her genius to the making of tarts and other confections, rather than to the parts of scholarship, and it was difficult for me to make out the ...

— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... version, for example, of what is solemnly recorded in the xviith chapter of Exodus and the xxth of Numbers about the Israelites, when, in their wanderings, they murmured for want of water, and the Lord instructed Moses to "take the rod with which he smote" the waters of the Red Sea: the sacred penman proceeds: "And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he commanded him: And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, 'Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you ...

— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... or monastery did not wholly overlook the 'gospel of green fields' sung by the contemporary minstrels. But their notices are provokingly vague and unsatisfactory; no happy thought ever seems to have occurred to any monkish penman that he might earn more gratitude from posterity by collecting ballad verses than by copying the Legends of the Saints—so little can we guess what will be deemed of value by future ages. But in Scotland, as elsewhere, we have reason to believe that every event that deeply moved ...

— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... of the world. In a great naval battle the Venetians were completely defeated. Marco Polo was in the battle and with many of his countrymen was captured by the enemy. For a year he was confined in a Genoese prison. One of his fellow-prisoners was a skillful penman and Marco dictated to him an account of his experiences in China, Japan, and other Eastern countries. This account was carefully written out. Copies of the manuscript exist to this day. One of these is in ...

— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... of Phillip Lawson's thoughts as he chatted to Hubert Tracy for more than half an hour, when the latter departed less satisfied than when he entered. Then the former set to work upon some important business, and being a rapid penman, soon finished the job. Finding time for a short brown study, or ...

— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... a good penman, and the lines that he wrote On that sad occasion was too fine for me to quote,— For I was there and heard it, and I ever will recall It brought the happy tears to ...

— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... equally important that you learn to cipher, and Mr. Brownwell is an excellent teacher of arithmetic. It will not take you many months to become a good penman under his tuition, and to acquire considerable knowledge ...

— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... dust my penman may not know Those water-trampling ships which made me glow, But think my wonder mad and fail to find, Their glory, even dimly, from my mind, And yet they made me: not alone the ships But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to whips, The two close friends of nearly ...

— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... as two distinct professions, both useful and honourable when honourably pursued; and having chosen the sword, he thinks he does quite enough in learning how to use and support it through all grades, and ought not to be expected to encroach on the profession of the penman. This is a tone of feeling which it is clearly the interest of Government rather to foster than discourage, and the order which militated so much against it has happily ...

— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... scattered hints that he was backward in technical scholarship, and low in his class, in which he seems to have had no ambition to stand high; but that he eagerly took to history and romance, especially luxuriating in the Arabian Nights. He was an indifferent penman, and always disliked mathematics; but was noted by masters and mates as of quick temper, eager for adventures, prone to sports, always more ready to give a blow than to ...

— Byron • John Nichol

... evolved the scheme of the scriptorium. "To study eight hours a day was not enough," said Cassiodorus. "We should copy the great works of literature so that every monastery shall have a library as good as that which we have at Monte Cassino." He himself was an expert penman, and he set himself the task of teaching the monks how to write as well as how to read. "To write beautifully is a great joy to our ...

— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!" She replied, "With love and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Prince became a penman doughty in all knowledge, withal he wist not that was written for him of dule and dolours. This lasted until his tenth year, and the old King rejoiced in him and caused him to back steeds until he had mastered all of horsemanship, ...

— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton