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Scrawl   Listen
noun
Scrawl  n.  Unskillful or inelegant writing; that which is unskillfully or inelegantly written. "The left hand will make such a scrawl, that it will not be legible." "You bid me write no more than a scrawl to you."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrawl" Quotes from Famous Books



... upper earth with him has done; He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone For him, unless he left a German will:[508] But where's the proctor who will ask his son? In whom his qualities are reigning still,[gl] Except that household virtue, most uncommon, Of constancy to a bad, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... with surprise that after this little episode the girl seemed to relax and her face assumed lines almost of contentment. After all, no one could blame him for failing to realise the true significance of that hurried, transient scrawl. One does not expect to find the map reference of probably the greatest source of wealth the world has ever known scribbled across the window pane of a South Western Railway carriage by the fat little forefinger of a girl scarcely out of her teens. Such an eventuality ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... of his study was what he had expected: the writing of the note to Marcia was sufficiently like Judith's to pass muster to an uncritical eye, looking, in fact, what it purported to be, a very hasty scrawl. But Lee decided that Judith had not written it. He ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... at the irregular up-and-down scrawl on the paper, while he rang up the Homicide Bureau of the Central Office and left word for O'Connor to call him up the first thing in ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... September, so that I can take no part in Church affairs. But God has been with me—my strength and comforter. I am beginning to revive, but have not yet been able to go down stairs, or move, only creep about with the help of a cane. I do not know whether you can read the scrawl I have written, but I cannot ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... very well to talk!" laughed Avdeyev: "Signed it, indeed! They used to bring the accounts to my shop and I signed them. As though I understood! Give me anything you like, I'll scrawl my name to it. If you were to write that I murdered someone I'd sign my name to it. I haven't time to go into it; besides, I can't ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... mighty apt to get a feller into a tarnation snarl. Schoolmaster gumption makes d-d bad niggers; and there's why I say it's best to hang schoolmasters. It's dangerous, 'cos it larns the critturs to writin' a scrawl now and then; and, unless ye knows just how much talent he's got, and can whitewash him yaller, it's plaguy ticklish. When the brutes have larnin', and can write a little, they won't stay sold when ye sell 'em-that is, I mean, white riff-raff stuff; they ain't a bit like niggers and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... there is no room for the living." It seemed then a foolish memorandum to write, and now, as I look at the half-effaced pencil lines, I wonder why I was not ashamed to write it. Yet there it is before me, a witness to my sensations at the time, and the scrawl has even now the power to bring up to me an unpleasantly vivid memory of that ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... book—there's still a chapter you can write, or one you can finish up; but me—I've come right down to Finis, only the Lord won't write it for me. It's as if somebody wanted to scrawl on the back flyleaf something that hasn't a thing to do with the rest of the book, some scratching stuff in a furrin' language ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... new ones too, there are inscriptions and inscriptions. We are all familiar with the scrawl of the clown, who has handed down to us his unconsecrated name on the title-page or fly-leaf of some volume of ours otherwise irreproachable. Just a step above him is your fellow who writes some objurgatory caveat against the malappropriator, and brings the Almighty ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... write. By the last Post in particular I receiv'd a Packet of Scandal that is not legible; and have a whole Bundle of Letters in Womens Hands that are full of Blots and Calumnies, insomuch that when I see the Name Caelia, Phillis, Pastora, or the like, at the Bottom of a Scrawl, I conclude on course that it brings me some Account of a fallen Virgin, a faithless Wife, or an amorous Widow. I must therefore inform these my Correspondents, that it is not my Design to be a Publisher of Intreagues ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the welfare of Mr. Semitopolis's statue of Hercules? I write you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all inquiries, and greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, had fallen in love with ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... letter that Mrs. Willoughby wrote: "I had to scrawl so hurriedly yesterday to catch the first mail that I couldn't begin at the beginning, or get to the point, or anything. I'll try now, though, as for the beginning, it's like going back to the dark ages, it all seems ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... beasts, half cats and half women, with death-like faces, attenuated noses, and swollen lips. They thought all these things very ugly. The stone carvings of the present day were a great deal better. An inscription in Phoenician characters amazed them. No one could possibly have ever read that scrawl. But Monsieur Madinier, already up on the first landing with Madame Lorilleux, called to them, shouting beneath the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... the note there and then. It was a mere hurried scrawl, saying that Allerdyke was just setting off for Hull, in obedience to a call from the police; as Gaffney had nothing to do, would Appleyard make use of him during ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher

... a little scrawl to Milsom next day, by the hands of a stable- boy, inviting that gentleman to a social rubber and a friendly supper in the servants'-hall ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... of correspondents, Robert Narramore had as yet sent no reply to the letters in which Hilliard acquainted him with his adventures in London and abroad; but at the end of July he vouchsafed a perfunctory scrawl. "Too bad not to write before, but I've been floored every evening after business in this furious heat. You may like to hear that my uncle's property didn't make a bad show. I have come in for a round five ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... just three hasty lines from the great Collingwood himself. That brave heart, in the midst of the din of victory, had found time to scrawl a word to his old schoolmate, and tell him that his boy had died like a hero, and that he regretted him ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... had a sword by his side and the outward bearing of a gallant officer. Lest there should be any want of belief on the part of the colonists, he caused his credentials to be tacked up on the gateway of Fort Gibraltar. There, in legible scrawl, was an order appointing him as captain and Alexander Macdonell as lieutenant in the Voyageur Corps. The sight of a soldier sent a thrill through the breasts of the Highlanders and the fight-loving Irish. Cameron had in fact once belonged to the Voyageurs, and ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... the other paper ball, unfolding it near the orange flame. The inner surface was red, the earthly red of porphyry, and cracked and scarred by the crumpling. Nearly obliterated by the lacework of wrinkles and scratches was a scrawl, evidently scarred into the glazed surface by a knife-point. The upper part was unintelligible. On the lower surface he made out with difficulty the single word, Vandalia. He carried it to the door, slid back the shutter and let the dim, gray light filter upon ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... day he fell into deep ennui, and to beguile himself he rummaged out of the canvas bag an old note-book and a pencil, and began a clumsy and uninstructed effort to sketch the scene before him. The effort proving quite abortive, he began to scrawl beneath it, 'Paul Armstrong.' 'Yours very truly, Paul Armstrong.' 'Disrespectfully yours, Paul Armstrong.' 'Sacred to the memory of Paul Armstrong, who died of boredom in the Rocky Mountains.' 'Paul Armstrong: the Autobiography of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... trump!" admitted Bluff. "Do you know what he said when he was showing that scrawl to us fellows? I was close enough to get part of it, and I'm dead sure the words 'entering wedge' formed the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... trying to write this scrawl to you on a round milk container in a camp near London. We are ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... will attend you through life'" she had written in her old-country scrawl; "but in the end will prove your undoing, for you will meet your death at the ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... making rhymes. After great efforts, amidst much laughter and profound knitting of brows, we produced what, in the innocence of youth, we called a poem!—an epic, on our adventure. I still preserve the old scrawl of it, in several different youthful hands, on crumpled sheets of yellowed paper. It has little value as poesy, but I would not part with it for autograph copies of the masterpieces of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... matter I left the gardens to walk elsewhere. The day after next, just as I was going to get into my carriage, a man of evil aspect gave me a paper and asked me to read it. I opened it, but finding it covered with an illegible scrawl I gave it him back, telling him to read it himself. He did so, and I found myself summoned to appear before the commissary of police to answer to the plea which the midwife (whose name I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Davenport, taking back the sheet. "You merely describe the handwriting itself. Your characterization, as far as it goes, would fit men who write very differently from this. It fits me, for instance, and yet look at my angular scrawl." He held up a specimen of his own irregular hand, beside the elegant penmanship of the note, and Larcher had to admit himself ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that which told of a longing ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... suppose they trouble themselves to find one? Not a bit of it. They simply scrawl a great R in chalk on the back of it, and send you a printed notice to carry it home again. What is it to them, if a poor devil has been painting his very heart and hopes out, day after day, for a whole year, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... the men who loaf, my dear," she replied. "When you undertake the transcription of an author's scrawl at ninepence the thousand words you have to work hard, especially when, as it is in this case, the thing's practically unreadable. Besides, the woman in it makes me lose my temper. If I'd had a man of the kind described to deal with I'd have ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... against the slanting rafters just above him, he was brought to a painful realization of where he was. He turned, scowling, and the first thing he saw was a piece of brown wrapping paper held down by a shoe and covered with a clumsy scrawl. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... letter—my first love letter—and she made no reply for eight days. Then came a scrawl: "I can't write letters. Wait till we can talk. Are ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... to blush, "Madame, I do not curse you—I scorn you. I can now thank the chance that has divided us. I do not feel even a desire for revenge; I no longer love you. I want nothing from you. Live in peace on the strength of my word; it is worth more than the scrawl of all the notaries in Paris. I will never assert my claim to the name I perhaps have made illustrious. I am henceforth but a poor devil named Hyacinthe, who asks no more than his share of ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... consideration, opened the tin of biscuits and, munching, he wrote a note. Having no paper, he tore a wrapper from one of the boxes. He had the stub of a pencil, and the result was a scrawl. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... name in a private, modest way to walls already so crowded, is allowable; but to scrawl one's name, place of birth, and country, half across a wall, covering scores of names under it, is an operation which speaks for itself. No one would ever want to know more of a man than to see his ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... Daphne read a badly spelled, badly written scrawl, in the writing of an old woman unused to holding ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper

... little child at Moor Park. Thackeray, who was not much in sympathy with Swift, said that he knew of "nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... of Matthew Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It appears to me that these letters relate to some liaison of the gentleman's youth; though I am fain to confess myself surprised to discover ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... done in the clay-paths. But for nearly two hundred years his bones had been crumbled into lime and his flesh gone back into grass and roots. Yet here he was, a boy still; here was the old pamphlet and the scrawl in yellowing ink, with ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... to Garman in a clear feminine hand, and it read: "Garman: Am at the cottage on Palm Island; come to-night. Annette." At the bottom in a huge masculine scrawl, were three words; "Poor ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... letter, which, after all, is but an anonymous scrawl, is not even addressed to you, but ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... speciality of the North, and all its sports and gayeties take thence their tone. The houses are built to shut out the demon of Frost, and protect one from his assaults of ice and snow. Let him howl about your windows and scrawl his wonderful landscapes on your panes and pile his fantastic wreaths outside, while you draw round the blazing hearth and enjoy the artificial heat and warm in the social converse that he provokes. Your punch is all the better for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... an upraised, attentively listening expression. Once he murmured aloud "ARDATH! Nay, I shall not forget!—we will meet at ARDATH!" and again he resumed his occupation. Page after page he covered with close writing-no weak, uncertain scrawl, but a firm bold, neat caligraphy,—his own peculiar, characteristic hand. The sun mounted higher and higher in the heavens, ... hour after hour passed, and still lie wrote on, apparently unaware of the flitting ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... writing of mine—very bad manners, to put any one—especially a Lady—to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging- house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don't answer till I write you something better: but believe me ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... did not know her own mind. "He won't come," he had answered, "till he's spent his money. That's why we must act at once." Annexed to the copy of that letter was the original of Dartie's drunken scrawl from the Iseeum Club. Soames could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in liquor. Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on. He seemed to hear the Judge's voice say: "You took ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... grog and tobacco smoke at the "Compton Arms," in the company of the castle servants, and if the calves' heads had known anything essential, I fancy I should have wormed it out of them. They have, however, kindly furnished me with a scrawl of introduction to the establishment now in town, some of whom I shall have the honor to meet, in the character of an out-and-out liberal sporting gentleman, at the "Albemarle Arms" this evening. I want to get hold of ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... This scrawl had attracted the attention of fully a score of cadets, and one after another they entered the classroom designated to find out what it meant. When they saw the teeth dangling in the air they set up ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... a pen, and upon a quarto page, already half filled with Leroux's small, neat, illegible writing, began to scrawl a message, bending down, one hand upon the table, and with her whole ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... fourteen. I do not think it advisable to engage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it has talent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper it can get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due praise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in its efforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost as soon as it has sense enough to wish ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... came bounding down again, stricken white, and not caring if he encountered the devil. On his table he had found a package—the complete manuscript of "Roderick Hanscom" and this scrawl: ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... wages were offset by the various deceptions open to an ingenious management; prices were higher here than elsewhere; the coat-rooms were robbers' dens infested by Italian mafiosi; tips were extravagant and amounted in effect to ransom; and each meal-check was headed by an illegible scrawl which masked an item termed "service." The figure opposite would have covered the cost of a repast at Childs's. But New York dearly loves to be pillaged; it cherishes a reputation for princely carelessness of expenditure. It ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... puts a spirit of joy into green field and hedgerow is awful to look upon in Paris. You leave the train half-frozen, to find the porters red-eyed from their watch. The customs officials, in a kind of stupor, scrawl cabalistic signs upon your trunk. You get outside the station, to find a few scattered cabs, their drivers asleep inside, their lamps ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... Paddington, she was to say she waited an hour at the station, then made a mistake, and went to Islington, and not finding the street there came to Paddington. The excuse turned out good, Paddington and Islington looked much alike on the scrawl. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... not read, or the illegible, meaningless ink scrawl upon the sheet within the boldly-addressed envelope would have aroused his suspicions at the outset. So well had Bough, that expert in human frailty, understood his subject, that the letter was a bogus letter, a fraud, not elaborate—a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... by the light of a match read the scrawl upon it. The writing had evidently been done in haste, but its meaning ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... irritable and susceptible, you must be more careful than ever to prevent her having access to him; otherwise she might easily contrive to revive all those impressions in his mind which we are so anxious to avoid. What confidence can be placed in any promise to reform on her part, the impertinent scrawl I enclose will best prove [in reference, no doubt, to an enclosed note]. I send it merely to show you how fully I am justified in the precautions I have already adopted with regard to her. On this occasion, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... up and read the latest, which was a scrawl in quavering characters over three telegraph forms. It was from Ladcock at Gilgit, saying that he was having a row of his own with the navvies there, and that he could send no reinforcements at present. If he quieted the trouble in time he would ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... I was fast regaining the blooming, hoyden appearance most natural to me; and Aunt Henshaw continued to write glowing accounts of my improvement. In due time my scrawl was answered by a most affectionate letter from mamma, to which was added a postscript by my father; and I began to rise wonderfully in my own estimation, in consequence of having letters addressed entirely to myself. I even undertook to correct ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... have just striven to describe. Nobody has taught one better how to observe with one's own eyes, first, to regard humanity around us and life as it is, and next, old and authentic documents, how to read more than merely the black and white of the page, how to detect under old print and the scrawl of the text the veritable sentiment and the train of thought, the mental state in which the words were penned. In his writings, as in those of Sainte Beuve and in those of the German critics the reader will find how much is to be derived from a ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... Girodet's ghastly "Deluge," and Gericault's dismal "Medusa." Gericault died, they say, for want of fame. He was a man who possessed a considerable fortune of his own; but pined because no one in his day would purchase his pictures, and so acknowledge his talent. At present, a scrawl from his pencil brings an enormous price. All his works have a grand cachet: he never did anything mean. When he painted the "Raft of the Medusa," it is said he lived for a long time among the corpses which he painted, and that his studio was a second Morgue. If you have not ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... his hearers sat expectant, but not impatient, proceeded: "Scrawling on a slate is one thing, Master Chuter: painting and decorating's another. Painting's a trade; and not rightly to be understood by them that's not larned it, nor to be picked up by all as can scrawl a line here and a line there, as the whim takes 'em. Take oak-graining,"—and here Master Linseed paused again, with a fine sense of effect,—"who'd ever think of taking a comb to it as didn't know? ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... budget, black-edged and bulky. Bettina's showed a faddish slender monogram. Following was Justin's—she knew that boyish scrawl; a business letter or two, a bill, an advertisement, and then—her heart leaped. On the flap of a great square envelope blazed the seal which Anthony had chosen for his house of healing—a lighthouse flashing its beacon over ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... a fearful scrawl," Mrs. Hastings commented, "his l's and his t's and his vowels were all the same height. I used to tell him that I didn't ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... read hastily, chuckling over it as though it contained many a joke. But he was more interested in the other scrawl, whose strange words completely baffled him. He tried in vain to make out its meaning, turning it about, peering at it from all angles, like an evil old buzzard. Then he gave way to a fit of rage, whining ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... begone before I opened the packet. He withdrew reluctantly. Then I unfastened Nell's parcel. It contained ten guineas wrapped in white paper, and on the inside of the paper was written in a most laborious awkward scrawl (I fear the execution of it gave poor Nell much pains), "In pay for your dagger. E.G." It was all of her hand I had ever seen; the brief message seemed to speak a sadness in her. Perhaps I deluded myself; her skill with the pen would not serve her far. She ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... burglary at that house. And, now she thought of it, what a queer burglary it had been! The thieves must certainly have known something about Mrs. Ellsworth, or else, in helping themselves to her valuables, it would not have occurred to them to scrawl a sarcastic message. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... addressed in Mark Wylder's hand—not the least like it. Mark's was a bold, free hand, and if there was nothing particularly elegant, neither was there anything that could be called vulgar in it. But this was a decidedly villainous scrawl—in fact it was written as a self-educated butcher might pen a bill. There was nothing impressed on the wafer, but a poke of something like the ferrule of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... wrote my sighs, and sent them to my love; I praised that fair that none enough could praise; But plaints nor praises could fair Licia move; Above my reach she did her virtues raise, And thus replied: "False Scrawl, untrue thou art, To feign those sighs that nowhere can be found; For half those praises came not from his heart Whose faith and love as yet was never found. Thy master's life, false Scrawl shall be thy doom; Because he burns, I judge thee to the flame; Both your attempts deserve ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl Meant not for me," at length said I; "I glanced thereat, and let it lie: The words were three - ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... take something from under his head and I helped him. I found a scrawl saying, 'Look on ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... days of early summer Rose Macleod was re-reading a letter from her friend Helene; which, though a mere elegant scrawl in the first place, and now yellow and worn with age, has been with some difficulty deciphered by the writers of ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... ahead. Roderick was hurrying home to take supper at the farm, and Helen was coming out of the rough little path that led from the Perkins' home. She was feeling tired and very sad. She had been reading a letter from the husband in prison, a sorrowful pencilled scrawl, pathetically misspelled, but breathing out true sympathy for his wife and children, and the deepest repentance and self-blame. And at the end of every misconstructed sentence like a wailing refrain ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on the yard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of the two unsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There was something in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in the tenderness of Mrs ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... yourself:" and Ferrers seated himself at the writing-table, dipped a pen into the ink, arranged blotting-book and paper before him in due order, and was soon employed in covering page after page with the most rapid and hieroglyphical scrawl that ever engrossed a mistress or ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the scrawl was finished, and looking up from the writing table he saw Joan Devereux passing through the hall. He got up and hurried after her. "Would you mind addressing this for me?" He held out the envelope. "I've managed to spoil the paper inside, but I don't want to tax the postman ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... Larry is missing? If Larry doesn't show up, it will break his heart, and it will break mine, too!" And he brushed away the tears that sprang up in spite of his efforts to keep them down. Then he turned to the heavy, twisted scrawl from his Uncle Job. ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... the lettering—that is, the labels lettered with the titles of books—in all libraries that are not of recent date. No man would believe that the very earliest attempt to impress a mark of ownership upon some bucket of the Argonauts, or the rudest scrawl of Polyphemus in forging a tarry brand upon some sheep which he had stolen, could be so bad, so staggering and illegible, as are these literary inscriptions. How much better to have had a thin tablet or veneering of marble ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... not do so. It was a veritable scrawl, madam, running something like this: 'I return your daughter to you. She is here. Neither she nor you will ever see me again. Remember Evelyn!' And ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... then, as she repeated her desire, he took up the scrawl and deliberately read it through. It had evidently been written immediately after his interview ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... said Mrs. Harrington, as she finished reading the hurried scrawl, 'she is pining to come and join us; she says she is much better, but so lonely and homesick that she feels it will be impossible for her to get well until she is safe ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... Celtic inscription has emerged. Instead, we have proof that the lower classes wrote Latin for all sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible that they should not have sometimes written in that language, as the Gauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date could scrawl his name and record, Sacrillos avot, 'Sacrillus potter', on the outside of a mould.[1] No such scrawl has ever been found in Britain. The Gauls, again, could invent a special letter Eth to denote a special Celtic sound and keep it in Roman times. No such letter was used in Roman Britain, ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield

... he was back with a pencilled scrawl from Kress to the effect that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was to be permitted to interview the prisoner Murray outside the guard-house, but sentries must ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... think Saint Paul Such lengthy letters had to scrawl. And so to make his labor lighter I ...
— Confessions of a Caricaturist • Oliver Herford

... recommended a raw beefsteak with a gravity worthy of a Spanish grandee. He was not allowed to see Lottie, who was kept in seclusion as being half culprit, half invalid, and wholly unpresentable; but as he was going away the servant gave him a little note in Lottie's boyish scrawl: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... part their teeth can fasten on." The reference to the rhinoceros is omitted in later editions of the "Origin."), which I thought I might as well point out, and have taken advantage of the same opportunity to scrawl down half a dozen other notes, which may, or may not, be ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... a small envelope bearing my name on a silver tray by the hatstand and open it suspiciously as my wife is divested of her wraps. Inside is a card bearing in an almost illegible scrawl the words: Mrs. Jones. I hastily refresh my recollection as to all the Joneses of my acquaintance, whether in coal, oil or otherwise; but no likely candidate for the distinction of being the husband of my future dinner companion comes to my mind. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... questions. Who stands here As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he, Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge, What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name; 175 Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine. What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what, And therefore on the chance that it may be Some evil, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... globe-trotters. My objection is only to those—alas! too numerous—vagrants who cannot go abroad without casting shame on the country which bred them; whose vulgarity causes offence in church and picture-gallery; who cannot see a monument or a statue without desiring to chip off a fragment, or at least scrawl their ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... by the captain's groom and gentleman, how they talked of him at Mount Juliet's town, making him quite, as one may say, a laughing-stock and a butt for the whole company; but they were soon cured of that by an accident that surprised 'em not a little, as it did me. There was a bit of a scrawl found upon the waiting-maid of old Mr. Moneygawl's youngest daughter, Miss Isabella, that laid open the whole; and her father, they say, was like one out of his right mind, and swore it was the last thing he ever should have thought of, when he invited my master to his house, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... ring marking a childish romance; a flattened and much-dried chocolate drop with tender associations; dance-favors, clippings, photographs, theater programs, each illumined and emphasized by a line or two of sentiment or of nonsense in Jean's girlish scrawl. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... and the situation reports were coming in from the battalions in the line. With his hair sizzling in the flame of the candle, the Brigade Orderly Officer who was on duty for the night tried to decipher the feathery scrawl ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various

... sent on to me. Of course you'll make me your banker until your book's finished—and afterwards, too, if need be. Here's something to be going on with—but I'm coming to London in a day or two, as it happens, and will go into the matter—I'll call on you as soon as I arrive. Excuse this scrawl—post time. Always ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... here and has brought a letter from Catherine. I find it lying by my plate when I come down to breakfast. I take it up, look at the superscription, partly in Catherine's well-known writing, partly in my landlady's spider scrawl—for it had gone first to my London rooms. I turn it over, feel it, decide it contains one sheet of paper only, and put it resolutely down. After breakfast is time enough to read it; nothing she can say shall ever ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... devotion, to Ninette,'" read Harriet, from the inky scrawl across the picture. "Do you call her Ladybird, Nina? You and she have formed a pretty ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... Olympia. After a car had once been placed at your disposal by the Government, getting supplies for it was merely a question of signing bons. Obtaining extra equipment for my car was Roos' chief amusement. Tyres, tools, spare parts, horns, lamps, trunks—all you had to do was to scrawl your name at the foot of a printed form and they were promptly handed over. When I first went to Belgium I was given a sixty horse-power touring car, and when the weather turned unpleasant I asked for and was given a limousine that was big enough to sleep in, and when I found this too clumsy, ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... her letters are not likely to throw much light upon my friend's fate. I dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl. There are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... silently fascinating, especially so because since starting this letter two short raps at my window announce Carlton who comes each night to accompany me to the late post after the landlady is snoozing. His arms are around me as I scrawl, and the thousand tiny little thrills that answer so eagerly to his nearness, assure me that it is not deplorable to ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... to Daphne as she dressed for dinner. It was only a hurried scrawl on a leaf torn from a memorandum book, and, having read it, she passed it on ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... electronic shout, the most powerful and tightly-beamed short-wave transmission which men could generate, directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson

... It was a hasty scrawl to McLean, saying that Ryder was on his way with the museum finds and sending this ahead by runner, and that McLean must positively be at the Cairo Museum to meet him at five and would he please stop on the way and call at his hotel upon a Miss Jeffries and borrow a woman's ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... witnesses could be found to throw any more light on the inquiry than the barn boss himself. And de Spain made only a pretense of a formal investigation. If he had had any doubts about the origin of the fire they would have been resolved by an anonymous scrawl, sent through the mail, promising more if he didn't get out ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... Protestant, "as I am well assured the proprietor of this house is a stanch and worthy friend to the cause." But there were plenty of houses where neither fear nor fanaticism displayed blue banner or chalked scrawl, houses whose owners boasted no safeguard signed by Lord George Gordon, and with these the mob busied themselves. The description in the "Annual Register" is so striking that it deserves to be cited; it is probably from the pen of Edmund ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... composition of Lingua franca, or corrupt Spanish, of unintelligible jargon, consisting of many words quite unintelligible to the Africans, whether Negroes or Moors, or others. The language of this document, although it has some Arabic words in it, is worse, if possible, than the scrawl in which it is written; neither is it a correct translation of the English which precedes it. But purporting to be a letter issued from the accredited servants of the King of the English, it is certainly a disgrace to the country from ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... her right hand. It held a stylograph and had been resting on some scattered sheets of foolscap that Ian had left there in the morning. She had certainly been scrawling on it a little, but she was not aware of having written anything. Yet the scrawl, partly on one sheet and partly on another, was writing, very bad and broken, but still with a resemblance to her own handwriting. She pored over it; then looked Ian in the eyes, her own eyes large with a bewilderment ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Just when it was first seen by a Spanish-speaking person is uncertain. When the Count de Sartiges was at Huadquina in 1834 he was looking for ruins; yet, although so near, he heard of none here. From a crude scrawl on the walls of one of the finest buildings, we learned that the ruins were visited in 1902 by Lizarraga, lessee of the lands immediately below the bridge of San Miguel. This is the earliest local record. Yet some one must have visited Machu Picchu long before ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... female amanuenses are busy with friends, and I fear this scrawl will give you much trouble to read.—With many thanks, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... common, streets, a fragment of character-drawing which smiled visibly and talked audibly. Elfrida in her garret drew a joy from these things. She cut them out and read them over and over again, and put them sacredly away, with Nadie's letters and a manuscript poem of a certain Bruynotin's, and a scrawl from one Hakkoff, with a vigorous sketch of herself, from memory, in pen and ink in the corner of the page, in the little eastern-smelling wooden box which seemed to her to represent the core of her existence. They quickened her pulse, they gave ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... dollar cheque which Lily received with a blotted scrawl from Gus Trenor strengthened her self-confidence in the exact degree to which it ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... understood it. 'Gentlemen,' said Mr Melmotte, in his usual hurried way, 'is it your pleasure that I shall sign the record?' Paul Montague rose to say that it was not his pleasure that the record should be signed. But Melmotte had made his scrawl, and was deep in conversation with Mr Cohenlupe before Paul could get upon ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... a purpose. A purpose that he could very well conceive. But if she lied for that purpose she would have given importance and prominence to her lie. She wouldn't have hidden it away in an almost invisible scrawl ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... said that he had no habits? Every day, when he was away from her, he wrote a letter to his mother, and no swift scrawl at that, for, no matter how crowded and eventful the day, he wrote her the best letter that he could write. That was the only habit he had. He was a ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... "Saw your scrawl on the register," he said, "and I've seen it too often on wheat tickets to forget it. Thought I'd look you up. Maybe can be of some service to you here. What are ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... premised that as Bunker was a lawyer, he wrote a first-rate hand; in fact, he might have bragged of being able to equal, if not surpass, the "Hon." Rufus Choate, whose scrawl more resembles the scratchings of a poor half-drowned in an ink-saucer spider, meandering over foolscap, than quill-driving, and as unintelligible as the marks of a tea-box or hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus of ye ancient Egyptians! In short, Counsellor ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... it gives great firmness of hand to deal for some time with a solid substance; again, that it induces caution and steadiness—a boy trusted with chalk and paper suffers an immediate temptation to scrawl upon it and play with it, but he dares not scrawl on gold, and he cannot play with it; and, lastly, that it gives great delicacy and precision of touch to work upon minute forms, and to aim at producing richness and finish of design correspondent to ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble to ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... scratched on the enamel, as if with the point of a pin, became visible; visible, but not immediately legible, so scratchy were the letters and imperfectly formed the strokes. It was not until the fourth or fifth time of reading that Sir George made out the following scrawl: ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... in which she glanced at her hair that had been superiorly tralala'd. She turned again, reflecting that Lennox must have already received the postal-order, which she had mailed the night before, and wondering whether he had liked her little scrawl of indignant thanks. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... glance at the following reproduction of a snap-shot which I took of this scrawl, you will ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... letters crossed, but mine was a wretched scrawl by the side of yours. I do not know how, with those terrible telegrams beginning to fly round you, you find time to write such letters. I could never have taken the Foreign Office without the heaviest misgiving, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... earnestly that this scrawl will reach Kingcombe Holm. Possibly, no more news of me may ever reach there.—Yet I fear not, for He who is everywhere is likewise in the wild western prairies; and life is not so sweet that I should dread its ending. Still, if it does end, remember me to my brother, my nieces, and all old friends, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... ready apprehension of the meaning of any point clearly put before them, which is very satisfactory. I am now thinking of the twenty or thirty best among our 145 scholars. This is a confused, almost unintelligible scrawl; but I am busy, and not very ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the poor. If the title-deeds had been sold to any one who could claim the property, what would be the consequence? She felt herself in a mist of ignorance and perplexity; dreading the consequences, yet feeling as if her own removal might leave her fortune free to make up for them. She tried to scrawl an explanation; but mind and fingers were alike unequal to the task, and she desisted just as fresh torture began at the doctor's hands—torture from which they sent her mother away, and that left her exhausted, and despairing of holding ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of his right hand was sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines ...
— The Plague • Teddy Keller

... also the passing events. The process tended to suffocate thought, and to hinder progress; for there is continual wandering in the wisest minds, and Truth writes her last words, not on clean tablets, but on the scrawl that Error has made ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... letter up to her bedroom and there read it a number of times. It all seemed wonderful to her, the stamped blue address, the rich white square notepaper, and above all the beautiful handwriting. She thought of her own childish scrawl and blushed, she even sat down, there and then, at her dressing-table and, with a pencil, began to imitate some ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... greatly we depend upon them for some of the quietest pleasures of our lives. But that is the way of human nature, isn't it? We rarely value anything until we lose it; we sigh most ardently for the thing which is beyond our reach, we count our happiest days those across the record of which we now must scrawl, "Too late!" That is why I always feel so infinitely sorry for the blind. The blind can so rarely get away from themselves, and, when they do, only with that effort which in you and me would demand some bigger ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... chicken, I shall scrawl Just what I fancy as I strike it, Fairies and Fusiliers, and all Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl Across my verse in the classic way. And, sir, be careful what you say; There are old-fashioned ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves

... sergeant reverently removed a pile of books and papers from a chair, dusted it, and placed it near an open window, and I amused myself by looking out upon the busy scene in the harbour, while the admiral proceeded to scrawl his signature upon document ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... case came up for trial on this October day, the Court House was well filled indeed, but rather on account of the lawyers engaged than because of the matter's intrinsic interest. The British Merchants had retained Mr. Ludwell Cary. The side of the prisoner, mentioning that fact in a pitiful scrawl addressed to the law office of Messrs. Rand and Mocket, found to its somewhat pathetic surprise that Mr. Rand himself would take the case and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... He was holding a note in his hand, and staring intently at the house and garden. Seeing Cissy, he transferred his stare to her. Snatching the note from him, she tore it open, and read in Piney's well-known scrawl, "Dad won't let me come to you now, dear, but I'll try to slip out late to-night." Why should she want to come? She had said nothing about coming NOW—and why should her father prevent her? Cissy crushed the note between her fingers, and faced ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... print on the reverse side, and the letters showed through in grayish flecks and gave the curious impression as of clouds in the sky. And that little drawing, with less form than a school-boy's blackboard scrawl, was completely transfigured by those gray spots, and because of them it took on for me a deep and dreadful significance. Aided by the dim light in the room the pictured scene became a vision that faded away into ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... largely upon the relative force, exercised by the joint hands. The difficulty in writing arises from the antagonizing motion of one hand upon the other, which is likely to produce an unintelligible scrawl, having little or none of the habitual characteristics of ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... accept your offer, and be very grateful for it, for I do not bear this mountain traveling very well. If you find him, give him this scrawl and tell him where I ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... scrawl hastily with a dry pen that he had not time to dip in the well of ink. The shadow of the Lord Cromwell's silent return was cast upon ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... she showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled her fury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I guess you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... reached him on the reverse side of an invitation to take tea at Merrion—a vague some-day-when-you're-passing sort of invitation, in Neeld's eyes plainly and merely a pretext for writing and an opportunity of conveying the urgent little scrawl on the other side. It arrived at mid-day; in the afternoon Duplay had come and ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... books about the Grubbling domicile, that had been the older child's—Cornelia's—and had descended to Master Herbert, while yet his only pastime in them was to scrawl them full of pencil marks, and tear them into tatters. These, one by one, Glory rescued, and hid away, and fed upon, piecemeal, in secret. She could read, at least—this poor, denied unfortunate. Peter McWhirk had taught ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... his house; sent me a card, half of it printed like a book! t'other half a scrawl could not read; pretended to give a supper; all a mere bam; went without my dinner, and got nothing to eat; all glass and shew: victuals painted all manner of colours; lighted up like a pastry-cook on twelfth-day; wanted something solid, and got a great lump of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... been bad this time. Read that." Fitzpatrick handed Cardepie's scrawl to McTavish, and watched keenly as ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... in his next? I have many things to say; but it is now between 1 & 2 o'Clock in y^e morning, and I find nature flags. I could get no other time to write. I have neither time nor strength to copy, therefore hope the D^r will excuse the scrawl from him who is with much duty & esteem Rev^d & ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... me with a slow, odd smile; Stretched in abandon at my feet, the while, He fanned me idly with his broad-brimmed hat. "Then all young ladies must be formed for that!" He laughed, and said. "Their letters read, and look, As like as twenty copies of one book. They're written in a dainty, spider scrawl, To 'darling, precious Kate,' or 'Fan,' or 'Moll.' The 'dearest, sweetest' friend they ever had. They say they 'want to see you, oh, so bad!' Vow they'll 'forget you, never, never, oh!' And then they tell about a splendid beau— A lovely hat—a charming dress, and send A little scrap of this ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... scrawl through the first time on the store porch. Then, tear-blinded, she started down the hill toward the old wharf at the inlet where she had first seen Hopewell ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... the last mail, so I must send you an extra long scrawl to make up. Thanks so much for your last batch of photographs. I am glad you marked the names on the back, for really it is difficult to believe that that ferocious-looking bearded person is really you! I am glad you have promised to shave it off ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... letter you expect. Then there was my ignorance and your brother James's ignorance to be thrown into the account. For the drawing, Sisson says Dr. Perelli has the description of it already; however, I have insisted on his making a reference to that description in a scrawl we have with much ado extorted from him. I pray to Sir Isaac Newton that the machine may answer: It costs, the stars know what! The whole charge comes to upwards of threescore pounds! He had received twenty pounds, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... science to its present state of disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically {FN16-1} and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect world. One should not dismiss the wisdom ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... Ironhead and Indian Peak a thousand feet above the greening valley; in the riotous din of squirrels and birds interwoven with the booming of frogs from the still ponds; and finally in the announcement tacked upon the post-office door. The two line scrawl in lead pencil did not state in so many words the same tidings which the blue birds were proclaiming from the thicket on the far bank of the Little MacLeod; it merely announced that to-night Pere Marquette and his beloved ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... He found, however, that his head was in a perfect whirl, and that his hand was so unsteady as to make the accomplishment of the task almost an impossibility; but he managed, in an almost illegible scrawl, to inform her of his safe arrival. He asked her to excuse the brevity of his communication, as he was still suffering from the effects of his stormy voyage across the lake, which had shattered, for the time being, his nervous ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... exalted, sits high on his throne, Dividing the heav'ns, dividing my crown, Into poems and business, my skull's split in two, One side for the lawyers, and t'other for you. With my left eye, I see you sit snug in your stall, With my right I'm attending the lawyers that scrawl With my left I behold your bellower a cur chase; With my right I'm a-reading my deeds for a purchase. My left ear's attending the hymns of the choir, My right ear is stunn'd with the noise of the crier. My right hand's inditing these lines to your reverence, My left ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... calculations. Then a short paragraph written in Roger Hunter's hurried scrawl. "No doubt now what it is," the words said. "Wish Johnny were here, show him a real bonanza, but he'll ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse

... John, who ascended the throne after putting out his nephew's eyes with a pair of curling-irons, and who is the first English Sovereign who attempted to write his own name; for the scrawl is evidently something more than his mark, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... for it was open at the portrait of Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... holding me back. I managed to get hold of a blue-paper manuscript book by the favour of one of the officers of our estate. With my own hands I ruled it with pencil lines, at not very regular intervals, and thereon I began to write verses in a large childish scrawl. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... turned hastily to letters from Harry and Jenny. The first was only a scrawl in pencil, written with that boyish reticence which always overcame Harry when he wrote to one of his family; but beneath the stilted phrases she could read his homesickness and his longing for ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... from their oath of allegiance to him. The degraded king writhed in helpless indignation, for he was a captive. With the foolish petulance of a spoiled child, as he affixed his signature in almost an illegible scrawl, he dashed blots of ink upon the paper, and then, tearing the pen to pieces, threw it upon the floor, and trampled it ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... scrawl, telling the lad to change the cheque he enclosed in Bank of England notes and send them to the Rue Chantal, care of Madame Merichat. He was not to expect him back just yet, and was to say to any friend who might inquire ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... there's another one," spoke up William Streeter tersely. "And I've read it—all but the scrawl at the end. There couldn't anybody ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... beech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day, was soft and sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily, through an amethyst haze. The men lay among dandelions. Some watched the horses; others read letters from home, or, haversack for desk, wrote some vivid, short-sentenced scrawl. A number were engaged by the rim of the clear pool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen, and rubbed the soapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it wrathfully, or turning, spread it, grey-white, upon ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... graphoidea^, graphomania^; phrenoia^. writer, scribe, amanuensis, scrivener, secretary, clerk, penman, copyist, transcriber, quill driver; stenographer, typewriter, typist; writer for the press &c (author) 593. V. write, pen; copy, engross; write out, write out fair; transcribe; scribble, scrawl, scrabble, scratch; interline; stain paper; write down &c (record) 551; sign &c (attest) 467; enface^. compose, indite, draw up, draft, formulate; dictate; inscribe, throw on paper, dash off; manifold. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... knock at the door; Jimmy Benyon went and opened it; he came back holding a note, and gave it to May; it was addressed to her husband in a pencil scrawl. "A congratulation for you," she said to Quisante. He glanced carelessly and languidly at it, murmuring, "Read it to me, please," and she broke open the sealed envelope. Inside the writing was as negligent a scribble as on the outside, the writing of a man in bed, with a stump of ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... a claim record, registered in the name of Laird Martin, Earthman. An attached photograph matched what could be seen of face behind its mask of frozen blood. Across the foot of the sheet was a hurried scrawl: ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen

... A little scrawl of a note, delivered just after breakfast at Mr. Elton's door, brought Madeline to visit Mrs. Percival, who, like her mother, seemed to be in continual need ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter



Words linked to "Scrawl" :   hand, scrawler, scratch, write, handwriting, script, squiggle, cacography, scribble, chicken scratch



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