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Writing   /rˈaɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Writing

noun
1.
The act of creating written works.  Synonyms: authorship, composition, penning.  "It was a matter of disputed authorship"
2.
The work of a writer; anything expressed in letters of the alphabet (especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect).  Synonyms: piece of writing, written material.  "That editorial was a fine piece of writing"
3.
(usually plural) the collected work of an author.
4.
Letters or symbols that are written or imprinted on a surface to represent the sounds or words of a language.  "The doctor's writing was illegible"
5.
The activity of putting something in written form.  Synonym: committal to writing.



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"Writing" Quotes from Famous Books



... the wisdom which would have been allowed her, had she been the Duchess's own daughter, which, to speak the truth, was in those days nothing very profound,—consisting of a little singing and instrumentation, a little embroidery and dancing, with the power of writing her own name and of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... to be ashamed of herself for not writing and letting you know that your father was sick before," said Aunt Maria. "She and Lily Merrill are ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... scarcely an adequate term, madam," answered English Jim. "Nothing can tire my respected chief, and unfortunately, he expects us all to equal him. He found me occupation—writing his letters—until 1 A.M. this morning; and, I believe, must have remained awake himself until it was almost light, making drawings which I have had the pleasure of poring over, all the way across. Don't you think, madam, that it is a mistake to ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... town of Mariquina, and was incarcerated for eighteen months without being definitely convicted or acquitted. Three months after his release from prison he was appointed petty-governor of his own town, much to the disgust of the people, who in vain petitioned against it in writing. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... the king about Einar's business, and I went to him unarmed, as was right, save for helm and Sigurd's sword. He was in the jarl's own chamber, and with him were Thiodolf and a young scald named Harek, who sat with things for writing before him, which was what I had never ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... of ethics has the same use as the study of writing, grammar, or piano-playing. In learning to write we have to think precisely how each letter is formed, how one letter is connected with another, where to use capitals, where to punctuate and the like. But after we have become proficient in writing, we do all this without once thinking ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... care to begin the jog-trot career in which other men toil for twenty years or so, before they attain anything like prosperity. I have studied as few men of five-and-twenty have studied,—chemistry as well as surgery. I can afford to wait my chances. I pick up a few pounds a week by writing for the medical journals, and with that resource and occasional luck with cards, I can very easily support the simple home in which my mother and I live. In the meantime, I am free, and believe me, my dear Reginald, there is nothing ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... binocular," which is certainly a puzzling and roundabout fashion of telling us that he had drunk so much {503} that he saw double. The critics also find fault with his coining such words as "undisprivacied" and with his writing such lines as the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... 28. The writing of the bulk of this work was completed in 1839. These concluding supplementary chapters on the Bengal army seem to have been written a little later, perhaps in 1841, the year in which they were first printed. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... heard a pistol explode in the saloon, and saw the polished writing-bed of the captain's desk scored by a bullet. His gaze shifting to the door, he discovered a neat round hole in one of its rosewood panels. At the same time, to the tune of another report, a second hole appeared, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... "You have been writing to 'Christopher,'" he said, quietly. "I don't want you to send the letter." He was quite pale, but she did not notice it or the tensity of his face; his audacity made her for the ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... during the series of domestic troubles (continued illness in his family) that befell, in writing memoranda for "The Marble Faun." He thus announces to me the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... for the Mercantilist theories of the day. At the time there was some suspicion that the work had been written either by Walpole himself or by his direction. When the Letter from a By-stander was answered by the historian Thomas Carte, an angry pamphlet controversy ensued, with Morris writing under the pseudonym of "A Gentleman of Cambridge." Throughout, Morris showed himself a violent Whig, bitter in his attacks on Charles II and the non-jurors; and it was undoubtedly this fanatical party loyalty which laid the foundation for ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris

... forth he never alluded to him otherwise—had flung "his father's testament" in the fire. He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written, and, consequently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writing, that sacred relic,—all that was his very heart. What had ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Presently a small number of the men returned to a camp-fire, and, building it up, seated themselves about it, gathering closer and closer together until they were in a little knot. One of them appeared to be writing, while two or three took up flaming chunks from the fire and held them as torches for him to see by. In time the entire company assembled about them, standing in respectful silence, broken only occasionally by a reply from one or another to some question from the scribe. After a little ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... this writing in the snow so understandingly that the boys actually paid more attention to his explanations than to the discovery of the game he ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... comes of Mrs Moss writing a book," he muttered, "and being a philosophical character. What business had she to go publishing all that wonderful big volume above my mantel-piece—'Woman's Dignity; developed in Dialogues?' Without that she never would have found out that I could not be a sympathizing companion without the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... the consulting-room and there detached and examined its contents. He smoothed out the crumpled morsel with his customary deliberation, drawing his shaggy red brows together over a few lines of minute writing which became visible as he ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... incident which occurred in Manchuria in August, 1916: the second is the Lao-hsi-kai affair which took place in Tientsin in November of the same year and created a storm of rage against France throughout North China which at the moment of writing has not ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... bewilderment. One was in Reginald's writing, written three weeks ago; two were from himself to his mother, written last week, and the last was from ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... simply intolerable, and was intensified by the smell of fresh paint. Pausing a little, he decided to advance farther into the small low room. He became impatient when he found no one took any notice of him. In an inner room were seated a number of clerks engaged in writing. He went up ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... Lambert. One or two unsuccessful attempts to find him at home, with the intermediate procrastinations well known to men of business, prevented my seeing him till yesterday, and have led me on to this moment, through a perpetual remorse of conscience for not writing to you, and in the constant belief that it would be to morrow and to morrow. At length, I have seen him, paid him the eighty-five livres which you have been so kind as to advance for me, and am actually at my writing table, returning ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the blizzard, and carry her off into either danger or safety. There was none of my Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved with as much prompt decision as I did on the field of Shiloh, where, I have the captain's word for it in writing, I behaved with ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... respect of the work that every elementary school is doing and always must do, no matter how much hand work or vocational material it may introduce. My problem, in other words, concerns the ordinary subject-matter of the curriculum,—reading and writing and arithmetic, geography and grammar and history,—those things which, like the poor, are always with us, but which we seem a little ashamed to talk about in public. Truly, from reading the educational journals and hearing educational discussion to-day, the layman might well infer ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... indicate the sources of affluence and culture which aided so materially in developing this architecture, and to describe the life and manners of the time which determined its design and arrangement. Such a book the authors have sought to make the present volume, and both Mr. Riley in writing the text and Mr. Cousins in illustrating it have been actuated primarily by architectural rather than historic values, although in most instances worthy of ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins

... in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, where the room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. From the big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silver frames, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-colour sea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... served me an excellent supper with plenty of ice and cooling drinks, and taught me the use of the "swizzle stick" for mixing them. I am sure he did not omit a thing he could think of for my comfort. He had been gone for some time, and I had been writing letters, turning over the engineer's books, and finally dozing in his chair, when I was startled by sounds from his bedroom, as if O'Brien were engaged, first in high argument, and then in deadly struggle with some intruder. I rushed to his assistance, and found him ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... next afternoon's mail he received a note from New York, with a few words of comment penciled on it in Dick's writing. "This came this evening. I sent back the money. D." The note was from Gregory and had evidently enclosed a one-hundred dollar bill. It began without superscription: "Enclosed find a hundred dollars, as I imagine funds may be short. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Asked why, in writing to Theria, she had said she was lost unless he got hold of the box, she replied that she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... "preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations," wrung his nerveless hands in despair over his own powerlessness—as he construed the Constitution—to prevent Secession! Before writing his pitifully imbecile Message, President Buchanan had secured from his Attorney-General (Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania) an opinion, in which the latter, after touching upon certain cases in which he believed the President ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... he wrote this book twelve years ago, and only rewrote it at the instance of the publishers, but no one who has met Tolstoy and become acquainted with him can doubt that he has been collecting material, thinking, planning, and writing on that ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... could be surveyed in its entirety. In the foreground lay the level valley of the Meuse, with the towns of St. Mihiel and Banoncour nestling upon the green landscape. Beyond and behind the valley rose a tier of hills on which the French at this writing obstinately hold an intrenched position, checking the point of the German wedge, while the French forces from north and south beat upon the sides of the triangle, trying to force it back across the Meuse and out from the vitals of the French ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... Dellie's and Morgan's lessons, after which I open my desk and am lost in the mysteries of Arithmetic, Geography, Blair's Lectures, Noel et Chapsal, Ollendorff, and reading aloud in French and English, besides writing occasionally in each, and sometimes a peep at Lavoisne, until very nearly dinner. The day is not half long enough for me. Many things I would like to study I am forced to give up, for want of leisure to devote to them. But one of these days, I will make up for present deficiencies. I study ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... than forty years ago. My hand is weary with writing: why should I tell you more? There is indeed little more to tell, for from that time, thank God, there have been no mischances in my life. Yet maybe those who have read my story patiently hereto (if any there be) may like to have it ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... Hamilton's grounds. Our kind hostess showed me into a small study, where she said Old Mortality was written. The window commanded a beautiful view of many of the localities described. Scott was as particular to consult for accuracy in his local descriptions as if he had been writing a guide book. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... or write, there is an air of mystery in the art of writing which much enhances the value of a scrap of paper upon which is written a verse from the Koran. A few piastres are willingly expended in the purchase of such talismans, which are carefully and very neatly sewn into small envelopes of leather, and are worn by all people, being ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... scarce a sentence can be detected which offends against logical accuracy, or defies critical analysis. In this Latin stands alone. The powerful intellect of an Aeschylus or Thucydides did not prevent them from transgressing laws which in their day were undiscovered, and which their own writing helped to form. Nor in modern times could we find a single language in which the idioms of the best writers could be reduced to conformity with strict rule. French, which at first sight appears to offer such an instance, is seen on a closer view to be fuller of illogical ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... up my pad of paper and resumed my writing. And reviewing my writing, I had to smile at myself, even as I used to smile at Captain Blaise when he would submit his couplets or quatrains for my judgment. He might marshal off-hand a stanza or two of his vagabond thoughts, but ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... to be useful, his passion to proclaim his belief aloud, Pierre one morning found himself at his table writing a book. This had come about quite naturally; the book proceeded from him like a heart-cry, without any literary idea having crossed his mind. One night, whilst he lay awake, its title suddenly flashed before his eyes in the darkness: "NEW ROME." That expressed everything, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... protest and a deliverance. For seven years I had written continuously of Canada, though some short stories of South Sea life, and the novel Mrs. Falchion, had, during that time, issued from my pen. It looked as though I should be writing of the Far North all my life. Editors had begun to take that view; but from the start it had never been my view. Even when writing Pierre and His People I was determined that I should not be cabined, cribbed, and confined in one field; that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... cheque inside it, was now yellowed, and the writing faint, but I had kept them both. I would write to him some day, I had thought, and send him back the cheque, and my mother's letter as well, and then perhaps the hard old man would forgive me, and write ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... outer door, and the door beyond it, and led them into a long high room, with desks and forms placed against the walls, and a writing table, and line of brown-stained tables down the middle. Opposite the windows there was a curious structure of shelves partitioned into lockers, and filled with rows ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... One evening after writing all day without any recreation, I went down to dinner, feeling a bit tired but rather satisfied with my day's work. I said to my waitress while looking over the bill of fare: "Tilly, I have worked hard today; I feel that I deserve a halo!" Tilly looked at me for a moment, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... essential to the restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two Governments." Sir Edward waited just long enough to hear from Lord Granville by cable, and on the day after the receipt of Mr. Fish's note assented in writing to his suggestions, adding a request that "all other claims of the citizens of either country, arising out of the acts committed during the recent civil war in the United States, might be taken into consideration by the Commission." To this Mr. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... them,—who can sympathize with what then we felt? It is this that makes poetry, and that page which we create as a confidant to ourselves, necessary to the thoughts that weigh upon the breast. We write, for our writing is our friend, the inanimate paper is our confessional; we pour forth on it the thoughts that we could tell to no private ear, and are relieved, are consoled. And if genius has one prerogative dearer than the rest, it is that which enables ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... her obstinate behaviour, he thought that writing might perhaps succeed, though ogling, speeches, and embassies had failed. Paper receives everything, but it unfortunately happened that she would not receive the paper. Every day billets, containing the tenderest expressions, and most magnificent promises, were slipped into her pockets, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... forget to dress, but you'd never catch one without a full magazine pencil and a lot of blank paper," he grinned in reply and went on, writing as he talked. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... home to his lodgings quite satisfied with the conclusion the case had come to. Entering the sitting room, he found Mr. Palsey still busy writing, though the dinner was ready and fast ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... night long she dreamed of her brothers. They were children again playing together, writing with their diamond pencils upon their golden slates, and looking at the beautiful picture-book which had cost half a kingdom. But on the slates they were not writing as they had been accustomed to do, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... only over a fickle, but a gossiping (bavard) people, whom he has prudently forbidden all conversation and writing concerning government of the State. They would soon (accustomed as they are, since the Revolution, to verbal and written debates) be tired of talking about fine weather or about the opera. To occupy them and their attention, some ample subject of diversion was necessary, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... secs. for recalling and writing each term in A^{1-12} and 9 sec. in A^{13-16}. If a word was recalled after that time it was inserted, but no further insertions were made after the test of a series had been completed. An interval of 3 min. elapsed between the end of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... for my sake I ask this," said Waife, frankly, "though I might say it was for yours;" the Oxonian promised, and was bound. Fortunately Lady Montfort quitted the great house the very day after George had first encountered the basketmaker, and writing word that she should not return to it for some weeks, George was at liberty to avail himself of her lord's general invitation to make use of Montfort Court as his lodgings when in the neighbourhood; which the proprieties of the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... most fitting and opportune also to mention the fact that at the very time I am writing there is a proposal in the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD to do something to perpetuate our gratitude to John Macarthur. It is not often that one man has the opportunity of establishing two such great industries as wine-making and wool-growing. The benefits to ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... present emperor, on the other, he is described as the fourth son of Ukay Fukiaezu no Mikoto, who was fifth in direct descent from the beautiful sun-goddess, Tensho-Daijin. But as no such thing as writing existed in Japan in those days, or for many centuries afterward, it would not be surprising if a real monarch should have a mythical origin assigned to him; and as I have quite lately heard the guns firing at Nagasaki an imperial salute in honor of his coronation, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Aquinas and ask yourself how much is left of the language or the mind of Rome. The eye of the antiquary sees the Basilica in the Cathedral, but what essential resemblance does the Roman place of judicature and business bear to that marvellous and fantastic poetry of religion writing its hymns in stone? In the same manner the Roman castra are traceable in the form as well as the designation of the mediaeval castella. But what resemblance did the feudal militia bear to the legionaries? And what became of the Roman art of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... as would be serviceable to themselves and injurious to the United States, I forbid her proceeding while the enemy shall be so disposed as to prevent a reasonable possibility of her getting to sea without falling into their possession."[175] At this writing the British had left the Potomac itself, and the most of them were above. A week later, at Charleston, a ship called the "Caroline" was visited by a United States naval officer, and found with a license from Cockburn to carry a cargo, free from molestation by ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... convenient to us when you have confessed everything in writing," Virginia flung at her, stung into mercilessness by the woman's brazen defiance. "Then, and not before, you ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... clad, going from office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary subject, to sell, sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and begging for him, mentioning nothing but that "he was ill," whatever might be the reason for his writing nothing, and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a half since, but she did not desert ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... one cherished object,—that of worthily writing the history of the United States,—Bancroft did not deny himself the pleasure of roaming in other fields. He wrote frequently on current topics, on literary, historical, and political subjects. His eulogies of Jackson and of Lincoln, pronounced before Congress, entitle him to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... books were scarce and at the same time necessary, and the only way to get new ones was to copy from old ones, the monasteries were soon led to take up the work once carried on by the publishing houses of ancient Rome, and in much the same way. This made writing necessary, and the novices had to be instructed carefully in this, as well as in reading. [7] The chants and music of the Church called for instruction of the novices in music, and the celebration of Easter and the fast and festival days of the Church called for some rudimentary instruction in ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... means soon exactly fulfilled. However, I cannot but here take notice of Grotius's positive assertion upon Matthew 26:9, here quoted by Dr. Hudson, that "it ought to be taken for granted, as a certain truth, that many predictions of the Jewish prophets were preserved, not in writing, but by memory." Whereas, it seems to me so far from certain, that I think it has no evidence ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... other adventures. And a mighty chain of events, causes and effects, brought it to its present condition, and the later is but one of the chain of events which will go to produce other events hundreds of years from now. One of the series of events arising from the tiny bit of soot was the writing of these lines, which caused the typesetter to perform certain work; the proofreader to do likewise; and which will arouse certain thoughts in your mind, and that of others, which in turn will affect others, and so on, and on, and on, beyond the ability of man to think ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates

... contradicted. "Don Luis didn't want us in his mine at all, and showed us that as plainly as he could. All the work he wanted out of us was the writing of two signatures. The need of the signatures was all that ever made him bring us down from the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... a few feigned sighs; and so their excuse is, their mistress is cruel, and they smother passions with patience. Such, gentle forester, we may deem you to be, that rather pass away the time here in these woods with writing amorets, than to be deeply enamored (as you say) of your Rosalynde. If you be such a one, then I pray God, when you think your fortunes at the highest, and your desires to be most excellent, then that you may with Ixion embrace Juno in a cloud, and have nothing ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... have been gulping down so many reckless words, burying so many reflections in my bosom, and accumulating such a store of things to tell, fit for your ear alone, that I should certainly have been suffocated but for the resource of letter-writing as a sorry substitute for our beloved talks. How hungry one's heart gets! I am beginning my journal this morning, and I picture to myself that yours is already started, and that, in a few days, I shall be at home in your beautiful Gemenos valley, which I know only ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... of beer, or playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. In the adjoining room, some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the light of a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers, yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age, writing, for the hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose heart it would never touch. In a third, a man, with his wife ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... it is, does not seem to satisfy him; for I have observed that he no sooner fills a page with writing, than he burns it to ashes by the gas jet, which he always keeps faintly lighted above ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... a "charming mezzo-soprano," and declared that "RIP VAN WINKLE" was a more delightful translation from the French than had been seen for many a day. Occasionally SPIFFKINS eked out his salary by writing letters to the provincial press. In this respect he was invaluable, because his letters contained, about things in New York, information which never appeared in the New York papers; so that when a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... and writing I teach. And spelling-books many I've edited. And for bringing those arts within reach, That donkey Minerva gets credited. Then I scrape at the stars with a knife, And plate-powder the moon (on the days for it). And ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... complain to dolour when we two meet.... And this is more plain than ever I spoke, to let you know you have a companion in trouble."[89] Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can look at the two together for the length of a phrase. "After the writing of this preceding," writes Knox, "your brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe, did advertise me by writing, that your adversary (the devil) took occasion to trouble you because that I did start back from you rehearsing your infirmities. I remember myself so to have done, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the editors, I now transcribe it bodily here, for, without any gleam of romance or adventure, the experience was one typical of the land and of our life here, which I believe the generous reader will be willing to accept without any attempt on my part to embellish it with excitement and lurid writing. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. Take thou the writing: thine it is. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel—who but thou? So now, in the end, if this the least be good, If any deed be done, if any ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... When the bill was reported by the committee, it was discovered that certain most despotic provisions had been interpolated in it, especially one conferring upon the employer the power to bring before any Justice of the Peace every working-man who had contracted verbally or in writing to do any work whatsoever, in case of refusal to work or other misbehaviour, and have him condemned to prison with hard labour for two months, upon the oath of the employer or his agent or overlooker, i.e., upon the oath of the accuser. This bill aroused the working-men ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... poor lieutenant who bore their name. A word of kindness or acknowledgement, or a single glance of approbation, might have changed Esmond's opinion of the great man; and instead of a satire, which his pen cannot help writing, who knows but that the humble historian might have taken the other side of panegyric? We have but to change the point of view, and the greatest action looks mean; as we turn the perspective-glass, and a giant appears a pigmy. You may describe, but who can tell ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... that all this will sound to many, much more like romance than sober reality; but I have determined, in writing this book, to state facts, however wonderful, just as they are; confident that they will, before long, be universally received, and hoping that the many wonders in the economy of the honey bee will not only excite a wider interest in its culture, but will ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... "While writing a poem some one tapped me on the shoulder and said—let not a murderer take the presidential chair, avenge my death. I could clearly see Mr. McKinley's features. Before the Almighty God, I swear that the above written is nothing but ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... would go to bed. As I was pulling off my coat, I found the note that had been given to me. Blaming myself for my carelessness, I pulled it out of my pocket and opened it. As I unfolded the sheet, I noticed it was written in what looked like a disguised hand. Strange! I thought. The writing was small and faint. I rubbed my eyes and held it ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... It's very warm to-day; and as I didn't feel like reading or writing, I thought I'd ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... free person of color shall be allowed to preach, exhort or teach, in any meeting of slaves or free persons of color, for public worship or religious instruction in this city, but except at funerals or sitting up with the dead, without a license in writing from the Inferior Court of Richmond County, and Mayor of the City, regularly granted under the Act of the General Assembly of this State, passed on the 23rd day of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... don't think he will!" murmured Maryllia graciously; "He will be writing poetry all the time, you see! Besides, with you and Sir Morton as neighbours, how CAN he feel dull? Won't ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... half a century before, from the French of the Canadas, a title which has been borne by so many of the heroes of France, and which had now been adopted into the language of the wild horde of whom we are writing, as the one most expressive of the deeds of their own brave. The murmur of Le Balafre, that ran through the assembly when he appeared, announced not only his name and the high estimation of his character, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... singular-looking upright Indian "papoose-case" or cradle, glaringly decorated with beads and paint, probably an Aztec relic. On a round table, the velvet cover of which showed marks of usage and abusage, there were scattered books and writing materials; and my editorial instinct suddenly recognized, with a thrill of apprehension, the loose leaves of an undoubted manuscript. This circumstance, taken with the fact of Donna Urania's hair being parted on one side, and the general ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... and then say just as much as you please. Of course I should not press her at first. You might ask me to dinner, and all that kind of thing, and so she would get used to me. It is not as though we had not been very, very old friends. But I know you will do the best. I have put off writing to you till I sometimes think that I shall go mad over it if ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... he made was preceded by a single long-drawn hacking cough, which might have been caused by the force of habit or the incipient workings of disease. He was seated in the galley, abaft the foremast of the brig, and when the passenger showed himself at the door of the galley, he had been engaged in writing in a square record-book, which he closed the instant the visitor darkened the aperture ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... contained descriptions of her travels and all she had seen, ending up with: "When I see my girls, I will tell you all I have been writing now, and a great deal more, and will expect to hear more fully than they have been able to write me all that has happened to them during the last six months. I am counting the hours till I see you all again. Good-by till then, dear girls. Your ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... drunk or sober, express a wish for the disseveration of the two countries, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America. This he expressly states in a letter to his son, so that he stands condemned by his own hand-writing of the most gross duplicity for ulterior purposes. It is pitiable to see a mind so highly gifted as was that of Franklin stoop so low in a matter of such momentous consequences The eyes of all America were turned towards him as their champion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... picnic happened, and it was a good one. Evan enjoyed himself so well he forgot to write Frankie her weekly letter. He would have had to mention Julia in it, anyway, and perhaps it was as well to omit writing altogether. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... Writing prefaces, it seems, has never been a popular task with book-makers, and playwrights have a no less weighty burden ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... "Writing to each other," said Lucy, returning the letter into her pocket, "is the only comfort we have in such long separations. Yes, I have one other comfort in his picture, but poor Edward has not even that. If he had but my picture, he says he should be easy. I gave him a lock of my hair set in a ring ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... of God. Soon the consciousness of the babe in her womb would be a growing wonder and a growing happiness. There would be a new brightness in the house where the aged mother waits through the months and the dumb father with his writing tablet at his side meditates upon the meaning of the providence of God and upon the prophecies of the angel as to his child's future. But what that future would be he could hardly expect to witness; he was too old to live to the day of his child's ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... author has his own manner of writing; we have, then, to study the language of the author, the peculiar senses in which he used words.[136] This purpose is served by lexicons to a single author, as Meusel's Lexicon Caesarianum, in which are brought together all the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... conclusion. The editor of the "Manchester Examiner," writing over the well-Known signature of "Verax," recently published a long article, censuring the policy of aggressive Freethought, and declaring that to laugh at the absurdities of the Bible was to insult the human race. We might as well, he said, ...
— Comic Bible Sketches - Reprinted from "The Freethinker" • George W. Foote

... splintered pieces of bone, without showing any other evidence of workmanship, have linear incisions, like those on some of the stones, which suggest some kind of cryptic writing like ogams. There are also a few water-worn shells, like those seen on a sandy beach, having round holes bored through them and sharply-cut scratches on their pearly inner surface. But on the whole the edible molluscs are but feebly represented, as only five oyster, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... word to the executors to have the box forwarded to me by express, and awaited its coming with no little interest, and, it must be confessed, with some anxiety; for I am apt to be depressed by the literary lucubrations of those of my friends who, devoid of the literary quality, do yet persist in writing, and for as long a time as I had known Bragdon I had never experienced through him any sensations save those of exhilaration, and I greatly feared a posthumous breaking of the spell. Poet in feeling as I thought him, I could hardly imagine a poem written by my friend, and while I had little ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... may say jealous, affection for me. To him I had dared impart that I did not trust your new secretary; that he looked like a man I once knew who was a determined opponent of the party now trying to elect you; that a specimen of his writing would make me quite sure, and begged him to get it. I thought he might pick up such in the little office below, but he was never able to do so—Mr. Steele has taken care not to leave a line written in this house—but ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... that, Elisha, who was perhaps busy writing, did not even come to the door or the window. He ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... ten years before, General Sherman had suggested a different method of dispensing with the Indian. Writing ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... but had felt herself stirred up to bring it that evening.—Nothing came in yesterday. I met this morning with some of the labourers again for prayer, as I have now been doing daily for about a fortnight, and we again asked the Lord for help, with regard to the writing of the Report, that He would let His blessing rest upon it, bless the intended public meetings, when the account of the Lord's dealings with us will be given, convert the children, give the needful grace and wisdom to us who are engaged in the work, give us means ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... round him, and evidently suffering all the torture of a man of fashion, forced to smile on the holder of his last mortgage. He is ruined—not worth a sixpence; Melton and Newmarket have settled that question for him. But do you recognise that hand?" He drew a letter from his portfolio. I knew the writing: it was from my mother—on whom, now old and feeble, this accomplished roue had been urging the sale of her jointure. Helpless and alone, she had consented to this fatal measure; and my noble brother's visit to the Israelite had been for the purpose of inducing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... corpse, or some similar object of criminal law, and these are hallucinations like classical ghosts, then are we likely to be much deceived. Hoppe[2] enumerates hallucinations of apparently sound (?) people. 1. A priest tired by mental exertion, saw, while he was writing, a boy's head look over his shoulder. If he turned toward it it disappeared, if he resumed writing it ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... long march on Thursday evening to find the pass signed, stamped, and ready. On the following night I could go to London, and I spent the evening 'phoning, wiring, and writing to town, arranging matters for the day ahead. Also, I asked some friends to have dinner with me at seven o'clock ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... brought into a port, the captors make a writing, called libel, stating the facts of the capture, and praying that the property may be condemned; and this paper is filed in the proper court. If it shall be made to appear that the property was taken ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... whose mother managed to give him some education in writing and ciphering, was advised by her to go to a certain rich merchant who was in the habit of lending capital to poor men of good family. The youth went; and, just as he entered the house, that rich man was angrily talking to ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... warning, and get him back to the burrow-town that he's fit for, and no keep skelping about here, destroying the few deer that are left in the country, and pretending to act as a magistrate, and writing letters to the great folk at Auld Reekie, about the disturbed state of the land. Let him ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... two or three hours were his limit. And what but his own system, his own orderliness and perseverance could have accomplished his task? In preparing his books he had a special set of shelves for each, standing on or near his writing-table, one shelf for each chapter. The maxim, "Early to bed, and early to rise," was his essentially, and regularity kept all balanced. Rising at six, he took a cold plunge bath, breakfasted simply, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... him out of his bed before noon? Would it have once cheered him under a fit of the spleen? Would it have induced him to give us one more allegory, one more life of a poet, one more imitation of Juvenal? I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... The words won't come. He gazes at his uncle helplessly. Mr. Reiss goes slowly to the writing-table and sits down. Taking a blank cheque from a pocket-book he always carries, he fills it in and passes it ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... Wright did not heed him. His eyes were fixed on the big writing-desk, on the line of black japanned letter-trays set out in orderly array. Outside, the short winter afternoon was drawing in fast, and the light was failing. Dusky shadows within the library made it difficult ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... Swinburne," said Togo, offering me his hand as I sat down. "You have spoken pretty much as I expected you would." Then, turning to one of the officers who had been busily writing all the time that I was ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... line, illustrating various meanings of the word malus, an apple, seems appropriate, as a commencement, to writing about apples; it is I think very little known, and too good to be forgotten. Malo, malo, malo, malo; it ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... day arrived a servant from the Park, bringing a delicate little lilac envelope, stamped with a tiny rose, and directed to Miss Merrifield. There was another rose on the top of the lilac paper; and the writing was in ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge



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