"Smatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always plenty to do, if you'll only do it. I've been cultivating some virtuosities, among other things. Remind me to show you my etchings when we go in. Did you notice, perhaps, that little head over the table, on the north wall? No? Then I smatter botany some. I'll let you look over my hortus siccus before you go. It has some very rare ferns; one of them is a new species, and Fungus—who exchanges with me—swore that he was going to have it ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... monograph—summary of conclusions—salvage from the wreck. But it won't do. It was an edifice to be built up on data, bit by bit, like an atoll. . . . Ever seen a coral reef, by the way? We'll inspect one—many perhaps—on our travels. . . . I'd burn in the pit rather than smatter out popular guess-work. Yes, all personal pride apart, I couldn't do it. But however badly I set down conclusions, they've all rested on data, they've all grown up on data, and I haven't the data. . . . I wrote out half a dozen ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of custom in the fair, While not a soul demands your ware? Where you have nothing to produce For private life, or public use? Court, city, country, want you not; You cannot bribe, betray, or plot. For poets, law makes no provision; The wealthy have you in derision: Of state affairs you cannot smatter; Are awkward when you try to flatter; Your portion, taking Britain round, Was just one annual hundred pound; Now not so much as in remainder, Since Cibber[3] brought in an attainder; For ever fix'd by right divine (A monarch's right) on Grub Street line. Poor ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue, Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost— For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host— No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains, 20 But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains; A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of reviews, By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call "Blues;" A rabble who know not——But soft, here they come! Would to God I were deaf! as I'm not, I'll ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron |
