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Penmanship   Listen
noun
Penmanship  n.  The use of the pen in writing; the art of writing; style or manner of writing; chirography; as, good or bad penmanship.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Penmanship" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fire-light, smoking his brier-wood, he noticed that the man next him spent a great deal of time poring over a letter, holding it close to the blaze, now at arm's-length, which was hardly surprising, considering the penmanship of the more common variety of billet-doux. The man was plainly disappointed that Peter would not notice or comment. Finally he folded it up, and with sentimental significance returned ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... a forgery there are a dozen methods for detecting it—in the quality of the ink, in the quality of paper, in microscopic examination of the irregularities in penmanship, in "labored" tracings that show exaggerated tracings, in composite photography, and by a dozen little common-sense observations that ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... better to go to the Bank through Holborn or through the Strand: the particular case being given, it may then be possible to answer the question; previously it is impossible.——Three chapters therefore remain, viz.—Chap. IV. on Languages; Chap. V. on Elocution; and Chap. VI. on Penmanship. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... not that such tracks are easily traced. None but a practised and ready eye can follow them to any advantageous end. To trace them even at a snail's pace, for an unpractised eye, is like the child putting pen and ink to paper through his first copy-book of penmanship. Many and many an awful blot and horribly crooked line will doubtless carry the simile fully and strikingly to the mind. But the result which crowned Kit's effort showed conclusively that, notwithstanding he had followed the trail for over one hundred and thirty miles, he had made ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... museum at first, as it was to be shown. But it's written too plain, in a big round hand—all in capitals. What can it be?" And Gwen sat there puzzling, turning the word this way and that, looking all the lovelier for the ripple of amusement on her face at the absurd penmanship of the neophyte. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... Immediately I was a famous author. All men praised me: for of reviewers and their density I, in those days, knew nothing. Poetry, fiction, history, I wrote them all; and all men read, and wondered. Only here was a crumpled rose leaf in the pillow on which I laid my swelling head: penmanship was vexation to me, and spelling puzzled me, so that I wrote with sorrow and many blots and scratchings out. Almost I put aside the idea of becoming ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... Such opportunities as were afforded the common farmers' boys of New England in the eighteenth century young Joshua diligently improved, and became a close student, and well qualified as a teacher of common schools of his day. His specialties were mathematics, penmanship, bookkeeping, business science and forms, and navigation. And he continued to do more or less in this profession until fifty years of age. He was converted among the first fruits of Methodist labors in ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er

... generally interesting nature. I am willing to admit every degree of merit to the manual dexterity of the cloistered student. I admire his snow-white vellum missals, emblazoned with gold, and sparkling with carmine and ultramarine blue. By the help of the microscopic glass, I peruse his diminutive penmanship, executed with the most astonishing neatness and regularity; and often wish in my heart that our typographers printed with ink as glossy black as that which they sometimes used in their writing. I admire all this; and now and then, for a guinea or two, I purchase ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... In particular they brought up a libel, or rather a complete digest of libellous matter, from the club called the Friends of the People. It is, indeed, at once the most audacious and the most insidious of all the performances of that kind which have yet appeared. It is said to be the penmanship of Mr. Tierney, to bring whom into Parliament the Duke of Portland formerly had taken a good deal of pains, and expended, as I hear, a considerable sum ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... rose and seated myself at a respectful distance while the King read what I had written, and marvelled, exclaiming, "O the miracle, that an ape should be gifted with this graceful style and this power of penmanship! By Allah, 'tis a wonder of wonders!" Presently they set before the King choice wines in flagons of glass and he drank: then he passed on the cup to me; and I kissed the ground and drank and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... green and gold, came in to ask if there were any letters for the post; and our friends hastily made up their packet, directing it to the editor of the Swillingford 'GUIDE TO GLORY AND FREEMAN'S FRIEND'; words that in the hurried style of Mr. Sponge's penmanship looked very like 'GUIDE TO ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... come to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand," as we used to call our office in those days, from its site in St. Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further reference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at my beautiful penmanship. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... be a discoverer. Also, Punch, get into a habit of taking notes, and learn to write a good hand, for editors and publishers won't care to be bothered with you if you don't, and maybe the time will come when you won't be able to make out your own writing. I've known men of that stamp, whose penmanship suggested the idea that a drunk fly had dipped its legs in the ink-pud an' ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... the first letter from her husband, and in the midst of all her anxiety as to the contents, she could not but linger a moment on the aspect of the Honourable Mrs. Colin Keith in his handwriting; there was a carefulness in the penmanship that assured her that, let him have to tell her what he would, the very inditing of that address had been enjoyment to him. That the border was black told nothing, but the intelligence was such as she had been fully prepared for. Colin had arrived to find the surgeon's work over, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... me—I cannot tell you how—that he knew what the letter had to tell, and had been expecting it. The handwriting was indeed Miss Plinlimmon's, although it ran across the paper in an agitated scrawl most unlike her usual neat Italian penmanship. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... characters could be divined through penmanship, he was susceptible to the form of letters as to elegance of drawing. The writing of Therese charmed him, and he liked its openness, the bold and simple turn of its lines. He looked at the addresses without reading them, with an ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... all, a yellow, dingy wafer filled up the place of the green wax we had expected, and the true lover's motto, "Though lost to sight, to memory dear," was supplied by the impression of a thimble. We opened it. Horror and amazement! never was such penmanship beheld. The lines were complete exemplifications of the line of beauty, so far as their waving, and twisting, and twining was concerned; and the orthography it was past all human ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... draughtsman or as a painter. His reputation, indeed, rests mainly on his supposed exquisitely pure and tender feeling. His colour is admittedly inferior, his handling is not highly praised by any one, his drawing has been much praised, but it is of a penmanship freehand kind which is particularly apt to take people in. Of course he could draw in some ways, no one giving all his time to art and living in Raffaelle's surroundings could, with even ordinary pains, help becoming a facile ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... to write memoirs, but I put it off with the excuse that it was more than enough for me to live through my life, without transcribing it to paper. If I were married I could certainly dictate somewhat of it to my wife now and then. But I am glad to keep out of the bothers of penmanship, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... in the way of costume, for the very plenitude of his wardrobe was the cause which produced this effect, inasmuch as the word "received" in the veritable autograph of Messrs. Moleskin and Corderoy could nowhere be discovered annexed to the bills thereof: a slight upon their powers of penmanship which roused their individual, collective, and coparcenary ires to such a pitch, that they, Messrs. Moleskin and Corderoy, through the medium of their Attorneys-at-law, Messrs. Gallowsworthy and Pickles, of Furnival's Inn, forwarded a writ ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... paper an' ink to? I be setting out the things against Will comes in. He axed for 'em to be ready, 'cause theer's a deal o' penmanship afore him to-night. An' wheer's that li'l dictionary what I gived un years ago? ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... it was a pleasure to listen to his reminiscences. He wrote as well as he talked. His pointed and lucid style gave to his printed performances a semblance of cogency which they did not really possess; and his letters—even his shortest notes—were as exquisite in wording as in penmanship. As he grew older, he became increasingly sensible of the charms of "Auld Lang Syne," and he delighted to renew his acquaintance with the scenes and associations ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... not much. He died in England, and was buried in a country church-yard much the same as Kiltartan. But Napoleon the First was a great man; it was given out of him there never would be so great a man again. But he hadn't much education, and his penmanship was bad. Every great man gave in to superstition. He gave into it when he went to ask the gipsy woman to divine, and she told him his fate. Through fire and a rock she said that he would fall. I suppose the rock ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... across the street that they cannot bear the sight of, the man is thrown on his gallantry and his pride of family, and without translating his feelings into plain language, he goes into extortion and issuing of false stock and skillful penmanship in writing somebody else's name at the foot of a promissory note; and they all go down together—the husband to the prison, the wife to the sewing machine, the children to be taken care of by those who were called poor relations. Oh, for some new ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... of the divine art and leave nothing but horrid technicalities about consecutive fifths and suspensions on the dominant? I dare say most people still think of the musician as a being who lives in an enchanted world of sound, rather than as a person greatly occupied with tedious feats of penmanship; just as I myself still think of a prima ballerina not as a hard-working gymnast but as a fairy, whose existence ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... is obviously the condensation and the absolute mechanical sameness of print. The advantage of these differences to the eye in respect to rapid reading is hardly to be overestimated. Let any one take a specimen of average penmanship and note the time which he consumes in reading it; let him compare with this the time occupied in reading the same number of printed words, and the difference will be startling; but not even so will it do justice to print, for handwriting average in quality ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... apprehending it to be 'true.') So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the 'error.' And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,') expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise, for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... blazon his own pretended arms, and I felt much inclined to burst into laughter, partly because I did not understand a word he said, and partly because he seemed to think the matter as important as would a country squire with his thirty-two quarters. However, I was delighted to see his dexterity in penmanship, which was undoubtedly very great, and I expressed my satisfaction to Viar, who soon left us to ourselves. We ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking at the sacred images and prints, the tableau over the mantelpiece, which told, with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent pupils in learning ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... telegraph, critics have discovered one of the most delicate and informing of the lost arts—the epistolary. But to the average hand, wearied by heavy tools, the lightsome goose quill, committing its owner to dubious spelling and clumsy penmanship, and exposing the interior of his intellect, was a dreaded thing. When old Black Hawk signed a treaty he was wont to say that he had "touched it with the goose quill." He made only a little mark whereupon a kind of sanctity was imparted to the document. Every man unaccustomed to ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... himself by teaching and by preparing boys for college. It so happened that two years after he was the preceptor of an academy at North Pownal, Vermont, a student from Williams College, named James A. Garfield, came there and taught penmanship in the same academy ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... were decorated with the work of the Indian pupils in penmanship, literary composition, arithmetic, sewing, lace work, bead work, and basketry. Every school in the service was represented in this display, except Carlisle, Phoenix, and Riverside. The exhibit was remarkable for its beauty and extent. In the model dining room the tables, dishes, napkins, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... cheerfully. She had never been selfish in her life, and of course she spoke no word to dissuade him; but, though she had but few letters from him, and those of the briefest possible kind,—for Sir Harry was not fond of penmanship,—those six weeks were far from being unhappy. How could they be, when they were all so good to her, Mattie thought?—when her opinion was deferred to even by her mother, and when her brothers and sisters treated her with such ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... due west, the birds strangely silent, and the wood of the house tingling with cold; I believe it must have been 60 degrees! Consequence; Fanny has a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. (I am trying all round for a place to hold my pen; you will hear why later on; this to explain penmanship.) I wrote two pages, very bad, no movement, no life or interest; then I wrote a business letter; then took to tootling on the flageolet, till glory ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was lecturing in America, he would send off little notes exquisitely written in point of penmanship, and sometimes embellished with characteristic pen-drawings. Having attended an extemporaneous supper festival at "Porter's," he was never tired of "going again." Here is a scrap of paper holding these few words, written ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... propensity to absorb languages much as other children absorb nursery tattle and Mother Goose rhymes. When he was fourteen, a young lady visiting the household of his tutor patronized the pretty boy by asking to see a specimen of his penmanship. The pretty boy complied readily enough, and mildly rebuked his interrogator by rapidly writing some sentences for her in fourteen languages, including such as, Arabian, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... so much individuality in the British Army," the orderly officer dolefully exclaimed as he contemplated a pile of letters waiting to be franked and betraying marked originality in their penmanship. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... the back of which Parker's forged order was written Parker's order on Rogers, Peet & Co., in the name of Lang A letter-head "frill" of Mabel Parker's Examples of Mabel Parker's penmanship, regular and forged Practice signatures of the name of Alice Kauser The check on which the indictment for forgery was brought Parker's copy of the signature of Alice Kauser One of the sheets upon which Mabel Parker illustrated her skill One ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... tantalizing letter from my pocket, and proceeded to read and re-read it again and again. A very few perusals sufficed to fix its contents in my memory, so that I could repeat every word with my eyes shut. Still I continued to scrutinize the paper, the penmanship, and even the tint of the ink. For what purpose, do you ask? For no purpose, except that I hoped, in some mysterious manner, to obtain more light on the subject. No light came, however. The more I scrutinized and pondered, the greater was my mystification. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... likely to be careless in other matters. It helps the memory. A person who keeps a journal naturally tries during the day to remember things he sees, until he can write them down. Then the act of writing helps to still further fix the facts in his memory. The journal is a first-class teacher of penmanship. All boys and girls should take pride in having the pages of their journals as neat and handsome as possible. Compare one day's writing with that of the one before, and try to improve every day. Keeping a journal cultivates habits of observation, correct and concise expression, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded her that it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask them to keep any chance letter till she called. She betook herself to their offices, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... and his discourse, or exercitation, or whatever it might be, was delivered in a monotonous, regular cadence, probably relieved from time to time by some quaint blunder, the result of indistinct penmanship, or dim religious light. It was not this preacher's business to arouse his audience. The theory of worship of the period was opposed to that. This people did not wish excitement, or stimulus, or astonishment, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... received a letter from your daughter, which, I presume, was forwarded as a specimen of her penmanship; otherwise it was your duty to have addressed me yourself. I said to you, when I met you at Greenwich, that you were educating your daughter above her condition in life, and I now repeat it. My patronage is extended only to those who are not above their ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... a letter, and took it to him to address. He was very fond of showing his penmanship, which was remarkably good. He had indeed been well educated, though from his beer-house associations he had entirely caught the rustic accent. I saw him address it, and took it myself to the post-office at Rington, where ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... French exercise-book, certainly containing anything but elegant specimens of penmanship. Ethel's best writing was an upright, disjointed niggle, looking more like Greek than anything else, except where here and there it made insane efforts to become running-hand, and thereby lost its sole previous good quality of legibility, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... again, sat down on the bed and opened the other letter. His hand shook as he unfolded it. He was so scared and excited that he could scarcely decipher the angular, girlish penmanship: ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... monogram, which he kept locked in one of the drawers. His friends now wondered at the cleric and very official-looking nature of his position. The five bartenders viewed with respect the duties which could call a man to do so much desk-work and penmanship. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... studies are divided into daily sessions. The morning session is devoted to reading, spelling, arithmetic, and English grammar; commences at nine A.M., and closes at one P.M. The evening session commences at three, and ends at five o'clock; and is devoted to penmanship, geography, and the French language. This is the arrangement of the English primary school, which is kept in the Old Poydras House, Poydras-street, in the upper part of the city; and is called the Upper Primary School, ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... and with the autograph affixed, that, stands out so prominently in the Declaration of Independence. As seen in the engraving of that instrument, the signature looks precisely what we should expect and desire in the handwriting of a princely merchant, whose penmanship had been practised in the ledger which he is represented as holding, in Copley's brilliant picture, but to whom his native ability, and the circumstances and customs of his country, had given a place among its rulers. ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and written in the crabbed disguised penmanship it was part of my business to effect, I folded, sealed and addressed it, and summoning Vincenzo, bade him post it immediately. As soon as he had gone on this errand, I sat down to my as yet untasted breakfast and made some effort to eat as usual. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... % 590. Writing. — N. writing &c. v.; chirography, stelography[obs3], cerography[obs3]; penmanship, craftmanship[obs3]; quill driving; typewriting. writing, manuscript, MS., literae scriptae[Lat]; these presents. stroke of the pen, dash of the pen; coupe de plume; line; headline; pen and ink. letter ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... her the letter, with its neat, old-fashioned penmanship, its primness a little tremulous from the excitement of the writer at the time she had penned it. Susie read it carefully, and when she had finished she looked up at him with softened, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... my wife's instructions again! "Always give your card to the servant when you make a call," says Susan, "it's etiquette and it's likely to bring business." She always sees I have plenty of cards in my pocket, but I mostly forget to give them. (Looking at card.) Bosco Blithers, professor of penmanship and author of "Pot-hooks and Hangers." I had better drop a few about. (He places cards on table, mantelpiece, etc., etc., then comes down and sits on edge of chair.) This Mr. Selwyn must be pretty well off to judge by his place here ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun

... begin where age left off. Had the old lady remembered a faded dogs-eared volume labelled "Oddments" that for many years had rested undisturbed upon its shelf in her great library, and opening it had turned to the letter E, she would have read recorded there, in her own precise thin penmanship, this very ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... to a point where he had been wont to scatter food for the black ducks, and draw them to the gunner's ambush. Sheldrakes and goosanders, coots and gulls, whifflers and dippers, made the best of Sunday, and bathed and wrote their winged penmanship on the white ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... injured by it," he exclaimed. "It hurts not the cause, while 't will kill her if they hang him." Again he set pen to the paper, and wrote a postscript of four lines below Washington's name. "'T is the devil's work, or her good angel's, that I had the writing of the letters, so the penmanship agrees," he muttered, as he folded and sealed it. Gathering up the batch, he gave a reckless laugh. "I said I'd not lift finger to save him from the rope, and here I am taking his place on the gallows. Well, 't is everything ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... distinguished citizens, such as George Bancroft (who adds to his autograph "with special good wishes to the coming octogenarian"), Robert C. Winthrop, Frederick Douglass, and J. G. Blaine. An eloquent speech of Senator Hoar, who suggested this unique tribute, is engrossed in the exquisite penmanship of a colored man, to whom was intrusted the ornamental pen-work of the whole volume. The congressional signatures were obtained by Congressman Coggswell of the Essex district. It is noticeable that no Southern member declined to sign this tribute to one so identified with ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... written, particular care should be required in regard to penmanship, correct spelling, punctuation, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... him for a young country bumkin, who had been used to follow the plow tail, and not for the son and heir of a wealthy gentleman. He was equally eminent for his neatness and dexterity in the art of penmanship; for, even when he was twelve years old, if you had seen the letter which he then sent to his mamma without the knowledge of his master, it was wrote so crooked (i.e. not from side to side as it ought to have been, but from ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... pretty good education, for those days. A fac simile of his signature is here given, which shows that his penmanship was excellent, and compared more than favorably with that of his son and name-sake, Lewis Peter Fisher, who was for some thirty odd years mayor of Woodstock, and the leading barrister of that place, and whose signature is also here ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... examples of his ordinary use of words. Some of these letters will be found in the following pages. Even as manuscripts, I should insist that the letters of Patrick Henry are witnesses to the fact and quality of real intellectual cultivation: these are not the manuscripts of an uneducated person. In penmanship, punctuation, spelling, syntax, they are, upon the whole, rather better than the letters of most of the great actors in our Revolution. But, aside from the mere mechanics of written speech, there is in the diction of Patrick Henry's letters the nameless felicity which, even with great ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... of the laboratory tables a letter, without heading and without signature, written in a disguised hand, with an evident attempt to simulate the cramped script of a foreign penmanship. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... He teaches penmanship and he knows Shakespeare better 'n, old Mahomet knowed th' Koran, pa says. Ain't he a hairy feller, though? Onct him 'n Frank Mendenhall was a-doin' Brutus and Cassius wrapped up in sheets in Liberty Hall and when ...
— The Fotygraft Album - Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters Aged Eleven • Frank Wing

... to the authority of the Provisional Government. There was very little parleying. Each brave loyalist took the paper, and put his name to it. [Footnote *] Dr. O'Donnell was the first to sign his name, and after he had done the rest followed and with much credit to the celerity of their penmanship. Then they all moved out and were escorted up to Fort Garry, where they were held for a considerable period, despite the prayers of prominent persons who had taken no active part on either side, for ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... over crabbed manuscripts, was the very person for such a piece of work. He understood the smallest variations in handwriting which belonged to different periods, and the minutest details of old-fashioned penmanship were as familiar to him as the common alphabet. But would he do it? Would he undertake the responsibility of a forgery of which the success would produce such tremendous responsibilities, of which the failure would involve such awful disgrace? Montevarchi had reasons of his ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... handwriting to that of {74} Sir George Buc. Now it must be remembered that the MS. dedication was written in 1605, and the history after 1660! Surely an interval of fifty-five years must have made some difference in the penmanship of the worthy Master of the Revels. I think we must receive the comparison of handwritings with considerable caution; and, unless some of your readers can produce "new evidence" in favour of one or other of the claimants, I much fear that your ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various

... grand palace with this [imagined] security. A learned tutor, who was skilled in public affairs, was appointed to [superintend] my education; so that I might acquire every science and art, and the practice of the seven varieties of penmanship; and my father always looked after me; the occurrences of every day and every moment were told to the king. I considered that same place as the whole world, and amused myself with toys and flowers; and I had procured for me every delicacy the world [could produce] for my food; whatever I desired ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... note attached, in His Majesty's handwriting—such beautiful penmanship, too. "A mere formality," it said, "for, of course, you and I know full well what the future of journalism ...
— With a Vengeance • J. B. Woodley

... people, to whom she was ashamed of sending her own misspelt scrawl. She remembered the wonderful flourishes she had so much admired in those days, while she sat by dictating, and Jem, in all the pride of newly-acquired penmanship, used to dazzle her eyes by extraordinary ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... to read what was written therein, and all that evening I pored over the manuscript, on which she had bestowed great pains, and crossed all the t's without missing one. But it is never an easy task to decipher a woman's meaning, particularly when not addicted to penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's instructions, and had acquired the reputation, in her native place, of being an accomplished clerk, still, since her marriage, she had applied her genius to the making of tarts and other confections, rather ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... has now become very certain. His grim semi-articulate Papers and Rescripts, on these subjects, are still almost worth reading, by a lover of genuine human talent in the dumb form. For spelling, grammar, penmanship and composition, they resemble nothing else extant; are as if done by the paw of a bear: indeed the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than anything that could be handily spelt ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... not so plentiful in Queen Victoria's young days as to leave any doubt of their hands and hearts proving in great request when the proper time came. Therefore there was no necessity to hold before the little girl, as an incentive to good penmanship, the example of her excellent grandmother, Queen Charlotte, who wrote so fair a letter, expressed with such correctness and judiciousness, at the early age of fifteen, that when the said letter fell, by an extraordinary train of circumstances, into the hands of young King George, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... the fight with thirty-three men. I had sixteen killed, eleven badly wounded, and four slightly. I was wounded slightly on the head, near the right eye, with a bayonet, and had a bayonet run through my right hand, near the forefinger; that will account for this miserable style of penmanship. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... feet And skilful hands to make things neat And ready for some welcome one, She toiled until her tasks were done. Then, seated at her desk, she wrote, With painful care, a tear-wet note. The childish penmanship was rude, Ill spelled the words, the phrasing crude; Yet thought and feeling both were there, And mighty love and great despair. "Dear heart," it ran, "you did not know How, from the first, I loved you so, That sin grew hateful in my sight; And so I leave it all to-night. ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... contents, whether you would be particularly sorry to learn that the old lady had, as sailors say, her hands well greased, and a fast hold upon the moon? Read, d——n it, man! there's no trouble in deciphering my aunt Catharine's penmanship. Hers is not what Tony Lumpkin complained of—a cursed cramp hand; all clear and unmistakable—the t's accurately stroked across, and the i's dotted to a nicety. Go ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... with the lie, The genial confidante and general spy, Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess?— An only infant's earliest governess! She taught the child to read, and taught so well, That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. An adept next in penmanship she grows, As many a nameless slander deftly shows: What she had made the pupil of her art, None know; but that high soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear, With longing breast and undeluded ear. Foiled was perversion ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... The priests had overlooked that opportunity, and had taught him in his boyhood; in that one thing he was their equal. But the other things that they had taught him, too, offset his penmanship. He was too proud to write—too lazy, too enamoured of his dignity. He called a court official, and the man sat very humbly at his feet—listened meekly to the stern command to secrecy—and ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... seems to have charged him with fresh courage. He wrote a work on electricity, which for lack of means was never published, and improved his penmanship until he could write a fair round backhand at the rate of forty-five words a minute—that is to say, the utmost that an operator can send by the Morse code. The style was chosen for its clearness, each letter being distinctly formed, with little ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... Noah was stubborn; more, he insisted on writing the inscription himself, his orthography quite as quaint as his penmanship, and so the card went to be read by the wonderful gray eyes ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... flitting,' and were now wondering why 'Gerry' did not wire them. He had written that his plans 'were near completion,' and that he should telegraph them in two or three days at the latest, at the time of writing. The three days were just about to expire, hence the excitement visible in the penmanship of Miss O'Neil. Betwixt impatience and anxiety she confessed herself 'growing really fidgety,' especially as 'Gerry' was always so prompt, 'and then—don't think me silly, dear—but, really, Chicago is such a wicked, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... the government at home, was in many instances the place of trial, and even the sentence of the transports; to save the labour of penmanship, "ditto," was sometimes the sentence found under another name, in the line of which 7, or 14, was written; not at full length, but in numerals. Some "indents" exhibited erasures: in one, a sentence ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... teacher, write a short composition on "Our School." Be careful as to spelling, capitals, punctuation, paragraphs, margin, penmanship, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... because, in such material, effects may be produced which no penmanship could rival, most people, I fancy, think that a steel plate half engraves itself; that the workman has no trouble with it, compared to that of a ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... 4. PENMANSHIP.—It is folly to suppose that the faculty for writing a good hand is confined to any particular persons. There is no one who can write at all, but what can write well, if only the necessary pains are practiced. Practice makes perfect. Secure a few copy books and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... is best to have children taught in school, the clearer it becomes that what is given is dictated because of its usefulness. Arithmetic teaches us to calculate our daily affairs. Grammar teaches us to listen and to speak understandingly. Penmanship and Spelling teach us properly to make the signs which represent speech. Geography teaches us of the earth on which we live, and how we may travel about it. History teaches us how to understand the doings of our own day and makes us acquainted with great men of former times, who by ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper

... a son apart and distinct, destined for the Church. The monks taught him penmanship, and continued to teach him, until one day, in the middle of a lesson, they discovered he was teaching them. Then Gerard took to illuminating on vellum, and in this he was helped by an old lady, Margaret Van Eyck, sister of the famous brothers Van Eyck, who had come to end her days near Tergon. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... trade as a carpenter. He was no longer obliged to resort to it, or, at any rate, he preferred to earn money in a different way. So one winter he taught penmanship at North Pownal, in Vermont, a post for which he was qualified, for he had a ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... possesses specimens of Mr. Hawthorne's chirography at various ages, from boyhood until a day or two before his death. Like the handwriting of most men, it was at its best between the twenty-fifth and the fortieth years of life; and in some instances it is a remarkably beautiful type of penmanship. But as time went on it deteriorated, and, while of course retaining its elementary characteristics, it became less and less easy to read, especially in those writings which were intended solely for his own ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... during the first year, distinctly better. The first draft of the composition should be brought to class ready for amendment and copying. During the writing the teacher should be among the pupils offering assistance, and insisting upon good penmanship. Care at the beginning will form a habit of neatness, and keep the penmanship ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... regarding fitness, the beautiful Filgee had induced Uncle Ben to seat himself on the floor before one of the smallest desks, presumably his brother's, in an attitude which, while it certainly gave him considerable elbow-room for those contortions common to immature penmanship, offered his youthful instructor a superior eminence, from which he hovered, occasionally swooping down upon his grown-up pupil like a mischievous but graceful jay. But Mr. Ford's most distinct impression was that, far from resenting the derogatory position and the abuse that accompanied it, ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... We have prepared, for home study, books on bookkeeping, penmanship and shorthand. Write ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... discouraged when I commenced taking Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. I took six bottles and it completely restored me to health. The discharge stopped from my side, and the cough has ceased. I am now able to follow my profession, which is a teacher of penmanship. I can walk ten miles any day without the least worry. If any one doubts this statement they can write me and I ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... studying mathematics and practising penmanship most of the time. They will be most useful to me if ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... however,—learned writing before reading. Not she herself, meek and yielding by nature, but some peculiar quality of her mind, obstinately refused in reading to harness a vowel alongside of a consonant, or vice versa; in writing, however, she would manage this. For penmanship along slanted rulings she, despite the general wont of beginners, felt a great inclination; she wrote bending low over the paper; blew on the paper from exertion, as though blowing off imaginary dust; licked ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... distance beyond, and the glint of the river, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster's spelling-book and a cross old maid was more than human nature could bear. Among the records preserved from that far-off day there remains a yellow slip, whereon in neat old-fashioned penmanship is inscribed: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... him tallying cargo, which was more lucrative than fishing, and furnished, in time, a hat, pair of shoes, and an overcoat. He then rented a room and slept in a bed. Before long he found employment addressing envelopes for a mailing firm, at which his fine and rapid penmanship secured him steady work; and in a few months he asked his employers to indorse his application for a Civil Service examination. The favor was granted, the examination easily passed, and he addressed envelopes while he waited. Meanwhile he bought new and better clothing and seemed to have ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... yet unachieved pedagogical science has to deal. To the first of these questions, What shall we teach? or, as he phrases it, 'What knowledge is of most worth?' Mr. Spencer (presuming the child already supplied with his bare implements, reading, spelling, and penmanship) is led, after a long discussion, to conclude that 'the uniform reply is, Science.' The 'counts' on which he bases this verdict, are, the purposes of self-preservation; the gaining of a livelihood; the due discharge of parental functions; qualification for political ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... work to teach her," Progress in penmanship continued Miss Meyers as she pointed could not be to some of the woman's writing. The shown by quoting first attempts were large, irregular exercise letters that sprawled over the sheet like the work of a child when it begins to write. After ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... MILTON are now; and consequently the letters of one so chary in letter-writing ought to be put beyond the risks of loss, and given to Literature in entirety and trueness. WORDSWORTH had a morbid dislike of writing letters, his weak eyes throughout rendering all penmanship painful; but the present Editor, while conceding that his letters lack the charm of style of COWPER'S, and the vividness and passion of BYRON'S, finds in them, even the hastiest, matter of rarest biographic and interpretative value. He was not a great ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... another soldier, a German, who was the post baker, were put in charge of it. This Frenchman had been selected from the ranks of Captain Sully's company and made quartermaster's clerk on account of his superior education, his excellent penmanship and his good character. I always have thought he was some unfortunate young gentleman, serving under an assumed name. The money was all in stout wooden mint boxes, holding each $1,000 in silver, and ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... until every finger 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 pointed vaguely ...
— The Plague • Teddy Keller

... was from Giovanni Saracinesca. It was the first time he had ever written to her, and she was greatly surprised on finding his name at the foot of the page. He wrote a strong clear handwriting, entirely without adornment of penmanship, close and regular and straight: there was an air of determination about it which was sympathetic, and a conciseness of expression which startled Corona, as though she had heard the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... was thirteen years old he was taken out of school, as the teacher could instruct him no longer. I was kept at home also, and brother taught me, giving me lessons in arithmetic and penmanship, which studies had been prohibited me at school. Here commenced a most tender attachment and sympathy between brother and I. As there were two children—Barnes and sister Arminda—between us, our difference of years had hitherto kept us ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... last year when the telephone wires were down and we thought there would be no school because of the snow. They might not have missed that one day had we been in the city, and I must think of that when it comes time to go back. There is room for them in the city to improve in spelling and penmanship too, vastly to improve. But they could n't have half so much fun there as here, nor half so many things to do, simple, healthful, homely, interesting things to do, as good for them as books and food and sleep—these last things to be had here, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... perhaps a dozen letters in the package which she took out of the table, and these, as she untied the ribbon that bound them together, and slipped them through her fingers, were all addressed in a delicate and beautiful style of penmanship. ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... been used on both sides. O'Hara's writing was the same on both sides. Often, in writing as many words as occupied both sides of the paper in question, a man's hand grows involuntarily weary. There was nothing of this sort. There seemed to be absolutely nothing on which the greatest penmanship expert could base a plea that either side was, in fact, the last will of Haddon O'Hara. Either might ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... this communication, it is worth remark, is in the handwriting of Arthur Massinger (whose penmanship was not unlike that of his son), and the signature only that of the Earl, in whose family he was entertained. I have not been able to ascertain whether the application was successful; and it is possible ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various

... unknown white friend," said Cordelia Running Bird, as she put the letter back into the envelope. "I shall next read Annie's letter." And she took another little missive from the Bible, written with a pencil on the tablet paper of the school, in wavering penmanship that showed the weakness of the writer's ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness

... easily through the tongue than through the hand. Yet it is highly necessary that every one should in this day be able to write. Nor does this mean merely the ability to form letters into words and put them down with a pen so that they are legible. This is a fundamental requisite, but the mastery of penmanship, spelling, and punctuation is, however, only a beginning. One must be able to formulate his thoughts easily, to construct his sentences correctly, and to make his writing effective; he must learn the ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... myself to geography, chronology, and to speak the Arabian language in its purity; not forgetting in the meantime all such exercises as were proper for a prince to understand. But one thing which I was fond of, and succeeded in, was penmanship; wherein I surpassed all the celebrated scribes ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... a sheet of paper, with his left hand clenched on the table, and his teeth grinding together, as he ransacked his vocabulary for befitting terms; but alas, his right hand shook so that his penmanship would not do, in fact, it half frightened him. 'By my soul! I believe something bad has happened me,' he muttered, and popped up his window, and looked out, half dreaming over the church-yard on the park ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Mrs. Boyd's list of misfortunes after her few years of happiness and her resolve to go out to her brother's. At times he stumbled over the poor penmanship and halted. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... is requisite, yet the engraved card is a needless expense. In such cases one may have cards written in due form. But, for written invitations of this formal character, it is imperative that the paper shall be of superior quality, and the penmanship neat, and ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... is a grand foine thing," observed Birdie. "Miss Wenzel is a graduate av wan. They teach you everything from drawin' birds with tail feathers to plain and fancy penmanship. In fact, they teach everything in the writin' line except forgery, an' I ain't so sure they haven't got ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... somewhat better than Eve thought the apple was going to taste. But how absurdly inadequate this sounds! I suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms have become too utterly congealed in our blase minds when at last these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of penmanship. So that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of extreme youth is probably all false. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... "given" in marriage at a very early age, the proverbial "millstone" weighed but lightly upon the neck of young Guenzburg. He never discontinued the habit of secluding himself in his study for hours, sometimes for days, at a time, and there writing down his thoughts in painstaking penmanship. These productions, with all their crudity, promised, according to a keen critic, the flowers which would one day "ripen into delicious fruit, not only pleasant to the sight but also delicious to the taste." In fact, even his religious views underwent but slight modification ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... barely missed marrying a wealthy heiress on the West Coast, and in his despondence he tried his hand at a little forgery. But he picked the wrong outfit to practice penmanship on. He forged a United States Treasury check and when the federal men got after him he fled to Chicago. He was picked up and on November 29, 1929, he found himself before a U.S. Commissioner who ordered his return to San Francisco. On December 19 of the same year he pleaded guilty before ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... much talent should be shown in the rest of his work, by the sculptor of this base and senseless lie. The whole monument is one wearisome aggregation of that species of ornamental flourish, which, when it is done with a pen, is called penmanship, and when done with a chisel, should be called chiselmanship; the subject of it being chiefly fat-limbed boys sprawling on dolphins, dolphins incapable of swimming, and dragged along the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... fellow, to lift himself above the state of ignorance, and had daily attendance from the parish schoolmaster. The mysteries of "pothooks and hangers" and ABC weighed heavily on the nobleman's mind, which must have sunk under the burden of scholarship and penmanship, but for the other "ship"—the horsemanship—which was Andy's daily self- established reward for his perseverance in his lessons. Besides he really could ride; and as it was the only accomplishment of which he was master, it was no wonder he enjoyed the display of it; and, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... beginning of the century had vied with those of France, ceased to be produced after about 1430 (the siege of Orleans was raised by Jeanne Darc in 1429, and the synchronism may be significant), and with the illuminations, the simpler art of penmanship declined also. It was thus small wonder that the art of printing was introduced but tardily to our country, more than twenty years after the first printed Bible had appeared at Mainz, and that, typographically, William Caxton, with no ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... Henry Bulwer and myself supported him right and left, some hundreds of other guests also being present. Of course all was very well done, luxuriously and magnificently; but perhaps the best thing I can do (if my reader's patience and my present tired penmanship will approve it) is to extract from a newspaper, the Baltimore Clipper of the above date, a precis of my speech on the occasion. Some distinguished gentleman having proposed my health,—"This brought to his feet Mr. Tupper, who, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... award, gold medal Students' written work Herkimer, Board of Education, public schools Pupils' selected work Hornellsville, Board of Education, training class. Collective award, gold medal Students' work Hudson, Board of Education, public schools One volume pupils' work in penmanship Ithaca, Board of Education, public schools. Gold medal Sixteen volumes pupils' written work Sloyd work Administrative blanks Photographs Jamestown, Board of Education, public schools. Silver medal Nineteen volumes pupils' written work Statistical ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... "We first sot the example. Look at our declaration of independence. It was writ by Jefferson, and he was the first man of the age; perhaps the world never seed his ditto. It's a beautiful piece of penmanship that, he gave the British the butt eend of his mind there. I calculate you couldn't falt it in no particular, it's generally allowed to be his cap shief. In the first page of it, second section, and first varse, are these words: 'We hold this truth to ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... livelihood, there is perhaps no other department of education which affords such universal and profitable employment, as writing. From the mere copyist, up to the practical accountant, and onward into that department of penmanship designated as a fine art, the remuneration is always very ample, considering the time and effort ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... over an outspread document—a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note of this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out in larger and bolder characters than ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... A GOOD POSITION by studying Architecture, Engineering, Electricity, Drafting, Mathematics, Shorthand, Typewriting, English, Penmanship, Bookkeeping, Business, Telegraphy, Plumbing. Best teachers. Thorough individual instruction. Rates lower than any other school. Instruction also by mail in any desired study. Steam engineering a specialty. Call or address, INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... dignity carried no active privileges, and in 1499 it was surrendered to the King at Calais. The books of La Gruthuyse have been described as 'the bibliographical marvel of the age.' They were celebrated for their choice vellum, their delicate penmanship, and their exquisite illustrations. Louis de Bruges was the friend and patron of Colard Mansion, who printed in partnership with Caxton. Three copies are known of his work called the 'Penitence of Adam.' One belonged to the Royal Library of France: another was borrowed from a monastery ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... joint production before Mr. Brandling, at Gosforth House. Glancing over the letter, Mr. Brandling said, "George, this will never do." "It is all true, sir," was the reply. "That may be; but it is badly written." Robert blushed, for he thought the penmanship was called in question, and he had written his best. Mr. Brandling, however, revised the letter, which was shortly after published in the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... received a letter addressed in modish, angular penmanship, which, before I opened it, I felt sure had come from Mrs. ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... the old models. I do not know when she first saw specimens of the old illuminations, for which she had always the deepest admiration, but it was in a Dante fever that she had resolved to write beautifully, because fine penmanship had been among the accomplishments of the great Italian poet. How well she succeeded her friends and her printers knew to their comfort! To Dante she dedicated some of her best efforts in this art. In 1826, when she was seventeen, she began to translate ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... exceedingly clever with his hands. His penmanship was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of interest in the church at Borlsover Conyers. He had an exceedingly clever knack in ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... and Mathematical Books, comprising Architecture, Astrology, Magic, Chess, and other Games; Fine Arts, Heraldry, Naval and Military, Numismatics, Penmanship and Short Hand, Typography, and Miscellaneous Books now selling at the reduced prices affixed by William Brown, 130. and 131. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... sprawling signature at the corner, hung faithfully over the old gentleman's bed. Lady Mirabel wrote much better than Miss Fotheringay had been able to do. Her ladyship had labored assiduously to acquire the art of penmanship since her marriage; and, in a common note of invitation or acceptance, acquitted herself very genteelly. Bows loved the old handwriting best, though; the fair artist's earlier manner. He had but one specimen of the new style, a note in reply to a song composed and dedicated to Lady Mirabel, by ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... once at least in each month, the directors sup at their own expense, and manage the affairs of the Association. Here, too, its various committees meet. In the room adjoining, a French lesson is going on; in that, German; in this, penmanship. Still higher up we find the "Tech" Glee Club practising, and this large room adjoining is filled with those who are learning vocal music. The building seems a very ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... is Melville, my dear diplomatist; and here is another instance of our Harrington luck. He has the gout in his right hand; he can only just hold knife and fork, and is interdicted Port-wine and penmanship. The dinner was not concluded before I had arranged that Evan should resume (gratuitously, you know) his post of secretary to him. So here is Evan fixed at Beckley Court as long as Melville stays. Talking of him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was a rather shabby little man, a penman employed to do occasional odd jobs about the Foreign Office, such as engrossing documents and the like, by which he earned from eighteenpence to half-a-crown an hour, according to the style of penmanship required, and he was well known in the criminal courts as an expert ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... manuscript Bagley had given him. It was typewritten, but the address of the typewriter copyist was on the cover. I hastened to the lady, and inquired about the manuscript from which she had made the copy. I showed her some of my penmanship, but she assured me the manuscript was in another hand. I ran home, and demanded the original manuscript from Bagley. 'Oh, certainly,' he said, and fished out a manuscript in his own writing. He had copied even my interlineations ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... B-plus paper, largely and in immaculate vertical penmanship, entitled "Friendship," Lilly, the tourniquet twist at her heart, sitting by. Her name was read later among the honorable five, true to manner, Mr. Lindsley seeming to caress it ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... motives of good citizens who are united in support of a particular candidate, or a particular platform. But there was enough common purpose to insure cooperation and persistence and effort from every single child in proportion to his ability. The learning of stupid sums and the practice in penmanship are no more attractive to these children than they are to ordinary children in ordinary schools in all parts of the country. But they overcame all internal obstacles, went through with all of the monotony and drudgery, and to that extent triumphed over any disposition to shirk or to loaf ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... Talcott." "Alsike Clover, from the farm of B. B. Hamm." Each lot was in a small cloth bag which had been made by one of the little girls as a sewing exercise; and each card had been written as a lesson in penmanship by one of the younger pupils, and contained, in addition to the data above mentioned, heads under which to enter the number of grains of the seed examined, the number which grew, the percentage of viability, the number of alien seeds of weeds and other sorts, the names ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... opposite truth needs to be quite as fully considered. "Many men of genius have written worse scrawls than I do," said a boy at Eugby, when his teacher remonstrated with him for his bad penmanship; "it is not worth while to worry about so trivial a fault." Ten years later, when he had become an officer in the Crimea, his illegible copy of an order caused the loss of many ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... He leant back, absorbed in one of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out his book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pages densely covered with Clarke's round, set penmanship, and at the beginning he had written in a ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... light began to dawn upon my memory. Could it be? I felt almost sure it was. In another minute I was persuaded that it was the same hand as that which had written the letter announcing Olivia's death. Probably if I could see the penmanship of the other partner, I should find it to be identical with that of the medical certificate which had accompanied ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... willing ears the scheme he had in view. He proposed, with Mr. Ryfe's assistance, to accomplish no less flagrant an outrage than the forcible abduction of Lady Bearwarden from her home. He suggested that his listener, of whose skill in penmanship he entertained a high opinion, should write such a letter as might lure her ladyship into a lonely, ill-lighted locality, not far from her own door; and Tom, appreciating the anxiety she must now feel about her husband's movements, saw no difficulty ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... inscription in the Bodleian volume of the prose pamphlets, and also a fac-simile of a considerable portion of the Latin Ode to Rous from the MS. copy in the other Bodleian volume. The "inscription" is indubitably Milton's autograph; Mr. Sotheby thinks the "ode" also to be in his penmanship, though not in his usual hand, but in a "beautiful secretary hand" which he assumed for the special purpose. Judging from the fac-simile, I doubt this, and think the transcript may have been by some professional scribe.—According to Warton's account, it is by accident that these ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... all the gentle fervor of a girl of twenty, congratulating him on some recent success. In reply he writes back to his "Dear Clara" in gracious banter; mentions rheumatism in his legs as an excuse for bad penmanship; hopes she is keeping up her practise; tells of a "Steinway Grand" that some one has sent him, and regrets that she does not come to try it "four hands," as he has failed utterly to get out of it alone the melody that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... member of the Clare County Medical Society—I was once President of that learned body, and have since then for seven consecutive years been its Secretary—my penmanship being illegible to the other members, and often to myself, preventing many disagreements, by precluding a successful reference to the minutes of past meetings. Now, sir, tell me, as man to man, can I consult with, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... clumsily arranged affair, although the forgery is a masterpiece of penmanship," said Mr. Smith; "and if it passes first through your office, and is entered in your books with the false amount, it is clear that some one in your employ has committed the offence. I leave the matter now with you for the present," he added, to Mr. Sanders; "of course ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... write down while the author took a single turn.[228] This is excessive acuteness. Smith's sentences are not by any means all of one length, or all of the same construction. It need only be added that the habit of dictating would in his case arise naturally from his slow and laboured penmanship. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... his home work for the day, twelve sums, four pages of penmanship, and the fable of "The Dog and the Rabbit" to learn by heart. He began with the fable, reciting it in a loud voice, like the hero in the play: "'A dog was roaming about the fields, when from behind a little hill jumped a rabbit, which had ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini

... rock-cupboard beneath a couple of great boulders, fallen thwart-wise across one another like drunken men embracing, she found a strip of twisted paper. Patsy thought that it contained a message from Jean, but in a moment she recognized the aggressive penmanship of ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... and the consciousness of abundant intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an uphill path, a stern struggle with adversity. The leisure hours which he was able to devote to his reading, his penmanship, and his arithmetic were by no means overabundant. Writing of his father's removal from Kentucky to ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... liberating her, he kicked down the talisman, when the genius appeared, killed the lady, and turned the prince into an ape. As an ape he was taken on board ship, and transported to a large commercial city, where his penmanship recommended him to the sultan, who made him his vizier. The sultan's daughter undertook to disenchant him and restore him to his proper form; but to accomplish this she had to fight with the malignant genius. She succeeded in killing the genius, and restoring the enchanted ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... instruction in some particular study, in which she thought herself deficient. Now she would go into the family of Rev. Edward Hitchcock, afterward president of Amherst College, and study natural science of him, meantime taking lessons, of his wife in drawing and painting. Now she would study penmanship, following the copy as closely as a child. Once when a teacher, in deference to her reputation, wrote the copy in Latin, she handed it back and asked him to write in English, lest when the books were examined, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... contrary every one of its lines is to the absurdities of Salvator. Stanfield's are all angular and straight, every apparent curve made up of right lines, while Salvator's are all sweeping and flourishing like so much penmanship. Stanfield's lines pass away into delicate splintery fissures. Salvator's are broad daubs throughout. Not one of Stanfield's lines is like another. Every one of Salvator's mocks all the rest. All Stanfield's ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... the training of the pupils. Some compositions were read, and part of a little operetta was sung quite charmingly by the girls. Then there was a large table spread out with specimens of needlework that were really fine; drawing, painting, and penmanship that elicited much praise ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... delayed, whether I most hoped that it would contain his permission or his refusal. In my haste I had not noticed that it was not my father's writing on the outside, and that made it the greater shock to find within, in my mother's dearly loved penmanship, only these few words: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... elder girls recited, and some specimens of penmanship and composition were shown. The delicate complexion of the little nun flushed to a pretty wild-rose pink as these pupils of hers won the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... worked up into verse; as also a variety of hints for illustration, borrowed from the Greek, Roman, and modern writers. The hand-writing is very difficult to be read, even by those who were best acquainted with Johnson's mode of penmanship, which at all times was very particular. The King having graciously accepted of this manuscript as a literary curiosity, Mr. Langton made a fair and distinct copy of it, which he ordered to be bound up with the original ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... saw that they were in Lady Dedlock's penmanship; it remained to prove that the dead Nemo ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... education, and eloquence this slave is; and, if you got such a treasure for a thousand ducats, be assured you were a most fortunate man. I swear to you that she can read the Koran in seven different methods—that she excels equally in seven different styles of penmanship—that she embroiders to admiration in silk, in silver, and in gold—and that you will soon get your money out of her, if it were but by the sale of ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... of the doors is the Pauline Chart. Have you never seen the Pauline Chart? It was prepared in colored inks, by Mr. Parker, a theological student with a turn for penmanship, and lithographed, and was sold by him to eke out the avails of what are inaptly termed "supplies." You would find it exceedingly convenient. It shows in a tabulated form, for ready reference, the incidents of Saint ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... which reports were delivered to them. It is easy to understand that with matter received at a rate of forty words per minute and worked off at twenty-five words per minute a serious congestion or delay would result, and the newspapers were more anxious for the news than they were for fine penmanship. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin



Words linked to "Penmanship" :   calligraphy, penman, chirography, hand, script, handwriting



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