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Legible   /lˈɛdʒəbəl/   Listen
Legible

adjective
1.
(of handwriting, print, etc.) capable of being read or deciphered.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Legible" Quotes from Famous Books



... pulled out his pocket-book, and produced a torn and blotted scrap, whereon was written, in characters scarcely legible, the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin—when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St Sepulchre's so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jewelled—when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... scanty pulpit, with the paltry painted pillars on either side—the women's gallery with its great heavy curtain—the men's with its unpainted benches and dingy front—the tottering little table at the altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible through lack of paint, and dust and damp—so unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and wood, of a modern church—are strange and striking. There is one object, too, which rivets the attention and fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain, for the recollection ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... manuscript. It was a long, narrow strip, formed by pasting pages together endwise, and had been submitted in a tight roll which Mr. Graham unrolled as he read. The title at the top of the strip, in The Dreamer's neat, legible handwriting was, "The Man of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... thirteen hundred; but were not able to make anything of the two following Characters. In a small place within also, may be seen a Writing carved in Stone between two old Pillars, but so impair'd and worn out by the weather that it is not legible.' At Groree, too, similar remains ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... stretching its vast diameter from the southernmost cape of Florida across twenty-five parallels of latitude and forty-five meridians of longitude to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The lessons taught by this amazingly swift extension of the empire and the church, and its arrest and almost extinction, are legible on the surface of the history. It is a strange, but not unparalleled, story of attempted cooeperation in the common service of God and Mammon and Moloch—of endeavors after ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... initials of my name, still legible, appeared rudely carved on the posts—a boyish propensity which most of us have indulged; and I well remember ministering to its gratification wherever I durst hazard the experiment, when first initiated into the mystery of hewing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... a pillow under which I could slip the book in case of interruption, I resumed the reading. From this point on, although the writing was somewhat faded, it was all, with a little effort, legible. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... the month, year of the Lord, and reign of the queen, to whom he presented it at Hampton Court, all of it written within the circle of a single penny, inchased in a ring and borders of gold, and covered with a crystal, so accurately wrought as to be very plainly legible; to the great admiration of her majesty, the whole privy council, and several ambassadors then at court?" Bales was likewise very dexterous in imitating handwritings, and between 1576 and 1590 was employed by Secretary Walsingham in certain political manoeuvres. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... that was so often to lead Edward aright in his future life, at its very beginning served him in a singularly valuable way in directing his attention to the study of penmanship; for it was through his legible handwriting that later, in the absence of the typewriter, he was able to secure and satisfactorily fill three positions which were to lead to his ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... delivered us this doctrine. O with what reverence shall we receive it, as if we heard the Lord from heaven speak. If you ask, How you shall be persuaded that the scriptures are the word of God,—His very mind opened to men and made legible. Truly there are some things cannot be well proved, not because they are doubtful but because they are clear of themselves, and beyond all doubt and exception. Principles of arts must not be proved, but supposed, till you find by trial and experience afterward ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... however, at my next trust; but scarce was this completed,-as to design and scenery I mean, for the whole is in its first rough state, and legible only to herself,- scarce, however, had this done with imagination, to be consigned over to correction, when imagination seized upon another subject for ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found in the copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they were so exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr's memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had been ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... lighted up as it now was by the glare of four flaming torches, looked more bewilderingly beautiful than ever. A hurried glance round was, however, all that they would now spare themselves time to take, and then they at once set vigorously to work. The first thing necessary was to mark in a legible manner—and in such a way that the mark could be identified in the darkness if need be—the inner extremity of the passage through which they had just passed. Rex and Brook undertook to do this; and as they had already agreed what the mark should be, these two began, with the aid ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... to a page, and a Donatus (Latin grammar) of 32 lines. The printer of the Bible with 36 lines to a page, that is the next oldest surviving monument, was apparently a helper of Gutenberg, who set up an independent press in 1454. Legible, clean-cut, comparatively cheap, these books demonstrated once for all the success of the new art, even though, for illuminated initials, they were still dependent on the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... men, a combination which has enabled him to both invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible—exactly, in fact, as they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are, it may be added, several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover which have been pronounced ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... paths on a high grassy bank that brings one out upon the Place Huet. In one corner, surrounded by chains and supported by low iron posts, is the historic stone. It is generally thickly coated with dust, but the brass plate affixed to a pillar of the doorway is quite legible. These, and a few fragments of carved stone that lie half-smothered in long grass and weeds at a short distance from the railed-in stone, are all that remain of the cathedral that existed in the time of ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... like an old legend breathed through the chords of a harp. This is the grave of Klopstock, the Milton of Germany. We will enter the churchyard, and look for a moment on the unimposing tablet. The inscription is scarcely legible, but the poet's mother lies also buried here, and some others of his family. Could there be anything more humble, more unobtrusive? No; but there is something about the grave of a great poet that serves to dignify the simplest monument, and shed a ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... ledger-looking volumes, elevated on desks at the right and left of the entrance to the room, give the principal arrivals, extracted from the lists so received at the chief outposts, English and foreign, and of all losses by wreck or fire, or other accidents at sea, written in a fine Roman hand, sufficiently legible that 'he who runs may read.' Losses or accidents, which, in the technicality of the room, are denominated 'double lines,' are almost the first read by the subscribers, who get to the books as fast as possible, immediately the doors are ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... type common to those old river towns that in their many years of uselessness have lost all civic pride, and in their own resultant squalor and filth have buried their self-respect. A dingy, scarcely legible sign over the treacherous board walk, in front, by the sickly light of a smoke-grimed kerosene lantern, announced that the place was ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... flanken rigardi. Lees fecxo. Left, on the maldekstre. Leg (limb) kruro. Leg (of a fowl, etc.) femuro. Leg of mutton sxaffemuro. Legacy heredajxo. Legal legxa. Legation (place) senditejo. Legation senditaro. Legend legendo. Legible legebla. Legion legio. Legislate legxdoni. Legislative legxiganta. Legislator legxfaranto. Legitimate rajta. Legitimate lauxlegxa. Leisure libertempo. Lemon citrono. Lemonade limonado. Lemon tree citronarbo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... base it upon scientific grounds, through the unbroken succession of animal and vegetable forms of life, the uniform 'formation and transformation of all organic Nature.' He wrote to Frau von Stein: 'I cannot express to you how legible the book of Nature is growing to me; my long spelling out has helped me. It takes effect now all of a sudden; my quiet delight is inexpressible; I find much that is new, but nothing that is unexpected—everything fits in and conforms, because I have no ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... an account of the manner in which he had wronged him. This paper was also easily found. It was folded once, and lay flat on the bottom of the box. It was somewhat discolored; but, on opening it, Tom found the writing quite legible. It may be a matter of surprise that Tom was able to read the manuscript, as many in his position would have been unable to do. But he had, of his own accord, for several winters, attended the city evening schools, and so was ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... grandfather, and perhaps the great-grandfather of our John Winthrop were committed to that repository. The family name and arms, with a Latin inscription in memory of the parents of the Governor, are legible still, "Beati sunt pacifici" is the benediction which either the choice of those who rest beneath it, or the congenial tribute of some survivor, has selected to close the epitaph. Only traces of the cellar of the mansion-house and of its garden-plot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... hair. The messenger was then disguised as a countryman and sent forth. He succeeded in accomplishing the journey in safety, and when he arrived Genghis Khan had only to cause his head to be shaved, when the inscription containing the calif's proposal to him at once became legible. ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... it, for see,' and he pointed to some grimed, almost effaced, but still legible capitals, which, however, scarcely any one but himself could have read as "Ursula." 'I guided his hand to make those the evening before he was ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... visitants to any of our noble shrines who will not enjoy their visit the better for being furnished with one of these delightful books, which can be slipped into the pocket and carried with ease, and is yet distinct and legible.... A volume such as that on Canterbury is exactly what we want, and on our next visit we hope to have it with us. It is thoroughly helpful, and the views of the fair city and its noble cathedral are beautiful. Both ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... near the door leading into the North Ambulatory of the Choir, is an inscription, which is now barely legible (even with an opera-glass)—Orate pro aia (Magistri Johannis) Schelton; at least so Brown Willis read it in 1727. On the floor of this transept are some slabs, now brassless, under which have been buried ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse

... second story contains between its lighter engaged columns, over the four side doors, niches with corbels below, destined to carry statues as their inscribed bases indicate. So far as these inscriptions are legible,—the clearest reading "phocles," probably Sophocles,—these were to represent Greek dramatists, most likely ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... entrances to Riddell, a very ancient place where Sir Walter Scott had recorded the unearthing of two graves of special interest, one containing an earthen pot filled with ashes and arms, and bearing the legible date of 729, and the other dated 936, filled with the bones of a man ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Blackfriars, over a small triangular-fronted shop, scarcely big enough to hold three persons at a time, the eye of the passing traveller is greeted with the following welcome information, painted in large and legible characters, the letters being each nearly a foot ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... party. Suppose me to be telling your Radical friend such truisms as that we English have not grown in a day, and were not originally made free and equal by decree; that we have grown, and must continue to grow, by the aid and the development of our strength; that ours is a fairly legible history, and a fair example of the good and the bad in human growth; that his landowner and his peasant have no clear case of right and wrong to divide them, one being the descendant of strong men, the other of weak ones; and that the former may sink, the latter may rise—there is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... beard, not even the slightest apology for a whisker, and this perhaps added to the apparent heaviness of his face; but he probably best understood his own appearance, for in those days no face bore on it more legible marks of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... ship is destined to go down "full many a fathom deep," is every soul on board to perish? Ho! a sail! a sail! The weather-beaten, but staunch ship Abolition, commanded by the Genius of Liberty, is bearing toward the wreck, with the cheering motto, inscribed in legible capitals, "WE WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU!" Let us hope, even against hope, that rescue is not ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... Marg. Oh! then He did not as neglected suitors use Affect a life of solitude in shades, But lived, In free discourse and sweet society, Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best. Yet ever when he smiled, There was a mystery legible in his face, That whoso saw him said he was a man Not long for this world.— And true it was, for even then The silent love was feeding at his heart Of which he died: Nor ever spake word of reproach, Only he wish'd in death that his remains Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... legal status whatever. When the governor of Panama asked for their commission, Captain Sawkins replied that "we would ... bring our Commissions on the muzzles of our Guns, at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of Gunpowder could make them." Ringrose, p. 38. Legible, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... ecclesiastic inside or outside every hackney carriage on the neighbouring roads. I have no knowledge, elsewhere, of more repulsive countenances than are to be found among these gentry. If Nature's handwriting be at all legible, greater varieties of sloth, deceit, and intellectual torpor, could hardly be observed among any class ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... thwart lines in her face, (legible, perhaps, to himself only) that there was a throne ready prepar'd for the sin of pride to sit in state upon, especially if it took an early possession: EVE you may suppose was a perfect Beauty, if ever such a thing may be supposed in the human ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... that an unknown individual made his appearance in my apartment as I was seated at breakfast; he was a mean-looking fellow, about the middle stature, with a countenance on which knave was written in legible characters. The hostess ushered him in, and then withdrew. I did not like the appearance of my visitor, but assuming some degree of courtesy, I requested him to sit down, and demanded his business. "I come from his excellency ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... above is the Monument of Sir Robert Chamberlayne, an elegant piece of Jacobean work, deserving a closer examination than can be bestowed upon it without mounting the pulpit, and even there the inscription is scarcely legible. The sculpture, which is extremely well executed, represents Sir Robert kneeling in prayer within a circular pavilion, the curtains of which are held up by an angel on either side. The figure wears ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... play draughts, whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am done with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel under construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four, five, six generations, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of entirely stupid people. If you look around the families of your acquaintance, you will see such cases in all directions. I know that it has been the case in mine. I can trace the father, and the son, and the grandson, and the family stamp is quite distinctly legible upon each of them, so that it goes for a great deal—the hereditary principle in Government as in other things; and it must be recognised so soon as there is any fixity ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... even this, reach you, I have my doubts—if they do not, you have only yourself to blame; for I cannot, for the soul of me, make out the name of the place. You have been in such a hurry, when writing it, that it really is not legible; and I do not sufficiently know Norfolk, ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... partly legible, lead one to believe that we are dealing with an astronomical calculating mechanism of some sort. This is born out by the mechanical construction evident on the fragments. The largest one (fig. 6) contains a multiplicity of gearing ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price

... economizing time or labor. Another feature is the foot-notes, and there is also given in an appendix the various words and expressions preferred by the American members of the Revising Commission. The work is handsomely printed on excellent paper with clear, legible type. It contains ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... language of the Achaemenians, presented to us in the Persian text of the cuneiform inscriptions, there was no room for doubt, as soon as it became legible at all, that it was the same tongue as that of the Avesta, only in a second stage of its continuous growth. The process of deciphering these bundles of arrows by means of Zend and Sanskrit has been very much ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... for, and presently appeared. He corroborated every circumstance which the other had deposed; nay, he produced the record upon his breast, where the handwriting of Mr Jones remained very legible in black and blue. He concluded with declaring to Mr Allworthy, that he should have long since informed him of this matter, had not Mr Blifil, by the most earnest interpositions, prevented him. "He is," says he, "an excellent ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... appearance, that he would probably make himself at home anywhere. He was a hale hearty man, of perhaps sixty years of age, who had certainly been handsome, and was even now not the reverse. Or rather, one may say, that he would have been so were it not that there was a low, restless, cunning legible in his mouth and eyes, which robbed his countenance of all manliness. He was a hale man, and well preserved for his time of life; but nevertheless, the extra rubicundity of his face, and certain incipient ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... it was opened and how eagerly examined before the hot iron was applied! how keen the delight when nothing legible was found, even on the closest inspection! What relief, at last, when the written messages became not only ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... steps give access to it. Before it is a hollow space with stumps of piers, demonstrating the ancient presence of an arcade in front of the platform. The feretory is without internal decoration, but the exterior of the east wall is adorned with nine rich Decorated tabernacles, with the yet legible names of saints and king who once occupied the eighteen pedestals within them. This inscription ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... reproof of this time touches his handwriting, which was never of the most legible, so that his foreign correspondents in particular sometimes complained. Haeckel used to get his difficulties deciphered by his colleague Gegenbaur. I cannot forbear quoting the delicate remonstrance of Professor Lacaze du Thiers, and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... and Canada, as well as in Great Britain from our London branch), graphophones are employed, to which replies are dictated, recording the words of the speaker. Afterwards the letters are written out in full, generally on a type-writing machine, which prints them in a plain, legible style. These machines are operated as rapidly as a person can think of the letters which compose a word, each operator thus accomplishing the work of several copyists. This system, by which we are enabled to correspond with our patients ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... remember English and yet do not know French! And it is worse when it is complicated, as at present, with a pen that will not write! If you knew how I have to paint and how I have to manoeuvre to get the stuff legible ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... copy of the Tale of Attaf (the "C. MS." of the foregoing pages). It is a small 4to of pp. 334, size 5 3/4 by 8 inches, with many of the leaves injured and repaired; and written in a variety of handwritings, here a mere scribble, there regular and legible as printed Arabic. A fly-leaf inserted into the Arabic binding contains in cursive hand the title, "A Book embracing many Tales of the Tales of the Kings and named 'Stories from the Thousand Nights and a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the flora or fauna of our present earth; but the human characters that were fixed and stamped as by photograph in the Scriptures are not so far removed from the men and women who now live on the earth. No species has become extinct; and even the minuter characteristics of distinct varieties remain legible still. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... page (fine as to print and margin) without punctuation, he would still be a refreshing, iridescent surface. But the gentleman four persons off—what was he? Would he be a subject, or was his face only the legible door-plate of his identity, burnished with punctual washing and shaving—the least thing that was decent that you would ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... shone and glowed; All this, and, more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks That humour interposed too often makes; All this, still legible on memory's page, And still to be so to my latest age, Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honours to thee as my numbers may, Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven though little ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... carefully sealed, and marked successively, in gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the Six southern Zodiacal Signs, beginning at Libra; in the inside of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous masses of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor Teufelsdroeckh's scarce legible cursiv-schrift; and treating of all imaginable things under the Zodiac and above it, but of his own personal history only at rare intervals, and then in the most ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... heavenly composure, sweetness, and recollection; studying and teaching assiduously, dictating with an unwearied patience so equally and leisurely, that every one could, if he wished to do it, write his dictates in a clear and legible hand; nor do I remember that he ever sent a substitute to dictate for him; so exact and punctual he was in his duty as a professor. I never knew one more ready to go to the confession-seat, at the first intimation of any, even the least or youngest boy. He heard his penitents with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... unwilling to take my last half-dollar; but self soon got the better of him. He pocketed the shin-plaster, and said nothing; but "Poor gentleman! I's sorry for you! Libin' at do Spotswood, and no money about you!" was legible all over his face. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... writing is large and legible. I think I can read it. 'My dear mother, the place I told you of in my last letter was given away, so I must go on in the toy-shop till something better turns up. I only get six shillings a week and my tea, and can't quite manage on that.' Then something—something—'pay ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... It was in good preservation, having received, apparently, little injury from the convulsion which entombed it. On one of its surfaces was a marble slab with (only think of it!) an inscription—a legible inscription. Pundit is in ecstacies. Upon detaching the slab, a cavity appeared, containing a leaden box filled with various coins, a long scroll of names, several documents which appear to resemble newspapers, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the days of 'pipes.' Certain supposed home truths . . . were indited in clear and legible letters on a piece of paper which was then rolled up in the form of a pipe, and being held together by twisting at one end was found at the door of the person intended to be instructed on its first opening ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... understanding about with him in his pocket, or to leave it at home on his library shelves. He is afraid of venturing on any train of reasoning, or of striking out any observation that is not mechanically suggested to him by parsing his eyes over certain legible characters; shrinks from the fatigue of thought, which, for want of practice, becomes insupportable to him; and sits down contented with an endless, wearisome succession of words and half-formed images, which ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... but a few words each. His conversation was carried on in the same way. Mark Twain brought back a little package of those precious slips, and some of them are still preserved. The writing is perfectly legible, and shows no indication of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... sentence, Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded that he would better erase them, as he did not mean to give any place to his feelings. He drew his pen through them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination play ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... quotations, and the editorial leader in which even that most dignified and reticent of British journals condescended to speak with studiously moderated praise of the immense collection of facts so ably strung together by Mr. Ernest Le Breton (in all the legible glory of small capitals, too,) as to the undoubtedly disgraceful condition of some at least among our London alleys. How Edie clung around Lady Hilda and kissed her! and how Lady Hilda kissed her back and cried over ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... for Mark had, in his day, a keen sense of property; his handkerchief, also marked; a pocket-book with some entries nearly effaced; and a letter unopened, and sealed with Lord Chelford's seal. The writing was nearly washed away, but the letters 'lwich,' or 'twich,' were still legible near the corner, and it turned out to be a letter to Dulwich, which Mark Wylder had undertaken to put in the Gylingden post-office, on the last night on which he ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... many curious shells and some excellent mussels. While we had been thus engaged, the carpenter and some of the crew were employed in nailing up our board on a tree we had selected for the purpose. It was in company with the names of many good ships, a portion of which only were still legible, many of the boards having fallen to the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... exposed, no doubt, to rain on the top of a packet, and the address is no longer legible among the violet mottlings on the dried and frayed paper. Alone there survives in a corner the address of the sender. I pull the letter out gently—"My dear mother"—Ah, I remember! Biquet, now lying in the open air in the very ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... are all written, not, lithographed; they are on paper of the same make and size, and out of the same lot, as you observe by the manufacturer's stamp—a representation of the Capitol in the upper corner. They are in the same hand, an easy legible business-hand, though three of them are written with a backward slope. Those who sent them have not sent me the envelopes with them, except in one case, so that I cannot tell where they were mailed. Neither is any one of them dated inside at any town or post-office. But, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... mutilating it with his penknife, which he seemed to keep for no other purpose. I always took care to keep good pens ready for him; for, as it was my business to decipher his writing, I had a strong interest in doing what I could to make it legible. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... shaven and dressed, he was sitting at his desk looking at a small piece of paper he had taken out of his wallet. It was scrawled with semi-legible memoranda: "See Mr. Howland at five. Get hair-cut. See ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... is a key to the records of the analysis and complete heat treatment of that particular gear. Should a question at any time arise regarding the treatment of a certain gear, all the necessary information is available if the number on the gear is legible. For instance, date of treatment, furnace, carburizing material, position of the pot in the furnace, position of gear in pot, temperature of furnace and duration of treatment are all tabulated ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin

... up the metal covered memoranda book. Its pages were rotten and stuck together. Only here and there was a sentence or a part of a sentence legible. The first that I could read was near the middle ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his being 'a little nearer' than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... matter of history, that the Medical Faculty is the most ancient of all societies in the whole world. In fact, its archives contain documents and annals of the Society, written on birch-bark, which are so ancient that they cannot be read at all; and, moreover, other writings belong to the Society, legible it is true, but, by ill-luck, in the words of an unknown and long-buried language, and therefore unintelligible. Nearly all the documents of the Society have been reduced to ashes at some time amid the rolling years since the creation of man. On this account the Medical Faculty cannot pride ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... a supernatural Power. On the contrary, it may serve rather to enhance that evidence; since the very arrangements and provisions which have been made with a view to the reproduction of every thing after its kind, may bear on them the legible impress of a designing Mind and an ordaining Will. Thus, year by year continually, the whole inhabitants of the world are supported by the fruits of harvest, which are produced and matured under the action of natural laws; yet every intelligent Theist ascribes ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... no doubt; yet nothing surely that at this late day he might not in honor examine. He drew out the closely written sheet and turned it over. After all the years his eyes were surely the first to read it. There was no name in the inscription. Uncle William's fine writing was very legible. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... been!" he said. "Their tense is past. Excellent pantaloons, you are no more! Stay, something in the pocket," and he produced a piece of paper. "A letter! ay, now I mind me; it was received on the morning of the gale, when I was absorbed in delicate investigations. It is still legible. From poor dear Casimir! It is as well," he chuckled, "that I have educated him to patience. Poor Casimir and his correspondence—his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Cicero's character are nowhere so clearly legible as in his dealings with and words about his daughter. There is an effusion of love, and then of sorrow when she dies, which is un-Roman, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... some question touching her business on board the Saint Andrew: and in answer she drew a paper from the top of her packet. It was spotted with sea-water, but (as I could see) yet legible. The Commissioner studied it, showed it to Master Porson (who nodded), and handing it back politely, begged her for some ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the aisle. Spread over two columns on the front page, an older picture of him showed plainly. And even at the distance, the heading was boldly legible. ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey

... it cannot be denied that reading and writing men, of moderate industry, who act on this rule for any considerable length of time, will accumulate a good deal of matter in various forms, shapes, and sizes—some more, some less legible and intelligible—some unposted in old pocket books—some on whole or half sheets, or mere scraps of paper, and backs of letters—some lost sight of and forgotten, stuffing out old portfolios, or getting smoky edges in bundles tied up with faded tape. There ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... pleases himself with believing, is familiar to more ears than any man's, save the Emperor's, and has been known in Rome for a longer period than any other person's living, excepting only the head of the Senate, the venerable Tacitus. This is all legible in the lines about his ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... of English or foreign make, and for whatever kind of cloth required. A comprehensive summary is also included of the various yarns and methods of numbering them, as well as a few useful hints and a number of coloured diagrams for mandarin weavings. The book is printed in bold, legible type, on good paper, has a copious index, and is well and strongly ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... same, will, by solemn declaration signed by the ships' councils, take formal possession, and in sign thereof, besides, erect a stone column in such places as shall be taken possession of; the said column recording in bold, legible characters the year, the month, the day of the week and the date, the persons by whom and the hour of the day when such possession has been taken on behalf of the States-General above mentioned. You will likewise endeavour to enter ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... driving the smoke in. You can hardly be convinced of the contrary—scarcely when five or seven minutes has absolutely rarefied the smoke so much that a book-lettering previously invisible has become even legible. And at last, when the fact, the result, the experience, has corrected the contradictory theory of the eye, you begin to suspect, without any aid from science, that there were two currents, one of which comes round in a curve and effects the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... frequently judged by handwriting. Write a good, clear, legible hand, without any flourishes, and always use the best and the blackest of ink. The typewriter is ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... of nature by an artificial production. True dignity does not blush for nature, but only for brute nature; it always has an open and frank air; feeling gleams in its look; calm and serenity of mind is legible upon the brow in eloquent traits. False gravity, on the contrary, places its dignity in the lines of its visage; it is close, mysterious, and guards its features with the care of an actor; all the muscles of its face are tormented, all natural and true expression disappears, and the entire man is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... written in full, on every stone and window of this apse, as legible as the legends to any one who cares to read. The artists were doing their best, not to please a swarm of flat-eared peasants or slow-witted barons, but to satisfy Mary, the Queen of Heaven, to whom the Kings and Queens of France were coming constantly for help, and whose absolute power was ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... of the Club, that hung around it. Their marks and sizes were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guidance of the hanger! Thus was I, as it were, by these still legible names, brought into personal contact with Addison, and Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, and Dryden, and with many hereditary nobles, remembered, only because they were patrons of those natural nobles!—I ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... my publishers, but at last when I had decided upon it as an unavoidable necessity, a slatternly little maid came in with a dirty mildewed envelope between finger and thumb and said she thought that it was addressed to me. I pounced upon it and there, all soaked and bedraggled but still quite legible, I found the cheque, which had been sent to me nearly a month before, and it had been by some accident dropped into the area where it had lain unregarded all this time. There was a feast that night, but the truth is that life was one constant vicissitude, an unfailing series ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... Drummond,' and the fellow, taking a pen, seated himself at his desk. But his fears had so unnerved him that he made several attempts before he could get the pen into the ink bottle; and wasted several sheets of paper before his hand was steady enough to produce legible writing. When he had ended he turned ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... many instances, the increased circulation in the brain attendant on high mental excitement reveals itself by its effects when least expected, and leaves traces after death which are but too legible. Many are the instances in which public men have been suddenly arrested in their career by the inordinate action of the brain induced by incessant toil, and more numerous still are those whose mental power has been forever impaired ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... The little manuscript volume wherein this is inscribed, which is in my own possession, consists of sermons—not very legible, and mostly very dry by the Rev. Thomas Stone, their dates ranging from 1622 to 1666, with ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... with the ten Englishmen, who composed the Legislative Assembly. Some of the habitants could neither read nor write. Two members of a preceding Parliament had actually signed the roll by marks, and there were five more whose signatures were scarcely legible, and were such as to show that to be the extent of their writing. Debate was out of the question. A Canadian Parliament did not understand it. The habitant M.P., openly avowed that the matter, whatever it was, had been explained to him. The "moutons" ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... me a pencil note from my chief at headquarters, explaining that he had not written me a despatch because he had nothing but a "J" pen, with which instrument he could not make himself legible. It struck me that he was suffering from a plethora of assistance, and was ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... was Nicholas Tattersall, whose grave, covered with a slab of black marble, is still to be seen in Brighton church-yard, with a long poetical inscription, now scarcely legible. On the Restoration, he applied for his reward, and was made a commander in the royal navy, with an annuity to him and his heirs for ever of 100. The family have recently become extinct. His fisher-boat was moored ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in a large, graceful and very legible hand, was being read for the third time by the bereaved wife as she sat in the drawing-room of a small house in Surrey on a cold November evening. The room was one of the most finished comfort, comfort its main intention, but so thoroughly attained that beauty had ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... catacombs, those most remarkable testimonies to the eternal life, his resting place may be found. The sign of the fish is on his stone. Its time-eaten inscription is still legible, among the many which tell of the early Christian expectation and ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford

... process accompanied and explained the pictures. The characters were white on a blue ground. M. Oppert brought together some fifteen of these monumental texts, but he did not find a single fragment upon which there was more than one letter. The inscriptions were meant to be legible at a considerable distance, for the letters were from two to three inches high. In later days Arab architects followed the example thus set and pressed the elegant forms of the cufic alphabet into their service with the ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... dictator and of the stenographer in the lower left-hand corner of a letter serve not only to identify the carbon, but often to place the letter itself if it has gone out without signature. The signature should be legible, or if the one who writes it enjoys making flourishes he may do so if he will have the name neatly typed either just below the name or just above it. It should be written in ink (black or blue ink), not in pencil or colored crayon, ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... "Here is a legible bit at last," said Jack, "but the writing is very faint. Let me see. It refers to the state of the weather and the wind. The poor man evidently kept a private journal. Ah! here, in the middle of the book, the damp has ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... and in pain. It twisted, and part of it unrolled, and for a second lay open and smooth of creases, lit up by the flame and as yet untouched; so that two or three words sprang, as it were, out of a yellow glare of fire and were legible. Then the flame seized upon that smooth part too, and in a moment shrivelled it into black tatters. But Captain Trench was all this ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... read the book of nature as a script of the spirit we find ourselves drawn repeatedly towards two realms of natural phenomena. They are widely different in character, but studied together they render legible much that refuses to be deciphered in either realm alone. These realms are, on the one hand, the inner being of man, and, on the other, the phenomena of macrotelluric and cosmic character. The fruitfulness of linking together ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... hodge-podge. The writer who is our authority for these culinary details, informs us that he had seen the dish devoured with eagerness while the original letters written upon the parchment were still legible.[1309] But the urgent necessities of their situation did not suffer the half-famished inhabitants to stop here. With the proverbial ingenuity of their nation, they turned their attention to the parchment on old drums, and subjected to the skilful hands of cooks the discarded hoofs, horns, and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... seen, although that revealing moonlight made even Alfy's written words quite legible. What could have become of them? Who had taken them? And why? Supposing somebody had stolen in and stolen them? Supposing that was why he was sleeping in the library? Yet, if there had been thievery there, wouldn't he have kept awake, to watch? Supposing—here ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... quite legible, writ by God's finger; Why did I fail ere now to heed that sign? A smell of death pervades all human life, And poisons spring's sweet breath and summer's splendor. Out of the grave that odor is exhaling. The grave ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... simply, "I have succeeded in having Thornton declared ..." Then there was a break. The last words were legible, and were,"... confined in a suitable institution where he can ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... and many others, will, I am sure, be glad to know something about my own personal adventures, I send you a rough diary of what I have seen and done. I hardly know whether you will be able to make the whole of it out, for I have interlined it in many parts, and my writing never was of the most legible character. You know I have always been in the habit, ever since I first went abroad, of jotting down some record of my movements, scanty enough, but still forming a memorial which it is pleasant to ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... disagreeable significance. Was that in truth a picture of his son, of the boy whom he had loved and watched over and so zealously hoped for? Possibly he wronged Dyce, for the young man's mind and heart had long ceased to be clearly legible to him. "Worst, perhaps, of all these frequent traits is the affectation of—to use a silly word—altruism. The most radically selfish of men seem capable of persuading themselves into the belief that their prime ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... which, however they may add to the amount of thought, distract the mind, and confuse its observation of the main idea, the essence or life of the book or paper, must be diligently refused. In the manuscript of Comus there exists, cancelled but legible, a passage of which I have the best authority for saying that it would have made the poetic fame of any writer. But the grand old self-denier struck it out of the opening speech because that would be more polished without it—because the Attendant ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... a Business Book—at least, that's how it was marked—with lists of names, each having an occupation or task set down opposite it, I suppose the names of long-dead slaves. On the fly-leaf was written, in a neat and very legible hand, "Freeman Hynds." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... Byron had completed his "Siege of Corinth" and "Parisina," and sent the packet containing them to Mr. Murray. They had been copied in the legible hand of Lady Byron. On receiving the poems Mr. Murray wrote to ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... priests who profit by them, and false by priests who do not. Every thing connected with them bears the stamp of despotism. Whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, Popish or Protestant, 'that mark of the beast' appears in characters as legible as, it is fabled, the handwriting on the wall did to a tyrant of old. In connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every available ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... down into little ranches of their own, starting with a herd of cattle lawfully purchased and branded. An occasional maverick came across their range and they branded it. A brand was faint and not legible, and they put their own iron over it. They learned that pyrography with a hot poker was very profitable. The rest was easy. The first step was the one that counted; but who could tell where that first step ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... (and quite best in many respects) would be Professor Henslow. Dr. Hooker would be VERY good. The next, Mr. Strickland. (After Mr. Strickland's name comes the following sentence, which has been erased but remained legible. "Professor Owen would be very good; but I presume he would not undertake such a work." If none of these would undertake it, I would request you to consult with Mr. Lyell, or some other capable man for some editor, a geologist and naturalist. Should one other hundred pounds make ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... and the fashion and hues of the dress. Then his father gave him a black box containing this portrait, which was a full-length miniature, about nine inches long, painted very finely in oils, as smooth as enamel, and folded above it a sheet of paper, written over in a careful and very legible hand. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... scarcely retained a few tarnished vestiges of its former splendour. The subject was an old man, his face swarthy and bronzed, with furrowed brow and hollow temples, and sharp high cheekbones; a physiognomy on which the ravages of time, and climate, and suffering were plainly legible. The figure was draped in a flowing Asiatic costume. Defaced and injured and grimed with dirt though the portrait was, yet, when Tchartkoff had wiped the dust from the countenance, he perceived evident traces of the touch of a great artist. The picture seemed to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... dexterity of her sex. In the midst of these papers, which each person amused himself with reading, Camors found no difficulty in retaining without remark the clandestine note of the Marquise. It was written in red ink, a little pale, but very legible, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... to cast away, and in the worst of his corruptions and the widest of his departures he still bears upon him the signs of likeness 'to Him that created him.' The coin is rusty, battered, defaced; but still legible are the head and the writing. 'Whose image and superscription hath it?' Render unto God the things that are declared to be God's, because they bear His likeness and are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... become covered to the depth of sixteen feet, but the soil has since been dug away from its base, which is now lower than that of the road which passes through the neighboring gate of San Paolo. Midway up the pyramid, cut in the marble, is an inscription in large Roman letters, still almost as legible as when ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... exception, perhaps, of a few signs, or 'some scraps of a sentence. The inscriptions which have been saved from the foundations of the most ancient temples, several of which date back forty or fifty centuries, are for the most part as clear and legible as when they left the hands of the writer who engraved them or of the workmen who baked them. It is owing to the material to which they were committed that we possess the principal works of Chaldaean literature which have ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... even the voice of the people was overcome by troops of rockets rising from every quarter of the lake, and by the thunder of artillery. When the noise and the smoke had both subsided, the name of Lothair still legible on the temple but the letters quite white, it was perceived that on every height for fifty miles round they had ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... when she sent him his supply of water at evening she would accompany it with one of her alphabets, which, being traced in ink, were legible at a greater distance. He did not fail to write her a good long letter, and was careful to put in it no soft nonsense—at least, of a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... present them, distinctly and clearly, and in simple language, to their companions. Was a building burnt by lightning in the neighborhood? Let those who saw the scene, describe it; their productions to be read by the teacher aloud; and let them see that clear descriptions please, and that good legible writing can be read fluently, and that correct spelling, and punctuation, and grammar, make the article go smoothly and pleasantly, and enable it to produce its full effect. Is a public building going forward in the neighborhood of your school? You can make it a very fruitful source ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... Since a small wire cuts through a zinc tag in one or two years, heavy wire must be used. Wire such as I have indicated is satisfactory. I print the necessary information on each tag with a small, steel awl, and such labels are still legible after twenty-five years. Copper, brass or aluminum would also make good tags, but these metals are more expensive. Of course, these tags may be used for small trees as well as grafts and scionwood and it is always well to do a good job ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... Scriptures. It lies at the foundation of natural religion. It is involved in our religious consciousness. It enters essentially into our sense of moral obligation. It is inscribed ineffaceably, in letters more or less legible, on the heart of every human being. The man who is trying to be an atheist is trying to free himself from the laws of his being. He might as well try to free himself from liability to hunger ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... it is to get anything to do for good pay. One multi-millionaire of Boston, whose first wages he told me were but four dollars a month, said there was no one he so dreaded to see coming into his office as a college man who must have help,—seldom able to write a legible hand, or to add correctly a column of figures. There is solid food ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... his pocket-book; on a card bearing his name and address was written in his own legible hand, "HOME, AND TELL ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... a copyist; yet even of that little I am proud, for it has entailed WORK, and has wrung sweat from my brow. What harm is there in being a copyist? "He is only an amanuensis," people say of me. But what is there so disgraceful in that? My writing is at least legible, neat, and pleasant to look upon—and his Excellency is satisfied with it. Indeed, I transcribe many important documents. At the same time, I know that my writing lacks STYLE, which is why I have never risen in the service. Even to you, my dear ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Constantine among the solar halos. Bibliothec. Graec. tom. iv. p. 8-29. * Note: The great difficulty in resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription; even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning which the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in locum Eusebii, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... read on a -semis- which a Vergobretus of the Lexovii (Lisieux, dep. Calvados) caused to be struck, the following inscription: -Cisiambos Cattos vercobreto; simissos (sic) publicos Lixovio-. The often scarcely legible writing and the incredibly wretched stamping of these coins are in excellent harmony with their ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... to be found in Poorthing Lane. Finding that this increased his business considerably, he hit upon a plan of advertising which has been practised rather extensively of late years in London. He sent out an army of boys with pots of whitewash and brushes, with directions to print in rough but large legible letters the words, "Who's Boone?" on all the blank walls of the metropolis, and in the papers he answered the question by having printed under the same title, "Why, the manager of the Toy Emporium, to be sure, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... morn, As sovereign over thee and thine. He speaketh not; and yet there lies A conversation in his eyes; The golden silence of the Greek, The gravest wisdom of the wise, Not spoken in language, but in looks More legible than printed books, As if he could but would not speak. And now, O monarch absolute, Thy power is put to proof; for, lo! Resistless, fathomless, and slow, The nurse comes rustling like the sea, And pushes back thy chair and thee, And so good ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... it was not possible for me to turn this man away and tell him I had nothing for him to do, and therefore I must devise employment for him. I found that he wrote a fair hand, a little stiff and labored, but legible and neat, and as I had a good deal of copying to do I decided to set him to work upon this. I procured board and lodging for him in a house near by, and a very happy ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... Bathsheba (a bathing-place on the west of Barbadoes), by a gentleman who was bathing there, who, on breaking it, found the melancholy account of the fate of the ship Kent, contained in a folded paper written with pencil, but scarcely legible." The words of the letter were then given, and a facsimile of it will be found on the next page. The letter itself, taken from the bottle thickly encrusted with shells and seaweed, was returned to the writer when he arrived, shortly after its discovery, at Barbadoes, as Lieut.-Colonel of the 93rd ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor

... mother's poor finery, then two shrouds with black ribbons, one made for a man, the other for a woman. Herr von S. was deeply affected. Under everything else, at the very bottom of the trunk, lay the silver watch and some documents in a very legible hand, one of these signed by a man who was strongly suspected of alliance with the forest-thieves. Herr von S. took them along to examine them, and the guards left the house without Margaret's giving another sign of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... is now a name; in art, a hypocrisy or affectation. Over German religious pictures the inscription, "See how Pious I am," can be read at a glance by any clear-sighted person. Over French and English religious pictures the inscription, "See how Impious I am," is equally legible. All sincere and modest art ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... simple truths, from which, by induction, a complete system of morality is constructed, applicable to all the relations and circumstances of life, and embracing every department of human action. The reader who shall carefully study these volumes—and a more inviting page, clear and legible, the eye does not often rest upon—will find his labor more than rewarded.—New ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... the march of public-house improvement; the weather-beaten sign of the gallant admiral's head was transferred to a wall of the back premises, where its "faded form" might, until recently, have been recognised; but, though the legible record has perished, opus ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... simplest, easiest, quickest learned, most legible of all, and fully answers every purpose for ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... the writing. An old sheet of the Standard newspaper, made into rough copy-books, sufficed for paper in the absence of all other material, and by writing across the print no doubt the notes were tolerably legible at the time. The colour of the decoction used instead of ink has faded so much that if Dr. Livingstone's handwriting had not at all times been beautifully clear and distinct it would have been impossible to decipher this ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... salutations were over, he showed us the island. We walked, uncovered, into the chapel, and saw, in the reverend ruin, the effects of precipitate reformation. The floor is covered with ancient grave-stones, of which the inscriptions are not now legible; and without, some of the chief families still continue the right of sepulture. The altar is not yet quite demolished; beside it, on the right side, is a bass-relief of the virgin with her child, and an angel hovering over her. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... he whispered. 'It has come back—would you believe it?—picked up by a fisherman on the Irish coast and returned to the express office in London. All the old directions were quite legible on the box. "To Harry Delance, SS. Lusitania. If not found, forward to Pointview, Conn., U.S.A., charges collect!" So it came on. I received a notice and went down and got it out of bond and paid three pounds, ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller

... for confirmation, the only one who at that time showed me kindness and good-will. It was through her that I was introduced to the Colbj/rnsen family, and thus known and received in all those circles of which the one leads into the other. She paid some one to prepare a legible copy of my piece, and undertook to present it for perusal. After an interval of six weeks, I received it back, accompanied by a letter which said the people did not frequently wish to retain works which betrayed, in so great a degree, a ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... the visible objects which hint to us fragments of this infinite secret for—which our souls are waiting, the faces of women are those that carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain something in them that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct and palpable a revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remember ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... acquired under my instruction? Even in that one article of writing, he was an hour before he could write that brief note, and destroyed many scrolls, four quills, and some good white paper—I would have taught him in three weeks a firm, current, clear, and legible hand—he should have been a calligrapher—but God's will ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... mouldy and rotten like the clothing. On opening it, it fell to pieces. There was nothing in it but a piece of paper, also mouldy and rotten. This I unfolded with great care, and saw writing there, which, though faded, was still legible. It was a letter, and there were still signs of long and frequent perusals, and marks, too, which looked as though made by tears—tears, perhaps of the writer, perhaps of the reader: who can tell? I have preserved this letter ever since, and I now fasten it here upon ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... kind to her sister's orphan children, should be shut up in prison for no other crime than loving them. I suppose my friends feared a reckless movement on my part, knowing, as they did, that my life was bound up in my children. I received a note from my brother William. It was scarcely legible, and ran thus: "Wherever you are, dear sister, I beg of you not to come here. We are all much better off than you are. If you come, you will ruin us all. They would force you to tell where you had been, or they would kill you. Take the advice of your friends; if not for the sake of me and your ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at school) was "Americans and Tudors—Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her letter to Isabel, who ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... lenity. He praises the moderation of the laws, as, in his hands, he sees them baffled and despised. Is all this, because in our day the statutes of the kingdom are not engrossed in as firm a character, and imprinted in as black and legible a type as ever? No! the law is a clear, but it is a dead letter. Dead and putrid, it is insufficient to save the state, but potent to infect and to kill. Living law, full of reason, and of equity and justice (as it is, or it should not exist), ought to be severe and awful ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... in verse on a big sheet of paper as though it were a petition, all in the same splendid handwriting. Evidently his friend Samorodov was sharing his punishment. Under the verses in an ugly, scarcely legible handwriting there was a single line: "I am ill here all the time; I am wretched, for ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the body and head of the insect. This is inserted into a base of gold in the shape of a tablet. * * * The legs of the insect are * * * of gold and carved in relief * * * The hieroglyphs are incised in outline, are coarse, and not very legible."[O] ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer

... hardly fail of being surprised, and that perhaps painfully, by the suddenness of the transition from the silence and gloom of the monastic inclosure, its pavement rough with epitaphs, and its walls retaining, still legible, though crumbling and mildewed, their imaged records of Scripture History, to the activity of a traffic not less frivolous than flourishing, concerned almost exclusively with the appliances of bodily adornment or luxury. Yet perhaps, on a moment's reflection, the rose-leaves ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... page he had just written, crossing a t, dotting an i, adding or scratching out a word of the writing which was in no way more legible than that of any other surgeon; and when he had read he ran his hand through the mass of snow-white hair, sighed, and pushed the book further ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... trousers, and never button my shirt. When I land for a meal, I pass my coat and feel dressed. This life is to last till Friday, Saturday, or Sunday next. It is a strange affair to be an emigrant, as I hope you shall see in a future work. I wonder if this will be legible; my present station on the waggon roof, though airy compared to the cars, is both dirty and insecure. I can see the track straight before and straight behind me to either horizon. Peace of mind I enjoy with extreme serenity; I am doing right; I know ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson



Words linked to "Legible" :   clean, illegible, legibility, clear, decipherable, readable, fair



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