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Dabble   Listen
verb
Dabble  v. t.  (past & past part. dabbled; pres. part. dabbling)  To wet by little dips or strokes; to spatter; to sprinkle; to moisten; to wet. "Bright hair dabbled in blood."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... rough water, he gets into his elongated chapeau and floats away. Without such vessel, agile, elastic, imponderable, and transmutable, Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot would be no thoro'fares for human beings. Musquash might dabble, chips might drift, logs might turn somersets along their lonely currents; but never voyager, gentle or bold, could speed through brilliant perils, gladdening the wilderness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... giving it, it can make little difference how it is taken; because whatever befals you, be it good or bad, it is equally a matter of exultation to her. Thus she has the satisfaction of saying, 'If poor Mrs. Dabble had but followed my advice, and not have taken these pills of Dr. Doolittle's, she would have been alive to-day, depend upon it;' or, 'If Sir Thomas Speckle had but taken advantage of a friendly hint I threw out some time ago, about the purchase of the Drawrent ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... the doctor, after another pause, 'that to dabble in smuggling is to court many awkward situations. You need not remind me of that, who am fresh from misleading that young man. It was—if you will pardon my saying so—by reason of his trust in my good faith ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the pleasant places of history remains, however, one ugly barrier. I cannot dabble and paddle in the pools and shallows of the past until I have answered a question so absurd that the nicest people never tire of asking it: "What is the moral justification of art?" Of course they are right who insist that the creation ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... look here, Kettle. This mystery game has gone on long enough, and you've got to be put on the ground floor, like the rest of us. Did you ever dabble in stocks?" ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... excellent well as far as it went; but still there was something wanted of more reality than the improvisations of a romancist. Ainsworth might dip his pen in the grossest epithets; Boz might dabble in the mysterious dens of Hebrew iniquity; even Bulwer might hash up to us his recollections of St. Giles's dialogue; and yet it was evident that they were all the while only "shamming"—only cooking up some dainty dish according to a recipe, or, as it is still frequently pronounced, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... his success-power. The mere fact of his failure has interest; but how did he take his defeat? What did he do next? Was he discouraged? Did he slink out of sight? Did he conclude that he had made a mistake in his calling, and dabble in something else? Or was he up and at it again with a determination that knows ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... merrily, "there's a beautifully fitted medicine-chest in that cupboard, with plenty of physic and books of instructions for that, and a bit of surgery; and I've had to dabble in it a little myself. We captains often have to do that out away abroad. Why, sir," he continued, with a queer humorous look at Jack, "I'd back myself to give a pill to any man against all the doctors ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... have burlesque quotation put down by Act of Parliament, and all who dabble in it placed with him who can cite Scripture for his ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... their vessels, and also drink as much as they can. Not only is the water itself blessed, but all the streams, and wells, and fountains in the neighbourhood are equally benefited. It is curious to see the way in which the people dabble in the water, throw it over their persons, though it freezes as it falls, and drink of it till they can drink no more; all this being done in the belief that the water is holy, and that they will be especially benefited thereby. The ceremony in summer is very similar, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... Bunny. "Your legs will dry better if they are just wet, instead of being wet and muddy, Sue. Dabble 'em in ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope

... have right to dwell Each within his proper cell, With a passage left to creep in And a hole above for peeping. Let them, when they once get in, Sell the nation for a pin; While they sit a-picking straws, Let them rave of making laws; While they never hold their tongue, Let them dabble in their dung: Let them form a grand committee, How to plague and starve the city; Let them stare, and storm, and frown, When they see a clergy gown; Let them, ere they crack a louse, Call for th'orders ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... active. He desires to dabble in science. One day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he acknowledges, "what a different ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... its green leaves sported with the breeze. But not one of these leafy damsels had seen Proserpina. Then, going a little farther, Ceres would, perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water. Behold, up through its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. But when the mother ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... hypnotism and vivisection as practised in such schools, are Sorcery pure and simple, minus a knowledge that the Voodoos and Dugpas enjoy, and which no Charcot-Richet can procure for himself in fifty years of hard study and experimental observation. Let then those who will dabble in magic, whether they understand its nature or not, but who find the rules imposed upon students too hard, and who, therefore, lay Atma-Vidya or Occultism aside—go without it. Let them become magicians by all means, even though they ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... dost thou hope to stay Time's dread advance till thou hast had thy day? Dost think the Strangler will release his hold Because, forsooth, some fibs remain untold? No, no—beneath thy multiplying load Of years thou canst not tarry on the road To dabble in the blood thy leaden feet Have pressed from bosoms that have ceased to beat Of reputations margining thy way, Nor wander from the path new truth to slay. Tell to thyself whatever lies thou wilt, Catch as thou canst at pennies got by guilt— Straight down to death this blessed year ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... These, like quacks in medicine, excite the malady to profit by the cure, and retard the cure to augment the fees. As the quack exhausts the constitution the pettifogger exhausts the purse; and as he who has once been under the hands of a quack is for ever after prone to dabble in drugs, and poison himself with infallible prescriptions, so the client of the pettifogger is ever after prone to embroil himself with his neighbors, and impoverish himself with successful lawsuits. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... continued Cresswell, "I am free to confess that I have no personal desire to dabble in philanthropy, or conduct schools of any kind; my hands are full ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... down below her waist. You can see a freckle or two on the sides of her little nose, and notice that her slender hands are browned by the sea-side sun; for Bee is one of those lucky girls who are permitted to dabble freely in salt-water, and get all the benefit that briny ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... plainest of plain prose, I am not a theorist on these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as a rich and fanciful amateur, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether his strawberries cost five cents or a dollar a quart. As a farmer, milk must be less expensive than champagne. I ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... upset, and you deserve a heap more than scolding.... But I like you." Hilda was always direct. "You're more or less of a little idiot, with your insane notions and your Joan of Arc silliness, but I like you. You're not fit to be left alone. I'm in charge.... So go and dabble cold water on your eyes, so you don't look like Nazimova in the last act, and come along with. me. We'll take a drive, and then I'm coming back to stay all night with you.... Yes, I am," she said, with ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... a stock at one time, the article had fallen in value, and left the speculating Chevalier so great a loser as to cause his bankruptcy. Whether such is the real cause or not, it is difficult to ascertain what could induce the Chevalier to descend from his dealings with the head to dabble ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... warmed him with the sense of power. In that warmth certain of his prejudices and inhibitions began to melt away; the display of feelings and sensibilities could not be wicked or even undesirable if it prepared the way for the gospel by softening the heart. He began to dabble in emotion himself, and that was a dangerous matter, for he knew nothing whatever about it save that, if he felt strongly, he could arouse strong feeling in others. Day by day he unwittingly became less sure of the moral beauty of restraint, and ardours which ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... between the painter and my brother that they should depart the next day but one; they then began to talk of art. "I'll stick to the heroic," said the painter; "I now and then dabble in the comic, but what I do gives me no pleasure, the comic is so low; there is nothing like the heroic. I am engaged here on a heroic picture," said he, pointing to the canvas; "the subject is 'Pharaoh dismissing Moses from Egypt,' after the last plague—the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... asked Abner, "but the reporter sublimated? Why must the artist go afield to dabble in far-fetched artificialities that have nothing to do with his own proper time and place? Our people go abroad for study, instead of staying at home and guarding their native quality. They return affected, lackadaisical, self-conscious—they bring the hothouse ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... his brethren at every street-corner!" continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe; but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... little troubled myself. I began to see more clearly that it doesn't do for a man of scruples to dabble in politics. I had a great regard for poor Johnny, and I felt no confidence in the colonel treating him with any consideration. In fact, I would not have insured Johnny's life for the next week at any ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... wishes to dispose of certain individuals who call themselves men of wit and fashion—about town—who he is told have abused his book 'vaustly'—their own word. These people paint their cheeks, wear white kid gloves, and dabble in literature, or what they conceive to be literature. For abuse from such people, the writer was prepared. Does anyone imagine that the writer was not well aware, before he published his book, that, whenever he gave it ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall dabble them in the creek ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... newspaper articles all the time. Had laid out to be a little tin imitation of Dora Corr, or, say, nickel-plated, with cast chasings. Was burning for an opening in the diplomatic go-betweening line; wanted to dabble in War Correspondence, and so on. But Van Busch gathered that the biggest egg in the little lady's nest of ambitions was the desire to do a flutter on the Secret ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... him casually. Marcella was coming to understand that he looked upon illness with a certain hardness and lack of pity that surprised her; he was immensely interested in it, he liked to dabble in it, but not from a passion of healing nearly so much as from curiosity and technical interest. To him, in illness, curing the patient mattered infinitely less than beating the disease. He had a queer snobbishness about illness, too, that amazed ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... sir," said he with the book, "how comes it that a young gentleman like you, a sedate student at the first appearance, should dabble in stocks and ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... word. i Lerni to learn. ad Lernadi " study. eg Lernegi " cram. ig Lernigi " cause to learn. igx Lernigxi " learn intuitively. et Lerneti " dabble in learning. dis Dislerni " learn in a desultory manner. ek Eklerni " begin to learn. el Ellerni " learn thoroughly. mal Mallerni " unlearn. re Relerni " learn again. ant Lernanto a pupil, a learner (mas.). " Lernantino a pupil, a learner (fem.). an Lernejano a schoolboy. " ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... love for the excitement of gambling- -take him away from the betting ring and he goes straight to the share market to dabble in gold and silver shares. The Great Humbug Gold Mining Company is floated on the Melbourne market—a perfect fortune in itself, which influential men are floating in a kind of semi-philanthropic manner to benefit mankind at large, and themselves in particular. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... dog-tired," he said, and sat down on the floor. "I went tired this morning, since I came in here and started talking to you—as tired as if I had been pouring my life-blood here on these planks for you to dabble your white feet in." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... to alleviate your confessed boredom. Your persistence would be praiseworthy if well directed. Waters wear away stone, the wind crumbles the marble, but a woman is not moved till she wishes to be. I never thought that I should dabble in an intrigue of this sort, and I am surprised at the amusement it affords me. I really owe you some gratitude. The few I have met who know you tell me that you ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... exclusively to the society of her friends and to literature."—"Ah, there it is! . . . Literature! Do you think I am to be imposed upon by that word? While discoursing on literature, morals, the fine arts, and such matters, it is easy to dabble in politics. Let women mind their knitting. If your mother were in Paris I should hear all sorts of reports about her. Things might, indeed, be falsely attributed to her; but, be that as it may, I will have nothing of the kind going on in the capital in which I reside. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... they felt against his horrible presence it finally began to sap their courage. Besides, the lake fascinated Alpha, now but three years old but large and strong. He loved to wander by its shore and dabble in the water, but so long as the beast remained, an ever present danger was in this play. Besides there was the fear that he might escape the watchfulness of his parents and come in contact with one ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow

... sorrowfully, "I am the most miserable of men, a 'mute inglorious Milton' is nothing to me. Nature has created me a lover of the picturesque. In heart and soul I am an artist, I dabble in colours, I dream of lights and shades and glorious effects; but the power of working out my ideas is denied me. If I try to paint a tree my friends gibe at me. I am a poor literary hack; but I give you my ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... practically to do exactly as he likes in the holidays; he hates school cordially, and I don't wonder. He fortunately has one taste, and that is for science, and it is more than a taste, it is a real passion. He does not merely dabble about with chemicals, or play tricks with electricity; but he reads dry, hard, abstruse science, and writes elaborate monographs, which I read with more admiration than comprehension. This is almost ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... or twenty times a day, To bustle to the town with speed, To dabble in what dirt he may,— Le Frere Lubin's the man you need! But any sober life to lead Upon an exemplary plan, Requires a Christian indeed,— Le Frere ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... Collins' explanation. "Perhaps the simplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in early life he was in an attorney's office (!), that he there contracted a love for the law which never left him, that as a young man in London, he continued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in leisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers. On no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which the law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy in a subject where ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain

... to dabble in murder, nor do we aspire to turn an honest penny by the minute description of bodily mutilations. But while the Whitechapel atrocities are engaging the public attention, we are tempted to contribute our quota of speculation as to the monster's identity. We thought of doing so before, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... voice that was like to break my heart, though I could not make out one word of his paraphernally. It minded me, by all the world, of a wheen cats fuffing and fighting through ither, and whiles something that sounded like "Sugar, sugar, measure the cord," and "dabble dabble." It was worse than the most outrageous Gaelic ever spoken in the height of passion by a ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... votin' till freedom. I don't think I ever voted till I come to Mississippi. I votes Republican. That's the party of my color and I stick to them long as they do right. I don't dabble in white folk's buzness an' that white folks votin' is their buzness. If I vote I go do ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... researches. The book appeared, and a vile rag-bag it was, like the life of a man written by a private detective from the reminiscences of under-servants. The worst of it is that such a compilation brings a man money, because there are always plenty of people who like to dabble in mud; and a ghoul is the most impervious of beings, probably because a ghoul of this species regards himself merely as an unprejudiced seeker after truth, and claims to be what he would call ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... have none of San Juan. "I know all about it, Maria," he said. "They will teach Thomas Latin very thoroughly. They will make him proficient in theology and metaphysics. They will let him dabble in algebra and Spanish literature; and with great pomp, they will give him his degree, and 'the power of interpreting Aristotle all over the world.' What kind of an education is that, for a man who may have to fight the battles ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... go to see you; apparently you have COOL WEATHER in Croisset since you want to sleep ON A WARM BEACH. Come here, you will not have a beach, but 36 degrees in the shade and a stream cold as ice, is not to be despised. I go there to dabble in it every day after my work; for I must work, Buloz advances me too much money. Here I am DOING MY BUSINESS, as Aurore says, and not being able to budge till autumn. I was too lazy after my fatigues as sick-nurse. Little Buloz recently came to stir me up again. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... if literature were not to be abolished altogether, it is safe to think that the world would be better off, if there were less writing. There should be a division of labor; some should read and write, as some ordain laws, create philosophies, tend shops, make chairs,—but why should everybody dabble with literature? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... is a vital lie but a lie?" the White Logic challenges. "Come. Fill your glass and let us examine these vital liars who crowd your bookshelves. Let us dabble in William ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... "what do you suppose the first people to dabble in electrically driven vehicles were aiming at? The motor-car? The motor boat? Trolley cars? All those single motor sort of things? ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... and propriety; for as the unicorn purified pools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other animals came and drank securely there afterwards, in the like manner others might water their nags, and dabble after him without fear of shankers, carnosities, gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other plagues caught by those who venture to quench their amorous thirst in a common puddle; for with his nervous horn he removed all the infection that might be lurking ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... down there!' said the queen, sobbing and pointing to them. 'Did you ever see anybody so happy? Why can't I have mud to dabble in too, and why can't I take off my shoes and stockings, and amuse myself like the children do, instead of being so dull and stuck-up all ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fakers everywhere else. Only, of course, the ardour of new ideas which sincerely animates the Village does lend itself to all manner of poses. And because of this a perfectly earnest movement will attract a number of superficial dilettanti who dabble in it until it is in disrepute. And, vice versa, a crassly artificial fad will, by its novelty and picturesqueness, draw some of the real thinking people. Such inconsistencies and discrepancies are bound to occur in any such mental crucible ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... doubt as to the reply? What points of human interest has he left untouched? With what phase of life, character, or study does he fail to sympathize? So far from being the rough-hewn block 'dull fools' have supposed him, he is the most dilettante of great poets. Do you dabble in art and perambulate picture-galleries? Browning must be your favourite poet: he is art's historian. Are you devoted to music? So is he: and alone of our poets has sought to fathom in verse the deep mysteries of sound. ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... chanced that the American, while devoted to his chosen profession of wandering through countries where the foot of a white man had never before trod, had other traits of character, and like most fellows, liked to dabble in a bit of a mystery, especially when he thought he could see a chance to improve the conditions surrounding a friend of his, and accordingly he puckered up his lips as though about to whistle, though no sound escaped him, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... up in confusion, and went to the window. From there he heard Sabina mutter: "I say, let's swear blood bond. Where's your knife, Freda?" and out of the corner of his eye could see each of them solemnly prick herself, squeeze out a drop of blood and dabble on a bit of paper. He turned and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... said, "that the turning wheel of life is not altogether out of earshot. I like to dabble just a little in the knowledge ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to make good sculpture is to let the youth thumb and punch and dabble in wet clay, and see what he can make of it; and the way to make a painter is to give the boy now a burnt stick, and at another time a pin and a back of a looking-glass, and see what he can delineate with such materials as these and with all other ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... open, the brown colt's gone, the brindle calf's going and we are thinking about it; quawk! quawk!" said the three geese, Mrs. Waddle, Mrs. Gabble, and Mrs. Dabble. ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... gate-way, the torch to the tower, We rifled the kist, and the cattle we maimed; Our dirks stabbed at guess through the leaves o' the bower, And crimes we committed that needna be named: Moonlight or dawning grey, Lammas or Lady-day, Donald maun dabble his plaid in the gore; He maun hough and maun harry, or should he miscarry, The Hielan's, the Hielan's will ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... merely proves you are not a 'fly-cop,' only a measly busy-body sticking your nose into some one else's business. Well, we know how to take care of your kind, and this is likely to prove the last case you'll dabble in for ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... are prostituting a Christian profession to the worst of purposes. But this does not prove that there is anything defective or wrong about the Christian religion. No, by no means. If clergymen descend from their sacred vocation to dabble with politics, and a thousand other things that a minister of Christ should not touch; or to use their ministerial influence to accomplish the most diabolical purposes, and thereby bring reproach ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... "I did not know. How does it happen that a man with such responsibilities can take time to dabble in oil-wells?" ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... of my depth, at any rate," quoth he. "I am but ill read in ancient controversies, though I know you dabble in them." ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... republican, with a great enthusiasm for the United States and for the story of Abraham Lincoln. But you were never faddist or doctrinaire, and your practical bent showed itself in the keen interest you took in the noticing of political economy in which I used to dabble, and which we used to discuss by the hour. You seemed, without having studied text-books, to have an intuitive grasp of economic and fiscal truths which astonished me and others much better qualified to judge than I was. The real ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... he seems to have had a pretty strong foresight of the BIBLIOMANIA which rages at the present day. However, as the ancients tell us that a Poet cannot be a manufactured creature, and as I have not the smallest pretensions to the "rhyming art," [although in former times[14] I did venture to dabble with it] I must of necessity have recourse to Prose; and, at the same time, to your candour and forbearance in ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... hair complacently.] Funny, your remark. As a matter of fact, I used to dabble a little in ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... done without much alarm: for you must know that Perkins used to dabble in poetry, and ordinarily prepare himself for composition by this kind ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... waiting-room of a small, scantily-equipped station. No beds, no washing conveniences, no table, no chairs; just the wall seats, with a roof above them and the pump water at the end of the platform to drink from and dabble in. The distressed man arrived, harrassed and anxious, only to be met by a round-faced, laughing wife and nine round-faced, laughing children, who all made sport of their "camping" experience, and assured him they could have "stood it" a little ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... most ominously on Richie, who went on undauntedly to inform the king, "that his deceased father-in-law, a good careful man in the main, had a' touch of worldly wisdom about him, that at times marred the uprightness of his walk; he liked to dabble among his neighbour's gear, and some of it would at times stick to his ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... roystering; and it is a fine sight to behold them walk, poddling one after other, with their toes out, like soldiers drilling, and their little eyes cocked all ways at once, and the way that they dib with their bills, and dabble, and throw up their heads and enjoy something, and then tell the others about it. Therefore I knew at once, by the way they were carrying on, that there must be something or other gone wholly amiss in the duck-world. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... change, which have long ago been threshed out and found wanting, or are obviously unpractical, he is merely showing that he has not studied the question. A fair analogy would be the case of a chemist or engineer who had recently begun to dabble in Greek in his spare moments, and who should undertake to emend the text of Sophocles. His suggestions would show that he knew no Greek, that he had never heard of Sir Richard Jebb, and that he was ignorant of all the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... read the number: "2,000 francs." He said nothing for a time, but stood looking at the picture, while the copyist began actively to dabble with her paint. "For a copy, isn't that a good deal?" he asked ...
— The American • Henry James

... a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a woman of fashion—a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that they were ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... men and women, regard trade as the great affair of life, take to it as soon as they can toddle, and don't even leave it off at death, according to their own accounts of the way the spirits of distinguished traders still dabble and interfere in market matters. But it is otherwise with the Bubi. A little rum, a few beads, and finish—then he will turn the rest of his attention to catching porcupines, or the beautiful little gazelles, gray on the back, and white underneath, with which the island abounds. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... 'What a mixed piece of fact that is! past, present, and future, in one grand conglomerate. Do you suppose I shall ever again have a chance to dabble in land? And I thought you had ruled out ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... would have prevented his long and useless wanderings. Like many other persons, too, whom I have known—just in proportion to his lack of penetrative power was his tendency to occupy himself with difficult questions. By a cruel destiny he was impelled to dabble in matters for which he was totally unfitted. He never could go beyond his author a single step, and he lost himself in endless mazes. If he could but have been persuaded to content himself with sweet presentations of wholesome happy existence, with stories and ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... as to the criminal statistics of this city. The reports and estimates of the Police Commissioners are notoriously incomplete and unreliable. They show a large number of arrests, but they deal mainly with the class known as "casuals," persons who merely dabble in crime, and who do not make it a profession, and the larger proportion of the arrests reported are for such trifling offences as drunkenness. Indeed many of the arrests reported ought not to be counted in the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... 1840 to dabble in this question, and on the wrong side of it[152].... The matter passed from my mind, full of churches and church matters, in which I was now gradually acquiring knowledge. In 1841 the necessities of the whig government led to a further development of the great controversy; but I ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... my little brother." He took off his linen painting sleeves, and began to dabble his fingers in a pan of turpentine. "My little brother! Do you know that the Directeur thinks you are charming, and he wonders that ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to you, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)—'that, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... pastures that grow after wheat has been harvested. They are afterwards to be pent up, and fed with ground malt mixed with water. Boiled oats or wheat may occasionally be substituted.—DUCKS are fattened in the same manner, only they must be allowed a large pan of water to dabble in. Those kept for breeders, should have the convenience of a large pond; and such as have their bills a little turned up will generally be found the most prolific. In the spring of the year, an additional ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... take it," she said, "I shall do harm instead of good—I shall be accused of interfering. Give it to one of the servants. Not yet! When Mrs. Gallilee is angry, she doesn't get over it so soon as you seem to think. Leave her to dabble in science first," said the governess in tones of immeasurable contempt. "When she has half stifled herself with some filthy smell, or dissected some wretched insect or flower, she may be in a better ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... the palette, but on the canvas it is not right. You mix again and put it on the canvas; it mixes with the first tint and you get—mud. Why? Both wrong. Scrape the whole thing off. With a clean spot of canvas mix a fresh color. Put it on frankly and freshly and let it alone—don't dabble it. The chances are it will be ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... livelihood, I am told, by scribbling lampoons against his betters in a weekly Review,—"Fellow," I said, "were I twenty years younger, and you twenty years older, John Dangerous would vouchsafe to pink an eyelet-hole in your waistcoat. Did I care to dabble in your polite conversation or your belles lettres (of which I knew much more than ever you will know years before the Parish was at pains to fix your begetting on some one), I would answer your ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... trials in this Jigoku yashiki (Hell mansion). There was her ladyship to take into account. Says the proverb of the Nipponese—"dabble in vermilion, and one is stained red." Contact with Shu[u]zen had developed all the harsher traits in this stern samurai dame. She despised the former character of her husband, and now was mad with jealousy at his unrestrained ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... absently to dabble her slender brown hand in the water. A silence fell between them, with which Benjamin was well content, since it gave him a chance to feast his eyes on ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... themselves, by professing ignorance of the way which would lead them to His heart. Some of us have learned only too well to raise questions about the method of salvation instead of accepting it, and to dabble in theology instead of making sure work of return. Some of us would fain substitute a host of isolated actions, or apparent moral or religious observance, for the return of will and heart to God; and all who in their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Thou mayst say the same of half our Northern youth! They think it grand to dabble with seminary priests in hiding, and talk big about their conscience and the like, but when they've seen a neighbour or two pay down a heavy fine for recusancy, they think better of it, and a good wife settles their brains to jog to church to hear the parson with ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to go into the sea itself, for it was a wild, tempestuous coast; but there were lovely clear pools on the rocky shore, natural stone baths left full of water when the tide went out, sheltered from the wind by tall, dark, precipitous cliffs, and warmed by the sun; and there they used to dabble by the hour together. Anne went with them, and it was a pretty sight, the four young women in white chemises that clung to them when wet, and the three lovely children—little white nudities with bright brown ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... kayaks eager to secure the beautiful creature. But the boy-seal swam lustily away as his grandmother had told him to do, and the men continued to pursue him. Whenever he rose to the surface to breathe, he took care to come up behind the kayaks, where he would splash and dabble in order to lure them on. As soon as he had attracted their attention and they had turned to pursue him, he would dive and come up farther out in the sea. The men were so interested in catching him that they did not observe how they ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss

... about us, you see; but not for this must you accuse us of the levity of culture. We might patronize; we did not dabble.—One seems to hear from those early ages, echoes of tones familiar now. Ours is the good old roast beef and common sense of—I mean, the grand old gravitas of Rome. What! you must have a Jupiter to worship, mustn't you? No sound as by Parliament-Established-Religion of Numa ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... took to drinking, used to get constantly drunk, and rolled from public-house to public-house, and bar to bar, and as the worst glass of vitrol still cost a penny, he became reduced to undertaking the part which you have seen, to dabble in the water, to blacken himself, and to allow ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... knew, by a subtle change in the atmosphere, that all occult manifestations—for that night at least—were at an end. The ladies were, of course, dying to know what had happened; and like most ladies, who dabble in spiritualism, were ready to believe anything they were told. Hamar, who had no intention whatever of telling them what had ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... have imagined Captain Henderson the very last person in the world to dabble in the occult, as they call it in the newspapers. I should have thought he ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... affront. Up to that time they had stood aside from the conflict. They did not care to risk a rebuff: they knew Christophe, they knew his efficiency, and they knew also that he was not long-suffering. Certain of them had discreetly expressed their regret that so gifted a composer should dabble in a profession not his own. Whatever might be their opinion (when they had one), and however hurt they might be by Christophe, they respected in him their own privilege of being able to criticise everything without being criticised themselves. But when they saw Christophe rudely break ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... after this somewhat gross and material fashion, for the berries she gave him, the flowers she wove in his hair, and the brooks that drove his mimic mills. He chased the butterfly, he climbed the trees, he would stand in the rain, paint his cheeks with berry juice, dabble in the mud, and nothing was secure from his prying fingers and curious eyes. He must touch and taste of everything, and know every secret. But it eluded him; and he lay down from his giddy chase, tired and unsatisfied, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... apoplexy, and a fit of the stone: the blow from the former," he adds, "was so violent, that my physician despaired of my revival; but, by the mercy of Heaven, I am so far revived, that I can again enjoy a social and literary intercourse with my friends; and even dabble again in rhyme; but, as I suspect, that my rhymes, like the Homilies of Gil Blas' Archbishop, may savour of apoplexy, I think it right to keep ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... look you through and through,' as one young staff officer observed; 'it is taking a liberty with a man. Burnett always seems as though he is trying to turn a fellow inside out, to get at the other side of him'—not a very eloquent description of a would-be philosopher who loved to dabble a ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... immortal spirit. On the other hand, a man-god of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an unusually high degree powers which most of his fellows arrogate to themselves on a smaller scale; for in rude society there is hardly a person who does not dabble in magic. Thus, whereas a man-god of the former or inspired type derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his heavenly radiance behind a dull mask of earthly mould, a man-god of the latter type draws his extraordinary power from a certain ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... for the only time in his life, the pangs of diffidence. There was indeed opening before him a wide door of hope. He had changed into the service of Messrs. Liddell and Gordon; these gentlemen had begun to dabble in the new field of marine telegraphy; and Fleeming was already face to face with his life's work. That impotent sense of his own value, as of a ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall from him. New problems which he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... convict himself, but suppresses everything which may convict her. How know I that this resistance in the carriage was more than a sham? How know I that he did not attend her in the house? That they did not dabble together on their way through the dark piazza—along the stairs?—Nay, what proof is there that he did not find his way, with polluting purpose, into the very chamber?—that chamber, from which, not three weeks ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... poor wool-gathering brother, the entomologist, who can only invent new ways of hatching out wire-worms! Yet all may really depend on the first chance direction which led one brother as a boy to buy a butterfly net, and sent the other into the school laboratory to dabble with an electric wheel ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... was not permitted to dabble in the pan of soapy water, he revenged himself by bringing Cash's mitten and throwing that in, and crying "Ee? Ee?" with a shameless delight because it sailed round and round until Cash turned and saw ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... an ambassador to dabble in treasonable intrigue, especially when old, and when the weather is wet. Let us suppose that Goring and the Earl met. Goring's business was to ask if the Earl 'has leave to disclose the secret that was not in his power to do, last time you saw him. I am ready ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... dabble her feet in the creek presented itself to her. Always she had liked to play in the water. What a delight now to take off her shoes and stockings and wade out into the shallows near the bank! She had worn low shoes that afternoon, and the dust ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... God's rivers in the open air seems to me a sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make clean the body; but the imagination takes no share ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... for Tom Bond was dead. He lay flat on his face with his hands stretched afore him, and a revolver, the daps of mine, had fallen from his hand and dropped a foot away from it. And, looking close, I saw a big dabble of blood about him, that had come from his body ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... I'm not up to that kind of thing," Geof answered; "you know I don't pretend to paint. My business is with bricks and mortar. It's only when I'm loafing that I dabble in colours." ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... the painter and my brother that they should depart the next day but one; they then began to talk of art. 'I'll stick to the heroic,' said the painter; 'I now and then dabble in the comic, but what I do gives me no pleasure, the comic is so low; there is nothing like the heroic. I am engaged here on a heroic picture,' said he, pointing to the canvas; 'the subject is "Pharaoh dismissing Moses from Egypt," after the last ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... and slid it off from the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it, or had some undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd fancies are common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of these young people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble the tips of their fingers in water, after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... amateurs will not even be reviewed. Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, nor the faintly praising notice will be meted out to them. There will be a conspiracy of silence. The very circulating libraries will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from undertakers who dabble in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie's door, unless he casts off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march through rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the last gyves that fetter the noble art of romance, and ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... Caesar set the fashion, and in Rome it would have been conspicuous not to dabble ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... have begun to bestow on me. If you gradually procure me the profit of all the occasional poems, and we do not consume them in mere feasting, I shall soon come to something. But then, you must not take it ill if I dabble also in your handicraft." Upon this, I told them what I had observed in their occupations, and for which I held myself fit at any rate. Each one had previously rated his services in money, and I asked them to assist me also in completing my establishment. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... destroy them; women, too, seem disposed to prove that they have something else to attend to, besides setting off and conserving their beauty. We have with us a youth sent for sale to Tripoli by the Bashaw of Fezzan, who it seems must dabble in slave-dealing, notwithstanding his imprecations against the merchants of Ghadames for the same crime. He is from Mandara, and was kidnapped by the Tibboos. This is the captain of all the sham-fighters, and the leader and prompter ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... of romance from Catherine's imaginative mind, but the dark suspicions she harbours about General Tilney are not altogether inexplicable. He is so much less natural and so much more stagey than the other characters that he might reasonably be expected to dabble in the sinister. This time Catherine is misled by memories of the Sicilian Romance into weaving a mystery around the fate of Mrs. Tilney, whom she pictures receiving from the hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food. She watches ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... "I, as an educationist, dabble a little in geology, mineralogy, and palaeontology. My friend is a botanist. You are Mr. Rawdon. Allow me, Mr. Rawdon, to introduce my friend Mr. Eugene Coristine, of Osgood Hall, Barrister, and my humble self, Farquhar Wilkinson, of ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... To this it may be replied that the buyers and sellers of stocks are indirectly performing the function of adjusting demand and supply, and so regulating industry. So far as they are expert business men trained in the knowledge of a particular market this may be so. So far as they dabble in the market in the hope of profiting from a favourable turn, they appear rather as gamblers. I will not pretend to determine which of the two is the larger class. I would point out only that, on the face of the facts, the profits derived from this particular source appear ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... rudeness upon the sex," she said. "It's because I dabble in paints and things that I thought of these flowers first as a picture. But I assure you I'm just as much given to plundering them to set off my hair and dress as any daughter of Eve," wherewith she placed ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... one—traded her one for lessons for Ruth, and she says wash-day at the Doctor's is like Sunday now—what say? Lila's so crazy about it they can't keep her out of the basement while the woman works,—likes to dabble in the water you know like all children, washing her ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... about the bloom. But I had that in me deep down, and still, Of which you, you alone, possess the key, A sullen nobleness to you disclosed E'en then with shame: and by no other guessed. This you well know: betray not that at least; For even the lightest woman here is scared, And dreads to dabble deeper in the soul. We ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... fate of our English Newman Street apostles, and of M. de la M—, the mad priest, and his congregation of mad converts, should be a warning to such of us as are inclined to dabble in religious speculations; for, in them, as in all others, our flighty brains soon lose themselves, and we find our reason speedily lying prostrated at the mercy of our passions; and I think that Madame Sand's novel of Spiridion may do a vast deal of good, and bears a good moral with it; though ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to New York and to the Pacific, Joe thinks over every turn of this intrigue. If Hardin tries to hide Armand Valois' fortune, why should he dabble in ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... reason why I am not an artist—a great artist. I am hampered by an inheritance that allows me to live without working, so I don't do anything worth while. I only dabble at this and that. Some day, ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... this is that, in studying a character, no one is content with the plain and easy way of reaching an understanding of it—the way of looking only at its ACTS. We all love to dabble in the metaphysical, to examine and weigh motives and intentions, to compare ourselves and make wildly erroneous judgment inevitable by listening to the man's WORDS—his professions, always more or less dishonest, though ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... not the dealing in livings but the thinking they can buy the Holy Ghost for money which vulgar rich people indulge in when they dabble in literature, music ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... crossing a stubble-field, the girl met a couple of her people-men. Near evening we entered one of their tents. The women set up a cry, 'Kiomi! Kiomi!' like a rising rookery. Their eyes and teeth made such a flashing as when you dabble a hand in a dark waterpool. The strange tongue they talked, with a kind of peck of the voice at a word, rapid, never high or low, and then a slide of similar tones all round,—not musical, but catching and incessant,—gave me an idea that I had fallen upon a society of birds, exceedingly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... skimming of many, one beautiful picture well loved than a hundred idly glanced at and labeled with some trite comment. Too many of the upper class, for whom limitless cultural opportunities are open, dabble in everything, know names and schools, repeat glibly the current phrases of criticism, but miss the lesson, the clarification of insight, the vision of the author or artist. Such superficial culture is a futile expenditure of time and money. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... walls. Burly men, who certainly cannot ride a race, but who have horse in every feature, puff cigars and chat in jerky monosyllables that to an outsider are perfectly incomprehensible. But the glib way in which heavy sums of money are spoken of conveys the impression that they dabble in ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... Huntsville, Alabama but you know in them days old folks didn't tell the young folks no thin' and I was so small when they brought me here. I don't know what year I was born but I believe I'm about eighty-two. You know when a person ain't able to work and dabble out his own clothes, you know he's gone ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... the lovers with horns, Rise in the starlight, one by one, They draw their knives on the spurting throats, They smear the column with blood of goats, They dabble the blood on hair and lips And wait like stones for the moon's eclipse. They stand like stones and stare at the sky Where the moon leers down like a half-closed eye. . . In the green moonlight still they stand While wind flows over the darkened sand And brood on the soft forgotten things That ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... their evidence of love and confidence in their wives, these colonial gentlemen were not, however, especially anxious to have womankind dabble in politics or other public affairs. The husbands were willing enough to explain public activities of a grave nature to their help-meets, and sometimes even asked their opinion on proposed movements; but the men did not hesitate to think aloud the theories that the home ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... written by Mr. Price, but it might have been written by a dozen other young men—granting intelligence, youth, leisure, a university education, and three or four years of London life—any one of a dozen clever young men who frequent West End drawing-rooms and dabble in literature might have written it. All that could be said was that the play was, or rather had been, dans le mouvement; and original work never is dans le mouvement. Divorce was nothing more than the product of certain ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... mood To dabble in blood: To wage a great war. Shall we have gold enough? 390 Shall we have strength enough? Questioned ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... ladies of my acquaintance who dabble in charity; but they're not in the position of the duke. It would take them weeks to get Millicent into the Bellingham Home, while, if he nominated her, she would be dragged into it at full speed. She wouldn't be given time ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... apparently by the hapless wizard himself, who seemed to be no mean penman, and signed by a dozen or more of the coloured inhabitants: setting forth how he was known by all to be far too virtuous a personage to dabble in that unlawful practice of Obeah, of which both he and his friends testified the deepest abhorrence. But there was the bottle, safe under lock and key; and as for the testimonial, those who read it said that it was not worth the paper it was written on. Most probably ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... at a tub: In chemical bleachings they dabble and grub. Our shirts each bespatters Then brush them to tatters. The wearers get mad as March hares or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various

... earlier and idler parts of his life, Howard had been pleased to dabble somewhat in medicine, after the manner of the gentlemen of his time. This stood him in good part upon his travels, and made him familiar with the various forms of disease that especially afflicted prisons and the people at large. For jail fever and typhus he rightly judged that the sanitary ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... our implacable critic; "when women were content with looking pretty before marriage, and with good housekeeping after, they were uninteresting certainly, but they were respectable. Now they dabble in all things; are weakly aesthetic, weakly scientific, weakly controversial, and wholly prosy, and contemptible." Dabbling is pitiful, certainly, and weakness has few allies, but let us do justice even to the weak dabblers. AEsthetic, or scientific, or controversial training has but recently been ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... at the bank. In neither instance did the purchaser own outright what he sought to sell at an advance; merely in one case it was shares, in the other merchandise. Of course it was foolish for inexperienced country folk with small means to dabble in stocks and bonds, but why should not city people who were clever and had clever friends in the business eke out the cost of living by shrewd investments? In an old-fashioned sense it might be considered gambling; but, if it were true, as Wilbur and Mr. Williams both maintained, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... taken more or less interest in matters pertaining to surgery, at least as far as it is desirable that a boy should dabble in such things. He had borrowed many books from Dr. Temple, and on two occasions had set a broken arm in a fashion that won him words of ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... story? Why, yes. If Henry, there, will translate it And put it in verse and print as he promised To do when it happened. Will he do it? I doubt. He dislikes to dabble with rhyme and with measure. Says that good honest prose is the best and the sweetest If the words be well chosen, short, Saxon, and pithy. And that making of verse is the business of women, Of green boys at school, and of lovers when spooning. But try him. It may be he will. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... nodded. "I have had my men out shadowing them and their friends. They tell me that the Annenbergs hold salons—I suppose you would call them that—attended by numbers of men and women of high social and intellectual position who dabble in radicalism and all sorts of things." "Who are the other leaders?" asked Craig. "Have you ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... at those children down there!' said the queen, sobbing and pointing to them. 'Did you ever see anybody so happy? Why can't I have mud to dabble in too, and why can't I take off my shoes and stockings, and amuse myself like the children do, instead of being so dull and stuck-up ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... our list," he said. "Let us have no students of occult; no men who dabble in laboratory spiritualism; just nice, live, healthy people who never heard of such things—if possible. You ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... play for money ruins whist: and seldom can his Club Persuade him to put counters (coins for Zulus!) on the rub; He has been known for lozenges to dabble with piquet; He wasn't Chief Attorney then, nor was it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various

... animal life, and that he had even embellished the outside of his blinds with the most ridiculous paintings, did not disconcert me in the least; on the contrary, it confirmed my belief that he did not dabble in music, until, to my horror, I discovered that the strangely discordant sounds of a harp which kept reaching my ears from some unknown region were actually proceeding from his basement, where he had two harpsichords of his own invention. He informed me that he had unfortunately ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... Well, you can easily see why. For if I wanted to dabble in counterfeits, then I need not go digging for gold first. [Pause] It is a strange thing anyhow, that if anybody else did what I cannot make myself do, then I'd be willing to acquit him—but I couldn't possibly acquit myself. I might even make a brilliant speech in ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg



Words linked to "Dabble" :   play around, bob, souse, busy, douse, dabbler, splash around, occupy, dunk, dip, paddle, play



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