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More "Volubility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great astonishment, and then began to ask questions and raise objections, at most of which Beauchene laughed gayly, like the gross egotist he was. He talked at length with extreme volubility, going into all sorts of details, at times assuming a semi-apologetic manner, but more frequently justifying himself with an air of triumph. And, finally, when they reached the corner of the Rue Caumartin he halted to bid Mathieu ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... disappointed and in a furious rage, addressed me in most insulting language, declaring between the hiccup, which his want of breath and want of coolness had produced, that I was a Jesuit, a hypocrite; and many other affectionate epithets did he apply to me with the utmost volubility. ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... say," said Mr. Heron, hastily. He looked as if he would like to put another question or two, then turned away, muttered something inaudible, and started off upon a totally different subject, about which he laid down the law with unaccustomed volubility and decision. Stretton listened, assented now and then, but took care to say little in reply. A sudden turn in the road brought them close to a fine, old building, grey with age, but stately still, at the sight of which Mr. Heron became silent and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... remember it!" she said, as if her volubility needed an explanation. "It took me a long time to understand. But one day ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... stood, mentally rejoicing at the success of her narrative, for she was convinced that the magistrate placed implicit confidence in her revelations, although during her recital, delivered, by the way, with conjurer-like volubility, not a muscle of M. Segmuller's face had betrayed what was passing in his mind. When she paused, out of breath, he rose from his seat, and without a word approached his clerk to inspect the notes taken during the earlier part ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... head waiter, with his little black imperial and beady eyes, a miracle of suaveness, deftness, and light-footedness, one moment bowing before a newcomer, his face wreathed with smiles, the next storming with volubility absolutely indescribable at a tardy waiter, a moment later gravely discussing the wine list with a bon viveur, and offering confidential and wholly disinterested advice. It was all ordinary enough perhaps, but a chapter out of real life. Their pleasure was almost the pleasure ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... were talking, Carefinotu was listening with extreme attention. His eyes sparkled with intelligence. One could see that he understood what was being said in his presence. He then spoke with extreme volubility, but it was only a succession of onomatopoeias devoid of sense, of harsh interjections with a and ou predominant, as in the majority of ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... momentous importance that he should thoroughly defeat and convince his man—overwhelmed us. Mr. Peterborough, not being supple in French, fell back upon his English with a flickering smile of protestation; but even in his native tongue he could make no head against the tremendous volubility and brief ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... contrast to her former volubility, but it was sufficient to thrill the questioner's ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... strain of the situation, Rigby talked with earnest volubility. He led the conversation into many lines—the war in the Philippines, the banquet, the play which Jane and Graydon were seeing. The thought of the play brought a shade of despair to his brow—pretty Miss Clegg was in the party with ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... were spoken with great volubility, so much so, indeed, that they only occupied a few very brief seconds in delivering; and then, perhaps, the baron's career might have ended, for it seemed to be fully the intention of the other to conclude what he said by firing the pistol in his face; but the wily aspect ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in full bloom, and, while I stood perfectly still close by, he would circle away, quivering round the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc! he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... Polchester now for a considerable number of years. He was an artist, and had arrived in the town one summer on a walking tour through Glebeshire. He had attracted attention at once by the quality of his painting, by the volubility of his manner, and by his general air of being a person of considerable distinction. His surname was French, but no one knew anything with any certainty about him. Something attracted him in Polchester, and he stayed. He soon ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... your taste. You commonly hate much volubility. How have I heard you bemoan yourself when ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... powerful arguments. Try to make him understand the true value of these goods. Nothing under the sun is so powerful as example. Now, to furnish examples, you must state who sells this particular line of goods. Mention the names with all the precision, volubility and confidence in the world. He may evince no interest, but it has moved him greatly to hear all those names! Now he begins to talk prices to you. The chances are that he is "drawing the long bow"—that is, that he is putting ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... old dowager rattled on remorselessly to Mr. Esmond, who was quite astounded with her present volubility, contrasting it with her former haughty behaviour to him. But she had taken him into favour for the moment, and chose not only to like him, as far as her nature permitted, but to be afraid of him; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... afternoon, they poured one avalanche of stones after another, waking the echoes of the glen. Meantime we elders sat together on the platform, Hanson and his friend smoking in silence like Indian sachems, Mrs. Hanson rattling on as usual with an adroit volubility, saying nothing, but keeping the party at their ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for to-morrow, and all the morning has been passed in attendance for our passports.—This affair is not so quickly dispatched as you may imagine. The French are, indeed, said to be a very lively people, but we mistake their volubility for vivacity; for in their public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no people on earth can be more tedious—they are slow, irregular, and loquacious; and a retail English ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French grammar was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe's, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due, by the French sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plodding, enabled him to improve the district considerably. He drew many poor people around him; he repeatedly charmed the "unwashed" with his strong rough-hewn orgasms; the place seemed to have been specially reserved for some man having just the perseverance and vigorous volubility which he possessed; he had ostensibly a "mission" in the locality; the people of the district liked him, he reciprocated the feeling, and more than once intimated that he would make one or two spots, including the wild ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Skelton (d. 1529) are singularly though coarsely energetic. He was the tutor of Henry VIII., and during the greater part of the reign of his pupil he continued to satirize social and ecclesiastical abuses. His poems are exceedingly curious and grotesque, and the volubility with which he vents his acrid humors is truly surprising. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547), opened a new era in English poetry, and by his foreign studies, and his refinement of taste and feeling, was enabled to turn poetical literature ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... to recognize his claim to the character he assumed; but our gentleman was determined to play his part, for, by dint of much scrambling, he succeeded in getting into the weather-quarter boat, where he steadied himself by holding on to a shroud, and then commenced issuing his commands with amazing volubility and very peculiar gestures. Of course no one obeyed his orders; but as it was impossible to quiet him, we swept by the ships of the squadron with this strange fellow performing his antics in full view of all the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... and puckered look, the look of a surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with extraordinary volubility. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... I went on with an impassioned volubility altogether strange to my custom, recalling to him the tender intimacy in which she and I had grown up from babyhood; the early tacit understanding that we were to inherit the Cedars and all its belongings, and his own not infrequent allusions in those days to the vision of our sharing it, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... bashfulness took flight. Seven schools had taught her to hold her own, and she was soon imparting information about herself with a volubility that left no doubt of her acquaintance with the English tongue. Other girls hurried up to listen, and in less than a minute she was the centre of a crowd, answering a perfect fire of questions with a beaming good humour and a quickness of repartee that rather ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... come from the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the full depth of ancient ignorance and superstition; and over this Michael Angelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself of a number of impressive sentences of a highly important character, which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the whole race of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world. These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine, and the moment that he found himself here in this Temple of Isis, the stream of wisdom ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... delighted with foreign manners; but her daughter's opportunities of explaining them to her were unexpectedly forestalled by her own tone of large acquaintance with them. One of the things that nipped in the bud all response to her volubility was Maisie's surprised retreat before the fact that Continental life was what she had been almost brought up on. It was Mrs. Beale, disconcertingly, who began to explain it to her friends; it was she who, wherever they turned, was the interpreter, the historian and the guide. She ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... moment, in a voice that I could scarce have recognised, my kinsman began swearing and praying in a mingled stream. I looked at him; he had fallen on his knees, his face was agonised; at each step of the castaway's the pitch of his voice rose, the volubility of his utterance and the fervour of his language redoubled. I call it prayer, for it was addressed to God; but surely no such ranting incongruities were ever before addressed to the Creator by a creature: surely if prayer can be a sin, this mad harangue was sinful. I ran to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Although it had only struck six they were all in evening dress. They were under thirty, and in them elegance and dissipation were equally evident. Lord Muchross, a clean-shaven Johnnie, walked at the head of the gang, assuming by virtue of his greater volubility a sort of headship. Dicky, the driver, a stout commoner, spoke of drink; and a languid blonde, Lord Snowdown, leaned against the chimney-piece displaying a thin figure. The others took seats and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... many of them bleeding from ghastly wounds, yet devouring the dried food they carried, the while comrades were treating their hurts after a fashion which would have caused the civilized being to shriek aloud with agony; the ferocious volubility wherewith they discussed and fought the battle over again; and away beyond their lines, the earth black with corpses of the slain; while up yonder, though this he could not see, the rock circle was literally piled with those who had been his friends or followers for many a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... nodded. He was looking with absorbed interest into Sunni's eyes. He came out of his instant of abstraction with a start, while Jones went on with respectful volubility. ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... me, and then recommenced the gesticulation and babble of the two. At length she appeared satisfied with the understanding at which they arrived. I was growing uneasy at their prolonged volubility, when Monsieur Pilot pirouetted up to ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... fleas harnessed to and drawing it off, on their own account. We have a couple of Italian work-people in our establishment; and to hear one or other of them talking away to our servants with the utmost violence and volubility in Genoese, and our servants answering with great fluency in English (very loud: as if the others were only deaf, not Italian), is one of the most ridiculous things possible. The effect is greatly enhanced by the Genoese manner, which is exceedingly animated ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... heered him callin' an' caught the stench, an' all the rest of the wicked entertainment," cried Hank, with a volubility that ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... in fright at his own volubility, for he had run his words off like a piece learned by heart, as though afraid that if he stopped he would not have courage to ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... replied Lady Rookwood, checking the volubility of the man of law. "I thank you, Mr. Coates, for the service you have rendered me; you will now add materially to the obligation by removing the prisoner with ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with warmth and volubility about the Cairnhope folk, their good hearts, and their superstitions, when a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... calculation is all right," said Joe, laughing at her volubility and the queer way in which she bobbed a curtsey between each item of her catalogue. Then, addressing poor "Downy" he cried out curtly, "Turn ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... talkativeness &c adj.; garrulity; multiloquence^, much speaking. jaw; gabble; jabber, chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet^, caquetterie [Fr.]; blabber, bavardage^, bibble-babble^, gibble-gabble^; small talk &c (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words; flux de bouche [Fr.], flux de mots [Fr.]; copia verborum [Lat.], cacoethes loquendi [Lat.]; furor loquendi [Lat.]; verbosity &c (diffuseness) 573; gift of the gab &c (eloquence) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with a stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and continued with increasing volubility. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... walked to a point behind us, and stood there with her eyes fixed upon the picture. I glanced at her once; her gaze was steady, but perfectly blank. Then she joined us again, and struck into the stream of my volubility. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the very entries he wants to find, and spends twice the time he would if he had proceeded more leisurely. In a word, everything is done with a bounce, and a thump, and an air, and a flourish, and sharp and eager motions, and perpetual volubility of tongue. His image is that of a blind beetle in the twilight, which, with incessant hum and drone and buzz, flies blundering into the face of every one it chances ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... malaperts of birddom none excel and few equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright audacity. All his songs—and he has quite a respectable list of them—seem to be either a protest or a challenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the reason you have failed to find the messenger, of whose appearance you have received definite information, is that you have not looked among the servants of a certain distinguished visitor in town. Oh," I burst forth with feverish volubility, as I saw the inspector's lips open in what could not fail to be a sarcastic utterance, "I know what you feel tempted to reply. Why should a servant deliver a warning against his own master? If you will be patient with me you will soon see; but ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... this little Polish lady, and her volubility, and her extravagant, subtle, honest flattery of her dear adopted daughter! It gave him liberty to steep himself in the rich consciousness of Natalie's presence; he could listen in silence for the sound of her voice—he could covertly watch the beauty of her shapely hands—without being ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... approaches very gradually. The taciturn humility with which he commenced his operations was in exact proportion to the enthusiastic volubility of his advanced intimacy. Mrs Yeld thought that it became her to address to him a few civil words, and he replied to her with a shame-faced modesty that almost overcame her dislike to his profession. She spoke of the poor of Beccles, being very careful to allude only to their material ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... his stumbling upon this old French catch (which I took it to be from seeing him feebly flourish one of his slicks as if inviting a chorus) put him upon speaking his own tongue altogether, for though he continued to chatter with all the volubility his breath would permit during the whole time I sat eating, not one word of English did he speak, and not one word therefore did I understand. Seeing how it must be with him presently, I brought his mattress ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... deceived" by the long conspiracy of the astute Bacon, or the Nameless One. To believe this possible, considering the eager and suspicious jealousy and volubility of rival playwrights, is to be credulous indeed. The Baconians, representing Will almost as incapable of the use of pen and ink as "the old hermit of Prague," destroy their own case. A Will who had to make his mark, like his father, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... to have studied English, but how much he actually learnt I never could ascertain. I have been told with solemn mysteriousness at Bayreuth that, like the parrot, he could have rattled off our tongue with tremendous volubility had he chosen; but the fact that he never chose lends colour to the supposition that in reality he had no choice. However, in the original or in translations he read Shakespeare; and it may be presumed that he knew Goethe and Schiller almost by heart. Naturally he determined ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... saw that her guest's anxiety prevented him from doing justice to the good cheer which she set before him, she commenced her career of verbal consolation with the usual volubility of those women in her station, who, conscious of good looks, good intentions, and good lungs, entertain no fear either of wearying themselves or of fatiguing ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... rooms, at the doors of which, pausing on the outside, we could hear the volubility, and sometimes the wrangling, of the female inhabitants within, but invariably found silence and peace, when we stepped over the threshold. The women were grouped together in their sitting-rooms, sometimes three or four, sometimes a larger number, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he said, with the volubility with which a man speaks when he does not wish to give his companion a chance to say a word, "that I was pained to see Brigard take seriously an argument that evidently was not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... said. "No, mother, I am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book. The gentleman had not even needed to sit down to become interested: apparently he had taken up the volume from a table as soon as he came in, and, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Volubility prevailed. "Der Prinz," was mentioned. A bugle sounded far away, and its call was taken up by one nearer, and then by one close at hand. This seemed to increase the excitement greatly. A mono-rail car bumbled past. The telephone bell rang passionately, and the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... conclusions. He attained his remarkable facility by persistent, continuous, and patient toil; and a glance at his notebooks and fly-leaves would be the best of lessons for anyone who was tempted to depend upon fluid and easy volubility. He used to say that, after long practice, a sermon would fall into shape in a very few moments; and I remember his once taking carefully written address of my own, summarising and denuding it, and presenting ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... are cruelly voluble, but their volubility taps the evil humour of the universal human disease. Their thoughts are our thoughts, their obsessions, our obsessions. Let no one think, in his vain security, that he has a right to say: "I have no part in this morbidity. I am different ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... housings, and the alforjas, or bags. His tongue had become unloosed, as if by sorcery; and far from being unable to speak, he proved that, when it suited his purpose, he could discourse with wonderful volubility. The donkey was soon tied to the manger, and a large measure of barley emptied before it, the greatest part of which the Gypsy boy presently removed, his father having purposely omitted to mix the barley ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... year tell, Miss F'raishy—sho'," Mingo assented, with great heartiness. But Mrs. Bivins's volubility would hardly wait for this perfunctory indorsement. She talked as she arranged the dishes, and occasionally she would hold a piece of crockery suspended in the air as she emphasised her words. She dropped into a mortuary strain—"Poor ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... superior powers of articulation possessed by the American sometimes takes the form of profuse and even extreme volubility will hardly be denied by those conversant with the facts. The American may not be more profound than his English cousin or even more fertile in ideas, but as a rule he is much more ready and easy in the discussion of the moment; whatever the state of his "gold reserve" may be, he has no lack ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... very few good books after all, for we can't count profuse histories, travels in mule carts to discover the sources of the Nile, or the volubility of fiction. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... had acquired considerable influence over the mind of George the First. The other ministers could speak no German. The King could speak no English. All the communication that Walpole held with his master was in very bad Latin. Carteret dismayed his colleagues by the volubility with which he addressed his Majesty in German. They listened with envy and terror to the mysterious gutturals which might possibly convey suggestions very little ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bustled into his office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran. He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had collected, listening with outstretched necks ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... purchaser read the writing which hung from my neck, he looked me over carefully, answering with affirmative nods of the head to what the merchant, with his usual volubility, was saying to him in Latin. Often he stopped to measure, with his spread out fingers, the size of my chest, the thickness of my arms, or ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... and conceit. A man who, in the easiness of his heart, would listen humbly, patiently, approvingly to Mr Planner, must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable docility which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment, was only to be equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated his numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics—nay, men who had ventured only to contend for the soundness of their preconceived ideas, and who had been met with a torrent of vituperation and reproach in consequence—did ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... displayed no sign of interest in our coming. But the queen, who sat beside him in a purple sacque, was more accessible; and there was present an interpreter so willing that his volubility became at last the cause of our departure. He had greeted us upon our entrance:—"That is the honourable King, and I am his interpreter," he had said, with more stateliness than truth. For he held no appointment in the court, seemed extremely ill-acquainted with the island ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... either restrained by a feeling of natural gallantry, little as she deserves the consideration due to her sex, (for a female satirist ever places herself beyond the pale of such forbearance,) or he is subdued by her superior volubility. He revenges himself, however, in her absence: he abuses her with such a variety of comic invective, and pours forth his pent-up wrath with such a ludicrous extravagance and exaggeration, that he betrays at once how deep is his mortification, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... eagerness and volubility. "Ah, my dear madame," she exclaimed, "you would be fortunate indeed if you were to get into this family. The nicest people they are; he so liked and respected; she so pretty and engaging. A most desirable situation, too, treated as a lady, and all things comfortable. There's ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... pats them like a Graeco-Roman wrestler; but there is always the extraordinarily graceful, lithe movement and, with curious exceptions, a supreme unconsciousness of the audience; whilst the passionate volubility and the almost ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Frenchwoman, with angry volubility, "what has she done that you call contumacy and disrespect? Yes, dear madame, there is the question; and if he cannot answer, is it not most cruel to call me conspirator, and spy, and intrigant, because I talk to my dear madame, who is my ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... knitted brows, and a perpendicular wall of brain, too large for his puny body. He was not only, I soon discovered, a water-drinker, but a strict "vegetarian" also; to which, perhaps, he owed a great deal of the almost preternatural clearness, volubility, and sensitiveness of his mind. But whether from his ascetic habits, or the un-healthiness of his trade, the marks of ill-health were upon him; and his sallow cheek, and ever-working lip, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... parliamentary type of ancient standing, and apparently ineradicable growth. In the present House of Commons fresh developments are presented by Mr. Seymour Keay and Mr. Morton. These are distinct varieties, but from the unmistakable root. Both are gifted with boundless volubility, unhampered by ordinary considerations of coherency and cogency. Neither is influenced by that sense of the dread majesty of the House of Commons which keeps some members dumb all through their parliamentary life, and to the last, as in the case of Mr. Bright, weighs upon even great orators. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... talking, Carefinotu was listening with extreme attention. His eyes sparkled with intelligence. One could see that he understood what was being said in his presence. He then spoke with extreme volubility, but it was only a succession of onomatopoeias devoid of sense, of harsh interjections with a and ou predominant, as in the majority ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... uttered on hearing me speak Greek cannot be described. Their volubility was suddenly increased a hundredfold; and had all the various owners of the multitudinous garments before me arisen to reclaim their respective habiliments, it could hardly have been greater. I could not have believed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... unrestrained volubility and wantonness of speech is the occasion of numberless evils and vexations in life. It begets resentment in him who is the subject of it, sows the seed of strife and dissension amongst others, and inflames little disgusts and offences ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... lodged with an Orangeman, who had run out of his house as the Adjutant rode by at the head of his men, and proceeded to welcome him with flowery volubility. On the advice of his host Captain Borrow sent George to a Protestant school, where he met the Irish boy Murtagh, who figures so largely in Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Murtagh settled any doubts that Borrow may have had as to his ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... entrusted to a son of man, who verily is not a man, a light of the captivity ... a holy light, a saintly man ... who dwells at present in the great city of London. Albeit I could not fully understand him on account of his volubility and his speaking as an inhabitant of Jerusalem.... His chamber is lighted by silver candlesticks on the walls, with a central eight-branched lamp made of pure silver of beaten work. And albeit it contained oil to burn a day and a night it remained ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... par with "Yankee" troops. A sprinkling of Dutchmen was all right. We had in the Sixty-first Germans and Dutchmen, who were the peers as soldiers, of any in the regiment, but this Seventh regiment when it went into action jabbered and talked Dutch to exceed in volubility any female sewing society ever assembled. As they came up and got into position the volume of jabber almost overcame the rattle of musketry and the roar of artillery. I am certain their conduct did not favorably impress our ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... manner did he ever grow quite "gentlemanly" or Salonfaehig in the conventional and obliterated sense of the terms. He was too cordial and emphatic for that. His broad brow, his big chest, his bright blue eyes, his volubility in talk and laughter told a tale of vitality far beyond the common; but his fine and nervous hands, and the vivacity of all his reactions suggested a degree of sensibility that one rarely finds conjoined with so robustly animal a frame. The great peculiarity of Davidson ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... like him again all right. Then, Romer talks too slowly for her. Her mind works quicker than his, and one can only deal with him by racing on in front, and turning round to beckon. With Mrs. Wyburn there are only two things that are any use—dash and volubility. It's difficult to keep the thing going when she's alone ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... haze that she was wakened by the sound of voices outside the house, under the window by which she lay. There were the tones of a stranger and those of old Mrs. Pritchard, but now flowing on briskly with a volubility unrecognizable. Virginia sat up, hesitating Were they only passing by, or stopping? Should She show herself or let them go on? In an instant the question was settled for her. It was too late. She would only shame them if they ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... replied May, in her volubility effacing any shy attempt at greeting on Dora's part, "I am so sorry for Tray's rudeness in going into your shop without being invited; but I do think he knew you again, I am almost sure of it," she said eagerly, as if the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... sudden volubility. The dam once down, she poured forth a catalogue of wrongs that seemed endless, switching off from one dialect to another and at intervals inserting, apropos apparently of nothing, the few words of German she had picked up. The lieutenant yelled for an interpreter, and a Nyamwezi who knew ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... talking to Madame Sennier. He was even sitting down beside her. She spoke, evidently with volubility, making rapid gestures with her hands. Then she paused. She was listening attentively to Heath. Mrs. Shiffney and Elliot listened, too, as if absorbed. Heath's French must really be excellent. Why had he—? If only she could hear ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... dull, ugly, royal persons he was forced to paint! He has wrung the neck of banal eloquence, and his prose, sober, rich, noble, sonorous, rhythmic, is to my taste preferable to the exalted, versatile volubility and lofty poetic tumblings in the azure of any school of painting. His palette is ever cool and fastidiously restricted. It has been said that he lacks imagination, as if creation or evocation of character is not ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... upon—a strange dream of St. Mary of Egypt, as a very old woman, clothed in the mantle of Zosimus—the lion who was to bury her, couchant at her feet. Helbeck looked into it; admired some points, criticised others. Williams got down from his stool, talked with a low-voiced volubility, an egotistical passion and disturbance that roused astonishment in Laura. Till then she had been acquainted only with the measured attitudes and levelled voice that the Jesuit learns from the "Regulae Modestiae" of his order. But for ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... praised the dinner and marvelled at its cheapness. They watched the head waiter, with his little black imperial and beady eyes, a miracle of suaveness, deftness, and light-footedness, one moment bowing before a newcomer, his face wreathed with smiles, the next storming with volubility absolutely indescribable at a tardy waiter, a moment later gravely discussing the wine list with a bon viveur, and offering confidential and wholly disinterested advice. It was all ordinary enough perhaps, ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... son, who held the position of Chief Historian at the research library. He was more slender and darker than his father, and lacking in his volubility and glad-handedness. ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... that he was the first to be tired. However, he said it was fine; and was quite surprised to hear me read Greek with such sonorous volubility. For his part it was long since he had read such authors: to which I sarcastically yielded my ready assent. He had partly forgotten them, he said. Indeed! answered I. My tone signified he never knew them—'but you think the composition good ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... dear charming Pamela, did you only excel me in words, I could forgive you: for there may be a knack, and a volubility, as to words, that a natural talent may supply; but to be thus out-done in thought and in deed, who can bear it? And in so ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... all; polite, attentive, agreeable to her guests, quarreling and exacting with her servants, grasping and avaricious with all; singing a piece from "Norma" in a voice, about the size of a thread No. 150, that showed traces of former excellence; or cheapening a bushel of corn meal with equal volubility. What a character! Full of little secrets and mysteries. "Now, my dear, I don't ask you to tell a story, you know; but if the others ask you if you knew it, just look surprised and say, 'Oh, dear me, when did it happen?' 'Cause I promised not to tell; only you are such favorites that I could ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... first at hand is taken indifferently, whereas the copiousness of language of which I speak is to be the result of acquisition of judgment in the use of words, with the view of attaining the true expressive force of eloquence, and not empty volubility of speech. This can be affected only by hearing and reading the best things; and it is only by giving it our attention that we shall know not only the appellations of things, but what ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... bright and puckered look, the look of a surf-bather, who measures with swift eye the height of the rolling breaker and plunges therein, the elderly lady addressed her with extraordinary volubility. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... a habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign volubility they bloomed and spread and took on color as do those tight little paper water flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found yourself confiding to her your innermost longings, your ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... extremely talkative, approached the governor's guard, examined them a moment, and said with excessive volubility, "My orders are simply to prevent persons going toward the wharf, just now the Chameleon, and a fine vessel she is, belonging to Blue Beard, and which has bravely run down a Spanish pirate—came last ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... advanced, his toothless face contorted with inexplicable emotion, and corroborated the red-armed woman, and the chorus generally, with astonishing volubility ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... The volubility of Benoit assigns divers long speeches to Briseida, in which favourable interpreters have seen the germ of the future Cressid; and in which any fair critic may see the suggestion of her. But it is little more than a suggestion. Of the full and masterly conception of Cressid ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... after another, waking the echoes of the glen. Meanwhile we elders sat together on the platform, Hanson and his friend smoking in silence like Indian sachems, Mrs. Hanson rattling on as usual with an adroit volubility, saying nothing, but keeping the party at their ease like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... impotent rage passed over the country when the nature and acceptance of the Japanese Ultimatum became generally known. The Chinese, always an emotional people responding with quasi- feminine volubility to oppressive acts, cried aloud at the ignominy of the diplomacy which had so cruelly crucified them. One and all declared that the day of shame which had been so harshly imposed upon them would never be forgotten ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... old fellow's volubility. He did not know how near to the truth the woodsman's shrewdness had hit; for to himself, as to most strong characters, his peculiarities were the normal, and therefore the unnoticed. His habit of thought in respect to other people was rather objective ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... they neared the gate Dot's volubility quite suddenly died down. She plucked a white rose, to fill in the pause and fastened it in her friend's dress. Her fingers trembled unmistakably as she did it, and Anne looked at her inquiringly. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... beneath the rattle of Lady Arabella's volubility Michael could hear again the murmur of a soft, dragging voice: "I'm sorry you're going away, ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... not an M. P., was talking to put off time, till Julia should come in: so he now favoured Mrs. Dodd, of all people, with a flowery description of her husband's play, which I, who have not his motive for volubility, suppress. However, he wound up with the captains "moral influence." "Last match," said he, "Barkington did not do itself justice. Several, that could have made a stand, were frightened out, rather than bowled, by the London professionals. Then Captain Dodd went in, and treated those artists ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... excellent seat beside the pretty Miss Featherweight, whom he admired so much, and he was chattering to her with the utmost volubility. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... turn himself and almost bumped into Jack. Even the darkey's volubility was stilled at the sight ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... laughter and hearty joking at the table, and the flushed faces and increased volubility of the gentlemen gave too certain evidence of the truth ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... executioner had placed the rope round her neck, and the cap on her head ready to be drawn over the face, she uttered a long and fervent prayer, expressed with great volubility and propriety of diction, every word of which could be distinctly heard by us as we circled the scaffold. She could not have rounded her periods more gracefully or articulated them more perfectly, if she had rehearsed her part ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... to know anything about the neighborhood of Wildernsea," interrupted Robert, with a feeble protest against the landlord's volubility. "I want to ask you a few questions about some ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... would go to such expense for me! But I have an idea that my guv'nor will hardly laugh when I tell him this. Still, thank you all the same, m'sieur, and au revoir." He was darting off when a sudden thought detained him. "Excuse me," said he, with conjuror like volubility; "I was so horrified that I forgot business. Tell me, m'sieur, if the count dies, you'll take charge of the funeral arrangements, won't you? Very well; a word of advice then. Don't go to the regular undertakers, but come to me: here's my address"—proffering ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... no reply, but sat with down-bent head and flushing face, wishing again, as when this dreadful visit was appointed him, that Katharine Maitland had never set foot in Marsden village. Longing, too, with a longing unspeakable, to retort upon her with a volubility and sharpness exceeding even her own. But all unconsciously his pride had received just the sting needed, and his angry thought, in which there was ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... silent partner of the house. He was a large, slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had eaten. In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives. He woke up as his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any other city. Leigh assured him that there was no ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... pause here for a second or so, but as Mount Dunstan exhibited no signs of intending to use violence, and, on the contrary, continued to inspect the catalogue, he broke forth with renewed cheery volubility: ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... d'Argeles did not observe the peculiar expression on her son's face. She had compelled him to take a chair opposite her, and, with nervous volubility, she continued: "If I don't deny myself the happiness of embracing you again, it is because I have not broken the vow I took never to make myself known to you. When I entered this room, I was firmly resolved to convince you, no matter how, that you had been ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... with Lear, compelling his characters to commit actions unnatural to them, and, above all, to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one whatever. Thus, in "Othello," altho that is, perhaps, I will not say the best, but the least bad and the least encumbered by pompous volubility, the characters of Othello, Iago, Cassio, Emilia, according to Shakespeare, are much less natural and lifelike than in the Italian romance. Shakespeare's Othello suffers from epilepsy, of which he has an attack ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... this Dowager-duchess, who, when they were published, had already for two years been the wife of Sir Thomas Hanmer. At the age of twelve, and probably in Dublin, Hopkins met the mysterious lady who animates these volumes under the name of Amasia. Who was Amasia? That, alas! even the volubility of her lover does not reveal. But she was Irish, the daughter of a wealthy and perhaps titled personage, and the intimate companion for many years of the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... voce purposes, I dumb-foundered my examiner by the readiness and volubility of my responses, to such an extent that, after asking one question only, he intimated his complete satisfaction, and I divined by his smiles that he was secretly determined to work the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... out. Madame was always merry and bright in spite of her denunciations of the "Sale Boches—les brigands, les bandits!" and Mademoiselle put my knowledge of French to a severe but pleasant test. She spoke with alarming rapidity, her words tumbling over one another in a cascade of volubility delightful to hear but difficult to follow. She had a strong mind—masterly in her methods of business—so that she could serve six customers at once and make each one think that her attention was entirely devoted ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... within an inch or two of mine own. At the end of five minutes I thrust my fingers in my ears out of sheer consideration for his vocal organs, and turn away; but the next moment he is fronting me again, and repeating himself with ever-increasing volubility. Finding my dulness quite impenetrable, he searches out another loquacious mortal, and by the aid of the tiny beam-scales every Chinaman carries for weighing broken silver, they finally make it understood that for six big rounds (dollars) ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... name," said Roland, overcome by the man's volubility and alarm together,—"what means all this? ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... furnished by Mr. GINNELL and Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING. Each of them leads a distinct party, making up by its activity and volubility for its comparative lack of size. Logically they may look forward to receiving copies of the "confidential" document too sacred for the inspection even of Peers and Privy Councillors. But I should not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... met his raillery with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, and the use of hard words, so that it sometimes seemed to the domestics as if he really had some considerable power in argument. Worthy Mrs McAllister never joined in the debate, except by a single remark now and then. She knew her ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... was given with such volubility, that Charlotte could not find an opportunity to interrupt her, or to offer a single word till the whole was finished, and then found her ideas so confused, that she ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... toward the Pope, who had not moved, and smiling, with an expression half-serious, half-ironical, proceeded in a new vein, in which were blended something of the elevated and the petty, of the pompous and the trivial, as was often his usage—all the time speaking with the volubility so often exhibited by ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... within five minutes of the highest point of the Col. For three-quarters of an hour we all broke our shins, and the officials the Third Commandment. They invoked more saints than I had ever heard of, and, in default, did not scruple to appeal with shocking volubility to darker aid. It was all of no use,—and well it might be; for when we had given it up in despair, after long patience and a considerable period of the contrary, and had descended for half an hour in the direction ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... borough to know that it can always have its subscription lists well headed! And the young Radical was popular throughout the county. No one could take a chair at a mechanics' meeting with better grace or more alacrity, or spin out his half-hour's speech with greater ease and volubility. And then he was a born gentleman, which is so great a recommendation for a Radical. So that, in fact, young Mr. Westmacott, though he did not spend so much money as old Griffenbottom, was almost as popular in the ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... group of opposition is dominated by the Mensheviks . Their chief leaders are Martov and Dan. Of these two, Martov is by far the cleverer, Dan the more garrulous, being often led away by his own volubility into agitation of a kind not approved by his friends. Both are men of very ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... The bubble burst, several suffered, and Le Blon was heard of no more." Walpole adds, "It is said he died in an hospital at Paris in 1740:" and observes that Le Blon was "very far from young when he knew him, but of surprising vivacity and volubility, and with a head admirably mechanic, but an universal projector, and with at least one of the qualities that attend that vocation, either a dupe or a cheat; I think," he continues, "the former, though, as most of his projects ended in air, the sufferers believed the latter. As he was much an enthusiast, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... was a blond German boy whose taciturnity attracted her volubility and vivacity. She mistook his stolidness for depth, and it was a long time before she realized that his silence was not due to the weight of his thoughts but to the fact that he had nothing to say. In her last year at high school she found herself singled out for ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... his rifle on his shoulder, sauntered around, an aged Irish woman, full of nerve and volubility, caught sight of him. She was the mother of the girl, and had been told of the object of David's visit. He must have appeared very boyish, for he had not yet entered his eighteenth year, and though very wiry and athletic, he was of slender frame, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... closer about him. The road had taken a sharp turn round the side of a little hill, and the breeze from the wide reach of level valley lands was keen and piercing. Bradley's volubility jarred on him. It brought an obnoxious person back, and roughly, into the warm memory of Harriet Floyd's presence, and gentle, selfless tenderness. He ground his teeth in agony. He had just been debating in his mind the possibility of ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor, truly, was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time to come, for poor Armand's only reply to the torrent of flute notes was a silence filled with cruelly painful ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... this Hamil learned through the indiscriminate volubility of his host who, when his feelings had been injured, was amusingly naive for such ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... the silly mamma tell them not to tease her. Observe that, when out with the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with the new flower it has gathered, to show her how pretty it is, and to get her also to say it is pretty. Listen to the eager volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he has been to see, if only he can find some one who will attend with any interest. Does not the induction lie on the surface? Is it not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts—that we must just ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... modes of acting," she said, with terrible volubility, "toward people who devote themselves to magic arts— entreaty and menaces. You would not yield to the first of these means, hence, I must employ the second. Stay," she added, "perhaps this will induce you ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... describe the scene at length; but greater events are pressing upon me. The two conveyancers fenced with one another for some time very guardedly and good-humoredly: pleasant was it to observe the conscious condescension of Mortmain, the anxious energy and volubility of Frankpledge. When Mr. Mortmain said anything that seemed weighty or pointed, Quirk looked with an elated air, a quick triumphant glance, at Gammon; who, in his turn, whenever Mr. Frankpledge quoted an "old case" from Bendloe, Godbolt, or the Year Books, (which, having always piqued himself on ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... judge of character. You have a full development of language devoted rather to accuracy and definiteness of meaning than volubility; and yet I doubt not you talk fast when excited—that belongs to your temperament. Your intellect is active and your mind more naturally runs in the channel of intellect than of feeling. It seeks an intellectual development rather than to be developed through the affections ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... why, then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale; Say, that she frown; I'll say, she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew; Say, she be mute, and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, And say ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Hautenoblesse," continued Salemina. "When she returned to America, it is no flattery to say that in dress, attitude, inflection, manner, she was a thorough Parisienne. There was an elegant superficiality and a superficial elegance about her that I can never forget, nor yet her extraordinary volubility in a foreign language,—the fluency with which she expressed her inmost soul on all topics without the aid of a single irregular verb, for these she was never able to acquire; oh, it was wonderful, but there was no affectation ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... all glad to court. The ladies, in truth, seemed much taken with his society. They put fifty questions to him about the play—the assembly—the sermon—marriages—deaths—christenings, and what not; the whole of which he answered with surprising volubility. His tongue was the only active part about him, going as glibly as if he were ten stones, instead of thirty, and as if he were a Tims in person as well as in name. In a short time I found myself totally neglected. Julia ceased to eye me, her aunt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... down, and talked away with great volubility to Mrs. Bolton. He asked about the undertaking business, and how many mutes went down with Lady Estrich's remains; and about the Inn, and who lived there. He seemed very much interested about Mr. Campion's cab and horse, and had met that ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extremely wise old man entered upon the scene than his mental power became evident to every person there. Timorous hearts regained their composure, and the Curator—who in his ten years of service had never felt the burden of his position so acutely as in the last ten minutes—showed his relief by a volubility quite unnatural to him under ordinary conditions. As he conducted the detectives across the court, he talked not of the victim, as might reasonably be expected, but of the woman who had been found leaning over her with ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... face with high cheek-bones, and dark eyes which seemed darker by reason of the snowy hair showing under a mob cap. Her chin was square and pointed upward like old Mother Hubbard's, and she could talk of batter-cakes or home rule with humorous volubility, and smoke a pipe with the ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... her hands; and then she proceeded to tell her news with theatrical volubility. "Mr. Sharp, the manager, wants a lot of tallish girls, and I told him I knew of a perfect dear. He said: 'Bring her on, then,' and I flew home to tell you. Now, don't look wild, and say no. You've only got to sing in one chorus, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the growing slackness in his personal habits.... He had addressed her with great volubility and earnestness upon his belief that now they were married, she must get rid of all her virginal book-learned notions about reticence between husband and wife. Such feminine "hanky-panky tricks," he assured her, were the cause of "all these finicky, unhappy marriages ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... since his volubility had begun to desert him, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka's John-Willy into conversation—a difficult matter, since, though he had been placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's benefit, he felt the watchful ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... unfriendly way, and at once broke into exhortation: "It's a very short life we live; man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble. Well for them that are the children of light—if seeing the light they sin not against it"; and so on with amazing volubility. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... any rate, I prevailed on him to return to his room, when he took my arm, and, seating himself on the bedside, recited to me the paradigms of the more anomalous Greek verbs with great volubility for twenty minutes on end—that is to say, until Mrs. Stimcoe returned with the doctor safely ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... justice takes its course. Mrs. Brownrigg, having been sentenced to the gallows, is seen in the condemned cell; her son by her side, and the fatal cart in the back-ground. Having been brought up genteelly, she declines the mode of conveyance provided for her journey to Tyburn with the utmost volubility. Being about to be hanged merely does not seem to affect her so poignantly as the disgraceful "drag" she is doomed to take her last journey in. She swoons at the idea; and the curtain falls to end her wicked career, and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... but to me. She knew I should like it if you could carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because she did think of me," Miss Tita went on with her unexpected, persuasive volubility. "You could see them—you could use them." She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional—stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Italian's volubility, commenced to hurl imprecations upon the heads of the unknown sons of dogs who dared to tamper with his master's safe, and while we were engaged in putting the scattered papers in order the door-bell rang, and the clerk went to ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... giving her, as it were, a signal to commence operations. To work she applied herself upon the contents of her wicker store-room, with such hearty good-will, that I imagined myself secured from her volubility for at least one hour. Alas! alas! her tongue and her teeth were, I verily believe, running a race; and when the good dame discovered that to her queries and remarks I deigned not a reply, she "just was so glad there ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... on that dim verge And look across the sea; The waves have changed into a dirge Their volubility. And in my disillusioned heart Is a ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... one save me? Will no one speak for my life?" These words were ejaculated with the ghastly accent and volubility of terror. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... she to give up her old affections, her feminine loves, because she found that she was a cousin to nobody? Was she no longer to pour out her heart to Beatrice Gresham with all the girlish volubility of an equal? Was she to be severed from Patience Oriel, and banished—or rather was she to banish herself—from the free place she had maintained in the various youthful female conclaves held ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the teapot. Her voice had pretty, flute-like ups and downs in it and a questioning, upward cadence at the end of sentences. Her upper lip, her smile, the run of her speech, all would have made one think her humorous, were it not for the strain of nervousness that one felt in her very volubility. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... overlooks, while he gabbles on, the very entries he wants to find, and spends twice the time he would if he had proceeded more leisurely. In a word, everything is done with a bounce, and a thump, and an air, and a flourish, and sharp and eager motions, and perpetual volubility of tongue. His image is that of a blind beetle in the twilight, which, with incessant hum and drone and buzz, flies blundering into the face of every one it ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Washington and Franklin!" he exclaimed one day. To have suffered for freedom was the open-sesame to Landor's heart; nor did age in any way chill this noble enthusiasm, as the letter here inserted amply proves. It was sufficient to name Kossuth to bring fire to the old man's eye and eulogistic volubility to his tongue. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... with perfect self-possession and great volubility, Mademoiselle Leblanc sat down again amid a murmur of approbation, and they proceeded to read the letter which had been ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... it was agreed that her singing had the volubility, ease, and musical sweetness of a bird: her execution was remarkable for velocity. Her voice was rather thin, but its tones were clear as a silver bell, brilliant and sparkling as a diamond; it embraced a range of two octaves and a half (or about eighteen ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... motionless; then as if to refute and explain away any ordinary reason for her possession of the drug, he remembered, in a comprehensive flash the recent violent changes in her character—her uncontrollable attacks of nervousness, her spasmodic movements and her sudden flowing, almost hysterical, volubility of speech. His heart contracted with a sensation like that of terror, and he was turning away again when his glance was arrested by a heap of crumpled bills lying loosely in one corner of the open drawer. Recollecting that she ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... neared the cottage, and a young moon gaining brightness. Bluebell, remembering a childish superstition, paused to wish. The passage was dark as she entered, and her mother's tones, talking with great volubility, struck her ear. "Mamma has her company voice on," thought she, which, being interpreted, meant an increase of nervousness ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... his volubility, and gazed keenly at Saxon to see if she had followed him. What he saw in her face and eyes satisfied him, and he added, with ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... dignity of character so often the case with men of ardent natures and intense ambition. Eminently cool in debate, he never made any attempt at forensic display, but confined himself exclusively to the logic of his subject. He clearly saw his way, and carefully went along, spurning ornament or volubility, and only compelling into service words which clearly and succinctly conveyed his ideas, and these only elucidated the subject-matter he was discussing. Strictly honest, and equally truthful, he never deviated, under any circumstances, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... would circle away, quivering round the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc! he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... people have consented to wink at much that we disapprove of. Houghton represents the most detested Northern element among us. Of course you, in your inexperience, felt that you must be polite to every man introduced to you, and he talked with the volubility of which only a Yankee is capable. It is scarcely possible that you will meet him anywhere except at Mrs. Willoughby's, and if you go there any more you must learn the art of shaking off an objectionable person speedily. Your meeting Houghton ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and acquaintances, who were not so remarkable for their talent of speaking, as for their skill both in the Greek and Roman literature; and C. Rusticellus of Bononia, an experienced Orator, and a man of great natural volubility. But the most eloquent of all those who were not citizens of Rome, was T. Betucius Barrus of Asculum, some of whose Orations, which were spoken in that city, are still extant: that which he made at Rome against Caepio, is really an excellent one: the speech which Caepio delivered in answer to it, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... case of an emergency they could rent this attic, but they found that there was not even a floor, nothing but joists, and beneath them the lath and plaster of the ceiling below. All of this, however, did not chill their ardor as much as might have been expected, because of the volubility of the agent. There was no end to the advantages of the house, as he set them forth, and he was not silent for an instant; he showed them everything, down to the locks on the doors and the catches on the windows, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... spoken with the utmost volubility. As I listened I almost fancied myself again in England, and at a country fair. Taking in his audience at a glance, I saw his eye rest on me ere ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... letter, from not thinking of it, or from want of matter, but from want of time. I am constantly occupied, engaged, amused, till I cannot bring a hundredth part of what I have to say into the compass of a letter. You will lose nothing by this: you know my volubility, when I am full of new subjects; and I have at least many hours of conversation for you at my return. One does not learn a whole nation in four or five months; but, for the time, few, I believe, have seen, studied, or got so much acquainted with ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... in these two of them passed the night. Before retiring to rest, they produced their pipes and foul-smelling Boer tobacco, proceeding to light up just under my windows, meanwhile talking their unmusical language with great volubility. At length, about ten, they appeared to slumber, and a chorus of snoring arose, which generally sent me to sleep, to be awakened two or three hours later by renewed conversations, which now and then died away into hoarse whispers. I always imagined they were discussing myself, and devising some ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... not to interfere. It would be beneath his dignity to offer any opinion, so under the tamarisks he sat smoking, watching the Arabs taking each other by the shoulders and talking with an extraordinary volubility. It amused him to watch two who appeared to have come to an understanding. "They're saying, 'Was there ever any one so unreasonable? So-and-so, did you hear what he said?'" Drawing long pipes from their girdles, these two would sit and smoke in silence ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... literature, monsieur—for literature, which I adore—when a cry makes itself to hear. I turn myself, and what do I see? Mesdemoiselles, your nieces, playing at criquette, with the Messieurs Smees—sons of Doctor Smees—young galopins, monsieur!" All this was shrieked with immense volubility and many actions of the hand and parasol across the square-railings to the amused Colonel, at whom the little girls peered ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... far as any outward and visible manifestations of power and influence—of senatorial usefulness and ability—is concerned, will appear to be a mere cipher. But it does not require the meddlesomeness of a Whalley, or the volubility of a Newdegate, to make a politician. In politics, as in the minor affairs of life, tact and discrimination often go for more than fervid bursts of oratory, or highly-concentrated genius. In the region of ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... was broken by a joyous exclamation from the Judge. He had discovered the Old Man's rifle in the corner, where it had been at first overlooked. "He ain't gone yet, gentlemen—for yer's his rifle," he broke in, with a feverish return of volubility, and a high excited falsetto. "He wouldn't have left this behind. No! I knowed it from the first. He's just outside a bit, foraging for wood and water. No, sir! Coming along here I said to Union Mills—didn't I?—'Bet your life the Old Man's not far off, even if he ain't in ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... to proceed, but our guides protested against such a measure. With great volubility, in their native Neapolitan dialect, with which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres, that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there was a deep hole within, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... whether the wife of so respectable a man was capable of anything but what was quite correct. If she did keep a lodging-house, it was because she could not help it. God knows if she would not rather have some comfortable independence to live upon at her ease. The lieutenant, tired of her volubility and her bouncing about the patent of gentility, said to her, "Sister hostess, I am willing to believe that your husband is a gentleman, but then you must allow he is only a gentleman innkeeper." The landlady replied with great dignity, "And where ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... cause, feared that despair had at last overtaken him, and that he would succumb and give over definitely the search. The idea roused her to a sort of galvanic energy in promoting the project, and she would continually formulate fantastic plans and suggest to him tenuous theories with feverish volubility, only to have him thrust them aside with a lacklustre ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... not left long in her new house without visitors. Early on the day after her arrival, Mrs. Houghton came to her, and began at once, with great volubility, to explain how the land lay, and to suggest how it should be made to lie for the future. "I am so glad you have come. As soon, you know, as they positively forbade me to get on horseback again this winter, I made up my mind ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the able and worthy man who is still remembered by the name of Conversation Sharp. Indeed, his deference for the feelings of all whom he liked and respected, which an experienced observer could detect beneath the eagerness of his manner and the volubility of his talk, made him a favourite among those of a generation above his own. He bore his honours quietly, and enjoyed them with the natural and hearty pleasure of a man who has a taste for society, but whose ambitions lie elsewhere. For the space of three ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Abatina, Fickleness Abecedary, Volubility Acacia, Friendship Acacia, Rose, Elegance Acacia, Yellow, Secret Love Acanthus, The Fine Arts Acalia, Temperance Achillea Millefolia, War Achimenes, Such worth is rare Aconite, Misanthropy Adonis, Flos, Sad memories ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... occasion with that prompt energy which betokens true genius, she seized Hester by the nape of the neck, hurled her to the ground, and sent her oranges flying in all directions! At the same time she began to storm at her with a volubility of invective that astonished herself as well as the amused bystanders. As for poor Hugh Sommers, the noise had prevented him from hearing the word "father!" and all that met his eyes was one black girl roughly using another. Alas! the poor man had ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... although probably themselves no admirers of the country, profess themselves so fond of English society, that they insist upon accompanying us; and it is curious to witness the artificial French manners, and the noisy volubility of French, tongues introduced into those retired and beautiful scenes, which, in our own country, we associate with the simplicity and innocence of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... He was looking with absorbed interest into Sunni's eyes. He came out of his instant of abstraction with a start, while Jones went on with respectful volubility. ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... said Wayland, unstrapping his pack, and displaying its contents with as much dexterity as if he had been bred to the trade. Indeed he had occasionally pursued it in the course of his roving life, and now commended his wares with all the volubility of a trader, and showed some skill in the main art of placing prices ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and gaiety sits perpetually on their countenances, and their whole deportment seems to indicate that their only business is to "strew the path of life with flowers." Persuasion hangs on their lips; and, though their volubility of tongue is indefatigable, so soft is their accent, so lively their expression, so various their attitudes, that they fix the attention for hours together on ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... whose amusement all this was designed, did not seem more enthusiastic than myself. Most of her time was spent in a corner, staring confusedly at the assembled company, and contemplating in silent amazement the volubility of her ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... and countercharge. New gladiators, as different from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy, who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the contenders, all of whom spoke as ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... chain still remains attached to the hoop. About the year 1858, Mr. Swinnerton informed Dr. Brushfield that he had never seen it used, but that at the petty sessions it had often been produced in terrorem, to stay the volubility of a woman's tongue; and that a threat by a magistrate to order its appliance had always proved sufficient to abate the garrulity of the ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... fine and clear instinct of them likewise. And some such would tell us that there is intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the quality which they desire for their country's future good. Self- consciousness, eagerness, volubility, petulance in countenance, in gesture, and in voice—which last is too often most harsh and artificial, the breath being sent forth through the closed teeth, and almost entirely at the corners of the mouth—and, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... took flight. Seven schools had taught her to hold her own, and she was soon imparting information about herself with a volubility that left no doubt of her acquaintance with the English tongue. Other girls hurried up to listen, and in less than a minute she was the centre of a crowd, answering a perfect fire of questions with a beaming good humour and a quickness of repartee that rather took the ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... birddom none excel and few equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright audacity. All his songs—and he has quite a respectable list of them—seem to be either a protest or a challenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. Again and again in ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... me. When I kneeled down to pray, the strangest alarms took hold of my mind. He to whom I had been accustomed to prate with flippant volubility in a set form of heartless words, seemed to my startled mind so exceedingly terrible in unapproachable majesty, and so very angry with me in particular, that I became paralyzed with fear. I strove against this with characteristic pertinacity; I called ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... once proceeded with volubility to explain his presence. "Ah, yes, it's meself in the flesh, Burke, and very pleased to see ye. I've taken a holiday to come and do ye a good turn. And Mrs. Ranger has been entertaining me like a prince in your absence. So you've got ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... I'll kill ye as shore as thar's a God in heaven." And at that moment the door opened and Pleasant Trouble swung in on his crutch and grinned. Doctor Jim then heard the tongue-lashing of his life. The woman's volubility was like a mill-race, and her command of vitriolic epithets was beyond his ken. She recited what Juno had done, Doctor Jim was doing, the things Jerry had done and ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... and Page to accompany him to the matinee to see a comic opera. He had pronounced it "bully," unable to see that Laura evinced only a mild interest in the performance. On each propitious occasion he had made love to her extravagantly. He continually protested his profound respect with a volubility and earnestness that was quite ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Speakers of both Universities, yet I agree with you, that Women are better qualified to succeed in Oratory than the Men, and believe this is to be resolved into natural Causes. You have mentioned only the Volubility of their Tongue; but what do you think of the silent Flattery of their pretty Faces, and the Perswasion which even an insipid Discourse carries with it when flowing from beautiful Lips, to which it would ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... close to Alanno, we found, that with incredible volubility, he was addressing the assembly upon some all-absorbing subject connected with King Bello, and his presumed encroachments toward the northwest ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... short man, but with breadth enough, and a back excessively bent,—bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, I believe, volubility of speech, nor did he fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy,—a flavor of the humorist. His step ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them," said the girl with hysterical volubility. "One of them pulled my hat down over my eyes and tore it, and one of them held me by the elbows behind, and they grabbed my satchel away that had a book in it that I had just got out of the library. I hadn't got ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... deaths, and yet lived! His gleesome spirit had sustained him throughout the dread ordeal. He had even joked with his cruel tormentors! Now that the dark hour was past, his jeux d'esprit were poured forth with a continuous volubility. No; not continuous. At intervals, a shadow crossed his spirit, as it did that of all of us. We could not fail to lament the fate of ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them had already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably carrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from their own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest volubility. The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... hostess's larder, had swept in a great deal of good company, and she was evidently resolved on setting the one evil over against the other. She now showered upon us a long, rapid, and vehement address; and he who has not heard the Tuscan discourse does not know what volubility is. "What does she say?" I inquired at one of my two Russian friends. "She says very many words," he replied, "but the meaning is moneys, moneys." "Have you any coffee?" I asked. "Oh, coffee! delightful coffee; but it had gone sailing down the flood." "And it carried off the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
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