"Converse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of cheery converse with a non-moral and unphilosophic Professor of Moral Philosophy, a fat youth of the name of Augustus Grobble whose life was one long picturesque pose, he sprang to his feet, remarking: "I go, Augustus, I am bidden to behold some prize Gosling-Greens ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... information as he might desire in respect to the various institutions of England, whether those relating to government, to education, or to religion. The person thus appointed was Bishop Burnet, a very distinguished dignitary of the Church. The bishop could, of course, only converse with Peter through interpreters, but the practice of conversing in that way was very common in those days, and persons were specially trained and educated to translate the language of one person to another in an easy and agreeable manner. In this way Bishop ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... daughter went on discussing the question of the clergyman's guilt in spite of Mrs Walker's previously expressed desire that nothing more might be said about it. But Mrs Walker, like many other mothers, was apt to be more free in converse with her daughter than she was with her son. While they were thus talking the father came in from his office, and then the subject was dropped. He was a man between fifty and sixty years of age, with grey hair, rather short, and somewhat ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... time, and once above twenty at a litter; but, as there were near double the number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long experience in the world this female was grown very sagacious and artful. When she found occasion to converse with a boar, she used to open all the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept; and when her purpose was served, would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to four or five, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... have a good look at you, and then I shall be content for some time. Yes, I was not mistaken, you are a perfect model, and must be my future heroine. Yours is just the beauty that I required. There, that will do, now sit down and let us converse. I often have wanted a companion. As for an amanuensis that is only a nominal task, I write as fast as most people, and I cannot follow my ideas, let me scribble for life, as I may say; and as for my writing being illegible, that's the compositor's ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... converse in perfect safety here," she said. "When you feel quite equal to it, let me hear what you have to communicate. It will never go any further. I could not do the work I do if I felt it necessary to ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... firmly adhering to truth and with passions under complete control, viz., the son of Santanu and Ganga, named Devavrata or Bhishma of unfading glory, lay on a hero's bed with the sons of Pandu sitting around him, tell me, O great sage, what converse ensued in that meeting of heroes after ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... reached the dyke where the men were standing delving out the peat, it was to find a group of three fresh arrivals in the persons of Hickathrift the wheelwright, Dave, and John Warren, and all in earnest converse upon some subject. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... converse where there is no danger of being overheard, Charles, as what I have to say is of a very grave and serious nature and ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... Copeland of University Avenue was one of the first to be seen. Mrs. Copeland is a very pleasant and agreeable lady, ready to converse, and evidently very much absorbed in the work to which she has given so much of her attention. Mrs. Copeland claims to have been healed a number of years ago by Christian Scientists, after she had practically been given up by ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... cunning eyes of the latter fell upon the woman they lighted with a new and sudden lust. Slowly he crept toward her, and now he spoke; but this time there fell upon Tarzan's surprised ears a language he could understand; the last one that he would ever have thought of employing in attempting to converse with human beings—the low guttural barking of the tribe of great anthropoids—his own mother tongue. And the woman answered the man in the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... liberal thinkers to the theory of the physical resurrection of Jesus. What is the physical but the common denominator between one finite mind and another? It is a mode of language, an expression of thought as well as a condition of thought. Imagine a being free of a three-dimensional world trying to converse with a being still limited to a two-dimensional world, and we have a clew to what I think may have happened after the crucifixion of Jesus. The three-dimensional body would behave in a manner altogether unaccountable to the two-dimensional watcher. ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... circumspection of an old beau as I am. But my friend Horace has very well said: "Every year takes something from us;" and instructed me to form my pursuits and desires according to the stage of my life; therefore, I have no more to value myself upon, than that, I can converse with young people without peevishness, or wishing myself a moment younger. For which reason, when I am amongst them, I rather moderate than interrupt their diversions. But though I have this complacency, I must not pretend to write ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... never sure a moment that some miserable chance may not throw the whole performance out for good. (He throws himself into the big chair, left, so that the two men are in exactly reversed positions from their former ones. Both converse somewhat boredly ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... their abilities and industry in preaching against the Jansenists; in establishing an opinion of their superior sanctity; and inspiring a spirit of quietism among their votaries, who were transported into the delirium of possession, illumination, and supernatural converse. These arts were often used for the most infamous purposes. Female enthusiasts were wrought up to such a violence of agitation, that nature fainted under the struggle, and the pseudo saint seized this opportunity of violating the chastity of his penitent. Such was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... all competent judges, save a very few, has created almost more men and women, undoubtedly real and lifelike, than any other prose novelist. Now you cannot create a man or a woman without knowing whereof a man and a woman are made, though the converse proposition is unfortunately by no means so universally predicable. He was content, as a rule, to put this great science of his into practice rather than to expound it in theory, to demonstrate it rather than to lecture on it, but that ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... of will to cleave to it, not because they saw happiness as the criterion. An immature perception of this as the criterion without a full recognition of its bearings may have misled some; it is possible to see a general truth clearly and yet evaluate wrongly in concrete situations. But the converse of the truth that morality makes for happiness is the truth that the way to attain happiness is morality. No lesson could be more salutary. Correct concrete evaluations are more important than correct abstract generalizations, and Carlyle is nearly ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the evening commenced, which I found to be draw poker. I sat around for some time watching the officers play poker, when the chaplain, who was a nice little pious man, asked me to step outside the tent, as he wished to converse with me. I went out into the moonlight with him, and he took me away from the tents, under a tree, and told me he had been much interested in my story. I thanked him, and said I had been as brief as possible. He said, "I was interested, because I used to be something of a liar myself, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... that I looked upon myself as a mere domestic, who knew her own place too well to walk beside such fine ladies and gentlemen as they were—though her young ladies might choose to have her with them, and even condescend to converse with her when no better company were at hand. Thus—I am almost ashamed to confess it—but indeed I gave myself no little trouble in my endeavours (if I did keep up with them) to appear perfectly unconscious ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... herself to converse, and tried to smile as if there were no impending gloom. It was here Mary Ballard's influence was felt by them all. She had helped her friend more ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... natives, when strangers to each other, from speaking at first sight, no such restraint is imposed on the gins; who with the privilege of their sex are ever ready to speak, and the strangers as it seemed to answer; for thus at least we held converse with this tribe across the river. Our female guide, who had scarcely before ventured to look up, stood now boldly forward and addressed the strange tribe in a very animated and apparently eloquent manner; and when her countenance was thus lighted up, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... must dance, write, and draw. He must be able to converse wittily and with apt repartee. Fencing and vaulting were considered essential, as well as riding with grace and skill and knowing all about the ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... Flint's Gram., p. 79. "Two negatives destroy one another, being equivalent to an affirmative."—Frost's El. of E. Gram., p. 48. "Two objects, resembling one another, are presented to the imagination."—Parker's Exercises in Comp., p. 47. "Mankind, in order to hold converse with each other, found it necessary to give names to objects."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 42. "Words are derived from each other[185] in various ways."—Cooper's Gram., p. 108. "There are many other ways of deriving ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in self-defence, I hope that they will be exonerated in the eyes of your Holiness; for just as the law provides for cases in which the father may legally kill the child, so this holds good in the converse. We will therefore continue our pleadings on receiving leave from your Holiness to ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my heart grew sick at the thought of all which those fine young men might have to endure before the crowning victory came. The thought of the near presence of the Angel of Death was always coming up in the mind, changing and transfiguring into something nobler and better our earthly converse. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... cell, and gazed on the sun as if he hastened too slowly to his setting. And yet such fearful solitude is of but brief duration. Even though we flee to the desert we cannot be long alone. Cut off from social converse, the mind of man engenders companions for itself—companions like the gloom from which they have emerged. It was thus that to St. Anthony appeared the Spirit of Fornication, under the form of a lascivious negro boy; it was thus that multitudes of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... monkey face. When the great apes were quite near, she suddenly called aloud. Instantly they stopped their hideous clamour as though at a word of command. Then Hendrika addressed them: I can only describe it so. That is to say, she began to make a noise such as baboons do when they converse with each other. I have known Hottentots and Bushmen who said that they could talk with the baboons and understand their language, but I confess I never heard it done before ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... to talk to, why, he opened his window to converse with the swallows, and asked them every evening what was the news—for Caspar could not afford ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... is no angle—in other words, when the rope hangs perpendicularly, the whole apparatus is stationary; but the larger the angle, that is to say, the farther the balloon precedes the end of the rope, the greater the velocity; and the converse. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Cuzco which was spoken at court; just as in Flanders all the nobles and persons of any rank speak French. Owing to this circumstance, as the Spaniards have learnt the language of the Incas, or of Cuzco, they are able to converse with all the principal natives of Peru, both those of the mountain and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... smile on her lips, and, impatient to escape from my delicate position, in a moment I rose, and, while continuing to converse, hastelessly and noiselessly undressed. I was burning my ships. When my ships were burned there was absolutely nothing left for me to do but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a Gentleman of a fair and generous Mind. I wish therefore that you would freely converse with him upon this Subject if you think you can do it with Propriety; and let him know that I have lately receivd many Letters from him, which I have duly attended to and would have acknowledgd to him by this Opportunity, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... saw that she had misjudged him, and was eager to reassure and confirm his purpose for life; and the converse that followed had grown so absorbing as to cause Hemstead to forget for the time one, who by some right, divine or otherwise, had suddenly taken possession of his thoughts with a despotism as sweet ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... wait, a glorious throng; and as they stand they wave him onwards. Dante, Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Plutarch, Montaigne, and many another hero of old is waiting there. See the sharp-pointed features of the Italian bard, and Homer no longer blind! The two are holding animated converse, and ever beckoning him on. And a voice seemed to speak out loud and clear amid the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... embarrassed, so vast is the richness and variety of views. But I will show first the 'Five Points.' [Great eagerness, and cries, "Down front!"] Of late, philanthropy and religion, walking in sweet converse, hand in hand, have relieved the horrors of this region, and now one may walk there comparatively ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... amusing to behold. Fine gentlemen in broadcloth, ladies in silks and jewels, and beggars in squalid rags, are mingled in true Republican confusion. The bustle and uproar are very great, generally making it impossible to converse in an ordinary tone. From early morn till after midnight ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the answer. Several times he put the query in different forms. Miemon, fool that he was, stuck to the date. Then said the magistrate—"Miemon, you are a liar. Moreover, you are a murderer. On the 13th day, on going up to the castle, this Gemba had converse with your lord. At that time Nakagawa Miemon was summoned to carry out a mission. As a man of whom report had been made you were noted well. At that time you had no wound.... Tie him up, and take him away." The yakunin fell on him from ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... house and left him politely trying to converse with her grandmother—at tremendous odds, for he was not a rival of Red Pepper Burns in his fondness for old ladies, not to mention deaf ones. The ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... directly. It gave, of course, an opportunity of exhibiting subjectively many 'fine shades' of feeling. But it is certainly much more difficult to carry conviction in inventing letters for fictitious persons than in making them converse. In the latter case there is a background; there is the life and movement of the various characters, the spontaneity of question and reply, and the running interchange of talk, all helping to keep a spell upon the reader. The letter gives much less chance of illusion, and ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... to another, and so on around the room from day to day. The process reminds you a little of the procedure at a progressive euchre party. At each meal you meet a new company of Old Chautauquans, and are expected to converse: but many (indeed most) of these people are humanly refreshing, and the experience is not ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... missionary, "that I have much to hear as well as to tell, and, being both tired and cold, would suggest that we seek a more sheltered spot than this, where we may converse while my man ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... confide as a friend, as well as because he was preparing to go to his religious duties on the morrow. Let it not be said that it was superstition in Paul to thank God so fervently for having permitted him once more to converse with his priest. What can be imagined a more worthy cause for thanksgiving than the meeting with a true friend? What better gift can we receive from God than a friend? And who ever, in need, has failed to find the good priest ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... of such Parts, Tempers, and Notions as these. They likewise should be Persons that have read and seen something more of the World, than what is requisite for an English Parish; they must be such as can converse and know more than bare Philosophy and speculative Ethicks, and have studied Men and Business in some measure as well as Books; they may act like Gentlemen, and be facetious and good-humour'd, without too much Freedom and Licentiousness; they may ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... of his life there were few persons with whom Snarley would hold converse, for his contempt of the human race was immeasurable. There was Mrs. Abel at the Rectory, whom he adored; there were the Perrymans, whom he loved; and there was myself, whom he tolerated. There was also his old wife, whom he treated as part of himself, neither better nor worse. With other human ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... (1) The priest holds converse with his divine friends, whose form he sees and describes, whose words he hears and interprets, and whose injunctions, whether made known directly by personal revelation or through divination or through dreams, he announces. When under supernal influence ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... and oh, such words! Words, be at my command; I will address her, for this is not fancy: could fancy shew a moving soul of sorrow? See how the passion plays upon that face, as she thus stands with sad-eyed earnestness, maintaining converse with the hollow sky. Looked ever aught so fair yet so forlorn? Methinks there is a tear upon her cheek. Why comes it from the Eden of her eye? I must speak to her;" and with mixed fear and fervour he exclaimed: "May Heaven keep you from grave cause of sorrow, lady! Forgive me, oh, forgive me, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... them disposed to converse, the doorkeeper resumed the newspaper he was reading when they entered, and was soon deeply engrossed in a horrible ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... use his own expressions, he lived a "solitary and sedentary life, mihi et musis, having more converse with the dead than the living, that is, more with books than with men." The facts for his biography are scanty and meagre, and are rather collected by inference from his works, than from any other source. He was born at Thornton on the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... intelligent Consumption is an important and difficult task. For that reason it will not only desire but demand the utmost equality of educational opportunity. And women, like men, will continue to get their "cultural backgrounds" in the great achievements of the whole race, where they can hold converse with Lincoln and Darwin and the makers of the Cologne Cathedral and George Meredith and Pasteur and Karl Marx and Whistler and Joan of Arc ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... a lover, and a true lover loves all the world,—especially that portion of it similarly blessed. So, when I heard a girl's voice alternating in intimate converse with that of a man, my sympathies went out to them, and I turned silently to look. They must have come in during my reverie; for I had passed the place where they were sitting and had not seen them. There was a piece of grillwork ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... To join their consultation. From the foss Emerging, in a vacant space they sat, Unstrew'd with bodies of the slain, the spot, 235 Whence furious Hector, after slaughter made Of numerous Greeks, night falling, had return'd. There seated, mutual converse close they held, And Nestor, brave Gerenian, thus began. Oh friends! hath no Achaian here such trust 240 In his own prowess, as to venture forth Among yon haughty Trojans? He, perchance, Might on the borders of their host surprise Some wandering adversary, or might learn ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... brethren especially, to make known the way in which I have been led. In addition to this, I know that to many souls the Lord has blessed what I have told them about the way in which he has led me, and therefore it seemed a duty to use such means, whereby others also, with whom I could not possibly converse, might be benefited. That which induced me finally to determine to write this Narrative was, that if the Lord should permit the book to sell, I might, by the profits arising from the sale, be enabled in a greater degree to help the poor brethren and ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... then, were not better and fairer than girls, why should these be likened to them? And know also (Almighty Allah preserve thee!) that a youth is easy to be led, adapting himself to every rede, pleasant of converse and manners, inclining to assent rather than dissent, especially when his side face is newly down'd and his upper lip is first embrowned, and the purple lights of youth on his cheeks abound, so that he is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... offering the least possible interest to the great human army round about them, but sharing, or believing they shared, in the fruitful possibilities of this land of limitless bounty, fondling their hopes and recounting the petty minutiae of their daily experiences. Their converse was mainly in the form of questions from Mary ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... dummy's weak suits is a valuable rule. The converse, to lead through strength, must be used with caution, and does not apply to no-trump declarations. It is not advisable to adopt any of the recent whist methods of giving information. It is clear that, if the adversaries signal, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... and enjoyed themselves, and held sweet converse together, and then the Prince took leave of her, and went on to the second sister, the one who lived in the silver palace, and with her also he stayed awhile. She told him that her brother Norka was then at her youngest sister's. So he went on to the youngest sister, ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the Elector, "and travel post haste. Farewell! But hark! Schulenburg, you have obtained my official dispatches, now I shall add a little private errand. When you have communicated all this to the Stadtholder, exactly as directed, then converse a little with him in the most friendly manner, and in the course of conversation, as if of your own accord, sound Count Schwarzenberg as to his inclination to pay us a speedy visit in Prussia, the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the same tribe by means of language has been of paramount importance in the development of man; and the force of language is much aided by the expressive movements of the face and body. We perceive this at once when we converse on an important subject with any person whose face is concealed. Nevertheless there are no grounds, as far as I can discover, for believing that any muscle has been developed or even modified exclusively for the sake of expression. The vocal ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... posses, and Indians, but this was easily the most stirring and amazing hour of his life. While his pony slowly slid away up the hill to feed, he, with flapping gun and rattling spurs, swept, polished, and lifted things for Lida—that was her name—Lida Converse. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... both vocal and instrumental. They would frequently wander for hours through the park or woods, but of late he had restricted his walks to the lawn, or down the avenue to the lodge at the park gate, to hold converse with the keeper, an old soldier who had served under him in his Peninsular Campaigns, and often when relieved from the attendance on him would Edith and Arthur Carlton, hand in hand, stroll down the said avenue to listen to the wonderful stories related by the old lodge keeper. But this was ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... first sixth a fit day for a girl to be born, but a kindly for gelding kids and sheep and for fencing in a sheep-cote. It is favourable for the birth of a boy, but such will be fond of sharp speech, lies, and cunning words, and stealthy converse. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... victory of the Piave. But owing to various causes, especially to Baron Sonnino's opposition, these inchoate sentiments of neighborliness quickly lost their warmth and finally vanished. No trace of them remained at the Paris Conference, where the delegates of the two states did not converse together nor even ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... "her form," says Eduard Fuchs, "was provocation incarnate." Fuchs, who was an expert on the subject of feminine attractions, knew what he was talking about. "Shameless and impudent," adds Heinrich von Treitschke, "and as insatiable in her voluptuous desires as Sempronia, she could converse with charm among friends; manage mettlesome horses; sing in thrilling fashion; and recite amorous poems in Spanish. The King, an admirer of feminine beauty, yielded to her magic. It was as if she had given him a love philtre. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... do so," said Roger; "but I trust that they will not attempt it. If they do not, we are at least safe from observation, if not from being overheard. But, to be on the safe side, I think it would be wisdom on our part to converse only in whispers." ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... so patiently and tenderly he sees for the first time the wonderful vision of the sweetheart wife, not lost, but enveloped in the mystery of motherhood; he hears in the crooning voice a tone he never before knew. Mother and child are united in mysterious converse. Where did that girl whom he thought so unsophisticated of the world learn that marvel of acquaintance with that babe, so far removed from his ability to reach? It must be that while he knew the world, she understood the secret of heaven. She is so patient. What a brute ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... questioned said the Rebels did it all. The best houses we found were outside the city in the suburb. We were of course very strange in a town where the European dress has never been seen, but the people were as usual perfectly good-natured, delighted to converse with Lay, and highly edified by his jokes. We did some commissariat business. We had with us only Mexican dollars, and when we offered them at the first shop the man said he did not like them as he did not know them. Lay said, 'Come to the ship and we will give ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... the converse of the lorikeets as they drain the honeycups and swing and chatter in low undertones the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... answering to this that the question is wrongly formulated (Plate, "Selektionsprinzip u. Probleme der Artbildung" (3rd edition), Leipzig, 1908.) and that it is the converse that is true; that the process of selection takes place in accordance with the variations that present themselves. This proposition is undeniably true, but so also is another, which apparently negatives it: the variation required ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... modern mind with a definite and enheartening view of things, a philosophy at once broad and convincing. He is a psychologist intensely interested in the great questions—which, of course, means the moral questions. Read the quaint Fable in which two of the characters in "Treasure Island" hold converse upon themselves, the story in which they participate and the author who made them. It is as if Stevenson stood aside a moment from the proper objectivity of the fictionist, to tell us in his own person that ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... slightly ironical glances and meaning smiles. But "our" American had a most self-satisfied, even somewhat victorious look. My companion, well-versed in English soon made a few acquaintances. Most often I saw him converse with "our" American in the hours when the latter was free from his knightly duties. Pretty soon we gained an insight into the main facts of his life-history. We learned that in his youth he had followed in turn a number of various callings, until ...
— The Shield • Various
... playful Cupid in her cheeks, nor more, The form of peerless grace;—'twas beauty's soul, The speaking virtue, modesty inborn, That as with magic spells, impalpable To sense, my being thralled. We breathed together The air of heaven:—enough!—no utterance asked Of words, our spiritual converse;—in my heart, Though strange, yet with familiar ties inwrought She seemed, and instant spake the thought—'tis ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... older people of the town, disapproving, but overridden by the impatient enthusiasm of Dona Eustaquia. Through the pine woods with their softly moving shadows and splendid aisles, out between the cypresses and rocky beach, wound the stately cavalcade, their voices rising above the sociable converse of the seals and the screeching of the seagulls spiking the rocks where the waves fought and foamed. The gold on the shoulders of the men flashed in the moonlight; the jewels of the women sparkled and winked. Two ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... dazed by them as if I had been hit on the head with a stick. What troubles me (for we refer everything to ourselves), is the terrible solitude in which I live. I have no longer anyone, I mean anyone with whom to converse, "who is interested today in eloquence ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... at high noontide, When fiercely the world's hot flashings beat; Yet never have bidden them turn aside, To tarry in converse sweet; Nor prayed them to hallow the cheer we spread, To drink of our wine and break ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... there lies a sorrow too profound To find a voice or to reveal itself Throughout the strain of daily toil, or thought, Or during converse born of souls allied, As aught men understand. And though mayhap Their cheeks will thin or droop; and wane their eyes' Frank lustre; hair may lose its hue, or fall; And health may slacken low in force; and they Are older than the ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i.315, says:—'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... very well-read man, and agreeable to converse with. He told me that he considered Marlborough a greater general than Wellington. All Americans have an intense admiration for Napoleon; they seldom scruple to express their regret that ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... transactions of those times. They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war, and of the falsehood of the colours which, to his own ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, he suffered to be daubed over that measure. Some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that minister, and with those who principally excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their conduct. They condemned it as freely ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... whose original emblem was the dog-headed ape. In very early times great respect was paid to this animal on account of his sagacity, intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-minded Egyptian, when he heard him chattering just before the sunrise and sunset, assumed that he was in some way holding converse or was intimately connected with the sun. This idea clung to his mind, and we find in dynastic times, in the vignette representing the rising sun, that the apes, who are said to be the transformed openers of the portals of heaven, form ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... question. I had learned that one might ask her anything; she had originality; she was not of the feminine pattern; she had no paltriness nor pettiness in her thoughts; she looked out, as men do, upon a subject; not down, as women are wont. She was a woman with whom a man could converse. He need not adapt himself and conceal himself, and play the part of a gallant at real matters which were above gallantry. He could confide in her. Now it was new to me to consider that I could confide in any person. In my calling, one becomes such a receptacle of human confidence,—one ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... The rest of the converse I mind not, but that last sentence tarried in my mind for many a day, and hath oft-times come back ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... St. Paul's, and there exposed to the view of the whole people. He even gave directions, that some men of rank, attached to the house of York, and best acquainted with the person of this prince, should approach him and converse with him: and he trusted that these, being convinced of the absurd imposture of Simnel, would put a stop to the credulity of the populace. The expedient had its effect in England: but in Ireland the people still persisted in their revolt, and zealously retorted on the king the reproach ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Hottentot, an unbeliever, an Atheist, an ignoramus, a man of no sincerity; whose writings are full of nothing but gross mistakes and misrepresentations. Now I ask you, sir, What has all this to do with the main question? What has my book in common with my person? And how can you hold any converse with a man of such bad connexions? In the second place, your invitation, or rather, your summons to me, to point out the mistakes which I think you have made with respect to my opinions, suggest to me ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Tuscan schools, which partly concealed, or adorned, the materialism of their advance; and Raphael himself, after profoundly studying the arabesques of Pompeii and of the palace of the Caesars, beguiled the tedium, and illustrated the spirituality of the converse of Moses and Elias with Christ concerning His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, by placing them, above the Mount of Transfiguration, in the attitudes of two humming-birds on the top of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... litter; but, as there were near double the number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long experience in the world this female was grown very sagacious and artful:-when she found occasion to converse with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept; and when her purpose was served would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to four or five; and such ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... recollect the happy time When you and I held converse dear together, There come a thousand thoughts of sunny weather, Of early blossoms, and the fresh year's prime; Your memory lives for ever in my mind With all the fragrant beauties of the spring, With od'rous lime and silver hawthorn twined, And many a noonday woodland ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... said Tom, "we must find a new London vocabulary, I see, before we shall be able to converse intelligibly; but as you are now solely under my tuition, I will endeavour to throw a little light upon ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... business till I shall have made so much money, and then I will begin a new life. I will gather round me books and pictures and friends. I will have knowledge, taste, and cultivation,—the perfume of scholarship, and winning speech, and graceful manners. I will see foreign countries, and converse with accomplished men. I will drink deep of the fountains of classic lore. Philosophy shall guide me, history shall instruct, and poetry shall charm me. Science shall open to me her world of wonders. I shall remember my present life ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... long passage they glided to another room. There were several confusing turns and dark hallways, and twice they had to cower in shadowy corners while Ah-eeda boldly advanced and held converse with occasional persons encountered, though for the most part the way was silent and deserted. At last they came to a low door opening on a narrow street and the girl ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... other advantages of the disguise: 'It is much more difficult to converse with the world in a real than in a personated character,' he says, both because the moral theory of a man whose identity is known is exposed to the commentary of his life, and because 'the fictitious person ... might assume a mock authority without being looked upon as vain and conceited'. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... by his theory of friendship. It was really very jolly to talk to a man in this way—who saw the woman in her and did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps for a girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a man beyond the range of anything "nonsensical," was, perhaps, the most interesting sort of friend one could meet. But in that reservation it may be she went a little beyond the converse ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... to see the landlord about the horse and cart, and a quarter of an hour later Marguerite came downstairs ready to start. She found Sir Andrew in close converse with an officer of the Garde de Paris, whilst two soldiers of the same regiment were standing at the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... arithmetic or measurement will be needed to make me give ground at Suvla. The truth is, it is infinitely difficult to spur these high folk on without frightening them; and then, if you frighten them, you may frighten them too much. That's why cables are no substitutes for converse. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... the object around which it plays, and it is black of color. The fire that Moses saw in the bush was the appearance of the angel Michael, who had descended as the forerunner of the Shekinah herself to come down presently. It was the wish of God to hold converse with Moses, who, however, was not inclined to permit any interruption of the work under his charge. Therefore God startled him with the wonderful phenomenon of the burning thorn-bush. That brought Moses to a stop, and then ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... partnership with Lawson Hannay. It appeased her to belittle him by comparisons. He had no spiritual fineness and fire like Canon Wharton, no intellectual interests like Mr. Eliott and Dr. Gardner. She had long ago noticed his inability to converse with any brilliance; she was now aware of the heaviness, the physical slowness, that was growing on him. He was losing the personal distinction that had charmed her once, and made her proud to be seen with him at gatherings of the fastidious in ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... defence. "Could his lordship," he wrote in his Journal (August 30th, 1770), "show me in England many more sensible men than Mr. Gambold and Mr. Okeley? And yet both of these were called Moravians...What sensible Moravian, Methodist or Hutchinsonian did he ever calmly converse with? What does he know of them but from the caricatures drawn by Bishop Lavington or Bishop Warburton? And did he ever give himself the trouble of reading the answers to these warm, lively men? Why should a good-natured and a thinking man thus condemn whole ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Fairford, 'the murder is out—here is a design of conversion! I must not affront the good ladies, but I shall soon send off the priest, I think.' He then answered aloud, 'that he should be happy to converse with any friend of theirs—that in religious matters he had the greatest respect for every modification of Christianity, though, he must say, his belief was made up to that in which he had been educated; nevertheless, if his seeing the religious person they ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, on account of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual conflicts of Billy's which so much interested me, amused ourselves with looking out until just as we reached the Astor House, when he asked me where we ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... tombs of men like Vergil and Dante, of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, the human heart still trembles into tears, and hates the death that parts soul from soul. So that if, like Dante, we could enter the shadow-land, and hold converse with the spirits of the dead, we should seek out to consort with, not those who have subdued and wasted the earth, or have terrified men into obedience and service, but those whose hearts were touched by dreams of impossible ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Lady Byron's saying 'that she knows she is burnt every day in effigy by half the world, but that the effigy is so unlike herself as to be inoffensive to her,' and just so, or rather just in the converse of so, is it with me and your kindnesses. They are meant for quite another than I, and are too far to be so near. The comfort is ... in seeing you throw all those ducats out of the window, (and how many ducats go in a figure to a 'dozen Duchesses,' it is profane to calculate) ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... at him, all holding sweet converse at the Darling Arms, after the manifold struggles of the day. The eyes of the younger men were filled with disappointment and anger, as at a sure seer of evil; the elder, to whom cash was more important, gazed with anxiety and dismay; while a pair, old enough to be sires of Zebedee, nodded ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... to the uninitiated. Here also the unwary stranger might have fumbled for a spare coin. She had a kindly, intelligent face, and spoke volubly in patois, having very little command of French. It was, indeed, necessary for me to converse by the medium of an interpreter. On approaching the village we were overtaken by a slight, handsome youth conducting a muck-wagon. This was her younger son, and his easy, well-bred greeting, and correct French, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... saunterers outside. Within is a spell more powerful, and to many of them more attractive. It is after dinner hour; the cabin tables have been cleared, and its lamps lit. Under the sheen of brilliant chandeliers the passengers are drawing together in groups, and coteries; some to converse, others to play ecarte or vingt-un; here and there a solitary individual burying himself in a book; or a pair, almost as unsocial, engaging in the selfish duality ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Instances. Among many others, an Expression that fell from Don Felix Pacheco, a Gentleman of the best Figure thereabout, and of a very plentiful Fortune, shall now suffice. I was become very intimate with him; and we us'd often to converse together with a Freedom too dangerous to be common in a Country so enslav'd by the Inquisition. Asking me one Day in a sort of a jocose manner, who, in my Opinion, had done the greatest Miracles that ever were heard of? ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... general principles on which he shaped his ends, and they are pretty safe guides. His mentality, as I have said, was so complete that it covered every subtle and charming form of thought and knowledge, even to the smallest affairs of life. No theologians knew more than he or could converse so clearly on the many different religions; and he was as well versed in the intricacies of finance and civil law as he was in the knowledge ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of the deluge on the roof was so much greater than it had been at the start that it was difficult to converse, but there was plenty of light, and they could, at least, see one another, and communicate by signs if not very easily by the voice. Cosmo's library was well selected, and many passed hours in reading stories of the world they were to see ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... universe, could our eyes behold whatever our reason teaches us to be possible, could our hands reach as far as our thoughts or wishes, we might then busy ourselves to advantage with the Hottentots, or hold intimate converse with the inhabitants of the Moon; but being as we are, our feelings evaporate in so large a space—we must draw the circle of our affections and duties somewhat closer—the heart hovers and fixes nearer home. It is true, the bands of private, or of local and natural ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... all. Yet she was still in many ways so much more woman than fox that he could talk to her on any subject and she would understand him, better far than the oriental women who are kept in subjection can ever understand their masters unless they converse on the ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... at the close of the day, with the enhancements of a coarse white cloth and a sanded door, of something fried and felicitous, washed down with authentic wine; after which he might, as he liked, either stroll back to his station in the gloaming or propose for the local carriole and converse with his driver, a driver who naturally wouldn't fail of a stiff clean blouse, of a knitted nightcap and of the genius of response—who, in fine, would sit on the shafts, tell him what the French people were thinking, and remind him, as indeed ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... somewhat gruff, with a manner that to strangers often seemed near to overbearing. When Patches was introduced, the big cattleman looked him over suspiciously, spoke a short word in response to Patches' commonplace, and abruptly turned his back to converse with the better-known members ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... by the Spirit, I have already sought serious converse with yonder priest of Baal, kneeling at this side of that accursed shrine of idolatry. Yet so wedded is he to idols of wood and stone, he merely chattered back at me in unintelligible speech, and when I laid hand upon him to ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... answer questions. I cannot converse rationally any longer. You had better go away, Mr. Dalzell, and let me have a little rest, for I am ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... to see the end of his voyage." Sometimes the conversation, begun as between equals, would gradually get the word "Sir" sprinkled over it; and once or twice—and this not in France—it came down at last to that "glass of beer," sheepishly enough asked for, which of course instantly drowns the converse that has been free on one side and ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... right, I can affirm that this poor fellow did not escape from the "narrow school in which he was brought up" at nineteen, but more than two years later; and, as he pursued his studies in London, perhaps he had as many opportunities for "fruitful converse with friends and equals," to say nothing of superiors, as he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Looking at the van from the back, the spectator could thus see through its interior a square piece of the same sky and landscape that he saw without, but intruded on by the profiles of the seated passengers, who, as they rumbled onward, their lips moving and heads nodding in animated private converse, remained in happy unconsciousness that their mannerisms and facial peculiarities were sharply defined ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... again (and I kicked him once more), when Alister began to explain that he wouldn't just say that, for that during the two or three days when he was idle at Liverpool he had been into a free library to look at the papers, and had had a few words of converse with a decent kind of an old body, who was a care-taker in a museum where they bought birds and beasts and the like from seafaring men that got them in foreign parts. So that it had occurred to him that if he could pick up a few natural curiosities in the tropics, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... uncertainty was augmented by the confusion emanating from a particular corner of The Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting Sheeney was haranguing a group of spectators on the pregnant topic: What I won't do to Precigne when I get there. In deep converse with Bathhouse John we beheld the very same youth who, some time since, had drifted to a place beside me at la soupe—Pete The Ghost, white and determined, blond and fragile: Pete ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the hunters of the "Far West,"—those men who dwell amidst dangers in the wild regions of the great prairies. Their solitary mode of life begets this expression. They are often for months without the company of a creature with whom they may converse—months without beholding a human face. They live alone with Nature, surrounded by her majestic forms. These awe them into habits of silence. Such was in point of fact the case with the youth whom we have been describing. He had hunted much, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... superior to a maker of almanacks or common fortune-teller. "They," says the Doctor, "universally acknowledged and worshipped many gods, and therefore highly esteemed and reverenced their priests, powahs, or wizards, who were esteemed as having immediate converse with the gods. To them, therefore, they addressed themselves in all difficult cases: yet could not all that desired that dignity, as they esteemed it, obtain familiarity with the infernal spirits. Nor were ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... with several languages—Swahili, Kikuyu, the language of flowers, American, Masai, and the sign language, none of which he was conversant with. Then we tried a relay system of dialects which established a vague, syncopated kind of intellectual contact. One of our porters spoke Kavirondo, so he held converse with the far from handsome stranger, translated it into Swahili, and this was retranslated into ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... which touched her, saying that life was so short! Their lives were already so far gone! Perhaps they would have only a very little time in which to see each other, and it was pitiful, almost criminal, not to employ it in frank converse. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... of India, where the fortune of my wandering and proscribed existence has thrown me—a journal which, alas! my beloved Eva, you may never read—I experience a sweet, yet painful emotion; for, although to converse thus with you is a consolation, it brings back the bitter thought that I am unable to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... this; ye knowe how it is commonly written and reported, that amongst the rest of the sortes of spirites that followes certaine persons, there is one more monstrous nor al the rest: in respect as it is alleaged, they converse naturally with them whom they trouble and hauntes with: and therefore I would knowe in two thinges your opinion herein: First if suche a thing can be: and next if it be: whether there be a difference of sexes ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... if Her Majesty has ever realized her blessed privilege in being able to converse freely with "the first men of the age"; to avow her interest in politics, which is history flowing by; in statesmanship, that cunning tapestry-work of empire, without fearing to be set down as "a strong-minded female out of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... word, he labours to render us happy in relation to ourselves; agreeable and faithful to our friends; and discreet, serviceable, and well-bred in relation to those with whom we are obliged to live and to converse. To make his figures intelligible, to conduct his readers through the labyrinth of some perplexed sentence or obscure parenthesis, is no great matter; and, as Epictetus says, there is nothing of beauty in all this, or what is worthy ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... any parts adjacent, shall be forthwith committed to the house of correction; and, at their entrance, to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof be kept constantly to work, and none suffered to converse or speak with them, during the time of their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than necessity requires. And it is ordered, if any person shall knowingly import into any harbour of this jurisdiction, any Quakers' books or writings, concerning their devilish ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... frequent group of four figures consists of the Virgin and Child, with St. John and his mother, St. Elizabeth—the two mothers and the two sons. Sometimes the children are sporting together, or embracing each other, while Mary and Elizabeth look on with a contemplative tenderness, or seem to converse on the future destinies of their sons. A very favourite and appropriate action is that of St. Elizabeth presenting St. John, and teaching him to kneel and fold his hands, as acknowledging in his little cousin the Infant Saviour. We have then, in beautiful contrast, the aged coifed head ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... blow ice, be my retreat Between the groaning forest and the shore, Beat by the boundless multitude of waves, A rural, sheltered, solitary scene; Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit And hold high converse with the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... in the garden till the three o'clock dinner. Then to the garden, "where with Mrs. Unwin and her son I have generally the pleasure of religious conversation till tea-time." After tea came a four-mile walk, and "at night we read and converse, as before, till supper, and commonly finish the evening either with hymns or a sermon; and last of all the family are called to prayers." In those days, it may be, evangelical religion had some of the attractions of a new discovery. Theories of religion were probably as exciting a theme ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... was spoken of Socrates, to call philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth—that is, to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to manners and policy. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... went, and met but three men on the way; and when these saw her, and that she was making for Evilshaw, they turned their heads away, each one, and blessed themselves, and went past swiftly. Not one sought to stay her, or held any converse with her, and no foot she heard following after her. So in scarce more than the saying of a low mass she was in amongst the trees, with her ass and her wares ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... way of half purchase, half charity. I have materials for another volume; but they were written principally while Clifton Grove was in the press, or soon after, and do not now at all satisfy me. Indeed, of late, I have been obliged to desist, almost entirely, from converse with the dames of Helicon. The drudgery of an attorney's office, and the necessity of preparing myself, in case I should succeed in getting to college, in what little leisure I could boast, left no room for the flights of ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Baumstein's slowness of speech came near to being the undoing of him, for at first he merely said that such creatures as the messenger should not be allowed to live and that an honest soldier was insulted by holding converse with him; whereupon the Count, having nice notions, picked up in polite countries, regarding the sacredness of a flag of truce, was about to hang Baumstein, scant though the garrison was, and even then it was but by chance that the true state of affairs became known to the Count. He was on the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... analysed, its meaning startles with an odd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure.... Other lives, to be livable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact, that all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent converse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and art is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of all that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious thought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is symbolic. ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... condolence, let your dress be subdued. It is offensive to put on your gayest attire to call upon a friend in affliction, and equally so to converse upon such subjects as balls, opera or similar amusements. Let the mourner decide whether to speak of the recent sorrow ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... active, intelligent, inquisitive, observant, and undaunted; full of zeal, and sanguine of success; and, at the same time, open, kind, and insinuating in his looks and manners. At Cairo he prepared himself for his undertaking, by visiting the slave market, in order to converse with the merchants of the various caravans, and learn all the particulars connected with his proposed journey, and the countries from which they came. But be proceeded no farther than Cairo: here he was seized with an illness, occasioned or aggravated by the delay in the caravans setting ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights. We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of the converse of whispering leaves. We had had brotherhood with wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn. Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe companionship, shared thoughts, and adventuring. Rich ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... came to England the converse would happen. The athletic grounds would become pasture land; the dirt of our slums and the gentry of our villages would alike vanish; Westminster Abbey would be whitewashed; and ... ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... hut as though he declined to converse any further on the subject; but just then his eyes fell on Bimbo, who was seated under the shed, within sight of the sentry, and the idea occurred to make search on the premises for the goods which we had ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... other girls were at home there were no longer opportunities for uninterrupted converse, for, as the eldest daughter of a large household, Maud was often compelled to busy herself with household duties, leaving the charge of entertainment to the younger girls; but she felt sure that Ned understood, and no trace of dissatisfaction ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... though determined to draw him into converse, the little man shrugged his shoulders, and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... life, are allowed to persist unchanged through many generations, and thus furnish exceptionally good guides in the science of classification—or, according to our theory, in the work of tracing lines of pedigree. But now, the converse of this statement holds equally true. For it often happens that adaptive structures are required to change in different lines of descent in analogous ways, in order to meet analogous needs; and, when such is the case, the structures concerned have ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... say something courteous to the heavy, silent officer on his right, but it was coldly received, and after a few words the German turned to converse with one of his fellow-countrymen, others joined in, and the colonel looked more troubled and ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... lovers who lived in adjoining houses in Babylon, and who used to converse with each other through a hole in the wall, because their parents would not allow them open intimacy, but who arranged to meet one evening at the tomb of Nisus. The maiden appearing at the spot and being confronted by a lioness who had just killed an ox, took to flight and left her ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... The converse of all that has been said concerning both repression and neglect of activity characterizes its wise direction. When the child, ignorant and unskilled, hears a voice saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it," his willing response means activity going out in right channels or the ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... served on board the Gaston de Paris at seven, and to-night the Prince and his four guests, seated beneath the flying dragon of Cellini and enjoying their soup, held converse together light-heartedly and with a spirit that had been somewhat lacking of late. Every sea voyage has its periods of depression due to monotony; they had not sighted a ship for over ten days, and this evening the glimpse of the Albatross ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... doorways and small windows, opaque and barred, and then, to right and left, little shops within whose deep shade fierce "Teurs" with piratical faces, glittering eyes and gleaming teeth, smoke their hookahs and converse in low tones, as if planning some wicked deed.... To say that Tartarin walked through this fearsome township unmoved would be to lie. He was on the contrary moved a good deal, and in those obscure alleys where his large stomach took up almost the entire ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Observer" of Louisville replied to a protesting subscriber, suggesting that the "Collier" articles were written in a spirit of revenge, because "Collier's" could not get patent medicine advertising. When I asked the Rev. F. Bartlett Converse for his foundation for the charge, he said that one of the typewriters must have written the letter! Doubtless also the same highly responsible typewriter imitated the signature with startling fidelity ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... clamor ceased, she said, "Really, you are very childish. Why not accept this with the spirit of philosophers? You are here—you cannot get out until the Middlers see fit. Why not sit down and converse sweetly? There's the weather. It's a safe subject. Nothing personal about it. ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... What cools your usual zeal, And makes your helmed valour down i' the mouth? Why dimly glimmers that heroic flame Whose reddening blaze, by civic spirit fed, Should be the beacon of a happy Town? Can the smart patter of a Bobby's tongue Thus stagnate in a cold and prosy converse, Or freeze in oathless inarticulateness? No! Let not the full fountain of your valour Be choked by mere official wiggings, or Your prompt consensus of prodigious swearing Be checked by the philanthropists' foaming wrath, Or ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... memory of professional jealousy goes back to the age of seven. I lived next door to a dentist, a real qualified L.D.S. Across the street lived a quack dental surgeon. When trade was dull these two used to come to their respective doors and converse with each other in the good old simple way of putting the fingers to the nose. They never spoke to each other. Life in a northern town was simple ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... studying "Magnall's Questions," or becoming better acquainted with "The Use of the Globes," she spent most of her time in devouring the pages of Shakespeare, and committing favorite passages to memory. To her childish fancy they seemed to open the gates of dreamland, where she could hold converse with a world peopled by heroes, and live a life apart from the prosaic everyday existence which surrounded her in a modern American town. Shakespeare was the teacher who replaced the "school marm," with her dull and formal lessons. Her quick perceptive mind grasped his great and ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar |
