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Declamation   Listen
noun
Declamation  n.  
1.
The act or art of declaiming; rhetorical delivery; haranguing; loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students. "The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation."
2.
A set or harangue; declamatory discourse.
3.
Pretentious rhetorical display, with more sound than sense; as, mere declamation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Declamation" Quotes from Famous Books



... Earth-spirit vanished when, with a timid knock, there enters Faust's famulus, or assistant, Wagner. He has heard Faust's voice and from its excited tones has concluded that he is practising declamation—reciting perhaps a Greek play. The poor amiable dryasdust literary and scientific worm-grubber, whose maxim of life is Zwar weiss ich viel, doch moecht' ich Alles wissen (I know indeed a good deal, but I want to know Everything), wishes ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill

... attentively to this speech that I did not notice the flight of Ascyltos, and while I was pacing the gardens, engulfed in this flood-tide of rhetoric, a large crowd of students came out upon the portico, having, it would seem, just listened to an extemporaneous declamation, of I know not whom, the speaker of which had taken exceptions to the speech of Agamemnon. While, therefore, the young men were making fun of the sentiments of this last speaker, and criticizing the arrangement of the whole speech, I seized the opportunity and went after Ascyltos, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... asham'd and grieved To engross a moment's notice; and yet begs. Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, However trivial all that he conceives. Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise; The dearth of information and good sense, That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here; There forests of no meaning spread the page, In which all comprehension wanders lost; While fields of pleasantry amuse us there With merry descants on a nation's woes. The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion; ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... to comment on the temper and taste of this declamation; we will simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes the word good to lose all community of meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is, to different persons among our "fellow-creatures," with express reference to their different ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... as a pathological museum (Musee Dupuytren), for medical students. In this hall was laid the body of Marat after his assassination by Charlotte Corday, and the famous club of the Cordeliers, where the gentler rhetoric of Camille Desmoulins vied with the thunderous declamation of Danton to stir republican fervour, met in the Hall of Theology. We pass to No. 5, where are some remains of the old School of Surgery or Guild of SS. Cosmas and Damian, founded by St. Louis; adjacent stood the church of St. Cosmas, famous for the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... occasionally alluded to as authority for varying a procession, or introducing new dresses and decorations; but, in all other respects, an Indian Inca, attired in feathers, must hold the same dignity of deportment, and display the same powers of declamation, and ingenuity of argument, with a Roman emperor in his purple, or a feudal warrior in his armour; for the rule and decorum of this species of composition is too peremptory, to give way either to the current of human passions, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... not good would be impertinent. To establish that, we should have to go back and ask him if he valued anything—life, parents, country, knowledge, reputation; and if he said no, and was sincere, our mouths would be effectually stopped—that is, unless we took to declamation. But we might very well turn to the bystanders and explain what sort of blood and training this man possessed, and what had happened among the cells and fibres of his brain to make him reason after that fashion. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... of a Poor Richard are anticipated here, as quaint, as terse, and as sagacious in the ancient Jew as in the modern American. Our scientific teachers would replace eloquent declamation concerning vices, such as drunkenness and debauchery, by illustrated lectures upon the physiological effects of violations of nature's laws. They would teach men that the laws of health are found in the laws of temperance and purity. The Hebrew sages had this ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... speech. Our pupil's speech will be plainer and simpler still, for his passions are still asleep, and will not blend their tones with his. Do not, therefore, set him to recite tragedy or comedy, nor try to teach declamation so-called. He will have too much sense to give voice to things he cannot understand, or expression to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... a vesture of superstition. The Divine Spirit filters down to the human heart through a gross and material medium. And what is true of different stages of human history is not less true of different contemporary strata of knowledge and intelligence. In spite of democratic declamation about the equality of man, it is more and more felt that the same kind of teaching is not good for everyone. Truth, when undiluted, is too strong a medicine for many minds. Some things which a highly cultivated intellect would probably ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... of blank verse in the book. This prologue to "Orestes," by Mr. Stephen Phillips, has strength, is firm in outline, somewhat tardy in movement, fit for sonorous declamation. The gravity which I have indicated as a ruling quality of all these youthful compositions makes itself felt here in its proper place. We might have wished, perhaps, for more of joyous accent in ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps

... his audience with a tranquil mien and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy—a gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely, the ear and heart were charmed. How was it done? Ah! how did Mozart do it, how ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... through many after years of darkness. When he made his home at Woodlands he often came to the "Wigwam" to spend a night, calling his young disciples in for an evening of entertainment. His powerful voice would be heard ringing out in oratory and declamation so that neighbors blocks away would say to Hayne or Timrod next morning, "I noticed that you had Simms with you last night." In 1860 the "Wigwam" was ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... dangerous word in English. Roars of laughter from the gods greeted the great actor's declamation, "The bed has not been slept in! Her little ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... our popular histories. Keightley says, "The overtures of France for peace were readily listened to; and both parties being in earnest, the preliminaries were readily settled at Fontainebleau (Nov. 3rd). In spite of the declamation of Mr. Pitt and his party, they were approved of by large majorities in both Houses of Parliament, and a treaty was finally signed in Paris, Feb. 18, 1763." The napkins were probably a gift, on the occasion, to some public functionary. For the custom of noting ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... the secularisation of church property, the equalisation of legal punishment, the abrogation of barbarous laws, the liberation of slaves; all these things, which stirred even the most corrupt and apathetic minds of the late eighteenth century, seemed merely so much declamation to Alfieri. To him, who could conceive no virtues beyond independent truthfulness, such things were mere sentimental trash, mere hypocritical nonsense beneath which base men hid their baseness. And the baseness, unhappily, was there: baseness of absolute corruption, or of ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... Guizot, nothing but pity for the King and Queen and royal family, and nothing but fears for the rest of Europe from the infection of such an example. I sat next the Duke of Coburg, who more particularly took this class view with very little reasoning and a great deal of declamation. Said he should not care if Guizot lost his head, and much in the same spirit. The Queen spoke with much good sense and good feeling, if not ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... voice; in him, it seemed to start from the heart, and brought tears to eyes which had never known them. The power of that tone—allied to the perfection of shading, diction and lyric declamation—caused every listening soul to vibrate with latent emotion which might never have been waked to life save ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... disillusionised man of the world. His essay, for instance, entitled "Vanity of Vanities," is full of the sense of vanity of human effort. And yet against the whole current of this tendency to despondency and despair, we have such an essay as "Are we Wealthy?" in which he declared the day of declamation has passed, but that all things are possible to organisation. "In many respects it is a good world, but it might be made better, nobler, finer in every quarter, if the poor would only recognise wise and silent leaders, and use the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... should fail in memory as to the conclusion. There was no failure:—he came round to the close of his composition without discovering any impediment and irregularity on the whole. I questioned him, why he had altered his declamation? He declared he had made no alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had deviated from it one letter. I believed him; and from a knowledge of his temperament am convinced, that, fully impressed with the sense and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... way of declamation against the abolition of lanthorns. Your lordship however does not imagine I shall say any thing upon affairs so common as the glass lanthorn, the horn lanthorn, and the perforated tin lanthorn. This last indeed is most to my purpose, but it will not do, my lord, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... had departed there came through the closed office door the sound of Mr. Wigglesworth's voice lifted in violent declamation, but from Sam no answering ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... Greek drama, in which music was united with poetry, represents at the same time a reaction against this unintelligible Netherland style. The new opera at first went to the opposite extreme, making the distinct declamation of the text its principal object and neglecting vocal ornamentation, and even melody, on purpose. The famous vocalist and teacher, Caccini, although he taught his pupils how to sing trills and roulades, declared that they were not essential to good singing, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... from the declamation and the impracticable designs of this impassioned literature to the vast scheme of co-operation that had been suggested rather than described to him, there seemed more hope. If all these various forces that were at work could ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... expect such a king, or, for that is the material point, can we expect a lineal series of such kings? Every one has heard the reply of the Emperor Alexander to Madame de Stael, who favoured him with a declamation in praise of beneficent despotism. "Yes, Madame, but it is only a happy accident." He well knew that the great abilities and the good intentions necessary to make an efficient and good despot never were continuously combined in any line of rulers. He knew that they ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... visited us in our home in Hartford and was reverently devoured by the big eyes of Susy and Clara, for I made a deep and awful impression upon the little creatures—who knew his book by heart through my nightly declamation of its tales to them—by revealing to them privately that he was the real Uncle Remus whitewashed so that he could come into people's houses the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... differs from all divines of all Churches of all ages? For the one tenet in which the Calvinist differs from the majority of Christians, are there not ten in which the Socinian differs from all? To what purpose then this windy declamation about John Calvin? How many Methodists, does the Barrister think, ever saw, much less read, a work of Calvin's? If he scorns the name of Socinus as his authority, and appeals to Scripture, do not the Methodists the same? When do they refer to Calvin? In what work do they quote ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... these the accents of a heart that really feels? True love does not indulge in declamation—its voice is sweet, and soft, and low. The west wind whispers when ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... most delighted to listen to their converse, and that such a theme suited my powers and would be a welcome offering to the god, I begin at the outset of my book by making one of my fellow students of Athens demand of Persius in Greek what was the subject of the declamation delivered by myself on the previous day in the temple of Aesculapius. As the dialogue proceeds I introduce Severus to their company. His part is written in the language of Rome. For Persius, although a master of Latin, shall yet to-day speak to you ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... from a gentleman would be sufficient to shut up so shabby an orator. The latter, however, was no respecter of persons, but rather seemed to exult in having such important antagonists. He talked with greater volubility than ever, and soon drowned them with declamation on the subject of taxes, poor's rates, and the national debt. Master Simon endeavoured to brush along in his usual excursive manner, which had always answered amazingly well with the villagers; but the radical was one of those pestilent fellows that pin a man down to facts, ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... of which last exercise he was very fond in his young days, and in which he excelled. He was a great reader, never idle, but always had a book in his hand,—a volume of poetry or one of the novels of Scott or Cooper. His fondness for plays and declamation is illustrated by the story told by a younger brother, who remembers being wrapped up in a shawl and kept quiet by sweetmeats, while he figured as the dead Caesar, and his brother, the future historian, delivered the speech of Antony ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... prolonged martyrdom; she spoke of stakes and flaming pyres; she spread the adjectives thickly on her finest tartines, and decorated them with a variety of her most pompous epithets. It was an infringement of the copyright of the passages of declamation that disfigure Corinne; but Louise grew so much the greater in her own eyes as she talked, that she loved the Benjamin who inspired her eloquence the more for it. She counseled him to take a bold ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... shall not occupy much of the time of the Conference. All the speeches that have been made, and all the declamation that has been uttered on this floor, have not made a single convert. Last of all would I wish to follow the gentleman who has just taken his seat. He proposes to postpone action, asserts that we are acting without consideration, in haste, and without due deliberation. I look upon this subject ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... witty conceits than of poetical images: I drew a parallel between Young and Cowley; and I finished by pronouncing Young to be the Cowley of the eighteenth century. To do myself justice, there was much ingenuity and some truth in my essay, but it was the declamation of a partisan, who can think only on one side of a question, and who, in the heat of controversy, says more than he thinks, and more ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Commons, where another adverse vote was not improbable, and would seal the doom of the Minister. Palmerston received the attack with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last possible moment, he struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain talk and resounding eloquence were mingled together with consummate art and extraordinary felicity, he annihilated his enemies. The hostile motion was defeated, and Palmerston was once more the hero of the hour. Simultaneously, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... feels that her power of melodramatic declamation has been weakened, Miss Neilson in the graveyard seems to rely more on melodramatic action. And it is very melodramatic. She rises from Romeo's body, where she has flung herself, where it would be natural she should remain to kill herself, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... and social habits of a community. You listen with active sympathy to every thing narrated of the sufferings of the poor African; your feelings are enlisted, and your purse strings unloosed, and this often by the hypocritical declamation of some self-styled philanthropist. Under such influences many of you, in our large cities and towns, form yourselves into societies, and, without reflection, you supply funds for the support of schemes prejudicial to the best interests ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... but they had a strong case in some respects. The Utilitarians represented that part of the reforming party which had a definite and a reasoned creed. They tried to give logic where the popular agitators were content with declamation, and represented absolute convictions when the Whig reformers were content with tentative and hesitating compromises. They had some grounds for considering themselves to be the 'steel of the lance'; the men who formulated and deliberately defended ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... parted rejoicing in spirit; which thanks, by the by, consisted wholly in telling the Almighty what he was; and informing, with very particular precision, what they were who addressed him; for Wringhim's whole system of popular declamation consisted, it seems, in this—to denounce all men and women to destruction, and then hold out hopes to his adherents that they were the chosen few, included in the promises, and who could never fall away. It would appear that this pharisaical doctrine is a ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... of Alexander when Hadrian was emperor of the Roman world, and when the spirit of declamation and dogmatism was at its full height, but who was himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of the schools, a statesman and a soldier of practical and proved ability, well rebuked the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown upon the memory of the great conqueror ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... new edition of Masenius was printed in 1757. The literary public was surprised at the large number of very beautiful verses with which the Sarcotis was sprinkled. It is in truth nothing but a long declamation of the schools on the fall of man: but the exordium, the invocation, the description of the garden of Eden, the portrait of Eve, that of the devil, are precisely the same as in Milton. Further, it ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... say," continued the tavern-keeper, waving his arm to add fury to his bad declamation. "That's what I say. Suppose you'd got little ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... them, enter into combinations to assassinate them, prevail with Herod to put one of them to death; but not so much as a charge against them of any fraud in the resurrection. Their orator Tertullus, who could not have missed so fine a topick of declamation, had there been but a suspicion to support it, is quite silent on this head, and is content to flourish on the common-place of sedition and heresy, profaning the temple, and the like: very trifles to his cause, in comparison to the other accusation, had there been any ground to make ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... a stamp of his foot, he continued his declamation: "I can see that you are that beautiful spirit of fire, which burns the home to ashes and lights up the larger world with its flame. Give to us the indomitable courage to go to the bottom of Ruin itself. Impart grace to all that ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... present who had heard Canning, Brougham, and Sir Robert Peel from the hustings and in the House of Commons, declared that the speech of Mr. Tazewell fully equalled their grandest efforts on such occasions; and all who heard it pronounced it a wonderful work of argument, eloquence, and declamation combined. A few days after the meeting, Mr. Tazewell was ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... hidden where ye see them not, break forth. We cannot answer for the white man's magic," and I heard my power over darkness and light, life and death, magnified in a way to terrify my own dreams; but Black Cat cunningly wound up his bold declamation by asking what the Sioux chief would have of the white man for the death ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... by the clamor, and blushed like a schoolboy giving his first declamation, so that he was really glad when Mr. Gibbs, seeing his uneasiness, told him gently that ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster

... something very wild in her gestures, and demeanor; more than once I observed her, in the midst of much declamation, to stop short, stare in vacancy, and thrust out her palms as if endeavoring to push away some invisible substance; she goggled frightfully with her eyes, and once sank back in convulsions, of which her children took no further notice than observing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... in upon his declamation by throwing wide the library door, and in marches a line of pale-faced ascetics, rigid of jaw, cold of eye, and exalted with that gloomy fervour which counts burning life's highest joy. Among them was the famous witch-hanger ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... loud oracle every sort of story touching Irons which could well be imagined, and it was all so thoroughly published by the good lady, that curiosity on the subject was pretty well dead and gone, and her distant declamation rattled over their heads and boomed in their ears, like the distant guns and trumpets on a review ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... reflected that a book which addresses itself only to the eyes may be laid aside when it becomes tiresome to the reader; whereas it may not always have been so easy to stop the minstrel in the full career of his metrical declamation." Flaws like this may be picked in the details of Scott's method, just as we may sometimes find fault with the lapses in his mediaeval scholarship. We do him no injustice when we say that aside from certain aspects of his work on the ballads and Sir Tristrem, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... o'clock. On coming to or going from our dinner, we would often hear him: sometimes he sang in the morning and now and then after supper. This bird—it is the red-eyed vireo—has an oddly persistent, pragmatic note, which can hardly be called singing, being more like declamation and somewhat disconnected and disjoint, as if the "preacher" were laying down certain truths and facts and seeking by constant iteration to impress them upon dullards. Betwixt every one of these short sentences, there ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used to practise declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age. I desired any one to propose a question which he wished to have discussed: and then I argued that point either sitting or walking, and so I have compiled the scholae, as the Greeks call them, of five ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... to this narrative, is a curious specimen of fanatical declamation. "Witchcraft," he exclaims, "is a renouncing of God, and the advancement of a filthy devil into the throne of the Most High. Witchcraft is a renouncing of Christ, and preferring the communion of a loathsome, lying devil before all the salvation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... Sextius is a declamation against Vatinius, who was one of the witnesses employed by the prosecutor. Instead of examining this witness regularly, he talked him down by a separate oration. We have no other instance of such a forensic manoeuvre either in ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... of Burke from the purely literary point of view, it must be borne in mind that the greater part of his writings was prepared for an audience. Like Macaulay, his prevailing style suggests the speaker, and his methods throughout are suited to declamation and oratory. He lacks the ease and delicacy that we are accustomed to look for in the best prose writers, and occasionally one feels the justice of Johnson's stricture, that "he sometimes talked partly from ostentation", or of Hazlitt's criticism that he seemed to be "perpetually calling ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... France To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave Where sleep the Girondists, detested band! Long with the show of freedom they abused Her ardent sons. Long time the well-turn'd phrase, The high fraught sentence, and the lofty tone Of declamation thunder'd in this hall, Till reason, midst a labyrinth of words, Perplex'd, in silence seem'd to yield assent. I durst oppose. Soul of my honour'd friend, Spirit of Marat, upon thee I call— Thou know'st me faithful, know'st with what warm zeal I urged the cause of justice, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... I practise, or submitting from sheer intellectual incompetence to be the tool of some wily Jesuit who enjoins the unhallowed task. Such, when drawn out into details, and stripped of the pompous declamation of the platform, is, in serious truth, the idea which innumerable persons imagine to be the Catholic system of propagandism and deceit; and every Catholic miracle is thus accounted for by ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... year he was chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow University; 1855 saw the third and fourth volumes of his "History"; in 1857 he was made a peer, and many other honours were showered upon him; with a tendency to too much declamation in style, a point of view not free from bias, and a lack of depth and modesty in his thinking, he yet attained a remarkable amount and variety of knowledge, great intellectual energy, and unrivalled lucidity in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pamphlets in his fist, He quoted and he hinted, 'Till in a declamation-mist His argument he tint it: He gaped for't, he grap'd for't, He fand it was awa, man; But what his common sense came short He eked ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... DECLAMATION. The word is applied especially to the public speaking and speeches of students in colleges, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... to pompous declamation in silent sorrow and indignation. She made another effort to interest the Abate in favor of Julia, but he preserved his stern inflexibility, and repeating that he would deliberate upon the matter, and acquaint her with the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... English Canadian. Many members of the official and governing class, composed almost exclusively of English, were still too ready to consider French Canadians as inferior beings, and not entitled to the same rights and privileges in the government of the country. It was a time of passion and declamation, when men of fervent eloquence, like Papineau, might have aroused the French as one man, and brought about a general rebellion had they not been ultimately thwarted by the efforts of the moderate leaders of public opinion, especially ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... This declamation, accompanied with a profound sigh, served only to inflame her desire of extricating him from the difficulty in which he was involved. She exhausted all her eloquence in attempting to persuade him that his refusal was an outrage against her affection. He pretended to refute ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... The physician, to this declamation, which was conveyed through the key-hole, answered, that he (the painter) was a fellow so infinitely below his consideration, that his conscience upbraided him with no action of his life, except that of choosing ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... government office in London. He probably would have found it easier to get a fellowship at Oxford than at Cambridge, since mathematics were uncongenial to him, his forte being languages. He was most distinguished at college for English composition and Latin declamation. In 1819 he wrote a poem, "Pompeii," which gained him the chancellor's medal,—a distinction won again in 1821 by a poem on "Evening," while the same year gave him the Craven scholarship for his classical attainments. He took his bachelor's degree in 1822, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... existence. With the nation, all its laws, principles, vital forces, are equally menaced and imperilled; and they are, in virtue of that very fact, in abeyance, in order that they may be saved. It is said that the Constitution is not suspended because of rebellion, and this is the basis of much declamation, both in the Chicago platform and elsewhere, against the exercise of extraordinary powers on the part of the President. But the Constitution authorizes the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, that great writ of right which is the bulwark of our Anglo-Saxon liberty, 'when in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... tag dropped dead at the porches of John Thoroughgood's ears, but those ears pricked at part of Halfman's declamation. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... whose little-known personality something has been said in connection with his satires) I find myself somewhat unable to agree with the generality of critics, who seem to me to have been rather taken in by his blood-and-thunder work, his transpontine declamation against tyrants, and his affectation of a gloomy or furious scorn against mankind. The uncouthness, as well as the suspicion of insincerity, which we noted in his satirical work, extend, as it seems to me, also to his dramas; and if we class ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... I understand that you have produced a play called Othello on more than one occasion; perhaps you will inform us whether the following passages are in your opinion suitable for public declamation? (Mr. FUSSLER then proceeded to read several extracts to which he objected on ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... the daughters of the wealthiest and highest families were educated. In those convents or seminaries, strange to say, the young girls were taught the most practical domestic duties, as well as dancing, music, painting, etc. Such teachers as Mole and Larrive gave instruction in declamation and reading, and Noverre and Dauberval in dancing; the teaching nuns were all from the best families. The most complete costumes, scenic decorations, and other equipments of a complete theatre were supplied, special hours being set aside for the play. However, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... the real principles of Calvinists, and then, most unjustly, represent these consequences as a part of the system itself, as held by its advocates." Again: "How many an eloquent page of anti-Calvinistic declamation would be instantly seen by every reader to be either calumny or nonsense, if it had been preceded by an honest statement of what the system, as held by Calvinists, really is." (Synod of ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Have the principles on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish petty topics of harangue from the windows of that state-house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask. Can you put the dearest interest of society ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... blessings—independence. I was absolute master of my hours and actions; and no sooner was I settled in my house and library than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my history. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... in looking back with delight on their school Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in "Bingen on the Rhine," "A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers," or in "The Soldier's Funeral," in the declamation of which I was held to have surpassed myself. "Robert's voice," said the master on this memorable occasion, "is not strong, but impressive": an opinion which I was fool enough to carry home to my father; who roasted me for years ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ministering to their wants in the hour of death. And though I am no Catholic, I could not but regard the superiority of that kind of preaching— for visiting the sick, consoling the afflicted, and rebuking sin by daily admonitions, is the true preaching of the Gospel— over the pompous declamation which now too often ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... events; but some of us looked forward to them as to something quite out of the common groove. There were none of the accessories which generally attract boyish admiration—no rhetoric, no purple patches, no declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. His anxious forehead crowned a puny body, and his voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. The language was totally unadorned; the sentences were closely packed with meaning; and the meaning was ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or lack of sympathies,—and especially that they will not endure dull declamation from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... accidents of home. The miserable condition of the homeless, whether rich or poor; an oak with its tap-root broken, a house on wheels, a boat without a compass, and all that sort of thing: together with due declamation about soldiers spending twenty years in India, shipwrecked Robinson Crusoes far from native Hull, cadets going out hopelessly forever, emigrants, convicts, missionaries, and all other absentees, voluntary or involuntary. Tirades upon abject poverty, wanton affluence, poor laws, mendicancy, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... would thus set the feet of their offspring; the law, they thought, would enable him better to "make his mark"—that is, to parade up and down before the public eye and fill the public ear with declamation. Even yet that profession has clientless members, miserable in their hearts over their self-consciousness that they are not lawyers and never can be lawyers, who would have been useful, prosperous, and happy if they could have been permitted to be ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... greatest minds have been fortunate)—he has attempted every species successfully; from the political song of the day, thrown off in the playful overflow of honest joy and patriotic exultation, to the wild ballad; from epistolary ease and graceful narrative, to austere and impetuous moral declamation; from the pastoral charms and wild streaming lights of the Thalaba, in which sentiment and imagery have given permanence even to the excitement of curiosity; and from the full blaze of the Kehama,—(a gallery of finished pictures in one splendid fancy piece, in which, notwithstanding, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... genuineness becomes superfluous, prejudicial, unfavourable. The actor, alone, can still kindle great enthusiasm.—And thus it is his golden age which is now dawning,—his and that of all those who are in any way related to him. With drums and fifes, Wagner marches at the head of all artists in declamation, in display and virtuosity. He began by convincing the conductors of orchestras, the scene-shifters and stage-singers, not to forget the orchestra:—he "delivered" them from monotony.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} The movement that Wagner created has ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... Verdi of his trips through Europe and to England is shown in "Rigoletto," brought out in Vienna in 1851. In this opera his true power manifests itself. The music shows great advance in declamation, which lifts it above the ordinary Italian style of that time. With this opera Verdi's second period begins. Two years later "Trovatore" was produced in Rome and had a tremendous success. Each scene brought down thunders of applause, until the very walls resounded ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... the horse, to trot a little and make up time. Russell had been cast for a part of a crazy man—a character admirably adapted for the entire cast of the average amateur dramatic performer. He had very little to say, a sort of 'The-carriage-waits-my-lord' declamation, but he had to say it with thrilling and startling earnestness. He was to rush in on a love scene bubbling like a mush-pot with billing and cooing, and paralyze the lovers by shrieking 'Woe! Woe! unto ye all, ye children of men!' Throwing up his arms, after the manner of the Fourth ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... and he cursed the poets. "They did me great harm," he said, bitterly. "Without them I had spent days interwoven with gold and silk. My future was secure: it was they who gave me a distaste for my position. I believed in them; I was the dupe of their hollow declamation; they taught me thoughtless contempt, and they gave me the sickly ambition to play the silly part of a man of fine sentiments. I despised the mud. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... declamation to reproach, Lester laughed outright; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lover, Don Ottavio, whom she had called to the help of her father. She finds the Commandant dead, and breaks into agonizing cries and tears. Only an accompanied recitative, but every ejaculation a cry of nature! Gounod is wrought up to an ecstasy by Mozart's declamation and harmonies. He suspends his analysis ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... minstrels. They disregarded rhythm more and more (as may be seen if you compare Campion with Lawes), and sought only to make the notes follow the accent of the poetry, thus converting music into conventionally idealised speech or declamation. Lawes carried this method as far as ever it has been, and probably can ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... on "Lyric Declamation: Recitative, Song and Ballad Singing," will be discussed the practical application of these basic principles of Style to the vocal music of the German, French, Italian and other ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... the best collection extant, of Pieces for Declamation, New Dialogues, &c. Illustrated with excellent likenesses of Charbam, Mirabeau, Webster, Demosthenes, Cicero, Grattan, Patrick Henry, Curran, Sheridan, Madame Roland, Victor Hugo, Calhoun, Hayne, Everett, Tennyson, Longfellow. O. W. ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various

... sources tell us of any further development of British Christianity till the latter days of the 2nd century. Then, however, it had become sufficiently widespread to furnish a common-place for ecclesiastical declamation on the all-conquering influence of the Gospel. Both Tertullian and Origen[406] thus use it. The former numbers in his catalogue of believing countries even the districts of Britain beyond the Roman pale, Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita[407]. And in this ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... arm-chair, and gave her attention to a play of Voltaire, which was now being performed. This representation took place in the small theatre in the royal palace. There was no public theatre in Berlin, and the king justly pronounced the large opera-house unsuited to declamation. Frederick generally gave his undivided attention to the play, but this evening he was restless and impatient, and he accorded less applause to this piquant and witty drama of his favorite author than he was wont to do. The king was impatient, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... angry; he laughed heartily, he recognized that there was some truth in what she said. Her remarks amused him; nobody had ever said such things before. They agreed that declamation in singing generally deforms the natural word like a magnifying glass. Corinne asked Christophe to write music for a piece in which she would speak to the accompaniment of the orchestra, singing a few sentences every now and then. He was ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... has heard the magic oratory of Castelar, has listened to the singing of Gayarre, the declamation of Cabro, has read Zorilla, and witnessed the torear of Lagartijo, may say, without any kind of reservation, that there is nothing left for him to admire!" Having thus placed the popular bull-fighter on a level with orators, authors, and musicians of the first rank, the writer goes on to ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... in silence, and almost immediately the party rose from the table. But when the others had gone, Birkin turned round in bitter declamation, saying: ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... as candidate for admission to the foundation at Westminster, and carried it triumphantly. Shortly after, having by some misdemeanour displeased the masters, he was compelled to compose, and recite in the school-room, a poetical declamation in Latin, by way of penance. This he accomplished in a masterly manner—to the astonishment of his masters, and the delight of his school-fellows—some of whom became afterwards distinguished men. We can fancy the scene at the day of the recitation—the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... he entered college, and during his freshman year took part in two contests, getting second place in each. During his sophomore year, he had the satisfaction of winning first place in declamation. Then it was that he made his boldest effort. He delivered an oration that he himself had written, and again won first place. After these successes it was not to be wondered at that his college elected him to represent the school in the intercollegiate oratorical contest. Pitted ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... and yet begs, Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, However trivial all that he conceives. Sweet bashfulness! it claims, at least, this praise, The dearth of information and good sense That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here, There forests of no meaning spread the page In which all comprehension wanders lost; While fields of pleasantry amuse us there, With merry descants on a nation's woes. The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks And lilies for ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... evade the force of the argument. Some, like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in verbal niceties; some, like Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, comforted themselves with declamation. The only result was, that in 1885 came another edition of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work, even more cogent than the first; and, besides this, an essay by that eminent Catholic, St. George Mivart, acknowledging the Rev. Mr. Roberts's position to be impregnable, and declaring virtually that the Almighty ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... by the picture she made of passion and incensed declamation that he did not attempt to open the letter, and he wondered why there was such a difference between the effect of her temper on him now and the effect of it those long years ago. He had no feeling of uneasiness in her presence now, no sense of irritation. In spite of her tirade, he had a feeling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... preceptors deem it necessary to inculcate on their disciples regarding generosity, disinterestedness, liberty, honor, patriotism, etc. When he saw that almost all he had thus been taught was mere illusion, a theme for declamation, and that people in the world very rarely act on such principles; then, no doubt, with his exquisite sensibility, and elevated standard of ideal, he must have felt himself more disgusted than any one else, and must have believed ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... doubted," says Dr. Johnson, " whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of study, much qualified for tragedy: it does not appear that he had much sense of the pathetic; and his diffusive and Descriptive style produced declamation ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... fights and processions—by way of preparing for the ordeal through which the character of Coriolanus is to be displayed. Yet when Hecuba at last is reached the interest of the situation makes itself felt with force. The massive presence and stalwart declamation of Edwin Forrest made him superb in this character; but the embodiment of Coriolanus by McCullough, while equal to its predecessor in physical majesty, was superior to it in intellectual haughtiness and in refinement. An actor's treatment of the character must, unavoidably, follow the ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... charge of Oliver Optic, gives every other week a selection for Declamation, marked for delivery according to the most approved rules of elocution; 26 ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of declamation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was conscious of his superiority. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... Leghorn (France is not worth seeing, and the sea is particularly good for weak lungs)—which is within a few miles of us. You ought, at all events, to see Italy; and your health, which I suggest as a motive, may be an excuse to you. I spare declamation about the statues and paintings and ruins, and (what is a greater piece of forbearance) about the mountains and streams, the fields, the colours of the ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... speak with a biting irony, which he turned against himself: "Thou hast been silent, Plautius, thou hast been silent for whole years, and Caesar does not like those who are silent. How couldst thou help being carried away by his beauty, his virtue, his singing, his declamation, his chariot-driving, and his verses? Why didst thou not glorify the death of Britannicus, and repeat panegyrics in honor of the mother-slayer, and not offer congratulations after the stifling of Octavia? Thou art lacking in ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... Silvain (who, besides being an actor, is Professor of Declamation at the Conservatoire) is the method of the elocutionist, but of the elocutionist at his best. He has a large, round, vibrating voice, over which he has perfect command. "M. Silvain," says M. Catulle Mendes, "est de ceux, bien rares au Theatre Francais, qu'on entend ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... from that declamation with which some of the French poets of the same age, and representing a portion of the same movement, blow out their cheeks. An angel of reasonableness seems to watch over him, even when he comes most dangerously near ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... hell, made still more terrible by the long trumpets,—a new method of instrumentation. The broken cadenzas which give such force to Robert's scene, the cavatina in the fourth act, the finale of the first, all hold me in the grip of a supernatural power. No, not even Gluck's declamation ever produced so prodigious an effect, and I am amazed by ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he may distinguish himself so much as to gain "thanks from both Houses of Parliament." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country that has had thirty-eight years of compulsory education. If our War Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast "the dull labour of the fields" with ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... and Poetic 1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style 2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic 3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools 4. The Contamination ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... time of Titus and of Domitian: for touching this point, he maketh mention of a nobleman called Rusticus, who being one day at his lecture, would not open a letter which was brought him from the Emperor, nor interrupt Plutarch, but attended to the end of his declamation, and until all the hearers were gone away; and addeth also, that Rusticus was afterwards put to death by the commandment of Domitian. Furthermore, about the beginning of the Life of Demosthenes, Plutarch saith, that whilst he remained in Italy and at Rome, he had no leizure ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... bloated and puffing lines have I read, that, by this process, would have tripped over the tongue excellently. Likewise, I remember that he told me on the same occasion—'Coleridge! the connections of a Declamation are not the transitions of Poetry—bad, however, as they are, they are better than "Apostrophes" and "O thou's", for at the worst they are something like common sense. The others are the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... breaches of good manners. They would enter churches, and after the service, when the quiet folks were thinking of gratifying their bodies with a substantial dinner, they were arrested by the violent declamation of a man or woman, frequently denouncing the priest as being the blind leading the blind. This naturally led to a scene of riot and confusion, in which the Quakers were in many cases handled with great barbarity. among these disturbers were mingled persons of bad ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... advantage of the oratory of Grattan, who, though he had not been in Parliament since 1797, now purchased a seat for L2,400, and entered the House in a theatrical manner in the midst of the discussion. But his vehement and abusive style of declamation could not in debate be compared with the calm reasoning of Castlereagh. The most able speeches against the measure were not those of Grattan, but Foster. Many divisions were taken, the Government majority ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... at liberty to surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently expected to receive? But was it a vision that I had witnessed in the wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? Were those words of passion and agony, which Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation? Were they formed of a material lighter than common air? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was it a perilous and dreadful wrong which she was ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... had an unpleasant errand to do, and he was carefully dressed for it, just as he had been dressed for the Lyceum declamation contest and ball the night before, but not so effectively, for his best black suit showed threadbare in the morning sun, and the shine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and a heavy, even, blue black, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... declamation it is, however noble, be allowable in a poet, whose genius is so far removed from pompousness or pretence, much more is it allowable in an orator, whose very province it is to put forth words to the best ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... graduated—four youths and thirteen girls. The salutatory and essay, "What Can a Woman Do?" earnest, suggestive, and pleasingly delivered, was followed in due order by recitations, all rendered with spirit and grace, and winning enthusiastic applause. The declamation by one youth, of President Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, and the orations, by two others, on race questions, receive ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various

... operation, that everyone comes in contact with them during life, and that everyone is liable to suffer, even before he is aware, perhaps hopelessly and forever, from the results of that contact. Vague declamation about immorality and vaguer warnings against it have no effect and possess no meaning, while rhetorical exaggeration is unnecessary. A very simple and concise statement of the actual facts concerning the evils that beset life is quite sufficient and adequate, and quite ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... most delightful company. For in him fun is not divorced from literature and the daily philosophical inquiries which we make in common. I have hired a residence next door to him, and as far as I can with my poor pittance I subsidize his narrow means. Farthermore, I have begun practising declamation in Greek with Cassius; in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My intimate friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought with him from Mitylene—good scholars, of whom he has the highest opinion. I also see a great ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... objected to the resolutions, as inflammatory. Henry vindicated them, as justified by the nature of the case; went into an able and constitutional discussion of colonial rights, and an eloquent exposition of the manner in which they had been assailed; wound up by one of those daring flights of declamation for which he was remarkable, and startled the House by a warning flash from history: "Caesar had his Brutus; Charles his Cromwell, and George the Third—('Treason! treason!' resounded from the neighborhood of the Chair)—may profit by their examples," added Henry. "Sir, if this be ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,—and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank verse, and how apt it is, in the mouths of some readers, to degenerate into declamation. Oh! I could thrash his old jacket till I made his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... always wholehearted in his declamation against the French people and their leaders who are our present allies fighting against that country which now is, and which Napoleon predicted to his dying day would become, one of the most imperious, inhuman foes to civilization. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... judge the King?" He spoke harshly, even aggressively, and as if combating some undeveloped argument of La Mothe's. A burst of temper may not convince a man's own conscience, or quiet its uneasiness, but it silences its voice for a time as declamation can always silence pleading. "Who are we to question his justice or deny its right to strike? And it is as his arm of justice that you are here ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... custom of great antiquity. Cicero, in his Paradoxes, says that "if an actor lose the measure of a passage in the slightest degree, or make the line he utters a syllable too short or too long by his declamation, he is instantly hissed off the stage." Nor was hissing confined to the theatre, for in one of his letters Cicero refers to Hortensius as an orator who attained old age without once incurring the disgrace ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... being asked by his pagan friends on his death-bed, about the year 390, who should succeed him in his school: "John," said he, "had not the Christians stolen him from us."[2] Our saint was then priest. While he was only a scholar, that sophist one day read to an assembly of orators a declamation composed by him, and it was received with unusual tokens {234} of admiration and applause. Libanius pronounced the young orator happy, "as were also the emperors," he said, "who reigned at a time when the world was ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... moral essays, are assigned, the scholars will indeed dislike the work of writing, and derive little benefit from it. The mass of pupils in our schools, are not to be writers of moral essays or orations, and they do not need to form that style of empty, florid, verbose declamation, which the practice of writing composition in our schools, as it is too frequently managed, tends to form. Assign practical subjects,—subjects relating to the business of the school,—or the events taking place around you. Is there a question before ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... in a very low voice and went on, with his declamation growing louder, till it was a roar, when he suddenly ceased, and dropped down on the ground with his legs under him in the position of an Indian idol, and, with his chin upon his breast, sat there perfectly silent, and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... it all!—all that's happened," she burst out with half-girlish exuberance and half the actress's declamation. "We met them all in the road—posse and prisoners. Chief Thompson knew me and told me all. And so you've done it—and you're master in your old house again. Clarence, old boy! Jim said you wouldn't do it—said you'd weaken on account of her! But I said 'No.' I knew you ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... Dublin on the 1st of July, 1915, the late Mr. John Redmond gave the following description of the present condition of Ireland, which offers a striking contrast to the extravagant declamation that represents that country as downtrodden by a harsh ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... stilted tragedies with chorus and declamation in the grand Senecan manner, not in his complimentary addresses to lords, ladies and royalty, nor in the classic masques and philosophical dialogue, but in the less ambitious poems of Delia and Rosamond, especially in such a sonnet as "Care-charmer Sleep," where we come more near ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable

... himself capable of violent fits of work, but of "few continuous drudgeries." He would turn out an unusual number of hexameters, and again lapse into as much idleness as the teachers would tolerate. His forte was in declamation: his attitude and delivery, and power of extemporizing, surprised even critical listeners into unguarded praise. "My qualities," he says, "were much more oratorical and martial than poetical; no one had the least notion that I ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... and ennobling itself constantly and inevitably, were it only through its connection with science ever more and more exquisite, and through its augmented costliness,—all this may have its use in offering some restraint upon the levity of action or of declamation in Peace Societies. But all this is below the occasion. I feel that far grander interests are at stake in this contest. The Peace Societies are falsely appreciated, when they are described as merely deaf to the lessons of experience, and as too "romantic" ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... but fair to say, her woman's conscience. In the logic before alluded to, it seemed to her that all ethical responsibility for her actions rested with the husband who had unduly married her. Nor were those visions always roseate. In the wild declamation of that exciting epoch which filled the newspapers there was talk of short shrift with traitors. So there were days when the sudden onset of a squall of hail against her window caused her to start as if she had heard the sharp fusillade of that file of muskets ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... this scene Parsifal's instinct is absolutely true and sure. Everything Kundry says about his mother, Herzeleide, he feels; but every attempt to make him accept her instead he resists. Her desperate declamation is splendid. Her heartrending sense of misery and piteous prayer for salvation, her belief that before her is her savior could she but win him to her will, the choking fury of baffled passion, the steady and subtle encroachments made while Parsifal is lost in a meditative dream, the burning ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... from brooding silences into sudden bursts of declamation with such abruptness that strangers thought him very eloquent. When he was excited the colour ran into his nose as though he had been drinking, and often his ears were red. His history was simple. The son of a small draper in Streatham, he had at an early age joined himself to an American ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... that Riemann even changes the arrangement of the bars. This prelude is dramatic almost to an operatic degree. Sonorous, rather grandiloquent, it is a study in declamation, the declamation of the slow movement in the F minor concerto. Schumann may have had the first phrase in his mind when he wrote his Aufschwung. This page of Chopin's, the torso of a ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... the model of Dryden's heroic plays in rimed couplets; and that then a drama like "Romeo and Juliet" had been produced upon the boards of Drury Lane, and a warm spurt of romantic poetry suddenly injected into the icy current of classic declamation. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... though Boswell interfered, declined to be reconciled. On one occasion he even rushed from a house at which he was to dine, when he heard that the great Samuel had been invited. The Doctor had little opinion of Sheridan's declamation. 'Besides, sir,' said he, 'what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions. Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais.' Still, when Garrick ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... my consent!) a Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, in direct contradiction, equally, to my then, as to my present principles. A Sonnet written by me in ridicule and mockery of the bloated style of French Jacobinical declamation, and inserted by Biggs, (the fool of a printer,) in order forsooth, that he might send the book, and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who, to prove that he was not mad in all things, treated both book and letter with silent contempt.[27] I have therefore sent Mr. Poole's second edition, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... the stronger creatures of their own kind,—that even these, though among the simplest and obscurest of beings, have yet price in the eyes of their Maker, and that the death of one of them cannot take place but by His permission, has long been the subject of declamation in our pulpits, and the ground of much sentiment in nursery education. But the declamation is so aimless, and the sentiment so hollow, that, practically, the chief interest of the leisure of mankind has been found ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... took a leading part in every play, poem and declamation, but when an encore was given and a demand for a recitation on love, Will was in his natural element and gave the eager audience dashes from Ovid's ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... expressed my determination, if that day should ever arrive, that I would not remain at home, wasting my time in inglorious ease and safety, while they were disfiguring the fair face of our favoured Isle with blood and conquest. My father, who had frequently heard me burst out in loud declamation and expressions of a patriotic feeling of abhorrence, and threaten defiance in case any attempt at invasion was made, began to reason with me upon this subject; and he trusted that I should never put myself forward to enter any of the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... of imagination were not extraordinary, and of word painting he has not left a single striking example,—not one passage that can be used for recitation or declamation in the schools. His cause was too pressing, his manner of life was too serious, for any indulgences in speech. In every speech he had an object in view; and even when he was without hope for Hungary in the near future, he yet ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... of Signora Ristori are so well known in America that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall some of the most delightful evenings ever spent by many of my readers. Her genius and beauty, her majesty and glorious method of declamation, have won her a foremost rank in her profession, and her virtues and nobility of conduct the esteem of all who have ever known her. There are indeed few women more estimable than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... and while there did himself credit, and honored the race from which he sprang. All his performances were creditable. He won a second prize for reading aloud in his freshman year; in his sophomore year he won the first prize for the Boylston Declamation, notwithstanding members of the junior and senior classes contested. During his junior year he did not contest, preferring to tutor two of the competitors who were successful. In his senior year he won the two highest prizes, viz: the First Bowdoin ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... play. Action, however, there is almost none in classic French tragedy. The tragic drama is, with the French, as it was with the Greeks, after whom it was framed, merely a succession of scenes in which speeches are made by the actors. Lofty declamation is always the character of the play. In the "Athaliah," as in the "Esther," Racine introduced the feature of the chorus, a restoration which had all the effect of an innovation. The chorus in "Athaliah" consisted of Hebrew virgins, who, at ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... can doubt that Homer was endowed with the true poetic spirit, and yet there is very little of what we now call poetry in his writings. There is neither sentiment nor declamation—painting nor reflection. He is neither descriptive nor didactic. With great powers for portraying nature, as the exquisite choice of his epithets, and the occasional force of his similes prove, he never makes any laboured attempt to delineate her features. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... fondness for romantic provincial ladies. When old age approaches they become either peaceful landed-gentry or drunkards—sometimes both. Frequently they have many good qualities, but they have not a grain of poetry in their composition. Grushnitski's passion was declamation. He would deluge you with words so soon as the conversation went beyond the sphere of ordinary ideas. I have never been able to dispute with him. He neither answers your questions nor listens to you. So soon as you stop, he begins a lengthy tirade, which has the appearance of being ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov



Words linked to "Declamation" :   recital, philippic, reading, raving, ranting, rant, broadside, harangue, tirade, oratory, declaim, recitation



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