"Conversational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a hurry showed them in a wrong direction. She saw none of them in their natural state. She asserts that, though there may be women distinguished as writers in England, there are no ladies who have any great conversational and political influence in society, of that kind which, during l'ancien regime, was obtained in France by what they would call their femmes marquantes, such as Madame de Tencin, Madame du Deffand, Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse. This remark stung me to the quick, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... greatly to her relief, at Maggie's side. There was also another piece of good fortune—at least so it seemed to the Cardews, whose conversational French was still almost nil—Mademoiselle Laplage was unexpectedly absent, the good lady being forced to remain in her room with a sudden, overpowering headache, and pleasant, good-natured Lucy—otherwise Miss Johnson—took ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... had softened them to a serious, pensive mood and movement. As they sat drying their jackets around the fire, passing successive mugs of the landlord's ale from one to the other, they grew more and more conversational; and, as I put in a question here and there, they gave me an insight into the general condition, aspects and prospects of their class which I had not obtained before. They were quite free to answer any questions relating to their domestic economy, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... that the atmosphere in which he lived gave tone and colour and direction to his studies, one thing of course acting and reacting on another. The special note of his books, apart from his remarkable gift of conversational epigrammatic style, which gives a peculiar zest to the writing, is the quality of scientific dispassionate description of matters which were hardly thought of previously as subjects of scientific study. This is specially the case with the two books which perhaps brought him ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... what is coming after this prelude. He is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with the conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or of having his pocket picked at the station, finds himself without the means of reaching that distant home where affluence waits for ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... She never liked any variety of amusement, conversational or otherwise, in which she ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... had told his story, corresponding, though more conversational in form, with that I have now transcribed, my uncle Edmund took up his part of the tale from the moment when he came to himself after their fearful rush down the river. It was to ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... host, Mr. Derwent Coleridge, and of Mrs. Coleridge, my dear and honored friends of so many years, I must not permit myself to speak. I may note only the brilliant conversational power of Mr. Coleridge, and the fact that as I listen to him I perfectly understand the marvelous gifts in this way of his father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Again and again I have been held as if under a spell by the flowing stream of his delightful monologue. He had been the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... say that England is infinitely more populous than Australia is absurd. That one can rightly call atoms infinitely small means that they are to our senses immeasurable, and the word, as it here carries wonder, may, like other conversational expletives, have an emotional force, and can therefore be sometimes well used even where its exaggeration is apparent. As when a man heightens some assertion with a 'damnable,' he intends by the colour of ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at home, though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then laying down her pen, got up and left ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... rose, surveyed the coxcomb, and said, with an air of careless amusement, "You were born and bred in Manchester, I perceive." Greatly astonished at this opening remark, the man answered, nervously, that he was "a Manchester man—born and bred in Manchester." "Exactly," observed Erskine, in a conversational tone, and as though he were imparting information to a personal friend—"exactly so; I knew it from the absurd tie of your neckcloth." The roars of laughter which followed this rejoinder so completely effected the speaker's purpose that the confounded bagman could not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of Thermopylae!" shouted Mr. Smitz, and then continued at a conversational pitch, "if any of you wish to speak to him in his own language, you have ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... matter in this paper and sermon is largely the same as that in the previous chapter, I present it because, as the line of thought is out of the ordinary and somewhat difficult to the general reader, its repetition in this conversational style will help to get a better grasp of the deadly delusions of rationalism. Truth usually has to be repeated in various ways before it gets a thorough hold upon the average mind. Therefore "precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... backward now and running both hands deep into his pockets, he dropped his oratorical tone, and, falling easily into the conversational, continued: ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... incidental note, from a practical manufacturing Quaker, whom, as he is anonymous, we will call Friend Prudence. Prudence keeps a thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach them to him; has provided conversational soirees; play-grounds, bands of music for the young ones; went even 'the length of buying them a drum:' all which has turned out to be an excellent investment. For a certain person, marked here by a black stroke, whom we ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... that all my endeavours shall be directed to that end," Mr Verloc said, with convinced modulations in his conversational husky tone. But the sense of being blinked at watchfully behind the blind glitter of these eye-glasses on the other side of the table disconcerted him. He stopped short with a gesture of absolute devotion. The useful, hard-working, if obscure member ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... first order a pupil receives, on presenting himself for instruction, is this: "Say rose." Now your Parisian rather prides himself on a peculiar pronunciation of the letter r. He neither rolls it like an Italian, nor does he make anything like the noise standing for r in our conversational English,—something like uhr-ose,—a sound said to be peculiar to our language. A Parisian rolls his r, by making his uvula vibrate, keeping the tongue quite still: producing a peculiar gurgling sound. This is an abomination in the ears of the Conservatoire. "Ne grasseyez ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... stole it the moment he smelled Clara's special pot-pourri in the hall; and, though he sometimes threw it out of the railway-carriage window in returning to town, there was nothing remarkable about that. The conversational debauch of the first night's dinner—and, alas! there were only two even at Becket during a week-end—had undoubtedly revealed the feeling, which had set in of late, that there was nothing really wrong with the condition of the agricultural laborer, the only trouble being that the unreasonable ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... As my French conversational powers are limited, I had some difficulty in securing a vehicle. This was explained later by the discovery the next day that no one is allowed on the streets of Calais after ten o'clock. Nevertheless I secured a hack, and rode ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... however, the Government brokers are more orderly than their neighbors in the Regular Board. Indeed, the whole proceedings are more decorous and respectful, the bidding, half the time, being carried on in a low conversational tone. At second call there is a brief excitement, but when 'things are dull' throughout the street, this room peculiarly ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... has reference to those conversational expedients which pander to gaiety in the form of scandal; they are called among us banter and badinage. Laughter, mirth and gaiety is their purpose, and we meet with them generally in society and high life. Among the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... introduce a new topic of talk. Sometimes Mr. Harding did not appear to notice these interruptions; at other times he obviously resented them; at others again he yielded with an air of anxiety, almost of fear, to his curate's attenuations or hastened to follow his somewhat surprising leads down new conversational paths. Malling could not understand Chichester. But it became evident to him that for some reason or other the curate was painfully critical of his rector, as sometimes highly sensitive people are critical of members of their ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... talk lags, we have to cast hurriedly about in our minds for something to say—it is called "making conversation." But Carpenter evidently did not know about this custom, and neither of us instructed him. Once or twice I stole a glance at Mary, marvelling at her. All her life she had been a conversational volcano, in a state of perpetual eruption; but now, apparently she passed judgment on her own remarks, and found ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... seemed to be giving some directions to the carpenters, but he did not recognize Hannah who stood in too much awe of the great man to make herself known."[169] Hannah was all of seven years old at the time of the visit. Her trip to Mount Vernon furnished her with conversational matter for ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... Wandering with slow conversational pace up and down the beach of the lake, were Mr. Kendal and Sir William Ferrars, conversing as usual; the soldier, with quick alert comprehension, wide observation, and clearness of mind, which jumped to the very points to which the scholar's deeply-read and long-digested arguments ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and MacRae and Betty Gower slid away in the one-step, that most conversational of dances. But Jack couldn't find himself chatty with Betty Gower. She was graceful and clear-eyed, a vigorously healthy girl with a touch of color in her cheeks that came out of Nature's rouge pot. But MacRae was subtly conscious ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... rendered him illustrious; he had all the serenity of age, and sought in the company of a young and lovely woman merely a passing ray of beauty to enchant his eyes, and the charm of her society during the calm and conversational hours at the close of day. His voice was deep, as though it came from the heart, and his conversation flowed with the graceful, yet serious, ease of a mind which seeks to unbend in repose. Honesty was stamped on his brow, ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... than ever disposed to defer to a gentleman possessing so much good sense and such a well-regulated mind; accordingly he made an effort to listen to the Major's stories, as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the Major, finding both the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just relinquished, came out of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... not her only method of doubling her diligence. Her experience and wisdom brought her many inquirers after the truth, and demands upon her conversational powers were many and imperative. Yet those busy, provident hands, long acquainted with needles, seemed to make them fly and click in about even race, with the mind and the tongue, "Diligence in business," "singing with grace in the heart," and "conversation seasoned with grace" ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... arrayed in a gown fit for an elderly lady of strong conversational powers, a black moire with an old-fashioned fan-waist. Flowers, too badly imitated to deserve the name of artificial, give a gloomy aspect to a head of hair which the chambermaid has carelessly arranged. Caroline's gloves have already seen wear ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... coming to closer grips with the realities of life, the lyrical strain was lost, and blank verse was stretched and loosened and made elastic. During the twenty years of Shakespeare's dramatic activity, from being lyrical it tended more and more to become conversational in Comedy, and in Tragedy to depend for its effects rather on the rhetorical rise and fall of the period than on the unit of the line. From the drama of Charles the First's time, when inferior workmen had carried these licenses ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... a real surprise to me," she began, in a conversational tone, "to hear Mr. Steadman make a speech. I am sure his colleagues in the House would have been surprised to have heard him today. He is a very quiet man there—he never speaks. The first night I went to the House with a crowd of Normalites, I pointed ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... most interesting day. We breakfasted at half-past five, and soon after seven left by railway, in company with Bishop Leonide and Mr. Penny, for Troitska Monastery. We found the Bishop, in spite of his limited knowledge of English, a very conversational and entertaining fellow-traveller. The service at the cathedral had already begun when we reached it, and the Bishop took us in with him, through a great crowd which thronged the building, into a side room which opened into the chancel, ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... same breath; also—and God be thanked for that!—helping to feed the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French. As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask myself,—"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world war,—to us, strong, rich, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... restaurants like the Carlton, and minister to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so characteristic of Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best number for a dinner-party, as with a larger number separate conversational groups are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has rooms specially built for these parties, and rooms only just large enough to hold his guests comfortably. One scroll is hung in the kakemono, and in front of it one ornament, and afterwards a solitary ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... conversational maneuver was a feint. He inquired, with a certain affected indifference, what sort of weather Durant had met with on the journey down, and what sort he had left behind him in London; and then he seemed inclined to let the weather drop. But before Durant could get ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... where she sat with the rectory cat on her knee—an inferior animal, but the best substitute for Chattie available. So it was, however; and once in her neighbourhood he made another serious effort to get her to talk to him. The Elsmeres had never seen him so conversational. He dropped his paradoxical melancholy; he roared as gently as any sucking dove; and Robert, catching from the pessimist of St. Anselm's, as the evening went on, some hesitating commonplaces worthy of a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... diplomatic corps were present, one of whom was the amiable and well-known Marshal Saldanha, who, a few years ago, played so prominent a part in the affairs of Portugal. The usual resources of whist and the tea-buffet changed the conversational circle, and at midnight there was a general movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal, where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. Strauss was in all his glory; the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... unexpected revelation of the mind and character of this western girl who was so interested in the reclamation work and so unconscious of her womanly power. He came quickly to look forward to their hours together and to plan and carry out many conversational experiments. Invariably he ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... tall, with a slender figure, Irish blue eyes, fair hair, regular features and a Dante profile. He has an engaging and very courteous address, a sympathetic manner, a ready but always urbane wit and great conversational charm. He possesses the rare accomplishment of "talking like a book." His intimates are legion; and, apart from these, he knows everyone who "counts" in London society. He is known never to lose his temper; and it is doubtful ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... is often unkind." Then he asked if we were going to London. On being told that we were, he spoke for five minutes about the things we should see in the Metropolis. His style was not conversational, but after the manner of a man who was much used to speaking in public or to receiving delegations. The sentences were stately, the voice rather loud and declamatory. His closing words were: "Yes, gentlemen, the way to see ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Lessons should be conversational in form, which is always a most pleasing style for children, as it is the most natural. The work of the teacher is to awaken and stimulate interest, not to impart information. The attention of the child should be directed to what lies around him. He must observe, and ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long
... distingue woman; and on her re-entrance into society with her daughter, she produced a greater impression than did Effie. She had a merry, joyous disposition, and without possessing half the mental superiority her daughter was gifted with, she had a light, easy conversational ability, playful repartee, an elegant style and manner, and a sufficient knowledge of accomplishments to produce an effect in the gay world, and make her the centre of attraction of every circle she entered; and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... he would give them time to realise the tremendous solemnity of the words they had just heard. There was dead, breathless silence at first, and then came a rustling sound, mingled with one of deep breathing. Then he began again in the same direct, conversational tone in which he had asked them to ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... laughed Barry, amused at his new acquaintance's conversational powers. "But I'm a rat in a strange garret here. Nothing doing. Can't get a ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... this remarkable man few traces remain. One of his earliest recorded observations was the simple exclamation, full of heart-felt delight, 'Look at Baby. Funny Baby.' Here we see the first hint of that ineffable conversational modesty, that shy social self-effacement, which has ever hidden his light under a bushel. His mother also recounts with apparent amusement an incident connected with his imperious demand for his father's top-hat. 'Give me that hat, please.' 'No, dear, you mustn't have that.' ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... travelers as were over-sized and made mental notes of their answers for my own subsequent use. Since the Eighteenth Amendment put the nineteenth hole out of commission, prohibition and how to evade it are the commonest of all conversational topics among those moving about from place to place in America; but the subject of what a man eats, and more particularly what he eats for breakfast, runs it ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... his "go of rack," according to his diurnal custom; and surveying first the persons at his own table, and then those in other parts of the room, he commonly sat a few minutes in silence, as if waiting the stimulating effect of the tobacco to wind up his conversational powers, or perhaps he was bringing out defined images from the dim reminiscences which floated in his sensorium. If a stranger were near, he commonly addressed him with an old soldier's freedom, on some familiar ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... heard him in those days say that his speaking then was very much what it was afterward in Parliament—a kind of conversational eloquence, simple, clear, and strong, without rhetorical flights, but strangely persuasive. One gentleman who was in Parliament with him mentioned that he disliked to see him get up to speak, because he was sure that Cobden would convince him that his own opinion was erroneous; ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... suppressed a smile at the absurd and hackneyed phrase, which reminded her of picture papers. For a moment she thought of Dick Garstin as a sort of inverted snob. But she wanted something from him, so she pursued her conversational way, and inflicted upon him a rapid description of Lady Sellingworth, as she had been and as she was, recording the plunge from artificial youth into perfectly natural elderliness which had now, to her thinking, become definite ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... in a mild and conversational tone, sitting up and touching one paw to his head, as if he saluted by taking off ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... did not pretend to any fluent command of conversational German, he read it with great ease. His knowledge of German literature was, indeed, too much limited by his rare opportunities for commanding anything like a well-mounted library. And particularly it surprised us ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Younger Man who recovered his conversational interest first. "So you think I'm a fool?" he resumed at ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Springfield, Illinois, I saw and heard, in February, 1858, before the Supreme Court, an ungainly appearing man, called Abe Lincoln. He was arguing the application of a statute of limitations to a defective tax title to land. He talked very much in a conversational way to the judges, and they gave attention, and in a Socratic way the discussion went on. I did not see anything to specially attract attention to Mr. Lincoln, save that he was awkward, ungainly in build, more than plain in features ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... "Yes." He was glad that this conversational note had been struck. He was anxious to discuss the future with ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Magazine, which work owes its establishment and much of its early success to Mr. Hogg's co-operation. We believe it to be pretty well known that the offensive language attributed to the Shepherd in the "Noctes" has no more to do with Mr. Hogg than by attempting to imitate his conversational style. This impropriety, which is beyond a literary joke, was reprobated some months since by the Quarterly Review, but here the offending parties are properly visited with a burst of honest indignation which may not pass unheeded. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... by the conversational and epistolary style which Richardson evolves in the process of "writing to the moment"; he is particularly vexed at the coined or adapted words which are sometimes italicized and dwelt on as characteristic of an individual. He cites only a few, such ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... had realised, was a practical "romantic" and at once took the matter seriously, leaving—as might have surprised some of those who had only heard him talk—his conversational fantasies on the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... circle of intimate friends it is probable that this was true. But in the free encounter of wit and argument, the same want of readiness that made him silent in parliament would most likely restrict his conversational power. It may be doubted if there is a striking remark or saying of his on record. His name occurs in Boswell, but nearly always as a persona muta. Certainly the arena where Johnson and Burke encountered each other was not fitted to bring out a shy and not very quick man. Against ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... good form, these young men who had come out to a dirty devilish war. It was enormously good to hear them talking to each other in just the same civil, disinterested, casual way which belongs to the conversational range of St. James's Street clubs. Not once—like French soldiers—did they plunge into heated discussions on the ethics of war, or the philosophy of life, or the progress of civilization, or the rights of democracies. Never did they reveal ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Billy," asked Bridge, after a moment's silence, "that upon occasion you speak king's English after the manner of the boulevard, and again after that of the back alley? Sometimes you say 'that' and 'dat' in the same sentence. Your conversational clashes are numerous. Surely something or someone has ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is a sort of conversational ease about his love-poetry, and here and there lapses into what, to an artistic sense, might seem bathos, absurdity, or rhetoric. Lovers are always a little absurd; and the fear of absurdity is not a sign of deep feeling but of the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... arduous morning. The give-and-take of ordinary conversation was always a difficult matter for Eloquent, but on this occasion he related his experiences to his aunt, and was quite talkative; so that, to a certain extent, she revised her unfavourable impression as to his conversational powers, and became more hopeful for his success in the Election. His gloom and taciturnity on Christmas Day ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... I stood among immemorial English trees that seemed to take hold upon the stars like a brood of Ygdrasils. As I walked among these living pillars I became gradually aware that the rustics who lived and died in their shadow adopted a very curious conversational tone. They seemed to be constantly apologizing for the trees, as if they were a very poor show. After elaborate investigation, I discovered that their gloomy and penitent tone was traceable to the fact that it was winter and all the trees were bare. I assured them that I did not resent the fact ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... was a derivation from the Anglo-Saxon guma as that it was a corruption of it; the point to be gained being, after all, that we should be able to find out the meaning of the English word bridegroom, having no pressing need of guma for conversational purposes. We have spoken of this word only because we have heard it brought up against Dr. Webster as often as anything else, and because the disproportionate antipathy produced by this and a few similar oddities shows, that, the primary object of all writing being the clear conveyance of meaning, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... whirled with a little squeal and lashed out at him; but her heels were carefully aimed wide of the mark and Alcatraz merely tossed his nose; plainly she was a flirt. He pressed a little closer to the fence and urged friendliness with a conversational whinny. They were not averse, coming towards him with eyes that glimmered in the darkness, retreating often and coming on again, until he had touched noses with them all. It was extremely pleasant to Alcatraz and hardly less so because the grey mare ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... propose to give the proceedings of this meeting in detail, interesting though they were. Other matters of importance claim our attention. It will be sufficient to say that mingled with the semi-conversational, pleasantly free-and-easy, intercourse that ensued, there were most interesting short addresses from the lady-superintendents of "The Sailors' Welcome Home" and of the "Strangers' Rest," both of Ratcliff Highway, also from the chief of the Ragged schools in George Yard, and several ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... fruit. But this explanation will not avail for the case where there is no entrance of the word into the heart, and so no new birth by the word. More probably we are to regard the expression simply as a conversational shorthand form of speech, not strictly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... capitals are particularly graphic, throws the whole party up in a dry light. One can see the rhapsodist talking interminably, involving himself ever deeplier in a web of his own spinning; the great lady gazing in wonder. It is one of the very few impartial witnesses we have to his conversational feats. Nearly all the evidence is tainted either by predisposition in his favour or the reverse. Hazlitt, a mainly hostile witness, says that he talked well on every subject; Godwin on none. One suspects antithesis ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... jersey lounged on to the quay at this point of his meditations, and, old habit asserting itself, Merefleet greeted him with a remark on the weather. The man halted in front of him in a conversational attitude. Merefleet knew the position well. It came back to him on a flood of memory. He could not believe that it was twenty years since he had talked with ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... relations he was a genial and entertaining companion, unsurpassed in conversational powers, delighting in witty and sarcastic observations and epigrammatic sentences. He was elegant in his manners and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to gather them in groups about him and beguile ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... know," she answered, with a little laugh, that little laugh which tells wise men where flattery may be shot like so much conversational rubbish. Some women are fathomless pits, the rubbish never seems to fill them. "I do not know, but I should not ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... the shape of a huge sugar-loaf, with a hollow centre, stood in a great open caldron upon a tripod over a wood-fire. At night the lurid flames and the grouped figures, illuminated by the glare, were picturesque; but in the daytime the charm of these gatherings was chiefly conversational. Then the children made the square their playground, or were driven into it because it was the safest place for them, and every Sunday afternoon the young men of Roc-Amadour met there to play ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... recorded the feelings with which he first followed his new vocation, and his jests on the subject are uniformly bitter. It was a vocation which exposed him to temptations of the kind he was least likely to resist. His extraordinary conversational powers led him into peril wherever he went. If he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret; and ere ten minutes ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... which removed the comte d'Artois from the immediate succession to the throne. Up to the present moment I knew Madame de Forcalquier only as one whose many charms, both of mind and person, joined to great conversational powers and the liveliest wit, had rendered her the idol of society, and obtained for her the appellation of . I knew not that this woman, so light and trifling in appearance, was capable of one of those lively and sincere attachments, which neither time nor change of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... with their lives from some menacing calamity, they were very philosophical in spirit; and having got aboard of their own motion, and being neither of them apparently the worse for the ordeal they had passed through, were of a light, conversational temper. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... gesticulation. If he had been addressing a bench of judges he would not have been more impassive in his manner. He was an animate, but not an animated, bean-pole. He poured out a steady flow of words—three to Douglas's two—in a simple and semi-conversational tone. He attempted no witticisms and indulged in no oratorical claptrap. His address was pure argument. Douglas's manner was one of excitement, and accompanied and emphasized by almost continuous bodily movement. His hands and his feet, and especially that pliable face of his, were ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... discourses. The building accommodates eighteen hundred worshippers, and in emergencies, twenty-five hundred. It is a model of cheerfulness and convenience, and is so felicitous in its acoustics that an ordinary conversational tone can be heard at the opposite end of the auditorium. The picture of the Church in this volume gives no adequate idea of the size of the edifice; for the Sunday School Hall and lecture-room and social parlors are situated in the rear, and could not be presented in the photographic view. I fear ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... account of my inability to speak French; my only hope, therefore, was to find a shop or store that displayed in the window what I wanted, so that I could make my purchase by gestures. I had provided myself with a Conversational Guide Book, in London, containing the French, Italian and German equivalents of English words and phrases, most necessary to the tourist; but the French pronunciation is so difficult that I could after all not make myself understood except by pointing out these French words to the shop-keepers. ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... and enlarged by other hands, but it is now superseded. Ainsworth was also the author of some useful works on classical antiquities, and a sensible treatise on education, entitled The most Natural and Easy Way of Institution (1698), in which he advocates the teaching of Latin by conversational methods and deprecates punishment of any sort. He died in London on the 4th of April ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... say things, I suppose," Edith reflected, patiently: "but after supper, Maurice and I will talk." So she bore with her father and mother, who certainly tried to be conversational. The Bride, Edith noticed, was rather silent, and Maurice, though grown up to the extent of being married, hadn't much to say—but once he winked at Edith and again tried to pull her hair,—so she knew that he, also, was patient. She was too absorbed to return the wink. She just stared ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Crawford, Mrs. Crawford, and a number of young and elderly figures of distinction,—that a group having formed on the younger side of the room, and transcendentalisms and theologies forming the topic, a number of deep things were said in abrupt conversational style, Sterling in the thick of it. For example, one sceptical figure praised the Church of England, in Hume's phrase, "as a Church tending to keep down fanaticism," and recommendable for its very indifferency; whereupon a transcendental figure ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... and was told that the upper place was not sufficiently well-lighted. The explanation is not wholly convincing, for they have the lighting arrangements in their own hands, and could easily afford the outlay. It may be that they like to remain close to the shops and to each other's doors for conversational purposes, since it is a fact that, socially speaking, the more restricted the area, the more expansive one grows. We broaden out, in proportion as the environment ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... present, but before very long. Even immediately is sliding from its instantaneousness, so that we are fain to substitute at once, instantly, etc., when we would make promptness emphatic. Right away and right off are vigorous conversational expressions ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... afterwards that he had swooned before the face of Sunday, he could not remember having ever come to at all. He could only remember that gradually and naturally he knew that he was and had been walking along a country lane with an easy and conversational companion. That companion had been a part of his recent drama; it was the red-haired poet Gregory. They were walking like old friends, and were in the middle of a conversation about some triviality. But Syme could only feel an unnatural buoyancy in his body and a crystal ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... arouse fear in the hearts of his congregation. Instead, to him, the great clock of time was actually ticking off an opportunity which the unconverted could not permit to pass. In his earnest pleading his voice would rise from a conversational tone until it rang penetratingly through the hall, and he would emphasize his words with a startling resound from his open ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... feuilleton of a Paris daily journal, M. Sainte-Beuve cannot but be sometimes diffuse; but his diffuseness is always animated, never languid. Fluent, conversational, ever polished, he is full of happy turns and of Gallic sprightliness. When the occasion offers, he is concise, condensed even in the utterance of a principle or of a comprehensive thought. "Admiration is a much finer test of literary talent, a sign much more sure and ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... because he . . . Nikita, haven't we any of that red Kavkas wine [Footnote: Chikir] left?" I asked, very much enlivened by Guskof's conversational talent. Nikita still kept muttering; but he brought us the red wine, and again looked on angrily as Guskof drained his glass. In Guskof's behavior was noticeable his old freedom from constraint. I wished that he would go as soon as ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... should be spoken in a simple, unaffected conversational manner; still it admits of much ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... of conversational defects, and desirous of shining in Society, may be expected to imitate their American Cousins, who, according to The Daily News, employ a lady crammer who has made a study of the subject she teaches. Before a dinner or luncheon party, the crammer spends an hour or two with the pupil, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... He was not so smooth and eloquent as Phillips, but he could make his audience both laugh and cry; the latter, Phillips himself said he never could do. Mr. Stanton was then in his prime, a fine-looking, affable young man, with remarkable conversational talent, and was ten years my senior, with the advantage that number ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... people to each other, which helps to prevent a good deal of stiffness. As the rooms in the New York houses are generally large, people sit, stand, or walk about as they feel inclined, or group themselves round some one gifted with peculiar conversational powers. At all of these re- unions there was a great deal of conversation worth listening to or joining in, and, as a stranger, I had the advantage of being introduced to every one who was considered worth knowing. Poets, historians, and men of science are to be met with frequently at these receptions; ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... the indulgence of Sir Wynston's conversational propensities, that Dr. Danvers had happened to drop in; for Marston was doggedly silent and sullen, and Mrs. Marston was herself scarcely more disposed than he to maintain her part in a conversation; so that, had it ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... No one has done more than he to popularize the study of words, which is only another name for the study of thought. His new book has the same agreeable qualities which marked its forerunners, maintaining an easy conversational level of scholarly gossip and reflection, the middle ground between learning and information for the million. Without great philological attainments, and without any pretence of such, he gives the results ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Teacher, gracefully respectful in her place, wriggled with invisible impatience over this carefully polite conversational opening. He had come down here on purpose to see her—there must be something going to happen, even if it was only a request to save a seven-day book for Mrs. De Guenther! Nobody ever wanted something, any kind of a something, to happen ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... had been added to the establishment. Wobbler, the pedestrian, a candidate for the ten-miles championship of Somersetshire, was residing there during his training for that world-renowned contest. It cannot be correctly said that Wobbler was very good company, for indeed his conversational powers were limited, which was perhaps fortunate, seeing that his language was not very choice when he did speak. But he was a man of varied accomplishments; not only could he walk, but he could run, and swim, and box. Indeed he had only deserted the pugilistic for the pedestrian profession ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... success with 'John Bull,' and spent much more than he had. He mingled freely in all the London circles of thirty years ago, whose glory is still fresh in the minds of most of us, and everywhere his talent as an improvisatore, and his conversational powers, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... close observer and known anything about the matter, he would have found the newcomer's English painfully, unforgivably correct. A language should be like an easy shoe on a flexible foot, but to one unused to it, it proves rather a splint on a broken limb. The stranger stalked about in conversational splints until they arrived at Isaac Jackson's door. Then giving his guide a dime, he dismissed him with a courtly bow, ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... device of style our own Elizabethans were to make more profitable use than Ronsard. At their best they packed an intensity of dramatic significance into conversational language, of which Ronsard had no inkling; and even a strict contemporary of his, like Wyatt, could touch cords more intimate by the same means. But, on the other hand, Ronsard never fails of his own effect, which is not to convince us emotionally, ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... small private office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie Villines until he got her into conversational connection with Mr. Vandeford. They conversed in these words ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... friends made a pic-nic of it, and each one either brought or sent his own dish of ragout, or whatever it might be, and his own bottle of wine. This does not seem to have been the case after the marriage, however; for it is related as a proof of Madame Scarron's conversational powers, that, when one evening a poorer supper than usual was served, the waiter whispered in her ear, 'Tell them another story, Madame, if you please, for we have no joint to-night.' Still both guests and host could well afford to dispense with the coarseness ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... tearful and whining before he was finally bumped protesting into bed. Theodore and Duncan prolonged their ablutions until the noise of shouting, splashing, and thumping in the bathroom brought Mother to the foot of the stairs. Rebecca was conversational. She lay with her slender arms locked behind her head on the pillow, and talked, as Julie had talked on that memorable night five years ago. Margaret, restless in the hot darkness, wondering whether the maddening little shaft of light from the hall gas was annoying enough to warrant ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... creatures have been busy with their varied green fare, each one tasting half a dozen different leaves every minute, hopping here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering gratulatory notes in the canary's conversational tone. And their language is not altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his treatment of the others, and he says, or seems to say: "This is good, I like it, only ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... have, of course, nothing to say; but that I have sedulously avoided being overlearned; that few Latin words will be found in the work—none whatsoever in the conversational parts, and none but the names of articles which have no direct English appellation; and that it is sufficiently simple and direct ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... his life in the two hours before the arrival of the noon express. The station agent was a sociable soul. He had a guinea-pig in a box, so delightful to observe that Elsmere forgot his desire for zwieback and became conversational. He told the agent the history of the polly-wogs he had raised "till they was all froggies, only one was deaded." He showed the place where he had cut his finger in the mower-lawn. He explained ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... Most of us, men and women, have usually the habit of carrying our occupations with us, metaphorically at least, wherever we go, and therefore have some difficulty in entering with full appreciation into conversational fields in which we do not find ourselves quite ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... was giving cool, concise orders, his eyes on his little patient. When he had despatched Juliet for various things, including boiling water which she must get downstairs, he said to Anthony in a conversational tone: ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... and properties of the language in which the books of the Bible were written, and in which their authors were, accustomed to speak. (24) We shall thus be able to investigate every expression by comparison with common conversational usages. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... it were—the good woman was actually pleased when Caroline "held up" a stout person in a fur coat and a motor veil to add pleasantly: "I suppose you are expecting visitors this week?" Which remark is the recognized conversational small change in Thorhaven, during spring and summer, scarcely more personal than the "Fine day!" of the country labourers who live in the still ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... frequently at our house. Her father had given her a good education—not showy; but of the solid kind. She was fond of books, and better read, I think, in the literature of the day, than any other young lady in S——. Her conversational powers were of a high order. Good sense, I had always given her credit for possessing; and I believed her capable of reading character correctly. She was the last one I should have regarded as being in danger of losing a heart to ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... to let him know I'm alive an' wakeful that a-way; 'well, whatever my callin' is, at least it ain't been no part of my bringin' up to let mere strangers stroll into the corral an' cinch a saddle onto me for a conversational canter, jest because they're disp'sitioned that a-way. "'No offence meant,' says the old party, an' I observes he grows red an' ashamed plumb up to his white ha'r. "Excuse me, amigo," I says, handin' out my ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in original and striking language his strong convictions; a capacity and willingness to perform intellectual labor; a passion for the contest of the courthouse; a perfect fidelity and integrity in all business intrusted to him, with charming conversational powers—all contributed to an immense success in his profession. Such gifts, with a knowledge of business and the best uses of money, were soon rendered valuable ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... contrast which exists in the very bosom of society between the extreme refinement of apparent civilization and its fundamental animalism. In every gathering that does not consist only of fossils and petrified souls, there are, as it were, two conversational strata, one above the other: one—which everybody can hear—between mind and mind: the other—of which very few are conscious, though it is the greater of the two—between instinct and instinct, the beast in man and woman. Often these two strata of ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... know Spanish very well, so far as conversational usage was concerned, but his mother tried to impress on him the beauty of the Spanish poets and encouraged him in essays at rhyming which finally grew into quite respectable poetical compositions. One of these was a drama in Tagalog which so pleased a municipal captain of the neighboring village ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... breeding-ground, and is so common that you can always get a sight of at least twenty birds in an afternoon's walk. Here, too, is the metropolis of the turtledove, and the low sound of its crooning is heard all day in summer, the other most common sound being that of magpies—their subdued, conversational chatter and their solo-singing, the chant or call which a bird will go on repeating for a hundred times. The wonder is how the doves succeed in such a place in hatching any couple of chalk-white eggs, placed ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... the Idler may be traced, we conceive, to this source. Nobody at times, said Johnson, talks more laxly than I do[9]. And this acknowledged propensity may well be presumed to have affected the humorous and almost conversational tone of the work before us. In the conscious pride of mental might and in the easier moments of conversations, that illuminated the minds of Reynolds[10] and of Burke, Johnson delighted to indulge in a lively ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' used by a well-known lady in ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... captain, with a glowing sense of satisfaction at his own conversational powers. He felt he was becoming quite a ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... quickly, gave a swift look of recognition, a brief smile of gratitude, and continued her pace. She had not taken his arm, but had grasped the handle of the umbrella, which linked them together. Not a word was spoken. Two people cannot be conversational or sentimental flying at the top of their speed beneath a single umbrella, with a crowd of impatient passengers watching and waiting for them. And I grieve to say that, being a happy American crowd, there was some irreverent humor. "Go it, sis! He's gainin' on you!" "Keep it up!" "Steady, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you who week by week suck wisdom and conversational ability from these columns, it is borne in upon me that for your benefit I must treat of the Smoking-room in its connection with shooting-parties. Thus, perhaps, you may learn not so much what you ought to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... natural reluctance to be lively. She said to herself that she was rapidly developing into a fogey, and must rigorously combat the grievous tendency. By a sheer exertion of will-power she drove herself into a different, and conversational, mood. The Marchesino politely responded. He was perfectly self-possessed, but he was not light-hearted. The unusual effort of being thoughtful had, perhaps, distressed or even outraged his brain. And the worst of it was ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Parliamentary proceedings," he commanded the closest attention of the House. And yet he was neither eloquent, impressive, nor even earnest. There was not the slightest attempt at declamation. His voice rarely rose above a conversational tone, and his gestures were not so numerous or so decided as are usual in animated dialogue. His air and manner were rather those of a plain, well-informed man of business, not unaccustomed to public speaking, who had some views on the subject under discussion which he desired to present, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... warming influence of Carrie's good spirits and her husband's somewhat conversational mood, began to tell Carrie of some of the well-known things to see—things the ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... more and more strongly that he ought to invite us into the parlour—if there was a parlour—and I took advantage of a backward movement on his part to move one shallow step nearer, and said, in an easy conversational tone, "Your cat has ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... is conducted on your part), rely upon it that your auditors cannot possibly feel ennui. Every thing before us partakes of your enthusiasm: the wine becomes mellower, and sparkles with a ruddier glow; the flavour of the fruit is improved; and the scintillations of your conversational eloquence are scattered amidst my books, my busts, and my pictures. Proceed, I entreat you; but first, accept my libation offered up at the shrine of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... informs me that he has been able to use the railroad track for conversational purposes in place of a telegraph wire, and he further states that when only one telephone was connected with the track the sounds of Morse operating were distinctly audible in the telephone, although the nearest telegraph wires were at least ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... I was not. If I had been a man, he would have discussed politics or science or newspaper topics with me long before this. How did he know I could not match him in these being a woman? He was one of those wonderful erudites, I supposed, who think that a girl's conversational power lies rigidly between dry goods and sentiment. Poor things! What a heresy they foster? But what need I care? He was a glum, unsociable recluse anyway, may be at a loss for a second idea to keep his mind busy. He was certainly not worth worrying about, so I gathered up my ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... that in the course of time Gertrude grew a little tired of Paul's ceaseless devotion. It is quite likely that she sometimes found him in the way, and she was deprived of her best conversational theme. It was of no use to try to revive the legend of the Isolated Soul any longer, because of the frequent and earnest confession which had been made of the final discovery of a spiritual rapport absolute and complete. Paul and his angel had lived ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the idea of the wood-touching superstition, that a malignant spirit dogs one's conversational footsteps, listening eagerly for the complacent word. "I have never had the mumps," you say airily. "Ha, ha!" says the spirit, "haven't you? Just you wait till next Tuesday, my boy." Unconsciously ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... Burlington, New Jersey, who was a relative upon her father's side. As she grew up she developed remarkable powers. Those who knew her well, both as relatives and in the social circle, speak of her warm heart, her untiring energy, her brilliant conversational powers, and the beauty and delicacy of thought which marked her contributions to the press. By all who knew her she was regarded as a ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... to this, the skilled conversational angler dropped a bit of bait that the wariest man ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson |
