"Diction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... printer and publisher. His career in verse and prose began early. In 1783 came forth the charming collection 'Poetical Sketches,' juvenile as the fancies of his boyish days, but full of a sensitive appreciation of nature worthy of a mature heart, and expressed with a diction often exquisite. The volume was not really public nor published, but printed by the kindly liberality of two friends, one of them Flaxman. In 1787, "under the direction of the spirit of his dead brother," Robert, he decided on publishing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... style, who composed "Till Eulenspiegel" and "Don Quixote"; not easy, even though the contours of his idiom have not radically altered, and though in the sleepy facile periods of his later style one catches sight at times of the broad, simple diction of his earlier. For the later Strauss lacks pre-eminently and signally just the traits that made of the earlier so brilliant and engaging a figure. Behind the works of the earlier Strauss there was visible an intensely fierily experiencing ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... of Thinking and the Style must be Laconic: Much must be contained in a little Compass. Brevity of Diction adds new Life to a good Thought: And since every perfect Stroke ought to be a distinct Representation of a particular Feature, Matters shou'd be so order'd, that every perfect Sentence may contain a perfect Thought, and every perfect ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... 'picture of Ireland' was given by some half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine phrases with which to embellish his diction. But if he was a Celt, I think his description clearly proves that he must have been a Celt of some other country than the one upon whose state he reports. Judging from internal evidence, I should say that he could not be a native; for an Irishman, even though ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Wessagusset settlers promising to hang one of their own members who had been caught stealing—this hanging in order to appease the Indians. Morton gravely states that instead of hanging the real culprit, who was young and lusty, they hanged, in his place, another, old and sick. In his quaint diction: "You all agree that one must die, and one shall die, this young man's cloathes we will take off and put upon one that is old and impotent, a sickly person that cannot escape death, such is the disease on him confirmed, that die hee must. Put the young man's cloathes on this man, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... faults of style which are the fruits of self-consciousness and ambition. Whether we read the Old Testament story of Abraham's servant seeking a bride for Isaac, or the New Testament narrative of the walk of the risen Christ with his disciples to Emmaus, the inimitable simplicity of the diction would make us think that we were listening to the dialect of the angels who never sinned in thought, and therefore cannot sin in style, did we not know rather that it is the phraseology of ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... writing. Coleridge scribbled in the copy that now lies on the shelves of the British Museum this tribute to its author: "I remember few passages in ancient or modern authors that contain more just philosophy in appropriate, chaste or beautiful diction than the fine following pages. They reflect equal honour on Godwin's head and heart. Though I did it in the zenith of his reputation, yet I feel remorse even to have only spoken unkindly of such a man.—S. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... she was a little kid, Charles, as you express it with that elegance of diction and refinement of thought that seem never to desert you. Accordingly—er— [impatiently] Now I have forgotten what I was going to say. That comes of your provoking me to be sarcastic, Charles. Adolphus: will you kindly tell me ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... master and mistress; so that if, for example, it happened that, when they were not at home, a visitor called on a Sunday, he was sure to be told by Hassan that Sir Alexander and Lady Duff Gordon were at church, or even—for his diction was equal to this—that they were "attending Divine service." Your mother had valour enough to practise true Christian kindness under conditions from which the bulk of "good people" might too often shrink; when ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... shades of remote antiquity; and even the century when it first made its appearance, has eluded the vigilance of antiquarian research. Before entering upon its poetical merits, we must observe a striking peculiarity in the diction: there is not a single word in it, but that is of Anglo-Saxon origin, so that it may be considered as an admirable specimen of pure English, and as calculated to inspire the infant mind with a distaste for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... out Fibsy for her especial attentions, and the boy accepted the honor with a gentle grace that astounded me. When talking to her he lost entirely his slang and uncouth diction and behaved as to the manner born. He was chameleonic, I could see, and he unconsciously took color from ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Mr. C.'s Poems actually appeared, before which time he had seen occasion to make many alterations in the proposed arrangement of, and had added some of his most beautiful compositions to, the collection. It is curious, however, that he never varied the diction of the Sonnet to Schiller in the particular to which he refers ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... very general way. In their answers, Corny used the word "raised," while Christy was "brought up." Several phrases in more common use at the South than at the North were noted in his answers, which did not appear in the diction of Christy. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... now to say something concerning the sentiments, characters, incidents, moral, and diction of the poem, and [Greek: oroton apo proton], let us speak of the sentiments. These, as I observed before, are not, like Lucan's, obtruded upon the reader, but suggested by incidents. For instance, does ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... and they described the Deity under many noble images, and in the most elevated language. The hymn of Cleanthes, in particular, is justly admired for the grandeur of its sentiments, and the sublimity of its diction. But if in reading these descriptions, we hastily associate with them modern conceptions of Deity, and neglect to recur to the leading principles of the sect, we shall be led into fundamental misapprehensions of the true doctrine ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... not your anxious Mind perturb Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb: Be comforted: it is like Tacitus: Tis mostly done by ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... the inns, or are closely associated in the minds of students with the life of the law-colleges. Shakspeare's plays abound with testimony that he was no stranger in the legal inns, and the rich vein of legal lore and diction that runs through his writings has induced more judicious critics than Lord Campbell to conjecture that he may at some early time of his career have directed his mind to the study, if not the practice, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... this description with that of another poet, a poet who sent forth his poetry daintily dressed in verse as well as carelessly wrapped in prose. Liszt tells us that Chopin had in his imagination and talent something "qui, par la purete de sa diction, par ses accointances avec La Fee aux Miettes et Le Lutin d'Argail, par ses rencon-tres de Seraphine et de Diane, murmurant a son oreille leurs plus confidentielles plaintes, leurs reves les plus innommes," [FOOTNOTE: The allusions are to stories by Charles Nodier. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said but little, but John noticed that her diction was more conventional than in her talk with David and himself in the morning, and that her manner at the table was distinctly refined, although she ate with apparent appetite, not to say hunger. Presently she said, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... the farming population and their ways and diction. He learned by their parlance and Bible phrases to construct "short sentences of small words," but he had all along the idea that "the plain people are more easily influenced by a broad and humorous illustration than in any ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... and in it there is seldom anything ambiguous, muddy, confused or uncertain. Get down a volume of "Lives of the Poets," and prove my point for yourself, by opening at any page. It was Boswell who set his own light, chatty and amusing gossip over against the wise, stately diction of Johnson, and allowed Goldsmith to say, "Dear Doctor, if you were to write a story about little fishes, you would make them talk like whales," and the mud ball has stuck. The average man is much more willing to take the wily Boswell's word for it than to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... of Father Prmare, for it can scarcely be called a translation, there is neither diction, nor sentiment, nor character; it is a mere tissue of unnatural, or at least very improbable events, fit only for the amusement of children, and not capable of raising one single passion, but that of contempt for the taste of those ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... to this book we really owe the existence of "Julius Caesar," "Coriolanus," and "Antony and Cleopatra." In "Coriolanus" whole speeches have been taken bodily from North, while in "Antony and Cleopatra" North's diction has been closely followed. North did not translate from the original Greek, but from an old French version by James Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre in the times of Henry II of England. The selections here given are printed with the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... disposal than any other Italian, and the Siennese dialect is sweeter and more energetic than that of Florence, though the latter claims the title of the classic dialect, on account of its purity. This purity, together with its richness and copiousness of diction it owes to the academy. From the great richness of Italian we can treat a subject with far greater eloquence than a French writer; Italian abounds in synonyms, while French is lamentably deficient in this respect. Voltaire used to laugh at those who said that the French tongue could not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... delight and reverence Madonna pictures like this have awakened as we read the words of an old chant. In quaint diction and with fanciful imagery the writer tried to express his feelings in the presence of a painting which, if not this veritable Madonna of the Chair, was ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... discourse. Theron's conquest was of exceptional dimensions. The majority, whose project he had defeated, were strangers who appreciated and admired his effort most. The little minority of his own flock, though less susceptible to the influence of graceful diction and delicately balanced rhetoric, were proud of the distinction he had reflected upon them, and delighted with him for having won their fight. The Presiding Elders wrung his hand with a significant grip. The extremists of his own charge beamed friendship ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... poetry. Although Tasso himself did not think much of it, and did not take any steps to publish it, the judgment of his contemporaries and of posterity has placed it next in point of merit to the Gerusalemme; and by Italians it is especially admired for its graceful elegance of diction. Leigh Hunt executed a very good translation of it, which he dedicated to Keats. Its choruses, which are so many "lyrical voices floating in the air," are very beautiful. It was designed for the theatre, and was acted with ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... how he became a skilled artificer with his pen, and how with obstinate persistence he taught himself daintiness of diction. In his first book of travels he mentions how the branch of a tree caught him, and the flooded Oise bereft him of his canoe. "On my tomb, if ever I have one," he wrote, "I mean to get these words inscribed, HE CLUNG TO HIS PADDLE." The paddle he chose was his pen. It was ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... work—introduced in connection with the demoniac characters—are inferior to the rest. They have occasionally a quaint, antique flavor, suggesting the diction of the Elizabethan lyrists, but without their delicate, elusive richness of melody. Here most we perceive the absence of that highest, ripest intellectual culture which can be acquired only through contact and conflict with other minds. It is not good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... perfected the tragic mask. He improved the tragic dance, and by his use of scenic decoration and stage machinery, secured effects that were unknown before him. His chief claim to superior excellence, however, lies after all in his poetry. Splendid in diction, vivid in the portraiture of character, and powerful in the expression of passion, he is regarded by many competent critics as the greatest tragic poet ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the weight and gravity of substance, it is both a lovelier and a more lovable work, and it is everywhere more significantly accented. He has written few things more luxuriantly beautiful than the "Guinevere" movement, nothing more elevated and ecstatic than the apotheosis which ends the work. The diction throughout is richer and more variously contrasted than in the earlier work, and his manipulation of the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... never so peculiarly liable to hinder rather than to help as in early adolescence, when the soul has a new content and a new sense for it, and so abhors and is so incapable of precision and propriety of diction. To hold up the flights of exuberant youth by forever being on the hunt for errors is, to borrow the language of the gridiron, low tackle, and I would rather be convicted of many errors by such methods than use them. Of course this has its place, but it must ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... shoes"; that the crossbow was "an object of wonder and delight to the children of olden chivalry"; that Shakespeare "caressed the fame of the hero-king with the richest coruscations of his genius";—not to name a multitude of other facts stated with equal cost of thought and splendor of diction. But Mr. Towle spares us nothing, and sometimes leaves as little to the opinion of his readers as to their imagination. Having to tell us that Henry learned, in his boyhood, to play upon the harp, he will not poorly say as much, but will lavishly declare, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... closed behind him Symes dropped the catch that he might read Mudge's bulky letter undisturbed. Mudge's diction was ever open to criticism, but he had a faculty for conveying his meaning which genius well ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... me doit tout, et que pour sa grandeur J'ai foul sous les pieds remords, crainte, pudeur; Qu'avec un coeur d'airain exerant sa puissance, J'ai fait taire les lois et gmir l'innocence, Que pour lui, des Persans bravant l'aversion, 870 J'ai chri, j'ai cherch la maldiction; Et pour prix de ma vie leur haine expose, Le barbare ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... however, permitted yourself certain expressions concerning his lordship here, which we cannot allow to remain where you have left them. You must retract, sir, or make them good." His gravity, and the preciseness of his diction now, sorted most oddly ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... around, the atmosphere is perfumed with affectation. A toilet is described with the solemnity of an altar raised to the goddess of vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion of ornament, no splendour of poetic diction to set off the meanest things. . . . It is the perfection ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... had not been used before. The second Silesian school is more ambitious; but its poetic flights are more disappointing even than the honest prose of Opitz. The "Shepherds of the Pegnitz" had tried to imitate the brilliant diction of the Italian poets; but the modern Meistersaenger of the old town of Nuernberg had produced nothing but wordy jingle. Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein, the chief heroes of the second Silesian school, followed in their ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Egesteans, descended from Trojan ancestors, whose city he, for an injury of their king Laomedon, had overthrown. However, all these may be merely other instances of the same happy taste that makes him correct the diction of Philistus, and abuse Plato and Aristotle. This sort of contention and rivalry with others in matter of style, to my mind, in any case, seems petty and pedantic, but when its objects are works of inimitable excellence, it is absolutely senseless. Such actions in Nicias's ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... was the first fruit of his brain, this passionate rending aside of the curtain, which hung like a shroud before the grim horrors of that seething lower world of misery. In his earlier work there had been a certain delicate fancifulness, an airy grace of diction and description, a very curious heritage of a man brought up in the narrowest of lines, where every influence had been a constraint. There was nothing of that in the words which were leaping now hot from his heart. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... though the tongue be all mere natural English, yet those that are but a little acquainted with them cannot understand one-half of what they say. It is not possible to explain this fully by writing, because the difference is not so much in the orthography of words as in the tone and diction—their abridging the speech, "cham" for "I am," "chil" for "I will," "don" for "put on," and "doff" for "put off," and the like. And I cannot omit a short story here on this subject. Coming to a relation's house, who was a school-master at Martock, in Somersetshire, I went into ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... presence of God is, or where we have the glory of that happy vision. Moses, that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians, committed a gross absurdity in philo- sophy, when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see God, and petitioned his Maker, that is truth itself, to a contra- diction. Those that imagine heaven and hell neighbours, and conceive a vicinity between those two extremes, upon consequence of the parable, where Dives discoursed with Lazarus, in Abraham's bosom, do too grossly ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... been graceful, nor the diction, yet she knew that Ace had struck the mark fairly, for woman indeed needed no tutor to teach her to understand man—woman ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... century. In that author's work, entitled the "Philosopher's stone," mention is made of medicine that cures all leprous diseases. This passage, some authors suppose, to have given the first hint of the matter, though Geber himself, perhaps, meant no such thing; for, by attending to the Arabic style and diction of this author, which abounds in allegory, it is highly probable that by man he means gold, and by leprous, or other diseases, the other metals, which, with relation ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Hutchinson, we never heard him plead anything of moment, except that he was finically Frenchified in his diction; of which he gave this instance—that having occasion to notice a brick wall, (which was literally that, not more and not less,) when reconnoitring the French defences, he called it a revetement. And we ourselves remember ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... it seems, differed from Boileau, Voltaire, and D'Alembert, who had taken upon them to proscribe all modern efforts to write with elegance in a dead language. For a decision pronounced in so high a tone, no good reason can be assigned. The interests of learning require, that the diction of Greece and Rome should be cultivated with care; and he who can write a language with correctness, will be most likely to understand its idiom, its grammar, and its peculiar graces of style. What man of taste would willingly forego the pleasure of reading Vida, Fracastorius, Sannazaro, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... idea in the same manner as in Misconceptions and Natural Magic. Note the felicity of imagery and diction. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... frankness and truthfulness is equal to that of any of his detractors. William Rosse Cobbe, in a volume entitled "Dr. Judas, or Portrayal of the Opium Habit," gives with great frankness of confession and considerable purity of diction a record of his own experiences with the drug. One entire chapter of Mr. Cobb's book and several portions of other chapters are devoted to showing that De Quincey was wrong in some of his statements, but notwithstanding his criticism of De Quincey, Mr. Cobbe seems to have experienced ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... time I had not fully voiced my discovery. Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to express in feeble diction Truth's ultimate. ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... case, the diction is equal to the deed: the clear and vivacious style of the writer is fully up to the level of ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... of any diction is its appropriateness. The man who talks of dignified things as he would of a baseball game—unless he is doing it deliberately for humor, caricature, or burlesque—is ruining his own cause. The man who discusses trifles in the style of philosophy ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... simplicity of diction, occur in almost every kind of composition. They are mostly founded on some similitude or relation of things, which, by the power of imagination, is rendered ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... books of its class is its distinction of manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the fervent charm of its love passages. It is a very attractive piece of romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."—The Dial. "A stirring, ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the business of the Chorus, and made the dialogue, or spoken portion, take the leading part in the play. (2) A third actor and scenery were due to Sophocles. (3) Tragedy acquired also its magnitude. Discarding short stories and a ludicrous diction, through its passing out of its satyric stage, it assumed, though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity; and its metre changed then from trochaic to iambic. The reason for their original use of the trochaic tetrameter was ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the words with a particular reference to the constitution; any how, so far as the duty is expressed, it perfectly accords with that instrument; if there are any inconsistencies in it, they may be rectified; I believe the intention is well understood, but I am far from supposing the diction improper. If the description of the persons does not accord with the ideas of the gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. Jackson,) and his idea is a proper one for the committee to adopt, I see no difficulty in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... care a damn what people think!" cried he, heated to unusual manliness of diction. "But it's half what ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... of Mme. Calve, who is especially fond of her songs. She has accompanied Calve on an American tour, and has appeared with her before Queen Victoria at Windsor. She sings herself with a light but attractive voice and the most perfect diction. Of late she has composed for Calve some acting ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and splendour of diction which more than satisfied the highly raised expectations of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India; recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated; and set forth the constitution of ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Nevertheless, I made but little progress in his poetry. His modernisms were out of tune with the strain of my aspirations at that moment, and I did not find the unexpected word and the eccentricities of expression which were, and are still, so dear to me. I am not a purist; an error of diction is very pardonable if it does not err on the side of the commonplace; the commonplace, the natural, is constitutionally abhorrent to me; and I have never been able to read with any very thorough sense of pleasure even the opening lines of "Rolla," that splendid lyrical outburst. What I remember ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Dyce prided themselves on the purity of their diction, and they usually abstained from plantation dialect; but when embarrassed, frightened or excited, they invariably relapsed into the lingo of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his scheme of action demanded time for its perfect fulfillment and ultimate success. He let the little timorous chatterbox talk. Her voice was soft and musical as the cooing of a wood-dove, and the sweet full notes chimed in striking contrast to her uncouth speech. But Joan's diction gave pleasure to the listener. It had freedom and wildness, and was almost wholly innocent of ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... The diction of the version is, on the whole, characterized by simplicity and ease. Yet the author, like many another translator of Old English, tries to give his style an archaic tinge by preserving the compound forms characteristic of that language, ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... of them." But I said, "A visitor is [naturally] bashful; do thou begin." "True," answered she and recited some of the choicest verses of the poets, past and present, so that I knew not whether more to marvel at her beauty and grace or at the charm of her diction. Then said she, "Is thy bashfulness gone?" "Yes, by Allah!" answered I. "Then, if thou wilt," rejoined she, "recite us somewhat." So I repeated to her a number of poems by old writers, and she applauded, saying, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... hatred; truthful in conduct, with an ironical reserve. He talks little, either of himself or of others; neither desiring his own praise, nor caring to utter blame. He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no gossip. His movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction stately (III.). ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was foreign: his diction was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of business. To the difficulty which he felt in expressing himself, and to his consciousness that his pronunciation was bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... years of age, improving even in fire and imagination as well as in judgment, witness his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, and his fables, his latest performances. He was equally excellent in verse and prose: His prose had all the clearness imaginable, without deviating to the language or diction of poetry, and I have heard him frequently own with pleasure, that if he had any talent for writing prose; it was owing to his frequently having read the writings of the great archbishop Tillotson. In his poems, his diction is, wherever his subject requires it, so sublime and so truly poetical, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... declares, "I can never express my grateful sense of the good nature of Mrs Oldfield ... nor do I owe less to her excellent judgment, shown in some corrections which I shall for my own sake conceal." The comedy is dedicated, with the graceful diction and elaborate courtesies of the period, to Fielding's cousin, that notable eighteenth-century wit, the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and from the dedication we learn that to Lady Mary's approval, on her first perusal, the play ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Lame one still lamer by imperfect memory, but spite of bald diction, a little done to it might improve it into a good one. You have nothing else to do at ["Talk kay" here written and scratched out] Torquay. Suppose you try it. Well God bless you all, as wishes Mary, [most] sincerely, with many thanks for Letter ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... words and recondite phrases imparted a great air of learning to the style of the new critic; and from the unintelligible sublimity of his diction, it seemed doubtful whether he was a poet from Highgate or a philosopher from Konigsberg. At all events, the reviewer preserved his incognito, and while his praises were rung at no less than three tea-tables, even ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... commended as one of the most charming pictures that have ever appeared of country life. The books of the Howitts, delineating the same class of subjects in England and Germany, are not to be compared to Miss Cooper's for delicate painting or grace and correctness of diction. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... we were obliged to sit impatiently through a rambling discourse, given in a half-belligerent manner, on the deterioration of moral standards. Re-reading Clara's notes, I find that the subject matter is without originality and the diction inferior. But the lecture ceased abruptly, and the time for questions ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Bob, "but I'm not obliged to say what I mean now. I'm an alum. I can use as bad diction as I please and the long arm of the English department can't reach out and spatter my mistakes with ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... to have answered to the name of Jasmine would have been to proclaim her sex at once. Even the grim old master smiled at her through his horn spectacles as she entered the school-house of a morning, and any graceful turn in her poetry or scholarly diction in her prose was sure to win for her his unsparing praise. Many an evening he invited the "young noble" to his house to read over chapters from Confucius and the poems of Le Taipoh; and years afterward, when he died, among his most cherished ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... reference to another of the copies, he arrived by degrees at a clear understanding of the whole matter. The story was set forth in rhyming doggerel. The poet was not blessed with a gift of melody or of style. Absence of scansion tortured the ear. Coarseness of diction offended the taste. And yet, as he read on, Julius reluctantly admitted that the cruel tale gained credibility and moral force from the very homeliness of the language in which ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... fact's a fact—and 't is the part Of a true poet to escape from fiction Whene'er he can; for there is little art in leaving verse more free from the restriction Of Truth than prose, unless to suit the mart For what is sometimes called poetic diction, And that outrageous appetite for lies Which Satan angles with for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... bold to take Richelieu and his time as a subject and thus to challenge comparison with Dumas's immortal musketeers; but the result justifies the boldness.... The plot is admirably clear and strong, the diction singularly concise and telling, and the stirring events are so managed as not to degenerate into sensationalism. Few better novels of adventure than this have ever ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... continues, with a good deal of indignation:—"I sha'n't allow the bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with the pole and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... published under the patronage of the court, consisted of comment without news. This paper, called the Observator, was edited by an old Tory pamphleteer named Roger Lestrange. Lestrange was by no means deficient in readiness and shrewdness; and his diction, though coarse, and disfigured by a mean and flippant jargon which then passed for wit in the green room and the tavern, was not without keenness and vigour. But his nature, at once ferocious and ignoble, showed itself in every line ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which strong feelings may justify in Shylock, and learn from Shakespeare's conduct of that character the terrible force of every plain and calm diction, when known to proceed from a ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... the idea, and the latter appears not to have strength enough to clear the passage. Occasionally, a short, sharp sentence comes like a flash of lightning from the cloud of his verbiage, and relieves the twilight of his diction. There are but few felicitous phrases in his manifold volumes. He has hardly any of those happy combinations of words which stick fast to the memory, and do more than pages to express the author's meaning. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... He was just in rewarding their services—more than just: he was generous and kind. But he did not have real associates, real friends; therefore it is not surprising that he met with so little gratitude. Even his diction shows this independence, this isolation. It would be difficult to find an author of any nation in a cultivated age so free from the influence of the language of his predecessors. Caesar was unique among the great Roman writers in having been ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... is that Mr Carlyle deals. To speak in our own plain common-place diction, it is to the elements of all religious feeling, to the broad unalterable principles of morality, that he addresses himself; stirring up in the minds of his readers those sentiments of reverence to the Highest, and of justice to all, even to the lowest, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... their beauties, that I was compelled with a rash hand to pluck the nettles away that choked the healthy growth of the young, fresh, and budding flowers; preserving, as nearly as I could, their ancient simplicity and diction. Others, by local and nameless poets, I have given as I found them. Those ballads, virtually my own, are stated to be so in the notes, and these, with great fear and tribulation, I hang as a votive wreath on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... reread them. He compared them with the paragraphs in the newspaper brought by Bulmer, and thrown by him on the table after his first outburst of helpless wrath. They were identical in wording, of course, but, somehow, their meaning was clearer in the printed page: and David, despite his uncouth diction, was ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... He is a high-bred, sporting Englishman. His manner, his dress and his diction are the perfection of English elegance. His movements are quick and graceful. He talks lightly and with ease. He is full of life and unsmiling ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... it thrilling, crisp and short, In purest diction drest, with gems of thought So intermingled with the story's warp and woof, That from beginning I can scarcely ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... sacrifice that the noblest of the race had always been called upon to make. In giving themselves to this cause they were giving themselves to their country. They were offering themselves to God. In simple diction, and in clear flowing speech, the sermon proceeded without pause or stumbling to the end. The preacher closed with an appeal to the soldiers present to make this sacrifice of theirs at once worthy and complete. These bodies of theirs were sacred and were devoted to this cause. It was their ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... suffering or danger brings then nearer to the heart of things, they were offered the chaff of divinity, and its wheat was left for less needy gleaners, who knew where to look. Even the fine old Bible stories, which may be made as lifelike as any history of our day, by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction, were robbed of all their charms by dry explanations and literal applications, instead of being useful and pleasant lessons to those men, whom weakness had rendered as docile as children in a ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... the Purgatory, and Divorce itself the Paradiso of human life? You would not be likely to think the better of me, and I should certainly think less well of myself. Though I am conscious of a homespun quality of thought and diction, I must keep within the limits set me by nature, eschewing "brilliancy" and continuing to deal not in abstract ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... always so in fine poetry. The value of versification, when it is indissolubly fused with meaning, can hardly be exaggerated. The gift for feeling it, even more perhaps than the gift for feeling the value of diction, is the specific gift for poetry, as distinguished from other arts. But versification, taken, as far as possible, all by itself, has a very different worth. Some aesthetic worth it has; how much, you may experience by reading poetry ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... customers with shrewd unfriendly eyes, set out the glasses and the accompanying bottles—he never needed to inquire what these men would take; he knew the tipple of every soul in Barnriff by heart—Abe opened out. He was unctuous and careful of his diction. He was Barnriff's lay-preacher, and felt that this attitude was ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... director and truer voice, "I have proposed to myself to imitate and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men.... I have taken as much pains to avoid what is usually called poetic diction as others ordinarily take to produce it." And he erected this practice into a general principle in the ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... emphasizing is by means of simple alliteration. On the other hand it must be noticed that he employs alliteration for the sake of euphony alone much more frequently than he uses it for the purpose of emphasis. So that we may conclude by saying that simple alliteration forms the basis of the euphuistic diction, just as we have seen antithesis forms the basis of the euphuistic construction. This brief survey of the framework of euphuism is far from being an exhaustive analysis. All that is here attempted is an enumeration ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... the subject. Others give themselves up to elaborate and exhaustive research and excite the admiration of their hearers, either by their scientific reasonings, their eloquence, the studied grace of their gestures, or by their perfect diction. Others add to all this beautiful and useful teaching, but so that it only slips in here and there, as it were, by chance, and is not expressly dwelt upon. But when we have only one aim, and when all our reasonings and all our ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... a Liberian romance written by Henry F. Downing, a colored man who evidently spent some years in Liberia. The diction is good, the style pleasing, and the story interesting, but it is not a sympathetic portrayal of African character and customs. It is written from a white man's point of view and shows a tendency to regard the white man's civilization ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... architecture commenced through care bestowed on window tracery for itself instead of as an avenue or vehicle for the admission of light. Read "words" for tracery, "thought" for light, and we see how inspiration avenges itself so soon as diction is made paramount; artifice, which demands and misses watchful self-concealment, passes into mannerism; we have lost the incalculable charm of spontaneity. Comparison of "Eothen" with the "Crimea" will I think exemplify this truth. The first, ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... again under which troubadour poetry was produced, apart from the limitations of its subject matter, tended to foster an obscure and highly artificial diction. This obscurity was attained, as we have said, by elevation and preciosity of style, and was not the result of confusion of thought. Guiraut de Bornelh tells us his method [37] in a passage worth quoting in ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... is the answer Webster gives to such as may object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain the animation they now lack ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... letter the street laborer should bear in mind that only the letter of a street-laborer is expected from him, no matter to whom his communication may be addressed and that neither the grammar nor the diction of a Chesterfield or Gladstone is looked for in his language. Still the writer should keep in mind the person to whom he is writing. If it is to an Archbishop or some other great dignitary of Church or ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... intelligence in the course of it,—rather too much so for entire credibility. It is quite possible that there is more of it than Hawthorne ever wrote, but that does not prevent us from having faith in the larger portion of it. The purity of its diction, the nice adaptation of each word to its purpose, and the accuracy of detail are much in its favor; besides which, the personal reflections in it are exactly like Hawthorne. The published portion of the diary in ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... petition drawn up; and, but that we fear our sketch is already too long, we could gratify the reader's curiosity by submitting a few of them. It is sufficient to say, that they came to him in every shape—in all the variety of diction that the poor English language admits of—in the schoolmaster's best copy-hand, and choicest sesquipedalianism of pedantry—in the severer, but more Scriptural terms of the parish clerk—in the ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Mrs. Hamilton," Sadie interrupted enthusiastically, again forgetful of niceties in diction by reason of her excess of feeling, "maybe you ain't in strong with that bunch! They were all singing and praying for you all last night to beat the band. They made so much fuss Pop had to go up with a club, and threaten ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... The orchestra was perfect, at its best I think in the "scherzos" which they took in beautiful style—so light and sure. I liked the instrumental part much better than the singing. French voices, the women's particularly, are thin, as a rule. I think they sacrifice too much to the "diction,"—don't bring out the voices enough—but the style and training are ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... success which was marked less by vociferous calls before the curtain than by the deeper and more discreet approval of discriminating playgoers. She had revealed qualities with which she had not hitherto been credited; purity of diction, nobility of pose, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... subject-matter and its style, of being chiefly due to Chapman. In 1654 two tragedies, Alphonsus Emperour of Germany and The Revenge for Honour, were separately published under Chapman's name. Their authorship, however, is doubtful. There is nothing in the style or diction of Alphonsus which resembles Chapman's undisputed work, and it is hard to believe that he had a hand in it. The Revenge for Honour is on an Oriental theme, entirely different from those handled by Chapman ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... speech, tongue, vernacular; dialect; idiom, phraseology, diction; argot, flash, slang, lingo, cant, jargon, gibberish; Volapuk, pasilaly, Esperanto. Associated Words: lingual, linguistic, linguist, linguistics, philology, philologist, philological, polyglot, glottology, glossology, paleography, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... certain that in the main they must have be merely oral tradition, and few have exercised so wide and mighty an influence. The profound, many-sided and intimate knowledge of human nature which it evinces, its vast variety of incident, its wealth of tears and laughter, its copious and felicitous diction, inevitably apt for every occasion, and, notwithstanding the frequent harshness, and occasional obscurity of its at times tangled, at times laboured periods, its sustained energy and animation of style must ever ensure for this human comedy unchallenged rank ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... breeze, is comfortable and sedative. One's own secret and awkward convictions, never expressed because not lawful and because it is hard to get words to bear them lightly, seem then to be heard aloud in the mild, easy, and confident diction of an immortal whose voice has the blitheness of one who has watched, amused and irreverent, the high gods in eager and secret debate on the best way to keep the gilt and trappings on the body of the ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... approximate meaning where the literal was impossible, to turn all this into fairly smooth English. But in such a process all the strength and individual character of the original would inevitably have been lost. What I have endeavoured to do is to indicate the diction which a man of Wagner's peculiar turn of mind would have used, if he had written in English instead of ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... comment is made on a particular line or a particular image, rhyme, word, etc. In short, as so often in Johnson, we are confronted with the large general statement in so much of the criticism in the Lives. The "diction" of Lycidas is "harsh." "Some philosophical notions [in Paradise Lost], especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better omitted." The plays of Nicholas Rowe are marked by "elegance of diction." Dryden is not often "pathetick." Some of ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... all you need physical development; you must broaden your chest through breathing exercises; you are too thin chested. You must become physically stronger if you ever hope to sing acceptably. Then you must study diction and languages. This is absolutely necessary for the singer. Above all you must know how to pronounce and sing in your own language. So many do not think it necessary to study their own language; they think they know that already; but one's mother tongue requires ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the two plays, with the exception of the Prologue, which is not found in the Dutch, agree speech by speech from beginning to end, the English version is not a slavish translation; indeed, the ease and happiness of the diction, and the freedom with which it moves, give it, until the Dutch text is examined, the tone of an original work, and the translator must have been a man of no small ability to achieve such a success. It should be said that the oldest Dutch edition now extant appears to have been printed ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathize with them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian dissertations, to enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments and diction of the characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to strip off our lendings—to set aside the factitious principles and adornments which we have received from our comparatively artificial system of society, and our natural feelings are in unison with those of the bard ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... faithfully to their tasks to further as far as their strength allowed the science and art of healing. In the medical writers of the older period of Salerno who had not yet been disturbed by Arabian culture or scholasticism, we cannot but admire the clear, charmingly smooth, light-flowing diction, the delicate and honest setting forth of cases, the simplicity of their method of treatment, which was to a great extent dietetic and expectant, and while we admire the carefulness and yet the copiousness ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... like a god. Christ had even a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the A FORTIORI. His "how much more" is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds. The diction used ABOUT Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea. Morally it is equally terrific; he called himself a sword ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... driven back to Wales by contrary winds. And of this event a poem was made in the reign of James I, which is quoted by Westcote as written by a "modern poet," though he does not give us the name. The verse still retains a smack of the Elizabethan diction—not the Shakespeare magic, indeed, but the euphuistic, antithetical, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... in his sifting of evidence, and more convincing in the planning of his cases. The business man will be even more sharply alive to business. The college student can better grasp his studies, and write with stronger thought and clearer diction. The cook will get a finer flavor into the food. And so on to the end of the list. Why? Not by any magic, but simply and only because man was created to be animated and dominated by the Spirit of God. That ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... health excellent; character docile, upright, grateful; conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his application to the mathematics. He is passably acquainted with history and geography: is weak enough as to his Latin diction and other elegant accomplishments: would make an excellent sea-officer: deserves to be transferred to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... 'Mardi' may be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after the completion of 'Omoo' that Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author's style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct. 'Mardi' is burdened with an over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew. The scene of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the story loses itself in a ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... historical compositions for mere literary execution is the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna, to which I have had occasion to refer, edited in 1784, by Flores, the diligent secretary of the Royal Academy of History. He justly commends it for the purity and harmony of its diction. The loyalty of the chronicler seduces him sometimes into a swell of panegyric, which may he thought to savor too strongly of the current defect of Castilian prose; but it more frequently imparts to his narrative a generous glow of sentiment, raising it far ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the picture of Catherine de Medicis, prowling "like a wolf among the bodies and the blood," in a passage of the Louvre—the picture is taken unwittingly from the "Iliad." There was in you that reserve of primitive force, that epic grandeur and simplicity of diction. This is the force that animates "Monte Cristo," the earlier chapters, the prison, and the escape. In later volumes of that romance, methinks, you stoop your wing. Of your dramas I have little room, and less skill, to speak. "Antony," ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... only a selection taken haphazard from the mass of fugitive literature which the early years of the Reformation brought forth. In spite of a certain rough but not unattractive directness of diction, a prolonged reading of them is very tedious, as will have been sufficiently seen from the extracts we have given. Their humour is of a particularly juvenile and obvious character, and consists almost entirely ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... has completely overthrown every hope that Macpherson's 'Ossian' might prove the translation of a series of poems complete in themselves; but, while the imposture is discovered, the merit of the work remains undisputed, though not without faults—particularly, in some parts, turgid and bombastic diction.—The present humble imitation will be pardoned by the admirers of the original as an attempt, however inferior, which evinces an attachment to their favourite author. [Malcolm Laing (1762-1818) published, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the salle is fully as interesting to me as the performance, good as that is—with a handsome, delicate-looking young professor of music playing the violin, an actor from the Palais Royale showing a diction altogether remarkable, two well-known gymnasts doing wonderful stunts on horizontal bars, a prize pupil from the Conservatory at Nantes acting, as only the French can, in a well- known little comedy, two clever, comic monologists of the La Scala sort, and as good as I ever heard ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... everything; each kind of writing will have rules of its own, from which it will not be allowed to swerve, and which distinguish it from all others. Style will be thought of almost as much importance as thought; and the form will be no less considered than the matter: the diction will be polished, measured, and uniform. The tone of the mind will be always dignified, seldom very animated; and writers will care more to perfect what they produce than to multiply their productions. It will sometimes happen that the members of the literary class, always living ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... touch with the original. Even in the best translated work is probably wanted the subtle vitality natural to the original language, for it defies an attempt, however elaborate, to transmit all there is in the original. Correctness of diction may be there, but spontaneity is gone; ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... compositions in verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than that ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brother playwrights. But he carried to fanatic extravagance his devotion to the purity of the stage. Warned by earlier example, few dramas which could possibly be considered of a political complexion were now submitted for examination. Still the diction of the stage demanded a measure of liberty. But Mr. Colman would not allow a lover to describe his mistress as "an angel." He avowed that "an angel was a character in Scripture, and not to be profaned on the stage by being applied to a woman!" The exclamation, "Oh, Providence!" was not ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... which Effie could produce, who, though a lively girl, had been a remarkably careless scholar, but even to her more considerate sister's own powers of composition and expression. The manuscript was a fair Italian hand, though something stiff and constrained—the spelling and the diction that of a person who had been accustomed to read good composition, and mix ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... opening of the Civil War, whatever the faith or the practice of the adult inhabitants of the country, the Bible story and the Bible diction were familiar to all. The speeches of the popular orators of that day were filled with distinct allusions to the Bible and these were quickly and clearly apprehended by the people. It may be questioned whether popular speeches of the present ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail |
