"Conversation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who had arrived early, could not but take notice that Lopez, who soon followed him into the room, had at once fallen into conversation with Emily, as though there had never been any difficulty in the matter. The father, standing on the rug and pretending to answer the remarks made to him by Dick Roby, could see that Emily said but little. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... childhood had not yet given place to the fulfilment of feminine grace. But the likeness in each was quite enough to make him feel that he ought to be at home in that room. He thought that he could love the woman as his mother, and the girl as his sister. He found it very difficult to begin any conversation in their presence, and yet it seemed to be his duty to begin. Mr Crawley had marshalled him into the room, and having done so, stood aside near the door. Mrs Crawley had received him very graciously, and having done so, seemed to be ashamed of her own hospitality. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... viii., 15-175, we find an account of an interesting scientific discussion, or conversation, between Adam and Raphael regarding the merits of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, and of the relative importance and size of the heavenly bodies. By it we are afforded an opportunity of learning how accurate and precise a knowledge ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... had another visit from General Brown, when he began a conversation by mentioning the evils which would arise from the feeling between your Lordship and Gameiro, who was at a loss how to act, as he had no authority over you—Gen. Brown suggesting how much better it would be for me to ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... that immediately," he answered seriously, "but you will know it by and bye, Honor," taking her hands in his, and looking meaningly into the deep gray eyes, "will you be vexed if I tell you that I have just overheard your conversation with Vivian Standish?" ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... little William, and which he had conjectured to be the voice of a young girl. As before, the utterance was very low,—murmured, as if repeating a series of words,—in fact, as if the speaker was engaged in a quiet conversation. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... this nature is always liable to be challenged let me say that it is based on the opinions expressed in conversation by the correspondents of English papers who came to America at that time in an endeavour to reach Cuba. They certainly did not anticipate that the American fleet would be able to stand against the Spanish. And, lest American readers should be in danger of taking offence at this, let it be ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... began O'Brien, to make conversation, "how many fellers go west at sunset. Seems like they let go all holts as soon as the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... such objects tends to attract to the Library visitors not interested in the books, but whose conversation distracts more ...
— Report of the Chief Librarian - for the Year Ended 31 March 1958: Special Centennial Issue • J. O. Wilson and General Assembly Library (New Zealand)
... nature, abstracted from any connexion imagined to exist between the object and our own heart. It is, however, more lively when the object lives in our time, and when his actions are the subject of daily conversation in our hearing, or when we have ourselves been witnesses of them; and still more so, when the person being still in existence has found means by the force of his talents to agitate a whole people, to rouse general curiosity ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... can only be reciprocal, and it will be a pleasure to me to unfold to you at leisure what your conversation has been to me; how I, too, regard those days as an epoch in my life, and how contented I feel in having gone on my way without any particular encouragement; for it seems to me that, after so unexpected a meeting, we cannot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... a brief reply which throws the recipients into consternation they cannot conceal. No conversation is possible, declares the President, either on peace or on an armistice until preliminary guarantees shall have been furnished. These are the acceptation pure and simple of the bases of peace laid down on January 8, 1918, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... quarries unawares: for self-consciousness in a sitter kills all character. A favourite ruse was for him to tell Mr. A. that he wanted to sketch Mr. B., and that his work would be greatly facilitated if the hon. member would keep the other in conversation. Mr. A. would enter gleefully into the joke, and then Harry Furniss would sketch Mr. A! If need be, he would make his sketch, unseen and unseeing, upon a piece of cardboard or in a sketch-book, in the side-pocket of his overcoat. In this way detail, mannerism, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... decency, and I had to jolt my brain to do justice to the furred and booted Eskimo in his igloo of ice. The difference in surroundings was so opposite that I could barely picture his atmosphere climatological and moral. I led the conversation back to their situation ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... though tired out myself, I supported his feeble steps, and with great difficulty brought him to my inn. There I made him lie down on a bed, gave him plenty of food, braced him up with wine, and entertained him with the news of the day. Pretty soon our conversation took a merry turn; we cracked jokes, and grew noisy as we chattered. All of a sudden, heaving a bitter sigh from the bottom of his chest, and striking his forehead violently with his right hand, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... road, and recognised a certain tactless youth, John Story by name, famous throughout the district for his knack of thrusting himself in where he was least wanted. Without so much as a 'by your leave' John Story caught up the other two men and began a lively conversation as ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... him could say any other but this, that he was a beloved Jedidiah of the Lord. I never knew a man more richly endowed with grace, more equal in his temper, more equal in his spiritual frame, and more equal in walk and conversation. When I speak of him as a man—none more lovely in features, none more prudent, none more brave and heroic in spirit; and yet none more meek, none more humane and condescending. He was every way so rational, as well as religious, that there was reason to think that the powers ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... be let alone, and the assistant physician in charge of my case, after several ineffectual attempts to engage me in conversation, humored my persistent taciturnity. For more than a year his only remarks to me were occasional conventional salutations. Subsequent events have led me to doubt the ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... thoughts were divided between the joyful contemplations which the holy festival it was ushering in was calculated to inspire, and the painful solicitude which the conversation of the preceding evening had left on his mind. In church, however, the latter feeling subsided, and gave way to that earnest calmness, and that intense devotion, which absorb for the time the cares and troubles of the soul, "like motes in light divine." When from the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... plainly seen through my glass as though not six feet away. I saw his beak and throat, and am absolutely certain that he delivered every note. The absorbed singer stood there motionless a long time, and carried on this queer conversation with himself. It sounded precisely like two birds, one of whom was mocking or ridiculing the other in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Those only who were nearest had heard the words of Walter Middleton when he first got up to disclaim all right to the gold watch. But after he had gone forward to the table no more was heard, the conversation being carried on in a confidential tone much too low to be heard beyond the little circle around ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... broad cheekbones and narrow chin gave his face something of the viperine V. His head, too, was broad behind, and low and narrow at the forehead, as if his brain had been twisted round in the reverse way to a European's. He was short of stature and still shorter of English. In conversation he made numerous odd noises of no known marketable value, and his infrequent words were carved and wrought into heraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd tried to elucidate his religious beliefs, and—especially after whisky—lectured ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Thorpe the fact that there had been something disagreeable in their conversation, and the thought of it was unpleasant to him. "Why, I didn't know you had a new man coming," he said, turning to her with ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... spring a pair of Bluebirds came into our yard, and to the accompaniment of much cheerful bird conversation, in the form of whistles, twitters, chirps, and snatches of {49} song, began hunting eagerly for some place to locate a nest. Out in the woodshed I found a box, perhaps six inches square and twice as long. Cutting a small entrance hole on one side, I fastened the box seven ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... obtained a seat in Parliament he won the esteem of Doctor Johnson, who bore noble testimony to his virtue and talent, and what he especially admired, and called, his "affluence of conversation." ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... highness was desirous of enlightening himself upon the matter, and took the trouble to examine carefully into the circumstances which were related to him. As this adventure became the subject of every conversation, very soon nothing was heard but stories of ghosts, related by the credulous, and laughed at and joked upon by the freethinkers. However, M. de S. tried to reassure himself, and go the following night into his bed, and become worthy of ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Conversation ceased as the speed of the swift little boat increased. Less than a half-hour had elapsed when the boys found that they were entering the village to which Fred ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... young nobility and richer gentry to the other, in order to polish themselves by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners, there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or seamen, who dwell in the maritime parts, but what can hold conversation in both tongues; as I found some weeks after, when I went to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu, which, in the midst of great misfortunes through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... work was soon done, and the minutes hung heavy on their hands. They would not talk of the things which were near their hearts, for they feared to add to each other's misery; they strove therefore to talk on indifferent subjects, and soon broke down in every attempt they made at conversation. ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... in the centre of the room in lively conversation with the gentlemen of his suite. As Kaunitz entered, he stopped at once, and coming forward, received the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... it meant to slaves. Or they may have understood some of the remarks of the Arabs, which no doubt were pointed and explanatory. At any rate, they turned and stared till the Arabs ran among them with sjambocks, that is, whips of hippopotamus hide, and suppressed their animated conversation ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... common was far greater than the element peculiar to each, or, to put it in another way, they in large measure overlapped each other. Perhaps we are in a position now to characterize colloquial Latin and to define it as the language which was used in conversation throughout the Empire with the innumerable variations which time and place gave it, which in its most highly refined form, as spoken in literary circles at Rome in the classical period, approached indefinitely near its ideal, literary Latin, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... of my own heart. The joy that I had just felt in meeting Edgar again, made the void in my heart, which friendship can never fill, all the more painful; my senses, subdued by the heat, chanted in endless elegies the serious and soothing conversation that we had had one evening under your lindens. Whether I had a presentiment of some approaching change in my destiny, or whether I was simply overcome by the heat, I know not, but I was restless; my restlessness seemed to anticipate some indefinite happiness, and from afar the wind ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... was going smoothly. De Forest was more loving than ever, and Madam Imbert found it almost impossible to have a private conversation with Mrs. Maroney, as she seemed always with him. When De Forest came to Philadelphia I had it suggested to him that it would be advisable to get Mrs. Maroney to walk or drive out with him in the evening. He immediately acted on the suggestion, and before long ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... such a shrine, surrounded by tattered rags tied to sticks, that fluttered in the wind three or four thousand feet above Khyber level, that King drew Ismail into conversation, and deftly forced on him the role ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Conversation ceased. Instruction went forward. Their pencils worked. The causal law, etc., went into their condensed notes like Liebig's extract of beef, and drops of perspiration continued to trickle from their ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... he was, Lady Arabella heard him coming, and turned to meet him. It was somewhat hard to see in the gloom, for, as usual, he was all in black, only his collar and cuffs showing white. Lady Arabella opened the conversation which ensued between ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... simply trying to be agreeable. I pointed out—when I succeeded in seizing a place in the conversation—that if Gorman's theory were applied to Ireland Belfast would come out as a reality while Cork, Limerick, and other places like them would be ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... received last night your letters of the 15th, and this morning went to Townshend with them. We proceeded together to the Premier's, who expressed great dissatisfaction at the contents of your despatch. We had a good deal of conversation about it, which ended in Townshend's proposing that he should on Tuesday move for leave to bring in the Bill, and that in the meantime your opinion might be taken on the preamble proposed by Lord ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... a lengthy conversation, the engine requiring constant attention, but the tramp volunteered the information that he answered to the name of Jim, and promised to report at the rectory in the evening and give me a chance to ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... almost out of deference than from pride, by reason of the honour which it reflected upon himself. Full of disdain for the people around him, M. le Marquis spoke little, in a very high voice, and as though he were stooping towards those whom he was honouring with his conversation. From time to time he would throw to the Nabob across the table a few ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Somerset, and the infamous Buckingham, whose indiscretion brought about a war with Spain in 1624; James died immediately afterwards; he has been described by Sully as "the wisest fool in Christendom"; his conduct was certainly much less creditable than his conversation; he held absurdly high views of the royal prerogative; but he sold patents of nobility, and was careless of the misdeeds of his ministers; he did not live to see revolution, but he saw its precursor ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to time their conversation was interrupted by a blood-curdling death shriek, which silenced the bacchanalian songs for a moment and stopped the wine-cup on its way to their lips, but the next ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... her room one day when her roommate was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I found out that Maggie—Margaret Louise had just repeated to Stevie every living thing that I ever said about her, just as I said it, only without the explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of conversation more understandable. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... self-satisfaction and laudation, immediately lost his health, and from that time forward was afflicted with sore diseases. During a supper at the house of Metrius Florus, where, among others, Plutarch, Soclarus, and Caius, the son-in-law of Florus, were guests, a curious and interesting conversation took place on the subject of the Fascinum, which is reported by Plutarch in one of his Symposia. The existence of the power of fascination was admitted by all, and a philosophical explanation of its phenomena was attempted. In reply to some suggestions of Plutarch, Soclarus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... painted it, would not have improved upon this simile. The conversation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely relating to the sudden change in the manners of Henry V is among the well-known BEAUTIES of Shakespeare. It is indeed admirable both for strength and ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... disgust. He had heated some water, besides tearing down a blanket and letting the daylight in, when there came a hurried knock at the door and the Widow appeared with his breakfast. She avoided his eyes, but her manner was ingratiating and she supplied the conversation herself. ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in reality, very similar ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... (Miss Letty was born in 1804, and was eighteen when she and the ruddy Alfred sat on the back seat of the coach)—in those days the conversation of Old Chester youth was more elegant than in our time. We, who went to Miss Bailey's school, were sad degenerates in the way of manners and language; at least so our elders told us. When Lydia Wright said, "Oh my, what an awful ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... The professor's conversation was interesting if only on account of the extreme simplicity with which he spoke of such a complicated subject. I was impressed with the belief that he belonged to a class of scientists whose interest in what they hope to learn surpasses their ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Prime Minister, the third. This order was observed also in the procession of 250 court carriages with outriders, Mr. Sibley's carriage being the second in the line. On this occasion Prince Gortchakoff turning to Mr. Sibley, said: "Sir, if I remember rightly, in the course of a very pleasant conversation had with you a few days since, at the State department, you expressed your surprise at the pomp and circumstance attending upon all court ceremony. Now, sir, when you take precedence of the Prime Minister, I trust you are more reconciled to the usage attendant upon royalty, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... Jervis, still reflecting upon me, and all for imaginary faults! for what harm have I done the girl?—I won't bear it, I'll assure you. But yet, in respect to my mother, I am willing to part friendly with you though you ought both of you to reflect on the freedom of your conversation, in relation to me; which I should have resented more than I do, but that I am conscious I had no business to demean myself so as to be in your closet, where I might have expected to hear a multitude of ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... sole topic of conversation in St. Petersburg was the fire at the Red House. Four half-consumed corpses were dug out from beneath the ruins, and as three of the general's slaves were missing, he had no doubt that the unrecognisable bodies were those of Ivan, Daniel, and Alexis: as ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... twelve-barreled bath, but was far from being so glacial a, refreshment. As I descended, quite pink and glowing, I found eight or ten individuals in the dining-room. They were French and Belgians, and exchanged a lively conversation in half a dozen provincial accents. The servants too talked French in levying on the cook for provisions: for this, as I have since learned, the domestics of my snug little boarding-house were deemed somewhat pretentious by the serving-people of the vicinity, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... went on in a mysterious way to describe to the captain a rock- locked bay, giving him points and descriptions by which he easily recognized the island of East Caicos. She ended the conversation abruptly and ordered them out. Before leaving the captain placed a sovereign in her hand and came away deeply impressed with what the fortune-teller had revealed to him. For quite a distance he remained profoundly silent, then turning to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... admiration of the crowd. The pomp, and circumstance, and self-exaltation, so current now-a-days, he utterly despises. But the kindliness, the glowing sympathies of a few kindred spirits gladden him and make him happy. Though modest and retiring in his disposition, he has no shamefacedness. His conversation is like his verse; there is neither tinsel nor glitter, but genuine, solid stuff. Something that bears examination; something you can take up and handle; something to brood over and reflect upon; something ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... not theirs, I heard, oddly enough, another conversation, so near that had it been intended for my ears it could not have taken place in a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... laughed, and their conversation proceeded so grossly that Susie's cheeks burned. But what she had heard made her look at Margaret more closely still. She was radiant. Susie could not deny that something had come to her that gave a new, enigmatic savour to her beauty. She was dressed ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... was, I fancy, decidedly vain of his prejudices, even, it might be said, vain of being vain of them. But everything is against the idea that he was much in the habit of thinking of himself in his intellectual aspect. In the matter of conversation, for example, some people who liked him found him genial, talkative, anecdotal, with a certain strengthening and sanative quality in his mere bodily presence. Some people who did not like him found him a mere frivolous chatterer, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the garden, we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was confined to "Talaam, Tahib" from his side, and "Salaam, Muhammad Din" from mine. Daily on my return from office, the little white shirt and the fat little body used to rise from the shade of the creeper-covered ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Pengelly gave me one," I replied, and the skipper then went into the cabin while Jorrocks and I resumed our interrupted conversation. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was furnished in a manner befitting that of a rich and learned clerk, the duke was in the habit of occasionally repairing from Ferrara, and would thence go to the chase, or amuse himself with the pleasant conversation of his host, and with the knowledge and excellence of which the good priest gave evidence in all he ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... her carriage for a long time in front of the Montriveau mansion. Some bare-footed Spanish Carmelites received her on their island in the Mediterranean, where she became Sister Therese. After prolonged searching Montriveau found her, and, in the presence of the mother-superior, had a conversation with her as she stood behind the grating. Finally he managed to carry her off—dead. In this bold venture the marquis was aided by eleven of The Thirteen, among them being Ronquerolles and Marsay. The duchess, having lost her husband, was free at ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... not see him until lunch was announced, when he came to the table in his riding clothes. It may have been that he began to talk a little eagerly about the excursion he had made to an outlying farm and the conversation he had had with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... dandy stamps here," said Phil, fearing that his turn was coming next and anxious to change the conversation. "Did you ever see one like ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... now about to enter upon, perhaps, the most important mission ever assigned to him by the Secret Service department. The story of the quest upon which he was about to enter will best be told in the conversation which now took place in the clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol on this evening of the 11th ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of Trajan's time, stretching so many miles beyond it, than the bills of mortality for what is technically "London within the walls" can serve at this day as a base for estimating the population of that total London which we mean and presume in our daily conversation. Secondly, even for the Rome within these limits the computations are not commensurate, by not allowing for the prodigious height of the houses in Rome, which much transcended that of modern cities. On this last point I will translate a remarkable sentence ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... some years before, and sought to prevent the re-establishment of absolute rule at Naples, at least by the armed intervention of Austria. Metternich's first object was to discredit the Minister in the eyes of his sovereign. It is said that he touched the Czar's keenest fears in a conversation relating to a mutiny that had just taken place among the troops at St. Petersburg, and so in one private interview cut the ground from under Capodistrias' feet; he also humoured the Czar by reviving that monarch's own favourite ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... who sat near enough to catch a bit of the conversation, scowled over the top of his paper. Carmichael eyed him mischievously. Gretchen picked up her coppers ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... engrossed had he been in his studies, military and economic, Gloria seemed little more than a child. And yet her frank glance of appraisal when he had been introduced to her, and her easy though somewhat languid conversation on the affairs of the commencement, perplexed and slightly annoyed him. He even felt ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... a word as to the signboard! Several times the conversation curved towards that signboard in the most alarming fashion, but invariably it curved away again, like a train from another train when two trains are simultaneously leaving a station. Constance had frights, so serious as to destroy her anxiety about the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... seems to mention gonorrhoea (Levit. xv. 12). Passing over allusions in Juvenal and Martial,[FN186] we find Eusebius relating that Galerius died (A.D. 302) of ulcers on the genitals and other parts of his body; and, about a century afterwards, Bishop Palladius records that one Hero, after conversation with a prostitute, fell a victim to an abscess on the penis (phagedaenic shanker?). In 1347 the famous Joanna of Naples founded (aet. 23), in her town of Avignon, a bordel whose in- mates were to be medically inspected a measure to which England (proh pudor!) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... blocks and creaking of cordage, in conjunction with the groaning of the ship's timbers, and crashing sounds of the waves as they broke against the quarter, as if trying to beat the vessel's sides in, made such a discord and concert altogether that it drowned conversation, even had either been inclined to talk in the presence of such a display of the mighty power of Him ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... still hot on the scent of the valentines and her remarks on the subject were highly amusing. They passed Ellen and Bruce, and Christina noticed joyfully that they were walking very slowly and were in deep conversation. It was still more encouraging, as she slipped into the house alone, to see that they were standing at the ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... against Ney was quoted as a parallel. The Colonel, it is true, pathetically anxious to justify everything to his mind and conscience, and trying to hate the enemy he was fighting, stuck to his patriotic protests; but he was alone, and the conversation was significant of a very general change. Not that this prevents any one from longing for Buller's victory and our relief, though the field were covered with the ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... is to be imparted to a child by conversation than by any other means (for by this system education is divested of its drudgery), during the first six years of her life Amber knew little more than the letters of the alphabet. It was not until her desire of information was excited to such a degree as to render her anxious ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... when you want to get somewhere in a hurry," ventured Bess, who thought it time to come to Cora's aid in keeping up the conversation. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... speed, and hours of coming and going; he is always busy, sawing, hammering, planing, digging, driving, making bargains, with his head full of plans, all relating to something outward and physical. In all these matters his mind works strongly, his ideas are clear, his observation acute, his conversation sensible and worth listening to. But as to the distinction between common nouns and proper nouns, between the subject and the predicate of a sentence, between the relative pronoun and the demonstrative adjective pronoun, between the perfect and the preter-perfect tense, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... a far more acute sense of smell than others, and again some men, probably without being more acutely endowed in that way, pay more attention to smells, and use the memory of them in description and conversation. Guy de Maupassant is remarkable as a writer for his abundant introduction of references to agreeable and mysterious perfumes, and also to repulsive odours. But some men certainly have an exceptionally acute sense of smell, and can, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... she crossed the little bridge over the narrow creek before her mother's door, her eye fell upon a rustic seat which they had occupied during the conversation I have before narrated. Instantly the words of Scripture, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," sounded in her ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Arabia will not subdue! The most horrible lines in the whole tragedy are those of her shuddering cry, 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' And it is not only at such moments that these images occur. Even in the quiet conversation of Malcolm and Macduff, Macbeth is imagined as holding a bloody sceptre, and Scotland as a country bleeding and receiving every day a new gash added to her wounds. It is as if the poet saw the whole ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from conversation or books. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Catholic worship. As we stood admiring, the saintly bishop approached and greeted us with exquisite grace. He could not speak English, but. his French was the easiest to understand of any I ever listened to, and my little knowledge of the language enabled us to carry on an interesting conversation. When I told him I had been in St. Peter's at Rome, and had seen the Pope when the assembled thousands fell prostrate before him as he advanced up the aisle, carried upon his palanquin, he seemed much affected, and pressed us to visit his quarters, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... bowed to her from a distance. She signalled: his eyelids pleaded short sight, awakening to the apprehension of a pleasant fact: the fan tapped, and he halted his march, leaning scarce perceptibly in her direction. The fan showed distress. Thereupon, his voice subsided in his conversation, with a concluding flash of animation across his features, like a brook that comes to the leap on a descent, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all nations and kingdoms must look at that one little incident with a thrill of unspeakable and eternal satisfaction. So it is in your history and in mine: events that you thought of no importance at all have been of very great moment. That casual conversation, that accidental meeting—you did not think of it again for a long while; but how it changed all the phase of ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... conversation Mr. Parlin was satisfied that no real cruelty had been used towards Wings. Susy's ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... with him." At these words all resumed their self-possession, for they had been considerably alarmed; and Monipodio went forth to the door of his house, where he found the Alguazil, with whom he remained some minutes in conversation, and then returned to the company. "Who was on guard to-day," he asked, "in the market of San Salvador?" "I was," replied the conductor of our two friends, the estimable Ganchuelo. "You!" replied Monipodio. "How then does it happen that you have not given notice of an amber-coloured ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... met some highly cultivated people of the noble class and while in conversation we chanced to speak of Helium. One of the older men had been there on a diplomatic mission several years before and spoke with regret of the conditions which seemed destined ever to keep these ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... spread their mosquito-tent again for the night, but the others concluded to bunk in the old trapper's cabin, where they all gathered during the evening, as was their custom, for a little conversation before they retired for sleep. John found here an old table made of slabs, on which for a time he pursued his work as map-maker, by the aid of a candle which he fabricated from a saucer full of grease and a rag for a ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... I regret to record was in strange contrast with my former companions. Going to Pittsburg we stopped at the Merchants' Hotel, near the depot, where, after a singularly short time, she was visited by a gentleman whom she represented to be a cousin, and while their whispered conversation in my room (a place where I deemed it expedient for them to meet) aroused some suspicion in my mind, I hushed all thought of wrong and ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... gentleman having been confined to his room for some time by a slight illness, it had become Kit's daily custom to convey to him messages and notes from Mr. Garland, and not infrequently Sampson Brass would detain the lad in the office for a few words of pleasant conversation. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... and coffee, I commenced the conversation by describing the impossibility of an advance at this season via the Bahr Giraffe, therefore I had found it necessary to return. He simply replied, 'God is great! and, please God, you will succeed ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... France, Kubla Khan, and a few other well-known poems. The impression which he made at this period of his life upon Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister, was recorded by her in a letter. She says of him: "He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul and mind. . . . His eye is large and full, and not very dark but gray, such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... great men, to see the almost endless variety with which ideas, and the relations in which they stand to each other, may be so combined and disposed, as to minister to the imagination, or enrich the mind with fresh stores of knowledge. All the information which we derive from books, or conversation, is obtained in this way, and to it we must probably attribute by far the largest portion of our mental acquisitions, after the period of childhood. So far, indeed, as the promulgation of a revelation by its original recipients is concerned, it appears ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... have endured. After her discontented and ungracious commencement, she positively alarmed her parents by the quantity she undertook, with spirits apparently never flagging, though never did she lose that aching void. Books, lectures, conversation, dancing, could not banish that craving for her brother, nothing but the three hours of sleep that she allowed herself. If she exceeded them, there were unfailing dreams of Arthur and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as to be without some notion of Gods. Many have wrong notions of the Gods, for that is the nature and ordinary consequence of bad customs, yet all allow that there is a certain divine nature and energy. Nor does this proceed from the conversation of men, or the agreement of philosophers; it is not an opinion established by institutions or by laws; but, no doubt, in every case the consent of all nations is to be looked on as a law of nature. Who is there, then, that does not lament ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "you make me very proud; and I can serve you in any way, I pray you command me. But," he added, seeing Anne Mie's somewhat scared look, "this street is scarce fit for private conversation. Shall we try ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of which Isabel had the happiest memory. The manner of life was different from that of her own home—larger, more plentiful, practically more festal; the discipline of the nursery was delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to the conversation of one's elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued pleasure) almost unbounded. There was a constant coming and going; her grandmother's sons and daughters and their children appeared to be in the enjoyment of standing invitations ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... is a Bohemian by birth, and stands in the service of the viceroy of Egypt, as musical instructor to the young military band. I was made very welcome here, and Herr Klinger seemed quite rejoiced at seeing a visitor with whom he could talk in German. Our conversation was of Beethoven and Mozart, of Strauss and Lanne. The fame of the bravura composers of the present day, Liszt and Thalberg, had not yet penetrated to these regions. I requested my kind host to shew me the establishment for hatching eggs that exists ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... twirled his earlocks, straightened his collar, buttoned up his coat, and started a long conversation with me, all about music and musical instruments in general and the fiddle in particular. He gave me to understand that the fiddle was the best and most beautiful of all instruments. There was none ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... Council, 4th September, 1689. He went to Edinburgh, and was consecrated a bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church, 7th October, 1722, and died Primus and the oldest Presbyter in Scotland, 24th December, 1739, in his eighty-seventh year and sixty-fourth of his ministry. "He was of blameless conversation and sweet temper, while he was a vigilant preacher and a successful physician." His son Robert was a bookseller and printer in Edinburgh, and a staunch adherent of the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... runaway indentured servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded next day, and in the evening got to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a little, became very obliging and friendly. Our acquaintance continued all the rest of his life. He had been, I imagine, an ambulatory quack doctor, for there was no town in England, nor any country in Europe, of which he ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... This conversation took place after the earthwork was cleared of the enemy—at least of the living enemy, for the whole interior was crowded with their dead—and while the sailors and artillerymen were turning the two Krupp guns found ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... features of the holy father I discovered Angelo! His image faded like a vision from my sight, and I sunk at his feet. On recovering I found myself on my matrass, attended by a sister, who I discovered by her conversation had no suspicion of the occasion of my disorder. Indisposition confined me to my bed for several days; when I recovered, I saw Angelo no more, and could almost have doubted my senses, and believed that an illusion had crossed ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... friends seemed to increase, yet they went to work together as usual, but conversation flagged and only indifferent subjects were touched upon. Dick had still unbounded faith in Susy, and although he could not but see that she avoided him, he accounted for it owing to the respect she still felt for the ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... are dreams of which the substance is animated and vivid conversation. I have long and confidential talks with people like the Pope or the Tsar of Russia. They ask my advice, they quote my books, and I am surprised to find them so familiar and accessible. Or I am in a strange house with an unknown party of guests, and person after person comes up to tell me all kinds ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... acids, and it only seemed too probable that some day the house would be burned down, or some serious mischief happen to himself or others from the explosion of combustibles." This taste for science Shelley long retained. If we may trust Mr. Hogg's memory, the first conversation which that friend had with him at Oxford consisted almost wholly of an impassioned monologue from Shelley on the revolution to be wrought by science in all realms of thought. His imagination was fascinated by the boundless vistas opened to the student ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... out of pride and obstinacy, and that he lied in saying he had already chosen his officer, have no verisimilitude; and if there is any fact at all (as there probably is) behind Iago's account of the conversation, it doubtless is the fact that Iago himself was ignorant of military science, while Cassio was an expert, and that Othello explained this to the great personages. That Cassio, again, was an interloper and a mere closet-student without experience of war is incredible, considering ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... in it," Wilson conceded to Maxwell, after he had delightedly repeated this conversation. "Of course, the fellow has an unusual mind. It's a pity he's always a few hundred years behind the time, but, as he hints, that needn't dim our admiration for the quality of his ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. The melodious Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of Elizabeth, sank into contempt. A gentleman who quoted Horace or Terence was considered in good company as a pompous pedant. But to garnish his conversation with scraps of French was the best proof which he could give of his parts and attainments. [172] New canons of criticism, new models of style came into fashion. The quaint ingenuity which had deformed the verses of Donne, and had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ears were greeted by the sound of animated conversation in a foreign tongue, not a word of which was intelligible to him, but every word of which seemed to please the speakers. A little later Tony came around the corner of the station, a huge suitcase under each arm, followed by a ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... owing to an illness which stopped the sittings, and does not show the subject at his best, physically speaking. There is also a brilliant, slight sketch, almost a caricature, by Mr. Sargent. It represents Mr. Stevenson walking about the room in conversation. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... reeconoiterin' along Battle Row, wonderin' wharever them licenses is for sale, anyway. Final, I discovers a se'f satisfied lookin' party, who's pattin' a dog. I goes to talkin' about the dog, an' allowin' I'm some on dogs myse'f, all by way of commencin' a conversation; an' winds up by askin' whar I go for to get a license. "Over thar," says the dog party p'intin' across to a edifice he asshores me is a City Hall. "First floor, first door, an' ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... could procure neither books nor congenial companionship—with the assistance of my pencil and sketch-book I got over my leisure hours tolerably well. My new friend Isabel would have given me as much of her conversation as I liked; for there was many a point on which she had to consult me, and many a mystery to state, and secret to communicate; but, though always interested in her company, I was also always pained, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... not the permanent disposition. Now, what are the occasions when, we actively believe that Charles I was executed? Primarily: examinations, when we perform the bodily movement of writing it down; conversation, when we assert it to display our historical erudition; and political discourses, when we are engaged in showing what Soviet government leads to. In all these cases bodily movements (writing or ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... precarious and hazardous existence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen." And again, "the boy shouted and shook a branch with a nest on it. Half-a-dozen young rooks in violent conversation flew out to ask what the matter was." Does not this bring the whole ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... connection between Enright and John Cavendish, the quarrel between John and Frederick, the visit of John to Enright's office, the suspicion of Valois that the murdered man was not Cavendish, and, finally, the conversation overheard in Steinway's, the torn telegram, and the meeting between ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... Mrs. Sherrar say; and the next instant the older members of the party were wholly absorbed with those unexpectedly-met friends. The children listened impatiently for a few moments, but finding the conversation very uninteresting, looked about them for other more ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... would be a reconciliation, the details of which he frequently arranged; and he saw himself, during the next month, made welcome in many stately houses at many frigid dinner-parties, taking his share in the conversation with the freedom of the man and the traveller, and laying down the law upon finance with the authority of the successful investor. But this programme was not to be begun before evening - not till just before dinner, indeed, at which meal the reassembled family were to ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... listened to this conversation, and an idea struck him. Pressing forward, he said respectfully, "Let me go for it, sir. I will get it, and bring it to ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... pretty certainly, as they thought, that the distance would be about 267 miles. It might possibly be 266, or 268; but they thought that they were sure that it would be one of those three numbers. The next thing was to circulate statements, and to express opinions in private conversation here and there among the passengers, in a careless sort of way, to produce a general impression that the rate of the ship would be not less than 270 miles. This was to lead the owners of the tickets, and the betters generally, not to attach a high value to the numbers ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... things, and there was a sort of latent meaning, like a half-heard echo, underrunning the surface of his talk, which sometimes made people undefinably uncomfortable; and Aunt Becky looked a little stately and flushed; but in a minute more the conversation proceeded. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... mine said appeared to me to be stranger than the last, and this question, coming at the end of so serious a conversation, was the strangest of all. But frankness begets frankness, and I did ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crossed the hall from the coffee-room, and entered what was called the bar. The bar was a small room connected with the hall by a large open window, at which orders for rooms were given and cash was paid, and glasses of beer were consumed,—and a good deal of miscellaneous conversation was carried on. The barmaid was here at the window, and there was also, in a corner of the room, a man at a desk with a red nose. Toogood knew that the man at the desk with the red nose was Mr Stringer's clerk. So much he had learned in his former rummaging about the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Porbus with uneasy curiosity. He turned to the latter as if to ask the name of their host, but the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of mystery, and the young man, keenly interested, kept silence, hoping that sooner or later some word of the conversation might enable him to guess the name of the old man, whose wealth and genius were sufficiently attested by the respect which Porbus showed him, and by the marvels of art heaped together in the ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... that night, or an hour after the new watch had gone on, the wind was howling through the rigging in a way that made conversation difficult ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... thing, and its vital play, in botany, music, optics, and architecture, another. There are advancements to numbers, anatomy, architecture, astronomy, little suspected at first, when, by union with intellect and will, they ascend into the life, and re-appear in conversation, character ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of Method for Forms I and II, p. 25), either by pure narration or by dramatization; the pupils relate in their own language what they have learned, or are allowed to dramatize the story. In the dramatization, the pupils should be given a good deal of freedom in constructing the conversation, once they get to know what is wanted, the only restriction being that no pupil shall be allowed to take part who does not know the story thoroughly. Incidents such as Harold taking the oath to help William of Normandy gain the crown of England, Joseph being sold into ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the conversation was approaching an embarrassing stage, but there was no hesitancy in his manner as ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... seemed goodheartedness embodied. On the table were some wonderful lucid china bowls filled with cigarettes, Parascho and caporal ordinaire, Egyptian and every imaginable kind. After tea we pushed back our chairs and smoked. His conversation was delightful, and showed me at once that he was a man of brilliant gifts, yet an eccentric. I felt much as Mark Twain must have felt when he first met Rudyard Kipling; Twain has summed up, in that inimitable way of his, the feeling of being in the presence of an overwhelming personality. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... brought the succession of Lapham teas upon Bromfield Corey which he had dreaded; the Laphams were far off in their native fastnesses, and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obliged to sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene; they were not even called upon to make a social demonstration for Penelope at a time when, most people being still out of town, it would have been so easy; she and Tom had both begged that there might be nothing of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... remnant of their conversation and then lay staring at the stars while his hulk of a partner, this great bear who in his awkward good nature had trampled upon holy ground, slept peacefully by his side. The Pleiades fled away before Orion, the Scorpion rose up in the south and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... raised herself slightly in her eagerness; now she relaxed again with a sigh of relief. Creighton, a dull ache in his heart, waited for her to resume the conversation. He would not take ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... deficiency of eye-sight on that point, and then, as his mother showed no signs of changing the conversation, he left her abruptly, and sauntered off into the garden, where he came suddenly upon Rosamond, who was finishing the Ancient Mariner in the ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... large family, meeting at morning Mass in church or chapel, taking their meals in common, riding, hunting, hawking, playing at bowls, tennis, or stool-ball, or any other pastime, in such parties as suited their inclinations; and spending the evening in the great hall, in conversation varied by chess, dice, and cards, recitals of romance, and music, sometimes performed by the choristers of the Royal chapel, or sometimes by the company themselves, and often by one or other of the two kings, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enthusiasm of a college student I raved of poetry and romance. We read German together, and we talked of love in French; and the musical tongue of Italy, it seemed to me, befitted her mouth better than her own sonorous native language, and when in conversation she would look me one of those dreamy glances which had at the first set my heart in agitation, it perfectly bewildered me. You needn't smile, Langley, (poor Bill's face was guilty of no such distortion,) but if your little danseuse should practice for years, she couldn't attain ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... her mother in black velvet, there was quite an excitement in Sancerre. This dress confirmed the young woman's reputation for superiority, brought up, as she had been, in the capital of Le Berry. Every one was afraid lest in entertaining this phoenix of the Department, the conversation should not be clever enough; and, of course, everybody was constrained in the presence of Madame de la Baudraye, who produced a sort of terror among the woman-folk. As they admired a carpet of Indian shawl-pattern in the La Baudraye drawing-room, ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac |
