"Conversational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Leonard was welcome in Ethel's ears, and she quite developed his conversational powers, in an argument on the sagacity of all canine varieties. It was too late to send the little animal home; and he fondled and played with it till bed-time, when he lodged it in his own room; and the attachment was so strong, that it was with a deep sigh, that at breakfast ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... No one has done more than he to popularize the study of words, which is only another name for the study of thought. His new book has the same agreeable qualities which marked its forerunners, maintaining an easy conversational level of scholarly gossip and reflection, the middle ground between learning and information for the million. Without great philological attainments, and without any pretence of such, he gives the results ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... saw Lewis start, and quickly lay down his fork. She watched in vain through the rest of that dinner for a conversational sensation at his end of the table. When they were in the carriage and on the ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... doings were still East Wellmouth's favorite conversational topics. The great man was preparing to close his summer house and return to New York. His family had already gone—to Lenox, where they were to remain for a few weeks and then journey to Florida. E. Holliday remained, several of ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Gershom Mendes Seixas, minister of New York's one synagogue, Shearith Israel. The tall pink and white hollyhocks that bordered the prim paths nodded languidly in the warm September breeze. From the trees came the twitter of sparrows, now low and conversational, now high and shrill, "just like people in the synagogue," thought little David Phillips, as he strolled in his grandmother's garden on the other side of the hedge. And if David had pulled aside the white curtains of the ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... conversational rocks ahead once more and piloted around them. "What is this I hear about Leslie?" he asked. "Is she going to be ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... doubts, knowing that he suffered in contrast with even the guests of the present evening. One was an officer home on sick-leave; the other exempted from military duty by reason of lameness, which did not extend to his wit and conversational powers. Merwyn also knew that he would ever be compared with those near friends ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... up the letters without demanding what species of conversational significance her mistress attached to the ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... conversation at first. Brook did not care to talk across to Clare, and Sir Adam seemed to have said all he meant to say for the present. Lady Johnstone, who seemed to be a cheerful, conversational soul, began to talk to Mrs. Bowring, evidently attracted by her at ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... spirited in by some of the youngsters as the sport began. The dance was not that languid sort of thing, toned down by modern refinement to a sliding, easy motion round the room, and which, for the lack of conversational accomplishments, is made to do duty for want of wit. Full of life and vigour, they danced for the real fun of the thing. The quick and inspiriting strains of the music sent them spinning round the room, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... all the turmoil and disorder of that tempestuous nursery he gravely went his way, at one moment fighting lions and tigers, at another being nurse on her afternoon out (this was a truly astonishing adventure composed of scraps flung to him from nurse's conversational table and including many incidents that were far indeed from any nurse's experience), or again, he would be his mother giving a party, and, in the course of this, a great deal of food would be eaten, his favourite dishes, treacle pudding and cottage ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... since the autumn of '35. It was spreading through the state. Imaginary cities were laid out or the lonely prairies and all the corner lots sold to eager buyers and paid for with promises. Fortunes of imaginary wealth were created by sales of future greatness. Millions of conversational, promissory dollars, based upon the gold at the foot of the rainbow, were changing hands day by day. The Legislature, with an empty treasury behind it, voted twelve millions for river improvements and ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie Villines until he got her into conversational connection with Mr. Vandeford. They conversed in ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... not see a thing that I have hit," he replied, bewildered, glancing at the stout staff in his hand, and then at Finois, who had evidently not been brought up on blows. It was then my turn to explain; and so we tossed back and forth the conversational shuttlecock, until I found myself losing straw by straw my load of homesickness, and becoming more buoyant of spirit ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... manners, of well-being. I have no energy left for anything else; and even this effort quite exhausts me. Art and politics! What, in the name of heaven, do I care for art and politics, with the knife at my throat? I only utilize these things; yes, I utilize them for conversational purposes, in order to deceive others as to my true, incessant and miserable preoccupations. Laughable, is it not? Why don't you smile, Monsieur—you, who have never ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... in short, the vigorous, racy prosateur of that human comedy of which Mr. Abbey is the poet. He illustrates the modern sketch of travel, the modern tale—the poor little "quiet," psychological, conversational modern tale, which I often think the artist invited to represent it to the eye must hate, unless he be a very intelligent master, little, on a superficial view, would there appear to be in it to represent. The superficial view is, after all, the natural one for the picture-maker. ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... needed only a mild spiritual flavor. There were others whom he would please much better by not talking shop at all. Although he could ill afford it, he subscribed now for a daily paper that he might have a perpetually renewed source of good conversational topics for these more worldly calls. He also bought several pounds of candy, pleasing in color, but warranted to be entirely harmless, and he made a large mysterious mark on the inside of his new silk hat to remind him not to go out calling ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... in a city of the snow-driven Tyrol. With tolerable distinctness he remembered the sights he had seen, and fragments of conversation—then another departure, still southward, the crossing of the Alps, Italy, Venice—a dream of water and sun and beautiful buildings, in which the varied conversational powers of his companion found constant material. As a matter of fact the conversation was what was most clearly impressed upon Kafka's mind, as he recalled the rapid passage from one city to another, and realised how many places he had visited in one short month. From Venice southwards, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... want to marry you?" asked Clifford. This idea occurred to him as being conversational, but he ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... what he had said to provoke this comment now, looked puzzled and answered nothing: for he had this trait also in common with the sort of Englishman for whom he was taken, that he never helped out your conversational venture, but if he failed to respond inwardly, left you with your unaccepted remark upon your hands, as it were. In his silence, Kitty fell a prey to very evil thoughts of him, for it made her harmless sally look like ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the central aisle through the counter-door, and, observing the conversational group at the postage-desk, came bounding up. Bannister ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... Morville was engaged to go and spend a day or two there. Maurice de Courcy drove him thither, wishing all the way for some other companion, since no one ever ventured to smoke a cigar in the proximity of 'Morville'; and, besides, Maurice's conversational powers were obliged to be entirely bestowed on his horse and dog, for the captain, instead of, as usual, devoting himself to suit his talk to his audience, was wrapped in the deepest meditation, now and then taking out a ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... go on talking. He protested against their intercourse congealing in that fashion. But he could find no opening. His conversational stock-in-trade, he had the sense to realize, was totally unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... conversational gifts, however, his audience one by one dropped off in sleep, leaving him sole monarch of the watch-fire, and—what he thought more of—a small brass kettle nearly full of brandy-and-water. This latter, I perceived, he produced when all ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... an account of his stewardship as their councillor-general. He said not a word about the personal aspects of the party conflicts raging in France, and very little about the national aspects of that conflict. Speaking in a frank conversational way, and referring to his notes only for figures and dates, he gave his constituents a succinct picture of the effect upon their own local interests of the policy pursued by the Government of the Republic. He told them how much of their money had been spent under the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... question hummed in my brain. Of course he knew; otherwise he wouldn't return my stare so queerly. His wife had told him what I wanted and he was amiably amused at my impotence. He didn't laugh—he wasn't a laugher: his system was to present to my irritation, so that I should crudely expose myself, a conversational blank as vast as his big bare brow. It always happened that I turned away with a settled conviction from these unpeopled expanses, which seemed to complete each other geographically and to symbolise together Drayton Deane's want of voice, want of form. He simply hadn't the art to use ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... animation or excitement, as if the fatigue of the day and the general battle of life had softened them to a serious, pensive mood and movement. As they sat drying their jackets around the fire, passing successive mugs of the landlord's ale from one to the other, they grew more and more conversational; and, as I put in a question here and there, they gave me an insight into the general condition, aspects and prospects of their class which I had not obtained before. They were quite free to answer any questions relating ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... were over-sized and made mental notes of their answers for my own subsequent use. Since the Eighteenth Amendment put the nineteenth hole out of commission, prohibition and how to evade it are the commonest of all conversational topics among those moving about from place to place in America; but the subject of what a man eats, and more particularly what he eats for breakfast, runs it a close second ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human being[10] ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the people generally of coast and mountain, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all sandwiches, delicious. He was so merry that Calliope and I, by a nod or a smile of understanding, played our role of merely, so to say, proving that the films were right—for you may have an inspired conversational photographer, but unless you are properly prepared chemically he can get no pictures. As Calliope had said of her evening with Eb and Elspie, "the air in the room was easy to get through with what you had to say—it was that kind of evening." Sometimes ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... to say. The proud little head, the arched eyebrows, the cheeks faintly touched with a healthy tan, the little waist, the slender but perfect figure, and the toe of a dainty shoe held me in an aphasic spell. But the laughing eyes brought me out of it, and I made one of the most brilliant conversational efforts of my career. ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... idiots sitting with their hands on each other's foreheads "communing," I tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked pure drivel and "rot," mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... quickly, gave a swift look of recognition, a brief smile of gratitude, and continued her pace. She had not taken his arm, but had grasped the handle of the umbrella, which linked them together. Not a word was spoken. Two people cannot be conversational or sentimental flying at the top of their speed beneath a single umbrella, with a crowd of impatient passengers watching and waiting for them. And I grieve to say that, being a happy American crowd, there was some irreverent ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Commandments. Man must not suspect that you are unattainable. He must just think that he has not attained you—yet. If you want to compete with the flappers, you've got to play by the flapper rules. Check your conversational inhibitions! ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... of mere acquaintanceship—became more sensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect could derive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship. She drew around her the most cultivated minds of her time and country. Her abilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only to mix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and blend the varieties of talent into harmony. The same persons, when met elsewhere, seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The Russian Peasant, forming No. 12 of his series. Here they also met with A. Stajoloff, who remembered William Allen's visit in 1819. Sederhoff accompanied them to the third village, Astrachanka, where they had a conversational meeting with several of the chief men, but the intercourse was carried ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... many times. She remarked on this fact, with her bright, engaging smile. Her manner was perfectly respectful, yet free from servility. It would not have occurred to her that any one could have considered her little conversational outburst a liberty; and she proceeded to introduce the old ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... evening,' resumed the host, addressing Horatio, partly with the view of displaying the conversational powers of his new acquaintance, and partly in the hope of drowning the grocer's stories—'we were talking the other night about the nature of man. Your argument struck ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Mr. Lyon, who was always in the conversational attitude of wanting to know, "that you Americans are disturbed by the notion that religion ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock, gave us one of his incisive and inspiring discourses. The building accommodates eighteen hundred worshippers, and in emergencies, twenty-five hundred. It is a model of cheerfulness and convenience, and is so felicitous in its acoustics that an ordinary conversational tone can be heard at the opposite end of the auditorium. The picture of the Church in this volume gives no adequate idea of the size of the edifice; for the Sunday School Hall and lecture-room and social parlors are situated in the rear, and could not ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would naturally wish to see another who was thrown in one's way by accident, and thus prepare one's self for the permanent acquaintance. And she amused him. Her cleverness, her ease, her conversational powers, her woman of the world aspect, did not so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but the complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her, and her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the mortifications incurred—all this amused Mr. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... know that this ship runs on an atomic pile," he said in a conversational tone of voice. "The cables are just under the floor in the control room and they can be reached ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... unpopular person, and among the rest, for Lord Braxfield, than to give way to perfect raptures of moral indignation against his abstract vices. He was the last judge on the Scots bench to employ the pure Scots idiom. His opinions, thus given in Doric, and conceived in a lively, rugged, conversational style, were full of point and authority. Out of the bar, or off the bench, he was a convivial man, a lover of wine, and one who "shone perculiarly" at tavern meetings. He has left behind him an unrivalled reputation for rough and cruel speech; and to this day his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in to-day's Times," said poor Mr. Bultitude, with a desperate attempt at his most conversational and instructive manner, "I saw a report that the camphor crop was likely to be a failure this season. Now, it's a very singular thing about camphor, that the Japanese——" (he hoped to lead the conversation round to colonial produce, and ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... to-day he whistled falsely and shrilly between his teeth. At last he met my eye. He winced slightly, but recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary. ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with Brandon's conversational powers, which were rare; being no less than the capacity for saying nothing, and listening politely to an infinite deal of the same thing, in another form, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... I especially recall George William Curtis, a genius of the first brilliancy and remarkable withal for his versatile conversational powers. I was talking to him on one occasion when someone inquired as to his especial work in the co-operative fold of Brook Farm. His laughing reply was, "Cleaning door knobs." George Ripley was a distinguished scholar and a prominent journalist. His wife, a daughter ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... that this book will help to fill the two needs above referred to. The anecdotes have been selected from a large number used by the author in conversational classes and drawn from a great variety of sources, many of which will be readily recognized. He is in a number of cases indebted to Claude Auge's excellent grammar. Most of the anecdotes have been adapted to the author's purpose of illustrating grammatical ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... daybreak, the old colonel, seeing a patch of level ground, said to me, in a conversational tone of voice, that although he would soon be obliged to hand over the horses of the three regiments to the French, he wished to care for the poor animals up to the last, and to deliver them in good condition; In consequence he had ordered that they should be given a feed of oats. The brigade halted, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... rambling talk about the way the boy was allowed to run loose on the shore, and some suggestions were made in the way of conversational argument about his being allowed to go barefoot, and to go in swimming when he pleased; but the judge seemed to pay very little attention to that. "That 's the way we were all brought up," he said. "It is good for the boy; he 'll learn to take care ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... glittering eye of the ancient mariner, held, now Mr. Perrowne and now the lawyer from much pleasanter ones with their respective ladies. He seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in capturing Wilkinson from Miss Du Plessis, and the Captain from her mother, and even sent his conversational shafts far off to the Squire and the doctor, and to the presiding matrons. Mr. Errol and the colonel were happily sheltered from him. Perhaps the new detective perceived the state of unrest and terrible suspense in which many of the company were on account of Squire Walker's vagaries, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the battalion stepped out in front of Major-General Barnett and saluted. Then the general spoke for a few minutes in an every-day, conversational tone. He told the men that he trusted them, that he knew they would uphold the honor and high traditions of the corps when fighting in France under General Pershing. The officers saluted and stepped back to their places. The battalion ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... interest of the times, and in the saloon of Madame Roland meetings were every evening held by the most influential gentlemen of the revolutionary party. Her ardor stimulated their zeal, and her well-stored mind and fascinating conversational eloquence guided their councils. The impetuous young men of the city gathered around this impassioned woman, from whose lips words of liberty fell so enchantingly upon their ears, and with chivalric devotion surrendered themselves to the ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... are so bad with both that by this time their vulgarity is the best thing about them. Their vulgarity is at least a noisy thing; and their great danger is that silence that always comes before decay. The conversational persuasion at elections is perfectly human and rational; it is the silent persuasions ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... as much of a child for the moment as Fleda herself, had lost everything disagreeable and was in the full genial enjoyment of talk, rather listening than talking, with his cheeks in a perpetual dimple of gratification, and a low laugh of hearty amusement now and then rewarding the conversational and kind efforts of his guest with a complete triumph. Even the subtle charm which they could not quite recognise wrought fascination. Miss Cynthia declared afterwards, half admiring and half vexed, that he spoiled her supper, for she forgot to think how it ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... to be the first to speak, in order to have any conversational chance at all with her, "it is not the least mysterious part of this Mystery of ours, that keeps us all out of doors so much in the unseasonable winter month of December,[1] and now I am peculiarly a meteorological martyr in feeling obliged to go walking for two whole freezing weeks, or until ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... Coleridge, and of Mrs. Coleridge, my dear and honored friends of so many years, I must not permit myself to speak. I may note only the brilliant conversational power of Mr. Coleridge, and the fact that as I listen to him I perfectly understand the marvelous gifts in this way of his father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Again and again I have been held as if under a spell by the flowing stream of his delightful monologue. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... with the literary language of Greece, there existed a conversational language, which varied in different localities, and out of this grew the Modern ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... fully illustrated volume gives a conversational account of a trip through Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and (p. 211) Russia. It is an excellent book for children to use while travelling. Mr. King has also prepared several about ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... Larkyns, for the compliment," said the gunner, taking the remark as a tribute to his conversational ability. "I allers tries to explain myself as well as I can. Is there anything more you'd like to know, Master Vernon? I'm allers pleased to instruct any of you young gentlemen when you ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... these dinners, Lucian Gay, who had brilliant conversational powers, and who possessed all the resources of boon companionship, would be an invaluable ally. He was therefore admitted, and inspired both by the present enjoyment, and the future to which it might lead, his exertions were untiring, various, most successful. Rigby's dinners ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... and forgotten poems. John Heywood, called the Epigrammatist, was of a somewhat higher order. He was the favourite of Sir Thomas More and the pensioner of Henry VIII. He gained favour partly through his conversational humour, and partly through his writings. He is the author of various comedies; of six hundred epigrams, most of them very poor; of a dialogue, in verse, containing all the proverbs then afloat in the language; ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... could twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human body, but a woman of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair and square, by way of conversational adornment. My landlady, who was pretty and young, dressed like a lady and avoided patois like a weakness, commonly addressed her child in the language of a drunken bully. And of all the swearers that I ever ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... speedily settled for the lessons—hour, terms, and mode of instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, no genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn't hear of it. It was against his "system," and so ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... these sonorous designations for common things was a sort of conversational hobby with him. I cannot say that he was unduly proud of the little draughts of learning he had thus taken at the neighboring fountains, but rather that it became a sort of passion with him, yet regulated by a sincere desire to impart to his children all the knowledge he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... to him that he hadn't made the best use of his conversational opportunities, and for a ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Jeremiah Mason, who graduated at Yale about the time Webster was born. Mason, who was frequently Webster's opponent, took pleasure in ridiculing all ornate efforts and in pricking rhetorical bubbles. Webster says that Mason talked to the jury "in a plain conversational way, in short sentences, and using no word that was not level to the comprehension of the least educated man on the panel. This led me to examine my own style, and I set about reforming it altogether." Note the simplicity in the following sentences ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... glad to hear you say that; for I have already made some little progress in Spanish. I have read a few books, and moulded my tongue to the utterance of a long list of conversational phrases. I would now gladly exchange my French for Spanish or Portuguese. What a pity it is, that the languages of different countries are not, like their coins, exchangeable ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... reading it. Let us congratulate M. Evrot on the good theme he has selected, and let us hope that before long the comedy will appear in an Esperanto theatre, in accordance with Dr. Zamenhof's wish. The reading of plays is a great help to the conversational use of the language. ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 5 • Various
... gazed at her; but she was too much taken aback by Beth's readiness to correct her on the instant, although it was an unaccustomed and a monstrous thing for a girl to address a mistress in an easy conversational way, let ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... dignity. If you love music, hear it; pay Fiddlers to play for you, but never Fiddle yourself." Such was Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son. It is quite evident that he had no notion of the exquisite enjoyment derivable from being an executant in a quartette, the conversational powers of which have been so frequently noticed. That Lord Chesterfield's strictures discouraged the practice of the Violin in the higher circles of society is very probable, appearing as they do in a work which was held in the light of a textbook upon the conduct ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... labored at the symbolistic vision of Romanticism; preeminently a man of prose, he endeavored all his life to be a great poet. He mistook the responsive excitement produced by the ideas and visions of others for authentic inspiration, the vivacity of a sociable and conversational gift for the creative force of genius, and the immobility of obvious and established conventional judgments for an extraordinary soundness and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... not pretend to any fluent command of conversational German, he read it with great ease. His knowledge of German literature was, indeed, too much limited by his rare opportunities for commanding anything like a well-mounted library. And particularly it surprised us that Coleridge knew little or nothing of John Paul (Richter). But his acquaintance ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout his career—high spirits, conversational brilliance, and inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... He told his best Irish story, but it sank like soggy cake. Most bleary moment of all was when Mrs. Overbrook, peering out of her fog of nursing eight children and cooking and scrubbing, tried to be conversational. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... I was informed that music is never performed on such occasions as these, during conversational periods, as it is considered a desecration of ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... stock exchange has a membership of ten thousand and is open every day except Sunday. There are no auction sales, no excitement or loud talk, no gesticulating, as is the case in New York, particularly on the curb. The business is all done in a quiet, conversational tone. Cotton is ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... had been added to the establishment. Wobbler, the pedestrian, a candidate for the ten-miles championship of Somersetshire, was residing there during his training for that world-renowned contest. It cannot be correctly said that Wobbler was very good company, for indeed his conversational powers were limited, which was perhaps fortunate, seeing that his language was not very choice when he did speak. But he was a man of varied accomplishments; not only could he walk, but he could run, and swim, and box. Indeed he had only deserted the pugilistic ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... dance. When he learned that I did not dance he introduced to me a young gentleman by the name of Shirley, who was seated near us, and who, for some reason or other, did not join the dancers. Mr. Shirley's conversational powers were extremely good, and we engaged in conversation for some time, in the course of which I enquired why he refrained from dancing? A shade of sadness passed over his countenance ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... the bait laid next day. Meanwhile, that afternoon, the doctor called me aside, and put me through a conversational sort of examination. I was studiously modest, but being very fairly grounded by the admirable system of teaching pursued by Miss Frankland, I not only satisfied him, but he took occasion to compliment Miss ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... Ghost in Hamlet, or the statue in Don Giovanni. Cut the conference of the Norns and the visit of Valtrauta to Brynhild out of Night Falls On The Gods, and the drama remains coherent and complete without them. Retain them, and the play becomes connected by conversational references with the three music dramas; but the connection establishes no philosophic coherence, no real identity between the operatic Brynhild of the Gibichung episode (presently to be related) and the daughter of Wotan and the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... think he rather over-painted the picture, and when I got through the first day without being bullied, and made such creditable friends on the second, I began to think that Rupert's experience of school life must be due to some lack of those social and conversational powers with which I seemed to be better endowed. And then Weston's acting would have deceived a wiser head than mine. And the nursemaids ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Department. I said I had never heard of his branch of business before, but I was very glad to see him all the same. Would he sit down? He sat down. I did not know anything particular to say, and yet I felt that people who have arrived at the dignity of keeping house must be conversational, must be easy and sociable in company. So, in default of anything else to say, I asked him if he was opening his shop in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... small family with her, they could not tell how or why, for they had never even suspected this girl's power. You would have seemed to them as one that mocketh had you told them they owed their gayety, their good-humor, their happiness, and their conversational powers to her. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... again. She loved to repeat it. There was white magic in the very sound of such a sum of money. But her father threw a conversational bomb into ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Sallust is characterised by the use of old words and forms (especially in the speeches). He makes use of alliteration, extensively employs the Historic Infinitive, and shows a partiality for conversational expressions which from a literary point of view are archaic. His abrupt unperiodic style of writing (rough periods without particles of connexion) has won for Sallust his reputation for brevity. His style is, however, the expression ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... wonder at some new and unexpected revelation of the mind and character of this western girl who was so interested in the reclamation work and so unconscious of her womanly power. He came quickly to look forward to their hours together and to plan and carry out many conversational experiments. Invariably he had ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... incidents will suffice to demonstrate: A German aviator had been attacked and brought to earth by a French airman. The German was killed in the contest. In the dead man's pocket was found a diary of his adventures in the war, and other happenings, from day to day. It was written in conversational style addressed throughout to his wife, together with a letter to her of the same day's date. The next morning a French aeroplane flew over the German line. Descending to within a few hundred yards of the ground, despite the hail of bullets that whistled around him, the aviator dropped ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... he chuckled, "never to get up to go at the end of one of your guest's conversational sprints, but always to wait until you can interrupt yourself, so to speak. Well—I don't mean any disrespect to the lady from Virginia, Andy, but I'm afraid mother'll have to make an exception to that rule, or ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... Lawn, seated under a Canopy that had set Father back thirty-two Dollars. There was a Hired Hand sprinkling the Grass with a Hose, and as Will, the Conversational Drummer, came up the Long Walk, Daughter called to the Hired Hand, and said: "Johnson, there is a Strange Man coming up the Walk; change the Direction of the Stream somewhat, else you ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... that being his idea of modern American slang. He was fascinated by these crisp phrases, but he was ten years or so behind the times, and he sometimes startled his hearers by an exhibition of slang so old as to be almost new. It was all the more startling in contrast with his conversational English, which was as carefully correct as a ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... still did not say anything to Bigley, and that my old school-fellow was very silent, in fact we were none of us in a conversational frame of mind, but every now and then the idea kept creeping in that old Jonas must know about that cave, and the purpose for which it was used; and then I seemed to understand my father's thoughtful manner, for it was as though this discovery was likely ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... developed tolerance in religion as well as in art and literature. It also encouraged progress and displayed acute discrimination, keeping pace with the time in all that was new and meritorious. It developed individual liberty, public interest, criticism, good taste, and the elegant, clear, and precise conversational language in which France has excelled up to ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... wife, and had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend. This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on his part; but at any rate he had hitherto ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and Betty Gower slid away in the one-step, that most conversational of dances. But Jack couldn't find himself chatty with Betty Gower. She was graceful and clear-eyed, a vigorously healthy girl with a touch of color in her cheeks that came out of Nature's rouge pot. But MacRae was subtly conscious ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... place of honour. It is a very great responsibility to sit in the presiding place of honour. From that conspicuous position one leads the whole table's activities: conversing to the right, laughing to the left, sharply on the lookout for any conversational gap, now and then drawing muted tete-a-tetes into a harmonic unison. She is, as it were, the leader of an orchestra of which the individual diners are the subsidiary instruments. Upon her watchful resourcefulness hangs the success of ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... of conversational or descriptive art which, in a large and mixed society, would, even if possible, be hardly so much as perceptible. I may take as two other examples Sophy, Lady Roden, and Lady Dorothy Nevill. Unlike Lady Dorothy, whose ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... rather absurd," he said, in a conversational way, as we went to the next tee, "that putting should be so ridiculously important. Take that hole, for instance. I get on the green in a perfect three; you fluff your drive completely and get on ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... the way in which his pent-up thoughts seemed almost to strangle him before he could utter them, his smile showing the white rows of teeth, his fist clenched as if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden dropping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to address special individuals in the crowd before him, the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... over the university, the honours of which were done us by the "grand master" in a blue and gold gown, assisted by two professors who spoke French admirably well. Aumale, being much more lettered and academic than myself, kept the conversational ball rolling brilliantly. The huge institution, in which professors and students alike seemed to me to know their work thoroughly, is admirably organised, and is venerated throughout the whole country on account of its great ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... best adapted to all kinds of subjects that English versification possesses. Its powers range through the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare, the dignity of the sonnet, and the grandeur of Milton, to the satire of Pope and the informal conversational verse of Mr. Robert Frost. The 4-stress line is too short, the 6-stress is too long (when it does not split into two equal parts); the 5-stress seems to hit the golden average. It is less inclined ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... the topic of the evening's conversation, which was, How far, and on what occasions, and in what manner, one person may invade, so to speak, the personality of another, and speak to him upon his moral condition. The pastor expressed his own opinion, always in the conversational tone, in a talk of ten minutes' duration; in the course of which he applauded, not censured, the delicacy which causes most people to shrink from doing it. He said that a man's personality was not a macadamized ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... faint lines absent from Linda's flawless countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of her beauty; it had become a part—in the form of her ridiculously young air—of the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware of its supreme significance ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... friends who rejoiced in his coming as children in the near advent of Christmas, and finally book-shops in which to browse at his pleasure. It was interesting to hear him talk about city life. One of his quaint mannerisms consisted in modifying a well-known quotation to suit his conversational needs. 'Why, sir,' he would remark, 'Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence is at the ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... he showed when Rolf landed; he barked, leaped, growled, tail-wagged, head-wagged, feet-wagged, body-wagged, wig-wagged and zigzagged for joy; he raced in circles, looking for a sacrificial hen, and finally uttered a long and conversational whine that doubtless was full of information for those who could get ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... other half of Shadrach, his son David, newly back from England and the study of metallurgy, and a Mr. Winscombe, come out to the Provinces in connection with the Maryland boundary dispute, accompanied by his wife. All this Howat Penny regarded with profound distaste; necessary social and conversational forms repelled him. And it annoyed his father when he sat, apparently morose, against the wall, or retired ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... might form part of The Alf Laylah. "On that night (we read in Chap. vi. 1) could not the King sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the King." The Rawi would declaim the recitative somewhat in conversational style; he would intone the Saj'a or prose-rhyme and he would chant to the twanging of the Rabab, a one-stringed viol, the poetical parts. Dr. Scott[FN301] borrows from the historian of Aleppo a life-like picture of the Story-teller. "He recites walking to and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... him. The presence of death gave a new dignity to the little house. Through the open door he could see in the parlor Mrs. Boyd's rocking chair, in which she had traveled so many conversational miles. Even the chair had gained dignity; that which it had once enthroned had now penetrated ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... must be accepted as we find them. Here is Locker's own law: "Occasional verse," he says, "should be short, graceful, refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should not be pitched high: it should be terse and idiomatic, and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness: for, however trivial the subject-matter may be, indeed, ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... words, "Eke! me gong veto," (Hullo! it is night already). He means, "Why, we ought to be off, we shall never reach the end of our journey before dark." But how neatly and prettily he expresses his thought! I assure you, civilised languages, for common conversational purposes needed by travellers, &c., are clumsy contrivances! Of course you know all this a hundred times better than I do. I only illustrate my idea of a grammar as a means of teaching others the form of the mould in which the Melanesian's mind is cast. I think I ought to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Garrit was lunching with the Lord Chief Justice. They were old friends, and they never found it incumbent to be very conversational. The lunch was an excellent, but frugal, meal. They both ate slowly and thoughtfully, and their drink was water. It was not till they reached the dessert stage that his lordship indulged in any very informative comment, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... cuttings?" I asked him. He scratched his head and appeared in doubt. "Are your plants self-supporting," I went on, "or do you train them on twigs? What would be the diameter of your finest specimen?" He continued in doubt. I adopted a conversational manner. "I suppose you'll be potting off soon? You must get very fond of your mushrooms. I think one always gets fond of anything which demands one's whole care and attention. I wonder if I might have a peep ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... marked the manner of our maitre d'hotel; plainly he wavered, but finally old custom prevailed; abandoning the cigarette, he chose the cigar, and, hastily clearing my fashionable opponent's table, approached the pavilion with his most conversational face. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... the old empire were soon speaking the same conversational Latin which was everywhere used by the Romans about them.[21] This was much simpler than the elaborate and complicated language used in books, which we find so much difficulty in learning nowadays. The speech of the common people ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... general knowledge, which it endeavored to pour in increasing quantity into the nursery. Miss More had started the stream of goody-goody books, while Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, and Thomas Day were the originators of the deluge of conversational bores, babies, boys, and teachers that threatened to flood the family book-shelves of America when the American writers for children came upon ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... man who is taken to call is of an abnormally lively conversational habit, quick to think of something that may pass for a contribution to current thought, and even quicker to get it out, he had best accept his position as merely decorative, and try to be as decorative as possible. He should be so quick that the first words of his sentence have leaped ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... His conversational powers were rather limited, and he felt at a loss when he undertook to make himself fascinating to the young ladies in the village. If he could only play on the violin like Philip he thought he would ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... to our "Alas! Alas!" which, by the by, no one ever says. "Awah," like "Yauh," is now a woman's word although used by Al-Hariri (Assembly of Basrah) and so Al-awwahone who cries from grief "Awah." A favourite conversational form is "Yehh" with the aspirate exasperated, but it is an expression of astonishment rather than sorrow. It enters ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... their meal in an easy and friendly manner about Ann Veronica's affairs. He was really very bright and clever, with a sort of conversational boldness that was just within the limits of permissible daring. She described the Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave him a sketch of her landlady; and he talked in the most liberal and entertaining way of a modern young woman's outlook. He seemed to know a great ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... matter in this paper and sermon is largely the same as that in the previous chapter, I present it because, as the line of thought is out of the ordinary and somewhat difficult to the general reader, its repetition in this conversational style will help to get a better grasp of the deadly delusions of rationalism. Truth usually has to be repeated in various ways before it gets a thorough hold upon the average mind. Therefore "precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... something Wickham was saying. She had suddenly wakened to the fact that he was having a wretched time and that he was after all her guest. But he interpreted her actions differently, and supposing that he was at last being appreciated, he had launched fearlessly forth upon the conversational sea. It was this spectacle that had drawn Christine and Nancy together, in their whisperings and giggles ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... one girl of whom Mrs. Motherwell approved. Martha's record on butter and quilts and mats stood high. Martha was a nice quiet girl. Mrs. Motherwell often said a "nice, quiet, unappearing girl." Martha certainly was quiet. Her conversational attainments did not run high. "Things is what they are, and what's the good of saying anything," Martha had once said in defence ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... do not know them," he said, but instead of uttering so simple a piece of information, a reply in which there was so little that could astonish me, in the natural and conversational tone which would have befitted it, he recited it with a separate stress upon each word, leaning forward, bowing his head, with at once the vehemence which a man gives, so as to be believed, to a highly improbable statement (as though the fact that he did not know the Guermantes ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... thought: "He has seen us, for certain." She was not ashamed. What she was afraid of was some foolish or awkward complication. But she could not conceive how much her person had been appropriated by Heemskirk (in his thoughts). She tried to be conversational. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... almost incredibly brilliant and painted, but I have very often thought since then that in the constant preoccupation of his mind with this one theme and the constant repetition of the strongest points he had to make, he had acquired, as it were, the faculty of threading all his conversational pearls upon a single string, and that he was, in fact, presenting himself to his latest audience with a discourse which was already finished and polished at Adunguen. He gave me a description of the scene of Dreyfus's public degradation ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... transactions of Black Friday, that he observed Jay Gould tearing up paper and throwing the pieces into the waste-basket, and thus he knew that his partner had some work on hand. He scarcely ever smiles and never lifts his voice above a conversational tone. He has no friends so far as known, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the open windows I saw the green folk squatting upon their sleeping silks and furs, grunting an occasional monosyllable, which, in connection with their wondrous telepathic powers, is ample for their conversational requirements. As I drew closer to listen to their words a warrior entered the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a dozen different leaves every minute, hopping here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering gratulatory notes in the canary's conversational tone. And their language is not altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his treatment of the others, and he says, or seems to say: "This is good, I like it, only the old leaf is tough; the buds would be better. . . . These are ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... personality; while the third category had no existence at all, so far as I was concerned, since my contempt for them was too complete. This "comme il faut"-ness of mine lay, first and foremost, in proficiency in French, especially conversational French. A person who spoke that language badly at once aroused in me a feeling of dislike. "Why do you try to talk as we do when you haven't a notion how to do it?" I would seem to ask him with my most venomous and quizzing smile. The second condition of "comme il faut"-ness was long nails that ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... real surprise to me," she began, in a conversational tone, "to hear Mr. Steadman make a speech. I am sure his colleagues in the House would have been surprised to have heard him today. He is a very quiet man there—he never speaks. The first night I went to the House with a crowd of Normalites, I pointed out our member, to let those ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... slappings, pinchings, and the vicious tweaking of ears. I have seen Sister Agatha kick an orphan's bare toes, or his bare shin, with the toe of her boot; and at such times she could throw a formidable amount of venom into two or three words, spoken rather below than above the ordinary conversational pitch of her voice. But ceremonial floggings were unknown at St. Peter's. And indeed I can recall no breaches of discipline which seemed to demand any ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson |
