"Conversationalist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half-hour's discussion over the wine. Croker says that 'the Prince and Scott were the two most brilliant story-tellers, in their several ways, he had ever happened to meet. Both exerted themselves, and it was hard to say which shone the most.' Indeed His Royal Highness appears to have been a fine conversationalist, with a wide range of knowledge and great humour. We, who have come at length to look upon stupidity as one of the most sacred prerogatives of Royalty, can scarcely realise that, if Georges birth had been never so humble, he would have been known to us as a most admirable scholar and wit, or ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... means of exit instead of the door), William Henley, George Collins (editor of the Schoolmaster), and, I think, Mr. Wright (author of the Journeyman Engineer) were there. The talk was very brilliant. My brother, who was a charming conversationalist, kept his visitors fascinated with anecdotes about Carlyle and John Ruskin, whom he knew well. They spoke, too, about the unsigned articles which they were each contributing to a paper called the London, and their criticism of ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... a wit and a delightful conversationalist, Sir Walter was the most practical and businesslike of authors. It was a treat to meet him, as I frequently did, walking into Town, and enjoy his vivacious humour. I recollect one morning, speaking of illustrators, mentioning the fact that Cruikshank always imagined ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... encyclopedias, I see, says, "Doctor Johnson was one of the greatest conversationalists of all time." The writer evidently does not distinguish between talk, conversation and harangue. Johnson could talk and he often harangued; but he was not a conversationalist. Neither could he address a public assembly, and I do not find that he ever attempted it. Good talkers are seldom orators. One reads with amusement tinged with pity, of Carlyle's sleepless nights and cold, terror-fraught anticipations of his Lord Rector's speech. In deliberative gatherings a very ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and talk. This is a system even more effective than the ancient one of mopping up the floors, piling chairs upon the tables, and turning out enough lights to make the room dull. A good post-midnight conversationalist—and Baltimore is not without them—can stand mops, buckets, and dim lights, but turn cold drafts upon his back and he gives up, sends for his coat, buttons it about his paunch and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... and only for partridges—afterwards, nothing but No. 5. To the average shot, No. 6 throughout the season." This sounds dreadfully invidious. If a good shot cannot kill grouse with No. 6, how on earth is a merely average shot to do the trick? But, in these matters, the conversationalist finds his opportunity. Only they must not be pushed too far. There was once a party of genial, light-hearted friends, who went out shooting. Early in the day, slight differences of opinion made themselves observed with reference to the size of shot. Lunch ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a good story or two in his slow voice—among them one of his mother exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist's words died on his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment. He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... common sense and well educated she was a most interesting conversationalist, while her voice ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... history of literature has been more reticent than Browning in describing his emotions after virtue had passed out of him. He never talked about his poetry if he could help it; and the hundreds of people who met him casually met a fluent and pleasant conversationalist, who gave not the slightest sign of ever having been on the heights. We know, for example, that on the third day of January, 1852, Browning wrote in his Paris lodgings to the accompaniment of street omnibuses the wonderful ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... of medicine, was Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Harvard Medical School, and wrote some scientific works, he is best known as the author of poems and essays, mostly humorous, light, and fanciful. He was very popular in his time as a witty conversationalist and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... shall I describe him? Tall and commanding in figure, with glossy purple-black hair, and the midnight eyes that matched it, he was eminently handsome, and, as everybody agreed, a splendid conversationalist. Notwithstanding his acknowledged superiority to all others, and the fact that he was petted and caressed by every one, I felt an instinctive repugnance to him, that for a long time I tried in vain to overcome. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... to have been read only by a mathematician who presided over an observatory in the Ural Mountains. He had an extraordinary power of making his abstruse results clear to the ordinary intellect, and was in various directions a brilliant conversationalist. One day, going into Boston in the omnibus with him, I questioned him as to the famous problem. To my astonishment he went through a demonstration adapted to my intelligence which made me understand the nature of the substitution and the solution before our half hour's transit was ended. I did not ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... conversationalist. The more I see of him the more I am baffled. I have not yet found a reason for that first impression I received of him. He has all the poise and air of a remote and superior being, and yet I wonder if it be not poise and air and nothing ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sitting up late. "Indeed," says one of his friends, "he would talk all night in preference to going to bed, and, in the Chaucerian style, he was a brilliant conversationalist, and his laugh was like the rattle of a pebble across a frozen pond." "No man of sense," Burton used to say, "rises, except in mid-summer, before the world is brushed and broomed, aired and sunned." Later, however, he changed his mind, and for ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... a brilliant talker; he was admittedly more a talker than a conversationalist. But this quality had nothing in common with self-assertion or love of display. He had too much respect for the acquirements of other men to wish to impose silence on those who were competent to speak; and he had great pleasure in listening to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... conversationalist, one Comrade Parker, hinted at something of the sort," said Psmith, "in a recent interview. Cosy ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... me, Clayton," replied Kennedy in his most courteous and kindly tone, ignoring the question as well as all allusion to his charity—"and never in all my experience have I ever met a more dazzling conversationalist. Start him on one of his weird tales and let him see that you are interested and in sympathy with him, and you will never forget it. He gave us parts of an unfinished story one night at my house, so tremendous ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... great orator at once replied, "Knott, you are the only man on earth who could have thought of such a story just at the opportune moment." The temporary depression vanished; Lamar was himself again, and was at once the brilliant conversationalist of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... England, was of "a most gay and genial disposition;" "lived in perpetual sunshine, and shed its radiance all around him." Legh Richmond was "exceedingly good company." Robinson of Leicester was "a capital conversationalist, very lively and bright." Alexander Knox found that Mrs. Hannah More "far exceeded his expectations in pleasant manners ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... conversationalist was the author of several airy and graceful productions in verse, which were published anonymously, such as Lines written at Ampthill Park, in 1818; Advice to Julia, a letter in Rhyme, in which he sketched high life in London, in 1820. He also published Crockford House: a rhapsody, in 1827. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... you are a swell dresser also, and a pleasant conversationalist; in fact, have all the ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... a brilliant conversationalist, but she was the most easily amusable person in the world—interested in everything that interested me, and I disdamaged myself (to use one of her Anglo-Gallicisms) of the sulky ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Simpson, was not only a very charming person in herself, but, partly owing to a natural gift for, and love of, Society, and partly owing to the fact that her father, Mr. Nassau-Senior, the conversationalist, had been one of the best-known men in the political-literary world of London and of Paris, from 1820 to 1860, she knew a very large number of distinguished men and women of the middle Victorian epoch. By this I mean such men as Thackeray, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the return trip leisurely, drinking in the glories of the night, and allowing time for the play of conversation. Bert Morrison was a good conversationalist. Her points of interest were almost infinite. And they were back among the street lights ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... only one that is considered by Mr. Mahaffy as being absolutely essential to a good conversationalist, is the possession of a musical voice. Some learned writers have been of opinion that a slight stammer often gives peculiar zest to conversation, but Mr. Mahaffy rejects this view and is extremely severe on every eccentricity from a native brogue to an artificial catchword. With his remarks ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... letters and reminiscences of those who knew him (and he was known in half the countries of Europe), out of which we can construct a portrait. One finds in the Life of Sir Charles Dilke, for instance, that Dilke considered Turgenev "in the front rank" as a conversationalist. This opinion interested one all the more because one had come to think of Turgenev as something of a shy giant. I remember, too, reading in some French book a description of Turgenev as a strange figure in the literary circles of Paris—a large ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... certainly a compliment to me as a conversationalist, As you wrote in your note you appreciate my sensible conversation I am afraid you overestimate me. I have a friend who is really brilliant, and can converse eloquently upon any subject. May I bring ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... explains the eternal impulse to decorate totem poles and paint pictures, write poetry and expound philosophy. One of the chief delights of conversation is the opportunity it affords for self-expression. A good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation, will be voted a bore because he denies others the enjoyment of self-expression, while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may be considered a good conversationalist because he permits his companions to please themselves through self-expression. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... a corner of the cave, out of the sun, out of sight of the sea, and William prepared to renew his efforts as a conversationalist. In the hope of collecting a few ideas as to what the London clubs were talking about he picked up the discarded newspaper, and saw with disgust that it was the local Herald. But just as he threw it down, a line in it caught his eye and remained ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... repeatedly put leading questions. "I have a right," maintained the sergeant, doggedly, "to deal with my witnesses as I please." "To that I offer no objection," retorted Sir Frederick; "you may deal as you like, but you shan't lead." Of the same brilliant conversationalist Mr. Grantley Berkeley has recorded a good story in 'My Life and Recollections.' Walking down St. James's Street, Lord Chelmsford was accosted by a stranger, who exclaimed "Mr. Birch I believe?" "If you believe that, sir, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... last degree. The types of character which developed under such conditions were not wanting in amiable or admirable traits. The well-to-do provincial was often a scholar, a connoisseur in art and literature, a polished letter-writer and conversationalist, a shrewd observer of his little world, an exemplary husband and father, courteous to inferiors, warm-hearted to his friends. Sometimes he found in religion or philosophy an antidote to the pettiness of daily life, and was roused ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an intelligent thinker for a woman, he ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... negress, "Aunty, I would like for you to do a little washing for me." The old creature was glad to get it, as I agreed to pay her what it was worth. Her name was Aunt Daphne, and if she had been a politician, she would have been a success. I do not remember of a more fluent "conversationalist" in my life. Her tongue seemed to be on a balance, and both ends were trying to out-talk the other—but she was a good woman. Her husband was named Uncle Zack, and was the exact counterpart of Aunt Daphne. He always sat in the chimney corner, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... hardships, to refine himself so that the primitive broker and speculator were almost unrecognizable in the baron of fifty-four, decorated with several orders, installed in a magnificent palace, the father of a charming daughter, and himself an agreeable conversationalist, a courteous gentleman, an ardent sportsman? It is the secret of those natures created for social conquest, like a Napoleon for war and a Talleyrand for diplomacy. Dorsenne asked himself the question frequently, and he could not solve it. Although he boasted of watching the Baron with an ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... said that there is a great difference between a brilliant conversationalist and a ready small-talker. The former is apt to be feared, and to produce a silence around him. We all remember Macaulay and "his brilliant flashes of silence." We all know that there are talkers so distinguished that ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Cherubini, the composer, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the facade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. It is ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Elena, affecting a lightness of tone which somewhat disguised her voice. 'You have the reputation of being a brilliant conversationalist—exert ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... by his wife, the daughter of Herr Sloman, a wealthy shipowner. Although in reality he remained a student all his life, he had made himself a position and formed a large circle of acquaintances by editing a Hamburg political newspaper. He was a brilliant conversationalist, and was considered good company. He seemed to have taken up with Herwegh with the object of overcoming the latter's antipathy to Alpine climbing, and his consequent reluctance to undertake it. He himself had made preparations to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is, indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... costumes. It was a saying with her friends that she was as much the artist with her needle as with her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were celebrated, and her mots had the point as well as the flash of the diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition that made ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... the calendar, replies to a sportsman's inquiries: "Well, sir, middlin', pretty middlin'. But, oh dear, it's awk'ard this 'ere Twelfth bein' fixed of a Sunday! Now might Mr. Gladstone ha' had hanything to do wi' that arrangement, sir?" An outraged correspondent—a fluent Yorkshire conversationalist, of course—at once corrected the original version and translated it into the true vernacular: "Nobbut middlin', sir, nobbut middlin'. But, ah lad, it's a fond business this puttin' t' Twelfth o' a Sunday. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... was Arthur a first-rate conversationalist. He did not steer a conversation; he could keep the ball going creditably when it was once started; but he never communicated to the circle in which he was that indefinable interest which is so intangible and ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... celebrated as a conversationalist; and, like Coleridge, Carlyle, and almost every one who enjoys this reputation, he has sometimes been accused of not allowing people their fair share in conversation. This might prove an objection, possibly, to those who wish to talk; but as ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... defined "a good conversationalist" as "one who has ideas, who reads, thinks, listens, and who has ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... man a charming conversationalist. He had a dashing, confidential way of addressing the girl which impressed her as flattering and agreeable, while his spirits were so exuberant and sparkling with humor that she was thoroughly amused ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... of the luncheon. An adept conversationalist, he created conversationalists on every side. Mrs. Prohack liked him at once. Sissie could not keep her eyes off him. Charlie was impressed by him. Lady Massulam treated him with the familiarity of an intimate. Mr. Prohack alone was sinister in attitude. Ozzie ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... and he was anxious to get her into the yards before the horse sales were over; this was to be the last day of the sales. Jim was the best "barracker" of the two; he had great imagination; he was a very entertaining story-teller and conversationalist in social life, and a glib and a most impressive liar in business, so it was decided that he should hurry on into Bourke with the mare and sell her ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... Sudermann, even Ibsen, for their most successful personages are abnormal. Panshin, for example, is a familiar type in any Continental city; he is merely the representative of the young society man. He is accomplished, sings fairly well, sketches a little, rides horseback finely, is a ready conversationalist; while underneath all these superficial adornments he is shallow and vulgar. Ordinary acquaintances might not suspect his inherent vulgarity—all Lisa knows is that she does not like him; but the experienced woman of the world, the wife of Lavretsky, understands him instantly, and has not ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... came to play hostess for him. On these occasions Aymer rarely appeared at dinner, but a few privileged guests visited him afterwards and kept alive the tradition that Charles Aston's son, that poor fellow Aymer, was an even more brilliant conversationalist and keener wit than his father. But as a rule very few from the outside penetrated as far as the Garden Wing of Aston House, and Aymer and Christopher continued to lead a peaceful and uninterrupted ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... in which, with six pretty stories, thirty witticisms and some confidence in himself, a man could obtain a social passport and the certainty of being everywhere welcome. Never was there a writer possessing to so high a degree and in such abundance every qualification of the conversationalist, the art of animating and of enlivening discourse, the talent for giving pleasure to people of society. Perfectly refined when he chose to be, confining himself without inconvenience to strict decorum, of finished politeness, of exquisite gallantry, deferential without being servile, fond ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the social circles that it is presumed she will adorn. At least that was the way Miss Thompson looked at the profound problem of girls' education. She herself was accounted "accomplished," a "brilliant conversationalist," and "broadly cultured," with the confident air that the best society is supposed to give, and her business was to impart some of this polish to her pupils. "Conversation," it may be added, was one of the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Scotty started work right away. The police driver sat in a chair and watched them. He spoke English, but wasn't much of a conversationalist. After a while the ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... a Frenchman, was said to be the best conversationalist of his day, and wrote famous maxims and epigrams. The quotation means, "It is safe to wager that every popular idea, every received convention, is a piece of foolishness, because it has suited ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... day. He used to sit in the surgery, before a large packing-case, wistfully watching the skies and scratching himself in an absent-minded manner. A chimpanzee may not cogitate very profoundly, and the statement that he is a deep thinker though an indifferent conversationalist has yet to be proved; but it is certain that Hector O'Brien was a student of medicine, and that he did, on this memorable day to which reference has been made, perambulate the wards of that hospital from bed to bed, feeling ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... was versatile in his talents. His musical instincts were marked, and, although self-taught, he played on a number of instruments, and he had also, through years of industrious reading and study, become thoroughly well-informed and an interesting conversationalist. He was of a most generous nature, and was not only ever ready to assist young artists with advice and material aid as well, but also, when the occasion arose, to devote the fruit of his labors to any meritorious charitable object. Thus, for example, in March, 1871, he exhibited ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... born without arms or legs, yet it is said that he was a good shot, a skillful fisherman and sailor, and one of the best cross country riders in Ireland. He was a good conversationalist, and an able member of Parliament. He ate with his fork attached to his stump of an arm, and wrote holding his pen in his teeth. In riding he held the bridle in his mouth, his body being strapped to the saddle. He once lost his means of support in India, but went to work with his accustomed energy, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... seems to think it is amusing to poke fun at those who are sensible enough to wish to make lunacy a sufficient ground for divorce. 'The process' he says, 'might begin by releasing somebody from a homicidal maniac and end by dealing with a rather dull conversationalist.' He might have added, to make the joke complete, or from some one who snores, or keeps cats, or ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... had been a brilliant and laudatory conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr. Hutchinson that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the entire universe had ceased all other occupation to engage in that of defrauding him of his rights ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... people took the lead in the conversation, while the boys and Della were content to listen unless addressed. Colonel Graham was a brilliant conversationalist, and once he became launched on a series of war stories there was no time for the boys to interrupt, nor had they any inclination. He had been one of the handful of American engineers impressed into a make-shift army by General Byng to stop the Germans when they smashed through ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... Henry, too, is his lack of discernment regarding men. I have known him speak glowingly, and with unabated enthusiasm, of 'a most interesting chap' he has met at his club, referring to him as 'altogether delightful,' 'a charming conversationalist,' and so on, until I have felt impelled to ask Henry to bring ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... the park entrance. The minister seemingly exerted himself to regain the ground he had lost with Orme. He proved an interesting conversationalist—keen, slightly cynical, but not ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... perfect health, youth and beauty, combined with a charmingly irresistible personal magnetism; armed with the quiet dignity of perfect self-control, and the genius of her brilliant mind, so broadly cultured; an adept in psychic lore; an entertaining and eloquent conversationalist, our heroine created a profound sensation in the most select circles of the social world. Everywhere she was the center of attraction, surrounded by admiring throngs of cultured people, representing wealth ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... fearless. As a translator, his work was marked by carefulness and accuracy. In social life, old-fashioned hospitality made every one feel at home, and one would have to travel far to find a more animated and interesting conversationalist. He held his convictions with great tenacity, and was a powerful debater, but always courteous to ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... with great consideration. Under all the trying circumstances of high social life, among the nobility and rarest literary genius of London, this redeemed child of the desert, coupled to a beautiful modesty the extraordinary powers of an incomparable conversationalist. She carried London by storm. Thoughtful people praised her; titled people dined her; and the press extolled the name of Phillis ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... was one of those women who in society would have gained the name of a good conversationalist, for she always listened attentively and spoke ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... murmured his condolences. A little time later and the four of them were outside in the verandah taking ices together. Rawlins might have been, and no doubt was, a finished scoundrel, but there was no question as to his fascinating manner and his brilliant qualities as a conversationalist. A man of nerve too, and full of resources. All the same, Littimer was asking himself and wondering who the man really was. By birth he must have been born a gentleman, Littimer did not doubt for ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... journalism in San Francisco and who is famous from the Bohemian Club literally around the globe and in many of its most out-of-the-way islands as a most entertaining, albeit incessant, story-teller and conversationalist. Pretty nearly all subjects that interest humanity have engaged his attention. He could no more rest from travel than Ulysses; and he brought to those he associated with all the fruits that faring forth in strange lands could give to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... that paper on the looking-glass," replied Clarence, whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a shade too Ollendorfian. "But I ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... "You are a conversationalist. You are not an elegant, sprucely dressed abbe; you are an abbe who is cynical and ill- natured, who likes to fancy himself a savage amid the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... and women were going about their business as usual, but an air of stupefaction was everywhere apparent. Practically every loiterer was studying a newspaper, every chance acquaintance had stopped to confer with his fellows. War, alternately the joke and bogey of the conversationalist, stretched her grey hands over the sunlit city. Even the lightest-hearted felt a thrill of apprehension at the thought of the horrors that were to come. In a day or two all this was to be changed. People went about then counting the Russian millions; the ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Pall Mall Gazette took to reporting his little sayings about photographs and ornaments, ideals and fashions, he has been setting up as a conversationalist. He thinks he was designed by Providence to that end, and aids his destiny as much as he can ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... service were at worst occasional; the embarrassment of the man's talk incessant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist; the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon some material business and performing well, but the plot of the drama remained ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ability to help herself; the second to the loneliness of the place and the characters it sometimes harboured. As for my host, I had to admit, despite my mental queries, that his bearing and manner completely captivated me, for a more delightful conversationalist it would ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... commenced. Less than a week before, the man sitting in front of me had endeavoured to bring about my destruction; now he was my host, and to all outward appearances my friend as well. I found him a most agreeable companion, a witty conversationalist, and a born raconteur. He seemed to have visited every part of the known globe; had been a sailor, a revolutionist in South America, a blackbirder in the Pacific, had seen something of what he called the "Pig-tail trade" to Borneo, some very queer life in India, that is to say, in ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... a great source of comfort to Bob during the lonely days at the Hat Ranch. At night she sang to him, or sat contentedly at his side while he told her whimsical tales of his wanderings. He was an easy, natural conversationalist, the kind of a man who "listens" well—an optimist, a dreamer. He was, seemingly, possessed of a fund of unfailing good-nature, and despite the fact that the past seven years of his life had been spent far from that civilization in which he had grown to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... would finally ask recklessly, "Have you been to the theater lately?" and she would question gently, "The theater?" as much as to say, "I've heard that word somewhere before," until the conscientious conversationalist, rushing from futility to futility, would be finally engulfed in some yawning banality and sink out of ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one declared he was ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... with the British Ambassador at Naples as his mistress. He was popular in this city of questionable morals at that time. She was beautiful and developed remarkable talents as a singer, and was a bright, witty, fascinating conversationalist. She worked hard at her studies, and became a fluent speaker of the Italian language. Hamilton had great consideration for her, and never risked having her affronted because of the liaison. Her singing was ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... remain for dinner, for in that monotonous waste, we would have been only too glad to entertain a bandit, or an angel for that matter, provided he would talk about something else than cattle. In our guest, however, we found a good conversationalist, meaty with stories not eligible to the retired list; and in return, the hospitality of our wagon was his and welcome. The travel-stained old rascal proved to be a good mixer, and before dinner was over he had won us to a man, ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... accomplished wife is one of the finest and most cultivated ladies it has ever been my good fortune to know. She is not only remarkably intelligent, but she is a woman of fine natural ability and of superior attainments. She is such a brilliant conversationalist,—so interesting, so instructive and so entertaining,—that it is a great pleasure and satisfaction to have the opportunity of being in her delightful presence, and of sitting within the sound of her sweet, charming, and ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... I employed all that I had in memory, and all that had been created in myself by the electric collision of great authors. Never did a professional wit more ingeniously produce as sudden coruscations the bon mots tediously studied; never did a philosophical conversationalist use to more advantage the wisdom conned over in the closet. I talked eloquently, profoundly. I rattled forth witticisms and poetical quotations. I amazed her. The man whom she thought incapable of any ideas beyond his ledger, and the stock ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... frequently happened that the word came in very inappropriately, as if tugged heroically to the front by a clumsy conversationalist. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman |
