"Converse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell". So she goes by him attended, Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... nothing would strike him as deserving censure, except such excess as would actually defeat the object which he proposed to himself, namely, the utmost enjoyment of life. In the "Epistles," he lays aside the character of a moral teacher or censor, and writes with the freedom with which he would converse with an intimate friend. But it is in his inimitable "Odes" that the genius of Horace as a poet is especially displayed; they have never been equaled in beauty of sentiment, gracefulness of language, and melody of versification; they comprehend every variety ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... he went, the thoughts of his coming converse with his beloved curled sweetly round his heart, so that scarce anything had seemed so sweet to him before; and he fell a-pondering what they twain, he and the Hostage, should do when they came together again; whether they should abide on the Glittering ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... lived—a man whose blameless conduct and example will always be an eloquent sermon to all who shall come within their influence. But send on the professional preachers—there are none I like better to converse with. If they're not narrow minded and bigoted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the modern English way of pronouncing Latin was a deliberate invention of the Protestant reformers. For this view there is no foundation in fact. It may be conceded that English ecclesiastics and scholars who had frequent occasion to converse in Latin with Italians would learn to pronounce it in the Italian way; and no doubt the Reformation must have operated to arrest the growing tendency to the Italianization of English Latin. But there is no evidence that before ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... statement.... At nineteen or twenty years of age a person carefully trained from childhood might have learned all the necessary verbal usages of respectable society; but for a mastery of the etiquette of superior converse many more years of study and experience were required. With the unceasing multiplication of ranks and classes there came into existence a corresponding variety of forms of language: it was possible to ascertain to what class a man or a woman belonged by ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Charles risen from his bed when his attendants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that his thoughts seemed to be wandering. Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effort to converse with them in his usual gay style; but his ghastly look surprised and alarmed them. Soon his face grew black; his eyes turned in his head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on my first meeting with him at Aigues-Mortes fall helplessly under the spell—that, in a few moments, the amateur Town Crier and the Mayor were walking together, side by side, along the Quai Sadi-Carnot, engaged in amiable converse. Aristide told the Mayor the story of his life—or such incidents of it as were meet for Mayoral ears—and when they parted—the Mayor to lunch, Aristide to yield up the interdicted drum to Pere Bracasse—they shook hands warmly ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... flung out; and so we, who but an hour or two ago were in friendly converse, parted in anger, and with ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... studied for years without being fully understood. She talked but little, and yet her silence seemed to be more the result of having nothing to say and no sympathy with the ordinary topics of conversation, than from dislike or inability to converse. When she did speak, the same childlike curtness and immobility were observable, that had been shown by the couch of her dying relative. She seemed to be repeating set words, that did not affect her heart or ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... right; Tho' learn'd, well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere, 635 Modestly bold, and humanly severe: Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe? Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; A knowledge both of books and human kind: 640 Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride; And love to praise, with reason ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Emily over for schooling; but he seemed so fond of her (in fact, she was the only thing to prove he wore a heart), that he never could resolve upon sending her away from, what she now might well call, home. Often, in some strange dialect of Hindostan, did they converse together, of old times and distant shores; none but Emily might read him to sleep—none but Emily wake him in the morning with a kiss—none but Emily dare approach him in his gouty torments—none but Emily had any thing like intimate acquaintance ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... after their hearty repast but they were still very tired and sleepy. They strove to converse together and keep awake but the fatigue of the day, the heavy meal, and the warmth of the fire proved too much for them and every now and then one would ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... my position, I formed the resolution to visit—when possible—the scenes in which my stories were laid; converse with the people who, under modification, were to form the dramatis personae of the tales, and, generally, to obtain information in each case, as far as lay in my power, from ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... preaching against the Jansenists; in establishing an opinion of their superior sanctity; and inspiring a spirit of quietism among their votaries, who were transported into the delirium of possession, illumination, and supernatural converse. These arts were often used for the most infamous purposes. Female enthusiasts were wrought up to such a violence of agitation, that nature fainted under the struggle, and the pseudo saint seized this opportunity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... accounts of his royal struggles to maintain his rule, all of which narrations I received with a goodly amount of reserve, though confirmed in some particulars by the Kanakas, when I became able to converse with them. But I was hardly prepared to find, as I did many years after, upon looking up some detail in Findlay's "South Pacific Directory," this worthy alluded to as "the celebrated Sam," in a brief account of Futuna. There he was said to be king of the twin isles; so I ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... himself—became convinced and were baptized. The missionaries obtained powerful protectors, and the king assigned to Patrick the pleasant fort of Trim, as a present residence. From that convenient distance, he could readily return at any moment, to converse with the king's guests and the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... dark passages of his absurdly disjointed house, and found him on occasions in the drawing-room and the dining-room, but nothing was done or left undone out of consideration for his feelings. If they were content to talk about sheep and cattle, he would converse with them, and he was even capable of enthusiasm on the subject of horses, but evidently had no interests apart from these matters. Nobody outside the family circle had known him to address more than half a ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... they through the straits than the wind, veering to the south-east, prevented them from making the course they had fixed upon, but they were able to coast along by the shore of Spain. They put into several small ports as they cruised up, but could obtain no intelligence of the Danes, being unable to converse except ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... distinguished from other Christians, not only by a different appellation, but by peculiarities of dress and demeanor. Those who embraced this austere mode of life lived indeed only for themselves, but they did not withdraw themselves altogether from the society and converse of men. But in process of time, persons of this description at first retired into deserts, and afterwards formed themselves into associations, after the manner of the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... "conversation" did not preside over or direct the daily intercourse between Charles Sumner, Charles Eames and Robert J. Walker in the old days in the National Capital. They did not converse. They discoursed. They talked sententiously in portentous essays and learned dissertations. I used to think it great, though I nursed no little dislike ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... think that," she answered, diffidently; "but I am not like those you are wont to converse and dwell with; and when you talk to me, you will learn my ignorance, and you will hate me then. I ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... unheeded in the dense forest. One morning she awakened and found standing by her side a companion tree, odd, like herself, and she said in her heart:—"I shall be no longer alone. He will understand my language and we shall hold sweet converse." But he, in his heart, was saying—"What strange tree is this? We two are unlike all our companions. I like it not." But she did not hear the murmur of discontent, and her heart grew glad within her at the great joy that had come ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... and make her a temple of the Holy Trinity, and to his contemplation see thou devote all the powers of thy mind. He that liveth and converseth with an earthly king is pointed out by all as a right happy man: what happiness then must be his who is privileged to converse and be in spirit with God! Behold thou then his likeness alway, and converse with him. How shalt thou converse with God? By drawing near him in prayer and supplication. He that prayeth with exceeding ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Manager of the Piggeries was a particularly charming little person with red hair and animated blue eyes. Lincoln left him awhile to converse with her, and she displayed herself as quite an enthusiast for the "dear old days," as she called them, that had seen the beginning of his trance. As she talked she smiled, and her eyes smiled in a manner ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... of writing letters. 3. The renewed sensibility which comes after seasons of decay or eclipse of the faculties. 4. The power of the will. 5. Atmospheric causes, especially the influence of morning. 6. Solitary converse with nature. 7. Solitude of itself, like that of a country inn in summer, and of a city hotel in winter. 8. Conversation. 9. New poetry; by which, he says, he means chiefly old poetry that is new to ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... your helmed valour down i' the mouth? Why dimly glimmers that heroic flame Whose reddening blaze, by civic spirit fed, Should be the beacon of a happy Town? Can the smart patter of a Bobby's tongue Thus stagnate in a cold and prosy converse, Or freeze in oathless inarticulateness? No! Let not the full fountain of your valour Be choked by mere official wiggings, or Your prompt consensus of prodigious swearing Be checked by the philanthropists' foaming wrath, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... proportion of the anecdotes relating to his conversation belong to this period. "It was," wrote Mr. Gladstone in 1879, "in the year 1835 that I met Mr. Sydney Smith for the first time at the table of Mr. Hallam. After dinner Mr. Smith was good enough to converse with me, and he spoke, not of any general changes in the prevailing tone of doctrine, but of the improvement which had then begun to be remarkable in the conduct and character of the clergy. He went back upon what they had been, and ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... saints are these; to them I'll pray; From Alibech no longer he would stay, But to her flew, and roused the girl from sleep: Said he, so soon you should not silence keep, It is not right:—there's something to be done, Ere we suspend the converse we've begun: 'Tis proper that, to please the pow'rs divine; We Satan instantly in Hell confine; He was created for no other end; To block him up let's ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... several occasions to converse with the chief and his people on Divine things, but apparently with little success. At length on the Sabbath he resolved to pay Makaba a formal visit, so as to obtain a hearing for the subject. He found the monarch seated among a large number of his ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... an acquaintance, and converse pleasantly with him, foretells that your business will run smoothly, and there will be but little discord in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... now began to converse in the most friendly and familiar manner. In relation to the forest, indeed, concerning which the knight occasionally made some inquiries, the old man chose to know and say but little; he was of opinion that slightly ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... friend was saying to him one day, "because he is the same natural, easy creature, on the stage, that he is off." "My case exactly," retorted Elliston—with a charming forgetfulness, that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same conclusion—"I am the same person off the stage that I am on." The inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and her performances stand out conspicuously in the annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a generation of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve. Commissioned in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. Converse of St. Louis, with funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of that city, King proceeded to put into effect the knowledge which he had derived from a close study of the swells made by steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built in the famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... There be some that pretend Liberty of Conscience to equivocate in an oath even before a magistrate, and to elude all examinations by mental reservations. Will you grant them this liberty; or can you, without destroying all bonds of civil converse, and wholly overthrowing of all human judicature? 3. If any plead Conscience for the lawfulness of Polygamy; or for Divorce for other causes than Christ and His Apostles mention (of which a wicked look is abroad and uncensured, though deserving ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... address; at least, so he seemed to me. He was entirely different from all whom I had met in that new country, and was the only person, besides my old friend the clergyman and his wife, with whom it was really pleasant to converse; and I felt perfectly at ease in his society, having been assured that he was engaged to a certain Miss G——, the daughter of a merchant in the village. Though much surprised at this, she having appeared to me but a mere flippant ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... are as luxurious as those of Spain. They have a king there who has a constant body-guard of one thousand men, and who is esteemed so highly that none of his subjects see his face oftener than once a year. If they find it necessary to converse with him on any matter, they speak to him through a long wooden tube. And when he annually permits himself to be gazed upon, his subjects give him many valuable things. These people are quite advanced. They possess brocaded and silken fabrics ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... beauty of form and vigor of constitution. Accustomed from childhood to converse freely with all classes and sexes in the daily walks of life, and to travel on foot or horseback from one town to another, without escort and without fear, they had acquired manners more frank and independent than those of women in other lands, while ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... her at any rate. He would be her partner for the evening, would dance with her, and would sit by her side. Peggy would be there, too, and the General. He would observe them closely, and perchance, converse with them. Colonel Forrest and the General's active aide-de-camp, Major Franks, a Philadelphian, and a Jew would also be present. Altogether the evening promised to be interesting as ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... unfortunate man my visits had a very favorable effect; for while he liked to converse with me, and particularly instructed me on world and state affairs, he seemed to feel himself relieved and cheered. The few old friends who still gathered round him, often, therefore, made use of me when they wished to soften his peevish humor, and persuade him to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... continued to converse in his well-known style, interspersing his talk with some private reflections on the position of Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be highly entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite communicable to the company. At ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... of the western world, Enthroned like monarchs of primeval days! Ye that hold lofty converse with the stars, And bind your shaggy brows with clustering clouds As if with wreaths of laurel! ye that count Your years by thousands, and your bosoms robe With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold, And ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... a sort of compromise," the knight said. "One which pleased me not, but which at any rate will save the king from insult. He will send a messenger to-day to them saying that he will proceed to-morrow in his barge to Rotherhithe, and will there hold converse with them. He intends not to disembark, but to parley with them from the boat, and he will, at least in that way, be safe from assault. I hear that another great body of the Essex, Herts, Norfolk, and Suffolk rebels have arrived ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... of the man who had called himself a French prince had been found murdered and shockingly mutilated on the sands at Epple. Sir Marmaduke was vastly interested. He, usually so reserved and ill-humored with his servants, had kept Hymn-of-Praise in close converse for nigh upon an hour, asking many questions about the crime, about the petty constables' action in the matter and the comments ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... "God" to explain mind? The answer to these and to all similar questions is that we do not know, in the sense that we know the cause of planetary motions, how these things came to be. It is not what we know about them that leads to the assumption of god, but what we do not know. And the converse of that is that so soon as knowledge replaces ignorance "God" will be dispensed with. It is never a case of believing in God because of the actual knowledge we possess, but always the appeal to weakness and ignorance. From this point of view the colloquial ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... was said he could not make out; voices were in hurried converse evidently a short distance back from the edge of the cliff, and then Mark recognised Ralph's tones, as ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... to see James Bulpin. I found him just setting off for the country. He stopped, however, to converse with me. He was a young man of very respectable appearance, and of mild manners. His appearance, indeed, gave me reason to hope that I might depend upon his statements; but I was most of all influenced by the consideration that, never having been ill-used himself, he could have no inducement ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... There was about him an infinite pathos, penned up there in his old age among the tenements of Mulberry Street on the pay of a second-rate clerk, that never ceased to appeal to me. When he lay dead, stricken like the soldier he was at his post, some letters of his to Mrs. Harriet Converse, the adopted child of his tribe, went to my heart. They were addressed to her on her travels. He was of the "wolf" tribe, she a "snipe." "From the wolf to the wandering snipe," they ran. Even in Mulberry Street he was a ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... They were not satisfied with me. At length the sun shook his head; that is, his whole self oscillated on an axis, and the moon thereupon shook herself in response. Then they nodded to each other as much as to say, "That is entirely my own opinion." At last they began to talk; not as men converse, but both at once, yet each listening while each spoke. I heard no word, but their lips moved most busily; their eyebrows went up and down; their eyelids winked and winked, and their cheeks puckered and relaxed incessantly. There was an absolute storm of expression ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... repentance be an indispensable condition of salvation, let us glance at it for a moment, and try to find out what repentance really is; and, oh! how full of confusion the world and the church are upon this subject! I say it, because I know it by converse with hundreds of people. May the ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... Eyes, to discover them. But I am mistaken, if our Hermetical Philosophers Themselves need not, as well as the Peripateticks, have Recourse to more Fruitfull and Comprehensive Principles then the tria Prima, to make out the Properties of the Bodies they converse with. Not to accumulate Examples to this purpose, (because I hope for a fitter opportunity to prosecute this Subject) let us at present only point at Colour, that you may guess by what they say of so obvious and familiar a Quality, how little Instruction ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... being in the Salon, I saw the Dauphin and the Dauphine enter together and converse. I approached and heard their last words; they stimulated me to ask the prince what was in debate, not in a straightforward manner, but in a sort of respectful insinuating way which I already adopted. He explained to me that he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Sigurd and Brynhild abide together in the Burg of the Niblungs, yet each must bear the burden of sorrow alone. Brynhild held close converse with Gudrun, and behaved humbly towards her lest strife should arise between them. But Gudrun, filled with pride that she was the wife of so great a man as Sigurd, deemed it a little matter that all others should give her honour, and knowing ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... agreeable person, from the midway of life, towards its youthful side, he was ever on the alert for a likely interlocutor to take part in the conversation, which (pleasantest, truly! of all modes of human commerce) was also of ulterior service as stimulating that endless inward converse from which the essays were a kind of abstract. For him, as for Plato, for Socrates whom he cites so often, the essential dialogue was that of the mind with itself; but this dialogue throve best with, often actually needed, outward stimulus—physical motion, some text shot from a book, the ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... her old caddy after the tea-chests had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,—but no matter about that, now. That is the way things come about in this world. I must write a lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, fortunate calamities. It will be just the converse of that odd essay of Swift's we read together, the awkward and stupid things done with the best intentions. Perhaps I shall deliver the lecture in your city: you will come and hear it, and bring him, won't ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... boasted that shortly he would order Luther and the Pope, as well as he had done Galen and Hippocrates. He was never seen to pray, and seldome came to Church. He was not onely skilled in naturall Magick (the utmost bounds whereof border on the suburbs of hell) but is charged to converse constantly with familiars. Guilty he was of all vices but wantonnesse: ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... of his Mary, and in this, as in all things, she followed in his steps. Untiringly would she listen to and speak on Mrs. Greville's favourite theme, her Mary; and now she sat beside her, enlivening by gentle converse the hours that must intervene ere Alfred came. There was an expression of such calm, such chastened thanksgiving on Mrs. Greville's features, changed as they were by years of sorrow, that none could gaze on her without a kindred feeling stealing over the heart, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... to look upon my condition with the utmost regret. I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the labour of my hands; and I used to say, I lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody there but himself. But how just has it been, and how should all men reflect, that, when they compare ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... it was an enquiry into their means of locomotion, they pointed sadly to the floating raft. Miss Beasley now came hurrying up, surveyed the situation, and also attempted to converse, but with no better success. After an agitated colloquy with Miss Gibbs ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... I have thoughts, and can't express 'em, Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em In terms select and terse; Jones teach me modesty and Greek; Smith, how to think; Burke, how to speak; And Beauclerk to converse.' ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... joined to Italy. The people's own telegrams to Paris went by a more circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people, thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Po[vs]ci['c], a naturalized American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles, cried Stadler; on January 10 he stopped ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... unconscious that he was near the village, or that his melodiously expressed desire to "get out o' the wilderness" was overheard by any one else. My Russian was not extensive or accurate enough to enable me to converse very satisfactorily with the priest, and I was heartily glad when Dodd got out of the wilderness, and appeared to relieve my embarrassment. He didn't look much better than I did; that was one comfort. I ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... at headquarters, it being his night "on," and he welcomed the detective as some one with whom he might hold converse. ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... district, or in unredeemed Chelsea; they make their little vie de Boheme, and are consciously proud of it. Of my position, the peculiarity was that I never belonged to any cluster; I shrank from casual acquaintance, and, through the grim years, had but one friend with whom I held converse. It was never my instinct to look for help, to seek favour for advancement; whatever step I gained was gained by my own strength. Even as I disregarded favour so did I scorn advice; no counsel would I ever take but that of my own brain and ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... him. The general idea, as they say on field days, was to keep about twenty yards behind him; but under certain circumstances distance has an uncanny habit of annihilating itself. The man himself was no hustler. Once or twice he stopped to light his pipe or converse with a friend. ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... courted "dear dead women" with Platonic phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and original veins of thinking. When two such men first fall into society, each will feel as if he had found a treasure. Their communications are without end; their garrulity is excited, and converts into a perennial spring. The topics upon which they are prompted to converse are so numerous, that one seems to jostle out ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... are brought together and speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point. Occasionally, as in the meeting of Henry and Anne Boleyn, the situation is tense and dramatic; but as a rule the characters simply meet and converse in the same quiet strain, which becomes, after much reading, somewhat monotonous. On the other hand, one who reads the Imaginary Conversations is lifted at once into a calm and noble atmosphere which braces and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the New-York detective force, a powerful and resolute man, whose great weight and strength are matched by boundless energy, and both subordinate to a head as clear as the keen and searching warrant of his eye. This man has been in familiar converse with every rebel agent in the Canadas, and is feared by them as they fear the fates of Beall and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he has probably rendered the cleverest services of the war to the general government. They sent for him immediately after the tragedy, ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic; but as they came in contact with the Greeks a taste for higher education was acquired. Greek slaves (paedagogi) were employed in the wealthy families to watch over the children, and to teach them to converse ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... By long Converse with this Man, I am, perhaps, in some Degree brought to feel the same immoderate Pleasure in the Contemplation of this delightful Season; but I have the Satisfaction of finding many, whom it can be no Shame to resemble, infected with the same Enthusiasm; for there is, I believe, scarce any Poet ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... evidence as it stands. At the request of Mr. List, he asked Sawin, whom he knew, if the man next Shadrach was a Southern man. This was proper. The counsel did not wish a man to sit next the prisoner, who might converse with him for the purpose of getting admissions from him. They feared he might be an agent of the claimant. He said privately to Mr. Sawin, whom he had known intimately for years, that this was a dirty business he was engaged in. He did not know Mr. Sawin to be ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... the Vercelli Codex (a) however, the converse process is conspicuous. St. Mark's Gospel has been assimilated to St. Matthew's by the unauthorized insertion into clause (1) of [Greek: kai su] (which by the way is also found in M), and (in concert with the Gothic and Evann. 73, 131, 142*) by the ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... angry discomfiture. On his side, M. de Boisrose—for he it was, the aged fashion of his dress more conspicuous than ever—stood eyeing the group in mingled pride and resentment, until, aware of his Majesty's approach, and seeing me in intimate converse with him, he joyfully stepped forward, a look of relief taking place of all ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... and returned to his cell, and gazed on the sun as if he hastened too slowly to his setting. And yet such fearful solitude is of but brief duration. Even though we flee to the desert we cannot be long alone. Cut off from social converse, the mind of man engenders companions for itself—companions like the gloom from which they have emerged. It was thus that to St. Anthony appeared the Spirit of Fornication, under the form of a lascivious negro boy; it was ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... reading of the will the assembled relatives dispersed from the room, leaving the two executors to converse together. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... For converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. Beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and, by the eyes of others is ever sending to their hearts for love. Yet even this hath this inconvenience in it—that ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... partial relief to our wants; we opened our mouths, and pointed down our throats. So much was understood and a chicken instantly killed. We laid our heads upon a table, feigning sleep, and were shown to a wretched room; but here all converse terminated. Mr. Lushington desired to ascend the Peak therefore it became necessary that we should hit upon some means of making them comprehend this; but all efforts were in vain. At length they proposed to send for an interpreter, which was accordingly done; ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... table, with the Judge on her other side. The young man was pleased with the arrangement, and sat furtively studying the delicate tinting of her face, the dainty line of cheek and chin and ear, the sweep of her dark lashes, and the ripple of her brown hair, as he tried to converse easily with her, ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... he smiles with closed lips. I would rather he showed me his teeth. Jeanne, my poor child, he is preparing for us some disagreeable surprise. Oh I do not look at me so tenderly, I beg; turn your back to me. Here is Maugiron coming; converse with him, and be amiable ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. He is not there, not ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... fairmindedness and common sense.[944] They talked earnestly about the Peace Conference and the efforts of extremists in Congress to make it abortive.[945] Each knew the other to be a genuine lover of the Union. Upon this common basis of sentiment they could converse without reservations. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... little peaceable conversation with him," I demurred. "We can't brain him first and converse with him afterward. And anyhow, while I can't put my finger on the place, I think your theory is weak. If he wouldn't run a hundred miles through fire and water to get away from us, then he is not the man ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... deepened. As you meet friendly faces and feel the grip of friendly hands, so you also exchange salutations with Nature, as if she, too, were an old Heligoland friend. You know the view from this point and from that; but, like the converse of a friend, it is always changing, for there is no monotony in the sea. The waves lap the shore gently, or roar tumultuously in the red caverns, and it is all familiar, but none the less welcome and soothing because of that familiarity. It is not a land of lotus-eating ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Captain Converse, was the first ship of the American squadron to acquire the distinction of capturing two prizes in one day, which she did on the sixth. The captives were the Frasquito and the Lorenzo, both small vessels of no great value as compared with the big steamers taken during the first days ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... discouraging disobedience by connecting some certain, though mild and gentle disadvantage, inconvenience, or penalty, with every transgression. In this chapter is to be considered another mode, which is in some respects the converse of the first, inasmuch as it consists in the encouragement of obedience, by often—not necessarily always—connecting with it some advantage, or gain, or pleasure; or, as it may be stated summarily, the cautious encouragement of obedience ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... were that dwelt there, took one of his twelve ships and bade row to the land. There was a great hill sloping to the shore, and there rose up here and there a smoke from the caves where the Cyclopes dwelt apart, holding no converse with each other, for they were a rude and savage folk, but ruled each his own household, not caring for others. Now very close to the shore was one of these caves, very huge and deep, with laurels round about the mouth, and in front a fold with walls built of rough stone and shaded by tall oaks ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... Do they fear to allow Southern men to converse with their philosophers, and seek thus to silence or exclude them? He trusted others would contemn them as he did, and that many of our brethren of the South would, like himself, learn by sojourn here, to appreciate ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... from a polite and terse academic, he must turn rustic, rude, melancholise alone, learn to forget, or else, as many do, become maltsters, graziers, chapmen, &c. (now banished from the academy, all commerce of the muses, and confined to a country village, as Ovid was from Rome to Pontus), and daily converse with a company ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me; "they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... to the well-being of man, since without it neither he nor any animal or vegetable could exist. If it were not for atmospheric air, we should be unable to converse with each other; we should know nothing of sound or smell; or of the pleasures which arise from the variegated prospects which surround us: it is to the presence of air and carbonic acid that water owes its agreeable taste. Boiling deprives it of the greater part of these, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... felt so warmly to the dissenter of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms of mere forbearance; but with the other, although only on a misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, it was still possible to hold converse and exchange some honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly welcome even partial intimacies. And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story—such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... delightfully natural poses. In one she was standing bare-headed beneath a tall date-palm, shading her eyes with her hand as though looking for someone across the expanse of sunny sand before her. In another she stood by the edge of the Nile, in converse with a native woman who bore a balass on her head; and even the tiny picture was sufficiently large to bring out the contrast between the slim, fair English girl in her white gown and Panama hat and the dusky Egyptian, whose dark skin ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... at a great distance, of a Buddhist bonze and of a Taoist priest coming towards that direction. Their appearance was uncommon, their easy manner remarkable. When they drew near this Ch'ing Keng peak, they sat on the ground to rest, and began to converse. But on noticing the block newly-polished and brilliantly clear, which had moreover contracted in dimensions, and become no larger than the pendant of a fan, they were greatly filled with admiration. The Buddhist priest picked it up, and laid ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not give up the point, but repeated his assertion. On which Buonaparte said, with quickness, "Bah! c'est impossible." "Oh!" said Bertrand, much offended, "if you are to reply in that manner, there is an end of all argument;" and for some time would not converse with him. Buonaparte, so far from taking umbrage, did all he could to soothe him and restore him to good-humour, which was ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... was all that she saw; and he made himself very agreeable throughout his visit, by taking condescending interest in all that was going on, and especially to Lady Eveleen, by showing that he thought her worthy of rational converse. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of their deceased familiars, that have in them neither knowledge nor sense, but who never expect to be with them again, or to see their dear father and dear mother and sweet wife, nor have any hopes of that familiarity and dear converse they have that think of the soul with Pythagoras, Plato, and Homer. Now what their sort of passion is like to was hinted at by Homer, when he threw into the midst of the soldiers, as they were engaged, the shade of Aeneas, as if he had been dead, and afterwards again presented his ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... command the armies of your country; and though all who are attached to you will from attachment as well as public considerations, deplore an occasion which should once more tear you from that repose to which you have so good a right; yet it is the opinion of all those with whom I converse that you will be compelled to make the sacrifice. All your past labours may demand, to give them efficacy, this further, this ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... being sparkling, was pleasant enough until dessert. When the men-servants left us, it assumed a very different character. The King induced the Chancellor to converse, and asked him if his exile were owing to the English monarch personally, or to some ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... human life, would be the universal practice of such an ingenious complaisance as I have been here describing, which, as it is a virtue, may be defined to be a "constant endeavour to please those whom we converse with, so far as we may do ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... celibacy disturb all the order and harmonies of creation, and are fleshly, sensual, devilish. The unmarried are strangers to those delightful or painful sensibilities which drive the soul to continual converse with God, either in heart-felt praises or for divine assistance to glorify him in the discharge of domestic duties. They who vow celibacy, fly in the face of the infinitely wise eternal, who said, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... across the street, his soured eye fell upon his true comrade and best friend leaning against a picket fence and holding desultory converse with Mabel Rorebeck, an attractive member of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, that hated organization of which Sam and Penrod were both members. Mabel was a shy little girl; but Penrod had a vague understanding that Sam considered her two brown ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... consciousness was so strong and imperative that it made him more than gentle to her as he spoke his first few words, and obtained her consent to escort her to a seat not far off from the Cardinal, yet removed sufficiently from the rest of the people to enable them to converse uninterruptedly for a time. Angela watched them, well pleased;—she too had quick instincts, and as she noted Sylvie's sudden flush under the deepening admiration of Aubrey's eyes, she thought to herself, "If it could only be! ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Imitate Well is a Poet's work: but to affect the soul, and excite the passions, and, above all, to move Admiration [wondering astonishment] (which is the Delight of serious Plays), a bare Imitation will not serve. The converse [conversation] therefore, which a Poet is to imitate, must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of Poesy; and must be such as, strictly considered, could never be supposed [to be] spoken ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... hain't so many opportunities o' social converse that I kin afford to let one of 'em slip. You must talk ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... them up safely," was the reply. "Send my orderly to attend me while I converse with these officers. See, too, that the captured ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... Massulam in converse with a tall, stout and magnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... I see by thine whene'er I hold Converse with things that are or things that were; Whene'er I seek life's hidden folds to stir, And watch the inner ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not linger o'er the fading traces Of lost divinities; or seek to hold Their serious converse 'mid Earth's green waste-places, Or by her lonely fountains, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... fell fast asleep; for the spirit Ariel just then presented himself before his master, to give an account of the tempest, and how he had disposed of the ship's company, and though the spirits were always invisible to Miranda, Prospero did not choose she should hear him holding converse (as would seem to her) ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... indispensable to the peace of the Far East, but beyond that she would not go. The Japanese plenipotentiaries, therefore, judged it wise to submit their terms in the order of the real importance, leaving their Russian colleagues to imagine, as they probably would, that the converse method had been adopted, and that everything prefatory to questions of finance and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess—not that anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to remember—yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from habit, and Pierre ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Fairy good-naturedly. "We shall talk. Feast our souls with a flow of reason, you know. We shall converse. We shall ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... our attention to the body, from the managing our domestic estate, which is a sort of handmaid and servant of the body, or from duties of a public nature, or from all other serious business whatever? What else is it, I say, that we do, but invite the soul to reflect on itself? oblige it to converse with itself, and, as far as possible, break off its acquaintance with the body? Now, to separate the soul from the body, is to learn to die, and nothing else whatever. Wherefore take my advice; and let us meditate on this, and separate ourselves as far as possible from the body, that is to say, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero |
