"Oratorical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a voice in the affairs of the nation (hence the tremendous clamour you may hear in their woods towards sunset when their assemblies are held), but the practical direction of their policy is entrusted to a circle or council of about ten of the older rooks, distinguished for their oratorical powers. These depute, again, one of their own number to Kapchack's court; you see him yonder, his name is Kauhaha. The council considers, I have no doubt, that by supporting Kapchack they retain their supremacy, for very likely if they did not have a foreigner to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... proud of their isolation,—and not to be able to divine them was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level. But, when they did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found. This oratorical display of mine gave me an ascendancy over him. He adored eloquence, not to say grandiloquence: he was the son of a barrister. 'Let 's go and see her at once, Richie,' he said of Julia. 'I 'm ready to be off as soon as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... facility as a writer. Mr. Reginald Smith tells me how James once wrote a leading article in the train between Paddington and Maidenhead. Many of the little poems which he contributed to periodicals were improvised. He was famous for wit and readiness as an after-dinner speaker; and showed an oratorical power in electioneering speeches which gave the highest hopes of parliamentary success. Indeed, from all that I have heard, I think that his powers in this direction made the greatest impression upon his friends, and convinced them that ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... he had two villas at least, besides his town-house, with slaves, attendants and following to match. This will suffice to show that he had the wherewithal. But could he enjoy it? He was a literary man: his uncle had settled that for him. He was an oratorical light in the Senate. His letters show that he was a gentleman, whose delicacy of feeling was as fine as the lauded courtesies of modern times. As proof that he was a gentleman, and that he knew how to distinguish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... Oratorical Art. Application of the Law to Literature. Application of the Law to Architecture. Application of the Law to Sculpture. Application of the Law ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... laconic; he was also, as he himself relates, influenced by the example of Seneca: but how different a lesson might he have learned from the Greeks! We do not, it is true, in conversation, connect our language so closely as in an oratorical harangue, but the opposite extreme is equally unnatural. Even in our common discourses, we observe a certain continuity, we give a development both to arguments and objections, and in an instant passion will animate us to fulness of expression, to a flow of eloquence, and even ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... preservation from evil. This use is ancient, as is shown on medals and statues, and is supposed by some to refer to the horns of animals slaughtered in sacrifice. The position of the fingers, Fig. 80, is also given as one of Quintilian's oratorical gestures by the words "Duo quoque medii sub pollicem veniunt," and is said by him to be vehement and connected with reproach or argument. In the present case, as a response to an impertinent or disagreeable petition, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... colleges, a public literary and oratorical display. The exercises at exhibitions are original compositions, prose translations from the English into Greek and Latin, and from other languages into the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... and envy; every one will be perfect of his kind, and will differ in some things from every other, and will be an object of love and admiration with all. We are astonished here with the intellectual, oratorical, vocal powers of others, with their knowledge, their talent, their skill; but there we shall no doubt be filled also with astonishment at our own powers and acquisitions, and thus we shall be more capable of appreciating and enjoying the endowments of others. God ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the beats (for example, the eighth or sixteenth notes within a beat) must also be symmetric. So imperative is this law that it generally prevails through the entire piece, with only such temporary elongations or contractions (marked ritardando or accelerando) as may be introduced for oratorical effects. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... appear, it was well understood that it was not he but Demosthenes who was in reality to be tried, and that the public and private record of the latter would be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. On that memorable occasion, people gathered from all over Greece to witness the oratorical duel of the two champions—for Demosthenes was to reply to AEschines. The speech of AEschines was a brilliant and bitter arraignment of Demosthenes; but so triumphant was the reply of the latter, that his opponent, in mortification, went into voluntary exile. The speech of Demosthenes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... your kidding," said Babbitt feebly, but at this tribute from Gunch, himself a man of no mean oratorical fame, he expanded with delight and wondered how, before his vacation, he could have questioned the joys of being ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... of genius without principle that history produces; the Bolingbroke of antiquity, but with high military talents superadded to diplomatic and oratorical powers—on being summoned home from his command in Sicily to take his trial before the Athenian tribunal, had escaped to Sparta, and had exerted himself there with all the selfish rancor of a renegade to renew the war with Athens and to send ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... an idleness as in England. Clients come not to consult the greenhorn of the last term; nor does any avoue among our neighbors, any more than any attorney among ourselves, fancy that an old head is to be found on young shoulders. The years 1830 and 1831 were not marked by any oratorical effort of the author of the Decline of England; nor was it till 1832 that, being then one of the youngest of the bar of Paris, he prepared and signed an opinion against the placing of Paris in a state of siege consequent on the insurrections of June. Two years after he prepared a memoir; ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... joined heads with Hamed and the faithful serviles, thought if I paid twelve doti, out of which three should be of Ulyah quality, that the Sultan might possibly condescend to accept our tribute; supposing he was persuaded by the oratorical words of the "Faithfuls," that the Musungu had nothing with him but the mashiwa (boat), which would be of no use to him, come what might,—with which prudent suggestion the Musungu concurred, seeing its wisdom. * White men. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... in the New York pulpit, but they are very few. The majority of the clergy are men of little intellect, and less oratorical power. They are popular, though, with their own cures, and the most of them are well provided for. They ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... acting from conviction but from an antecedent determination. It seemed to him further that he was faced, not merely by this one man and his rage and its accidental causes, but by a whole world in arms that was pledged to enmity against him. He had no inclination now to await the end of Jason Philip's oratorical efforts, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... is worse," continued our profound philosopher—and here he rose from his elbow, and supported himself at arm's length from the ground, one hand resting on the turf, the other at liberty, if required, for oratorical action—"what is worse, this place which woman occupies in art is but a fair reflection of that which she fills in real life. Just heavens! what a perpetual wonder it is, this living, breathing beauty! Throw all your metaphors to the winds—your poetic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... intelligence and some vision were, for the most part, using their mental faculties to devise some plan to interest others in their efforts for emancipation. This situation would obviously lend itself more readily to developing literary talent and oratorical ability than to producing machinists, engineers or inventors. Hence the preachers and teachers and orators of the colored race that here and there rose above the masses greatly outnumbered the inventors. But it ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... rather long behind, yet the length did not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in everything—look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, he had, nevertheless, the secret of the highest art of all, whether in oratory or whatever else—he had simplicity. The force was in the thought and the diction, and he needed no other. The voice was rather deep, low, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... is also the author of a pleasing story of life in an Indian school called "The Middle Five." Zitkalasa, a Sioux (now Mrs. Bonney), attended a Western college, where she distinguished herself in an intercollegiate oratorical contest. Soon afterward she appeared in the Atlantic Monthly as the writer of several papers of an autobiographical nature, which attracted favorable attention, and were followed by a little volume ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... Quixote takes for an enchanted castle, in spite of the smell of rancid oil and garlic, and where, as a climax to all the other piled-up absurdities, poor Sancho, who is short and fat, is tossed in a blanket. Don Quixote always expresses himself in a stilted and oratorical manner; Sancho's language is of the coarsest kind, and is interlarded with the vulgarest illustrations and proverbs. His master is tall, attenuated, in fact, merely skin and bone; his face is long, his nose prominent, his eyes hollow and very bright; Sancho, on the contrary, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Educational work in colleges was begun and Mrs. Elmira E. Springer, an ardent suffrage worker, contributed a fund of $1,000, the interest to be distributed as prizes at an annual inter-collegiate oratorical suffrage contest. As a result suffrage societies were formed among the college students auxiliary to the State association. It published suffrage leaflets written by Judge Murray F. Tuley, a prominent Chicago judge; Mrs. Eugenia M. Bacon, former president ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... people of America that such a building will pay. For one thing, it gave certain Western capitalists heart to erect the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. And now in a dozen cities of the United States there are great auditoriums where big events, musical and oratorical, bring the people together in a way that enlarges their spiritual horizon. Andrew Carnegie has ever had a passion for music. At Skibo Castle the meals are announced by bagpipe. Of course I admit that whether the bagpipe is a musical instrument ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... an air of authority, requested silence by the movement of his arm. The sign was instantly obeyed; for having enjoyed their laugh, the multitude wished for the rope-dancer's explanation. As soon as the silence was complete, he drew back two paces, put himself in an oratorical pose, as though he were about to speak, and then, disappointing the expectations of the assembly, deliberately raised forwards and upwards the skirts of his frock-coat. Having thus arranged his drapery he performed ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... cautious still. However much her demagogues may have exerted their oratorical powers at home, they carefully avoided perilling either life or limb in the cause of the revolution. A more numerous band of fighting men of English origin, in Garibaldi's ranks, would have shown more sympathy with rebellion in some Italian States than the proposal ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... they were not all equally sincere. Many of them were only able to see in the movement an opportunity of rising above their class by affecting to despise it. For the majority it was an intellectual pastime, an oratorical enthusiasm which they never took altogether seriously. There is a certain pleasure in believing that you believe in a cause, that you are fighting, or will fight, for it,—or at least could fight. There is a by no means negligible satisfaction in the thought that you ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... oratorical efforts of Demosthenes were directed to rouse the Athenians from indolence, and to arm them against the insidious designs and ambitious schemes of Philip, who, in the year 358 B.C., began the attack upon the northern ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave, ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... Sutter, General Vallejo, Thomas O. Larkin, Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price, Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, finally on ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... opportunities, but Washington passed at a single step from being a Virginian to being an American, and in so doing he stood alone. He was really and thoroughly national from the beginning of the war, at a time when, except for a few oratorical phrases, no one had ever thought of such a thing as a practical and living question. In the same way he had passed rapidly to an accurate conception of the probable growth and greatness of the country, and again he stood alone. Hamilton, born outside the colonies, unhampered ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... head if he is fit to assume it, and legislative leadership to the chairman of the assembly. Were questions to arise splitting up the people and the legislature into factions, the situation would change at once. Oratorical gifts and legislative strategy would become valuable, and the President or the Speaker of the assembly might be obscured by the chiefs of ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... his gesture constrained and meaningless and his whole appearance calculated only to produce laughter, notwithstanding the evidence he gave of superior abilities. All these faults he overcame by severe and patient labor. One of his biographers says,—"His oratorical training was as severe as any Greek ever underwent." Constantly on the watch against bad habits, he practised daily before a glass, reciting passages from Shakespeare, Junius, and the best English orators. He became the most eloquent of all irish advocates, and for more ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... friends as openly as DeWitt Clinton took care of them in Albany. In telling the story, James A. Bayard of Delaware produced an oratorical sensation in the House of Representatives. "And now, sir, let me ask the honourable gentleman," said the congressman, in reply to William Giles' defence of the Virginia President, "what his reflections and belief will be when he observes that every man on whose ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Bordeaux, having already received the ordinary education of a young man. The professors soon found that besides his considerable attainments he had great natural gifts for languages and oratory; they therefore made of him a thorough classical scholar, and in order to develop his oratorical talent encouraged him to practise preaching. They soon grew very fond of a pupil who was likely to bring them so much credit, and as soon as he was old enough to take holy orders they gave him the cure of souls in the parish of Saint-Pierre ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was still looked upon by the average critic as "the most distinguished and the most interesting Poet of the nation." Joseph Warton was styled "the Winton Pedant" for suggesting that Pope paid too dearly for his lucidity and lightness, and for desiring to break up with odes and sonnets the oratorical mould which gave a monotony of form to early eighteenth-century verse. His Essay on Pope, though written with such studied moderation that we may, in a hasty reading, regard it almost as a eulogy, was so shocking to the prejudices of the hour that it was received ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... box, aisles, windows, doorways, were filled, and many found place in the flies of the theater. A number couldn't find places anywhere and went away. Mr. Lutz is a fine example of evangelist. He has a magnetic personality and a strong, oratorical way of talking, fluent in speech and filled with figurative language and the phrases of his profession."—Harrisonburg ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... birth and education, Greek also in subtle thought and philosophic insight, in oratorical power and supple statesmanship. Though born almost within the shadow of the mighty temple of Serapis at Alexandria, he shows few signs of Coptic influence. Deep as is his feeling of the mystery of ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... said the man, drawing himself up and raising one hand and his voice in an oratorical way; "the blacks I mane are white-skinned, but black in the heart through and through; the blacks who are the dispisers of progress, the foes of freedom, the inimies of the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... we assembled, how M. About distinguished himself as one of the most practical and common-sensible of men of genius, and how we were all finally harangued by M. Victor Hugo with the most extraordinary display of oratorical sky-rockets, Catherine-wheels, blue-lights, fire-crackers, and pin-wheels by which it was ever my luck to be amused, is matter of history. But this chapter is only autobiographical, and we will pass over the history. As an Anglo-American delegate, I was introduced ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... because he offers his services; while the conscript—rather a term of opprobrium to us—must be lukewarm. It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he sees others, also young and fit, hanging back. Nor does it occur to us that there may be virtue ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the very top of my voice, and with most abundant gesticulation. At first, when friends and physicians advised me to abandon advocacy for a while, I felt that I would sooner run any risk than relinquish the hope of oratorical distinction. Afterwards I reflected that by learning to moderate and regulate my voice, and changing my style of speaking, I might both avert the danger that threatened my health and also acquire a more self-controlled manner. It was a resolve to break through the habits ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Joe staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman's whistle ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Land, the state of the Christian Church in the dominions of the grand soldan, and of the policy and conduct of that arch-infidel toward it. The portly prior of the Franciscan convent was full and round and oratorical in his replies, and the king expressed himself much pleased with the eloquence of his periods; but the politic monarch was observed to lend a close and attentive ear to the whispering voice of the lowly companion, "whose discourse," adds Agapida, "though modest and low, was clear and ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... the platform, having paused, after a self-introductory trumpeting of professional claims, was slowly and with an eye to oratorical effect moistening lips and throat from a goblet at his elbow. Now, ready to resume, he raised a slow hand in an indescribable gesture of mingled command and benevolence. The clamor subsided to a murmur, over which his voice flowed and spread like oil ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the poetical powers with which he was endowed, in common with the great Brinsley, Lady Dufferin, and the Hon. Mrs. Norton, young Sheridan Le Fanu also possessed an irresistible humour and oratorical gift that, as a student of Old Trinity, made him a formidable rival of the best of the young debaters of his time at the 'College Historical,' not a few of whom have since reached the highest eminence at the Irish Bar, after having long enlivened and charmed St. Stephen's ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to speak of oratorical precepts, I think we must say something of the nature of the art itself; of its duty, of its end, of its materials, and of its divisions. For when we have ascertained those points, then each man's mind will, with the more ease and readiness, be able to comprehend the system ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... at the bar by his defence of Quinctius and of Roscius of Ameria, he visited Asia to recruit his health and improve his oratorical style. On his way to the East he stayed six months at Athens, where he renewed his philosophical studies under Antiochus the Academic. In Asia he attended the leading rhetoricians, especially his old teacher Molo at Rhodes, who endeavoured to ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... Opposition in the House of Commons on an address to the Crown. There was not a pin to choose between their speeches, and a stranger hearing them would naturally have concluded that Harry had never been anything but the model boy and young man of the parish. Fortunately, the oratorical powers of Englebourn ended here; and East, and the majority of his guests, adjourned to the green, where the cricket was in progress. Each game lasted a very short time only, as the youth of Englebourn were not experts in the noble science, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... mental value upon, but esteem is less precise and mercantile than calculate or estimate. We esteem a jewel precious; we estimate it to be worth so much money. This sense of esteem is now chiefly found in literary or oratorical style, and in certain conventional phrases; as, I esteem it an honor, a favor. In popular usage esteem, as said of persons, denotes a union of respect and kindly feeling and, in the highest sense, of moral approbation; as, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... interlocution; improvisation; toast; equivocation, prevarication, quibbling; ambages, pseudology, amphibology, amphiboly, dilogy. Associated Words: extempore, extemporaneous, extemporize, extemporization, impromptu, improvise, improvisation, brogue, aphasia, amnesia, oratory, elocution, rhetoric, oratorical, rhetorical, rhetorician, elocutionary, peroration, voluble, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... much exactness that "he who runs may read." By examining the word of God you will find that the Free-thinkers of our country, the Illuminati of Germany, Darwin, Strauss, Huxley, Tyndal, Renan, and the man of our own land who is most noted in our midst for oratorical accomplishments without logic, argument or truthfulness of statements touching the Christian religion, are all present evidences of the divinity of the prophetic words ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... a colored man a fair show and he is certain to give a good account of himself. One of the notable college contests in Illinois is known as the Swan Oratorical Contest, and is held annually at Lombard University, at Galesburg. This contest was held Thursday night of last week. The first prize was awarded to Burt Wilson, a colored student, who lives at Galesburg, and is one of the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various
... words almost entirely similar. If, he says, we banish from history the consideration of causes, methods and motives ([Greek]), and refuse to consider how far the result of anything is its rational consequent, what is left is a mere [Greek], not a [Greek], an oratorical essay which may give pleasure for the moment, but which is entirely without any scientific value for the explanation of the future. Elsewhere he says that 'history robbed of the exposition of its causes and laws is a profitless ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... destruction to yourselves! Unbind that man! leave my house in peace! go home, and learn to practise a little of the mercy of which you will yourselves soon stand in need." His venerable aspect, and the power and authority of his words, awed even that drunken crew. But Silas, vain of his oratorical powers, was enraged that anybody should dispute his influence with the crowd. Holding the branch with one hand, and gesticulating violently with the other, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... matter, but to place his own creative and determining impress on matter, not so much to grasp reality poetically and represent it poetically as to cast ideas into reality, a disposition for lively representation and strong oratorical coloring. All this he derived from the genial period, though later on somewhat modified, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry; and for this very reason he is not only together with Goethe, but before Goethe, the favorite poet of the nation, and especially ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... they rolled away with musical tinklings, or hid themselves in the cracks. Finally, when he had succeeded, with laborious care, in extracting one last dime from the depths of his pocket, he said thickly, waving his arms with an all-embracing oratorical gesture: ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... engaging and regretful "au revoir" to the circle, and passed on to look after the comfort and pleasure of her elder visitors, and Rosa soon discovered that her awakened curiosity would be in no wise appeased by listening to the steady, pattering drone of Mr. Dorrance's oration. Oratorical he was to a degree that excited the secret amusement of the facile Southern youths about him. With them, the art of light conversation had been a study from boyhood, the topics suitable for and pleasing ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... country of free opinions, persist in asserting that his divination was guess-work, and that conscience had no part in urging him to speak. That warning voice proved vain; the Party from whom he separated, proceeded—confiding in splendid oratorical talents and ardent feelings rashly wedded to novel expectations, when common sense, uninquisitive experience, and a modest reliance on old habits of judgement, when either these, or a philosophic penetration, were the only qualities that could have ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... threatened by the reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give to oratory its power and its persuasiveness. I can well ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... to the heart, Sandy packed his household goods and left the place. There was much talk over the affair and everyone expressed deep regret—even Jake Martin. But he wisely refrained from saying much, for Tom Teeter excelled all his former oratorical nights in his hot denunciation of such a heartless crocodile, who could dance on his neighbor's grave and at the same time weep like a whited sepulchre. Long after the countryside had given up talking of poor Sandy's flitting, they discussed ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... genius. Some time in 1759 he became acquainted with William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called 'Single-speech Hamilton,' on account of the celebrity he gained from his first speech in Parliament, and the steady way in which his oratorical reputation went on waning ever after. In 1761 this gentleman went over to Ireland as Chief Secretary, and Burke accompanied him as the Secretary's secretary, or, in the unlicensed speech of Dublin, as Hamilton's jackal. This arrangement was eminently satisfactory to Hamilton, who ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... also a masterful theologian of Mount Olivet's particular faith. It is reported how he defended his theology with his splendid oratory, and how when this failed he resorted to his fists. His oratory was said to be simply overwhelming. They recounted how, in his oratorical frenzies, he used to fling his homespun coat in the air and crack the heels of his red-topped boots together with an emphasis that would stop the mouth of the most impudent gainsayer. They told how by this masterful eloquence ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... He became oratorical about the Channel Tunnel, and he told them stories of remarkable borings on both sides of ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the Colonel's achievements from his individuality; second, for his oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his functions as the leading counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company versus the State of California. On his strictly legal performances in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those who denied ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Albert, assuming a grand oratorical manner, gave the boys the benefit of his search for knowledge. "A dibber is a pointed tool, usually a stick, used to make holes for planting seeds, bulbs, setting out plants and transplanting ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... hearing, the result of allowing the people to judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey always just out of reach ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... where I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's after the oratorical bass of the last ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... generally prepared himself for it by taking the yolk of an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry, Mr Bright's priming was said to be a glass of a particular old port, and there was a malicious whisper to the effect that Mr Lowe, whilst Chancellor of the Exchequer made ready to enter the oratorical arena by taking a glass of iced water at the bar, being moved to his choice of a stimulant by considerations of economy. Mr Disraeli then was reported to the gallery as having taken his half-bottle, and very shortly afterwards he slipped into the House from ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... figurative elocution of the Indian, so far from affording evidence of oratorical power, if it proves anything, proves the opposite. It is the barrenness of his language, and not the luxuriance of his imagination, which enforces that mode of speech.[16] Imagination is the first element of oratory, simplicity its first ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... when I met him he was president of the Corps Legislatif, where, without the slightest pretension to oratorical talent, he wielded an immense influence. He was what we call a "leader" in every sense of the word—at court, on the Bourse, and in the political as well ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... in the paradise of women: and there is no country in the world where there is so much boasting of the 'chivalrous' treatment she enjoys. That is to say,—she has the best place in stage-coaches: when there are not chairs enough for everybody, the gentlemen stand she hears oratorical flourishes on public occasions about wives and home, and apostrophes to woman: her husband's hair stands on end at the idea of her working, and he toils to indulge her with money: she has liberty to get her brain turned by religious excitements, that ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ours is now abundantly established. The next talent requisite is imagination. That we have imagination, often teeming in tropical luxuriance, but shared in great or less degree by all, has never been questioned. One more requisite and the oratorical ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... all the peoples. Man had broken for ever with a past of barbarity and darkness. The regenerated world would in future be illuminated by the lucid radiance of pure reason. On all hands the most brilliant oratorical ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... and covered with silver chains, cuirasses, and gauntlets, emblems of their gallantry in the field, next passed before the king, each at the head of his troop, and each making a harangue. Abyssinia must be a very oratorical country. Last of all, came the tall, martial figure of Abegoz Moreteh, chief of the tributary Galla of the south, at the head of his legion, three thousand in number: this "sea of wild horsemen" moved in advance, to the sound of kettle-drums, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... come direct from the speaker. For the most part however the sacred literature of oratory is of a different kind; not exact reports of spoken words, but the substance, it may be, of several similar speeches worked up afresh into a form of written discourse. In this wider sense, the oratorical literature of the Bible is of considerable extent; it includes the prophetic discourses, and reflects the fervid contests over first principles of righteousness which constituted the main life of ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... eminent men, living and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate, carried to the Upper House an eloquence formed and matured in the Lower. The opinion of the most discerning judges was that Lord Holland's oratorical performances, though sometimes most successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers, and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that the day had been a red-letter day for the university, and a white day in the recollection of all who had heard one of the most charming discourses that were ever delivered in the country, and had beheld a display of oratorical art which in this time, at least, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... birthday and holiday! While we have amused ourselves with the explosion of crackers and blowing off of our neighbors' arms by premature discharges of rusty cannon, while we have rent the air with squibs, shouts, and exclamations, and listened to the periodical and hackneyed outbursts of oratorical gas, how few of us have remembered the deep significance of the day, and felt our hearts swell with genuine patriotic emotion! How few of us have realized that we were celebrating not merely the establishing of a form of government, the severing of galling bonds ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from city to city. They would land in some central square, and the candidate, deafened and half-frozen, would stammer a few halting remarks. He felt it rather keenly that Quimbleton looked down on his lack of oratorical gift, and it was a frequent humiliation that when words did not prosper on his tongue his impatient pilot would turn on the motors and zoom off into space in the very middle of ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... afforded compensation for the expense which Mr. Slide or his backers must have encountered;—but he had an opportunity of making a speech, every word of which was reported in the People's Banner; and if the speech was made in the language given in the report, Mr. Slide was really possessed of some oratorical power. Most of those who read the speech in the columns of the People's Banner were probably not aware how favourable an opportunity of retouching his sentences in type had been given to Mr. Slide by the fact of ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... this is the same vocabulary, the same ample, oratorical tone, will help Borrow to genial, substantial effects such as the dinner with the landlord and the commercial traveller: "The dinner was good, though plain, consisting of boiled mackerel—rather a rarity ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... feeling was perfectly genuine. Apart from his personal relations to the college, he had the true oratorical temperament, and no man can be an orator in the highest sense unless he feels intensely, for the moment at least, the truth and force of every word he utters. To move others deeply he must be deeply moved himself. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Directeur had risen to his feet. Some one had proposed his health and he made a graceful little speech of acknowledgment. He remained standing for a few minutes after the cheers which had greeted his neat oratorical display had died away. The conclusion of his remarks came as rather a surprise to ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... us right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may—may be—may soon meet a cruel death on the scaffold." Mrs. Campbell evaded the phrase "may be hanged" rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical sense it had seemed to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... already taken some white scalps, he repaired to the place where the Mingos were holding their war council to exert his powers for peace. There, in presence of the warriors, after swaying them from their purpose by those oratorical gifts which gave him his influence and his renown, he took the war hatchet that had already killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance was appeased. Upon this scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow Creek with the news of the murders committed ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... occupation with Christ and His truth is full of danger for us; we are so accustomed to handle these sacred themes as a means of instructing or impressing others that we get to regard them as our weapons, even if we do not degrade them still further by thinking of them as our stock-in-trade and means of oratorical effect. We must keep very firm hold of Christ for ourselves by much solitary communion, and so retranslating into the nutriment of our own souls the message we bring to men, else when we have preached to others we ourselves may he cast away. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... to you. Cap'n Stidger, Chairman of our Central Committee, Mr. Henry J. Hoskins, of the firm of Hoskins and Bloomer, and Joe Slate, of the 'Union Press,' one of our most promising journalists. Gentlemen," he continued, suddenly and without warning lifting his voice to an oratorical plane in startling contrast to his previous unaffected utterance, "I needn't say that this is the honorable Paul Hathaway, the youngest state senator in the Legislature. You know his record!" Then, recovering the ordinary ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... observed that, during this eloquent passage, Diggle had more than once glanced beyond him, as though his mind were not wholly occupied with his oratorical efforts. It was therefore something of a shock that he heard him say in the same ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... dishes on, over his own head. Nobody could talk to anybody, because he held forth to everybody at once, as if the company had no individual existence, but were a Meeting. He impounded the Reverend Mr. Septimus, as an official personage to be addressed, or kind of human peg to hang his oratorical hat on, and fell into the exasperating habit, common among such orators, of impersonating him as a wicked and weak opponent. Thus, he would ask: 'And will you, sir, now stultify yourself by telling me'—and so forth, when the innocent man had not opened his lips, nor meant ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... while that of arms, by its splendour and importance, secures the almost undivided admiration of a rising and uncivilized people, legal practice, on the other hand, becomes the path to honours in later and more civilized ages, by reason of the oratorical accomplishments to which it usually gives scope. The date of Cicero's birth fell precisely during that intermediate state of things, in which the glory of military exploits lost its pre-eminence by means of the very opulence and luxury which ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... along with other sources of information, had given the servants of the Crown some assurance of the fate of the measure, there was a separate debate and division on the first article, understood on all hands to be a final decision. The debate was decorated by a work of oratorical art long admired in Scotland, and indeed worthy of admiration anywhere for its brilliancy and power. It was a great philippic—taking that term in its usual acceptation—as expressing a vehement torrent of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... says Byron, in one of his note-books (quoted by Moore, 'Life', p. 20), "were much more oratorical and martial than poetical; and Dr. Drury, my grand patron (our head-master), had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action. I remember that my ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and conscientiously reasoned, and polished until their lustre was perfectly dazzling. We have before us an extract from Fraser's Magazine, published about this time, which justly estimates Dr. Caird's oratorical gifts and graces. The writer states that Dr. Caird "begins quietly, but in a manner which is full of earnestness and feeling; every word is touched with just the right kind and degree of emphasis; many single words, and many little sentences which, when you read them do not seem very remarkable, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... Stephens' to manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought, with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay. Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither—never. At times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; Stephens would quibble over the niceties of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... the formal business-meeting to discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband, Mrs. Potbury's income, Mrs. Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's residence, Mrs. Potbury's oratorical style, Mrs. Potbury's mandarin evening coat, Mrs. Potbury's coiffure, and Mrs. Potbury's altogether reprehensible influence on the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... "and you—you're a wonder!" Little O'Grady made a last sudden grab. "Oh, this, this!" He dropped the sheet and threw up both hands. Then, being still seated on the cot, he threw up both feet. Then he placed his feet upon the floor and rose on them and gave Ignace Prochnow a set oratorical appreciation of his qualities as a thinker and a draughtsman, and then, swept away by a sudden impulse to spread the news of this magnificent new "find" right under their own roof, he rushed downstairs to communicate his ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... ladies who gushed at him merely amused him, and received in return some charming compliment or other that rang as hollow as a kettle-drum. Politicians who came to him for their portraits were gently made to feel that their favourite oratorical attitude—which they inevitably assumed when asked to pose themselves quite naturally—was not really overwhelmingly effective, while royalties who perforce condescended to attend his studio—since he flatly declined to paint them in their palaces—found that he was inclined to overlook ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... far as it goes, but that is not very far. Will that content you? Decorate their graves with flowers and evergreens, and wreaths of pleasant things? Will that content you? Amuse them with your music, or the singing of your songs, or the letting off of your oratorical fireworks among their rotting corpses? Will that content you? Instruct them in doctrines, and rescues, and Salvations in which they have no share? Will that content you? No! No! No! A thousand times no! You won't be content with all that. God has sent you into this dark ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... animal creation. He may now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a height ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... public speaking is, with very little modification, the ideal of good conversation. The practical age in which we live demands a colloquial rather than an oratorical style of public speaking. A man who has something to say in conversation usually has little difficulty in saying it. If he presents the facts he will speak convincingly; if he is deeply in earnest he will speak persuasively; and if he be an educated man his speech ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... herald demands again. From a place directly before the Bema a well-known figure, the elderly general, Iphicrates, is rising. At a nod from the president, he mounts the Bema and assumes the myrtle. He has not Timon's smooth tones nor oratorical manner. He is a man of action and war, and no tool of the Agora coteries. A salvo of applause greets him. Very pithily he observes that Byzantium will be safe enough if the city will only be loyal to the Athenian alliance. Athens ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... audience more than half of which is composed of women, and entirely disposed in my favour, I always appeal not so much to the mind as to the sensitive and truthful heart. Fortunately I possess a certain oratorical power, and the customary effects of the oratorical art, to which all preachers, beginning in all probability with Mohammed, have resorted, and which I can handle rather cleverly, allow me to influence my hearers in the desired direction. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... the press. Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of "beards," if it can be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment. But they are all delighted with it, for the title of "political convict" is one very much in demand among the irreconcilables. They are all convinced that the time is near when they will overthrow the Empire, without ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... argumentation, frank, at least in seeming, bland, persuasive; always singularly respectful not only to the House, but to the humblest member of it; his speeches partook more of the lecture and less of oratorical display than those of most other public men with anything like his reputation; but they were admirably suited to an educated and deliberative assembly like the House of Commons—and hence he influenced—almost ruled it, as no other man did before or since. Knowing ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Leti, whom the Italians, very justly, call 'Leti caca libro'. But I would rather that you chose some pieces of oratory for your translations, whether ancient or modern, Latin or French, which would give you a more oratorical train of thoughts and turn of expression. In your letter to me you make use of two words, which though true and correct English, are, however, from long disuse, become inelegant, and seem now to ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... who rarely wasted her culture on Pop. "What didn't you understand? Could anything be clearer than this? Listen!" She read in an oratorical voice: ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... was to have an oratorical question taken literally, Madam's curiosity prompted her ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Doctor's religious duties. The privilege was gracefully acknowledged by all our friends. We were away from Washington, too, a great deal. In the spring of this year, 1901, the Doctor made a lecturing tour through the South, that was full of oratorical triumphs for him, but no less marked by delightful social incidents. There was a series of dinners and receptions in his honour that I shall never forget, in those beautiful homes of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Because of his Gospel pilgrimage of many years in these places, Dr. Talmage had ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... in Parliament Fields. Each of them is cased in a cylindrical frock-coat, and each carries either a scroll or a dubious-looking garment over the arm that might be either a bathing-towel or a light great-coat. Each of them is in an oratorical attitude, which has all the disadvantage of being affected without even any of the advantages of being theatrical. Let no one suppose that such abortions arise merely from technical demerit. In every line ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... basis. All oratorical values are measured primarily from the standpoint of the "what;" the "how" is important, too, but only in its relation to the "what" and "wherefore." The voice of the orator must be an influence—a sincere vibration of the motive ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... age, designing for the Church. But the old eternal creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when he had completed his studies, got for a testimonium that he had distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wrtemberg. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... fortunately for him, is falling into ruin in several places. We must also count on the manifesto which Charles de Sallenauve has just issued, in which he openly declares that he will accept neither favors nor employment from the government. So that, really, taking into consideration his own oratorical talent, the support of the Opposition journals both here and in Paris, the insults and calumnies which the ministerial journals are already beginning to fire upon him, I feel great hopes of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... flaws,—let us hope at great distances apart:—that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: 'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches, Don't fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'—mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene. But we hope ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... that whatever may be the distresses of the people, they shall not be gratified at the cost of one of the despotic privileges of the aristocracy. Go to!—I will have none of him. As to Lesborough, he is a fool and a boaster—who is always puffing his own vanity with the windiest pair of oratorical bellows that ever were made by air and brass, for the purpose of sound and smoke, 'signifying nothing.' Go to!—I will ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up a new supply of oratorical energy, and an official gravity beneath which his legs trembeled. "Name shis town's London. Shame name's big town 'cross ocean. Lots history c'nected wish name. Shtacks an' cords of it. Old times when King went out t'meet him, wish shtyle pile on bigger'n a haystack. ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... her best oratorical manner, "you certainly did give us a surprise party tonight, much more of a one than you planned. We came prepared to rescue Eeny-Meeny from a fiery death—witness the water buckets concealed behind every bush on the hillside—and we find some perfectly gorgeous council seats that ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... with an oratorical wave of his free hand: "The Church opens her arms to all—even to her who sinned much because she loved much, who, through woful years, searched the world for her child and found it not—hidden away, as it was, by the duplicity of sinful man"—and so on through tangled sentences, setting ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... after which he sat for Malton until his final retirement from public life. Under the administration of Lord North (1770-1782) the American war went on from bad to worse, and it was in part owing to the splendid oratorical efforts of B. that it was at last brought to an end. To this period belong two of his most brilliant performances, his speech on Conciliation with America (1775), and his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777). The ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... great treatise, referring to what was all-essential in oratorical delivery, according to Demosthenes, Tully, by a bold and luminous phrase, declares Action to be, as it were, the speech of the body,—"quasi sermo corporis." Voice, eyes, bearing, gesture, countenance, each in turn, all of them together, are to the spoken ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... was carried through merely by the energetic advocacy of Senators McDonald, Sargent and Hoar, whose oratorical efforts were reenforced by the presence of Mrs. Lockwood. After the struggle was over, all the senators who advocated the bill were made the recipients of bouquets, while the three senators whose names we have given received large baskets of flowers. This is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... dear mamma," said Rose, kissing her: "so don't be oratorical, darling mammy; because we are ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not following this conversation with any particular interest. Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three laughed and looked ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... more durable material, the conception is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to oratorical powers in general. He, at least, never betrayed his clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... in a near scream. What a waste of oratorical and perhaps organizational energy, I mused as I strode along rapidly, still intent on escaping the fanatic. Under different circumstances, I thought, a man like this might turn out to be a capable clerk or minor executive. Suddenly I ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... time conversation was fragmentary again. But presently Mr. Voules rose from his chair again; he had subsided with a contented smile after his first oratorical effort, and produced a silence by renewed hammering. "Ladies and gents," he said, "fill up for the second toast:—the happy Bridegroom!" He stood for half a minute searching his mind for the apt phrase that came at last in a rush. "Here's (hic) ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... a wonderful example of the different styles of oratory of which each was master; Clay, of declamation, invective, wit, humor and bitter sarcasm; Calhoun of clear statement and close reasoning. This contest, aside from its oratorical power, deserves a place in history. In answer to Clay's attack on his life he replied: "I rest my public character upon it, and desire it to be read by all ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... triumph to the rue St. Honore, where he lodges with the carpenter Duplay.—Here, in one of those families in which the semi-bourgeois class borders on the people, whose minds are unsophisticated, and on whom glittering generalities and oratorical tirades take full hold, he finds his worshippers; they drink in his words; they have the same opinion of him that he has of himself; to every person in the house, husband, wife and daughter, he is the great patriot, the infallible sage; he bestows benedictions ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... you, Carson," the young lieutenant was saying in an oratorical manner, "that they magnify the dangers of the wilderness. The ford at which we were to meet Colden is just ahead, and we've come straight to it without the slightest mishap. Colden is no sluggard, and he should be here in the morning at the latest. Do you find anything wrong with ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a spoon making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago obtained an oratorical point for an eloge, which he delivered to the French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the kettle. The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has been made the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... hissing trough of foam. Now and again he would pause in front of his companion, and talk in a rapid, playful, and even eloquent fashion for a minute or two; and then, apparently a trifle annoyed by the slow and patient attention which greeted his oratorical efforts, would start off once more on his unsteady journey up and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... beyond the reader's previous status of thought and education. The spiritual rostrum should be the sphere of instruction alike to listener and reader,—not the school in which unfledged and half-developed mediums seek to entertain their audiences by practicing the A B C of the oratorical art." ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... They thirsted for tumult and conspiracy. Though they had belonged to the army of Conde and had shared in the late attempts against the life of the Emperor, that magnanimous sovereign had erased their names from the list of emigres. This was the return they made for his clemency! In short, all the oratorical declamations of the Bourbons against the Bonapartists, which in our day are repeated against the republicans and the legitimists by the Younger Branch, flourished in the speech. These trite commonplaces, which might have some meaning under a fixed government, seem farcical ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... their eyes a romantic aspect. Even that group of philosophers of the Cote Gauche, who refused to worship any force but the force of reason, began to look upon him with a respect and consideration which no oratorical triumphs ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... from the awkwardness of feeling the full weight of his conversation addressed to herself, enjoyed it much more; and the good knight, encouraged by those conciliating marks of approbation from the sex, for whose sake he cultivated his oratorical talents, made speedy intimation of his purpose to be more communicative than he had shown himself in his conversation with Halbert Glendinning, and gave them to understand, that it was in consequence of some pressing danger that he was at ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the leaves of his pleadings. It was supposed, and he took care never to contradict it, that he had been seized with a hemorrhage. It is scarcely necessary to add, that he was not in a state to speak at the trial, and that all his oratorical preparations were thrown away. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... me, while I write, one of his latest oratorical efforts, entitled "Bricks Without Straw." It was delivered to one of the largest audiences that ever crowded into the great tabernacle, is considerably above the Talmagian average, was evidently regarded as one of his ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... had been a colleague of Mr. Wilmot in the county of York, was defeated at the general election, but soon afterwards became a member of the House. Mr. Fisher had not the oratorical gifts possessed by Mr. Wilmot, but he was even stronger in his Liberal views, and as a constitutional lawyer he had no equal, at that time, in the province. Although his manners were somewhat uncouth and his address far from polished, Fisher had strong ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... 58 (a.u. 811)] [Sidenote:—10—] Subsequent to this, oratorical contests took place, and as a result even of these numbers were exiled and put to death.—Seneca also was held to account, one of the charges against him being that he was intimate with Agrippina. [It had not been enough for him to debauch Julia, nor had he become better as a result ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollanden established himself in an oratorical pose on a great weather-beaten stone. "Well—you must understand—I started my career—my career, you understand—with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I have ended in being an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, and a juggler of comic paragraphs, there ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... some communist association in America. They act like the barrister who does not see in the counsel for the opposite side a representative of a cause, or an opinion contrary to his own, but a simple nuisance,—an adversary in an oratorical debate; and if he be lucky enough to find a repartee, does not otherwise care to justify his cause. Therefore the study of this essential basis of all Political Economy, the study of the most favourable ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... to display his oratorical powers, he went in the evenings to the quarter of the Augustins, where the spinning-women assembled, surrounded by their boys and girls. There he related to them his pleasant narratives, and recited his ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... been goaded into thirst for blood, when their shrunken bodies should have been clamouring for healthy food,—Marguerite thus absorbed, had totally forgotten her earlier prejudices and now completely failed to note all that was unreal, stagy, theatrical, in the oratorical declamations of the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... tactfully spoke the honeyed words, always so agreeable to the Tribune's editor.[913] Perhaps no one in the State possessed a more pleasing personality. He made other people as happy as he was himself. To this charm of manner were added a singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College. From the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life. He had an unfailing readiness, a wide knowledge of affairs, a keen ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... years. His death was a serious loss to the anti-slavery Democrats of Massachusetts and the country. He was one of the three distinguished men that the county of Essex has produced in his century: Choate, Cushing and Rantoul. In oratorical power he could not be compared to Choate. In learning he was of the three the least well equipped. In logic he was superior to Cushing, and he was more direct, and more easily comprehended than either Cushing or Choate. He had not much imagination, and his illustrations were simple and rather ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... in the Reichstag on April 29, 1881: "You must be something of a poet if you wish to be a good orator, and you must possess the gift of improvisation. When I was younger there were public entertainments in which music alternated with oratorical improvisations. The improvisator was given a theme of which he knew nothing, and on which he discoursed, often brilliantly. It even happened that he was altogether convincing until we remembered where we were. I am merely saying this to show that we should not entrust the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... believe, that I have not been altogether weaned of the potentates and powers I abjured when I crossed the water to become a member of his family. Not that he greatly cares. Potentates and powers, emperors, kings, princes, are treasured words in his oratorical vocabulary—he could not very well do without them. He is a democrat, and he declares that in the presence of hereditary majesties, he would most resolutely refuse to bend the knee. No doubt he would, and his instinct is correct aesthetically as well as morally. ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... she knew now, if she unfolded it, she would turn immediately to the local pages and search for Warrington's speech. She read it, and she hated herself for admiring it. The self-lie was not among Patty's failings. There was no denying that Warrington's speech was a good oratorical effort; every line of it rang sound and true; but that might be a trick of the trade. He could make thieves and villains on the stage speak glibly and plausibly; certainly he could do as much for himself. One thing she could not deny him, and that was ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... which suffering France implores the nobles, the clergy, the people to show some pity for her miserable state. If Froissart had not discerned the evils of the feudal system, they were patent to the eyes of Alain Chartier. His Livre de l'Esperance, where the oratorical prose is interspersed with lyric verse, spares neither the clergy nor the frivolous and dissolute gentry, who forget their duty to their country in wanton self-indulgence; yet his last word, written at the moment when ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Young stood a contested election. His grace discovered in him talents for oratory, as well as for poetry. Nor was this judgment wrong. Young, after he took orders, became a very popular preacher, and was much followed for the grace and animation of his delivery. By his oratorical talents he was once in his life, according to the Biographia, deserted. As he was preaching in his turn at St. James's he plainly perceived it was out of his power to command the attention of his audience. This so affected the feelings of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... use cordials. It may well be supposed that his voice was faint, that his action was languid, and that his speech, though occasionally brilliant and impressive, was feeble when compared with his best oratorical performances. But those who remembered what he had done, and who saw what he suffered, listened to him with emotion stronger than any that mere eloquence can produce. He was unable to stay for the division, and was carried away from the House amidst shouts as loud as those which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... energetic and forceful. People, listening to Young, rocked with laughter and revelled in applause as he pilloried his opponents, the ferocity of his attacks being surpassed only by the eloquence of his periods. With Clinton, speaking was serious business. He lacked the oratorical gift and the art of concealing the labour of his overwrought and too elaborate sentences; but his addresses afforded ample evidence of the capacity and richness of his mind. In spite of great faults, both candidates commanded the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... is but one instance of a universal law. All teachers, the more genuine they are, the more sympathetic they are, are the more sensitive of their environment. The very oratorical temperament places a man at the mercy of surroundings. All earnest work has ever travelling with it as its shadow seasons of deep depression; and the Christian teacher does not escape these. I am not going to speak about myself, but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... you are now a speech-maker by profession. Now that you are in Congress, you will never be free from the oratorical liability. Wherever two or three are gathered together, and you are one of them, you'll have to return thanks, and wave the glorious flag of our country. And you'll ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... it might have been, was never completed nor administered, for his emotions becoming too much for him to hold in check, Palmer Billy sprang upon Gleeson, and gave vent to his feelings in a manner which was more satisfying to him than a mere oratorical outburst. Had he been allowed to complete his intention, the future career of Gleeson would not have been connected with mining swindles. For a time Peters and Tony, neither being predisposed in favour of Gleeson, stood by watching the chastisement ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... These are all neighbors of ours, living in the court, or close by. We have been having a right merry time, and now we can't break up without bringing you our good wishes,—our Christmas good wishes, and our birthday good wishes," said Miss Pix, with a little oratorical flourish, which brought Gretchen to the front with her illuminated cake, which she positively could not have held another moment, so heavy had it grown, even for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... skill, of ivory, of ebony, of marble, but all false gods. Let them worship in future the true God, our Father, as He is in heaven and in the beneficent labors of His children on earth. Then farewell to the siren song of a worldly ambition! Farewell to the vain desire of mere literary success or oratorical display! Farewell to the distempered longings for office! Farewell to the dismal, blood-red phantom of martial renown! Fame and glory may then continue, as in times past, the reflection of public opinion; but of an opinion sure and steadfast, without change ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... copiousness and fertility of illustration. Nothing could be more unlike this normal legal manner than the style of Bacon. "No man," says Ben Jonson, speaking in one of those vivid little notes of his, of his oratorical method, "no man ever coughed or turned aside from him without loss." He is a master of the aphoristic style. He compresses his wisdom into the quintessential form of an epigram; so complete and concentrated is his form of statement, so shortly is everything put, that the mere transition ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... a verbatim note taken fifteen years ago of a speech delivered in the House of Commons by Sir Walter, which faintly echoes an oratorical style whose master is no longer with us. It lacks the inconsequential emphasis, the terrific vigour of the gesture, and the impression conveyed by the speaker's intense earnestness, that really, by-and-by, he would say something, which compelled the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... your hearers half so much, as the utterance of a string of commonplaces, after you have once secured their attention. The richness of the dessert should come at the close, not at the beginning, of the oratorical feast. ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... opened with Alexander, when he yet wished to seem averse to war, resembled those oratorical paraphrases which do not prevent us from coming to the conclusion we wish. The two Emperors equally desired war; the one with the view of consolidating his power, and the other in the hope of freeing himself from a yoke which threatened to reduce him to a state of vassalage, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the counsel and Court entirely withdrawn from him, thought he perceived here his opportunity, turning and beaming upon the jury, he began simply to talk, but as the grandeur of his position grew upon him —talk broadened unconsciously into an oratorical vein. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner |
