"Topic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recurred to his letters, which were a larger pack than usual this morning, chatting all the time with Wealdon and me on the tremendous topic, and tossing aside every letter that did not bear on ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... London, and close every club from Charing Cross to Hyde Park Corner. We should all have been immortal in paragraphs without number. Coroners, surgeons, poets, and special juries, would have made their reputation out of us; and for a month of hot weather, we should have been a refreshing topic in the mouths of mankind. But it was otherwise decreed: the shell dropped within a foot of the steamer, and we were quittes pour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... carefully avoided any personal topic and talked about Canadian farming, sitting silent when he could, while Muriel gazed about with pleasurable curiosity. It is never quite dark on those wide levels in summertime, and, for there was no moon, the prairie stretched away before them shadowy, silent, and mysterious. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... to talk to her of the country, for here she had touched on a topic which was dear to him. He knew all about the birds and beasts, the forests and the meadows, and being unused to the art of hypocritical interest, he took for real sympathy the lady's vapid exclamations of enthusiasm, with which she broke in now and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. I am sure it is true as to every thing political, and shall endeavor to estrange myself to every thing of that character. I indulge myself on one political topic only, that is, in declaring to my countrymen the shameless corruption of a portion of the Representatives in the first and second Congresses, and their implicit devotion to the treasury. I think I do good in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and consequently having completed their education, it was now their duty, as members of society, to instruct and not to study; and on all occasions they seized opportunities of assisting the spread of knowledge. The voices of boys lecturing upon every lecturable topic, resounded in every part of the island. Their tones were so shrill, their manners so presuming, their knowledge so crude, and their general demeanour so completely unamiable, that it was impossible to hear them without the greatest, delight, advantage, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... Maurice launched out into his usual topic—convict discipline. It was pleasant for him to get a listener; for his wife, cold and unsympathetic, tacitly declined to enter into his schemes for the subduing of the refractory villains. "You insisted on coming here," she would say. "I did not wish to come. I don't like to talk of these ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... prayse you Great Prince, but having begun; where shall I make an end? since there remains not a Topic through all that kind, but one might write Decads of it, without offending the truth, were it as secure of your modesty; since I am as well to consider what your ears can suffer, as what is owing to your Virtues: On what heads shall I extend then ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... the night held so much of appeal to me that I felt annoyed at the current of my thoughts being turned back to the topic. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... a pasture and she had hastily climbed a fence. I get a good many suggestions first and last. I was once taken to a Turkish bath for no other reason—as I was afterwards told—than that it might supply me with a topic. Odd books have been put in my way. A basket of school readers was once lodged with me, with a request that I direct my attention to the absurd selection of the poems. I have been urged to go against car conductors and customs men. On one occasion I received a paper of tombstone ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... tower smouldered the whole of the next day; though the walls still stood, gaunt and grim, windowless and gutted by the fire. But the building was covered by insurance, and even the loss of the tapestries seemed more than compensated by the fact that an absorbing topic of general interest had been provided in a ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... astonishing than the absence of opposition and panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world—but pre-eminently Rations,—seemed more vital and more pressing. "The Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm sure James Lowther won't allow them to ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... in discussing the topic with Olympia—seemed made for such a climate, rather than made by it. They would have been out of place in the bleak autumn blasts, and wan, colorless seasons of Acredale, where the sun, bleary and dim, furtively skirted the low horizon from November until April, as if ashamed to be identified with ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... de Vergennes, as a particular favor, that he would permit me to wait on him some day that week. He did so, and I went to Versailles the Friday following, (the 9th of December.) M. de Reyneval was with the Count. Our conversation began with the usual topic; that the trade of the United States had not yet learned the way to France, but continued to centre in England, though no longer obliged by law to go there. I observed, that the real cause of this was to be found in the difference of the commercial arrangements in the two ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... breakfast, there was but one topic of conversation. Indeed, little else had been talked of for days but the Schuyler case and all ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... belief, since but for the shedding of that wine and its sudden effect upon him, it is likely we had witnessed a shedding of blood. Thus, was the ill-timed pleasantry of my feather-brained La Fosse tided over in comparative safety. But the topic being raised was not so easily abandoned. Mademoiselle de Lavedan grew to be openly discussed, and even the Count's courtship of her came to be hinted at, at first vaguely, then pointedly, with a lack of delicacy for which I can but blame the wine with ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... topic,' began Herbert, who had been watching Pip's table manners for some little time, 'by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth—for fear of accidents—and that while the fork is reserved for that use it is not put further in ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... origins of the belief in spirits. Chapters ix.-xvii., again, criticise the current anthropological theory as to how, the notion of spirit once attained, man arrived at the idea of a Supreme Being. These two branches of the topic are treated in most modern works concerned with the Origins of Religion, such as Mr. Tyler's "Primitive Culture," Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Mr. Jevons's "Introduction to the History of Religion," ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... fire, which is the chief of destroyers when it escapes bounds, or is misused; but, in its right place and function, is among the most indispensable of blessings. But to enlarge upon this thought would carry us too far from the immediate topic; nor is it desirable to follow with the feeble flight of our imagination the heaven-embracing orbit of this theme. A hint is all that can be given, which each must follow out for himself. We have only attempted to indicate what regions await the genius of the new Columbus; nor does the conjecture ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... that I had given the information. He transferred the information to the captain, and presently the steward came and beckoned me to follow him down to his cabin, remarking that nobody would see me. I saw the captain, and told him what I knew of the matter. The robbery continued to be the sole topic of talk the rest of the journey. Clearing the coast of Fife, we soon came in sight of Edinburgh, and, sailing up the Forth, we finally landed at Leith. It was Sunday afternoon, and there were large numbers of people about to watch us land. The majority of the people ran for the first pier, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... cause domestic service in America has had less of mutual kindliness than in old countries. Its terms have been so ill understood and defined that both parties have assumed the defensive; and a common topic of conversation in American female society has often been the general servile war which in one form or another was going on in their different families,—a war as interminable as would be a struggle between aristocracy and common people, undefined by any bill of rights or constitution, and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Next became the topic of eulogium the gallantry of those who had been worsted in all but their honor, and all spoke with admiration of the devotedness of the two unfortunate officers who had perished in the trenches— a subject which, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... great wants across the top of a page, as suggested in the fifth topic on page 6, and arrange the list of organizations suggested in the last question above in the proper columns according to ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... account of the topic under discussion. That the highest Self only can be the eater referred to is moreover evident from the passage (Ka. Up. I, 2, 18), ('The knowing Self is not born, it dies not'), which shows that the highest Self is the general topic. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... suddenly altering her course on her own account, and with a wild plunge settling down, and making THAT voyage with a crew of dead discoverers. Now, too, one recalls an almost universal tendency on the part of passengers to stumble, at some time or other in the day, on the topic of a certain large steamer making this same run, which was lost at sea, and never heard of more. Everybody has seemed under a spell, compelling approach to the threshold of the grim subject, stoppage, discomfiture, and pretence of never having been near it. The boatswain's whistle sounds! ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Ball.' Even famous shipowners were celebrated in song, as witness 'Mr. John Tapscott,' in 'We're all bound to go.' (5) Love affairs, in which 'Lizer Lee' and other damsels constantly figured, were an endless topic. (6) But chiefly did Jack sing of affairs connected with his ship. He never sang of 'the rolling main,' 'the foaming billows,' 'the storm clouds,' etc. These are the stock-in-trade of the landsman; they were too real for the sailor ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... school unearthing problems relating to the chemistry of food for her class the next day. If, on the other hand, you go into a classroom you will find the shop is brought into the classroom just as the classroom has been brought into the shop. For instance, in a certain English class the topic assigned for papers was "a model house" instead of "bravery" or "the increase of crime in cities," or "the landing of the Pilgrims." The boys of the class had prepared papers on the architecture and construction of a model house, while ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... college was a great deal more cordial after the Rotunda meeting than it had ever been before. For a while the battle which had been fought at their doors superseded the remoter South African warfare as a topic of conversation among the students. Their sympathies were with Augusta Goold. Even members of the divinity classes suffered themselves to be lured from their habitual worship of respectability so far as to ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... told in Samarinda," I remarked carelessly, by way of introducing the topic in which I was most interested, "that some of the native girls here in Bali ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... found myself brought face to face with the strange phenomenon of demon possession. There is so much to be said on this interesting topic, that it will require a chapter under its own heading to note even a portion of what has come under my personal notice. For the first time I heard, often in the midnight stillness, the high-pitched voice, intoning the magic incantations whereby some young woman yielded herself to be the medium ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... share the general satisfaction, and give praise to those good and able men, Mr. Tuke, Dr. Hitch, Dr. Corsellis, Dr. Conolly, Dr. de Vitre, Dr. Charlesworth and many more, who had brought all their high moral and intellectual qualities to bear on this topic, and had laboured to make rational and humane treatment to be the rule and principle of the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... be rather alarmed at a lawyer beginning this topic, and will expect to hear pages of "Starkie on Libel," or to have all the perorations of Erskine's speeches recited to you. For one terrible moment I feel I have you in my power; but I scorn to take advantage of the position. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... rather a noisy meal, and Sarah's best attempt at ham and eggs, vanished in the most practical appreciation, that five young college students can show when hungry. They discussed the recent topic of Sleepy Cottage over their cold apple pie and strawberries and cream, and they all decided that it was the most romantic thing in the world, that they should be just brought to the gates of the prison wherein pined a ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, and in the large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, the production of a new opera is considered a national event, forming for many days previous to its production the chief topic of conversation in salons and caffes. No such enthusiasm is manifested in regard to the first representation of a new play; and although the house may be crowded and the author called before the curtain, he may deem himself happy if his drama is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... reasserted Grindley junior. "I am—" Grindley junior was about to add "well educated"; but divining that education was a topic not pleasing at the moment to the ears of Helvetia Appleyard, had tact enough to substitute "not a fool. I can earn my own living; and I should like to ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... religious dogmas. Paine's merit was that he had attacked paper money. To Cobbett, as to Paine, it seemed that English banknotes were going the way of French assignats and the provincial currency of the Americans. This became one main topic of his tirades, and represented, as he said, the 'Alpha and Omega' of English politics. The theory was simple. The whole borough-mongering system depended upon the inflated currency. Prick that bubble and the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... him now, she thought, with equanimity—nay, rather wished to do so, to make sure that she had not been guilty of weakness in regard to him. She looked up, but was glad to see her aunt still engaged in conversation with the Bishop on a topic which Amelie knew was dear to them both,—the care of the souls and bodies of the poor, in particular those for whom the Lady de Tilly felt herself responsible to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... He promptly changed the topic, and began to speak of the march past. "I want to see Lord Starcross," he added. "I have no idea what a ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... religious criticism, and express particular anxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly theological.' Their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour to keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. And yet seldom does a day pass in which this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated—a fact significant, as any fact can be of connection between religion ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... son. Pity from a girl when you want something else from her is like apple pie minus the apple. It's pretty dry fodder. But say," Elijah abruptly changed the topic of talk, "What about Walter Douglas? He's a likely fellow, isn't he? Bound to ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... suggestive than doctors, even when Franklin was one of them. When Paine came to America, he found the dispute with England the all-absorbing topic. The atmosphere was heavy with the approaching storm. The First Congress was in session in the autumn of that year. On the 17th of September, John Adams felt certain that the other Colonies would support Massachusetts. The Second Congress met in May, 1775. During ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... DE SAINT-GERMAIN, the recognized leading authority on all occult subjects. A plain, practical thorough work on this all absorbing topic. Over 100 illustrations. Cloth, special cover in colors, $1.00 Paper, lithographed cover ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... day. In the evening, as Harrington and myself were conversing in the library, I availed myself of a pause in the conversation to break the ice in relation to the topic which lay nearest my ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... however, with unvarying tenderness, did his best in every way to calm her fears. Though no word on the subject passed between them directly, he let her feel with singular tact that he meant to keep himself under proper control. Whenever a dangerous topic cropped up in conversation, he would look across at her affectionately, with a reassuring smile. "For Cleer's sake," he murmured often, if she was close by his side; "for Cleer's sake, dearest!" and his wife, mutely grateful, knew at once what he ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... feeling their constrained insignificance. However, in a house so full of bright-eyed children, with mothers and sisters of all ages as their confederates, the secret was soon out, and before Agricola had left his little cottage in the grove the topic of all tongues was the abysmal treachery and ingratitude of negro slaves. The whole tribe of Grandissime believed, this morning, in the doctrine ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... our disposal, it is impossible to satisfy the curiosity of the reader on this very curious and interesting topic. A few remarks, however, may serve to broadly indicate the chief causes of this astonishing fact, taken apart from the miraculous intervention of God ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... "that I am rather good at poisoning people's minds against their undesirable friends." She paused, debating how long it would take her to separate Mathilde from the Wayne boy; and recalling that this was no topic for an invalid, she smiled at him ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... one natural history topic per chapter, be it a plant, a tree or an animal. There are various perils that have to be overcome—the upas tree, an ourang-outang, a tree that drops its fruit like a heavy bomb, a python, and quite a ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... neglected of late. The parcels actually did cease coming, and the two conspirators hugged themselves with delight that it had not been necessary to tell their secret so no one knew what sillies they were. By common consent they barred chain letters as a topic of conversation, and had almost forgotten the hateful packages when one morning Peace received a letter from Miss Truman, still a teacher in the Parker School, saying that she had just mailed a large box addressed ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... sat by the open window, the poet's own life and its prospects formed the principal topic of conversation. After years of toil in London his fortunes were beginning at length to improve. He was manager of a theatre, and was at length earning a moderate competency. He had already saved a little money, and hoped soon to buy a house at Stratford. He looked forward some ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... next observation was apparently quite unconnected with the topic. "You were a raw colt when I got you, Payne, and the bit galled you now and then, but you had good hands on a bridle, and somebody who knew his business had taught you to sit a horse in the old country. Still, ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... not our later time Yields topic meet for classic rhyme? Hast thou no elegiac verse For Brunswick's venerable hearse? What! not a line, a tear, a sigh, When valour bleeds for liberty? Oh, hero of that glorious time, When, with unrivalled light sublime - Though martial Austria, and though all The might of Russia, and the ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... Each topic is treated in a concise manner, the aim being to embody in each publication as completely as possible all the rudimentary information and essential facts necessary to an understanding of the subject. ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... suspicion of my design. To give to this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... of what the actual questions were to be. But it was the merest self-deception. Each question was branded in fiery letters on his recollection, and he found that, as he read, he was skipping involuntarily every topic which he knew had not been touched on in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... a remark on Virgil which Addison had given him he discovered himself. It is, indeed, not easy for any man to write upon literature or common life so as not to make himself known to those with whom he familiarly converses, and who are acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topic, his peculiar ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... always been a favorite topic for the speculation of those philosophers who derive a large part of national character from geographical conditions. A land that needed reclaiming from the sea by hard labor, a country situated at those two great outlets ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the individual limitations of the enthusiast. What is good for HIMSELF he too often deems is applicable to the general public, instead of wisely understanding that what is good for THEM must be good for himself. But," said the Senor lightly, "we are again transgressing. We were to choose another topic. Let it be yourself, Mr. Hurlstone. You are looking well, sir; indeed, I may say I never saw you looking so well! Let me congratulate you. Health is the right of youth. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... acuteness. "No, sir, he is not well shaped; for there is not the quick transition from the thickness of the fore-part to the tenuity—the thin part—behind, which a bulldog ought to have." On the more serious topic of politics his Jacobite fulminations roused Taylor "to a pitch of bellowing." Johnson roared out that if the people of England were fairly polled (this was in 1777) the present king would be sent away to-night, and his adherents hanged ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... because he was so submissively subservient to all constituted authority. He tries to distinguish between different kinds of liberty, and the especial attention which he devotes to America shows how live a topic the great republic was at that time in the Islands. This interest is explained by the fact that an American company had just then received a grant of the northern part of Borneo, later British North Borneo, for a trading company. It was believed that the United States had designs on the Archipelago ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... exactly an equal or a finished preacher for highly educated ears, but that sort of transparent candour which he has makes him very affecting when on his favourite topic, the inexhaustible love of God. His face when he quotes—"The Son of God Who loved Me and gave Himself for Me," is like a man showing the Rock he has clung to ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Polycarp, recognises the same topic, briefly indeed, but positively and precisely. "For this cause, (i. e. having felt and handled Christ's body at his resurrection, and being convinced, as Ignatius expresses it, both by his flesh and spirit,) they (i. e. Peter, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... Edouard's great delight, another hunt was proposed, and it furnished a topic for conversation during dinner and part of the evening. By ten o'clock, as usual, all had retired to their rooms, except Roland, who was in that ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of the Annonay and subsequent experiments in France rapidly spread all over Europe, and formed a topic of general discussion, still it was not till five months after the Montgolfiers had first publicly sent a balloon into the air that any aerostatic experiment was made in England. In November 1783 Count Francesco Zambeccari ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the conclusion that the pleasure to be derived from sleeping on a bed of spruce or hemlock boughs has been greatly overestimated by those who have written and spoken with such enthusiasm on the topic. To me the prickly, scratchy sensation imparted by contact with the evergreen was such as to counterbalance the delights of inhaling its ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... view the higher mathematics was the most imaginative of all the sciences; one might even say that its nature made it akin to the divine. When Casanova asked for further enlightenment upon a view so novel to him, Marcolina modestly declined to continue the topic, declaring that the others at table, and above all her uncle, would much rather hear some details of a newly recovered friend's travels than ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... of music, a tempest, a topic, an issue, dies. Expire (literally, to breathe out) is a softer word for die; it is used figuratively of things that cease to exist by reaching a natural limit; as, a lease expires; the time has expired. To perish (literally, in Latin, to ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... in which it does compound you may often wonder what these qualities are. She had not at any rate been successful: her lover was dead, her husband was liked and her children were pitied, for in payment for a topic London will parenthetically pity. It was thought interesting and magnanimous that Charles Tramore had not married again. The disadvantage to his children of the miserable story was thus left uncorrected, and this, rather oddly, was counted as HIS sacrifice. His mother, whose arrangements were ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... the post, I will say no more of him than that his bitter topic was the unreasonableness of humanity, which treated him graciously when he had a letter for it, but scowled at him when he had none, "aye implying that I ha'e a letter, but ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... natural and introductory topic of conversation between us. What we severally knew of Ireland, though in different quarters,—what we both knew of Laxton, the barbaric splendor, and the civilized splendor,—had naturally an interest for us both in their contrasts (at one time so picturesque, at another so grotesque), ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... proposal was not replied to by anyone. The loud shout that succeeded it sprang from a different cause; and the words that were afterwards uttered had no reference to the topic under consideration. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... moonlight upon it, stiffened into a mask-like reticence at this touching upon the sensitive topic which threatened his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... light remark about the pleasure of communing with Nature with a cold in her head, and the topic was dropped. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... at Anne's place in the country were spent solely in discussions of the great war. There was no other topic. The whole of the civilised world was talking of the stupendous conflict that had burst upon it like a crash out of a clear sky. George came home loaded down with the latest extras and all of the regular editions of ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... One topic that received deserved attention was the curse of deluging Africa with liquor by Christian nations, and the continued curse of the opium traffic which ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... in one respect the Bishop was a product of his age. Long previous to his day the nature of the soul had been so favourite and general a topic of discussion, that, when the students of the Italian Universities wished to know the leanings of a new Professor, they at once requested him to lecture upon the soul. About the time of Bishop Butler the question was ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... later, Rosamund returned to the topic. "N. F's picture," she wrote, "is evidently a great success—and you can imagine how I feel about it. I saw it, you remember, at an early stage, when he called it 'The Slummer,' and you remember too, the effect it had upon me. Oh, Bertha, this is nothing less ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... and surprise takes possession of the European who witnesses the joy which pervades all classes of the inhabitants of Lima on the announcement of a bull-fight. For several days the event is the exclusive topic of conversation, and, strange to say, the female portion of the population takes greater interest in it than the men. Bills notifying the approaching entertainment are stuck up at the corners of the streets; and every one is anxious to obtain ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... merchant vessels of this country by British cruisers, although not practiced in time of peace, and therefore not at present a productive cause of difference and irritation, has, nevertheless, hitherto been so prominent a topic of controversy and is so likely to bring on renewed contentions at the first breaking out of a European war that it has been thought the part of wisdom now to take it into serious and earnest consideration. The letter from ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Gladstone, who, having made this poet his hobby, tried to persuade himself and his readers that nearly everything relating not only to Homer, but to the characters he depicts, was next door to perfection. Confining ourselves to the topic that concerns us here, we read, in his Studies on Homer (II., 502), that "we find throughout the poems those signs of the overpowering force of conjugal attachments which ... we might expect." And in his shorter treatise on Homer he thus sums up his views as to the position and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... present purpose to weight this address with any attempt to say what the writer means when he tells them that, "The word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." I shall take the words of our text out of their context, and use them as a topic: "I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong." Strong in what sense? How may we give the words a useful setting, as a remembrancer and a call to ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... "but only in the day time." He withdrew his hand from the lamp, and looked round, to Guest's great delight; for he was taking an evident interest in the topic his friend had started, and his eyes roved from object ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... finished with a topic or section, other members of the party may give items of interest ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... the topic of "flying saucers" had caused considerable comment and concern to the present day scientists and indicated that he himself had a personal theory concerning the "flying saucers". Prior to advancing his own theory, remarked that immediately ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... contrary character. But as to rakes or libertines in general, I, who know them well, must be allowed, because of the mischiefs they have always in their hearts, and too often in their power, to do your sex, to add still a few more words upon this topic. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... constitutional objection to long letters. The only lengthy epistles that ever came from him were dictated and referred to matters of business. They all have one quality in common. As soon as he had concluded the discussion of the topic in mind he would immediately tell about the fortunes of his plays. He seldom failed to make a reference to the business that Maude Adams was doing (for her immense success was very dear to his heart), and he always commented on his own strenuous ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... no merely personal matters any more. All the little things were paths to the big things. There was no way of keeping herself detached. Even the seemingly isolated topic of the recent illness of the Bishop's wife led full upon the picture of other people she had been seeing that summer who ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents. There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence ...
— The Federalist Papers
... subject then—to something utterly apart from the murder and its mystery. For the one topic which filled his own mind was also the very one which he could not discuss with Bent. Had Cotherstone, had Mallalieu anything to do with Kitely's death? That question was beginning to engross all his attention: he thought more about it than about his schemes for a successful ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... the afternoon the deluge continued. Our unique topic of conversation was the marvel of how it could keep it up! We could not imagine more water falling were every stream and lake in the mountains to be lifted to the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... while in years they still are boys and girls. They think in terms which in old England only mature men and women use. They are not afraid of anything. The forest is their home. Hard work is their pleasure. Enterprises are the topic of their conversation. The spirit of adventure is bred into their hearts. What shall we say of this peculiar and heroic generation? May the Lord keep them in piety; otherwise, we, trusting in our ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... he was brought into constant intercourse with persons engaged in weaving and spinning, his inquisitive and strongly practical intelligence would in any case have been naturally led to take a keen interest in inventions which were a constant topic of conversation among the manufacturing population. The invention of the fly-shuttle by Kay of Bury had so greatly increased the demand for yarn that it became difficult to meet it merely by hand labor. A machine for carding cotton had been introduced ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... true," replied he; and then breaking off suddenly from the topic of conversation, remarked, "But I perceive, Mistress White, that you do not recognize your quondam friend. I hope you do not suffer prosperity to dampen your ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... gentlemen engaged in a discussion, in which the others also took part, each putting in a word of his own for effect; and the conversation on this topic soon became so tedious that many went away. But a little old man, who wore at the top of his prodigiously high forehead a pair of green spectacles, asked permission to speak in order to make an ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... of easy and attractive lessons, containing a large amount of practice upon each topic ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... criticism and poetry attained a high degree of excellence, while humour was in its infancy. Comedy is said to have been produced first in Sicily by Susarion in 564 B.C., but we have only two or three lines by which to judge of his work, and they are on the old favourite topic. "A wife is an evil, but you can't live in a house without one." As it is said his wife left him, it must be considered doubtful whether this was not meant seriously. He was succeeded by Epicharmus, whose humour seems to have ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... jump. If they can be reflected in "pure joy" in song we may indeed be sure that the outlet they are finding is a happy one. The subject is a very important one, but it leads us far afield from the present scheme. The reader who is interested may find further treatment of this topic in the present writer's "The Hidden Self, and its ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... for a less agreeable and important topic.—How came Mr. Mac-Somebody, without consulting you or me, to prefix the Address to his volume[59] of 'Dejected Addresses?' Is not this somewhat larcenous? I think the ceremony of leave might have been asked, though ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... immure himself; his re-appearance in society, which he had forsaken for more than a year, would have produced an immense sensation, and I should have been considered the first doctor in the Philippines. One day I touched upon this delicate topic. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... Jack Cockrell were of some assistance in explaining the marks and bearings of the channel, and Captain Bonnet consulted them over the chart unrolled upon the cabin table. He had made up his mind to sail the brig in and risk the hazards of shoal water. When he went on deck, Jack thought of a topic as thrilling as this imminent duel between ships and ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the tongue will itch with a desire to tell a secret. Miss Altifiorla's tongue did itch. But upon the whole she endured her suffering, and kept her promise. She did not say a word in Mr. Western's hearing which led to Sir Francis Geraldine as a topic of conversation. But in reward for this she exacted from Mrs. Western an undertaking to keep her at Durton Lodge for a fortnight. The bargain was not exactly struck in those words, but it was so made that Mrs. Western understood ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... circle of three assemble in their little sitting-room, after a frugal supper, tobacco is the Colonel's chief care, and becomes the first topic ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... ordeal. I felt miles apart from Marjorie. A great gulf filled with black-and-yellow cat lay between us. Once only the topic of the beast arose (on the subject of fish-bones) and just as I was becoming big and coarse again the maid entered with the joint. She must have heard what ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... who had come from St. Joseph stayed over night at the hotel where I put up. He was tall of stature, with a flowing beard sprinkled with gray, and was of a remarkably dignified and impressive presence. We conversed during the evening on general topics, but no allusion was made to the one exciting topic, on which almost all seemed ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... provoked the Emperor to exclaim: "Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the Prophet." A prudent explanation restored his tranquillity, and he passed to a more familiar topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadi. "Fifty years." "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here," continued Timur, "a poor, lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arms has the Almighty been pleased to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... her last night, as you wished. She is not well. Her nerves are still in an extremely weak state," Weirmarsh said, in order to change the topic of conversation. "I think you should send her abroad out of the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... no peculiarity, no importunate topic; but all is duly given; no views, no curiosities; no cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no discoverable egotism; the great he tells greatly; the small, subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... by the knowledge that his regiment, and therefore that he, had rendered conspicuous service in the dreadful conflict—a service which had actually made them, within the last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conversation in London—so absolutely was fear swallowed up in joy—that, in the mere simplicity of her fervent nature, the poor woman threw her arms round my neck, as she thought of her son, and gave to me the kiss which ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... topic which is typical of the general process. Divines never tire of holding up to us the example of Christ. If Christ were indeed a man like ourselves, his example may be fairly quoted. We willingly place him in the very front rank ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... of the whole Balkan question was her final contribution to the topic, for at this moment she became completely submerged, and cut off, so to speak, from the outer world, in the lucent depths of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... ladies of his harem, who in my trouble were sympathetic and tender. From that time forth the imperturbable Kralahome was ever courteous to me. Nevertheless, when from time to time I grew warm again on the irrepressible topic, he would smile slyly, tap the ashes from his pipe, and say, "Yes, sir! Never mind, sir! You not like, you can live in fish-market, sir!" The apathy and supineness of these people oppressed me intolerably. Never well practised in patience, I chafed at the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... until the Fastnet lighthouse showed above the horizon on the Cotopaxi's port bow that Earle reverted to the topic of his "scheme," although there had been ample opportunity for him to do so during the eastward run, he having privately so arranged matters with the purser that he and Cavendish were berthed in the same cabin during the voyage. But for reasons best ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... politics of the time as in everything else, and he and William Pressley had been discussing this subject at the moment of Ruth's appearance, which had interrupted their conversation. Philip Alston had forgotten the unfinished topic, but William Pressley had not. He, also, had been pleased to look on for a while at the girl's radiant delight; and he, also, had enjoyed the charming scene. But there was a lull now, and he at once turned back to the matter ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... foreign to the serious topic which had just been under discussion that everyone laughed in relief of the ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... of the infant; which subject we have not yet touched upon, having confined ourselves to the influence of the maternal mind over the form and color of the unborn child. It will not be necessary to illustrate at length this branch of our topic. Instances are sufficiently common and well known. Dr. Seguin of New York, in his work on Idiocy, gives several cases in which there was reason to believe that fright, anxiety, or other emotions in the mother, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... animation prevailed in the vast white-tiled servants' hall. The tone of the conversation varied at different tables, for the servants jealously observed a strict order of precedence among themselves, but the present topic was the same at all, the recent sensational robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and the Princess Sonia Danidoff. At one table, smaller than the rest, a party of upper servants sat, under-managers or heads ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... have all been relinquished ... she guards our coasts, she maintains our troops, she builds our forts, she spends hundreds of thousands among us yearly; and yet the paltry payment to her representative is made a topic of grumbling and popular agitation."[49] In the same spirit he fought annexation, and killed it, among his followers; and, when confederation came, he helped to make the new dominion not only Canadian, but British. In that age when British faith in the Empire ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... the most sorrowful reaction the political condition of Germany was so wretched that any discussion concerning it was gladly avoided. I do not remember having attended a single debate on that topic in the circles of the students with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in this book deal in like manner, from the point of view of a good-natured Tory of Queen Anne's time, with the feuds of the day between Church and Dissent. Other chapters unite with this topic a playful account of another chief political event of the time—the negotiation leading to the Act of Union between England and Scotland, which received the Royal Assent on the 6th of March, 1707; John Bull then consented to receive his "Sister Peg" into ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... he seemed to Luis de Leon's retrospicient eyes.[124] Yet it is very hard to believe that Zuniga was no more than twenty-three when he took it upon himself to cast doubts on the orthodoxy of Benito Arias Montano;[125] nor is it likely that Luis de Leon would discuss so delicate a topic with the most brilliant of youths. Let it not be said that the question of Zuniga's accuracy in stating his age is relatively unimportant. It is highly relevant; for, if Zuniga were capable of making a mistake on such a point, he was manifestly more liable to error ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... topic for conversation between a young man and woman on a ride through the wilderness. The man had never thought about prayer for so many minutes consecutively in the whole of his life; at least, not since the days when his nurse tried to teach ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... boys at the Hampton Institute have a debating society for the purpose of encouraging each other in speaking English. The topic for the first night, over which two exercised their powers in the new language was, "Shall we allow the white men in our reservation?" There is also a debating society among the ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... convulsions over the presidential campaign. There were no convulsions, however, where I was. It was painfully quiet. Everywhere, all over the broad land, except behind prison walls, politics was the all-absorbing topic. As I sat there in my solitude the question came to my mind as to what part of the great political play I would be engaged in were I a free man. Some months prior to this a petition signed by 5,000 people had been forwarded to President Cleveland for my pardon. Had I secured my liberty ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... because of the intense public interest in the course of affairs in Paris. Evidently the struggle had been much more savage than Ostrog had represented it. All the mechanisms were discoursing upon that topic, and the repetition of the people made the huge hive buzz with such phrases as "Lynched policemen," "Women burnt alive," "Fuzzy Wuzzy." "But does the Master allow such things?" asked a man near him. "Is this the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... chat drifted to the subject of assaying and refining the precious metals. That was just where one of the party, Mr. D.W. Baker, of Newark, was at home, and in the course of an impromptu lecture he told the party more about the topic under discussion, and especially the platinum branch of it, than they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... interrupted, while a look of tender pity gave new sweetness to her face. "But," with an evident wish to avoid a possibly painful topic, "one needn't be either, to take an interest in books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you think, the books, or ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... but the stranger, and the house, and her own chance of living there, all the rest of the day. In the afternoon she had occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a little shopping when she learnt that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common topic about the streets. High-Place Hall was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling, convinced that this must be carelessness, since it ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... should be there but the rector lying in wait for them and ready to walk up the hill by their side, and say a few kindly words at parting. Well might Mr. Verdant Green begin to regard himself as the topic of the village, and think that going to Oxford was really an affair ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... when the world was young? 23. By what fancy does he increase our interest in the mystery of the box? 24. Class readings: Select passages to be read aloud in class. 25. Outline for testing silent reading. Tell the story briefly in your own words, using the topic headings given in the story. 26. You will enjoy seeing the pictures in the edition of The Wonder-Book that is illustrated by the well known artist, Maxfield Parrish. 27. Find in the Glossary the meaning ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... she had been taught it well. Martie, insatiable on this particular topic, sometimes questioned Pauline. She was given a meagre picture of a farmhouse on Prince Edward's Island, of a stern, exacting, loving mother who "licked" daughters and sons alike with a "trace-end" for any infractions of domestic rule. Of snows so lasting and deep that housewives buried ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... very old now, poor lady; and the dreadfulest bore, when she gets upon Hanover and her experiences, and Queen Sophie Charlotte's, in that stupendously magnificent court under Gentleman Ernst. Shun that topic, if you love your peace of mind! [Memoires (above cited).]—She did certainly superintend the Boy Fritzkin for his first seven years; that is a glory that cannot be taken from her. And her pupil, too, we agreeably ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... rained all day and nothing of interest has happened. The ladies are clustered on the sheltered side of the veranda. Some are reading, others are engaged in fancy work. The leading topic of discussion is the coming of the Hardings—or rather a fruitless inquiry as to what gowns and how many Miss ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... last. Perhaps Bower wondered why she laughed and blushed at the recollection of her earlier determination to suppress von Eulenberg's "specimens" as a topic of conversation. Already the stiffness of their talk on board the steamship seemed to have vanished completely. It was really a pleasant way of passing the time to sit and chat in this glass palace while the train skimmed over a dull land of ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... magnificent dinners given by Cambaceres and others, which were a general topic of conversation at the time, and who knew the ingenious calculation which was observed in the invitation of the guests, must be convinced of the vast influence of a good dinner in political affairs. As to Cambaceres, he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... from cares and the shadows of sorrows; to have neither too much nor too little sunshine and rain, that is, to be properly fed; and to have good seed to put into the ground, that is, to engage the mind with a topic which it will expand and reproduce. After all these things have been secured, it is only a sort of barbaric husbandry that we have practised. The common and rude experience of men, laboring without thinking about their labor, teaches these things, and the very beginnings of the art and science of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... automobile, and the wireless telegraph, and we are unmoved by the spectacle of our fellow human beings in the grip of the first stages of golf fever. Far otherwise was it with the courtiers and officials about the Palace of Oom. The obsession of the King was the sole topic of conversation. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... From the general of engineers he received a request for suggestions for improvements in guns; and from his work on the subject of Naval Defenses it is plain that his mind still found time to run on this favorite topic. ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... alike in the advances De Quincey makes to the subject, the points taken up, and the general method of treatment, from the essay on Mr. Finlay's volumes which appears in the Collected Works. It would seem as though De Quincey, in such a topic as this, found it utterly impossible to exhaust the points that had suggested themselves to him on a careful reading of such a work, in the limits of one article; and that, in this case, as in some others, he elaborated a second article, probably with a view to finding a place for it in ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... amusements should be the more unbridled. You with a few servants undertook to direct and lead those dances. It is said that nothing is now talked of in Siena but your frivolity. Certain it is that here at the baths, where the concourse of ecclesiastics and laity is great, you are the topic of the day. Our displeasure is unutterable, since all this reflects dishonourably upon the sacerdotal estate and office. It will be said of us that we are enriched and promoted not to the end that we may lead blameless lives, but that we ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... down the river, the scene we had just witnessed was the topic of every conversation: the comparison with the Olympic-Hawke collision was drawn in every little group of passengers, and it seemed to be generally agreed that this would confirm the suction theory which was so ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... Hume's theory. But if you repeat the same walk to-morrow, the same landscape effect will almost certainly suggest a train of ideas quite different from that of to-day. Perhaps it may begin by reminding you of landscape effects in general; then of Mr. Ruskin, who has discoursed so eloquently on that topic, and next of Mr. Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' from whence it is equal chances whether your thoughts radiate, on one side of the compass, to stone china, or Stoney Stratford, or Stonewall Jackson, or, on the other, to the 'Venetian ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... and heard more about Dash. In fact, I myself started one long conversation on that topic with an idle lady who really had read every word. I went on to recommend it right and left. "You must read Dash," I said ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... escaping her. During the days that followed, Bela was the principal topic of conversation around the settlement. Her place became a general rendezvous for all the ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... to introduce one of the chief topics with which I have to deal—viz. the doctrine of Design in Nature, and thus the whole question of Natural Religion in its relation to Natural Science. In handling this topic I shall endeavour to take as broad and deep a view as I can of the present standing of Natural Religion, without waiting to show step by step the ways and means by which it has been brought into this position, by ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... the Saint-Savin family. Necessity and terror were the causes which led to this union. At a banquet given, two months after the marriage, to the Comte and Comtesse d'Herouville, a discussion arose on a topic which in those days of ignorance was thought amusing: namely, the legitimacy of children coming into the world ten months after the death of their fathers, or seven months ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... possible aid was given to the Maltese; who, it appears, had been shockingly neglected by the Neapolitan government. In a letter of the 27th, addressed to Sir William Hamilton, the indignant hero enlarges on this topic with a feeling and energy incomparably expressive of his ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... ill-natured; to others, the delightful laughter that ceases with youth, and in which in later years we are almost ashamed to indulge, seemed absurd, and they amused themselves at my expense. People may be bored nowadays, but none the less they expect you to treat every trivial topic with ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... common topic of conversation, and different reasons were assigned to it, according to the various interests of different parties. As for my part, I am very well persuaded that fear was the only reason of his flight, and that nothing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... tell. My life is very much the same. I have neither wife nor child. Until a man finds those, he's a most indifferent topic." ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... before it is too late, as many valuable documents bearing on the Negro are being destroyed for the reason that persons now possessing them do not know their value and the facilities for collection of such materials now afforded are inadequate. This topic was further discussed by Dr. C. V. Roman and Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones. Dr. Roman restricted his remarks largely to a definition of civilization to determine whether or not the Negro has made any contribution to it. After speaking of certain ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various |
