"Conversational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... following example of the New Poetry. It is taken from a collection entitled "Rhymes of the Ropes" These Rhymes are intended to illustrate the everyday life of the British prize-fighter, his simple joys, his manly sorrows, his conversational excellences, and his indomitable pluck. The author has never been a prize-fighter himself, but he claims for these Rhymes the merit of absolute truth in every detail. In any case it is quite certain that every critic ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892 • Various
... old empire were soon speaking the same conversational Latin which was everywhere used by the Romans about them.[21] This was much simpler than the elaborate and complicated language used in books, which we find so much difficulty in learning nowadays. The speech of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at home, though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then laying down her pen, got up and left ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... sprightliness and vivacity he displays in conversation—the life and soul of all that is elegant and classical, and the willing participator and promoter of a good joke. Suffice it to say, the reception was flattering in the extreme, the entertainment conversational and highly intellectual. The moments flew so quickly, that I could have wished the hour of eleven, the period of the King's retiring, had been extended to the noontide of the morrow. But is this all, I think I can hear you say, this friend of my heart dares to repose with me on a subject so agreeable? ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... demonstrate: A German aviator had been attacked and brought to earth by a French airman. The German was killed in the contest. In the dead man's pocket was found a diary of his adventures in the war, and other happenings, from day to day. It was written in conversational style addressed throughout to his wife, together with a letter to her of the same day's date. The next morning a French aeroplane flew over the German line. Descending to within a few hundred yards ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... and friendly charm of these conversational notes warrant their preservation even to those who are not held by the personal attraction ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... What would Miss Martha say if she knew what had been the subject of our conversation? Would that that excellent rule which had been the guide of her young ladyhood had curtailed the conversational propensities of mine! I thought of the three degrees of intimacy with a shudder. Why had we not been satisfied with discussing the merits ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... no means a bungler in his speech, but he was not fluent. He hesitated, and was at a loss for words, but whatever he wrote had a wonderful flow of harmony. The right word was always in the right place. Doubtless had he devoted as much attention to the acquirement of conversational ease, as he did to skill in writing, he would have been as successful in the one art as in the other. From early life it was his great ambition to be not merely a fine but a forcible writer. He did not seek splendor of diction, but that perspicuity, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... out of ten, he has learnt French from an "Ahn's First-Course." The history of this famous work is remarkable and instructive. The book was originally written for a joke, by a witty Frenchman who had resided for some years in England. He intended it as a satire upon the conversational powers of British society. From this point of view it was distinctly good. He submitted it to a London publishing firm. The manager was a shrewd man. He read the book through. Then he sent for ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... in his way as a medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle; he gossiped with men instead of with women; he had married a stranger instead of one of the town young ladies; and he was given to conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. Those only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... valuable results of oral reading when systematically pursued as a school study, is the effect which it has in improving the tones of the voice for ordinary conversation and discourse, and in securing some measure of orthoepy as a fixed habit of utterance. Conversational speech is notoriously slovenly. The sonority of our vowels is lost, and their distinguishing qualities are obscured; and with unnoticed frequency our consonants are either dropped or amalgamated with one another. Yet, while ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... way of asking a thousand questions in one. Mademoiselle Brun knew all the conversational tricks ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... intendin' to let him know I'm alive an' wakeful that a-way; 'well, whatever my callin' is, at least it ain't been no part of my bringin' up to let mere strangers stroll into the corral an' cinch a saddle onto me for a conversational canter, jest because they're disp'sitioned that a-way. "'No offence meant,' says the old party, an' I observes he grows red an' ashamed plumb up to his white ha'r. "Excuse me, amigo," I says, handin' out my paw, which he seizes all ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Gallaher, in a pleasant conversational tone, "that it's to be yourself, James McNiece, that's to be the head of the Orangemen in the parish now ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... this connection. Many essays contain something of narration, and not infrequently an incident forms the basis of a beautiful lyric. In print these studies may appear formal and forbidding, but where they are presented in a conversational manner, they ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Harcourt Room in House of Commons, a spacious dining-hall cunningly contrived with lack of acoustical properties that make it difficult to hear what a conversational neighbour is saying. In time of political stress this useful, as preventing lapse into controversy at the table. Homeward bound from his last Antarctic trip, ERNEST SHACKLETON discovered three towering peaks of snow and ice. One he named Mount Asquith; another Mount Henry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... ladies, conscious of conversational defects, and desirous of shining in Society, may be expected to imitate their American Cousins, who, according to The Daily News, employ a lady crammer who has made a study of the subject she teaches. Before a dinner or luncheon party, the crammer spends an hour ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... spend a Sunday afternoon with the Carlyles at their modest home in Chelsea. At such times Jeannie Welsh would usually manage to pilot the conversational craft along smooth waters; but if she were not present, hot arguments would follow, and finally a point would be reached where Carlyle and Spencer would simply sit and glare at ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... American in courtesy and ease of manner, simply because it is his nature. They are more social and less self-dependent than men of Teutonic origin, more demonstrative and less reticent; they are more communicative, conversational, and freer in their intercourse with each other in all respects; while men of German race are comparatively stiff, reserved, shy and awkward. At the same time, a people may exhibit ease, gayety, and sprightliness of character, and yet possess no deeper qualities ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Not to one's nearest and dearest friend, not to one's mother or brother would one babble promiscuously on such awful themes; and to have the soul's sublime and eternal emotions, its sacred and unspoken communings, lugged out into farcical prominence by such conversational cant as that, is to dry up the very fountain of true religion, and put a premium on the successful grin of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... this in an ordinary conversational tone, and the girl gasped. She did not ask him for an explanation and he offered none. Crewe, standing in the background, looked at the ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... prone to be very diffident of his own conversational powers, but it did seem to him that he was about to tax them almost too far. He hardly knew where to begin, and he hardly ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was sore, and hated himself for it. Fallows personally was ready for death; therefore he had the right to counsel martyrdoms for others if he wished. Death to Peter, however, was not strictly a conversational subject. If a man were ready to die for another, it was not good taste to say so. Still he forced himself to be just, by thinking of ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... me. For my vision may be a delusion. Time may leave me naked to the cold truth of life, and I may awaken from my dreaming to reality. That is possible. But now I see my course; now I feel the deep call of a duty I cannot resist." He was speaking softly and in hardly more than a conversational tone, with his hand at his side and his gloved claw behind him. He lifted his hand and spoke ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the conversational title of this Saga; many of the other Sagas have their longer title abbreviated in a like manner: Egil's saga becomes Egla, Njal's saga Njala; Eyrbyggja saga, Laxdaela saga, Vatnsdaeela saga, Reykdaela saga, Svarfdaela saga, become Eyrbyggja, Laxdaela, Vatnsdaela, Reykdaela, Svarfdaela (gen. plur. ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... forced to wonder at some new and unexpected revelation of the mind and character of this western girl who was so interested in the reclamation work and so unconscious of her womanly power. He came quickly to look forward to their hours together and to plan and carry out many conversational experiments. Invariably he had ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... and conversational voice remarked the young subaltern; equally smoothly and quietly came the order, "Walk, march." Then, as the troop moved forward, followed the slightly more animated command, "Trot"; and as the excitement of coming conflict coursed ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... same conversational tone. "I have. An' now I'm goin' to have a word with you. Stand clear ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... several of the neighbouring hills. Although the scenery is nowhere beautiful, and only occasionally pretty, I enjoyed my walk. I should have enjoyed it more, if my companion, the chief, had not possessed extraordinary conversational powers. I knew only three words: "good," "bad," and "yes:" and with these I answered all his remarks, without of course having understood one word he said. This, however, was quite sufficient: I was a good listener, an agreeable person, and he never ceased ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... send my wire on the all-Ireland strike, I stumbled along dark streets till I came to the postoffice. Lantern light was streaming from a hatchway open in the big iron door in the rear. "Who comes?" challenged the guards. While I was giving a most conversational reply, a dashing officer ran up and told me the password to the night telegraph room. Streets were deserted when I attempted to find my way back to the hotel. At last I saw a cloaked figure separate itself from ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... together there was more than one gentleman of marked conversational talent; the day was pleasant, the shade grateful, and, to one side at least, the refreshment not less so; and thus the time passed pleasantly until two o'clock, when the commissioners signed, with but a single change, the articles that had ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... doing. Therefore, if I could, I would have had terms, destination, day and hour of starting definitely arranged before that miraculously-produced tea of Felicite's had turned to tannin. But man may not walk through a solid wall, or strive against such conversational gifts as ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Jerry, but he was already grown into a proverb. Men of the Three B's reckoned their conversational dates by the visits of the youth; if a storm hung over the mountains someone might remark: "It looks like Jerry Strann is coming," and such a remark was always received in gloomy silence; mothers had been known to hush their children by chanting: ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... to Gervaise, whom his wife called an old friend. But he did not speak, his conversational powers not being his strong point. He cast a plaintive glance at the mackerel, however, from time to time. Gervaise looked around the room and described her furniture and where it had stood. How strange it was, after losing sight of each other so long, that they should occupy the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... her life—caused the man to glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him. Evidently, they had just risen from luncheon in the restaurant, and meant to dispose themselves for a chat. It was equally clear that each word they uttered in an ordinary conversational tone must be audible to him. They were appropriating chairs which would place the plumes of their hats within a few inches of his feet. When seated, their faces would be hidden from him, save for a possible glimpse of ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... mind is taken up mostly with the personal aspect of things, attaining to the conception of a bloodless system of "its" with the greatest difficulty, if at all. Even the third person, which is naturally the most colourless, because excluded from a direct part of the conversational game, undergoes multitudinous leavening in the light of conditions which the primitive mind regards as highly important, whereas we should banish them from our thoughts as so much irrelevant "accident." Thus the Abipones in the first place distinguished ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... she went on alone. His last words had impressed her. Everything he had said seemed somehow to have a special meaning under its obvious conversational sense. Till she went in at the door of the cottage she felt his ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... a school-teacher, working here in vacation," Claire whispered to Milt, beside her at the long, busy, scenically conversational table. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... that there may be much ability Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme; But there's a conversational facility, Which may round off an hour upon a time. Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility In mine irregularity of chime, Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,[nn] Just ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the name of natural history and which we have already encountered in the medieval Bestiaries. Preposterous by any reasonable standard, Lyly's style, 'Euphuism,' precisely hit the Court taste of his age and became for a decade its most approved conversational dialect. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... economy of word and gesture in the conversational method of to-day there lies the history of the long struggle of the race through volubility to refinement of expression. Du Maurier's Punch pictures take their place in the field of psychology in which the modern ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... rather an air of voluptuous repose. His benignity of manner placed his auditors entirely at their ease; and inclined them to listen delighted to the sweet low tone in which he began to discourse on some high theme. At first his tones were conversational: he seemed to dally with the shallows of the subject and with fantastic images which bordered it: but gradually the thought grew deeper, and the voice deepened with the thought; the stream gathering strength, seemed to bear along with it all things which opposed its progress, and blended ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... appear to express my concurrence in those last sentiments of yours,' returned Mr Chester, 'quite so strongly as you might desire, it is because his being there, my dear madam, and not proving conversational, led me hither, and procured me the happiness of this interview with one, in whom the whole management, conduct, and prosperity of her family are centred, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the doctor, in the deep bass which he reserved for his outbursts of virtuous indignation. "Wait! you spoke of the chapter of accidents," he resumed, gliding back into his softer conversational tones. "Yes! yes! of course. I understand you this time. Even the healing art is at the mercy of accidents; even such a Sanitarium as mine is liable to be surprised by Death. Just so! just so!" said the doctor, conceding the question with the utmost impartiality. "There is the [missing ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... into the woods a bit. I tied her over a stump and broke two sticks across the first seat of Tranest. Got the idea from Mihul sort of," Trigger added vaguely. "When I picked up a third stick, Lyad got awfully anxious to keep things at just a fast conversational ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... an Indian get in a boat together, to use a Will Carleton phrase, "they do not teem with conversational grace." Straight from Aberdeen, the young Dominee coming into Winnipeg little dreamed that the Church of Rome had established its Mission on the Red River decades ago. In fact, he knew as little about Canada as he did about Timbuctoo, and in his simplicity thought himself "the first that ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... drawing-room of an elegant mansion in a fashionable quarter of the city of New York, toward the close of April, a social party were assembled, distributed mostly in small conversational groups. The head of the establishment, a pompous, well-to-do merchant, stout, short, and baldheaded, and evidently well satisfied with himself and his position in society, was vehemently expressing his ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... consider yourself under arrest on a charge of murdering Mrs. Heredith," he said, in quiet, almost conversational tones. "This revolver and this handkerchief were found in your mother's sitting-room. If you have any explanation to make you may do so, but it is my duty to warn you that any statement you make now may be used in evidence against ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Brent have been more vividly brought out than by their tacit exclusion from the currents of opinion about them. Amherst, seated in unsmiling endurance at the foot of the table, between Mrs. Ansell, with her carefully-distributed affabilities, and Blanche Carbury, with her reckless hurling of conversational pebbles, seemed to Justine as much of a stranger as herself among the people to whom his marriage had introduced him. So strongly did she feel the sense of their common isolation that it was no surprise to her, when the men reappeared in the drawing-room ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... far and frequently out of his conversational way to assure you that he was a gentleman. Though he did no more than just recount how he gave his seat to a woman in a car, or passed the salt at dinner, or made a morning call, somewhere in the narrative you ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... well, flung herself into the conversational breach. Her cousins had nothing to say, and the aunt's thoughts were set on the dinner and cumbered with much serving. So she talked to him as in duty bound, and he seemed inclined ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... gallantly, the more copiously, and with still the more explanatory gestures, Mapiao returned to the assault. We could see his vanity was on the rack; being come to a place where that fine jewel of his conversational talent could earn him no respect; and he had times of despair when he desisted from the endeavour, and instants of irritation when he regarded us with unconcealed contempt. Yet for me, as the practitioner of some kindred ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... style of Claudian—a 'Meleagris,' a 'Hesperis,' and so forth. Still more curious were the newly-invented myths, which peopled the fairest regions of Italy with a primeval race of gods, nymphs, genii, and even shepherds, the epic and bucolic styles here passing into one another. In the narrative or conversational eclogue after the time of Petrarch, pastoral life was treated in a purely conventional manner, as a vehicle of all possible feelings and fancies; and this point will be touched on again in the sequel.58 For the moment, we have only to do with the new ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... then that in the constant preoccupation of his mind with this one theme and the constant repetition of the strongest points he had to make, he had acquired, as it were, the faculty of threading all his conversational pearls upon a single string, and that he was, in fact, presenting himself to his latest audience with a discourse which was already finished and polished at Adunguen. He gave me a description of the scene of Dreyfus's public degradation on the Champ de Mars which was like a chapter ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... way to the boat, on the little vessel itself, I expected Slafe to relax, to indulge in a conversational word, to do something to mark him as more than an automaton. But his actions were confined to using the nasalsyringe, to exchanging one camera for another, to quizzing the sun through that absurd lorgnette, and to muttering over cans of film ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... years, though this was nearly balanced by the very early age at which Lawrence obtained many of his successes. Hoppner was also a handsome man, of refined address and polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversational powers, while in the matter of wit and humour he was probably in advance of his antagonist. He was well read—'one of the best-informed painters of his time,' Mr. Cunningham informs us—frank, out-spoken, open-hearted, gay, and whimsical. He had all ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... largely "conversational in style," to cultivate flexibility of voice and to break up the dreary monotone ...
— New National First Reader • Charles J. Barnes, et al.
... the fact that, despite her plunge into what her family considered a dangerous part of Bohemia, she had managed to preserve intact her adherence to the traditional in conversational matters. When Pelgram escorted her to the tea table, she bleated a pathetic protest against his positive inhumanity in placing her where the great ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... about as new as "Mary had a little lamb," but it was all I could think to say. My conversational powers seemed ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... at Vivey, the person whose name excited the curiosity and the conversational powers of the villagers—Marie-Julien de Buxieres—ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... quietly froze, and a small family with her, they could not tell how or why, for they had never even suspected this girl's power. You would have seemed to them as one that mocketh had you told them they owed their gayety, their good-humor, their happiness, and their conversational powers ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... "Spec." is, of course, the famous and historical debating society (the Speculative Society) of Edinburgh University, to which Stevenson had been elected on the strength of his conversational powers, and to whose meetings he contributed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the gentle man. In public speaking his voice never rang out with indignation. He preserved the conversational tone and seemed devoid of passion and severity. He was patient, kind, and loving. He had humor, and a pleasant smile generally lighted up his benignant countenance. He was often playfully indignant. I remember that at one time an aesthetic ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... no longer see each other, and the little gestures and significant glances which had supplemented their few words, and made up for the lack of better conversational facilities were ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... who was a relative upon her father's side. As she grew up she developed remarkable powers. Those who knew her well, both as relatives and in the social circle, speak of her warm heart, her untiring energy, her brilliant conversational powers, and the beauty and delicacy of thought which marked her contributions to the press. By all who knew her she was ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... I was informed that music is never performed on such occasions as these, during conversational periods, as it is considered a desecration of a high ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... Mill, John Crawford, Mrs. Crawford, and a number of young and elderly figures of distinction,—that a group having formed on the younger side of the room, and transcendentalisms and theologies forming the topic, a number of deep things were said in abrupt conversational style, Sterling in the thick of it. For example, one sceptical figure praised the Church of England, in Hume's phrase, "as a Church tending to keep down fanaticism," and recommendable for its very indifferency; ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... officers of the battalion stepped out in front of Major-General Barnett and saluted. Then the general spoke for a few minutes in an every-day, conversational tone. He told the men that he trusted them, that he knew they would uphold the honor and high traditions of the corps when fighting in France under General Pershing. The officers saluted and stepped back to their ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... marry you?" asked Clifford. This idea occurred to him as being conversational, but he was ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... I replied that I did not dance. When he learned that I did not dance he introduced to me a young gentleman by the name of Shirley, who was seated near us, and who, for some reason or other, did not join the dancers. Mr. Shirley's conversational powers were extremely good, and we engaged in conversation for some time, in the course of which I enquired why he refrained from dancing? A shade of sadness passed over ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... in contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would naturally wish to see another who was thrown in one's way by accident, and thus prepare one's self for the permanent acquaintance. And she amused him. Her cleverness, her ease, her conversational powers, her woman of the world aspect, did not so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but the complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her, and her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the mortifications incurred—all ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... using quaint phrases of her invention as part of his own conversational equipment, and often he found himself applauded for some flash of repartee which he knew was only a quotation from her. But also he found himself incapable of that continuous self-restraint which she required of him under ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... them ahead, I would halloo and shout at the poor oxen and lay on the whip; but father wouldn't let me swear at them. Let me say here that I later discontinued this foolish fashion of driving, and always talked to my oxen in a conversational tone and ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... inferior animal, but the best substitute for Chattie available. So it was, however; and once in her neighbourhood he made another serious effort to get her to talk to him. The Elsmeres had never seen him so conversational. He dropped his paradoxical melancholy; he roared as gently as any sucking dove; and Robert, catching from the pessimist of St. Anselm's, as the evening went on, some hesitating commonplaces worthy of a bashful undergraduate on the subject of the boats and Commemoration, had ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is the most flexible and best adapted to all kinds of subjects that English versification possesses. Its powers range through the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare, the dignity of the sonnet, and the grandeur of Milton, to the satire of Pope and the informal conversational verse of Mr. Robert Frost. The 4-stress line is too short, the 6-stress is too long (when it does not split into two equal parts); the 5-stress seems to hit the golden average. It is less inclined to 'go' by itself, and ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... why any youth, whose education has been properly attended to, should not be perfectly proficient in it without having fired a single shot. But, Mr. Punch has noticed in all these volumes a grave defect. In none of them is any instruction given which shall enable a man to obtain a conversational as well as a merely shooting success. Every pursuit has its proper conversational complement. The Farmer must know how to speak of crops and the weather in picturesque and inflammatory language; the Barrister must note, for use ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... literary English, and as Carlotta did not know what in the world I was talking about, I was master of the conversational situation. Carlotta went to the mantel-piece and returned with a glutinous mass of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... With tolerable distinctness he remembered the sights he had seen, and fragments of conversation—then another departure, still southward, the crossing of the Alps, Italy, Venice—a dream of water and sun and beautiful buildings, in which the varied conversational powers of his companion found constant material. As a matter of fact the conversation was what was most clearly impressed upon Kafka's mind, as he recalled the rapid passage from one city to another, and realised how many places he had visited in one short month. From Venice southwards, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... revised edition. No one has done more than he to popularize the study of words, which is only another name for the study of thought. His new book has the same agreeable qualities which marked its forerunners, maintaining an easy conversational level of scholarly gossip and reflection, the middle ground between learning and information for the million. Without great philological attainments, and without any pretence of such, he gives the results ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... with her daughter, she produced a greater impression than did Effie. She had a merry, joyous disposition, and without possessing half the mental superiority her daughter was gifted with, she had a light, easy conversational ability, playful repartee, an elegant style and manner, and a sufficient knowledge of accomplishments to produce an effect in the gay world, and make her the centre of attraction of every circle she entered; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... selected a chapter in the Bible to read to them, which he did, after first prefacing it with some remarks of his own. Not being accustomed to speak in public, he determined, after reading the Bible, to make it more of a conversational meeting than otherwise. He therefore began asking them questions. "Do you feel that you are a Christian?" asked he of a full-blooded Negro that sat near him. "Yes, sir," was the response. "You feel, then, that you shall go to heaven." "Yes, sir." "Of course you know who made ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... were lukewarm and went to hear him out of curiosity were swung by his personality into being supporters. He had always his own natural style of talk. Possessing a musical and clear voice, he never strained for effect, rarely used a rotund sentence, but talked to his audiences in a red-hot conversational kind of way, his heightened feelings finding expression in a sibilance which always touched the nerves of his hearers. He seldom interrupted interrupters, finding it more effective to let them speak and then to deal with them in his own special ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... much exasperated at the conduct of the Judge, said to me as we met the coroner, "Never mind what the Judge does; he is an old fool." I replied, "Yes, he is an old jackass." This was said in an ordinary conversational tone; but a man by the name of Captain Powers, with whom Turner boarded, happened to overhear it, and running to the court-house, and opening the door, he hallooed out, "Judge Turner! oh, Judge Turner! Judge Field says you are an old jackass." A shout followed, and the ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... "It's a fatality," dropped the Chevalier's passive hand, and said in his ordinary conversational voice, "I shall have to go without seconds. If it is my lot to remain on the ground, you at least will know all that can be ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... know that this ship runs on an atomic pile," he said in a conversational tone of voice. "The cables are just under the floor in the control room and they can be reached ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... method, during a conversation between Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, is one of the most cleverly conceived (though also one of the absurdest) passages in the pamphlet. 'About three years ago, in the course of a conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon the merits of some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article on Optics in the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," p. 644, for improvements in Newtonian reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... corps were present, one of whom was the amiable and well-known Marshal Saldanha, who, a few years ago, played so prominent a part in the affairs of Portugal. The usual resources of whist and the tea-buffet changed the conversational circle, and at midnight there was a general movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal, where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... acquaintance. At the club he had got to know Lord Dymchurch, a month or two ago, and this connection he did not undervalue. His fellow members, it is true, were not, for the most part, men of the kind with whom Dyce greatly cared to talk; as yet, they did not seem much impressed with his conversational powers; but Lord Dymchurch promised to be an exception, and of him Dyce had already ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the Government brokers are more orderly than their neighbors in the Regular Board. Indeed, the whole proceedings are more decorous and respectful, the bidding, half the time, being carried on in a low conversational tone. At second call there is a brief excitement, but when 'things are dull' throughout the street, this room ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... critical manner be aware that his author was not providing him with a naturally spoken dialogue. To produce the desired effect the narrator must go between the two. He must mount somewhat above the ordinary conversational powers of such persons as are to be represented,—lest he disgust. But he must by no means soar into correct phraseology,—lest he offend. The realistic,—by which we mean that which shall seem to be real,—lies between the two, and in reaching it the writer has not ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... In this conversation she, if she did not attain to tacitly acknowledged temperamental superiority, seemed at least to claim it, to have no doubt as to its ultimate according. I was unused to this. I was a talker, proud of my conversational powers. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... encouraged to guess at the meaning of new words, become entirely independent of vocabulary or dictionary. In concluding the lesson, the story is told again by the teacher, quite rapidly, in the usual conversational tone, or the pupils ...
— Contes et lgendes - 1re Partie • H. A. Guerber
... "regal solitude," and goes on to show "how convalescence shrinks a man back to his primitive state." The essay was inspired by that ill-health which led to Lamb's retirement from the India House in 1825. At the close he indulged his pen in his conversational ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... chair and a handkerchief over his face and sink into a blissful nap. The young people had gone off somewhere, and there were only his wife, the Major, and the bride on the veranda. And, after all, why shouldn't he? Cornucopia could always be relied upon to play up—her conversational well was inexhaustible, and as for Mrs. Thatcher—nothing natural ever stopped the incessant wagging of ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Salle a Manger, decorated in the Pompeian style. Table d'hote has begun. CULCHARD is seated between Miss TROTTER and a large and conversational stranger. Opposite are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... girl of whom Mrs. Motherwell approved. Martha's record on butter and quilts and mats stood high. Martha was a nice quiet girl. Mrs. Motherwell often said a "nice, quiet, unappearing girl." Martha certainly was quiet. Her conversational attainments did not run high. "Things is what they are, and what's the good of saying anything," Martha had once said in ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... he said, in a conversational way, as we went to the next tee, "that putting should be so ridiculously important. Take that hole, for instance. I get on the green in a perfect three; you fluff your drive completely and get on in—what ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... A conversational party even of tolerably well-educated persons, often presents itself in a ludicrous light. Some question has arisen amongst them. No one has any clear or definite information upon it. They have had disputes about the simplest ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... paused and shifted his position. Then he went on with a slightly cunning look. "I 'lows you're like to take a run down to Edmonton one o' these days. A feller mostly likes to make things hum when he's got a good wad." Gagnon's tone was purely conversational. But his object must have been plain to any one else. He was bitterly resentful at the working out of the placer mine, and his anger always sent his thoughts into crooked channels. His nature was a curious one; he ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... Lord Dumbello, and then he adjusted his white cravat and touched up his whiskers. Having got so far, he did not proceed to any other immediate conversational efforts; nor did Griselda. But he grouped himself again as became a marquis, and gave very intense satisfaction to ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... various causes. it may, however, be permitted to observe, that, they were, for the most part, persons distinguished either by their taste in the fine arts, their love of antiquities, their literary attainments, or their conversational talents. To the friends already mentioned, but with whom Walpole did not habitually correspond, must be added, Mason the poet, George Selwyn, Richard second Lord Edgecumbe, George James Williams, Esq. Lady Suffolk, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... could have surpassed Lady Russell in the varied charms of her conversation. Most of us, men and women, have usually the habit of carrying our occupations with us, metaphorically at least, wherever we go, and therefore have some difficulty in entering with full appreciation into conversational fields in which we do not find ourselves ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... We will venture to oppose his Third Canto of the Story of Rimini for classic elegance and natural feeling to any equal number of lines from Mr. Southey's Epics or from Mr. Moore's Lalla Rookh. In a more gay and conversational style of writing, we think his Epistle to Lord Byron on his going abroad, is a masterpiece;—and the Feast of the Poets has run through several editions. A light, familiar grace, and mild unpretending pathos are the characteristics of his more sportive ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... regret and appeal, he was apprehensive of some renewal of the topic that he had thus invited, and he began to move hastily down the slope, supporting her with care, but with a certain urgency too. He was obviously eager to terminate the conversational opportunity, and when it was requisite to pause to rest he improved the respite by beckoning to one of the stablemen passing near, bound toward a pasture in the rear of the hotel with a halter in his hand, and ordering ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... say things, I suppose," Edith reflected, patiently: "but after supper, Maurice and I will talk." So she bore with her father and mother, who certainly tried to be conversational. The Bride, Edith noticed, was rather silent, and Maurice, though grown up to the extent of being married, hadn't much to say—but once he winked at Edith and again tried to pull her hair,—so she knew that he, also, was patient. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... There was the conversational youth in the Norfolk jacket, who was going out West to fill an important vacancy in a large business house—he told us so himself. It was a good selection, too. If I had a vacancy that I wanted filled in such a way that other ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... different from what I had expected. Not a "pious" atmosphere at all! I saw a very tall and heavy gentleman, dressed in black, who sat, wholly at ease, on the table! One hand was in his pocket, one foot swung clear of the ground; and he was not preaching, but talking in an easy, conversational tone to some forty young men who sat intent on his words. I was too excited to listen to what he was saying, I was making a vain attempt to classify him. But I remember the thought, for it struck me with force,—that if Christianity were so thoroughly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of his conversation in that way," laughed Evgenie Pavlovitch. "He borrows whole phrases from the reviews. I have long had the pleasure of knowing both Nicholai Ardalionovitch and his conversational methods, but this time he was not repeating something he had read; he was alluding, no doubt, to my yellow waggonette, which has, or had, red wheels. But I have exchanged it, so you are rather behind the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... up the street, timed Cissie's arrival at the front gate, picked up his hat, and walked briskly to the library in the hope of finishing any business the Captain might have, in time to encounter the octoroon. He even began making some little conversational plans with which he could meet Cissie in a simple, unstudied manner. He recalled with a certain satisfaction that he had not said a word of condemnation the night of Cissie's confession. He would make a point of that, and was prepared to argue that, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Woman like Donna swearing was, indeed, perfectly ridiculous. Of course, nerve-racked tired waitresses and be-deviled chefs "cussed each other out" as a regular thing up at the eating-house during a rush, and Donna, having listened to these conversational sparks, off and on, for three years, felt now, for the first time, as she imagined they must feel—that the unusual commotion in one's soul occasionally demands ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... rectory, evading Carroll's conversational advances, and saying in an exasperated tone to Vixen, whose short legs pattered beside him on the gravel, "Now, I shall be obliged to take you with me, you good-for-nothing woman. You'd go fretting yourself to death if I left you—you know you would, and perhaps get ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... "La baas ba-zalik," conversational-for "La jaram" there is no harm in it, no objection to it, and, sometimes, "it is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... It shows what conversational resources are always at hand in a seaport town, that the boatman with whom I first happened to visit this burning vessel had been thrice at sea on ships similarly destroyed, and could give all the particulars of their fate. I know no class of uneducated men whose talk ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... speeches there exists a full collection (reproduced without revision from the stenographic reports) in fifteen volumes. Bismarck was not an orator in the ordinary acceptation of the word. His mode of address was conversational; his delivery was monotonous and halting. He often hesitated, searching for a word; but when it came, it usually seemed the only word that could have expressed his meaning, and the hesitation that preceded it gave it a singular emphasis. It seemed to be his aim to convince his hearers, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... time in his city residence, drawn thither by the intense interest of the times, and in the saloon of Madame Roland meetings were every evening held by the most influential gentlemen of the revolutionary party. Her ardor stimulated their zeal, and her well-stored mind and fascinating conversational eloquence guided their councils. The impetuous young men of the city gathered around this impassioned woman, from whose lips words of liberty fell so enchantingly upon their ears, and with chivalric devotion surrendered themselves to the guidance of ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the near advent of Christmas, and finally book-shops in which to browse at his pleasure. It was interesting to hear him talk about city life. One of his quaint mannerisms consisted in modifying a well-known quotation to suit his conversational needs. 'Why, sir,' he would remark, 'Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence is at the corner of Madison ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... to the day, and on the day, when Mr. Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded above. Mrs. Sparsit was in good spirits, and inclined to be conversational. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... me, from the porter up to the vivacious lady and meek lord of the castle, was intended for some other person. But it required either a degree of moral courage, of which I cannot boast, or the self-reliance and conversational powers of a bolder and cleverer man than I, to undeceive people who had fallen into so fortunate a mistake for me. Yet the little man by my side insinuated himself so much into my confidence, that I had half a mind to tell him of my ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... lieutenant raised his eyebrows slightly at the conversational form of address, but he realized that the boy was bubbling ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... full of rhetorical surprises, and had boundless stores of information upon every subject. People do not like to be instructed, nor do they like to be preached to, even by eloquent lips, and her great conversational powers often made her dreaded rather than admired in general society. While she was in Germany Goethe, who must be allowed the capability of appreciating her, was wont to run away from her whenever he could, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... would recall the fuller expositions that had been based upon them. Shortly after the Buddha's time the Brahmins had their s[u]tras in Sanskrit, already a dead language. He purposely put his into the ordinary conversational idiom of the day, that is to say, into P[a]li. When the Buddha died these sayings were collected together by his disciples into what they call the Four Nik[a]yas, or "collections." These cannot have reached their final form till about ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the barber in a comparison of professional temperaments, I hope no other trade will take offence, or look upon it as an incivility done to them if I say, that in courtesy, humanity, and all the conversational and social graces which "gladden life," I esteem no profession comparable to his. Indeed, so great is the goodwill which I bear to this useful and agreeable body of men, that, residing in one of the Inns of Court (where the best specimens of them are to be found, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... tasted it," he said, growing wonderfully conversational as he took a hand-bill from a ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... to a person who thought he had something to say; when it was the custom to spread a two-minute remark out to ten; when a man's mouth was a rolling-mill, and busied itself all day long in turning four-foot pigs of thought into thirty-foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenuation; when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck to, but the talk wandered all around and arrived nowhere; when conversations consisted mainly of irrelevancies, with here and there a relevancy, a relevancy with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... versatile and resourceful in debate, with the wide knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator, with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural conversational voice. He possessed the same keen Damascus blade of sarcasm when aroused. Undoubtedly he was the Sir Philip ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... with a conversational ruthlessness. "Fifteen dollars! Why, I'd give that myself an' set it up out there at the cross-roads for autos to bid on while they run. Its wuth—well, I wouldn't say what 'twas wuth. Maybe you'd laugh, an' I ain't goin' to be laughed at, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... to thank the captain for his courtesy and make him acquainted with the state of his appetite, but he was evidently not in a conversational frame of mind. Before a few words had been spoken the captain stopped him, and, pointing down the ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... families were intimate, and she was frequently at our house. Her father had given her a good education—not showy; but of the solid kind. She was fond of books, and better read, I think, in the literature of the day, than any other young lady in S——. Her conversational powers were of a high order. Good sense, I had always given her credit for possessing; and I believed her capable of reading character correctly. She was the last one I should have regarded as being in danger of losing ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... to occur to Norris that it would be advisable to have a change of bowling. Gosling was getting tired, and Baynes apparently offered no difficulties to the batsman on the perfect wicket, the conversational man in particular being very severe upon him. It was at such a crisis that the Bishop should have come in. He was Gosling's understudy. But where was he? The innings had been in progress over half an hour now, and still there ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... chief value is conversational. At afternoon teas such an animal is a wonderful resource after you have exhausted the picture-shows, the theatres, and all the scandals. You can lead off about his pedigree. "He's champion bred on both sides," always sounds well. A funny man is sure to say, "Champion bread-and-butter you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... personal relations of some kind between them or their families. Perhaps he glanced at something of the sort when he said that old Beauchamp was a hard man even for a lawyer. I will condense the story from the more diffuse conversational narrative, interrupted by question and remark on the part of Alec, and give it the shape of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the part of Joseph Surface, in our representation of 'The School for Scandal,' was an unmarried gentleman of high standing, socially and politically, of middle age, fine presence, and superior abilities. Under polished manners and captivating conversational powers, were concealed persistent passions and a conscience of marble. Before even Evelyn suspected it, I was aware that he had resolved on subduing her to his own designs, for I seemed in all things relating to her to be gifted with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... developed, and all nicely adjusted one to another, the whole worked with regularity and ease. Hence that singular accuracy of judgment, and that never-failing sense of propriety, for which she was distinguished. Hence the apparent absence of fatigue in her protracted conversations and conversational addresses. Hence the habitual control of her sanctified affections over her intellectual powers, so that she seemed ever ready, at the moment, for the call of duty, and especially to meet the claims of perishing souls. She seemed to me the nearest approach I ever ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... only method of doubling her diligence. Her experience and wisdom brought her many inquirers after the truth, and demands upon her conversational powers were many and imperative. Yet those busy, provident hands, long acquainted with needles, seemed to make them fly and click in about even race, with the mind and the tongue, "Diligence in business," "singing with grace in the heart," ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... spoken in English, Nicolas, not understanding, paid no heed. Tom and Harry, on the other hand, had a conversational smattering of Spanish, for in Arizona they had had a large force of Mexican laborers ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... get ours any minute. Say," went on the young man in absolutely conversational tones, "don't ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... of the maneuvering conversational tactics of Mr. Howe, Captain Douglas could not resist the vein of humor which flowed in incessant remark upon those with whom it came in contact. "Lady Rosamond made sad havoc in Fredericton," was his ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... He is something besides an author, and is not therefore considered merely as an author. The hearts of men are open to him, as to one of their own class; and whether he exerts himself or not in the conversational circles of his acquaintance, his silence is not attributed to pride, nor his communicativeness to vanity. To these advantages I will venture to add a superior chance of happiness in domestic life, were ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wedding, ma'am," she said presently, in a purely conversational style, sitting in our little kitchen, and scrubbing the potatoes; "and such a lovely day for them." She proceeded to numerous other details, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... good, you know," she went on in a conversational tone; "we quarrel and squabble and are no earthly use to each other—the whole position is bad. I think I will ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... no one would believe that a serene, professional spirit of enquiry prompted his curiosity. While native caution kept him hesitating, the opportunity slipped away; Agnes surrendered to the boisterous advances of Geoff, and he turned to find Mrs. Nares tentatively conversational on ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... hear you say that; for I have already made some little progress in Spanish. I have read a few books, and moulded my tongue to the utterance of a long list of conversational phrases. I would now gladly exchange my French for Spanish or Portuguese. What a pity it is, that the languages of different countries are not, like their coins, exchangeable one ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... happens it," inquired Grandfather, "that there is no record nor tradition of your conversational abilities? It is an uncommon thing to meet with a chair that ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Barry, amused at his new acquaintance's conversational powers. "But I'm a rat in a strange garret here. Nothing doing. Can't get a ship for ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the conversational tone of one who but passed ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell |
