"Eloquence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a most interesting and instructive lecture on the Rise and Progress of the Institution of Chivalry was delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, in this city, by Augustus Mills, Esq. This young gentleman, from whose elegant talents and uncommon eloquence we should augur no ordinary career in whatever profession may be honoured with his attention, enlarged upon the barbarous manners of the wild untutored hordes among whom the proud pageantry of pretended faith, false honour, and affected punctilio, had its rise. He traced it through ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inhabitants had, according to his story, been driven to make way for one tenant who paid less rent for all than they did for a part. One hears of course a great deal of this kind of thing from the poorer folk,—car-drivers, whose eloquence is proverbial, not excepted. My driver had assuredly not been corrupted by reading inflammatory articles in newspapers, for, although he speaks English as well as Irish, "letter or line knows he never a one" of either, any more ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... feel sure come from neither the world nor the flesh, e.g., those which come to us in our moments of deepest devotion and quiet; we can account for them only by attributing them to the devil himself. "That old serpent, the devil, has spoken with fatal eloquence to every one of us no doubt; and I do not need a dissertation from the naturalist on the construction of a serpent's mouth to prove it. Object to the figure if you will, but the grim, damning fact ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... followed his motions in curious expectation, and more than once the Quartermaster had to repeat his compliments before she heard them, so intent was she on the little occurrences of the vessel, and, we might add, so indifferent to the eloquence of her companion. At length, even Mr. Muir became silent, and there was a deep stillness on the water. Presently an oar-blade fell in a boat beneath the fort, and the sound reached the cutter as distinctly as if it had been produced on her deck. Then came a murmur, like a sigh of the night, a ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... vigour of his friend's eloquence, accosted Miss King in the church porch after service; apologised for not having formally called on her; and invited her to go yachting with him next day in the Spindrift. Miss King accepted the invitation, and then, worked up perhaps to an unusual ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... barrister, Mr. Lovell," he said; "that would have been a capital opening for your speech as counsel for the crown. I can see the wretched criminal shivering in the dock, cowering under that burst of forensic eloquence." ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... execrable murder of a just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who with an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her royal consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious death." After thus describing, with an eloquence and energy equalled only by its truth, the means by which this usurped power had been acquired and maintained, that government is characterized with equal force. His Majesty, far from thinking monarchy in France to be a greater object of jealousy than the Regicide usurpation, calls upon the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... man reflected now, he had always thought otherwise. It was a period, he felt, of humbug radicalism, of windbag eloquence; yet he possessed both wit and discernment enough to see that, though ideas might explode in empty talk, still it took ideas to make the sort of explosion that was deafening one's ears. All the flat formula of the centuries could ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... her hat she took me to the Grand Street dock, not many blocks away. The best spots were already engaged, but we found one that suited our purpose better than the water edge would have done. It was a secluded nook where I could give the rein to my eloquence ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... still have spoken; for he was one of those pitiless orators who think that their eloquence can overcome all inconveniences in time, place, and circumstances. But no one would listen, and the citizens dispersed to their own houses by the light of the dawn, which began now to streak ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... had picked up recruits here and there, not being swayed by eloquence, withdrew to a booth on the outskirts of the crowd, where we regaled ourselves with root beer at two cents a glass. I recollect being much struck by the placard surmounting ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... impression of a lack of what the critics call reverence? For no other reason that I can think of than because it happens to be the work of its author, in whose very mistakes there is a singular wisdom. Mr. Ruskin has spoken with sufficient eloquence of the serious loveliness of the row of heads of the women on the right, who talk to each other as they sit at the foreshortened banquet. There could be no better example of the roving independence of the painter's vision, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... 'Thus addressed, the Kuru king Yudhisthira of righteous soul then set his heart, O monarch, on making the necessary preparations for the horse-sacrifice. Having represented all this unto the Island-born Krishna, the king endued with great eloquence approached Vasudeva and said,—'O foremost of all beings, the goddess Devaki has, through thee, come to be regarded as the most fortunate of mothers! O thou of unfading glory, do thou accomplish that which I shall now tell thee, O mighty-armed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... long-bearded, is the god of eloquence and poetry. His wife is Idun, who has in her keeping the apples of which the gods eat to preserve their eternal youth. Heimdal, the white god with teeth of gold, was in the beginning of time born by nine Yotun maidens, all sisters. He is the watchman of the gods. He is more wakeful ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... is hindering the advance of the departed. There is not a tittle of evidence for this. The assertions of the spirits are entirely to the contrary and they declare that they are helped and strengthened by the touch with those whom they love. I know few more moving passages in their simple boyish eloquence than those in which Raymond describes the feelings of the dead boys who want to get messages back to their people and find that ignorance and prejudice are a perpetual bar. "It is hard to think your sons are dead, but such ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my beloved kept her word with me?—Whether are these billowy heavings owing more to love or to fear? I cannot tell, for the soul of me, of which I have most. If I can but take her before her apprehension, before her eloquence, is awake— ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... cried I in a burst of eloquence that charmed even myself, "sure I could sow you acres with it by the crooking of my little finger from the revenues of my estate at ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Athenian dreamer builded better than he knew. That phantom which perpetually attends and perpetually evades us,—the inevitable guest whose silence maddens and whose sweetness consoles,—whose filmy radiance eclipses all beauty,—whose voiceless eloquence subdues all sound,—ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and unchanging,—this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of his country; praised the government and prosperity of Venice, and boasted of its decided superiority over all the other Italian states. He then turned to the ladies, and talked with the same eloquence, of Parisian fashions, the French opera, and French manners; and on the latter subject he did not fail to mingle what is so particularly agreeable to French taste. The flattery was not detected by those to whom it was addressed, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the eloquence of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly transfigured face to the Senior Surgeon's ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... displaying their special gifts; Lavater his skill in physiognomy, Goethe the gift he had inherited from his mother of story-telling to children; but in the end Basedow asserted himself in his most characteristic style. With a power of reasoning and a passionate eloquence, to which both Goethe and Lavater bear witness, he proclaimed the conditions of the regeneration of society—the improved education of youth and the necessity for the rich to open their purses for its accomplishment. Then, his wanton ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... bubbles—save to boys?" "Hush!" cried 'cute Reynard. "Do not make a noise! Bubbles—if bright—are cunning's best decoys. Bubbles are only wind plus soap and water; But well-stirred suds, and well-blown flatulence, In this fool world, have influence immense, And draw unthinking dupes from every quarter. Eloquence is but Wind, yet flowery trope Is Humbug's favourite lure; And what is Diplomatic Skill but soap? Trust me! Success is sure! Bubbles are bright, bewitch the mob, float far, And cost the blower little. The watery sphere looks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... on writing rapidly—he seemed to have lost himself in a sea of eloquence; his heart was pleading with the woman he loved through the poor medium of a sheet ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... sorrow, as sea officers, he says, have a great aversion to lawyers. Mr. Peter Heywood assigns a better reason; in a letter to his sister Mary he says, that 'Counsel to a naval prisoner is of no effect, and as they are not allowed to speak, their eloquence is not of the least efficacy; I request, therefore, you will desire my dear mother to revoke the letter she has been so good to write to retain Mr. Erskine and Mr. Mingay, and to forbear putting herself to so great and needless an expense, from which no good can accrue. ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... scribe ergo, et assidue scribe, or else come thyself; amicus ad amicum venies. Assuredly a wise and well-spoken man may do what he will in such a case; a good orator alone, as [3450]Tully holds, can alter affections by power of his eloquence, "comfort such as are afflicted, erect such as are depressed, expel and mitigate fear, lust, anger," &c. And how powerful is the charm of a discreet and dear friend? Ille regit dictis animos et ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... For all her recent eloquence upon unhappiness and divorce, it came to her now in some still subtle manner, that she had been speaking concerning things in the world of which she knew nothing. And one of ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... brilliant sallies of wit could not produce the least brightening effect upon his saturnine countenance, or the most pathetic burst of eloquence draw the least moisture to his eye, which only became animated when contradicting some well-received opinion, or discussing the merits of an acquaintance, and placing his faults and follies in the most ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... more of this. "All right," he said, suddenly interrupting Sadie's eloquence. "I suppose it's my duty to stay, even if I die of consumption, being shut up without any fresh air." He would play the martyr; which was not so hard, for he was one, and looked like one, with his thin, one-sided little figure, and his ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... unreclaimed wastes of Humanity, no labours have been so strenuous, so continuous, or half so successful, as yours. While the world admires in you an unlimited knowledge of mankind, deep thought, vivid imagination, and bursts of eloquence from unclouded heights, no less am I delighted when I see you at the school-room you have liberated from cruelty, and at the cottage you ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... on the model of the Irish school of invective furnished by Flood and Grattan. As a novelist, he held that she pointed the way to Lever, and adds: 'The rattling vivacity of the Irish character, its ebullient spirit, and its wrathful eloquence of sentiment and language, she well portrayed; one can smell the potheen and turf smoke even in her pictures of a boudoir.' In this sentence are summed up the leading characteristics, not only of Florence Macarthy, but of all Lady ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... fault of the Count—inexcusable in a man of his tact—was in preserving these letters. No one, however, is perfect, and he was an artist. He delighted in these the 'chefs-d'oeuvre' of passionate eloquence, was proud of inspiring them, and could not make up his mind to burn or destroy them. He examined at once the secret drawer where he had concealed them and, by certain signs, discovered the lock had been tampered ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... other outbursts of enthusiastic admiration, some of eloquence, hidden, however, among pages so incomprehensible to the average lover of the sublime in Nature that the glory of Little Zion was lost in its very discovery. So remote did it lie from the usual lines ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... within easy distance of Boston and deposited by circumstances in London, he possessed, nevertheless, to a remarkable degree, that quality so essentially the property of the New Yorker—the quality known, for want of a more polished word, as rubber. It is true that it had needed the eloquence of Joan Valentine to stir him from his groove; but that was because he was also lazy. He loved new sights and new experiences. Yes; he was happy. The rattle of the train shaped itself into a lively march. He told himself that he had found the right occupation for a ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... few words. The sense of her near presence affected Nigel as nothing of the sort had ever done before. She for her part seemed quite content with a silence which had in it many of the essentials of eloquence. ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... orchardlands Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands Of summer; and the birds of field and wood Called to me in a tongue I understood; And in the tangles of the old rail-fence Even the insect tumult had some sense, And every sound a happy eloquence; And more to me than wisest books can teach, The wind and water said; whose words did reach My soul, addressing their magnificent speech, Raucous and rushing, from the old mill-wheel, That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, Like some old ogre in a fairy-tale Nodding ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... all trammels. The other strongest of human emotions had been stirred within me. In a Methodist revival—it was in the old Eighteenth Street Church—I had fallen under the spell of the preacher's fiery eloquence. Brother Simmons was of the old circuit-riders' stock, albeit their day was long past in our staid community. He had all their power, for the spirit burned within him; and he brought me to the altar quickly, though in my own case conversion refused to work the prescribed ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... one day, with some eloquence, how little the most minute study of the brain aided us to understand thought. He was thus answering Auguste Comte, who, in a moment of aberration, claimed that psychology, in order to become a science, ought to reject the testimony of the consciousness, ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... delivered himself, a solemn expression stole over his features, and his own eloquence made the tears of moved affection to steal down ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Thorne touched but lightly on the point at issue between them, thinking it better to take it for granted that her views had modified, if not changed. The strength of his cause lay in his love, his loneliness, his yearning need of her. On these themes he dwelt with all the eloquence of which he was master, and the letter closed with a passionate appeal, in which he poured out the long repressed fire of his love: "My darling, tell me I may come to you—or rather tell me nothing; I will understand and interpret ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... Mr. Mellasys, rising, "this is truth! this is eloquence! this is being up to snuff! You are a high-toned gentleman! you are an old-fashioned Christian! you should have been my partner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... said to make her lovely hands more memorable; but all of her usually accompanied the gestures of the hands, the shoulders ever giving them their impulses first, and even her feet being called upon, at the same time, for eloquence. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... luke 'ee here, zur; I do be a-standing at this 'ere gateway, just this way, hour arter hour, and my heyes is hopen mostly;—I zees who's a-coming and who's a-going. Nobody's a-coming and nobody's a-going; that can't be no gude. Luke at that there homnibus; why, darn me—" and now, in his eloquence at this peculiar point, my friend became more loud and powerful than ever—"why, darn me, if maister harns enough with that there bus to put hiron on them 'osses' feet, I'll—be—blowed!" And as he uttered this hypothetical ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... directed the flood of his democratic eloquence, the married pair, feeling ill at ease, kept silent through a sense of propriety and good-breeding; then the husband tried to turn off the conversation in order to avoid any friction. Joseph Mouradour did not want to know anyone unless he ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... President of the Orange Free State confined to hurrying fresh troops to the point of immediate danger, for realising that the moral of the Boers had been shaken by the losses they had already sustained, he went down to the laager on the 5th December, and by his fiery eloquence infused fresh life into the somewhat depressed burghers. By the 10th December the right and centre of the enemy were entrenched along the line of kopjes which runs south-east from Langeberg farm on the west to Magersfontein Hill ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... once on Pisgah purg'd was the sight Of a son of Circumcision, So may be, on this Pisgah height, Bob's purblind mental vision— Nay, Bobby's mouth may be opened yet, Till for eloquence you hail him, And swear that he has the angel met That met the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly courteous, and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards me: your first sentence (145/2. "One of the most accurate observers and original thinkers of our time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on the Imperfection of the Geological Record.") has pleased me more than perhaps it ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By the way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, not for matter, but for style; and then it suddenly ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the Marlborough that the mutiny had found a hot-bed. It was on board the Marlborough that Sir John determined this man should be hanged, hoisted up by the hands of his own messmates, whom his seditious eloquence had seduced ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... Other Essays," tells us of the impression he made upon her. "Some twenty-one years ago," she says, "I heard the first great anarchist speaker—the inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the multitudes who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice!"[5] At the time of Most's arrival the American ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... inconsiderable traveler himself, as will appear before I have reached the end of my singular and, I may add, interesting adventures. A cousin, by my mother's side, took a liking to me, often said I was a fine forward youth, and was much inclined to gratify my curiosity. His eloquence had more effect than mine, for my father consented to my accompanying him in a voyage to the island of Ceylon, where his uncle had ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... ready at once to recognise under his eloquence anything he would. "Yes—it's our Sir Joshua, I believe, that Mr. Bender ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... the cups for the coffee?" It was Mrs. Walters who interrupted the flow of Mrs. Dean's eloquence. She was portly and inclined to brevity, which made her a ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... ordinary conversations been reported, or, better, could the colossal crowds who admired him have been, as we, his privileged listeners, they would have been no less charmed with his brilliant talk than with the public displays of eloquence with which they were ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Athenians, has been most specious, but none of it is true. The falsehood which most astonished me was that you must beware of being beguiled by my consummate eloquence; for I am not eloquent at all, unless speaking pure truth be eloquence. You will hear me speak with adornments and without premeditation in my everyday language, which many of you have heard. I am seventy years old, yet this is my first appearance ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... L1056 a year. But now I care intensely that it is L156. I have formed myself into a select society for the propagating of the truth about the rent of the Joneses' new flat, and my wife has done the same. In eloquence, in argumentative skill, in strict supervision of our tempers, we each of us squander enormous quantities of that h.-p. which is so precious to us. And the net ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... taught by the Romans, a love of the arts and sciences was engendered amongst the Gauls, and much talent was elicited from them, philosophy, physic, mathematics, jurisprudence, poetry, and above all eloquence, had their respective professors of no mean abilities from amongst the natives; one named Julius Florens is styled by Quintilian the Prince of Eloquence. In fact a brilliant era appeared as if beginning to dawn throughout ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... in which the Perfumed Garden is written are," says the writer of the Foreword to the Paris edition of 1904, "of the simplest and most unpretentious kind, rising occasionally to a very high degree of eloquence, resembling, to some extent, that of the famous Thousand Nights and a Night; but, while the latter abounds in Egyptian colloquialisms, the former frequently causes the translator to pause owing to the recurrence of North African idioms and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of the Gamaliels of the French Bar,—he associated with gamesters and courtezans, and was at length left with resources barely sufficient to enable him to return to Canada. Settling in Montreal, his extraordinary acquaintance with both schools of law, his impassioned and versatile eloquence, his ready repartee, his habitual, grim and grotesque humour, his outrageous sallies of wit, his unmerciful logic, his fierce invective, his irony, his sarcasm, and his deep, irresistible scorn, all heightened by his singularly expressive personal presence, and eyes kindling with lambent ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... and set forth to borrow the needful five dollars. Whatever the reason, he was not successful, and when they met again at Scab Johnny's, Mr. Gibney employed his eloquence to obtain credit from that cold-hearted publican, but all in vain. Scab Johnny had been too long operating on a cash basis with Messrs. Gibney and McGuffey to risk adding to an old ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... spirit by force of her extraordinary faculty for making friends, her wonderful talent as a writer, her originality and her charming disposition. She gave the tone to letters; M. Faguet says that her epistles were all masterpieces of amiable badinage, lively narration, maternal passion, true eloquence. More than that, they are important sources of historical knowledge, inasmuch as they contain much information concerning the politics of the day, and furnish an excellent guide to the etiquette, fashions, tastes, and literature ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... we may best account for the partial glimpses of truth which exist in the Vedas, the canonical books of Buddhism, and the later Puranas. All these questions are handled with such ability, and discussed with so much elegance and eloquence, that the reader becomes hardly aware of the great difficulties of the subject, and carries away, if not quite a complete and correct, at least a very lucid, picture of the religious life of ancient ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... recognize the effect of great grief, of extreme anguish in the human being. The man in whom musical sounds excite a degree of pleasure, or produce very remarkable effects, is said to have a sensible or a fine ear. In short, when it is perceived that eloquence—the beauty of the arts—the various objects that strike his senses, excite in him very lively emotions, he is said to possess a soul full ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... one of them, our best describer of English rural scenery, in racy Saxon English, William Cobbett); Rochdale, with 24,000, obtained one, and eventually made itself loudly heard in the House, in the person of John Bright, a gentleman of pluck not without eloquence, who has done a good deal, considering the disadvantages he has laboured under, in not having been brought to his level in a public school, and in having been brought up in the atmosphere of adulation, to which the wealthy and clever ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... killed by his brother Saulius while he was performing sacrifice to the goddess Cybele. It was he who compared laws to spiders' webs, which catch small flies and allow bigger ones to escape. His simple and forcible mode of expressing himself gave birth to the proverbial expression "Scythian eloquence,'' but his epigrams are as unauthentic as the letters which are often attributed to him. According to Strabo he was the first to invent an anchor with two flukes. Barthelemy borrows his name as the title for ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of Antonine, Aurelius' countenance divine, Firm, gentle, still; The eloquence of Adrian, And Theodosius' love ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... not desire gold or gems or precious metals, but virtue, glory, immortality." The picture is overdrawn for modern taste, but making due allowance for Mountjoy's turgid efforts to emulate his master's eloquence, enough remains to indicate the impression made by Henry on a peer of liberal education. His unrivalled skill in national sports and martial exercises appealed at least as powerfully to the mass of his people. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... of those strikingly solemn passages, which abound in Bunyan's works. It almost irresistibly brings to our imagination his expressive countenance, piercing eyes and harmonious voice; pressed on by his rapid conceptions and overpowering natural eloquence. How must it have riveted the attention of a great congregation. It is a rush of words, rolling on like the waves of the sea; increasing in grandeur and in force ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... compliment with bitter reproaches and a tale of misery. And consequently both the poetry and the prose of the time are restricted in their scope and temper to the artificial and romantic, to high-flown eloquence, to the celebration of love and devotion, or to the inculcation of those courtly virtues and accomplishments which composed the perfect pattern of a gentleman. Not that there was not both poetry and prose ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... towards government and that of Cardinal Newman towards religion. Both these great men belong, by virtue of their imaginations, to the poetic order, and they both are to be found dwelling with amazing eloquence, detail, and wealth of illustration on the varied elements of society. Both seem as they write to have one hand on the pulse of the world, and to be for ever alive to the throb of its action; and Burke, as he regarded humanity swarming like bees into and out of ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... promises them splendors and triumphs. The conqueror's ear rolls glittering through the city, the multitude shout and huzza. Drive on, coachman. Yes, but who is that hanging on behind the carriage? Is this the reward of eloquence, talents, industry? Is this the end of a life's labor? Don't you remember how, when the dragon was infesting the neighborhood of Babylon, the citizens used to walk dismally out of evenings, and look ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... book is one of the most captivating of its kind ever produced in the United States. It shows the scholar and the practiced writer amid all its rampant energy, and many passages are full of eloquence. The scenery and events are of that kind most calculated to fasten on the popular imagination. The author has a singular faculty of condensing narration and description, and bringing the scene and deed right before the eye, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... wanton assassination, it is scarcely to be expected that the innocent and candid looks and streaming azure eyes of that angelic infant, the Dauphin, though raised in humble supplication to his brutal assassins, with an eloquence which would have disarmed the savage tiger, could have won wretches so much more pitiless than the most ferocious beasts of the wilderness, or saved him from their slow but sure poison, whose breath was worse than the upas tree to all ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... well nigh omnipotent! Oh, the tauntings, and the high looks, the stiff neck, and the contemptuous sneer, with which wealth and station conduct themselves towards the lowliness of Christian meekness! Oh, the power that nerves itself against holiness! Wealth and imposing splendour, eloquence and numbers, are in its ranks. Perjury and cruel mockings are among its weapons. Oh, the chains of darkness and gates of death, with which the strong man armed here holds his prisoners! How loudly then do these demand the commiseration and special effort ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton
... Berwick-upon-Tweed; somewhat shaken in health by all his hardships, full of pains and agues, and tormented by gravel, that sorrow of great men; altogether, what with his romantic story, his weak health, and his great faculty of eloquence, a very natural object for the sympathy of devout women. At this happy juncture he fell into the company of a Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes, wife of Richard Bowes, of Aske, in Yorkshire, to whom she had borne twelve children. She was a religious hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after we came home from Windsor, at all of which her preference was shown in every movement. Some women are so expressive under strong emotion that every gesture, a turn of the head, a glance of the eyes, the lifting of a hand or the poise of the body, speaks with a tongue of eloquence, and such was Mary. Her eyes would glow with a soft fire when they rested upon him, and her whole person told all too plainly what, in truth, it seemed she did not care to hide. When others were present she would restrain herself somewhat, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... foible was not an excess of delicacy; he told her plainly, he admired her eloquence prodigiously, but that there was more rhetoric in her beauty than any composition of words could contain; which pleading in direct contradiction to all she had said, she must excuse him, if he was influenced by the more powerful oratory of her charms; and her good sense and unexceptionable conduct ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... which many Scottish members spoke in behalf of their country with great force of argument, and a very laudable spirit of freedom. Mr. Elliot, in particular, one of the commissioners of the board of admiralty, distinguished himself by a noble flow of eloquence, adorned with all the graces of oratory, and warmed with the true spirit of patriotism. Mr. Oswald, of the treasury, acquitted himself with great honour on the occasion; ever nervous, steady, and sagacious, independent though in office, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... them eat with evident admiration, fairly drinking up their words when between mouthsful they would stop for breath and deign to speak. Their rustic eloquence was like magic balm poured onto a constantly burning, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... wind, San Francisco found a new adventure. It listened spellbound to golden eloquence, extolling the virtues of a favored candidate. Meanwhile Acting Sheriff Townes rushed his prisoners to the county jail without anyone so much as noticing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... heart Of the wild, bigot, ghastly, dying wretch.— Thus, for a devilish and unnatural gain, Mowing the lean grass of a Golgotha! Sitting, like grinning Death, to clutch the toll Tortur'd from poverty, disease and crime; And this with Liberty upon their lips, Bland words, and specious, vulgar eloquence, And large oaths, with the tongue thrust in the cheek, And promises, as if they were as gods, And no God held the forked bolt above! Turning all ignorance, disaffection, hatred, Religion, and the peasant's moody want, To glut themselves with ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... year four hundred and eighty-five before the Christian era, and on the very day on which Themistocles with a handful of Grecians defeated the immense army of Xerxes. He was nobly descended on the maternal side, and was placed in due time under the first preceptors. From Prodicus he learned eloquence; from Socrates, ethics, and under Anaxagoras he studied philosophy. His parents having, before he was born, consulted the oracle of Apollo respecting his fate, were informed that the world should witness his fame, and that he would gain a crown. Of this answer which, like all the responses ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... I cannot pass over in silence such eminence in every kind of greatness—beware of thinking, I say, that he has any parallel in honesty and firmness, care and zeal for the Republic. So much so that in him eloquence—in which he is extraordinarily eminent—scarcely seems to offer any opportunity for praise. Yet in this accomplishment itself his wisdom is made more evident; with such excellent judgment and with so ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the composition of the salad, her daughter might prudently omit the vinegar. But no word issued from the majestic matron's lips. And this was more terrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquence with which she ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Captain Baillie is remarkable as the first in which Erskine pleaded. When this brilliant advocate, then a junior, unknown even to his brethren at the bar, was assailing Lord Sandwich as the prosecutor of his client with equal eloquence and courage, and even in defiance of a rebuff from the Judge, the latter, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, leant over the bench and inquired in a whisper, "Who is that young man?" "His name is Erskine, my lord," replied the clerk. "His fortune is made," ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... slipped on a stone in mid-stream, and, as he dragged a dripping leg up the opposite bank, he had sworn an oath worthy of the "godless young man" who had put him to flight, and on whose demerits he had descanted with so much eloquence and indignation. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... gentlest and most perfect king that has come to it, even Conaire son of Eterscel. 'Tis he that is overking of all Erin. There is no defect in that man, whether in form or shape or vesture: whether in size or fitness or proportion, whether in eye or hair or brightness, whether in wisdom or skill or eloquence, whether in weapon or dress or appearance, whether in splendour or abundance or dignity, whether in knowledge ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... Hackers at HP/Apollo (the former Apollo Computers which was swallowed by HP in 1989) have been heard to complain that Mr. Packard should have pushed to have his name first, if for no other reason than the greater eloquence of the resulting acronym. Compare {AIDX}, {buglix}. See also {Nominal Semidestructor}, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... vehement against him. But the Opposition, though formidable from the wealth and influence of some of its members, and from the admirable talents and eloquence of others, was outnumbered in Parliament, and odious throughout the country. Nor, as far as we can judge, was the Opposition generally desirous to engage in so serious an undertaking as the impeachment of an Indian Governor. Such an impeachment must ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... is an earnest endeavour to answer those questionings, which he sets forth, in order that he may do so; his eloquence being perhaps the more pathetic, that in the depth of his own conviction—in his loving desire to impart it—he assumes a great deal of what he tries to prove. "He has seen it all—the miracle of that life and death; ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... custom was that which enabled clients to hire counsel to plead for them at certain places, for a given time, in whatever causes their eloquence might be required. There still exists the record of an agreement by which, in the reign of Henry VII., Sergeant Yaxley bound himself to attend the assizes at York, Nottingham and Derby, and speak in court at each of those places, whenever his client, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Mysteries of Love and Eloquence; or the Arts of Wooing and Complementing; as they are managed in the Spring Garden, Hide-Park, the New Exchange, and other Eminent Places. A work in which are drawn to the Life and Deportments of the most Accomplisht Persons; the Mode of their Courtly Entertainments, ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... eyes—such eyes, my dear Sir!—of a tender, luscious grey, fringed with lashes and dewy with tears. I met her glance. Something in my own eyes must have spoken with mute eloquence of my distress, for she went on quickly and with a sweet smile. "And this," she said, pointing to her companion, "is ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... virtually defunct, but they are above-ground—we trip and stumble on them. We shall eventually lay them tidily away. This is a bad moment, because it's a moment of transition, and we still miss the old superstition, the bravery of execution, the eloquence of the lips, the interpretation of character. We miss these things, of course, in proportion as the ostensible occasion for them is great; we miss them particularly, for instance, when the curtain rises on Shakespeare. Then ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... were being crushed, and marking the displayed and disordered tokens of great kings, the Kuru leader Kripa of great energy, possessed of years and good conduct and filled with compassion, and endued with eloquence, approached king Duryodhana, and angrily said these words unto him, "O Duryodhana, listen, O Bharata, to these words that I will say unto thee. Having heard them, O monarch, do thou act according to them, O sinless one, if it pleases thee. There is no path, O monarch, that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... with them, he was shouting to tear his throat; shouting because he could not help it, because the stress of his feeling was more than he could bear. It was not merely the man's words, the torrent of his eloquence. It was his presence, it was his voice: a voice with strange intonations that rang through the chambers of the soul like the clanging of a bell—that gripped the listener like a mighty hand about his body, that shook him and startled him with sudden ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... libel without an answer. He is always on the breach. He might well be compared, in much of his writings, to one of our fighting journalists. He put into this generally thankless business a wonderful vigour and dialectical subtlety. Always and everywhere he had to have the last word. He brought eloquence to it, yet more charity—sometimes even wit. And lastly, he had a patience which nothing could dishearten. He repeats the same things a hundred times over. These tiresome repetitions, into which he was driven by the obstinacy of his opponents, caused him real pain. Every time it became necessary, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... clenches his fists, beats the book upon the desk before him, and swings his arms wildly about his head. The congregation murmur their acquiescence in his doctrines: and a short groan, occasionally bears testimony to the moving nature of his eloquence. Encouraged by these symptoms of approval, and working himself up to a pitch of enthusiasm amounting almost to frenzy, he denounces sabbath-breakers with the direst vengeance of offended Heaven. He stretches his body half out of the pulpit, thrusts forth his arms with frantic gestures, and ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Billy with conviction, in the face of so much eloquence and logic, "but I don't want you ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... simply was, in fact, one of the great parliamentary performances of the century. Lord Aberdeen wrote to Prince Albert that 'the display of power was wonderful; it was agreed in all quarters that there had been nothing like the speech for many years, and that under the impression of his commanding eloquence the reception of the budget had been most favourable.' Lord John told the Queen the speech was one of the ablest ever made in the House of Commons. 'Mr. Pitt, in the days of his glory, might have been more imposing, but he could not have ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... infinite pains, to accept quiet domesticity according to oldest and homeliest notions. These reflections detained him till the wood was embrowned with the coming night, and the shy little bird of this dusky time had begun to pour out all the intensity of his eloquence from a bush ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... I am constantly improving—that is why the notice is still unfinished. It hampers me that I must compose in the strain of Labaregue himself, instead of allowing my eloquence to soar. By the way, we had better speak to Lajeunie on the subject soon, lest he should pretend that he has another engagement for that night; he is a good boy, Lajeunie, but he always pretends that he has engagements in ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... instead of reading the truth of it, he told himself very wisely that the giver of a sum so tremendous must at least be in earnest. The amount astounded him. Fired by Joan's words, for as he played the ready listener her eloquence increased, he fell to thinking as she thought, and even speaking hopefully. The old farmer's reflections merely echoed his own simple trust in men and had best not been uttered, for they raised Joan's spirits to a futile height. But he caught ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... believed, and some doubted: but when they saw OMAR and HAMET return together, and observed that their looks were full of resentment and trouble, they became silent with attention in a moment; which OMAR observing, addressed them with an eloquence of which they had often acknowledged the force, and of which ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... consequence in 1400 is proved by the fact that, besides maintaining several professors in the Canon Law, it supported thirteen in Civil Law, five in Medicine, three in Philosophy, and one each in Astrology, Greek, and Eloquence. Like all the other Universities of Northern Italy, it suffered occasional eclipse or even extinction on account of the constant war and desolation which vexed these parts almost without intermission during the years following the formation of the League of Cambrai. Indeed, as ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Socialism owe much to Mrs. Besant for the assistance she gave it during five important years. Her splendid eloquence, always at our service, has seldom been matched, and has never been surpassed by any of the innumerable speakers of the movement. She had, when she joined us, an assured position amongst the working-class Radicals in London and throughout the country; ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... of Egypt; Browning's appreciation of the gypsy standing alone beside hers,—Browning, between whose writings and her own a rich sympathy exists, both being so possessed of fulness. Yet verse could not chain her wide eloquence in its fetters; and whenever she attempted it, its music made her thought shapeless. There is one exception to this, however, and we give it below,—for, inartistic as this mould may seem, and amorphous as its ideas may be, it is the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... during that session, and it was instructive to note the faces of the Opposition when Rhodesia and its undoubted progress were subjects of discussion, and especially when Mr. Rhodes was on his feet, claiming the undivided attention of the House. It was not his eloquence that kept people so attentive, for no one could call him eloquent; it was the singularly expressive voice, the (at times) persuasive manner, and, above all, the interesting things his big ideas gave him to say, that preserved that complete silence. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... his first arrival at an Australian colony, is on the subject of the natives. Whilst in England he was, like the rest of his generous-minded countrymen, sensibly alive to the wrongs of these unhappy beings — wrongs which, originating in a great measure in the eloquence of Exeter Hall, have awakened the sympathies of a humane and unselfish people throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. Full of these noble and ennobling sentiments, the emigrant approaches the scene of British-colonial cruelty; but no sooner does he land, than a considerable change ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... arches—every nostril distends—every lip curls towards him in contempt, while blow over the ice that enchains all his feelings and faculties, heavy-chill whisperings of "who is that disagreeable fellow?" In such a frozen atmosphere, eloquence would be congealed on the lips of an Ulysses—Poetry prosified ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his remarks; but I saw clearly, if I were to allow him to talk, he might turn the tables on me altogether. He might not be much of a hand at boxing; but I was much mistaken, or he had studied forensic eloquence in a good school. In this predicament I could think of nothing more ingenious than to burst out of the house, under the pretext of an ungovernable rage. It was certainly not very ingenious—it was elementary, but I had ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 626, the omnipotent Soga chief, the o-omi Umako, died. His brief eulogy in the Chronicles is that he had "a talent for military tactics," was "gifted with eloquence," and deeply reverenced "the Three Precious Things" (Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha). In the court-yard of his residence a pond was dug with a miniature island in the centre, and so much attention did this innovation attract that the great minister was ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... addresses with a charm which still clings to them when we take them up. The reason is, they were, like Gladstone and Disraeli, both litterateurs who studied their subjects in the library, among the great masters of eloquence and statesmanship, and were thus able to throw around a great question the flowers of a highly cultivated mind. But even Mr. Howe's most memorable speeches of old times would perhaps be hardly appreciated in the cold practical arena ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot |
