"Oratorical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he needed love. Then, too, he was rather a gabby old man. He liked to hold forth. In the old house on Ellis there had been visiting back and forth between men and women of his own age, and Ma's. At these gatherings he had waxed oratorical or argumentative, and they had heard him, some in agreement, some in disagreement, but always respectfully, whether he prated of real estate or social depravity; prohibition or ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... leader of the party of natives spoke to them, and restrained their impatience; then, advancing before the rest, he waved his hand, and throwing himself into an oratorical attitude, made a little speech, thanking Rokoa for his gifts, and welcoming us to the island. The language which he spoke was a dialect of the Tahitian, differing from it so slightly that I had no difficulty in understanding ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... naval dignitaries. The grand climax of the Deutschland joy carnival was to be a magnificent banquet with plenty of that rare luxury, bread and butter, at the famous Bremen Rathaus accompanied by both oratorical and pyrotechnical fireworks. The correspondents were given an opportunity to watch the triumphal progess of the Deutschland through the Weser into Bremen harbour, but at night, when they looked for their places at the Rathaus feast, they were informed that there was no room for ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Even when the stage was all set for a show Sir Robert could not take the spot-light. He did not abhor the calcium; he merely did not know what to do when it was on. During the tour which preceded the triumphal election of 1911 he was strong enough to win the country and weak enough to pose for oratorical photographs of Sir Robert swaying a crowd—on the roof of a Toronto hotel. Those photographs were published as authentic pictures ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... persuasive; that he was an artist in style, and in the course of a single speech could be eloquent and vivacious, ornate and familiar, passionate and cynical, deliberately rhetorical and magnificently fantastic in turn; that he was a master of all oratorical modes—of irony and argument, of stately declamation and brilliant and unexpected antithesis, of caricature and statement and rejoinder alike; that he could explain, denounce, retort, retract, advance, defy, dispute, with equal readiness ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Dramatic, Lyric and Oratorical Art. Application of the Law to Literature. Application of the Law to Architecture. Application of the Law to Sculpture. Application of the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... its splendour and importance, secures the almost undivided admiration of a rising and uncivilized people, legal practice, on the other hand, becomes the path to honours in later and more civilized ages, by reason of the oratorical accomplishments to which it usually gives scope. The date of Cicero's birth fell precisely during that intermediate state of things, in which the glory of military exploits lost its pre-eminence by means of the very opulence and luxury which were their natural ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... presence of personality all rules are waived, he very shortly indulged him in an exceeding spread-eagle speech. But he had not spoken five minutes before the members began to laugh. Catcalls, hisses and mad tumult reigned. The young man in the flaming waistcoat let loose all his oratorical artillery, and the result was bravos and left-handed applause that smothered his batteries. Again and again he tried to proceed, but his voice was lost in the Clover-Club fusillade. The Chair was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... powers that be were slow to recognize the desire of the students for instruction in public speaking, there were many more or less unofficial avenues for those who desired to give vent to their oratorical impulses. Two escape valves existed almost from the first, the old literary societies, and the class exhibitions and Commencement programs which have been mentioned. The first literary society, Phi Phi Alpha, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... without thinking of taking any oratorical precautions, "I believe that a band of ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... which A. is deficient, but lacking in the organs of love, sympathy and liberality, he becomes harsh, censorious and bitterly controversial, making many enemies and leading a wretched home-life. C. has a grand oratorical energy and dignity, but lacking in the organs of reverence and humility, he overrates himself and becomes famous for his vanity. D. has the intellect, wit, humor, and social qualities to shine in company, but from lack of the organ of self-respect, he fails to maintain the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... members, Sutter, General Vallejo, Thomas O. Larkin, Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price, Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... oratorical manner, gave the boys the benefit of his search for knowledge. "A dibber is a pointed tool, usually a stick, used to make holes for planting seeds, bulbs, setting out plants and ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... every man and every man's hand against him. He likes to share in the social activities that occur as by-products of the school—the musical and dramatic entertainments, the athletic contests, and the debating and oratorical rivalries. By degrees he becomes aware that he is a responsible member of society, that he is an individual unit in a great aggregation of busy people doing the work of the world, and that the school is given him to make it possible ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... conducted himself like an Irishman of genius. Some time in 1759 he became acquainted with William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called 'Single-speech Hamilton,' on account of the celebrity he gained from his first speech in Parliament, and the steady way in which his oratorical reputation went on waning ever after. In 1761 this gentleman went over to Ireland as Chief Secretary, and Burke accompanied him as the Secretary's secretary, or, in the unlicensed speech of Dublin, as Hamilton's jackal. This arrangement was eminently satisfactory to Hamilton, who ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... do you, dear mamma," said Rose, kissing her: "so don't be oratorical, darling mammy; because we are ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stone, the opening of heavy doors, the sudden sparkling invasion of frigid air, the uplifting of voices in greeting,—but all familiar! There were Gabriel Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who had joined the party at the station; but certainly the accents of no STRANGER. Had he come? Yes, for his name was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had detected a light, lounging, alien ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollanden established himself in an oratorical pose on a great weather-beaten stone. "Well—you must understand—I started my career—my career, you understand—with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I have ended in being an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, and a juggler of comic ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... Lymburner. There were three Lymburners: John, lost at sea in the fall of 1775, Mathew, and Adam, the most able of the three; they were, no doubt related to each other. The loyalty of Adam, towards the British Crown, in 1775, was more than suspected; his oratorical powers, however, and his knowledge of constitutional law, made him a fit delegate to England in 1791, to plead the cause of the colony before the Metropolitan authorities. His speech on the occasion is reported in the Canadian Review, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... was carried through merely by the energetic advocacy of Senators McDonald, Sargent and Hoar, whose oratorical efforts were reenforced by the presence of Mrs. Lockwood. After the struggle was over, all the senators who advocated the bill were made the recipients of bouquets, while the three senators whose names we have given received large baskets of flowers. This is a pleasing omen ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... details of its methods in dealing with strikes. Clarence S. Darrow's "Speech in the Haywood Case" (Wayland's Monthly, Girard, Kan., Oct., 1907) is the plea made before the jury in Idaho that freed Haywood. Only the oratorical part of it was printed in the daily press, while the crushing evidence Darrow presents against the detective agencies and ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... by any hearsay mode of information, and with fertile exuberance in sarcasm. In point of argument it had, I think, little that was new. Lord Grey's most beautiful, Lord Goderich's and Lord Lansdowne's extremely good, and in these was comprehended nearly all the oratorical merit of the debate. The reasoning or the attempt to reason, independently of the success in such attempt, certainly seemed to me to be with the opposition. Their best speeches, I thought, were those of Lords Harrowby, Carnarvon, Mansfield, Wynford; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... noblemen before mentioned; and gave himself as much trouble to procure cards of invitation for the lad to some good houses, as if he had been a mamma with a daughter to marry, and not an old half-pay officer in a wig. And he boasted everywhere of the boy's great talents, and remarkable oratorical powers; and of the brilliant degree he was going to take. Lord Runnymede would take him on his embassy, or the Duke would bring him in for one of his boroughs, he wrote over and over again to Helen; who, for her part, was too ready to believe anything that anybody chose to say ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... If, he says, we banish from history the consideration of causes, methods and motives ([Greek]), and refuse to consider how far the result of anything is its rational consequent, what is left is a mere [Greek], not a [Greek], an oratorical essay which may give pleasure for the moment, but which is entirely without any scientific value for the explanation of the future. Elsewhere he says that 'history robbed of the exposition of its causes and laws is a profitless thing, though it may allure a ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... France, at the opening of the states, said, in a tone of oratorical flourish, that all occupations were honourable. If he meant only, that no honest employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone beyond the truth. But in asserting that anything is honourable, we imply some distinction in its favour. The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... chronological distance from the young speaker as the latter. It would be a curious inquiry how far writers of historical addresses in America have from the beginning been affected by the necessity which a regard for ancient models laid upon them of fitting the facts of our Revolutionary War to oratorical periods, and how far popular conceptions of the beginning of our national life have been formed by the "pieces" which young Americans have been called upon to speak. The Roman was the most distinguished predecessor by name of this new republic, and enthusiastic patriots went to it for literary ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... wish for his or her preservation from evil. This use is ancient, as is shown on medals and statues, and is supposed by some to refer to the horns of animals slaughtered in sacrifice. The position of the fingers, Fig. 80, is also given as one of Quintilian's oratorical gestures by the words "Duo quoque medii sub pollicem veniunt," and is said by him to be vehement and connected with reproach or argument. In the present case, as a response to an impertinent or disagreeable petition, it simply means, "instead of giving what you ask, I will give you nothing ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... then to close. But no abruptness will be disliked by your hearers half so much, as the utterance of a string of commonplaces, after you have once secured their attention. The richness of the dessert should come at the close, not at the beginning, of the oratorical feast. ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... writer—essayist, poet, and novelist—preached in those days. Mary frequently forgets she has a cause to prove in her desire to teach a lesson. She exhorts her sisters as a minister might appeal to his brethren, and this resemblance is made still more striking by the oratorical flights or prayers with which she interrupts her argument to address her Creator. Moreover, the book is throughout, as Leslie Stephen says, "rhetorical rather than speculative." It is unmistakably the creation of a zealous partisan, and not of a calm advocate. It reads more like ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... should hear evil of it, my thoughts were a proud family, proud of their origin, proud of their isolation,—and not to be able to divine them was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level. But, when they did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found. This oratorical display of mine gave me an ascendancy over him. He adored eloquence, not to say grandiloquence: he was the son of a barrister. 'Let 's go and see her at once, Richie,' he said of Julia. 'I 'm ready to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his being in such a fury but I shall never give any account of these speeches, as they will all be printed. I shall only say a word of the speakers as far as relates to my own feelings about them, and that briefly will be to say that I adhere to Mr. Burke, whose oratorical powers appear to me far more gentleman-like, scholar-like, and fraught with true genius than those of Mr. Fox. it may be I am prejudiced by old kindnesses of Mr. Burke, and it may be that the countenance of Mr. Fox may have ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... gesture to silence the tinker, for he had thrown himself into an oratorical attitude, and shouted out the new commandments at the top of his voice, emphasizing each clause with his right fist brought down each time more passionately on the palm of his left hand. But his humor had grown savage, and with his eyes glowing like hot coals in his blackened visage he went on, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... theologian of Mount Olivet's particular faith. It is reported how he defended his theology with his splendid oratory, and how when this failed he resorted to his fists. His oratory was said to be simply overwhelming. They recounted how, in his oratorical frenzies, he used to fling his homespun coat in the air and crack the heels of his red-topped boots together with an emphasis that would stop the mouth of the most impudent gainsayer. They told how by this masterful eloquence opposers ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... I thus entered unexpectedly: the look-out man, with grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and that brand on his countenance that comes of solitary living; and a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow, in the smart tropical array of the British man-o'-war's man, perched on a table, and smoking a cigar. I was made pleasantly welcome, and was soon listening with amusement ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... she?" declaimed she with oratorical eloquence. "Did she? Not a bit of it. Minnie got pictures an' patterns from Boston; scanted the skirt; took in the sleeves; made a wide girdle with the breadths she took out of the front—an' there she was ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... his fist into his hand with oratorical fervor and Mrs. Campbell appeared suddenly at the door. Her first favorable impression of the gallant young Southerner had been changed by the course of events and she was now morally certain that the envious Dusty Rhodes had come nearer the unvarnished ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... count. They're also-rans. To get in with the right bunch you've got to make a good showing. Look at me. I'm no John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Athletics bore me. I can't sing. I don't grind. But I'm in everything. Best frat. Won the oratorical contest. Manager of the football team next season. President of the Dramatic ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... malleable, hard, and very little flexible—rejected the duplicities and the compromises of language to simulate concord when it did not exist. He remained, then, very grave during the whole of the tiresome evening, obliged as he was to endure the oratorical vehemence of the alcalde's wife, who, without being Fame, had the privilege of fatiguing with a hundred tongues the ears of men. If, in some brief respite which this lady gave her hearers, Pepe Rey made ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... a campaign; Stephens' to manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought, with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay. Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither—never. At times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... of psychopathology, the public and with it the formal jurist, the slave of codes (I am only speaking of honest lawyers, and not of the number who abuse the situation to obtain oratorical and other success and crown themselves with laurels), regard themselves as the champions of individual liberty, and are unable to perceive that the net result of their efforts is, on the one hand, to condemn a considerable number of insane ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... the herald demands again. From a place directly before the Bema a well-known figure, the elderly general, Iphicrates, is rising. At a nod from the president, he mounts the Bema and assumes the myrtle. He has not Timon's smooth tones nor oratorical manner. He is a man of action and war, and no tool of the Agora coteries. A salvo of applause greets him. Very pithily he observes that Byzantium will be safe enough if the city will only be loyal to the Athenian alliance. Athens needs all her garrisons ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... in the manner in which the discourses of the two schools are delivered. While English sermons are generally read with quiet dignity, in Scotland they are very commonly repeated from memory, and given with great vehemence and oratorical effect, and abundant gesticulation. Nor is it to be supposed that when we say the difference is main ly in manner, we think it a small one. There is only one account given by all who have heard the most striking Scotch preachers, as to the proportion which their ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... C. Fetcher in ethnological work, and is also the author of a pleasing story of life in an Indian school called "The Middle Five." Zitkalasa, a Sioux (now Mrs. Bonney), attended a Western college, where she distinguished herself in an intercollegiate oratorical contest. Soon afterward she appeared in the Atlantic Monthly as the writer of several papers of an autobiographical nature, which attracted favorable attention, and were followed by a little volume of Indian legends and several short stories. Mrs. Bonney has more recently written the book of ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... Fields. Each of them is cased in a cylindrical frock-coat, and each carries either a scroll or a dubious-looking garment over the arm that might be either a bathing-towel or a light great-coat. Each of them is in an oratorical attitude, which has all the disadvantage of being affected without even any of the advantages of being theatrical. Let no one suppose that such abortions arise merely from technical demerit. In every line of those leaden dolls is expressed the fact that they were not set up with any heat of natural ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... sat down, aglow with pride over his oratorical triumphs, his chest expanded, his countenance wrinkled into a thousand guileless, grateful smiles, there ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... kind may be justly praised for the sustained strength and vigour of its metrical scheme. Its purely technical excellence is extraordinary. But is it more than an oratorical tour de force? Does it really convey much? Does it charm? Could we return to it again and again with renewed pleasure? We think not. It seems ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... his resignation, after which he sat for Malton until his final retirement from public life. Under the administration of Lord North (1770-1782) the American war went on from bad to worse, and it was in part owing to the splendid oratorical efforts of B. that it was at last brought to an end. To this period belong two of his most brilliant performances, his speech on Conciliation with America (1775), and his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777). The ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... age he was sent, by an almost unanimous vote, to the Legislature from his county. He came with an exaggerated reputation for talent, especially for oratorical talent, and many of his friends feared he would not be able to sustain it in that body, where there were many of age and experience, with characters already long established for learning and eloquence, and also many young men from different parts of the State, who, like himself, had already ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... asked, "What is the difference between an accident and a misfortune (un accident et un malheur)?'' the emperor answered. "If my cousin, Prince Napoleon, should fall into the Seine, it would be an ACCIDENT; if anybody were to pull him out, it would be a MISFORTUNE.'' Although this cousin had some oratorical ability, both he and his father were most thoroughly despised. The son bore the nickname of "Plon-Plon,'' probably with some reference to his reputation for cowardice; the father had won the appellation of "Le Roi Loustic,'' and, indeed, had the credit of introducing ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... thinks of the grey-headed old man, that is sitting waiting for him at the cottage-door? And," added Halbert, standing on the plunging-stage Adamically, without a rag upon him, pointing at Jim with his finger in an oratorical manner; "do you think that the old man who sits there, year after year, waiting for him who never comes, and telling the neighbours that his lad who is gone for a sodger, was the finest lad in the village, do you think that old man feels nothing? Give up fine feelings, Jim. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... decent, middle-aged, comfortable, and one who took things as they came. But Flannagan had hair that was wild and red, and his complexion was similar. He was large and bony. His voice was windy, his manner oratorical, and his nature sudden. The Japanese spoke little English and couldn't be told apart, but as to that there was no need of it. They were skilful, small, and dark, with rubber bones and extra joints, and they could smile from a hundred and thirteen classified and labelled attitudes. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... oratorical impressiveness, coming forward, and bowing to Zotique, "Monsieur l'Honorable; Monsieur;" bowing low; "and Messieurs. I speak not against the clergy, whom the good God and His Pontifical Holiness have set over us for instruction and guidance. I am ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... pointing at the same time towards the oratorical cook, who so little relished the compliment, as to elevate the polished remnant of a mutton shoulder-blade, and aim a well-directed blow at the manikin, which he avoided only by springing with great agility through the aperture in the tree, so as to alight at some distance ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... himself to speak publicly), and, as he warms up, seems to engage with his whole moral and physical man,—quite possessed with what he has to say. His evident earnestness and good faith make him eloquent, and stand him instead of oratorical graces. His views of the position of England and the prospects of the war were as dark as well could be; and his speech was exceedingly to the purpose, full of common-sense, and with not one word of clap-trap. Judging from its effect upon the audience, he spoke the voice of the whole ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a reproof. The father seems to have indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave, carrying its faint lamp trembling and ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... clamour you may hear in their woods towards sunset when their assemblies are held), but the practical direction of their policy is entrusted to a circle or council of about ten of the older rooks, distinguished for their oratorical powers. These depute, again, one of their own number to Kapchack's court; you see him yonder, his name is Kauhaha. The council considers, I have no doubt, that by supporting Kapchack they retain their supremacy, for very likely if they did not have a foreigner to reign over them, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Mimes held their own as against Siegfried. With the single exception of Ferdinand Lassalle, there was no revolutionary leader who was not an obvious impossibilist in practical politics; and Lassalle got himself killed in a romantic and quite indefensible duel after wrecking his health in a titanic oratorical campaign which convinced him that the great majority of the working classes were not ready to join him, and that the minority who were ready did not understand him. The International, founded in 1861 by Karl Marx in London, and mistaken for several ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... at least use the one of which he is master, in a manner at once astounding and gratifying. No son of Williams needs to be told who he is; yet for the benefit of those unacquainted with his genius and oratorical ability, we will endeavor briefly to sketch his early career before enlarging upon the grander ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... of as humble an origin as Beckendorff. With no family to uphold him, he supports himself by a lavish division of all the places and patronage of the State among the nobles. If the younger son or brother of H peer dare to sully his oratorical virginity by a chance observation in the Lower Chamber, the Minister, himself a real orator, immediately rises to congratulate, in pompous phrase, the House and the country on the splendid display which has ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... disciple, at my feet if you will; I am in the oratorical mood to-day. Hypatia, if you please, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... longingly sought the door. Her head was in a whirl of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett's platitudes and think. She rose and took a tentative step backwards. Mrs. Lippett detained her with a gesture; it was an oratorical opportunity ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... it might have been, was never completed nor administered, for his emotions becoming too much for him to hold in check, Palmer Billy sprang upon Gleeson, and gave vent to his feelings in a manner which was more satisfying to him than a mere oratorical outburst. Had he been allowed to complete his intention, the future career of Gleeson would not have been connected with mining swindles. For a time Peters and Tony, neither being predisposed in favour of Gleeson, stood by watching the chastisement Palmer Billy meted ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... all other philosophers as the enemies of freedom, and in 306 supported the proposal of one Sophocles, advocating their expulsion from Attica. According to Cicero (Brutus, 83) Demochares was the author of a history of his own times, written in an oratorical rather than a historical style. As a speaker he was noted for his freedom of language (Parrhesiastes, Seneca, De ira, iii. 23). He was violently attacked by Timaeus, but found a strenuous defender ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... captain in the army at Algiers; but, alas! grace a Dieu, there's no chance of a transport so long as this cursed pestilence blockades Marseilles! Do you know the man on your right?—No! Bien! that's the celebrated S——, the oratorical advocate about whom the papers rang when Louis Philippe began his assault on the press. He's on his way to Algiers too, and will be more successful in liberalizing the Arabs than the French. That ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... doubted its continuance; but, step by step, he climbed the ladder to eminence, and merited the applause which the public lavished upon him. Success only inflamed his ambition, and it became evident he aimed at political renown. Nature had fitted him for the political arena, had endowed him with oratorical powers of no ordinary stamp; and, though long dormant, they were not impaired by his inertia. It was fortunate for him that an exciting Presidential canvass afforded numerous opportunities for the development of these, and at its close he found himself possessed of an enviable reputation. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... question; and when this, along with other sources of information, had given the servants of the Crown some assurance of the fate of the measure, there was a separate debate and division on the first article, understood on all hands to be a final decision. The debate was decorated by a work of oratorical art long admired in Scotland, and indeed worthy of admiration anywhere for its brilliancy and power. It was a great philippic—taking that term in its usual acceptation—as expressing a vehement torrent of bitter epigram ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... and I had not the patience to read them twice. I was so absolutely sure of the power of my mind that I ascribed my lack of understanding to the poet. Then his poems were so different from the easy, rhythmic, oratorical verses on which I had been brought up. In Palamas, I missed those pleasant trivialities which attract a boy's mind in poetry. One thing, however, was clear to me even then. Dark and unintelligible though his poems appeared, they were certainly ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... frighten you, but your position is really a dangerous one. Your only chance is to speak with perfect frankness. I pledge you my word, I'm telling the truth, Dick." There was profound concern in the lawyer's thin face, and his voice, trained to oratorical arts, was emotionally persuasive. "Dick, my boy, I want you to forget that I'm the District Attorney, and remember only that I'm an old friend of yours, and of your father's, who is trying very hard to help you. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... said Babbitt feebly, but at this tribute from Gunch, himself a man of no mean oratorical fame, he expanded with delight and wondered how, before his vacation, he could have questioned the joys ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... often extending over several pages, have never the grace and harmony which are exhibited in the earlier dialogues. For Plato is incapable of sustained composition; his genius is dramatic rather than oratorical; he can converse, but he cannot make a speech. Even the Timaeus, which is one of his most finished works, is full of abrupt transitions. There is the same kind of difference between the dialogue and the continuous discourse ...
— Laws • Plato
... even serious writers who cannot be accused of wealth worship or deliberate misstatement have all, without exception, borrowed their narratives of Vanderbilt's career from the fiction of his literary, newspaper and oratorical incense burners. And so it is that everywhere the conviction prevails that whatever fraudulent methods Vanderbilt employed in his later career, he was essentially an honest, straightforward man who was compelled by the promptings ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... can't shut me up, Dick," was his response to Cullen's oratorical flight. "I'm going to have my say. I don't see why a Senator shouldn't be honest. All I want them to do is to play a new game. Let 'em at least seem to be honest, attend to their business, forget politics. The country sends them here to work, and if they do ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... hard school of necessity, where every one's hand and wood-man's skill must keep his head; where incessant pressing necessities required ever a prompt and sufficient answer in deeds; and where words needed to be but few, and those the plainest and directest, required no delay nor preparation, nor oratorical coquetting, nor elaborate preliminary scribble; no hesitation nor doubts in deeds; no circumlocution in words. To restrain, influence, direct, govern, such a surging sea of life as this, required something very ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Bannister pulsated with renewed life, with the glad reunions of former students. There had been the Alumni Banquet, the annual baseball game between the 'Varsity and old-time Gold and Green diamond stars, Class Night exercises, the Literary Society Oratorical Contests, and the last Class ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... I am going to say!' cried Nikolai Artemyevitch in a falsetto shriek, suddenly losing the majesty of his oratorical pose, the smooth dignity of his speech, and his bass notes. 'You ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... who is still alive, was a man of great intelligence, common sense, and oratorical power. He complimented me on my travels and on my being protected by the State Inquisitors instead of being persecuted by them. He kept me to dinner, and asked me to dine with him whenever I had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr. H——, but I should have failed, almosht, if I hadn't got rid of dem tamn'd English goods at cost!' Straitway the out-witted Yankee 'departed the presence!'' . . . IT has been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of 'Major POGRAM,' as described by Mr. DICKENS in a late number of his 'Chuzzlewit,' rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... in many respects very like her brother, and was a very useful worker, though much of her work was little seen. She did not speak in public; all the oratorical powers of the family seemed to have concentrated themselves in Luke Raeburn; but she wrote and worked indefatigably, proving a very useful second to her brother. A hard, wearing life, however, had told a good deal upon her, and trouble had somewhat imbittered her nature. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... still talking, stood at the foot of the stairs so that his son could not pass him. Sam yawned, then noticed how in oratorical denunciation his father's long upper lip curved like the beak of a bird of prey; behind his hand he tried to arch his own lip in the same manner. He really did not hear what was said to him; he only sighed with relief when it was over and he was allowed to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Douglas "raved an hour about democracy and anglophobia and universal empire." Adams had been professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard College, and he was the last man in the country to appreciate an oratorical manner that departed from the established rules and traditions of the art. Ampere, a French traveler, thought Douglas a perfect representative of the energetic builders of the Western commonwealths, and predicted that he would come into power when it should be the ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... chief trouble was caused by Lucien, whose address had saved matters at the few critical minutes of Brumaire. Gifted with a strong vein of literary feeling and oratorical fire he united in his person the obstinacy of a Bonaparte, the headstrong feelings of a poet, and the dogmatism of a Corsican republican. His presumptuous conduct had already embroiled him with the First Consul, who deprived him of his Ministry and sent him as ambassador to ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... forty-seven years. His death was a serious loss to the anti-slavery Democrats of Massachusetts and the country. He was one of the three distinguished men that the county of Essex has produced in his century: Choate, Cushing and Rantoul. In oratorical power he could not be compared to Choate. In learning he was of the three the least well equipped. In logic he was superior to Cushing, and he was more direct, and more easily comprehended than either Cushing or Choate. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... an audience more than half of which is composed of women, and entirely disposed in my favour, I always appeal not so much to the mind as to the sensitive and truthful heart. Fortunately I possess a certain oratorical power, and the customary effects of the oratorical art, to which all preachers, beginning in all probability with Mohammed, have resorted, and which I can handle rather cleverly, allow me to influence my hearers in the desired direction. It is easily understood that to the dear ladies ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... both, in order, as it would seem, to monopolize all inconsistency. "Among those who have successfully laboured in the philological field, Mr. Lindley Murray stands forth in bold relief, as undeniably at the head of the list."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 12. "The modern candidate for oratorical fame, stands on very different, and far more advantageous, ground, than that occupied by the young and aspiring Athenian; especially since a correct analysis of the vocal organs, and a faithful record of their operations, have been given to the world by Dr. James Rush, of Philadelphia—a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of a humming-bird darting from flower to flower, of a honey-bee happy in a garden. He graduated at Harvard, meaning to be a clergyman, but the publicity, the magisterial posture, the incessant constraint of the liberty which he valued more than all else, with the lack of oratorical gifts and of the self-asserting disposition, soon closed that career to him; afterwards he was one of the most cheerful and charming figures at Brook Farm in its pleasantest day. All his life he was a teacher, mainly of private classes, and ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... of a statesman and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... has never been more closely packed. Seats, stage, box, aisles, windows, doorways, were filled, and many found place in the flies of the theater. A number couldn't find places anywhere and went away. Mr. Lutz is a fine example of evangelist. He has a magnetic personality and a strong, oratorical way of talking, fluent in speech and filled with figurative language and the phrases of his profession."—Harrisonburg ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... their too-widely opened collars, and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-eds was strained back from her temples. She received the President's condescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loud oratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parnelia off from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted false-front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic. And this, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... discussion did not appear to be very popular with the assembly, and some would have been delighted to change it; but Evgenie would not stop holding forth, and the prince's arrival seemed to spur him on to still further oratorical efforts. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to the world at large. After a brief response through his interpreter, Li left the banquet hall at eight-thirty, and went to his night's rest. His hosts, however, were not to be balked of their evening's entertainment, and the oratorical feast was continued ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... in. Hutchinson, from the mill. Terry Mackenzie, Rodney Page, in evening clothes and on his way from the opera to something or other. In a corner Graham and Delight talked. The rector, in a high state of exaltation, was inclined to be oratorical and a trifle noisy. He dilated on the vast army that would rise overnight, at the call. He considered the raising of a company from his own church, and nominated Clayton as its captain. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I must inquire what I am more fitted for, and not lightly put aside those opportunities which Providence places in my way. However, I would by no means be hurried in my choice either way: I must inquire what is the office of a writer; whether oratorical powers be not requisite, &c., for as yet I have a very vague and indefinite idea of what I reject or choose. I really do find my impediment most truly a grievous impediment to what appears more desirable; but I would wish to consider this, as ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Schoolmen. Nothing can be more forcibly contrasted, than the mode of pleading among the ancients, and that which has characterised the processes of the moderns. The pleadings of the ancients were praxises of the art of oratorical persuasion; the pleadings of the moderns sometimes, though rarely, deviate into oratory, but principally consist in dextrous subtleties upon words, or a nice series of deductions, the whole contexture of which is endeavoured to be woven into one indissoluble ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... of placing a woman's college on an equality with the other colleges of the state, we applied for an opportunity to compete in the intercollegiate oratorical contest of Illinois, and we succeeded in having Rockford admitted as the first woman's college. When I was finally selected as the orator, I was somewhat dismayed to find that, representing not only one school but college women in general, I could not ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... gesture constrained and meaningless and his whole appearance calculated only to produce laughter, notwithstanding the evidence he gave of superior abilities. All these faults he overcame by severe and patient labor. One of his biographers says,—"His oratorical training was as severe as any Greek ever underwent." Constantly on the watch against bad habits, he practised daily before a glass, reciting passages from Shakespeare, Junius, and the best English orators. He became the most eloquent of all irish advocates, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... SPEAKING in PUBLIC familiarized: including Directions for Oratorical Action, and observations on Rhetoric, Style, and Emphasis. Illustrated by various passages from Milton, Pope, Young, Shakspeare, &c. with numerous examples of Antient and Modern Oratorical Eloquence from St. Paul, Cicero, Q. Curtius, Livy, Marmontel, Shakspeare, Alison, Blair, Hume, ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... PRAGUE, born at Prague; studied there and at Oxford (where he came under Wycliffe's influence), Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne; acquired great learning, and displayed great energy and oratorical power; attracted the notice of the Kings of Poland and Hungary; joined John Huss in his agitation against the abuses of the Church; became involved in the movement against Huss, and though he recanted, afterwards withdrew his recantation, and was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Irish Members, whether Cavaliers or Cromwellians, are depressed in same way. Came upon SWIFT MacNEILL in retired recess in Library this afternoon; standing up with right hand in trouser-pocket, and left hand extended (his favourite oratorical attitude in happier times) smiling in really ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... to Jena, during which he and a companion seem to have found their way into various musical and oratorical associations, he paid a visit to Schiller. With this object in view, he had come armed with a request from the management of the Leipzig Theatre, who wanted to secure the rights of Wallenstein, which was just finished. He told me later of the magic ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the figurative elocution of the Indian, so far from affording evidence of oratorical power, if it proves anything, proves the opposite. It is the barrenness of his language, and not the luxuriance of his imagination, which enforces that mode of speech.[16] Imagination is the first element of oratory, simplicity its first condition. We have seen that the Indian is wholly destitute ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... has been good to Rev. Daniel Webster Davis, blessing him with intellectual force, blessing him with poetic utterance, blessing him with oratorical ability, blessing him in domestic felicity. Not yet in his prime, yet so richly endowed in the gifts which make men strong and powerful, it is hoped that he may be spared many years to work in the Master's vineyard, and many years to labor ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... reluctant to single out the Jew from his fellows at college. He seems in no manner different from them. He studies with them, eats with them, plays ball with them. He writes editorials for the college paper; he competes in the oratorical contests. One, for example, is a member of the school orchestra; another, perhaps the son or the grandson of an immigrant from Germany, leads the cheers at the track meet; another, himself an immigrant from Russia, plays ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... them, and those who attend them profess on their part to receive what the lecturer has to offer. It is a case of contract:—'I will speak, if you will listen.'—'I will come here to learn, if you have any thing worth teaching me.' In an oratorical display, all the effort is on one side; in a lecture, it is shared between two parties, who co-operate towards a ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... as well as the dog, possessed the oratorical gift. The cobbler's voice was the true speaker's voice—rich, vibrating, sonorous, with a deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures matched with the voice; they were flexible ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... conflict between Caesar and Pompey, Cicero was attached to the party of Pompey and the senate, as against Caesar and the people. He kept clear of the conspiracy against Caesar's life, but after the assassination he undertook an oratorical campaign against Antony, and was entrusted with the government of the city. But on the return of the triumvirate, Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus, Cicero's name was included in the list of those who were to be done away, and he was murdered ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... run, the confidence of party associates is the surest passport to real influence in the House. It might easily happen, indeed, that Douglas, with all his rough eloquence, would remain an impotent legislator. The history of Congress is strewn with oratorical derelicts, who have often edified their auditors, but quite as often blocked the course of legislation. No one knew better than Douglas, that only as he served his party, could he hope to see his wishes crystallize ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... books written by Gregorio Leti, whom the Italians, very justly, call 'Leti caca libro'. But I would rather that you chose some pieces of oratory for your translations, whether ancient or modern, Latin or French, which would give you a more oratorical train of thoughts and turn of expression. In your letter to me you make use of two words, which though true and correct English, are, however, from long disuse, become inelegant, and seem now to be stiff, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... comes a British chairman with a wide oratorical scope. In his case these additional expressions ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... constant, intimate, personal contact. The preacher is dealing with theories and ideals not always rooted in local experiences. The pastor lives the life of the people. He is known to them and their lives are known to him. The preacher may perform his oratorical ministry through knowledge of populations long since dead and by description of foreign and alien countries. It is possible to preach acceptably about kingdoms that have not yet existed. But the work of a pastor is the development of ideals out of situations. ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... conclusion of the service, Ringfield was moving out quietly behind the others, with that sense of slight collapse upon him which frequently follows oratorical efforts, when Poussette and the architect, Desnoyers, turned back and shook hands ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... cockpit of a biplane and flying him from city to city. They would land in some central square, and the candidate, deafened and half-frozen, would stammer a few halting remarks. He felt it rather keenly that Quimbleton looked down on his lack of oratorical gift, and it was a frequent humiliation that when words did not prosper on his tongue his impatient pilot would turn on the motors and zoom off into space in the ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... son Henry as he learned to measure the mental faculties themselves, which were in no way exceptional either for depth or range. Charles Francis Adams's memory was hardly above the average; his mind was not bold like his grandfather's or restless like his father's, or imaginative or oratorical — still less mathematical; but it worked with singular perfection, admirable self-restraint, and instinctive mastery of form. Within its ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... more honestly prosperous metropolis in these United States to-day, than Illington, but—" Mr. Carlis, the political boss who had ruled for more than a decade in almost undisputed sway, paused and gulped, as if his oratorical eloquence ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... taking hold of his hat which stood before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... them worship in future the true God, our Father, as He is in heaven and in the beneficent labors of His children on earth. Then farewell to the siren song of a worldly ambition! Farewell to the vain desire of mere literary success or oratorical display! Farewell to the distempered longings for office! Farewell to the dismal, blood-red phantom of martial renown! Fame and glory may then continue, as in times past, the reflection of public opinion; but of an opinion sure and steadfast, without change or fickleness, enlightened by ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Anglican Chapters, threatened by the reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give to oratory its power and its persuasiveness. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... they slowly grew plain, until at length he read them with perfect distinctness. Mr. Beecher had a similar experience when he fronted the mob in Liverpool. He said that all events, arguments and appeals that he had ever heard or read or written passed before his mind as oratorical weapons, and standing there he had but to reach forth his hand and seize the weapons as they went smoking by. All public men have had similar experiences—witness the testimony of Pitt, Burke and Wendell Phillips. But what event has such power ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... contains memorials of the heroes and heroines of France. But, though we may not fairly judge of his political motives, we can readily reconstruct a picture of him as a man, and in doing so recall his one romance, which many will remember after they have forgotten his oratorical ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... very much. What do you think he said to me last night after he had gone to his dressing-room? 'My dear, if I were twenty years younger, I should go to Ireland myself as Irish Secretary.'" The speech was a great oratorical success, and at the close of the banquet, as I have said, an immense torchlight procession, which had been carefully organised by the local committee, conducted the Premier and his wife from the banqueting hall to the residence of Kitson at Headingley. The procession had to pass across Woodhouse ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... perceiving that his spouse was too nervous to make an excellent speech, "took up the cudgels" of gratitude; but, saving that there could be no doubt of his sincerity, displayed no great oratorical talents. Brief, however, as his speeches, or rather ejaculations, were, the funny old gentleman stopped him by ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of Drayton is afforded by a comparison of the noble speech of Fame in "The tragicall legend of Robert Duke of Normandie" (Bullen, pp. 25, 27) with Shelley's still finer "Hymn of Apollo." There is hardly any instance of direct verbal resemblance; but the metre, the strain of sentiment, the oratorical pose, the mental and moral attitude of the two poems are so much alike as to justify the assertion that the younger owes its form and much of its spirit to ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... rather long behind, yet the length did not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in everything—look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, he had nevertheless the secret of the highest art of all, whether in oratory or whatever else—he ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... gifted with oratorical powers which were likely to gain him employment as a leader, Gaselee's reputation for legal knowledge soon recommended him to a judge's place. He was accordingly selected on July 1st, 1824, to fill a vacancy in the Court of Common ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when he had completed his studies, got for a testimonium that he had distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wrtemberg. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... are fled—the great constitutional questions that called forth "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," from men like Erskine, are determined. Would you have men oratorical over a bottomry bond, Demosthenic about an action of trespass on the case, or a rule ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... by matter, but to place his own creative and determining impress on matter, not so much to grasp reality poetically and represent it poetically as to cast ideas into reality, a disposition for lively representation and strong oratorical coloring. All this he derived from the genial period, though later on somewhat modified, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry; and for this very reason he is not only together with Goethe, but before Goethe, the favorite poet ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... by his eloquence that he was commonly called the Roman Demosthenes; but his manner of life was yet more famous and talked of. For oratorical skill was, as an accomplishment, commonly studied and sought after by all young men; but he was a rare man who would cultivate the old habits of bodily labor, or prefer a light supper, and a breakfast which never saw the fire; or be in love with poor clothes and a homely lodging, or could set ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... same question of you," I replied. "Wherefore have you not been to see me?" Whereupon Francis Ardry told me that he had been much engaged in his oratorical exercises, also in escorting the young Frenchwoman about to places of public amusement; he then again questioned me as to the reason of my not ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... religion, so that they might thus perhaps exhibit it in its appropriate greatness and dignity. Hence it is impossible, without the aid of poetry, to give utterance to the religious sentiment in any other than an oratorical manner, with all the skill and energy of language, and freely using, in addition, the service of all the arts which can contribute to flowing and impassioned discourse. He, therefore, whose heart is overflowing with religion, can open his mouth only before ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... and rigid as this is the same vocabulary, the same ample, oratorical tone, will help Borrow to genial, substantial effects such as the dinner with the landlord and the commercial traveller: "The dinner was good, though plain, consisting of boiled mackerel—rather a rarity in those parts at that time—with fennel sauce, a prime baron of roast ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... ideals of the noblest among their elders; the humanitarianism of a Clerambault was too vague, it contented itself with pleasant hopes, without risk or vigour, which the quietude of a generation grown old in the talkative peace of Parliaments and Academies, alone could have permitted. Except as an oratorical exercise it had never tried to foresee the perils of the future, still less had it thought to determine its attitude in the day when the danger should be near. It had not the strength to make a choice ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... her talks to them as a class, and profoundly attracted to her by a way she had of gathering each one of them under the hen-mother wings of her sympathies. That she and they exaggerated the degree of her personal feeling for her individual listeners is probable; the oratorical temperament enlarges the image of a sentiment as naturally as a magic lantern magnifies a picture. In later days beloved Maggies and Matildas of the class, who had believed themselves special favorites of Mrs. Frankland—their images graven on her heart of hearts—were amazed to find ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman in Mauchline—a Mr. Gavin Hamilton—Holy Willie and his priest, Father Auld, after full hearing in the presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr. Robert Aiken, Mr. Hamilton's counsel; but chiefly to Mr. Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the county. On losing the process, the muse overheard him [Holy Willie] at ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... way for his political career by pleading lawsuits for the press. Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of "beards," if it can be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment. But they are all delighted with it, for the title of "political convict" is one very much in demand among the irreconcilables. They are all convinced that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... he moderated himself and visited the King and made him many fine promises, which he did not keep, however." With the Ministers Margaret was even more outspoken; but we are told that she turned her oratorical powers "to such good purpose that she rendered herself agreeable rather than odious or unpleasant; the more readily as she was also good-looking, a widow, and in the flower of her age."—OEuvres de Brantome, 8vo, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... consequently he took counsel of facts. When it was only the world at large that he was bent on benefiting, too shrewd a sifting of arguments was not called for, and might seriously have interfered with his oratorical effects. In regulating private interests one cares singularly little for anything but hard demonstration and the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... was indulging in oratorical debate, and political writers were dipping their pens in gall, the Americans had been actively engaged with the sword. During the winter, both the British army in Boston, and the blockading army of the Americans, by which that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in the paradise of women: and there is no country in the world where there is so much boasting of the 'chivalrous' treatment she enjoys. That is to say,—she has the best place in stage-coaches: when there are not chairs enough for everybody, the gentlemen stand she hears oratorical flourishes on public occasions about wives and home, and apostrophes to woman: her husband's hair stands on end at the idea of her working, and he toils to indulge her with money: she has liberty to get her brain turned by religious excitements, that ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which he belonged; he wrote prose and verse at an astonishing rate; he explored the country for miles around, making frequent pilgrimages to the birthplace of Henry Clay, which is the chief historical glory of Ashland, and to that Hanover Court House which was the scene of the oratorical triumph of Patrick Henry; he flirted with the pretty girls in the village, and even had two half-serious love affairs in rapid succession; he slept upon a hard mattress at night and imbibed more than the usual allotment of Greek, Latin, and mathematics in the daytime. One year he captured ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... to furious flaws,—let us hope at great distances apart:—that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: 'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches, Don't fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'—mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene. But we hope it ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1869. He was then beginning to lose somewhat his oratorical power and the splendid qualities which made him so important a force in the history of Massachusetts and of the country. But still on fit occasions he showed all his old vigor and brilliancy. When the delegation gave a dinner to William B. Washburn on his election as Governor Banks presided. He ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... gave valuable assistance in organizing suffrage clubs. Educational work in colleges was begun and Mrs. Elmira E. Springer, an ardent suffrage worker, contributed a fund of $1,000, the interest to be distributed as prizes at an annual inter-collegiate oratorical suffrage contest. As a result suffrage societies were formed among the college students auxiliary to the State association. It published suffrage leaflets written by Judge Murray F. Tuley, a prominent ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Honore, where he lodges with the carpenter Duplay.—Here, in one of those families in which the semi-bourgeois class borders on the people, whose minds are unsophisticated, and on whom glittering generalities and oratorical tirades take full hold, he finds his worshippers; they drink in his words; they have the same opinion of him that he has of himself; to every person in the house, husband, wife and daughter, he is the great patriot, the infallible sage; he bestows benedictions night ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... displayed an erratic disposition by eloping with the young wife of an aged nobleman. He fled to Holland, but was captured and imprisoned. Being at length liberated, he turned to literature and politics, and soon gained celebrity in both. His magnificent oratorical powers brought him rapidly to the front in the period immediately anterior to the outbreak of the Revolution. Mirabeau's "Memoirs, by Himself, his Father, his Uncle, and his Adopted Son," published in eight volumes in 1834, contain no original writings ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... a verbatim note taken fifteen years ago of a speech delivered in the House of Commons by Sir Walter, which faintly echoes an oratorical style whose master is no longer with us. It lacks the inconsequential emphasis, the terrific vigour of the gesture, and the impression conveyed by the speaker's intense earnestness, that really, by-and-by, he would ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... were not all equally sincere. Many of them were only able to see in the movement an opportunity of rising above their class by affecting to despise it. For the majority it was an intellectual pastime, an oratorical enthusiasm which they never took altogether seriously. There is a certain pleasure in believing that you believe in a cause, that you are fighting, or will fight, for it,—or at least could fight. There is a by no means negligible satisfaction ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... fact essentially borrowed its methods and its stimulants. Moreover, the relations of politics, the impulse to mount the orators' platform in the Forum which was imparted by the democratic doings to an ever-widening circle, contributed not a little to the diffusion and enhancement of oratorical exercises; "wherever one casts his eyes," says Cicero, "every place is full of rhetoricians." Besides, the writings of the sixth century, the farther they receded into the past, began to be more decidedly regarded as classical texts of the golden age of Latin literature, and thereby gave a greater ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... still. However much her demagogues may have exerted their oratorical powers at home, they carefully avoided perilling either life or limb in the cause of the revolution. A more numerous band of fighting men of English origin, in Garibaldi's ranks, would have shown more sympathy with rebellion in some Italian States than the proposal made by ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... imagination, or, as he pronounced it, im-madge-i-na-shun, with a volume of sound which filled a large building and made the quality he named seem the biggest thing in the universe. That in my experience was his loftiest oratorical feat; but I think the old shepherd rose to a greater height when, after a long pause during which he filled his lungs with air, he brought forth the tremendous word, dragging it out gratingly, so as to illustrate the sense ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... peculiarity, for he is said to have been extremely laconic; he was also, as he himself relates, influenced by the example of Seneca: but how different a lesson might he have learned from the Greeks! We do not, it is true, in conversation, connect our language so closely as in an oratorical harangue, but the opposite extreme is equally unnatural. Even in our common discourses, we observe a certain continuity, we give a development both to arguments and objections, and in an instant passion will animate us to fulness of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... months but could do nothing to better its record. The leading occupation of its members now seemed to be the advocacy of free silver and the denunciation of President Cleveland. William J. Bryan of Nebraska was then displaying in the House the oratorical accomplishments and dauntless energy of character which soon thereafter gained him the party leadership. With prolific rhetoric, he likened President Cleveland to a guardian who had squandered the estate of a confiding ward and to a trainman who opened a switch and caused a wreck, ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... of rhetoric, in public speaking, this sense has given us orators whom I do think we may, without fear of being contradicted and accused of blind national vanity, assert to have inherited the great Greek and Roman oratorical tradition more than the orators of any other country. Strafford, Bolingbroke, the two Pitts, Fox,—to cite no other names,—I imagine few will dispute that these call up the notion of an oratory, in kind, in extent, in power, coming nearer ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... turning towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit's oratorical appearance, she put into her ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Jones,' in 'Wilhelm Meister' and in 'Pickwick,' inserted for no artistic reason, but merely because the author happened to have them on hand. The play in its highest development is now a single action, swiftly presented, and kept free from lyrical and oratorical digressions existing for their own sake and not aiding in the main purpose of ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... the degradation of the greater number of the monks it is not enough to read the oratorical and often exaggerated reproofs of preachers obliged to strike hard in order to produce an effect. We must run through the collection of bulls, where appeals to the court of Rome against assassinations, violations, incests, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... not observed that, during this eloquent passage, Diggle had more than once glanced beyond him, as though his mind were not wholly occupied with his oratorical efforts. It was therefore something of a shock that he heard him say ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... style is warmer and more oratorical than that of former books. Its tone is more spiritual and ethical and its appeal is "to know God," "love God" and ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he used action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life and colour, but there was no approach to staginess or even oratorical display. In fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was saying, and desired that his hearers should accept his meaning, fully confident in his good faith. His use of pause was effective. After the word "mistake," ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler |
