"Volubility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yet been to school; for, not being able to speak their 'own English,' it seemed impossible to send them from home. They thus passed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech, with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent was German,—as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for example, for carriage [ni-si-boo-a], which, on ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... river. It was amazing to see how boldly and well the old woman struck out for the shore, keeping her white head well out of the water; and, having reached dry land once more, sat down on her haunches, and began scolding with a volubility and power which would soon have silenced the loudest ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... I have known them) stupidly. If they had dropped in a single night to 3/4, I should at least have had my thrill. I should have suffered in a single night the loss of some pounds, and I could have borne it dramatically; either with the sternness of the silent Saxon, or else with the volubility of the volatile—I can't think of anybody beginning with a "V." But, alas! Jaguars never dropped at all. They subsided. They subsided slowly back to 1—so slowly that you could hardly observe them going. A week later they were 63/64, which, of course, is practically ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... close by, he would circle away, quivering round the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc! he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... down-bent head and flushing face, wishing again, as when this dreadful visit was appointed him, that Katharine Maitland had never set foot in Marsden village. Longing, too, with a longing unspeakable, to retort upon her with a volubility and sharpness exceeding even her own. But all unconsciously his pride had received just the sting needed, and his angry thought, in which there was no halting stammer, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... our darling father, whose history it professes to relate in the most ignoble, the most revolting terms. Papa's in the most awful state!" and Mme. de Brecourt panted to take breath. She had spoken with the volubility of horror and passion. "You're outraged with us and you must suffer with us," she went on. "But who has done it? Who has done it? Who has ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... which he could get a bite of supper and reach the Gayety, before he remembered that he was a reformed character. Then he sternly withdrew his gaze from the lady who peeped through her fingers in the dusk, and brought it back to the red-headed person, who had continued his conversation with unbroken volubility. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... swelled the group of similar school hats already collected on the platform; ecstatic greetings were exchanged, urgent questions asked and hasty answers given, and items of choice information poured forth with the utmost volubility of which the English tongue is capable. Urged by brief directions from a mistress in charge, the chattering crew surged towards a siding, and made for a particular corridor carriage marked "Reserved". Here handbags, umbrellas, wraps, and lunch-baskets were hastily stowed ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... half vexed at his volubility, and gazed keenly at Saxon to see if she had followed him. What he saw in her face and eyes satisfied him, and he ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... are cruelly voluble, but their volubility taps the evil humour of the universal human disease. Their thoughts are our thoughts, their obsessions, our obsessions. Let no one think, in his vain security, that he has a right to say: "I have no part in this morbidity. I am different ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... her feet broke off the man's volubility. She was so frightened that almost without thought she circled toward the door. Sandy got up and placed himself directly in front ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... parson was itinerant; he spoke of many places—Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Texas; of towns in New Mexico. To Sheila, her senses dulled by the drowsiness that was stealing over her, it appeared that the parson was a foe to Science. His volubility filled the cabin; he contended sonorously that the earth was not round. The Scriptures, he maintained, held otherwise. He called Dakota's attention to the seventh ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all the loafers of the neighborhood. The ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Pamela, did you only excel me in words, I could forgive you: for there may be a knack, and a volubility, as to words, that a natural talent may supply; but to be thus out-done in thought and in deed, who can bear it? And in so young an ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... now stark mad, took no notice of the order. His madness grew on him, and took a turn by no means uncommon in these cases. He saw before him sumptuous feasts, and streams of fresh water flowing. These he began to describe with great volubility and rapture, smacking his lips and exulting. And so he went ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... to pause here for a second or so, but as Mount Dunstan exhibited no signs of intending to use violence, and, on the contrary, continued to inspect the catalogue, he broke forth with renewed cheery volubility: ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... moreover, a sort of physical dignity; but neither in dress nor in manner did he ever grow quite "gentlemanly" or Salonfaehig in the conventional and obliterated sense of the terms. He was too cordial and emphatic for that. His broad brow, his big chest, his bright blue eyes, his volubility in talk and laughter told a tale of vitality far beyond the common; but his fine and nervous hands, and the vivacity of all his reactions suggested a degree of sensibility that one rarely finds conjoined with so robustly animal ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Rajah of the sea!" she said, speaking in a high-pitched, clear voice with great volubility. "There, under the table. I want it quick! Quick! You have been away fighting with many men. Ali says so. You are a mighty fighter. Ali says so. On the great sea far ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... very few good books after all, for we can't count profuse histories, travels in mule carts to discover the sources of the Nile, or the volubility of fiction. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... during this attack upon him, was swearing abundance of oaths, and making tell thousands of exclamations, in proof of his innocence. Nothing, however, could stop the volubility of his wife, or calm her rage. By this time she had worked her passion up to such a pitch, that oath succeeded oath; and blasphemy blasphemy, in one raging, unceasing torrent. From her husband she fell on Zeenab, and from Zeenab she returned again to her ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... won't sit with you." That one cried: "You've crushed our mistress' bundle." In the carriages yonder, one screamed: "You've pulled my flowers off." Another one nearer exclaimed: "You've broken my fan." And they chatted and chatted, and talked and laughed with such incessant volubility, that Chou Jui's wife had to go backward and forward calling them to task. "Girls," she said, "this is the street. The on-lookers will laugh at you!" But it was only after she had expostulated with them several times that any sign of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... several other rooms, at the doors of which, pausing on the outside, we could hear the volubility, and sometimes the wrangling, of the female inhabitants within, but invariably found silence and peace, when we stepped over the threshold. The women were grouped together in their sitting-rooms, sometimes three or four, sometimes a larger number, classified by their spontaneous affinities, I suppose, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by his sister's aspect under these novel conditions; Bertie Patterson seemed to find in her the incarnation of all the town's philanthropy; even Aunt Lydia was almost too deeply affected to chirp and chatter with her wonted volubility. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... and back—if I AM back," Evelina repeated. She lifted her head from the pillow and began to talk with a sudden feverish volubility. "It began right away, less than a month after we were married. I've been in hell all that time, Ann Eliza." She fixed her eyes with passionate intentness on Ann Eliza's face. "He took opium. I didn't find it out till long afterward—at first, ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... passed over the country when the nature and acceptance of the Japanese Ultimatum became generally known. The Chinese, always an emotional people responding with quasi- feminine volubility to oppressive acts, cried aloud at the ignominy of the diplomacy which had so cruelly crucified them. One and all declared that the day of shame which had been so harshly imposed upon them would never be forgotten and that Japan would indeed ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... not, therefore, surprising that the isolated Indians in the Missions should experience in the acquisition of the Spanish language, less facility than Indians who live among mestizoes, mulattoes, and whites, in the neighbourhood of towns. Nevertheless, I have often wondered at the volubility with which, at Caripe, the native alcalde, the governador, and the sergento mayor, will harangue for whole hours the Indians assembled before the church; regulating the labours of the week, reprimanding the idle, or threatening the disobedient. Those ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... to your taste. You commonly hate much volubility. How have I heard you bemoan yourself when attacked ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... Northumberland, on the new birth, and the insignificance of moral virtue; and her arguments have been reinforced by an old Scotch lawyer, in a rye periwig, who, though he has lost his teeth, and the use of his limbs, can still wag his tongue with great volubility. He has paid her such fulsome compliments, upon her piety and learning, as seem to have won her heart; and she, in her turn, treats him with such attention as indicates a design upon his person; but, by all accounts, he is too much of a fox to be inveigled into any ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... violent hysterical laugh, 'that he'll go down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless your heart my dear Miss Floy he won't, he's a great deal too happy in seeing other people happy for that, he may not be a Solomon,' pursued the Nipper, with her usual volubility, 'nor do I say he is but this I do say a less selfish human creature human nature never knew!' Miss Nipper being still hysterical, laughed immoderately after making this energetic declaration, and then informed Florence that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... something to say. He had been everybody's victim. The world had been against him. Friends had proved themselves ungrateful, and foes had acted meanly. Nobody could imagine half his sufferings. While he dwelt on himself with all the volubility and wearying detail of a wholly selfish man, I was eager to catch the least clue to a history that interested me much more deeply than his; and in which I had good reason to suspect he had not borne an honourable part. The gossips had confirmed ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... that it can always have its subscription lists well headed! And the young Radical was popular throughout the county. No one could take a chair at a mechanics' meeting with better grace or more alacrity, or spin out his half-hour's speech with greater ease and volubility. And then he was a born gentleman, which is so great a recommendation for a Radical. So that, in fact, young Mr. Westmacott, though he did not spend so much money as old Griffenbottom, was almost as popular in the borough. There was no doubt ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... some milch goats toward the hovel, and questioned him. The goatherd stood staring at the party with open mouth, and gave little heed to him. But, at length, being pressed for an answer, he gave one in a harsh voice with great volubility, and much action, as if drawing in the air a map of the whole country around. The muleteer seemed satisfied, and they again moved on over a waste of low, rolling hills, without a tree upon them. Unlike the heaths of the north of Europe, it was covered with a false show of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... see any of the unpleasant qualities he had expected. He sat easily, without self-consciousness or arrogance or unpleasant humility. He had a pair of pleasant, shrewd, and rather kind eyes; and his voice, when he said a word or two in answer to Lady Laura's volubility, was of that resonant softness that is always a delight to hear. In fact, his whole bearing and personality was that of a rather exceptional average man—a publisher, it might be, or a retired lawyer—a family man with a sober round of life and ordinary duties, who brought to their fulfillment ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... sprinkling of Dutchmen was all right. We had in the Sixty-first Germans and Dutchmen, who were the peers as soldiers, of any in the regiment, but this Seventh regiment when it went into action jabbered and talked Dutch to exceed in volubility any female sewing society ever assembled. As they came up and got into position the volume of jabber almost overcame the rattle of musketry and the roar of artillery. I am certain their conduct did not favorably impress our men. If the German Emperor's army is not made of grimmer stuff than I ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... graciously upon me, and then recommenced the gesticulation and babble of the two. At length she appeared satisfied with the understanding at which they arrived. I was growing uneasy at their prolonged volubility, when Monsieur Pilot pirouetted up ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... supped with his companions. He was a very gentlemanly, good-looking lad of seventeen. He addressed me in his native language, and, finding that I understood him, he commenced talking with astonishing volubility. In the space of five minutes he informed me that, having a desire to see the world, he had run away from his friends, who were people of opulence at Madrid, and that he did not intend to return until he had travelled through ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... into sudden volubility. The dam once down, she poured forth a catalogue of wrongs that seemed endless, switching off from one dialect to another and at intervals inserting, apropos apparently of nothing, the few words of German she had picked up. The lieutenant yelled ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... some drawing materials, I amused the Indians with a sketch of the interior of the tent and its inhabitants. An old woman, who was relating with great volubility an account of some quarrel with the traders at Cumberland House, broke off from her narration when she perceived my design; supposing, perhaps, that I was employing some charm against her; for the Indians have been taught ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... with a woman named Appokiuk, whom Iligliuk had mentioned as having seen Kabloona people before us. This woman was gifted, however, with such a volubility of tongue, that speaking, as she did, in a language very imperfectly known to us, she gave no time for questions, and therefore afforded little information. All we could make out for certain was, that ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... attacks upon him: he is either restrained by a feeling of natural gallantry, little as she deserves the consideration due to her sex, (for a female satirist ever places herself beyond the pale of such forbearance,) or he is subdued by her superior volubility. He revenges himself, however, in her absence: he abuses her with such a variety of comic invective, and pours forth his pent-up wrath with such a ludicrous extravagance and exaggeration, that he betrays at once how deep is his mortification, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... been awed by his grim silence in the days when he ruled above all law in Ascalon, were surprised now by his volubility. Under provocation Craddock could say as much as the next man, it appeared. Unquestionably, he could express his limited thoughts in words luridly strange. He wearied of this arraignment at last, and subsided. Long before the train came he lapsed into his natural blue sulkiness, remaining as quiet ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Mars Plaisir to answer this question; which he did with indignant volubility, describing the uses and the beauties of the heights of Saint Domingo, from the loftiest peaks which intercept the hurricane, to the lowest, crested with forts or spreading their blossoming groves to the verge ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... "to get up to-morrow, and remember that I was gone;" and that he loved me better than any body, for no one had been so indulgent, and had taken such pains to make him a good boy. Before we reached the village, his volubility had changed the tears to smiles. As we reached it, John appeared on his return homeward. I gave the boy into his charge, and the cloud lowered again, and the shower fell heavier than ever. I turned at the point at which the hills became shut out, and there stood the boy fastened to the spot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... the fisherman, and after having bowed, he left the tent, accompanied by Digby. Before he had gone a hundred paces he found his companions, who were whispering with a volubility which did not appear exempt from uneasiness, but he made them a sign which seemed to reassure them. "Hola, you fellows!" said the patron, "come this way. His lordship, General Monk, has the generosity to pay us for our fish, and the goodness to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The volubility of his guides, restrained during the repast by the more important business of satisfying their appetites, now broke out to his great disturbance. They chattered almost incessantly during great part of the night with the host, whom they were probably entertaining with ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Nucky could continue his cursing, the Italian broke in with a volubility of oaths that reduced the boy to sullen silence. Having eased his mind, Luigi proceeded to drag the sack into the basement ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... dispositions; but to see him shine with such transcendant brightness, before such excellent judges, and in so polite a company, inspired her with raptures she had never felt before. Indeed, in consequence of this success, the young gentleman's volubility improved so much that, before dinner was over, he seemed disposed to engross the whole conversation to himself; and Mr Merton, who did not quite relish the sallies of his son so much as his wife, was once or ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... half-dressed, armed men, who were huddled together on the left of the platform, some sitting, and others standing, and awaiting the coming of the prince. Their friend, Gun, was with them, and he immediately claimed priority of acquaintance with them. He chatted with amazing volubility, and in less than two minutes, he was on the most familiar footing, slapping them with no small force just above the knee, to give weight to his observations, and to rivet their attentions to his remarks. Then, while they spoke, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... him enjoying himself quite as much without her. The sun was setting redly as she neared the cottage, and a young moon gaining brightness. Bluebell, remembering a childish superstition, paused to wish. The passage was dark as she entered, and her mother's tones, talking with great volubility, struck her ear. "Mamma has her company voice on," thought she, which, being interpreted, meant an increase of nervousness and ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... his powers on trifling jests [1] and extempore versifying. The only other name worthy of mention is Q. HATERIUS, who from an orator became a noted declaimer. The testimonies to his excellence vary; Seneca, who had often heard him, speaks of the wonderful volubility, more Greek than Roman, which in him amounted to a fault. Tacitus gives him higher praise, but admits that his writings do not answer to his living fame, a persuasive manner and sonorous voice having been indispensible ingredients in his oratory. [2] ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... we should "find water all about: no more want water." In return for all this intelligence I presented the old man with an iron tomahawk which he placed under him as he sat; and he continued to address me with great volubility for some time. I was told by Piper that he was merely saying how glad he was, and enumerating (apparently with a sort of poetic fervour) the various uses to which he could apply the axe I had given him. I left these natives with ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... private reasons to her were equally unanswerable; but they were so confused, and delivered with so much volubility, as to be absolutely unintelligible. All I could gather was, that Fowler and her daughter Nancy were in the room when Lady Anne and her mother first missed the ring—that when her mother drew off her glove, and exclaimed, "Bless me, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the astonishment he felt. In vain he attempted to assure her in the strongest terms, that he had had no intention of withdrawing from their society—that he did not understand—that she must be mistaken. The tender mother's volubility was too much for him. He could only listen in a very embarrassed silence ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... been lately formed in the north-west part of the state, advising my father and Mr McDermont to become purchasers of the finest allotments which he had to offer for sale. Mr Chouse was a man of great volubility of tongue, unbounded assurance, with a look of determination which showed that he would not ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... their prior duty to obey the calls of another, would demand that they should be forthwith whipped for their insolence. If the young ladies remonstrated with her, she met them with a perfect torrent of invective and abuse. In these paroxysms of fury she always spoke in French, with a vehemence and volubility, which strongly contrasted with the calmness and firmness of the young ladies. She would boast of what she had done in New-Orleans, and of the excellent discipline of her father's slaves. She said she had gone ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... by a joyous exclamation from the Judge. He had discovered the Old Man's rifle in the corner, where it had been at first overlooked. "He ain't gone yet, gentlemen—for yer's his rifle," he broke in, with a feverish return of volubility, and a high excited falsetto. "He wouldn't have left this behind. No! I knowed it from the first. He's just outside a bit, foraging for wood and water. No, sir! Coming along here I said to Union Mills—didn't I?—'Bet your life the Old Man's not far off, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... to infect Odo's mother, who, from her habitual volubility of temper, sank to a mood of like submissiveness. A supper of venison and goat's cheese was not designed to restore her spirits, and when at length she and Odo had withdrawn to their cavernous bedchamber, she flung herself weeping on the bed and declared ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the back of the Woodhouse kitchen fire, and got at least one meal every day, where he used to make the rustics gape and stare at the many ghost, fairy, and robber stories which he had either heard of or invented, and poured out with unceasing volubility, and so often that he believed them all true. But the Ballantyne family had no great faith in his veracity, when it suited his convenience to fib, exaggerate, or prevaricate, particularly when excited by his own lucubrations, or the waggery of his more intellectual neighbors and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the tutor of Henry VIII., and during the greater part of the reign of his pupil he continued to satirize social and ecclesiastical abuses. His poems are exceedingly curious and grotesque, and the volubility with which he vents his acrid humors is truly surprising. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547), opened a new era in English poetry, and by his foreign studies, and his refinement of taste and feeling, was enabled to turn poetical literature into a path as ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... remember it!" she said, as if her volubility needed an explanation. "It took me a long time to understand. But ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... than a somewhat servile copyist; not without a touch of his master's more serious eloquence, but with less than little of his peculiar energy and humor. That rushing wind of satire, that storm of resonant invective, that inexhaustible volubility of contempt, which rages through the controversial writings of the lesser poet, has sunk to a comparative whisper; the roar of his Homeric or Rabelaisian laughter to a somewhat forced and artificial chuckle. This "News ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... This included the countess and Lady Selina, as well as Fanny, and was, therefore, not a particular question; but, having hoped this, and the earl remaining silent, he got confused, turned red, hummed and hawed a little, sat down, and then, endeavouring to drown his confusion in volubility, began talking quickly about his anxiety to make final arrangements concerning matters, which, of course, he had most deeply at heart; and, at last, ran himself fairly aground, from not knowing whether, under the present circumstances, he ought to speak of his affianced ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the girl the meaning of it, when she rose, and seizing his cap and boxing his ears with it, right and left, asked what he meant by wearing it before gentlemen, and then poured out a torrent of abuse on him, with such volubility I was ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... benevolent, but uncouth gentlewoman, so accepted a sandwich, and thereby giving her, as it were, a signal to commence operations. To work she applied herself upon the contents of her wicker store-room, with such hearty good-will, that I imagined myself secured from her volubility for at least one hour. Alas! alas! her tongue and her teeth were, I verily believe, running a race; and when the good dame discovered that to her queries and remarks I deigned not a reply, she "just was so glad there was somebody ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... of her handmaid's volubility as if the latter had been a grey parrot, and dismissed her with a certain cold, imperial manner that none of the household ever dreamt it possible to dispute or disobey; but after Puckers, with a quantity of white draperies over ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... known, thanks to the Countess Bois, who went about telling everybody with inexhaustible volubility, that she had just met Miss ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... differently gifted individuality of the artist. The average Corean seems to learn things quickly, but of what they learn, some things remain rooted in their brains, while others appear to escape from it the moment they have been grasped. There is a good deal of volubility about their utterances, and, though visibly they do not seem very subject to strong emotions, judging from their conversation, one would feel inclined to say that they were. Another thing that led me to this suspicion ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... better honored in the breach than the observance, and in any event whose sincerity will bear question; nor have I tales to tell after the manner of Paul Barras, whose Memoirs have earned him an immortality of infamy. Neither shall I emulate the grandiose volubility and self-complacent posing of Metternich and Talleyrand, whose pretentious volumes rest for the most part unopened upon dusty shelves. I aspire to none of the honors of the historian. It shall be my aim as far as may be to avoid ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... well, that the language of common people, when giving utterance to passionate emotions, is highly figurative; and hence he concludes not so well fit for a lyrical ballad. Their volubility is great, nor few their flowers of speech. But who ever heard them, but by the merest accident, spout verses? Rhyme do they never—the utmost they reach is occasional blanks. But their prose! Ye gods! how they do talk! The washerwoman absolutely froths ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... meat of the deer and wild turkey, bread of maize, and a large gourd filled with pure cold water. After he had loosened Henry's wrists that he might eat and drink he sat by and talked. Thunder, with further acquaintance, was disclosing signs of volubility. ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thing, Tom Miller, as being too smart!—" He leaned upon the rail, and, being an observant fellow, he looked to see if the lieutenant's hand trembled at all where it lay upon the horse's neck. It did not; it rested as quiet as an empty glove. The tall Marylander began to speak with a slow volubility. "There was a man from the Great Kanawha to Williamsport 't other day—a storekeeper—a big, fat man with a beard like Abraham's in the 'lustrated Bible. I heard him a-talking to the colonel. 'All the Union men in northwestern Virginia are on the Ohio side of the mountains,' said he. 'Toward the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... admiral as she fled: "If you must be a tool of Richard Bassett, don't be a tool and a dupe by halves. He is in love with her too. Marry her to the blackguard, and then you will be sure to kill Sir Charles." Having delivered this with such volubility that the words pattered out like a roll of musketry, she flounced out, with red cheeks and wet eyes, rushed down the stairs, and sprang into her carriage, whipped the ponies, and away at a pace ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... young man, stood in considerable apprehension of the people, as he was thought in face and figure to be very like the tyrant Pisistratus, and those of great age remarked upon the sweetness of his voice, and his volubility and rapidity in speaking, and were struck with amazement at the resemblance. Reflecting, too, that he had a considerable estate, and was descended of a noble family, and had friends of great influence, he was fearful all this might bring him to be banished ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and trampled them under foot in the rush of his stinging invective. Although of Italian origin, "Gassy" was born near the site of the Tower of Babel, and its propinquity and influence gave him that varied volubility in expressing fine shades of meaning in many languages that made him the pride of the profession of which he was a distinguished light. His ebullitions were frequently hurled at the "boots" for ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... to believe anything the bees tell you if only you will get us a cup of tea," interrupted Isabella, cutting short the stream of the good woman's volubility. "Now come in," she ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... about Old Fogy, whose letters aroused much curiosity and comment when they appeared from time to time in the columns of The Etude. I confess I do this rather unwillingly. When I attempted to assemble my memories of the eccentric and irascible musician I found that, despite his enormous volubility and surface-frankness, the old gentleman seldom allowed us more than a peep at his personality. His was the expansive temperament, or, to employ a modern phrase, the dynamic temperament. Antiquated as were his modes of thought, he would bewilder you with an excursion into latter-day literature, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... her position as the owner of two cars, Lady Martin brought forward her daughter and presented her to Toni, who received an instant impression of size, teeth and volubility as Miss Martin shook hands and expressed her pleasure at ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... wisdom, or the somewhat limited view that talking is only to be practised when it chances to be useful. Are we never to discuss the obvious or to deplore the inevitable? From so stern a code human nature revolts, and the storm of volubility went on in spite of the silence of the Dean of St. Neot's. Even this silence was imperfect in so far as the Dean said a word or two in private to Morewood when he visited him in his studio, and ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... came in, all eagerness and volubility. "Ah, my dear madame," she exclaimed, "you would be fortunate indeed if you were to get into this family. The nicest people they are; he so liked and respected; she so pretty and engaging. A most desirable situation, too, treated as a ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... resumed his role as the silent partner of the house. He was a large, slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had eaten. In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives. He woke up as his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any other city. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... been celebrated in Clavering Church. The rectory family was generally popular, and everybody wished well to the daughter who was being given away. When they were gone there was a breakfast at the rectory, and speeches were made with much volubility. On such an occasion the rector was a great man, and Harry also shone in conspicuous rivalry with his father. But Mr. Saul's spirit was not so well tuned to the occasion as that of the rector or his son, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... lady, with a profile like Marie Antoinette; she dressed in white with violet ribbons, and wore much ancient jewelry. A loud-voiced, energetic woman, who bewailed the sack of her house at Lyons, scolded her children, and cursed the Germans with equal volubility and spirit. When silent she was the picture of a patrician beauty; but, alas! her voice destroyed the charm, and her manners—great heavens, what things that woman did! Picking her pearly teeth with a hair-pin, and knocking ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet^, caquetterie [Fr.]; blabber, bavardage^, bibble-babble^, gibble-gabble^; small talk &c (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words; flux de bouche [Fr.], flux de mots [Fr.]; copia verborum [Lat.], cacoethes loquendi [Lat.]; furor loquendi [Lat.]; verbosity &c (diffuseness) 573; gift of the gab &c (eloquence) 582. talker; chatterer, chatterbox; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... grandame," he said. "No, mother, I am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never to be gainsay'ed, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will doubt but that he was the first to be tired. However, he said it was fine; and was quite surprised to hear me read Greek with such sonorous volubility. For his part it was long since he had read such authors: to which I sarcastically yielded my ready assent. He had partly forgotten them, he said. Indeed! answered I. My tone signified he never knew them—'but you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, and are grateful ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... left long in her new house without visitors. Early on the day after her arrival, Mrs. Houghton came to her, and began at once, with great volubility, to explain how the land lay, and to suggest how it should be made to lie for the future. "I am so glad you have come. As soon, you know, as they positively forbade me to get on horseback again this winter, I made up my mind to come to town. What ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... volubility, exhibited a summons which she had just received, and said that she owed three hundred francs, and that as she could no longer pay the interest, she had been summoned, and that her little property would be seized, and so a finishing stroke ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... respectfully. He did not wonder at the deference, almost the fear, which all men showed her—that seemed somehow her due. She had shed her taciturnity and was even voluble at times. But behind her volubility lurked always an inexplicable intensity of purpose whose cause Simpson could never fathom and was afraid to seek for. It was there, however—a nervous determination, not altogether alien to his own, which he associated with religion and with nothing else in the world. Religiosity, he called ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... At any rate, I prevailed on him to return to his room, when he took my arm, and, seating himself on the bedside, recited to me the paradigms of the more anomalous Greek verbs with great volubility for twenty minutes on end—that is to say, until Mrs. Stimcoe returned with the doctor safely tucked under ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... pretty things," continued she, rattling on with all her old volubility, "and we have hired the dearest little appartement on the fourth story, in a street near the Jardin des Plantes. See—this looking-glass is ours; we have just bought it. And those maple chairs, and that chest of drawers with the marble top. It isn't real ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... these outbursts—turns it aside, so to speak, instead of giving it free play after the favourite plan both of Borodine the great and purely Russian composer, and Dvorak the little Hungarian composer. The second theme does not appear to me equal to the rest of the symphony. It has that curious volubility and "mouthing" quality that sometimes gets into Tschaikowsky's music; it is plausible and pretty; it suggests a writer who either cannot or dare not use the true tremendous word at the proper moment, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... parrots to a hair!" said John Heywood, who just then entered the room. "I own a parrot which my great-grandfather inherited from his great-grandfather, who was hair-dresser to Henry the Fourth, and which to-day still sings with the same volubility as he did a hundred years ago: 'Long live the king! long live this paragon of virtue, sweetness, beauty, and mercy! Long live the king!' He has cried this for hundreds of years, and he has repeated it for Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth, for Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth! ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... understand, but he did; and while he was recalling the scene in "The Velvet Walk," and his promise to Valmai "that should he ever meet her again she need fear no sign of recognition from him," Gwen chattered on with volubility. All he ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... nodded. He was looking with absorbed interest into Sunni's eyes. He came out of his instant of abstraction with a start, while Jones went on with respectful volubility. ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility rather than convinced. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... language at the Cap'n. The Cap'n, reinforced with his vociferous parrots, returned the language with great enthusiasm and volubility. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... seemed to Jesus to have recovered a great part of his strength, spoke with great volubility and vehemence, saying that angels were but the messengers of God, and to carry on the work of the world God must have messengers, but angels had no power to carry messages from man back to God. There was but one Mediator, and he was on the point of saying that ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... said, with captivating volubility, "you are feeling yourself at home, are you not? You know any guest who feels uncomfortable in his coat may take it off... and the ladies, too. Ha! ha! ha! That's the way to make one's self happy, ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... could not fail to mislead an unthinking or superficial mind. Her mother had early taught her the trick of agreeable talk which appears to imply superiority, replying to arguments by clever jests, and attracting by the graceful volubility beneath which a woman hides the subsoil of her mind, as Nature disguises her barren strata beneath a wealth of ephemeral vegetation. Natalie had the charm of children who have never known what it is to suffer. She charmed by her frankness, and had none of that solemn air which mothers ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... talking to Madame Sennier. He was even sitting down beside her. She spoke, evidently with volubility, making rapid gestures with her hands. Then she paused. She was listening attentively to Heath. Mrs. Shiffney and Elliot listened, too, as if absorbed. Heath's French must really be excellent. Why had he—? If only she could hear what he was saying! She tingled with curiosity. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... The picnic mood had returned to take its place, and Bertrand knew not whether to be more astounded or relieved. He began to feel about for the basket containing the remnants of their feast, while Chris with much volubility and not a little merriment explained the situation ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell |
