"Confabulation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sagacious and paternal group, free from the interest of self and the play of the baser passions and animated only by the thought of the public good. Gravely they deliberate; wisely and justly they decide. Their gray heads—for Bellamy prefers them old—are bowed in quiet confabulation over the nice adjustment of the national production, over the petition of this or that citizen. The public care sits heavily on their breast. Their own peculiar fortune they have lightly passed by. They do not favor their relations or their ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... Afterwards, if they noticed the young people, joked them about their imaginary lovers—beaux, as the older ladies called them; young men, as the younger ones said. One, the most plain spoken of all, asked Herbert how he felt, at which the boy wriggled and laughed sheepishly, and his mother had a great confabulation with various of the ladies, who ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the north, and had lately been much abroad for his health. So when Miss Thornton and Mary joined the Vicar in the main aisle, and the three went forth into the churchyard, they found the villagers drawn respectfully back upon the graves, and his lordship waiting in close confabulation with farmer Wreford, to receive the Vicar as ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... spirit, man has been sometimes enabled, in every age and every country, to perceive things in the interior or invisible world. Hence, the "Samadhi," or Dhyan Yog Samadhi, of the Hindu ascetics; the "Daimonlonphoti," or spiritual illumination of the Neo-Platonists; the "sidereal confabulation of soul," of the Rosicrucians or Fire-philosophers; and, even the ecstatic trance of mystics and of the modern mesmerists and spiritualists, are identical in nature, though various as to manifestation. The search after man's diviner "self," so often and so erroneously interpreted as individual ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... as there was no witness to prove to the contrary, Bobby escaped punishment on that occasion; though, as he had been seen in deep confabulation with an ill-looking Jew a short time afterwards, suspicion went much against him. From bad, things grew to worse with Bobby Smudge. Not a day passed, scarcely an hour, that he did not taste the flavour of a rope's-end—most frequently bestowed by ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... have a private confabulation with the mater and the parson, but we like everything above board here. We haven't much to amuse us, and so every one likes to know every one else's business. I can see you have an eye for reform, so think it just as well ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... this, this small commonplace statement, which had kept the Duchessa, Miss Tibbutt, Doctor Hilary, and herself in solemn and amazed confabulation for at least two hours. It was infinitely more amazing even than the whole story of the past months, and Trix had given that in fairly detailed fashion, avoiding the Duchessa's eyes, however, whenever she mentioned Antony's name. Yes; it was what the tiny fact ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... carol of acclamation, confabulation, laughter, and cries of "Ah-r, indeed!" told that Anna's word was out. "What difference," Irby lingered to ask, "can an hour ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... dressmakers and maids, and was as happy and as busy as such a beauty should be on her wedding morning, and that there was not a vestige of yesterday's agitation remaining. The message concluded with the news that at the moment of the bearer's departure there was a great confabulation in progress as to which diamonds were to be ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... been forgotten, but that afternoon Anne, who had been sent on a message to one of the Queen's ladies, more than suspected that she saw Jane in a deep recess of a window in confabulation with the Colonel. And when they were alone at bed- ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so, if it had not been for the other delegation, consisting of Henderson L. Burns and Doctor Bliven, who had another petition asking for the establishment of the county-seat permanently "at its present site," Monterey Centre. They took me into the confabulation as soon as I weighed anchor in front of the house; and just as they had begun to pour their arguments into me they were joined by another man, who drove up in a two-seated democrat wagon drawn by a fine team of black horses, and in the back seat I saw ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... group of Seedies clustered round a fire near me. Negroes in this country are much the same as in other parts of the World—a happy, easily-contented race, forgetful of the past, and careless of the future. After keeping up their noisy confabulation for some time, they removed to a level spot close to where I was lying: one of them squatted down on the ground, and commenced singing to the music of a sort of tambourine, that he beat with the flat of his hand; and the others at once formed a ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... still holding it; but her manner was not quite so well assured. She thought she heard Dulce's voice in confabulation with the stranger. A moment afterwards Dulce came ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... adjoining room. Then the three worthies seated themselves at the table which Dinah had half cleared of the supper china, and were presently deeply engrossed over a packet of papers which the big, burly man had brought with him in the pocket of his pea-jacket. The confabulation was conducted throughout in the same foreign language which Levi had used when first speaking to them—a language quite unintelligible to Hiram's ears. Now and then the murmur of talk would rise loud and harsh over ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... affect suddenly goes, disorientation sets in. Although outbreaks of anxiety may be intercurrent, the dominant picture is of stupor. Reactions are slowed, often there is catalepsy. Sometimes there is a retention defect and confabulation to account for the recent past. Again the retention may be good. In the foreground stands a strong tendency to perseveration. This may affect speech to the point of an apparent aphasia or produce paragraphia. Plainly organic aphasia and focal ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... theme, which cannot but be appreciated by every heart of sensibility. You must have remarked, Mr. Editor, on summer evenings, and on Sunday afternoons, certain grave, primitive-looking personages, walking the Battery, in close confabulation, with their canes behind their backs, and ever and anon turning a wistful gaze toward the Jersey shore. These, Sir, are the sons of Saint Nicholas, the genuine Nederlanders; who regard Communipaw with pious reverence, not merely as the progenitor, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... rancher at the coming of the doctor and his companions; but their confabulation was brought to an abrupt termination ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... dangerously near; but the most important man of the moment in South Africa was grudgingly admitted to be "Oom Paul." His personal influence alone, it was stated, had restrained his wild bands of armed burghers, with which the land was simply bristling, and he was then in close confabulation with Her Majesty's High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, whom he had summoned to Pretoria to deal with such refractory Englishmen. The journals also took advantage of the occasion to bid Kruger remember ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the road to Boisingham, urging his fat pony along as though he meant to be there in twenty minutes. But so soon as he was well out of reach of the Squire's shouts and sight of the Castle gates, he deliberately turned up a bye lane and jogged along for a mile or more to a farm, where he had a long confabulation with a man about thatching some ricks. Thence he quietly made his way to his own little place, where he proceeded to comfortably get his breakfast, remarking to his wife that he was of opinion that there was ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... over the fireplace, two stuffed pheasants, and a little mahogany buffet,—having, we say, led Clarence to this sanctuary of retiring stewardship, he placed a seat for him and said,—"Between you and me, sir, be it respectfully said, I am not sorry that our little confabulation should pass alone. Ladies are very delightful, very delightful, certainly: but they won't let one tell a story one's own way; they are fidgety, you know, sir,—fidgety, nothing more; 't is a trifle, but it is unpleasant. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... months. However, as time rolled on he began regularly, every day or two, to ask Kate questions about Charley that she could not by any possibility answer, but which he knew from experience would lead her into a confabulation about his son, which helped a little to ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... before we reached Chicago, she managed to get in a long confabulation with another waiter, whom I am sure she had never met in Lake City, nor ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... palanquins of all colours, and open chairs, with tiger and leopard skins thrown over them, waiting outside the royal precincts, since they are not allowed inside, for their masters, who spend hours and days in expectation of being invited to an audience by, or a confabulation with, His Majesty. People of different ranks have differently coloured chairs—the highest of the palanquin form being that covered with green cloth and carried by four men. Foreign consuls and legal advisers of the King are allowed the honour of riding in one of these. The privilege of being carried ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... my lad," said the old gentleman, on the morning after the examination had been made, "come down below with me; I want to have a confabulation with 'ee." ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Southey at Oxford dreamed good dreams as a poetical Republican. He joined himself with other young students—Coleridge among them—who planned an experiment of their own in ideal life by the Susquehanna. He became engaged, therefore, at Bristol in mysterious confabulation with strange youths. This alarmed his maiden aunt. Uncle Hill, then in England, and about to return to his work at Lisbon, shrewdly proposed to set his nephew right, and draw him out of any confederacy that he might be in, by tempting him with an offer that would take strong hold of his imagination. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... which had kindled the colour in her cheeks and the light in her eyes—with haste, resentment, every feeling that can quicken the heart and make the pulses leap—Nettie had flashed into the little parlour, where all was so quiet and leisurely. There Susan sat in close confabulation with the Bushman. The children had been banished out of the room, because their mother's head was not equal to their noise and restlessness. When they came in with Nettie, as was inevitable, Mrs Fred sustained ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... host. He told me long and prolix stories, he discoursed on rural needs. At last I said that we must be going; he replied with genuine disappointment that the night was still young, and that it was a pity to break up our pleasant confabulation. I saw with a shock of wonder that he had evidently been enjoying himself hugely; that it was a pleasure to him, for some unaccountable reason, not to hear a new person talk, but to say the same things that ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... my dear, don't you mind him,' said Mrs Boffin, 'stick to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds a confabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on accounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn't found him out, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... ourselves preparatory to marching off, there were one or two things which struck me; one was that the Dutchman who had presented me with eggs and butter was in earnest confabulation with the Boer commandant, who was calling him "Oom" most affectionately. I also noticed that all the male Kaffirs from the neighboring kraal had been fetched and impressed to assist in getting the Boer guns and wagons across the drift and to load up our captured gear, and ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... from the time the breeze freshened, the everlasting Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless confabulation of the captain and his mate, had entirely ceased, and nothing was now heard on deck but the angry voice of the raging elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... would expect him to wait for him; and Mrs Grantly was preparing herself for a grand attack which she was to make on her father, as agreed upon between herself and her husband during their curtain confabulation of that morning. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... days ago, stood close to the footlights. My friend, the musical director, armed with a violin and supported by about a dozen other musicians, occupied the orchestra. The adapter and the stage manager—a Frenchman whom I found it good policy to mistake for a born Englishman—sat deep in confabulation at a small table underneath a temporary gas jet. Quarter of an hour or so passed by, and then the stage manager, becoming suddenly in a hurry, rang a ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... interlocution; collocution^, colloquy, converse, confabulation, talk, discourse, verbal intercourse; oral communication, commerce; dialogue, duologue, trialogue. causerie, chat, chitchat; small talk, table talk, teatable talk^, town talk, village talk, idle talk; tattle, gossip, tittle-tattle; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wearing west-ward, he discovered the approach of a horseman. He immediately replenished his pipe, took a long draught from the brown jug, summoned the ragged youth who officiated in most of the subordinate departments of the inn, and who was now to act as hostler, and then prepared himself for confabulation with ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... your letter. By all means let us have a confabulation as soon as I get back and settle what is to be done with the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... and their churchwardens now issued from the church porch. There was a great confabulation, shaking of hands, congratulation on speeches, recommendation to be careful of the night air, etc. By degrees the throng dispersed, the carriages drove off. Miss Keeldar was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone entered the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... a consultation between the two at this, and at the end of it the first man said: "It's all the same to us, where we have our little confabulation. Come down, and ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... Secretary of War promenaded the Square yesterday afternoon in a long "confabulation," supposed by some to relate ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the offer of escort, and that the fatal moment had arrived when he was to fall their dupe and victim. His suspicions were increased by seeing one of the party ride forward, and leave his companions in still closer confabulation; but the suspense, though painful, was short, for in a few minutes the envoy returned, and an explanation of their mysterious halt and secrecy took place. It appeared that the keen eyes and ears of his friends had perceived ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... crept up and curled around a long-handled rake that had been standing against the front of the house since early spring. There was an air of cosy and amiable disorder about the place that would have invited friendly confabulation even had not Uncle Bart's white head, honest, ruddy face, and smiling welcome coaxed you in before you were aware. A fine Nodhead apple tree shaded the side windows, and underneath it reposed all summer a bright blue sleigh, for Uncle Bart always described himself as being "plagued for ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... press, and so presently found himself shoulder to shoulder with elderly and pompous Respectability in a furred great-coat; who, all ready for the street, with shining topper poised at breast-level, had delayed his going for an instant's guarded confabulation with a youngish man conspicuous in this, that he, alone of all that company, was in ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... was plain enough that preparations were making for putting me immediately upon my trial. I saw the old burgermeister go waddling by in his robe of office, accompanied by a crowd of nondescript officials, with one of whom my villainous-looking adversary was in close confabulation. In a short space of time, a band of very scurvy-looking police, plainly vamped up for the occasion, made its appearance; and one of the band entering the room without ceremony, presented me with a summons, couched in legal diction, citing me ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various |
