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Converse   Listen
verb
Converse  v. i.  (past & past part. conversed; pres. part. conversing)  
1.
To keep company; to hold intimate intercourse; to commune; followed by with. "To seek the distant hills, and there converse With nature." "Conversing with the world, we use the world's fashions." "But to converse with heaven - This is not easy."
2.
To engage in familiar colloquy; to interchange thoughts and opinions in a free, informal manner; to chat; followed by with before a person; by on, about, concerning, etc., before a thing. "Companions That do converse and waste the time together." "We had conversed so often on that subject."
3.
To have knowledge of, from long intercourse or study; said of things. "According as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety."
Synonyms: To associate; commune; discourse; talk; chat.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Converse" Quotes from Famous Books



... we rolls up to the Patricia apartment we dives down into janitor's quarters as usual. But we're halted by a putty-faced Swede person in blue denims, who can converse and smoke a ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... the expectations of an heir vanished, and she was left a cripple for life. Both were inconsolable for their disappointment. One day a monk came to visit them, and tried to comfort them, seeking by his converse to turn their thoughts from ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... charming women, evidently as clever as they were beautiful. Suddenly remembered that we "lose the subtle and fine flavours of our best dishes, because we consider ourselves obliged to converse with somebody," and after that did not speak a word. Charming women stared, and then each turned towards me a beautiful shoulder, and I saw her face no more. Was just enjoying the flavours when I recollected that nothing "can make even tolerable, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in a way that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the well-bred converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had occasionally sojourned for a week at ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... read with attention and cool reflection (in which many things are to be met with hitherto unknown) it is easy enough to conclude that I could not come to such knowledge but by a real vision and converse with those who are in the spiritual world. I am ready to testify with the most solemn oath that can be offered in this matter, that I have said nothing but essential and real truth, without any admixture of deception. This knowledge is given to me by our Saviour, not for any particular merit of mine, ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... is very jealous of his wife, and that is all about it,' answered the governor of Angostura, who, I found to my surprise, was able to converse pretty freely in English. Such, I had suspected, was the case, and I could not help feeling that I had been sent ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the western world, Enthroned like monarchs of primeval days! Ye that hold lofty converse with the stars, And bind your shaggy brows with clustering clouds As if with wreaths of laurel! ye that count Your years by thousands, and your bosoms robe With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... rainy, the whole atmosphere grey; it is a time favourable to thought and meditation. I have a liking for such days as these; they revive one's converse with oneself and make it possible to live the inner life: they are quiet and peaceful, like a song in a minor key. We are nothing but thought, but we feel our life to its very centre. Our very sensations turn to reverie. It is a ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... advise the Governor, that the said Henry Hamilton, Philip Dejean and William Lamothe, prisoners of war, be put into irons, confined in the dungeon of the public jail, debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and excluded all converse, except with their keeper. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Ardry came to see me, and right glad I was to see him, for I had just flung my books and papers aside, and was wishing for a little social converse; and when we had conversed for some little time together, Francis Ardry proposed that we should go to the play to see Kean; so we went to the play, and saw—not Kean, who at that time was ashamed to show himself, but—a man who was not ashamed to show himself, and who people ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... ridiculously underestimate the sterling qualities of His Honour as to conceive the possibility of his absence when difficulty and danger imperatively command his presence at the head of public affairs. The conclusions which Mr. Kruger has derived from converse with his faithful burghers are likely to remain buried in his own breast. The outward and ostensible object of his recent tour has been fulfilled in much the accustomed manner; that is to say, he has discussed with apparent interest the necessity for a pont here or a bridge there; ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... Mary, and Denisov had much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess—not that anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to remember—yet they sat at tea ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... all appearance pure-blooded aboriginals. That the two with hirsute sign spoke to one another in Spanish was no sure evidence of their not being Indians. It was within the limits of New Mexican territory, where there are many Indians who converse in Castilian as ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... leading to Pont Street), at No. 22, was the St. Quentins' celebrated school, at which Miss Mitford had been a pupil, as well as Miss Landon and Lady Caroline Lamb.[295] Three doors off, at No. 26, lived Henry's partner, Mr. Tilson, with whom it was possible to converse across ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... they ate their meal in silence, the men, I suppose, not daring to converse in the presence of their captain. But by and by the officer, his hunger being some whit appeased, unbent a little from his dignity and addressed a stout ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came Anne Leffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariably touching at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke—and lingering there. She was solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke's reason. Came also Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse, ouija, the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr. Leffingwell. He was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr. Leffingwell's existence. Now when two young persons come separately to an old ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... then, not much edified by having obtained a list of Dorcas's bachelors; and by finding myself, with respect to any information which I desired, just exactly at the point where I set out. It was of consequence to me, however, to accustom, the girl to converse with me familiarly. If she did so, she could not always be on her guard, and something, I thought, might drop from her which I ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... Jonson's comedies that immediately follow, he expressly rejects them; and seldom does he show a more nicely balanced judgment than in what he there says on the limits of imitation in the field of art. But in the passage before us—in his assertion that "the converse must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poetry"—it is hard to resist a vision of the dramatist first writing his dialogue in bald and skimble-skamble prose, and then wringing his brains to adorn it "with all the arts" of the dramatic gradus. Here again we have the seeds of the ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... I wandered around the old castle, shunning every one. My brother strove to converse with me, but glaring upon him like a maniac as I was, I rushed past him. I felt the poison of hatred working within me, and I knew the time was coming when my revengeful spirit would ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... personally acquainted with her mother and half brother, who were both afterwards baptized, the mother by the name of Martha, and the brother by that of Lazarus. Donna Marina perfectly understood her native language of Coatzacualco, which is the same with that of Mexico; and as she could likewise converse with Aguilar in the Maja language, which is spoken in Yucutan and Tabasco, we thus acquired a medium of intercourse with the Mexicans, Tlascalans, and other nations of Anahuac or New Spain, which was of infinite importance to us in the sequel. In a little ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... alarm. The intoxicated bard threw himself without ceremony on his pallet in the recess, and the servants, though convinced, still shaking with superstitious fright, entreated permission to bring their heather beds into their lord's chamber. To deny them was impossible, and all further converse with Wallace that night being put an end to, a couch was laid for him in an interior apartment, and with a grateful pressure of the hands, in which their hearts silently embraced, the chiefs separated ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... unto her later, hoping to draw her into converse concerning Keren, so that I might reason with her as to her treatment o' th' lass—"wife," saith I, amiably, and, as I thought, in a manner most winsome, "wherefore didst thou speak to Keren as thou didst ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... While they converse, Telemachus calls upon Eumaeus for help, and when the vessels come into sight the prince is seen fighting against his pursuers. He slays one of them, but their number far exceeds that of his own followers. Odysseus, who has {384} vainly looked for the boat which the suitors ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... martinets who occupied a prominent position upon the Staff of Prince Fitz John, as with a look of mingled contempt and astonishment he pointed to a Lieutenant who stood a few rods distant engaged in conversation with two privates of his command, "do you allow commissioned officers to converse with privates?" ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... of kindness, or some of those drolleries in which he would occasionally indulge, but ever without loss of dignity. He used to walk for hours together beside my grandfather whilst holding the plough—a wise and holy man, an Abraham amongst the people—and converse with him as brother with brother, especially on the incidents of his own life, and on matters of religion. On his coming forward, my grandfather would take off his hat; but the duke would stop him, and say, "Keep on your hat, James. It 's all very well to teach the young ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... looking so cool and inviting that she longed to be there. She put her hand into her pocket, and found, to her joy, that the dear companion of her rambles was there: it was her Bible. Happy for Emma, she had learned to prize its gentle converse above that of human tongues; and now, sitting down upon her feet, she smiled to see how glassy the pine leaves had made the hill-slope, for she could slide along with but little exertion, and soon found herself upon the broad flat rock. Taking her little Bible, she was just ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell

... loudly went into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly and quietly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... now a complete wreck, beating against the rocks, and was expected to go to pieces at every surge; yet all this time was she so near the shore that those on board were able to converse with the people, whom the report of the guns had brought in great numbers to the rocks. With much difficulty, they at last contrived to fling a line on shore, which, being secured there, some of the crew attempted to land themselves by it. The surf, however, broke with such violence ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... should happen to be a quite new fact, an accident happily rare as the transit of Venus—a new fact about the North Pole, for instance—well, a book, not a conversation, is the place for it. To talk book, past, present, or to come, is not to converse. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... His dead book rose before him like an apparition. He groped in modest confusion for an answer. "A child I buried long ago, my dear sir," he said. "Its title-page was its tombstone. I have brought this young friend with me,—this is Mr. Gifted Hopkins of Oxbow Village,—who wishes to converse with you about—" ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... talents had already been formed, and they were but ill-suited to the dismal monotony of my life in Northumberland. I was bidden to forget Italy; I was not allowed to converse on poetry or art; I had no congenial friends. Even the sun, that might have reminded me of Italy, was often hidden by fog. My only occupation was the education of my half-sister; my only solace, the company of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... whose roofs touch to make a tunnel. Low doorways and small windows, opaque and barred, and then, to right and left, little shops within whose deep shade fierce "Teurs" with piratical faces, glittering eyes and gleaming teeth, smoke their hookahs and converse in low tones, as if planning some wicked deed.... To say that Tartarin walked through this fearsome township unmoved would be to lie. He was on the contrary moved a good deal, and in those obscure alleys where his large stomach took up almost ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... to converse, setting forth the advantages of her position, the bon garcon of a husband, who seemed second in command, followed with assenting smiles. I asked if he smoked in his little summer-house sometimes, but saw that my question ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Be not obstinate then in a Design in which I will never shew you Favour. You owe to Constantia, after her Death, a Fidelity that may justify you: and I, to repair the Ills I have made her suffer ought to shun all converse with you.' 'Go, Madam (reply'd the Prince, growing pale) go, and expect the News of my Death; in that part of the World, whither your Cruelty shall lead you, the News shall follow close after; you shall quickly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... who had gone away to make a fortune in California, and be happy ever afterwards. It seemed that he had made the fortune, but the happiness had eluded him. He would give no account of his life, and seldom cared to converse with any one except Brues Adiesen, from whom he asked and readily obtained the half-ruined home of their fathers. Two or three rooms were made habitable; the half-witted brother of James Harrison was hired as attendant; cart-loads of books were brought from ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... welfare, medals, brevet, and all, Georgie took her at the foot of the letter, and promptly talked of his own mother, three hundred miles nearer each day, of his home, and so forth, all the way up the Red Sea. It was much easier than he had supposed to converse with a woman for an hour at a time. Then Mrs. Zuleika, turning from parental affection, spoke of love in the abstract as a thing not unworthy of study, and in discreet twilights after dinner demanded confidences. Georgie would have been delighted to supply them, but he ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people, thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Po[vs]ci['c], a naturalized American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles, cried Stadler; on January 10 ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... not," he replied. "What mistake can I have made? On the other hand, I have no wish to offend you. The evening, however, is very irksome, and I should feel obliged if you would permit me to converse with you." Then gently taking her hand he pressed her to return with ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... but did not receive it till he had given one of his eyes in pledge, and hidden it in the fountain: this accounts for Odin being one-eyed.... Mimer is no Asa, but an exalted being with whom the Asas hold converse, of whom they make use,—the sum total of wisdom, possibly an older Nature-god. Later fables degraded him into a wood-sprite, or clever smith."—Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... depth of solitude that the mind does not endow with some human interest. As in a dead silence the ear is filled with its own murmur, so amid these aboriginal scenes one's feelings and sympathies become external to him, as it were, and he holds converse with them. Then a lake is the ear as well as the eye of a forest. It is the place to go to listen and ascertain what sounds are abroad in the air. They all run quickly thither and report. If any creature had called in the forest for miles about, I should have heard it. At times I could hear ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... believing in the State religion, with introducing new gods, and corrupting the youth, convicted by a majority of his judges and condemned to die; thirty days elapsed between the passing of the sentence and its execution, during which period he held converse with his friends and talked of the immortality of the soul; to an offer of escape he turned a deaf ear, drank the hemlock potion prepared for him with perfect composure, and died; "the difference between Socrates and Jesus Christ," notes Carlyle in his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... who lived in adjoining houses in Babylon, and who used to converse with each other through a hole in the wall, because their parents would not allow them open intimacy, but who arranged to meet one evening at the tomb of Nisus. The maiden appearing at the spot and being confronted by a lioness who had just killed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the New-York detective force, a powerful and resolute man, whose great weight and strength are matched by boundless energy, and both subordinate to a head as clear as the keen and searching warrant of his eye. This man has been in familiar converse with every rebel agent in the Canadas, and is feared by them as they fear the fates of Beall and Kennedy. Without being a sensationist, he has probably rendered the cleverest services of the war to the general government. They sent for him immediately after the tragedy, and he stopped ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... people; but not a man or merchant of any fashion, but plain men all. And Lord! to see how I did endeavour all I could to talk with as few as I could, there being now no observation of shutting up of houses infected, that to be sure we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them. I spent some thoughts upon the occurrences of this day, giving matter for as much content on one hand and melancholy on another, as any day in all my life. For the first; the finding of my money and plate, and all safe ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... cuffed him soundly. I wot there will be those who remember that this Will Shakespeare afterwards became a player and did write plays—which were acceptable even to the Queen's Majesty's self—and I set this down not from vanity to shew I have held converse with such, nor to give a seemingness and colour to my story, but to shew what ill-judged, misinformed knaves were they who did afterwards attribute friendship between my Lord and this Will Shakespeare, even to the saying that he made sonnets to my Lord. ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... is an organization of advanced thinkers, presided over by Madam Gersdorff, an adept who can converse with the birds of the air, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... Ars, "we have had a very remarkable cure. It is of a young nun from the Alps whose tongue had been completely paralyzed for three years, after her recovery from typhoid fever. She could converse only by writing on a slate. The day on which she finished her novena, just as she was about to make her thanksgiving after Holy Communion, she felt that her tongue was articulating the acts. She now can speak. ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous

... same whorl, e.g. between the sepals of an ordinary monosepalous calyx, or heterologous when the separation took place between members of different whorls, as when the calyx is detached from the ovary, &c. The former case would thus be the converse of ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... Reader in this Tragicall Age where the Theater hath been so much out-ailed, congratulate thy owne happinesse, that in this silence of the Stage, thou hast a liberty to reade these inimitable Playes, to dwell and converse in these immortall Groves, which were only shewd our Fathers in a conjuring glasse, as suddenly removed as represented, the Landscrap is now brought home by this optick, and the Presse thought too pregnant before, shall be now look'd upon as greatest Benefactor to Englishmen, that must acknowledge ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... was sent to the grammar school, at which he remained for about two years; and for a year more he attended another public school at Winkfield, Wiltshire. At thirteen he wrote Greek with ease; at fifteen he not only composed Greek verses in lyric measures, but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment; one of his masters said of him, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one." Towards the close of his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... towards him, seem purposely made known to us, in order to furnish so many different bonds of connection with him, and consequent occasions of continual intercourse. He exhibits not himself to us "dark with excessive brightness," but is let down as it were to the possibilities of human converse. We may not think that he is incapable of entering into our little concerns, and sympathizing with them; for we are graciously assured that he is not one "who cannot be touched with the feeling ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... guardian, either to disobey him or to refuse him the absolute control of their produce. On the contrary, they are more apt to show hostility against other animals than against the owner who derives advantage from them. But with man the rule is converse; men unite against none so readily as against those whom they see attempting to rule over them. [3] As long, therefore, as we followed these reflexions, we could not but conclude that man is by nature fitted to govern all creatures, except his fellow-man. ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... relief, I found I was mistaken, and that whatever he knew of Mr. Mervyn's suspicions or discoveries, he did not intend to converse with me on the topic. Coward as I was, I was inexpressibly relieved, though if he had really investigated the reports which may have come to his ear, the reality could have been nothing to what his ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... and tho' well-bred, sincere, 635 Modestly bold, and humanly severe: Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe? Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfin'd; A knowledge both of books and human kind: 640 Gen'rous converse; a soul exempt from pride; And love to praise, with reason on ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... still more striking corroboration of these results may, however, be obtained by the converse process of relative exaltation of the responsiveness of one contact. This may be accomplished by touching one contact, say B, with a reagent which like Na2CO3 exalts the electric excitability. On stimulation of the wire, the ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... to converse he had numerous visitors, especially from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive to imbue others with the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... "ardours of the mind," and "the whetstones of virtue," savouring of the pomp of rhetoricians. As to the question, if a brave man can maintain his courage without becoming angry; it may be questioned with regard to the gladiators: though we often observe much resolution even in them; they meet, converse, they make objections and demands, they agree about terms, so that they seem calm rather than angry. But let us admit a man of the name of Placideianus, who was one of that trade, to be in such a mind, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... bears, cayuses, sheriffs' posses, and Indians, but this was easily the most stirring and amazing hour of his life. While his pony slowly slid away up the hill to feed, he, with flapping gun and rattling spurs, swept, polished, and lifted things for Lida—that was her name—Lida Converse. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... have five feasts, or stated times for assembling in their tribes, and giving thanks to Nauwaneu, for the blessings which they have received from his kind and liberal and provident hand; and also to converse upon the best means of meriting a continuance of his favors. The first of these feasts is immediately after they have finished sugaring, at which time they give thanks for the favorable weather and great ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... through the Harpeth Valley to the very old and tradition-mossed town of Riverfield, in the high, huge-wheeled, swinging old coach of my Great-grandmother Craddock, sitting pensively alone while father occupied the front seat beside Uncle Cradd, both of them in deep converse about a line in Tom Moore, while Uncle Cradd bumbled the air of "Drink to me only with thine eyes" in a lovely old bass, I should have been softly and pensively weeping at the thought of the devastation of my father's fortune, of the poverty ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... nearer ties, had a simple and wholesome love of all created things. She was infirm now, but was quite content, when it was fine, to sit for long hours idle for very love, and look about her with a peaceful and smiling air; she prayed much, or rather held a sweet converse in her heart with God; she thought little of her latter end, which she knew could not be long delayed, but was content to leave it in the hands of the Father, sure that He, who had made the world so beautiful and so full of love, would comfort her when she came to enter ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... in extenuation. In later years he has been known to retire into some glade of the thickets, and hold a little Flute-Hautbois Concert with his musical comrades, while the sows were getting baited. Or he would converse with Mamma and her Ladies, if her Majesty chanced to be there, in a day for open driving. Which things by no means increased his favor with Papa, a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me; "they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien

... fiction," whereby old laws by subtle interpretation are made to serve new conditions and new needs. Allegorical interpretation must be carefully distinguished from the writing of allegory, of which Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is the best-known type. One is the converse of the other; for in allegories moral ideas are represented as persons and moral lessons enforced by what purports to be a story of life. In allegorical interpretation persons are transformed into ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... 'Some A is all B,' is the exact converse of the second, 'All A is some B,' and has therefore been denoted by the symbol [Upsilon], which ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... of late, and most of his habits. The change is only within the last six months; so suddenly made that it has been forced upon our sight. Once so frank, he is now reserved and shrinking to the last degree; speaks little; is reluctant to converse; and, I am compelled to believe, not only avoids my ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... United States I became acquainted with a large portion of the senior officers of the American navy, and I found them gifted, gentleman-like, and liberal. With them I could converse freely upon all points relative to the last war, and always found them ready to admit all that could be expected. The American naval officers certainly form a strong contrast to the majority of their countrymen, and prove, by their enlightened ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... during the year, 300 of them are arid." We have the testimony of Abbe d'Astros on the efficacy of prayers committed to memory, who was in prison for three years under the first empire and without any books. "I knew the psalms by heart and, thanks to this converse with God, which escaped the jailor, I was never ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... converse in tongues that would convey no meaning, but there was no mistaking the quick friendship that sprang up between the incongruous pair. Mado was the boy's slave from that moment, and Nazu looked up to the Martian with all of youth's admiration for his ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent

... person to whom he seemed to speak unnecessarily; it was observed that while with the country gentry he exchanged no further communication than what was unavoidable in arranging his sporting transactions, with this person he would converse earnestly and frequently. Tradition asserts that, to enhance the curiosity which this unaccountable and exclusive preference excited, the stranger possessed some striking and unpleasant peculiarities ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... rationalism and moralism. For immortality is the highest good, in so far as it is perfect knowledge—which is, moreover, conceived as being of a rational kind,—that necessarily leads to immortality. We can only find traces of the converse idea, according to which the change into the immortal condition is the prius and the knowledge the posterius. But, where this conception is the prevailing one, moralistic intellectualism is broken through, and we can now point to a specific, supernatural ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... respect almost amounting to veneration. In a curious unformulated way Doggie felt that he had authority over this man so much older than himself, who had once been his master. It tickled into some kind of life his deadened self-esteem. Here at last was a man with whom he could converse on sure ground. The khaki ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... souffrir de ces memes vents de la partie du Sud qui nous avoient ete si favorables, et ce fut alors sur-tout que nous pumes apprecier davantage toute la sagesse de nos propres instructions. Apres avoir converse plus d'une heure avec nous," (no person except Mr. Brown was present at my conversation with captain Baudin, as I have already said), "le capitaine FLINDERS repartit pour son bord, promettant de revenir le lendemain matin nous apporter une carte particuliere de la riviere Dalrymple, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... if we consider the theme in its beginning it is horrible and foul because it is Hell; in its ending fortunate, desirable and joyful because it is Paradise: and if we consider the style of language the style is lowly and humble because it is the vulgar tongue in which even housewives hold converse." ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... man in civilian dress—a Portuguese, by his look—walked gingerly beside the sergeant in charge, chatting and gesticulating. And, almost in the same instant, I perceived that the men wore the uniform of the North Wilts and that the sergeant he held in converse ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... she entered, was empty but for three persons. Roger and the family attorney—Mr. Jose, of Helleston—stood by one of the windows in friendly converse, somewhat impatiently eyeing a single belated guest who was helping himself to ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of indoor horizon. The sisters of Palomides wait before one of the innumerable closed doors that open into this corridor. They seem to be guarding it. A little further down, on the opposite side, Astolaine and the Physician converse before ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck

... a big man, tall and heavy, outspoken and somewhat gruff, with a manner that to strangers often seemed near to overbearing. When Patches was introduced, the big cattleman looked him over suspiciously, spoke a short word in response to Patches' commonplace, and abruptly turned his back to converse with the better-known ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... man retired hastily,—anxious to avoid further converse about the painful event for which he felt himself ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... stretched their limbs, and began to converse in an animated strain about the lesson which they ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... what you are saying seems to you very wise and edifying, Joseph Putnam, but I have a bad headache, and do not care to converse any further." ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... peaks; but some are of opinion, judging from the arrangement of the lagoon, that they are of madreporic formation. They are tenanted by a race of diminutive, badly-shaped people, subject moreover to repulsive complaints. If ever the converse of the phrase mens sana in corpore sano can find a just application, it must be here, for these natives are low in the scale of intelligence, and inferior by many degrees to the people of Ualan. Even at that time foreign styles of dress ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... sure, I have talked enough for now, although I am at your service at any time if other questions arise to perplex," she concluded, as she arose, and the little company, after a few moments spent in social converse, separated for ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... and retired to the chapel with Herman, leaving the two knights in close converse. Gilbert ran to order the best horse for the duke, and to see that his venerable benefactor should want nothing to carry him safely over the intervening hills. After exchanging many kind adieus, Rodolph and the missionary, near the close of twilight, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... the tinkling of the bells of Rebekah's camels. O men and women so far separated yet so near, so strange yet so well known, by what miraculous power do I know ye all! Books are the true Elysian fields, where the spirits of the dead converse; and into these fields a mortal may venture unappalled. What king's court can boast such company? What school of philosophy such wisdom? The wit of the ancient world is glancing and flashing there. There is Pan's pipe, there are the songs of Apollo. Seated in ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... her friends to pay off her social debts. If she can pay off fifty or five hundred—in the time that she would give to one, she felicitates herself on her clever management. The idea of inviting her friends because she really wishes to talk with them would bewilder her. She does not converse; she "receives." She arrays herself in her smartest gown, and her social interchange with each guest consists in a graceful greeting and a no less graceful adieu, followed by an epoch of private gratitude that the required entertainment is over. She consults her visiting list and conscientiously ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase which may be drawn from the sacred writings. It has been said by some of the ancients that if the gods were to talk with men, they would certainly speak in Plato's style; but I think we may say, with justice, that when mortals converse with their Creator they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... * * as the perfection of the spiritual character, as surpassing all men of all times in the closeness and depth of his communion with the Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we are holding converse with the wisest, purest, noblest being that ever clothed thought in the poor language of humanity. In studying his life we feel that we are following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet presented ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various

... in his head, he was the first to go down and into the garden, hoping to meet his hostess. And this chance fell out all the more easily because Madame de la Baudraye on her part wished to converse with her critic. Half such chances ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... from Fife to Holy Island, near Berwick, and there met Croft, the Governor of that town. Croft kept him, not with sufficient secrecy, in Berwick, where he was well known, while Whitelaw was coming from Cecil with his answers to the petitions of the brethren. Meanwhile Croft held converse with Knox, who, as he reports, says that, as to the change of "Authority" (that is of sovereignty, temporary at least), the choice of the brethren would be subject to Elizabeth's wishes. Yet the brethren contemplated no change of Authority! Arran ought to be kept secretly in England "till wise ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... son! my darling son! wert thou but here, My bosom should receive thy lovely form; Thou'dst soothe my gloomy hours with converse dear, Serenely ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... door, and now passed out without replying. Henrik sat down by his mother, and the two continued to converse in ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson

... long pause. These two men, both redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, heaven above them, hell beneath them, eternity before them, the glorious history of the Church of Jesus Christ behind them, certainly after a while they will converse on the subject of religion. A few minutes have passed and Mr. B remarks: "Fine autumn ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... trust," said Ebbo, "but the bell broke our converse, and he laid me down as tenderly as—O mother, if a father's kindness be like his, I have truly somewhat ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... without disgust? No; wipe off the foul stain, and let it become a suitable and comfortable place for the seat of Government. The Senator, as if conscious that his argument on this point had proved too much, and of course had proven the converse of what he wished to establish, concluded this part by saying, that if slavery is abolished, the act ought to be confined to the city alone. We thank him for this small sprinkling of correct opinion upon this arid waste of public feeling. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... machine together, which gave us a chance to converse in an undertone. I asked if he had ever tried to run it before. He said no, but he was ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... Socrates. Historians differ as to the details of the affair; but it seems generally agreed that Socrates was late at the ceremony, having been delayed on his way to the temple by one Diogenes, who asked to converse with him on the immortality of the soul. Socrates stopped to talk, and would perhaps have been stopping there still had not Kimon hunted him up, and fetched ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... subject, let me caution you against the foolish affectation which some girls practice in order to attract the attention of young men. In their company be natural in your manners, open and friendly and ready to converse on general subjects; not appearing to expect that every one who pays you the ordinary courtesies of society is going to fall in love with you. This mode of behavior, which is more common with those who are vain of their beauty than with others, frequently leads to such young women ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... much better on the mainland. The description by Diodorus Siculus, often quoted, has a tempting look, but it cannot persuade us that the Mount was Ictis. He says: "They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium, by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour they dig out of the ground. Then they beat it into square pieces ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... plantations are losing courage. I make as light of the evil as I can, but I am always met by the remark: "We are a year older than we was last year, sir." Their trust in me is a little surprising. They converse in my presence about their dodging life, and I could easily take any ten of them I chose alone; or, with the aid of one other, I could take the whole plantation. "If we didn't trust to you, sir, we should have to leave the plantation entirely; you are the only person to protect ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... Elizabeth, as Chappell tells us, "had music at dinner, music at supper, music at weddings, music at funerals, music at night, music at dawn, music at work, music at play. He who felt not, in some degree, its soothing influence, was viewed as a morose unmusical being, whose converse ought to be shunned, and regarded with suspicion and distrust." That this was the general sentiment in England is also proved by the oft-quoted passage in "The Merchant of Venice," where Shakspere notes ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... a close prisoner, indeed; shut up in two small rooms, which together made about twenty feet square; a warder my constant companion; and a fixed bayonet under my window; not a friend to converse with, and no prospect of a correspondence. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... battle lost, nothing is so dreadful as a battle won," said Wellington, at the end, too, of his most triumphant day. The slaughter is a sad set-off against the glory; groans of anguish are the converse of exulting cheers. The field of conquest was stained with the life's blood of thousands. The dead lay all around; some on their backs, calmly sleeping as though death had inflicted no pangs; the bodies ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... means two deaf-mutes, miles apart, might converse with each other, and the greatest difficulty in the way of a deaf-mute becoming a telegraph operator, that of receiving messages, would be removed. The latter possibilities are incidentally mentioned merely as of scientific interest, and not because of their immediate practical ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story—such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the same state. In this form, the principle affirms that there exists a necessary order in the succession of two phenomena; that evolution takes place in a determined direction. If you prefer it, it may be thus stated: Of two converse transformations unaccompanied by any external effect, one only is possible. For instance, two gases may diffuse themselves one in the other in constant volume, but they could not conversely ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... Amidst pleasant converse the dessert arrived. It consisted of three apples, cheese, and a plate of preserves; and then upon a little round table was served the Mocha coffee, for which France has been, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... proceeded on their way to the court of King Arthur, and what had seemed a long journey to Geraint when he had followed Sir Edern, now seemed too short, for he and the maid Enid passed it in much pleasant converse. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... silent for five minutes, munching chestnuts; this enabled his guests to converse; but as soon as he had cleared his plate, he cut right across the conversation, with that savage contempt for all topics but his own which characterizes gentlemen of his age, and says he to Rolfe, "You know everything? ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... to the belated pedestrian, who sees the vague groups gliding hither and thither, 'tis merely love passing, love guessed and scarce espied. The lovers know they are safely concealed within their cloaks, they converse in undertones and make themselves quite at home; most frequently they do not converse at all, but walk along at random and in silence, content in their embrace. The climate alone is to blame for having in the first ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... true of industry. Take the converse case: instead of turning the agricultural labourers into peasant-proprietors, make over the factories to those who work in them. Abolish the master-manufacturers, but leave the landlord his land, the banker his money, the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin



Words linked to "Converse" :   natter, chitchat, chew the fat, conversation, jaw, discourse, contend, chaffer, fence, chit-chat, argue, chatter, backward, interview, claver, talk, visit, reversed, antonymous, question, proposition, confabulate, speak, chat, confab, transposed



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