"Hearer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been murdered—shot through the brain—and they don't know who has done it. They found the body this morning. It happened at his place near Bishopsbridge." Sir James proceeded to tell his hearer, briefly and clearly, the facts that he had communicated to Mr. Figgis. "What do you think of it?" ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... by your will that you are free; by your will you are one with the infinite freedom, by your will you are master of time and your fate, lord of the stars and the endless ages, thinker of all truth, hearer of all music, beholder of all beauty, doer of all righteousness. That is the truth which I have brought out of ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... the benefit of studying on principle, instead of working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one's strong points, and disregard the rest. But it needs a preparatory analysis, in order to make the discrimination. All that the uninstructed reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great: this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for an ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... can almost always assign the fault to large smooth surfaces on the walls, floor or ceiling, which reflect or echo the voice of the speaker so that the direct waves sent out by him at any instant are received by a hearer with the waves sent out previously and reflected at these smooth surfaces. The syllables overlap, and the hearing is confused. The acoustic quality of a room may be improved by breaking up the smooth surfaces by curtains or by arrangement of furniture. The echo is then broken up into small waves, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... you ask how they do, reply, "Why, I am pretty well to-day; but if you knew what I suffered yesterday!" Now methinks nobody has a right to tax another for pity on what is past; and besides, complaint of what is over can only make the hearer glad you are in pain no longer. Yes, yes, my dear Madam, you generally place your pity so profitably, that YOU shall not waste a drop upon me, who ought rather to be congratulated on being so ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... you, my workingman hearer or reader may work, the person or corporation or trust for whom or which you work gets back more out of your labor, than he or it pays you in wages. If this is not so, your employer is either running a charitable institution or he is in business for his health. You may have employers ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... might play her to you in a rhapsody that should set the music in your soul vibrating. There are women whose image cunning fingers may catch with brush and pigment and limn it on canvas; there are women whose image may be traced in burning words so that a vision of her rises before the reader or the hearer; and there are women whose beauty can only be told in music—the subtle music that lies in vibrating strings, music into which a man can pour his whole soul and so make the world understand. Such a woman is she who bid me find Gilbert Crosby ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... of his generation—"a wit, if not first, in the very first line." Something of the bitterness and savagery of Gillray's rampant pleasantry afflicted his vis comica; and when a happy thought, however unhappy and painful for the hearer, came to the tip of his tongue, he could no more resist slipping it off than he could ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... difficult to keep the failures in mind. The eager expectancy of hearing the right letter or number from the lips of the child gives such a strong emphasis to the right results that the wrong ones slip from the mind of the hearer. The right figure may be only the third or the fourth guess of the child, but if then the whole admiring chorus around say emphatically at this fourth trial that this is quite right, those three wrong efforts which preceded fade away from ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... the impatient desire we possess of intruding our own thoughts upon our hearer with little or no desire of listening to those which he himself may want ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... text the seedy man delivered a discourse on the pleasures of opium-smoking, which quite roused the interest and curiosity of his hearer. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... hearer depends chiefly upon first being persuaded yourself. You may be devoid of feeling, and yet convince your hearers; but to reach their hearts and to move them surely toward the desired purpose, you must ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... in the Catholic University in Dublin that O'Curry gave the lectures in which he has done the student this service; it is touching to find that these lectures, a splendid tribute of devotion to the Celtic cause, had no hearer more attentive, more sympathising, than a man, himself, too, the champion of a cause more interesting than prosperous,—one of those causes which please noble spirits, but do not please destiny, which have Cato's adherence, but not Heaven's,—Dr. Newman. Eugene O'Curry, in these lectures ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... it needed a mystic to see them so; and he was become a mystic. A glorified and non-natural Sanchia pervaded the poem, which, for the form, was a barbaric, rough-hewn chant, stuffed with words and great phrases which had the effect rather of making music in the hearer than of containing it in themselves. It was poetry by hints, perpetually moving, initiating, lyrical phrases, then breaking off and leaving you with a melody in your ears which your brain could not render. Either the poet was inchoate or the subtlest musician of our day. He said of himself that ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... instinctively bows down; and it was the mark of the spiritual man when it was said of Jesus, the Prophet: "He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." For where the spiritual man speaks, his appeal is made to the highest and the deepest part in every hearer that he addresses, and the answer that comes is an answer that brooks no denial and permits no questioning. It shows its own imperial nature, the highest and the dominant nature in the man, and where the Spirit once ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... are the ebullitions of merry and petulant youth, the Russian are frequently not without a spice of sentimentality. Girls are often represented painting the unhappy consequences of their weakness with a very suspicious mixture of penitence and pleasure; so that the hearer remains undecided, whether the former or ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... its irresistible power so fully as when listening to its richness from the pulpit. The perfect wisdom of holy writ, the majesty of thought, and purity of sentiment it inspires, will elevate the mind of the hearer above surrounding objects, and when to this power is added beauty of language and a musical voice, the spell is deeper. Such was the charm that held all in silent attention while Philip Sidney spoke. The scene was one which would tend to fix the mind on the event ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... instead of 1829. This, however, is a misprint, not a correction.]would be a notable item; in that of Chopin it counts for little. Whatever the shortcomings of this composition are, the quiet simplicity and sweet melancholy which pervade it must touch the hearer. But the master stands in his own. light; the famous Funeral March in B flat minor, from the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35, composed about ten years later, eclipses the more modest one in C minor. Beside ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Park, with his own tremendous solemnity of manner; "I awaited the tribute of that grateful man. At what price did he value his soul? I anticipated a contribution for the seminary which it would be a privilege to offer. At what rate did my converted hearer price his soul?—Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? With indescribable dignity the man handed ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good, said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would hardly have justified. To every power that could move a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder De appealed telegraphically. He was ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... wonderful powers of expression have hitherto been locked up in this enchanting art. A whole history is here told without the aid of speech or writing; and provided the hearer is in the least acquainted with music, he cannot mistake a single note. As to the blowing up of the powder-bank, I look upon it as a chef d'oeuvre which I am confident will delight all modern amateurs, who very properly estimate ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the camp together. On the way Marcasse told me his story in that brief style of his, which, as it forced his hearer to ask a thousand wearisome questions, far from simplifying his narrative, made it extraordinarily complicated. It afforded Arthur great amusement; but as you would not derive the same pleasure from listening to an exact reproduction of this interminable dialogue, I will limit myself ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... had not missed fire. Its staggering effect was plain on the face of his hearer. For once Mrs. Porter's poise had deserted her. Her one ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... seven." [197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198] with ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... here before. I walked hither, then, with my precious old friend. It seems incredible, now, that we did it in two days, but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the puerile organisms in this effeminate ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fact that he frequently overshot his mark, it does not make his works one whit less astonishing. An uncompromising champion of what has been dubbed "programme" music, he thought it legitimate to force the imagination of the hearer to dwell on exterior scenes during the progress of the music, and to distress the mind in its attempt to find an exact relation between the text and the music. The most perfect specimens of the works of Berlioz, however, are those in which the music ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... have, they did not sound rude. They were said with a careless half-amused, half gentle manner, which might leave his hearer in doubt whether the chief purpose of them were not to fall pleasantly on her ear and drive away any disagreeable remainders of Phil's insolence. But Faith scarce heard him. She was struggling with that unbidden pain, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... better master of it. He begged for some music. She sat down at once and played for him; then sang at his desire. Rich as she was in the gifts of nature, her voice was the chief,—thrilling, flexible, with a sympathetic quality that in singing pathetic music brought tears, though the hearer understood not a word of the language in which she sang. In the old time he had never wearied listening, and now he besought her to repeat for him some of the dear, familiar songs. If these held for her any associations, he did not know it; she gave no outward sign,—sang to him as ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... not suppose so. He sidled to the door, cap in hand. The clergyman said no more. He was one of those sensitive men who often know instinctively whether or not their words find response in the heart of the hearer, and to whom it is always a pain to say anything, even the most trivial, which awakes no ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... which might otherwise consume the produce of his field; but in almost every age and country it has been regarded as a bird of ill omen, and sometimes even as the herald of death. In France, the cry or hoot is considered as a certain forerunner of misfortune to the hearer. In Tartary, the owl is looked upon in another light, though not valued as it ought to be for its useful destruction of moles, rats, and mice. The natives pay it great respect, because they attribute to this bird the preservation of the founder of their empire, Genghis Khan. That Prince, with his ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... and his tale. He begins by informing his hearer, that he is the son of Hippias, a noble and wealthy denizen of Tyre, and that he had been betrothed from his childhood, as was not unusual in those times,[2] to his own half-sister Calligone:—but Leucippe, the daughter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... heaven now, sitting at the right hand of God and making intercession for us. God hears prayer—God delights to hear prayer. He has allowed His people a thousand times over to be tried, that they might be compelled to cry to Him, and learn to know Him as the Hearer ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... not such a fool as to ascribe any effusion of this sort to any merit of mine. It is the mighty theme, and not the inconsiderable advocate, that can excite interest in the hearer: what you hear is but the testimony which nature bears to her own character; it is the effusion of her gratitude to that power which stamped that ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... idea it must be placed within the consciousness of another. To reach this result it must cease to be personal, must pass out of the subjective consciousness into objective form, so as to be placed in the same relation to the speaker and the hearer. Thought, out of the consciousness of the thinker, is objective to him, and to render thought objective is to give it material form. Thought to be communicated, must pass out of the consciousness of the thinker into a material representation. The assumption of material form individualizes ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... may almost be said an infant—and the viscount was not of an age to render important such avowed passions. Nevertheless, the words did thrill through the veins of the hearer. She spoke, she thought, not as Madame Vine would have spoken and thought, but as the unhappy mother, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... before marriage was contrary to her notions of etiquette. Josephine loved Rose very tenderly; but shrank with modest delicacy from making her a confidante of feelings, the bare relation of which leaves the female hearer ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... her wish not to encounter Mr. Tryan: the tone and the words were so unlike what she had expected to hear. There was none of the self-satisfied unction of the teacher, quoting, or exhorting, or expounding, for the benefit of the hearer, but a simple appeal for help, a confession of weakness. Mr. Tryan had his deeply-felt troubles, then? Mr. Tryan, too, like herself, knew what it was to tremble at a foreseen trial—to shudder at an impending burthen, heavier than he ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... enable her to bear this season, which made her heavy, sick, and faint with associations, and that He would render her contented with many undeserved blessings, and resigned to many natural penalties which He ordained. Next, with strange inconsistency to all but the Hearer of prayer and the Framer of the wayward human heart, she besought to be forgiven and delivered from levity and folly—to be kept humble and mindful of death. "It is ill tearing up weeds by the roots," she said to herself plainly, when she had risen from her knees, "and I am vain and volatile, and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... knew not with certainty my hearer. Perhaps from you'—smiling as he spoke—'we may learn the truth. Rome speaks loudly of your late desertion of the religion and worship of your fathers, and union with the Galileans. I should say, I hoped the report ill founded, had I not heard it from quarters ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... faith, for faith excludes doubt, and in that state you displease God, for "without faith it is impossible to please God."(129) Faith and infallibility must go hand in hand. The one cannot exist without the other. There can be no faith in the hearer unless there is unerring authority in the speaker—an authority founded upon such certain knowledge as precludes the possibility of falling into error on his part, and including such unquestioned veracity as to prevent his deceiving him who accepts ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... condition of victory," "the Cross of Christ the measure of the world," "the Church a Home for the lonely." As he spoke, how the old truth became new; how it came home with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution and big words to state, were dropt out by the way ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... fulfilling of them. They show the way, but Thou givest strength for the journey. They act only outwardly, but Thou dost instruct and enlighten the heart. They water, but Thou givest the increase. They cry with words, but Thou givest understanding to the hearer. ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... which so much depended. Here, when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell People had a sort of ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... what was certainly a characteristic of the Middle Ages. To be ordinary is to be uninteresting; and it is obvious that the stranger the experience, the more likely is it to attract the interest and attention of the hearer. Blessed is the person—as well as the country—who has no history. But it was really very difficult for the twelfth century poet to write a love story, with a maiden as the central figure. The noble maiden seldom had a love story. It is true enough that she ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... personality which give character to a name. It is a harsh name, cold and inhuman, like something out of the night, an unwelcome intruder into the warmth of familiarity. It inspires no blissful memories, nor does it kindle fond feelings in the bosom of the hearer, instead the heart is hardened to it like the feathers of a duck to water, repulsing it, leaving it to run off into the ditches and by-ways of the long forgotten past, to trickle dejectedly into those stagnant ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... trite, prosaic, and tedious; but an uncultivated age—like the children and the common people of all ages—is most attracted and impressed by that mode of narration which leaves the least to be supplied by the imagination of the hearer or reader; and when this collection of history in verse is compared, not with the finished labors of a Hume or a Robertson, but with the prolix and vulgar narratives of the chroniclers, the admiration and delight with which it was received will no ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... The hearer experienced a momentary feeling of relief and of anger—relief to think that dead Dick Mildare's daughter should have found refuge in such a woman's heart; anger that the woman should have concealed from him the girl's identity, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... remember his sermons now. They are admirable to read, although, like other eloquence, their life and sprit is lost without the effect of speech. There was one on the text, "Thou shalt say no," which no hearer, I venture to say, ever forgot to the day of his death. There was another, on the control of the thoughts, from the text, "Leading into captivity every thought." This made a deep impression on the students. I seem to hear the tones of his voice now. The Doctor described with a terrific ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Watching his hearer nervously to see how he would receive this important avowal, Master Doe flushed when he saw no signs of emotion on Baptist's countenance. He didn't like thinking he had made himself look a fool. Probably Baptist perceived this, for he ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... impulses. The brief questions of Ralph obtained copious answers; and, for an hour, the woodman cheered the solitude of his chamber, by the narration of such matters as were most likely to interest his hearer, in respect to the new region where he was, perforce, kept a prisoner. Of Chestatee, and the people thereof, their employment, and the resources of the neighborhood, Forrester gave a pretty correct account; though he remained prudently silent in regard to the probable parties to that adventure ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Stranger still the harmonies which he had never heard, had learned from no man. The sluggish breath of the old house, being enchanted, grew into quaint and delicate whims of music, never the same, changing every day. Never glad: uncertain, sad minors always, vexing the content of the hearer,—one inarticulate, unanswered question of pain in all, making them one. Even the vulgarest listener was troubled, hardly knowing why,—how sorry Tom's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... phrasings and interpretations; of an artistic use of the pedals, and the legitimate participation of the emotions; of the confines of absolute music as touched in the Ninth Symphony: would refer incidentally to Schopenhauer and make Wagner his authority, using terms that were new to his hearer, and, now and then, by way of emphasis, bringing his palm down flat and noiselessly upon the table.—It had not taken them long to become friends; fellow-countrymen, of the same age, with similar aims and interests, they had ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... buffoonery; they associate with skill, with genius, and with reason, maxims and flashes of wit, sharp satire, and severe ethics. They run through all subjects that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly; no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends obstinately his own; they examine in ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... away to some hiding," sensed the poor blind brain, "or perhaps that carriage is bearing her away from me forever. Oh, what shall I do?" she cried aloud, in tones that would have thrilled a hearer's heart with ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... good temper, the respect for opponents, and the love of fair play that full knowledge of the whole subject is so well fitted to bring with it! And next to hearing such a speaker is the pleasure of meeting such a hearer or such a reader at such a time. Now, I want such readers and such hearers, if not such speakers, to be found all the next fortnight among my office-bearers and my people. Be sure you say to some of your political opponents something like this:—'I do not profess to read all ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... as to produce a particular spiritual effect; thus in the very voice which is perceived by the senses there is a certain spiritual power, inasmuch as it proceeds from a mental concept, of arousing the mind of the hearer. It is in this way that a spiritual power is in the sacraments, inasmuch as they are ordained by God unto the production of a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... prisoner pleaded clearly through her veil, in the first breathless minutes of all; it was not a little later, when the urbane counsel for the prosecution, wagging his pince-nez at the jury, thrilled every other hearer with a mellifluous forecast of the new evidence to be laid before them. The missing watch and chain had been found; they would presently be produced, and the jury would have an opportunity of examining them, together with a plan of the chimney of the room in which the murder had been committed; ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... assimilate the good easily. Though positive in his feelings, and sensitive of attachment, he was no mere man-worshipper, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, so long as it was the Word of Christ, faithfully, earnestly preached; he was a responsive hearer. The chief desire was that the word should be successful. Perhaps simplicity was as characteristic as any other distinct trait. If he did not choose the uppermost seats he occupied them becomingly when once bidden ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... several songs have been arranged for the pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed his task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to forget the poet in the melody ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... form, many events simultaneously transacted can be presented; and these, if relevant to the subject, add mass and dignity to the poem. The Epic has here an advantage, and one that conduces to grandeur of effect, to diverting the mind of the hearer, and relieving the story with varying episodes. For sameness of incident soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... I still behold him! tall and fair, He had a look so tranquil and so mild, That something holy stole upon the sense When he appear'd; his language had such power In converse, that the hearer, as entranced Sate lingering on to listen; while in song, Or skill upon the many-stringed harp Was never heard his equal! Then he knew All our old ballads, all our father's tales, All the adventurous deeds of early times, The punishment ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... carefully rehearsed this little speech, and now delivered it so that his hearer might understand every ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... very young; that she would then pray by herself an hour together; that she had read the bible through before she was full five years old; that she could say, by heart, many chapters and passages of scripture; was a frequent hearer of sermons, which she would bring away entire in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... an imposing gentleman with perfectly white hair, who indicated the points of interest in a picture with a heavy stick made of a narwhale's ivory horn. He was describing minutely and realistically the sufferings of a virgin martyr, and his chief hearer followed what he said ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... told me by noble refugees, sheltered on our shores from those scenes of blood, where infamy triumphed and truth and honor were massacred; but such narratives, though they never can be forgotten, are too direful for the hearer ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... complexion, and a lovely form, while she had the further gift of a voice that thrilled the listener and, when she chose, brought tears to every eye. She was, indeed, a natural elocutionist, knowing by instinct all those modulations of tone and varied cadences which go to the hearer's heart. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... himself to talk briefly to her, and noticed then a blunt directness in her speech that would have appalled an ordinary hearer. It was her habit and choice to say nothing, but if pushed to the wall what was there that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... that his remark is of any importance; for though he is a philosopher, he is not a painter, and therefore he is no judge of our faces; but, as he is a man of science, he may be a judge of our intellects. And if he were to praise the mental endowments of either of us, in that case the hearer of the eulogy ought to examine into what he says, and the subject should not refuse to be examined.' Theaetetus consents, and is caught in a trap (compare the similar trap which is laid for Theodorus). ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... that she was about to appear at the Congregational church in a lecture entitled, "The Real Woman-question." He had an impulse to sing, which he wisely repressed, for he couldn't sing—that is, nothing which the hearer would recognize as singing. The Fates ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... a comprehensive announcement. It was nine-tenths inspired by a spirit of teasing gossip-hunger into fuller revealment, but it happened to start a train of serious thought in the hearer. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... doubt, carry with them to my ear the idea of great vulgarity: but which might have a very different effect on that of an unprejudiced hearer, when dignified by an Anglo-Saxon pedigree. The Scotch dialect, now become quite classical with us, might, perhaps, labour under the same disadvantage amongst those who hear it spoken by ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... Anti-Slavery Society; censures sometimes more decided in sentiment than temperate in expression. My own inclination would have led me to attend several of these meetings, when my other engagements would have permitted, if I could have done so as an ordinary spectator and hearer; but on considering that I might appear on the one hand to give a tacit sanction to acts and sentiments which I disapproved, or on the other hand, that I might be drawn into controversy by explaining my objections, I concluded to forego the gratification which ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... that He too avows that He lives by faith; and by His life—and surely pre-eminently by His prayers—declares, I will put my trust in Him.' We cannot think of Christ too often or too absolutely as the object of faith; and as the hearer of our cries; but we may, and some of us do, think of Him too seldom as the pattern of faith, and as the example for our devotion. We should feel Him a great deal nearer us; and the fact of His manhood would not only be grasped more clearly by orthodox believers, but would be felt in more of its ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and substance of this discourse proved slightly startling to its hearer. They carried the conversation into regions transcendental; and to his blissful laziness, the rarefied air of those regions was unwelcome. To breathe it demanded ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... simple pathos. It was, perhaps, the tale of the London bookseller who referred to his own coiffure the American's remark apropos of the two-volume English edition of a well-known series of "Walks in London"—"Ah, I see you part your Hare in the middle." Whatever it was, my hearer at once capped it by the reply of a Boston girl to her narration of the following anecdote: A railway conductor, on his way through the cars to collect and check the tickets, noticed a small hair-trunk lying in the forbidden central gangway, and ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... "I make it a sacred rule of life to put pleasure before business. I mean," he explained, as a look of bewilderment crossed his hearer's face, "that this quest of ours promises to be the most remarkable affair I have ever been engaged in. That pleases me. Pheasant-shooting is a serious business, governed by the calendar and ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... sleepy performances, except for a tendency to jumble up metaphors, that kept the audience from the Folly just awake enough to watch for them. The hearer was proud who could repeat by heart such phrases as "let us not, beloved brethren, as gaudy insects, flutter out life's little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answers my composer, "perhaps; but only for the moment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms; once the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will vanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally was.... How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have affected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof have you got that the strains of Mozart and ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... fire is in the wood; but who awakens it suddenly? Then it turns to ashes, and where goes the force of the fire? The true guru teaches that He has neither limit nor infinitude. Kabr says: "Brahma suits His language to the understanding of His hearer." ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... At home, our talk has always been made up of allusions, half-words, petrified witticisms, that have become part of our language. Each sentence would require a dictionary of explanation to any strange hearer. Now, if I wish to be understood, I must say my meaning in plain English, and very laborious ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Syrian, first instructed in Greek eloquence, should afterwards be formed a wonderful Latin orator, and one most learned in things pertaining unto philosophy. One is commended, and, unseen, he is loved: doth this love enter the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender? Not so. But by one who loveth is another kindled. For hence he is loved who is commended, when the commender is believed to extol him with an unfeigned heart; that is, when one that loves ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... indifferent, and note how others are dropping away from their faithfulness, and see empty places where loving forms used to sit—no wonder that the mood comes ever and anon, 'Then, said I, surely I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought.' The hearer reacts on the speaker quite as much as the speaker does on the hearer. If you have ice in the pews, that brings down the temperature up here. It is hard to be fervid amidst people that are all but dead. It is difficult to keep a fire alight when it is kindled on the top of an ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shapes, colour, bigness, and particular marks; or of a gorgeous palace, the architecture; with declaring the full beauties, might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceits, with being witness to itself of a true lively knowledge: but the same man, as soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or the house well in model, should straightway ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth: ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... became a politician. John Van Buren—"Prince John"—he was called—was another notable, his conversation having the double charm of seeming to be thoroughly enjoyed by the speaker and at the same time to delight the hearer. General Scott, in full uniform, was the beau ideal of a military hero, and with him were other brave officers of the army and of the navy, each one having his history ashore ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Their messengers, when they think that knowledge is withheld because it is a precious possession to be grudgingly dealt out, that has to be given in as small a share as possible. It is not the withholding of the teacher but the closing of the heart of the hearer; not the hesitation of the teacher but the want of the ear that hears; not the dearth of teachers but the dearth of pupils who are willing and ready to be taught. I hear men say: "Why not an Avatara now, or if not an Avatara, why do not the great Rishis come forward to speak Their golden ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... or a proverb—"Griefs lose themselves in telling," and a greater truism was never uttered. The ice once broken, touching his feelings with regard to Sibylla, Lionel found comfort in making it his theme of conversation, of complaint, although his hearer and confidant was only Lucy Tempest. A strange comfort, but yet a natural one, as those who have suffered as Lionel did may be able to testify. At the time of the blow, when Sibylla deserted him with ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... so that as he spoke, the listener gradually grew bewildered by its tone, resembling a tired traveller, falling little by little unconsciously to sleep as he sits in the murmur of a mountain stream. And whenever he chose, he could cajole his hearer, and make him do almost anything whatever, so hard was it to resist the irresistible persuasion that lurked, like the caressing touch of a gentle woman's hand, in the tone of that quiet and ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... may always startle a hearer; but when the shock is over, the listener's reason has asserted itself, and he can judge of the manner, as well as of the matter, of speech. Thus it was on this occasion. With intelligence now alert, I could not doubt of the simple sincerity ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Rhoda clasped her hands behind her back, and paced slowly up and down. It was a relief, after all, to be rid of the men, and be able to talk things over with a feminine hearer who never brought forward inconvenient quibbles, who accepted statements as facts, as of course they were, and agreed to propositions in a quiet, reasonable manner. Rhoda thought out several important matters in that march to and ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... clearer The sweet sense grows Of the word which hath summer for hearer, The word on the ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was the power of gravely narrating a fact with such peculiar significance, that the very reverse of it was conveyed to the hearer; for the fellow was ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... as you are doubtless aware, sir"—he was always scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent courtesy—"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are," he tells us, and if he prevailed with God, so may others. God is the "same yesterday, to-day, and forever." He does not change. He is always a hearer ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... everywhere are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... complied, and when he finished for the second time, his hearer's face was purple and distorted, and Mabel pitied him from her ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the chief to you of all others; which is the choice of what men you are to direct yourself to; for it is certain no vessel can leave a worse taste in the liquor it contains, than a wrong teacher infects an unskilful hearer with that which hardly will ever out... But you may say, "How shall I get excellent men to take pains to speak with me?" Truly, in few words, either by much expense ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... green at the same time, it follows that what are called its redness and greenness are not in it, but in the spectator. Similarly, the sounds which an object appears to give forth neither are nor ever were in it: they originate in the mind of the hearer, and have not, and never have had any existence elsewhere. 'If the whole body were an eye, where,' asks St. Paul, 'were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?' and Professor Huxley more than meets the drift of the Apostle's questions by pronouncing it 'impossible to imagine ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... especial in his reply, but there was a deep significance about it which sent a shudder through his hearer from head to foot. Yes, the stranger was buried, and in the same grave with him were Mickey O'Rooney and ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... ago with my friend Will Marvel. His affairs obliged him lately to take a journey into Devonshire, from which he has just returned. He knows me to be a very patient hearer, and was glad of my company, as it gave him an opportunity of disburdening himself, by a minute relation of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... hear a quiet sound of talking in Karen's room; now and then the old woman's less regulated voice, more low or more shrill, broke in upon the subdued tones of the other. Elizabeth thought she would have given anything to be a hearer of what was said and listened to there; but the door was shut; it was all for Karen and not for her; and she gave up at last in despair and retreated to ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... by so sublime a theme; and remembering that I had no critical hearer, I gave free reins to fancy, forgetting for the moment that some undiscovered thought or feeling had prompted her questions. And while I spoke of the mountains, she hung on my words, following me closely in my walk, her countenance brilliant, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... have been listened to while trying, clumsily enough, to explain dry and repulsive subjects, and to express opinions which may be new, and perhaps startling, to many of my hearers. If my imperfect hints shall have stirred up but one hearer to investigate this obscure and yet most important subject, and to examine for himself the original documents, I shall feel that my words in this place have not been spoken in vain; for even if such a seeker should arrive at conclusions ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... of years could think of these things without tears, yet in speaking of them to a sympathetic hearer had obvious difficulty in keeping a stiff upper lip. Gerald turned away his eyes while with her hand she covered and tried to stop ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... "It wes as a hearer that he askit ma opinion, an' no as an authority. He said that the new wy wes tae leave oot heads, an' a' saw a' the hay spread oot across the field, so a' told him tae gither it up intae 'coles' (hay-cocks), an' it wud ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... doubt to be ascribed to the influence of the laity that the atheistic Jaina system, as well as the Buddhist, has been endowed with a cult. The ascetic, in his striving for Nirva[n.]a, endeavours to suppress the natural desire of man to worship higher powers. In the worldly hearer, who does not strive after this goal exclusively, this could not succeed. Since the doctrine gave no other support, the religious feeling of the laity clung to the founder of it: Jina, and with him his mythical predecessors, became gods. Monuments and temples ornamented with their ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... on a look of bitterness and hate which almost made her hearer shiver, so foreign was it to the fresh, young brightness ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... confusion of the intellectual being which is produced by the witness of incontestable truth to a thing incredible—in which case the probability always is, that the incredibility results from something in the mind of the hearer falsely associated with and disturbing the true perception of the thing ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... that the bride is the chief speaker in Sections I., II., and is much occupied with herself; but in Section III., where the communion is unbroken, she has little to say, and appears as the hearer; the daughters of Jerusalem give a long address, and the Bridegroom His longest. In that section for the first time He calls her His bride, and allures her to fellowship in service. In Section IV. the bride again is the chief speaker, but after her restoration the ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... just arrived! The words had been spoken, and the speaker had departed, but the words still echoed and re-echoed through the soul of the hearer. What might this involve? and what would be the end of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... which Rosamond had always shown her, took the warmest interest in this affair. Caroline was the most excellent, indulgent, yet safe confidante; and as a hearer, she was absolutely indefatigable. Rosamond never found her too busy, too lazy, or too sleepy to listen to her: late at night, early in the morning, or in the most hurried moment, of the day, it was all the same—Caroline ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... fleet bore seaward; We hushed our hearts in fear, In awe of what each moment Might utter to our ear; For the air grew thick with murmurs That stilled the hearer's breath, With sounds that told of battle, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... said, in low, tender tones, "Yes, my darling, you will see him again; I feel quite sure of it. God is the hearer of prayer, and he will hear yours ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... different from that robust gayety of the plain day which later seemed to disown the affair, and leave the burden of proof altogether to the human witness. By this time Hewson had already set about to putting it in such phrases as should carry conviction to the hearer, and yet should convey to him no suspicion of the pride which Hewson felt in the incident as a sort of tribute to himself. He dramatized the scene at breakfast when he should describe it in plain, matter-of-fact terms, and hold ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... is no more; his strong heart burned within him; he saw what none had seen; he triumphed, and he was overcome. But the doubt that shrouds his end has given him to legend, and the thunder that rolls brokenly among the dark crags and ravines of the Catskills brings his name to the hearer's lips. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... since others than the wise may see his work, "it is requisite, therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God taught." Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the hearer, these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my writing. And even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before swine, lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us.' For it is difficult to exhibit the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... Wardrobe. The women sung well, but that which distinguishes all is this, that in singing, the words are to be considered, and how they are fitted with notes, and then the common accent of the country is to be known and understood by the hearer, or he will never be a good judge of the vocal musique of another country. So that I was not taken with this at all, neither understanding the first, nor by practice reconciled to the latter, so that their motions, and risings and fallings, though it may be pleasing to an Italian, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... day were to ring in his hearer's ears till life's end. The careless, almost sybaritic, man of the Isthmus and Eleusis seemed transfigured. For one moment he stood silent, lofty, awe-inspiring. He had a mighty task: to calm the superstitious fears of thirty thousand, to silence the prophets of evil, to infuse ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. The first is, the SOUND; the second, the PICTURE, or representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the AFFECTION of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. COMPOUNDED ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Bud slipped me the—the stuff an' I'd had a—a drink or two, he began askin' all about you. At first I blocked and side-stepped all his questions, but he kep' on at me, an' at last I—I give you away, Geoff—" Here Spike paused breathlessly and cast an apprehensive glance toward his hearer, but finding him silent and serene as ever ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... has experienced the effects of rude or artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and each hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching which seems to constitute ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... "No," replied the boy; "but it is our custom to speak what we mean, and to do what we are desired." "Well, then, I did not desire thee to take half of the fruit." "Why, what else could you mean," rejoined the little casuist, "by saying, 'Bring us?' Does not that word include the hearer as well as the speaker?" The stranger, not knowing how to answer such reasoning, smiled and went his way, leaving the shrewd lad to eat his share of the fruit ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... a thrill of excitement through the listener, and telling its own tale. To the hearer it was as plain as if he had been told that the gang of ruffians had waylaid another unfortunate, who was about ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... distinctly, words as a medium of revelation. It is plain, that in communicating knowledge, they are only effectual by calling up in the mind of the hearer ideas already existing. To speak to a man who has been blind from his birth, of colours would be useless, because he has had no experience of them, and consequently no ideas corresponding to them. Words may bring up ideas in a different combination from ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... pleasure, indeed, seemed mutual, for though Mr. Dunseer, having shortly after Agnes's departure for the city left that part of the country, had consequently heard nothing more of her, he still remembered his young and attentive hearer, and had often since then desired to see her again, and ascertain if indeed the impressions made were lasting, or had been obliterated amid the whirl and gayety ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... rarely hear any sermons except what they preach themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, simply for want of religious instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become actually better educated in theology than any one of them. We are all theological students, and more of us qualified as doctors of divinity than have received degrees at any of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad, and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue. But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret. Yet, still, words like those I have recorded would burst ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... for breath, and looked up to see whether her sermon was being "blessed" to her hearer; then suddenly ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf, himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing to swallow a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fame[fw] The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word;[39.B.] Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear[fx] The camp, the host, the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... through Christ has its evidence in itself, and the proof of its divine authority in its fitness to our nature and needs; the clearness and cogency of this proof being proportionate to the degree of self-knowledge in each individual hearer. Christianity has likewise its historical evidences, and these as strong as is compatible with the nature of history, and with the aims and objects of a religious dispensation. And to all these Christianity itself, as an existing power in the world, and Christendom as an existing ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Britling abruptly, perceiving a shade of fatigue upon the face of his hearer and realising that his thoughts had taken him too far, "and Sunday. Let's ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... meal's meat. He swears big at an ordinary, and talks of the court with a sharp accent; neither vouchsafes to name any not honourable, nor those without some term of familiarity, and likes well to see the hearer look upon him amazedly, as if he said, How happy is this man that is so great with great ones! Under pretence of seeking for a scroll of news, he draws out an handful of letters endorsed with his own style to the height, and half reading ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... it out to the last sheaf; has made many loaves; and it is because he himself so enjoys writing that his readers find such joy and morning freshness in his books, his own joy being communicated to his reader, as Mr. Muir's own enthusiasm is communicated to his hearer. With Mr. Burroughs, if his field of observation is closely gleaned, he turns aside into subjective fields and philosophizes—a thing which Mr. Muir ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... apt to use the mental tone continually. Perhaps the prospective employer needs a man of exactly such knowledge as is possessed by the candidate he is interviewing. But if when presenting his qualifications the applicant rasps the ears of his hearer for a long time with high-pitched head tones, the listener intuitively becomes prejudiced. He is impressed with the suggestion that the speaker is a "know-it-all" fellow. The employer is likely to turn down his application ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... wedded to his own humours, and governed by his own counsels. A rough and hoarse voice, whether in speaking or singing, declares one to be a dull and heavy person, of much guts and little brains. A full and yet mild voice, and pleasing to the hearer, shows the person to be of a quiet and peaceable disposition (which is a great virtue and rare to be found in a woman), and also very thrifty and secret, not prone to anger, but of a yielding temper. A voice beginning low or in the bass, and ending high in the treble, denotes a person to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... pride and truth in the way she spoke that struck the hearer strongly. The reverent smile on his face ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... out of it. A boy, now and then, would be roused into open and fierce remonstrance. I recollect S., afterward one of the mildest of preachers, starting up in his place, and pouring forth on his astonished hearer a torrent of invectives and threats, which the other could only answer by looking pale, and uttering a few threats in return. Nothing came of it. He did not like such matters to go before the governors. Another time, Favell, a Grecian, a youth of high ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various |
