"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eating peanuts or hot candy which they bit off from a huge triangular mass still hot from the kettle. He had never seen any candy just like that, and wondered if he had better try a piece. The speaking on the stand attracted and held his attention, however. Oratory always had a powerful attraction for him. He moved forward and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office when I last saw it—1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... characteristic products of the intellectual stir that preceded and accompanied the revolutionary movement, were the speeches of political orators like Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy in Massachusetts, and Patrick Henry in Virginia. Oratory is the art of a free people, and as in the forensic assemblies of Greece and Rome, and in the Parliament of Great Britain, so in the conventions and congresses of revolutionary America it sprang up and flourished naturally. The age, moreover, was an ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... her oratory she chanced to cast her eyes upon Mr. Prattle. With the character of Mr. Prattle, the reader is already partly acquainted. But he does not yet know, for it was not necessary for our story he should ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... eminent statesman, who, in the intervals of leisure, has always been a student of general literature. Mr. Blake's speeches afford abundant evidence of the brilliant talent of a public man who is both a student of books as well as of politics, and who, were the tendency of Parliamentary oratory something higher than mere practical debate, could rise fully to the height of some great argument. But oratory, in the real sense of the art, cannot exist in our system of government in a Colonial dependency where practical results are immediately sought for. It consequently follows that ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... consists of such elements as adoration, praise, petition, pleading, thanksgiving, intercession, communion, waiting. The closet into which the believer enters to pray is not only an oratory —a place of prayer, it is an observatory—a place of vision. Prayer is not "A venture and a voice of mine; but a vision and a voice divine." Isa. 63:7; 64:12, illustrates all essential forms ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... without making some reference to the calamity that had befallen him. The whispered disgrace had become a public record. Would he defend his son against the charges? All in all, it was a most sensational scandal—one sure to move a congregation more deeply than the richest oratory. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... were any one else, senator," Arkwright continued earnestly, "I would not trouble you. But we all know your strength in this country. You are independent and fearless, and men of both parties listen to you. Surely, God has given you this great gift of oratory, if you will forgive my speaking so, to use only in a great cause. A grand organ in a cathedral is placed there to lift men's thoughts to high resolves and purposes, not to make people dance. A street organ can do that. Now, here is a cause worthy of your great talents, worthy ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... preparation of orations is sure to ingrain thoughts, sentiments, and convictions that will be indelible in the character of the young men who participate in the contests. While the contests are oratorical in their nature, their primary purpose is not the cultivation of oratory. Oratory is simply used as a means to an end—the cultivation of right ideas of justice and righteousness between nations. That such a result will accrue is assured both in psychological principles and in experience. Every student who ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... by women at that time included the classic languages and their literature, oratory, poetry, or the art of versifying, and music. Dilettanteism in the graphic and plastic arts of course followed, and the vast number of paintings and statues produced during the Renaissance inspired every cultivated woman in Italy with a ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... disliked his sermons, albeit they were owned of God; and this caused him to reflect upon the probable causes of this opposition, and whether it was any indication of his duty. He felt that they doubtless looked for outward graces of oratory in a preacher, and hence were not attracted to a foreigner whose speech had no rhetorical charms and who could not even use English with fluency. But he felt sure of a deeper cause for their dislike, especially as he was compelled to notice that, the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... which they were expressed. The feverish fervour of his temperament was, it is true, occasionally shown in a remarkable energy of delivery, or a sudden and unexpected burst of the more impetuous powers of oratory; but these were so evidently natural and spontaneous, and so happily adapted to be impressive of the subject, rather than irrelevant from its bearings, that they never displeased even the oldest and coldest cynics and calculators of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of never contradicting the old sage in one of his excited moods, for fear of bringing on a week's silent fit—a state which generally ended in his smoking himself into a bilious melancholy; but I made up my mind to be henceforth a frequent auditor of Mr. Windrush's oratory. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... back easily in memory to the society which had known the Irish Parliament, had made or accepted the Union, and which, after the Union, exercised chieftainship in Ireland. She was the daughter of Chief Justice Bushe, one of Grattan's rivals in oratory, who, like Grattan, had opposed the Union with all the resources of his eloquence. Against his name in the private Castle list of voters for the crucial division had been written in despair one word: "Incorruptible." ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... arms. Does the poet allude to the cultivation of oratory and poetry among the Romans and the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... reception." A brief report of the lecture was printed in the newspaper; but it was not otherwise published, and the manuscript seems to have been mislaid for thirty years. I take the liberty of copying the opening sentences as a specimen of that Academical oratory which Mr. Ruskin then adopted, and used habitually in his earlier ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... as he entered this bright chamber of his fancy, but saw not its expected occupant. A recess in the deep wall at the farthest side of the room contained an oratory with an altar and a crucifix upon it. The recess was partly in the shade. But the eyes of the Intendant discerned clearly enough the kneeling, or rather the prostrate, figure of Caroline de St. Castin. Her hands were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... He frequently transgressed the rules of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental knowledge of all the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him the want of learning. His rude oratory roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the labored discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His works were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of them, the Pilgrim's Progress, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... son of a Low Church bishop who had gained his mitre by temperance oratory, and what his Lordship was in the cathedral, Cooper was in the suburban drawing-rooms where radical politics and the woman's cause were discussed. When he had a brief he brought it to the library ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... from the parsonage of "Father Mills" of Torringford, concerning whom quaint traditions and even memories still linger in the neighboring parishes of Litchfield County, Connecticut. Around this young student gathered a circle of men like-minded. The shade of a lonely haystack was their oratory; the pledges by which they bound themselves to a life-work for the kingdom of heaven remind one of the mutual vows of the earliest friends of Loyola. Some of the youths went soon to the theological seminary, and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the other hand, acting can rise in opposite conditions into the noblest of the arts. The great actor relies for genuine success on no mere gesticulatory mechanism. Imaginative insight, passion, the gift of oratory, grace and dignity of movement and bearing, perfect command of the voice in the whole gamut of its inflections are the constituent qualities ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... was a leader with Cobden in the agitation for repeal of the Corn Laws and other measures of reform, and was one of England's greatest masters of oratory. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... gentlemen: Mrs. Westangle has chosen me, because a real- estate broker is sometimes an auctioneer, and may be supposed to have the gift of oratory, to make known the conditions on which you may interview the ghosts which you are going to see. Anybody may do it who will comply with the conditions. In the first place, you have got to be serious, and to think up something that you would really like to know ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Irishman. Probably born in Dublin, raised in Dublin. Raised cain in Dublin. Repealed in Dublin. Dublined in Dublin. Died in Dublin. Tradition connects his name with the early stages of the home rule bill. Ambition: Ireland south of Ulster. Recreation: Oratory. Address: Dublin. Clubs: Dublin. Favorite ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... this was spoken conveyed an awkward innuendo to the philosopher, who began to foresee that the guidance of the Norman knight would be more difficult than he had foreseen, while his consort remained by his side. He took up, therefore, his oratory on somewhat a lower key than before, and avoided those warm descriptions which had given such offence ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a laugh against the apostle of temperance, that the meeting was fairly broken up, leaving the Wiltshire man triumphing in his victory over cold water and oratory, in the person of the lecturer. The dryness of his arguments prevailed against the refreshing and copious draughts of the pure element recommended ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... authority of the executive government lay in the loyalty, the morality, and the patriotism of the legions to whom the power had been transferred. Fortunately for Rome, the change came before decay had eaten into the bone, and the genius of the Empire had still a refuge from platform oratory and senatorial wrangling in ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... some fierce exclamation, when a feeble wail came pitifully forth from the sheltering folds of her shawl. She restrained herself instantly, and walked on at a rapid pace, scarcely heeding whither she went, till she reached the Catholic church known as the "Oratory." Its unfinished facade loomed darkly out of the fog; there was nothing picturesque or inviting about it, yet there were people passing softly in and out, and through the swinging to and fro of the red baize-covered ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... minister, General Schenck, presided, and after the blessing, got up and made a great long inconceivably dull harangue, and wound up by saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate the guests much, all further oratory would be dispensed with during the evening, and we could just sit and talk privately to our elbow-neighbors and have a good sociable time. It is known that in consequence of that remark forty-four perfected speeches died in the womb. The depression, the gloom, the solemnity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as a preacher, Jordan had made his record in the pulpit not so much on account of any powers of oratory, per se, as through a ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... turned all the dear girls' heads for some time past. While we were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry's, whose daughters are following the new mode, I heard the following talk (which made me revoke by the way) going on, in what was formerly called the young ladies' room, but is now styled the Oratory:— ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... too, shared the general decadence, as it ever must be, since they always respond to the dominant ideals of a time and a people. To this general statement the exception must be noted that philosophy, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, and oratory, as represented by a long succession of Attic orators, had developed into higher and better forms. The history of human experience has shown that philosophy often becomes more subtle and more profound in times when men fall away from their ancient ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... wholesome to the taste, is honored with the name of Saint Patrick, and, as is said, gives health or relief to many laboring with divers diseases; and it rises near the seaside, and over it the devotion of posterity has erected an oratory, with an altar built in ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... Curran, Grattan, and of the persecuting government tell that story. The blood of an Emmett has crowned a noble effort with martyrdom. His last speech will be read as long as school-books can perpetuate one of the finest efforts of oratory. ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... impassioned oratory felt the joy which the astronomer knows "when a new comet swims into his ken" in the appearance of a brilliant political orator, of masterly talent and more masterly will. This still young man of Hebraic origin, rather dashing and flashing in manner and dress, had not ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... the sleeping arrangements to the satisfaction of all four of us, the only thing left to discuss was what we should take with us; and this we had begun to argue, when Harris said he'd had enough oratory for one night, and proposed that we should go out and have a smile, saying that he had found a place, round by the square, where you could really get a ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... around him, his experiences and the changes that had come into his life since the last decoration services he had attended there, seemed to move him deeply, and here was first displayed a power of oratory which he was so rapidly ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... them request admission into the same colleges and universities with their brothers, so that they may compete with them for the honors and degrees conferred in such institutions,—and what then? The flowery oratory is all gone. The "angels," the "heroic, brave, and virtuous women," have suddenly become agitators whose conduct is unseemly. They "are ambitious, indelicate, not to say immodest, bold-faced females"—whether of the human or some other ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... them, and plenty of them in that part of the country, where county seats had been changed, courthouses of red bricks and gray stones put on skids and moved away, leaving desolation that neither maledictions could assuage nor oratory could repair. For prosperity went with the courthouse in those days, and dignity, and consequence among the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... smiled and sang as he went, though he fell at times into sudden silences of wonder and delight. When he arrived, the Lady Beckwith greeted him very lovingly, and presently led him into a small chamber that seemed to be an oratory. Here was a little altar very seemly draped, with stools for kneeling, and a chair or two. Near the altar, at the side, was a little door in the wall behind a hanging; the Lady Beckwith pulled the hanging aside, and bade Paul to follow; ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Carlisle coolly; "and this sort of imaginative fervour which is upon you is sure to find a cold bath of its own in good time. My purpose is simply in future, whenever you wish to hear another specimen of the kind of oratory we have listened to this evening, to be with you that I ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... horsewoman, and smoked cigars; one was exceedingly Low Church, and had the most heterodox views on religious matters; at least, so the other said, who was herself of the very Highest Church faction, and made the cupboard in her room into an oratory, and fasted on every Friday in the year. Their paternal house of Drummington, Foker could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he had rather go on the treadmill than stay there. He was not much beloved by the inhabitants. Lord Erith, Lord Rosherville's heir, considered his cousin a ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and indeed remained an important component of Eliza Haywood's writing, whether the ostensible form was romance, essay, or novel. Scraps of poetry, too, were sometimes used to ornament her earliest effusions, but the other miscellaneous features of the romances—lists of maxims, oratory, moral discourses, and conversations —were discarded from the first. The language of these short romances, while generally more easy and often more colloquial than the absurd extravagances of the translators of heroic romances and ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the greatest service to the Allied cause which Mr. Kahn rendered—which he was the first, as well as the most prominent, American of German blood to render—was his oratory through the United States. There are about twelve million Americans of German descent in the United States, and many more millions spring from races more or less affiliated with them. Most of these went to America over twenty-five years ago; they did not ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... not appropriate subjects for narrow partisan oratory. They go to the heart of what we Americans are all about—all of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... the members are a very favourable specimen of the parliamentary oratory of Queen Elizabeth's reign, as may be seen from the following delivered by Mr Martin. He is no philosopher, it will be observed, in political economy, but speaks from the actual grievances witnessed by him. 'I speak for a town that grieves and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... their special qualifications and experience. They are encouraged to improve themselves and qualify themselves for special posts. A covenanted official who can speak the native languages, who distinguishes himself in literature or in oratory, who devises plans for public works, or distinguishes himself in other intellectual or official lines of activity is sure to be recognized and receive rapid advancement, while those who prefer to perform only the arduous duties that are required of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... instruction and pleasure combined; for the unrestricted range of these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy and oratory are capable of; for the epic may be written in prose just ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with all the necessaries and comforts of life than the New Caledonians. And according to the special purpose to which a family devotes its spiritual energies, so will commonly be the position of its oratory. For example, if rain-making is their strong point, their house of prayer will be established near a cultivated field, in order that the crops may immediately experience the benefit to be derived from their orisons. ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... hand a crucifix which hung in a little oratory near the hall, he opened the front door of the house and stepped out among the crowd. He held the sacred symbol of his faith aloft in his hand. It served as his safeguard. No one attempted to injure him; but before he could utter a word, he was surrounded and hurried ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in Lisbon of Marrano parents, who emigrated to Amsterdam a few years after their son's birth. He displayed a youthful talent for oratory, and was a noted preacher in his teens. He started the first Hebrew printing-press established in Amsterdam, and from it issued many works still remarkable for the excellence of their type and general ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... posterior part of Firmness lies Heroism, or Hardihood, next to which come Health and Oratory, then Approbativeness and Playfulness, running into Sense of Honor and Magnanimity. Approbativeness, Playfulness, Honor, Magnanimity and Self-sufficiency might as one group be almost included in the old conception of Approbativeness. Magnanimity is a faculty closely akin to Self-esteem ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... speech and wrought the Indians up to such enthusiasm that they demanded that Keokuk join with Black Hawk. It was a critical moment for the young chief—even his life was in danger; but he was a more skillful master of oratory than even the eloquent Black Hawk, and, seeming at first to fall in with his plan, he gradually showed up its danger and its impracticable character, until at last he saved all his own party and even won a considerable number away from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... speech—the liver and lights of harangues by Dr. Harding, of editorials in the New York Times, of "Science and Health, with a Key to the Scriptures," of department-store advertisements, of college yells, of chautauqual oratory, of smoke-room anecdote—and arranges them in mosaics that glitter with an almost fabulous light. He knows where a red noun should go, and where a peacock-blue verb, and where an adjective as darkly purple as a grape. He is an imagist in ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... range of literature, in philosophic and mathematical investigations, in the professions of law, medicine, and divinity, in high scholarship, in educational training and supervision, in rhetoric and oratory, in the lyceum, or in discharging the official duties connected with the various departments of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Peel, who filled the post of leader in that house, there was no man who could fight their battles of debate with any degree of talent and vigour, no one that held any high place in public opinion, either for oratory or information. Finally, the ministry increased their unpopularity by prosecutions for libel arising out of the Catholic relief bill. While that bill was pending, the press had given birth to much vehement and angry discussion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... followed the Admiral with devotion. The latter had him christened Diego Colon. We taught him Spanish as fast and soundly as we might, and used him as interpreter. The tongue of his island was not just the tongue of Cuba, but near enough to serve. All these Indians have a gift of oratory and dote to speak at length, with firm voice and great gestures. Now we set Diego Colon to his narration. We of Castile had so much of the tongue by now that we could in ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... had been broken into by a series of visitors with grievances, and he had been called upon to adjust a vexatious claim of a woman attacked in the street by a police dog, while the animal was supposed to be on duty tracking a sacrilegious thief who had felled a priest in an oratory and bolted with the silver candlesticks ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Never was oratory more applauded to the echo—never any one was more of the popular man than I. I promise you, we made a night of it. Some of the company supported each other, with the assistance of boots, to their respective bed-chambers, while the rest slept on the field of glory where we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no little amusement to his fervid appeals to the people not to lose this golden opportunity, and to the shy responses of the small crowd which had been attracted and which lingered on, tempted yet cautious, until the cheap-jack had worked himself up into a white heat of energetic oratory, and the selling ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... principally because one is absolutely tied down to make the best of two people. Very few English people have the art of conversing unaffectedly and sincerely before a circle; when one does come across it, it is a rare and beautiful art, like singing, or oratory. But the presence of such an improvisatore is the only thing that makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand, a great many English people have the art of tete-a-tete talking; and I can honestly say that I have very seldom ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... occasion; there is nothing overstrained, but perfectly simple. . . . After breakfast, we four went out on the lake, and Miss Bronte agreed with me in liking Mr. Newman's Soul, and in liking Modern Painters, and the idea of the Seven Lamps; and she told me about Father Newman's lectures at the Oratory in a very quiet, concise, graphic way. . . . She is more like Miss —— than any one in her ways—if you can fancy Miss —— to have gone through suffering enough to have taken out every spark of merriment, and to be shy and silent from the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... virile, tender voice that does not stammer, does not break, does not wax hysterical: the voice of a composer that not only must pour out that which has accumulated within him, but knows all the resources of musical oratory—in a ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... concise, and his views, as I then thought and still think, entirely orthodox. He was said to have been an acceptable preacher, his sermons abounding in strong common sense views and happy illustrations, without any effort at oratory or sensational appeals to the passions of his hearers." See Bassett, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... of the Negro in America is colossal, from political oratory through abolitionism to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Cotton is King"—a vast mass of books which many men have read to the waste of good years (and I among them); but the only books that I have read a second time or ever care again to read in the whole list (most of them by tiresome and ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... Church and the Empires. Historical Periods. Preceded by a Memoir of the Author by John Henry Newman, D.D. of the Oratory. With Portrait. Post 8vo. Cloth, price ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... There would be nothing to hinder Congress "from plundering power after power at the expense of the new states," until they should be left empty shadows of domestic sovereignty, in a union between giants and dwarfs, between power and feebleness. In vivid oratory he conjured up this vision of an unequal union, into which the new state would enter, "shorn of its beams," a mere servant of the majority. From the point of view of the political theory of a confederation, his contention had force, and the hot- tempered west was not likely ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... who had attended this strange Parliament of unpractical enthusiasts, there was a Prussian country squire by the name of Bismarck, who had made good use of his eyes and ears. He had a deep contempt for oratory. He knew (what every man of action has always known) that nothing is ever accomplished by talk. In his own way he was a sincere patriot. He had been trained in the old school of diplomacy and he could outlie ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the forefinger of the right hand on the forefinger of the left; it is the gesture of a man about to ratiocinate or demonstrate, as Quintilian, in his remarks on the oratory of fingers, probably observes; or if he has failed to do so, it is a blot ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Board generally I was struck with these three characteristics:—First, his remarkable power of speaking—I may say, of oratory—not only on his own scientific subjects, but on all the matters, many of which were of great practical interest and touched the deepest feelings, which came before the Board at that critical time. Had he chosen—and we heard at that time that he was considering ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... any new play was, Is there a ghost in it? The Castle Spectre had set this fashion. It was one of the first plays I saw, when I was a very little girl. The opening of the folding-doors disclosing the illuminated oratory; the extreme beauty of the actress who personated the ghost; the solemn music to which she moved slowly forward to give a silent blessing to her kneeling daughter; and the chorus of female voices chanting Jubilate; made an impression ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... the Church of England, though generally looking askance at the chapels and their swarming congregations, now, carried away by the enthusiasm of the people, consented to attend the meetings, secretly looking forward, with the Welsh love of oratory, to the eloquent sermons generally to be heard on ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... "O Wazir, I am minded to consult with thee concerning a thing I desire to do." Replied he, "Whatever thou hast a mind to do, do it; for thy judgment is blessed." Quoth the King, "O Wazir, I am become a very old and decrepit man, sore stricken in years, and I desire to take up my abode in an oratory, that I may worship Allah Almighty and give my kingdom and Sultanate to my son Sayf al-Muluk for that he is grown a goodly youth, perfect in knightly exercises and intellectual attainments, polite letters and gravity, dignity and the art of government. What ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... known as "The Hartford Wits." Dr. Dwight was a fellow collegian with them. Trumbull and Dwight did much to interest the students in literature. The latter was also tutor in rhetoric and professor of belles-lettres and oratory. ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... best French literature, that thinking men are generally in a practical dilemma between the extremes of sensual excess and of spiritual exaltation, did not commend itself to him in the least." The only forms of art to which he was keenly susceptible were those of oratory and poetry. He had no ear for music, though he seemed to get a certain exaltation from listening to it. In regard to painting and sculpture he always professed himself incompetent, but he was not without decided tastes. On his first visit to the Continent he was more attracted by ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... of that another time. Your grandfather often used to recall his emotions when travelling in that thick cloud. One day they rested in the icy chamber they had dug for the night's resting-place, and he said, 'That was indeed an oratory;' and fervently did we pray, 'Give us our daily bread,' and 'Lighten our darkness we ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... handsome fellow, with a look of infinite self-confidence, who at that moment made a low bow to the assembly, and then began to recite with much force a splendid burst of oratory from one of Burke's great speeches; which he did with the air of one who had no doubt that Burke himself might have studied with benefit the scorn which he flung into his invective and the Olympian grace with which he waved his arm. A burst of applause ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... flesh and blood like us? Are not many of us above him?" he may possibly be stating truth. It would have been hard to find any street-lounger more despicable than Bomba or more foolish than poor Louis XVI; but the method of oratory is purely destructive, and it will be much more to the purpose if the street firebrand gives his audience some definite ideas as to the man who ought to be chosen as leader. If we have the faculty for recognizing our best man, all chatter about equalities and inequalities must soon drop ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination, flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle's—chiefly answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John—and the solid traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from 'Change towards St. Stephen's Chapel, at ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... Spain 40 A.D. was a celebrated teacher of rhetoric and oratory at Rome. His greatwork is De Institutione Oratorica, a complete system of rhetoric, which ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... all historians. I have found there, for instance, the Day of the Dupes related precisely as my father has related it to me, and several other curious things not less exact. This author has made such a stir that it is worth while to say something about him. He was a priest of the Oratory, and in much estimation as a man whose manners were without reproach. After a time, however, he was found to have disclosed a secret that had been entrusted to him, and to have acted the spy on behalf of the Jesuits. The proofs of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... presence at mothers' meetings, and conscientious labours among the poor. A preacher Kidds never pretended to be; but he had the singular merit of brevity, and crowded more harmless heresies into ten minutes' pulpit oratory than Colenso or Voysey could have done in double the time. The young ladies made a dead set at him, of course, for Kidds was in every respect eligible; and he let them stroke him like a big pet lamb, but there matters ended. Kidds never committed himself. He is ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Bayle relates (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, vol. III, ch. 142, p. 804) that Father Gibieuf of the Oratory published a Latin treatise on the freedom of God and of the creature, in the year 1639; that he was met with protests, and was shown a collection of seventy contradictions taken from the first book of his work; and that, twenty years after, Father Annat, Confessor to ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... and the character of men of honour. We do not assemble such numerous meetings as the Saints, the Whigs, or the Radicals, nor are our speeches delivered with so much vehemence. We even, I think, tacitly exclude oratory. In a word, our meetings seldom exceed the perfect number of the muses; and our object on these occasions is not so much to deliberate on plans of prospective benefits to mankind, as to enjoy the present time ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... have had great influence on the former, but it is difficult to see how it can have produced the substantial difference which exists in the latter. The imagery of the Indian, both in his poetry and in his oratory, is oriental; chastened, and perhaps improved, by the limited range of his practical knowledge. He draws his metaphors from the clouds, the seasons, the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... cadaverous face and shoulders, that disfigurement of the beautiful, and remarked that artists painted nothing but that unreal type of woman nowadays. Cadine, however, remained unconvinced by his oratory, and considered the lady extremely beautiful. Then, resisting the attempts of the artist to drag her away by the arm, and scratching her black mop in vexation, she pointed to an enormous ruddy tail, severed from the quarters of some vigorous mare, and told ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the heart, Their meaning be more deeply felt Than all the glowing oratory Poured at the shrine where reason knelt. The fairest pictures art conceives, The noblest sentiments of mind, The loveliest, purest gems of thought Are ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... I have the floor," continued Greusel. "I am not attempting oratory, but trying to disentangle a skein in which we have involved ourselves. I wish to receive neither applause nor hissing until I have finished the business. You say it is the case. I say it is not. Roland gave Herr Kurzbold the alternative either of apologizing ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... sat at the banquet; beside him, Listened to the surging music, saw all the lights and flowers, Flowers and lights and crystal cups, whereof the price for each Might have brought back from Potter's Field some bloodless, starving baby. I heard the Leaders' speeches, the turgid oratory, The well-turned phrases of the Captains, the rotund babble of prosperity, (Prosperity for whom? Nay, ask not troublesome questions!) The Captains' vaunting I heard, their boasts of glory and victory, While red, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... came another guest to the meal—the rector of the fashionable church which the family attended at home. He was a young man, renowned for the charm of his oratory; smooth-shaven, pink-and-white-cheeked, exquisite in his manners, gracious and insinuating. His ideas and his language and his morals were all as perfectly polished as his finger-nails; and never before in his life had Thyrsis had ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... transferring as large a portion as possible of his author's meaning to his own verses, but in order to make the versification as smooth and the sense as transparent as possible. We have the pleasure which we receive from really polished oratory; every point is made to tell; if the emphasis is too often pointed by some showy antithesis, we are at least never uncertain as to the meaning; and if the versification is often monotonous, it is articulate and easily caught at first sight. These are the essential merits of good declamation, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the Methodists successfully inspire this terror, and live comfortably upon the folly of their hearers. In this kind of madness the poor patients frequently commit suicide; although they believe they run headlong into the hell, which they dread! Such is the power of oratory, and such the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... me. I am not able to excite in myself any curiosity after events which have been long passed, and in which I can, therefore, have no interest; I am utterly unconcerned to know whether Tully or Demosthenes excelled in oratory, whether Hannibal lost Italy by his own negligence or the corruption of his countrymen. I have no skill in controversial learning, nor can conceive why so many volumes should have been written upon questions, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Carol, "Ella is our shark at elocuting. She's had professional training. She studied singing and oratory and dramatic art and shorthand for a year, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... moment to say good-bye to all joy for evermore—no, this self-control is a training, so that we may reap the fruits of a larger joy in the time to come. A man will toil day and night to make himself an orator, yet oratory is not the one aim of his existence: his hope is to influence men by his eloquence and thus achieve some noble end. So too with us, and those like us, who are drilled in the arts of war: we do not give our ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... we had seated ourselves on a bench beside a white oratory, and Lieutenant Khorvat had taken off his hat, and with a blue handkerchief wiped his forehead and the thick silvery hair which bristled from the knobs ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... to speak, George," said Pennington. "I'm not cut out for oratory, but I certainly accept right now your invitation to come. I'll sit on the stage with Dick and the Johnny Reb, his cousin Harry, and I'll smile and smile and applaud and applaud, and after it's all ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... either—but her disgrace was soon discovered, or revealed; and her unhappy and almost distracted husband immediately commenced a suit against Clay. He chose Alfred Percy for his counsel. In this cause, where strong feelings of indignation were justly roused, and where there was room for oratory, Alfred spoke with such force and pathos that every honest heart was touched. The verdict of the jury showed the impression which he had made upon them: his speech was universally admired; and those who had till now known him only as a man of business, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... was no school, no oratory, and no alleviation. One third of the campoodie died, and the rest killed the medicine-men. Winnenap' expected it, and for days walked and sat a little apart from his family that he might meet it as became a Shoshone, no doubt suffering the agony of dread deferred. When finally ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... boudoir was to remain locked, Jean Daval's body had been moved to another room. Two women from the neighborhood sat up with it, assisted by Suzanne and Raymonde. Downstairs, young Isidore Beautrelet slept on the bench in the old oratory, under the watchful eye of the village policeman, who had been attached to his person. Outside, the gendarmes, the farmer and a dozen peasants had taken up their position among the ruins and along ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... "and who can withstand such a mighty torrent of oratory? Let us away to the groves!" And Apgomer was left, for the time being, the sole occupant of ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... desirous of paying his tribute. It received 35 ayes and the opposition could muster only five votes. The Senate resolution was submitted in the Assembly and voted on February 2. Gallery and lobbies were thronged and only time limited the oratory. It received 66 ayes, 12 noes. Governor Johnson had insisted on the submission of the amendment as ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... dedicated in honour of the blessed Pope Gregory.... Opposite to this tower and on the north, the other tower was built in honour of the blessed Martin, and had about it cloisters for the use of the monks.... The extremity of the church was adorned by the oratory of Mary.... At its eastern part, there was an altar consecrated to the worship of that Lady.... When the priest performed the Divine mysteries at this altar he had his face turned to the east.... ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... maniac somehow got into The Ivies and forced his way into the library where I was writing. A horrible looking fellow, with a tortured face, he waved a pistol in front of me, ranting phrases reminiscent of oldfashioned soapbox oratory. I am not ashamed to admit nervousness, for this is not the first time my life has been threatened since attaining prominence. Happily, the madman's aim was as wild as his speech, and though he fired four shots, all ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore |
