"Talkative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of our famous generals are there," said Scheller, who seemed to be both well informed now and talkative. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by the usual way for your sake," returned the other, unabashed. "If I left by the window all sorts of questions would be asked, and you know what a talkative chap I am." ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... his chair was Judge Holcombe, Van Lew's uncle and the father of the prettier of the two young women who had been entertaining Jefferis, the curly-headed collegian. Jefferis laughingly disclaimed relationship with anybody; but Miss Carolyn Doty, the less pretty but more talkative of the two young women, confessed that she was a cousin, twice removed, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Minton had a cousin who lived in St. Louis. "Cousin Mary," Lucy Putnam discovered by a process of elimination, was the one topic on which the reticent Mr. Minton could become talkative. Mary was his ideal, almost. Let a girl broach the weather, he grew halt of speech; should she bring up literature, his replies were almost inane; let her seek to show that she kept abreast of the times, and talk of politics—then Jimmy seemed to harbor a great fear ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... was appointed teacher of the students of the Royal Academy, having been preceded by a clever, talkative, scientific expounder of aesthetics, who delighted to tell the young men how everything was done, how to copy this, and how to express that. A student came up to the new master, "How should I do this, sir?" "Suppose you try." Another, "What does this ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... much conversation on the road, for, although Gabriel was an excitable and talkative boy, he was now so fully impressed by the importance of the undertaking that he was unusually silent, and Roger was naturally rather quiet ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... head-dress, and it is instantly turned into grapes; he fled while she was eating them. Again, 'he cast down his multitudinous and close-toothed comb, and it instantly turned into bamboo sprouts.' In the Gaelic version, the pursuer is detained by talkative objects which the pursued leave at home, and this marvel recurs in Zululand, and is found among the Bushmen. The Zulu versions are numerous. {93c} Oddly enough, in the last variant, the girl performs no magic feat, but merely throws sesamum on the ground to delay the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... foolish contingent with which I started were scattered far and wide from the Catshill Barracks at Cork, and I travelled thence under the care of a sedate old sergeant to Cahir, in Tipperary. The sergeant was talkative and friendly, but I paid little heed to him, for it was here, if I mistake not, that the joy of landscape first entered into my soul. I have an impression only of an abounding green and blue in general, but one or ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... seemed to regard the question with mingled embarrassment and amusement, but being a sharp and talkative Chinaman gave his answer promptly: 'Me say Camp Chap-lal heap good name; plenty chap-lal all lound; me hang um dish-cloth, tow'l, little boy's stockin', on chap- lal; all same clo'se-line velly good. Miss Bell she folic, Miss ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have attended. "His kindness was what most impressed me," says one officer who was a very young man when first reporting to him for duty. Another, who as a midshipman saw much of him, writes: "He had a winning smile and a most charming manner, and was jovial and talkative. If any officer or man had not spontaneous enthusiasm, he certainly infused it into him." Captain Drayton, who had many opportunities of observing, once said of him: "I did not believe any man could be great if he did not know how to say 'No,' but I see he can; for certainly here is a great ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... said he, "or the unexpected accident of meeting a countryman, has made me unusually talkative, and on subjects, I fear, which have not a ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hearty and jovial in his greeting to Wellesly, solicitous about his physical welfare and genial and talkative all through breakfast. Jim grinned at his jokes and stories and ventured some facetious remarks of his own, and Wellesly told a story or two that sent the others into peals of laughter. He searched his pockets and found three cigars, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... very desirous of making a match between Jane Graham and himself. He had overheard some trifling remark on the subject, and had suffered an afternoon's very stupid teasing and joking, about Jane, from a talkative old bachelor relation. This was quite sufficient to rouse the spirit of independence, in a youth of his years and disposition. When, at length, he heard a proposition that Jane should accompany them abroad, he went so ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... replied Jack, who had taken a second glass of brandy, and was quite talkative again, "let this be a warning to you, and when a man proposes to argue the point, always, in future, listen. Had you waited, I would have proved to you most incontestably that you had no more right to the apples than I had; but you ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... was coming, pale and somewhat sad. On leaving his bed, his first visit was to Maria Clara. He was no longer the Father Damaso that he had been, so robust and talkative. He now walked along in silence ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... divining urn, foretold when I was a boy; 'This child, neither shall cruel poison, nor the hostile sword, nor pleurisy, nor cough, nor the crippling gout destroy: a babbler shall one day demolish him; if he be wise, let him avoid talkative people, as soon as ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... has caught a little of her lady's elegance and romance; she affects to be lively and sententious, falls in love, and makes her favor conditional on the fortune of the caskets, and in short mimics her mistress with good emphasis and discretion. Nerissa and the gay talkative Gratiano are as well matched as the incomparable Portia and her magnificent and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... head. He was a man of few words, and possibly it was for this reason as much as any that Kadour ben Saden had taken to him, for if there be one thing that an Arab despises it is a talkative man. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 'talkative,' was confounded—he heard pious godly women mourning over their worthlessness instead of vaunting of their attainments. They exhibited, doubtless to his great surprise, that self-distrust and humility ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... character, that character which they themselves are and will remain. See the variety of John Bunyan's characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are the features of their faces. Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and Pliable, Mr. Fearing and Mr. Feeblemind, Temporary and Talkative, Mr. By- ends and Mr. Facing-both-ways, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, that brisk lad Ignorance, and the genuine Mr. Brisk himself. And then Captain Boasting, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Wet-Eyes, and so on, through a less known (but equally well worth knowing) company of municipal and military ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... in a talkative mood to-night, but her horse pranced on and would not listen. She wanted to tell him about vibgyor. The half mile was quickly travelled and he whirled the sled through the large gateway and around ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... One talkative fellow maintained that one newspaper was but merely a copy of another; but this assertion was clearly set aside, and the duties of an Editor and Reporter nicely discriminated, by a very equivocal sort of a gemman, in a great coat, whom we strongly suspected ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... listen to him, but when he said he'd been up the Red Sea, and that the water there was the colour of a soldier's coat, she said that she had no doubt about that, and that she was glad to listen to him when he spoke the truth. But," continued Jerry, who had now got into his talkative vein, "what I have been telling you is as nothing to what happened to me soon after then. I had been ill for some time, and could not tell what was the matter with me, when I happened one day to go to Portsdown fair. I thought the walk would do me good, and I wanted to see some of the fun going ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... together: only two-thirds of the company could sit down, but the rest stood or sat behind, and were very happy, loud, and talkative: science, politics, literature, and nonsense in happy proportions. Biot sat behind Fanny's chair, and talked of the parallax and Dr. Brinkley. Prony, with his hair nearly in my plate, was telling me most entertaining anecdotes of Buonaparte; and Cuvier, with his head ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... declared Jadwin, shaking Corthell's hand. "Glad to see you again. I hadn't an idea you were here." He was excited, elated, very talkative. "I guess I came in on you abruptly," he observed. "They told me Mrs. Jadwin was in here, and I was full of my good news. By the way, I do remember now. When I came to look over my mail on the way down town this morning, I found a note from you to my wife, saying you ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... in a small room opening from the parlor, and also, to my great surprise, I found her extremely talkative and chatty. She asked me so many questions that I had little chance to answer them, and she told me a great deal more about Walford and its people and citizens than I had learned during my nine months' residence in the village. I was very glad to give her an opportunity ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... been now removed from Derby about a fortnight, to the Priory, and all of us like our change of situation. We have a pleasant home, a good garden, ponds full of fish, and a pleasing valley somewhat like Shenstone's—deep, umbrageous, and with a talkative stream running down it. Our home is near the top of the valley, well screened by hills from the east and north, and open to the south, where at four miles' distance we see ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... said. "Though I s'pose it's what I meant. Toby, you do like ... you know ... this?" she suddenly asked, not bent upon a caress, but in a sudden doubt. Her arms were warmly about his neck as she spoke. Toby left her no doubt. He was not talkative; he had no ready flow of compliment; but he could speak the language which a young girl in love best understands. He could crush her almost to ecstatic forgetfulness in his vigorous arms. Thus embraced, Sally was in Paradise, and her one desire ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Augsburg bath-house, who had burned herself with boiling water, occupied the next bed. She was recovering, and was a talkative woman, whose intrusive loquacity at first annoyed Kuni, nay, when she could not silence it, caused her pain. But her conversation soon revealed that she knew every stick and stone in her native city. Kuni availed herself of this, and did not need to ask many questions ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of mischief, sent there at the suggestion of Mr. Haynes, but that he had not decided just what they intended to do. It was the idea of Colonel Boone to make the whiskey draw the object of this visit to him, from his guests, and some of the more talkative ones had already begun to divulge their business. The Colonel decided to leave them alone so they could consult with themselves, so busied himself about the house making his visitors comfortable wherever he could. He stopped in the living room and listened to the conversation ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... confession, although it had comforted and soothed him, was yet a mystery to himself, and he thought of it with a kind of awkward surprise and something like resentment. He was, however, unusually talkative and even gentle as they drove on together. When at last he had seen Cardo fairly off in the coach, with his luggage piled on the top, he turned homewards with a heavy foreboding ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... French of Glare Abbey—he's dead now, but he was alive enough at the time I'm telling you of, and kept the best house in county Clare—well, he was coming down on the Limerick coach, and met a deuced pleasant, good-looking, talkative sort of a fellow a-top of it. They dined and got a tumbler of punch together at Roscrea; and when French got down at Bird Hill, he told his acquaintance that if he ever found himself anywhere near Ennis, he'd be glad to ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... he must find out for himself, and he returned that I was an angel from heaven. On the whole I felt more like a weak and talkative woman, a traitress to my mother; but then, as I looked at him, there was such depth of wounded affection, such worth and superiority to all the men I was in the habit of seeing, that it was impossible not to feel that if Annora had any right ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... government of states as of families. Those famous housewives who are always expatiating on their labors are sure either to leave much in arrears, or to render themselves tiresome to every one around them; and, in like manner, those men in power so talkative and so full of business, only make a mighty bustle about the difficulties they are in because too awkward ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... soon ensnared and moved to pity by this wheedling, talkative cremiere, who was always in a state of intense emotion, calling upon others to open their hearts to her, and apparently so affectionate. After three months hardly anything passed mademoiselle's doors that did not come from Mere Jupillon. Germinie ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... the ages of six to twelve or thirteen. I can distinctly recall the faces of many of those boys and girls to this day—Jane North, a slender, clean-cut girl of ten or eleven; Elizabeth McClelland, a fat, freckled girl of twelve; Alice Twilliger, a thin, talkative girl with a bulging forehead. Two or three of the boys became soldiers in the Civil War, and fell in ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... the slightest allusion to her past life, her country, or her family had never escaped her. She was very talkative, but all she would say would be to the detriment of her neighbours. She was supposed, however, to have seen the world, and to know a great deal. She was very distrustful and barricaded herself in her cottage as in a fortress. She never went out in the evening, and it was well known that ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... a minute description of the new comer, because she is not quite a person to be described. She is neither very good-looking nor very plain, neither very old nor very young, neither very tall nor very short, neither very talkative nor very reserved, neither very much over-dressed nor very much under-dressed, neither very merry nor very grave. Freda used to say that she was the personification of gentle dignity and serenity, and in the days of her Italian studies called her occasionally La Dignita, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... a talkative man, and therefore there was not the sound of a human voice to break the death-like stillness of the foul-smelling den. For perhaps an hour and a half all sat without so ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... that can charm the wit with mirth and jollity. But hearing is not like seeing; and indeed if thou wilt join us and put off going to thy friends, it will be better both for us and for thee: for the traces of sickness are yet upon thee and belike thou art going amongst talkative folk, who will prate of what does not concern them, or there may be amongst them some impertinent busybody who will split thy head, and thou still weak from illness.' 'This shall be for another day,' answered I and laughed in spite ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... and Episodes are collected into this house to-night. Obstinate and Pliable are here; Passion and Patience; Simple, Sloth, and Presumption; Madame Bubble and Mr. Worldly- wiseman; Talkative and By-ends; Deaf Mr. Prejudice is here also, and, sitting close beside him, stiff Mr. Loth-to-stoop; while good old Mr. Wet- eyes and young Captain Self-denial are not wholly wanting. It gives this house an immense and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... the weather grew worse, and one after another the few second-class passengers who had dared to risk dining faded away. At last, about halfway through the badly served meal, the girl got up with a wan little smile for her talkative neighbour, and went out, keeping her balance by catching at the back of a chair now and then. The bullet-headed man soon followed, charging at the open door like a bull, as a wave dropped the floor under his feet. But Max, priding himself on his qualities as a sailor, managed to sit ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... It was a noisy, talkative file of girls who having escorted Lucy to her home, and left the back doorstep covered with berry pails, turned their faces toward Dolittle Cottage. The day spent in the open air had made them hungry. Peggy was ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and took the road toward Pa-Ramesu, the unprotesting old man trotting after her. The crowd followed, silent at first, then softly talkative, and finally, in the distance, singing ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... tightly and smiled in ironic fashion. Whenever he was highly pleased he grew rather talkative, and now he had much to say for a man whose life was about to turn on ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... convictions upon all subjects were taciturnly inflexible. He was an obstinate player of draughts and chess, and an earnest and persistent reader of the British Weekly. His wife was a pink, short, wilfully smiling, managing, ingratiating, talkative woman, who was determined to be pleasant, and take a bright hopeful view of everything, even when it was not really bright and hopeful. She had large blue expressive eyes and a round face, and she always spoke of her husband as Harold. She addressed sympathetic and considerate ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... though my husband be a little talkative, yet truly he is an unreasonable honest man, yee shall finde his words and his sayings ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Stockdale described him as 'the most gentleman-like person of that trade whom I ever knew.' Dr. Johnson said he was 'learned enough for a clergyman,' which was an equivocal compliment, for the clergymen of the period were not, as a rule, learned. Davies was generally talkative, but at times quite the reverse, and sometimes uttered pious ejaculations. Between 1764 and 1776 Davies sold a number of interesting and valuable libraries—those, for example, of William Shenstone and William Oldys. Davies, like many other contemporary booksellers, was ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... chilly, it must be confessed. This was perhaps his only weakness, and it was necessary to make him a well-padded dressing-gown. But what a servant he was, clever, zealous, indefatigable, not indiscreet, not talkative, and he might have been with reason proposed as a model for all his biped brothers in the Old ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... slightly. I used to see him at the club. In club surroundings he always struck me as an ineffable young ass, loud and talkative and perpetually breaking the silence rules. Yet I have to admit that in his summer flannels and with a straw hat on he can do things that ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... when I am almost overcome by perplexities, what I try to remember, is what the people at home are thinking about. I try to put myself in the place of the man who does not know all the things that I know and ask myself what he would like the policy of this country to be. Not the talkative man, not the partisan man, not the man that remembers first that he is a Republican or Democrat, or that his parents were Germans or English, but who remembers first that the whole destiny of modern affairs centres largely upon his being an American ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... society, as has been more than once indicated, was that of a man anxious, if anything, to avoid the air of intellectual eminence. Lockhart said briefly, "I like Browning; he isn't at all like a damned literary man." He was, according to some, upon occasion, talkative and noisy to a fault; but there are two kinds of men who monopolise conversation. The first kind are those who like the sound of their own voice; the second are those who do not know what the sound of their ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... to the hotel he made many inquiries of monsieur the proprietor concerning the distance to Haudiomont, and learned a good deal about the military works there which was of the greatest interest. The hotel-keeper, a stout Alsatian, was a talkative person, and told Walter nearly ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... reserves of forcefulness. But Sherwood was, by inclination and by the necessities of his profession, a close observer of men. Another, less practised, might have seen here merely an eager, rather talkative, apparently volatile, very friendly, quite unreserved young man of twenty-five. Any one, analytical or otherwise, could not have avoided feeling the attractive force of the youth's personality, the friendly quality that is nine tenths individual magnetism and one tenth the cast of mind that initially ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... very good to me, my pretty Constance. Now I say to myself hourly, "In sixteen days I shall see her," and oh, believe me, I am glad! I think I am beginning to lose my head, that I am fit for all folly. We walked together yesterday; we were not very talkative. In the lane, when we were coming home, a man on a bicycle turned sharply round the corner, and I was lost in thought, so that I was caught unawares, and in fact knew nothing of the matter until I felt myself pulled aside by Gabriel. I thought he would let go my arm, but ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... but Chester resembled his father in no particular save that he, too, was a deacon and a pillar of the church. Deacon Ira had been tall and gaunt and sunken and uncommunicative. Chester was stout, and said to perspire even in winter, apoplectic, irascible, talkative, and still, as has been said, a Democrat. He drove up to the store this evening to the not inappropriate rumble of distant thunder, and he stood up in his wagon in front of the gathering and shook his fist in Jake ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Lyvern. His hands were hidden by large gardening gloves stained with coal dust. Lyvern laborers, as a rule, had little objection to soil their hands; they never wore gloves. Still, she thought, there was no reason why an eccentric workman, insufferably talkative, and capable of an allusion to the pen of the poet, should not indulge himself with cheap gloves. But then the ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the house, in concert with the lady, had more than once maintained an eloquent silence when the lawyer expected a civil reply; but these significant pauses were employed by the talkative nuisance in looking for anecdotes in the fire. M. de Vandenesse had recourse to his watch; the charming Marquise tried the experiment of fastening her bonnet strings, and made as if she would go. But she did not go, and ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... lieutenant with plain bands, common soldiers, sutlers, Jews, and country people. Some of the Jews, after a time, became the most noisy part of the crowd, and belied their proverbial reputation for shrewdness by imbibing from bottles, which they circulated very freely, becoming very talkative, and most decidedly drunk. The most interesting companion we met was a member of the Maryland House of Representatives, a very sensible man, and of course a strong Unionist. He did not approve of the President's emancipation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that the common sense of the speakers shaped crude rumour to suit themselves. Had they left it crude, it would have died. It is upon the nice sense of the probable and possible in talkative men that mad ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the ditch of the castle; friends were waiting near by to receive her with a coach which bore her away to freedom at Loches or Amboise, I forget which. This window from which Marie de Medicis is said to have escaped is in one of the apartments of Catherine. The guide, a very talkative little woman, told us that there is good reason to believe that the stout Queen never performed this feat of high and lofty tumbling; but that she made her escape from a window in the south side, and with comparative ease, as in her day there were no high parapets such as those ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... degree of perfection. Indeed, there would be but very little exaggeration in affirming that we are practically as near the early Egyptian ages as was Herodotus himself. Well might the Egyptian priests say to the earliest Greek philosophers, "You Greeks are mere children, talkative and vain; you know nothing at ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... to his wife which went to her heart like the stab of a knife; but no sooner was the first pang over than this reproachful glance aroused a degree of indignation in her which determined her to steel herself against a misfortune which in no case was her fault; she, therefore, grew quite lively and talkative, and never once turned her eyes to her husband, who, angry and silent, sate there with a very hot brow, and the knife sticking still ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... his back to the door. The precaution was useless. Roland did not enter the common room, and Montbar breakfasted without interruption. When dessert was over, however, the host himself brought in his coffee. Montbar understood that the good man was in talkative humor; a fortunate circumstance, for there were certain things he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... very deep affections and warmth of heart, but he did not show any special intelligence. He was lively, merry, and extremely talkative, but sometimes a silent mood would fall on him, and perhaps, as his sister says, his imagination was then carrying him to distant worlds, though the family only thought the chatterbox was tired. In all ways, however, he was in these days a very ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... and large companies, and felt at ease only beside a sick-bed. He was rather awkward in aimless chatter, but, on the other hand, firm and clear in professional conversation. A mere boy in the presence of a talkative, pretty girl, but a hero and a conqueror when with a suffering, anxious human being, beseeching his aid. His left-hand neighbour, the wife of a Frankfort banker, who chatted rapidly about the architecture ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... the Queen, who is their mistress. Tamino's consciousness returning, he discovers that the serpent has been slain, and hails Papageno, who comes upon the scene, as his deliverer. Papageno is a bird-catcher by trade and in the service of the Queen of Night—a happy-go-lucky, talkative fellow, whose thoughts do not go beyond creature comforts. He publishes his nature (and incidentally illustrates what has been said above about the naive character of some of the music of the opera) by trolling a ditty with an opening strain ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... something they had to talk over, and they stayed on a while longer. My refusal may have been a mistake, and there may really have been a misunderstanding, at any rate, I had to suffer for my unyielding way, inasmuch as the behaviour of our hosts immediately changed from talkative hospitality and childish curiosity to dull silence and suspicious reticence. The people sat around us, sullen and silent, and would not help us in any way, refused to bring firewood or show us the water-hole, and seemed ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... chattered feverishly and he listened, lapsing into one of the silences which her talkative spells ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... other cordially. Having been asked his opinion of the young novelist, Wordsworth answered: "Why, I'm not much given to turn critic on people I meet; but, as you ask me, I will cordially avow that I thought him a very talkative young person—but I dare say he may be very clever. Mind, I don't want to say a word against him, for I have never read ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... of the simple inn where they stayed was the meeting-place of the notabilities of the little city; the Sindaco, the avvocato, the doctor, and a few others; and among them they noticed a beautiful, slim, talkative old man, with bright black eyes and snow-white hair—tail and straight and still with the figure of a youth, although the waiter told them with pride that the Conte was molto vecchio—would in fact be eighty in the following year. He was the ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... talkative Jehu said to me one morning, "When I was a drivin' on the Knickerbocker," a line that ran some twenty years ago from South Ferry through Broadway, Bleecker, and Eighth avenue, to Twenty-third street, "there was a middle-aged man that used to ride reg'lar; all the fellows ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... be it known that when ladies, of a virtuous nature and a talkative turn of mind, converse publicly on the subject of these volumes, a great number of them, far from reprimanding the author, confess that they like him very much, esteem him a valiant man, worthy to be a monk in the Abbey of Theleme. For as many reasons as there are stars ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... anticipated my visit to my newly acquired property with any great degree of enthusiasm; but a very tolerable dinner had an inspiriting effect, and I was pleased to learn that there was a bin of old Madeira in the cellar. Naturally I soon grew cheerful, and consequently talkative; and summoned Mrs. Balk for a little gossip. The substance of what I gathered from her rather diffusive conversation ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... there was none. When we joined Dall we found, to our utter dismay, that it was five o'clock; we bundled ourselves pele-mele into the boat and bade the boatman row, row, for dear life; but while we were indulging in the picturesque he had been indulging in fourpenny, which made him very talkative, and his tongue went faster than his arms. I longed for John to make our boat fly over the smooth, burnished sea; the oars came out of the water like long bars of diamond dropping gold. We touched shore just at six, swallowed three mouthfuls of dinner, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... 'Rouse not the talkative tongue of the past, O youth! Wullahy! relinquish the bar that is my bar, won by me, for the Sword is within thy grip, and they await thee up yonder steps. Go! go! and look for me ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Boris with animation, growing talkative. "Can you imagine it?" and he began describing how the Guards, having taken up their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged by those ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... let me still insist upon it to the tradesman to keep company with tradesmen; let the fool run on in his own way; let the talkative green-apron rattle in his own way; let the manufacturer and his factor squabble and brangle; the grave self-conceited puppy, who was born a boy, and will die before he is a man, chatter and say a great deal of nothing, and talk his neighbours ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... existed so black that Richard would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their fortunes—so far as Ruth was concerned—were bound up together. The baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... came in about two o'clock. Merely answered that he wasn't in a talkative mood—brushed past ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... was never a talkative man, his silence appeared singular to Dame Katrina. After she had finished her work, she went and seated herself beside him, and made two or three attempts to draw him into conversation, but she only received the most brief replies. Being thus repulsed, she became melancholy, and the children ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... quite talk, but I often think it tries to. It imitates my whistle very well. Its usual note is a sort of chirping whistle. It always knows when meal-times are, and cries out until it has a share. About ten o'clock in the morning it becomes very talkative in its own ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Katie must have been present, for her name occurred frequently in the narrative. As she perceived that Archdale was behind her she looked round at him a moment, and by a few words included him in the conversation. She was as entertaining as usual and rather more talkative after he came. Yet he thought that under her ease of manner he detected a current of nervousness that made him the more anxious to carry out the purpose with which he had ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... the girls. The sister heard new phrases—a new language; he had always used a different one to her. They spoke of girls as "four-flushers," as "easies," as "stiffs" and "stand-patters." Occasionally Floyd stopped in the centre of a remark and nodded his head warningly towards his sister, but the talkative John rambled on, speaking in a free and easy way of the girls he had grown ...
— The Heart of the Rose • Mabel A. McKee
... hour I opened my vaulted room. My neighbor came in, as was his wont every morning, for he was a talkative man. "Well," he said, "what do you say about the terrible affair which has occurred during the night?" I pretended not to know anything. "What, do you not know what is known all over the town? Are you not aware that the loveliest flower in Florence, Bianca, the Governor's daughter, was murdered ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff
... had rendered him the most unhappy and the most talked of man in London. Going before a magistrate, he brought a charge of criminal conspiracy against Clerk Parsons, Mrs. Parsons, the Parsons servant, the clergyman who had aided the servant in eliciting the murder story from the talkative ghost, and a Cock Lane tradesman. All of these, he alleged, had banded themselves together to ruin him, their malice arising from the quarrel which had led him to remove to Clerkenwell and enter a ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... A talkative person is like an English sparrow,—a bird that cannot sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But a talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and the veery and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the rose-breasted grosbeak, ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... that Michigan agencies had done nothing to lighten his brow or uncloud his character. If this had wanted confirmation Fleda would have found it in her aunt's face. She soon discovered, even in the course of the pleasant talkative hours before supper, that it was not brightened as she had expected to find it by her uncle's coming home; and her ears now caught painfully the occasional long breath, but half smothered, which told of a burden upon the heart but half concealed. Fleda supposed ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Representatives the Saturday evening before his inauguration. He came, I think, to see Mr. Boutwell, then a member of the House, afterward his Secretary of the Treasury. He came to Worcester in the summer of that year, and I went with him in a special car to Groton in the afternoon. He was not very talkative, though interested in all he saw. He expressed special delight in the appearance of the boys of the Worcester Military School, who turned out to escort him. One of his sons, a well-grown lad, was upon the train. The general had not seen him for some time, and he sat with one arm around him, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... piquancy—at least to the ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of about thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. Fille had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, half- invalid visitor to St. Saviour's had of late shown a marked liking for the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. Fille as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, had spoken of this young ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Shelldrake, at his invitation, divided a bottle between them, and he took a second. The potent beverage was not long in acting on a brain so unaccustomed to its influence. He grew unusually talkative and sentimental, in a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on that night. "Here," said Eustace, when the books had been put back and dusted, "you might hold up these boards for me, Morton. That beast in the box got out, and I've been chasing it ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... says Mr. MacBissing, stern and ruthless, 'did I no see ye behavin' in a manner likely to bring discredit upon the Imperial and All-Highest Air Sairvice of our Exalted and Talkative Kaiser? ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... strange fixity in his gaze at times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes, when he was alone with any one, he became talkative and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune and expectations of much more. He was ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... giving and accepting of a cigar establishes bonds of hospitality similar to those founded in Eastern countries on the partaking of bread and salt. My friend turned out more talkative than I had hoped. However, though he claimed to belong to the partido of Montilla, he seemed very ill-informed about the country. He did not know the name of the delightful valley in which we were sitting, he could not tell me the names of any of the neighbouring villages, and ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... cut the conversation short, at once began turning over the leaves of her missal. But Juliette was as worldly here as elsewhere; as much at her ease, as agreeable and talkative, as in her drawing-room. She bent her head towards Helene ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... danger, which actually was the case in a way. But if Mick would stay at home with her, she was perfectly content to suppose that she came after a griddle-cake in his estimation. Her relief made her unusually talkative; but Mick was reflecting between his answers how he must now tell Paddy Joyce that they were never to be ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... must be broken down and thrown to the winds. And we can imagine that, when the idea first came upon the minds of those three, that the entire family of the Kellys was to be sacrificed to stop the tongue of one talkative old woman, a horror must have fallen upon them as they recognised the duty which was incumbent on them. The duty of saving those six unfortunates they did not recognise. They could not screw themselves up to the necessary pitch of courage to enable them to enter ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... forgets to behave with politeness wherever he is. In the company of his parents and their friends he is attentive to supply the wants of every one. He listens to the discourse, and when he is spoken to he answers at once in a lively, ready, and pleasant manner, but is never forward and talkative. When he has a party of playfellows, his mirth is not noisy and boisterous. He does not think, as some rude children do, that all play consists in screaming, shouting, tearing clothes, and knocking things to pieces, but finds plenty of sport ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... up for being somewhat late, Maggie had prepared an extra fine meal. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport and even Marian proved unusually talkative that morning, and they started their breakfast very happily. Beth, too, could not withstand the general good humor, and soon her spirits began to ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... largely, drank copiously, without diluting too much with water, but still said never a word. Now his colour came back a little, and he nibbled at the oatcake and cheese. Then more whisky. Gradually the man became talkative—even laughed now and then a trifle unsteadily. And all the time Donald kept on him a watchful eye, and had him covered, giving him no opportunity to turn the tables. For here the Highlander saw his chance. He had no wish to murder the gauger, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... on quietly in the old house. The room of the dead woman, in accordance with her last desire, was kept firmly locked, its dirty windows forming a strange contrast to the prim cleanliness of the others. Tabitha, never very talkative, became more taciturn than ever, and stalked about the house and the neglected garden like an unquiet spirit, her brow roughened into the deep wrinkles suggestive of much thought. As the winter came on, bringing with it the long dark evenings, the old house became more lonely than ever, ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... himself to some artists, in whose studios he passed the greater part of his afternoons. He became personally acquainted with nearly every member of the fraternity, to whom he endeared himself by the excellence of his tobacco, and his great capacity for listening. Your talkative people bore artists more than ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... years ago, beginning from births and christenings, and going right on through engagements and marriages to deaths and burials, till at last a half-snore from one quarter or another puts an end to the discourse. Mrs. Meyer, too, was inclined to be talkative, and she could not have had a better opportunity than when they ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... mutual entertainment, in ornamented drawing-rooms. Of course, it has every variety of attraction and merit; but, to earnest persons, to youths or maidens who have great objects at heart, we cannot extol it highly. A well-dressed, talkative company, where each is bent to amuse the other,—yet the high-born Turk who came hither fancied that every woman seemed to be suffering for a chair; that all the talkers were brained and exhausted by the deoxygenated air; it spoiled the best persons: it put all on stilts. Yet ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... graceless reserve which is so painful to a finished man of the world. The host was himself ever animated and cheerful, but calm and clear—and often addressed himself to the artist, who was silent, and, like students in general, constrained. Walstein himself, indeed, was not very talkative, but his manner indicated that he was interested, and when he made an observation it was uttered with facility, and arrested attention by its justness or its novelty. It was an ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... the point of entering to administer a very stern reproof to that talkative rogue, when of a sudden there was a commotion within. I caught a scraping of chairs, a dropping of voices, and then suddenly I found myself confronted by Roxalanne de Lavedan herself, issuing with a page and a woman ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... hunting and trapping genius of Saginaw Bay—a man who dwelt in the woods summer and winter, and never trimmed his hair or wore any other covering on his head. Not a misanthrope, or taciturn, but friendly and talkative rather; liking best to live alone, but fond of tramping across the woods to gossip with neighbors; a very tall man withal and so thin that, as he went rapidly winding and turning among fallen logs, you looked to see him tangle up ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... few days Wilhelm noticed something odd in Pilar's manner which he failed to understand. She seemed strangely absent and thoughtful, by turns unnaturally silent and feverishly talkative, would sit for hours beside him glancing mysteriously at him from time to time, as if she knew something very wonderful, and were debating in her own mind whether to tell it or keep it to herself. She blushed if ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... the course of a few days to make herself far more disagreeable than had been the case on any previous visit of her life. She had never seen such dusty roads as in Beulah; so many mosquitoes and flies; such tough meat; such a lack of fruit, such talkative, over-familiar neighbors, such a dull minister, such an inattentive doctor, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'I know him. Isn't he a showy, talkative fellow; has written travels in Mesopotamia, or ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... In the second place, his deportment and character in common life was free from that vice. He was reserved, distant, stately; cold in his address, plain in his discourse, inflexible in his principles; wide of the caressing, insinuating manners of his son, or the professing, talkative humor of his father. The imputation of insincerity must be grounded on some of his public actions, which we are therefore in the third place to examine. The following are the only instances which I find cited to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... these five words sank deep into Cynthia's heart. She had returned just at the right time, when Molly wanted the gentle fillip of the society of a fresh and yet a familiar person. Cynthia's tact made her talkative or silent, gay or grave, as the varying humour of Molly required. She listened, too, with the semblance, if not the reality, of unwearied interest, to Molly's continual recurrence to all the time of distress and sorrow ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... taken by Hermione and her cousin led at first through a hollowed way, above which the branches of the trees met and twined closely together, as beautiful a place as can be found in the whole forest. Alexander grew less talkative, and presently relapsed altogether into silence. They walked their horses, and he looked at his cousin's face, half shaded by a thin gray veil, which set off admirably the beauty of her mouth ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... his tall commanding figure and haughty carriage giving him an outstanding distinction over those about him. At his side stood a young Piegan Chief, Eagle Feather by name, whom Cameron knew of old as a restless, talkative Indian, an ambitious aspirant for leadership without the qualities necessary to such a position. Straight ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... little favour upon the talkative caller. Florence was seated upon the shady steps of the veranda, and Julia, dressed for a walk, occupied a wicker chair above her. "Julia, dressed for a walk"—how scant the words! It was a summer walk that Julia had dressed for: and she was all ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... have nothing to write about. The winter and its discomforts do not inspire me any more than the news from the front does, and no need to tell you that does not make one talkative. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... shore all right. Sounds like a bloomin' cannon," replied Billy. "Lemme alone with yore fool questions, I'm busy," he complained as his talkative partner started to ask another. "Go an' git me some water—I'm alkalied. An' git some .45's, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... anapaests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... is also a protection against tiresome, talkative, people. It enables one to preserve an air of kindly attention, while one's thoughts, free and untrammeled, roam at their own sweet will, drifting back just in time to utter ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... pardner, I don't quite sabe," drawled Bill to his employer as they sat in front of their cabin one night, after discussing the assays which Dick made his especial work. "You ain't as talkative as you used to be. Somethin's on your mind. It's more'n two weeks now since I had time to think about anything but the green lead, and I'm beginnin' to notice. Where the devil do you go every ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... commandant of the soldiers fell to the share of Henry Sedley. The young man fought with dilated eyes, and white lips pressed together. Sir Mortimer, who fought with narrowed eyes, who, quite ungarrulous by nature, yet ever grew talkative in such an hour as this, found time to note his lieutenant's deeds, to throw to the brother of the woman he loved a "Well done, dear lad!" Sedley held his head high; his leader's praise wrought in him like wine. He had never seen a man who did ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Arsene Lupin was ascending the magnificent flight of stairs in the Imbert mansion, and Mon. Imbert introduced him to his wife. Madame Gervaise Imbert was a short plump woman, and very talkative. She gave Lupin ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... he kept. I then made him understand that I wanted water. He pointed the same course that I was steering. In a short time another made his appearance in the distance. By a little persuasion from the old fellow, he was induced to come up, and in a short time became very talkative, and very anxious to show us the water. In a few minutes a third made his appearance, and came up. He was the youngest—a stout, able-bodied fellow, about twenty-four years old. The others were much older, but were very powerful men, and all three in excellent condition. The women did not ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... councillors, and the sober and virtuous secretary that formed the high cabinet of his royal brother, and they met in some secret lonely spot, as a mountain, a terrace, a bower or a forest, whence women, parrots, and other talkative birds were ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... enthusiastically, being joined in his repast by two talkative companions. As the last fragments dropped from the girl's white fingers, she withdrew her hand, and slowly—very slowly—her head sank down, pillowed ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... occupied with thoughts of hatred and vengeance. It worried her to sit musing. She felt the necessity of acting and seeing. From morning to night, she watched the people passing through the arcade. The noise, and going and coming diverted her. She became inquisitive and talkative, in a word a woman, for hitherto she had only displayed the actions and ideas ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... been to E——-; that important event in my monastic life has been concluded. Lady Margaret was as talkative as usual; and a Mrs. Dalton, who, I find, is an acquaintance of yours, asked very tenderly after your poodle and yourself. But Lady Emily! Ay, Monkton, I know not well how to describe her to you. Her beauty interests not less than it dazzles. There is that deep and eloquent ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... opportunity. So within five minutes after this invitation was received she was skimming over the road in a high state of glee. Sadie marked that night afterward as the last one in which she rode after those black ponies for many a day. The Doctor seemed more at leisure than usual, and in a much more talkative mood; so it was quite a merry ride, until he broke a moment's silence by ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... ease on this point, she grew more talkative, half wishing that her dress was not a shilling calico, or her hair combed back quite so straight, giving her that severe look which Morris had said was unbecoming. It was very smooth and glossy, and even Sybil ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... apathy cleared up too, so that by the middle of March she was bright, active and smiled freely. With the nurses she was rather talkative and pleased, though this was not marked. Towards the physician only was she natural and free. She then gave the retrospective account of the onset detailed above. When questioned about her condition she claimed not to remember the ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... uncle Eustace was to marry Serena, she had seen very little of the friend with whom alone she could enjoy intimate converse. But on the eve of the wedding-day they spent an hour or two together in Serena's room. Both were in a quiet mood, thoughtful rather than talkative. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing |
