"Volubility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not desire her hand if I could not have her heart. I did not value the kindness of her manner, seeing that that kindness sprung from indifference rather than passion; and so I would declare to her. And I would ask her, also, who was this young man with whom she was intimate—for whom all her volubility and energy of tone seemed to be employed? She had told me once that it behoved her to consult a friend in Seville as to the expediency of her marriage with me. Was this the friend whom she had wished to consult? If so, she need not trouble herself. ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... there would seem to be no pressing need of his long soliloquy. He being ex proposito a man of few words, his sudden volubility is a little surprising, though it should be duly noticed that the soliloquy is not a self-defense. There is no casuistry in it. Tell does not argue the case with himself, like one in doubt about the rightness of his conduct. That is as clear as day to him, and he never wavers for a moment. But ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign volubility they bloomed and spread and took on colour as do those tight little Japanese paper water-flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found yourself confiding to her ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... marvellous volubility of tongue, "is the signal of numberless pleasures; for now, thank God and the mighty Santiago, the Moors have had such a dressing that they will be in no humour for some time to renew their unruly frolics, and that happy event which we have so ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... language of common people, when giving utterance to passionate emotions, is highly figurative; and hence he concludes not so well fit for a lyrical ballad. Their volubility is great, nor few their flowers of speech. But who ever heard them, but by the merest accident, spout verses? Rhyme do they never—the utmost they reach is occasional blanks. But their prose! Ye gods! how they ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... if to refute and explain away any ordinary reason for her possession of the drug, he remembered, in a comprehensive flash the recent violent changes in her character—her uncontrollable attacks of nervousness, her spasmodic movements and her sudden flowing, almost hysterical, volubility of speech. His heart contracted with a sensation like that of terror, and he was turning away again when his glance was arrested by a heap of crumpled bills lying loosely in one corner of the open drawer. Recollecting that she had complained the day before of the smallness of her allowance, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... condescend to explain his motives, however; nor did any one presume to inquire into them. Raoul was now strictly a commander, acting in a desperate emergency. He even succeeded in suppressing the constitutional volubility of his countrymen, and in substituting for it the deep, attentive silence of thorough discipline; one of the great causes of his own unusual success in maritime enterprises. To the want of this very silence and attention ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you but to me. She knew I should like it if you could carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because she did think of me," Miss Tita went on with her unexpected, persuasive volubility. "You could see them—you could use them." She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional—stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been conscious, however, that though my face showed ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... our hostess's larder, had swept in a great deal of good company, and she was evidently resolved on setting the one evil over against the other. She now showered upon us a long, rapid, and vehement address; and he who has not heard the Tuscan discourse does not know what volubility is. "What does she say?" I inquired at one of my two Russian friends. "She says very many words," he replied, "but the meaning is moneys, moneys." "Have you any coffee?" I asked. "Oh, coffee! delightful coffee; but it had gone sailing down the flood." "And it carried off the eggs too, I suppose?" ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... fixed for to-morrow, and all the morning has been passed in attendance for our passports.—This affair is not so quickly dispatched as you may imagine. The French are, indeed, said to be a very lively people, but we mistake their volubility for vivacity; for in their public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no people on earth can be more tedious—they are slow, irregular, and loquacious; and a retail English Quaker, with all his formalities, would dispose of half his stock in less time ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... on with warmth and volubility about the Cairnhope folk, their good hearts, and their superstitions, when ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, and the use of hard words, so that it sometimes seemed to the domestics as if he really had some considerable power in argument. Worthy Mrs McAllister never joined in the debate, except by a single ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... speaker; —the Q. and D. Valerii of Sora, my neighbours and acquaintances, who were not so remarkable for their talent of speaking, as for their skill both in the Greek and Roman literature; and C. Rusticellus of Bononia, an experienced Orator, and a man of great natural volubility. But the most eloquent of all those who were not citizens of Rome, was T. Betucius Barrus of Asculum, some of whose Orations, which were spoken in that city, are still extant: that which he made at ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... muscular arms grew weak. As weeks went on, it became evident in many ways that, though the diphtheria itself was quite out of her system, it had left her thoroughly diseased. Strange fits of silence came over her; her volubility had been the greatest objection we had to her hitherto. Her face began to wear a troubled look. She was often found in places where she had stolen away to ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... hell and back—if I AM back," Evelina repeated. She lifted her head from the pillow and began to talk with a sudden feverish volubility. "It began right away, less than a month after we were married. I've been in hell all that time, Ann Eliza." She fixed her eyes with passionate intentness on Ann Eliza's face. "He took opium. I didn't find it out till long afterward—at first, ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... year or so older than I, rather tall than short, lightly but strongly built, with a keen, smiling, subtle face, a finely-developed forehead, light wavy hair, and gray eyes, very penetrating and bright. There was a pleasing kind of eagerness and volubility in his manner of talking, and a slight imperfection, not amounting to a lisp, in his utterance, which imparted a naive charm to his speech. He used expressive and rapid gestures with his hands and arms, and there was a magnetism, a fascination, about the whole man that strongly impressed me. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... as they left the table. They strolled slowly down the dining-room and out into the palm-lined corridor on whose plush chairs handsome men and beautifully dressed women sat and chatted with surprising volubility and ease. Intrepidly the newcomers seated themselves side by side where they could listen to the music and watch the strange beings in this strange world. They were out of it all, and even in the exhilaration of the ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... if about to heave him overboard. Indeed, Billy thought that was our object. The Frenchman, however, did not approve of this, and gave strong evidence that he was alive, by struggling violently, and uttering with extraordinary volubility a variety of expletives on the matter. When we had frightened him a little, we lashed his arms behind him and placed him with the rest of the prisoners on deck. There could be little doubt that he had shammed dead, and kept a knife ready, with the hopes of ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... She had spoken with volubility, and the priest listened to her in silence. Hanging on her look, he drank in her words. He heard them without comprehending exactly their meaning. It was sweet music which charmed him, but he only thought of one thing. She had said: ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... are cruelly voluble, but their volubility taps the evil humour of the universal human disease. Their thoughts are our thoughts, their obsessions, our obsessions. Let no one think, in his vain security, that he has a right to say: "I have no part in this morbidity. I am ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... in the hall, came forward, leading Joseph Esmond by the hand. The boy had taken off his straw-hat, and the entire beauty of his countenance, shaded by that rich golden hair, was exposed to the best advantage, notwithstanding his poverty-stricken garments; even the volubility of Mrs. Farnham was checked, as her eyes fell upon that delicate face. She caught the glance of those large blue eyes, and ceased speaking. It was the greatest proof of interest possible for her ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... came within a few miles of the town did he meet with man or woman who could give him any material assistance. It was by the Fords of Tongland that he first met with one Tib MacLellan, who with much volubility and some sagacity retailed fresh fish to the burghers of Kirkcudbright and the whole countryside, giving a day to each district so long as the supply of her staple did ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... of opposition is dominated by the Mensheviks . Their chief leaders are Martov and Dan. Of these two, Martov is by far the cleverer, Dan the more garrulous, being often led away by his own volubility into agitation of a kind not approved by his friends. Both are men of very considerable courage. Both ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... countenance, in which rage and entreaty were ludicrously blended, he turned towards the priest, whose earnest expostulations were addressed, in vain, to the exasperated assailants. The corporal kept his hold tenaciously, questioning him with a volubility known only to Frenchmen, and, enraged that he was neither understood nor answered, he concluded each sentence with a shake, which jarred every sinew in the stout frame of the Scotchman. It is doubtful ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... young man, stood in considerable apprehension of the people, as he was thought in face and figure to be very like the tyrant Pisistratus, and those of great age remarked upon the sweetness of his voice, and his volubility and rapidity in speaking, and were struck with amazement at the resemblance. Reflecting, too, that he had a considerable estate, and was descended of a noble family, and had friends of great influence, he was fearful ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... who seemed extremely talkative, approached the governor's guard, examined them a moment, and said with excessive volubility, "My orders are simply to prevent persons going toward the wharf, just now the Chameleon, and a fine vessel she is, belonging to Blue Beard, and which has bravely run down a Spanish pirate—came ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... he said. "No, mother, I am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had secured an excellent seat beside the pretty Miss Featherweight, whom he admired so much, and he was chattering to her with the utmost volubility. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... the meaning of it, when she rose, and seizing his cap and boxing his ears with it, right and left, asked what he meant by wearing it before gentlemen, and then poured out a torrent of abuse on him, with such volubility I ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... And it's so nice to think that Mr. Langhope's arrangement with Justine still works so well," Mrs. Dressel hastened on, nervously hoping that her volubility would smother any recollection of what he had ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... had dropped in a single night to 3/4, I should at least have had my thrill. I should have suffered in a single night the loss of some pounds, and I could have borne it dramatically; either with the sternness of the silent Saxon, or else with the volubility of the volatile—I can't think of anybody beginning with a "V." But, alas! Jaguars never dropped at all. They subsided. They subsided slowly back to 1—so slowly that you could hardly observe them going. A week later they were 63/64, which, of course, is practically the same as 1. A month afterwards ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... in an animation and volubility so unlike the taciturn Culbertson that many of his ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... Northumberland, on the new birth, and the insignificance of moral virtue; and her arguments have been reinforced by an old Scotch lawyer, in a rye periwig, who, though he has lost his teeth, and the use of his limbs, can still wag his tongue with great volubility. He has paid her such fulsome compliments, upon her piety and learning, as seem to have won her heart; and she, in her turn, treats him with such attention as indicates a design upon his person; but, by all accounts, he is too much of a fox to be inveigled into any ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... observations, delivered with a somewhat hysterical volubility, Poppy made no direct reply. Surely it was cruel, cruel, that at this juncture, when she had so honestly striven to refuse the evil and choose the good, this recrudescence of all that was most hateful to her should take place? Moreover, now ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with a sort ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... with all the eagerness of a keen man, who sees a chance at one stroke of winning a rich friend, and of ruining a poor enemy. He explained, with legal volubility and technical amplification, the nature of the mistake in Mr. Price's lease. "It was, sir," said he, "a lease for the life of Peter Price, Susanna his wife, and to the survivor or survivors of them, or for the full time and term of twenty years, to be computed from the first day of May ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... criminal justice takes its course. Mrs. Brownrigg, having been sentenced to the gallows, is seen in the condemned cell; her son by her side, and the fatal cart in the back-ground. Having been brought up genteelly, she declines the mode of conveyance provided for her journey to Tyburn with the utmost volubility. Being about to be hanged merely does not seem to affect her so poignantly as the disgraceful "drag" she is doomed to take her last journey in. She swoons at the idea; and the curtain falls to end her wicked career, and the sufferings of an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... ago slavery was upheld by the same Bible. Slavery having been abolished, the passages in the inspired volume upholding it have been mostly forgotten, but polygamy lives, and the polygamists, with great volubility, repeat the passages in their favor. We send our missionaries to Utah, with their Bibles, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... silent scorn to the whole proceedings up to this point, and had refused a part in the general recognition of Breckon as a special providence. Now she flashed out with a terrible volubility: "What did I tell you? What else could you expect of a Cook's tourist? And mom—mother wanted to make me go with you, after I told her what he was! Well, if I had have gone, I'll bet I could have kept him from playing his tricks. I'll bet he wouldn't have taken any liberties, with me ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... this old French catch (which I took it to be from seeing him feebly flourish one of his slicks as if inviting a chorus) put him upon speaking his own tongue altogether, for though he continued to chatter with all the volubility his breath would permit during the whole time I sat eating, not one word of English did he speak, and not one word therefore did I understand. Seeing how it must be with him presently, I brought his mattress and rugs from his cabin, and had scarce laid them down when he let fall one of his sticks ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... tells his hawkers that he has got "an excellent new song just brought from London." I have somewhat of a tendency that way myself; and upon hearing a coxcomb from thence displaying himself with great volubility upon the park, the playhouse, the opera, the gaming ordinaries, it was apt to beget in me a kind of veneration for his parts and accomplishments. 'Tis not many years, since I remember a person who by his style and literature seems to have been corrector ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Sir William Hamilton interpreted between Lord Nelson and Cardinal Ruffo, till he was almost exhausted with fatigue. The dispute lasted about two hours, and frequently ran very high; the cardinal, however, proved more than a match for Sir William and his lordship together in volubility, though far from equal to either in true eloquence. The venerable Sir William, at length, vexed and wearied, calmly seated himself; and requested his lady, though less loquacious than the generality of ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... always came late, alleging that she had been busy. Many days the artist did not take a stroke with his brush; they spent the time chatting. At other times the master listened in silence while she with her ceaseless volubility made fun of her friends and related their secret defects, their most intimate habits, their mysterious amours, with a kind of relish, as if all women were her enemies. In the midst of one of these confidential talks, she stopped and said with a ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... conversing, if the expression is not improper when I have not had an opportunity of speaking a syllable, more than two hours with a French officer, who has declaimed the whole time with the most astonishing volubility, without uttering one word which could either entertain or instruct his hearers; and even without starting any thing that deserved the name of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Irishmen of his own religious persuasion were dismayed at his rashness, and ventured to remonstrate with him; but he drove them from him with imprecations. [183] His brutality was such that many thought him mad. Yet it was less strange than the shameless volubility with which he uttered falsehoods. He had long before earned the nickname of Lying Dick Talbot; and, at Whitehall, any wild fiction was commonly designated as one of Dick Talbot's truths. He now daily proved that he was well entitled to this unenviable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. The silence awoke Mr. Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... breathlessness about Rachel seemed to discommode her friends. Charlie, piqued at her inattentiveness, essayed a volubility foreign to his words. He was not so "nice a young man" as Hazlitt. But he boasted among friends that girls had had a chance with him. They could stay decent if they insisted but he let them understand ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... deceived. They suspected that he was dead, and even guessed the place of his burial. This was indicated by the fact that they frequently visited the spot, looking around with great interest, and talking together with much volubility. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... already for two years been the wife of Sir Thomas Hanmer. At the age of twelve, and probably in Dublin, Hopkins met the mysterious lady who animates these volumes under the name of Amasia. Who was Amasia? That, alas! even the volubility of her lover does not reveal. But she was Irish, the daughter of a wealthy and perhaps titled personage, and the intimate companion for many years of the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... anywhere. I ain't been into Mandy's sence Christmas that I know of—I ain't been in to set down, anyway; an' I've been meanin' to run in an' see you all winter, Mis' Field." All the trace of confusion now left in Mrs. Babcock's manner was a weak volubility. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... reply, but sat with down-bent head and flushing face, wishing again, as when this dreadful visit was appointed him, that Katharine Maitland had never set foot in Marsden village. Longing, too, with a longing unspeakable, to retort upon her with a volubility and sharpness exceeding even her own. But all unconsciously his pride had received just the sting needed, and his angry thought, in which there was no halting ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility after the first salutations, "are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... mind," and nodded significantly at the preoccupied little shape in his arms. His manner with the child was imperceptibly adroit, and very soon her prattle began to be heard. Mary was just turning to offer a gentle check to this rising volubility, when up jumped the little one to a standing posture on the gentleman's knee, and, all unsolicited and with silent clapping of hands, plumped out her ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... and four nights, and part o' another day, jest as true as buffaloes run in cane-brakes, and Injen varmints shoot white folks whensomever they git a chance," replied Mrs. Younker, with great volubility. "And Ella, the darling, has tended on ye like you war her own nateral born brother; and Isaac, and Ben, and myself ha' tended on ye too, while you war raving and running on at an orful rate, though you've had the best bed, and best ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... hair, a fine complexion, regular features, any expression she chooses to put on, and she is always the well-dressed Parisienne in detail as well as in effect. Her carriage is haughty and dashing, her volubility racial, her enthusiasm, while it lasts, bears down every obstacle, and her nature is imperious. She must hold the center of the stage and the reins of power. I should say that she was the most ambitious ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... we continued the march eastward, under the guidance of our kirangozi; but it was evident, by the road he led us, that he knew nothing of the country, though, through his volubility, he had led us to believe that he knew all about Ngondo, Yombeh, and Pumburu's districts. When recalled from the head of the caravan, we were about to descend into the rapid Loajeri, and beyond it were three ranges of impassable mountains, which we ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... for a moment entertained a doubt of the genuineness of the mise-en-scene La Boulaye had prepared, answered him with the explanation of how he had been struck by the falling lamp, whereupon Charlot fell to cursing lamps and crumblings with horrid volubility. That done he would have risen, but that La Boulaye, entering at that moment, insisted that ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... purity of Domenichino, the learning of Poussin, the air of Guido, the greatness of taste of the Carraccis, and the sublimity and grand contorno of Michael Angelo; with all the rest of the cant of criticism, which he emitted with that volubility which generally those orators have who annex no ideas ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... was still another pet detestation which Landor nursed with great volubility. In 1860 all Anglo-Saxon Florence was reading with no little interest a poem in this metre, which had recently appeared, and which of course passed under the critical eye of the old Grecian. "Well, Mr. Landor, what do you think of the new poem?" I asked during its nine days' reign. "Think ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rest of the afternoon, they poured one avalanche of stones after another, waking the echoes of the glen. Meantime we elders sat together on the platform, Hanson and his friend smoking in silence like Indian sachems, Mrs. Hanson rattling on as usual with an adroit volubility, saying nothing, but keeping the party at their ease like a ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sometimes they rambled or rested on the sunny slopes in groups, sometimes in couples, and sometimes singly. March Marston and the artist sauntered about together, and conversed with animated fluency and wandering volubility—as young minds are wont to do—on things past, present, and to come; things terrestrial and celestial. In short, there was no subject, almost, that did not get a share of their attention, as they sauntered by the rippling brook or over the flowering plain, or ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... do? what would you say now, if you were in such a position?" he asks. He describes this practice of his in the preface to Pendennis. "It is a sort of confidential talk between writer and reader.... In the course of his volubility the perpetual speaker must of necessity lay bare his own weaknesses, vanities, peculiarities." In the short contributions to periodicals on which he tried his 'prentice hand, such addresses and conversations were natural and efficacious; but in a larger work of fiction they cause an absence ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... proceeded, with her usual volubility, to relate the little nothings that had passed since the winter, flying from subject to subject, with no meaning but to be heard, and no wish but to talk, ever rapid in speech, though minute in detail. This loquacity ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... hundred deaths, and yet lived! His gleesome spirit had sustained him throughout the dread ordeal. He had even joked with his cruel tormentors! Now that the dark hour was past, his jeux d'esprit were poured forth with a continuous volubility. No; not continuous. At intervals, a shadow crossed his spirit, as it did that of all of us. We could not fail to lament the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... ten years as daily companion of Hortense, did her speech or conduct betoken aught but refinement. More and more Hortense retreated to her wholesome companionship in face of the assaults of her mother's trying volubility. In many ways this most unusual nurse protected her charge from the greater damage of poor mothering than actually occurred. The differences between these two women were reflected in the sensitive child's life. Unconsciously at first, later in certain details, ultimately ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... in a voice that I could scarce have recognised, my kinsman began swearing and praying in a mingled stream. I looked at him; he had fallen on his knees, his face was agonised; at each step of the castaway's the pitch of his voice rose, the volubility of his utterance and the fervour of his language redoubled. I call it prayer, for it was addressed to God; but surely no such ranting incongruities were ever before addressed to the Creator by a creature: surely if prayer can be a sin, this mad harangue was sinful. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... don't want to know anything about the neighborhood of Wildernsea," interrupted Robert, with a feeble protest against the landlord's volubility. "I want to ask you a few questions about some ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... tell, Miss F'raishy—sho'," Mingo assented, with great heartiness. But Mrs. Bivins's volubility would hardly wait for this perfunctory indorsement. She talked as she arranged the dishes, and occasionally she would hold a piece of crockery suspended in the air as she emphasised her words. She dropped into a mortuary strain—"Poor pa! I don't never have nuthin' ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all the loafers of the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... something. Even Nelly, the second best wife, who had had to play a very subordinate part in the camp, and whom "Little Jinny" had slapped and had abused with all the volubility of spite and temper, crouched beside her dying rival, chafing her cold ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... bulge. The whole glandular system likewise is stimulated, causing the secretions,—gastric, salivary, lachrymal, sudoral, mammary, genital, etc.—to be increased, with the resulting rise of temperature and increase in the katobolism generally. Volubility is almost regularly increased, and is, indeed, one of the most sensitive and constant of the correlations in emotional delight.... Pleasantness is correlated in living organisms by vascular, muscular and glandular extension or expansion, both literal and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... so rapidly, and with such fevered excitement that he had no time to reflect whether he were not wasting his words upon a being who could not hear them; until exhausted and breathless with the volubility of his utterance he remembered that he was addressing himself to Nisida the deaf and dumb. But happily his appealing and his suppliant posture had softened the lady: for toward the end of his long speech a change came over her countenance, and she dropped ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... his volubility had begun to desert him, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka's John-Willy into conversation—a difficult matter, since, though he had been placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... vexed at his volubility, and gazed keenly at Saxon to see if she had followed him. What he saw in her face and eyes satisfied him, and he added, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... exchange glances of doubt and dismay and then concentrate their looks upon his daughter? That Alicia failed to notice this, but sat abloom above her roses now fastened in a great bunch upon her breast, offered him some comfort, yet, for all the volubility of his chief guests, the meal was a great trial to his patience, as well as a poor preparation for the hour when, the noble pair gone, he stepped into the library to find Miss Strange awaiting him with one hand behind her back and a piteous look ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... lodged with an Orangeman, who had run out of his house as the Adjutant rode by at the head of his men, and proceeded to welcome him with flowery volubility. On the advice of his host Captain Borrow sent George to a Protestant school, where he met the Irish boy Murtagh, who figures so largely in Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Murtagh settled any doubts that Borrow may have had as to his ability to acquire Erse, by teaching ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... with some drawing materials, I amused the Indians with a sketch of the interior of the tent and its inhabitants. An old woman, who was relating with great volubility an account of some quarrel with the traders at Cumberland House, broke off from her narration when she perceived my design; supposing, perhaps, that I was employing some charm against her; for the Indians have been taught ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... check the volubility of the little speaker; for as she hastily, and with the license of a petted child, pulled the articles from the parcel, she was startled to find lying among the numerous colored things a black crape veil. Sombre, dark, and ill-omened enough it looked there, with pink, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... rattled these symptoms off with great volubility. The Count looked at him with open-eyed wonder. The professor was not less astonished at the positiveness with which Dr. Jones thus detailed the Count's symptoms without any ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran. He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had collected, listening with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... course, by ultimate submission to the will of all-dominant man. He was not accustomed to have a woman look him fairly in the eye and speak in tones, not of bootless fury, but of superior scorn. And his answer was painfully lacking in the ascendant volubility which ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Ladysmith began in real earnest. "Long Tom," though temporarily incapacitated, soon resumed his volubility, and was assisted by another of his calibre nicknamed "Slim Piet." Curiously enough, the first house hit during the siege was a commodious bungalow-shaped residence with large verandah belonging to Mr. Carter, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... I rang for the porter to strap my trunk, but he did not come. I continued ringing with much vigour, and finally the nice little housemaid appeared on the scene and a flood of volubility broke over me. The porter was busy. He could not come. All Russians in the hotel were being arrested as criminals, for Russians had fired on a frontier town and war was declared. The hotel had been full of detectives for several days, ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... with Lear, compelling his characters to commit actions unnatural to them, and, above all, to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one whatever. Thus, in "Othello," altho that is, perhaps, I will not say the best, but the least bad and the least encumbered by pompous volubility, the characters of Othello, Iago, Cassio, Emilia, according to Shakespeare, are much less natural and lifelike than in the Italian romance. Shakespeare's Othello suffers from epilepsy, of which he has an attack on the stage; moreover, in Shakespeare's ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... and hearty joking at the table, and the flushed faces and increased volubility of the gentlemen gave too certain evidence of the ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... to her was the growing slackness in his personal habits.... He had addressed her with great volubility and earnestness upon his belief that now they were married, she must get rid of all her virginal book-learned notions about reticence between husband and wife. Such feminine "hanky-panky tricks," he assured her, were the cause of "all these finicky, unhappy marriages ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... and holy things, one whose glance is ever at sacred things, one who, as it were, administers the treasures of the kingdom of God, can fittingly touch this subject. It would be easy for me to be a cheap wit, to rake up the old scandal of Mother Eve, to even declaim with windy volubility that a woman betrayed the capital, that a woman lost Mark Anthony the world and left old Troy in ashes. But far be it from me! Rather would I assume a loftier mood; rather would I strike a loftier note, and, with blind Homer, beg for ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... her hands; and then she proceeded to tell her news with theatrical volubility. "Mr. Sharp, the manager, wants a lot of tallish girls, and I told him I knew of a perfect dear. He said: 'Bring her on, then,' and I flew home to tell you. Now, don't look wild, and say no. You've only got to sing in one chorus, march in the grand procession, and lead your band in the ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... each other. The goodman talked with a rustic volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered with a mixture of stupefaction ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he had seen Mary as she came along the road, and he drew back into a doorway. A young man was marching by her side, a young man who gabbled without ceasing and to whom Mary chattered again with an equal volubility. As they passed by Mary caught sight of him, and her face went flaming. She caught her companion's arm, and they hurried down the road at a great pace.... She had never chattered to him. Always he had done the talking, and she had been an ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... for a large importing house in New York, his field of labor in the South. He had also been employed in the western states, and endowed with good address, portly figure, much volubility, unfailing check and invincible assurance, he successfully pushed his way. He came to California during the fall of '47, located in Stockton, subsequently in San Francisco, and took up "Politics" as his means of support. To gain his point in a partisan ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... in the hands of the priests? Surely they are. That is a matter of common knowledge, as sure as that water will drown and fire will burn. A pretty position for a sensible man like John Bull to be placed in by a blethering idiot, who can argue with equal volubility on either side, but with more conviction when in the wrong. Bull must have been drunk, and drunk on stupid beer, when he placed his heart strings between the finger and thumb of a quack like that, who, whatever the result, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... difference, but he did not in the least intend to be choused out of it by man nor woman. They had a very funny debate in private, wherein the feminine tried to dominate the masculine principle by sheer volubility and found to its disgust that the method didn't work. Red listened most respectfully and always replied, "Yes ma'am, but we don't want that paint. Get us some good paint—bully old paint with stick'um in it—this ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... which is the Staple Commodity of the Kingdom; for no Feathers are comparable to these for this Manufacture. When I pass'd the Meadow, every one quitted her Employment to come and stare at me; they all spoke together so loud, and with such Volubility, that I almost fancied my self among a Score of Gammers ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... I suppose the calculation is all right," said Joe, laughing at her volubility and the queer way in which she bobbed a curtsey between each item of her catalogue. Then, addressing poor "Downy" he cried out curtly, "Turn out ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... lordship with very gracious intimacy; and, before he had time to ask any questions, she answered all she conceived he was going to ask, and with a volubility which justified the landlord's eulogium of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... Salemina's protestations, that, properly interlarded with names of famous Italians, he could maintain a brilliant conversation with me at table, to the envy and amazement of our neighbours. The following paragraph, then, was our stock in trade, and Jack's volubility and ingenuity in its use kept Salemina quite ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... manage the windlass properly, or the malefactors, too drunk to hang on to the bucket. Otherwise, more or less regrettable incidents happened. Also, it led to a rather puzzling situation when the sheriff had to take care of his first woman prisoner, a negro lady of generous dimensions and much volubility. ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... exceedingly fantastic garb. They tell me how much they have enjoyed themselves. Filomena has naively made me a present of a few burnt almonds with sugar upon them, that she has had in her trouser pockets, and informs me with impetuous volubility how she has talked to all the people she met, "who do not know her and whom she does not know." She has had one of my white shirts on, which she had embroidered all over with ribbons till it looked like a real costume. She is beaming with ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Day," gasped his wife, regaining her usual volubility, "what have I allus told ye? If ye'd put the homestead in my name they couldn't get that away from ye. It's what I allus wanted ye to do. And I ain't even got dower right in it, as I'd oughter have. Ye don't 'pear to have the sense ye was born with. Write your name on another ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... of almost all her acquaintance, and excited great attention from the party, which had been joined by several during her truly interesting intelligence. Every other topic in a moment gave way to this delightful amusement, and each with volubility contributed his or her share to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... there were playing at casino—a crowd squatted around the squalling gamblers, and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story- teller who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility: in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig with coffee-cups, all intent upon the game, and the player himself very wild lest one of our party, who had discovered where the pea lay, should tell the company. The devotion and energy with which all these ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... degrees, till it burst out full as she reappeared in a flood of light at the spot where we least expected her. And then she came so near that she touched us with her dress, clashing the castanets with a maddening volubility, till they weakened once more and twittered like cicalas, while now and then across their monotonous racket she uttered shrill yet tender cries which pierced to our own souls. Afterwards she retired once more, but plunged herself only ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... seen him as lately as forty-eight hours ago, who has touched his hand, heard the sound of his voice, seen the look of confidence and of hope in his eyes. Oh!" he went on speaking with extraordinary volubility, "it is all too good to be true! Since yesterday I have felt like a man in a dream!—I haven't lived, I have scarcely breathed, I . ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... all this volubility, Tommy felt doubts. Was it possible that this genial, well-known figure could be in reality a dangerous criminal? His life seemed so open and aboveboard. No hint of sinister doings. Suppose it was all a gigantic mistake? Tommy felt a ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... in about half an hour he made his appearance, having first supped with his companions. He was a very gentlemanly, good-looking lad of seventeen. He addressed me in his native language, and, finding that I understood him, he commenced talking with astonishing volubility. In the space of five minutes he informed me that, having a desire to see the world, he had run away from his friends, who were people of opulence at Madrid, and that he did not intend to return until he had travelled ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the Bithynians, replied to me at great length, but he made very few points. Like most of the Greeks, he mistakes volubility for fulness of treatment, and they pour forth in a single breath a perfect torrent of long-winded and frigid periods. Julius Candidus rather wittily says apropos of this that eloquence is one thing and loquacity another. For there have been only one or two people who can be described as eloquent—not ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... this unexpected clerical brother of Matilda's, with his unquenchable volubility. Mr. Pyecroft gazed back with appropriate humility, ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... Jesus to have recovered a great part of his strength, spoke with great volubility and vehemence, saying that angels were but the messengers of God, and to carry on the work of the world God must have messengers, but angels had no power to carry messages from man back to God. There was but one Mediator, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... entrusted to a son of man, who verily is not a man, a light of the captivity ... a holy light, a saintly man ... who dwells at present in the great city of London. Albeit I could not fully understand him on account of his volubility and his speaking as an inhabitant of Jerusalem.... His chamber is lighted by silver candlesticks on the walls, with a central eight-branched lamp made of pure silver of beaten work. And albeit it contained oil to burn a day and a night it remained enkindled for three ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... wretched, "to get up to-morrow, and remember that I was gone;" and that he loved me better than any body, for no one had been so indulgent, and had taken such pains to make him a good boy. Before we reached the village, his volubility had changed the tears to smiles. As we reached it, John appeared on his return homeward. I gave the boy into his charge, and the cloud lowered again, and the shower fell heavier than ever. I turned at the point at which the hills became shut out, and there stood the boy fastened ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... voyage than we meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, remarkably handsome, with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of assertion. He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, or since. He was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most painful description of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor, truly, was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time to come, for poor Armand's only reply to the torrent of flute notes was a silence filled with cruelly painful thoughts. He was just beginning to see that this woman was playing with him; he divined ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... which does not appear to result altogether in her favour; for the young cat moves slowly away from her, without, however, venturing near my legs, or approaching Jeanne, who displays extraordinary volubility in the use of caressing appellations. Therese, whose chief fault is her inability to hide her feelings, thereupon vehemently reproaches Mademoiselle for bringing home a cat that she did not know anything about. Jeanne, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... keep a hotel and do a little in horseflesh now an' agin. Now, I shall take it as a favor if you'll allow the landlord to re-fill your glasses at my expense, and then drink good-luck to my expedition." All this with much volubility, and without a trace ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... Chloes, Clarissas, and Pastorellas come down. One of these two is excessively in pain, that the ugly being called Time will make wrinkles in spite of the lead forehead-cloth; and therefore hides, with the gaiety of her air, the volubility of her tongue, and quickness of her motion, the injuries which it has done her. The other lady is but two years behind her in life, and dreads as much being laid aside as the former, and consequently has taken the necessary precautions to prevent her reign over us. But ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... my lord," said the fisherman, and after having bowed, he left the tent, accompanied by Digby. Before he had gone a hundred paces he found his companions, who were whispering with a volubility which did not appear exempt from uneasiness, but he made them a sign which seemed to reassure them. "Hola, you fellows!" said the patron, "come this way. His lordship, General Monk, has the generosity to pay us for our fish, and the goodness to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... approaching voices warned them that their seclusion was on the point of being broken into. Their hostess, an elderly lady of great social gifts and immense volubility, appeared, having for her escort a tall, well-groomed man of youthful middle-age, with the square jaw and humorous gleam in his grey eyes of the best trans-Atlantic type. Lady Amesbury beamed ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hammocks for the patients' use, and in these two of them passed the night. Before retiring to rest, they produced their pipes and foul-smelling Boer tobacco, proceeding to light up just under my windows, meanwhile talking their unmusical language with great volubility. At length, about ten, they appeared to slumber, and a chorus of snoring arose, which generally sent me to sleep, to be awakened two or three hours later by renewed conversations, which now and then died away into hoarse whispers. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... welcome to him, and he courts their banishment of the past his old fiancee had dragged from its sepulchre. Bury it again and forget it! "What's all the noise about? What's all the chatterboxing?" For the good gentleman always imputes to his offspring a volubility and a plethora of language far in excess of any meaning it conveys. His own attitude, he implies, is one of weighty consideration ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... "Such a mode of defence scarcely calls for a reply. But I answer, I held no such conversation; I never used such words; I received no such letter. Surely it is no sufficient refutation of a criminal charge, that the criminal repels what is alleged against him with volubility of speech, and ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... when he can be persuaded to stop! Nay, 'tis more irksome far than the recitation of his professional jingle—for to that there must in time come a merciful fitting end, but, as I live, if 'twas my custom to say prayers, I would pray to be delivered from the accursed volubility of a versifier's tongue! And perchance it will not be considered out of my line of duty if I venture to remind my most illustrious and renowned MASTER—" this with a withering sneer,—"that if he has any more remarkable nothings to dictate concerning this particularly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... the name of Duck Cove. When he was returning in the evening, he met with three of the natives, one man and two women, whose fears he soon dissipated, and whom he engaged in a conversation, that was little understood on either side. The youngest of the women had a volubility of tongue that could not be exceeded; and she entertained Captain Cook, and the gentlemen who accompanied him ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... pigs shortly followed, howling like mad, but Ginepro went straight to him and pointed out with so much volubility that he had done him a great service, that the man, after overwhelming him with reproaches, suddenly begged pardon, killed the pig and invited all the Brothers to feast upon it. Ginepro was probably less mad than the story would lead us ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... formerly met one with volubility and the expectation of a fabulous tip have given place to khakied orderlies, the polite customs officials to old-soldier myrmidons of the worried embarkation officer. Store dumps with English markings are packed symmetrically ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... ministers and one of Charlestown held a meeting, and passed a day in fasting and prayer, by which exorcism the youngest imp was "delivered." The poor woman, crazed with all this pother,—if in her right mind before,—and defending herself unskilfully in her foreign gibberish and with the volubility of her race, was interpreted as making some confession. A gossiping witness testified that six years before she had heard another woman say that she had seen the accused come down a chimney. She was required to repeat the Lord's Prayer in English,—an approved test; but being ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... direction of Miss Bart, whose only response was to sink into an attitude of more graceful abstraction. She had learned the value of contrast in throwing her charms into relief, and was fully aware of the extent to which Mrs. Fisher's volubility ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... driven to the lie direct at last; and confirmed the negation with such a string of oaths, that Orestes stopped his volubility with a kick, borrowed of him, under threat of torture, a thousand gold pieces as largess to the soldiery, and ended by concentrating the stationaries round his own palace, for the double purpose of protecting himself in case of a riot, and of increasing the chances ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... who held the position of Chief Historian at the research library. He was more slender and darker than his father, and lacking in his volubility ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... for the warrant of the parliament of Paris was still in force, to a house at Fleury. But the Friend of Men, to use his own account of himself, "bore letters as a plum-tree bears plums," and wrote to his guest with strange humoristic volubility and droll imperturbable temper, as one who knew his Jean Jacques. He exhorts him in many sheets to harden himself against excessive sensibility, to be less pusillanimous, to take society more lightly, as his own light estimate of its worth should lead him ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Polish lady, and her volubility, and her extravagant, subtle, honest flattery of her dear adopted daughter! It gave him liberty to steep himself in the rich consciousness of Natalie's presence; he could listen in silence for the sound of her voice—he could covertly watch the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... experienced women have a fine and clear instinct of them likewise. And some such would tell us that there is intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the quality which they desire for their country's future good. Self- consciousness, eagerness, volubility, petulance in countenance, in gesture, and in voice—which last is too often most harsh and artificial, the breath being sent forth through the closed teeth, and almost entirely at the corners of the mouth—and, with all this, a weariness ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... with feverish volubility, though his throat was parched and every word he uttered caused him pain. But he was determined ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... circle away, quivering round the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc! he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced the deftest-tongued ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... old gentleman, seated by the fire, busied himself in toasting a slice of bread on a fork, which he kept at a slow-toasting distance from the coals. An English lady was present, learned in art, who, with a volubility worthy of an American, rushed into every little opening of Mrs. Somerville's more measured sentences with her remarks upon recent discoveries in her specialty. Whenever this occurred, the old man grew fidgety, moved the ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... to proceed, but our guides protested against such a measure. With great volubility, in their native Neapolitan dialect, with which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres, that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there was a deep hole within, filled with water, and we might be drowned. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... This promised volubility, though it softened him, he seemed to receive as a sort of acknowledgment that I owed him some reparation for the disturbance I had caused him. I stared enough at such an interpretation, which I could by no means allow; but no sooner did I disclaim it than ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... one save me? Will no one speak for my life?" These words were ejaculated with the ghastly accent and volubility of terror. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Carlton-house, it is said that, after the bottle had for some time circulated, his good-humoured volubility suddenly ceased, and he seemed for a time to be wholly lost in thought. While he "chewed the cud" in this ruminating state, his illustrious host remarked his very unusual quiescency, and interrupted it by inquiring the ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... Truesdale was profoundly impressed by his sister's aspect under these novel conditions; Bertie Patterson seemed to find in her the incarnation of all the town's philanthropy; even Aunt Lydia was almost too deeply affected to chirp and chatter with her wonted volubility. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the author of the "Life of Lorenzo de Medici," attacked him in an edition of Pope which he brought out in 1824. The rash detractor of the little Twitnam nightingale soon found himself engaged single-handed against a host; but he was equal to the occasion, in volubility if not in logic, and poured out a series of pamphlets, covering in all some thousand pages, and concluding with "A Final Appeal to the Literary Public" (1825), followed by "more last words of Baxter," in the shape of "Lessons in Criticism ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... bitterly for the misfortune which had befallen her pet brother; and when the operation was over, refused to answer poor Caddy's questions respecting Charlie's injuries, and scolded her with a warmth and volubility that was quite surprising ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... The volubility of Benoit assigns divers long speeches to Briseida, in which favourable interpreters have seen the germ of the future Cressid; and in which any fair critic may see the suggestion of her. But it is little more than a suggestion. Of the full and masterly conception of Cressid as ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... While indulging this noisy volubility he was seated on the top of his dining-stump. Suddenly he caught sight of something that smote him into silence and for the space of a second turned him to stone. A few paces away was a weasel, gliding toward him ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... tailor stepped to the door and beckoned to the policeman. With much volubility he explained the situation and his suspicions. The constable listened gravely. He was very young to his duties, and remembered the cautions that had been given him not to accept any one's word where ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... much more with the volubility of relieved feelings. When he stopped, out of breath, Madison said, "I have had a visitor since you ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to mislead an unthinking or superficial mind. Her mother had early taught her the trick of agreeable talk which appears to imply superiority, replying to arguments by clever jests, and attracting by the graceful volubility beneath which a woman hides the subsoil of her mind, as Nature disguises her barren strata beneath a wealth of ephemeral vegetation. Natalie had the charm of children who have never known what it is to suffer. She charmed by her frankness, and had none of that solemn ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... is taken indifferently, whereas the copiousness of language of which I speak is to be the result of acquisition of judgment in the use of words, with the view of attaining the true expressive force of eloquence, and not empty volubility of speech. This can be affected only by hearing and reading the best things; and it is only by giving it our attention that we shall know not only the appellations of things, but what is ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... hearty ones; followed by an address, in the name of the town, by a bright young man who pushed forward and with surprising volubility thanked President Elkins for his selection of the name, and closed with flowery compliments to the blushing Miss Trescott, whose identity Jim had disclosed by a bow. He was afterwards a thorn in our flesh ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... to more purpose; for he, too, having undergone equal risk with the rest of the party, had equally good reasons for being angry; and giving utterance to a long string of execrations with all the volubility of a Bearnais, he further threatened them with the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... one of whom he formally introduced to us as Naggernook. He was apparently, judging by his withered skin and white hair and beard, a very old man; but he had not lost the use of his tongue, for he chattered away with extraordinary volubility, as if wishing to impress some matter of importance upon us—though what it was, of course we could not understand. The sight of the wombat roasting before the fire excited his interest, and he inquired of Pullingo how we had obtained it. ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... passion, is absurd. To say perfectly once and for all what one has to say is surely as fine an achievement as to keep restlessly trying to say it a thousand times over. Gray was no blabber. It is said that he did not even let his mother and his aunts know that he wrote poetry. He lacked boldness, volubility and vital energy. He stood aside from life. He would not even take money from his publishers for his poetry. No wonder that he earned the scorn of Dr. Johnson, who said of him to Boswell, "Sir, he was dull in his company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... high lifted brow, his sharp nose, and the few active lines of his cheek and forehead, the poise of his head, the disdain of his firm mouth, all build him back alive for us. His talk, which stammered in its volubility, was incessant and varied; his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and definition perfect in old age: he was of good metal all ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... know the half!" said the excitable little editor, who, despite the frequency of his gestures and the volubility of his explanations was busily working with diagrams the while. "You know there was a census in Porto ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... dear sir," he said, becomin again affable, to reconcile me, I suppose, to the unfortunate blunder, an' speakin wi' great volubility, "my name is Smith, which, I suppose, is yours too, sir. I'm from London. Now, you see, my dear sir, my brother Bob, who lives in Ireland, and whom I haven't seen for some years, was to have met me here last night, agreeably ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various |
