"Communicative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... progressed, Mrs. Wiggs became communicative. She still wore her black cotton gloves, and gesticulated with a ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... to Willansborough, to buy a birthday present for her brother Terry, get stamps for an Indian letter, and perform a dozen more commissions that seemed to arise in her mind with the opportunity. Her two brothers were to spend the Christmas holidays with her, and she was in high spirits, and so communicative about them that she hardly observed how little interest Cecil ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time the whole of his outrageous tale, from the time when Gregory had taken him to the little tavern by the river. He did it idly and amply, in a luxuriant monologue, as a man speaks with very old friends. On his side, also, the man who had impersonated Professor de Worms was not less communicative. His own story was almost as ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... himself about it, the value of the man and his discovery to the world is a big round zero. If a man creates something new and tells the whole world about it, the value is at a maximum. Somewhere in between these extremes lies the communicative activity of ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... you presently what decided Hiram to become clerk to a ship chandler, I do not intend, after being so communicative, to hide his motives on this occasion. I say I will explain presently: meantime, do not fear that Hiram has any desire to supplant his friend Eastman, or get the control of the business of the firm; not at all. Other ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found that the palace had a beginning but no end. I walked through leagues of corridors and peeped into unnumbered class-rooms, in each of which children were apparently fiercely dragging knowledge out of nevertheless highly communicative teachers; and the children got bigger and bigger, and then diminished for a while, and then grew again, and kept on growing, until I at last entered a palatial kitchen where some two dozen angels, robed in white ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... were sent to bed; and the young Englishman, finding the conversation lag, and his host becoming gruffer and less communicative than he thought quite courteous, retired. But before he went, however, he could not refrain from making a remark on the gigantic spider, which was swinging like a pendulum above the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... looked at Celestina in some surprise. It was seldom the little girl was so communicative, especially to strangers. But then, as she said to ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... too much interested in learning something more of Lucy Watson, not to find a sufficient reason for lingering behind the farmer, who was impatient to be in his hay-field. Mrs. Pye was communicative, and he soon learned all she knew—that Lucy was the daughter of a soldier belonging to a company commanded by Sir Edward Houstoun during the war—that this soldier had received his death-wound in defending his commander from a sword-cut, and that Sir Edward had always considered his ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... if only it had not been so cold. Matthew, the man, was not very communicative certainly, and it seemed to the new boy that he eyed him with some disfavour. Eames himself just gave a few short directions, and then ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... Sarah; I want to speak to you." Now, though Fanny was exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative to her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and darkness that that lovely mind ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not hard to divine that Mr. Grewgious had related the Bazzard history thus fully, at least quite as much for the recreation of his ward's mind from the subject that had driven her there, as for the gratification of his own tendency to be social and communicative. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... knowledge, and we came up to the gate of what appeared to be a large hospital. It was covered with trees, and the beauty of summer was luxuriantly displayed. The grayheaded porter at the gate, a very communicative and happy old man, aged eighty-eight years, soon gave us a history of the institution. This hospital had been built by a man who was much renowned. He had been once a poor shopboy, but he wandered to London, was very industrious, and at length became one of the greatest merchants ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... experience) women cannot understand; and farmers of a much later date than the one of which I am writing, would have contemptuously considered it as a loss of time to talk to women; indeed, they were often more communicative to the sheep-dog that accompanied them through all the day's work, and frequently became a sort of dumb confidant. Farmer Robson's Lassie now lay down at her master's feet, placed her nose between her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... found him so communicative, he asked him if they could not cross one of the meadows to refresh themselves a little, and told him how he had been tempted to do so just ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... call it that. True, she cannot help talking, but she is not disposed to tell everything she has in her heart, and she settles a good many things for herself. She is at once communicative and reticent, almost secretive; in ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... "Simply Ralph wants to see me. He isn't particularly communicative himself, but he is very anxious that I should go to town to-morrow. Somehow or other I have more confidence in your Napier than in either of our cars when it comes to catching a train at ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had seen; but they asked few questions until the supper-table was ready and Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee the inspiration came. Hovering at first over indifferent details, he gradually approached those of more importance,—told of the addresses which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony borne, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... nothing mean or secretive about him. He was wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth. He was tall, slim, and pale; had a languor which showed itself even in his briskness; was most amiable, cheerful, and communicative. He called Pip "Handel," because Pip had been a blacksmith, and Handel composed a piece of music entitled The Harmonious Blacksmith. Pip helped him to a partnership ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... numerous groups gathering blue-berries, in an extensive tract of shrubby pasture, indicated that we were approaching a town, and in a few minutes we had arrived at Portland. The conductor, whom we found intelligent and communicative, recommended that we should take quarters, during our stay, at a place called the Veranda, or Oak Grove, on the water, about two miles from the town, and we followed his advice. We drove through Portland, which is nobly situated ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... enthusiastic interest in everything he said, the keeper was quite communicative, pointing out the cells of any noted felons, repeating little incidents of daring attempts to escape, and making the visit far more entertaining ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... his life maintain, that he had very orthodox notions concerning the nature of God and of all the moral virtues; notwithstanding the general notion of his being a downright atheist; that he was affable, kind, communicative of what he knew, a good friend, a good relation, charitable to the poor, a lover of justice, and a despiser of money. This last quality is a favourable circumstance in his life, for there is no vice at once more despicable and the source of more base ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... therefore, like a sensible man, he chose to spend the evening with the signorina rather than with his gallant officers. With equally good taste, he elected to spend it tete-a-tete with her, when she gave him the opportunity. In our subsequent conversations, the signorina was not communicative as to how the early hours of the evening passed. She preferred to begin her narrative from the point when their solitude was interrupted. As I rely on her account and that of the colonel for this part of my story, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... the different individuals which composed it. The Indians were silent and industrious the appetite of the aboriginal American for venison being seemingly inappeasable, while the two white men were communicative, each of the latter being garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue will put the reader in possession of certain facts that may render the succeeding narrative more clear, it will be well ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... goldsmith. He was one of the few sailors—not in the main-top—whom I used to single out for occasional conversation. After several friendly interviews he became quite frank, and communicated certain portions of his history. There is some charm in the sea, which induces most persons to be very communicative ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of sensibility, sudden outbursts of emotion, contagious agitation, irresistible currents of passion, epidemics of credulity and suspicion, in short, enthusiasm and panic, especially if he is French, that is to say, excitable and communicative, easily thrown off his balance and prompt to accept foreign impulsion, deprived of the natural ballast which a phlegmatic temperament and concentration of lonely meditations secure to his German and Latin neighbors; and all this we shall see at work.—These constitute some of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... man, who had come from Scotland fifty years ago, his stalwart son, six feet and a half high, maybe, and two buxom daughters, going to the hay-field,—good solid Scotch lassies, who smiled in English, but spoke only Gaelic. The old man could speak a little English, and was disposed to be both communicative and inquisitive. He asked our business, names, and residence. Of the United States he had only a dim conception, but his mind rather rested upon the statement that we lived "near Boston." He complained of the degeneracy of the times. All the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lot on the routes of less frequented travel to fall in with a class of my fellowmen distinctively known as "Commercial men." It is their business to be both inquisitive and communicative. While waiting at some little tavern or railroad station often the right hand of fellowship has been extended to me with the question "What is your line?" or "I see you have no trunks, how do you carry your samples?" They do not always quite understand ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... uplifted bass voice startled them down there, the butler coming up, staring and in his shirt sleeves, very suspicious at first, and then, on Fyne's explanation that he was the husband of a lady who had called several times at the house—Miss de Barral's mother's friend—becoming humanely concerned and communicative, in a man to man tone, but preserving his trained high-class servant's voice: "Oh bless you, sir, no! She does not mean to come back. She told me so herself"—he assured Fyne with a faint shade of contempt ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... very glad to hear of you now, Jim," said Brant, smiling, "and from your own lips—which I am also delighted to find," he added mischievously, "are still as frankly communicative on that topic as of old. But I congratulate you, old fellow, on your good fortune. When did you leave ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... my Opinion, are such merely from a Vacancy in their own Imaginations, there is nothing, methinks, so dangerous as to communicate Secrets to them; for the same Temper of Enquiry makes them as impertinently communicative: But no Man, though he converses with them, need put himself in their Power, for they will be contented with Matters of less Moment as well. When there is Fuel enough, no matter what it is—Thus the Ends of Sentences ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... were brought to light by the act of the felonious Frenchman, constitute our best authority for the inner and outer history of the Revolution and of the time that preceded it. The French Foreign Office is less communicative. The papers of their two ablest diplomatists, Barthelemy and Talleyrand, have been made public, besides those of Fersen, Maury, Vaudreuil, and many emigres; and the letters of several deputies to their constituents are now ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... and lies!" broke in his spouse; and Helen, who apparently had lapsed into a disdainful indifference, asked no further questions. Mrs. Savine, however, made many inquiries, and Musker, who became unusually communicative, presently offered to show the strangers what ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the returned and communicative Bodge to shut up, was equally thoughtful as he gazed into his fire. Ludelphus Murray, after trying long and in vain to light a soggy pipeful of tobacco, gazed into the fire-lit faces of his comrades of the Ancients and Honorables of Smyrna and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... not figure; and a Mrs. Elliot,(1452) sister to Mrs. Nugent, who crossed over and figured in with Nugent: I mean she has turned Catholic, as he has Protestant. She has built herself a very pretty small house in the path-, and is only a daily visiter. Nugent was extremely communicative of his own labours; repeated us an ode of ten thousand stanzas to abuse Messieurs de la Gallerie, and reid me a whole tragedy, which has really a great many @ pretty things in it; not indeed equal to his glorious ode on ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... President has listened to him [General Scott] with due friendliness and respect, but the War Department has been little communicative. Up to this time he has not been shown the written instructions of Major Anderson, nor been informed of the purport of those more recently conveyed to Fort Moultrie verbally by Major Buell."—Gen. Scott (by G.W. Lay) to Twiggs, Dec. 28, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... none in the least; yet I don't know how; our Bridget, the cook-maid, is not very communicative upon these occasions. Should we send for her, she might scold us all out ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... country. They thread their independent course through forests, along highways and byways, through streets, over roofs of houses,—everybody welcomes them,—appearance bows down at the shrine of utility, and in the smallest villages these winged messengers are seen dropping their communicative wires into the post-office, or into some grocer's shop where a 'cute lad picks up all the passing information—which is not in cypher—and probably retails it with an amount of compound interest commensurate with the trouble he has taken to obtain it. There is no doubt that many of these ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... never been an extraordinarily communicative man; what I shall tell you is known only to my former Colonel and myself. At Calcutta, where you and I first met, I was but a Lieutenant in her Majesty's. To-day I am burdened with riches such as I know not ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... well-formed. His head was large and forehead ample, but his features were somewhat coarse; his cheek-bones were prominent, and his eyes small, sunk in his head, and surmounted by thick eye-lashes. In society he was reserved and often taciturn, but was free and communicative among his personal friends. He was not a little superstitious, and a firm believer in the reality of spectral illusions. Desultory in some of his literary occupations, he was laborious in pruning and perfecting his poetical ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... more communicative, my friend," Andrew said, with something which was almost a sneer. "You did not talk so freely a few minutes back. It seems as though we were on the ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Ruth Erskine said, speaking more quickly than was usual to her. The others had been more or less communicative with each other. It wasn't in Ruth's nature to tell how tried, and dissatisfied she had been with herself and her life, and her surroundings all the week. She was not sympathetic by nature. She couldn't tell her inward feeling to any one; but she could indorse heartily the discovery ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... into the studio. Soon Mr. Powers made his appearance, in his dressing-gown and slippers and sculptor's cap, smoking a cigar. . . . . He was very cordial and pleasant, as I have always found him, and began immediately to be communicative about his own works, or any other subject that came up. There were two casts of the Venus de' Medici in the rooms, which he said were valuable in a commercial point of view, being genuine casts from the mould taken from the statue. He then gave us a quite unexpected but ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Europeans of being cold and reserved towards strangers; for my part, I found them sociable and communicative in the extreme. A few hours after I had embarked on board the steamboat I found myself quite at home. I was much pleased to observe the rational manner in which the passengers amused themselves. Little groups were formed, where religion, politics and ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... a faithful yet communicative rendering of the original French texts published in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie.— the hardcover first edition issued in the autumn of 1871, collated with the softcover editions of the First and Second Parts issued separately in the autumn ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,—the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think well of her ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the nearest cottage, with a glass of steaming toddy in his hand, Gibbie became communicative, and the doctor soon drew from him the rest ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... late at Philadelphia to be able to do much that evening, and this morning, we started early for Baltimore, en route for this place. We had two very pleasant and communicative fellow-travellers, one a coal merchant, who resides at Wilmington, the capital of Delaware, the other a Quaker, a retired merchant from Philadelphia, who gave us a good deal of information about some of the institutions and charities of that place. He stood up much for the Girard College, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... Port Angeles proved all too short. Bronson was communicative in the extreme and regaled him of many evidences of Mascola's prosperity, chief among which was the Italian's recent order to a firm of Norwegian boat-builders at Port Angeles of twenty large fishing launches of ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... was that little commotion among the guests which indicates that they are about to rise: the rustling of silk, the moving of chairs, the last words of conversations, the completion of a laugh, and in that half-silence Madame Chebe, who had become communicative, observed in a very loud tone to a provincial cousin, who was gazing in an ecstasy of admiration at the newly made bride's reserved and tranquil demeanor, as she stood with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... interpreted to the watcher, he replied that treason had been their end, diabolical treason and priest-craft. He then, being rendered communicative by drink, delivered a long prosy narrative, the purport of which was as follows. These honest gentlemen who now dangled here so miserably were all stout men and true, and lived in the forest by their wits. Their independence and thriving state excited the jealousy and hatred of a large portion ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... pretty piece of work done for ourself and our allies, while Valori is quietly dining with the Prince of Dessau! The King stayed about two hours; was extremely polite, and even frank and communicative. "A very high-spirited young King," thinks Neipperg, reporting of it; "will not stand contradiction; but a great deal can be made of him, if you go into his ideas, and humor him in a delicate dexterous way. He did not the least hide his engagements with France, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... thankful she had taken David Martin's advice and kept her secret. She had been fair; she had made no personal claims, but she had done what Martin had once suggested that all mothers should do—"point out the channel and keep the lights burning." There were moments when she wished that Joan were more communicative—but she must accept what was offered. Nancy had gone forth radiant to her chosen life and Joan had come back—not defeated but clearer of vision. What more could any woman ask ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... officer, received the young officers in his quarters. He proved to be more communicative, talking pleasantly with them for fully a minute and a half after the young men had introduced themselves, and had turned over to him the official papers connecting them ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... in its severity, culminated with a hideous, a sickening velocity. On a Monday morning, in but moderate torment at Pearl's inconsistency, Wilbur Cowan sat at the linotype in the Advance office, swiftly causing type metal to become communicative about the week's doings in Newbern. He hung a finished sheet of Sam Pickering's pencilled copy on a hook, and casually surveyed the sheet beneath. It was a social item, he saw—the notice of a marriage. Then names amazingly leaped from ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... to be till a couple of years ago, when I got married," answered this communicative individual. "I even went to sea first in that very ship we were speaking of when you ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy-and-water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connections, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... extraordinary that he should succeed in a second attempt against those very adversaries, who had such fair warning by the first. He is firm and steady in his resolutions, not easily diverted from them after he hath once possessed himself of an opinion that they are right, nor very communicative where he can act by himself, being taught by experience, that a secret is seldom safe in more than one breast. That which occurs to other men after mature deliberation, offers to him as his first thoughts; so that he decides immediately what is best to be done, and therefore ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... monument which our century respects. He is above all an inspirer, an initiator; and if he wants one mark of the leader of a school, the foundation of certain scientific doctrines, there is in his speech what is better than all systems, the communicative power which urges a generation of disciples along the path of independent research, with Reason for guide, and ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... most part, through some bright household habit, overflowed at the breakfast-table, where I regularly attended with W. J.; she had imbibed betimes in Europe the seeds of a long nostalgia, and I think of her as ever so patiently communicative on that score under pressure of my artless appeal. That I should have been so inquiring while still so destitute of primary data was doubtless rather an anomaly; and it was for that matter quite as ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... find ourselves here, both with our speech and our silence, at the OTHER extreme of all modern ideology and gregarious desirability, as their antipodes perhaps? What wonder that we "free spirits" are not exactly the most communicative spirits? that we do not wish to betray in every respect WHAT a spirit can free itself from, and WHERE perhaps it will then be driven? And as to the import of the dangerous formula, "Beyond Good and Evil," with which we at least avoid confusion, we ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that, in the communicative mood into which the Lily of St. Leonard's was now surprised, she might have given her sister her unreserved confidence, and saved me the pain of telling a melancholy tale; but at the moment the word dance was uttered, it reached the ear of old David Deans, who had turned the corner ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Norwegian Church and drives up to the Reform Church at Hanover, or goes with Marie Shabata to the Catholic Church, locally known as "the French Church." She has not told Marie about Carl, or her differences with her brothers. She was never very communicative about her own affairs, and when she came to the point, an instinct told her that about such things she and Marie would ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... fad. Then when her first visit to the dentist was over (the tooth required three treatments) and she went to a vegetarian restaurant to see if there was anything enlightening to be got out of that, she was delighted to find herself sitting at a very small table with a very communicative lady who ate cabbages in perfectly incredible quantities. She had a round pale face like the moon behind the clouds, enormous eyebrows that almost met over her nose, and a strange low voice, of husky tone, and a pronunciation ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... individualities of the world of have only their genius. France for a second genius has its heart, and is prodigal in its thoughts, in its writings, as well as in its national acts. When Providence wills that one desire shall fire the world, it is first kindled in a Frenchman's soul. This communicative quality of the character of this race—this French attraction, as yet unaltered by the ambition of conquest,—was then the precursory mark of the age. It seems that a providential instinct turned all the attraction of Europe towards this point, as if motion and light could only emanate ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... is remarkably communicative. With adroitness he may be pumped of anything. His openness is from character, not from affectation. An intimacy with him may, on this account, be politically valuable. I am, dear Sir, your affectionate ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... close to him, with her dress touching him, her eyes fixed on his. As she went on her tone became, to his sense, extraordinary, and she offered the odd spectacle of a beautiful woman preaching reason with the most communicative and irresistible passion. Longmore was dazzled, but mystified and bewildered. The intention of her words was all remonstrance, refusal, dismissal, but her presence and effect there, so close, so urgent, so personal, a distracting ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... find that nobody expects from him the least sign of such mental aberration, and that he is evidently held capable of listening to all kinds of personal outpouring without the least disposition to become communicative in the same way. This confirmation of the hope that my bearing is not that of the self-flattering lunatic is given me in ample measure. My acquaintances tell me unreservedly of their triumphs and their piques; explain their purposes at length, and reassure me with cheerfulness as ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... dog. He wanted to make sure on which side his bread was buttered before he became communicative. At first he had been willing to tell exactly nothing. He had already been seen by Durand, and he had a very pronounced respect for that personage. It was not until he had become convinced that Jerry's star was on the wane that he had "come through" with ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... at my paint, sir," said the landlord. He was a fat, good-humoured-looking man, communicative in his manner as a Boniface should be, and his wife was his very complement. "You laugh at my paint, but it is, after all, a very important thing. What is a great lady without her rouge-pot, when you ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... clear that in the open, at least, the Shadow was averse to being observed in familiar conversation with Felix. During the heat of the day, however, when they sat alone within the hut, he was much more communicative. Then he launched forth pretty freely into talk about the island and its life, which would no doubt have largely enlightened Felix, had it not been for two drawbacks to their means of inter-communication. In the first place, the Boupari ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... from the lawn a rustic orchestra is in course of erection: whence "the dulcet and harmonious sounds" of music may attune with the joyful inspiration of the natural beauties of the scene. Our guide, (of a more intelligent and communicative character than guides usually are,) directed us by a descending path through the wood, across a rude bridge, past a maze, by a flight of roughly-formed steps, to a terrace, whence we enjoyed a picturesque prospect of great range and indescribable beauty. The woods were as yet leafless, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... culminating in a ghoulish story from my right-hand neighbour, told in broadest Yorkshire, about one in Malta, "who stole the —— boots off the —— corpse in the —— dead-'ouse." Outside the tent a communicative orderly poured into my ear the tale of Paardeberg, and its unspeakable horrors, the overwork and exhaustion of a short-handed medical corps, the disease and death in the corps itself, etc. I conclude that in such times of stress the orderly has a very bad time, but that with a column having few ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... knowledge of men, his power of inspiring them, Foch is quiet, retiring, non-communicative, with no taste for meeting people in social intercourse. His life has been monotonous—work and work and work. He has the reputation of being a driver; he used to be particularly severe on shirkers in the war college, and such, no ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and to one another. Unconsciously they yielded to the influence of the sweet spring air and the sunshine, and the new sights that were around them, and the sadness that had lain so heavily on them since their father's death lightened, they grew eager and communicative, and, in boyish fashion, did the honours of the country to their new friend with interest and delight. Not that they grew thoughtless or seemed to forget. Their father's name was often on their lips,—on Jem's, at least,—David did not seem to find it so easy to utter. They had both been at the ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... was going down, and over their cups of tea the Flushings tended to become communicative. It seemed to Terence as he listened to them talking, that existence now went on in two different layers. Here were the Flushings talking, talking somewhere high up in the air above him, and he and Rachel had dropped to the bottom of the world together. But with something of a child's directness, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... the preacher did not intrude upon his general behaviour; at the table of his friends he was a companion communicative and attentive, of unaffected manners, of manly cheerfulness, willing to please, and easy to be pleased. His acquaintance was universally solicited, and his presence obstructed no enjoyment which religion did not forbid. Though studious he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... confidence, and he did so to his heart's desire, prattling like a child about trees and flowers, fields and meadows, birds and sunshine, and not at all disguising his dislike to the big town in which he now found himself. As the dinner went on, Clare became still more communicative, tenderly encouraged by the sympathising friend at his side. He spoke of his struggles, his aims, and aspirations; his burning desire to soar upward on the wings of poetry, and his constant battling for the barest necessities of life, the mere daily bread. Lord Radstock was deeply ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... country was only three days' journey from Timbuctoo, which place he had frequently visited. The Soos men also told me many of the secrets of the land of wonders from which they come, and the Rabbis from Fez and Morocco were no less communicative." ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... tool-house, where I found the prisoner seated on a wheelbarrow smoking a cigarette. He was no more communicative than when I had questioned him after his capture. He smiled in a bored fashion when I asked if he wanted anything, and said he would be obliged for cigarettes and reading-matter. He volunteered nothing as ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... as marble, as particular as an old bachelor, as communicative as a sentinel; and he's one of those men who say yes to everything, but who never do anything ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... le Fevre, Seigneur de St. Remy, present on the occasion in his capacity of king-at-arms of the Order, is a trifle more communicative.[9] According to him, all the gentlemen were very joyous at their election as they received their collars and made their vows as stated. He excepted no member in the phrase about the joy displayed, though, as a matter ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... not seem inclined to be communicative, and in reply to her question he merely mumbled something to the effect that the liver ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... then, I thought, my pretty entertainer, confiding and communicative as you are, it is plain there are some things you do not know, or will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... now and then with original and striking characters. They are interesting, too, and you can learn lessons of practical wisdom from them if you will. They will be friendly and communicative if you encourage them. Answering this description was a Mr. H.W. Coffman, a dealer in Short Horn cattle, who was travelling from Buffalo on the Erie road to Chicago. He lives at Willow Grove Stock Farm, a hundred ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... not very communicative. We knew nothing of his past history. As to his future plans, he revealed them by one day presenting to the head doctor for his signature a paper asking leave to open a Moorish cafe at Medea after his recovery, a request the head doctor ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... the day they came home from the stationer's. I have found a fortune-telling, second-sighted person in the car. She has the section next to mine and has been directed by a familiar spirit to go to Seattle. She has a parrot with her, and they are both very excitable and communicative. She just told me that it is revealed to her that my youngest boy will have a genius for sculpture. I miss you more than usual to-day. You could help me with some copying, and there is positively nothing interesting to see out of the window; what there is of uninteresting ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Altamont thought; and heaved a great sigh, as if relieved. Strong remarked the emotion, but took no notice, and the other being in a communicative ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a widow. I asked that question, and she answered, yes. But she told me nothing of her late husband. She is not at all communicative." ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... convinced: her narrow little mind, filled to its extreme capacity by her unfavourable opinion of Mr. Troy, had no room left for the process of correcting its first impression. 'I am much obliged to you, sir,' was all she said. Her eyes were more communicative—her eyes added, in their language, 'You may say what you please; I will never forgive you to ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... passed all the children in review, and the pleasure she felt in seeing those living dolls, decked out in their dainty ribbons, made her talkative and communicative. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... beside a table in the centre of the Sisters' Home, which has come to be the only haven of rest he knows in the whole world. He is in a communicative mood, and appreciating that the woman before him is an interested listener he is ready to review ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation, said—"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one awakened chord of human sympathy with the human Christ was communicative. Other hearts were touched, and from that time the Missionary began to reap a rich harvest from his labours. In the midst of the elaborate services of our fashionable London churches is there often to be found so genuine a feeling ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... silent and thoughtful at first, leaving his son to rattle on, in a way that betokened care, in his view of the matter, quite as much as it betokened light-heartedness in those of his mother and sisters. The chaplain was rather more communicative than his friend; but he, too, seemed restless, and desirous of arriving at some point that was not likely to come uppermost, in such a family party. At length, the impulses of Mr. Woods got the better of his discretion, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... soon as the jug of hot punch I had supplied him with began to exercise its genial and communicative influence; "you must tell me who beside your wife and you and myself slept ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... story, frequently questioning me, and appearing pleased when I showed her the letters I wrote to Madam de Warrens, or explained my sentiments; but as she never discovered her own, she certainly did not take the right means to come at them. My heart, naturally communicative, loved to display its feelings, whenever I encountered a similar disposition; but dry, cold interrogatories, without any sign of blame or approbation on my answers, gave me no confidence. Not being able to determine whether my discourse was agreeable or displeasing, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... chatted merrily over the old days as they went on eating and drinking; and as glass succeeded glass Vane became more and more communicative and Garthorne more and more cordial. He quickly learnt the truth of many things which so far he had only suspected, and at last he managed to lead the conversation adroitly up to a point at which Vane said in ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... about the revelations she had heard, went downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room. In her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including Valetta's derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answered these letters with a secret hope that, if all went well with him, he would take another trip to Sydney, and then—well, he could at least ask her. If she said no, why, who was there to chaff him? He was not a communicative man, had very few intimate men friends, and the few women whom he knew were not the sort he could possibly talk to about a lady. Both his parents had died before he was ten years of age, leaving him utterly alone in the world. Born in a bush town, ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... a little resentment at my fate in not having been born at the old Beverly Farms home-place, as my father and uncles and aunts and some of my cousins had been. But perhaps I had more of the romantic and legendary charm of it than if I had been brought up there, for my father, in his communicative moods, never wearied of telling us about his childhood; and we felt that we still held a birthright claim upon that picturesque spot through him. Besides, it was only three or four miles away, and before the day of railroads, that was thought nothing of ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... Being of a communicative disposition, and gifted with a seemingly frank and open manner, he found no difficulty in extending his circle of acquaintances, particularly among those of a curious turn of mind. In response to their eager questioning, he would relate such wonderful stories in reference to his master, ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... strange ejaculations and gesticulations he related how he had sought out Jonathan Cowling, the old man who had so often visited me while I had been a prisoner at Trevose, and how, after much difficulty, he had persuaded him to be communicative. Then Jonathan told him that a messenger had brought a letter in Naomi's writing asking him to protect her from me by taking me prisoner, and that he would serve her greatly by guarding me. He told Eli, too, how his suspicions had been aroused, especially when, after the news came of Naomi's ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... by not being a communicative party," was her companion's reply; "although communicativeness was never a characteristic of ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... not very communicative to me; may be more so to you. You'll stay and see him when ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... crazy; but Mrs. Wharton was of opinion that cousin Betty had never possessed sufficient mind to subject her to such a calamity. She was more silly than crazy, very good-natured, very inquisitive as to the affairs of others, and very communicative as to her own. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely |
