"Conversational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an Indian get in a boat together, to use a Will Carleton phrase, "they do not teem with conversational grace." Straight from Aberdeen, the young Dominee coming into Winnipeg little dreamed that the Church of Rome had established its Mission on the Red River decades ago. In fact, he knew as little about Canada as he did about Timbuctoo, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... all the more to be wondered at that a cat, which is such a master of this conversational sort of music, should ever attempt any other. There never was an animal less fit to be a singer. Someone—was it Cowper?—-has said that there are no really ugly voices in nature, and that he could imagine that there was something to be said even for the donkey's bray. ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... conscious. Then is the time for the shy person to apply himself to social gymnastics. He is not required to be voluble; but if he will practise bearing a hand, seeing what other people need and like, carrying on their line of thought, constructing small conversational bridges, asking the right questions, perhaps simulating an interest in the pursuits of others which he does not naturally feel, he may unloose the burden from his back. Then is the time to practise a sympathetic smile, or better still to allow oneself ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the plain story, you know. I find myself the best way is to adopt a cheerful, conversational manner and keep them from asking questions. At that age they never ask the right ones. Stump you every time if you're not careful. Give them the facts. They'll ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend. This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she recovered her conversational road-gait. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... very little conversation at first. Brook did not care to talk across to Clare, and Sir Adam seemed to have said all he meant to say for the present. Lady Johnstone, who seemed to be a cheerful, conversational soul, began to talk to Mrs. Bowring, evidently attracted by her at ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... standing round his sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibition of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to imply that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in gauze and spangles. This attitude gave a certain ironical force to Madame Munster's next words. "Now this is your circle," she said to her uncle. "This is your salon. These are your regular habitu; aaes, eh? ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... the women much more disposed to listen to anything I had to say than the men, who were in general so taken up with their traffic that they could think and talk of nothing else; the women, too, had more curiosity and more intelligence; the conversational powers of some of them I found to be very great, and yet they were destitute of the slightest rudiments of education, and were thieves by profession. At Madrid I had regular conversaziones, or, as they are called in Spanish, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... returning, in the general direction of Derby Wharf, when Jeremy Ammidon met a companion of past days at sea, and stopped for the inevitable conversational exchange. The latter, who had such a great spreading beard that Laurel couldn't determine whether or not he wore a ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain Delano turned curiously upon the attendant, then glanced inquiringly at his master; but, as if long wonted to these little informalities, neither master nor man seemed to ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... affectionately over the hammock, gently caressing the brown hair just beginning to silver about her forehead. "But it does amuse me so to hear a lady of your age and dignity indulge in such lavish conversational exercises." ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... Sister Agatha kick an orphan's bare toes, or his bare shin, with the toe of her boot; and at such times she could throw a formidable amount of venom into two or three words, spoken rather below than above the ordinary conversational pitch of her voice. But ceremonial floggings were unknown at St. Peter's. And indeed I can recall no breaches of discipline which seemed to demand ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy;—you may fill them up with what idea you like; it makes no difference, for there are no funds in the treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to conversation, as a mushroom does to a sauce. But it is no better than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the intellect, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Anne was averse to reading, spending her time at cards and frivolous pleasures. She was fond of etiquette, and exacting in trifles. She was praised for her piety, which would appear however to have been formal and technical. She was placid, phlegmatic, and had no conversational gifts. She played tolerably on the guitar, loved the chase, and rode with the hounds until disabled by the gout, which was brought about by the pleasures of the table. In 1683 she married Prince George of Denmark, and by him had thirteen children, not one of whom survived her; most of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... would give them time to realise the tremendous solemnity of the words they had just heard. There was dead, breathless silence at first, and then came a rustling sound, mingled with one of deep breathing. Then he began again in the same direct, conversational tone in which he had asked them to ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... little head, the arched eyebrows, the cheeks faintly touched with a healthy tan, the little waist, the slender but perfect figure, and the toe of a dainty shoe held me in an aphasic spell. But the laughing eyes brought me out of it, and I made one of the most brilliant conversational efforts ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... for publication, the aim has been to preserve, as much as possible, in vocabulary and idiom, the original folk-lore language, and to retain the conversational style of the teller of tales, in order that the sympathetic young reader may, in greater or less degree, be translated into the ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... extreme. Every body was sorry when he was consoled; for, since that time he has never made an observation worth recording. She was a very clever woman who reduced our friend to this abnormal state, though she grossly maltreated him; and, from close association, some of her conversational talent, perhaps insensibly, had got into his constitution; but it could not thrive in such an uncongenial soil, where there was nothing to nourish it. Some men, again, take the reckless and boisterous line, plunging for a while into all sorts of demoralization, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... him that he hadn't made the best use of his conversational opportunities, and for a time ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... your part), rely upon it that your auditors cannot possibly feel ennui. Every thing before us partakes of your enthusiasm: the wine becomes mellower, and sparkles with a ruddier glow; the flavour of the fruit is improved; and the scintillations of your conversational eloquence are scattered amidst my books, my busts, and my pictures. Proceed, I entreat you; but first, accept my libation offered up at the shrine of an ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... none more pure and noble than those I meet on this platform. I have seen our venerable President in converse with the highest of English nobility, and even the Duchess of Sutherland did not eclipse her in grace, dignity, and conversational power. Where are there any women, as wives and mothers, more beautiful in their home life than Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone, or Antoinette Brown Blackwell? Let the freedmen of the South Sea Islands testify to the faithfulness, the devotion, the patience, and tender mercy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... regularity and ease. Hence that singular accuracy of judgment, and that never-failing sense of propriety, for which she was distinguished. Hence the apparent absence of fatigue in her protracted conversations and conversational addresses. Hence the habitual control of her sanctified affections over her intellectual powers, so that she seemed ever ready, at the moment, for the call of duty, and especially to meet the claims of perishing souls. She seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, in the structure ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... me naked to the cold truth of life, and I may awaken from my dreaming to reality. That is possible. But now I see my course; now I feel the deep call of a duty I cannot resist." He was speaking softly and in hardly more than a conversational tone, with his hand at his side and his gloved claw behind him. He lifted his hand and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... mother's invariable rule," he chuckled, "never to get up to go at the end of one of your guest's conversational sprints, but always to wait until you can interrupt yourself, so to speak. Well—I don't mean any disrespect to the lady from Virginia, Andy, but I'm afraid mother'll have to make an exception to that rule, or else ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... he learned to talk out of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He smiled pleasantly, and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, and that nothing but familiarity with lightning could enable a man to handle his conversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, and said that about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fix me right, and he guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; and added that the first eight had got a little the start of him, so to speak, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... weaknesses, undoubtedly could have told such a story; it is pretty certain that Wordsworth could not. But Scott could tell a story as few other men who have ever drawn breath on the earth could tell it. He had been distinguished in the conversational branch of the art from his youth up, and though it was to be long before he could write a story in prose, he showed now, at the first attempt, how he could write ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... not reported at all, or in a manner too imperfect to be preserved without doing injustice to the author. No attempt has been made to collect from the cotemporaneous newspapers or Congressional registers, the short conversational speeches and remarks made by Mr. Webster, as by other members of Congress, in the progress of debate, and sometimes exercising greater influence on the result than the set speeches. Of the addresses to public meetings it ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... any charge of signalling, it will be well for the following conversational formula to be used before the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... conversational in form, which is always a most pleasing style for children, as it is the most natural. The work of the teacher is to awaken and stimulate interest, not to impart information. The attention of the child should be directed to what lies around him. He must observe, and think, and express ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long
... know—he needs no other defence than a reference to his paper. It is not on his account that I venture to allude to this subject; it is rather on yours, Mr. Editor, and with a view to the welfare of your paper. I cannot think that you or it will be benefited by converting conversational gossip about Shakspeare difficulties into "a duel in the form of a debate," seasoned with sarcasm, insinuation, and satiric point. This is not the kind of matter one expects to find in "N. & Q." neither do I think your pages ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... all, that week was one of the happiest in my life. The brothers were both men of enough ability and cultivation to be pleasant talkers, and Lucy could perform adequately the part of conversational accompanist, which, socially speaking, is all that is required of a woman. The meals and evenings passed quickly and agreeably; the mornings I spent in unending gossips with Lucy, or in games with the children, two bright boys of five and six years old. But the afternoons were ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... we all, blacks and whites, knelt down on the floor, while the old preacher made a short, heart-touching prayer. It was a simple, humble acknowledgment of the dependence of the creature on the Creator—of His right to give and to take away, and was uttered in a free, conversational tone, as if long communion with his Maker had placed the old negro on a footing of friendly familiarity with Him, and given the black slave the right to talk with the Deity as one man talks ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... 200 words with the right "punch" in the introduction is worth a dozen strung over as many dozen pages of copy paper with the real story in the last paragraph of each. Tell your story in simple, every-day conversational words: quit when you have finished. Relegate the details. Unless it is a case of identification in a murder mystery, or some similar big story, no one cares about the color of the man's hair. Get the principal facts in the ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... ... oh, yes. Well. A long time," said Tallis. "The Board of Strategy asked me to tell you," Tallis continued. "After all, my recommendation was partially responsible for the decision." He paused for a moment, but it was merely a conversational hesitation, not a ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... himself was the conversational leader. He went off on long tirades, and though Patty strove to follow his theories, they seemed to her vague and incomprehensible. She found herself getting sleepy, though she would have indignantly repudiated ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... her, and thrust one brown shoe after the other as near as she could to the wood fire that glimmered underneath the great, ornate, marble mantelpiece. Then she sat down again, and wondered what to say; for Morna was at once above and below the conversational average of her kind. Soon she was framing a self-conscious apology for premature intrusion—Mrs. Steel was so long in coming. But at last there was a rustle in the conservatory, and a slender figure in a big hat stood for an instant ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... be owned, that the conversational powers of our small society were limited. Very often some selfishness mingled with my sincere compassion for the prostrated sufferings of my Philadelphian friend of the tug-boat; for whenever his weary aching head would ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... are children, a pleasant custom for the breakfast hour is to have each in turn relate something new and instructive, that he or she has read or learned in the interval since the breakfast hour of the previous day. This stimulates thought and conversational power, while music, history, adventure, politics, and all the arts and sciences offer ample scope for securing ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... be stupidity and gloom, and a party silent and thumb-twisting, instead of gayly conversing, as it should be; so long as people do not come together easily—it is manifestly proper that the hostess should put her finger on the social pendulum, and give it a swing to start the conversational clock. All well-bred people recognize the propriety of speaking to even an enemy at a dinner-party, although they would suffer no recognition an hour later. The same principle holds good, of course, if, in the true exercise of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... down and eyed and tapped a small bronze slipper, while she ignored the reproachful glances of her mother at her rank desertion of conversational duties. Her father hardly noticed it. He himself so liked young men that he frequently forgot that his daughter and not himself might be the object of their quest. So he plunged cheerfully into an animated discussion ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... he met my eye. He winced slightly, but recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary. ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator, with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural conversational voice. He possessed the same keen Damascus blade of sarcasm when aroused. Undoubtedly he was the Sir Philip Sidney ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... talk with this man of the things that play so large a part in that life which so appealed to her; and, with Phil's ever-ready and hearty endorsement of Patches, she felt safe in permitting the friendship to develop. And Patches, quietly observing, with now and then a conversational experiment—at which game he was an adepts—came to understand, almost as well as if he had been told, Phil's love for Kitty and her attitude toward the cowboy—her one-time schoolmate and sweetheart. Many times when the three were together, and the talk, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... wide garish space: among the loungers of the lobby, all eyes were turned in that direction. There were salutations; the introduction of Mr. Canning to Mrs. Heth; inquiries after Miss Heth's health. Quite easily the square party resolved itself into two conversational halves. Mrs. Heth, it was clear from the outset, preferred Willie Kerr's talk above any other obtainable at that time and place. She was, and remained, absolutely ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Younger Man who recovered his conversational interest first. "So you think I'm a fool?" he resumed at last ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... appealed to me. There was something congenial in the Romans, and, indeed, in the Italians generally, so that I seemed to be renewing my acquaintance with people whom I had partly forgotten. I picked up the conversational language with unusual ease, perhaps owing to the drilling in Latin which my father had given me; and I liked the easy, objectless ways of the people, and the smiles which so readily took the place of the sallow gravity which their faces wore in repose. But it was the Transteverini ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... afternoon, that the coupe had discharged two people, and had only one passenger inside—a monstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which no man could see the ends when he had his hat on—I took advantage of its better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (who was very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, until nearly eleven o'clock at night, when the driver reported that he couldn't think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a halt at a ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... energy is one of the greatest importance, for all beings have but a limited supply of energy and our problem must ever be how best to husband this as a wise man should study how best to spend his limited income. One must not only consider what is called for in ordinary conversational speaking, or in singing in a small room, but also when the greatest possible efforts are demanded. In all cases when movements are concerned, indeed whenever activity of any kind psychic or physiological is involved the law of ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... de Juluapa, lately dead, is said to have been also a woman of great talent and extraordinary conversational powers; she is another of the ancient noblesse who has dropped off. The physician who attended her in her last illness, a Frenchman of the name of Plan, in great repute here, has sent in a bill to her executors of ten thousand dollars, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... proof against all possible shocks: she visibly started at sight of me and my Z. I explained that I had cut myself shaving. I said, with an attempt at lightness, that shy men ought always to cut themselves shaving: it made such a good conversational opening. "But surely," she said after a pause, "you don't cut yourself on purpose?" She was an abysmal fool. I didn't think so at the time. She was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. This fact hallowed her. That we didn't get on at all well was a ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... period extended from 1835 to the time of his marriage, and produced some nine plays, not all of which, however, were intended for the stage. "Paracelsus," the first of the series, has been fairly described as a "conversational drama," and "Pippa Passes," though it has been staged, is essentially a poem to read. The historical tragedy of "Strafford" has been impressively performed, but "King Victor and King Charles," "The Return of the Druses," "Colombe's Birthday," "A Soul's Tragedy," and "Luria," ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... window' on the strength of his success with 'John Bull,' and spent much more than he had. He mingled freely in all the London circles of thirty years ago, whose glory is still fresh in the minds of most of us, and everywhere his talent as an improvisatore, and his conversational powers, made him ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... piece of steel in his eye?'—'Who has gone to the hospital?'—'How many came to-day in the carry-all?' were almost the only questions we could ask. A man falling from the new prison, and breaking his bones in a fashion not to be approved, was a conversational godsend. One day the retiring tide left a small box on the sands at the bottom of the house of correction wharf, which was picked up by a convict, and found to contain the bequest of some woman who had 'loved not wisely, but too ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of metallurgy, and a Mr. Winscombe, come out to the Provinces in connection with the Maryland boundary dispute, accompanied by his wife. All this Howat Penny regarded with profound distaste; necessary social and conversational forms repelled him. And it annoyed his father when he sat, apparently morose, against the wall, or ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... The Athenian orators. Excellence to which eloquence attained at. Dr Johnson's contemptuous derision of the civilisation of the people of. Their books and book education. An Athenian day. Defects of the Athenians' conversational education. The law of ostracism at Athens. Happiness of the Athenians in their term of government. Their naval superiority. Ferocity of the Athenians in war. And of their dependencies in seditions. Cause of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and sang, or lay and cried herself, in sheer despair of rest; to wandering away on lonely walks; to stepping often into a neighbor's to discuss the election or the typhoid in the village; to forgetting that his wife's conversational capacities could extend beyond Biddy and teething; to forgetting that she might ever hunger for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the caresses, all the silly little lovers' habits of their early married ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... earl made rapid progress in the good opinion both of Mr. Bloundel and his wife. Adapting his discourse precisely to their views, and exerting his matchless conversational powers to their full extent, he so charmed them that they thought they could listen to him for ever. While thus engaged, he contrived ever and anon to steal a glance at Amabel, and on these occasions, his eyes were quite ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... immediately surrounded. In the close press of friends she did not notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting on her side of it, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... said Lord Dumbello, and then he adjusted his white cravat and touched up his whiskers. Having got so far, he did not proceed to any other immediate conversational efforts; nor did Griselda. But he grouped himself again as became a marquis, and gave very intense satisfaction to ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... priest, who most civilly enquired whether he could help me in any way during my stay at Spalatro. He proved to be a person of much intelligence, and, notwithstanding that his knowledge of English extended only to a few conversational words, he had read Sir Gardner Wilkinson's work on Dalmatia, and, as his remarks showed, not without profiting thereby. At 4.30 the same afternoon we arrived at Lissa, the military port of Austria in ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... are not over-acute, tells me that he shudders at what is forced on his notice. The perfect absence of publicity, the silence of the press and of the tribune, and even of the bar—for no speeches, except on the most trivial subjects, are allowed to be reported—give full room for conversational exaggeration. Bad as things are, they are made still worse. Now this we cannot bear. It hurts our strongest passion—our vanity. We feel that we are exploites by Persigny, Fould, and Abbattucci, and a swarm of other adventurers. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... from such rare and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human being[10] ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with Dare on the subject (which will be necessary before you write to your uncle Francis), it would be as well not to refer to it before—in fact, not to mention it to Mrs. Alwynn. Your dear aunt's warm heart and conversational bent make it almost impossible for her to refrain from speaking of anything that interests her; and indeed, even if she does not say anything in so many words, I have observed that opinions are sometimes formed by others as to the subject on which she is silent, by her manner when ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... therefore, that she dances well, that she has a certain degree of looks, that she is fairly intelligent. The next most important thing, after dancing well, is to be unafraid, and to look as though she were having a good time. Conversational cleverness is of no account in a ballroom; some of the greatest belles ever known have been as stupid as sheep, but they have had happy dispositions and charming and un-self-conscious manners. There is one thing every ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... impetuous brain. All his life he needed this outlet after concentrated mental labour; and sometimes in a friend's drawing-room, if he knew himself to be surrounded only by intimates, he would give full vent to his conversational powers. On these occasions he would carry his hearers away with him, often against their better judgment, by his eloquence and verve; would send them into fits of hearty laughter by his sallies; his store of droll anecdotes, his jollity and gaiety; and would display his ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... see present, if they had not treated me as an impostor as soon as they saw me. Well,"—here he folded his hands on the ledge of the witness-box, and quietly fixing his eyes on the examining counsel, proceeded to speak in a calm, conversational tone—"the story is this: I left England about five-and-thirty years ago after certain domestic unpleasantnesses which I felt so much that I determined to give up all connection with my family and to start an absolutely new life of my own. I went away to Australia and ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... each other? What is the use of teaching a lad grammar before he has a working knowledge of the language? What is the use of expecting a boy to take an interest in the political arguments of Cicero or the dinner table wisdom of Horace? His method was the conversational. For beginners he prepared an elementary Latin Grammar, containing, besides a few necessary rules, a number of sentences dealing with events and scenes of everyday life. It was divided into seven parts. In the first were nouns and adjectives together; ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the character of Hayley, which few possess by nature, and still fewer attain to by art, was an eminently great conversational ability. It was scarcely possible for any one to be in his company an hour, how distinguished soever his own gifts or acquirements might be in the possession and exercise of colloquial powers, without being conscious of his superiority in this ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It happens every day—all the aristocrats land this way, when they come over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... confidential, I put crafty leading questions to such of my fellow travelers as were over-sized and made mental notes of their answers for my own subsequent use. Since the Eighteenth Amendment put the nineteenth hole out of commission, prohibition and how to evade it are the commonest of all conversational topics among those moving about from place to place in America; but the subject of what a man eats, and more particularly what he eats for breakfast, runs it a close ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... of a dinner lies in the selection of the guests, with regard to their congeniality to each other, and their conversational powers and varying attainments. It is better to have a few at a time, perhaps eight, as a larger ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... better what one has oneself contributed to the discussion than what other people have said; and if you can send guests away from a gathering feeling that they have talked well, they will be disposed in that genial mood to concede conversational merit to the other participators. A naive and simple-minded friend of my own once cast an extraordinary light on the subject, by saying to me, the day after an agreeable symposium at my own house, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... replied, "Fate is often unkind." Then he asked if we were going to London. On being told that we were, he spoke for five minutes about the things we should see in the Metropolis. His style was not conversational, but after the manner of a man who was much used to speaking in public or to receiving delegations. The sentences were stately, the voice rather loud and declamatory. His closing words were: "Yes, gentlemen, the way to see London is from the top of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... conversational gifts, however, his audience one by one dropped off in sleep, leaving him sole monarch of the watch-fire, and—what he thought more of—a small brass kettle nearly full of brandy-and-water. This latter, I perceived, he produced when all was tranquil, and seemed, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... undertake to lower myself by making any promises to a sneak," retorted Dick, still in an undertone. "But I warn you that any further conversation I have with you will be carried on in ordinary conversational tones. And if you undertake to remain, we shall be obliged to inform our hostess that we regret our inability to ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... A maid-servant of ultra conversational tendencies gratuitously furnished most of these valued details, after Michael J. Cassidy had ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... words was a thing she prized beyond count. It made Mrs. Morris nervous, drained her mind's treasury, and sent her conversational powers borrowing and begging; Isabel it awed; Arthur it tantalized; to Godfrey it was an appetizing drollery; but to Ruth it was dearer and ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... by bits in conversational spirals, it proved to be that he had decided that the carriage needed three horses, which he had known all along; and, chiefly, that he had desired to sleep upon a little scheme for exploiting the strangers. How long he had intended ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... her natural reluctance to be lively. She said to herself that she was rapidly developing into a fogey, and must rigorously combat the grievous tendency. By a sheer exertion of will-power she drove herself into a different, and conversational, mood. The Marchesino politely responded. He was perfectly self-possessed, but he was not light-hearted. The unusual effort of being thoughtful had, perhaps, distressed or even outraged his brain. And the worst of it was that he was ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... a laugh, "it's probably because I like to hear myself talk to you. Besides, I've always the hope that you'll suddenly become conversational, and that's a possibility exciting enough ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... of the ornaments of a society of what may be termed conversational wits, died on the 19th of December, at the advanced age of eighty-six. He was the friend and companion, hand impari passu, of Jeckyll, Mackintosh, Jeffrey, Alvanley, Sydney Smith, and others of that brilliant ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... too hard on yourself, Billy." Nancy soothed him sweetly,—Billy was not one of the people to whom she habitually allowed full conversational leeway: "Swear you won't tell Caroline ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... line, both rimed and unrimed, is the most flexible and best adapted to all kinds of subjects that English versification possesses. Its powers range through the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare, the dignity of the sonnet, and the grandeur of Milton, to the satire of Pope and the informal conversational verse of Mr. Robert Frost. The 4-stress line is too short, the 6-stress is too long (when it does not split into two equal parts); the 5-stress seems to hit the golden average. It is less inclined to 'go' by itself, and therefore is suitable for slow movements; on the other hand, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... had been given yesterday, the day before, would be given today, tomorrow, and the next day. It was the boss item on the conversational programme until further orders. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to San Mateo, where it appeared the disorganized party had prolonged their visit to accept an invitation to dine with a local magnate, she was pleasantly conversational with the slightly abstracted Grant. She was so sorry to have given them all this trouble and anxiety! Of course she ought to have waited at the fork of the road, but she had never doubted but she could rejoin them presently ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... dawning upon me for a long time past that I have indulged and spoiled you, with the result that you are growing into a most impertinent young rascal. Have the goodness for the future, sir, to allow me to speak for myself. When I require your conversational assistance, I ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... I have no objection. Only I warn you, she is not conversational; you will make no good of it, and you will be disappointed; perhaps that will be best. Please remember, I ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... I'm not a very good model without posing," said Bellingham. "What do you want me to do for him? Take him to the club? Barker's not very conversational." ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... course. But if you go from one shop to another, or linger at a visit, fancy knows no bounds, for there is no tariff and the coachman's imagination is apt to be vivid; and as you can't trust anything else, you must trust to your conversational power to get you out ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... know that there may be much ability Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme; But there's a conversational facility, Which may round off an hour upon a time. Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility In mine irregularity of chime, Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,[nn] Just as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... took the part of Joseph Surface, in our representation of 'The School for Scandal,' was an unmarried gentleman of high standing, socially and politically, of middle age, fine presence, and superior abilities. Under polished manners and captivating conversational powers, were concealed persistent passions and a conscience of marble. Before even Evelyn suspected it, I was aware that he had resolved on subduing her to his own designs, for I seemed in all things relating to her to be ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... terrible for you," put in Ussher, who had a habit of conversational reversion, "but I bet it was no joke in the tool-house! How an intelligent woman like you, Christine, could dream of making a man spend the night in that hole, ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... special remark, put in by way of marginal incidental note, from a practical manufacturing Quaker, whom, as he is anonymous, we will call Friend Prudence. Prudence keeps a thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach them to him; has provided conversational soirees; play-grounds, bands of music for the young ones; went even 'the length of buying them a drum:' all which has turned out to be an excellent investment. For a certain person, marked here by a black stroke, whom we shall name Blank, living over the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... discovery of the false position assumed by this young man, Louise seemed to like his attentions and to approve his evident admiration for her. His ways might be affected and effeminate and his conversational powers indifferent; but his bandaged wrist was a constant reminder to all the nieces that he possessed courage and ready wit, and it was but natural that he became more interesting to them because just now he was to an extent helpless, and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... eyes and fair hair, to start his career in the House, and to end it, so far as the novel is concerned, lying wounded in a hospital, where his fiancee, a famous singer, happened to be a nurse in the same ward. Nor does the young man disdain the threadbare conversational cliche. "Don't you think there is something elemental in most of us which no veneer of civilisation or artificial living can ever deaden?" he says in one place (rather as if veneer were a kind of rat poison). Still bolder, on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... learned and closely-reasoned discourse, seasoned with scraps of Latin, or a political essay on the events of the day, it was a sermon such as had been more common in the beginning of the century—simple, almost conversational, striking, and full of Gospel truth. Such a sermon Jenny Lavender had never ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... had expected. Not a "pious" atmosphere at all! I saw a very tall and heavy gentleman, dressed in black, who sat, wholly at ease, on the table! One hand was in his pocket, one foot swung clear of the ground; and he was not preaching, but talking in an easy, conversational tone to some forty young men who sat intent on his words. I was too excited to listen to what he was saying, I was making a vain attempt to classify him. But I remember the thought, for it struck me with force,—that if Christianity were so thoroughly discredited by evolution, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... placed, and the bait laid next day. Meanwhile, that afternoon, the doctor called me aside, and put me through a conversational sort of examination. I was studiously modest, but being very fairly grounded by the admirable system of teaching pursued by Miss Frankland, I not only satisfied him, but he took occasion to compliment Miss Frankland very highly for the admirable groundwork she had ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... with that well-bred cynicism which a new school has not yet succeeded in imitating. They were of the old school, these two; and their worldliness, their cynicism, their conversational attitude, belonged to a bygone period. It was a cleaner period in some ways—a period devoid of slums. Ours, on the contrary, is an age of slums wherein we all dabble to the detriment of our ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Virgil, Tacitus, and Cicero, and now and then, forgetful of the turmoil around him, he improved his acquaintance with the classics. He also studied the Spanish language, with the result that he acquired an excellent conversational knowledge of it. The lad had opinions and the courage of them, and when he saw the cause of the Spanish beginning to fail he was exasperated by the apathy of the Whigs at home, and accordingly, with the audacity of youth, wrote to ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... pulled at his moustache. So did his aide-de-camp, who seemed to be a man of but little initiative and conversational resource. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... personal lines that might lead into something that would justify a gesture towards her. It began to work on him. The original clinical urge to touch her just to see what reaction would obtain changed into a personal urge that grew higher as he found that he could not kick the conversational ball in that direction. The idea of putting an arm about her waist as he had seen men embrace their girls on television was a pleasing thought; he wanted to find out if kissing was as much fun as it ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... despair of imparting to this cold pen-and-ink record of her story the inimitable conversational grace with which she embellished it. It made an indelible impression on my memory, and if I have never before repeated it, it was from a lurking fear that—though the old lady assured us it was "not to be found in any book or newspaper"—it might have found its way into print. However, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... looks more conventional and readable. I have not done so, except in one flagrant case, because I suspect that Kingston may have been experimenting in some way. On the other hand it may be that he had contracted to write a book of so many pages, and this was a way of condensing a long conversational exchange. ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... eyes down from the ceiling, looked at the big man who was calling out to him; then said in a conversational voice: "Objection sustained." Then looking at the other man, "Change the ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... strikingly contrasted with the late lively dance and its following conversational bustle, now sat on every tongue; the self-convicted were ashamed of their conduct, the doubtful satisfied, and the friendly delighted; and desirous of stamping an important lesson, in the moment of awakened feeling and intelligence, Mr. Harewood continued to say—"Human nature, alas! is ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... reveal the dark secret that you abide by the Ten Commandments. Man must not suspect that you are unattainable. He must just think that he has not attained you—yet. If you want to compete with the flappers, you've got to play by the flapper rules. Check your conversational inhibitions! ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... best talkers. As for your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at—like the flowers in the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... difference in content and mode of teaching. A student who takes French or German because he wants enough mastery of these languages to enable him to read in foreign journals about the progress of his specialty must be given a course which appeals to the eye and minimizes the grammatical and conversational phases of ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Andrews who was not talkative. She made a conversational sort of remark after she had ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... diary—which from this time on was kept with less regularity than before—is that Isaac not only maintained his abstemious habits after his return, but increased their rigor. For a robust man, working hard for many hours out of every twenty-four, and deprived of all the pleasant relaxations, literary, conversational and musical, to which he had been accustoming himself for many months, the choice of such a diet as is described in the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... good reading knowledge of English, French, and German. Those few who have had good and sufficient teaching, or who have been abroad and lived in Occidental lands, have in addition secured ready conversational use of the various languages. Indeed, some have contended that since the Japanese learn foreign languages more easily than foreigners learn Japanese, they have greater linguistic powers than the foreigner. It should be borne in mind, however, that in such a comparison, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... without a tinge of fanaticism or apparent excitement. In 1844 I made acquaintance with Mr. Hope, and met him occasionally in society. He was all that his appearance would have led one to expect; the charm of his manner enhanced the effect of his conversational powers. [Footnote: Lady Georgiana Fullerton to Lady Henry ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... illustrious; he had all the serenity of age, and sought in the company of a young and lovely woman merely a passing ray of beauty to enchant his eyes, and the charm of her society during the calm and conversational hours at the close of day. His voice was deep, as though it came from the heart, and his conversation flowed with the graceful, yet serious, ease of a mind which seeks to unbend in repose. Honesty was stamped ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... one was delighted, I'm sure, to have an opportunity to exercise her conversational gifts for the benefit of a single man instead ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... the long contest for his favor between the Muses of Tragedy and Comedy by inexorably turning his back on both. He did not cease to be the delight of polished society, thanks to his geniality and to literary and conversational powers capable of making him the intimate of Johnson and Reynolds. More fortunate in his temperament and temper than his modern successor, Macready, he never fretted that his profession made him a vagabond ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Madonnas should have been formed by the selection of chance daubs of paint." The remark of Herschel's, quoted in "Life and Letters," II., page 241, that the "Origin" illustrates the "law of higgledy-piggledy," is probably a conversational variant of the Laputan comparison which gave rise to the passage in the "Descent of Man" (see ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... I especially recall George William Curtis, a genius of the first brilliancy and remarkable withal for his versatile conversational powers. I was talking to him on one occasion when someone inquired as to his especial work in the co-operative fold of Brook Farm. His laughing reply was, "Cleaning door knobs." George Ripley was a distinguished scholar and a prominent journalist. His wife, a daughter of Francis Dana, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... that the time came, long before the end of the voyage, when it was felt that in the interest of the common welfare, something must be done about the amigo. At the conversational end of the doctor's table, where he was discussed whenever the racks were not on, and the talk might have languished without their inspiration, his badness was debated at every meal. Some declared him the worst boy in the world, and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... "promise and performance." The local attendance was representative, including quite a number of our leading citizens, with their wives, and the editors of our contemporaries the Herald and the Bee. The meeting was a very interesting one, more especially the "conversational" portion, in which free discussion was solicited. This was opened by Hon. E. Rosewater, who spoke in response to a very general call. His address of half an hour in length was marked by apparent sincerity, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and dragged his three-legged stool into a corner of the wide chimney, and Thompson, after moving the things away to a corner, sat down opposite, mending his snow-shoes with a bundle of buckskin thongs. They did not talk much in that family of evenings: men of this class are not conversational in their habits, and a stranger who should look in would be apt to think them an unsocial set. Old Platte puffed steadily at his pipe, blinking and winking at the fire, which he poked occasionally with a stick or fed with a log of wood from the pile by his side. Thompson worked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... with Mildred only yesterday, as it were—the good woman was actually pleased when Caroline "held up" a stout person in a fur coat and a motor veil to add pleasantly: "I suppose you are expecting visitors this week?" Which remark is the recognized conversational small change in Thorhaven, during spring and summer, scarcely more personal than the "Fine day!" of the country labourers who live in the still untouched country beyond ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... uncommon sprightliness and vivacity he displays in conversation—the life and soul of all that is elegant and classical, and the willing participator and promoter of a good joke. Suffice it to say, the reception was flattering in the extreme, the entertainment conversational and highly intellectual. The moments flew so quickly, that I could have wished the hour of eleven, the period of the King's retiring, had been extended to the noontide of the morrow. But is this all, I think I can ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... consideration; and her language indicated familiarity with cultivated society; yet the anxious expression habitual to her countenance, and the bustling air of her vocation which quickly succeeded conversational repose, hinted but too plainly straitened circumstances and daily toil. But what struck her present curious visitor more than these casual traits were the remains of great beauty in the still lovely contour of the face, the refined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Charlie's wager, with the object of it, Injun, sitting on a cracker box and gazing solemnly at nothing in particular. The other men all looked expectantly at Bill, who fidgeted a moment in his chair, then started, in what he intended for a light, conversational tone. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... conversational eminence of Mr. Coleridge, and from men the best qualified to decide, must satisfy every mind, that in this one quality he scarcely ever had a superior, or perhaps an equal. In the 103rd No. of the "Quarterly Review," there is a description of his conversation, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... door which is sealed forever upon the dead, and upon the Ka, the spiritual double," he said in a low conversational tone. "It has some remarkable representations of the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... end of his conversational rope with Porter, other guests arrived. Among them was Dr. Lindsay, a famous specialist in throat diseases. The older doctor nodded genially to Sommers with the air of saying: 'I am so glad to find you here. This is the right place for ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is taken to call is of an abnormally lively conversational habit, quick to think of something that may pass for a contribution to current thought, and even quicker to get it out, he had best accept his position as merely decorative, and try to be as decorative as possible. He should be so quick that the first words of his sentence have leaped into life ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him. Evidently, they had just risen from luncheon in the restaurant, and meant to dispose themselves for a chat. It was equally clear that each word they uttered in an ordinary conversational tone must be audible to him. They were appropriating chairs which would place the plumes of their hats within a few inches of his feet. When seated, their faces would be hidden from him, save for a possible ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... did not pretend to any fluent command of conversational German, he read it with great ease. His knowledge of German literature was, indeed, too much limited by his rare opportunities for commanding anything like a well-mounted library. And particularly it surprised us that Coleridge knew little or nothing of John Paul (Richter). But his acquaintance with ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... not like the society of Mrs. Rocket, the nurse, whom the Doctor had chosen "on account of the absence of her conversational powers." Mrs. Physick was accordingly always trying to get me into her chamber to sit with her. Mrs. Rocket accordingly did not like me, and was always trying to get me out. Between these two contending powers above, and the butcher, the baker, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... happen." He smiled. "If anything does, and you are conscious enough to know it, you can call my butler by means of an electrical device I have perfected simply by speaking his name, Peter, in an ordinary conversational voice. But I don't see how anything ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker
... the value of female influence. He dressed in the height of fashion—he adapted his language and sentiments to the tone of those around the Court. He was a man of considerable conversational talents; "his deportment," says his biographer, "was graceful and manly." When he was first presented to Louis the Fourteenth, who was desirous of asking some questions concerning the invasion of Scotland, he ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... atmosphere in which he lived gave tone and colour and direction to his studies, one thing of course acting and reacting on another. The special note of his books, apart from his remarkable gift of conversational epigrammatic style, which gives a peculiar zest to the writing, is the quality of scientific dispassionate description of matters which were hardly thought of previously as subjects of scientific study. This is specially the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Lady Ella a mere conversational stop-gap, to be dropped now that the real business could be commenced. She turned her pretty profile to that lady, and obliged the bishop with a compact summary of all that had preceded his arrival. "I have been telling Lady Ella," she said, "I've taken a house, fu'nitua ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... Sancho, in a mild and conversational tone, sitting up and touching one paw to his head, as if he saluted by taking off ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... grey-bearded, dignified, and responsible in bearing and speech, conversationally reasonable in tone. There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost boyish with plump, smooth cheeks and a dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks as if he knows it: he, too, is conversational, almost jerky, in speech, but with a flavour of bitterness added ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... apprehensive of some renewal of the topic that he had thus invited, and he began to move hastily down the slope, supporting her with care, but with a certain urgency too. He was obviously eager to terminate the conversational opportunity, and when it was requisite to pause to rest he improved the respite by beckoning to one of the stablemen passing near, bound toward a pasture in the rear of the hotel with a halter in his hand, and ordering him to investigate the building to discover ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to you what a mere drought and famine my life has been, as regards that multitude of matters which I fancy one absorbs when one is in an atmosphere of art, or when one is in conversational relation with men of letters, with travellers, with persons who have either seen, or written, or done large things. Perhaps you know that, with us of the younger generation in the South since the war, pretty much the whole of life has been ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the Ambassador and his grandfather were insistent. Ultimately he found himself seated drearily at a long table in a stone-walled room lighted by very smoky torches. Don Loris, jittering, displayed a sort of professional conversational charm. He was making an urgent effort to overcome the bad effect of past actions by conversational brilliance. The Lady Fani sat quietly with jewels at her throat. She looked most often at her plate. The talk of the oldsters became profound. They talked ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... do you think we are?" I asked, Mr. Brown having retired from the conversational portion of his duty in deep disgust at the idea of having his gentlemanly address taken ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... with a jerk, looked at her and laughed. "If my sister Frederica were here," he explained, "she would warn you, out of a long knowledge of my conversational habits, that now was the time for you to ask me,—firmly, you know,—if I'd been to see Maude Adams in this new thing of hers, or something like that. In Frederica's absence, I suppose it's only fair to warn you myself. Have you been ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... drunkards and children in their hour of need. From the first touch of her hand and the first look into her face Skippy knew that a crisis had arrived. Mr. Tuptale was so placidly and professionally at ease and Miss Tupper so nervously and unsibilantly conversational that the conversation bubbled on like a kettle steaming in a distant room. He nodded once or twice, Mr. Tuptale fingered a magazine while Jennie ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... metaphysicians. On the same principle it is entirely likely that the American girl, who talks so much, says many more foolish things than the English one who, if she can help it, never talks at all. The American girl is only a girl after all, and because she has acquired a conversational fluency which the Englishwoman will only arrive at twenty years later, it is not just to suppose that she must also have acquired an additional twenty years' maturity ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... conversational powers failed him. Where was Beatrice? she ought to be back from school. It was holiday time ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... THE SLEEVE.—A writer in Notes and Queries gives an instance of Curry's wit, introduced after a defeat in a conversational contest with Lady Morgan. "It was the fashion then for ladies to wear very short sleeves; and Lady Morgan, albeit not a young woman, with true provincial exaggeration, wore none—a mere strap over her shoulders. Curry was walking away from her little coterie, when she called out, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... whirled with a little squeal and lashed out at him; but her heels were carefully aimed wide of the mark and Alcatraz merely tossed his nose; plainly she was a flirt. He pressed a little closer to the fence and urged friendliness with a conversational whinny. They were not averse, coming towards him with eyes that glimmered in the darkness, retreating often and coming on again, until he had touched noses with them all. It was extremely pleasant ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... an expert, the experience, to me, was very like hard work. Till then I had thought speech-making was a sort of conversational whist, that any one could cut in at it. I perceive now that it is an Art of conventions remote from anything that comes out of an inkpot, and of colours hard to control. The Canadians seem to like listening to speeches, and, though this is by no means a national vice, they make ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... of this remarkable man few traces remain. One of his earliest recorded observations was the simple exclamation, full of heart-felt delight, 'Look at Baby. Funny Baby.' Here we see the first hint of that ineffable conversational modesty, that shy social self-effacement, which has ever hidden his light under a bushel. His mother also recounts with apparent amusement an incident connected with his imperious demand for his father's top-hat. 'Give me that hat, please.' 'No, dear, you mustn't have ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... about that," Thurston said in a friendly conversational tone. "I shouldn't wonder if we've got more in common than you'd fancy. Now I'll tell you right out, I like you. I've always liked you, and what's more I always shall. Whatever ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... at 5.30 A.M., with the words, "Eke! me gong veto," (Hullo! it is night already). He means, "Why, we ought to be off, we shall never reach the end of our journey before dark." But how neatly and prettily he expresses his thought! I assure you, civilised languages, for common conversational purposes needed by travellers, &c., are clumsy contrivances! Of course you know all this a hundred times better than I do. I only illustrate my idea of a grammar as a means of teaching others the form of the mould in which the Melanesian's mind is cast. I think I ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was fast losing the welcome given him on his father's account. But in a few moments Annie rallied and made unwonted efforts to banish the general embarrassment, and with partial success, for Gregory had tact and good conversational powers if he chose to exert them. When, soon after, they adjourned to the parlor, outward ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... his sister were extremely conversational, they were less lively, and less cheerful, than usual. Tom had no idea that this originated with Ruth, but took it for granted that he was rather dull himself. In truth he was; for the lightest cloud upon the Heaven of her quiet mind, cast its ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... not unremarkable that we should find in Milton and in Paradise Lost the best specimen of pure style. He was schoolmaster in a pedantic age, and there is nothing so unclassical—nothing so impure in style—as pedantry. The out-of-door conversational life of Athens was as opposed to bookish scholasticism as a life can be. The most perfect books have been written not by those who thought much of books, but by those who thought little, by those who were under the restraint of a sensitive talking world, to which books had contributed ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Bagby tells us, did not argue an intimate personal relation, as the fancy of the brilliant editor of the Examiner was apparently changeable, and wavered when he discovered that his assistant neither played chess nor talked sufficiently to inspire him to conversational excellence. But the key opened to the younger man, whenever he so willed, the pleasant three-storied brick house on Broad Street where the valiant editor kept bachelor's hall in a manner that would suggest ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... short and she went on alone. His last words had impressed her. Everything he had said seemed somehow to have a special meaning under its obvious conversational sense. Till she went in at the door of the cottage she felt his eyes ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... Bansley, all writers of minor and forgotten poems. John Heywood, called the Epigrammatist, was of a somewhat higher order. He was the favourite of Sir Thomas More and the pensioner of Henry VIII. He gained favour partly through his conversational humour, and partly through his writings. He is the author of various comedies; of six hundred epigrams, most of them very poor; of a dialogue, in verse, containing all the proverbs then afloat in the language; ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan |
