"Speech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waist, her head drooped upon her bosom—she did not speak—she appeared scarcely to feel. For a moment, life and all its pulses seemed resolutely at a stand; and with some apprehensions, the youth drew her to his bosom, and spoke with words full of tenderness. She made no answer to his immediate speech; but her hands, as if unconsciously, struck the spring which locked the casket that hung upon the chain, and the miniature lay open before her, the dim light of the moon shining down upon it. She reclosed it suddenly, and undoing it from the chain, placed it ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Her speech, after Antony has expired in her arms, I have always regarded as one of the most wonderful in Shakspeare. Cleopatra is not a woman to grieve silently. The contrast between the violence of her passions and the weakness ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the vision on the prophet.—The vision kindled as with a flash Isaiah's consciousness of sin. He expressed it in regard to his words rather than his works, partly because in one aspect speech is even more accurately than act a cast, as it were, of character, and partly because he could not but feel the difference between the mighty music that burst from these pure and burning lips and the words that flowed from and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... nuts came later, and then all these good things were washed down with cider and claret. The toasts were: "Vermont," H. N. Hibbard; "Clergymen of Vermont," Rev. G. N. Boardman; "Stumps of Vermont," E. B. Sherman; "The Star that never sets," W. W. Chandler. After the speech-making, Jules Lombard, robed in black and wearing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles upon the breast of his Prince Albert coat, sang "America" and a pretty Scottish serenade. Among those present were E. G. Keith, II, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... bringest me of my release from yonder dog of the Thakafites."[FN96] After this, the Commander of the Faithful, Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, heard of her beauty and loveliness, her stature and symmetry, her sweet speech and the amorous grace of her glances and sent to her, to ask her in marriage;—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... touched by his father's farewell speech; and had there been any other drawing to keep him at home, he certainly would have remained. As it was, he soon gathered together his belongings, and while still in his thirteenth year, said good-by to his people, and went away to work for ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... enthusiastic maiden said, in a confidential moment, that he seemed to her exactly like Goethe without any of his horrid immorality. Neither is he a technical philosopher, a dreary, hurrying man, travel-stained by faring through the ultimate, spectacled, cadaverous, uncertain of movement, inarticulate of speech. No, my philosopher is a trim, well-brushed man of the world, rather scrupulous about social conventions, as vigorous as Mr. Greatheart, and with a tenderness for the feebler sort of pilgrims. To-day he was blithe and yet ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... beside Sydney, while we were not far away. Evidently he had been saving up a speech for the occasion and now was ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... staff. Who can the rest of the people be? However, never mind, I will receive them anyway." We helped her to mount her throne upon the dais, fixed her clothes, and handed her the paper containing the speech she was to give. Then we went back of the screen, with the Young Empress. It was so very quiet, not a sound anywhere, that we could hear the boots of the visitors as they walked over the stones in the courtyard. We were peeping from behind the screen, and could see several of the Princes mounting ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... and her angry words: "Well, I'm a sport and you ain't!" He remembered also rebuking her priggishly for unintelligible language and mincing away. He read the letter again in the light of this flash of memory. The only difference between it and the childish speech lay in the fact that instead of a declaration of contrasts, she now uttered a declaration of similitudes. They were both "sports." There she was wrong. Doggie shook his head. In her sense of the word ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... body. Her soft eyes contained in their liquid lustre no suggestion of the knowledge of disappointment. She had been troubled in a way by doubt and longing, but these had made no deeper impression than could be traced in a certain open wistfulness of glance and speech. The mouth had the expression at times, in talking and in repose, of one who might be upon the verge of tears. It was not that grief was thus ever present. The pronunciation of certain syllables gave to her lips this peculiarity of formation—a formation as suggestive ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... these boys had been born and brought up near the seacoast of New England, and not a few marine figures of speech were mingled in the family talk. So Charlie took up the parable and gloomily said: "We are as good as castaways in this big ocean of a city, with never a soul to throw us a spar or give us a hand. I never felt so blue in all my life. Look at those children ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... in 1861. Mr. Gallatin had conceived an intense hostility to Mr. Chase, and inspired Mr. Brooks to make in the course of the debate on the bank bill some unfounded charges against the Secretary. The speech of Mr. Brooks was a general attack upon the financial policy of the administration directed principally against the Legal-tender Act, and at the same time a qualified defense of the State bank system. He asserted that the government could have ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... demoniacal contrivance at the moment when her testimony was required in court. 'Being brought into court at the trial, she suddenly fell into her fits, and being carried out of the court again, within the space of half an hour she came to herself and recovered her speech; and thereupon was immediately brought into the court, and asked by the Court whether she was in condition to take an oath and to give evidence. She said she could. But when she was sworn and asked ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... the whole of Europe had declared war against him, and in a final impassioned speech he turns to his ministers and to the representatives of his people: "Help me to save France!" he begs, "afterwards we'll ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... with love my bosom warm'd Had of fair truth unveil'd the sweet aspect, By proof of right, and of the false reproof; And I, to own myself convinc'd and free Of doubt, as much as needed, rais'd my head Erect for speech. But soon a sight appear'd, Which, so intent to mark it, held me fix'd, That of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... nightingale is pouring out her love in song. Guarini says that if the bird had human soul, it would exclaim, Ardo d'amore. Tasso sees it flying from branch to branch. Guarini teases our sense of mental vision by particularizing pine and beech and myrtle. The same is true of Linco's speech in general when compared with Dafne's on the ruling power of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Speech had broken the tension under which Barbara had been laboring; the flow of words through her lips stimulated her thoughts and sent them skittering back to the salient incidents of her enforced confinement; they brought into her consciousness ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and to deal with each separately. This is a distinction which would be out of place if we had to do with any European, or indeed most Oriental languages. Writing, in its origin, is merely a symbolic representation of speech. But in Chinese, as we shall see, for reasons connected with the peculiar nature ot the script, the two soon began to move along independent and largely divergent lines. This division, moreover, will enable us to employ different ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... plain, Severus, I my torture show,— Tho' flame leap up no more, the embers glow; Far other speech and voice, and mien were mine, Could I forget that once thou call'dst me thine! Tho' reason rules, yes, gains the mastery No queen benignant, but a tyrant she! Oh, if I conquer—if the strife I gain, Yet memory for aye is linked with pain! I feel the charm that binds me still to thee; ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... thought: Come, let me have a little fun with the old blade;—so I asked him: 'Father, don't you know, then, why the two Sovereigns came to quarrel with one another?'—'O ja, your Royal HighnessES [from this point we have Platt-Deutsch, PRUSSIAN dialect, for the old man's speech; barely intelligible, as Scotch is to an ingenious Englishman], DAT WILL ICK SE WOHL SEGGEN, I can easily tell you that. When our Chorforste [Kurfursts, Great Elector] was young, he studied in Utrecht; and there the King of Sweden happened to be too. And now the two young ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Longfellow wrote one of the finest of his shorter poems in tribute to Sumner's memory. It was as poetic a friendship as that between Emerson and Carlyle; but whereas Emerson and Carlyle had differences of opinion, Sumner and Longfellow were always of one mind. When Sumner made his Fanueil Hall speech against the fugitive slave law, which was simply fighting revolution with revolution, and Harvard College and the whole of Cambridge turned against him, Longfellow stood firm; and it may be suspected that he had many an unpleasant discussion with his aristocratic ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... With this manly speech he walked straight toward the Gigaboo, which, when it saw him approaching, raised and lowered its long neck and twirled its head around, so that all the seven eyes might get a ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... the freedom of speech permitted to childhood," he said quietly. Then, still more quietly: "'Fairy Lady, you are ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... stated the nature of his business, the chief began a speech, in which he forbade the further advance of the English. Suddenly his eye rested upon Major Hester, who had just left his tent to attend the council. The speech of the Indian came to an abrupt pause, and gazing fixedly at the white-haired ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... see that the sentiment in his speech touched my mother, who was fond of visiting graveyards herself, and she turned to Mr. James Gilverthwaite with ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... a speech for a lover! Of course you're not. After all, what you bore with such patience and dignity once, you ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... language. The language of the classical works is so remote from the language of daily life that no uneducated person can understand it. A command of it requires a full knowledge of all the ancient literature, entailing decades of study. The gentry had elaborated this style of speech for themselves and their dependants; it was their monopoly; nobody who did not belong to the gentry and had not attended its schools could take part in literary or in administrative life. The literary revolution ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... before deciding. It may be that I was wrong. If you are to make the speech, you will need to prepare it carefully. There is none ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... Hillsboro, the last two having been dedicated by the Field Superintendent on the Saturday and Sunday previous. Sermons were preached by Revs. D. D. Dodge, G. S. Smith (Moderator), J. E. Roy and Z. Simmons. Deacon Henry Clay Jones, of Raleigh, made a flaming temperance speech, claiming that 60,000 Prohibition voters held the balance of power, which, as a third party, could and should overmaster the 100,000 majority that went against ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... That important little paper held comfort or discomfort for ever so many people. Every one bent forward to listen. It was so still all over the church that you might have heard a pin drop. The Bishop began with a little speech about the virtues of patience and contentment, and how important it was that everybody should be quite satisfied whatever happened to them. Then he opened ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... dreadful effect produced by eating it was lately instanced in the neighbourhood of Hobart Town, on the lady of one of the most respectable merchants, and two children, who died in the course of three hours . . . The poison is of a powerful sedative nature, producing stupor, loss of speech, deglutition, vision and the power of the voluntary muscles, and ultimately an entire deprivation of nervous power ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... part of this speech was not in itself of a nature calculated to convey much; but the tone of the old trader's voice, the contraction of his eyebrows, and above all the overwhelming flow of cloudlets that followed, imparted to it a significance that induced the belief that Charley's taking his own way would ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... At this speech a loud murmur was heard in my uncle's party, which gradually spread round the hall. I again looked up: my mother's face was averted; that of the Abbe was impenetrable; but I saw my uncle wiping his eyes, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... That Shakespear had not only found out a new Character in his Caliban, but had also devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that Character. Among the particular beauties of this piece, I think one may be allow'd to point out the tale of Prospero in the first Act; his speech to Ferdinand in the fourth, upon the breaking up the masque of Juno and Ceres; and that in the fifth, when he dissolves his charms, and resolves to break his magick rod. This Play has been alter'd by Sir William D'Avenant and Mr. Dryden; and tho' I won't arraign ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... it the duty of framing a new land policy, which is much more difficult than that of picking holes in the existing system. For the present they have shelved the question by appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of the land laws. The programme for the session, revealed in the Speech from the Throne, contains nothing more startling than amendments of the Licensing Act and Criminal Laws, and measures for the establishment of secondary schools throughout the colony, and to ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... influence within its walls. He might form a party of 'king's friends' able to hold the balance between the connections formed by the great families and so break up the system of party government. Burke's great speech (11 Feb. 1780) upon introducing his plan 'for the better security of the independence of parliament and the economical reformation of the civil and other establishments' explains the secret and reveals the state of things ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... and prize-fighter was one of those who refused King George's pardon in 1717, and was eventually hanged by his late fellow-pirates. On the gallows he made the following dying speech: ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... finish his speech, for the earth shook beneath our feet, and we saw a flash and a great puff of smoke, and quite a hurricane of bits of slate and stone and earth came flying by our ears, turning us into statues for the moment. Then I bounded forward, followed ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... McGuire noticed that Nickie, whose speech was usually excellent, adopted the vulgar tongue in addressing the man he called Billy, or any of his ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... whatever of my wrath, but went on, breaking in on his speech every now and then with Welsh words which I ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of an indescribable fury stirred within her, she none the less thrilled to his embrace with a flooding of her heart under which she almost swooned. While she felt his kisses on her temples, her cheeks and her lips, she had no power of speech or protest. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... elaborate record players, the progeny of the old Twentieth Century Linguaphone. English, with recorded-speech composition, enunciation training, semantics, and what Prestonby called English Illiterature. The class he visited was drowsing through one of the less colorful sections of "Gone With The Wind." World History, with half the students frankly asleep through an audio-visual on the ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... The speech had evidently cost him much thinking, and when he ended, his cheeks puffed out and a soundless laugh seemed to gather, but it burst in a sort of sigh. I would have taken his hand that moment, if I had not remembered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he talked of the light of conscience in his very last speech. But this cannot apply to all. There is the archbishop; he can't have sold ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... The opening speech for the crown had been a masterly one. But that there were many weak points in the evidence and in the assumptions which the prosecution drew was evident ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... "Scheidemann Peace" were the subjects of articles in the papers expressing the greatest disapproval of the resolution. Neither did the German Government take up any decided attitude. On July 19 the Imperial Chancellor Michaelis made a speech approving the resolution, but adding "as ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... of the lunatic Caligula is of small importance, thanks to its extreme brevity. For all his madness he had considerable ability; he was ready of speech to a remarkable degree, though his oratory suffered from extravagant ornament[17] and lack of restraint. He had, however, some literary insight: in his description of Seneca's rhetoric as merae commissiones, 'prize ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... in while Miss Morgan was in the midst of her "speech," as Jack declared it to be; and now she clapped her small white hands, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... have done with the past, and again move forward. The path looks more difficult, but I am better able to bear its trials. We shall have much communion, even if not in the deepest places. I feel no need of isolation, but only of temperance in thought and speech, that the essence may not evaporate in words, but grow plenteous within. The Life will give me to my own. I am not yet so worthy to love as some others are, because my manifold nature is not yet harmonized enough to be faithful, and I begin, to see how much it was the want of a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of a German municipal theatre as my model, and he said that the municipal theatres all over Europe gave fine performances of old classics but did not create (he disliked modern drama for its sterility of speech, and perhaps ignored it) and that we would create nothing if we did not give all our thoughts to Ireland. Yet in Ireland he loved only what was wild in its people, and in 'the grey and wintry sides of many glens.' All the rest, ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... ye, bo'sun; it's a neat hand at a speech ye are, upon my conscience!" cried Dennis, over my shoulder, and then his arm was around it, shaking with laughter, as we were hurried along by ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Mr. John, as the others called him, seemed little inclined for speech, but the others talked a good deal, subsiding sometimes when he told them gruffly to be quiet but invariably soon beginning again their expressions of sympathy and vows of ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... as he wished, he said, to carry them, according to his contract, to the Manathans, though we understood well why it was. The Indians came on board, and we looked upon them with wonder. They are dull of comprehension, slow of speech, bashful but otherwise bold of person, and red of skin. They wear something in front, over the thighs, and a piece of duffels, like a blanket, around the body, and this is all the clothing they have. Their hair hangs down from their heads in ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... emphasis. Occasionally this may be done to advantage but the tendency is to overwork the scheme. At best it is a lazy man's way of trying to secure emphasis without the mental exertion of thinking up some figure of speech or some original expression that will ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... diplomacy having been rewarded with tea, they all came at once to direct speech. "It ain't going to amount to much," Mr. Barber insisted. "Better come out, you ladies, and have a look around. It may rain a bit, but you'll feel easier if you come and get acquainted with things, so to say." And gathering their resolution ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the absence of his noble master and the wickedness of the suitors. Ulysses told him that he was a wanderer who had heard of his master, and could speak surely of his return. Though Eumaeus regarded this as an idle speech spoken to gain food and clothing, he continued in his ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... of custume olde The fall of Lucifer did set out, Some writers awarrante your matter, therefore be boulde Lustelye to playe the same to all the rowtte; And yf any thereof stand in any doubte, Your author his author hath, your shewe let bee, Good speech, ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... parlour to which I was ushered, sat two gentlemen somewhat advanced in years, who I rightly supposed were my medical confreres. One of these was a tall, pale, ascetic-looking man, with grey hairs, and retreating forehead, slow in speech, and lugubrious in demeanour. The other, his antithesis, was a short, rosy-cheeked, apoplectic-looking subject, with a laugh like a suffocating wheeze, and a paunch like an alderman; his quick, restless eye, and full nether lip denoting ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... once, a long time ago, as some of them might remember, he had taken a dancing-lesson from Jack Rabbit.[9] He couldn't do any of those things as well as the others, he said, so he would just make a little speech called: ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement weathers—a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions. These old gentlemen—seated, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Coke, however, for some reason—perhaps because he was not fully in Salisbury's confidence respecting the letter—describes the real manner of the discovery, according to his own knowledge. Towards the close of his speech for the prosecution, he said: "The last consideration is concerning the admirable discovery of this treason, which was by one of themselves who had taken the oath and sacrament, as hath been said against his own will;[14] the means by a dark and doubtful letter to my Lord Monteagle." ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker
... speech by which the chief divinity is called "the heart of the earth," "the heart of the sky," is common in these dialects, and occurs repeatedly in the Popol Vuh, the sacred legend of the ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... hold of the other end of it, to haul away; they instantly took the hint, and the poor seceder was very soon dragged through the surf into the boat: He had, however, swallowed so great a quantity of water that he was to all appearance dead, but, being held up by the heels, he soon recovered his speech and motion, and was perfectly well the next day. In the evening I removed Captain Mouat from the Tamar, and appointed him captain of the Dolphin under me; Mr Cumming, my first lieutenant, I appointed captain of the Tamar, taking Mr Carteret, her first lieutenant, on board in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... inspired speech, the penetrating voice—all were sunk in the austere order of the severe commander. The Baron put on his cap, caught up the bamboo tashur which he always carried with him and rushed from the yurta. I followed him out. There ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... sure that Miss Beveridge was not looking, but she forgot that in turning her head in the opposite direction she was naturally vis-a-vis with Cynthia and Betty, and they—silly things!—simultaneously jerked with surprise, flushed and struggled after speech, thereby hopelessly giving away ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... the face of a boy for oversetting her barrow; in another, a woman beating a fellow for throwing down her child. Here we see a man flinging a dog among the crowd by the tail; there a woman crying the dying speech of Thomas Idle, printed the day before his execution; and many other things too minute to be pointed out: two, however, we must not omit taking notice of, one of which is the letting off a pigeon, bred at the gaol, fly from the gallery, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... thinking of his future book when he made that speech about translators. He was planning to write the book not in Latin, as was usual, but in Italian, making if necessary another ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... could learn nothing: this malady was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two months they were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the post-mortems as over the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Ofttimes when I was displeased I said things which, if said to many brothers, would have provoked a quarrel; but Wilfred apparently took no heed of my angry words; save to give me a peculiar look, which sometimes almost made me shudder. But he never lost his temper in return, or indulged in violent speech. This was peculiarly trying to me, for I was passionate, and longed to give vent to my feelings; but he would shrug his shoulders at my rage and, with a strange smile, ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... Sir Jemant Wamal, who in rather a foolish speech tells the audience that they are about to hear a piece composed by Tom the poet. Then appears Captain Riches, who makes a long speech about his influence in the world and the general contempt in which Poverty is held; he is, however, presently checked by ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... for debate is debating. So far as mere confidence and comfort are concerned, the great thing is to gain the habit of speech, even if one speaks badly. And the practice of an ordinary debating society has also this advantage, that it teaches you to talk sense (lest you be laughed at), to speak with some animation (lest your hearers go ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... group like this Sumner's great and eloquent speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, seemed almost cold and dead,—the mute appeals of these little ones in their mother's arms—the unlettered language of these young mothers, striving to save their offspring from the doom of Slavery—the resolute and manly bearing of these brothers expressed in words ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... seeks to exculpate his countrymen for their rising, up to the point in which he himself was involved in it; and though he admits that the high priests and leading men were still anxious for peace at any price, and he puts a long speech into Agrippa's mouth counseling submission, he is yet anxious to show that his people were driven into war by the wickedness of Nero's governors. His masters allowed him, and probably invited him, to denounce the oppression of the ministers of their predecessors, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... with matchless art and whim, He gave the power of speech to every limb; Though masked and mute conveyed his quick intent, And told in frolic's gestures ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... had been, he said, a most unconscionable time dying; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse of the exquisite urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of the dying man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had repaired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When the prayer for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply his people felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... though tender-hearted, knew how to run the place. Her brusque, curt manner suited Bear Cat. She could be hail-fellow or hard as flint, depending on circumstances. The patrons at Gillespie's remembered her sex and yet forgot it. They guarded their speech, but they drank with her at the bar or sat across a poker table from her on equal terms. She was a good sport and could lose ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... green mound there slept a youth, Whose form in life in beauty bloom'd: His manner sweet, his speech was truth, But nought could ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... spelt with a capital letter—why, I know no more than the artists. John Turner had his Art, and now exercised it. I always noticed that during the earlier and more piquant courses of a meal he was cynical and apt to give speech on matters of human meanness and vanity not unknown to many who are silent about them. Later on, when the dishes became more succulent, so would his views of life sweeten and acquire a mellower flavour. His round face now began to beam more pleasantly at me across ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... everything. Julia's own behaviour was perfect, though all the time she saw how it looked as plainly as if she had been another and disinterested person, and once or twice she had an hysterical desire to applaud a good stroke of her mother's or prompt a backward speech of her uncle's. Mr. Gillat, of course, did nothing suitable; he never did. He kept up a preternaturally cheerful appearance during the meal, stopping his mouth with large corks of bread, answering "Ah, yes, yes, just so," indiscriminately ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... was!—all written down to hold good while the world lasted: that perpetual grant of part and parcel of his land, for the use of a free school and a free church. The lad went reverently over the plain, rough speech of the mighty old pioneer, as ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... much affected by my speech, but bowing most gracefully in return, she said, "And my name is Ella Brand. I have been left alone in this ship by what I cannot but believe was a dreadful mistake, and I accept your hospitality and help as frankly as you have offered it. And now, gentlemen, that we are properly introduced," ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Institutum Christiani Hominis (composed at the Dean's request) Lactantius, Prudentius, Juvencus, Proba and Sedulius, and Baptista Mantuanus, and such other as shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the true Latin speech: all barbary, all corruption, all Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world, and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old Latin speech, and the veray Roman tongue, which ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... unskilful carpenters, that in mending one leak make a couple; and so she fills again apace. But the worst sign of all is this here, she won't let a drop of Nantz go between the combings of her teeth, and has quite lost the rudder of her understanding, whereby she yaws woundily in her speech palavering about some foreign part called the New Geereusalem, and wishing herself in a safe berth in the river Geordun. The parson, I must say, strives to keep her steady, concerning the navigation of her ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... John in a peculiar voice, and as he did so the Professor rushed in and announced that the paralytic had recovered speech, and he had ordered ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... dark grimness that seemed to be coming over the man. Instead he glowed, he sputtered, he tried to talk, to wave his hands. He was beside himself. And his rangers crowded closer, eager, like hounds ready to run. They all talked at once, and the word most significant and frequent in their speech was "outlaws." ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation. A true-born Englishman's a contradiction, In speech an irony, in ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... affection! But what is thus made plain to our apprehensions in the case of a foreign language is partially true even with the tongue we learned in childhood. Indeed, we all speak different dialects; one shall be copious and exact, another loose and meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall correspond and fit upon the truth of fact - not clumsily, obscuring lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly adhering, like an athlete's skin. And what is the result? That the one can open himself ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bitter moment, however, the dying Prince was not left alone with his last disappointment. Cardinal Beatoun, whose influence had been so inauspicious in his life, pressed forward, "seeing him begin to fail of his strength and natural speech," and thrust upon him a paper for his signature, "wherein the Cardinal had writ what he pleased for his own particular weill," evidently with some directions about the regency, that ordeal which Scotland, unhappily, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... fateful meeting had flushed delicately her pale cheeks. She appealed alike to the Honourable John Ruffin's aesthetic and protective instinct. Only her strong London accent distressed him: he feared lest it might corrupt the speech of Pollyooly and the Lump, which, owing to the care of their Aunt Hannah, who had for many years been housekeeper for Lady Constantia ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... and lealest of friends, forgive thy wretched queen. Her troubles distract her brain,—chide her not if they sour her speech. Saints above! will ye not pardon Margaret if at times her nature be turned from the mother's milk into streams of gall and bloody purpose, when ye see, from your homes serene, in what a world of strife and falsehood her very ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those of all other creatures, and enabling man to do what no other animal has done, to fill the world with his handiworks, and alter the very face of nature with his ax, and spade, and steam engine. His tongue and organs of articulate speech alone, were there no other characteristic, proclaim him different from all other animals; none of those resembling him in outward form making the slightest attempts toward articulate language or being ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... won't you?" said Dave. "We ain't so fussy about free speech here as they are in that free Russia that he writes about, but we're beginning to take notice. Naturally it's a poor time for free speech when the Government's got a boil on the back of its neck and is feeling irritable. Besides, no one ever did believe in free speech, and no government ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... opportunities carefully sought and industriously improved by himself. Mr. Sheridan had already brought forth a panegyric on the French system in a still higher strain, with full as little demand from the nature of the business before the House, in a speech too good to be speedily forgotten. Mr. Fox followed him without any direct call from the subject-matter, and upon the same ground. To canvass the merits of the French Constitution on the Quebec Bill could not draw forth any opinions which were not brought forward before, with no small ostentation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... furnace: a majestic Webster indeed, eight feet high, and looking even more colossal than that. The likeness seemed to me perfect, and, like a sensible man, Powers' has dressed him in his natural costume, such as I have seen Webster have on while making a speech in the open air at a mass meeting in Concord,—dress-coat buttoned pretty closely across the breast, pantaloons and boots,—everything finished even to a seam and a stitch. Not an inch of the statue but is Webster; even his coat-tails are imbued with the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "I had speech later with the bailiff, and he did say that the priest was a Saxon serving-man, and the novice was the young lord, Josceline De ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... haughty mind of the lion. He accordingly approached, was led round the den, and was asked whether the smell of the heap of carcasses was unpleasant to him. The wolf replied, in a carefully considered speech, that he had never seen anything more pleasant. This artifice, however, was of no avail to the wolf. The lion meted out the same treatment to him as to the bear, tearing him up for his impudent flattery. The fox, who had witnessed all this, and ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... committed, had caused the perpetrators of it to be punished, and now once more requested him to come on shore and trust to his honour. This proposal some of the crew were inclined that he should accept, but being animated by a speech that he made to them it was resolved that they should die with arms in their hands in preference to a disgraceful and hazardous submission. The combat was therefore renewed, with extreme fury on the one side, and uncommon efforts of courage on the other, and the assailants ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... splendour as well as worth, had he imagined them the offspring of his own faculty, meteors of his own atmosphere instead of phenomena of the heavenly region manifesting themselves on the hollow side of the celestial sphere of human vision,—he would break forth in grand poetic speech that roused to aspiration Malcolm's whole being, while in the same instant calming him with the summer peace of ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... welcomed the visitors in a short speech. Then there was a little silence before the strains of an old, old song quivered through the big chapel. Helen was playing again, with the soft tones of the organ as a background. And, in a moment Ruth stood up, stepped ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... letter, and had received his answer,—and he also was successful and glorious. That fatal day on which the fox would not break from Barford Woods had not yet arrived. Mary Bonner heard the letter read, and listened to Sir Thomas's speech without a word, without a blush, and without a sign. Sir Thomas began his speech very well, but became rather misty towards the end, when he found himself unable to reduce Mary to a state of feminine confusion. "My dear," he began, "I have received a letter which I think it ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... now,—Clary who had acknowledged that she loved this man, and had now been leaning on his arm for an hour beneath the moonlight? But Patience said not a word. She could not bring herself to speak when speech ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... for Hurry Harry talks considerable, and he is free of speech when he can find other people's consarns to dwell on. You pass most of your ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... best, as in "S. Anthony restoring a Youth," the drawing and composition only make us feel how enchanting the scene would have been in oils on one of Titian's melting canvases. In those frescoes which he executed himself while his interest was still fresh, the "Miracle which grants Speech to an Infant" is the most Giorgionesque. Up to this time he had preserved the straight-cut corsage and the actual dress of his contemporaries, after the practice of Giorgione; he keeps, too, to his companion's plan of design, placing ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... desto^. Phr. in notes by distance made more sweet [Collins]; like the faint exquisite music of a dream [Moore]; music arose with its voluptuous swell [Byron]; music is the universal language of mankind [Longfellow]; music's golden tongue [Keats]; the speech of angels [Carlyle]; will sing the savageness out of a bear [Othello]; music hath charms to soothe the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... courtier he! Wulfgar spake to his winsome lord: — "Hither have fared to thee far-come men o'er the paths of ocean, people of Geatland; and the stateliest there by his sturdy band is Beowulf named. This boon they seek, that they, my master, may with thee have speech at will: nor spurn their prayer to give them hearing, gracious Hrothgar! In weeds of the warrior worthy they, methinks, of our liking; their leader most surely, a hero that hither his ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... was a long time before we could make him understand anything; but in time our men taught him some English, and he began to be a little tractable. Afterwards, we inquired what country he came from; but could make nothing of what he said; for his speech was so odd, all gutturals, and he spoke in the throat in such a hollow, odd manner, that we could never form a word after him; and we were all of opinion that they might speak that language as well if they were gagged as otherwise; nor could we perceive that ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... the public. The basket-man, or costermonger, or dealer—call him what you will—is an indispensable personage, and what is more, he fills a most useful office. It is true that he is given to making strange outcries, and that he is at times boisterous in speech. Yet, notwithstanding these things, he is a valuable member of society, and personally I have a very great respect for him. Indeed, I am certain that he is the food-bearer to many homes, and people would otherwise be put to very great straits in obtaining their ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... of this welcome news the Governor General was so delighted that he gave a dinner party that same evening, and after the meal was over stood on the billiard table and made a little speech announcing the bloodless success and happy ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... want to. Lady Henry pays no more attention to his cloth than to my gray hairs. The rating she has just given me for my speech of last night! Well, good-night, dear lady—good-night. You are ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cried the mild little man, with his first movement akin to impatience, "if you will walk down the street to the nearest hatter's shop, you will see that there is, in common speech, a difference between a man's hat and the hats ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... sacred land. When he restored to the Greek cities their freedom,— handed them back to their own uses and devices, after freeing them from Philip,—it was with an infinite pride and a high simplicity. We hear of him overcome in his speech to their representatives on that occasion, and stopping to control the lump in his throat: conqueror and master of the whole peninsula and the islands, he was filled with reverence, as a great simple-hearted gentleman might be, for the ancient fame and genius of the peoples at his feet. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... said the big driver, endorsing his appearance by his speech; and taking the lead, he showed the little party and expatiated upon the qualities of the leading and pole oxen, upon how sleek and well they looked, and gave to each its name, while the Hottentot ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... lower course of the Dive all sorts of historical associations centre. The stream divides the older and the later Normandy, but of these the later is the truer, the land where the old speech and the old spirit lingered longest. By its banks was fought the battle in which Harold Blaatand rescued Normandy from the Frank, and in which the stout Dane took captive with his own hands Lewis King of the West-Franks, the ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... twenty-first birthday, was to be the first day of freedom, the last of shackles and dulness and commonplace. It was to be a day of speech and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... second nicht before they cheer, no matter how grand a success they think they ha' the first nicht, and hoo many times they ha' to step oot before the curtain and bow, and how many times they're called upon for a speech. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... principles. Had it been his fortune to have been born among the higher classes, and to have had all the advantages of education, he might have turned out a hero; as it was, he did his duty well in that state of life to which he had been called, and as he said in his speech to the men on the forecastle, he feared God, honoured the king, and was the natural enemy ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... a long life to the rich brother, and the poor brother wanted to make a speech, congratulating him on his name-day. But the rich brother scarcely thanked him, because he was so busy entertaining the rich merchants and their plump, laughing wives. He was pressing food on his guests, now this, now that, and calling to the servants ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... as many as I remember; and I ask both to pardon me, these for silence, those for inadequate speech. But one name I have kept on purpose to the last, because it is a household word with me, and because if I had not received favours from so many hands and in so many quarters of the world, it should have stood upon this page alone: that of my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mere speech useless, but he felt that he had to speak, to say something, anything, to prove the reality of his own waking self and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... but as he did not speak a word of Romaic, and as his Italian was very indifferent, and his French worse, Argiri Caramitzo could scarcely understand what he said. He, however, made a polite speech full of complimentary phrases in return, and then, bowing, went back to talk ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... impregnable silence again after her sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She showed it in a hundred ways—by not appearing to see him, by refusing ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson |
