"Eloquence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promoted to the office of principal secretary of state; a gentleman who had, upon sundry occasions, combated the gigantic plan of continental connexions with all the strength of reason, and all the powers of eloquence. He now imparted to the house an intimation, importing, it was always with reluctance that his majesty asked extraordinary supplies of his people; but as the united councils, and formidable preparations of France and her allies threatened Europe in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... is harmful because it is absolutely false; it is simply the negation of eloquence. Consider what the legislative hall, the lecture room and the court would be like if nothing but set pieces were delivered. We are familiar with the fact that many an orator and lawyer, who is brilliant when he talks, becomes dry as dust ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... writer once said, "would speak to all kings in the world with as little concern and as much ease as he would speak to you." Confusion is the enemy of eloquence. Self-restraint must be developed before one can hope to be either a good conversationalist or a social success. To create a pleasant, harmonious atmosphere, and at the same time to make one's ideas carry conviction, one must talk with ease ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... I can do, is to thinke of the rich apparrel, exquisite prouision, curious dressings, perfect ambitious and wounding bewties without imperfections, their deepe iudgements, Aemilian eloquence, & bountie more then princely, the notable disposition and order of Architecture, the durable Symmetrie and proportion of the building, perfect and absolute, the noblenes of the Art of Masonrie and Lapycidarie, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... little gratification in conversing with me; and one bright February morning, during twenty minutes' stroll along the moor, she laid aside her usual asperity and reserve, and fairly entered into conversation with me, discoursing with so much eloquence and depth of thought and feeling on a subject happily coinciding with my own ideas, and looking so beautiful withal, that I went home enchanted; and on the way (morally) started to find myself thinking that, after ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... intercourse with her combined the best features of masculine comradeship and feminine Platonism before the mawkish stage is reached. She had the ability, so rare in men, to draw out the best that was in her companion. And Ivan would often find himself displaying qualities of eloquence and brilliancy of which he had never suspected the existence. But the woman never revealed to him their source. She herself was more than rewarded by the originality and the depth of the ideas which she merely ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... produced at the cost of much labour and material; to copy somebody else's poem and send the manuscript to a magazine, or hand it about among; friends as an original "effusion;" to deliver an elegant extract from a known writer as a piece of improvised eloquence:—these are the limits within which the dishonest pretence of originality is likely to get hissed or hooted and bring more or less shame on the culprit. It is not necessary to understand the merit of a performance, or even to spell with any comfortable confidence, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... the strange, sometimes the unloverlike and fiercely selfish nature of these letters from Brandon, something of a genuine tone of passion,—perhaps their originality,—aided, no doubt, by some uttered eloquence of the writer and some treacherous inclination on the part of the mistress, ultimately conquered; and that a union so little likely to receive the smile of a prosperous star was at length concluded. The letter which terminated the correspondence was from Brandon: ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that the law has fulfilled its mission, that the railroads have reformed, and that it now behooves the people to relent and to extend to the much persecuted corporations the hand of friendship and good will. The postprandial eloquence of this gentleman has often suavely intimated that the repeal of the Interstate Commerce Act would be the most opportune recognition of ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... line, not only of sensuous, but of intellectual Beauty,—a line which, while it is as wise and subtle as the serpent, is as harmless and loving as the sacred dove of Venus. I have endeavored to prove how this line, the gesture of Attic eloquence, expresses the civilization of Pericles and Plato, of Euripides and Apelles. It is now proposed briefly to relate how this line was lost, when the politeness and philosophy, the literature and the Art of Greece were chained to the triumphal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... seen, I regret to say, various distinguished preachers whose pulpit demeanor was made to me inexpressibly offensive by this taint of self-consciousness. And I have seen some, with half the talent, who made upon me an impression a thousandfold deeper than ever was made by the most brilliant eloquence; because the simple earnestness of their manner said to every heart, "Now I am not thinking in the least about myself, or about what you may think of me: my sole desire is to impress on your hearts these truths I speak, which I believe will concern us all forever!" I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... to have a sense Of quiet gladness in her noiseless play. She hath a pleasant smile, a gentle way, Whose voiceless eloquence Touches all hearts, though I had once the fear That even her father would not care ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... They often took single prisoners,—some child, born and bred in the woods, and frightened equally by the first sight of a white man and of a cow,—or some warrior, who, on being threatened with torture, stretched forth both hands in disdain, and said, with Indian eloquence,—"These hands have made tigers tremble." As for Stedman, he still went bare-footed, still quarrelled with his colonel, still sketched the scenery and described the reptiles, still reared gree-gree worms for his private ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... Sir Richard Nagle went to England, as agent of the Irish, to seek their repeal. But the greatest effort was made in 1688. Nugent and Rice were sent expressly to London to press the repeal. Rice is said to have shown great tact and eloquence, but Nugent to have been rash and confused. Certain it is, they were unsuccessful with the council, and were brutally insulted by the London mob, set on by the very decent ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... presence, he poured out his petition with the vehemence of one who can take no denial, urging his suit with all the eloquence of intense anxiety and deep conviction of the terrible extremity of the feeble folk ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... her to walk the long walk with me. This and other rumours provoked them to despatch a sage and ponderous officer to the distant scene of my labours, that he might investigate them on the spot. He came, he saw, he was conquered. My wife lassoed him at a throw. He went home in fetters, his eloquence alone unloosed. Long before the night on which they should meet to call, he had brandished his opinion as to the wisdom ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... after having so deeply wounded her pride. He knew his power. Besides the graces of his person and manner—which few women, once impressed by them, could ever forget—he possessed the most insidious and flattering eloquence, and, in absence, his pen was as wily as his tongue. For the Earl was imbued with the very genius of courtship. None was better skilled than he in the phrases of rapturous devotion, which were music to the ear both of the woman and the Queen; and he knew his royal mistress too well not to be aware ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... paltry. His one desire in doing anything, was to be approved of or admired in the same—approved of in the opinions he held, in the plans he pursued, in the doctrines he taught; admired in the poems in which he went halting after Byron, and in the eloquence with which he meant one day to astonish great congregations. There was nothing original as yet discoverable in him; nothing to deliver him from the poor imitative apery in which he imagined himself a poet. He did possess one invaluable gift—that ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... psalmist,—the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the decalogue, and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he violated the dictates of prudence and propriety. All this time Byles Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate eloquence on these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had sent to church that she might get a little respite from her home duties, felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the invalid wife, lying on her bed of ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... chords which follow the opening bars strike the ear it seems as if Beethoven were speaking to his friend—speaking to him out of the fullness of his heart, out of his poverty and mean surroundings—and rising by the strengthening influence of love to a height of eloquence and grandeur which no ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... heavy expression of all these churches, have a character very remote from that of the airy, upspringing, fantastic German architecture, in which every shaft, arch, vault-girdle, pillar, window-frame, pinnacle, seems struggling and panting upward with an almost audible eloquence. This is not the expression of the duomo here. There is no perpetual Excelsior ringing from point, spire, and turret. On the contrary, the grave, almost rigid aspect of the ancient basilica—the Roman business-hall, compounded of Greek elements, and transformed into a Grecian temple—is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... youth, the old and inexplicable adventure of life! So we waved back at them so long as they were in sight, and the white handkerchief of the Eager Soul fluttered back from the disappearing cab. When it was gone, Henry turned to a sad-looking cabman with a sway-backed carriage and explained with much eloquence that we wanted him to haul us a ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Rhetorique, for the use of all such as are studious of Eloquence, sette forth in English, by ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... was not an excess of delicacy; he told her plainly, he admired her eloquence prodigiously, but that there was more rhetoric in her beauty than any composition of words could contain; which pleading in direct contradiction to all she had said, she must excuse him, if he was influenced by the more powerful oratory of her charms; and her good sense ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... in that flightiness of the feminine mind which, in a lower stratum of current literature, displays inaccurate opinions, feeble prejudices, and finally blossoms into pert vulgarity. But instances of perverted license increase our obligation to Mrs. Child, Mrs. Stowe and to others whose eloquence is only in deeds. Of such as these, and of her whom we may now associate with them, it is not impossible some unborn historian may write, that in certain great perils of American liberty, when the best men could only offer rhetoric, women came forward with demonstration. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... present opportunity pass away. He represented to them how greatly they increased the danger of their attempts by such delays, and he seemed himself so full of determination and courage, and addressed them with so much eloquence and power, that he inspired them with his own resolution, and they ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... Mr. J.A. Symonds' 'Studies of the Greek Poets' there is an essay on Pindar which dwells with much appreciative eloquence ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... what I say they are! Never satisfied! What's the use of being out of work for a few extra shillings a week and letting us all starve.... No; I shan't shut up!" she added, as her husband tried to check her flow of eloquence. "It's true, what I'm saying. You've always been treated fair at Heeler's, and never no complaints till that new manager came, but now ... nothing right! Something always wrong." She turned to Peg. "They think they've got a grudge against Mr. ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... not apply to poetry or eloquence, round which the controversy has most violently raged. For poetry and eloquence do not depend on correct reasoning. They depend principally on vivacity of imagination, and "vivacity of imagination does not require a long course of experiments, or a great multitude of rules, to attain all the perfection ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Saracens. Jerusalem was threatened. The Holy Sepulchre was in danger; and though King Baldwin was a valiant lad the old Bible saying was fast being proved: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation." France and Germany, roused at last to action by the glowing eloquence of St. Bernard, poured their thousands eastward, and Europe felt again the tramp of armies marching under the Red-Cross banner on a new Crusade. But from Hungary to Syria disaster followed disaster, and of the thousands of knights and spearmen who entered the Crusade only a miserable ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... the case of Sy Biddlecomb, and them green pumpkins of mine, how I—" But I interrupted his almost fervid eloquence, and sez I, with my right hand extended ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... I am the wicked person that has gone wrong and as his eloquence prevailed not in turning me from my evil ways ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... pleasure of triumph and the consciousness of power. There is no man so powerful as the great lawyer. The wealth and the character of his fellow men often depend upon him. His clients are sometimes powerful corporations, or cities, or states. Crowded courts listen to his eloquence year after year; and no one has greater freedom of speech than he. The orator and politician may be wafted into a conspicuous place for a brief period, and fall again when popular favor has cooled; yet the lawyer is rising still higher, nor ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... Pius, and he has recorded in his word (i. 16; vi. 30) the virtues of the excellent man and prudent ruler. Like many young Romans he tried his hand at poetry and studied rhetoric. Herodes Atticus and M. Cornelius Fronto were his teachers in eloquence. There are extant letters between Fronto and Marcus,[A] which show the great affection of the pupil for the master, and the master's great hopes of his industrious pupil. M. Antoninus mentions Fronto (i. 11) among those to whom he was indebted for ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... special benefit, I suppose, the preacher expatiates on the glorious field of Bunker's Hill, foretells England's decline, and generously promises our countrymen a home in America when they are quite "used up." The Englishman is quite overcome with the eloquence and sympathy of the Church militant preacher, whose discourse being composed by the authoress, I may fairly conclude is given as a model of New England oratory in her estimation. Justice requires I should add, that the sermons I heard during my stay in those States were on religious topics, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... of bright damsels shines; Part twist the threads, and part the wool dispose, While with the purple orb the spindle glows. High on a throne, amid the Scherian powers, My royal father shares the genial hours: But to the queen thy mournful tale disclose, With the prevailing eloquence of woes: So shalt thou view with joy thy natal shore, Though mountains rise ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... different styles of a work of fiction, and it is my duty to undertake to show where they have slipped. The Apocrypha says, "An eloquent man is known far and near; but a man of understanding discerneth where he slippeth." I have no claim to eloquence; never pretended to have any; but I have a claim to some knowledge of Methodist history, to some ability to state my sentiments, and to be without any fear of the ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... of his Cabinet, urged with all the eloquence of his loyal soul the importance of holding intact the communications with the territory beyond the Mississippi. He begged and pleaded for the plan to reenforce Bragg and play the safe game with Vicksburg. Davis ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of Clerophilus, or Maximus, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden people—begging the king to lighten the burdens which that ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... visit, an event of immemorial antiquity periodically brought up to date by Mrs. Seaton's imagination. But the vicar was a timid man, without the courage of his opinions, and in his eagerness to stop the flow of his neighbour's eloquence he could think of no better device, or more suitable rival subject, than to plunge into the story of the drunken carrier, and the pastry still reposing ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... livings were laid down, the mass following their leaders. Among them, though many a good and gifted man remained with equal conscientiousness behind, there were men of remarkable ability as well as Christian worth; and there was one, Dr. Chalmers, with a world-wide reputation for genius, eloquence, and splendid benevolence. The band formed themselves into a procession of black-coated soldiers of a King—not of this world—marched along the crowded streets of Edinburgh, hailed and cheered by an enthusiastic multitude, and entering a building ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... (p. 041) King does not desire gold or gems or precious metals, but virtue, glory, immortality." The picture is overdrawn for modern taste, but making due allowance for Mountjoy's turgid efforts to emulate his master's eloquence, enough remains to indicate the impression made by Henry on a peer of liberal education. His unrivalled skill in national sports and martial exercises appealed at least as powerfully to the mass of his people. In archery, in wrestling, in joust and in tourney, as well as in the tennis court or on ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... one Mapiao, a great Tahuku—which seems to mean priest, wizard, tattooer, practiser of any art, or, in a word, esoteric person—and a man famed for his eloquence on public occasions and witty talk in private. His first appearance was typical of the man. He came down clamorous to the eastern landing, where the surf was running very high; scorned all our signals to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... home, Tom made use of all his eloquence to display the wretchedness of these people, and the penitence of Black George himself; and in this he succeeded so well, that Mr Allworthy said, he thought the man had suffered enough for what was past; that he would forgive him, and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Sulpice; the fathers, the councils, and the doctors were looked upon as the sources of Christianity. Proof of the divinity of Christ was not sought in Mohammed or the battle of Marengo. These theological buffooneries, which by force of impudence and eloquence extorted admiration in Notre-Dame, had no such effect upon these serious-minded Christians. They never thought that the dogma had any need to be toned down, veiled, or dressed up to suit the taste of ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... be stated more truly, I think, if one were to say that he has penetrated to the heart of the entire body of legends, has imbued himself with their ultimate spirit and significance, and has bodied it forth in his music with splendid veracity and eloquence. He has attempted no mere musical recounting of those romances of the ancient Gaelic world at which he hints in his brief motto. It would be juster to say, rather, that he has recalled in his music the very life and presence of the Gaelic prime—that he has "unbound the Island harp." Above all, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... her rheumy gaze passed over him from the tips of his shiny new shoes to the crown of his hat. Admiration now spoke from her with perhaps greater eloquence even though her lips were still, parted a little. The ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Mayaro, Mr. Loskiel; and I have attempted to persuade him to come north with us tomorrow. Perhaps your eloquence will succeed where my plain speech has failed." And to the tall Sagamore he said: "My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel Morgan's command—my comrade and good friend. What this man's lips tell you has first been taught them by his heart. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... his eloquence and earnestness he went the next afternoon, according to his agreement, to Strong's rooms, knowing that Miss Dudley was to be there, and determined to win her over. The little family party which Strong had got together was intended more for this purpose than for any other, and Strong, ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... the opportunity, however, to enlarge with emphasis and eloquence upon that traffic as constituting the very lifeblood of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... undergo his examination quietly and without any attempt at eloquence. Would not the naked facts speak loudly enough ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... performance. He was not gifted with a good delivery, and his voice was not of that moist mellifluous description, as of an organ fattened on cream, which is more than half the battle to the young cleric, certainly more than passion and eloquence, and of the pulpit pulpity. There was a restless spirit in Mr. Northcott; he took a somewhat painful interest in questions of the day, and in preaching was prone to leave his text, to cast it away as it were, and, taking up modern weapons, fight ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... husband was being heard, a few fragments of it were read by her husband's advocate with the idea of incriminating her. By way of reply to this, George Sand's advocate read the entire letter in all its eloquence and generosity. It was greeted by bursts of ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... my fellow-countyman, Bob Greenlee, of the First Virginia Cavalry, as the man whose eloquence had terrorized the negroes. Greenlee has been aptly styled "a rare bird," and the accounts he gave of experiences during his sick-leave, from which he was now returning, were ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... money nor arms; but they would some day be called to strict account for it." The dauphin was small, thin, delicate, and of insignificant appearance; but at this juncture he displayed unexpected boldness and eloquence; the people were deeply moved; and Marcel and his friends felt that a heavy blow had just ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... changing shadows on the earth, whilst sighing winds have whispered soothing songs amongst the rustling leaves, and ripened fruits have hung in tempting show their sun-burnt fronts, courting the thirsty lip, to tell us in their silent eloquence that the year has ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... defined an immense battle-ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the prospective drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited in their challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable eloquence of the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which made the breath ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... of fearful Duty I read as much as from the rattling Tongue Of saucy and audacious Eloquence—' [2] ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of Tim's eloquence was addressed to the man who held the foremost end of the rope, and who was following his ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Wilberforce that would have arisen, no southern Grant, Macaulay or Sharpe, who, like the English philanthropists, would have stood the fierce beating of angry billows, and by patience, kindness, arguments, facts, eloquence, and Christian love, convinced the skeptical, enlightened the ignorant, excited the benevolent, and finally have carried the day at the South, by the same means and measures, as secured the event in England? All experience ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... of old Made those walls tremble through its earthly mould. Now a mild glory round its presence play'd, And 'spoke from heav'nly courts the awful shade. Its brow wore high reproof; the lifted arm Was stretch'd for pleading; and there was a charm Of coming eloquence, as firm it stood, Like one whose rank was with the great and good; And well that rank was own'd, when ERSKINE cried, ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... the volumes of eloquence which have poured forth on this subject, it is dangerous even to mention the tomb. A modern traveller, in twelve lines, burdens the poor little island with the following titles, — it is a grave, tomb, pyramid, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... held in the year 325, Athanasius, a young deacon in the Alexandrian church, came for the first time into notice as the champion of Alexander against Arius, who was then placed upon his trial. All the authority, eloquence, and charity of the emperor were needed to quell the tumultuous passions of the assembly. It ended its stormy labours by voting what was called the Homoousian doctrine, that Jesus was of one substance with God. They put forth to the world the celebrated creed, named, from the city ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... grave, attentive faces looked down; but even when the stillness which followed the hum and buzz of the coming in of the congregation was broken by the clear, grave tones of a stranger's voice, it never occurred to her that it was the voice of one whose eloquence had gathered and held many a multitude before. In a little while she forgot the crowd and everything else. At first she strained her short-sighted eyes in the direction of the voice, eagerly but vainly. But this soon ceased; and by the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... succeeded in being consecrated, not only by the Bishop of Nantes, but also by Cardinal Rohan and by Massillon, one of the glories of the French episcopate, a timid man and a poor one, in despite of his pious eloquence. The Regent, as well as the whole court, was present at the ceremony, to the great scandal of the people attached to religion. Dubois received all the orders on the same day; and, when he was joked about ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... escape must have seemed little short of a miracle; and concluded by stating the manner in which we had been driven from our course, and finally reached the island. The natives listened attentively, and signified their sense of Rokoa's eloquence by frequent exclamations of 'Maitai! Maitai!' (good! good!) and by nodding their heads emphatically at the end ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... birth, the ascendency of his brother, the Prophet, his burning hatred of the white race; his skill as a hunter and valor as a warrior; above all his wonderful eloquence and thorough knowledge of all the Indian treaties of the past, gave Tecumseh an influence and authority among the tribes far beyond that of any of the braves or sachems of that day. If at the first his imagination had not dared to scale the heights of power, he ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... A. Wise uttered "a motley compound of eloquence and folly, of braggart impudence and childish vanity, of self-laudation and Virginian narrow-mindedness." After him Hubbard, of Alabama, "began grunting against the tariff." Three days later Black, of Georgia, "poured forth his black bile" for an hour and a half. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... eloquence was noisily applauded by the affected persons, who felt convinced that their birthright had been stolen from them. Meanwhile the object of their aversion showed qualities of genius that caused Mr Hobkirk to marvel at his own inherent instinct which had enabled him to fix ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... to magnify his own profession, and thereupon spending many words to maintain that eloquence was not a shop of good words and elegancies but a treasury and receipt of all knowledges, so far forth as may appertain to the handling and moving of the minds and affections of men by speech, maketh great complaint of the school of Socrates; that whereas before his time the ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... precaution he proposed, if he was not sure he ran no risque of infection. Nevertheless, Thomas continued obstinate; and, at length declared, that if the dog was not shot immediately, he himself would be his executioner — This declaration opened the flood-gates of Tabby's eloquence, which would have shamed the first-rate oratress of Billingsgate. The footman retorted in the same stile; and the squire dismissed him from his service, after having prevented me from giving him a ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... "war-horse" of the Calaveras democracy, Colonel Starbottle, at the close of a political campaign, to return to his original profession of the Law. Perhaps it could not be called a peaceful retirement. The same fiery-tongued eloquence and full-breasted chivalry which had in turns thrilled and overawed freemen at the polls were no less fervid and embattled before a jury. Yet the Colonel was counsel for two or three pastoral Ditch companies and certain bucolic corporations, and ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... back, I could see, by Arvilly's eloquence, and I wuz myself. The sharp-toothed harrow of grief had turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. And before Elder Wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin' ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... tells an anecdote of a fine young French lady, a Madame de Choiseul. She longed for a parrot that should be a miracle of eloquence. A parrot was soon found for her in Paris. She also became enamoured of General Jacko, a celebrated monkey, at Astley's. But the possessor was so exorbitant in his demand for Jacko, that the General did not change proprietors. Another ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Voltorno, there to contest the enemy's passage; but the King of Hungary foresaw the stratagem, and while his adversary was waiting for him at Capua, he arrived at Beneventum by the mountains of Alife and Morcone, and on the same day received Neapolitan envoys: they in a magnificent display of eloquence congratulated him on his entrance, offered the keys of the town, and swore obedience to him as being the legitimate successor of Charles of Anjou. The news of the surrender of Naples soon reached the queen's camp, and all the princes of the blood and the generals left ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... single one of all "the virtues under heaven;" nor the cynicism of Swift, the dignity of "one of the first men of the kingdom for learning and virtue;" the man whom the pious Atterbury could compare to nothing less than an angel; and whose personal influence and eloquence filled the Scriblerus Club and the House of Commons with enthusiasm for the evangelization of the North American Indians; and even led Sir Robert Walpole to assent to the appropriation of public money to a scheme which ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... wig is awry, or his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tickling people by the oddity of his person, instead of thrilling them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be wrought without faith—without the worker's faith in himself, as well as the recipient's faith in him. And the greater part of the worker's faith in himself is made ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... from utter exhaustion, so vehemently had he poured forth the abundance of his zeal. Mary Edmands, overwhelmed by his eloquence, but still unconvinced, could only urge the disgrace and danger attending his adherence to such pernicious doctrines. She concluded by telling him, in a voice choked by tears, that she could never marry him while a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... interrupted the eloquence flowing from the lips of Lucian Davlin, and set the mind of the girl free to think one moment, unbiased by the mesmeric power of his mind, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... awe-stricken by the extraordinary display of deep feeling and quaint rugged eloquence which had just been wrung from their hitherto phlegmatic and taciturn skipper, stretched to their oars in dead silence, mechanically keeping the boat stern on to the sea, and so regulating her speed as to avoid the mischance of being ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... so," she admitted. "He has all the smaller tricks of the orator, as well as the gift of eloquence. One can always listen ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were sent out that if anybody had the hardihood to mention the 'protocol' of 1852 he was immediately to be stopped. However elevated his position might be, even if it were M. Bismarck himself, he was to be pulled up directly, in the full flow of his eloquence; note was to be taken of this great diplomatic lapsus, and the Minister was to telegraph instantly home to his Government how he had carried out his instructions in this respect. On December 17, the noble lord wrote to Sir Andrew Buchanan, our ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... to do was to demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear up!' 'That's easily ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... danger with so much earnestness and eloquence as to make a very considerable impression on the mind of Themistocles. Themistocles said nothing, but his countenance indicated that he was very strongly inclined to adopt Mnesiphilus's views. Mnesiphilus urged ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... great principle is admirably shown in that brief but powerful description of eloquence of his; let us pause to listen to a sentence or two: "True eloquence indeed does not consist in speech.... Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it.... Affected ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... smiled at the memory of the young Congressman's eloquence. Surely it was only a flight ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... to see the noble Athenian in his own city. His fame for eloquence and prudence is already in Tyre and Babylon," spoke the stranger, never taking his steel-blue eyes from the orator's face. The accent was Oriental, but the Greek was fluent. The prince—for prince he was, whatever his nation—pressed his hand closer. Almost involuntarily Democrates's ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... good looks. It was whispered among the girls that he was a banker from New York. He was obviously not over thirty, which was young for a banker, but so he presently described himself to Flossy with hints of impending prosperity. He spoke glibly and picturesquely. He had a convincing eloquence of gesture—a wave of the hand which suggested energy and compelled confidence. He had picked her out at once to be introduced to, and sympathy between them was speedily established. Her wearing, as a red-headed girl, a white horse in the form of a pin, in order to prevent the attention ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... She speaks! 'Tis eloquence, that grace of tongue, So rare, so lovely, never misapplied By her, to palliate vice, or deck a wrong: She speaks and argues but on ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be found upon him he knew not! Such a confusion of tongues, before the circumstances ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... rays, I was obliged to take shelter under the shade of a wall, in hopes that some one would relieve me from the distressing heat, and quench my thirst with a draught of water. Suddenly from the portico of a house I beheld a female form whose beauty it is impossible for the tongue of eloquence to describe, insomuch that it seemed as if the dawn was rising in the obscurity of night, or as if the Water of Immortality was issuing from the Land of Darkness. She held in her hand a cup of snow-water, into which ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... side by side with evil ones has long been recognized. Victor Hugo illustrated the discovery in his Jean Valjean, it was a staple with Dickens, Bret Harte's heroes are all of that type, it was the inspiration of much of Charles Reade's eloquence, Kipling has more than a touch of it, our contemporary fiction-mongers sentimentalize over it, and the train-robber in the movies usually has a full line of sterling virtues up his sleeve. The lost soul, in short, brims over, upon occasion, with the wine of regeneration. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... on Pisgah purg'd was the sight Of a son of Circumcision, So may be, on this Pisgah height, Bob's purblind mental vision— Nay, Bobby's mouth may be opened yet, Till for eloquence you hail him, And swear that he has the angel met That ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... organ, and he was able to indulge what he describes as his 'old weakness for the organs'. In October 1476, at the opening of the winter term of the University, the customary oration before the Duke was delivered by Rodolphus Agricola Phrysius. His eloquence surprised the Italians, coming from so outlandish a person: 'a Phrygian, I believe', said one to another, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. But Agricola, with his chestnut-brown hair and blue eyes, was no Oriental; only a Frieslander from the North, whose cold ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... formal and prepared pleadings were prohibited, and it was unlawful to amuse the court with long, artful harangues; only it was the settled custom here, in important matters, to begin the pleadings with a text out of the holy scriptures. It is of late years that eloquence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... self-control; with one accord they made a mad rush at them and attempted to drag them from the platform. Fortunately we white men had placed ourselves with a few of the more reliable Dayak fortmen between the two parties, and partly by force and partly by eloquence we succeeded in beating off the attack, which seemed to be made in the spirit of a school "rag" rather than with bloody intent. But just as peace seemed restored, a great shout went up from the Baram men, "Tama Bulan is wounded"; and sure enough there he stood with blood flowing freely over ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the floods pressing for pathos. Her aim was at practical measures of help; she doubted the uses of sentimentality in moving tyrants or multitudes to do the thing needed. Moreover, she distrusted eloquence, Parliamentary, forensic, literary; thinking that the plain facts are the persuasive speakers in a good cause, and that rhetoric is to be suspected as the flourish over a weak one. Does it soften the obdurate, kindle the tardily inflammable? Only for ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... to that end from his cousin, the chief-justice; and a constituent named Sorden (not the personage of our tale), being prosecuted for kidnapping, in order to spite Clayton, was cleared by him at Georgetown after a marvellous exhibition of jury eloquence, and repaid the obligation, years after our story closes, by breaking a party dead-lock in the Legislature of Delaware, where he became a member, and sending Mr. Clayton for the fourth time to the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... eloquence being thrown away upon him, and on that instant thinking of my little lady in the grove, I walked towards the group with my hat in my hand, without ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... Alcmaeonidae. He received an elaborate education, but of all his teachers the one whom he most reverenced was the serene and humane philosopher, Anaxagoras. Pericles was conspicuous all through his career for the singular dignity of his manners, the Olympian grandeur of his eloquence, his "majestic intelligence" in Plato's phrase, his sagacity, probity, and profound Athenian patriotism. Both in voice and in appearance he was so like Pisistratus, who had once overturned the Athenian republic and ruled as a king, that for some time he was afraid ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... did her marketing and her alms-giving in person, was fond of old-fashioned flowers, and walked about the village on very wet days visiting the parishioners. These, the only two great ones of Narrobourne, were impressed by Joshua's eloquence ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... for Labor and Democracy in order "to Americanize the labor movement." Its campaign at once became nation wide. Enthusiastic meetings were held in the great manufacturing centers, stimulated to enthusiasm by the incisive eloquence of Gompers. At the annual convention of the Federation held in Buffalo in November, 1917, full endorsement was given to the Alliance by a vote of 21,602 to 401. In its formal statement the Alliance declared: "It is our purpose to try, by educational methods, to bring ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... sophistries, like Hume, but to wield powerful arguments, like Chalmers: the child of sagacity—not to gain advantages for himself, like Cromwell, but for his country, like Washington: the child of eloquence—not to astonish the multitude, like Sheridan, but to plead for the miserable, like Wilberforce: the child of ardor—not to be the herald of delusions, like Swedenbourg, but to be the champion of truth, like Luther: the child of enterprise—not to ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... England than the Danish invaders among whom Godwin had contentedly spent the best years of his life. He seems throughout to have listened only to his own ambition, and to have scrupled at nothing that could promote his interest. Eloquence, and attention to the humors of the nation, won for him wealth and power that rendered him formidable to the King, and he built up a great name and fortune for himself, but brief and fleeting was ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... this ornateness; it supplies examples of ornateness to be imitated in writing and speaking; it supports knowing the figures in order to understand both secular and religious writings; it proposes that clarity is found in the figures. In short, the work assisted Englishmen to understand eloquence as well ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... speak like this before, and did not remember that intense feeling is the mother of eloquence. He gazed at her for a moment in astonishment; then he dropped his face into his hands again and groaned, making no other answer. After waiting awhile, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... cavalier, the king's true liegeman, the very best raconteur of his time, poured out with an endless generosity his store of old-world learning, kindness, and humour. Grattan contributed to it his wondrous eloquence, fancy, feeling. Tom Moore perched upon it for awhile, and piped his most exquisite little love-tunes on it, flying away in a twitter of indignation afterwards, and attacking the prince with bill and claw. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... military performances. He was passionately devoted to the theatre and the circus, and would occasionally take part himself on the stage, led thereto by his peculiar taste for striking costumes and frequent changes of clothing. He was always endeavouring to shine in the display of eloquence; and was fond of talking, often in public. We know that he developed a certain talent in this direction, and was particularly successful in the gentle art of wounding people. His favourite quotation was the celebrated ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... of the grandest philosophy and theology, and of the highest, most exact, science; you may chain men by your logic, thrill them by your rhetoric, and move them to tears by your eloquence, and they will go home as dead and cold as they came. What they need is power, life. But preach "Christ and him crucified"—not merely dead two thousand years ago—but risen and alive for evermore, and with us to the end of the world, the grandest, most heroic, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... favor of birth and nobility, and then Antoine, who had passed for the bar, began to hold up his head and endeavored to push his fortunes; but fate seemed against him. He felt certain that if he possessed any gift in the world it was that of eloquence, but he could get no cause to plead; and his aunt dying inopportunely, first his resources failed, and then his health. He had no sooner returned to his home, than, to complicate his difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de Bellefonds, who had ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... whole, or in part, of the sage who had seen his natural genius, and who had urged him to exert it in examining, detecting, and declaring for himself, and thus flattery gave proselytes to infidelity, which could not have been gained by all the powerful eloquence or artful ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the victory gained for woman. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the ladies took seats on the platform at Woodward's Pavilion, facing an audience of 5,000 people. San Francisco never heard such an oration as was delivered that day by the little Methodist preacher, her natural eloquence fired by the efforts to prevent her making it. After she had finished and the cheers upon cheers had died away, there was a great shout from the immense crowd, "Miss Anthony, Miss Anthony!" Finally she was obliged to come forward and, when a stillness had settled upon ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... little "cause" and the other causes for which, in the technical phrase, he would occasionally "supply," they had passed into his son, and met in him other more energetic qualities, such as a magnetic eloquence, a love of laughter, and a ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... contented to pass unobserved. But the chance man, had he seen her for long, would surely remark that Miss Lawrie was an attractive girl; and had he heard her talk freely on any matter of interest, would have called her very attractive. She would blaze up into sudden eloquence, and then would become shame-stricken, and abashed, and dumfounded, so as to show that she had for a moment forgotten her audience, and then the audience,—the chance man,—would surely set his wits to work and try to reproduce in her a renewal of that intimacy to which she had ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... not be measured by the ordinary line and rule of pulpit eloquence and power,—could not be described by most of the words which buzz down the aisles after a popular sermon. There was not the "newness of hand" of a young preacher—for almost from boyhood Mr. Linden had been about his Master's work. To him it was as simple a thing ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... meretricious resonance of style was a matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" "This is more," says the poet Statius, "than ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar |
