"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, I could not define it, nor could I think of a similitude to illustrate it; but that it appeared to me the translation of poetry could be only imitation. JOHNSON. 'You may translate books of science exactly. You may also translate history, in so far as it is not embellished with oratory[105], which is poetical. Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language, if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Eighth. The latter prince was born in this castle, and during his whole reign it was the constant summer residence of the court. The most remarkable part of this structure is what is called the oratory of Louis the Wicked; it is at a great depth beneath the foundation of the castle, and the descent to it is by spiral or well-stairs. It is literally nothing more than a dungeon, on a platform, in which is a prostrate statue representing ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... writing can seek, which, as I said before, is to give instruction and pleasure combined; for the unrestricted range of these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy and oratory are capable of; for the epic may be written in prose just as well as ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Oratory flowed on an ever rising tide, accompanied by much violent gesticulation and expectoration by way of emphasis. At length it was agreed that Diego had been, in times past, a bad man, but that the verbal proofs which he had ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... accomplices. To draw off our attention from such regular steps, Sir Thomas More has exhausted all his eloquence and imagination to work up a piteous scene, in which the queen is made to excite our compassion in the highest degree, and is furnished by that able pen with strains of pathetic oratory, which no part of her conduct affords us reason to believe she possessed. This scene is occasioned by the demand of delivering up her second son. Cardinal Bourchier archbishop of Canterbury is the instrument employed by the ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... the blossoming flower; from the stagnant pool to the dashing cataract, and every healthy mind finds delight in such terms as vim, vigor, energy, and activity, which are the chief natural characteristics of the human hand. Demosthenes on being asked what is the first element in oratory, replied, "Action:" when asked to state the second element, he replied "Action," and when questioned as to the third, he made the same reply. Action, first, last, and all the time, is the great principle of life and progress. Without it the most perfect engine, gigantic in proportions ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... jay has not only a whole vocabulary of his own, both in conversation, from twittering to oratory, and in calls from assembly cries and notes of warning to screams of derision and defiance, but he is an imitator in certain lines. He will imitate the red-shouldered hawk and the sparrow hawk and I suspect him of mixing it in conversation ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... outlay, and that I may leave room for pretty things which may occur hereafter. I would to Heaven I could take a cruise with you through the brokers, which would be the pleasantest affair possible, only I am afraid I should make a losing voyage of it. Mr. Atkinson has missed a little my idea of the oratory, fitting it up entirely as a bookcase, whereas I should like to have had recesses for curiosities—for the Bruce's skull—for a crucifix, &c., &c.-in short, a little cabinet instead of a book-closet. Four sides ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... oratory, he dared to reproach the All-just with want of justice, inasmuch as he had permitted an innocent man to ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... perhaps the most perfect public speaker who ever lived, for he was the man who most perfectly combined thought and wisdom with feeling and eloquence. Yet Plato brings in Alcibiades declaring, that men went away from the oratory of Pericles, saying it was very fine, it was very good, and afterwards thinking no more about it; but they went away from hearing Socrates talk, he says, with the point of what he had said sticking fast in their minds, and they could not get rid of it. Socrates is poisoned and dead; but in ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... countenance, ready eloquence, an incredible capacity for work, a mind which later astonished Voltaire, a memory so retentive that he avoided reading mediocre books from the fear of retaining their contents. At thirty, his lofty and copious oratory, unceasingly fed by study of the ancient models, captivated both Lords and Commons. His powerful and versatile genius embraced at once poetry and jurisprudence, history and the belles lettres. He was associated, like Harley, with the first writers ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... approaching his rival in size and strength, John of Gischala was a powerfully-built man. He did not shrink from danger, and had upon occasion shown great bravery; but he relied upon craft, more than force, to gain his ends. He possessed great power of oratory, could rouse men's passions or calm them, at will. He could cajole or threaten, persuade or deceive, with equal facility; was always ready to break an oath, if it was inconvenient to keep it. Although fond of power, he was still more greedy of gain. But in one respect, he and Simon ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... recognition as did the senior Senator from Ohio. Although Senator Sherman had prepared a speech he did not attempt to deliver it. He said he had intended to insist on his right as a delegate not to hear any more oratory, but, to proceed with the business of the convention. He gave the 'State Journal' an appreciated compliment by advising all the delegates who desired to know what his speech contained to buy this morning's 'State Journal.' His remarks were felicitous ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... determined to have the choice ratified once for all by the popular vote. Hurrying to the pulpit in the courtyard of the mosque, he addressed the assembled multitude in a voice which trembled with intense excitement and emotion. His oratory, his reputation as a warrior, and the Mahdi's expressed desire aroused the enthusiasm of his hearers, and the oath of allegiance was at once sworn by thousands. The ceremony continued long after it was dark. With an amazing endurance he harangued till past midnight, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... expending, but lived in strict and economical retirement, to justify the name of the Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy, considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were to ordinary humanity. It seemed wonderful, that even the seething and boiling of the revolutionary cauldron should have sent up from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... Homer—how much do we find that suits this description better than any other. Civilisation has indeed already gone forward ages beyond the time at which any such description is complete. Man, in Homer, is as good at oratory, Mr. Gladstone seems to say, as he has ever been, and, much as that means, other and better things might be added to it. But after all, how much of the 'splendid savage' there is in Achilles, and how much of the 'spoiled child sulking in his tent.' Impressibility ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... a portal communicated by a long and dark passage with the prior's lodging. This was a sort of inferior castellated mansion, with a spacious hall, and a smaller dining-chamber immediately adjoining. At the end was a fair chapel or oratory. Ascending a flight of stone steps, they came to a low door. The conductor knocked, and De Poininges soon found himself in the presence of the proud Prior of Burscough. He wore a square cap of black ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Laura stepped into the church of the Brompton Oratory. It was a Saturday afternoon, and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not only his, but the prayers of his children's children, he hoped, would frequently be presented to heaven. He could add no more; the tears, which ran plentifully down his cheeks, bespoke the feelings of his heart: and, indeed, implied much more than even Cicero with all his powers of oratory could possibly ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... indispensable witness, John Adair. The judge hesitated, Burr had nothing to say, and the spectators manifested signs of democratic protest against being disappointed in their hopes of a forensic entertainment. Burr's lawyers were very willing to treat the populace to a taste of oratory, which, in the guise of legal discussion, might produce remote political effects, for office-seeking was a fine art in the good old days of Jackson and Clay. Colonel Allen arose to insist that the investigation go ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... peace. It is not certainly ours, unless we follow the two conditions He lays down. First, of abiding in Him; and, secondly, of meditating on His words. But if these be observed we shall have in the midst of strife, just as there is an oratory in the heart of the castle keep; a hollow cone in the midst of the candle flame; and a centre of safety in the midst of the sweeping whirlwind. Oh, abide ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... higher sentiments, the more generous feelings, the nobler aims, neutralizes even his intellect. He publishes his speeches, carefully solicitous of his fame, and provokes comparison in laboured dissertations with the oratory of Demosthenes and Cicero; he eulogizes the Duke of Wellington, and demands by inference whether he cannot praise as classically as even the ancients themselves; but his heartless though well-modulated eloquence lingers in first editions, like the effusions ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... up and investigated a case. His speech was very disappointing. He is not at his best when addressing a serious meeting like that of the Executive Committee. The Krylenko who spoke to-night, fluently, clearly, but without particular art, is a very different Krylenko from the virtuoso in mob oratory, the little, dangerous, elderly man in ensign's uniform who swayed the soldiers' mass meetings in Petrograd a year and a half ago. I remember hearing him speak in barracks soon after the murder ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... him, for this was evidently no ordinary village marriage. The rich dress of the young woman, the noble air of the young man to whom she was about to be married, all announced one of those secret unions not contracted beneath the vaulted arches of a cathedral, but in the oratory of some palace, or the chapel of some secluded hamlet. The ceremony was over, and the newly married couple left the altar and walked down the nave to the door of the church of Ferentino, where a magnificent carriage was waiting. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... been cajoled out of his wrath without the slightest admission on the part of the lord that his father had ever been wrong,—his thoughts were so occupied with all this, and with Mr. Puddleham's oratory, that he did not at first give his wife an opportunity of telling ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... rez-de-chaussee, which is but little above the ground, there are two good stories all round the building, and even more in the towers. The dining-room and offices are below, and there is also a small oratory, or chapel, though I believe none of the family live there. The entrance to the principal apartments is opposite the gate, and there is also here an exterior door which communicates directly with the lawn, the ditch running behind the other wing, and in front of the gate only. The ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Watts, "this is very interesting, both as a point of view and as oratory; but it isn't business. Peter, we came down this morning to take whatever legal steps are necessary to put Dot in possession of her grandmother's money, of which I have been trustee. Here is a lot of papers about it. I suppose everything ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... subject, clothed as it was in well-chosen phrases, unquestionably won the admiration of all, even of those who could not reconcile their personal views with the Covenant, as reported by the Commission. It was a masterly effort, an example of literary rather than emotional oratory, peculiarly fitting to the occasion and to the temper and intellectual character ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... as too expensive. The money contributed by the capitalists to procure the election of the office-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirect means. Immense sums under the name of campaign funds were raised for this purpose and used in innumerable devices, such as fireworks, oratory, processions, brass bands, barbecues, and all sorts of devices, the object of which was to galvanize the people to a sufficient degree of interest in the election to go through the motion of voting. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of anticipation. There was a general move to the table. Richard began to carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf he had repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening's oratory. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Boston, intending to qualify himself for teaching. He soon found a helpful friend in Professor Moses True Brown, and became a pupil, and a little later an instructor, in the Boston School of Oratory. During years from 1885 to 1889 he taught private classes in English and American literature, and lectured in and about Boston on Browning, Shakespeare, the drama, etc., writing and studying meanwhile in the public library. In Boston he made the acquaintance of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... assisting the poorer pilgrims, and instructing the young. He formed a special confraternity, and gathered around him a body of disciples both cleric and lay. After his ordination they were accustomed to hold their conferences in a little room (/Oratorium/, Oratory) over the church of St. Girolmao. Here sermons and instructions were given on all kinds of subjects, particularly on the Sacred Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers, and the leading events in the history of the Church. The society was approved by Gregory ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... feet at the grocery stove, "to look deeper into some subjects than most people do. I've breathed gasoline smoke talking to street crowds in nearly every town in the United States. I've held 'em spellbound with music, oratory, sleight of hand, and prevarications, while I've sold 'em jewelry, medicine, soap, hair tonic, and junk of other nominations. And during my travels, as a matter of recreation and expiation, I've taken cognisance some of women. It takes a man a lifetime to find out about one particular ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... made his plea for the millions of outraged folk in India pillaged by Warren Hastings. But Hastings became a lord; he died honoured in his palace; India was left to stagger onward; Burke's splendid oratory failed. That was a great hour in the history of eloquence when Patrick Henry and Fisher Ames and Josiah Quincy became voices for liberty and the new republic. But these orators spoke to sympathetic hearers, and simply returned to the multitude in a flood what they had received from the people ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... on the street, Jake Vodell with stirring oratory kindled the fire of his cause. In the councils of the unions, through individuals and groups, with clever arguments and inflaming literature, he sought recruits. With stinging sarcasm and withering scorn he taunted the laboring people—told them they ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... that corpse-like hussy picked up at the Morgue!" He flew into a temper with the "dummy's" cadaverous face and shoulders, that disfigurement of the beautiful, and remarked that artists painted nothing but that unreal type of woman nowadays. Cadine, however, remained unconvinced by his oratory, and considered the lady extremely beautiful. Then, resisting the attempts of the artist to drag her away by the arm, and scratching her black mop in vexation, she pointed to an enormous ruddy tail, severed from the quarters of some vigorous ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... member of Parliament will tell you, that if you want real oratory, the preliminary noggin is essential. Unless pie-eyed, you cannot ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... said that, blessed them and left them alone to their chestnuts and crabs and went into his own oratory to prayer. The other boys laughed and chattered, but Findelkind sat very quietly thinking of his namesake all the day after, and for many days and weeks and months this story haunted him. A little boy had done all that, and this little boy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... his eager inclination to oratory, they say, was this. Callistratus, the orator, was to plead in open court for Oropus, and the expectation of the issue of that cause was very great, as well for the ability of the orator, who was ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... appointed a college of priests, out of which were chosen by lot persons to preside as governors over the college; who were obliged to entertain the people with extraordinary chases of wild-beasts, and stage-plays, besides contests for prizes in oratory and poetry. He thrice bestowed upon the people a largess of three hundred sesterces each man; and, at a public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. At the festival of the Seven Hills [803], he distributed large hampers of provisions (483) to the senatorian and ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Member for Sark, one of his most attentive listeners, "has introduced a new element into Parliamentary oratory. His intercurrent cough is the most remarkable adjunct to oratory I ever heard. Suppose the fact is, when he pauses, he is thinking over the next word, or surveying for a new line of argument. Other ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... that he was beloved. 220 (Love is too full of faith, too credulous, With folly and false hope deluding us); Wherefore, Leander's fancy to surprise, To the rich ocean for gifts he flies: Tis wisdom to give much; a gift prevails When deep persuading oratory fails, By this, Leander, being near the land, Cast down his weary feet, and felt the sand. Breathless albeit he were, he rested not Till to the solitary tower he got; 230 And knocked and called: at which celestial noise The longing heart of Hero much more ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... sensations are not recollected with more acuteness than mental ones, and there is no just reason why they should be despised. I have forgotten a good many aesthetic pleasures which at the time gave me keen delight—some phrase in oratory, some movement in concerted music, and such like—but I never forget the sensation of wind blowing over my bare flesh as I coasted down a long mountain road on a broiling day in August, nor the poignant thrill of that rushing water in ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... game of skill, enjoying the intellectual form of it, and counting the good points, but by the end he was not a little carried away. The peroration was undoubtedly very moving, very intimate, very modern, and Langham up to a certain point was extremely susceptible to oratory, as he was to music and acting. The critical judgment, however, at the root of him kept coolly repeating as he stood watching the people defile out of the church: 'This sort of thing will go down, will make a mark; Elsmere is at the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from the Bench, but with no good result. Quiet was at length restored by the Dean of Faculty, who succeeded in soothing the prisoner, and who then addressed the Judges, pleading for indulgence to his unhappy client in most touching and eloquent language. The speech, a masterpiece of impromptu oratory, concluded with a temperate yet strongly urged protest against the reading of the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... was a wooden cross. By each cross was a soldier's kepi, and sometimes a coat, bleached by the sun and rain. Instinctively we bared our heads, and as we walked from one grave to another I could hear the orderly behind us muttering words of prayer. That lonely oratory was the battlefield of the Marne. Seasons will come and go, man will plough and sow, the earth will yield her increase, but those graves will never be disturbed by share or sickle. They are ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the advantage of the marvelously rich and flexible voice and the commanding presence that made each word burn like a fire, even without this incalculable personal interpretation, his speeches remain as a permanent part of our literature, and will so long as English oratory is read. He was a brilliant lawyer—the foremost of his day—and his statesmanship was of equal rank. In private life he was a peculiarly devoted and tender son, husband, father, and friend. That he should have become saddened by domestic losses and somewhat vitiated by flattery were, perhaps, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... maniac somehow got into The Ivies and forced his way into the library where I was writing. A horrible looking fellow, with a tortured face, he waved a pistol in front of me, ranting phrases reminiscent of oldfashioned soapbox oratory. I am not ashamed to admit nervousness, for this is not the first time my life has been threatened since attaining prominence. Happily, the madman's aim was as wild as his speech, and though he fired four shots, all lodged ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... was one thing Barnriff bowed the knee to it was the man who could, and would, make a speech. It had all the masses' love for oratory, and was as easily swayed by it as a crowd of ignorant political voters. Besides, Doc Crombie was a tried orator in Barnriff. He had addressed a meeting once before, and, speaking on behalf of a church mission, and asking for support of the ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... enough in them to admire, or, as he has it, to understand him. When he has led his faction into any inconvenience they all run into his mouth, as young snakes do into the old ones, and he defends them with his oratory as well as he is able; for all his confidence depends upon his tongue more than his brain or heart, and if that fail the others surrender immediately; for though David says it is a two-edged sword, a wooden dagger is a better weapon ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... smiled, shrugged his shoulders. His principles of oratory were Demosthenean; his motto was "Action, action, action." His. friends on circuit called him the Balais of action. He had had some experience of the depravity of human nature, said the shrug, but this beat every ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Britain rests, in no small degree, on the refined taste and classical education of her politicians; and the portion of her oratory acknowledged to be the most energetic, bears the greatest resemblance to the spirit of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... the military supremacy of the Emperor, or calling upon the parties to forget their dissensions in maintaining the defensive strength of the nation, or showering contempt upon liberal deputies who seemed to think that questions of national existence could be solved by effusions of academic oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... might recall the venerable saying that blood will tell? Well, it was their peculiar privilege to represent to-day that sturdy stock which, when this great republic was in the pangs of birth, had with sword and pen and oratory discomfited the hirelings of England and given to history the undying names of several Revolutionary patriots,—all of whom he enumerated with the customary pause after each cognomen to allow ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... which it will make us very vulgar to have dismissed from us. "There are moreover," [109] those others proceed to say, "teachers of persuasion (peithous didaskaloi) who impart skill in popular and forensic oratory; and so by fair means or by unfair we shall gain our ends." It is with the demos, with the vulgar, insubordinate, tag-rag of one's own nature—how to rule that, by obeying it—that these professors of rhetoric begin. They are still notwithstanding ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the Binet scale does not pretend to bring to light the idiosyncrasies of special talent, but only to measure the general level of intelligence. It cannot be used for the discovery of exceptional ability in drawing, painting, music, mathematics, oratory, salesmanship, etc., because no effort is made to explore the processes underlying these abilities. It can, therefore, never serve as a detailed chart for the vocational guidance of children, telling us which will succeed in business, which in art, which in medicine, etc. It is not a new ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... of Mr. Curtis to offer the three notable deliverances above mentioned as the best and foremost examples of American oratory, the author cannot agree with him. In his opinion we shall have but little difficulty in picking out the three entitled to that distinction, provided we go to the discussion of the slavery question to find them. That furnished the greatest occasion, ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... of New England are commonly represented in the after-dinner oratory of their descendants as men "before their time," as it is called; in other words, deliberately prescient of events resulting from new relations of circumstances, or even from circumstances new in themselves, and therefore altogether ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... wounded them. The lodger in the garret next to his went so far as to signify by laughter her opinion of his unfriendly secrecy. Her own door was never shut except when he shut it. This interference with her liberty she once violently resented, delivering herself of a jet of oratory that bore with far-fetched fancy on his parentage and profession. For her threshold was her vantage ground. Upon it she stood and waited, listening for the footsteps of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... fellow's come out quite surprisingly. Mr. Chamberlayne tells me he is speaking now around the neighbourhood, and he has a pretty command of rough and ready oratory." ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... complained. There was absolutely nothing to do in the councilship; and, unlike some of my brother office-bearers, the requisite nothing I did, quietly and considerately, and very much at my leisure, without any unnecessary display of stump-oratory, or of ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... swiftly under the direction of the intrepid General. He walks into the Council of Ancients and jerks out with vivid flashes of oratory the object of his visit. The members see at a glance its meaning. They become inarticulate with rage begotten of fear. He thunders out, "I am here to demand a Republic founded on true liberty," and swears that he will have ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... mention of her is in a licence of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, "authorised thereto by parliament to Henry VIII. (who has deigned to marry the Lady Katharine, late wife of Lord Latimer deceased) to have the marriage solemnised in any church, chapel, or oratory, without the issue of banns." It took place on the 12th July following, in an upper oratory called the Queen's Privy Closet, within the honour of Hampton Court, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... too many? Three, then. That's one in ten millions. The exact proportion of Poets, Painters, Oratory, Statesmen, and all other Great Artists. Well,—three or nine,—Mary Damer is one of them. She never saw fear or jealousy, or knowingly allowed an ignoble thought or an ungentle word or an ungraceful act in herself. Her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... ardour, might not be comfortable in every case, but it was glorious, and in the line of immortal fame. All of this was somewhat marred by their occasional gulping and hiccoughing, for six-course dinners are not friendly to ethereal oratory. When one of them got through, the other, having finished the picking of his teeth, would take the stand and divulge anew to these underfed immortals the secrets of the Book ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... this opening speech an amused expression flitted across Dain's face, soon to give way, however, to an appearance of grave concern. On Lakamba's brow a heavy frown had settled, and his lips moved angrily as he listened to his Prime Minister's oratory. In the silence that fell upon the room when Babalatchi ceased speaking arose a chorus of varied snores from the corner where the body-guard had resumed their interrupted slumbers, but the distant rumble of thunder filling then Nina's heart with apprehension for the safety of her lover ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... archway, and a lateral passage beneath it, both decorated with numerous ornamental mouldings and columns, flanked at the angles by octagonal turrets of surpassing elegance. An apartment over the arch, which, during the reign of monastic power, had been used as a small oratory, for the celebration of early mass to the servants and labourers of the convent, was now appropriated to the accommodation of the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... greatest of Protestant commentators and theologians, and the inspirer of the Puritan exodus. He often preached every day for weeks in succession. He possest two of the greatest elements in successful pulpit oratory, self-reliance and authority. It was said of him, as it was afterward said of Webster, that "every word weighed a pound." His style was simple, direct, and convincing. He made men think. His splendid contributions to religious ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... Oratory! what a power art thou, wielded, as is so often the case, as much for evil as for good. The very reasoning that might appear to be obtuse, or which would be over looked entirely when written and published, issuing from the mouth, aided by the feelings of sympathy ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... it is not easy to restrain the hound when within sight of the game which it has long pursued. Before the eyes of Sir Edmund lay that pestiferous paper which had given him such annoyance. His impatience was no longer to be restrained. In the midst of the long-drawn-out oratory of the members he rose and stepped towards the table to seize ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the many historical personages attached by close association to Edinburgh no one so living, so vigorous, so present, as the great figure of the Reformer and Prophet, who once filled the air with echoes of his vehement and impassioned oratory, who led both Lords and Commons, and mated with princes on more than equal terms, the headstrong, powerful, passionate Preacher, who was at once the leading spirit of his time and its most vigorous chronicler. To fill the circle of association, he alone, of all the animated ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... Walpole Street, let us say, on the second floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman's butler, whose wife takes care of the lodgings. His cells consist of a refectory, a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory where he keeps his shower-bath and boots—the pretty boots trimly stretched on boot-trees and blacked to a nicety (not varnished) by the boy who waits on him. The barefooted business may suit superstitious ages and gentlemen of Alcantara, but does not become Mayfair and the nineteenth ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occasion on which a little kingly grace or a little kingly boldness, which so many of his ancestors commanded, might have fired the flame of pent-up popular emotion. But there was nothing of this sort to be found in the apathetic Louis. Bailly's stores of oratory had to be drawn on freely for what the King found himself unable to supply, and the honours of the day, which he might so easily have had, were heaped instead on the dashing La Fayette. As it was, Louis returned safely to Versailles, having met with a not unfriendly reception, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... the "Marriage-ring," has a touching reference to the legendary history of Nereus. The church dedicated to the honour of these Christian slaves has many interesting associations. It stands upon the site of a primitive Christian oratory, called Fasciola, because St. Peter was said to have dropped there one of the bandages of his wounds on the way to execution. And its last reconstruction, retaining all the features of the old architecture with the utmost care, was the pious work of its titular ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... boundless vitality and energy, (3) his heartfelt sympathy for the downtrodden ones of the world, (4) his wonderful ideas and ideals, (5) his quickness of intelligence, (6) his ardent patriotism, (7) his remarkable powers of oratory, and (8) his almost uncanny gift of seeing into the future—and you have a man whose superior it would indeed be hard to find. Nietzsche would have welcomed him as his superman incarnate! I have never wavered in my admiration for L. G. Even when he was in hot water over Marconis, I stuck to ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... be facetious, I see," the latter observed carelessly. "That's all right. It may enliven your oratory at socialistic congresses. But this room is no place for it. It would be infinitely safer for you to follow carefully what I am saying. As you are being called upon to furnish facts instead of cock-and-bull stories, you had better try to make your profit off what I am ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... well-directed talents must not be underrated. Different soils require different culture, and that which is inoperative on one man may be beneficial to another, and it is hardly possible for any one to form a due estimate of the elevation of which pulpit oratory is susceptible who never heard Robert Hall. This character of his preaching refers more particularly to the period when his talents were in their most vigorous exercise; a little before the time when he published ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England, where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... vacillations of rage and worship as he thrashed along Wordsworth Avenue, hearing and seeing no more than was necessary for the preservation of his life at street crossings. Half-smoked cigarette stubs glowed in his wake;[2] his burly bosom echoed with incoherent oratory. In the darker stretches of Fulton Street that lead up to the Brooklyn Bridge he fiercely exclaimed: "By God, it's not such a bad world." As he ascended the slope of that vast airy span, a black midget against a froth of stars, ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... respect for mere literature. His father was Philip Emanuel de Gondi, Count de Joigni, General of the Gallies of France, and Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost; who retired in the year 1640, to live among the Fathers of the Oratory. There he entered into holy orders, and there he died, with the reputation of a mightily pious man, on ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... who, being moved at his instance, were constantly attending clubs and popular meetings where they often delivered speeches and debated public matters, while Napoleon sat listening in silence, as he had no turn for oratory." "One day in December," the narrator continues, "I was sent for by his uncle already mentioned, in order to assist him in preparing his testament; and, after having settled his family concerns, the conversation turned upon ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in a remote and obscure quarter of the city and was already part of a little coterie from which earnestness had quite crowded out tact and in which the development of the energies left but scant room for the cultivation of the amenities. With this small group reform and oratory went hand in hand; its members talked to spare audiences on Sunday afternoons about the Readjusted Tax. Such a combination of matter and manner had pleased and attracted Abner from the start. The land question was the question, after all, and eloquence must ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... himself, and conscious that if the gate is shut the inexpert horseman must come to unutterable grief. The bottles dangling at Gilpin's waist are filled with "Birmingham froth" and "Rotunda pop," in allusion to the stump oratory of the Birmingham Political Union and the Rotunda in Blackfriars Road. Hume and O'Connell, the ardent supporters of the bill, cheering with might and main, closely follow John on horseback; while Sir Francis Burdett and Sir T. C. Hobhouse, equally ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... a "small, but elegant assortment," of dabs and flounders. "Dree and zixpence if you like," said he. "I could a bought vour times as much vor one and zixpence coast-ways, if I'd a mind, and I'll give thee no more, and not a word of a lie." His oratory conquered the coyness of the fishy damsel; and he invited the lady to take a glass of "zomat avore he topped ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... on the 21st of January, Hayne rose to deliver his First Reply, and Webster five days later took the floor to begin his Second Reply—probably the greatest effort in the history of American legislative oratory—the little chamber then used by the Senate, but nowadays given over to the Supreme Court, presented a spectacle fairly to be described as historic. Every senator who could possibly be present answered at roll call. Here were Webster's ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Johnson said to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the PERCY, in Oxford Street, the inspiration for the Percy Anecdotes; the PIAZZA, in Covent Garden, where Macklin fitted up a large coffee room, or theater, for oratory, and Fielding and Foote poked fun at him; the RAINBOW, in Fleet Street, the second coffee house opened in London, having its token money; the SMYRNA, in Pall Mall, a "place to talk politics," and frequented by Prior and Swift; TOM KING'S, one of the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... entered the contest known as the Battle of the Books, and lined himself up squarely on the side of the Ancients. The ancients, he said, surpassed the moderns in poetry, painting, oratory, history, architecture, and, in fact, all arts and sciences which depend more on genius than on experience. It was no lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the ancients in doggerel, humour ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... Awfully nice man here to-night. Public servant - New Zealand. Telling us all about the South Sea Islands till I was sick with desire to go there: beautiful places, green for ever; perfect climate; perfect shapes of men and women, with red flowers in their hair; and nothing to do but to study oratory and etiquette, sit in the sun, and pick up the fruits as they fall. Navigator's Island is the place; absolute balm for the weary. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This effort of oratory was received with smiling attention by the girl, who now addressed herself entirely to him, without heeding the effect of her words upon her step-father, or his ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... History and philosophy, oratory and the elements of mathematical science claim as their birthplace the city of Athens, where Paul, the greatest apostle of Jesus Christ, uttered his immortal oration to the Athenians, on the Areopagus (Mars Hill). And ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... SPEAKING The only extensive, comprehensive encyclopedic work of its kind ever issued. The best advice by the world's great authorities upon oratory, preaching, platform and pulpit delivery, voice-building, argumentation, debate, rhetoric, personal power, mental development, etc. Cloth, 655 ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... fixed seats, like those in the apse of some morally fallen cathedral, and they were covered with blue threadbare magnificence that told the secrets of vanity. Heavy tables crowded down the centre of the room. I came, saw, and fled. The oratory was the most thrilling place of all. It opened out of my sister's room, which was a large, sombre apartment. It was said to attract a frequently seen ghost by the force of its profound twilight and historic sorrows; and my sister, who was courageous ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Philip's feast-day; and, having done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affection and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers of this house, the priests of the Birmingham Oratory, Ambrose St. John, Henry Austin Mills, Henry Bittleston, Edward Caswall, William Paine Neville, and Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder? who have been so faithful to me; who have been so sensitive of my needs; who ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... which attended on him. The army set about furbishing and repairing their armor, and the King gave a supper that evening to the earls and barons of his army, where they made good cheer. On their taking leave the King remained alone with the lords of his bedchamber; he retired into his oratory, and, falling on his knees before the altar, prayed to God that if he should combat his enemies on the morrow, he might come off with honor. About midnight he went to bed and, rising early the next day, he and the Prince of Wales heard mass and communicated. The greater part of his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... comprising an extraordinary number of literary celebrities, Mr. Artemus Ward, the noted American humorist, made his first appearance as a public lecturer on Tuesday evening, the place selected for the display of his quaint oratory being the room long tenanted by Mr. Arthur Sketchley. His first entrance on the platform was the signal for loud and continuous laughter and applause, denoting a degree of expectation which a nervous man might have feared to encounter. However, his first sentences, and the way in which ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... ask you, if you had seen your own panegyric in the correspondence of Mrs. Waterhouse and Colonel Berkeley? To be sure their moral is not quite exact; but your passion is fully effective; and all poetry of the Asiatic kind—I mean Asiatic, as the Romans called Asiatic oratory,' and not because the scenery is Oriental—must be tried by that test only. I am not quite sure that I shall allow the Miss Byrons (legitimate or illegitimate) to read Lalla Rookh—in the first place, on account ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... students, suspended its meetings for the same length of time. Indeed, the last meeting for the season took place during the first week in June, as the evenings were too short and too warm, and the weather was not favorable to oratory. At the last meeting, an election was held of officers to serve for the following term. The same President and Vice-President were chosen; but as the Secretary declined to serve another term, Harry Walton, considerably ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that very day in Paradise; but behold how that bit of meat or vegetable on a Hawarden breakfast table is snatched from Death, transformed into thought, and on the following night shakes Parliament in the magnetism and oratory of a Gladstone. The age of miracles past, when three times a day right before our eyes Nature performs miracles greater even than raising the dead? Watch that crust of bread thrown into a cell in Bedford Jail and devoured ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... it all aside, after a grand fashion, that had really made the girl think that all Miss Stanbury's money was as nothing to his love for her. She and Priscilla and her mother had been carried away so entirely by Brooke's oratory as to feel for the time that the difficulties were entirely conquered. But now the aspect of things was so different! Whatever Brooke might owe to Miss Stanbury, she, Dorothy, owed her aunt everything. She would immolate herself,—if ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... bears the stamp of manly sincerity. As a reported piece of prose this declaration is easy to read and not difficult to believe. Many books have not been read; still more have been forgotten. As a piece of civic oratory this declaration is strikingly effective. Calculated to fall in with the bent of the popular mind, so familiar with all forms of forgetfulness, it has also the power to stir up a subtle emotion while it starts a train of thought—and ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... of the girl who first was dear to him. She, too, marries. In process of time she is fifty years old, and he is fifty-two. He has not seen her for thirty years or more, but he continually turns aside into the little oratory, to gaze upon the face as it last appeared to him when he left her at her gate and saw her no more. He inquires now and then timidly about her whenever he gets the chance. And once in his life he goes down ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... patronesses, who distribute the prizes. This yearly gathering of the rank, beauty, wealth and talent of the Principality, to commemorate their nationality and foster native genius, edified and delighted by the gems of Welsh oratory, music and song, cannot but be a laudable institution as well as pleasant recreation. Some of the foremost English journals, who devote columns of their best narrative talent to record a horse race, a Scottish highland wrestle, or hideous ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... gave the old dress-coat statuesque dignity. The spectators quietly changed their places, and occupied the benches near him, till Bartley was left sitting alone with his counsel. We are beginning to talk here at the East of the decline of oratory; but it is still a passion in the West, and his listeners now clustered about the Squire in keen appreciation of his power; it seemed to summon even the loiterers in the street, whose ascending tramp on the stairs continually ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the Most Promising Boys in a Graded School had a Burning Ambition to be a Congressman. He loved Politics and Oratory. When there was a Rally in Town he would carry a Torch and listen to the ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... learned at school that the bowels are over twenty feet in length, weigh as much as twelve or fifteen pounds, are supported in a way that makes it possible for them to sag into the abdominal cavity and press upon the pelvic organs. Dr. Emerson, of the Boston School of Oratory, asserts that in most adults the stomach and bowels are from two to six inches below their normal location; and, as I have said before, Dr. Kellogg often finds the stomach lying in the abdominal cavity as low down as the ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... discussion or difference. Mr. Belcher's ticket for town officers, which he took pains to show to those around him, was unanimously adopted. When it came to the question of schools, Mr. Belcher indulged in a few flights of oratory. He thought it impossible for a town like Sevenoaks to spend too much money for schools. He felt himself indebted to the public school for all that he was, and all that he had won. The glory of America, in his view—its pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... awake to a remark made by Paterculus,—viz. That although Greece coquettishly welcomed homage to herself, as generally concerned in the Greek literature, in reality Athens only had any original share in the drama, or in the oratory ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... three. First in importance was Kadishan, also a chief of the Stickeens, chosen because of his powers of oratory, his kinship with Chief Shathitch of the Chilcat tribe, and his friendly relations with other chiefs. He was a born courtier, learned in Indian lore, songs and customs, and able to instruct me in the proper Thlinget etiquette to suit all occasions. The other two were sturdy ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... is a pregnant query, not hastily to be dealt with by genial after-dinner oratory about the self-governing capacity of the Anglo-Norman race—still less by Fourth of July declamations over what the leader of the Massachusetts Bar used to call the 'glittering generalities' of the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the substance than endeavour to catch the shadow—so I bought the book, and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the writer. Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear to look at him, or listen to him. He made such grammatical blunders, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... companion of the palmy days of youth, methinks—as they say in the wild and wondrous West—you hit me where I live. But none of these things move me. I am lost in admiration of your oratory: really, Bob, I didn't think it was in you. But you said all this, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... which he is so fond that he had rather the nation should perish than continue ignorant of his great abilities that way; though he that observes his gestures, words, and delivery will find them so perfectly agreeable to the rules of the House that he cannot but conclude he learnt his oratory the very same way that jackdaws and parrots practise by; for he coughs and spits and blows his nose with that discreet and prudent caution that you would think he had buried his talent in a handkerchief, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... thus we went on with our interjections, not to say tears, to the end. Tears enough were shed. Not a dry eye, I believe, in the house, except some of the jackasses who had occasioned the necessity of the oratory. These attempted to laugh, but their visages 'grinned horribly ghastly smiles.' They smiled like Foulon's son-in-law when they made him kiss his father's dead and bleeding hand. Perhaps the speech may not ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Master. He had been praying a long while, perhaps for several hours. The place was one familiar to Him. Many a night after a long, wearisome day of teaching in the temple, He had labored painfully up the slope of the Mount of Olives in search of the quiet of "the Garden." Here the Savior had His oratory. Sometimes the disciples were with Him; at other times ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... acknowledged my self to be a Dumb Man, and therefore may be thought a very improper Person to give Rules for Oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of Gesture, (which seems to be very suitable to the Genius of our Nation) or at least to make use of such only as ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Two scarlet spots glowed in her cheeks. "No one appreciates your gift of oratory more than I do, Mr. Meyers. Your flow of language, coupled with your peculiar persuasive powers, make a combination a statue couldn't resist. But I think it would sort of rest me if Mr. Fromkin were to say a word, seeing ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber |
