"Topic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hour they talked about the claim, Winthrop, Collie's prospects, and their favorite topic, the Rose Girl. They were speaking of her when she appeared at the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to me," began the Doctor thoughtfully after a pause, reverting to their previous topic, "that without sickness, under such ideal living conditions as you say exist here, in a very short time this ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people who lived nowhere. "Isn't it great!" she said ardently. "It's new this summer—that's why I don't swim so very well yet. Why, it was this way. The creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father's ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... discussion lasted for three hours. Extraordinary, and to me unintelligible names, were bandied backwards and forwards; I heard of "Silver Grays," but my companions were not discussing a breed of fowls; and of "Hard Shells," and "Soft Shells," but the merits of eggs were not the topic. "Whigs and Democrats" seemed to be analogous to our Radicals, and "Know-Nothings" to be a respectable and constitutional party. Whatever minor differences my companions had, they all seemed agreed in hating the "Nebraska men" (the advocates of an extension of slavery), who ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... boys had been on the ranch some two or three weeks a new topic of interest came up. It seemed that every Fourth of July a great celebration was held in Helena, in which cowboys and ranchmen from many miles around took part. All sorts of competitions were held, such as roping, throwing, target shooting, and so on. As the day drew near, ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... been disturbed in his mind by the delay of the building-committee in the matter of the new vicarage, but on the topic of the church restoration he had been heard to say very bitter things,—far too bitter, it was thought, to proceed from the lips of such a new-comer. It is not always wise to be outspoken, and when Mr. Drummond expressed himself a little too frankly on the ugliness of the sacred edifice, which ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... There is another topic he takes up more seriously, and as a general rebutter to the charge. Says he, "After a great many of these practices with which I am charged, Parliament appointed me to my trust, and consequently has acquitted me."—Has it, my Lords? I am bold to say that the Commons are wholly guiltless of this ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... lawyer's office in the city of Montreal. One of them was the most distinguished advocate of that place; a man of some three score years, and of a commanding yet wild and singular aspect. His companion was a well-dressed female of middle age, and comely, though mournful countenance. Some disagreeable topic seemed to have just ruffled both of their tempers, for her face was moist with tears, and darkened with an expression of disappointment. His own was slightly marked with annoyance, and, suddenly ceasing to arrange some folded law papers that he held in his hands, and had gathered up from the table ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... with a topic, the examples of which are ready to hand, and may easily be multiplied, to almost any extent, by the reader for himself—the better realisation of our duties to society at large as distinct from particular individuals. When ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... childish figure, glowing face, and sublime confidence affected her with a sense of something strange and remote. Yet the conversation interested her greatly. People are very foolish who restrain spiritual confidences; no topic is so universally and permanently interesting as religious experience. Elizabeth felt its charm at once. She loved God, but loved him, as it were, afar off; she almost feared to speak to him. She had never ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... very silently exercised, if at all. The town is rife with reports of changes and appointments, some very natural and others very absurd; all agree that the power vested in Melbourne's hands is unbounded, and that (as far as Court appointments are concerned) he uses it with propriety. The great topic of interest is the question of Lord Hill's removal,[2] which the Radicals and violent Whigs have been long driving at, but to which it is believed Melbourne is himself adverse. So Lord Stanley told me the other day as his belief; and when I said that though this might be so, it was doubtful how far ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... finance in the Bakufu days is exceedingly complicated, and a very bare outline will suffice. It has already been noted that the unit of land-measurement varied from time to time and was never uniform throughout the empire. That topic need not be further discussed. Rice-fields were divided into five classes, in accordance with which division the rates of taxation were fixed. Further, in determining the amount of the land-tax, two methods were followed; one by inspection, the other by average. In the case of the former, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... on this topic are to be found in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this topic has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will warrant German warships ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... exhausted by the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN, Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception of the unit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... thinking of that when you commenced this unwelcome topic. We had better look out for the water before dark, and as soon as we have replenished our jars, we will ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, among the friends of the measure, delivered a speech "on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill," in which the topic discussed was "Restoration of the Rebel States." In the course of his ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... kinds of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourte bow, Paganini and the modern school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example, would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication. "I've been alone so ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... after the inauguration of President Polk in 1845 the great controversy over the Mexican War and Negro slavery arose. The Negro question was the topic of the day, both in and out of Congress and among all classes. This continued until in 1846, when the war broke out between the United States and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... the Doctor; and there the conversation sank. There was no topic suited to so fleeting a moment, and when they had smiled all round again Dr. Sevier lifted his hat. Ah, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... that he felt it was indelicate to allude further to the cause of woman, and, for a change, endeavoured to elicit from his companion some information about the gentlemen present. He had given her a chance, vainly, to start some topic herself; but he could see that she had no interests beyond the researches from which, this evening, she had been torn, and was incapable of asking him a personal question. She knew two or three of the gentlemen; she had seen them before at Miss Birdseye's. Of course she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... bristling with facts, and glowing with enthusiasm to renew the crusade against slavery. Garrison, broken in health as he was, went on from Boston to attend this school of his disciples. He spoke briefly but repeatedly to them upon the all-absorbing topic which had brought them together. "It was a happy circumstance, too," he wrote, "that I was present with them, and that they had an opportunity to become personally acquainted with me; for, as I am a great stumbling-block in the way of the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the Emperor to exclaim: "Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the Prophet." A prudent explanation restored his tranquillity, and he passed to a more familiar topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadi. "Fifty years." "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here," continued Timur, "a poor, lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arms has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... To these is now added the all-important department of Foreign Affairs; so that, if things remain as they are, the representatives of the people must be content to feed on second-hand information.... Most of us can remember a time when it was a favorite topic with popular agitators to expatiate on the number of lords which a government contained, as if every peer of Parliament wielded an influence necessarily hostile to the liberties of the country. We look down in the present age with contempt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the House speaks anything contrary to the sense of the people, or that the representative is silent, when the sense of the constituent, strongly, decidedly, and upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic of moment. If there is a doubt whether the House of Commons represents perfectly the whole commons of Great Britain, (I think there is none,) there can be no question but that the Lords and the Commons ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... assembling of the new parliament, Mr. Brougham, in connexion with the topic of the recent revolutions on the continent, and parliamentary reform in this country, concluded an interesting debate by saying—"He was for reform—for preserving, not for pulling down—for restoration, not for revolution. He was a shallow ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... the rustic vigor of a style which intentionally foregoes the graces of polish on the one hand, and of scholastic precision on the other—that quality of merit has never been attained in a degree so eminent. This first interchange of thought upon a topic of literature did not tend to slacken my previous disposition to retreat into solitude; a solitude, however, which at no time was tainted with either the moroseness or the pride of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... known little else than matter and material life, with small comprehension even of that. To do so would be analogous to transferring suddenly a ploughboy into a company of metaphysicians. The pursuit of any topic implies some preliminary acquaintance with its nature, aims, and mental requirements; and the more elevated the topic, the more copious the preparation for it. It is inevitable that a being who has before him an eternity of progress through zones of knowledge ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... doctor talked of the social consequences of his chemical inquiries as if he were living in the middle ages. However, I was far too anxious to see the charming brown eyes again to ask questions which would be sure to keep them cast down. So I changed the topic to chemistry in general; and, to the doctor's evident astonishment and pleasure, told him of my own early studies ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... in it a reason for suspecting Russia, hating England, and jealously watching every movement in France. Germany's future, it seemed, would have to be safeguarded by all the peaceable means available. How natural, then, to tone down her internal religious strifes by bringing forward another topic of still more absorbing interest, and to aim at building up a self-contained commercial life in the midst of uncertain, or possibly hostile, neighbours. In truth, if we view the question in its broad issues in the life of nations, we must ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... did not sympathize in the violent passions which raged on that occasion, although he was much under the power of the delusion. But the affair of drowning the horses was probably for a long time a topic of gossip, and may have given to the author of the catastrophe a notoriety which nearly cost him ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... him she was liable to the derision of the world, to sneers from strangers, and remonstrances from her friends, to becoming a topic for ridicule, if not for slander, and an object of curiosity if not ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... doctor had prevailed upon Andrews to tolerate the Eurasian's company, and I could not help noticing how Tcheriapin skilfully and deliberately goaded the Scotsman, seeming to take a fiendish delight in disagreeing with his pet theories and in discussing any topic which he had found to be ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... hide this strange state of things from her friends, Madame Claes was obliged sometimes to allude to it. The social world of Douai, in accordance with the custom of provincial towns, had made Balthazar's aberrations a topic of conversation, and many persons were aware of certain details that were still unknown to Madame Claes. Disregarding the reticence which politeness demanded, a few friends expressed to her so much anxiety on the subject that she found herself ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... her, which he lived in too dazzling a gayety of his own to see—a halo of a mind more beautiful than the body which shut it in; and in this intellectual orbit of guidance to interchange of mind, with manifold deeper and higher reach than Palgray's, upon whatever topic chanced to occur, revolved I, around her who was the loveliest and most gifted of all the human beings I had been ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... glad enough to get away from a topic that seemed to be somewhat distasteful to my host. "Excellent, indeed, and far more luxurious than anything to which I have been accustomed on board my ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! Do you know such a person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our friend," he continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and ill-favored personage, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said Scheffer, quietly; and Paul hurried back to the old queer topic, and said, half in jest: 'You mean to keep house, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... constantly pour upon them their worthless population. They, therefore, destroyed their farms and their bridges; and collecting their horses and cattle, they retreated upon the Red River among their own people. The Cherokee campaign is a topic of much boasting among the Texians, as they say they expelled the Indians from their country; but a fact, which they are not anxious to publish, is, that for every Cherokee killed, twenty Texians bit ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... to mention the chief thing For which all saints should meet on Sabbath day; But first my Muse would boldly spread her wing, For she could always on this subject stay. Your kind indulgence, reader, I would pray, As this sweet topic is most dear to me. Most gracious Savior, who for me didst pay Thy precious blood upon the cursed tree, That I might be redeemed from sin ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... broaching a topic I don't understand or speaking a language I've never learned. If you don't mind, we won't discuss the subject, and we'll speak our mother-tongue—the mother-tongue of people like you ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... up with a smile, in which an onlooker might have detected a spark of malice, as though Rainham were aware that his suggested topic was not without attraction to his friend. He was a slight man of middle height, and of no apparent distinction, and his face with all its petulant lines of lassitude and ill-health—the wear and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... has a kind of idolatry . . . And what answers can I give? I supplicate her with looks. She observes them, my efforts to divert them from being painful produce a comic expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... treatment, I have, without neglecting moral analysis or reflective exposition, even greater prominence to biographic narrative, living presentation of instances from which the reader may draw the befitting lessons of the topic, and apply them for personal profit. Poetry, it has been said, is balm on the wounds of non- fulfilment in our lives. When our own experience and imagination are wanting in that balm, we must borrow it from ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Edouard's great delight, another hunt was proposed, and it furnished a topic for conversation during dinner and part of the evening. By ten o'clock, as usual, all had retired to their rooms, except Roland, who was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... nothing, and Alston, in his easy, almost boyish way, glanced off to some other topic. But before he started for England he ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... their guard against such curiosity, and give their domestics no cause to employ their penetration. These and other such reflections were occasionally whispered as secrets among those who were known to be communicative; so that, in a few hours, it became the general topic of discourse; and, as it had been divulged under injunctions of secrecy, it was almost impossible to trace the scandal to its origin; because every person concerned must have promulgated her own breach of trust, in discovering ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... said nothing, and Hetty fancied he was not desirous of following up the topic, while as they sat silent a big locomotive backed another great train of emigrant cars in. Then the tramp of feet commenced again, and once more a frowsy host of outcasts from the overcrowded lands poured into the depot. Wagons piled with baggage ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... uncalled-for bitterness in this; but the poor fellow can't be contented, with his lonesome and aimless life. "We're not talking about me, Jim. You're the topic. Stick to your text, and preach away: my soul is not so immersed in oil that I can't listen. But I don't blame you for going back on the law; a beast of a business, I always thought it. Why didn't you go for ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... from the bedroom divested of their wraps, began at once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had no more than stated the bare facts when they became aware that there was a more absorbing topic in the air. Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's hired man, who had told his wife, who told Mrs. Osgood—but for that matter there was no great secret ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... touched many matters relating to the happenings in the lives of the long separated families. Madelene plied her knife and fork industriously, and jumped from topic to topic, expressing a lively interest in all the events ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... stoop of a student told that plainly enough. Nor was the loss one dating from early life: he used his left arm too awkwardly for the event not to have had a recent date. Had it anything to do with his melancholy? Here was a topic for my vagabond imagination, and endless were the romances woven by it during my silent dinner. For the reader must be told of one peculiarity in me, because to it much of the strange complications of my story are due; complications into ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in its symbolical suggestion as in its form and construction—a model of which was brought to London by Judah Templo in the reign of Charles II.[125] It was much the same on the Continent, but so far from being a new topic of study and discussion, we may trace this interest in the Temple all through the Middle Ages. Nor was it peculiar to the Cabalists, at least not to such a degree that they must needs be brought in to account for the Biblical imagery and symbolism in Masonry. Indeed, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... town, killing and murdering. Some one said the ill-omened face of Mohun had been seen at the theatre the night before, and Macartney and Meredith with him. Meant to be a feast, the meeting, in spite of drink, and talk, was as dismal as a funeral. Every topic started subsided into gloom. His grace of Ormonde went away because the conversation got upon Denain, where we had been defeated in the last campaign. Esmond's general was affected at the allusion to this action too, for his comrade of Wynendael, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occasionally had made a similar promise to deliver a sermon on good works;[3] and when Luther actually commenced the composition he had nothing else in view but the preparation of a sermon for his congregation on this important topic. ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... went on the four men came closer and watched the operation of the machine. The ribbon unrolled slowly; it was plain that, if the one topic occupied the whole reel, then it must have the length of an ordinary chapter. And as the voice continued, certain dramatic qualities came out and governed the words, utterly incomprehensible though they were. There was a real thrill ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... conversed about the sayings and doings of the Wright family, and of the world at large, and about the loss of the cable-ship; but gradually and slowly, yet surely, the minds and converse of the little party came round to the all-absorbing topic, like ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... liked it better than the wild talk about impending eruptions, and began to feel rather pleased that he had met Merton after all. Still, he could not help experiencing some curiosity about his mysterious friend's way of life; and in spite of prudence he led the way to this dangerous topic. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... which comes next, follows ordinary lines, and is chiefly remarkable for its busy clergy. I included it because the topic of kidnapping is one of which I think every collection of old stories for children should take notice. In every book of this nature at least one child's face must be stained with walnut juice. The story is from the anonymous Tales of the Hermitage, written for the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... take it for granted that you can start the engine of the Leopard," continued Percy, coming back to the topic which interested him most. "What are you going to do after ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... table, with the affrighted Indian squaw waiting upon them, the professor took up the topic of earthquakes again, in answer ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... question of religion is taken; but upon the continent of Europe—in France, Germany, and I had almost added Switzerland and Italy, the case is already different or fast becoming so. Rationalism is rampant, and the reader should constantly bear in mind, as I may not often return to this topic, that the majority of the intelligent people in most places are of the camp that I have described as holding these meetings on Hyde Park and in the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... He had not left any message or note for Marcello. This was as it should be, and Marcello did not care to know whither he had gone, since he was out of the house. He was glad, however, that he had left Rome at once instead of going to an hotel, which would have made an interesting topic of conversation for gossips. ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... breadth of the little preacher's topic, I fled up-stairs again. There an inspiration did, indeed, strike me; for I remembered an old fur cape, or pelisse, of my mother's, out of fashion, but the warmer for that; and straightway I got me into it, and curled up, with my ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... trial of relief and amusement; many wakeful nights did she sit by my bedside in trembling expectation that every hour would be my last." Gibbon is rather anxious to get over these details, and declares he has no wish to expatiate on a "disgusting topic." This is quite in the style of the ancien regime. There was no blame attached to any one for being ill in those days, but people were expected to keep their infirmities to themselves. "People ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... the weary hours of an invalid's day. At such times she would listen with patient indifference while they sought to interest her with current local gossip, and as soon as possible would turn the conversation back to the old happy days before her sickness. On this topic she was never weary of talking, but it was impossible to induce her to take any interest ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... such a vital way that they become moving ideas, motive-forces in the guidance of conduct. This demand and this opportunity make the moral purpose universal and dominant in all instruction—whatsoever the topic. Were it not for this possibility, the familiar statement that the ultimate purpose of all education is character-forming would be hypocritical pretense; for as every one knows, the direct and immediate attention of teachers and pupils must be, for the greater part of the ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... the Aztecs who built the old city of Mexico will be made a separate topic; but it may be said here that when they came into the Valley of Mexico they were much less advanced in civilization than their predecessors. There is no reason whatever to doubt that they had always resided in the country as an obscure branch of the aboriginal ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Paris is still everywhere talking of Mr. Roosevelt. It was a thing almost without precedent that this blase city kept up its interest in him without abatement for eight days; but that a week after his departure should still find him the main topic of conversation is a fact which has undoubtedly entered into Paris history. The Temps [one of the foremost daily newspapers of Paris] has had fifty-seven thousand copies of his Sorbonne address printed and distributed free to every schoolteacher in France and to many other ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the elder Camusot, before the very persons who had heard Mme. de Marville singing Frederic Brunner's praises but a few days ago, that lady, to whom nobody ventured to speak on the topic, plunged ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... would interest the Father Superior of a French Monastery, presumably indifferent to everything that passed outside its walls? Suddenly I had an inspiration: the Arian Heresy! We had had four lessons on this interesting topic at Chittenden's five years earlier (surely rather an advanced subject for little boys of twelve!), and some of the details still stuck in my head. A brilliant idea! Soon we were at it hammer and tongs; discussing ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of Cuba formed a prominent topic in my last annual message. They remain in an uneasy condition, and a feeling of alarm and irritation on the part of the Cuban authorities appears to exist. This feeling has interfered with the regular commercial intercourse between ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... assumption of plurality of existence—is not only useless but even opposed. The consideration of the Udgitha and the like, which is supplementary to works only, finds a place in the Vedanta-texts, only because like them it is of the nature of knowledge; but it has no direct connexion with the true topic of those texts. Hence some prerequisite must be indicated which has reference to the principal topic of the sastra.—Quite so; and this prerequisite is just the knowledge of works; for scripture declares that final release results from knowledge with works added. The Sutra-writer himself ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the purpose of this plain record to enlist sympathy for the recorder. The topic upon which, here, I have ventured to touch was one fascinating enough to me; I cannot hope that it holds equal charm for any other. Let us return to that which it is my duty to narrate and let us forget ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... doesn't form a ground of common interest for us. I talked with you about the Miss Northwicks' affairs the other day—too much, I think. But I can't to-day. I shall be glad to converse with you on any other topic—discuss the ways of God to man, or any little interest of that kind. But unless I can see my way clearer to confidence between us in regard to my clients' affairs than I do at present, I ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... leave you to follow out the subject for yourselves, as I said I should, and proceed, in our next lecture, to examine the two other branches of our subject—namely, how to accumulate our art, and how to distribute it. But, in closing, as we have been much on the topic of good government, both of ourselves and others, let me just give you one more illustration of what it means, from that old art of which, next evening, I shall try to convince you that the value, both moral and mercantile, is greater ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Verinder did not intend to give her an opportunity. From the soup to the walnuts the topic of conversation had to do with the impending departure of the mine owner. Joyce was prepared to be very kind to him, but he did not for an instant let his eyes dwell in hers. Behind the curtain of her ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... depot, its comfortable lounge and tempting refreshments. A salesman in such an apartment did Denton now become. It was his business to attend to any of the incessant stream of ladies who chose to stop with him, to behave as winningly as possible, to offer refreshment, to converse on any topic the possible customer chose, and to guide the conversation dexterously but not insistently towards hats. He was to suggest trying on various types of hat and to show by his manner and bearing, but without any coarse ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... confusion. With all his incisive thought and fine command of language, Addison could not think on his feet. And as if aware of his limitations, in one of the "Spectator" essays he said, with more or less truth, "The fluent orator, ready to speak on any topic, is never profound, and when once his thought is cold it will seldom repay examination—it was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... think that many amiable and really candid minds in search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... "The topic goes into this tube, a sort of phonograph Which acts directly on my mind,—it does, you needn't laugh! I do not have to think at all, for, as I pull this chain, My wonderful machine transmits ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... into the town to tell the news of the Bridau arrival, describe Agathe's dress, and more particularly to picture Joseph, whose haggard, unhealthy, and determined face was not unlike the ideal of a brigand. That evening Joseph was the topic of conversation in all ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... approved and permission was granted. Soon after a gentleman of Merton College, who was one of our little company, now consisting of five persons, acquainted us that he had been much rallied the day before for being a member of the Holy Club, and that it was become a common topic of mirth at his college, where they had found out several of our customs, to which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... motionless as long as he cared to talk of his sister, in her wide, meditative eyes the shadow of a great unvoiced longing. It always seemed to make her grave and thoughtful, he had noticed, so he had tried lately to avoid the topic, and to-night in particular he wanted to do so, for this was no time for melancholy. He had not even allowed himself to think, as yet, and there were reasons why he did not wish her to do so; thought and realization and a ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Paris meeting of 1878, that the basic process would so speedily prove itself to be of such paramount value as we now know it to possess. On the other hand, the extinction of the old puddling process has long been the favorite topic of one of our most practical ex-presidents, and I have shown you by figures that the process is not only not yet dead, but that the manufacture of wrought iron is actually flourishing side by side with that of its younger brother, steel. How much longer this may continue to be the case it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... literature and languages. His essays and studies in Greek attracted world-acknowledgment, but at home he was known chiefly as a genial, self-effacing lawyer, not ambitious for a large practice and oblivious of position, but happy in his friends and in delving deep into whatever topic in the world of letters ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... the crowd in the court-room craned their necks in closer attention, one man standing on his chair for a better view until a deputy ordered him down. They knew what the charge was. It was the defence they all wanted to hear. That had been the topic of conversation around the tavern stoves of Bug Hollow ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I do! The river before that. Thank God, I still have my self respect left!" Quickly changing the topic, he went on: "I met an old friend of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Academy in self-defence," said Reginald. "It is the one topic one has in common with the ...
— Reginald • Saki
... she succeeded in changing the topic of conversation, and presently they rose to join his mother at the tea-table in ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... all this, as every one did. The cost of living, the best way of meeting the problem, whether by city or suburb or country, was the most frequent topic of conversation in all circles, altogether crowding out the weather and scandal. At first Jack was severe about the leaping scale of expenditure and inclined to hold his wife accountable for it as "extravagance." He would even talk of giving up their pretty home and going to some impossible ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... and moody, and though saying nothing directly on the topic nearest her heart, yet intimating by every look and action that she considered Agnes as a most ungrateful and contumacious child. Then there was a constant internal perplexity,—a constant wearying course of self-interrogation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Calvinism honours the sovereignty of God, and exalts the grace of Christ, their religious and holy feelings are enlisted in a cause which little deserves these high and evangelic eulogies. While the love of God in Christ, to themselves in particular, is made the prevailing topic, the gloomy and suspicious parts of the system are kept in the ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Another topic, which concerns most vitally the character and integrity of the Royal Society, I hardly know how to approach. It has been publicly stated that confidence cannot be placed in the written minutes of the Society; and an instance has been adduced, in which ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... when we crossed the Indian trail and that was the general topic of conversation the balance of the day. If they had been on foot we could easily have told what tribe they belonged to by their moccasin tracks, but they all being on ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... said, Blueskin was the one engrossing topic of talk, and it added not a little to Levi's prestige when it was found that he had actually often seen that bloody, devilish pirate with his own eyes. A great, heavy, burly fellow, Levi said he was, with a beard as black as a hat—a devil with his ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the dangerous topic!" rejoined the Signor. "If you stay here long, I think you and the prison-walls will become acquainted. But here is what used to be poor Mr. Royal's happy home, and yonder is where Madame Papanti resides,—the Madame Guirlande I told you of, who befriended ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... that she did not speak of Regnault till Paris lay but a few hours away. The whirlwind of her mood was a thing that did not touch him, but it would have been mere torment to battle on with that one topic. When she did speak of him it was with the suddenness with which she approached everything. She had been silent for nearly an hour, gazing through the window at the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... handling—important because it helps us to interpret the ideas of the Romans about their sacrifices, and the attitude in which they conceived themselves as standing towards the deities whom they thus approached. I propose to occupy the rest of this lecture in considering this most interesting topic. I wish first to draw attention to a particular feature, or rather expression, which occurs in the authentic wording of certain prayers which we are lucky enough to possess, because I think it throws some light on the meaning which the Romans attached ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption, of our body." In his address, at Jerusalem, before his accusers and the people, he cried out, "Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." It was uniformly a prominent topic of his thoughts. ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the railway was to be built in the spring caused a great stir in the village. The strangers who went about buying land from the peasants were the sole topic of conversation at the spinning-wheels on winter evenings. One poor peasant had sold his barren gravel hill, and had been able to purchase ten acres of the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... cut—otherwise a poem—is unchangeable, imperditable. Seeing it has been manufactured once, nobody tries to make it over again. The fact is regarded subject to liberal translation; poems circulate virgin and verbatim. In some future article I may recur to this topic with reference to the Columbia River, and the capital light afforded to delvers in its wondrous trap-rock by the lantern of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... the dinner into its various courses, and under each course is given what I call an "opening sentence," together with your partner's probable reply and the topic which is then introduced for discussion. And, most valuable of all, under each such topic I have listed certain helpful facts which will enable you to prolong the conversation along those lines until the arrival of the next course, and the consequent ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... and petitions sent to Congress and the people, but now for woman's enfranchisement. When the whole nation was as it were resolved into its original elements, and the fundamental rights of citizens the topic for discussion in the halls of legislation and at every fireside, the time seemed so opportune for the settlement of the broad question of representation, that the persistency and determination of a few women to secure their rights ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... forth at the beginning of each question and at certain other places, are ordinarily presented on a separate line for each topic. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Archey called, full of the topic which had been started that afternoon. Hutchins told him what ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... been hastily thrown together in explanation of the vote above recited. They make no pretension to a full argument of the topic. I hope that in a short time I shall get leisure sufficient to present to our opponents, unless some one does it for me, a full statement of the reasons which have led us to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing how popular ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... made one of those restful interludes which are so necessary, and often so hard to produce, between two people whose thoughts run upon a strong common interest, and who find it difficult to exchange half a dozen words without being led back to the absorbing topic. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... you have indeed put aside the courtier; talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi- god! To renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic." ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... industriously sought? He himself said, very truly, in the debate, that no artifices were necessary to draw from him his opinions upon that subject. But to fall upon Mr. Burke for making an use, at worst not more irregular, of the same liberty, is tantamount to a plain declaration that the topic of Franco is tabooed or forbidden ground to Mr. Burke, and to Mr. Burke alone. But surely Mr. Fox is not a republican; and what should hinder him, when such a discussion came on, from clearing himself unequivocally (as his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... design. The conception of reason in the world passed from him to Aristotle, to whom it seemed the dawn of sober thought after a night of disordered dreams. From Aristotle it descended to his commentators, and under the influence of Averroes became the engrossing topic of speculation. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... under the guidance of intelligence which adapts the parts to each other. When therefore we find that the simplest life substance is a machine, we are forced to ask what forces exist in nature which can in a similar way build machines by the adjustment of parts to each other. But this topic belongs to the second part of our subject, and must ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... the prisoner by an interpreter, who in his turn appeared to feel the gravity of the occasion. He alluded with bated breath to the topic of corned beef; he slid, so to speak, over the soap; only in the mention of the fifty marks did his voice ring out confidently, as though righteous indignation had overcome the baser sentiment of pity. Pumpenheim listened in silence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... neglect of dress, that he was a planter in moderate circumstances, and of course not gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect; but let him open his mouth, and the delusion vanishes. At the time alluded to he was surrounded by the rest of the cabinet, in our office, and the topic was the policy of the war. He was for taking the initiative, and carrying the war into the enemy's country. And as he warmed with the subject, the man seemed to vanish, and the genius alone was visible. He was most emphatic in the advocacy of his policy, and bold almost to rashness ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... topic he will be delighted to hear your views. Chatty remarks on bimetallism would meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on what to do with the cold mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland, if you don't ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... our compartment would talk, however, and he would keep the topic down to red trousers, and to the red trousers of a French Territorial opposite, with an index finger when his gesticulatory knowledge of the French language, which was excellent, came to the rescue of his verbal knowledge, which ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... thought, ] Topic. — N. subject of thought, material for thought; food for the mind, mental pabulum. subject, subject matter; matter, theme, [Grk], topic, what it is about, thesis, text, business, affair, matter in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... settled down to the work of "Reconstruction." Already the eyes of every serious minded Canadian scan the horizon, wondering if these transatlantic liners now bound for our ports carry in their dark hulls hosts of new settlers. Immigration is the topic of the hour. Confronted as we are by a fabulous national debt, GREATER PRODUCTION is the only solution. This intense and extensive development of agriculture and industry necessarily involves immigration.—Immigration is therefore an ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... repulse and the terrible losses in the Highland brigade, and of Gatacre's disaster, cast a greater gloom over Buller's army than their own failure had done. The one topic of conversation among the officers was, what would be the feeling in England, and whether there would be any inclination to patch up another dishonourable peace like that after Majuba. But the feeling wore off as day after day the news came that ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... had not an idea to give him, gave him a great many good ideas, to which he appeared to listen, while he was contemplating her trim figure, and the animated expression of her face, and thinking how very well she would look at the head of that poetical table behind that phantom teapot. At last the topic of Popular Education ran out; and Overtop felt that this kind of imposition could not be practised ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... little during this meal, and for the life of her Barbara Harding could not think of any topic with which to distract his attention ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... too, Markham's conversation had a particularity known to distinguish it. War was his favourite topic, and caught, perhaps, from the worthy major, his father, and from his crony Webb, afterwards the general. It was apparent upon all occasions; when he was to choose his reading as a private study, in the sixth form, Caesar was his first book; and so continuing ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the way down the river, the general topic of conversation was the contrast between the desolate slave-cursed shores of Kentucky, and the smiling plenty of the opposite bank; but Louisville was largely settled by Northern people, and was to prove an oasis ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Gazette, of course," said Hammerton, a little taken aback by the cool change of both topic and manner, "but my private suspicion is that it entertained a few doubts on the subject. What do we think now? Look here, Mr. Varney," the boy said amiably, "you've been white about this business, and I do really want to show that I ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... He kindly invited me to join him at the table, an invitation which I accepted with alacrity, enjoying the meal with a relish known only to a very-hungry man, for I had eaten nothing since morning. Of course the events of the day were the chief topic of discussion—as they were during my stay at headquarters—but the conversation indicated that what had occurred was not fully realized, and I returned to my troops impressed with the belief that General Buell and his staff-officers were unconscious of the magnitude of the battle ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan |
