"Debater" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... however, with Ungque. He was a demagogue, after an Indian fashion; and this is a class of men that ever "make capital" of abuses, as we Americans say, in our money-getting habits. Instead of being frightened off the ground, he arose to answer as promptly as if a practised debater, though with an air of humility so profound, that no one could take offence ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... lawyer, acted closely with Lord Midleton. Sir Bertram Windle, President of University College, was another of Government's choices—a man of science who was also very much a man of affairs. Another, far less of a debater, far more of a power, was Mr. William Martin Murphy, Chairman of the Dublin Tramways, a powerful employer of labour who had headed the fight against Larkin in 1913, and had been mainly responsible for the character of the employers' victory. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... the typical man of that generation, both the victim and the hero of his time—a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater, he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his eloquence is convincing ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... brilliant military career in India, held office outside the cabinet as chief secretary for Ireland. Spencer Perceval was a half-brother of the Earl of Egmont and brother of Lord Arden. He enjoyed a large practice at the bar and had made his mark as a parliamentary debater when filling the offices, first of solicitor-general, and then of attorney-general under Addington. He had held the latter office again under Pitt. Not the least source of his influence was his steady and determined opposition to the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1806. On the 13th of the same month Fox expired in London, amiable and beloved to the last day of his life; ardently devoted to his friends, to freedom, to all noble and generous causes; a great orator and a great debater; feeble in his political conduct even in opposition, incapable of governing and of sustaining the great struggle which for so long agitated Europe. At his death the party of resistance resumed power ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... spirit of liberty." He made it a point to speak on every question that came up, whether interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and training his faculties, for he was bent on making himself a powerful debater. His love of argument was perhaps the most striking trait of his character, and "he rose," said Mr. Burke, "by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." There ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Yale that he was a brilliant debater as well as scholar. At his graduation he engaged in a debate on the question, "Whether the education of daughters be not, without any just reason, more neglected than that of the sons." "In this debate," wrote James Hillhouse, one of his classmates, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Nothing could be more dismal than these discourses, except perhaps the contemporaneous and interminable orations of Grotius to the states of Holland, to the magistrates of Amsterdam, to the states of Utrecht; yet Carleton was a man of the world, a good debater, a ready writer, while Hugo Grotius was one of the great lights of that age and which shone for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... priori reasoning, reductio ad absurdum, horns of a dilemma, argumentum ad hominem [Lat.], comprehensive argument; empirema^, epagoge^. [person who reasons] reasoner, logician, dialectician; disputant; controversialist, controvertist^; wrangler, arguer, debater polemic, casuist, rationalist; scientist; eristic^. logical sequence; good case; correct just reasoning, sound reasoning, valid reasoning, cogent reasoning, logical reasoning, forcible reasoning, persuasive reasoning, persuasory reasoning^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... face from here, for he wears his hat and at the moment hangs his head. A little later on I both saw and heard him speak and a splendid speech he made, going right to the heart of the matter, laying it bare. His success as a debater is a marvellous triumph of mind over material influences. It would be hard to conceive a man having fewer of the outward graces of oratory than Mr Lowe. His utterance is hesitating, sometimes even to stuttering, he speaks hurriedly, and without emphasis; his manner is nervous ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... as a brilliant young lawyer, but also as a man of liberal tastes, fond of books, and happy in his domestic life. Like Mirabeau, he was a person of powerful physique and of stentorian voice, a skilled debater and a convincing orator; unlike Mirabeau, he himself remained calm and self-possessed while arousing his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Like Mirabeau, too, he was not so primarily interested in the welfare of his own social class as in that of the class ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Robert Peel occupied. Anecdotes innumerable might be recorded to show the extraordinary influence in Parliament which made him "the great commoner" of the age; for Sir Robert Peel was not only a skillful and adroit debater, but by many degrees the most able and one of the most eloquent men in either house of parliament. Nothing could be more stately or imposing than the long array of sounding periods in which he expounded his doctrines, assailed his political adversaries, or vindicated his own policy. But when ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... was well enough to be out again he took counsel of friends, and after careful deliberation resolved to leave his native town and remove to the city. A lawyer of fine ability, and known to the public as a clear thinker and an able debater, he had made quite an impression on the country during his first term in Congress; neither he nor his friends had any doubt as to his early success, provided he was able to keep himself free from the thraldom of ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... elevate and benefit mankind, Newcastle-on-Tyne doubtless takes the lead. Surrounded by innumerable coal mines, it furnishes employment for a large labouring population, many of whom take a deep interest in the passing events of the day, and, consequently, are a reading class. The public debater or speaker, no matter what may be his subject, who fails to get an audience in other towns, is sure of a gathering in the Music Hall, or Lecture Room in Newcastle. Here I first had an opportunity of coming in ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... troops. By way of punishment, Townshend now suspended the legislature. A few weeks after carrying these measures Townshend died of a fever, and his place was taken by Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford. North was thirty-five years of age. He was amiable and witty, and an excellent debater, but without force of will. He let the king rule him, and was at the same time able to show a strong hand in the House of Commons, so that the king soon came to regard him as a real treasure. Soon after North's ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a speaker's power was an emotional one. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Navy. Mr. Rice did not often partake in the general debates of Congress, but he had the confidence of its members to an unusual degree, and the measures which he presented were seldom successfully opposed. When occasion called, however, he distinguished himself as a debater of first-class ability, as was shown in his notable reply to the Honorable Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, one of the most brilliant speakers in Congress, in defence of the navy, and especially of its administration during the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... merits, but it has a manifest tendency to encourage short views. The immediate party interest becomes so absorbing that men find it difficult to look greatly beyond it. The desire of a skilful debater to use the topics that will most influence the audience before him, or the desire of a party leader to pursue the course most likely to be successful in an immediately impending contest, will often override all other considerations, and the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... efforts he made on their behalf, a fine group in bronze of a female figure—"Greece" throwing off the bonds of Turkey. Some of the speakers were very interesting. He found Schouvaloff always a brilliant debater—he spoke French perfectly, was always good-humoured and courteous, and defended his cause well. One felt there was a latent animosity between the English and the Russians. Lord Beaconsfield made one or two strong speeches—very much to the point, and slightly arrogant, but as they were always made ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... question, not me," he replied. "You—Sir Julien Portel, caricatured as the best-dressed man in the House of Commons, member of the most fashionable clubs, brilliant debater, successful politician, future Prime Minister, and all that sort of twaddle. You were living too far up in the clouds, my friend, to come down here. You see, I am not offering you much sympathy, Julien. I don't think you need it. You were soaring up to the skies ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... occasional unfairness for his companions, who find themselves one day giving too much, and the next, when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel is in another class from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hilltop, and from that vantage-ground ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... position by Henry Winter Davis, which was signed by himself and Senator Wade, fitly echoed their feelings. Mr. Davis was a man of genius. Among the famous men in the Thirty- eighth Congress he had no superior as a writer, debater and orator. He was a brilliant man, whose devotion to his country in this crisis was a passion, while his hostility to the President's policy was as sincere as it was intense; but the passage of the somewhat incongruous bill vetoed by the President, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... boys, he was always fighting the battle of the offended and the weak; in manhood, he was always protecting the fugitive from an angry mob; as a lawyer, saving the widow's son from the gallows, and declining the rich fee of an unrighteous cause; as a public debater, the fairest ever met in the political arena; and as president of the republic, honest in his convictions and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... the ordeal. After DON JOSE'S withdrawal from the scene his son's advance to a leading place in the councils of his party and the estimation of the House was rapid. Within limits of present Session he has shown increased power as a debater, promising attainment of still loftier heights. Ever courteous in manner, untainted by the "new style" deplored by PREMIER, he, though an uncompromising party man, has made no personal enemies among any section ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Judge Douglas, however, had taken the edge off my hostility. He had said to me upon his return in triumph to Washington after the famous Illinois campaign of 1868: "Lincoln is a good man; in fact, a great man, and by far the ablest debater I have ever met," and now the newcomer began to verify this opinion both in his private conversation and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the undisputed leader of the plantation interests of the South, and few men were better fitted for the great commission. A keen and able debater and an enthusiastic Southerner, a combination in himself of the up-country ideals and the low-country purposes, he had become the idol of South Carolina. Conciliatory in manner and pure in all his public and private life, he won the respect and friendship of the best men ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... skims the surface of the troubled water, till the feathers of its breast are charged with oil; and then feeds heartily on the provision so collected. A vast number of her Majesty's subjects dart over the debater and the discussor of the newspaper, like storm petrels, and thrive upon what skimmings ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to these words, and gave them no answer. He was much too old a debater to be misled by such trifles, when he needed all his faculties to pin his opponent to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... indeed, that so great an intellect should be suspended,—a voice so eloquent hushed. You are right; in this CRISIS, Guy Darrell once more in the House of Commons, we should have all we require,—an orator, a debater! Very odd, but at this moment we have no speakers,—WE ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Kleiser offers no panacea (as the title might seem to imply). Logic will not make a dunce a philosopher, neither will it insure success where success is not deserved. But what he does offer the honest debater in this practical book, is to put him in possession of those laws of argumentation which lie at the bottom of sound reasoning, based on fact."—Times-Dispatch, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon is a very adroit debater, and he discovers, of course, the great advantage he would have if I were to allow him, occupying the floor, to ask me a series of questions, and then have his own criticisms made on them. When he has closed his speech, if I deem it necessary, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... reflect that among his contemporary admirers Dale was credited with an intellect of unusual clarity, for the examination of any of his plays impresses one with the number and mutual destructiveness of his motives for artistic expression. A noted debater, he made frequent use of the device of attacking the weakness of the other man's speech, rather than the weakness of the other man's argument. His prose was good, though at its best so impersonal that it recalled the manner of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... of feeling Doctor Peabody could be a very vigorous debater. He once carried on a newspaper argument with Rev. Dr. Minor, of Boston, on the temperance question, in which he took the ground that drinking wine and beer did not necessarily lead to intemperance,— which, rightly considered, indicates ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... practice of showing Jesus's skill as a debater, makes him play a less passive part at his trial, he still gives substantially the same account of it as all the rest. And the question that would occur to any modern reader never occurs to him, any more than it occurred to Matthew, Mark, or ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... with resentment, longed to decline the offer; but, alas! he was poor, and, what was worse, in debt; "his poverty, but not his will, consented." He was reinstated; but though prodigiously improved as a debater, he felt that he had not advanced as a public man. His ambition inflamed by his discontent, he had, since his return to office, strained every nerve to strengthen his position. He met the sarcasms on his poverty ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... substantial thought; and adhering very closely to the business in hand, they seldom present passages that could be quoted, without tearing them forcibly, as it were, out of the context, and thus mangling the fragments which we might offer to the reader. As we have already remarked, he seems, as a debater, to revive the old type of the Revolutionary Congress, or to bring back the noble days of the Long Parliament of England, before eloquence had become what it is now, a knack, and a thing valued for itself. Like those strenuous orators, he speaks with the earnestness of honest conviction, and out ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said a fresh debater in a faint voice, as no less a person than the captain joined in the discussion. "You are all worn-out. We sick folk have sharp ears, and will keep ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... widows. Yet Burnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and even to serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were quick, his industry unwearied, his reading various and most extensive. He was at once a historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and an active political leader; and in every one of these characters made himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only to the curious: but his History of his own Times, his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in the crooked mazes of rotten boroughs, is not baffled by Scotch law, and can follow the meaning of one of Mr. Canning's speeches. With so many resources, with such variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather a powerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many details (which he himself goes through with unwearied and unshrinking resolution) the spirit of the question is lost to others who have not the same voluntary power of attention or the ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... to him as speechifying. He was not a diplomatist such as Beaconsfield, a tactician like Mr. Gladstone, a fearless, dashing debater like Lord Derby the elder, "The Rupert of Debate"; nor had he the weight of Lord Salisbury, nor the aestheticism of Mr. Balfour. But as a mere voice in the political opera he had a charm above them all. In appearance he was commonplace compared with these ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Montagu, Earl of Halifax, as Ranger of Bushey Park and Hampton Court, held many offices under William III., and was First Lord of the Treasury under George I., until his death in 1715. He was great as financier and as debater, and he was a liberal patron ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... said to be wan iv th' quickest iver heerd since th' days iv Dan'l Webster. It laid open th' scalp. But they tell me Tillman's speeches is not what Hogan calls impromptchu. He rehearses thim ivry mornin' with a punchin'-bag. Bailey is more iv a nachral debater. No holds barred with him. Hand or fut, 'tis ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... great force as a debater is less, perhaps, in the matter than in the manner. His delivery is good and his gestures cannot fail to convince the most skeptical. Striking in appearance, aggressive in his nature, and happy in his gestures, he is certain to attract the attention of the police, and he cannot fail to rivet ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... contrasted with the good debater. The good speaker is he who unfolds the whole of a question in its affirmative aspects, who presents these aspects in their just proportions, and according to their orderly and symmetrical deductions from each other. But the good debater is he who faces the negative aspects of the question, who meets sudden objections, has an answer for any momentary summons of doubt or difficulty, dissipates seeming inconsistencies, and reconciles the geometrical smoothness ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... was to become a great political orator and debater, in which at last he succeeded. His mental agility was manifest in his reply to an elector whom he had canvassed for a vote, and who offered him a halter instead. "Oh thank you," said Fox, "I would not deprive you of what is ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... newspaper reader's and debater's guide to the leading controversies of the day, political, social, religious, etc.; ed. ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
... and had retained Mr. Pinkney, who stood at that time at the head of the bar of the United States. He had all the qualifications of a great lawyer, except perhaps that of robustness. He was keen, strong, and learned; diligent in preparation, he was ready and fluent in action, a good debater, and master of a high order of eloquence. He was a most formidable adversary, and one whom Mr. Webster, then just at the outset of his career, had probably no desire to meet in such a doubtful case as this.[1] Even here, however, misfortune seemed to pursue the State, for Mr. Pinkney ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... whereupon a war of words began, which speedily waged so hot that the pipes of both combatants went out, and old John Potter found it necessary to assume the part of peace-maker, in which, being himself a keen debater, he failed, and there is no saying what might have been the result of it if old Martha had not brought the action to a summary close by telling her visitors in shrill tones to "hold their noise." This they did after laughing heartily at the ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... to keep him abroad. The vice-royalty of India followed almost automatically; he spent two years as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to oblige his party leaders and was now in the full vigour of middle age with nothing to do. The House of Lords offered no opportunity to an incurably bad debater; and the radicals by destroying the constitution, bullying the king and playing with revolution had made it a place of arid pomp, whose futility took away something of a man's dignity every time that he went there. Nevertheless, once a viceroy, always a viceroy, as his daughter ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... chairs closer, some wearing that smile of superiority which to us is the Englishman's most maddening trait. I did not stop to think twice, or to remember that I was pitted against the greatest debater in all England. I was to speak that of which I was full, and the heart's argument needs no logic to defend it. If it were my last ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thirty years, he spent all the spare time of an exceedingly happy life. Then we may jump some fifteen years to the great Reform contest which gave Jeffrey the reward, such as it was, of his long constancy in opposition, in the shape of the Lord Advocateship. He was not always successful as a debater; but he had the opportunity of adding a third reputation to those which he had already gained in literature and in law. He had the historical duty of piloting the Scotch Reform Bill through Parliament, and he had the, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... not a bed of roses. "The premiership had for twelve years been a bed of slumber; it now fell into the hands of one who made it a bed of feverish anxiety and bitter wakefulness,—George Canning, the first debater, the most dexterous politician, and the happiest wit of the house; the most perplexed, unhappy, and disappointed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... pit it till ye, gin ye were crossin' a desert place, an' ye saw the Rose o' Sharon afore ye, wad ye no' pluck it gin ye micht, and pluck it quick? I pit it till ye." And they answered him not a word, for there is no debater like the heart. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... adviser affirmer aider almoner annoyer arbiter assenter asserter bailer caster censer (vessel) concocter condenser conferrer conjurer consulter continuer contradicter contriver convener conveyer corrupter covenanter debater defender deliberater deserter desolater deviser discontinuer disturber entreater exalter exasperater exciter executer (except in law) expecter frequenter granter idolater imposer impugner incenser inflicter insulter interceder interpreter interrupter inviter jailer lamenter ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... distinction claim; In years he had the advantage of Time's sequel; And, as he thought, in country much the same— Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill, At which all modern nations vainly aim; And the Lord Henry was a great debater, So that few Members kept ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Trevanion. It is a name that stands unquestionably high in the House of Commons; but, as unquestionably, it commands little sympathy in the country. Mr. Trevanion is essentially and emphatically a member of parliament. He is a close and ready debater; he is an admirable chairman in committees. Though never in office, his long experience of public life, his gratuitous attention to public business, have ranked him high among those practical politicians from whom ministers are selected. A man of spotless character and excellent ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Quincy Adams; words of high praise, for the veteran statesman had little patience with the style of oratory affected by this "homunculus."[168] A correspondent of a Richmond newspaper wrote that this effort had given Douglas high rank as a debater.[169] Evidence on every hand confirms the impression that by a single, happy stroke the young Illinoisan had achieved enviable distinction; but whether he had qualities which would secure an enduring reputation, was ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... than any I had previously possessed, of measuring the intellectual stature of Abraham Lincoln. He was then about twenty-seven years old—my own age. Douglas was four years our junior; consequently he could not have been over twenty-three years old. Yet he was a very ready and expert debater, even at that early period of his life. He and Lincoln were very frequently pitted against each other, being of different politics. They both ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... named Massey, one of its redoubtable debaters, though a little, slim, insignificant-looking person, sent a messenger up into this county and challenged the opposition to debate with him. They didn't quite like the idea, but they were too proud to decline, so they put up their best debater, a big, good-natured man whom everybody was familiar with as "Tom," and it was arranged that Massey should have the first hour and that Tom Whatever-his-name-was should succeed him the next hour. When the occasion came, Massey, with his characteristic shrewdness, began to ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... Besides conducting religious ceremonials, he consulted the gods on matters of administration and state policy, read the omens, understood medicine, guarded the genealogies and the ancient lore, often acted as panegyrist and debater for the chief. All these powers were his in so far as he was directly inspired by the god who spoke through him ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... class orator and a debater of power. Now he stood on a block of wood, and gazed upon a hundred bearded faces, on which the flickering firelight played eerily. In the hush he could hear the big winds ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... required in his official career. History was his favourite study; he never attempted, like some statesmen, to write; but if his knowledge of history was not as profound as that of a professed historian, he was afterwards to shew as a parliamentary debater that he had a truer perception of the importance of events than many great scholars who have devoted their lives to historical research, and he was never at a loss for an illustration to explain and justify the policy he had assumed. For natural science ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... successors, and the weakness of that method when applied to questions of natural science. The reader will note that the argument no longer proceeds by the simple citation of authorities pro and con; the reasonings of the debater are also introduced. Moreover, the argument is more complex. It involves first the statement of the affirmative position; second, the refutation of the affirmative by observation and by reasoning; third, objections to the refutation by reasoning; fourth, refutation ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... the prelude and the occasion. This young gentleman was in his 20th year when expelled with nineteen others from Trinity College, in 1798, by order of the visitors, Lord Clare and Dr. Duigenan. His reputation as a scholar and debater was already established within the college walls, and the highest expectations were naturally entertained of him, by his friends. One of his early college companions —Thomas Moore—who lived to know all the leading men of his age, declares that of all he had ever known, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Eardley Wilmot had gained distinction as a debater in the British Parliament. Like Governors Bligh and Gipps, in New South Wales, Wilmot found that to govern at the same time a convict population and a colony of free settlers was a most ungrateful task. A large proportion of the convicts, ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... goodly number of free-traders, while in New South Wales there is an equally good number of protectionists. Whatever a man's views are, in regard to free trade or protection, it is generally useless to attempt to change them by argument; and if he is a skilled debater, he can give you facts and figures to demonstrate, with great clearness, the correctness of his views. On that point I can tell you what was to me ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Salford; he was already an elder at the chapel Daddy frequented; the two made acquaintance and Lomax became Purcell's assistant. At the moment the trade offered to him attracted Daddy vastly. He had considerable pretensions to literature; was a Shakespearian, a debater, and a haunter of a certain literary symposium, held for a long time at one of the old Manchester inns, and attended by most of the small wits and poets of a then small and homely town. The gathering had nothing saintly about it; free drinking ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... knee Behind the bole of his protecting tree, So curves his musket that the bark it fits, And, firing, blows the weapon into bits; But with the noble aim of one whose heart Values his foeman for he loves his art The veteran debater moves afield, Untaught to libel as untaught to yield. Dear foeman mine, I've but this end in view— That to prevent which most you wish to do. What, then, are you most eager to be at? To hate me? Nay, I'll help you, sir, at that. This only passion does your soul inspire: You wish to scorn ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... mark in the House as a brilliant debater with an intellectual power and an industry that made him master of the subjects he discussed. Still also he was scattering money, and incurring debt, training race-horses, and staking heavily at gambling tables. When a ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... discussion was at its height, when suddenly a fearful peal of subterranean thunder roared around the Althing. "Listen!" cried an orator of the Pagan party; "how angry is Odin that we should even consider the subject of a new religion. His fires will consume us." To which a ready debater on the other side replied, by "begging leave to ask the honourable gentleman,—with whom were the gods angry when these rocks were melted?"—pointing to the devastated plain around him. Taking advantage of so good a hit, the Treasury "whips" immediately ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... work at Cambridge; he had given up classics, and was working at theology, with a view to taking Orders. He managed to secure a Third in the Tripos; he showed no intellectual promise whatever; he was a very lively and amusing companion and a keen debater; I think he wrote a little poetry; but he had no very pronounced tastes. I remember his pointing out to me the windows of an extremely unattractive set of ground-floor rooms in Whewell's Court ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... suggestion is of a character self-absorbed and contemplative. He was short and sturdy in build, and in his sober dress and grave deportments, suggested rather the dissenting preacher than the prophet of philosophic anarchism. He was not a ready debater or a fluent talker. His genius was not spontaneous or intuitive. It was rather an elaborate effort of the will, which deliberately used the fruits of his accumulative study and incessant activity of mind. He resembled, says Hazlitt, who admired and liked him, "an ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... making it a criminal offence to aid or encourage a runaway slave. The slavery question was being sharply discussed in all quarters, and began to color and modify the politics of the day. Anderson was a sharp, ready, and formidable debater, and was the most prominent Colored man in that section of the country. He was gifted in the use of good English, had an easy flow of language, was master of the most galling satire, quick in repartee, prompt to see a weak point and use it to the best advantage. He was a pungent and racy ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... proven. There was wild excitement at this meeting; the hostile faction were rancorous about the captain being put up, as they assumed he could not possibly know all the facts; but both sides were one in admitting that his fame as a debater and an orator was established. So general was this belief that many of his adversaries congratulated him on having delivered ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... all his life, probably, Washington never heard praise more genuine or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty-seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member. He never acquired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... powers, and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... opened the ports, and repealed the Corn-laws forever, to the consternation of the world, and in opposition to all the opinions of his life; this was in 1845. Since that period Sir R. Peel has been in Opposition, indeed, but not its leader so much as a distinguished debater, an accomplished financier, and the expositor of opinions which neither the Whigs ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... great Candahar debate in the Lords to-night. Lord Lytton speaks remarkably well—as an old debater would—and great interest is felt in the event. All the same Candahar will be given up; and some time hence, if we have soldiers left, we shall probably have to fight our ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... interpreted the bugle call to mean for us to get out of there honorably, and as the only way to get out honorably was to get out quick, we got up and dusted. The colonel always gave me credit for being a good debater, and he smiled and said that as no damage had been done, he would not insist that I be shot on the spot, but he felt that an example should be made of me. He said I would be under arrest until bed ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... director of either fire-eaters or fire worshippers; is inclined to run when he walks alone, and to be stately, slow, regal, and precise when, like Fadladeen, he is in charge of Lalla Rookh. Is a man of determination, and never sleeps with his clothes on. Is a sharp debater, a briskly-pompous, eloquent talker, has had a good deal of trouble at time and time in putting on his kid gloves, which used to fit so mortally tight that he couldn't stir his thumbs in them; stands with a fine commanding air in the pulpit, as if about to shoulder arms; preaches ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... twenty-one. In 1701 he was urgently invited to accept charge of an important congregation in Antrim; and after an interval of two years, mostly spent in further study in Dublin, he was ordained there on the 8th of August 1703. Here he did notable work, both as a debater in the synods and assemblies of his church and as an evangelist. In 1712 he lost his wife (Susannah Jordan), and the loss desolated his life for many years. In 1717 he was invited to the congregation of Usher's Quay, Dublin, and contemporaneously to what was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... one who fulfilled my ideal of an orator. Grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. Pitt I never heard. Fox but once, and then he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different from an orator as an improvisatore, or a versifier, from a poet. Grey is great, but it is not oratory. Canning is sometimes very like one. Windham I did not admire, though all the world did; it seemed sad sophistry. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... men of note entered from Pennsylvania—John M. Broomall, an independent thinker and keen debater, inflexible in principle, untiring in effort; Ulysses Mercur, whose learning as a lawyer and whose worth as a man have since received their reward in a promotion to the Supreme Bench of his State; George V. Lawrence, one of the best known and most sagacious political leaders of Western Pennsylvania, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... work. Harry flung scholarship to the winds of course, but made a special career for himself which won him more admiration from everybody except the faculty than any amount of legitimate industry. He was a fluent and ready debater; he wrote for the college journal; his high animal spirits brought everybody about him, and his mind seemed ever eager and poised for flight: he was ready in wit; decried trifling subjects, yet would dispute for two hours over an absurdity; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and every head was up, and every eye fixed, at the sound of his voice. All were astonished that he should presume to speak on that floor; they would scarcely have been more surprised if a strange debater had dropped down through the plastering into the audience. But Nat went on ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... found we could or would do nothing, he took the only line that was left him, and the best after all, and threw himself on the sense and reason of the country. He told the truth, and justified himself by vindicating us. He has done very well, and shown himself a good debater; but the discussion has been disgracefully personal, and with all the talent displayed they have not an idea how a deliberating assembly ought to conduct its debates, and the disclosures and revelations of official secrecy and confidence have been ...
— 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
... for the destruction of the Black Battalion by the formidable occupant of the executive mansion was met and matched, ay, overmatched again and again by an omnipotence in discussion which a just cause and genius as orator, lawyer, and debater of the first rank could alone have put into the strong right arm of the brave redresser of a race's wrongs on the floor of the Senate. For more than two years he carried the case of the Black Battalion ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... was a masterly one, eloquent and dramatic, and it thrilled the young soul of Lincoln. Full of the subject, the young debater sought Mr. Breckinridge after the court adjourned, and extended his long arm and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... expect a great original work on political science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... joined the society, for upon being chosen one of the three speakers on one side of a subject so decidedly in their favor that the question should never have been selected as offering a negative, Bill had so completely overcome the opposition led by Siebold, who especially prided himself as a debater, that his opponent and his mates were held up to much ridicule. Whereupon the breach widened, and Siebold took many occasions to show a paltry spite against Bill and even toward Gus because he ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... meaning should be definitely determined in advance. Care must be taken to state it so that no mere quibbling over the meanings of terms can take the place of real arguments. Even if the subject of debate is so stated that this is possible, any self-respecting debater will meet the question at issue fairly and squarely, preferring defeat to a victory won by juggling with ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... numerous suffrage debates with prominent opponents of the Cause. I have already referred to the debate in Kansas with Senator Ingalls. Equaling this in importance was a bout with Dr. Buckley, the distinguished Methodist debater, which had been arranged for us at Chautauqua by Bishop Vincent of the Methodist Church. The bishop was not a believer in suffrage, nor was he one of my admirers. I had once aroused his ire by replying to a sermon he had delivered on "God's Women," ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... made himself an excellent English scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose, which were common in the West at that time. He always took an active part in politics, but was never a candidate for office, except, I believe, that he was the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... thought out, debate was no mere exercitation; his education was fast passing into apprenticeship for public life; and in February, 1865, his father, Sir Wentworth Dilke, coming forward at a by-election in the Liberal interest for Wallingford, gave the Union debater his first chance on a ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring ballads. He began to write ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... countrymen, combined with the indefatigable diligence of England. Nobly connected, and placed high in public life by that connexion, he showed himself capable of sustaining his ministerial rank by personal capacity. Careless of the style of his speeches, he was yet a grave, solid, and fully-informed debater. But it was in the council that his value to the country was most acknowledged. His conception of the rights, the influence, and the services of England, was lofty; and, when the period came for deciding on her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... one of the ablest that ever assembled in Maine. He acquired a high reputation as an advocate and was thrice elected Attorney-General of the State. At the close of his service in that important office he was chosen to represent his district in Congress. His rank as a debater was soon established, and he exhibited a degree of care and industry in committee work not often found among representatives who so readily command ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for Dungarvan was, in his day, the most thoroughly disliked man in the House of Commons, distaste for Mr. Parnell and for Mr. Biggar in his early prime being softened by contrast with his subtler provocation. An exceedingly clever debater, he was a phrase maker, some of whose epigrams Mr. Disraeli would not have disowned. He was a parliamentary type of ancient standing, and apparently ineradicable growth. In the present House of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... name was now mentioned in all clubs and all dining-rooms. He was an acute and successful lawyer, an eloquent debater, and a young man. The world was at his feet, and Mr. Die was very proud of him. Mr. Die was proud of him, and proud also of his own advice. He said nothing about it even to Harcourt himself, for to Mr. Die had been ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... invisibility in Brazil means parallax quite as truly as it means absence, and, inasmuch as "Vulcan" was supposed to be distant from the sun, we interpret denial as corroboration—method of course of every scientist, politician, theologian, high-school debater. ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... formidable of all the adversaries of Las Casas was Gines de Sepulveda. A man of acute intellect, vast learning, and superlative eloquence, this practiced debater stood for theocracy and despotism, defending the papal and royal claims to jurisdiction over the New World. In striving to establish a dual tyranny over the souls and bodies of its inhabitants, he concerned himself not ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... De Sylva's resources as a debater, and by no means unwilling to see Hozier "taken down a peg," as he phrased it; eager, too, to witness the Brazilian officer's discomfiture if the second mate "handed it to him," thought it was time to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... a day for speculation—this particular one; the dead leaves were scurrying up the street as people ran for a train; a gusty wind was carrying all before it for the time being, like an overbearing debater. The trees shook and groaned, recoiled and shuddered, like human creatures in the blast; in their agitation dropping hosts of leaves that immediately slipped under covert, or else joined their fellows in the race up town. ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... possessing distinct national characteristics which entitled her, in theory at any rate, to demand, not merely colonial, but national autonomy. On the contrary, Mr. Chamberlain went out of his way to argue, with all the force and fire of an accomplished debater, that the Bill was a highly dangerous measure precisely because, while granting Ireland a measure of autonomy, it denied her some of the elementary powers, not only of colonial, but of national States; for instance, the full control over ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Russell assumed office, and Lord Campbell was recalled from the occupation which had proved so congenial to his mind, to take a seat in the ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. While he held this position, he was a frequent and popular debater in the House of Peers, where he zealously defended the policy of the government. In 1850, Lord Chief Justice Denman retired from the King's Bench, ripe in years and in honorable renown, and Lord Campbell was at once designated as his successor. In this exalted ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Presbytery, a single rival who is in any sense his match. The late Dr. Gibson was frequently accustomed to tackle him, and perhaps he sometimes did so successfully; but while the latter was undoubtedly an able debater, he lost ground from his impetuosity of temper—an infirmity to which Dr. Buchanan never gives way. In all circumstances he is cool, calculating, unruffled; he measures the full meaning and effect of every sentence; he can be fierce and withering, and still maintain a calm and composed ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... doctoring himself. The debate was led off by skirmishers on each side, and was finally closed on the part of the railroads by Mr. Harrison, of New Haven, who was chairman of the railroad committee. Mr. Harrison was a close and forcible debater and a clear-headed lawyer. His speech exhibited considerable thought, and his earnestness and high character as a gentleman of honor carried much weight. Besides, his position as chairman of the committee naturally ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... more I became impressed with his genius, the variety of his attainments, the perfection of his equipment, and his ready command of all his powers and resources. Raymond was then editor of the New York Times and contributed a leading article every day. He was the best debater we had and the most convincing. I have seen him often, when some other member was in the chair of the committee of the whole, and we were discussing a critical question, take his seat on the floor and commence writing ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... Forty-sixth Congress, at the first session, Mr. Robinson, on account of the marked abilities which he had shown as a lawyer and a debater, was appointed a member of the Judiciary Committee, a position which he held through the Forty-sixth Congress with honor to his district and his State. From the outset of the Forty-sixth Congress Mr. Robinson, to the great surprise of many older members, who were not able to fathom ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... went with the more confidence to the House on the appointed evening, and was placed under the gallery, on the right, where he listened to Roebuck and followed the debate with such enjoyment as an experienced debater feels in these contests, until, as he said, he became aware that a man, with a singularly rich voice and imposing manner, had taken the floor, and was giving Roebuck the most deliberate and tremendous pounding he ever witnessed, "until at last," concluded ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Another debater of marked ability in this body is Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He is the third son of William Wilberforce, the celebrated philanthropist, but by no means inherits the simplicity of character ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... him—we are fair to both sides here; he will have the right of rejoinder, and you know what he is, Helen—the greatest orator in America, perhaps in all the world. No one yet has ever been able to defeat him, and what chance have I, with no experience, against the most formidable debater in existence? I should shirk it, Helen, if the people would not think ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... parliamentary debater he had few, if any, superiors. In knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the House that could be compared with him. He was literally a walking cyclopedia. He was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... seated at the Board of Treasury; and there the clearheaded and experienced Godolphin soon found that his young colleague was his master. When Somers had quitted the House of Commons, Montague had no rival there. Sir Thomas Littleton, once distinguished as the ablest debater and man of business among the Whig members, was content to serve under his junior. To this day we may discern in many parts of our financial and commercial system the marks of the vigorous intellect and daring spirit of Montague. His bitterest enemies were unable to deny ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and a decided pause between them. It is only by degrees that he acquires the ability to utter a phrase, and at last a short sentence, without interruption. Nature prompts the child to this exercise, which from the first attempt, to the full flow of eloquence in the extemporaneous debater, consists simply in commanding and managing one set of ideas in the mind, at the moment the person is giving utterance to others. This cannot be done by the child, but it is gradually acquired by the man; and we shall see in its proper place, that this acquisition ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... burst on the Senate and the Country. "Freedom national: slavery sectional" was his theme. Like all of Mr. Sumner's speeches, this speech was carefully written out and largely memorized. He was deficient in the qualities of the great debater, was not able usually and easily to think quickly and effectively on his feet, to give and take hard blows within the short range of extemporaneous and hand to hand encounters. Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams were pre-eminent in this species of parliamentary combat. Webster and Calhoun ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... one go unmolested through an entire campaign, while a friendly old man was shot from behind while milking his cow. The town was near the edge of the woods and no one was secure. The fine character whom we greatly respected,—the debater of original pronunciation,—who had never wronged a human being of any race, was shot down from the woods ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Somers and his rivals we see ability rather than genius, knowledge, clearness of expression, precision of thought, the lucidity of the pleader or the man of business, rather than the passion of the orator. Of this clearness of statement Pitt had little or none. He was no ready debater like Walpole, no speaker of set speeches like Chesterfield. His set speeches were always his worst, for in these his want of taste, his love of effect, his trite quotations and extravagant metaphors came ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... discarded by the Mexican government, Douglas retorted that he was unaware of any treaty ever made by a Mexican government which was not either violated or repudiated. Adams came finally to acknowledge the unusual powers of the Western "homunculus" as a debater. ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... country, that Mr. Sowerby indulged, if he did indulge, his bachelor mal-practices. Speaking of them as a set, the chief offender was Mr. Harold Smith, or perhaps his wife. He also was a member of Parliament, and, as many thought, a rising man. His father had been for many years a debater in the House, and had held high office. Harold, in early life, had intended himself for the Cabinet; and if working hard at his trade could ensure success, he ought to obtain it sooner or later. He had already filled more than one subordinate station, had been at the Treasury, and for ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... power without promptitude, another promptitude without power. We must all feel the common sense of this, and can readily see how it applies to a general in the field, to a pilot in a storm, to a sportsman, to a fencer, to a debater. It is the same with an operating surgeon at all times, and may be at any time with the practitioner of the art of healing. He must be ready for what are called emergencies—cases which rise up at your feet, and must be ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... exterior of Parliament House with intense interest, for he was a debater by instinct and upbringing. St Giles' he passed by without enthusiasm—he was a member of the Free Kirk—and St Mary's Cathedral struck him as being unduly magnificent to be the property of such a small and pernicious sect as the Episcopalians. The Post Office and other great buildings ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... old-fashioned hospitality made every one feel at home, and one would have to travel far to find a more animated and interesting conversationalist. He held his convictions with great tenacity, and was a powerful debater, but always courteous ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... office,—the one paymaster, the other secretary at war,-and therefore could not decently obstruct the public business; but still they might attack persons, though not things. Pitt undertook the difficult task of silencing Murray, the attorney-general, the ablest man, as well as the ablest debater, in the House of Commons; whilst Fox entertained himself with the less dangerous amusement of exposing Sir Thomas Robinson, or rather assisted him whilst he turned himself into ridicule; for Sir Thomas, though a good secretary of state -is far as the business ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... concentration, the power of pouncing upon the weak spot in his adversary’s argument, and above all a wonderful memory. What he lacked was that calm and calculating frigidity so necessary to the successful debater. Instead of freezing his opponent to silence with deliberate logic, he would strive rather by the tempestuous quality of his rhetoric to hurl ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton |
