"Hearer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did as he was bidden. He had also a pocket-book and pencil in readiness. Slowly, as if drawing from the depths of a long-stored memory, the dying man dictated a prescription in a mixture of dog-Latin and Dutch, which his hearer seemed to understand readily enough. The money, in dull-coloured notes, lay on the table before the writer. The prescription was a long one, covering many pages of the note-book, and the particulars as to preparation and ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... had not missed fire. Its staggering effect was plain on the face of his hearer. For once Mrs. Porter's poise had deserted her. Her one ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... by all means; but beware, O story-teller! of being too realistic. Avoid the "shuddering tale" of the wicked boy who stoned the birds, lest some hearer be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill. Tell not the story of the bears who were set on a hot stove to learn to dance, for children quickly learn to gloat ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... felt, so have I written. Of all poetical compositions, songs, especially those of the affections, should be natural, warm gushes of feeling—brief, simple, and condensed. As soon as they have left the singer's lips, they should be fast around the hearer's heart." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... glamour over the humblest incident. Not that his incidents were often humble. On the contrary, in his mysterious suggestive fashion he let it be inferred that his bygone part had been a great one. He would offer dazzling little peeps, and then shut the slide; a chance reference that would make his hearer gasp; the adroit use of a mighty name, checked by a sudden, "Oh, hold on—I'm saying more than I ought to!" You felt, somehow, that to have roused the interest of this powerful personage was to insure your own career. With a turn of his hand he was capable of gratifying your wildest ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... cannot fully express his ideas in writing; hence the interpretation of the hearer is often false, because he ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... that as he spoke, the listener gradually grew bewildered by its tone, resembling a tired traveller, falling little by little unconsciously to sleep as he sits in the murmur of a mountain stream. And whenever he chose, he could cajole his hearer, and make him do almost anything whatever, so hard was it to resist the irresistible persuasion that lurked, like the caressing touch of a gentle woman's hand, in the tone of that quiet ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... may help you to understand. When we speak of God, we can never give a true and perfect example; for we cannot find anything exactly like Him to compare to Him. If I discharge a great cannon in a city, every one of the inhabitants will hear the report; not in such a way that each hearer gets his share of the sound, but each hears the whole report, just as if he were the only one to hear it. Now, how is that? There are not as many reports as there are persons listening; and yet each person hears the ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... sermons is not very difficult: the divisions not only help the memory of the hearer, but direct the judgement of the writer; they supply sources of invention, and keep every ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... vengeance with his horns, till the whole parish are alarmed with his bellowing; not with less noise nor less dreadful menaces did the fury of Wild burst forth and terrify the whole gate. Long time did rage render his voice inarticulate to the hearer; as when, at a visiting day, fifteen or sixteen or perhaps twice as many females, of delicate but shrill pipes, ejaculate all at once on different subjects, all is sound only, the harmony entirely melodious indeed, but ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... authority he assumed too soon resented it all the more warmly because of the effort she was making to reinstate her hero, who would insist on being a very faulty and ungrateful man. She rose straight out of her chair, saying with a look and tone which rather startled her hearer and convinced him that she was no longer a tenderhearted child but a woman with a will of her own and a spirit as proud and fiery as any of her race: "My heart is my own, to dispose of as I please. Don't shut yourself out of ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Chesterfield's experienced maxim, "That it is easier to hear than to talk yourself into the good opinion of your auditors." It was not, however, from policy, but from benevolence, that the chief justice made so good a hearer. It has been said, and with truth, that with him a good point never passed unnoticed in a public court, nor was a good thing ever lost upon him in private company. Of the number of his own good things fewer are in circulation ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Webster. To me his oratory was a perfect surprise and curiosity. He not only spoke with very unusual deliberation, but with pauses having no relation whatever to the sense. His sentences were broken into the oddest fragments, and the hearer was perplexed in the endeavor to gather his meaning. In declaring, for example, that he "would put in no Wilmot proviso for the purpose of a taunt," etc., he made a long pause at "Wilmot," perhaps half ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... a man that had never seen an elephant or a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shapes, colour, bigness, and particular marks; or of a gorgeous palace, the architecture; with declaring the full beauties, might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceits, with being witness to itself of a true lively knowledge: but the same man, as soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or the house well in model, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... these confessions are! What a horrible sell! You seek sympathy, and all you get is the most evanescent sense of relief—if you get that much. For a confession, whatever it may be, stirs the secret depths of the hearer's character. Often depths that he himself is but dimly aware of. And so the righteous triumph secretly, the lucky are amused, the strong are disgusted, the weak either upset or irritated with you according to the measure of their sincerity with themselves. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... his books; but others does he create without, and to those figures of all illusion makes the appeal of his art. More candid is the author who has no world, but turns that appeal inwards to his own heart. He has at least a living hearer. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... talking to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with three ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... were large and bright as those of the bison-ox, and her hair black and braided with beads, brushed, as she walked, the dew from the flowers upon the prairies. Her temper was soft and placable, and her voice—what is so sweet as the voice of an Indian maiden when tuned to gladness! what so moves the hearer to grief and melancholy by its tones of sorrow and anguish! Our brother has heard them—let him say if the birds of his own forests, the dove of his nest, have sweeter notes than those he hears warbled in the cabin ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... matters relating to the chase, although he was, in fact, the worst shot in the whole canton; and when he had the good luck to meet with a newcomer, he launched forth on the recital of his imaginary prowess, without any pity for the hearer. So that, having once got hold of Julien, he kept by his side when they sat down ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... would have done, that 'twas the common lot of mortals; to look on him if one would know the worst that Fate can do. Nay, rather did he speak so bravely of what might still be wrung from life though one were maimed like he, that hope sprang up within his hearer and sent him on his ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... burned in the hearer's eyes. He stamped his foot, suppressed an oath, and when he looked up, had a ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... nothing especial in his reply, but there was a deep significance about it which sent a shudder through his hearer from head to foot. Yes, the stranger was buried, and in the same grave with him were Mickey ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... perhaps, had been chosen with some idea of mercy, but certainly there was no mercy in the tone. The man's voice was loud, and there was something in it almost of a jeer,—something which seemed to leave an impression on the hearer that there had been pleasure in the asking it. She struggled to make an answer, and the monosyllable, yes, was formed by her lips. The man who was acting as her mouthpiece stooped down his ears to her lips, and then shook his head. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf, himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing to swallow a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... story of Hathawi, the dreamer, which he had come upon in a Hindoo legend. "The Hearer of Truth," was to be the title of the book; and for it Thyrsis was working out a new style. In the original it had been a fanciful tale; but he meant to take it over to the world of everyday reality, to give it the atmosphere of utter verihood. He meant to use ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... consider your university as an educational institution and nothing else. If a foreigner desires to know something of the methods of our universities, he asks first of all with emphasis: 'How is the student connected with the university?' We answer: 'By the ear, as a hearer.' The foreigner is astonished. 'Only by the ear?' he repeats. 'Only by the ear,' we again reply. The student hears. When he speaks, when he sees, when he is in the company of his companions when he takes up some branch of art: in short, when he lives ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details in our advice, we may be sure we condescend on error; and the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed the Styx, you soon meet another stream, appropriately called Lethe. The echoes here are absolutely stunning. A single voice sounds like a powerful choir; and could an organ be played, it would deprive the hearer of his senses. When you have crossed, you enter a high level hall, named the Great Walk, half a mile of which brings you to another river, called the Jordan. In crossing this, the rocks, in one place, descend so low, as to leave only eighteen inches for the boat to pass through. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... have belonged to some medieval prince who would not take the trouble outwardly to underestimate himself. Closely allied to this was his habit of truthfulness. This was not a blatant bluntness that irritated the hearer but a habit of valuing persons and things at their intrinsic worth, a habit of mental honesty as bizarre to Rhoda and John as was ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... The young man, his hearer, looked slightly distressed, as if he was suppressing some emotion. He was rather a vacuous-looking young man—startlingly clean as to countenance and linen. He was shaven, and had he not been distinctly a gentleman, he might have been a groom. He apparently had a habit of thrusting ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and played for him; then sang at his desire. Rich as she was in the gifts of nature, her voice was the chief,—thrilling, flexible, with a sympathetic quality that in singing pathetic music brought tears, though the hearer understood not a word of the language in which she sang. In the old time he had never wearied listening, and now he besought her to repeat for him some of the dear, familiar songs. If these held for her any associations, he did not know it; she gave no outward sign,—sang to him as ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... brilliant and serene, its birth, its life, its history, all flashed upon him. So with every idea in the vast storehouse of his mind. He seemed to know all things, in mass and in particulars, never confused, never at a loss—the hearer listened, wondered, and dreamed. Thoughts of moment came forth as demanded, but ten thousand other thoughts rare and beautiful, continued to bubble up, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... The astounded hearer feels the rope tugging at his own neck again, and, with a half comprehension of the situation, calls "Stop!" in a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... spoken word cannot be recalled; it must go on its way for good or evil; and this one set the hearer staring into the ashes, and putting many ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... may have, they did not sound rude. They were said with a careless half-amused, half gentle manner, which might leave his hearer in doubt whether the chief purpose of them were not to fall pleasantly on her ear and drive away any disagreeable remainders of Phil's insolence. But Faith scarce heard him. She was struggling with that ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... what he was, and I asked him if he and his companions were not custom-house officers; he answered with sufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemed to consider would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further inquiry; but on the contrary I proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the Custom house, and receiving an answer from his companion, as I remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor; I replied, that he might be a riding ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... eloquence which appealed to the intellect and the feelings at the same time. Erastus Root says Hamilton's words were so well chosen, and his sentences so finely formed into a swelling current, that the hearer would be captivated if not convinced, while Burr's arguments were generally methodised and compact. To this Root added a judgment, after thirty years' experience in public life at Washington and in New York, that "they were much the greatest men in ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... agree to that," assented her hearer, "but you know that I have no faith that he is alive. Just think, twenty-three years have passed away and you have had no word from him. Out of deference to your feelings, Alice, I had put off making my will since Sir Stuart died until yesterday. It is now signed ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... mother, the Duchess of Richmond, said, "Poor Louisa is going to make a shocking marriage—a man called Tiggy, my dear, a Saint and a Radical." When Lord Melbourne had accidently found himself the unwilling hearer of a rousing Evangelical sermon about sin and its consequences, he exclaimed in much disgust as he left the church, "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... cadences, that is, upon the tasteful employment of variation in radical pitch, that the melody of uttered language depends; and that if it be devoid of this melody, it is both wearisome and unimpressive to the hearer. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... clock, as you are doubtless aware, sir"—he was always scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent courtesy—"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' and ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... without that;" but Lady Mary being still a very comely woman, as she certainly was a very spirited one, was not much displeased at the compliment, coming from such a handsome young man as Master Raymond. Eulogy that the hearer hopes embodies but the simple truth, is always pleasant alike to men and women. It is falsehood, and not truth, that ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... not very sensitive to impressions in such cases, I admit," Demarest returned, coolly. If he meant any subtlety of allusion to his hearer, it failed wholly to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... proportion of brain in the room than is allotted to the merely fashionable, or to that shallow mixture of the dramatic and pictorial, which is usually designated the artistic world. Moreover, scraps of conversation reached the ear that led the hearer to conclude that the house was in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... with my friend Will Marvel. His affairs obliged him lately to take a journey into Devonshire, from which he has just returned. He knows me to be a very patient hearer, and was glad of my company, as it gave him an opportunity of disburdening himself, by a minute relation of the casualties of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Satanette, bending forward, and giving the upward inflection to that graceful Canadian phrase which asks a repetition while implying that the fault is with the hearer. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more than that individual cared to show. Redmond felt it was useless to offer mere conventional sympathy in a case like this. He did the next best thing possible—he remained silently attentive and let ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... is to tell one's history to a woman who takes in every word as of large importance! How pleasant it is to confess to a keen and sympathetic hearer. The twenty-five miles passed far too soon. It was short, but long enough for ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and I hope you will see your mother up and about again in perhaps a fortnight from this. You must pray for her healing to the Great Physician, as we all are doing: and pray in faith, for you know the Bible tells us he is the hearer ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... colleges are engaged in turning out year by year immense quantities of common intellectual goods. Our magazines, books, and lectures are chiefly machine-products adjusted to the average reader or hearer, and are reckoned successful if they can drive a large number of individuals to profess the same feelings and opinions and adopt the same party or creed, with the view of enabling them to consume a large number of copies of the same intellectual commodities which can ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses. For though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the senses are not voluntary in origin. What I see in walking is seen because I have an organ of vision.' The question of general moral obligation is forcibly stated by Paley in the individual form, 'Why am I obliged to keep my word?' It is sometimes well to confine the attention of the hearer or reader to his own relation to the matter under consideration, more especially in difficult or non-popular argument or exposition. The speaker, by using 'I,' does the action himself, or makes himself the ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... saying in her soul, "O Thou who restoredest Joseph to Jacob and diddest away the sorrows of Job,[FN316] vouchsafe of Thy might and Thy majesty to restore me my lord Ali Shar; for Thou over all things art Omnipotent, O Lord of the Worlds! O Guide of those who go astray! O Hearer of those that cry! O Answerer of those who pray, answer Thou my prayer, O Lord of all creatures." Now hardly had she made an end of her prayer and supplication when behold, she saw entering the gate of the horse-plain a young man, in shape like a willow branch, the comeliest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... long speech. The boy had none of the half-stupid stolidity of the country-bred, and yet lacked something of the garrulity of the cute street lad. His voice too was a surprise. The broad vowels seemed acquired and uncertain and jarred on the hearer with ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... surface was clothed with green and on all sides fruit trees of every kind were seen: its slopes for flowers like serpents' bellies showed, and birds sang on boughs aloud and its rills in manifold runnels flowed. And indeed it was as saith the poet and saith well and accomplisheth the hearer's desire, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... different when it comes to the test. However brave you have resolved to be, you cannot help being annoyed and fretted. I know! Oh, I know quite well," declared Lilias, with an elaborate forbearance which seemed to have an irritating effect upon the hearer. He drew in his lips, as if struggling against a hasty reply, and when he spoke it was in a tone of ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of imperial authority, or the brave and conscientious prelate who dared to rebuke his sin. When has such a thing happened in modern times? Bossuet had the courage to dictate, in the royal chapel, the duties of a king, and Bourdaloue once ventured to reprove his royal hearer for an outrageous scandal. These instances of priestly boldness and fidelity are cited as remarkable. And they were remarkable, when we consider what an egotistical, haughty, exacting, voluptuous monarch Louis XIV. was,—a monarch who ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... weapons upon which so much depended. Here, when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell People had a ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... no more for such hogs,'—nor would he touch another note or allow Ries to do so, although earnestly entreated by the company. 'His improvisation,' Czerny tells us, 'was most brilliant and striking; in whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out into loud sobs, for there was something wonderful in his expression in addition to the beauty and originality of his ideas and his spirited style of rendering them.' Ries says: 'No artist ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... this phoenix of men, who had earned honorable mention to the detriment of so many rivals. A simple but elegant style of dress, an air of perfect ease, polite manners, a pleasant voice with a ring in it which found a response in the hearer's heart-strings, won the good-will of the family for Monsieur Longueville. He did not seem unaccustomed to the luxury of the Receiver-General's ostentatious mansion. Though his conversation was that of a man of the world, it was easy to discern that he had had a brilliant education, ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... lot of those who had the good fortune to be his auditors. The beauties of Mr. Falkland's poem were accordingly exhibited with every advantage. The successive passions of the author were communicated to the hearer. What was impetuous, and what was solemn, were delivered with a responsive feeling, and a flowing and unlaboured tone. The pictures conjured up by the creative fancy of the poet were placed full to view, at one time overwhelming the soul ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... me a tale So sad the hearer well may quail, And question if such things can be; Yet in the chronicles of Spain Down the dark pages runs this stain, And naught can wash them white again, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... same;— Unchanged in all except its foreign Lord, Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame[fw] The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word;[39.B.] Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear[fx] The camp, the host, the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and more curious and suspicious, and urged the jellyfish to tell him for what his liver was wanted, and ended up by appealing to his hearer's feelings by saying that he was very troubled at what he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... doubt, elicit many a curious thought, especially with honest men, and the "whys and wherefores" will pass from mouth to mouth in every hamlet, village, and town, where the following recital may find a reader or hearer. All will declare it mysterious. It is a mystery to myself in some particulars, but in others it is not. It is strange, passing strange, to think that such a black-hearted, treacherous band of men, as I am about to describe, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... would already have been turned against him. The explanation has to be very elaborate and the poor little joke is too thin to stand it, if both texts be followed. It is easy to see that the repetition by the Page of ll. 91 and 92, on the stage, confused the hearer who set it down for the publisher of the Quarto, and also that the repetition would be a part of the stage business and the lines might not appear twice therefore in the MS. of the Play itself. The question growing out ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... was a simple, earnest, at times impassioned appeal to the hearts and consciences of the congregation. There was little attempt in it at the communication of knowledge of any kind, but the most indifferent hearer must have been aware that the speaker was earnestly straining after something. To those who understood, it was as if he would force his way through every stockade of prejudice, ditch of habit, rampart of indifference, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... his personal belief crossed Spencer's lips during the talk with the guide. Rather did he impress on his angry and vengeful hearer that a forgotten scandal should be left in its tomb. He took this line, not that he posed as a moralist, but because he hated to acknowledge, even to himself, that he was helped in his wooing by Helen's horror of his rival's lapse ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... to take more distinct shape, and, in order to formulate them the more accurately, she spoke them aloud to the old man, finding it an assistance to have a hearer, though she supposed him ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... purpose in the drama was to explain to the audience the meaning of the play. It does not speak well for a writer if the people miss the point of his essay. But it is just like a preacher to say something "in conclusion" to secure, if possible, the hesitating assent of some hearer. ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... only to expose the vice, taint the reader more than a sermon preached against lewdness should the assembly?—for of necessity it leads the hearer to the thoughts of the fact. But the morality of every action lies in the end; and if the reader by ill-use renders himself guilty of the fact in reading, which I designed to expose by writing, the fault ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... bearing of this is that story-telling is first of all an art of entertainment; like the stage, its immediate purpose is the pleasure of the hearer,—his pleasure, ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... next time they met, when he walked up, as usual, to Lamb's desk in the most unconcerned manner, to transact the necessary business. Shortly after, when they were again in conversation, something dropped from Lamb's lips which convinced his hearer, beyond a doubt, that his suspicions were correct. He therefore wrote some more ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... comprehended the matter at once," said Mr. Thornycroft, startled in the winding-up of a long harangue about the Corn Laws by the exceedingly bright look which his hearer turned towards him. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... at the same time, it follows that what are called its redness and greenness are not in it, but in the spectator. Similarly, the sounds which an object appears to give forth neither are nor ever were in it: they originate in the mind of the hearer, and have not, and never have had any existence elsewhere. 'If the whole body were an eye, where,' asks St. Paul, 'were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?' and Professor Huxley more than meets the drift of the Apostle's questions by pronouncing ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... evangelical quotations, to disturb the principal and fog his flock; in fact, fine argument interlarded with much sound sense. The discourse finished with a peroration full of high sounding words in honour of shrew-mice, among whom his hearer was the most illustrious and best beneath the sun; and this oration considerably bewildered the keeper ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... as these were, with perfect quiet of manner, exercise a double influence on the hearer's mind. Dick was confounded; he recovered from astonishment only to fall into doubt and alarm. He looked upon her frozen attitude, so discouraging for a lover to behold, and recoiled from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to talk briefly to her, and noticed then a blunt directness in her speech that would have appalled an ordinary hearer. It was her habit and choice to say nothing, but if pushed to the wall what was there that she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the girl faltered, "I really came here because I saw your carriage." Her eyes sank, and then fluttered back to her hearer's face. "I've been ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... or even defending a client without he is spurred on by anger. And though this anger should not be real, still they think his words and gestures ought to wear the appearance of it, so that the action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. And they deny that any man has ever been seen who does not know what it is to be angry; and they name what we call lenity by the bad appellation of indolence. Nor do they commend only this lust (for anger ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... upon thy path has risen; I am the artist's highest dream, The ray of light he cannot prison. I am the sweet ecstatic note Than all glad music gladder, clearer, That trembles in the singer's throat, And dies without a human hearer. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... that the bride is the chief speaker in Sections I., II., and is much occupied with herself; but in Section III., where the communion is unbroken, she has little to say, and appears as the hearer; the daughters of Jerusalem give a long address, and the Bridegroom His longest. In that section for the first time He calls her His bride, and allures her to fellowship in service. In Section IV. the bride again is the chief ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... the several songs have been arranged for the pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed his task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to forget the poet in the melody of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... it. For these modifications of voice produced by feelings are the means of exciting like feelings in others. Joined with gestures and expressions of face, they give life to the otherwise dead words in which the intellect utters its ideas; and so enable the hearer not only to understand the state of mind they accompany, but to partake of that state. In short, they are the chief media of sympathy. And if we consider how much both our general welfare and ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... wendest, wend unfearing, Every step thy throne is nearing. Fraud may plot, and force assail thee,— Shall the soul thou trusteth fail thee? If it fail thee, scornful hearer, Still the throne shines near and nearer. Guile with guile oppose, and never Crown and brow shall Force dissever: Till the dead men unforgiving Loose the war steeds on the living; Till a sun whose race is ending Sees the rival stars contending; Where ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hearer, letting his drum-stick fall with a crash upon the instrument he had been industriously practising. "I would as soon doubt my own honor as that of the little Mouse—my friend and companion through weal and woe. Impossible! You must have ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... of his inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile, and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his hearer. "It's nothing serious—a little trouble of the heart, of long ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... mouth as the broad Scotch? And the women here speak it in its highest purity; for instance, teach one of your young ladies at home to pronounce the 'Whoar wull I gong?' with a becoming widening of mouth, and I'll lay my life they'll wound every hearer. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... instructed in Greek eloquence, should afterwards be formed a wonderful Latin orator, and one most learned in things pertaining unto philosophy. One is commended, and, unseen, he is loved: doth this love enter the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender? Not so. But by one who loveth is another kindled. For hence he is loved who is commended, when the commender is believed to extol him with an unfeigned heart; that is, when one that ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... My hearer's mouth dropped open. He was equally amazed and amused. "Well, well, well! That accounts for his ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... thinkers that Coleridge wandered away from truth and reality in the midst of his vaticinations, as the clairvoyant does in the midst of his previsions, so as to mislead and bewilder, while inspiring and intoxicating the hearer or reader. He recorded, in regard to himself, that "history and particular facts lost all interest" in his mind after his first launch into metaphysics; and he remained through life incapable of discerning reality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... rose,' and 'yielding the sweet savors of godliness.' Philip and Conanchet were openly denounced, by name; some dark insinuations being made, that the person of the former was no more than the favorite tenement of Moloch; while the hearer was left to devise a suitable spirit for the government of the physical powers of the other, from among any of the more evil agencies that were named in the Bible. Any doubts of the lawfulness of the contest, that might assail ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Spaniard. His tone is incomparable,—not powerfully or deeply affecting, but of enchanting sweetness. The infallible correctness of the player contributes greatly to the enjoyment. The moment the bow touches the Stradivarius a stream of beautiful sound flows toward the hearer. A pure tone seems to me the prime quality of violin playing—unfortunately, also, it is a rare quality. Sarasate's virtuosity shines and pleases and surprises the audience continually. He is distinguished, not because he plays great ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... for the present the ponderous consideration of knotty abstractions; he totally forgot the unearned increment; and what he was offering to quiet and self-repressed Edith Whyland was being accepted—thanks to the training and temperament of his hearer—for "small talk." Yes, Abner had broken a large bill and was dealing out the change. He knew it; he was a little ashamed of it; yet at the same time he looked about with a kind of shy triumph to see whether any one were ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... not enough: a play should thrill The hearer's soul, and move it at its will. Smiles are contagious; so are tears; to see Another sobbing, brings a sob from me. No, no, good Peleus; set the example, pray, And weep yourself; then weep perhaps I may: ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... it was said of Jesus, the Prophet: "He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." For where the spiritual man speaks, his appeal is made to the highest and the deepest part in every hearer that he addresses, and the answer that comes is an answer that brooks no denial and permits no questioning. It shows its own imperial nature, the highest and the dominant nature in the man, and where the Spirit once has spoken the intellect becomes ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... Waugh," quo' Peter, who was a hearer of the Parish Church, "you dissenting bodies aye take the black side of things; never considering that the doubtful shadows of affairs sometimes brighten up into the cloudless daylight. For instance, now, there was an old fellow-apprentice of my father's, who, like myself, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... face was as a book where men might read strange matters," and he announced the fate of his hero in prophetic tones. There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgment. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full, animated, and varied; Wordsworth's more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be termed more dramatic, the other more ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... he raised his blue eyes and looked smilingly and trustingly into those of the general and then at his mother; and his hearer, whose heart had just kindled with anger against Marie Antoinette and her rebellious words, felt anger melt into admiration, together with reverence and astonishment at the words of the manly little Dauphin. Bending his knee, in stately grace, ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... put your heart in the place of your larynx; let your voice become a mysterious hand to caress the hearer. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... doses the more they are content. Shakespeare no doubt had the great man's self-confidence which renders him to a large extent independent of the opinion of his fellows. At the same time, the knowledge that he had succeeded in stirring the reader or hearer of his plays, the knowledge that his words had gripped their hearts and intellects, cannot have been ungrateful to him. To desire recognition for his work is for the artist an inevitable and a laudable ambition. A working dramatist by the circumstance of his calling ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... may be more abundantly manifest that God is still the hearer and answerer of prayer, and that He is the living God now, as He ever was and ever will be, when He shall, simply in answer to prayer, have condescended to provide me with a house for 700 Orphans, and with means ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... ancient days And men whose very name forgotten is., And women who have lived and gone their ways: And make them live agen, Charming the tribes of men, Whose speech ye mock with pretty mimicries So true They almost woo The hearer to believe he's singing too! Speed me, Apollo: speed me, Artemis! And you, my dears, farewell! Remember me Hereafter if, from any land that is, Some traveller question ye— 'Maidens, who was the sweetest man of speech Fared hither, ever chanted on this beach?' ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... anxiety to repeat it, for the purpose of ascertaining some facts about which he had been speculating, as well as of removing the incredulity with which, he could not but perceive, his story had impressed his hearer, notwithstanding his belief in the Hermit's integrity; when Atterley eagerly caught at the proposal. Their preparations, however, required time as well as considerable skill, not only for the construction of the vehicle, but also to avoid suspicion and interruption ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... timedus, navebos) is to be seen in early Latin. But too much importance has been given to this. The fact is that one short unaccented vowel is very likely to be mistaken, for another, especially by the uneducated and by careless speakers. The hearer cannot detect the difference, and in fact there is none, practically. The extremely accurate and discriminating elocution of which we hear was in all probability confined to the highly ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... the characters which is worthy of remark. The Socrates of the Philebus is devoid of any touch of Socratic irony, though here, as in the Phaedrus, he twice attributes the flow of his ideas to a sudden inspiration. The interlocutor Protarchus, the son of Callias, who has been a hearer of Gorgias, is supposed to begin as a disciple of the partisans of pleasure, but is drawn over to the opposite side by the arguments of Socrates. The instincts of ingenuous youth are easily induced to take the ...
— Philebus • Plato
... which pre-supposes the power, that by perceiving creates it? The razor's edge becomes a saw to the armed vision; and the delicious melodies of Purcell or Cimarosa might be disjointed stammerings to a hearer, whose partition of time should be a thousand times subtler than ours. But this obstacle too let us imagine ourselves to have surmounted, and "at one bound high overleap all bound." Yet according to this hypothesis the disquisition, to which I am at present ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing over ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... twang of some savage music broke upon his ear, and roused him from his reverie. The wild scream and fitful burst of a highland pibroch is certainly not the most likely thing in nature to allay the irritable and ruffled feelings of an irascible person—unless, perhaps, the hearer eschew breeches. So thought the viscomte. He started hurriedly up, and straight before him, upon the gravel-walk, beheld the stalwart figure and bony frame of an old highlander, blowing, with all his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the streets, and the houses all decked with holly, the father smiled an indulgent smile and gave a ready assent. If Cuthbert would be careful where he took her, and not let her be witness of any of the vile pastimes of cock fighting, bull or bear baiting, or the hearer of scurrilous or blasphemous language, he might have her companionship and welcome; and it would doubtless amuse her to go into Lord Andover's kitchen, where messengers generally waited who had brought notes or messages ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... effort of my own, into a warm, loving heart, and such a happy home, and all so easily and smoothly that to me it seems like a miracle; and never can I forget while I live, nor cease to believe that truly 'He is the hearer ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... too slow in pursuing, Charley was heard to exclaim, "Oh, if I were sheriff!" The man who heard him was both impressionable and practical. He said that Charley's face, when he made that remark, looked like Christ's might have looked when he was angry, but the hearer also remembered that the sheriff-incumbent's term of office had nearly expired, and he quietly gathered a few leading spirits of each political party, with the result that Charley was nominated and elected on a "fusion" ticket. When elected, Charley properly ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... himself did not disdain the usc of allegory, which is truth conveyed to the hearer under a symbolical form. His admirable parables, each of which told a little history, were the most popular methods that could be adopted to instruct the lower classes, who, chiefly uneducated, require the illustration of a subject in order to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and garrulous talk may fall to the ground, rather than on the ear or heart of the hearer; but a tender sentiment felt, or a kind word spoken, at the right moment, is never wasted. Mortal mind presents phases of charac- [30] ter which need close attention and examination. The human heart, like a feather bed, needs often to ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... caught Rand's eye fixed upon her, she started naturally, colored slightly, uttered that feminine adjuration, "Good Lord! gracious! goodness me!" which is seldom used in reference to its effect upon the hearer, and skipped instantly from the bowlder to the ground. Here, however, she alighted in a POSE, brought the right heel of her neatly-fitting left boot closely into the hollowed side of her right instep, at the same moment deftly caught her flying skirt, whipped it around ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... shorter, very much to the point, and replete with nautical phrases, but an uncalled-for petition, which followed that, was briefest of all. It came in low but distinct tones from a dark corner of the hold, and had a powerful effect on the audience; perhaps, also, on the Hearer of prayer. It was merely—"God have mercy ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... society concerning the Jews. Apart from theological purposes, it seems to be held surprising that anybody should take an interest in the history of a people whose literature has furnished all our devotional language; and if any reference is made to their past or future destinies some hearer is sure to state as a relevant fact which may assist our judgment, that she, for her part, is not fond of them, having known a Mr Jacobson who was very unpleasant, or that he, for his part, thinks meanly of them as a race, though on inquiry you find that he is so little ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... report, or caught up in casual conversation. A circumstance carelessly told, carelessly listened to, half comprehended, and imperfectly remembered, has a poor chance of being repeated accurately by the first hearer; but when, after passing through the moulding of countless hands, it comes, with time, place, and person, gloriously confounded, into those of a bookmaker ignorant of all its bearings, it will be lucky indeed if any trace of the original groundwork ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... the extraordinary things that happened during that time, and the powerful emotions he experienced, acquired a comic impressiveness from the pompous manner of his personal narrative. He opened it always by assuring his hearer that he was "in the thick of things from first to last." Then he would begin by describing the getting away of the silver, and his natural anxiety lest "his fellow" in charge of the lighter should make some ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... of mechanism and restraint. It is program music of the most legitimate sort, in full accord with Beethoven's canon, "Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei." It has no aim of imitating springtime noises, but seeks to stimulate by suggestion the hearer's creative imagination, and provoke by a musical telepathy the emotions that swayed the ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... Elijah, as an encouragement to all Christians to ask for needed blessings. "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are," he tells us, and if he prevailed with God, so may others. God is the "same yesterday, to-day, and forever." He does not change. He is always a hearer of prayer. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... raised, yet it thrilled the hearer. His face seemed the epitome of cunning, and the captain recoiled from it as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... preach themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, simply for want of religious instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become actually better educated in theology than any one of them. We are all theological students, and more of us qualified as doctors of divinity than have received degrees ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... be the primary object in Audible reading? To convey to the hearer the ideas and sentiments ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... Lear (1812-1888). He was also a famous illustrator of books and magazines. Among his juvenile books, illustrated by himself, were Nonsense Songs and More Nonsense Songs. All his verse is now generally published under the first title. Good nonsense verse precludes explanation, the mind of the hearer being too busy with the delightfully odd combinations to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... workingman hearer or reader may work, the person or corporation or trust for whom or which you work gets back more out of your labor, than he or it pays you in wages. If this is not so, your employer is either running ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... place by the lift of its familiar sentences,—he spoke a prayer of that service which is less dear only, to those bred in it, than the voices of their dearest. As a priest begins to speak to his congregation he began, and the hearer in the shadow of the gallery ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... be like a louer presently, And tire the hearer with a booke of words: If thou dost loue faire Hero, cherish it, And I will breake with her: wast not to this end, That thou beganst to twist so fine a story? Clau. How sweetly doe you minister to loue, That ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... live according to that nature of a man which is made perfect on all sides, and is in need of nothing. These things then we must explain; and if our explanation is rather minute, you will excuse it; for we are bound to consider the youth of our hearer, and the fact that he is now perhaps listening to such a discourse for the first time. Certainly, said I; although what you have said hitherto might be very properly addressed ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... home, from which the father was long sundered by a soldier's destiny, did the mother labor to perform to their little ones both his duties and her own, having no witness of the extent of her heavy burdens and sleepless anxieties, save the Hearer of prayer. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... curious to observe the changes passing over the countenance of the hearer as Dr. Kent made this disclosure. Pleased surprise was evidently the first emotion excited, but painful ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... artistic use of the pedals, and the legitimate participation of the emotions; of the confines of absolute music as touched in the Ninth Symphony: would refer incidentally to Schopenhauer and make Wagner his authority, using terms that were new to his hearer, and, now and then, by way of emphasis, bringing his palm down flat and noiselessly upon the table.—It had not taken them long to become friends; fellow-countrymen, of the same age, with similar aims and interests, they had soon slipped into one of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the passing of years could think of these things without tears, yet in speaking of them to a sympathetic hearer had obvious difficulty in keeping a stiff upper lip. Gerald turned away his eyes while with her hand she covered and tried ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... explain. Money is not everything—at least, to some people. Shall we go into the house? I need not say that I am glad you are on our side, and doubtless your husband's scruples"—Lord Grayleigh laid the slightest emphasis on the word, and made it, even to the obtuse ears of his hearer, sound offensive—"even your husband's scruples of conscience may be overcome by judicious management. A wife can do much on occasions of this sort, and also a friend. He and I are more than acquaintances—we are friends. I have a hearty liking for Ogilvie. It is a disappointment not to ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... never could lead up to a thing; I have to tell it in one burst, and trust to Providence to sustain the hearer. What would you say—to—my coming to this place for a year, renting a cottage, putting in a skylight, and—practising my profession of photography in ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... history, that work of transcendent genius is open to criticism, especially on the score of accuracy in detail. Indeed to the present writer the magnificent and solemn prosody seems to partake of the nature of a Greek chorus—the comment of an idealised spectator, assuming that the hearer has the drama unfolding before his eyes. Recent researches have supplemented and modified our knowledge. It is no longer possible to accept the more revolting representations of the misery[161] of the French peasantry as true of the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... sadly spoken words fell upon his hearer's ears like so many snowflakes. Instinctively they shrank back from the beautiful bush as though it had been the fabled Upas. They had begun to fear now for the first time. But there was one among them, a young fellow of twenty-two, named ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith |
