"Orator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the appetite of the Nightingale was getting spoiled—she looked suspicious, and, just in time to prevent the female orator—who was no other personage, of course, than Aunt Nabby Folsom, from ripping into a regular caucus fanfaronade of gamboge and gas, a knock upon the door announced a "call" for Miss Lind, to dress and appear to a ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... contained implicitly the promise of an universal religion. We can infer what the manner of his preaching was from the style of the letters, which were probably dictated like extempore addresses, without much preparation. He was no trained orator, and he thoroughly disdained the arts of the rhetorician. His Greek, though vigorous and effective, is neither correct nor elegant. His eloquence is of the kind which proceeds from intense conviction, and from a thorough knowledge of Old Testament prophecy and psalmody—no bad preparation for ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... harangued in a gold chain, and girt with a sword, as high sheriff of the county; but his eloquence was highly applauded by the learned body whom he addressed, although it would have startled a modern audience, at least as much as the dress of the orator. "Arriving," said he, "at the Mount of St. Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation." ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... nearly always followed, and there were times when it threatened to become more than vocal; when, all order lost, nine-tenths of the men on the other side of the House were on their feet shouting jeers and denunciations, and the orator faced them, out-thundering them all, with his own cohorts, flushed and cheering, gathered round him. Then, indeed, Uncle Billy would have thought him a god, if he had known what ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... have read 'Sallust' with care, will recognize the truthful portraiture at a glance, and see the heroes of deep and treacherous villainy dressed out in their proper devil-doing character. On the other hand, we have Cicero, the orator and true friend of the Commonwealth of Rome. We have also his noble contemporaries and coadjutors, all in this volume. Would that space permitted for a more extended notice, but we are compelled to forbear. One thing is certain—if this book contained nothing ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... a little oligarchy in India. The speeches of Lord ISLINGTON and Lord CURZON did not entirely remove the impression that the Government are a little afraid of Mrs. BESANT and her power of "creating an atmosphere" by the emission of "hot air." Apparently there is room for only one orator in India at a time, for it was expressly stated that Mr. MONTAGU, who got back into office shortly after the delivery of what Lord LANSDOWNE characterised as an "intemperate" speech on Indian affairs, has given ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... Meeting when an Oration was deliverd in Commemoration of the Massacre on the 5th of March 1770. I had long expected they would take that Occasion to beat up a Breeze, and therefore (having the Honor of being the Moderator of the Meeting and seeing Many of the Officers present before the Orator came in) I took Care to have them treated with Civility, inviting them into convenient Seats &c that they might have no pretence to behave ill, for it is a good Maxim in Politicks as well as War to put & keep the Enemy in the wrong. They behaved tollerably well till the oration was ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... handled. His diction and language was easy and fluent, void of all affectation and bombast, and has a kind of undesigned negligent elegance which arrests the reader's attention. Considering the time he lived in, it might be said, that he carried the orator's prize from his contemporaries in Scotland, and was not at that time inferior to the best pulpit orator in England. While he lived he was highly esteemed, having been a successful instrument of saving himself, and them that heard him, of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... conversation. He was a delightful companion, ever ready in wit and repartee, versatile and resourceful in debate, with the wide knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator, with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural conversational voice. He possessed the same keen Damascus blade of sarcasm when ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... his part, joined one of the groups that stood gaping round a street orator. He shouted with the best of them, waved his cap in the air, and applauded or hissed in unison with the majority. But his eyes never wandered for long away from the gate whence Percy must come now at any moment—now or not ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the accomplish'd orator appear, Refined his language, and his reasoning dear, Thou only, Foster, has the pleasing art, At once to please the ear and ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... packet of letters which passed between the young men from the summer of 1737 to that of 1740 has dissipated in some measure the otherwise total darkness which had gathered around the youth of our philosopher. Mirabeau (who was to be the father of the famous orator) was a man of talent, but violent, chimerical and lawless, "farouche," as he himself put it. Later he was the author of the redoubtable "Ami des Hommes." This prodigal uncle of the Revolution, this dangerous and violent "physiocrate" ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... never heard but one essentially perfect orator—one who satisfied those depths of the emotional nature that in most cases go through life quite untouch'd, unfed—who held every hearer by spells which no conventionalist, high or low—nor any pride or composure, nor resistance of intellect—could ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... wish I were dead—but will continue my harangue because the thought is pellucid. Women selecting men to mate with are of only two kinds, just as there are but two kinds of children in a toy-shop. One child sets its fancy on one partic"—the orator paused, then continued—"on one certain toy and will make a distressing scene if she doesn't get it: she will have that one; she will go straight to it, clasp it and keep it; she won't have any other. The other kind of woman is to be understood if you will make the experiment of taking the other ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... turning to the window to hide her face. "Oh, Agatha, you are a dear, but you are too funny! Even a Fourth of July orator would not have used that word. I never heard it before in all of ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... seriousness—for others, but never for himself. Tranquillity was to him instead of it. This philosophical levity of tranquillity, so to speak, is shown in his easy variety of pursuits. Printer, postmaster, almanac maker, essayist, chemist, orator, tinker, statesman, humorist, philosopher, parlor man, political economist, professor of housewifery, ambassador, projector, maxim-monger, herb-doctor, wit:—Jack of all trades, master of each and mastered by none—the type and genius of his land. Franklin was everything but a poet. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... forever hail him as their liberator; the nation would acknowledge him as the mighty counselor whose patient courage and wisdom saved the life of the republic in its darkest hour; and illuminating his proud eminence as orator, statesman, and ruler, there would forever shine around his memory the halo of that tender humanity and Christian charity in which he walked among his fellow- countrymen as their ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Faust) failed to announce its coming; and therefore Lynceus here speaks in a kind of early Troubadour metre, with rime. In classical poetry there is no rime. They did not like it; they even ridiculed it. For instance Cicero, the great orator, once tried to write poetry, and produced a line that said 'O fortunate Rome, when I was consul!' This was not only conceited of him but unfortunately the line contained a rime and this rime brought down an avalanche of ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... sang several songs, with rousing choruses; a pretended drunkard and a cold water advocate (both pupils of the Backley High School), delivered a dialogue in which the pretended drunkard was handled severely; a tableau of "The Drunkard's Home" was given; and then the parent society's brilliant orator ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... orator!" exclaimed Charley in admiration. "It sounds as though he was lashing them up to some ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... arrested the same day at Liverpool on suspicion of being concerned in the death of his fellow-lodger. The news fell like a bombshell upon a land in which Tom Mortlake's name was a household word. That the gifted artisan orator, who had never shrunk upon occasion from launching red rhetoric at society, should actually have shed blood seemed too startling, especially as the blood shed was not blue, but the property of a lovable young middle-class idealist, who had now literally given his life ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... fundamental topic was thus conscientiously omitted, was not likely, with all its concinnities, to make much impression upon the disaffected knights, or to exert a soothing influence upon the people. The orator was, however, delighted with his own performance. He informs us, moreover, that the Duchess was equally charmed, and that she protested she had never in her whole life heard any thing more "delicate, more suitable, or more eloquent." The Prince of Orange, however, did not sympathize with her admiration. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in their usual haunts. A public meeting was called, and long before the appointed time to begin the business of the meeting the public hall where it was held was packed, and thousands were unable to get in. One orator addressed those in the hall while the dense mass outside, who were unable to get in, were divided and addressed by two speakers. The several charges against him were in turn taken up, and either proven false or shown to be justified by the excited populace. The following resolution ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... off, in one session, three prizes, the largest number ever before awarded to one person, at one anniversary. One of them was the "Grand Prize," and was awarded to a poem, called "The Educator." Some of the lines give promise of the temple-orator ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... crowd of 'elegantly-attired members of the fair sex,' as the newspapers of the province said, the sister of M. Desalleux, receiving the compliments of all the ladies around her; while, at a little distance, the old father was weeping with joy at the sight of the noble son and incomparable orator whom he had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... grievances, and he was in the midst of his carefully prepared statement when the duke interrupted him with the curt observation: "Have a care to say nothing but the truth and understand, it will be necessary to prove every assertion." The orator was discomfited, stammered on for a few moments, and then excused himself from completing his harangue. There were only a few nobles present and all were surprised at this embarrassment, as Gerard passed ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... ease of suppressing this or that journal—such an orator, such a book; of suppressing everything, in short, except himself. In his view, France had been in the wrong road since 1789, and he sought to lead her ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... communicated by the story. The mere visible fact becomes more than semi-transparent. The analogy between the spiritual and the natural world which men instinctively apprehend, of which the poet and the orator and the religious teacher have always made abundant use, and which it has sometimes been attempted, unsuccessfully as I think, to elevate to the rank of a scientific truth, underlies the whole series of these miracles. It is the principal if not the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... only advocate, and, almost, the only orator, whose speeches are likely to survive the interest of the occasion that gave them birth in a country, where forensic litigation abounds, and political institutions render the study and exercise of eloquence important and necessary, was born on the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... April 18, 1902, and is regarded by many as being the most faithful representation in existence of Sumner's expression and pose, as he appeared in later years. This is the Sumner of the "mores," with mental powers at ripe maturity and bodily vigor as yet unimpaired by age. The Yale commencement orator of 1909 said of Sumner, in presenting him for the Doctorate of Laws: "His intellect has broadened, his heart has mellowed, as he has descended into the vale of years." While advancing age weakened in no respect ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... convenient—where select Patriotism can now redact resolutions, deliver harangues, with comfort, let the weather be as it will. Lively is that Satan-at-Home! On his table, on his chair, in every cafe, stands a patriotic orator; a crowd round him within; a crowd listening from without, open-mouthed, through open door and window; with 'thunders of applause for every sentiment ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... un Mirabeau en soutane, 'a regular Mirabeau in a cassock.' Mirabeau (1749-1791) was the greatest orator of the French Revolution, a man of fearless temperament and a bold, impetuous disposition. He would have enjoyed no small share of manly beauty had he not, when a little child, been sorely disfigured ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... economist; but I do mean that, for natural powers of persuasion and denunciation—for natural oratory—I have never known his rival. If Plato's maxim, 'that oratory must be estimated by its effects,' is at all correct, then is M. Dantes the greatest orator in France, for the effect of his oratory is miraculous. There is a sort of magic in his clear, sonorous, powerful, yet most exquisitely modulated voice, and the wave of his arm is like that ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... surgeon coming out with the good news that the captain was better, in had crawled "this yar abominable egotisk." And he raised a ponderous fist to point the polysyllables: with this aid the sarcasm would doubtless have been crushing; but Fullalove hung on the sable orator's arm, and told him drily to try and speak without gesticulating. "The darned old cuss," said Vespasian, with a pathetic sigh at not being let hit him. He resumed and told how he had followed the Hindoo stealthily, and found ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... would leave behind it no offspring of the brain. By toil he had amassed ample wealth; by talent he had achieved a splendid reputation. But the reputation was as perishable as the wealth. Let a half-century pass over his tomb, and nothing would be left to speak of the successful lawyer the applauded orator, save traditional anecdotes, a laudatory notice in contemporaneous memoirs—perhaps, at most, quotations of eloquent sentences lavished on forgotten cases and obsolete debates—shreds and fragments of a great intellect, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have frolicked beneath its beneficent branches. Armies have marched by it. The soldiers of Plymouth may have passed it on their way to the harbor where they stepped on Plymouth Rock before embarking on that perilous journey in 1917; and here it is still standing a silent orator of golden deeds in a land of noble trees. In it one sees far more than so many feet of lumber to calculate. Its gleaming crest in autumn speaks eloquently of priceless deeds of valor and that distant time of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... broke, and there arose from all a deep wailing sound, which rose and rose till the woods around us seemed broken by a mighty and long-sustained sob. The orator saw that his purpose was accomplished, and with a short sentence finished his harangue: "But the need of our nation still remains!" Then, with an eloquent gesture to me to proceed, he merged in ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... the chief magnate of Barnstable County, colonel of its militia, judge, member of the governor's council, and grandfather of James Otis the revolutionary orator.] ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... classmates," continued the angry orator, "I believe we are all of one mind, and I believe that I can express the unanimous sentiment of the ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of the advantage of classical study, Greek especially. 'Where,' said he, 'would one look for a greater orator than Demosthenes; or finer dramatic poetry, next to Shakspeare, than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not to speak of Euripides?' Herodotus he thought 'the most interesting and instructive book, next to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Aramis was an engineer. I was only able to divine that Porthos might have become one. There is a saying, one becomes an orator, one is born a poet; but it has never been said, one is born Porthos, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Strength, the only divine quality he can clearly conceive; hence his faith in heroes. What is Jove but a Roman hero? The Greeks have their great glory because they were the first to set Mind above Strength. In Athens the orator and philosopher were more revered than the warrior. The charioteer and the swiftest runner are still idols of the arena; yet the immortelles are reserved for the sweetest singer. The birthplace of one poet was contested by seven cities. But was the Hellene the first to deny the old barbaric faith? ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... aedificatum est in hac quoq. regione Guilelmitaru Coenobium in quo epitaphiu hoc Ioannis a Mandeuille excepimus: Hic iacet vir nobilis Dns Ioes de Mandeville al Dcus ad barbam miles dns de Capdi natus de Anglia medicie pfessor deuotissimus orator et bonorum largissimus paupribus erogator qui toto quasi orbe lustrato leodii diem vite sue clausit extremum ano Dni M CCC deg. LXXI deg.[37(2)] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... French and Italian tongues, able to translate passages from the Italian of Ariosto, to dress in English language the charming "Debat de Folie et d'Amour"[134] of Louise Labe, to imitate (as he thought) Cicero's style, while describing (as he thought) the great orator's loves,[135] his turn of mind was as little critical as can be imagined, and his wide popularity served to spread geographical and historical absurdities, some of which were preserved by Shakespeare himself, for the amusement of a learned posterity. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... other—'he is a poor devil, utterly harmless and inoffensive, and is both sick and friendless. He was formerly a political stump orator of some celebrity; he worked hard for his party, and when that party got into power, it kicked him to the devil, and he has been flat on his ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... knows how, finds supplies the Lord knows where, induces men to stay in the field, by the Lord knows what means, and has got such renown the world over that now France is the rebels' ally? I make you stare, boys; you're not used to seeing me play the orator. I never did before, and I sha'n't again, for heaven forbid I should be a woman of that kind! But I've studied this matter, and I hope I have ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... with a faint smile inclined his head respectfully. "Go on, you have our undivided attention!" said the notables alluded to and some others who considered Capitan Basilio a great orator. The elders coughed in a satisfied way and rubbed their hands. After wiping the perspiration from his brow with a ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... responsible post. He is a youngish looking, handsome man, and might easily be mistaken for Governor Myron T. Herrick of Ohio. One night at dinner his lordship was toasted by an Indian prince we had on board, and made a pleasant reply, although it was plain to see that he was not an orator. Captain Preston, the commander of the ship, who was afterward called upon, made ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the orator's pulpit in the Pnyx. Among his most attentive hearers were Alcibiades, Anytos, and Nicias. Cleon said: "Pericles is dead, and Pericles is buried; now you know it. Let him rest in peace with his merits and faults, for the enemy ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language. It was the work of many learned men; but the chief worker and supervisor was the Bishop of Winchester, Lancelot Andrews, perhaps the most eloquent English preacher that ever lived. He was a natural-born orator, with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. To this natural faculty of the Bishop's can be attributed much of the musical charm of the English in which the Bible was written. Still, it must not be supposed that he himself did all the work, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... listen to him with approbation. He felt it; and rising like a great orator, with his right arm outstretched, his left in the breast of his waistcoat, he began to declaim, with a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... attempting to talk to Swann about the Duc d'Audriffet-Pasquier, without being able to kindle any emotion from one or amusement from the other. Hardly had my grandfather begun to question Swann about that orator when one of my grandmother's sisters, in whose ears the question echoed like a solemn but untimely silence which her natural politeness bade her interrupt, addressed ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... become peculiarly pleasant, winning and tender. It is said that a musician can never excel or an artist do his best until he has been deeply in love. A good orator, a great statesman or great men in general are greater and better for having once been thoroughly in love. A man who truly loves his wife and home is always a safe ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... an orator, said a few words. They were sympathetic and well chosen. He spoke of the two men as dying for Texas. Others, too, would fall in the defence of the Alamo, but their blood would water the tree of freedom. Then they threw in the dirt. ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had been two hours out of New York, he discovered that the famous president of this great railway system was aboard, and, mustering up his courage, he determined to introduce himself. He had long been anxious to see this famous after-dinner orator and statesman, and here was a chance which might not come soon again. So he went back to the drawing-room, and found the great man to be quite as pleasant as he was interesting, and Archie was asked to seat himself and tell something about his experiences since ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... combined reason and imagination, wide and accurate knowledge, manly courage, a tender and sympathetic nature, a remarkable faculty of expression, and a fervent enthusiasm which made him the best platform orator of his time. As a lecturer on education, temperance, and abolition, he drew crowded houses and made many converts. The late Secretary Stanton was one of these, and often mentioned Mr. Weld as the most eloquent speaker he had ever heard; and Wendell Phillips, in a recent ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... favourable to its heart's worst wishes. The Io Paens of Faction were in full rehearsal, when the bringers of evil tidings announced the triumph of Truth. The conviction of a burlesque on baronetcy was expected in sulky helplessness—but the overthrow of the CHAMPION of LIBERTY, the ORATOR whose eloquence was to have been the passing dirge of Justice—his overthrow was the overthrow of thousands. With his, hearts sunk, and menaces grew silent; the monster at his whetstone dropped the half-sharpened dagger at the conviction of Henry Hunt; and ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... arrangement will require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few expect yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed, torn asunder, put together again—not without heroic labour and effort, quite other than that of the stump-orator and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he had been called an enemy of the Church, he would never do it any other injury than keeping Mr Addison out of it. It is likely that the timid temperament of our poet concurred with these suggestions of Montague in determining his decision. His failure as a Parliamentary orator subsequently seems to prove that the pulpit was not his vocation. After all, his Saturday papers in the Spectator are as fine as any sermons of that age, and he perhaps did more good serving as a volunteer ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... had taught them nothing else, he had at least convinced them all that the first duty of Christian men was to quit the Church of Rome. Again and again they appealed to Rockycana to be their head, to act up to his words, and to lead them out to the promised land. The great orator hemmed and hawed, put them off with excuses, and told them, after the manner of cowards, that they were too hasty and reckless. "I know you are right," said he, "but if I joined your ranks I should be reviled on every hand."7 But these ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... yet he showed himself plainly conscious that authority lived in his slightest word, and that he had but to nod to be obeyed. That pipe was constant in his hand, and was the weapon with which he signified his approbation of the speakers. When any great orator would arise and address him as Most Worthy Grand, he would lay his pipe for an instant on the table, and, crossing his hands on his ample waistcoat, would bow serenely to the Goose on his legs. Then, not allowing the spark to be extinguished on his tobacco, he would ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... wishing I were an orator to jaw back at you. A preacher has such an easy thing, with no back talk except the sonorous echo ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... greater prominence Rowland Hill, the eccentric preacher; Augustus Toplady, the author of the Hymn "Rock of Ages;" Howell Harris, the famous Welsh orator, and the Countess of Huntingdon. These and many others were brought into closer touch with the great spiritual movement, at the period when Nova Scotia was bidding for settlers, by the famous controversy on Calvinism, which was full of spleen, and has shown us how good men may ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... his friend Mr MacGinnis, who seconded the motion by expectorating into the fireplace. I had observed at a previous interview his peculiar gift for laying bare his soul by this means of mode of expression. A man of silent habit, judged by the more conventional standard of words, he was almost an orator ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... time for a row of men sitting on a long stone under the store window and pounding on the sidewalk with their heels to make a chorus for the song. Sam's smile broadened into a grin as he looked at the singer, Freedom Smith, a buyer of butter and eggs, and past him at John Telfer, the orator, the dandy, the only man in town, except Mike McCarthy, who kept his trousers creased. Among all the men of Caxton, Sam most admired John Telfer and in his admiration had struck upon the town's high light. Telfer loved good clothes and wore them with an air, and never ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... policy was content with that of display. In these early days, indeed, his whole plan, system, and policy was to make his individualism tell, to demonstrate, to all parties, what he was worth in journalism as a writer, in the Assembly as an orator, in every thing as a statesman. As he had nothing but himself, it became his business to make the most of the commodity, which, so valueless in the beginning, ended in outworthing all that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Windham, how came you ever engaged in so cruel, so unjust a cause?" "Mr. Burke saw me," she says, "and he bowed with the most marked civility of manner." This, be it observed, was just after his opening speech,—a speech which had produced a mighty effect, and which, certainly, no other orator that ever lived could have made. "My curtsy," she continues, "was the most ungrateful, distant, and cold; I could not do otherwise; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause." Now, not only had Burke treated her with constant kindness, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it is a fact that the second potion was successfully placed inside him. But by the time this feat was finally accomplished, Mr. Schofield had proved that, in spite of middle age, he was entitled to substantial claims and honours both as athlete and orator—his oratory being founded less upon the school of Webster and more upon that ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... were two arguments put forward by the Corcyraean orator, which outweighed all other considerations of policy or friendship. The first was addressed to the fears of the Athenians, the second to their ambition. War, he argued, was inevitable, and it was of the utmost importance ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... understood him any more easily than a modern audience, even of scholars, could take in one of the orations of Demosthenes, although they might laugh at the jokes of the sage, and be impressed with the invectives of the orator. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... thinks of the great white dome at Washington. He thinks of his marked ability as an orator, everywhere conceded. He says he does not care to enter upon a life so active, but he is not truly ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... on the orator before she turned rapidly to Evariste and begged him to get her away. The crowd, she declared, frightened her and she was afraid of fainting in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... have done great harm, and was specially singled out by the men of Liberty Hall, was "Shoot him!"—as a form of argument employed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry orator, on every conceivable subject without the slightest constitutional authority; but it must be said it was ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... could tell, but more I dare not say, The text is old, the orator too green. Therefore in sadness now I will away, My face is full of shame, my ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... and women. "Robert Winston, Esq.," was the orator of the evening. He was a fluent speaker, and had a good deal of humor. He began about the early Anglo-Saxon guilds, and the banding together of craftsmen when towns grew large and prosperous, and labor ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... "can this be so? Hasdrubal the handsome, as he was well called, the true patriot, the great general, the eloquent orator, the soul of generosity and patriotism, our leader and hope, dead! Surely it ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... of mankind and the state of the world, this founder of an empire which is still practically in existence,[7] never deserted the Palatine hill all through his eventful career. From the lane "ad capita bubula" he moved to the house of Calvus, the orator, at the northeast corner of the hill overlooking the forum; and in process of time, having become absolute master of the Roman Commonwealth, he settled finally on the top of the hill, having purchased ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... burned in the big grate. One of the two sat at the table with his elbows on the mahogany, and his head supported by a hand. He was a man well on in middle life with a fine clean-cut face and the shapely mobile lips of the publicist and orator. It was the face of one habituated to platforms and assemblies, full of a certain selfconscious authority. But to-night its possessor seemed ill at ease. His cheeks were flushed and his ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... speaking, had very great influence in politics, and so proceeded to conciliate not only the populace, but also the knights and the senate with whom Cicero most held in regard. His hope was that if he could make these men his own, he might easily cause the downfall of the orator, whose great strength lay rather in the fear than in the good-will which he inspired. Cicero annoyed great numbers by his words, and those who were won to him by benefits conferred were not so numerous as those alienated ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... I am something of an orator, or I guess you wouldn't of made me your leader. Now, as long as I'm your leader, I'm going to lead; but, I ain't never unreasonable, and when talk is needed, I'm copious enough. I am called 'Red Kimball,' and my brother yonder, he is knowed as ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... without a moment's leisure for preparation, had kindly consented to address the Agricultural Society. We have already spoken of the gratifying character of what he termed his desultory remarks and of the cordially enthusiastic manner in which both the orator and his address were received. As the occasion, as well as the character of the remarks, will make them interesting to the whole people of our State, we are gratified in being able to lay before our readers a more extended and accurate report of them than ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... singsong which I knew so well and which meant that the occasion was an important one. And as is usual in such efforts, the same thought and expressions were used again and again, and yet again, with dull, angry insistence. The orator of Guayana to be impressive must be long, however little he may have to say. Strange as it may seem, I listened critically to him, not without a feeling of scorn at his lower intelligence. But I was easier in my mind now. From the very fact of his addressing such a speech to me I was ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect—the dialect of plain working men—was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language—no book which shows ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... inside and sat down there for a few minutes, giving Gavard a friendly slap on the thigh. And then he would nod approval of everything that was said. The poultry dealer asserted that although friend Lebigre hadn't the stuff of an orator in him, they might safely reckon on him when ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... West Point. While a rigid non-intercourse law was for four years maintained between Flipper and the nascent warriors at the Military Academy, Page has lived in the largest-leaved clover at Brown, and in the Senior year just closed was chosen Class-day Orator—a position so much coveted among students ambitious for class honors that it is ranked by many even higher than the Salutatory or the Valedictory. Page has throughout been treated by his classmates as one of themselves. He is a ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Transcendental group worthy of mention here is George William Curtis, a versatile and charming personality, not a genius in any sense, but a writer of pleasant and amusing prose, an orator of no small ability, and one of the truest patriots who ever loved and labored for his country. It is in this latter aspect, rather than as the author of "Nile Notes" and "The Potiphar Papers," that Curtis ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... evenings the Club adjourned to the brook for aquatic exercises, and the members sat about in airy attire, frog-like and cool. On such occasions the speeches were unusually eloquent, quite flowing, as one might say; and if any orator's remarks displeased the audience, cold water was thrown upon him till his ardor was effectually quenched. Franz was president, and maintained order admirably, considering the unruly nature of the members. Mr. Bhaer never interfered with their ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Herr Fischer, the tobacconist, with a long porcelain pipe pendent from his screwed-up lips, was solemnly listening to the particulars volubly communicated by a stout Bavarian priest; while behind the counter, in a corner, swiftly knitting, sat his wife, her black bead-like eyes also fixed on the orator. Of course I was dragged into the conversation. Instead of attending to commercial interests, they looked upon me as the possible bearer of fresh news. Nor was it without a secret satisfaction that I found I could gratify them in that ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... who care far more for any trifles than for poetry. The Germans, he says, do not care for science nor for a knowledge of classical literature, and they have hardly heard the name of Cicero or any other orator. In the eyes of the Italians, the Germans were barbarians; and when Constantine Lascaris saw the first specimen of printing, he was told by the Italian priests that this invention had lately been made apud barbaros in urbe Germaniae. They were dangerous neighbors—these ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... bottle, may seem bulky, which, like that, will not bear dividing: Thus Orator Jones, in 1774, opened a debating society at the Red Lion; he quickly filled a large room with customers, and his pockets with money, but he had not prudence to keep either. His success opened a rival society at the King's-head, which, in a few ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... first time that Ralph had seen Jean McKenzie, he had been riding in Rock Creek Park. She, too, was on horseback. It was in April. War had just been declared, and there was great excitement. Jean, taking the bridle path over the hills, had come upon a band of workers. A long-haired and seditious orator was talking to them. Jean had stopped her horse to listen, and before she knew it she was answering the arguments of the speaker. Rising a little in her stirrups, her riding-crop uplifted to emphasize her burning words, her cheeks ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... which every gentleman ought to read. Kings and princes everywhere, who felt that at any moment their own thrones might begin to rock unsteadily beneath them, inevitably applauded the unexpected assistance of the greatest orator and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... distinguished most frequently had the sound "ca-tah," which became associated in my thought as some special form of torture to which he desired us sentenced. Nor did I fail to remark in this connection, my every faculty alert and strained to grasp the slightest revealment, that, whenever the orator's baleful glance rested upon the shrinking woman, his lips uttered another word, his silent audience nodding as though ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Listen to the best conversationalists and how they express themselves. Go to hear the leading lectures, speeches and sermons. No need to imitate the gestures of elocution, it is nature, not art, that makes the elocutionist and the orator. It is not how a speaker expresses himself but the language which he uses and the manner of its use which should interest you. Have you heard the present day masters of speech? There have been past time ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... Marvell, though no orator, or even debater, was the stuff of which controversialists are made. In a letter, printed in the Duke of Portland's papers, and dated May 3, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... question, let me sum up the history of all the revolutionary Governments of France, and of their characters in relation to other Powers, in words more emphatical than any which I could use—the memorable words pronounced, on the eve of this last constitution, by the orator[6] who was selected to report to an assembly, surrounded by a file of grenadiers, the new form of liberty which it was destined to enjoy under the auspices of General Buonaparte. From this reporter, the mouth and organ of the new Government, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... to the withdrawal of the army, and to its broken pledge that it would retire when Maximilian's throne was established and a proper impetus had been given to the work of regeneration. For the accomplishment of these ends, said the orator, a sacrifice of forty thousand men and a yearly expenditure of four or five millions would be needed for ten years ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... the afternoon session Isaac Johnson, a natural born orator, presided and, both in his address and happy manner of introducing the speakers, enlivened the occasion with unexpected sallies of natural mother wit and eloquence. Rev. W. H. Carroll, of Garvin, one ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine—who certainly did not realize his dreams—and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... whose fine taste has been allowed clear from the least tincture of pedantry, Quintilian recommends especially the talent of dancing, as conducive to the formation of orators; not, as he very justly observes, that an orator should retain any thing of the air of a dancing-master, in his motion or gesture; but that the impression from the graces of that art should have insensibly stoln into his manner, and fashioned it ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... one of the editors of the Washington Union, and more recently United States Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands, is to be the orator of the societies of Columbia College, at the commencement, on the evening of the 6th of October. Bayard Taylor will be the poet for the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... countenance intelligent and prepossessing, and especially as the confidence which he felt in his powers gave him an air of great self-possession and composure, the impression which he made was very favorable. The people were in fact predisposed to be pleased with and to applaud the efforts of a young orator so illustrious in rank and station—and the ability which he displayed, although he was so young, was such as to justify, unquestionably, in some degree, the honors that ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... as a throne, Which shows to us the excellence Whereby it may be known. 3. Doubtless the fabric that was built For this so great a king, Must needs surprise thee, if thou wilt But duly mind the thing. 4. If all that build do build to suit The glory of their state, What orator, though most acute, Can fully heaven relate? 5. If palaces that princes build, Which yet are made of clay, Do so amaze when much beheld, Of heaven what shall we say? 6. It is the high and holy place; No moth can there annoy, Nor make to fade that goodly grace That saints shall there enjoy. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all my time,' said Francis Ardry, 'as I gladly would; but what can I do? My guardians wish me to qualify myself for a political orator, and I dare not offend them by a refusal. If I offend my guardians, I should find it impossible—unless I have recourse to Jews and money-lenders—to support Annette; present her with articles of dress and jewellery, and purchase a horse and cabriolet ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sorry," replied she, "not to be of service to you in something; consider, it is in my power to bestow on you long life, kingdoms, riches: to give you mines of diamonds, and houses full of gold; I can make you an excellent orator, poet, musician, and painter; or, if you desire it, a spirit of the air, the water, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... your gracious Highness your poor orator and humble subject John Rastell, that where your said orator delivered to one Henry Walton certain parcels of stuff and goods to the value of 20 marks, safely to keep to the use of your said orator, that ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... result of my associating with myself that most prudent man Felix[710], whose advice I have followed in every case. He is a man of absolute purity of character, of surpassing knowledge of the law, of distinguished accuracy of speech; a young man with the gravity of age, a sweet pleader, a measured orator; one who by his graceful discharge of his official duties has earned the favourable opinion of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... drink enough water to inspire you? Did you mutter over the thing sufficiently through the night, spout it along the street, recite it to all you met? Have you bored your friends enough with it? 'Tis then for this you deem yourself an orator. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... out-doors; a half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and stuck on the judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of black and white who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and cast only a fitful light upon the orator, who paced back and forth and pounded the rail. It was to have been a joint discussion between the two presidential electors running in that district, but, the Republican being absent, his place was taken by a young man of the town. The Democratic orator took advantage ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the account of a public welcome to a famous orator must have been fresh from the study of Porson's Catechism of the Swinish Multitude when he set up the damaging statement that "the crowd rent the ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... careful to repudiate all pretence of knowing anything more about the matter than their hearers. The speech is made to wear as far as possible the appearance of being simply a reproduction of things with which the audience is just as familiar as the speaker. Nothing is more fatal to a stump orator than an air of superior wisdom on any subject. He has, if he means to persuade, to keep carefully, in outward seeming at all events, on the same intellectual level as those whom he is addressing. Orators of a demagogic turn, of course, push this caution to its extreme, and often affect ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... current among the hamlets that great things are preparing in the world. Father Robak has been talking of this; do not you all know this?" ("We know it," they shouted.) "Well, so for a wise head," continued the orator, looking sharply at them, "two words are enough. Is not that true?" ("It is," they said.) "Since the French Emperor is coming from one direction," said the Warden, "and the Russian Tsar from the other, there will be war; the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... proposition,—which will end in an O.P. combustion. To crown all, R * *, the auctioneer, has the impudence to be displeased, because he has no dividend. The villain is a proprietor of shares, and a long lunged orator in the meetings. I hear he has prophesied our incapacity,—'a foregone conclusion,' whereof I hope to give him signal ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to confess that I am not a great man, and that, at any rate in the earlier part of my career, I had a hankering after the homage which is paid to greatness. I would fain have been a popular orator, feeding myself on the incense tendered to me by thousands; or failing that, a man born to power, whom those around him were compelled to respect, and perhaps to fear. I am not ashamed to acknowledge this, and I believe that most of my neighbours in Friday ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... the earl of Wharton's view, to qualify his son to fill that high station, in which his birth would one day place him with advantage to his country; his great care was to form him a compleat orator. For this purpose some of the principal parts in the best English Tragedies were assign'd him at times to study, particularly those of Shakespear, which he used to repeat before a private audience. Sometimes his father gave him speeches which had been uttered in the house of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... frind Sinitor Beveridge, th' child orator iv Fall Creek. This engagin' an' hopeful la-ad first made an impression with his eloquince at th' age iv wan whin he addhressed a meetin' iv th' Tippecanoe club on th' issues iv th' day. At th' age iv eight he was illicted to th' United States Sinit, rayjoocin' th' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... have been disincorporated from general knowledge, do not understand one and the same thing which Cicero's discourse and the note and conceit of the Grecians in their word CIRCLE LEARNING do intend. For I mean not that use which one science hath of another for ornament or help in practice, as the orator hath of knowledge of affections for moving, or as military science may have use of geometry for fortifications; but I mean it directly of that use by way of supply of light and information which the particulars and instances of one science do yield and present for the framing or correcting ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... was a constant succession of speakers from the 28th to the 31st. Vergniaud at length ascended the tribune for the first time, and an extraordinary eagerness was manifested to hear the Girondists express their sentiments by the lips of their greatest orator. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and if he is as good a doctor as he is an orator, it will be most pleasant to be one ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... coolly turned into ridicule by Mr. Rigby, Paymaster of the Forces. But Mr. Fox, whose eloquence was always ready at the call of good nature, and, like the shield of Ajax, had "ample room and verge enough," to protect not only himself but his friends, came promptly to the aid of the young orator; and, in reply to Mr. Rigby, observed, that "though those ministerial members, who chiefly robbed and plundered their constituents, might afterwards affect to despise them, yet gentlemen, who felt properly the nature of the trust allotted to them, would always ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... behind his back, Stands PHILLIPS buttoned in a sack, Our Attic orator, our Chatham; Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em, Shrivel like leaves; to him 'tis granted Always to say the word that's wanted, So that he seems but speaking clearer The tiptop thought of every hearer; 80 Each flash his brooding heart lets fall Fires what's combustible in all, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... thought the saving of a soul "a sin almost if it had not been done in a church." But from the first moment when he began to preach to crowds in the open air he must have felt that he had found his work at last. His friend and colleague Whitefield, who had more of the genius of an orator than Wesley, had preceded him in this path. One is a little surprised that such men as Wesley and Whitefield should ever have found any difficulty about preaching to a crowd in the open air. The Hill of Mars at Athens listened to an open-air sermon from an apostle, and Whitefield himself observed ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... at last with a note of impatience approaching a threat, and drove away to the Corners to make his confession without her. It was Saturday night, and Elder Wheat was preaching as he entered the crowded room. A buzz and mumble of surprise stopped the orator for a few moments, and he shook hands with Mr. Pill dubiously, not knowing what to think of it all, but as he was in the midst of a very effective oratorical scene, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland |
