"Oratorical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will arise and take the place and play the part of those that we outlive. The beauty of the expected beat in verse, the beauty in prose of its larger and more lawless melody, patent as they are to English hearing, are already silent in the ears of our next neighbours; for in France the oratorical accent and the pattern of the web have almost or altogether succeeded to their places; and the French prose writer would be astounded at the labours of his brother across the Channel, and how a good quarter of his toil, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made himself the most envied of men at the dinner. Quite informally he was asked to say something after the set programme had been disposed of. Where the other speakers had brought forward their elegantly turned oratorical tributes the grizzled old manager told stories about the child life and early career of the guest. Amongst other things he illustrated how early the divine Adelina had fallen into the ways of a prima donna by refusing to sing at a concert ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... ask the same question of you," I replied. "Wherefore have you not been to see me?" Whereupon Francis Ardry told me that he had been much engaged in his oratorical exercises, also in escorting the young Frenchwoman about to places of public amusement; he then again questioned me as to the reason of my not having been to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the nation (hence the tremendous clamour you may hear in their woods towards sunset when their assemblies are held), but the practical direction of their policy is entrusted to a circle or council of about ten of the older rooks, distinguished for their oratorical powers. These depute, again, one of their own number to Kapchack's court; you see him yonder, his name is Kauhaha. The council considers, I have no doubt, that by supporting Kapchack they retain their supremacy, for very likely if they did not have a foreigner to reign over them, some clever ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... two men born in the same year (106 B.C.): the egotistic, vain, and irresolute, but personally pure orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero; and the cold and haughty soldier, Cneius Pompeius Magnus, commonly known as Pompey the Great. The philosophical, oratorical, and theological writings of Cicero are still studied in our schools as models in their different classes. Inheriting a love of culture from his father, a member of an ancient family, he was afforded every advantage ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... 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 ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... and verse at an astonishing rate; he explored the country for miles around, making frequent pilgrimages to the birthplace of Henry Clay, which is the chief historical glory of Ashland, and to that Hanover Court House which was the scene of the oratorical triumph of Patrick Henry; he flirted with the pretty girls in the village, and even had two half-serious love affairs in rapid succession; he slept upon a hard mattress at night and imbibed more than the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... into the cockpit of a biplane and flying him from city to city. They would land in some central square, and the candidate, deafened and half-frozen, would stammer a few halting remarks. He felt it rather keenly that Quimbleton looked down on his lack of oratorical gift, and it was a frequent humiliation that when words did not prosper on his tongue his impatient pilot would turn on the motors and zoom off into space in the very middle ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... she said. "The country will gain nothing by your having pneumonia, although personally I am indifferent. And, after thinking over your case, I have come to this decision." She paused, as for oratorical effect. "I shall deliver you to your registration precinct by nine o'clock," she said impressively, "and immediately after that, I shall see that you two are married. I am not young," she went on, "and perhaps I do not think enough of sentiment. But it shall never be said of ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when he had completed his studies, got for a testimonium that he had distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wuertemberg. A ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Rhodes: 'Failed? No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr. H——, but I should have failed, almosht, if I hadn't got rid of dem tamn'd English goods at cost!' Straitway the out-witted Yankee 'departed the presence!'' . . . IT has been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of 'Major POGRAM,' as described by Mr. DICKENS in a late number of his 'Chuzzlewit,' rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr. MAUPIN in the Indiana legislature, upon the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... learning subsisted. From a little specimen which remains of it, describing a memorable omen given to Marina from an oak at Arpinum, there is reason to believe that his poetical genius was scarcely inferior to his oratorical, had it been cultivated with equal industry. He published another poem called Limon, of which Donatus has preserved four lines in the life of Terence, in praise of the elegance and purity of that poet's style. He composed in the Greek language, and in the style and manner of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... between Caesar and Pompey, Cicero was attached to the party of Pompey and the senate, as against Caesar and the people. He kept clear of the conspiracy against Caesar's life, but after the assassination he undertook an oratorical campaign against Antony, and was entrusted with the government of the city. But on the return of the triumvirate, Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus, Cicero's name was included in the list of those who were to be done away, and he was murdered in the year 43 B.C., at 63 years of age. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... It is almost needless to say that nothing like it had ever been heard by them before, and many of them did not know what to make of it. The originality of his thoughts, the consummate beauty of the language in which they were clothed, the calm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and the singular directness and simplicity of his manner, free from the least shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a deep impression on me. Not long before this I had listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers, whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather turgid eloquence ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... spoke glibly, even eloquently and it was obvious that he was sincere and not talking for effect. It was, indeed, largely due to his distinguished air, and fine oratorical powers that Cornelius Winthrop Parker had been elected president of the Americo-African Mining Company, with fine offices in New York and London and stockholders in every country under the sun. Trained for the ministry and enjoying a wide acquaintance but a slim income, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... explain that their subtle significance cannot be given in a matter-of-fact narrative. These secret schemes and calculations do not show themselves as brutally and undisguisedly while taking place as they must when the history of them is related. To set down in writing the circumlocutions, oratorical precautions, protracted conversations, and honeyed words glossed over the venom of intentions, would make as long a book as that magnificent ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit's oratorical appearance, she put ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... ancient, as is shown on medals and statues, and is supposed by some to refer to the horns of animals slaughtered in sacrifice. The position of the fingers, Fig. 80, is also given as one of Quintilian's oratorical gestures by the words "Duo quoque medii sub pollicem veniunt," and is said by him to be vehement and connected with reproach or argument. In the present case, as a response to an impertinent or disagreeable petition, it simply means, "instead of giving what you ask, I will ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... entirely withdrawn from him, thought he perceived here his opportunity, turning and beaming upon the jury, he began simply to talk, but as the grandeur of his position grew upon him —talk broadened unconsciously into an oratorical vein. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... cultivation of science; but in the true sphere of rhetoric, in public speaking, this sense has given us orators whom I do think we may, without fear of being contradicted and accused of blind national vanity, assert to have inherited the great Greek and Roman oratorical tradition more than the orators of any other country. Strafford, Bolingbroke, the two Pitts, Fox,—to cite no other names,—I imagine few will dispute that these call up the notion of an oratory, in kind, in extent, in power, coming nearer than any other body ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... whom either modesty, fastidiousness, or conscientious desire of truth predisposes towards the labour of written composition. He had too much cleverness to be in want of fluent period or ready commonplace,—the ordinary materials of oratorical impromptu; too little taste for the Beautiful to study what graces of diction will best adorn a noble sentiment; too obtuse a conscience to care if the popular argument were purified from the dross which the careless flow of a speech wholly extemporaneous ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had seated himself, with his head buried in his hands. After a silence long enough to enable the chevalier to judge the effect of this oratorical display, the duke arose, saying, "Come, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... problems here in this world." Now she could not conceal her disapproval of the "other-worldliness" of Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Bright, and her daughter. Some remarkable and, to me, most amusing discussions took place among the three; but often, during Mrs. Besant's most sustained oratorical flights, Miss Anthony's interest would wander, and she would drop a remark that showed she had not heard a word. She had a great admiration for Mrs. Besant's intellect; but she disapproved of her flowing and picturesque white robes, of her bare feet, of her incessant cigarette-smoking; above ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... confidently stated that both Madison and Monroe owed their success and eminence more to their engaging manners than to great intellectual powers. They were even notably deficient in that oratorical ability which counted for so much in the political era with which they were connected. They rarely spoke in Congress. When speaking, Madison was hesitating, and was heard with difficulty; but his quietness and ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... conducted himself like an Irishman of genius. Some time in 1759 he became acquainted with William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called 'Single-speech Hamilton,' on account of the celebrity he gained from his first speech in Parliament, and the steady way in which his oratorical reputation went on waning ever after. In 1761 this gentleman went over to Ireland as Chief Secretary, and Burke accompanied him as the Secretary's secretary, or, in the unlicensed speech of Dublin, as Hamilton's jackal. This arrangement was eminently ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... it might have been, was never completed nor administered, for his emotions becoming too much for him to hold in check, Palmer Billy sprang upon Gleeson, and gave vent to his feelings in a manner which was more satisfying to him than a mere oratorical outburst. Had he been allowed to complete his intention, the future career of Gleeson would not have been connected with mining swindles. For a time Peters and Tony, neither being predisposed in favour of Gleeson, stood by watching the chastisement Palmer ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... with a strange, almost oratorical manner, that he had never seen in her before. It was almost as if she mounted before his eyes a platform of her own love and higher purposes. "Listen to me," she said. "That night when I was in such terrible anger with you that for a second ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Nashville American of July 19, 1878. For the further course of the attack in the denominational organ of Dr. Winchell's oppressors, see the Nashville Christian Advocate, April 26, 1879. For the oratorical declaration of the Tennessee Conference upon the matter, see the Nashville American, October 15, 1878; and for the "ode" regarding the "harmony of science and revelation" as supported at the university, see the same journal ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the question, until Sixte du Chatelet condescended to inform these unlettered folk that the prefatory announcement was no oratorical flourish, but a statement of fact, and added that the poems had been written by a Royalist brother of Marie-Joseph Chenier, the Revolutionary leader. All Angouleme, except Mme. de Rastignac and her two daughters and the Bishop, who had really felt the grandeur of the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... meaningless and his whole appearance calculated only to produce laughter, notwithstanding the evidence he gave of superior abilities. All these faults he overcame by severe and patient labor. One of his biographers says,—"His oratorical training was as severe as any Greek ever underwent." Constantly on the watch against bad habits, he practised daily before a glass, reciting passages from Shakespeare, Junius, and the best English orators. He became the most eloquent of all irish advocates, and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of ivory, of ebony, of marble, but all false gods. Let them worship in future the true God, our Father, as He is in heaven and in the beneficent labors of His children on earth. Then farewell to the siren song of a worldly ambition! Farewell to the vain desire of mere literary success or oratorical display! Farewell to the distempered longings for office! Farewell to the dismal, blood-red phantom of martial renown! Fame and glory may then continue, as in times past, the reflection of public opinion; but of an opinion sure and steadfast, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... through merely by the energetic advocacy of Senators McDonald, Sargent and Hoar, whose oratorical efforts were reenforced by the presence of Mrs. Lockwood. After the struggle was over, all the senators who advocated the bill were made the recipients of bouquets, while the three senators whose names we have given received large ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... reader's previous status of thought and education. The spiritual rostrum should be the sphere of instruction alike to listener and reader,—not the school in which unfledged and half-developed mediums seek to entertain their audiences by practicing the A B C of the oratorical art." ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... career by pleading lawsuits for the press. Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of "beards," if it can be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment. But they are all delighted with it, for the title of "political convict" is one very much in demand among the irreconcilables. They are all convinced that the time is near when they will overthrow ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... harpies!" she cried, striding to the middle of the big room and getting into position for an oratorical outburst. "You two blighted old midwives as ought, heaven knows, to have mercy on women; you who see the tortures of women! You would take a girl's name from her on the word of that half-breed, who would sooner lie than steal—and both are easy to the whelp. That girl is the straightest girl that ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... dead," he reiterated with parrot-like singleness of idea. "Mary's heart's broke.... I'm drunk." One hand waved broadly in an oratorical gesture. After a moment he added in solemn afterthought, "Father's ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... a public speaker in the ordinary sense; he attempted no oratorical tricks, and addressed his ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... occasion to use it. The hair swept carelessly away from the broad forehead and grew rather long behind, yet the length did not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in everything—look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, he had nevertheless the secret of the highest art of all, whether in oratory or whatever else—he had simplicity. The force was in the thought and the diction, and he needed no other. The voice was rather deep, low, but quite audible, at ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... General Vallejo, Thomas O. Larkin, Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price, Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... owned, 'of Whitefield's oratorical powers, and their astonishing influence on the minds of thousands, there can be no doubt. They are of a high order.'—Life of Lady ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... powers, he was all but perfect: lucid, argumentation, frank, at least in seeming, bland, persuasive; always singularly respectful not only to the House, but to the humblest member of it; his speeches partook more of the lecture and less of oratorical display than those of most other public men with anything like his reputation; but they were admirably suited to an educated and deliberative assembly like the House of Commons—and hence he influenced—almost ruled it, as no other man did before or since. Knowing this, he never felt so happy or ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... remain ours. We think that the volunteer must necessarily make the best soldier because he offers his services; while the conscript—rather a term of opprobrium to us—must be lukewarm. It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he sees others, also young and fit, hanging back. Nor does it occur to us that there may be virtue in that fervour of national patriotism aroused by the command ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... generally prepared himself for it by taking the yolk of an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry, Mr Bright's priming was said to be a glass of a particular old port, and there was a malicious whisper to the effect that Mr Lowe, whilst Chancellor of the Exchequer made ready to enter the oratorical arena by taking a glass of iced water at the bar, being moved to his choice of a stimulant by considerations of economy. Mr Disraeli then was reported to the gallery as having taken his half-bottle, and very shortly afterwards he slipped into the House from behind the Speaker's chair and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... off?" Booth entered on the scene; then came the big moment in the play when the nobles and the weak King had assembled to defy the power of the Cardinal; and Richelieu launches (as Booth always did with thrilling effect) the terrifying curse of Rome—a superb bit of oratorical eloquence. At the conclusion, the house shouted its wild and demonstrative approval, and when the curtain dropped on this uproar for the last time, Booth approached Hutton at the prompter's entrance saying, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... history the consideration of causes, methods and motives ([Greek]), and refuse to consider how far the result of anything is its rational consequent, what is left is a mere [Greek], not a [Greek], an oratorical essay which may give pleasure for the moment, but which is entirely without any scientific value for the explanation of the future. Elsewhere he says that 'history robbed of the exposition of its ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... colored man a fair show and he is certain to give a good account of himself. One of the notable college contests in Illinois is known as the Swan Oratorical Contest, and is held annually at Lombard University, at Galesburg. This contest was held Thursday night of last week. The first prize was awarded to Burt Wilson, a colored student, who lives at Galesburg, and is one of the most promising scholars in the university. His oration ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various
... backward now and running both hands deep into his pockets, he dropped his oratorical tone, and, falling easily into ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... frigid air, the uplifting of voices in greeting,—but all familiar! There were Gabriel Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who had joined the party at the station; but certainly the accents of no STRANGER. Had he come? Yes, for his name was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had detected ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... dazzling but distant expeditions, it was necessary to raise up a chief who could contend for their enfeebled and disputed privileges at home, and meet the formidable Pericles, with no unequal advantages of civil experience and oratorical talent, in the lists of the popular assembly, or in the stratagems of political intrigue. Accordingly their choice fell neither on Myronides nor Tolmides, but on one who, though not highly celebrated for military exploits, was deemed ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... knots of talkers who were concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor of old-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in one hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of marzolino; and elderly market-women, with their ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... ended in a near scream. What a waste of oratorical and perhaps organizational energy, I mused as I strode along rapidly, still intent on escaping the fanatic. Under different circumstances, I thought, a man like this might turn out to be a capable clerk or minor executive. Suddenly ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... this strife deserves specific notice. At a meeting of the Association, held on the 26th of May, the question was incidentally introduced. Mr. Michael George Conway, a man of considerable literary and oratorical powers, but not distinguished for any very rigid piety, introduced the subject, evidently with the view of exciting Mr. O'Connell's impulsive character against the species of restraint under which his sinister friends were continually hinting he was held. The speech ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... most scarifying indictment of "Privilege," and his appeal to workers to join hands with their fellows in America have been given in a previous chapter[1371]. Evidently that appeal, though enthusiastically received for its oratorical brilliance, was unneeded. His was but an eloquent expression of that which was in the minds of his audience. Upon the American Minister the effect was to cause him to renew warnings against showing too keen an appreciation of the support of political radicalism in England. The meeting, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... henceforth is largely covered by the general article on ROME: History, II. "The Republic," ad fin. The year of his consulship (63) was one of amazing activity, both administrative and oratorical. Besides the three speeches against Publius Rullus and the four against Catiline, he delivered a number of others, among which that on behalf of Gaius Rabirius is especially notable. The charge was that Rabirius (q.v.) had killed Saturninus in 100 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... this kind may be justly praised for the sustained strength and vigour of its metrical scheme. Its purely technical excellence is extraordinary. But is it more than an oratorical tour de force? Does it really convey much? Does it charm? Could we return to it again and again with renewed pleasure? We think not. It seems ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to assume in their eyes a romantic aspect. Even that group of philosophers of the Cote Gauche, who refused to worship any force but the force of reason, began to look upon him with a respect and consideration which no oratorical triumphs could ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... uttered in a moment of oratorical exultation, voiced the secret wish cherished by many enthusiasts of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... politicians, and that had no candidate. He was only thirty-six years old, his face was unfamiliar, and his name had rarely been heard outside his State, but he had been preaching free silver with religious intensity and oratorical skill. His speech had grown through repeated speaking, and reached its climax as he pleaded for free silver: "If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... ended my oratorical career then and there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to find a green curtain to be drawn across it. From behind this screen he now emerged and bowed. The bow redoubled the first conventional applause. He then began a very short address,—extremely well delivered, as you may suppose, but rather in the conversational than the oratorical style. He said it was his object to exhibit the intelligence of that Universal Friend of Man, the Dog, in some manner appropriate, not only to its sagacious instincts, but to its affectionate nature, and to convey thereby the moral that ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... still talking, stood at the foot of the stairs so that his son could not pass him. Sam yawned, then noticed how in oratorical denunciation his father's long upper lip curved like the beak of a bird of prey; behind his hand he tried to arch his own lip in the same manner. He really did not hear what was said to him; he only sighed with relief when it was over and he was allowed to go up-stairs and ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... of their convictions, they had widened the discussion into a sort of oratorical joust in which each fought eagerly for the opinions which he held dear. And Le Corbier knew better than to interrupt a duel whence he had little doubt that some unexpected light would flash, at last, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... I should say, not peculiarly convenient for oratorical effort. But you seem to have got new ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... in the silence created by the resting orchestra, all in the saloon could hear a clear, piercing woman's voice, oratorical at ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... proclaimed by the new dogmas, were to bring the reign of eternal happiness to all the peoples. Man had broken for ever with a past of barbarity and darkness. The regenerated world would in future be illuminated by the lucid radiance of pure reason. On all hands the most brilliant oratorical formulae saluted ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... glancing at the oratorical lectures of the modern Rhetor Sheridan, whose plans he delighted incessantly to ridicule. See Boswell. Many acute remarks occur in Hume's Essay ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... my oratorical aspirations upon my having taken the prize a number of times in Sunday-school for learning the most New Testament verses, and upon the fact that I always could make myself heard to the farthest corner of the room. I also felt that I had a great message to deliver to the world when I got ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... young man. The professors soon found that besides his considerable attainments he had great natural gifts for languages and oratory; they therefore made of him a thorough classical scholar, and in order to develop his oratorical talent encouraged him to practise preaching. They soon grew very fond of a pupil who was likely to bring them so much credit, and as soon as he was old enough to take holy orders they gave him the cure of souls in the parish ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be were slow to recognize the desire of the students for instruction in public speaking, there were many more or less unofficial avenues for those who desired to give vent to their oratorical impulses. Two escape valves existed almost from the first, the old literary societies, and the class exhibitions and Commencement programs which have been mentioned. The first literary society, Phi Phi Alpha, was organized in 1842, to be followed, after an internal struggle ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... which, that lion-hearted hero treated you with the forbearance of a true-born son of freedom." Captain Seccombe's voice took an oratorical roll. "He saw that you were bleeding from your fray. He fed you at his hospitable board; he would not suffer you to be de-nuded of the least trifle. Nay, what did he promise?—but to send your father and his crew and passengers back to England in their own ship, on their swearing, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sor," said the man, drawing himself up and raising one hand and his voice in an oratorical way; "the blacks I mane are white-skinned, but black in the heart through and through; the blacks who are the dispisers of progress, the foes of freedom, the inimies of the counthry, sor—the despicable, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... for Presidential Elector and threw himself with ardor into the canvass, traversing a great part of the State and speaking with remarkable effect. Only one of the speeches he made during the year has been preserved entire: this was an address delivered in Springfield as one of a series—a sort of oratorical tournament participated in by Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn, and Thomas on the part of the Democrats, and Logan, Baker, Browning, and Lincoln on the part of the Whigs. The discussion began with great enthusiasm and with crowded houses, but by the time it came to Lincoln's duty to ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... fastened his thoughts upon it, talked daily with Alice about it. In the pulpit, addressing those people who had so darkened his life and crushed the first happiness out of his home, he withheld himself from any oratorical display which could afford them gratification. He put aside, as well; the thought of attracting once more the non-Methodists of Tyre, whose early enthusiasm had spread such pitfalls for his unwary feet. He ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Anglican Chapters, threatened by the reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give to oratory its power and its persuasiveness. I can well ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... that he moderated himself and visited the King and made him many fine promises, which he did not keep, however." With the Ministers Margaret was even more outspoken; but we are told that she turned her oratorical powers "to such good purpose that she rendered herself agreeable rather than odious or unpleasant; the more readily as she was also good-looking, a widow, and in the flower of her age."—OEuvres de Brantome, 8vo, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... reputation at the bar by his defence of Quinctius and of Roscius of Ameria, he visited Asia to recruit his health and improve his oratorical style. On his way to the East he stayed six months at Athens, where he renewed his philosophical studies under Antiochus the Academic. In Asia he attended the leading rhetoricians, especially his old teacher Molo at Rhodes, who endeavoured to chasten the exuberance of his manner. At Rhodes ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... proud family, proud of their origin, proud of their isolation,—and not to be able to divine them was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level. But, when they did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found. This oratorical display of mine gave me an ascendancy over him. He adored eloquence, not to say grandiloquence: he was the son of a barrister. 'Let 's go and see her at once, Richie,' he said of Julia. 'I 'm ready to be off as soon as you like; I'm ready to do ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed look, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that mass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were labeled with, working ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... Jefferson had rewarded friends as openly as DeWitt Clinton took care of them in Albany. In telling the story, James A. Bayard of Delaware produced an oratorical sensation in the House of Representatives. "And now, sir, let me ask the honourable gentleman," said the congressman, in reply to William Giles' defence of the Virginia President, "what his reflections and belief will be when he observes that every man on whose vote the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... impulse of the occasion; he did not believe in extemporary eloquence any more than Daniel Webster, who said there is no such thing. All the orations of Demosthenes exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of the loftiest sentiments. He was a great artist, and his oratorical successes were greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and the application of the strongest arguments in their proper places. Added to this moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic power of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... she probably attached more importance than was its due, from reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago obtained an oratorical point for an eloge, which he delivered to the French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the kettle. The story suggests a possibility, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... you, instead of suffering yourself to be led and tossed about by them,—it is tearing away the black veil from the brow of futurity, and perusing all her lineaments in her own despite. It is [he continued with an oratorical attitude] building your fate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... humanitarianism of a Clerambault was too vague, it contented itself with pleasant hopes, without risk or vigour, which the quietude of a generation grown old in the talkative peace of Parliaments and Academies, alone could have permitted. Except as an oratorical exercise it had never tried to foresee the perils of the future, still less had it thought to determine its attitude in the day when the danger should be near. It had not the strength to make a choice between widely differing courses of action. One might be a patriot as well as an ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... began to take leave. Don Jose roused himself for an appropriate phrase pronounced mechanically. The terrible strain of hope and fear was telling on him, and he seemed to husband the last sparks of his fire for those oratorical efforts of which even the distant Europe was to hear. Antonia, her red lips firmly closed, averted her head behind the raised fan; and young Decoud, though he felt the girl's eyes upon him, gazed away persistently, hooked on his elbow, with a scornful and complete ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... to the higher grade of Algebra and Grammar, had added Philosophy to the list of his studies, and having cultivated a natural turn for public speaking, was elected on the eighteenth of December, 1857, a member of the Oratorical Society—an association connected with the institution. His boy experiences were very similar to those which happen to all lads in academic life. He had his chums, among whom were Brayton Abbott and Ozias Johnson; he had his little flirtations with misses of his own age, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... or more, filling the audience with surprise and wonder. He waxed warmer and warmer, as he advanced, and spoke in a flow of eloquence and choice selection of words, that was unusual for one of his age. No one in the hall had ever listened to such a display of oratorical ability on the part of a youth like him. The most strenuous opposers of the theatre almost overlooked the weakness of Nat's argument in their admiration of his eloquence. It was so unexpected that the surprise alone was almost sufficient to bewilder, them. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... and not the stag—are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me—for I have carefully considered the point—it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were lavished in ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... know, he always prays before he makes an important speech, and he felt that speech very much. What do you think he said to me last night after he had gone to his dressing-room? 'My dear, if I were twenty years younger, I should go to Ireland myself as Irish Secretary.'" The speech was a great oratorical success, and at the close of the banquet, as I have said, an immense torchlight procession, which had been carefully organised by the local committee, conducted the Premier and his wife from the banqueting hall to the residence of Kitson at Headingley. The procession ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... respects very like her brother, and was a very useful worker, though much of her work was little seen. She did not speak in public; all the oratorical powers of the family seemed to have concentrated themselves in Luke Raeburn; but she wrote and worked indefatigably, proving a very useful second to her brother. A hard, wearing life, however, had told a good deal upon ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... chronological distance from the young speaker as the latter. It would be a curious inquiry how far writers of historical addresses in America have from the beginning been affected by the necessity which a regard for ancient models laid upon them of fitting the facts of our Revolutionary War to oratorical periods, and how far popular conceptions of the beginning of our national life have been formed by the "pieces" which young Americans have been called upon to speak. The Roman was the most distinguished predecessor by name of this new republic, and enthusiastic patriots ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... moustache tinged with gray, and prominent brown eyes, but the lower part of his face, which terminated in a big double chin, was ill-balanced by his small forehead. He was bulkily built, and I had conceived an unreasonable distaste for his puffy hands. His official air and oratorical manner ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... You get up yourself. Others get up—or, if there is but one other, she. So far, so good. But now that everybody is up, new subjects of conversation, as if catching this rising infection, come up also. You are in a position in which, except by rather too oratorical or dramatic a gesture, you cannot look at your watch; more than that, if you bore a person sitting down and wondering when you are going to get up, you bore far worse a person standing up and wondering when you will go away. That you ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... had murdered him, and mused over the ruins of the presidential mansion, which had been torn in pieces by bombs from a patriotic vessel. My heart naturally warmed toward the representative of so much glory, and it seemed sad to quench his oratorical fire and fervor with a cold statement of fact. But my duty was plain: I assured him that neither the President whose name the famous "Doctrine" bears, nor the Secretary of State who devised it, nor the American ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... way. I have heard, their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,—let us hope at great distances apart:—that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: 'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches, Don't fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'—mere shrillness of pale rage presiding over the scene. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... scholarly attainments, legal acumen, political sagacity and oratorical power, Robert Brown Elliott stands out as the most brilliant figure of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... neighbors of ours, living in the court, or close by. We have been having a right merry time, and now we can't break up without bringing you our good wishes,—our Christmas good wishes, and our birthday good wishes," said Miss Pix, with a little oratorical flourish, which brought Gretchen to the front with her illuminated cake, which she positively could not have held another moment, so heavy had it grown, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... ask me that?" Grady began. His voice was weak at first, but as his giddiness passed away it arose again to its own inimitable oratorical level. "Do you dare pretend that you are treating these men right? Who gave you the right to decide that this man shall live and this man shall die, and that this poor fellow who asks no more than to be allowed to earn his honest living with his honest sweat shall be ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave, carrying its faint lamp trembling and astonished; or as ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... Bachelor of Arts is confoundedly good in oratorical combat. He gets hold of unexpected point, and pushes the other backward. My father used to tell me that I am too careless and no good, and now indeed I look that way. I ran out of the house on the moment's impulse when ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... managing the affairs of the country: I have the honor of bidding you good-evening.' For (and this is a strange peculiarity) this first minister is never steadier than when in danger of falling; and his grand oratorical, or rather ministerial, figure of speech is to seize his hat and his cane, whereupon the chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour to sit down. M. de Cavour lets them plead a while, and then—he sits down again! Reading his speeches now in Paris, I can fancy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... age of forty-seven years. His death was a serious loss to the anti-slavery Democrats of Massachusetts and the country. He was one of the three distinguished men that the county of Essex has produced in his century: Choate, Cushing and Rantoul. In oratorical power he could not be compared to Choate. In learning he was of the three the least well equipped. In logic he was superior to Cushing, and he was more direct, and more easily comprehended than either Cushing or Choate. He had not much imagination, and his illustrations ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... he hurried to add with oratorical emphasis. "Nothing like that! There never was anything mean or sneaking about Jeddy, s'far as I can recollect. Just mischievous—mischievous and up and coming all the time. But there were folks," Judge Maynard's ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... second "Mark Antony," the recognition of his oratorical ability could not have been more marked. Certain it is that that renowned orator could not have borne more becomingly the honors showered ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... Greek precedent, Cicero claims to have his oratorical and political writings, all or nearly all published before the Hortensius, included in his philosophical encyclopaedia[133]. The only two works strictly philosophical, even in the ancient view, which preceded the Academica, were the ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Committee, Mr. Henry J. Hoskins, of the firm of Hoskins and Bloomer, and Joe Slate, of the 'Union Press,' one of our most promising journalists. Gentlemen," he continued, suddenly and without warning lifting his voice to an oratorical plane in startling contrast to his previous unaffected utterance, "I needn't say that this is the honorable Paul Hathaway, the youngest state senator in the Legislature. You know his record!" Then, recovering the ordinary accents of humanity, he added, "We read of your departure last night from ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... leader of the party of natives spoke to them, and restrained their impatience; then, advancing before the rest, he waved his hand, and throwing himself into an oratorical attitude, made a little speech, thanking Rokoa for his gifts, and welcoming us to the island. The language which he spoke was a dialect of the Tahitian, differing from it so slightly that I had no difficulty ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... raised an oratorical hand, and looked round on his audience, like one to whom public ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... show Sir Robert could not take the spot-light. He did not abhor the calcium; he merely did not know what to do when it was on. During the tour which preceded the triumphal election of 1911 he was strong enough to win the country and weak enough to pose for oratorical photographs of Sir Robert swaying a crowd—on the roof of a Toronto hotel. Those photographs were published as authentic pictures of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino |
