"Talkative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be one glare of ice before they got Her in." He was inclined to be surly to-night, an uncommon circumstance with the young fellow, and after several attempts to enliven him, Top, Senior, let him alone. He was not in a talkative mood himself. The tea-table chat ran in his head and set him to dreaming and calculating. In five years Junior would be seventeen—old enough, even for a lad who was "not strong," to earn his living. If all went well, there ought to be ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... got an angel in your family, too?" Peace's brown eyes were softly tender, and the busy minister suddenly loved the talkative little sprite who was so ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... several times into the taverns on the way, in the course of the afternoon, to drink, until, at length, he became partially intoxicated. He felt, however, so much restrained in the presence of the passengers within the coach, that he did not become talkative and noisy, as is frequently the case in such circumstances; but was rather stupid and sleepy. In fact, no one observed that any change was taking place in his condition, until, at last, as he was coming out from the door of a tavern, ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... not like the King to give in to an English idiom. As a rule he rushed at one the minute he heard it with reckless confidence. But he was depressed and lonely on Salissa. He chatted cheerily enough to Donovan. He was always bright and talkative at meals. But he confessed to Gorman several times that he missed ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... Although lively and talkative enough, Spanish women seldom shine in conversation, which perhaps is more owing to the narrow and defective education they too often have in youth than to any natural want of the quickness ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... necessary to confide immediately in Hygeia, who cared for us both, but as Jim progressed more favorably than I, and was able to sit up in bed propped with pillows, he became talkative and inclined to drop remarks that might create suspicion in the mind of the nurse. Unless Hygeia became her confidante, Gabrielle feared Jim's identity might become known and his whereabouts learned by the officers of the law, who were now ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... became quite talkative, and put up a notice-board, "English defeat at sea—seven cruisers sunk, one damaged, eleven other craft sunk. Hip! ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... of very deep affections and warmth of heart, but he did not show any special intelligence. He was lively, merry, and extremely talkative, but sometimes a silent mood would fall on him, and perhaps, as his sister says, his imagination was then carrying him to distant worlds, though the family only thought the chatterbox was tired. In all ways, however, he was in these days a very ordinary child, devoted to ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... passenger who got up and placed himself by my side was a florid, excitable, confused-looking gentleman, excessively talkative and familiar. He was followed by a sulky agricultural youth in top-boots—and then, the complement of passengers on our seat behind the ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... by no means a talkative companion to Fanny, nor yet a good listener while her son was absent. But on his return, her eyes and ears were keen to see and to listen to all the details which he could give, as to the steps he had taken to secure himself, and those whom he chose to employ, from ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his attention exclusively to fighting, robbery and pastoral pursuits, the Tosk occasionally occupies himself with commercial, industrial or agricultural employments; the Gheg is stern, morose and haughty, the Tosk lively, talkative and affable. The natural antipathy between the two sections of the race, though less evident than in former times, is far from extinct. In all parts of Albania the vendetta (gyak, jak) or blood-feud, the primitive lex talionis, is an established usage; the duty of revenge is a sacred tradition handed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain; and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... complexion—her large, soft brown eyes. How utterly her heart yearned to them; but there must be no scene like there had just been above. Nevertheless she stooped and kissed them both—one kiss each of impassioned fervor. Lucy was naturally silent, William somewhat talkative. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... took refuge, and there I sat with a quaint old-fashioned clock for company, with such stout lungs as to render sleep an impossibility. No fairy godmother came in at the key-hole to transform my chair into a couch and that talkative clock into a handmaiden. No ghosts beguiled the weary hours. Eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four! As the clock struck this last hour, a porter pounded on the door, and, not long after, I was being driven through the cold, dark morning ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... on ahead without speaking; but as he was never very talkative, we were not surprised at this. At last he turned round, and told Jan that he ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... Italy the landlords are very silent. In France they are more talkative, but yet civil. In Germany and Holland they are generally very impertinent. And as for their honesty I believe it is pretty equal in all those countries.... As for my own part, I past through all these nations, as you ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... nobility, in trembling anxiety, kept to their houses; they shunned appearing in public lest their presence should remind the new viceroy of some past offence. The two nations now seemed to have exchanged characters. The Spaniard had become the talkative man and the Brabanter taciturn; distrust and fear had scared away the spirit of cheerfulness and mirth; a constrained gravity fettered even the play of the features. Every moment the impending blow ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... an autumnal mist upon a pleasing landscape. The women were low-spirited, dull, nay, peevish, they did not well know why; and the men could not be joyous, though the ready resource of old hock and champagne made some of them talkative.—Lady Penelope broke up the party by well-feigned apprehension of the difficulties, nay, dangers, of returning by so rough a road. Lady Binks begged a seat with her ladyship, as Sir Bingo, she said, judging from his devotion to the green flask, was likely to need their carriage ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... was, and the result of his dream was that everybody in the room started up in surprise and excitement. Thereafter they sat down in a gay and very talkative humour. Soon afterwards a curious squeaking was heard in the adjoining cottage, and another thumping sound began, which was to the full as unremitting as, and much more violent than, that caused by "champin' tatties." The McAllister household, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... world. The host was himself ever animated and cheerful, but calm and clear—and often addressed himself to the artist, who was silent, and, like students in general, constrained. Walstein himself, indeed, was not very talkative, but his manner indicated that he was interested, and when he made an observation it was uttered with facility, and arrested attention by its justness or its novelty. It was ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... You'll tell him I did? Not you. And I did not. If it wasn't for him, I says, Marrow Lane would be hell's kitchen, and on the chanct that he ain't always going to be on the spot, nor me, cut it out, I says. But," continued the talkative youth, "in case you don't cut it out, in case you're ever in trouble down our way you take this," bluntly he handed her a small, dark metal whistle, "and blow her good. I knows the note, and if my ears is on the job, you gets help. You gets it sudden. You gets it good. And here, without fear ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... meal at Dunaghee, passed off silently. There was a sense of oppression in the air. Algitha and her sister made spasmodic remarks, and there were long pauses. The conversation was chiefly sustained by the parents and the ever-talkative Fred. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties. Every one who has had the opportunity of comparison, must have been struck with the contrast between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes. There is a nearly similar contrast between the Malays and the Papuans (4. Wallace, 'The Malay Archipelago,' vol. ii. 1869, p. 178.), who live under the same physical conditions, and are separated from each other only by a narrow ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... The talkative animals, as dogs, and swine, and children, scream most, when they are in pain, and even from fear; as they have used this kind of exertion from their birth most frequently and most forcibly; and can therefore ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... at breakfast, at an early hour upon the morrow, Mistress Winthrop cool and distant; his lordship grumpy and mute; Mr. Caryll airy and talkative as was his habit. They set out soon afterwards. But matters were nowise improved. His lordship dozed in a corner of the carriage, while Mistress Winthrop found more interest in the flowering hedgerows than in Mr. Caryll, ignored him when ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... "She was talkative," the little man explained, with composure. "But let us converse upon other subjects. Only I must warn you that on board the galleys, whither we are bound, a man can recoil from his neighbour but just so far as his ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... day they had learned of her disappearance. He had always remained silent when she had given expression to her thoughts regarding Mysie; but thinking this an encouragement, she spoke about her, and he too, in a way that made her wonder; for he was never talkative at any time, and it seemed as if his heart was hungering ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... corkless flask containing a few drops of rum. They were all so busy that Courthope had little to do; he stood aside, wondering above all at the way they rubbed the man with the snow, and at the astonishment that Madge expressed. The stranger was very nimble and very talkative; pouring out words now in French to Madge, he walked with her in all haste to the shed from which the horse again whinnied. Morin, awakening to a sense of urgency, started at a trot, dragging the ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... sit some anile chatterboxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to", says Gobemouche, narrating the story—and such a story! "And I am surprised he is admitted into society at all." Yes, dear Gobemouche, but the story wasn't true: and I had no more done the wicked deed in ...
— English Satires • Various
... she is. And she has an enormous opinion of herself. For my part, I think the Bishop is to blame for making so much of her. Have you never noticed how different she is when he is here, so gay and talkative, and when we are alone she hardly says a word for days together, except to ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Hazlehurst, were very desirous of making a match between Jane Graham and himself. He had overheard some trifling remark on the subject, and had suffered an afternoon's very stupid teasing and joking, about Jane, from a talkative old bachelor relation. This was quite sufficient to rouse the spirit of independence, in a youth of his years and disposition. When, at length, he heard a proposition that Jane should accompany them abroad, he went so far as to look upon it as something very like manoeuvring ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Hermann had ceased, the talkative neighbor Took up the word, and cried: "Oh happy, in days like the present, Days of flight and confusion, who lives by himself in his dwelling, Having no wife nor child to be clinging about him in terror! Happy I feel myself now, and would not for much be called ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... found that the young married lady in the pale-blue silk, whom she had singled out as the one approachable lady in the room, was Mrs. Farrant. She was very bright, and sunshiny, and talkative. Erica liked her, and would have liked her still better had not the last week shown her so much of the unreality and insincerity of society that she half doubted whether any one she met in Greyshot could ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... the most humorous and effective contradictions of the popular judgment is that episode in Njla, where Kari has to trust to the talkative person whose wife has a low opinion of him. It begins like farce: any one can see that Bjorn has all the manners of the swaggering captain; his wife is a shrew and does not take him at his own ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... I did not like telling him, I had a feeling that in some way it was against the rules to tell him, but I did. He was walking part of the way home with me; he was talkative, and if we had not talked about the enchanted garden we should have talked of something else, and it was intolerable to me to think about any other ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... myself more beef, "I happened to be that same rogue." Here Roger the landlord stared, his buxom wife shrank away, and even the talkative peddler grew silent awhile, viewing me with his shrewd, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation, which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man begin a story; and have ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... lips; fall from the lips, fall from the mouth. Adj. speaking &c., spoken &c. v.; oral, lingual, phonetic, not written, unwritten, outspoken; eloquent, elocutionary; oratorical, rhetorical; declamatory; grandiloquent &c. 577; talkative &c. 584; Ciceronian, nuncupative, Tullian. Adv. orally &c. adj.; by word of mouth, viva voce, from the lips of. Phr. quoth he, said he &c.; "action is eloquence" [Coriolanus]; "pour the full tide of eloquence along" [Pope]; "she ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... listening to the songs of the birds, in which Grannonia took great delight. The fox, seeing this, said to her, "You would feel twice as much pleasure if, like me, you understood what they are saying." At these words Grannonia—for women are by nature as curious as they are talkative—begged the fox to tell her what he had heard the birds saying. So, after having let her entreat him for a long time, to raise her curiosity about what he was going to relate, he told her that the birds ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Emperor one evening at supper when he was exceedingly good-humoured, talkative, and amusing. He had visited all his Italian relations, and had a word for each, man, woman, or child—not a soul was spared. The King scarcely once opened his mouth, except to laugh at some of the Emperor's jokes upon ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... It was known that Blossom was Mr. Carwell's chief clerk, and more than one person knew of the impending partnership, for Mr. Carwell was rather talkative at times. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... himself and family to any point in the United States to which he may desire to go, and have agreed to pay the freight on his household goods also.' That was every word I could get out of him—and you know Mr. Mason is pretty talkative sometimes." ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Christ Church with them, companions of Andrews, who were quite as talkative and nearly as rude and boisterous as themselves. Olivia had not perhaps all her accustomed vivacity, but she behaved with infinitely more ease and chearfulness than I could have wished, and I felt as if I were the only ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the Russian railways, and the watchmen or their wives have to meet every train.] imprisoned for three months because she did not come out with the flags to meet a train that was passing, and an accident had occurred. She was a short, snub-nosed woman, with small, black eyes; kind and talkative. The third of the women who were sewing was Theodosia, a quiet young girl, white and rosy, very pretty, with bright child's eyes, and long fair plaits which she wore twisted round her head. She was in prison for attempting to poison her husband. She had ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... they returned, they decided that a walk would make them as good. It was a windless winter morning, with an inch of crisp snow over the ground. So they walked, and for the most part they were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned back at noon, they began to be talkative again. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... he arrived, and he had found Father Payne at tea with four or five men, in a flagged hall. There had been a good deal of talk and laughter. "He is a big man, Father Payne, with a beard, dressed rather badly, like a country squire, very good-natured and talkative. Everyone seemed to say pretty much what they liked, but he kept them in order, too, I could see that!" Then he had been carried off to a little study and questioned. "He simply turned me inside ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... became quite talkative. He stopped all he met—old and young both—and warned them that nobody need try to get him to work, for he never had worked, ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... argument used in the Lyceum yesterday by a wise man, Prodicus of Ceos; but the audience thought that he was talking mere nonsense, and no one could be persuaded that he was speaking the truth. And when at last a certain talkative young gentleman came in, and, taking his seat, began to laugh and jeer at Prodicus, tormenting him and demanding an explanation of his argument, he gained the ear of the audience far more ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato
... was nice-looking, strongly built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in his gaze at times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes, when he was alone with any one, he became talkative and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune and expectations of much more. He was a friend ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and devotion of youth. In general Vesey sought to bring into the plan those Negroes, such as stevedores and mechanics, who worked away from home and who had some free time. He would not use men who were known to become intoxicated, and one talkative man named George he excluded from his meetings. Nor did he use women, not because he did not trust them, but because in case of mishap he wanted the children to be properly cared for. "Take care," said Peter Poyas, in speaking about the plan to one of the recruits, "and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... alone. He had seen her, of course. She had been at Mountain Brook—which was the name of Emery Bland's place in New Hampshire—every time he had gone there; but, her quality being unobtrusive, he had paid her no attention. Furthermore, both Bland and Mrs. Bland, being emphatic in personality and talkative, he had been the more easily led to ignore this reticent girl, whose function was apparently limited to seeing her aunt provided with a shawl, or her uncle with a cigar, at the right opportunities. If he thought of her at all, it was as of the living spirit of the furniture. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... source tasted of. To my great surprise, I found it tasted just like any other. The General introduced a Mr. Crawford to us, who took the seat next to me, as the one next to Miriam was already occupied, and proved a very pleasant and talkative compagnon de voyage. General Carter's query as to my industry since he had seen me, brought my acknowledgment of having made two shirts, one of which I sent yesterday. Who to? was the next question. I gave the name, adding that I did not know ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... who might perhaps be the lady's brother, and a couple of gentlemen in undress military attire, yet bearing sufficient tokens of rank to show them to be high in command. The party was a gay though small one, and the lady seemed to be as lively and talkative as the two gentlemen could desire, while they, on their part, appeared most devoted to ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... supper that night I had the luck to land again at a talkative table. We discussed many things—Ireland, for one. One girl was she who had come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in the main kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor maid had been long ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the subject. Plowden himself was delicately-tinted and refined of texture. Vindictiveness was too plain and coarse an emotion to sway such a complicated and polished organism. He reasoned it out, as he stood with lack-lustre gaze before the plate-glass front, aloof among a throng of eager and talkative women who pressed around him—that Plowden would not have spent his money on a mere impulse of mischief-making. He would be counting upon something more tangible than revenge—something that could be counted and weighed and converted ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... pedestrian or building, before he comes to himself; seems dazed all the time. When told something by his mother he giggles in the most exasperating way, for which he receives a whipping quite often." The father said the whipping was of no avail. The child was restless, talkative, and snored during sleep. He had an insatiable appetite. He was removed or transferred from five different schools in New York City. To get redress the father took him to the board of education, whence he was referred ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... after one or two attempts I said nothing. When I returned home, the proprietor asked me how I liked this man. "Ah!" I said, "he was indeed silent and would not even answer a question nor go anywhere I told him; still I liked him better than the talkative man." He laughed heartily and said: "This man is deaf and dumb. I thought I would make sure that you should not be bored." I joined in the laugh and said: "Well, to-morrow get me a man who can hear but cannot speak, if you can find one ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... room adjoining Janet. Bed early. Was restless, talkative. Unable distinguish words. Picked lock communicating door. Listened by bed. Incoherent. Suddenly awoke. Surprised me. I used own judgment as instructed. Made best of bad situation. Accused her of murder. Threatened ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... what I was laughing at," pursued Gertrude, who was most wonderfully wide awake and talkative this morning. "Do you remember Reggie's getting me a ticket to see the King give the medals for the South African War, at the Horse Guards? Reggie's cousin had a medal, you know. It was rather a crush, and of course Reggie wanted us to be in a good place, and we certainly ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... sad and mournful pleasure it was to her to look once more upon her dear husband's face. 'Is he not a handsome man?' said the widow. 'I like him well,' replied Helena, with great truth. All the way they walked, the talkative widow's discourse was all of Bertram: she told Helena the story of Bertram's marriage, and how he had deserted the poor lady his wife, and entered into the duke's army to avoid living with her. To this account ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Plans were discussed as to the intended procedure on the morrow, and various courses of action fixed. After that, as a matter of course, the pipes came out, and while these were being smoked, only the talkative members of the party kept up the conversation at intervals. Roy and Nelly having exhausted all they had to say, began to feel desperately sleepy, and the latter, having laid her head on her father's ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... the table sat Darkie, the black retriever, his long, curly back swaying slightly from the difficulty of holding himself up, and his solemn hazel eyes fixed very intently on each and all of the breakfast bowls. He was as silent and sagacious as Sarah was talkative and empty-headed. Though large, he was unassuming. Pax, the pug, on the contrary, who came up to the first joint of Darkie's leg, stood defiantly on his dignity (and his short stumps). He always placed himself in front of the bigger dog, and ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... through with something they had to talk over, and they stayed on a while longer. My refusal may have been a mistake, and there may really have been a misunderstanding, at any rate, I had to suffer for my unyielding way, inasmuch as the behaviour of our hosts immediately changed from talkative hospitality and childish curiosity to dull silence and suspicious reticence. The people sat around us, sullen and silent, and would not help us in any way, refused to bring firewood or show us the water-hole, and seemed most anxious to get rid of us. Under these circumstances it was useless ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... much as it will; if they get nothing, they lose nothing by it. And thinking by themselves, you'l in time see what it produces. Then if there be but one among them who is talkative, and that by drinking merrily the good success of the approaching marriage, his tongue begins to run; he relates what hapned to him at the closing of his marriage, keeping of his wedding, and in his married estate; and commonly the conclusion ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... he would have been shocked to discover how much the deformity of the man, which caused him discomfort, prejudiced him also against him. Then Polwarth seldom went to a place of worship, and when he did, went to church! A cranky, visionary, talkative man, he was in Mr. Drake's eyes. He set him down as one of those mystical interpreters of the Word, who are always searching it for strange things, whose very insight leads them to vagary, blinding ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... imagine that continual intercourse with very talkative people had made Mr. Russell an adept at vocal compression. He had now almost lost the use of his vowels, and if I wrote as he spoke, the effect would be like an advertisement for a housemaid during the shortage of wood-pulp. I ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... the weather grew worse, and one after another the few second-class passengers who had dared to risk dining faded away. At last, about halfway through the badly served meal, the girl got up with a wan little smile for her talkative neighbour, and went out, keeping her balance by catching at the back of a chair now and then. The bullet-headed man soon followed, charging at the open door like a bull, as a wave dropped the floor under his feet. But Max, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... of telling you of my frequent visits to a single lady, of whom it appeared that she had some knowledge. Thus you see that your disquiets have had no foundation but in the sportive malice of your talkative neighbour. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... were very much entertained during their stay in Paris, and we met them nearly every night. W. liked the general very much and found him quite talkative when he was alone with him. At the big dinners he was of course at a disadvantage, neither speaking nor understanding a word of French. W. acted as interpreter and found that very fatiguing. There is so much ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... return to business which he did not execute, and month after month continued to waste his days. He would get out of bed at noon and begin drinking steadily. As the afternoon passed he grew merry and talkative, calling men by their first names, slapping chance acquaintances on the back, playing pool or billiards with skilful young men intent upon gain. In the early summer he got in with a party of young men from New York and with them spent months in sheer idle waste of time. Together they ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... and thought about the incident all the afternoon. When farmer-customers came in and stood about to talk of their affairs he had nothing to say. He was a talkative man and his apprentice, Will Sellinger, son of the Bidwell house painter, was ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... her secret qualms by devising a practical plan for getting away to a friend in Kashmir. There was a sister in Simla going to join her. They could travel together. Roy could follow on. And there they two could be quietly married without fuss or audible comment from their talkative little world. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... with such a man. Yet to leave him alone was dangerous, for something might happen to him. I withdrew from his rooms for a little while, but warned the nursemaid to keep an eye upon him, as well as exchanged a word with the corridor lacquey (a very talkative fellow), who likewise promised to ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... tenants of Rannoch was, I found, on everyone's tongue in Dumfries. In the smoke-room of the railway hotel three men were discussing it with many grimaces and sinister hints, and the talkative young woman behind the bar asked me my opinion of the strange goings-on ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... that be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a Lion or Cock, and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very terrible unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him tongues, and seek out those of water frogs and ducks and such creatures notorious for ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... Favoral," he began, "is a man some fifty-two or three years old, but who looks younger, not having a single gray hair. He is tall and thin, with neatly-trimmed whiskers, thin lips, and small yellow eyes; not talkative. It takes more ceremony to get a word from his throat than a dollar from his pocket. 'Yes,' 'no,' 'good-morning,' 'good-evening;' that's about the extent of his conversation. Summer and winter, he wears gray pantaloons, a long frock-coat, laced shoes, and lisle-thread gloves. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... faces light up as I went down between the two rows in which they were laid, and stopped for a chat with those I knew best, about the way in which they had received their wounds, the coxswain of our boat being the most talkative. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... "Talkative? By hickory, they reek with it. They sure got my goat. All the squaws I ever saw before were so thick with grease, and the things that stick to it. . . . I'm beginning to feel for the squaw-man after ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... a month here. Zillah, who had formerly been so talkative and restless, now showed plainly the fullness of the change that had come over her. She had grown into a life far more serious and thoughtful than any which she had known before. She had ceased to be a giddy and unreasoning girl. She had become a calm, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... buying eggs and butter from the farmers, which they sold to the workers at the sugar refinery. Osa was the older, and, by the time she was thirteen, she was as responsible as a grown woman. She was quiet and serious, while Mats was lively and talkative. His sister used to say to him that ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... "I'm afraid our good-looking cousin won't think you're very talkative, Mildred. You spoke only about twice at lunch. I shouldn't care for him to get the idea you're piqued because he's come here so little lately, ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... stood a table filled with fruits of the most costly kind. There were oranges fresh from the land that gave them growth, and other products of sunny Italy and the islands beyond the seas. The captain was as lively as a lark, and as talkative as wit and wine could make him. He spoke of his quick voyage, praised his ship till praise seemed too poor to do its duty, boasted of its good qualities, said there was not a better craft afloat, and finished his eulogy by wishing success to all on board, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... narrative style, his impressions of St. Paul's, the Tower, and Westminster Palace. His brother fell in love with Mrs. Forster at first sight, and sat silent until she remarked to him how strangely the hotel omnibuses resembled old English stage coaches, when he became recklessly talkative and soon convinced her that American society produced quite as choice a compound of off-handedness and folly as London could. But all this was amusing after her long seclusion; and once or twice, when the thought of dead Susanna came back to her, she was ashamed ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... southwards. Among the travellers was a rhetorical Italian master-mason, from Lyons, an old Garibaldist, the great event of whose life was that Garibaldi had once taken lunch alone with him at Varese. He preserved in his home as a relic the glass from which the general had drunk. He was talkative, and ready to help everyone; he gave us all food and drink from his provisions. Other travellers told that they had had to stand in queue for fully twelve hours in front of the ticket office in Paris, to get ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... fornication that bars him of entrance: he is fortune's tossing-ball, an object that would make mirth melancholy: to his friends an abject, and a subject of nine days' wonder in every barber's shop, and a mouthful of pity (that he had no better fortune) to midwives and talkative gossips; and all the content that this transitory life can give him seems but to flout him, in respect the restraint of liberty bars the true use. To his familiars he is like a plague, whom they dare scarce come nigh for fear of infection; he is a monument ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... to tell of the queerest thing of all. About two years after his cure I dined with the Davidsons, and after dinner a man named Atkins called in. He is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and a pleasant, talkative man. He was on friendly terms with my brother-in-law, and was soon on friendly terms with me. It came out that he was engaged to Davidson's cousin, and incidentally he took out a kind of pocket photograph case to show us a new rendering ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... didn't get by efficiency and economy. These things are not hidden even from the layman. These are not half-hidden from college men. The college men's days of innocence have passed, and their days of sophistication have come. They know what is going on, because we live in a talkative world, full of statistics, full of congressional inquiries, full of trials of persons who have attempted to live independently of the statutes of the United States; and so a great many things have come to light under oath, which we must believe upon ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... moral character they are undoubtedly superior to them. They are simple and honest, and become the prey of the Malay and Chinese trailers, who cheat and plunder them continually. They are more lively, more talkative, less secretive, and less suspicious than the Malay, and are therefore pleasanter companions. The Malay boys have little inclination for active sports and games, which form quite a feature in the life of the Dyak youths, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... down to make some inquiries in Eastbourne," said Crawley, "and I happened to meet him. One of those talkative fellows who opens his heart to a uniform. I stopped him from going to the house, so I saved you a shock—if John Minute had been there, ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... bride never once said a word, while her friends were all the more talkative. They praised her finery, extolled her piled-up treasures, and every now and then a furtive sigh led one to suspect that they would rather have been ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... solid-looking white throat was like one of those slender marble columns which divide the arch of a Moorish window. At first sight, before she spoke, she would be taken for a woman of sensuous temperament, lazy, luxury-loving, not talkative, and the gay smile which flashed over her face at sight of Vanno and the cure seemed somehow unsuited to it, giving almost the effect of electric light suddenly turned upon a still pool, covered with the waxen weight of white water-lilies. Her manner, too, was a contradiction of her type. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and comfortable with a talkative willing Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another horrible cock crowing. All Balkan ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... day, and very talkative. She inquired about everything they had been doing at school, she did not even scold when he confessed he had had ten faults in his Latin composition; on the contrary, she promised he should make an excursion to Schildhorn that afternoon. It was such a beautiful, ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... talkative, but had a shy, irresistible chuckle, and it was this, together with her personal appearance and the tidiness of her home that left an indelible impression on the minds of her visitors. Her skin was very dark, and her head closely wrapped in a dark bandana, from which this gray hair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... side of the room, but he was in no hurry to sleep, and after Rima had left us, put a fresh log on the blaze and lit another cigarette. Heaven knows how many he had smoked by this time. He became very talkative and called to his side his two dogs, which I had not noticed in the room before, for me to see. It amused me to hear their names—Susio and Goloso: Dirty and Greedy. They were surly-looking brutes, with rough yellow hair, and did not win my heart, but according to his account ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... few better keepers of secrets than shy people. They do not let things out by accident, as talkative persons do; it is easier for them to be silent than to talk, to keep counsel than to betray it. But apart from being shy, Candace's instincts were honorable. She had a lady-like distaste of interfering ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... the young Virginian, temperate and hard-headed, listened to all the conversation, and noted down mentally much that was interesting and valuable. The next morning the Indian chiefs, prudently kept in the background, appeared, and a struggle ensued between the talkative, clever Frenchmen and the quiet, persistent Virginian, over the possession of these important savages. Finally Washington got off, carrying his chiefs with him, and made his way seventy miles further to the fort ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... trace the young lady who at one time had been engaged to Carl Sartoris, and he had found it a more difficult business than he had anticipated. It was a delicate business, too, calling for tactful manipulation. A somewhat talkative aunt of the young lady was found at length. She took Field for a lawyer who was seeking the Honorable Violet for her ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... Vendome with a mad wind of folly. It was overrun from morning to night by the habitual element, augmented now by a constant arrival of little dark men, brown as the locust-bean, with regular features and thick beards, some turbulent and talkative, like Paganetti, others silent, self-contained and dogmatic: the two types of the race upon which the same climate produces different effects. All these famished islanders, in the depths of their savage country, promised each other to meet at the Nabob's table. His house had become an ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one and see if that does, too,' and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye it's the Christian he is!" He stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what the disrespectful ones call me—I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll bleed him a little and give him something'll make him slape like a top till mornin'. Good-bye to yez, for the present," and the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... fortnight, to the Priory, and all of us like our change of situation. We have a pleasant home, a good garden, ponds full of fish, and a pleasing valley somewhat like Shenstone's—deep, umbrageous, and with a talkative stream running down it. Our home is near the top of the valley, well screened by hills from the east and north, and open to the south, where at four miles' ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... broke fine. At an early hour Merriwig was up and practising thrusts upon a suspended pillow. At intervals he would consult a little book entitled Sword Play for Sovereigns, and then return to his pillow. At breakfast he was nervous but talkative. After breakfast he wrote a tender letter to Hyacinth and a still more tender one to the Countess Belvane, and burnt them. He repeated his little rhyme, "Bo, Boll, Bill, Bole," several times to himself until he was word perfect. It ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... seemed to be in a talkative mood, "M. Segmuller—you don't seem to know him. He is a worthy man, not quite so grim as most of our gentlemen. A prisoner he had examined said one day: 'That devil there has pumped me so well that I shall certainly have my head chopped off; ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... quite frankly to the doorkeeper that it did not matter what he said, she was not going to take any notice of him. He did not look a talkative man at any time, and, maybe, this announcement further discouraged him. In any case, he made no attempt to answer. All he did was to stand in the centre of the doorway with a far-away look in his eyes. The doorway was some four ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome |
