"Talker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... study, with Titus between us on the hearthrug, we knew no more what to say or do. I regretted that Brindley's wife's grandmother should have been born on a fifteenth of February. Brindley was a vivacious talker, he could be trusted to talk. I, too, am a good talker—with another good talker. With a bad talker I am just a little worse than he is. The doctor said abruptly after a nerve-trying silence that he had forgotten a most important call at Hanbridge, ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the nose on my face, sir, if I may so express myself. The thief—it was done by a thief, I imagine," continued M. Martin, who was a great talker—"the thief entered the garden before the rain, and went away after it, as you had conjectured. This circumstance is easy to establish by examining the marks on the wall of the ascent and the descent on the side towards ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... and evidences of his peculiar if not unique genius consist of three different kinds; reported or remembered conversations and jokes, letters, and formal literary work. He was once most famous as a talker; but conversation is necessarily the most perishable of all things, and its recorded fragments bear keeping less than any other relics. Some of the verbal jests assigned to him (notably the famous one about the tortoise, which, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... not a great talker, she seldom explains anything, and one has only to wait and see the outcome of her movements, and this I did, when she suddenly with Ituk left the sleds and climbed the rocks of the island again on the south side. Then I saw them gathering ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... into the town, with such colours upon his shield. That is Sir Dinadan, said Sir Tristram; wit ye what ye shall do, said Sir Tristram: send ye for him, my Lady Isoud, and I will not be seen, and ye shall hear the merriest knight that ever ye spake withal, and the maddest talker; and I pray you heartily that ye ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... to be exceedingly companionable and entirely without self-consciousness and egotism. He is a ready and entertaining talker and tells a story as well as he writes one. He has, too, a keen sense of the humorous. This naturalness and this sense of humor may be noticed readily in the story, "A Reward of Merit" selected from Penrod ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... birds that, though they got up in front of you, were shot by your jealous neighbour, the wiped-eyes, the hands torn in the thorn-bushes, at which, as I say, all these are forgotten, when you lay aside your gun, and sit down to your short repose. Then it is that the talker shines supreme. All the conversation which may have been broken in upon during the morning by the necessity for posting yourself at the hot corner, or the grassy ride, or in the butt, or for polishing off a right ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... till past midnight talking with old Lord Grosville. When relieved of the presence of his women-kind, who were apt either to oppress him, in the person of his wife, or to puzzle him, in the persons of his daughters, Lord Grosville was not by any means without value as a talker. He possessed that narrow but still most serviceable fund of human experience which the English land-owner, while our English tradition subsists, can hardly escape, if he will. As guardsman, volunteer, magistrate, lord-lieutenant, member—for the sake of his name and his acres—of various ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... under thirty-five is equally impossible, because he never converses; he only talks. And your chief accomplishment of being a good listener is entirely thrown away on him, because a mere talker never cares whether you listen or not as long as you do not interrupt him. He only wants the floor and the sound of his own voice. It is the trained man over thirty-five who can converse and who wishes you ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... a matter of equal give and take, but too often it is all "take." The voluble talker—or chatterer—rides his own hobby straight through the hours without giving anyone else, who might also like to say something, a chance to do other than exhaustedly await the turn that never comes. Once in a while—a very long while—one meets a brilliant person whose ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and said, in his politest and blandest manner: "You can vote first and discuss afterward." Widener displayed precisely these same qualities of ingratiating arrogance and good-natured contempt as a Philadelphia politician. He was a man of big frame, alert and decisive in his movements, and a ready talker; in business he was given much to living in the clouds—a born speculator—emphatically a "boomer." His sympathies were generous, at times emotional; it is said that he has even been known to weep when discussing his fine collection of Madonnas. He showed this personal side in his lifelong friendship ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... There—that's great. It doesn't hurt near so bad now. I remember Hugh's bookshop; yes, I do—honest! I remember sitting on the ladder and listening to him talk to the students when they came in. He always was a gorgeous talker, Bella. They used to stand around and listen to his yarns like kids to a fairy story. Just the same as you and I do now—when we can get him into a good humor. But, you know, he used to like strangers best—to ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Gayerson found that he had nothing to say to this elderly French lady, and was glad when Lucille came up, radiant on the arm of her partner. Alphonse presented his friend at once, and here Phillip felt more at his ease, being a better dancer than talker, and asked for the honour of a ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... shines among the woods the Castle of Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest harbour on the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which seven centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and of the right (now deservedly lost) of 'sending a talker to the national palaver,' have neither cleansed nor civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even at this distance some foul odour taint the summer airs, and complete the misfortune already presaged by that pale, sad face, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... drawing-rooms, which Carlyle calls sham gentility. He bears on his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and drolleries. No one is ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... reasons, was accommodated with his share on a rug in the passage. Bluebell was the chief talker, with her week's arrears of news. Captain du Meresq's arrival created a little ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... a keen-faced man with satirical eyes, whom Madame de Montausieur presented as 'Monseigneur le Coadjuteur.' This was the Archbishop of Corinth, Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor to his uncle, the Archbishop of Paris. I think he was the most amusing talker I ever heard, only there was a great spice of malice in all that he said—or did not say; and Madame de Montausier kept him in check, as she ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... triumphed over; but this man was the only man he had ever known who was gifted with qualities that commanded the respect and admiration of the world, yet to whom the temptations of ambition and success seemed never to have appeared even upon the distant horizon. He was an interesting talker, a fine preacher, and a very accomplished writer; but his interest was entirely centred upon his work, and not upon the rewards of it. He was very poor; but he had no regard for anything—luxury, power, position—that the world could give him. He had no wish to obtain ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... between nineteen and twenty years of age, drew upon herself everybody's attention by her over-strained and unnatural manners. A great talker, with a memory crammed with maxims and precepts often without sense, but of which she loved to make a show, very devout, and so jealous of her husband that she did not conceal her vexation when he expressed his ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the habit (never interfered with by his friends) of dosing for a few minutes after dinner; and it was on this occasion, unconsciously yielding to the influence of custom, I perceived that Mr. Garrow, who was the chief talker (Parr was in his smoking orgasm,) began to feel embarrassed at Mr. Fox's non-attention; and I, therefore, made signs to Mr. Fox, by wiping my fingers to my eyes, and looking expressively at Garrow. Mr. Fox, the most truly polite man in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... seeing the same sun throw- ing light across the branches at the dawn of day? It's a heartbreak to the wise that it's for a short space we have the same things only. (With contempt.) Yet the earth itself is a silly place, maybe, when a man's a fool and talker. OWEN — sharply. — Well, go, take your choice. Stay here and rot with Naisi or go to Conchubor in Emain. Conchubor's a wrinkled fool with a swelling belly on him, and eyes falling downward from his ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... obtained a situation as teacher of French and Latin in Bronson Alcott's school. Here she was appreciated by both master and pupils. Mr. Alcott said, "I think her the most brilliant talker of the day. She has a quick and comprehensive wit, a firm command of her thoughts, and a speech to win the ear of the most cultivated." She taught advanced classes in German and Italian, besides ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... piece of criticism confirms what Johnson said of Lord Orrery:—'He grasped at more than his abilities could reach; tried to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker that he was.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. See post, under ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... it, my dear," replied her father. "But they have him in their clutches, and possession, as you know, is nine points of the law, and part of the tenth. Where Will is I don't know. Just as the message said, he went off with that smooth talker, and he ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... to invite me to lunch; and a luncheon party in America invariably absorbs the best part of an afternoon. A score of these delightful gatherings will always remain in my memory. The "bright" American is, to my thinking, the best talker in the world—certainly the best talker in the English language. A light and facile humour, a power of giving a pleasant little sparkle even to sufficiently commonplace sayings, is in this country the rule and not ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... slow-moulded but strong, though he eventually grew very weak from gout: mentally he was very keen and very firm. He wished for more education than he got and for this reason he was sagacious rather than a good talker. Toward friends not forgetful, to enemies most oppressive, he was capable of everything that he desired to accomplish but careless of everything said about him. Hence he gathered money from every source (save that he killed no one to get it) [and met ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... himself; they are surprised to find him handling all manner of tools more easily than they can themselves; his furrows are deeper and straighter than theirs, he is a more skilful sower, and his beds for early produce are more cleverly planned. They do not scoff at him as a fine talker, they see he knows what he is talking about. In a word, his zeal and attention are bestowed on everything that is really useful to everybody; nor does he stop there. He visits the peasants in their homes; inquires into their circumstances, their families, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... determined to take the Nor'westers' post by surprise. His raid was successful. The field-pieces and the property of the colonists which had been carried away in June were recovered. {85} Cameron himself was made a prisoner. But he was not held long. The man was a born actor and a smooth talker. In all seeming humility he now made specious promises of future good behaviour, and was allowed to return ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the mind that the guests of the Prince Regent might be easily inclined to discover ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... platitude—'but a star.' Newness of information is no necessity of conversation: else were the Central News Agency the best of talkers. Indeed, the oldest information is perhaps the best material for the artist as talker: though, truly, as with every other artist, material matters little. There are just two or three men of letters left to us, who provide us examples of that inspired soliloquy, those conversations of one, which are our nearest approach ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... doublets and plumed hats, heroes and bandits, enacting more or less impromptu melodramas. In one of the boys he would have seen the embryo dramatist of a nation's life history, John Lothrop Motley; in the second, a famous talker and wit who has spilled more good things on the wasteful air in conversation than would carry a "diner-out" through half a dozen London seasons, and waked up somewhat after the usual flowering-time of authorship to find himself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... author; but as a critic, upon whatever subject, his qualifications have rarely been surpassed, though in literary matters and the fine arts they were only exhibited in conversation. His colloquial powers were impressive and fascinating, though he generally seemed a listener rather than a talker; but never failed to say a proper thing in ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... to say how much I was interested in Lady Betty's childish talk, and yet I knew it was wrong not to check her. What would Miss Hamilton say if she were to hear of our conversation? Jill was rather a reckless talker, but she was nothing compared with this daring little creature. Lady Betty told me afterwards, when we were better acquainted, that it had amused her so to see how widely I could open my eyes when I was surprised. I believe she did it ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... chatter is no more nor less than a surface device to call your attention to them; as little children continually pull your gown to make you look at them. Hetty was incapable of this. She was a vivacious talker when she had any thing to say; but a most dogged holder of her tongue when she had not. In this instance she had nothing to say, and she did not speak: the doctor had so much to say that he did not speak, and they sat in silence ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... the girl who is termed wooden can learn to express herself in words. She may never become a great talker but she need not regret that. She can take part in conversation and can make it easy for people to talk with her. I know a girl who plans before spending a social evening with friends what she will talk about. Following the advice of her mother who has suffered much ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story and paint his portrait, it seems unlikely that ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... this remark was of the kindest, but it irritated James. He picked up his whip and fumbled with it while he stared at our host, who stood by the table, with one hand on the bottle and the other pointing the way over the clearing. "You're a good talker, Professor," James drawled. "You can argue down Stacy Shunk and make Mr. Pound tremble, but when it comes to manners—the manners of a gentleman—I never see ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... parrit in that place and the way he sputtered and jabbered and talked! He wuz a whole show all to himself. Wall, I bought one of them birds from a feller one time—he said it wuz a good talker. Wall, I took it hum and hed it about three months, and it never sed a durned word. I put in most of my spare time tryin' to git it to say "Uncle Josh," but the durned critter wouldn't do it, so I got mad at him one day and throwed him out in the ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... loved the feel of it in his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... vicious culture of germs it originally held. He begins by saying that he had seen various miracles in his own day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of a talker while we were en route. A little general chitchat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I heard about politics, or rather about the Parliament, it seems to me that their House of Commons, like our own, suffers from too many talkers. The Hungarian is at all times a great talker, and when politics open the sluices of his mind, his speech is a perfect avalanche of words. His conversation is never of that kind that puts you in a state of antagonism, as a North German has so eminently the power of doing; on the contrary, the listener ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... Battery in India, a service which requires and breeds a power of quick decision, by no means universal among Garrison Gunners of the Regular Army. Personally he was a most delightful man, at his best a very amusing talker, a pleasant companion and an excellent Commanding Officer. Few officers whom I have met took as much thought and trouble as he for the material welfare of his men. From his junior officers he combined a demand for high ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... told me lots of things about Merriwell and what he was doing with the crew. You're a great talker when you're loaded." ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... believe, then, thou art no genuine disinterested talker. Ah! Roupall, Roupall! acquaintance with courts has taught me, that nature in the first place, and society in the second, have imposed upon us mortals two most disagreeable necessities: the one is that of eating; the other, that of talking. Now ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... several times at the Grahams', where there were never more than eight at table, and, being a bright talker and an appreciative listener—two qualities which do not often go together—she was always an impressive personality without exactly knowing it. Clara was accustomed to be outshone by her in conversation, and had become used to it, but some of the women ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... George William Curtis is [95] his son, well known as one of our most graceful writers and eloquent men: something hereditary in that, for his father had one of the clearest heads I knew, and a gifted tongue, though he was too modest to be a great talker. He could make a good speech, and once he made one that was more effective than I could have wished. The question was about electing Thomas Starr King to be my colleague. The congregation was immensely taken with him; but Mr. Curtis opposed on the ground that ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... gentlemen," Galahad recommenced, "fellow-exiles, once more. Munsher D'Himecourt, it was yer practice, until lately, to reward a good talker with a dlass from the hands o' yer daughter." (Si, si!) "I'm bur a poor speaker." (Si, si, Senor, z-a-fine-a kin'-a can be; si!) "However, I'll ask ye, not knowun bur it may be the last time we all meet ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... say?' she exclaimed. 'They flew at me like wildcats. They tore me to pieces—said I was the most dreaded talker in Pointview, that I had talked a steady stream ever since I was born, that nobody had a chance to get in a word with me, that I had made all the boys sick who ever came to see me. What do you think ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... writing and of public speaking," said Emerson, "I am a very poor talker, and for the most part prefer silence"; and he went on to compare himself in this respect with Alcott, "the prince of conversers." Alcott was undoubtedly the prince of fluency, and Emerson rarely, in private dialogue, ventured to string together many consecutive sentences; but the things ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... setting. In Shiraz or the country adjoining ye will come upon one Baba Mustapha by name; and, if he be alone, ye may recognize him by his forlorn look and the hang of his cheeks, his vacancy as of utter abandonment; if in company, 'twill be the only talker that's he; seize on him, give him a taste of thin air, and deposit him without speech on the roof of a palace, where ye will see Feshnavat in yonder city: this do ere the shadows of the palm-tree by the well in the plain move up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him. To this, coupled with the old habit of poverty, must be attributed his oft-cited passion for fine clothes, which surely arose less from vanity than from a mistaken attempt to extenuate what he felt to be his most obvious shortcomings. As a talker especially he was ill-fitted to shine. He was easily disconcerted by retort, and often discomfited in argument. To the end of his days he never lost his native brogue; and (as he himself tells us) he had that most fatal of defects to a narrator, a slow and hesitating ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... dried-up old fellow he was, with his balls of muttonchop sidewhiskers, his thick eyebrows, and his lively blue eyes!—a man evidently not readily turned aside by rebuffs. He had already shown that his wit as a talker had been sharpened by long and varied contact with a world of reluctant purchasers. I was really curious to know more of him, so I ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... sudden death, Anne stood in rather a precarious position, as regarded her future subsistence. She was not the best kind of woman for the scheme; but there was no alternative. One quality of hers was valuable; she was not a talker. I went to London the very next day, called at the Hoxton lodging of my wife (the only place at which she had been known as Mrs. Manston), and found that no great difficulties stood in the way of a personation. And thus favouring circumstances determined my course. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... he growled, "but I will. I didn't trust you at first, Don Francisco, an' there have been times all along since then when I didn't trust you. You're a smooth talker, but your habit of disappearin' has been too much for me. I believe just as Ned does that you were signalin' to the enemy an' that you meant Texas harm, lots of harm. It was a lucky thing that the boy awoke. Now, what do ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the lawyer. "One of our brightest young men. Entertaining talker too. And if I'm not mistaken, it was he who opened a good-natured discussion as to the limit of actual personal acquaintance which the average man has, ending by his betting fifty dollars—rather foolishly, I admit—that you could not ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... client on some matter of unusual importance, or to get his signature to some paper, and, at such times, I always enjoyed the talk which followed the completion of the business; for Vantine was a good talker, with a knowledge of men and of the world gained by much travel and by a detached, humourous ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... time their conversation was of the stage and William's prospective future thereon, and then, very quietly, the judge began to talk about William himself. Presently William began to lean toward the talker, intent, earnest; no one had spoken to him before just like this. His father had tried once or twice, but his evident embarrassment, his halting sentences, and his fear lest William should misunderstand, had frightened, rather than impressed, the boy. But the judge was saying ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... a lady who five years ago possessed apparently neither powers of thought nor capacity for expression, but who has, since she became a collector of china and antique furniture, developed into a tireless talker. Formerly she sat in her pale gray-and-blue rooms dressed faultlessly, "splendidly null," and you sought in vain for a topic which could warm her into interest or thaw out a sign of life from her. Now her rooms are studies, so picturesquely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... of employment, is young, agile, a talker, a poser, sharp enough to be capable of anything in reason except honesty or altruistic considerations of any kind. The woman is a commonplace old bundle of poverty and hard-worn humanity. She looks ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... fair one, than as a man to rise in life. Every faculty he had was an energy. He aimed at everything: lost some things, gained others. He was a great speaker in a debating society, a member of some politico-economical club. He was an eternal talker,—brilliant, various, paradoxical, florid; different from what he is now, for, dreading fancy, his career since has been one effort to curb it. But all his mind attached itself to something that we Englishmen call solid; it was a large mind,—not, my dear Kitty, like a fine whale sailing through ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thrashing he had received from "Trooper D. Matthewson" when the same had become necessary after a long course of unresented petty annoyance. Hawker was that very rare creature, a boaster, who made good, a bully of great courage and determination, and a loud talker, who was a very active doer; and the battle had been ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... a man who has ideas and is not shy, yet refuses absolutely to be drawn into talk, you may set him down as one of us. Among the first effects of the Arcadia is to put an end to jabber. Gilray had at one time the reputation of being such a brilliant talker that Arcadians locked their doors on him, but now he is a man that can be invited anywhere. The Arcadia is entirely responsible for the change. Perhaps I myself am the most silent of our company, and hostesses usually think me shy. They ask ladies to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... explanatory of his visit, in which he should express sorrow for the hardships it would be to leave their claims, with the hope that the time was not distant when all might lawfully return, etc. The Major said he was not a speech-maker, or a very good talker, but would read the orders sent to him to dispossess them, and see that ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... was clerking in Missouri, a fellow named Jeff Hankins moved down from Wisconsin and bought a little clearing just outside the town. Jeff was a good talker, but a bad listener, and so we learned a heap about how things were done in Wisconsin, but he didn't pick up much information about the habits of our Missouri fauna. When it came to cows, he had had a liberal education and he made out all right, but ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... November, 1830, to his death, with brief intervals, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the administrations of Lord Grey and of Lord Melbourne. Outside the House he kept the party together by his great social gifts. An admirable talker, 'raconteur', and mimic, with a wit's relish for wit, the charm of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Freddy said, as they reached the site of excavation. Margaret was no great talker at any time, but there was something new in her silence this ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... weakness. Together they formed a perfect unit. Mortimer was Saxon—slow, conscientious, and deliberate; Scott was Celtic—quick, happy-go-lucky, and brilliant. Mortimer was the more solid, Scott the more attractive. Mortimer was the deeper thinker, Scott the brighter talker. By a curious coincidence, though each had seen much of warfare, their campaigns had never coincided. Together they covered all recent military history. Scott had done Plevna, the Shipka, the Zulus, Egypt, Suakim; Mortimer ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fairy, "I will give you some supper directly; and while you eat it I will tell you my history in six words, for I hate much talking. A long tongue is as insupportable as a long nose; and I remember when I was young how much I used to be admired because I was not a talker; indeed, some one said to the queen my mother—for poor as you see me now, I am the daughter of a great ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... more delicately veiled defensive tactics against Burt, and now her face was full of frank admiration of his skill as an angler and of interest in the wild scenes described. Burt had spent more time in society than over his books while at college, and was a fluent, easy talker. Webb felt that he suffered in contrast, that he was grave, heavy, dull, and old—no fit companion for the girl whose laughing eyes so often rested on his brother's face and responded to his mirth. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... and agreeable talker, accustomed to the society of ladies, in which he was held to shine, and fond of shining. He exerted himself also that night, partly because he was really struck with Blanche's grace and beauty, partly because Delawarr's liveliness ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... there have been going round the press pen portraits of Bulwer, Dickens, and Carlyle. The two first are separated from their wives, and their lives are sunless and their homes are empty. Carlyle, that dry and laconic talker and that fierce hater, is made beautiful when you read that he conducts his company to the pretty sitting-room of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... Messenger" and other magazines. His lyric, "Florence Vane," has been very popular and has been translated into many languages. He was said to be stately and impressive in manner and a brilliant talker. Philip Pendleton and John Esten Cooke were first cousins of John Pendleton Kennedy, their ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... so, the conversation switched from one topic to another. Fernald was an interesting talker, and told the boys one or two of his adventures in the custom ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... job, an' Stratton havin' promised to write frequent an' keep Joe toein' the mark. Stratton, it seems, had sold out because he didn't know what might happen to him across the water. Oh, Andrew J. was a right smooth talker, believe me, but still an' all he didn't make no great hit with folks around the country even after he settled down on the Shoe-Bar and brung his daughter there to live. There weren't no tears shed, neither, when an ornery ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... the exterior air of business, and application enough to make him very capable. In his habit and manners very formal; a tall, thin, very black man, like a Spaniard or Jew, about 50 years old.—Swift. He fell in with the Whigs, was an endless talker. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Thackeray, and George Eliot, were some of his favourite authors. He once began a review of George Eliot's biography, but left it unfinished. Latterly he had ceased to admire her work as much as before. He was a rapid, fluent talker, with excited utterance at times. Some of his sayings were shrewd and sharp; but he was sometimes aggressive. 'People admire what is pretty in an ugly thing,' he used to say 'not the ugly thing.' A lady once said to him she would never be happy again. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... of Franklin and Rittenhouse. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, as well as an A. M. of the University of Philadelphia. His reputation, his wonderful memory, the shrewd originality of his remarks, made him a welcome guest in the best society. He was no talker or conversationist, (an excellent word we should like to see legitimated,) but a quiet, observing man, who spoke to the point, inoffensive in manner, and not unprepossessing in appearance. As one of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... George spent the whole evening in chattering to Evelyn, or, rather, in making her chatter. Lady Tressady loitered near them once or twice. She heard the names "Letty," "Miss Sewell," passing and repassing—one talker catching up the other. Over any topic that included Miss Sewell they lingered; when anything was begun that did not concern her, it dropped at once, like a ball ill thrown. The mother went ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for many complaints, how to cover deir houses, and how to kill deir hogs, 'cordin' to de moon. He tell us many times 'bout de great Catawba Indians, who make all deir own medicines and kill bears and dress in deir skins, after feastin' on deir flesh. He was a good talker. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... goes with us. We are now 1530 feet above sea-level, east-by-south from last camp—Mount Owen Stanley due north. Oriope is Mr. Lawes's great friend. He used to live in Munikahila, but trouble through marrying a wife has sent him in here. He seems greatly attached to Ruatoka. He is a terrible talker, long-winded and deafening. ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... conducted a number of his workmen through an illegally-closed path, and opened it by the destruction of the fences, repeated appeals to the persistent obstructions having proved unavailing. He was a man of scholarly and literary attainments, a clever talker, well able to hold his own, and during the Corn Law and Currency agitation he contributed one or more articles on these subjects to the Westminster Review, then edited by his friend, the late General Perronet Thompson, a very foremost figure in Radical circles forty years ago, always ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... very intelligent man and a good talker, and as we rode along he gave us in detail the history of the rise of the Ghost Dance, so far as the Sioux were concerned. "There was nothing war-like about it," he insisted. "It was a religious appeal. It was a prayer to the Great Spirit to take ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... over man and woman is not a mockery but a reality, who can win love and sympathy and admiration, not in little Tarascon, mind you, but in Paris; who sends joy abroad and creates torture at home; a charming companion, a kind master, a subtle politician, a wonderful talker, but a light-hearted and faithless husband, a genial liar, a smiling and good-natured deceiver; the true image of the gifted adventurer who periodically emerges from the South and goes northward finally to conquer and govern the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... come here for a talk with that old hassayamper, Nick Porter!" finished Pardo. "Mr. Bradlaugh has put me next." The super laughed. "I suppose you know what a brilliant talker the prospector is?" ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... in relation to themselves, as revealing to us by reflection two uncommonly "human" human beings, whom it is impossible to mistake for any one else; just as we enjoy the society of some whimsical talker among our living friends, valuing him not so much for what he says, but for the way he says it, and because it is he, and no ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... back and held back because I'm no talker. I can't be, in my business; but this is my last chance, and I want to put myself right with you. I've loved you ever since the Dawson days, not in the way you'd expect from a man of my sort, perhaps, but with the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Cardinall? O my Wolsey, The quiet of my wounded Conscience; Thou art a cure fit for a King; you'r welcome Most learned Reuerend Sir, into our Kingdome, Vse vs, and it: My good Lord, haue great care, I be not found a Talker ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... occasionally brought back friends who preferred the quiet cool drive through the Park of St. Cloud to the crowd and dust of the railway. The Count de St. Vallier (who was not yet senator, but deeply interested in politics) was frequently at Versailles and came back with us often. He was a charming, easy talker. I never tired of hearing about the brilliant days of the last Empire, and the fetes at the Tuileries, Compiegne, and St. Cloud. He had been a great deal at the court of Napoleon III, had seen many ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... being so much in each. The combination of birth and practical aptitude gave him a position quite unique in Cooperstown and the surrounding country. He was a man of wide reading and culture, an exceedingly good talker, and a delightful social companion. He was at the same time respected as a farmer among farmers, who knew him well, and called him by his Christian name. It is related that shortly after her marriage to Hyde Clarke, the stately and distinguished Mrs. Clarke was complaining ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... "You are a fine talker, Langdon," said Peabody, coming to Stevens' rescue, "but I can readily see what you are driving at. You want an investigation. You think you will catch some of us with what you reformers call 'the goods,' but forget evidently the entirely simple facts that your family has invested in ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... will choke him but a purpling laugh. A word,—a shout,—a mighty roar,—'t is done; Extinguished; lassoed by a treacherous pun. A laugh is priming to the loaded soul; The scattering shots become a steady roll, Broke by sharp cracks that run along the line, The light artillery of the talker's wine. The kindling goblets flame with golden dews, The hoarded flasks their tawny fire diffuse, And the Rhine's breast-milk gushes cold and bright, Pale as the moon and maddening as her light; With crimson juice the thirsty southern sky Sucks from ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... be a great talker. And since Betsy Butterfly was an excellent listener, they spent many ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... neighbors) had the reputation of being very devotedly pious, who went to her pastor, (an aged and venerable man,) greatly grieved because he was in the habit of combing his hair upwards, so as to cover his baldness. She was afraid it was pride. She was a great talker, and often had difficulties with her brethren and sisters in the church; for she thought it her duty to exercise a watchful care over them. Whether she was self-deceived, or hypocritical, I cannot say; but she used to shed tears freely ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... and suggestion about me was this profoundly suggestive fact that some people, quite a lot of people, scores of thousands, had to "go underground." Implicit too always in the discourse was the assumption that the talker or writer in question wasn't for a moment to be expected to go there. Those others, whoever they were, had to do that for us. Before the war it had been the artless Portuguese Kaffir, but he alas! was being ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Boswell. It is impossible not to be amused with such a book. But his bow-wow manner must have had a good deal to do with the effect produced;—for no one, I suppose, will set Johnson before Burke,—and Burke was a great and universal talker;—yet now we hear nothing of this except by some chance remarks in Boswell. The fact is, Burke, like all men of genius who love to talk at all, was very discursive and continuous; hence he is not reported; he seldom said the sharp ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... about a roomer, I know of one." He glanced at Edith. "Very neat. Careful with matches. Hard to get up in the morning, but interesting, highly intelligent, and a clever talker. That's his one fault. When he is interested in a thing he spouts all ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... upon the Bullard murder, and that the failure of the police force to find the killer or even to find a likely suspect should be the hinge for its turning. For the moment Ike Webb had the floor, expounding his own pet theories. Ike was a good talker—a mighty good reporter too, let me tell you. Across the room from Ike, tilted back in a chair against the wall, sat the major, looking shabby and a bit forlorn. For a month now shabbiness had been seizing on the major, spreading over him like a mildew. It started first ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... critic seems to stand above the author, and "what in him is weak, to strengthen, what is low, to raise and support:" nor is there any work of genius that does not come out of his hands like an Illuminated Missal, sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been the most impressive talker of his age, he would probably have been the finest writer; but he lays down his pen to make sure of an auditor, and mortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If he had not been a poet, he would have been a powerful logician; if he had not dipped his wing ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... his plans, he was one day advised by a friend to deliver a lecture. He was already known as an entertaining talker, and his adviser judged his possibilities well. In Roughing It we find the story of that first lecture and its success. He followed it with other lectures up and down the Coast. He had added one more profession to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you men who started out with us, and who have done such fine, loyal work, a good-sized cash bonus. I perhaps don't need to tell you that I never made a speech in my life—so my friends say—but money is a loud talker; so, at the end of the season, we'll let money tell you how much we appreciate the good work you ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower |
