"Topic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clasped her hands convulsively together and turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart, sometimes to her burning, hammering temples. At last Valentine considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic. "It is a day," said he, "when men might rise from the dead, and who knows—but please, for my sake, don't be frightened." She became frightened, however. She said to herself, "But it isn't possible." And she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but certain. "Look ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... of the lone figure along the opposite side of the street was the topic of conversation at nearly every dinner table in Crampville that Sunday. It became a sort of small-town epic, so that they still tell how stern the elders looked, and how white Terry's face against the background of black fur which he had thrown across his shoulder ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... "The Fall of the House of Usher," in "My Double and how he Undid me," in "Devil-Puzzlers," in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," in "Jean-ah Poquelin," in "A Bundle of Letters," there is little or no mention of the love of man for woman, which is the chief topic of conversation in a Novel. While the Novel cannot get on without love, the Short-story can. Since love is almost the only thing which will give interest to a long story, the writer of Novels has to get love into his tales as best he may, even when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... yes. But I wish your father were here, Mr. Otway, to give his estimate of such genius; at all events if he thinks as he did years ago. Get him on that topic, and he was one of the most eloquent men living. I am convinced that he only wanted a little more self-confidence to become a real power in public life—a genuine orator, such, perhaps, as England has ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... between the Hindu and Christian religions has doubtless already frequently suggested itself to the reader. It will not be necessary, therefore, to dwell on this topic at very great length. The contrast forces itself upon us ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... I might as well," said Joe, pouring what remained into a tumbler and drinking it off. "Is there any other topic you'd like to mention? If I can 'ave any influence on you, I shall ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... philosophical world respecting the conception of beauty have no other origin than their commencing without a sufficiently strict distinction, or that it is not carried out fully to a pure union. Those philosophers who blindly follow their feeling in reflecting on this topic can obtain no other conception of beauty, because they distinguish nothing separate in the totality of the sensuous impression. Other philosophers, who take the understanding as their exclusive guide, can ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... regiments appeared to him a subject of great delicacy. The last reduction, he said, had occasioned many to quit the service, independent of those who were discontinued; and had left durable seeds of discontent among those who remained. The general topic of declamation was, that it was as hard as dishonourable, for men who had made every sacrifice to the service, to be turned out of it, at the pleasure of those in power, without an adequate compensation. In the maturity to which their uneasiness had now risen from a continuance of misery, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... years ago, and I write from memory of a night long to be remembered. Around many a Grand Army Camp-fire in the last fifteen years this bivouac has been made the topic of an evening's talk. It was attended with no particular hardship. The weather was such as is met with in these latitudes, not cold, not hot, and though a thick vapory cloud hid the full round moon from early eventide until the last regiment filed into the woods, yet there was a halo ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... stated in his first speech on this topic, that he did not wish the transfer of property to be by individual barter; and on Friday he stated that he was very much averse to allowing matters to go on in their natural course, for by that means land would be unnaturally cheapened. Well, but upon ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... soon became a topic of general discussion, and the name of Arsene Lupin excited the public imagination to such an extent that the newspapers filled their columns with the most fantastic stories of his exploits which found ready credence amongst ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... beautiful weather since—but no, of course Phil will tell you about the weather, for that is scarcely an amusing topic. I do want to be as prudent as possible, for Uncle Doc is going to read all the letters (not, of course, aloud) and see whether we have fulfilled ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Even here the story of the Earth man and the Rulan maiden was known. The strange leniency of Ianito in permitting them to remain together was the topic of the day. He waved them through with an indulgent gesture. Ianito knew what he was about, and would have ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... practice that had been developed by Caraffa as Inquisitor and Pope. Their list was published in 1564 with the authority of Pius IV. Finally, in 1595 the decrees embodying the statutes of the Church upon this topic were issued in print, together with a largely augmented catalogue of interdicted books. This document will form the basis of what I have to say with regard to the Catholic ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... The journey was a long one. The train was slow and stopped frequently; passengers got in and out at every station. The morning's news from the various points at which the respective forces were facing each other was the general topic of conversation, and Vincent was interested in seeing how the tone gradually changed as the passengers from St. Louis one by one left the train and their places were taken by those of the more southern districts. At first the sentiment expressed had ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... tampered with religion for interested purposes. His son inherited these upright feelings. And we may easily guess what would be the bitter sting of any satire he would write on Bromley. Such a topic was too true to be forgiven, and too keenly barbed by Bromley's conscience. By the way, this writer, like ourselves, reads in this juvenile adventure a prefiguration of ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... begun for breakfast, which consisted of a small piece of bacon and one "flap-jack" each. But the determination of the previous night had so inspirited all that the small dimensions of the breakfast were scarcely noticed, and the conversation turned upon the absorbing topic—would they discover a source of the Mississippi ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... certain kind of conversation, of that futile, paradoxical and spasmodic kind which is the speciality of "brilliant talkers." Sparkling conversation of this sort disconcerted her and made her feel ill at ease. She did not like the topic to be the literary profession either. This exasperated Gautier, who would not admit of there being anything else in the world ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn't seem to want to get going. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... corrupt process of tradition, among the various nations of the earth. It would be easy to urge arguments in behalf of this opinion. But already the matter has gone beyond common bounds, and the writer dare not hazard another remark. All he shall do then, is to commend this interesting topic to the reader's attention, and to request, that due allowances be made for the omission of certain qualifications which are requisite for some of the remarks now made, but which the limits of the note could not allow to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... and personal magnetism must have been a powerful factor in all that movement," said Salemina, plunging hastily back into the topic to avert any further recrimination. "I suppose we feel it even now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably have made myself ridiculous. 'Old maiden ladies,' I read this morning, 'were the last leal Jacobites ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... interesting topic of conversation on our arrival at Sydney was the projected expedition into the interior. Two candidates for this important and deeply interesting undertaking had presented themselves—Mr. E.J. Eyre and Sir Thomas Mitchell, both experienced Australian explorers. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Himself or another, or, worse still, these innocents that could not philosophise about it—that any should suffer made all happiness futile. The same deadly consciousness came upon him now on the sunny cliff, and he resented that the topic should have been started, himself keeping a sullen silence. But the Parson turned and spoke ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... of the work especially needed by practical mechanics, and hitherto to be found, so far as we know, only in the form of results in the pocket-books of tables, or in the lengthy and elaborate treatises of the heavy cyclopaedias, or works specially devoted to the topic. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of mankind; and I am therefore the less surprized at at an observation made by the writers of the Critical Review "that the foetus of the Hottentots may resemble the Chinese, as the entrails of a pig resemble those of a man; but on this topic our ingenious author seems to wander beyond the circle of his knowledge." I hope these gentlemen will not be offended at my taking this occasion to assure them that the comparison was not even then made on loose grounds, although ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... sacrifice of fancy to correctness, prompted a reply by Gildon in his Essay on the Stage, where the argument is based partly on the belief that Shakespeare had read Ovid and Plautus and had thereby neither spoiled his fancy nor confined his genius. The question was probably at this time a common topic of discussion. Dennis's abler remarks were suggested, as he tells us, by conversation in which he found himself opposed to the prevalent opinion. He is more pronounced in his views than Rowe had been. His main argument is that as Shakespeare is deficient in the "poetical ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... paraphrase, means, "Bring me a fine sword when you come back, a sword which will kill a man with one stroke." After repeating this twenty times and suiting the action to the word, the Aheer camel-driver set to and caricatured the Touaricks of Ghat in general, and the Sultan Shafou in particular. His topic was the Shânbah war, the everlasting theme now in Ghat. The camel-driver mimicked and satirized the aged Sultan by taking up a walking-stick and walking in a stooping posture, leaning on the staff, begging from door to door, knocking at the door of the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... astonished at Juan Can's unconscious revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been at his. "Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!" he thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. "I may not so soon get speech with Senor Felipe," he said. "It is usually when he is sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... questionings was of course obvious. He had not paid her this matutinal visit for the sole purpose of passing the time of day; and she did not like this strange mood of his nor his reference to a topic over which he had not worried ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... topic of this poor menial's tragic history, it may be as well to trace the progress of the romantic legend, as it blossomed after the death of the Man, whose Mask was not of iron, but of black velvet. Later we shall show how the legend struck root and flowered, from the moment ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... remaining topic—namely, the occurrence of miscarriage from suckling—I am convinced that it is by no means an unfrequent accident, though its real cause is perhaps rarely suspected, having only met with one patient who considered the ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... tell you that they have enjoyed the honour of a personal acquaintance with the great navigator; and if you listen to them, they will go on and tell anecdotes without end. This springs from nothing but their great desire to please; well knowing that a more agreeable topic for a white man could not be selected. As for the anachronism of the thing, they seem to have no idea of it: days and years are ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... principles, and inclination to contribute my mite in pointing out the defects of the present constitution, are equally great. All my private letters have teemed with these sentiments, and whenever this topic has been the subject of conversation, I have endeavored to diffuse and enforce them." His circular letter to the governors of the States at the close of the war, which was as eloquent as it was forcible, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... a keen revival of interest but more resistance to open family discussion than in the pre-adolescent age. Maturing children are touchy, sensitive, self-conscious, modest, seclusive. They run to cover at too intimate a topic, especially in the hands of adults who are inclined to strike a wrong note; to be preachy and teachy and inquisitive and, in terms of the young adolescents themselves, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... particular value, and show that the author has devoted much thought to the topic of which he treats."— ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, but she knew much of them nevertheless. Her beneficence was the familiar topic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. The old maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself to privation that she might contribute her mite when needful. They were the works of a Sister of Charity—far more difficult to perform than those of a Lady ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... almost certainly suggest a train of ideas quite different from that of to-day. Perhaps it may begin by reminding you of landscape effects in general; then of Mr. Ruskin, who has discoursed so eloquently on that topic, and next of Mr. Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' from whence it is equal chances whether your thoughts radiate, on one side of the compass, to stone china, or Stoney Stratford, or Stonewall Jackson, or, on the other, to the 'Venetian Bracelet,' L. E. L. and Fernando Po, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... a thousand years till I got well again, in order that he might hear me play a little. But when he talked to me of music, with his fingers on my pulse, seeing he had some acquaintance with medicine and Latin learning, he felt it change so much if he approached that topic, that he was often dismayed and left my side in tears. When I perceived how greatly he was disappointed, I bade one of my sisters bring me a flute; for though the fever never left me, that instrument is so easy that it did ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to measuring a square; his answers are such as a child would make, and yet the questions are so easy, that while answering them, one by one, he comes to the same point as if he had learned geometry. From whence Socrates would infer that learning is nothing more than recollection; and this topic he explains more accurately in the discourse which he held the very day he died; for he there asserts that, any one, who seeming to be entirely illiterate, is yet able to answer a question well that is proposed to him, does in so doing manifestly show that he is not learning it then, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... have—though I say it. I have tasted blood now, and I will make them realise that I am not the sort of man to take it lying down—. (Checks himself.) No, no, do not let us get upon that sad and distressing topic this evening. ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... Philip had interrupted went on, and presently he began to feel a little in the way. Kingsford took no particular notice of him. He talked fluently and well, not without humour, but with a slightly dogmatic manner: he was a journalist, it appeared, and had something amusing to say on every topic that was touched upon; but it exasperated Philip to find himself edged out of the conversation. He was determined to stay the visitor out. He wondered if he admired Norah. In the old days they had often ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... narratives a vision of an information democracy in which millions of citizens freely find and use what they need. LYNCH noted that a lack of standards inhibits disseminating multimedia on the network, a topic also discussed by BESSER. LARSEN addressed the issues of network scalability and modularity and commented upon the difficulty of anticipating the effects of growth in orders of magnitude. BROWNRIGG talked about the ability of packet radio to provide certain links in a network without the need ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... matter of his task, and the other making him fastidious and hesitating as to the manner of it. I cannot help thinking, however, that there must have been, also, a degree of natural slowness in the first movements of his mind upon any topic; and, that, like those animals which remain gazing upon their prey before they seize it, he found it necessary to look intently at his subject for some time, before he was able to make the last, quick spring that ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... be put into it, belonging to I do not know who(m). He was security for an annuity of Richard's, and so suffered this seizure on his account. It is a strange combination altogether, and is now more the subject of conversation than any other topic, and it serves me also as one to fill my letter. Si le recit vous ennuye, vous n'ignorez pas le motif que j'ai a vous le faire. I suppose that you are not always at audiences, and that you may like sometimes to know what passes in circles from whence everything ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... authority, and the employed, who knew their power and insisted on their privileges. From this cause domestic service in America has had less of mutual kindliness than in old countries. Its terms have been so ill understood and defined that both parties have assumed the defensive; and a common topic of conversation in American female society has often been the general servile war which in one form or another was going on in their different families,—a war as interminable as would be a struggle between aristocracy and common people, undefined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the subject has by this time sunk into the hearts of thousands upon thousands of people. It is familiar knowledge among all classes and conditions of men. It is the great feature within the Hall, and the constant topic of discourse elsewhere. It has awakened in the great body of society a new interest in, and a new perception and a new love of, Art. Students of Art have sat before it, hour by hour, perusing in its many forms of Beauty, lessons ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... comfortably step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee "treadmill." That triumph has since been the leading topic in all agricultural circles. The Times' report speaks of it as beyond doubt, as placing the harvest absolutely under the farmer's control, and as ensuring a complete and most auspicious revolution in the harvesting operations of this country. I would ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Caesar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent people was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... asked after the first salutations were over. "Have you been taking counsel with solitude on the Egyptian question? Or have you decided like a sensible man to go to the White Sulphur? Whatever has been the cause of your absence, you have at least been charitable in furnishing us with a topic of conversation. I scarcely know what we should have done without the 'Victor Clare disappearance,' as Mr. Ellis has called it, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... tried, out of courtesy, to give the woman every chance to withdraw her words and had only administered a reprimand to her when she failed to do so. Certainly it was a dreadful rebuke that he gave her. He told her that he must insist on this topic being dismissed and never raised again: that he could allow no such discussion: the subject was one, he said, that he must absolutely refuse to entertain: he did not wish, he said, to speak with undue severity, ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... my light hair and Carl's brown eyes," said his mother often when that topic was under discussion, and saying it ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... "what to say, or how to say it; so that the trembling bachelor may become a wise and good lover." He stutters and hems in the utmost distress; to increase which, all his tormentors turn up the stage, leaving him to entertain the lady alone. The sketches naturally suggest a topic, and, plunging in medias res at once, he vehemently praises her legs! The lady is astonished, and the mamma alarmed; but having explained that the allusion was to the drawings, he is afterwards punished for the blunder by being threatened with a song. Though at a loss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... book might be described in the language of the schools as a monograph upon one great dogma of the Christian faith, around which, as the author treats it, all the other doctrines are arranged. The familiar topic of justification, of which Luther made so much, was thus given again the central place. What the book really offered was something quite different from this. It was a complete system of theology, but it differed ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... One topic that received deserved attention was the curse of deluging Africa with liquor by Christian nations, and the continued curse of the opium traffic which England inflicts ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... of his genius, and the inefficacy of his moral virtues. [15] The orator, whose petition is extant to the emperor Valentinian, was conscious of the difficulty and danger of the office which he had assumed. He cautiously avoids every topic which might appear to reflect on the religion of his sovereign; humbly declares, that prayers and entreaties are his only arms; and artfully draws his arguments from the schools of rhetoric, rather than from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... refusing to deputise either to Martin or to Alce. At the same time she led a general kind of conversation. The Christmas feast was to be communal in spirit as well as in fact—there were to be no formalities above the salt or mutterings below it. The new harmonium provided a good topic, for everyone had heard it, except Mrs. Tolhurst who had stayed to keep watch over Ansdore, cheering herself with the prospect of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... a description of a recent expedition down the canyons of the Colorado, and she managed to keep the remainder of the luncheon conversation on this topic. But as far as Enoch was concerned, Diana's effort was merely a conversational detour. The luncheon finished and the Gulf of California safely reached, he said as he handed Diana into ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... from one whose coadjutor he had become on a previous and similar occasion. M. le docteur Veron, now the proprietor of the Constitutionnel, and as sagacious as ever in catering for the public taste, proposed to him to furnish every Monday an article on some literary topic. The notion of writing for the masses, of adapting his style to the requirements of a newspaper, gave him a momentary shock. Hitherto he had addressed only the most select audiences. But, after all, he was conscious of an almost boundless versatility, and no plan could better satisfy the desire ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... our way out to and back from these walks and sport, there was one topic to which, in our talking, we returned, and that was the possible war with Spain. We both felt very strongly that such a war would be as righteous as it would be advantageous to the honor and the interests of the nation; and after ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... between the particular topic now under discussion and the consideration of the symbols of the cardinal points, I wish to refer to one plate of the Fejervary Codex, to wit, Plate 44, a fac-simile of which ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... now upon the blood-stained heights of Inkermann. Yet, and I noticed it was always towards the end of his second tankard, the old man would lose the thread of his story, whatever it might be, and take up the topic of "The ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... thing only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, becomes the mirth of the company. At his approach the most fat, unthinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was lavished on their forefathers.... The poet's poverty is a standing topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable offense. Perhaps of all mankind an author in these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor, and yet revile his poverty. We reproach him for living by his wit, and yet allow him no other means to live. His taking refuge in garrets and cellars ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of the same soil, and a vivid sense of the marvellous rapidity and exquisite beauty of the simultaneous or successive unfoldings. Given these powers, unhampered by any defect of mere technical skill, and it is hard to see how any mind susceptible of being interested in their application to such a topic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... These were Dogribs of Chief Vital's band; all told they numbered about thirty men, women, and children; with them were twenty-odd dogs, which immediately began to make trouble. When one is in Texas the topic of conversation is, "How are the cattle?" in the Klondike, "How is your claim panning out?" and in New York, "How are you getting on with your novel?" On Great Slave Lake you say, "Where are the Caribou?" The Indians could not tell; they had seen ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... despair of the anti-slavery cause; with its martyrs, its runaway slaves, its legal decisions in almost every paper you take up, the topic of debate in our national councils, our political meetings, and our literature, it seems as if the nation were all alive on this question. True, four millions of slaves groan in their chains still, but every man in this nation has a higher ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... turned round, said: "Aha! At last!" and nodding lightly to me, entered the coffee-house with the negro. I remained under the awning. I wished to wait until the baron should come out again, not so much for the sake of entering again into conversation with him (I really did not know what topic I could start with), as for the purpose of again verifying my first impression.—But half an hour passed; an hour passed.... The baron did not make his appearance. I entered the coffee-house, I made the circuit of all the rooms—but nowhere did I see either ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... to the Normal Department, Prof. Salisbury was expected to address us on some educational topic. In his absence, Prof. Smith, of the chair of Greek in Vanderbilt University, kindly filled the place and gave us an excellent address on Thomas Carlyle. Prof. Smith is of Southern birth, but has manifested a cordial friendliness and an interest that ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various
... will not leave this topic without telling some more stories of the many vexations caused me by my playfellows; for this is the instructive part of such moral communications, that a man may learn how it has gone with others, and what he also has to expect ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... acting upon the dotard's admiration, would readily induce that monarch to give such aid to Austria as must insure the restoration of what it lost. Silesia, it has been before observed, was always a topic by means of which the weak side of Maria Theresa could be attacked with success. There is generally some peculiar frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can throw them off their guard. The weak and tyrannical Philip II., whenever the recovery of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... were, whenever it was necessary, counteracted and cut short by the unexpected directness and peremptory plain dealing of his patron. In the morning, towards the hour of twelve, the commissioner thought he had well begun a conversation that would draw out into length upon a topic which he knew must be interesting to his lordship, and he held in his hand private letters of great consequence from his son Cunningham; but Lord Oldborough, taking the letters, locked them up in his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... me a pony," said Toady, as they sat on the shady side of the house discussing the all-absorbing topic. "Ma said she never should get us another after Spotty kicked her when she ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... not disposed to talk, and he soon relapsed into silence. Mrs. Passford and Florry were very much astonished to see Christy again so soon, and even more so to meet Uncle Homer; but his welcome was cordial, and nothing was said about the exciting topic of the day. The visitor was treated like a friend, and not an enemy, and everything was done to make him forget that he was not ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... petitions of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century seems to indicate that this happened. In the succeeding years of the eighteenth century the grants to leading men and the economic and political motives in the grants are increasingly evident. This whole topic should be made the subject of special study. What is here offered is merely ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... customary hardihood he selected for his subject "The Danger from the Educated Classes"; that is, the tendency of intellectual culture to exclusiveness and separation from the less fortunate portion of mankind. It is not to be supposed that the Harvard Alumni were well pleased with this topic, but he presented it with so much skill, and even eloquence, as to win applause from some of his most inveterate opponents. This sympathy for the unfortunate had been the key-note and true explanation of his course in life. ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... man," said George Brown, denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law before a Toronto audience, "I used to think that if I ever had to speak before such an audience as this, I would choose African Slavery as my theme in preference to any other topic. The subject seemed to afford the widest scope for rhetoric and for fervid appeals to the best of human sympathies. These thoughts arose far from here, while slavery was a thing at a distance, while the horrors ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... will say no more of him than that his bitter topic was the unreasonableness of humanity, which treated him graciously when he had a letter for it, but scowled at him when he had none. "aye implying that I hae a letter, but keep ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... muddled, Wayne strove in vain to find a reason for the elimination of the matter that had interrupted his cruise and brought him to Rose-Cross, the maddest yachtsman on the Atlantic. Why should Guilford forbid the topic as though its discussion ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... should find only the milk and honey of our youth; to obtain the substantial nourishment of European knowledge, a library of ten thousand volumes will not avail nor satisfy our inquiries, nor supply our researches even on a single topic! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... creation of which was due to Lincoln, was closing tight around the dying Confederacy. Five weeks after the inauguration Lee surrendered, and the war was virtually at an end. What was to come after was inevitably the overshadowing topic of the hour. Many anecdotes represent Lincoln, in these last few days of his life, as possessed by a high though melancholy mood of extreme mercy. Therefore, much has been inferred from the following words, in his last public address, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... at these parties the outward show of ease. The wit and learning of the company were ostentatiously displayed. The discussions on history and literature were often highly interesting. But the absurdity of all the religions known among men was the chief topic of conversation; and the audacity with which doctrines and names venerated throughout Christendom were treated on these occasions startled even persons accustomed to the society of French and English freethinkers. Real liberty, however, or ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but his pedantry was disguised, therefore mitigated by his having associated with men of the world instead of with the pale and pompous capons of the student's closet. His favorite topic was beauty and ugliness—and his abhorrence for anyone who was not good to look at. As he talked this subject, his hearers were nervous and embarrassed. He was a drastic cure for physical vanity. If this man could so far deceive ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... February. Throughout the month the diaries record alternately "a wet day, overcast and mild," and "bright and cold with light southerly winds." The wind was now the vital factor with us and the one topic of any real interest. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... sigh or grunt we had mistaken for a proper noun. Our uncertainty was augmented by the confusion emanating from a particular corner of The Enormous Room, in which corner The Fighting Sheeney was haranguing a group of spectators on the pregnant topic: What I won't do to Precigne when I get there. In deep converse with Bathhouse John we beheld the very same youth who, some time since, had drifted to a place beside me at la soupe—Pete The Ghost, white and determined, blond and fragile: Pete ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... enough to write to me on the subject," said the principal of Pinewood Hall. "But I could not allow any change in the dormitory arrangements for the inconsequential reasons given. Nancy Nelson is quite the same as any other girl at the Hall. I wish to hear nothing more on that topic, Cora. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the persecuted Bunter would wring his hands stealthily, and break out into moisture all over his forehead. After standing sleepily by the binnacle, scratching himself in an unpleasant manner, Captain Johns was sure to start on some aspect or other of his only topic. ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... to you a long letter of dedication, which I suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you, which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was too much about politics and poesy, and all things whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing,—one's self. It might have been re-written; but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmly established fame; and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... point one had felt her to be forcing the unlucky topic with the best of intentions towards us all; now she was interested in the episode for its own sake, and eager for more details than Mr. Levy had a ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... ten days, the affair of the Rue de Provence had been the universal topic of conversation; and friends and enemies were alike glad to seize this opportunity of approaching the banker, some to tender their sympathy, and others to offer equivocal condolence, which of all things is the most ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... in with the schemes of militant statesmen, and further reacts on the freedom and personal fortunes of the common man, is an extensive and intricate topic, though not an obscure one; and it has already been spoken of above, perhaps as ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... table the conversation had turned once more to the great vital topic of Sally's legacy and what she ought to do with it. The next best thing to having money of one's own, is to dictate the spending of somebody else's, and Sally's guests were finding a good deal of satisfaction in arranging ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... case rested upon a pure assumption," two peculiarities which may be found by the curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... "Two Boy Pioneers" indicates the nature of this story—that it has to do with the days when the Ohio Valley and the Northwest country were sparsely settled. Such a topic is an unfailing fund of interest to boys, especially when involving a couple of stalwart young men who leave the East to make their fortunes and to ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... to another topic; I find all this letter will be detached scraps; I can't at all contrive to hide the scams: but I don't care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon doing any more than telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told you too ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... rose, as he spoke, and dismissed the topic with a dry little laugh. "Come, let me show you round a bit," he said. "My shoulder ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... said to provoke this?" wondered the old lady. "Is she in the melting mood to-day? If she is, now is the time to say a word for Horace!" Keeping that excellent object in view, Lady Janet approached the delicate topic with all ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... couched, as a rule, in a forcible and cogent form;[12] and he has a striking power of close, sustained, and at the same time lucid argumentation. His matter is commonly disposed with such skill that each topic occurs where it will tell most powerfully; and while one portion of a speech affords relief to another (where relief is needed, and particularly in the longer orations) all alike bear on the main issue or strengthen the orator's position with his audience. Historical ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... actually hit upon a topic that should prove inexhaustible. Believe me, Miss Maxwell, that is my pet subject. More than once, needing a listener, I have even lectured my long-suffering terrier, Joey, on ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... is not exactly a bore. A bore expects you to listen to him. This man is apparently unaware whether you are listening to him or not. He is not a fool. A fool is occasionally amusing— Longrush never. No subject comes amiss to him. Whatever the topic, he has something uninteresting to say about it. He talks as a piano-organ grinds out music steadily, strenuously, tirelessly. The moment you stand or sit him down he begins, to continue ceaselessly till wheeled away in cab or omnibus to his next halting-place. ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... that Italy would enter the war. The chief topic of interest was as to where she would strike first. Would she send an army to join the French and British troops recently landed on the Gallipoli peninsula and a portion of her fleet to help force the Dardanelles, or would she strike first at Austria, and if so, would the first blow ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... a course which they know perfectly well must end in her disruption, and in the destruction of that which they think essential to the balance of power in Europe? We are told, with regard to our other alliance, that it is a very delicate topic. It is a very delicate and a very important topic; but there is another topic still more delicate and important— namely, the future of this country with regard to that alliance. I think we have before now spent 1,000,000,000l. sterling, more or less, for the sake of a ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason I also abandoned, after a time, a conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... to the subject of infibulation, which has, in a manner, necessitated this digression from the main topic. Thwing[20] informs us that in ancient Germany woman was considered the moral equal of man, and that woman might traverse the vast stretches of country unprotected and unharmed. Woman never held such ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... edged his chair round, and was in animated talk with pretty little Lady Alice Findlay, the daughter of the hook-nosed Lord-Lieutenant of the county, who was seated at Lady Driffield's right hand. Lucy noticed the immediate difference in tone, the easy variety of topic, compared with her own sense of difficulty, and her heart swelled ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time, too much affected to employ either remonstrance, or entreaty on this topic; and when, at length, she attempted the latter, her emotion overcame her speech, and she retired to her apartment, to think, if in the present state of her mind to think was possible, upon this sudden ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe |
