"Hearer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words may have, they did not sound rude. They were said with a careless half-amused, half gentle manner, which might leave his hearer in doubt whether the chief purpose of them were not to fall pleasantly on her ear and drive away any disagreeable remainders of Phil's insolence. But Faith scarce heard him. She was struggling with that unbidden pain, and trying with all the simplicity and truth of her nature ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... make upon the earth.'[1] The more you say, the less your hearers will retain. The less you say, the more they will profit. Believe me in this, for I speak from experience. By overloading the memory of a hearer we destroy it, just as lamps are put out when they are filled too full of oil, and plants are spoilt by being too abundantly watered. When a discourse is too long, by the time the end is reached, the middle is forgotten, and by the time the middle is reached the beginning has ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... under M. Riviere's sallow skin. "I—I thought it your metropolis: is not the intellectual life more active there?" he rejoined; then, as if fearing to give his hearer the impression of having asked a favour, he went on hastily: "One throws out random suggestions—more to one's self than to others. In reality, I see no immediate prospect—" and rising from his seat he added, without a trace of constraint: ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the lot of those who had the good fortune to be his auditors. The beauties of Mr. Falkland's poem were accordingly exhibited with every advantage. The successive passions of the author were communicated to the hearer. What was impetuous, and what was solemn, were delivered with a responsive feeling, and a flowing and unlaboured tone. The pictures conjured up by the creative fancy of the poet were placed full to view, at one time overwhelming the soul with superstitious ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... was that of the very school which his predecessors had attempted to confute, carefully as the fact might be hidden by dexterous rhetoric and manipulation of technical terms. He agrees with Hume's premises, and adopts the method of Condillac. This was perceived by his most remarkable hearer. Carlyle went to Edinburgh at the end of 1809. Brown, 'an eloquent, acute little gentleman, full of enthusiasm about simple suggestions, relative, etc.,' was 'utterly unprofitable' to him, disspiriting 'as the autumn winds ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... who laboured under the infirmity of a severe deafness, when he heard what he conceived to be the cry of a distant pack of hounds, sounding intermittedly. As the season was summer, this, on a moment's reflection, satisfied the hearer that it could not be the clamour of an actual chase, and yet his ears repeatedly brought back the supposed cry. He called upon his own dogs, of which two or three were with the walking party. They came in quietly, and obviously had no accession to the sounds which had caught the author's ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... countenance and whole mien, more freedom and meaning in the gesture; the eye speaks, and the fingers speak, and when the orator is so excited as to forget every thing but the matter on which his mind and feelings are acting, the whole body is affected, and helps to propagate his emotions to the hearer. Amidst all the exaggerated colouring of Patrick Henry's biographer, there is doubtless enough that is true, to prove a power in the spontaneous energy of an excited speaker, superior in its effects to any thing that can be produced by writing. Something of the same sort ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... land flit before us; but in none do we meet with sentimentalism, despondency, or disconsolateness." But with their weird and minor strains, and their odd jumps from low tones to high, on first acquaintance they strike the hearer ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... phrases is repeated before advancing to the next, as often as the singer desires and in proportion to the amount of reverence and awe with which he wishes to impress his hearer. There is usually a brief interval between each of the phrases, and a longer one at the appearance of a vertical line, denoting a rest, or pause. One song may occupy, therefore, from fifteen minutes ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... generally. The sufferer is entirely unaware of all that occurs with him, and screams by no voluntary act on his part. The symptom is purely bodily, and expresses no thought or feeling, good or bad, though it is similar to the scream of terror, and makes the same impression on the uninformed hearer. The muscles are used in the scream of epilepsy, just as the muscles of ordinary movement are used in St. Vitus' Dance, but there is nothing of the mind whatever in the movement. The organ of the mind is unsupplied with vital action, but the organs ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the keynote, and expects his hearer to make out ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the music of the organ, listening intently for one voice among the rest. But in spite of the silence, the confused effect of music was all that reached his ears. In those sweet harmonies defects of execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes into direct communication with the spirit of the hearer, making no demand on the attention, no strain on the power of listening. Intolerable memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find auguries of happiness in the air. During ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... supreme That here upon thy path has risen; I am the artist's highest dream, The ray of light he cannot prison. I am the sweet ecstatic note Than all glad music gladder, clearer, That trembles in the singer's throat, And dies without a human hearer. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... in sentences with a very few words in each of them, but words that sank like hot coals into the soul of his hearer, Mr Brandon explained what he meant. It had been of no use, he said, to try to get out of it; the old woman had him with the grip of a vise. That letter had done it all. He ought to have known that she was not to be frightened, but it was needless to talk ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... expressed in his voice, with the addition of a melodiousness that only tone could give. Although she never had heard him make a speech she knew how even his most commonplace sentence must wing home to the very heart of the hearer. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... delegates attached the same ideas to the words they used. Yet, instead of candidly avowing this root-defect and remedying it, they were content to stretch the euphemistic terms until these covered conflicting conceptions and gratified the ears of every hearer. Thus, "open covenants openly arrived at" came to mean arbitrary ukases issued by a secret conclave, and "the self-determination of peoples" connoted implicit obedience to dictatorial decrees. The new result was a ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... story of Hathawi, the dreamer, which he had come upon in a Hindoo legend. "The Hearer of Truth," was to be the title of the book; and for it Thyrsis was working out a new style. In the original it had been a fanciful tale; but he meant to take it over to the world of everyday reality, to give it the atmosphere of utter verihood. He meant to use a style ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... with overwhelming power, and the whole gamut of emotion, from the subtlest hint or foreshadowing to the fury of inevitable passion, is at the command of him who knows how to wield the means by which expression is carried to the hearer's mind. And in this fact—for a fact it is—lies the completest justification of opera as an art-form. The old-fashioned criticism of opera as such, based on the indisputable fact that, however ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... him! tall and fair, He had a look so tranquil and so mild, That something holy stole upon the sense When he appear'd; his language had such power In converse, that the hearer, as entranced Sate lingering on to listen; while in song, Or skill upon the many-stringed harp Was never heard his equal! Then he knew All our old ballads, all our father's tales, All the adventurous deeds of early times, The punishment of blood or sacrilege, And the reward of virtue, ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... consternation his hearer's hands flew up and covered his face, to hide the blushes that ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... one doctrine as contradictory to another,—"Yes! it is a contradiction in terms; but nevertheless so it is, and both are true, nay, parts of the same truth."—But alas! besides other evils there is this,—that the Gospel is preached in fragments, and what the hearer can recollect of the sum total of these is to be his Christian knowledge and belief. This is a grievous error. First, labour to enlighten the hearer as to the essence of the Christian dispensation, the grounding and pervading idea, and then set it forth in its manifold ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the worth of it. And she was absolute mistress both of that knowledge, and of herself—notwithstanding those outstretched hands, and outcry of childlike pleasure,—there, perhaps, lay the exquisite flattery of this last to her hearer! She was all this, and something more than all this. Something for which Dickie, his heart still virgin, had no name as yet. It was new to his experience. A something clear, simple, and natural, as the sunlight, and yet infinitely subtle. A something ravishing, so that you wanted to draw ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... commit to memory this code of laws by hearing them from the lips of the minister. It is therefore necessary to keep in constant touch with the church service so as to be a continual hearer of these laws, a part of which is ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... Lexil. p. 369: "I translate [Greek: thon nyx] by the quick and fearful night; and if this be once admitted as the established meaning of the Homeric epithet, it will certainly be always intelligible to the hearer and full of expression. 'Night,' says a German proverb, 'is no man's friend;' the dangers which threaten the nightly wanderer are formed into a quick, irritable, hostile goddess. Even the other deities ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... good witnesses. An hundred such instances might be named; but 'tis needless: for surely nothing is more apparently absurd than to make one man's ability in discerning and his veracity in reporting plain facts, depend upon the skill or ignorance of the hearer. And what has the Gentleman said upon this occasion against the resurrection, more than any man who never saw ice might say against an hundred honest witnesses, who assert that water turns ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... the produce of his field; but in almost every age and country it has been regarded as a bird of ill omen, and sometimes even as the herald of death. In France, the cry or hoot is considered as a certain forerunner of misfortune to the hearer. In Tartary, the owl is looked upon in another light, though not valued as it ought to be for its useful destruction of moles, rats, and mice. The natives pay it great respect, because they attribute to this bird the preservation of the founder of their empire, Genghis Khan. That Prince, with his ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... making a hero of himself, reminds me of an old friend of mine, who is fond of telling long stories about fights and quarrels that he has had in his day, and who always makes his hearer his opponent for the time, so as to give effect to what he is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour, when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and you could scarcely ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... complexion, and a lovely form, while she had the further gift of a voice that thrilled the listener and, when she chose, brought tears to every eye. She was, indeed, a natural elocutionist, knowing by instinct all those modulations of tone and varied cadences which go to the hearer's heart. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... had so carefully smothered and crushed out. I would have grieved for him—but that he should send me money, money!—that I have never forgiven; that he shall atone for in his grandchild." The old woman spoke the last words as if in a dream, and without seeming to remember her hearer. Ani shuddered, as if he were in the presence of a mad woman, and he involuntarily drew his chair back a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had ever had depth enough to harbour. It established a new, and more intimate and living relation between the author and his reader,—between the speaker and his audience. There was ever the charm of that secret understanding lending itself to all the effects. It made the reader, or the hearer, participator in the artist's skill, and joint proprietor in the result. The author's own glow must be on his cheek, the author's own flash in his eye, ere that result was possible. The nice point of the skilful pen, the depth of the lurking tone was lost, unless an eye as skilful, or an ear ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... purpose some of the vicious part of her life, which could not be modestly told, is quite left out, and several other parts are very much shortened. What is left 'tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader or the modest hearer; and as the best use is made even of the worst story, the moral 'tis hoped will keep the reader serious, even where the story might incline him to be otherwise. To give the history of a wicked life repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked as the real history ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... performances, except for a tendency to jumble up metaphors, that kept the audience from the Folly just awake enough to watch for them. The hearer was proud who could repeat by heart such phrases as "let us not, beloved brethren, as gaudy insects, flutter out life's little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the intoxicating draught." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flying; sounds resembling laughter, to describe laughter; with a number of other contrivances of a parallel kind, which it is needless here to mention. Now all these I should chuse to style imitation, rather than expression; because it seems to me, that their tendency is rather to fix the hearer's attention on the similitude between the sounds and the things which they describe, and thereby to excite a reflex act of the understanding, than to affect the heart and raise the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... his light, happy voice, talking of everything or nothing, as his hearer might happen to consider it, until suddenly Mr. Dale's attention was caught: Dick began to speak of John Ward. "I thought I'd seen him," he was saying. "The name was familiar, and then when Miss Lois described his looks, and told me where he studied for the ministry, I felt sure of it. If ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... propriety, but much more frequently applied them to feelings and thoughts with which they had no natural connexion whatsoever. A language was thus insensibly produced, differing materially from the real language of men in any situation. The Reader or Hearer of this distorted language found himself in a perturbed and unusual state of mind: when affected by the genuine language of passion he had been in a perturbed and unusual state of mind also: in ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... man seemed to take delight in torturing his hearer by calling up painful memories. Receiving no answer to ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... to die, we were reckless of the how and when—now that the virulence of the disease was mitigated, and it appeared willing to spare some, each was eager to be among the elect, and clung to life with dastard tenacity. Instances of desertion became more frequent; and even murders, which made the hearer sick with horror, where the fear of contagion had armed those nearest in blood against each other. But these smaller and separate tragedies were about to yield to a mightier interest—and, while we were promised calm from infectious influences, a tempest arose ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... speaking, and apprehends it duly. Once, again, is that heard from him when he speaks. There is no second preceptor.[74] It is in obedience to his counsels that action afterwards flows. The instructor, the apprehender, the hearer, and the enemy, are pleased within the heart. By acting sinfully in the world it is he that becomes a person of sinful deeds. By acting auspiciously in the world, it is he who becomes a person of auspicious deeds. It is he who ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... prove to what a stupenduous extent knowledge was power in the dark ages of the earth. The poet who sings the Rune Song in the Havamal does it with every combination of mystery, calculated to inspire awe and wonder in the hearer. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... not impressive in themselves. They are made so in every case by the condition of her hearer's mind; and the idea of the story is obvious, besides being partly stated in the heroine's own words. No man is "great" or "small" in the sight of God—each life being in its own way the centre of creation. Nothing should be "great" or "small" in the sight ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the house Dickie did her best to tell Nurse all she had heard from Andrew; but it was not very clear, and left her hearer in rather a confused state of mind. There was something about a 'ittle gal, and red boots, and a circus, and something that was lost; but whether it was the red boots that were lost, or the little girl, was uncertain. However, Nurse held up her hands at proper intervals ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... for strict exactitude of detail. There was, first, the pleasure of talking about himself; there was, next, the desire to give his career the advantage of a romantic light; and there was, thirdly, the story-teller's natural instinct to hold his hearer spellbound. The little more or the little less could not matter to a man whom he didn't know, in talking about a woman whose name he hadn't given; while, on the other hand, there was the satisfaction, to which the Latin is so sensitive, of showing ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... 'Oh, those eyes—the eyes of a god—of a god of gods.' The aged man seated himself at a small Roman table, and, turning to the Duke without a question, said in a voice unlike any other voice in all the world—steady, but thin, high-pitched, sharp, penetrating and agitating depths within the hearer ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... rather than to their social standing. Place a number of people whose ideas are common, with a difference, around a well-spread table and there will be no lack of good, earnest, instructive conversation. Most men and women can talk well if they have the right sort of listeners. If the hearer is unsympathetic the best talker becomes dumb. Hosts who remember this will always ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... change their meaning with the years and according to the mind and mood of the hearer. A word means all you read into it, and nothing more. The word "soph" once had a high and honorable distinction, but now it is used to point a moral, and the synonym ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... pedantically delivered, probably seemed to Monsieur Roguin so fine that his hearer could not at once understand it. He paused, and looked at Bartolomeo with that peculiar expression of the mere business lawyer, a mixture of servility with familiarity. Accustomed to feign much interest in the persons ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... touches to her aunt's toilet, Madeleine talked gayly. Hers was not one of those bright, silvery voices which make you feel that, could the sounds become visible, they must shine; but there was a rich depth in her tones, which imparted to her lightest words an intonation of feeling, and told the hearer that her vocal chords were in close communication with her heart. Though her countenance did not lack the radiance of youthful gladness, there was so much thought mingled with its brightness that even her mirth conveyed the impression that she ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... in a crack which told of age or misuse, or both together, the lower ran clear and full, and the tune ran on with a rollicking, careless awing which showed that, whoever might cavil, the singer had at least one appreciative hearer—himself! ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... a correction.]would be a notable item; in that of Chopin it counts for little. Whatever the shortcomings of this composition are, the quiet simplicity and sweet melancholy which pervade it must touch the hearer. But the master stands in his own. light; the famous Funeral March in B flat minor, from the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35, composed about ten years later, eclipses the more modest one in C minor. Beside the former, with its sublime force ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... very fond of music," said Aunt Jane, and there was a world of insinuation in her voice. Without a definite word being spoken, the hearer was informed that good music, real music, music worthy the name, was a thing that no sane person would expect to hear at Mrs Willoughby's "At Homes." She was really the most terrifying and disconcerting of old ladies, and Claire heartily repented the impulse which had brought ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... on a couch, her ringed hands clutched into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have convinced any unprejudiced hearer that ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... how others are dropping away from their faithfulness, and see empty places where loving forms used to sit—no wonder that the mood comes ever and anon, 'Then, said I, surely I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought.' The hearer reacts on the speaker quite as much as the speaker does on the hearer. If you have ice in the pews, that brings down the temperature up here. It is hard to be fervid amidst people that are all but dead. It is difficult to keep a fire alight when it is kindled on the top of an iceberg. And the unbelief ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... advance at first slowly, then with a rush, and again haltingly. But for all those who do not consider the even and melodious flow of an address to be its greatest perfection Bismarck's way of speaking is not without some charm. It enables the hearer to follow the mental exertions of the speaker, and thus rivets attention better than many a smooth and sonorous diction which glides along nicely because it has no inner difficulties to overcome. Often Bismarck succeeds in taking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the table. At that moment, apparently from the terrace outside, came a sound of footsteps; and as they listened, every cheek grew suddenly pale, and a shudder crept round the assembly. The silence, however, was broken by a laugh from the young laird himself, who had been the only unmoved hearer of this ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... of that unhappy country at that unhappy period, preeminent in atrocity. It was enacted, in few but emphatic words, that whoever should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend, either as preacher or as hearer, a conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Patti, a Kubelik, a Paderewski, the reflective hearer is struck by the absolute sureness with which such artists arouse certain sensations in their auditors. Moreover, subsequent hearings will reveal the fact that this sensation is aroused always in the same place, and in the same manner. The beauty of the voice may be temporarily ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... of large possessions but very few words. When he did allow his thoughts out they came slowly and in jerks, with lapses at times which the hearer had to fill in as ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... was "like this," and he gave his mustache another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it. His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he had acted uprightly and without blame, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... pertinent. Be yourself. Remember always that it is not so much what you say as the way you say it that will charm your listener. Think clearly. Illustrate and drive home your meaning with illuminating figures—the sort of thing that your hearer will remember and pass on to others as "another of So-and-so's bon-mots." Here you will find that reading the "Wit and Humor" column in newspapers and magazines is a great help. And speak plainly. Remember that unless you are heard you cannot expect to interest. On this point, ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... same ez she allus wos, unless more so," returned Minty, with an honest egotism that carried so much conviction to the hearer as to condone its vanity. "But I kem yer to do a day's work, gals, and I allow to pitch in and do it, and not sit yer swoppin' compliments and keeping HIM from packin' his duds. Onless," she stopped, and looked around at the uneasy, unsympathetic circle ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... oblivion. In how many a lone home, from which the father was long sundered by a soldier's destiny, did the mother labor to perform to their little ones both his duties and her own, having no witness of the extent of her heavy burdens and sleepless anxieties, save the Hearer of prayer. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... hearer's surprise; but giving him no time to reply, she went on in a lower tone:—"You are young and the world is fair before you. Have you considered that before risking yourself ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a rich rhythmic life originating in the changing articulation of the twelve-eights in groups of three and two each. ... This etude is an exceedingly piquant composition, possessing for the hearer a wondrous, fantastic charm, if played with the proper insight." The metronomic marking is practically the same in all editions, 152 to the quarter notes. The study is one of the most charming of the composer. ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... to take a seat on the bench here," continued the captain, whose heart was rejoiced at the thought of so intelligent a hearer, "and I shall try to give you in short outline a picture of that momentous and remarkable battle—if it ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... implying that nothing here needs reforming. And as this doctrine of "Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou," was of course received with general applause by a British audience, the vices of speaker and hearer reaected on each other; and, judging from the specimens I had that evening, I must regard American, and especially Afric-American lecturers against Slavery in this country as among the most effective upholders of all the enormous Political abuses ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... poet himself; secondly, the insertion of accidental circumstances, in order to the full explanation of his living characters, their dispositions and actions; which circumstances might be necessary to establish the probability of a statement in real life, when nothing is taken for granted by the hearer; but appear superfluous in poetry, where the reader is willing to believe for his ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and most earnestly besought help that "her little rushlight might shine bright." Prayer was to little Ellen what it is to all that know it the satisfying of doubt, the soothing of care, the quieting of trouble. She had knelt down very uneasy; but she knew that God has promised to be the hearer of prayer, and she rose up very comforted, her mind fixing on those most sweet words Alice had brought to her memory "Fear not, only believe." When Miss Fortune returned, Ellen was quietly asleep again in her rocking-chair, with a face ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... images, collected from innumerable objects, and their different qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common notion in a strange but becoming garb, by which, as before observed, the same thought will appear a new one, to the great delight and wonder of the hearer. What we call genius results from this particular happy complexion in the first formation of the person that enjoys it, and is Nature's gift, but diversified by various specific characters and limitations, as its active fire is blended ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... captures the refined mind, while slang only holds captive the coarse mind. In a plain and intended to be truthful statement of any occurrence, the injection of three or four adjectives will change the whole tenor of narration, and give it a vraisemblance of untruth which it is hard for the hearer's mind to erase. As a matter of fact, an adjective ought to be a thought, not a word. A fact should be stated without embroidery, and we should think whether it is beautiful, lovely, and the like. There are many thoughts ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... of faithful preaching, and of an honest hearer! This illustration of true penitence, which is given in the picture at the beginning of this history of the kings, suggests a good story of modern date. Jacob, an intelligent negro, was bribed and intoxicated to make him commit murder. He was convicted ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... beads, brushed, as she walked, the dew from the flowers upon the prairies. Her temper was soft and placable, and her voice—what is so sweet as the voice of an Indian maiden when tuned to gladness! what so moves the hearer to grief and melancholy by its tones of sorrow and anguish! Our brother has heard them—let him say if the birds of his own forests, the dove of his nest, have sweeter notes than those he hears warbled in the cabin of the red man. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... words repeated only to expose the vice, taint the reader more than a sermon preached against lewdness should the assembly?—for of necessity it leads the hearer to the thoughts of the fact. But the morality of every action lies in the end; and if the reader by ill-use renders himself guilty of the fact in reading, which I designed to expose by writing, the fault ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... applicable to the matter, with the exception of some very general leading principles, such as—to take an example—that the gesture must not follow the word, but rather come immediately before it, by way of announcing its approach and attracting the hearer's attention. ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... brought to two reflections, one on the function and aim of the preacher, the other the duty of the hearer of God's word. The preacher—and the same might be said of every master in such a society as this—the preacher has to think of himself primarily and chiefly as a servant of Christ charged with the duty of sowing ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... about the comparative genius and merits of all modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the subject of poetry, where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only, humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... 'Pop' o' Rom',' in whom with a rare liberality she took the kindest interest, always praying God to give him a good wife, though she knew perfectly well the marriage-creed of the priesthood, for her faith in the hearer of prayer scorned every theory but that in which she had herself been born and bred, she turned to Robert with the usual 'Noo, Robert!' and Robert began. But after he had gone on for some time with the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... without any interruption from Tremayne for nearly an hour, drawing the parallel of the two lives before him with absolute fidelity, neither omitting nor justifying anything, and his wondering hearer had listened to him in silence, unable to speak for the crowding emotions which were swarming through his brain. At ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... passionate love in a lady's heart before marriage was contrary to her notions of etiquette. Josephine loved Rose very tenderly; but shrank with modest delicacy from making her a confidante of feelings, the bare relation of which leaves the female hearer a child ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... personal calamity. On the following Sunday the congregation met in Chapin's Hall. His heart was evidently full of grief; but also of submission. His fine enunciation, correct emphasis, and strong yet suppressed feelings, secured the earnest attention of every hearer. He touched graphically upon the power of fire; how it fractures the rock, softens obdurate metals, envelopes the prairies in flame, and how it seized upon the seats, ceiling and roof in his darling house of worship, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... wrote, "was a dawn wherein it was bliss to be alive. The air was full of noteworthy work done by the older men of the place and of hopes that one might find a way to get a little working power one's self. One longed to be a doer of the word, not a hearer only, a creator of his own infinitesimal fraction of the product, bound in God's name to ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... when the exact vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is unsatisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not embraced in the oral apparatus. The command of a copious vocabulary common to both speaker and hearer undoubtedly tends to a phlegmatic delivery and disdain of subsidiary aid. An excited speaker will, however, generally make a free use of his hands without regard to any effect of that use upon auditors. Even among the gesture-hating English, when they are aroused ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... a sense of chill stupor in the audience, such as overcame her as the lines flowed on, sometimes long and sometimes short, but always delivered with the same lilt of voice, which seemed to nail each line firmly on to the same spot in the hearer's brain. Still, she reflected, these sorts of skill are almost exclusively masculine; women neither practice them nor know how to value them; and one's husband's proficiency in this direction might ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... principle, and no modern composer has dreamed of denying its validity. The only question is whether or not such admirable results have been attained by M. Debussy; whether his music sweetens or intensifies or vitalizes the play. That question must be answered by the individual hearer. No one should be ashamed to proclaim his pleasure in four hours of uninterrupted, musically inflected speech over a substratum of shifting harmonies, each with its individual tang and instrumental color; but neither should anybody be afraid ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... His tone is incomparable,—not powerfully or deeply affecting, but of enchanting sweetness. The infallible correctness of the player contributes greatly to the enjoyment. The moment the bow touches the Stradivarius a stream of beautiful sound flows toward the hearer. A pure tone seems to me the prime quality of violin playing—unfortunately, also, it is a rare quality. Sarasate's virtuosity shines and pleases and surprises the audience continually. He is distinguished, not because he plays great difficulties, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... in their salvation and bless them for it. On reformation also, let them every Sabbath preach, but only on the reformation that rises out of a reformed motive, and that again out of a reformed heart. And if a reformed motive, a reformed heart, and a reformed life are found both by preacher and hearer to be impossible; if all that only brings out the hopelessness of their salvation by reason of the guilt and the pollution and power of sin; then all that will only be to them that same ever deeper entering of the law into their hearts which led Paul to an ever deeper faith and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... whole service, however, is the sermon; and these sermons are characteristic of the man. They come warm and fresh from his heart, and they go home to the hearer, giving him food for thought for days afterward. To attempt to describe his manner would be to paint the sunbeam. Eloquence can be felt, but it can not be described. He enchains the attention of his auditors from the first, and they hang upon his utterances with rapt eagerness until ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... recounting of some experience that he has found interesting, awaken in the mind of a sympathetic hearer a desire to go forth and acquire a similar experience, then indeed may he regard himself as a worthy disciple of the immortal Pestalozzi. Let the teacher who would instruct pupils in bird-study first acquire, therefore, that love for ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... her address struck every hearer with surprise, contrasting as it did, with the unchanging coldness of her look; but the matter was a source of serious concern to her uncle. He regarded her with an air of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... of the things expressed by that language. No matter how chaste his words, how lofty his phrases, how sweet the intonations, or mellow the accents. It would avail him nothing if ideas were not represented thereby. It would all be an unknown tongue to the hearer or reader. It would not be like the loud rolling thunder, for that tells the wondrous power of God. It would not be like the soft zephyrs of evening, the radiance of the sun, the twinkling of the stars; for ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... no passion until he has aroused passion in the hearer—oratory is a collaboration. The orator is the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... countenance on which every eye loved to dwell, should not be wholly lost when the grave should close above it. He loved to talk of interesting cases of reform and recovery, both because those things occupied his mind, and because every one loved to hear him; but the hearer who made these disclosures the occasion for unmeaning compliment, as if he fancied a craving vanity to have prompted them, soon found himself rebuked by the straightforward and plain-spoken patriarch. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Presented in the light of Mrs. Trenor's vigorous comments, the reckoning was certainly a formidable one, and Lily, as she listened, found herself gradually reverting to her friend's view of the situation. Mrs. Trenor's words were moreover emphasized for her hearer by anxieties which she herself could scarcely guess. Affluence, unless stimulated by a keen imagination, forms but the vaguest notion of the practical strain of poverty. Judy knew it must be "horrid" for poor Lily to have to stop to consider ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... or falsehood. If you are in doubt you can have no faith, for faith excludes doubt, and in that state you displease God, for "without faith it is impossible to please God."(129) Faith and infallibility must go hand in hand. The one cannot exist without the other. There can be no faith in the hearer unless there is unerring authority in the speaker—an authority founded upon such certain knowledge as precludes the possibility of falling into error on his part, and including such unquestioned veracity as to prevent his deceiving him who ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... I thought and felt, so have I written. Of all poetical compositions, songs, especially those of the affections, should be natural, warm gushes of feeling—brief, simple, and condensed. As soon as they have left the singer's lips, they should be fast around the hearer's heart." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... consider your university as an educational institution and nothing else. If a foreigner desires to know something of the methods of our universities, he asks first of all with emphasis: 'How is the student connected with the university?' We answer: 'By the ear, as a hearer.' The foreigner is astonished. 'Only by the ear?' he repeats. 'Only by the ear,' we again reply. The student hears. When he speaks, when he sees, when he is in the company of his companions when he takes up some branch of art: in short, when he lives he is ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... has its difficulties. But Erhardt expresses the proper state of the case, after giving his analysis. "The hearer's imagination is so captured, first by the dream, then by the brawling assembly, by the rush to the ships, by the intervention of Odysseus, by the punishment of Thersites—all these living pictures follow each other so fleetly before the eyes that we have scarcely time to make objections." ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... that expression of the passions which should raise the same in the hearer, whether of joy, affliction, tenderness, or pity, can never have its effect without marking and adopting the respective sounds of each passion as ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... God were then seen in his sanctuary. God's day was a delight, and his tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God's service, every one intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached, some weeping with sorrow and distress, others ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... roused himself to talk briefly to her, and noticed then a blunt directness in her speech that would have appalled an ordinary hearer. It was her habit and choice to say nothing, but if pushed to the wall what was there that she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more than that individual cared to show. Redmond felt it was useless to offer mere conventional sympathy in a case like this. He did the next best thing possible—he remained silently attentive and let the ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... now reached. The obvious sequel would be a counter-development of the fugue, at least as long as what has gone before, as in the clavier-toccata in C minor; but Bach does not choose to weary the hearer and weaken the impression of breadth he has already made here. Instead, he expands this restatement of the introduction, and makes its harmonies deliberately return to the fundamental key, and thus ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... announced his intention of never doing that which a moment before he was determined on, was not without an amount of oratorical art, since the turn in his view of the subject was led up to by a variety of reasons which were supposed to convince himself and his hearer at the same time. His remarks were all the more effective because there was an evident substratum of stern truth beneath them. But they failed to make much impression on Smith, who saw his companion ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... adhere to truth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it, while I retain in my mind the lectures and example of my noble master and the other illustrious Houyhnhnms of whom I had so long the honour to be an humble hearer. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... also, of either rumbling bass or shrill treble whose trembling modulations betrayed the advanced age of the performers, were here and there heard. Some of these guerrilla passages were sadly out of time and tune, and according to the humor of the hearer might either provoke a smile or start a tear. The gay and thoughtless might, indeed, laugh at the wavering and undecided notes, but to the reflecting mind there was something profoundly pathetic in ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... hearer would have detected a note of condescension in the last sentence. Hannah detected it, for the announcement that the young man had returned from the Cape froze all her nascent sympathy. She was turned to ice again. Hannah knew him well—the young man from ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... evasive in the whole fabric. The assumptions we are invited to form give way one after another. Leicester Square proves the "Residenz," the "bud-mouthed arbitress" a shadowy memory, the discourse to a friendly and flattered hearer a midnight meditation. And there is a like fluctuation of mood. Now he is formally justifying his past, now musing, half wistfully, half ironically, over all that he might have been and was not. At the outset we see him complacently enough intrenched within a strong position, that of the consistent ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... until the speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,—this man he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his own temerity, he watched the agitated face of his hearer and waited in painful suspense for the reply. At last, in a very subdued manner and in his kindest tones of voice, he said, "Brother May, I acknowledge the justice of your reproof; I have ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... left him to sleep off the effects, while his poor little wife watched by his side. When left quite alone, she went down on her knees beside him, and prayed for his deliverance with all her heart. Then she rose and sat down with a calm, contented look, muttering, "Yes; He is the hearer and answerer of prayer. ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a great desire to hear it and, if possible, to prove more than simply a hearer. Briefly, it ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... breaking or in any way injuring certain trees. The sakaki tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shint[o] services. To wound or defile a tree sacred to a particular god was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deity upon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guilt was imputed and punishment ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... carried on. Large companies are sitting on the ground or on the tombstones, eating and drinking in quiet enjoyment. We see a number of swings laden with men and children; on this side we hear the squeaking of a bagpipe, on that the sound of a pipe and drum, uttering such dismal music that the hearer instinctively puts a finger into each ear. To this music a real bear's dance is going on. Six or eight fellows stand in a half circle round the musician, and two leaders of these light-toed clodhoppers continually wave their handkerchiefs in the air as they stamp slowly and heavily ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... dead bodies that have been buried for many years; but, I beseech you, let no one believe that for these or the like works I am to be at all equalled with the Apostles, or with any perfect man, since I am humble and a sinner, and worthy only to be despised." Now, let the hearer admire to what a point of perfection this man had raised his mind, who, working so many and so great works, yet thought so humbly of himself. And I truly admire in the saint his extreme humility, beyond even his raising up ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... righteousness. [1:21]Wherefore, laying aside all filthiness and abounding vice, receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. [1:22]But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. [1:23]For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man perceiving his natural face in a glass; [1:24]for he perceived himself, and went away, and immediately forgot what kind of a man he was. [1:25]But he ...
— The New Testament • Various
... playfully to retort, but John restrained her, and when she contrived to utter something absurdly complimentary of her husband he was her only hearer. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... full of tree-frogs, small lizards, and other creatures. Walter stood by watching him, as with scientific skill he dissected the huge lizard, discoursing as he did so in technical language, which was perfectly incomprehensible to his young hearer, on the curious formation of the creature,—on its bones, muscles, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... easy, earnest eloquence, and a force of emphasis, that made each word tell with proper effect upon his fair hearer. To Ella the ideas he advanced were, many of them, entirely new; and she mused thoughtfully upon them, as they rode along, without reply; while he, becoming warm upon a subject that evidently occupied no inferior place in his mind, went on to speak of the ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... twang of some savage music broke upon his ear, and roused him from his reverie. The wild scream and fitful burst of a highland pibroch is certainly not the most likely thing in nature to allay the irritable and ruffled feelings of an irascible person—unless, perhaps, the hearer eschew breeches. So thought the viscomte. He started hurriedly up, and straight before him, upon the gravel-walk, beheld the stalwart figure and bony frame of an old highlander, blowing, with all his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... be the primary object in Audible reading? To convey to the hearer the ideas and sentiments ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... not suppose so. He sidled to the door, cap in hand. The clergyman said no more. He was one of those sensitive men who often know instinctively whether or not their words find response in the heart of the hearer, and to whom it is always a pain to say anything, even the most trivial, which awakes no ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... nothing can take from him who remains the witchery of that most winning presence. Still it looks smiling from the platform of the car, and casts a farewell of mock heartbreak from it. Still a gay laugh comes across the abysm of the years that are now numbered, and out of somewhere the hearer's sense is rapt with the mellow cordial of a voice that was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Doomed! Doomed! They call us Negroes, my son, and everybody knows what that means!" Her tones of despair moved every hearer. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... opposing the Whiteites. This I civilly declined; telling them, at the same time, that it was my intention and my earnest wish to avoid all interference in the pending controversy; that I was perfectly indifferent to which of the candidates the church was given, and would be very glad to become a hearer of either of them; that, in short, I wished to make myself no enemies on ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... times, but until seventy times seven." [197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198] with more development, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... had hung dauntlessly on. He had seen one concession slipping through his fingers, only to strain and tighten them for a clutch at another. It did not surprise his hearer—nor indeed did it particularly attract her attention—that there was nowhere in this rapid and comprehensive narrative any allusion to industry of the wage-earning sort. Apparently, he had done no work at all, in the bread-winner's sense ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... perhaps an increase of his usual nervous manner. One spoke to him by the way. He expressed his sorrow the action had been forced on him. "Poor people, it's all the worse for them!" he said. "It'll have to be done another way now." And it was supposed by his hearer that he referred to intervention from the German war-ships. He meant, he said, to put a stop to head-hunting; his men had taken two that day, he added, but he had not suffered them to bring them in, and they had been left in Tanungamanono. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... illustrator of books and magazines. Among his juvenile books, illustrated by himself, were Nonsense Songs and More Nonsense Songs. All his verse is now generally published under the first title. Good nonsense verse precludes explanation, the mind of the hearer being too busy with the delightfully odd combinations to figure on how ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... belongs to all ranks and all countries, which emulate each other in describing the rambles of a disguised sovereign, who, going in search of information or amusement, into the lower ranks of life, meets with adventures diverting to the reader or hearer, from the contrast betwixt the monarch's outward appearance, and his real character. The Eastern tale-teller has for his theme the disguised expeditions of Haroun Alraschid with his faithful attendants, Mesrour and Giafar, through the midnight streets of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... that the bride is the chief speaker in Sections I., II., and is much occupied with herself; but in Section III., where the communion is unbroken, she has little to say, and appears as the hearer; the daughters of Jerusalem give a long address, and the Bridegroom His longest. In that section for the first time He calls her His bride, and allures her to fellowship in service. In Section IV. the bride again is the chief speaker, but after her restoration the Bridegroom ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... pale and her voice trembled as she replied, like one who sought to convince herself rather than her hearer, "That is not positive proof, Henry, Gascoyne may have had some good reason for deceiving you all in this way. His description of the pirate may have been a false one. We cannot tell. You know he was anxious to prevent Captain ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... fair winds and fine weather, which just pleased the old fellow. If anyone wanted an attentive listener let him broach the subject of ships and the sea, and he would at once have my dad as a most appreciative hearer. Shipwrecks and disasters at sea on the East Coast are, unfortunately, of only too frequent occurrence, and a large volume might be written of the daring deeds that have been performed in connection with them, which have come under my ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... he says; hearts are fickle and fell. Take care what you say. A false friend may hear it, and after a year or two will repeat it. Hasty speech hurts hearer and speaker. In the beginning, think on the end. You tell a man a secret, and he'll betray it for a drink of wine. Mind what you say. Avoid backbiting and flattering; refrain from malice, and bragging. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... amongst his people, as his predecessors had been wont to do; he was only to be seen shut up with a few favorites in a little painted boat which went up and down the Saone he no longer took his meals without a balustrade, which did not allow him to be approached any Hearer; and if anybody had any petitions to present to him, they had to wait for him as he came out from dinner, when he took them as he hurried by. For the greater part of the day he remained closeted with some young folks, who ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fettered by the opinions of his colleagues, the general result did not disappoint the hopes that had been formed. Political associations and clubs took vigorous root in the country. The magic of Kossuth's oratory left every hearer a more patriotic, if not a wiser man; and an awakening passion for the public good seemed for a while to throw all private interests into ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the power of gravely narrating a fact with such peculiar significance, that the very reverse of it was conveyed to the hearer; for the fellow was a perfect master ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and conscientious prelate who dared to rebuke his sin. When has such a thing happened in modern times? Bossuet had the courage to dictate, in the royal chapel, the duties of a king, and Bourdaloue once ventured to reprove his royal hearer for an outrageous scandal. These instances of priestly boldness and fidelity are cited as remarkable. And they were remarkable, when we consider what an egotistical, haughty, exacting, voluptuous monarch Louis XIV. was,—a monarch who killed Racine ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... of electricity is thus induced, pulsates along the wire to the other end, and is delivered to the metallic disk of the second instrument, many miles away, just as it was produced in the first. The ear of the hearer receives from the second instrument the exact physical equivalent of the sound, or sounds, which were delivered against the disk of the first instrument, and thus the utterance is received at a distance just as it ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... which so much depended. Here, when no one else remained in the weary darkness of night and the half light of stormy days Old Mok beguiled the time with stories, and sometimes in a hoarse voice even attempted to chant to his little hearer snatches of the wild singing tales of the Shell People, for the Shell People had a sort of ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... get preferment, or even to keep his curacy in the established church, formed a new conventicle, which he called an Oratory. There, at set times, he delivereth strange speeches, compiled by himself and his associates, who share the profit with him. Every hearer payeth a shilling each day for admittance. He is an absolute ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... and loudly as he often used technical expressions, as if he wished his hearer to understand that they were used ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And the women here speak it in its highest purity; for instance, teach one of your young ladies at home to pronounce the 'Whoar wull I gong?' with a becoming widening of mouth, and I'll lay my life they'll wound every hearer. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... imposing gentleman with perfectly white hair, who indicated the points of interest in a picture with a heavy stick made of a narwhale's ivory horn. He was describing minutely and realistically the sufferings of a virgin martyr, and his chief hearer followed what he ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Cheltenham. He described his methods of work, his registering of the package, his suspense, his growing resignation. He sketched the progress of his life. He spoke of Audrey and gave a crisp character-sketch of Mr Sheppherd. He took his hearer right up to the moment when the truth had come ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... persons who think there is a dignity in complaining; and, if you ask how they do, reply, "Why, I am pretty well to-day; but if you knew what I suffered yesterday!" Now methinks nobody has a right to tax another for pity on what is past; and besides, complaint of what is over can only make the hearer glad you are in pain no longer. Yes, yes, my dear Madam, you generally place your pity so profitably, that YOU shall not waste a drop upon me, who ought rather to be congratulated on being so well ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... evident intention was to impress the hearer with the fact that the object of the divine advent on earth was the passion of our Lord. At the close of the work the same chorale appears, but it has another meaning. It is there an exultant expression of Christ's victory over sin and death. As the chorale dies away, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... his spiritual influence like a strong dark stream that swept down the hearer—hopelessly struggling to keep his head above the torrent, and dreading to be overwhelmed at the next word. Father Phil's religion bubbled out like a mountain rill—bright, musical, and refreshing. Father Dominick's people had decidedly need of cork jackets; Father ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... that's very kind," said Mr. Prendergast; but the sarcasm was altogether lost upon his hearer. "Some lawyers, as I was saying, would in such a case have advised their clients to keep all their suspicions, nay all their knowledge, to themselves. Why play the game of an adversary? they would ask. But I have thought it better that ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... damned." Here preaching the "gospel," the truths of God's word, is placed foremost in the list of instrumentalities, and baptism is only appended as a rite to be performed after the Holy Spirit, through the preached word, has wrought faith in the hearer's soul. But faith presupposes regeneration. Hence, as truth is the instrumentality employed by the Holy Spirit in the production of regeneration, and faith, as baptism is to be added after the great moral change, conversion has been effected in adults, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... good talker. His resources were at his command. His style was agreeable, his argument clear, his positions reasonable, and yet his influence was extremely limited. His experience as a lawyer was the same, substantially. He was not capable of carrying the mind of the hearer to conclusions from which there ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... you are doubtless aware, sir"—he was always scrupulous to assume knowledge on the part of his hearer, no matter how abstruse or technical the subject; it was a phase of his inherent courtesy—"was intended to represent not the cuckoo, but the blackbird. It had a double pipe for the hours, 'Pit-weep! Pit-weep!' and ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... about you. At first I blocked and side-stepped all his questions, but he kep' on at me, an' at last I—I give you away, Geoff—" Here Spike paused breathlessly and cast an apprehensive glance toward his hearer, but finding him silent and serene ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... mechanism and restraint. It is program music of the most legitimate sort, in full accord with Beethoven's canon, "Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei." It has no aim of imitating springtime noises, but seeks to stimulate by suggestion the hearer's creative imagination, and provoke by a musical telepathy the emotions that swayed the ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... eye; it almost spoke, it perpetually flashed, and it filled up the pauses when she ceased to speak, with a meaning absolutely mental. Her language was animated and intelligent; sometimes in a tone of gentle and touching confidence, which made the hearer almost think that he was looking at her soul through her vivid countenance. Before a few minutes had elapsed, I could fully comprehend her title to the renown of the most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... some risk to gain a real advantage," Blondel retorted, correcting him with an eye to Fabri; whom alone, as the one impartial hearer, he feared. "For to what does the course which you are so eager to take amount? You seize Basterga: later, you will release him at the Grand Duke's request. What are we the better? What ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... belief of the Christians in the universal power of Almighty God, and the victory of His Son Jesus Christ over the devil and all his angels. And he was grieved, also, that his kind and anxious young teacher should regard him as an ungrateful, and, possibly, even as a deceitful hearer. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... floating round the tower. There was no great art in her performance; but Antonio thought he had never heard music comparable to this. It was perfect witchcraft to hear her warble forth some of her national melodies; those little Spanish romances and Moorish ballads, that transport the hearer, in idea, to the banks of the Guadalquivir, or the walls of the Alhambra, and make him dream of beauties, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... churches,* [footnote... In the reign of James II. of England and James VII. of Scotland a law was enacted, "that whoever should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend, either as a preacher or as a hearer, a conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and confiscation of property." ...] and they accordingly met on the moors, or in unfrequented places for worship. The dissenting Presbyterians assumed the name of Covenanters. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth |
