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More "Talker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this good-humored talker sat within hearing. Happily, too, it was now—April 4—the height of the season for flowering dogwood, pink azalea, fringe-bushes, Cherokee roses, and water lilies. All these had blossomed abundantly, and mile after mile the wilderness ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... something about her just starts him off, and before I know it I am doing what I wouldn't think of doing if she were not around. She is perfectly furious with me, and I must say her manners, if they are Southern, could be improved. At best she is not much of a talker, I have been told; but since I arrived her little mouth has been shut so tight that I wonder how she breathes; and if she has spoken a dozen words to me since the night I came, they were too between-the-teethy for me to hear. I didn't want ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... the very foundation of all good conversation. Good speech consists as much in listening politely as in talking agreeably. Someone has said, very wisely, "A talker who monopolizes the conversation is by common consent insufferable, and a man who regulates his choice of topics by reference to what interests not his hearers but himself has yet to learn the alphabet of the art." To be agreeable in conversation, one must first learn the law of talking just enough, ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... in the details of military operations. His recollections crowd upon him; he does not marshal them by power of intellect, but abandons himself to the delights of memory. He is a frank, amiable, spirited talker, who has much to tell; he succeeds in giving us two admirable portraits—his own and that of the King; and unconsciously he conveys into his narrative both the chivalric spirit of his time, and a sense of those prosaic realities ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... thought her vulgar, for she rouged her cheeks, laughed out heartily and frequently, and wore colors and fashions ill-suited to her age and size, with jewels enough for a court-ball. But she was full of life and spirit, warm-hearted, invariably cheerful, an amusing and fluent talker, and musical to the ends of her be-ringed fingers and the ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... Starkes' little farm-house tired her. It was such a sluggish life of nothings, she thought,—even when Jane had brought her chair close to the window where the sunshine came in broadest and clearest through the buttonwood-leaves. Jane saw the look, and it troubled her. She was not much of a talker, only when with her husband, so there was no use of trying that. She put a little table beside the window and a white cloth on it, and then brought a saucer of crimson strawberries and yellow cream; but the lady was no eater, she was sorry to see. She stood a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... Sawyer, of Wisconsin. It was in the Senate that I served with him, and came to have for him a very great respect. He was not very well educated, not a lawyer nor an orator, and excepting in a conversational way, not regarded as a talker; yet he was an uncommonly effective man in business as well as in politics, and was once or twice invited to become chairman ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... they are concerned, are only important in relation to themselves, as revealing to us by reflection two uncommonly "human" human beings, whom it is impossible to mistake for any one else; just as we enjoy the society of some whimsical talker among our living friends, valuing him not so much for what he says, but for the way he says it, and because it is he, and no ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... subject of their conversation, who stood talking to Katie in the most absorbed way. Lady Dacre comprehended the reason of Bulchester's present bitterness. But neither imagined that it was the conversation, and not the talker, that was interesting Edmonson. The girl was telling him bits of family history which he professed with truth to find fascinating. He was watching her, listening, smiling with his brightest look, speaking a word or two occasionally to draw forth more information, and Katie, sure that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... best of our talkers cannot, on our present materials, be contested. For the most part we have only talk about other talkers. Johnson's is matter of record. Carlyle no doubt was a great talker—no man talked against talk or broke silence to praise it more eloquently than he, but unfortunately none of it is in evidence. All that is given us is a sort of Commination Service writ large. We soon weary of it. Man does not live by ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... eyes had an uneasy look as though they wanted to rest on something that should be less hard and real than what they saw. He was not handsome; his mouth was a little sensual; his yellowish beard was ragged. He was apt to be silent until his shyness wore off, when he became a rapid, nervous talker, full of theories and schemes, which he changed from one day to another, but which were always quite complete and convincing for the moment. At times he had long fits of moodiness and would not open his mouth for days. At other times he sought society and sat up all night talking, planning, ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Laura upstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with the Sunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing an intense curiosity ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... act so, we women: where the dearie is looking, there we also look; what the dearie sees, that we also see ... I didn't believe at soul in his work, but I went. A flattering man he was; smart, a good talker, a good looker ... Only he proved to be a skunk and a traitor afterwards. He played at revolution; while he himself gave his comrades away to the gendarmes. A stool-pigeon, he was. When they had killed and shown him up, then all the foolishness left me. However, it was necessary to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... in Bedford, as he was at work in his calling, he fell in with three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun talking about the things of God.' He was himself at that time 'a brisk talker' about the matters of religion, and he joined these women. Their expressions were wholly unintelligible to him. 'They were speaking of the wretchedness of their own hearts, of their unbelief, of their ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... no right to say a word," he replied, sinking his voice. "If they thought I was a talker, mebbe they'd be falling upon me wi' sticks; but you've always been a kind and civil young gentleman to me, so I will tell you as Gentles says he means to pay you when he gets ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... last sentence Pitt administered a telling and dignified rebuke for the outrageous behaviour of the King at the levee. A reply came on the morrow, couched in pompously ungrammatical terms, which sufficiently refute the rumour that it was composed by that polished talker, Loughborough. George declared that his Oath bound him to support the Established Church; that State officials must be in active communion with that Church. He therefore refused to discuss the present proposals, which tended to destroy the groundwork ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... into something of a habit of recalling for my benefit certain passages and experiences of her past life. In doing this, there was no suggestion of confidence; and I am breaking no faith in alluding to them. She was a fine talker—rugged, unpicturesque, but with an instinctive capacity of selection in words. If I quote her, as I wish to do, I cannot reproduce her style; and that, no doubt, would appear bald on paper. But, at least, the matter is all ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... and eventually brings him to the grave by a device that startles the reader by its cold-blooded, calculating cruelty. Surely no novelists outside of Russia have drawn such evil women. The hero, Romashov, is once more the typical Russian whom we have met in every Russian novelist, a talker, a dreamer, with high ideals, harmlessly sympathetic, and without one grain of resolution or will-power. He spends all his time in aspirations, sighs, and tears—and never by any chance accomplishes anything. The author's mouthpiece ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... becoming. He spoke hurried, elliptical English, and very good French. All his sympathies were French rather than German—the Czecks lean to the one culture or to the other. I found him a fierce, a transfixing talker. His brilliant eyes, his gaunt hands, his white, deeply-lined forehead, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... talker, rarely silent. Too much devoted to divination, so much so as in this particular to equal the emperor Adrian. He was rather a superstitious than a legitimate observer of sacred rites, sacrificing countless numbers of victims; so that it was reckoned that if he had ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... it brought him not any esteem, so that he was of no value either at home or abroad. We mentioned Rob Roy, and the eyes of all glistened; even the lady of the house, who was very diffident, and no great talker, exclaimed, 'He was a good man, Rob Roy! he had been dead only about eighty years, had lived in the next farm, which belonged to him, and there his bones were laid.' {93} He was a famous swordsman. Having an arm much longer ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... "Friend Algarotti, charming talker, attended him; who else, official and non-official, ask not. The Journey is to be circuitous; to combine various businesses, and also to have its amusements. They went by Custrin; glancing at old known Country, which is at its greenest in this season. By Custrin, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the Nor'westers' post by surprise. His raid was successful. The field-pieces and the property of the colonists which had been carried away in June were recovered. {85} Cameron himself was made a prisoner. But he was not held long. The man was a born actor and a smooth talker. In all seeming humility he now made specious promises of future good behaviour, and was allowed ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... "Well, if you see a tall chap and a short thick-set fellow anywhere nail 'em for us. Old criminals with long records. They've been enjoying themselves up our way. The tall one doesn't say much, but the little chap is a smooth talker—can talk himself right out of jail if you ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... short, very dry, and, when I wished to enlighten justice with some wise observations, a certain insolent fashion of saying, "Don't make phrases," so much the more wounding at my age and with my reputation of a good talker; also we were not alone in his office. A clerk seated near me was writing down my deposition, and behind I heard the noise of great leaves turning. The judge asked me all sorts of questions about the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... fond of writing and of public speaking," said Emerson, "I am a very poor talker, and for the most part prefer silence"; and he went on to compare himself in this respect with Alcott, "the prince of conversers." Alcott was undoubtedly the prince of fluency, and Emerson rarely, in private dialogue, ventured to string together many consecutive sentences; but the things he ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... who was between nineteen and twenty years of age, drew upon herself everybody's attention by her over-strained and unnatural manners. A great talker, with a memory crammed with maxims and precepts often without sense, but of which she loved to make a show, very devout, and so jealous of her husband that she did not conceal her vexation when he expressed his satisfaction at being seated at table opposite ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... from his hobby he was an intelligent talker, and told me much that was interesting about Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, and the Spanish Main. He had several books on the subject which I greedily devoured. The expedition of Piedro de Ursua and Lope de Aguirre in ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... Sioux with his family, to open a store. He soon became a warm friend of Judge Flandrau who urged him to study law with him. He was made County Auditor and in his spare time studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was much beloved by all, a sparkling talker—his word as good as his bond. He had never been well and as time went on, gradually grew weaker. His house was a little more than a block from his office, but it soon became more than he could do to walk that distance. On the common, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... so, why doesn't he go to work?" And without waiting for an answer he dodged quickly inside his house. He was building an addition to his home; and naturally he was quite busy. He knew, too, that Mrs. Ladybug was a terrible talker. ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... been thinking, perhaps, that it was I,—I, the Poet, who was the chief talker in the one-sided dialogue to which you have been listening. If so, you were mistaken. It was the old man in the spectacles with large round glasses and the iron-gray hair. He does a good deal of the talking at our table, and, to tell the truth, I rather like to hear him. He stirs me up, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit, and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the mind that the guests of the Prince Regent might be easily inclined to discover genuine wit ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... squirrels hid their acorns, How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 155 Why the rabbit was so timid, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers." Then Iagoo, the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, 160 He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, 165 Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he made of deer-skin. Then he said to Hiawatha: ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and relatives of her daughter, two or three respectable housewives, talkative neighbors, quick of wit and strict guardians of ancient customs. Next she chose a dozen stout fellows, her relatives and friends; and last of all the parish hemp-dresser, a garrulous old man, and as good a talker as ever ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... great friendship with Miss Murray, the Queen's Maid of Honor, who paid me a visit of three hours to-day, in the midst of which came in Colonel Estcourt, whom I was delighted to see, as you may suppose. Miss Murray is to me a very interesting person, though a great talker; a convenient fault to a stranger. She is connected with half the noble families in England, is the grand-daughter of the Duchess of Athol, who governed the Isle of Man as a queen, and the descendant of Scott's Countess ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... man and a good talker, and as we rode along he gave us in detail the history of the rise of the Ghost Dance, so far as the Sioux were concerned. "There was nothing war-like about it," he insisted. "It was a religious appeal. It was a prayer to the Great Spirit ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... to be recognized, to be admired; and a large part of their ceaseless chatter is no more nor less than a surface device to call your attention to them; as little children continually pull your gown to make you look at them. Hetty was incapable of this. She was a vivacious talker when she had any thing to say; but a most dogged holder of her tongue when she had not. In this instance she had nothing to say, and she did not speak: the doctor had so much to say that he did not speak, and they sat in silence till the shrill bell from the farm-house door called them to dinner. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... light in that dull eighteenth century, a spot of light surrounded by the halo of glory of the devotion which he inspired and the enthusiasm which he left behind him. We feel, in a way, grateful to him almost as we might feel grateful to a clever talker, a beautiful woman, a bright day, as to something pleasing and enlivening to our fancy. But the brilliant effect which has pleased us is like some gorgeous pageant connected with the worship of a stupid and ferocious divinity; nay, rather, if we let our thoughts dwell upon ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... glance at his hostess' face and then repeated slowly, "Yes'm, dat sutny is de trufe. I ain't nevah t'ought o' that befo'. Hit ain't no ha'dah lookin' out fu' two dan hit is fu' one," and though he was usually an incessant talker, he lapsed into a ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the readers of the Carol, to to have been intrinsically "a mere nothing; you might learn to whistle it in two minutes." Say that in twenty minutes, or, at the outside, in half-an-hour, any ordinarily glib talker might have rattled through these comic recollections of Mr. Magsman, yet, when rattled through by Dickens, the laughter awakened seems now in the retrospect to have been altogether out of proportion. In itself the subject was anything but attractive, relating, as it did, merely to the escapade ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... you mean the Princess of Wales—pretty woman, petit nez retrousse, grew monstrous stout!" suggested Mr. Brummell, whose reading was evidently not extensive. "Sir Sidney Smith was a fine fellow, great talker, hook nose, so has Lord Cochrane, so has Lord Wellington. She was very ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him; for as those that have money but seldom are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker, and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He measures other men's wit by their modesty, and his own by his confidence. He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker, who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface, brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him in mind of another story, which he promiseth to tell you when this is done; cometh back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... But above all he knew the architecture of ships so perfectly, that in that respect he was exact rather more than became a Prince. His apprehension was quick, and his memory good. He was an everlasting talker. He told his stories with a good grace: But they came in his way too often. He had a very ill opinion both of men and women; and did not think that there was either sincerity or chastity in the world out of principle, but ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... tricks of Parliamentary procedure; till at last the onlooker must have wondered at and felt grateful for our British phlegm; surprised that so little actual harm was done (except to the bodies of the Suffragists), that no Home Secretary or Police Inspector or magistrate, no flippant talker-out of would-be-serious Franchise Bills was assassinated, trounced, tarred and feathered, kidnapped, nose-tweaked, or even mud-bespattered. (I am reproducing here the growing comprehension of the problem as it shaped in Vivie's mind, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... type of talker is slow to express positive opinions, is sparing in criticism, and studiously avoids a tone or word of finality. It has been well said that "A talker who monopolizes the conversation is by common consent ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... an attempt to trace all human errors directly or indirectly to God, or good, as if He were the 533:12 creator of evil. The allegory shows that the snake-talker utters the first voluble lie, which beguiles the woman and demoralizes the man. Adam, 533:15 alias mortal error, charges God and woman with his own dereliction, saying, "The woman, whom Thou gavest me, is responsible." According to this belief, the rib taken 533:18 from ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... They managed however to reach their goal, and the sight of food waking a little hunger, the poor fellow did pretty well for one who looked so ill. As he ate he revived, and by and by began to talk a little: he had never been much of a talker—had never ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... so opposed to it as you may imagine," he replied, smiling. "I'm not much of a talker. I've been alone a whole lot, in lonesome places where there wasn't anybody to talk to. I suppose talking is a habit. When there are people around who talk about things it's natural to get into the way of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... high pews, they would slink back into their graves content,—all the more content, perhaps, if they should listen to the service of the new teacher, and, in their common-sense way, reckon what chance the dapper talker might have,—as compared with the solemn soberness of the old pastor,—in opening the ponderous doors for them upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... author; but as a critic, upon whatever subject, his qualifications have rarely been surpassed, though in literary matters and the fine arts they were only exhibited in conversation. His colloquial powers were impressive and fascinating, though he generally seemed a listener rather than a talker; but never failed to say a proper ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... looked him over careful but I couldn't place him within a mile. He had points enough, too. The silk hat was a veteran, the Prince Albert dated back about four seasons, but the gray gaiters were down to the minute. Being an easy talker, he might have been a book agent or a green goods distributor. But somehow his eyes didn't seem shifty enough for a crook, and no con. man would have lasted long wearing the kind of hair that he did. It was a sort of lemon yellow, and he had a lip decoration ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... of Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest harbour on the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which seven centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and of the right (now deservedly lost) of 'sending a talker to the national palaver,' have neither cleansed nor civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even at this distance some foul odour taint the summer airs, and complete the misfortune already ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... think Lord Morley [Footnote: Viscount Morley of Blackburn.] the best talker I ever heard and after him I would say Symonds, Birrell and Bergson. George Meredith was too much of a prima donna and was very deaf and uninterruptable when I knew him, but he was amazingly good even then. Alfred Austin was a friend of his and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... are going to give each one of you men who started out with us, and who have done such fine, loyal work, a good-sized cash bonus. I perhaps don't need to tell you that I never made a speech in my life—so my friends say—but money is a loud talker; so, at the end of the season, we'll let money tell you how much we appreciate the good work ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... clever fellow, thought Stephen, and a fluent talker. Already his eloquence had brought quiet to the room and caused those who were fumbling with the papers to let them fall motionless in their laps. But what a knave! Here he was deliberately playing upon the sympathies of his audience in the role of ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... moose, so it would be hard to speak of the usefulness of one man by thinking too much of the deeds of another. You have your gifts like others, I suppose, and little do I wish to disturb them. But as to me, the Lord has made me for a doer and not a talker, and therefore do I consider it no harm to shut my ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... up in the one State, and have passed the rest of my life in the other, cherishing for both a deep affection, and, maybe, over-estimating their hold upon the public interest. Excepting General Jackson, who was a fighter and not a talker, their public men, with Henry Clay and Felix Grundy in the lead, were "stump orators." He who could not relate and impersonate an anecdote to illustrate and clinch his argument, nor "make the welkin ring" with the clarion tones of his voice, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... work, and hard times, or disagreeable matters, or to recount all the wonderful things he had done, or had to do. But, with a step and a countenance that seemed to say, "What a blessed and happy man I am!" his presence always brought with it happiness and peace. He was not a great talker, but he generally had something pleasant to say, or an interesting anecdote to relate; for, with a keen perception of the ludicrous, he possessed a talent for telling anecdotes admirably well, and a humor that was irresistibly pervasive. No one could help feeling its influence, and being ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... who had espied him in the corridor, had called him in. For a time their conversation was of the stage and William's prospective future thereon, and then, very quietly, the judge began to talk about William himself. Presently William began to lean toward the talker, intent, earnest; no one had spoken to him before just like this. His father had tried once or twice, but his evident embarrassment, his halting sentences, and his fear lest William should misunderstand, ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... him to thy bosom, and let him slumber in peace." Thus spake the bell, and Mother Earth received her child. With the self-same tones will the present generation be ushered to the embraces of their mother; and Mother Earth will still receive her children. Is not thy tongue a-weary, mournful talker of two centuries? O funeral bell! wilt thou never be shattered with thine own melancholy strokes? Yea, and a trumpet-call shall arouse the sleepers, whom thy heavy clang could awake ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mix clubs and spades with equal oblivion, and, finally, going to bed, leave a bad impression behind that causes your hostess to say, strictly to herself, if she is charitable, "How Barbara has deteriorated; she used to be a good talker, but then, poor dear, living in the country is ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... for self-culture. A sensible and instructive work, that ought to be in the hands of every one who wishes to be either an agreeable talker ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... fastest talker in Heatherton, had got this out before she was brought up by a queer sound, half gasp, half cry, from Theodosia. The latter looked as if someone had struck her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Mississippi bear hunter, to a man who was doing some pretty loud talking, "I have always noticed that when a man goes out hunting for trouble in these bottoms, he almost always finds it." Two weeks later, this same loud talker threatened a calm man in simple jeans pants, who took a shotgun and slew him impulsively. Now, the West got its hot blood largely from the South, and the dogma of the Southern town was the same in the Western mining town or cow camp—the bad man or the would-be bad man had to declare himself ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... aversion. It enables the pupil to approach the new lesson in a perceiving mood, and helps pupils to form the habit of being successful in their work and of making a daily application of their old knowledge. It prevents the teacher from degenerating into a mere talker, and, where textbooks are used, should be the most ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... the one is where the guide awakens some sluggish pilgrims, whom he finds sleeping by the way;[6] the other is where their way is crossed by two horsemen, who insist upon assuming the office of guide. 'The one is a pleasing talker, excellent company by reason of his pleasant humour, and of a carriage very pleasant and inviting; but they observed he had a sword by his side, and a pair of pistols before him, together with another instrument ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... pages, authenticated by a pure and cultivated woman, who holds a high position among us, every fact at which I hinted is made plain; and here no careless talker may challenge the record with impunity. Here, as in New York, smooth-faced men go on board the emigrant-ship, or the steerage of the long-expected steamer; here, as there, they make friendly offers and tell plausible lies, which ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... neighbors) had the reputation of being very devotedly pious, who went to her pastor, (an aged and venerable man,) greatly grieved because he was in the habit of combing his hair upwards, so as to cover his baldness. She was afraid it was pride. She was a great talker, and often had difficulties with her brethren and sisters in the church; for she thought it her duty to exercise a watchful care over them. Whether she was self-deceived, or hypocritical, I cannot say; but she used to ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... a talker should be a sample of the most practical people upon earth. The Americans have their engineers, their geographers, their astronomers, their scientific chemists; few indeed, but such as bid fair to rival those of any nation upon earth. But these, like other true ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... in that place and the way he sputtered and jabbered and talked! He wuz a whole show all to himself. Wall, I bought one of them birds from a feller one time—he said it wuz a good talker. Wall, I took it hum and hed it about three months, and it never sed a durned word. I put in most of my spare time tryin' to git it to say "Uncle Josh," but the durned critter wouldn't do it, so I got mad at him ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... nature made him a great talker, and conspicuously convivial,—yea, convivial, at times, up to heights of vinous glory which the Currans and Sheridans shrank not from, but which a respectable age discourages. And here I must undertake the task of saying something about his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... A GOOD TALKER. There is no class of persons so generally underrated and vilified, yet this would be a dull world without them. And the faculty is not to be acquired. Really good talkers are born, not made. (And some, I hear a skeptic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I mean, Eddie. So do you. You're a smooth talker, all right. You can listen and look wise, too, when there's anything in it for you. Just see the way you got Stein to put up good money for you! And all you done was to listen to him and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... several times at the Grahams', where there were never more than eight at table, and, being a bright talker and an appreciative listener—two qualities which do not often go together—she was always an impressive personality without exactly knowing it. Clara was accustomed to be outshone by her in conversation, and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... when Crofton Crilly enters from the Master's apartments. Crofton Crilly has a presentable appearance. He is big and well made, has a fair beard and blue eyes. A pipe is always in his mouth. He is a loiterer, a talker, a listener) ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... the army now lost touch with each other; and that was the ruin of them all. Norreys was persuaded by Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of Portugal which Philip had seized, to march farther inland, where Portuguese patriots were said to be ready to rise en masse. This Antonio was a great talker and a first-rate fighter with his tongue. But his Portuguese followers, also great talkers, wanted to see a victory won by ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... at anything; certainly he can't stick at his job—always he must be doing something else. I don't regard him as a reformer. I regard him as a talker. He has no strength. Sometimes I think he has no heart. Intellectual, yes; but intellectual without pluck. I don't know how his brain works. I give that up. I agree, he joined the Labour movement before he was ordained. There I think he is sincere, perhaps devoted. But is there ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... that," said I, pleased. "He was indeed. I am only wishing I had his talent for saying all that was in his mind so fast that even the priest could not keep up with him, and goodness knows Father Donovan was no small talker." ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... "What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking interested and ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... especially a philosophical work like that of Michel Montaigne, was then still a remarkable event. [36] To counteract the pernicious influence which the frivolous, foreign talker threatened to exercise, in large circles, through an English translation—this, in our opinion, was the object which Shakspere had when touching upon ground interdicted, as a rule, to the stage—namely, upon questions of religion. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... sensitive to silence; he himself was a great talker, and he was inordinately fond of chatterers. It was no wonder! He had passed all his life with the gentry at banquets, hunts, assemblies, and district consultations; he was accustomed to having something ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... smilin' that twisted kind of smile, 'boys, I'm lookin' for a job. I'm not much of a talker, an' I'm only a amateur at music, and my game of billiards is ragged. But there's one thing I can do, fellows, from abc up to xyz, and that's write. I can write, boys, in a way to make your pet little political scribe sound ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... for reasons best known to herself. She was by nature rather a loquacious and, so to speak, irrelevant talker. She delivered herself in a soft, unmeaning monotone, which, like "the brook," flowed "on for ever"—at least until some desperate listener interrupted her discourteously. In the present instance it was her own ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the savages. Lescarbot had a literary education, which Champlain lacked, and, unlike the Jesuits, he approached life in America from the standpoint of a layman. His prolixity often serves as a foil to the terseness of Champlain, and suggests that he must have been a merciless talker. Yet, though inclined to be garrulous, he was a good observer and had many correct ideas—notably the belief that corn, wine, and cattle are a better foundation for a colony than gold or silver mines. In temperament ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... volyumes 'nd tracks f'r the diffusion uv knowledge, 'nd havin' got the recommend of the minister 'nd uv the selectmen, he done an all-fired big business in our part uv the county. His name wuz Lemuel Higgins, 'nd he wuz ez likely a talker ez I ever heerd, barrin' Lawyer Conkey, 'nd everybody allowed that when Conkey wuz round he talked so fast that the town pump 'u'd have to be greased ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... public issuance, of the man himself; therefore the first thing both in time and in importance is that the man should be and think and feel things that are worthy of being given forth. Unless there be something of value within, no tricks of training can ever make of the talker anything more than a machine—albeit a highly perfected machine—for the delivery of other men's goods. So self-development is fundamental in ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... loss of opportunity! This is the more remarkable and lamentable because the President is a charming personality, an uncommonly good talker, a man who could easily make personal friends of all the world. He does his own thinking, untouched by other men's ideas. He receives nothing from the outside. His domestic life is spent with his own, nobody else, except House occasionally. His contact ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... on medals, not very deep; four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise; and the Campaign, a large prize poem that won an enormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the Tatler, Addison's calling was found, and the most delightful talker in the world began to speak. He does not go very deep: let gentlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he couldn't go very deep. There are no traces of suffering in his writing. He was so good, so honest, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... insure the effectiveness thereof. Scolding does not help. Until the battle has been fought out to the finish, until the book of its genesis has been exalted above every doubt, your opinion weighs as heavy as a little chicken's feather to us. Let writer and talker rave till they are exhausted—not a syllable ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... around the camp fire evenings were highly interesting too, for Big Pete was a fluent talker with a wealth of stories of the Great West at his tongue's end. Indeed, the story of his family and their migration west was one that fascinated me. His father had been a trapper in the old days; he had done his share of roaming the mountains, prospecting ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... soon on the table; but I could not eat. Brother Stewart ate his supper, and soon was enjoying himself talking to the family. He was a great talker; liked to hear himself talk. They requested me to eat, but I thanked them, and said rest would do me more good than eating. I soon retired, but did not sleep. I was humiliated; my proud spirit was broken and humbled; the rough words used toward me bad ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... known who was gifted with qualities that commanded the respect and admiration of the world, yet to whom the temptations of ambition and success seemed never to have appeared even upon the distant horizon. He was an interesting talker, a fine preacher, and a very accomplished writer; but his interest was entirely centred upon his work, and not upon the rewards of it. He was very poor; but he had no regard for anything—luxury, power, position—that the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... small a degree, became his enemy, inevitably and irreconcilably. Towards his own race he seemed often to be misanthropic. He was learned in the law, and for a third of a century had held high rank at the bar of a State distinguished for great lawyers. He was disposed to be taciturn. A brilliant talker, he did not relish idle and aimless conversation. He was much given to reading, study, and reflection, and to the retirement which enabled him to gratify his tastes. As was said of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Stevens loved solitude ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that any one could lift if he chose—and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... born 1743; died 1826. "Of all the public men who have figured in the United States," says Parton, "he was incomparably the best scholar and the most variously accomplished man." He was a bold horseman, a skilful hunter, an elegant penman, a fine violinist, a brilliant talker, a superior classical scholar, and a proficient in the modern languages. On account of his talents he was styled "The Sage of Monticello." That immortal document, the Declaration of Independence, was, with the exception of a few words, entirely ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more highly-cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who regarded ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... have no Enemy. I might invert his maxim and say, It is a Misfortune for a Man to have many Enemies, but for that reason he shall know who are his Friends. No Radical member of Parliament will again, while any of us live, cast contempt on 'the carpet Captains of Mayfair'. No idle Tory talker will again dare to say that the working men of England care nothing for their country. Even the manners of railway travel have improved. I was travelling in a third-class compartment of a crowded train the other day; we ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... No tale-bearer is to be trusted, and therefore no great talker is to be trusted, for all ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... this, a slick lookin' feller came ridin' in about sun-down, an' of course they booked him for supper an' bed; a stranger didn't want to expose himself to a meal at that outfit, less'n he was in the mood to eat. He was a fine easy talker, an' he had indoor hands too, an' one o' these smiles what is made to order; what you might call a candidate's smile—a sort o' lightin' up in honor o' the person bein' addressed. Barbie had a bit of a headache, 'cause her cinch had broke that mornin' while she was havin' a ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... suit the change of times, might have survived for many generations. But under such a modification, Cicero would have no longer been the first person in the Commonwealth. The talkers would have ceased to rule, and Cicero was a talker only. He could not bear to be subordinate. He was persuaded that he, and not Caesar, was the world's real great man; and so he held on, leaning now to one faction and now to another, waiting for the chance which was ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... their views of government agreed on so many important particulars. He did not at first discover that it was Ericson's unconstitutional act in enforcing his reforms, rather than the actual reforms themselves, that aroused Sir Rupert's admiration. Sir Rupert was a good talker, a master of the manipulation of words, knowing exactly how much to say in order to convey to the mind of his listener a very decided impression without actually committing himself to any pledged opinion. Ericson was a shrewd man, but in such delicate dialectic he was ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... stayed late, the master of Fair View being an accomplished gentleman, a very good talker, and an adept at turning his house for the nonce into the house of his guest. Supper over they went into the library, where their wine was set, and where the Highlander, who was no great reader, gazed respectfully at the wit and wisdom arow before ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... period, he has passed into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an honest politician—a politician with scruples was as rare in those days as he is now—and a man of honour who could drink as much as his friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... locks, he looks like a goat: He goes forth into the wilderness, killing all his desires, and turns himself into an eunuch: He shaves his head and dyes his garments; he reads the Gt and becomes a mighty talker. Kabr says: "You are going to the doors of death, bound hand ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... education may be partly responsible for the unsatisfactory blankness of my early impressions. As it takes two to make a good talker, so it takes two to make a good hero—in print, at any rate. I was meeting distinguished people at every turn, and taking no notice of them. At Freshwater I was still so young that I preferred playing Indians and Knights ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his own personal experience ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... exclaimed. 'They flew at me like wildcats. They tore me to pieces—said I was the most dreaded talker in Pointview, that I had talked a steady stream ever since I was born, that nobody had a chance to get in a word with me, that I had made all the boys sick who ever came to see me. What ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... man. I am not here to-day to tell you what to do, but to tell you your Master's secret, "If you give Him the will, He will find for you the way." Although you might be the veriest stammerer, if Christ speaks out in all your life, you will be the best talker in the world. We must believe in our work; we cannot make others believe until we first believe ourselves. Our feet must be upon the rock; there is no question of success or failure there. It may be Athanasius against the world, but the Athanasius and the ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... under thirty-five is equally impossible, because he never converses; he only talks. And your chief accomplishment of being a good listener is entirely thrown away on him, because a mere talker never cares whether you listen or not as long as you do not interrupt him. He only wants the floor and the sound of his own voice. It is the trained man over thirty-five who can converse and ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... white," he replied; "a newspaper, old lady, up to date and go-ahead, like the old 'Firebrand.'" Then he turned again to Kathleen. "You don't know me," he said. "You imagine I am nothing better than a talker; just wait for three months before ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... wit or a talker merely, though the brilliant scintillations of the former, or the garrulity of the latter, may amuse or delight you for the time being, yet you will derive no permanent satisfaction from these qualities, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... you thought so feeble were invisible to you, will Heaven, think you, reward them? I assure you, it needed no slight effort to show myself to you as I was in the days before I loved. At Madrid I was considered a good talker, and I wanted you to see for yourself the few gifts I may possess. If this were vanity, it has been ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... you say? Astonished, Monsieur Trudaine, that the attentions of a young gentleman, possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a highly-bred Frenchman, should be favorably received by a young lady! Astonished that such a dancer, such a singer, such a talker, such a notoriously fascinating ladies' man as Monsieur Danville, should, by dint of respectful assiduity, succeed in making some impression on the heart of Mademoiselle Rose! Oh, Monsieur Trudaine, venerated Monsieur Trudaine, this is almost too ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... can talk upon anything," continued the Duke, "as long as the talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be said, or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an hour about bankers' accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to ask me the state of my own. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... he is perfectly delightful on any topic in the universe but the wrongs of Ireland," said she; "not entirely sane and yet a good father, and a good neighbour, and a good talker. Faith, he can abuse the English government with any man alive! He has a smaller grudge against you Americans, perhaps, than against most of the other nations, so possibly he may elect to discuss something more cheerful than our national grievances; if he does, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of Abraham, at fourteen to eighteen: "Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and a kind of newsboy." Hence he was a sort of volunteer colporteur distributing gossip, as a notion pedler, before he was a store clerk where centered all the local news. It was on this experience that ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... to knock me down, Which makes me thus a talker; And once, while I was out of town, My "Johnson" ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... girl, well and beautifully made, with carriage so graceful and look so courteous that men used to stop in the road and gaze after her as she walked. Her hair was very nearly black, and made a plait which she could easily sit upon. She was no talker, but had the best of manners, whereby it happened that those who talked with her were eloquent and believed that she had been so. She had a beautiful voice and notable skill in singing. Men heard her songs, and rushed out into ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... way to prevent their getting well. This talking is not a relief, as people sometimes feel. It is a direct waste of vigor. But the waste would be greater if the talk were repressed. The only real help comes when the talker herself recognizes the strain of her talk ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... the mountain yesterday wanted to know, brethren, how I happened to take up this roving life, and I told them. They seemed impressed by it, and I'm going to tell you. To begin with, the best temperance talker is the man who has led a life of drunkenness and through the grace of the Lord got out of it to give living testimony as to its evil. Now, I'm pretty sure, for the same reason, that a man who has been through the mire of hell on earth is competent to testify about ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... evangelical writers, such as Robert Hall, Foster the Essayist, or Isaac Taylor. Everywhere there is commonplace cleverness, nowhere a spark of rare thought, of lofty sentiment, or pathetic tenderness. We feel ourselves in company with a voluble retail talker, whose language is exuberant but not exact, and to whom we should never think of referring for precise information or for well-digested thought and experience. His argument continually slides into wholesale assertion and vague declamation, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... imbibed from books. She knew life at first hand, had drained the cup for herself, and yet could savour the lees. Not that she enlarged any further on her own past. Mrs. Lascelles was never a great talker, like Catherine; but she was certainly a woman to whom one could talk. And talk to her I did thenceforward, with a conscientious conviction that I was doing my duty, and only an occasional qualm for its congenial character, while Bob listened with a wondering eye, or went his ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... Adam was the talker: such a fund of anecdote he had! Jinny never could hear the same story too often. To-night there was a bit of a sigh in them: his heart was tender: about the Christmases at home, when he and Nelly were little chubs together, and hung up their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... begin to notice a change in Jerry. He never had been what you'd call a champion catch-as-catch-can talker, but now he was silenter than ever. And he got a habit of switching Gentleman off from his theories on Life in general to Woman in particular. This suited Gentleman just right. What he didn't know about Woman ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... policy, and from that time forward the intimacy between him and Colonel Talbot seems to have grown less and less. The Gourlay prosecutions aroused Rolph's hot indignation, which he did not hesitate to express with much freedom whithersoever he went. Being a brilliant and eloquent talker, strong in opinion and logical in argument, he made many converts to his views, the number of whom was not lessened by the course of treatment adopted towards the Bidwells. It seems to have been about this time that he took up his abode at Dundas, where he subsequently resided for many ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... fellow passenger was about my age, and was a shrewd, well-informed native of the vicinity. He knew the mineral, timber and agricultural resources, was evidently an enterprising business man and an intelligent but not voluble talker. He accepted a cigar, and advised me to see the house in Barbourville where the late Justice Samuel Miller was born. At the hotel he registered first, and, as he was going to leave next day and I was to remain several days, he told the clerk to ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... woman whose deafness shuts her out from ordinary conversation, and who is nevertheless such an interesting talker and such an appreciative listener that her friends do not find it a task to spend hours in talking through her ear-trumpet. Of course each friend brings only his best to her ears. The very circumstance which would have narrowed her life if her nature had been narrow, has ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... of his college he was less likely to attract. Dr. Buckland, the famous geologist, and still more famous lecturer and talker, took notice of him and employed him in drawing diagrams for lectures. The Rev. Walter Brown, his college tutor, afterwards Rector of Wendlebury, won his good-will and remained his friend. His private tutor, the Rev. Osborne Gordon, was ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... expectations which all but himself know to be vain; to the economist, who tells of bargains and settlements; to the politician, who predicts the fate of battles and breach of alliances; to the usurer, who compares the different funds; and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... times. Aid was given, and, the man's own theory being that he could do better in another neighborhood, the family was moved and otherwise aided by money secured from benevolent individuals. It soon became apparent that the man lacked energy. He was given to pious phrases, and was a good talker, but all efforts to inculcate industry or cleanliness were met both by man and wife with the excuse that the imbecile boy ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... zest. I solaced myself by thinking that it would be useful for me to find out what I could about Strickland's state of mind. It also interested me much more. But this was not an easy thing to do, for Strickland was not a fluent talker. He seemed to express himself with difficulty, as though words were not the medium with which his mind worked; and you had to guess the intentions of his soul by hackneyed phrases, slang, and vague, unfinished gestures. But though he said nothing of any consequence, there was something in his personality ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... were stiff and sleepy, George spent the whole evening in chattering to Evelyn, or, rather, in making her chatter. Lady Tressady loitered near them once or twice. She heard the names "Letty," "Miss Sewell," passing and repassing—one talker catching up the other. Over any topic that included Miss Sewell they lingered; when anything was begun that did not concern her, it dropped at once, like a ball ill thrown. The mother went ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... supper in the bargain, for he wants to have a good chat with me. And, Mother, I've been meaning to get to know that fine old man better; there's something about him that draws me. He's got such healthy ideas about everything, and is an entertaining talker when it comes to the habits of animals, and the secrets ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... off up to some hotel every night after I got to sleep, and staid till five o'clock in the morning, and then returned in time to make a —— fool of me. But look out for breakers hereafter. No more clean, nice, tidy boarding-houses for me, no matter how home-like it is, nor how good a talker the old woman is. I am through—through forever, even though all the well-bred children in Missouri starve for the want of income from boarders, I am going to ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... of another weighed nothing with me in the question whether they should be treated with frankness or reserve. I felt no scruple on any occasion to disclose every feeling and every event. Any one who could listen found me willing to talk. Every talker found me willing to listen. Every one had my sympathy and kindness, without claiming it; but I claimed the kindness ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... real facts could be shown to account for the boy. The neighbors said he never worked like the rest of them, and that his patch of cultivated land was altogether too small to support his family, a wife and two daughters, grown. He was a very smooth and affable talker, and had lots of acquaintances. A few years afterwards Mr. Mount was convicted of a crime which sent him to the Jackson State Prison, where he died before his term expired. I visited the Filley family in 1870, and from ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... feelings, he possesses the noblest qualities of courage and sense of honour. He knows better than any one else everything concerning government, business, trade and industry. Of his military art, it were needless to speak; it is conspicuously evident. A brilliant talker and a fine orator, his lucidity of observation, his judgment, and his rapidity of ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... unnecessary words. He always made his meaning plain and intelligible, and he had an admirable faculty for illustrating every argument by something drawn from reading or from observation or from experience. He was, in fact, the very perfection of a common-sense talker, a man fit to deal with men by fair, straightforward argument, to expose complicated sophistries, and to make clear the most perplexed parts of an intricate question. He was exactly the man for that time, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Walter's daughters, Mrs. Lockhart and Miss Anne Scott. He says Mrs. Lockhart "is just the woman to have success in Paris, by her sweet, simple manners." He had a stately chat with Mrs. Siddons, and Sir James Mackintosh he called "the best talker I have ever seen; the only man I have yet met in England who appears to have any clear or definite notions of us." Rare indeed were these flash-lights of genius that Samuel Rogers charmed to his "feasts of reason and ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... fly was checked. Toby remained by her side. They walked together about the streets for an hour, he smoking cigarette after cheap cigarette, and every now and then saying something that was nothing. He was not a good talker. He could not express himself, but said "er" between words, and moved his hands. Partly it was nervousness. Sally often grinned at knowledge of this and of his bad way of speaking, which made him sometimes appear almost loutish. But behind every ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... or more years. I don't know that I call myself a preacher. I am a pretty good talker sometimes. I have never pastored a church; somehow or 'nother the word come to me to go and I go and talk. I ain't no pulpit chinch. I could have taken two or three men's churches out from ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... theologian, a politician, a police captain, a local independent sovereign; and in such a position his head is turned. Among these people who seem to have lost their senses, only one, an officer of the National Guard, remains cool; he is, besides, very polite, well-behaved, and an agreeable talker; he comes in the evening to comfort the prisoners and to take tea with them in prison; in fact, he is accustomed to tragedies and, thanks to his profession, his nerves are in repose—this person is the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cousin, said of Abraham, at fourteen to eighteen: "Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and a kind of newsboy." Hence he was a sort of volunteer colporteur distributing gossip, as a notion pedler, before he was a store clerk where centered all the local news. It was on this experience that he would mingle with ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... guests—Sergey Koznishev and Alexey Alexandrovitch. Sergey Ivanovitch was a Moscow man, and a philosopher; Alexey Alexandrovitch a Petersburger, and a practical politician. He was asking, too, the well-known eccentric enthusiast, Pestsov, a liberal, a great talker, a musician, an historian, and the most delightfully youthful person of fifty, who would be a sauce or garnish for Koznishev and Karenin. He would provoke them and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... his life, shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning, Chesterton gives us a clear picture. 'Browning liked social life, he liked the excitement of the dinner, the exchange of opinions, the pleasant hospitality that is so much a part of our life. He was a good talker because ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Rogers; and notwithstanding I believed myself to be the best looking negro to be found anywhere in the neighbourhood, still I was aware that I was not the best of talkers. Dan was a sweet and easy talker, and a good bone and banjo player. I was led to fear that he would displace me in Mary's affections, and in this I was not mistaken. One night I went over to see Mary, and in looking through the window, saw Mary—my sweet and beloved Mary—sitting upon Dan's knee; and here it is impossible ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... recognized as existing in its original condition; fuel is consumed in the fire, food in the body; consume is also applied to whatever is removed from the market for individual use; as, silk and woolen goods are consumed. A great talker engrosses the conversation. A credulous person swallows the most preposterous statement. A busy student imbibes or drinks in knowledge; he is absorbed in a subject that takes his whole attention. "I only ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... play—a mere trifle—ran chiefly on the efforts of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair coquette. One lover was called the "Ours," a good and gallant but unpolished man, a sort of diamond in the rough; the other was a butterfly, a talker, and a traitor: and I was to be the butterfly, talker, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Mrs. Carmichael, than whom no lady could have been more gentle mannered and gracious. She had evidently had enough of Mr. Rawdon, for she turned in the most natural way to Wilkinson and engaged him in conversation on a variety of topics. The schoolmaster found her a charming talker and an interested listener. Marjorie and Coristine sat on a sofa with Muggins between them, while the working geologist banged about some photographs on a centre table. At dinner, to which Mrs. Thomas soon summoned them, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to it as you may imagine," he replied, smiling. "I'm not much of a talker. I've been alone a whole lot, in lonesome places where there wasn't anybody to talk to. I suppose talking is a habit. When there are people around who talk about things it's natural to get into the way of talking. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Amn't I after saying it is himself has me destroyed, and he a liar on walls, a talker of folly, a man you'd see stretched the half of the day in the brown ferns with his belly ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... I will try to find a way of explaining my meaning, and you shall try to have the gift of understanding me. But first let me make an apology. The Athenian citizen is reputed among all the Hellenes to be a great talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity, and the Cretans have more wit than words. Now I am afraid of appearing to elicit a very long discourse out of very small materials. For drinking indeed may appear to be a slight ...
— Laws • Plato
... called out universal admiration. He had a great insight into shams, was rarely imposed upon, and was scrupulous and honest in his dealings as an individual. He was also a fascinating man when he unbent; was affable, intelligent, accessible, and unstilted. He was an admirable talker, and a tolerable author. He always sympathized with intellectual excellence. He surrounded himself with great men in all departments. He had good taste and a severe dignity, and despised vulgar people; had no craving for fast ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... is its object. No one can talk of the knowledge of the one by the other without seeing them as numerically distinct entities, of which the one lies beyond the other and away from it, along some direction and with some interval, that can be definitely named. But, if the talker be a humanist, he must also see this distance-interval concretely and pragmatically, and confess it to consist of other intervening experiences—of possible ones, at all events, if not of actual. To call my present idea of my dog, for example, cognitive of the real dog means that, as ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... lady, who was between nineteen and twenty years of age, drew upon herself everybody's attention by her over-strained and unnatural manners. A great talker, with a memory crammed with maxims and precepts often without sense, but of which she loved to make a show, very devout, and so jealous of her husband that she did not conceal her vexation when ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... card shark and a lot of other unscriptural things. As a Methodist and a minister's son I felt called to battle his return to office. So I went out electioneering for my friend and ally, Joe Smithson. You know, Connie, that in spite of my wandering ways, I have friends in the county and I am a born talker. I took my faithful steed and I spent many hours, which should have been devoted to selling furniture, decrying the vices of Matters, extolling the virtues of Smithson. Matters ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... enough happen in some roundabout way," said Estelle, "as long as Italo and Clotilde both knew it. They might let the cat out of the bag without intending to. He talks so much. Never knew such a talker. But what I want to know is how he knew your ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... think the Horticultural Society expects me to make a speech; they know I am not a talker. I could say something if the room were smaller, but my voice does not seem to carry very well. I am a good deal in the fix of the steamboat that carried passengers on the river up and down to the camp meeting there. They had ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... describe Browning as he appeared in society; there is a consensus of opinion as to the energy and cordiality of his way of social converse; but it is singular that, though some records of his out-pourings as a talker exist, very little is on record that possesses permanent value. Perhaps the best word that can be quoted is that remembered by Sir James Paget—Browning's recommendation of Bach's "Crucifixus—et ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Charles rose to greet him, there came into the heart of the Balkan king again that same chilly feeling that he had felt upon the balcony—and it passed at the careless gestures of his guest. For surely any one might outwit this foolish talker who, for a mere idea and at the command of a little French rationalist in spectacles, had thrown away the most ancient ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... listener is almost as great an art as to be a good talker; but it is not enough only to listen, you must endeavor to seem interested in the conversation of those who are talking. Only the low-bred allow their impatience ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... was old and deaf; he was also very talkative. One of those physicians who invariably leave a titbit of news alongside of their powders and pellets. A constant talker is apt to be an indiscreet talker, and, very often, wanting in tact. Doctor Benoit was not so much deficient in tact, as in memory. In growing old, he had grown forgetful, and not being a society man, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... instance, when all the other gentlemen were stiff and sleepy, George spent the whole evening in chattering to Evelyn, or, rather, in making her chatter. Lady Tressady loitered near them once or twice. She heard the names "Letty," "Miss Sewell," passing and repassing—one talker catching up the other. Over any topic that included Miss Sewell they lingered; when anything was begun that did not concern her, it dropped at once, like a ball ill thrown. The mother went away smiling ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... plodding clerk. Webber was simple and vulgar, but he was sincere and good-hearted. He was striving to get together a little money for a home. Sommers told Alves that she should influence Miss M'Gann to accept the clerk, instead of beguiling herself with the words of a talker. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is right," she told herself; "he's a careful talker. I can't do it!" But she winced, and drew ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... is a good talker, a regular society man; he is no great favorite of mine; I think he will be a little too much for us in a small station ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... house and this child; another man come and courted me, a han'some mulatto man, almost as white as you. He told me he had a farm in Delaware, and wanted me to be his wife; he promised me so much and was so anxious about it, that I listened to him. Oh, he was a beautiful talker, and I was lonesome and wanted love. I let him sell my house and give him the money, and started a week ago to come to my new home. Oh, he did deceive me so; he said he ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... that associated this man's order with underbred habits and disloyal ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener, and there was a sweet encouragement in the bland nod of his head, and a racy appreciation in the bright twinkle of his humorous eye, that the prosiest talker found irresistible. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and heroism? Nobody can remember afterwards who started the subject; but certain it is that all, save Dolly, become interested in the conversation, and each has a word to say. Mr. Carey, the clergyman, is the leading talker; and he talks well, not priggishly, nor prosily, but speaks the right words in the right way, and wins the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... The drawing was so pretty. Plumet, who is not much of a talker, is never tired of praising it. I tell you, he and I did not spare ourselves. He made a bit of a fuss before he would take the order; he was in a hurry—such a hurry; but when he saw that I was bent on it he gave in. And it is not the first time he has given in. Plumet ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... that you cannot be too comfortable for this game; any discomfort is apt to excite the mind, to disturb the grey matter, to interfere with that complete repose which is so essential a feature of the contest. These two are the players. They indulge in small talk and the smaller talker wins. The object of each player is to make such inanely conventional remarks that his opponent is reduced to silence. For example you are sitting next to a bishop, and it falls to you to start the conversation. Of course you don't say anything ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... for the barley this morning, I think. There'll be a bit got hin, if we've good luck.' And he says, 'Eh, ye may be raight, there's noo tallin',' he says, and I knowed by that"—here Mr. Casson gave a wink—"as he didn't come from a hundred mile off. I daresay he'd think me a hodd talker, as you Loamshire folks allays does hany one as talks ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... to another, for our monk is a glib talker, we come to the cheese-makers, the goatherds. "Even these honest rustics," says he, "are becoming sophisticated (mafsudin). Their cheese is no longer what it was, nor is their faith. For Civilisation, passing ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like, either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like substance ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... an author; but as a critic, upon whatever subject, his qualifications have rarely been surpassed, though in literary matters and the fine arts they were only exhibited in conversation. His colloquial powers were impressive and fascinating, though he generally seemed a listener rather than a talker; but never failed to say a proper ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... know where we can place them. One hundred dollars apiece, if a girl is right, and that means twenty-five for you. You've been drawing money from me for three weeks without bringing in a cent. Now you get on the job. Try Waverley Place and come in here to-morrow. You're a good talker in Yiddish, and you ought to be able to get some action. Hustle out now. I ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... agreeable, and could hardly doubt that he had made an impression. He dressed well when in the city,—even elegantly,—he had many of the lesser social accomplishments, was a good dancer, and compared favorably in all such matters with the more dashing young fellows in society. He was a better talker than most of them, and he knew more about the girl he was dealing with than they could know. "You have only got to say the word, Murray," Mrs. Clymer Ketchum said to her relative, "and you can have her. But don't be rash. I believe you can get Berengaria if you try; and there 's something better ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... have me believe, then, thou art no genuine disinterested talker. Ah! Roupall, Roupall! acquaintance with courts has taught me, that nature in the first place, and society in the second, have imposed upon us mortals two most disagreeable necessities: the one is that of eating; the other, that of talking. Now nature is a tyrant, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... I won't go with you to see Poppa," she said, stopping at the top of the last flight. "Poppa's kind of a rough talker sometimes." ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Edinburgh, left his lands and his own people, spending his money where it brought him not any esteem, so that he was of no value either at home or abroad. We mentioned Rob Roy, and the eyes of all glistened; even the lady of the house, who was very diffident, and no great talker, exclaimed, 'He was a good man, Rob Roy! he had been dead only about eighty years, had lived in the next farm, which belonged to him, and there his bones were laid.' {93} He was a famous swordsman. Having an arm ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... it, my dear," replied her father. "But they have him in their clutches, and possession, as you know, is nine points of the law, and part of the tenth. Where Will is I don't know. Just as the message said, he went off with that smooth talker, and he ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... take 'em to the show yourself, Mr. Benson?" he asked hopefully. "Because, not to jolly you at all, Mr. Benson, I must got to say it you are a wonderful talker." ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... stood in rather a precarious position, as regarded her future subsistence. She was not the best kind of woman for the scheme; but there was no alternative. One quality of hers was valuable; she was not a talker. I went to London the very next day, called at the Hoxton lodging of my wife (the only place at which she had been known as Mrs. Manston), and found that no great difficulties stood in the way of a personation. And thus favouring circumstances determined my course. I visited Anne Seaway, made ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... seems to stand above the author, and "what in him is weak, to strengthen, what is low, to raise and support:" nor is there any work of genius that does not come out of his hands like an illuminated Missal, sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been the most impressive talker of his age, he would probably have been the finest writer; but he lays down his pen to make sure of an auditor, and mortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If he had not been a poet, he ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... any living creature in this street," Isel assured him. "The women are good workers, and none of them's a talker, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... time for the last two days and nights. On Wednesday, I sat up all night, in Virginia, in order to be up early enough to take the five o'clock stage on Thursday morning. I was on time. It was a great success. I had a cheerful trip down to Carson, in company with that incessant talker, Joseph T. Goodman. I never saw him flooded with such a flow of spirits before. He restrained his conversation, though, until we had traveled three or four miles, and were just crossing the divide between Silver City and Spring ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... other art, is out of three platitudes to make not a fourth platitude—'but a star.' Newness of information is no necessity of conversation: else were the Central News Agency the best of talkers. Indeed, the oldest information is perhaps the best material for the artist as talker: though, truly, as with every other artist, material matters little. There are just two or three men of letters left to us, who provide us examples of that inspired soliloquy, those conversations of one, which are our nearest approach to the talk of other days. How good it is to listen ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... celebrated poet and journalist George D. Prentice, then editor of the Courier-Journal, and Mr. Tyler, of the Associated Press. I believe Prentice was the father of the humorous paragraph of the American newspaper. He was poetic, highly educated, and a brilliant talker. He was very thin and small. I do not think he weighed over one hundred and twenty five pounds. Tyler was a graduate of Harvard, and had a very clear enunciation, and, in sharp contrast to Prentice, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... TALKERS.—In marrying a wit or a talker merely, though the brilliant scintillations of the former, or the garrulity of the latter, may amuse or delight you for the time being, yet you will derive no permanent satisfaction from these qualities, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... no talker," he said. "I'm at a disadvantage. But I got to do the best I can. I want you as much as him, though I can't tell you so good. I'm five years younger. That's something. I'm the strongest man here. That's something, ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... something of a talker, and liked to hear the sound of his own voice; but Cuthbert was of the opinion that the presence of Owen had rather upset the big chap, and that some of this patter was intended to hide his confusion, and allow him to figure ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... three is left among us! Thackeray was a man of no great power of conversation. I doubt whether he ever shone in what is called general society. He was not a man to be valuable at a dinner-table as a good talker. It was when there were but two or three together that he was happy himself and made others happy; and then it would rather be from some special piece of drollery that the joy of the moment would come, than from the discussion of ordinary topics. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... or other the journal, as I was saying, hit the taste of the Parisian public. It intimated, with the easy grace of an unpremeditated agreeable talker, that French society in all its classes was rotten; and each class was willing to believe that all the others were rotten, and agreed that unless the others were reformed, there was something very ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and gave great happiness in his own home. Never moody or despondent, his sunny disposition made him like a glory in the house. He enjoyed nothing better than a frolic with his younger brother, of whom he was devotedly fond. A racy and witty talker, he loved an argument. Many a verbal joust he and I had together. Our views did not always concur. We differed in opinion on many matters, including our estimates of eminent men, alive and dead. For example, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... invited to meals at the deanery, where Mrs. Vaughan, a sister of Dean Stanley, and as brilliant, vivacious, and witty a talker as her brother, kept the circle entranced and delighted by her suggestive and humorous talk. My brother tells the story of how, in one of the Dean's long and serious illnesses, from which he eventually recovered, Mrs. Vaughan absented herself one day on a mysterious ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... trainer, instructor, institutor, master, tutor, director, Corypheus, dry nurse, coach, grinder, crammer, don; governor, bear leader; governess, duenna[Sp]; disciplinarian. professor, lecturer, reader, prelector[obs3], prolocutor, preacher; chalk talker, khoja[obs3]; pastor &c (clergy) 996; schoolmaster, dominie[Fr], usher, pedagogue, abecedarian; schoolmistress, dame, monitor, pupil teacher. expositor &c 524; preceptor, guide; guru; mentor &c (adviser) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... never said a word to me about either of the suitors. It wasn't because she didn't talk, for she was a great talker. We had to postpone a card-party one evening, on account of the continuous flow of Mrs. Gunning's conversation, which never ceased until it was time for refreshments, there being not a moment's pause for the ...
— A British Islander - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... brought on the stage with the whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, (no such person, of course,) than say the best things I might by any chance find myself capable of saying. Of course, if I come across a real thinker, a suggestive, acute, illuminating, informing talker, I enjoy the luxury of sitting still for a while as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... our scattering fire of small-arms under the old talker's heavy guns—our parish minister called,—old Doctor Wortleby, for whom we have a great liking and respect. Of course we had to introduce him to Uncle Popworth,—for they met face to face; and of course Uncle Popworth fastened at once upon ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... letters that are like those of a young lover, an infinite tenderness in every line. One of her great crosses was the belief that her husband was in love with the brilliant Lady Ashburton. Her jealousy was absurd, as this great lady invited Carlyle to her dinners because he was the most brilliant talker in all England, and he accepted because the opportunity to indulge in monologue to appreciative hearers was a keener pleasure to him than to write eloquent warnings to his day and generation. Froude's unhappy book, with a small library of commentary ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... with us—he behaved like a man who for a long time had small opportunity of conversation with the people he would like to converse with, and he kept us both talking as the afternoon faded into evening and the evening fell towards night. He was a good talker, too, and knew much of books and politics and of men, and could make shrewd remarks, tinged, it seemed to me, with a little cynicism that was more good-humoured than bitter. The time passed rapidly in this fashion; supper-time arrived; the meal, as good and substantial as any dinner, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... whom she desired him to escort home, as it was raining violently, and the maiden was afraid to go alone. He assented readily enough, and went over to "Aunt Rushia's," where he was introduced to Miss Charity ("Chairy," for short) Hallett. She was a very pretty girl and a bright talker, and the way home seemed only too short to her escort. She was a tailoress in the village, and went to church regularly, but, although Phineas saw her every Sunday for many weeks, he had no opportunity of the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... one can teach this class who already knows all about the subject. A spirit sympathetic with the child and the life of the family and a mind willing to study the subject will accomplish much more than facile rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher will not often be "an easy talker" on the family; class time is too precious to be occupied with a lecture. While, naturally, one who is a parent will speak with greater experience than another, the ability to teach this subject cannot be ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... for that reason has always declined to arrange his memoirs, though several times approached by publishers and strongly urged to do so by his friends, notably Mr. Froude and Mr. John Bright. If his reminiscences are to be at all characteristic they must be conversational, and it is as a talker that he himself at length consents ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... of Sedan, who was a prudent man and a merry talker, had the good father to eat at his table, and in order to put him on his mettle said to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... add that Sandy's not so bad a talker when he lets himself go. He has the entire volume of Scotch literature at his ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... you would lie! You were a better talker than I was, and since our outfit always sided with you, I knew I wouldn't have a chance then. But I reasoned that if I kept quiet and kept on being your friend, I'd get my chance to get even if I waited awhile. I waited—and I ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... I've indulged like you. To sass her mother like that! A man like Max Hochenheimer comes along, a man where the goodness looks out of his face, a man what can give her every comfort; and, because he ain't a fine talker like that long-haired Sollie ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... will be any trouble at all" the miner said. "I was never set much on travelling alone as some men are. I ain't much of a talker, but I ain't fond of going two or three months without opening my mouth except to put food and drink into it. So if you think you will like it I shall be glad enough to take you. I know Straight Harry well, and I can see ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... writer and talker had now run through the whole gamut of political professions. A pronounced Jacobin and free-thinker during the Consulate, he subsequently retired to Germany, where he unlearnt his politics, his religion, and his philosophy. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... gatherings. This sort of life and popularity had its perils, for in that day and region men seldom met without drinking together; but all authorities are agreed that Lincoln, while the greatest talker, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... air, and easy, unceremonious manners, showed plainly that he knew how to take men and things on their bright side. But though he had not yet opened his mouth, he gave one the impression of being a great talker, and moreover, one of those absent folks who neither see though they are looking, nor hear though they are listening. He wore a traveling cap, and strong, low, yellow boots with leather gaiters. His pantaloons and jacket were of brown ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... me the name of the political economist I met at Burnham. William Nassau Senior, a very clever man, a great talker, good upon all subjects, but best upon all those on which I am even below my average depth of ignorance, public affairs, questions of government, the science of political economy, and all its kindred knowledges. The rest of our party were only Rogers and ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... in the garb of a religious professor, and had become a brisk talker in the matters of religion, when, by Divine mercy, he was stripped of all his good opinion of himself; his want of holiness, and his unchanged heart, were revealed to his surprise and wonder, by means simple and efficacious, but which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... are reasons which commend it also, suitably presented, to all citizens of our country. Questions connected with war—when resort to war is justifiable, preparation for war, the conduct of war—are questions of national moment, in which each voter—nay, each talker—has an influence for intelligent and adequate action, by the formation of sound public opinion; and public opinion, in operation, constitutes national policy. Hence it is greatly to be desired that there should be more diffused interest in the critical study of warfare in its broader ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... speakest thou from the floor? Take in the hall a seat; then shall be proved which knows most, the guest or the ancient talker. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... she said, and glanced at the subject of their conversation, who stood talking to Katie in the most absorbed way. Lady Dacre comprehended the reason of Bulchester's present bitterness. But neither imagined that it was the conversation, and not the talker, that was interesting Edmonson. The girl was telling him bits of family history which he professed with truth to find fascinating. He was watching her, listening, smiling with his brightest look, speaking a word or two occasionally to draw forth more information, and Katie, sure that she was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... trysting places in every page or two, which might have been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula, and the little things which from time to time he ventured to say to her. For conversation he had not the thirst which animated Reginald, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... thing was that the man fooled us. In the Dutchman's heart, I believe, there was nothing but astonishment at his own success. Signet, on the face of it, was the typical big talker and little doer; a flaw in character which one tends to think imperishable. He fitted so precisely into a certain pigeonhole of human kind.—What we had not counted on was the fierceness of the stimulus—like the taste of blood to a carnivore or, to the true ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had been frequently called upon to address his conversation to young ladies, he never opened his lips to one of the class without a sense of constraint and an obvious difficulty. He had all his life been most at home in men's society, where the talk was of grave things, and was no bad talker when the question in hand was either commercial or political. But as a rich man cannot go through life without being cultivated more or less by the frivolous herd, Mr. Granger had been compelled to conform himself somehow to the requirements of civilised society, and to talk in his stiff bald way ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and that night Mr. Favor and all of his St. Louis friends accompanied us from the store down to the hotel for supper. There was one gentleman in the crowd who was a splendid talker, and apparently an intelligent man, and when at the supper table that night, he mentioned the matter to Uncle Kit again of having his life published. On turning his eyes to the refined gentleman, he said: "I would have you understand that when I say ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... other and mixed up the two with a ready familiarity. He went much into London society, and though entirely serious and without having, so far as I know, a gleam of humor, he was a fluent and entertaining talker. ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... I can't remember—but I think she's dark—at least, her eyes are, though her hair may be light. But you never think of her appearance when she's talking. I believe she's the best talker I ever heard—better ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... reasonably organized. An agreeable woman would draw her friends about her; they would meet in her parlor until they knew each other, and would be together often enough to keep touch intellectually. The talker knew his audience and felt at home with it. The listener had learned to expect something worth hearing. The mistress of the house kept language and men within bounds, and had her own way of getting rid of bores. But even French wit and vivacity were not always equal to ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... talking politics, and found in Roosevelt, who was up to his eyes in politics in his own State, a companion to delight his soul. Lang was himself a good talker and not given as a rule to patient listening; but he listened to Theodore Roosevelt, somewhat because he wanted to, and somewhat because it was difficult for any one to do anything else in those days when ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... to distribute your guests so that each shall find himself with a neighbour to his taste; but as much of the success of a dinner will always depend on this matter, it is worth some consideration. If you have a wit, or a particularly good talker, among your visitors, it is well to place him near the centre of the table, where he can be heard and talked to by all. It is obviously a bad plan to place two such persons in close proximity. They extinguish each other. Neither is it advisable to assign two neighbouring seats to two gentlemen ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... he is a host. He'll not let any one else get a word in edgewise. You are just the kind of talker he'll like. Mark my word, he'll be telling every one, before you've been two hours in the house, that you are ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to controversy. As exprest by Cowper ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... bellowing!" exclaimed the other. "If it come to Horace, I have a line in my mind: Loquaces si sapiat——How doth it run? The English o't being that a man of sense should ever avoid a great talker. That being so, if all were men of sense then thou wouldst be ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as I have proceeded straight onward in my conduct, so I will proceed in my account of those parts of it which have been most excepted to. But I must first beg leave just to hint to you that we may suffer very great detriment by being open to every talker. It is not to be imagined how much of service is lost from spirits full of activity and full of energy, who are pressing, who are rushing forward, to great and capital objects, when you oblige them to be continually looking back. Whilst they are defending one service, they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... find it hard to pick up the sign language; the motions represent the thing itself. When a sign requires several motions, a good sign talker will make them all as rapidly as we pronounce syllables, and he will tell a long story using one hand or two, ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... the other day to one that was talking good things, —good enough to print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting mechantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that your lordship, too, is master of other accomplishments. As a talker, I do not find you very gifted. But perhaps Leduc will be less ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... for such I must call Lord Sunderland, Lord Godolphin, Lord Somers, and Lord Marlborough, were too well principled in these maxims upon which the whole fabric of public strength is built, to be blown off their ground by the breath of every childish talker. They were not afraid that they should be called an ambitious junto; or that their resolution to stand or fall together should, by placemen, be interpreted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... He is quick, active, a good talker, a man with a ready wit and a sharp answer—kind-hearted when the fancy takes him, cruel when he is so disposed—but not a man of great convictions or of great actions. You ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... friendship, and this undoubtedly contributed to support them. They too well knew in whose right arm they had to trust to save them. Jack had not forgotten the lessons he had received at home, nor the counsel given him by Admiral Triton. But Jack on no subject was much of a talker; he was a doer, however, which is more important. The nearer a matter was to his heart, the less he allowed it to come out on his tongue, except at the proper moment. By some of his shipmates, who did not understand him, he was considered rather a close fellow. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... of an experience when I lectured for the Colfax, Iowa, Chautauqua, some years ago. Frank Beard, the famous chalk talker, was there and on Grand Army day he was on the program for a short talk. I was seated by Mr. Beard while the speaker who preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself. Frank Beard said to me: "Well! I guess I can exaggerate ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
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