"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... devoting all energies to the competition for the Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded as theme: "The History and Influence of Parliamentary Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed it to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied it out for his friend. Signed "Spero Infestis," with a sealed envelope containing John's name inside and the motto outside, the MS. was placed in the Head Master's ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... staircase, trod on his foot, as if to give him warning; but, if he observed it, Guise made no account of it, any more than of all the other hints he had already received. Before entering the council-chamber, he stopped at a small oratory connected with the chapel, said his prayer, and as he passed the door of the queen-mother's apartments, signified his desire to pay his respects and have a few words with her. Catherine was indisposed, and could not receive ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... between Alnwick and Berwick called the Farne islands, on one of which was situated the lighthouse where the heroine Grace Darling spent her dreary days. These rocky islands have for centuries been respected as holy ground, because St. Cuthbert built an oratory on one of them, and died there. At one time there were two chapels on these rocks; one dedicated to St. Cuthbert, the other to the Virgin Mary: they are now ruins; and a square building, erected for the religieux stationed on these isles, has been put to better use, and converted into a ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... did not prove to be Mr. William Douglas's forte. Coached by that practiced diplomat, Certina Charley, he made a speech memorable chiefly for what it did not say. The one bright, definite gleam, amidst rolling columns of oratory, was the proposal that an Emergency Committee of One Hundred be appointed to cope with the situation, that the initial sum of twenty-five thousand dollars be pledged by subscription, and that their distinguished fellow ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... resolved upon, and prompt action, was now apparent. Stabber, fighting chief though he had been in the past, had had his reason for opposing the plans of this new and vehement leader; but public sentiment, stirred by vehement oratory, had overruled him, and he had bolted the field convention in a fury. Lame Wolf, a younger chief than Stabber, had yet more power among the Ogalallas, being Red Cloud's favorite nephew, and among the Indians at least, his acknowledged representative. Whenever called ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... minded to consult with thee concerning a thing I desire to do." Replied he, "Whatever thou hast a mind to do, do it; for thy judgment is blessed." Quoth the King, "O Wazir, I am become a very old and decrepit man, sore stricken in years, and I desire to take up my abode in an oratory, that I may worship Allah Almighty and give my kingdom and Sultanate to my son Sayf al-Muluk for that he is grown a goodly youth, perfect in knightly exercises and intellectual attainments, polite ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... as she was designated—Rose Galh, or Fair Rose, and sometimes simply, Rose Hallaghan, because the detention of the big O often produces an afflatus in the pronunciation, that is sometimes mighty inconvenient to such as do not understand oratory—besides, that the Irish are rather fond of sending the liquids in a gutthural direction—Poor Rose! that faction fight, was a black day to her, the sweet innocent—when it was well known that there wasn't a man, woman, or child, on either ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... majorities, and was himself an intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong physique and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament, without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and extension of slavery. He knew that the two-million bill was urged by the President because he wished to use the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... greater consequences. You learned at school that the bowels are over twenty feet in length, weigh as much as twelve or fifteen pounds, are supported in a way that makes it possible for them to sag into the abdominal cavity and press upon the pelvic organs. Dr. Emerson, of the Boston School of Oratory, asserts that in most adults the stomach and bowels are from two to six inches below their normal location; and, as I have said before, Dr. Kellogg often finds the stomach lying in the abdominal cavity as low down as the umbilicus. What has caused this sagging of the abdominal viscera? They ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... founder was baptized of John in the river Jordan, "Lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted on Him,"—and the "Heavenly Dove" Still beautifies the imagery of oratory and song, the art and symbolism of the great churches, its inheritors. In the childhood of man the individual, the dove has also found warm welcome. At the moment of the birth of St. Austrebertha (630-704 A.D.), as the quaint legend tells, "the chamber was ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of the Rocks" the protagonist expresses his belief that oratory is a weapon of war, and that it should be unsheathed, so to speak, in all its brilliancy only with the definite view of rousing people to action. Surely no man ever had a better chance of wielding the brilliant weapon than D'Annunzio, in his triumphal progress ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... fell upon them. By this time they were almost unrecognizable because of dirt and grease and their hands were cut and blistered. But they stood it manfully, and at each new accident Gup rose to greater and greater heights of oratory. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... had seen none but boarding-house society, he guessed. As to himself in the good old days, when he trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access to, nor yet would have cared for the swells. Nothing interested him then but parliamentary politics and the oratory of the House ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... wife of Osiris, who went through the world taming it by means of oratory, poetry, and music. When he returned, Typhon took seventy-two men and also a queen of Ethiopia, and made an ark the size of Osiris's body, and at a feast proposed to give it to the one whom it should fit. Osiris ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a great many more," his restless genius accomplished nothing substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... was struck with shuddering terror at his awful gestures; but conscious that no harm could befall me, I continued listening to his flaming oratory. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... Sept. 25th, 1867, was ordained to the ministry, and succeeded Rev. N. Smith as pastor of that Church, which office he faithfully filled, went in and out among them, with meek and humble spirit, ever faithful to his trust. He had the gift of natural oratory, and we had some powerful revivals under his preaching. It would seem to us that he was called away too soon, but the Omniscient Being knows best. God called him from his labors and trials in this vale of tears to weal in the pleasures of ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... of the nave beneath the western tower-arch. In 1327, in which year Mr. Walcott tells of a riotous assault by the townsfolk on the pretence of a right of entrance by day or night for the ministration of the Viaticum, an oratory was built, by agreement between the monks and the parishioners, "in angulo navis," for the Reserved Sacrament, and the small door was inserted in the west front. To dread of such attacks or fear of the crowds of strangers constantly passing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... of old, with blue eyes, now soft and humid with human sympathy. Under his head on the pavement were silks and furs. With Raggles's hat in his hand and with his face pinker than ever from a vehement burst of oratory against reckless driving, stood the elderly gentleman who personified the city's wealth and ripeness. From a nearby cafe hurried the by-product with the vast jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... was a person who might be very helpful to her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... that had lost their first bloom veiled the vista of the long corridor, and made the staring blue sky, seen through narrow windows and loopholes, glitter like mirrors let into the walls. The chamber assigned to the young ladies seemed half oratory and half sleeping-room, with a strange mingling of the convent in the bare white walls, hung only with crucifixes and religious emblems, and of the seraglio in the glimpses of lazy figures, reclining in the deshabille of short silken saya, low camisa, and dropping ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... with the doubtful facility of oratory attempted to explain away the whole rebellion with the insinuation that the whole movement was the outcome of German gold, he must for the moment have forgotten that he was talking to men who invariably looked upon him as long ago bought ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... made ready for the feet of one of the labourer's mistaken friends. Morrison was wily, if not wise. He distinguished between oratory and logic. He kindled the flames of indignation and resentment with the one and fed them with the other. But in the performance of each duty he never lost sight ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... three days Miss Duncan and Dr. Hepburn, instructors, respectively, in English and Latin, and Dr. Darrow, professor of Oratory and Dramatic Expression, had been interviewed and had consented to act as judges. The moment these preliminaries had been attended to, Gertrude Wells had begun an elaborate poster to hang above the bulletin board ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Spouter's oratory was cut short by a wad of wet leaves which Randy picked up and hurled at him. Then Andy poked him with a long tree branch he had picked up, and for a few minutes there was quite a good-natured pitched battle, the girls looking ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... and the other to the pulpit: and the latter is vastly the more popular among the articulate and gad-about members of his flock. This one sways himself over the edge of his frame, making signals of distress in all directions, and with that and his windy flights of oratory suggests twenty minutes in a balloon-car, till he comes down to earth at the finish with the Doxology for a parachute. His shepherd's crook is one long note of interrogation, with which he tries to hook down the heavens to the understanding of his hearers, and his hearers up to an understanding ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... circumstances of composition to a forceful and practical application to the needs of his day and of all time. With his exegetical skill (he was inferior in pure dogma to Theodore of Mopsuestia) he united a wide sympathy and a marvellous power of oratory. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... that of ready, elegant, and telling quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions. As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... foreigner," says Rouquet, who considered he had been inadequately rewarded. "It must be confessed (he adds drily) that in England this is a lifelong disqualification." From Architecture the writer passes to the oratory of the Senate, the Pulpit and the Stage. In the last case exception is made for "le celebre M. Garic," whose only teacher is declared to be Nature. As regards the rest, M. Rouquet thus describes the prevailing style:—"The declamation of the English ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... and this specimen of oratory, convinced me that Liberty is the parent of eloquence. I have noticed a striking difference between our men and those of England, with all their loud talk of English freedom. When an American speaks to an officer set over him, he utters all that he has to say in a ready and fearless manner; but ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... diligent presence at mothers' meetings, and conscientious labours among the poor. A preacher Kidds never pretended to be; but he had the singular merit of brevity, and crowded more harmless heresies into ten minutes' pulpit oratory than Colenso or Voysey could have done in double the time. The young ladies made a dead set at him, of course, for Kidds was in every respect eligible; and he let them stroke him like a big pet lamb, but there matters ended. Kidds never committed himself. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... patiently, (provided only it can be had pure for the money), because the science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a noble profession and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually glad that a number of persons should be supported by exercise in oratory and analysis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what might have been decided as justly, had the date ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... years to become known as the great adversary of Parliamentary government, this did not arise from any incapacity to hold his own in Parliamentary debate. He did not indeed aim at oratory; then, as in later years, he always spoke with great contempt of men who depended for power on their rhetorical ability. He was himself deficient in the physical gifts of a great speaker; powerful as was his frame, his voice was thin and weak. He had nothing of the actor in him; he could ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... next day near the West Entrance at half-past three. Mr. Trew, arriving early, had been listening to oratory at different groups, and he mentioned to Gertie that in his opinion some of the speakers might well be transferred to the Gardens, and kept in a cage; what he failed to understand was why people could not set to and make the best of the world, instead ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... Roman matrons took in the education of youth, Tacitus has given an elegant and interesting account, in his Dialogue concerning Oratory, c. 28. ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... seventy) weakened the sense of individual responsibility, and laid them more open to the appeal of the advocates to their political passions. Most of them would come into court prejudiced in some degree by the interests of party; many would be hot partisans. Cicero, in his treatise on 'Oratory', explains clearly for the pleader's guidance the nature of the tribunals to which he had to appeal. "Men are influenced in their verdicts much more by prejudice or favour, or greed of gain, or anger, or indignation, ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... by Fleur-de-Marie (we shall call her the Princess Amelia only officially), in the grand ducal palace, had been furnished by Rudolph's care, with extreme taste and elegance. From the balcony of the young girl's oratory could be seen, in the distance, the two towers of the Convent of St. Hermangilda, which, rising above immense masses of verdure, were themselves commanded by a high wooded mountain, at the foot of which the abbey stood. On a beautiful morning in summer, Fleur-de-Marie was allowing her glances to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... band of my compeers was one Whom chance had stationed in the very room Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard, Be it confest that for the first time seated Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, One of a festive circle, I poured out Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... William Wirt, at the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and many a schoolboy since has echoed the question, as many a schoolboy will hereafter, while impassioned oratory is music to the ear and witchery to the breast. The eloquent lawyer went on to answer himself, and painted in glowing colors a character which history sees in a colder light. But though Blennerhassett was not the ideal that Wirt imagined, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... obscure corner of his soul he preserves everlastingly the cherished picture of the girl who first was dear to him. She, too, marries. In process of time she is fifty years old, and he is fifty-two. He has not seen her for thirty years or more, but he continually turns aside into the little oratory, to gaze upon the face as it last appeared to him when he left her at her gate and saw her no more. He inquires now and then timidly about her whenever he gets the chance. And once in his life he goes down to the town where she lives, solely in order to get a sight of ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... progress from Cadiz to Ballecas, a village one league distant from this Court, and almost as long a parenthesis there—which the French Court will say was no elegant piece of oratory, nor the middle at all proportionable to the beginning with me, whatever the end may prove—upon the 8th instant I arrived happily at my journey's end howsoever; where, as speedily then as myself could possibly in any measure ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... 'Bless my stars! I never heard anything so great since I was born.'—'Divine!' said I; and thus we went on with our interjections, not to say tears, to the end. Tears enough were shed. Not a dry eye, I believe, in the house, except some of the jackasses who had occasioned the necessity of the oratory. These attempted to laugh, but their visages 'grinned horribly ghastly smiles.' They smiled like Foulon's son-in-law when they made him kiss his father's dead and bleeding hand. Perhaps the speech may not read as well. The situation of the man ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... which marred the harmony of the Dominion Day celebration at Wolf Willow upon this occasion must rest on the shoulders of Mr. Alvin P. Jones. The impressive presentation by Mr. Gilchrist of Canada's greatness and the splendour of her future appeared to stimulate Mr. Jones to unusual flights of oratory. Under ordinary circumstances Mr. Jones' oratory was characterised by such extraordinary physical vigour, if not violence, and by such a fluency of orotund and picturesque speech, that with the multitude sound passed for eloquence and ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... favorite devotion; where having a small repast carried him up for his dinner, he continued until the tolling of the bell. The public service of the afternoon being over, he withdrew for a space to his pre-mentioned oratory for his sacred addresses to God, as in the forenoon, then came down, repeated the sermon in the family, prayed, after supper sang a Psalm, and toward bedtime betaking himself again to his study he closed the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... situation discussed in all its aspects. Milton Kennedy, with inflamed oratory, bitterly bewailed his brother's defection—"not only wrong himself, but leadin' others, and them innocent lambs!"—but he did not offer to go out and see his brother. The lady who sat knitting on the cellar door seemed to be the difficulty with ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... and last followed the Admiral with devotion. The latter had him christened Diego Colon. We taught him Spanish as fast and soundly as we might, and used him as interpreter. The tongue of his island was not just the tongue of Cuba, but near enough to serve. All these Indians have a gift of oratory and dote to speak at length, with firm voice and great gestures. Now we set Diego Colon to his narration. We of Castile had so much of the tongue by now that we could in some ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... afterward. Some days later, at midnight, I began to tremble all over my body as I lay in bed, and to experience much mental anxiety without knowing the cause. After this had lasted for some time I heard noises in various parts of my room; the sheet was twice pulled without entirely uncovering me; the oratory close to my bed was upset. I heard a voice on the left side, toward which I was lying. I was asked if I had thought over the advantageous offer that had been made to me. It was added: 'I have come to know your reply; I will keep my promise if you will give ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... marriage. The rich dress of the young woman, the noble air of the young man to whom she was about to be married, all announced one of those secret unions not contracted beneath the vaulted arches of a cathedral, but in the oratory of some palace, or the chapel of some secluded hamlet. The ceremony was over, and the newly married couple left the altar and walked down the nave to the door of the church of Ferentino, where a magnificent carriage was waiting. Just as they were about leaving ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... toastesses, and running their heads against the postasses to avoid the wild beastesses. These female orators, brought up at the bar of Billingsgate, have a peculiar way of expressing themselves, which, however indelicate it may seem to more civilized ears, is exactly conformable to the way of ancient oratory. The difference between ancient and modern oratory consists in saying something or nothing to the purpose. Some people talk without saying any thing; some people {52}don't care what they say; some married ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... (I don't know who let him in, because just from the way he said "gentlemen" we all knew that once in his life he had practiced oratory before the bureau mirror), "I want to place in nomination the name of a man who is ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... without seeming to remember he was not alone, walked hastily towards a little oratory he has built on the beach, near which is the grave of his Louisa; I followed him a few steps, I saw him throw himself on his knees; and, respecting his sorrow, returned ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... maniac somehow got into The Ivies and forced his way into the library where I was writing. A horrible looking fellow, with a tortured face, he waved a pistol in front of me, ranting phrases reminiscent of oldfashioned soapbox oratory. I am not ashamed to admit nervousness, for this is not the first time my life has been threatened since attaining prominence. Happily, the madman's aim was as wild as his speech, and though he fired four shots, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... to a certain wilderness previously known to me, and there on land given to me by certain ones, with the consent of the Bishop of the region, I constructed out of reeds and straw a sort of oratory in the name of the Holy Trinity where, in company with one of our clergy, I might truly chant to the Lord: "Lo I have wandered far off, and have ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... and finished with a passionate exhortation, calling upon his hearers to deliver themselves of secret sins. If oratory is to be judged of by its effects, Caesar's sermon was a great oration. It began amid the silence of his own followers, and the tschts and pshaws of a little group of his enemies, who lounged on the outside of the crowd to cast ridicule on the "swaddler" and the "publican preacher." But it ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... He frequently transgressed the rules of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental knowledge of all the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him the want of learning. His rude oratory roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the labored discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His works were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of them, the Pilgrim's Progress, was in his own lifetime translated into several foreign languages. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... inferences which are to follow these implied facts are to follow them—But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever gave an example of any figure of oratory that can match this. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... he took therein was as leader. Atkinson had picked up a practical knowledge of bush-fighting by exchanging hard knocks with the Maoris as a captain of militia. Grey was all courtesy; the other almost oddly tart and abrupt. Grey's oratory consisted of high-pitched appeals to great principles, which were sometimes eloquent, sometimes empty. His antagonist regarded Parliament as a place for the transaction of public business. When he had anything to say, he said it plainly; when he ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Representative Emerson of Ohio did demand from the floor of the House that the "suffrage guard be withdrawn, as it is an insult to the President," but his protest met with no response whatever from the other members. His oratory fell on indifferent ears. And of course there were always those in Congress who got a vicarious thrill watching women do in their fight what they themselves had not the courage to do in their own. Another representative, an anti-suffrage ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... remembering that the Binet scale does not pretend to bring to light the idiosyncrasies of special talent, but only to measure the general level of intelligence. It cannot be used for the discovery of exceptional ability in drawing, painting, music, mathematics, oratory, salesmanship, etc., because no effort is made to explore the processes underlying these abilities. It can, therefore, never serve as a detailed chart for the vocational guidance of children, telling us which ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him exactly, since, as he often said, political convictions were ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspire; but oratory rules. The orator dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their judgment, compels their action. For the time being he is master. Through the clearness of his logic, the keenness of his wit, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... livery, had been carelessly left. They sufficed for the day's food, and the king, the dog, and the starling shared them peacefully together. This done, Henry carefully replaced his bird in its cage, bade the dog creep to the hearth and lie still; passed on to his little oratory, with the relics of cross and saint strewed around the solemn image,—and in prayer forgot the world! Meanwhile darkness set in: the streets had grown deserted, save where in some nooks and by-lanes gathered groups of the soldiery; but for the most part the discipline ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the natives of Bojol Island erected an oratory in the mountain in honour of an imaginary deity, and revolted against the tyranny of the Jesuit missionaries. They proclaimed their intention to regain their liberty, and freedom from the payment of tribute to foreigners, and taxes to a Church they did ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... listened to the furious oratory of a pale-faced man, with long black hair and a foreign accent. It had listened, and agreed, and applauded. For he had talked Communism, and the overthrow of the Capitalists, and the possession of the wealth creating mills for ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... Anukit and Satit, the spirits of stormy waters. The treatment of these figures was broad and simple, the style free, light, and graceful, the colouring soft; and the harmonious beauty of the whole is unsurpassed by anything at Thebes itself. It was, in fact, a kind of oratory, built on a scale to suit the capacities of a decaying town, but the design was so delicately conceived in its miniature proportions that nothing more graceful can ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... which she was holding in her hands. A nervous trembling passed over her. Then steps were heard on the stairs and presently a young, manly voice. And, as if this voice had some magic power, the girl shook off her emotion, started to run, and hid herself in the oratory. Both father and aunt had to laugh at this, and even Ibarra heard the closing ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... of course, to be by force of circumstances an absurdity from beginning to end). Cecily was content to say, "Thank you," but her father could not refuse himself the privilege of reply; the reply was on her behalf, but it was mainly about himself—also a not uncommon characteristic of after-dinner oratory. However he agreed with Iver that everything was for the best, and that they were entitled to congratulate their hostess and themselves on things at large. Then Neeld had a turn over the engagement (a subject dull but safe!) and ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... points of the whole discourse. Thus equipped, David Marshall was to rise at half an hour before midnight, the last but one of a long line of speakers, to claim the attention of a great roomful of men sated with meat and drink and sodden with oratory. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... set of specific directions for making his chorus or orchestra sing or play more loudly or more rapidly or more dramatically? Our reply is—no, not any more than we should attempt to show the student of acting or oratory exactly what gestures he is to make use of in playing upon the emotions of his audience. As implied at the outset, the thing that is necessary in both cases is ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... brother Nikky," says the peasant as he tastes his morning glass of rakia. There is no brilliance but a profound knowledge of human nature in this humorous old Balkan gentleman. It is not by brilliant oratory that he sways the Skup[vs]tina, for he merely thinks aloud; slowly and haltingly, while he caresses his beautiful white beard, the words come out in a very bass voice—it is a grave and confidential talk, although a merry gleam ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... it must be—in the Sainte-Chapelle, because it is very small, an oratory, a shrine; it might even be intelligible in that wonderful church at Brou, which is a boudoir; its vaulting and pendants are in polychrome and gold, and the ground has been paved with enamelled tiles, of which visible traces remain round the tombs. This gaudiness ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sayings, volumes have been written about Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and the ruin he wrought, whole books have been filled with the life and teachings and miracles of Saint Philip Neri, who belonged to this quarter, erected here his great oratory, and is believed to have recalled from the dead a youth of the house of Massimo in ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... lie in oratory, intimated his wish that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great modesty, and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, "he wished what he was about to propose had come ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... a Schola Francorum in the Borgo. The pilgrims must have built their huts and set up some sort of little oratory—favored, as was the case even in Pope Nicholas' day, by the excellent quarry of the Circus close at hand—as near as possible to the great shrine and basilica which they had come so far to say their prayers in, and attracted, too, no doubt, by the freedom of the lonely suburb between the green ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of anticipation. There was a general move to the table. Richard began to carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf he had repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening's oratory. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... said, waving the cigarettecase aside. Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical society. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), advocating the revival ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... I felt his "big way" and it overpowered, though the sentences were really few and commonplace. What must he have been in his prime! What sentences in the whole history of oratory have more swayed men than those he uttered! I recall that in 1861 we young men of the North did not much argue the question of the right of secession. The Constitution was obscure about it, and one easily became befogged if he sought to weigh the right and the wrong of it. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... grievances, and he had been called upon to adjust a vexatious claim of a woman attacked in the street by a police dog, while the animal was supposed to be on duty tracking a sacrilegious thief who had felled a priest in an oratory and bolted with the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period's end—then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis.—Just Heaven! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists;—the insensible more or less, determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! How ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... he had come (to the learned and accomplished Grecians too) "not with excellency of speech, or the wisdom of words." From these he had studiously abstained, lest he should have seemed to owe his success rather to the graces of oratory, than to the efficacy of his doctrines, and to the divine power with which they were accompanied. Even in our own times, when, the extraordinary operations and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit having ceased, the necessity of study and preparation, and of attention ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... federation has drawn forth, none can equal his great speech on the consolidation of the empire in eloquence, breadth, and fervour. Of all the able men Nova Scotia has produced no one has surpassed that great tribune of the people in his power to persuade and delight the masses by his oratory. Yet, strange to say, his native province has never raised a monument ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... dusk, as she flung back the heavy curtains, I could see the bulk of Brompton Oratory set behind the houses like the looming back-drop of a painted scene. Nearer, in front of a tall house across the way, stood the singer, a thin girl whose shadowy presence seemed animated by a curious bravery. In a nasal, plaintive voice she was singing the words ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Now he the most easily attains the truth, that is persuaded he has it not; and he chooses best, just as he that has no children of his own adopts the best. Mark this well, that poetry, mathematics, oratory, and sophistry, which are the things the Deity forbade Socrates to generate, are of no value; and that of the sole wisdom about what is divine and intelligible (which Socrates called amiable and eligible for itself), there is neither generation ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... be reproduced] rather write, "Night fell upon this horrid scene of bloodshed." {1} This is somewhat a matter of taste, but I think I shall find some to agree with me in preferring for plain narration (of course I exclude oratory) the unadorned gravity of Thucydides. There are, indeed, some writers of the present day who seem returning to the statement of facts rather than their adornment, but these are not the most generally admired. ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... little paltry, nauseous commonplaces, so vulgar, so worn, or so obvious, as, upon any other occasion but that of advancing vice, would be hooted off the stage? Nor, lastly, are preachers justly blamed for neglecting human oratory to move the passions, which is not the business of a Christian orator, whose office it is only to work upon faith and reason. All other eloquence hath been a perfect cheat, to stir up men's passions against truth and justice for the service of a faction, to put false colours upon things, ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... always made a short speech between each item on the programme, burst forth, almost before J. P. had sat down, with the further announcement, accompanied by a great deal of oratory, that the temperance forces would carry their banner to victory and mount over every difficulty even as his Highland ancestors had stormed the heights of Alma. For when Lawyer Ed got upon the platform, a strange ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the whole American party, excepting none, in coarse, bitter language, in a style peculiarly his own—adapted alone to the foul precincts of Billingsgate—rounding his periods with a diabolical and infernal grin, alone suited to a display of oratory by ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... the tomb of the great apostle of poverty,—to go on foot, and unprovided with money, provisions, or comforts of any sort. Lorenzo and Parazza, who had readily consented to the proposed pilgrimage, demurred for a while at this mode of carrying it out; but Francesca prayed in her oratory that God would incline their hearts to consent to it; and soon, with a reluctant smile, they consented to all she proposed, and both only ejaculated, "Go on your way in peace; do as you list, and only pray for us." Out of the gates of Rome they went, through that country so ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... rubric, with the word KING; but as, unfortunately, that word conveyed a double and embarrassing sense, one meaning DE FACTO, and the other DE JURE, the knight filled up the blank otherwise)—'the Church of England, and all constituted authorities.' Then, not trusting himself with any further oratory, he carried his nephew to his stables to see the horses destined for his campaign. Two were black (the regimental colour), superb chargers both; the other three were stout active hacks, designed for the road, or for his domestics, of whom two were to attend him from ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... respects you shall be better for consorting with myself. I presume, without my telling you, you know that Homer, being the wisest of mankind, has touched upon nearly every human topic in his poems. (6) Whosoever among you, therefore, would fain be skilled in economy, or oratory, or strategy; whose ambition it is to be like Achilles, or Ajax, Nestor, or Odysseus—one and all pay court to me, for I have all this ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... it is not the parish man that takes his place. No; but a second man of his own choice: and, if again he chooses amiss, who is to blame for that? Thirdly, can the congregation complain? They have a general interest in their spiritual guide. But as to the preference for oratory—for loud or musical voice—for peculiar views in religion—these things are special: they interest but an exceedingly small minority in any parish; and, what is worse, that which pleases one is often offensive to another. There are cases in which a parish ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... two treatises on literary criticism: the Rhetoric and the Poetics. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical basis these fundamental ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... the city of Nursia, in the country of the Sabines; his father died when he was young, and he was carefully and decently educated by his mother, whose name was Rhea, and whom he appears to have extremely loved and honored. He paid some attention to the study of oratory and pleading in his youth, and acquired some reputation and influence in Rome by his eloquence; but the splendor of his actions in arms, and his successful achievements in the wars, drew off ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of the people became more audible; and when at length directions were given to strike out the first nail, the cathedral scene of confusion, which I have just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's oratory was dumb show. The body was at length deposited in the coffin, and the groaning and shrieking of the assembled multitude ceased. A solemn funeral ceremony took place: every respectable person received a great wax taper to carry in the procession: the coffin ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... and to oblige the nobles to do the same she induced him to have the door-way of his audience chamber made so low that no one could enter it without making an involuntary bow. She even tried to convert him to Christianity, and built a low door to her oratory, so that any one entering would seem to bow ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... nor any like style of behaviour or oratory or social intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions, or the treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail, or detail of the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation, or courts or police, or tuition or architecture, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... of the dancers, actors, operatic stars and general entertainers than any other two types combined. In everything save acrobatics and oratory he ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... a new course; the Union was suddenly supposed to lie at the point of dissolution, and what we may call the Doctor-Brandreth style of oratory began. Every orator mounted the rostrum, like a mountebank at a fair, to proclaim the virtues of his private panacea for the morbid Commonwealth, and, as was natural in young students of political therapeutics, fancied that he saw symptoms of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... eyes, even while the tears of love and pity are falling from them. And we would say to her in the noble words of a French writer, one of the many generous-hearted foreigners, whose affectionate admiration has been won by her sufferings and her constancy, the Rev. Adolphe Perraud, Priest of the Oratory, Paris:— ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... the beginning of March that the captive trio, in charge of Elmingo Leget, arrived at Kenilworth. Two rooms were allotted for the use of Constance and Maude. The innermost was the bedchamber, from which projected a little oratory with an oriel window; the outer, the "withdrawing chamber," which opened only into a guardroom always occupied by soldiers. Bertram was permitted access to the Princess's drawing-room at her pleasure, and her ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... the influence of the Church, in which it had found a refuge during the Middle Ages, and now became an indispensable element and ornament of all elevated lives. Many of the social hours which are now filled with music were then given to Latin or Italian oratory, with results ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... to tell these gentlemen anything new, harnessed as he was at this moment; so he looked back at his honourable supporter for some further hint. "Say something about their daughters," whispered George, whose own flights of oratory were always on that subject. Had he counselled Mr Moffat to say a word or two about the tides, his advice would not have ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the fire which was kindled by Conaire every night, to wit, a "Boar of the Wood." Seven outlets it had. When a log was cut out of its side every flame that used to come forth at each outlet was as big as the blaze of a burning oratory. There were seventeen of Conaire's chariots at every door of the house, and by those that were looking from the vessels that great light was clearly seen through ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... republic, with none to molest or make them afraid." Then he called for those who wished to enjoy these blessings of freedom to come to the right, while those who were content to remain under the hideous bondage of the Missions could go to the left. Imagine his surprise and the chill his oratory received when all but a small handful quickly went to the left, and those who at first went to the right speedily joined the majority. At San Luis and San Antonio the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... "Gnomol. Homer," p. 20, well observes that this comparison may also be sarcastically applied to the frigid style of oratory. It, of course, here merely denotes the ready ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... to be seen there, and for this reason it has been conjectured that the crypt served the purposes of a cellar; but even this crypt was coarsely painted. I. Mesaulon, or court, which separates the offices from the house. K. Small room at the extremity of the garden. L. An oratory; the niche served to receive a little statue. M. Xystus, or garden. N. Piscina, with a jet d'eau. O. Enclosure covered with a trellis. P. Door to the country and towards the sea. Q. This enclosure, about fifteen feet wide, appears to have been ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... has had the effect of loading it with the imputations of wasteful expense, and comparative inefficiency.... Such a course is impolitic under any circumstances." This was the condemnation of the party's past. Clay found his delight in dealing with some of the oratory, which on the present occasion still sustained—and for the moment successfully sustained—the prepossessions of Jefferson. Carthage, Rome, Venice, Genoa, were republics with free institutions and great navies; Carthage, Rome, Venice, and Genoa had lost ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... introductions, given him before starting, were useful now, and he soon became known as a respectable scholar and gentleman to the trustees of one of the colleges. This ultimately led to his retirement from the school and installation in the college as Professor of rhetoric and oratory. ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... after, one morning when his wife had gone to mass, he sent all his servants out of his house on one pretext or another, a single girl only being left, and he withdrew to a garret at the top of the house, which he used as an oratory. A large crucifix was on the wall, and the girl having some question to ask, went to the room, and found him standing before it "bitterly weeping." He told her to take his sword, which was rusty, and clean it. She went away and left him; when she returned, a little ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... from the pains of hell, and make us dread them. Do Thou hallow our hearts with grace of Thy Holy Ghost, and make us, whatsoever we do here, do Thy will, that we never separate from Thee, dear Lord. Amen." When thou hast done, go to the Church or Oratory: and if thou canst win to none, make thy chamber thy Church. In the church is most devotion to pray, for then is GOD on the altar to hear those that to Him pray, and grant them what they ask or what is better: and in presence of Saints, and in worship of churches that are hallowed, protection of ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... of his mind there was no torpor. He loved to explain the sense of the prayers to his willing pupil, and to tell him the Gospel story, dwelling on whatever could waken or carry on the Christian life; and between the tiltyard and the oratory Hal ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are sacrificed to long-running series fiction like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, each of which is approximately 20,000 pages long (I may be off by an order of magnitude one way or another here). Sure, presidential debates are conducted in soundbites today and not the days-long oratory extravaganzas of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but people manage to pay attention to the 24-month-long presidential ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow
... later on I both saw and heard him speak and a splendid speech he made, going right to the heart of the matter, laying it bare. His success as a debater is a marvellous triumph of mind over material influences. It would be hard to conceive a man having fewer of the outward graces of oratory than Mr Lowe. His utterance is hesitating, sometimes even to stuttering, he speaks hurriedly, and without emphasis; his manner is nervous and restless, and he is so short-sighted that the literary quotations with which his speeches abound are marred by painful efforts to read his notes. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy |
